Hacked Page 2

  “You mean you’re watching a feed from Washington?” Zach asked. Though the El Paso office might be shuttered for the holiday, the techs in DC were on high alert. When Warp didn’t answer, Zach pressed on. “They are monitoring Hong Kong, right?”

  Warp snorted. “Hong Kong? Like he’s going to hit Hong Kong.”

  “Why don’t you think he’ll target there?”

  “Why would the hacker attack on Christmas in a country that doesn’t celebrate the holiday?” Warp asked, what seemed to be a rhetorical question. Fingers racing across the keyboard, Warp brought up a map of the world. Across it were tiny points of light. “If he is going to attack today, he is going to make the most of it and hit an area with an extremely large Christian population.

  As Warp spoke, some of the lights extinguished—those in Asia, Africa and India. “Which leaves us with some South American locations, two in Eastern Europe and seven in the good ol’ USA.”

  If Warp was right, the tech had just cut the pool in half. That couldn’t be, could it? Still, there were a number of possible target cities. “So you’re monitoring these?”

  The tech’s head whipped around, his eyes dilated as if he were startled. “Do you have clearance?”

  Zach didn’t bother to explain the fact that Warp had known him and his clearance level for two years. He just answered, “Yes.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Warp went back to typing, and typing, and typing.

  Zach tried to be patient, but there were candied yams to be considered. “So there are twelve possible targets?”

  “Twelve?” Warp repeated, as if it were the most stupid thing he’d ever heard. Then he looked to the screen. “Oh, that was before I applied my pattern-discerning algorithm.”

  On the monitor, the tiny lights extinguished, leaving only one. El Paso.

  “You mean to tell me that you are sure the Robin Hood Hacker is going to hit here? In our town?”

  Warp shrugged. “With a ninety seven point two percent probability, yes.”

  “Did you tell Danner about this?”

  The tech’s fingers stopped typing as he frowned. “Yeah, he pretty much said I could spend my Christmas sitting around here if I wanted to…off the clock.”

  Yeah, Zach had pretty much gotten the same speech from their boss. Before, his theory that the Robin Hood Hacker would hit here had just been something in his bones. El Paso had just been one city on a long list of cities the hacker might hit. But now that he had actual scientific proof? Or, at least, Warp’s algorithm?

  “This is great work, Warp.”

  The tech patted the chair next to him. “Wanna stay and watch?”

  A smile, his first in a long time, spread across Zach’s face.

  “Watch?” He asked. “How about we go catch the son of a bitch?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Ronnie used the back of her sleeve to wipe the sweat from her brow. This was not going nearly as fast as she had hoped. Either the steel wall was thicker than anticipated, or the laser was weaker than Quirk had promised. Either way, she was barely going to make it through in time.

  “God I could use some music other than Taylor Swift’s version of Silent Night,” she grumbled.

  “Ask and ye shall receive,” Quirk said. “Say hello to your Christmas present.”

  “I’m stuck in an access shaft,” Ronnie snapped, then realized it wasn’t Quirk’s fault. She tried to lighten her tone. “Besides, you already got me the Panic at the Disco CD.” Ronnie said, blowing a stray hair out of the way.

  “Oh, Scrooge, just turn on your MP3 player.”

  “My hands are a bit full, Quirk.”

  Her assistant’s sigh was loud enough that Ronnie could imagine him right next to her. “You really do know how to ruin a surprise gift, don’t you? Just say, ‘music, please.’”

  Mainly just to shut up her assistant while she worked on cutting the last of the square out of the metal wall, Ronnie said, “music, please.”

  The MP3 player in her pocket vibrated, turning on. Impressive. “Quirk, thanks. You made it voice activated.”

  “Voice activated? Please, like that wouldn’t be a Christmas-level gift. Just give it a few seconds. It is documenting your heart rate, ambient temperature and blood pressure to decide which music is best suited for you.”

  Ronnie waited, but she wasn’t holding her breath. As good as Quirk was, he was also known to slightly exaggerate his toys, especially the prototypes. Just take the laser pen in her hand. In this case, she should not have doubted him, as The Gossip’s song, “Catfight,” cued up, and its all-girl punk rock thrummed in her ear.

  Just what a girl trying to laser through a metal wall needed.

  “Brilliant. Truly brilliant, Quirk.” Ronnie gushed. The CD had been nice, but to be honest, she’d been surprised he had given her such a lightweight gift, as he was the self-proclaimed present-whisperer. Now she felt a little bad about the gift she’d given him. “You shouldn’t have, though. It’s too much. So much more than yours.”

  “No, no, no,” Quirk said, as the Gossip still wailed in her ear. “I love the classic phaser you got me. It will go great with my Ka-Bar knife and Bat’leth blade.”

  How was it that gay men were able to profusely lay on praise while making it quite clear they were disappointed? It truly was a marvel to see, unless, of course, you were on the receiving end.

  “Hey, that was a prop used on set, and I made sure it had been touched by William Shatner,” Ronnie defended. It hadn’t been the most outlandish gift—however, she was a girl on a budget. She had that country to buy.

  “Of course it was,” Quirk said in that pseudo-honey voice of his. “Those of us with birthdays on December 25th are used to one combo gift. It’s all good.”

  Okay, now Ronnie really did feel bad. And, even worse, she knew that while Quirk was getting bounced around from foster home to foster home, he probably spent a lot of Christmases not getting any gift, let alone a separate one for his birthday. Maybe she should tell him…

  “Uh oh,” Quirk announced, the fake honey gone from his tone.

  “What?” Ronnie asked, tensing. If Quirk wasn’t being sarcastic, the news was usually bad—really, really bad.

  “Yeah, it looks like the guards are giving themselves a little Christmas present and knocking off early.”

  “What do you mean early?” Ronnie heard herself ask. It couldn’t be possible, they had logged and checked and confirmed the guards’ every route. They took no lessthan fifteen minutes per floor. They were like clockwork.

  “I mean, you’ve got maybe three minutes, at most.”

  Ronnie didn’t answer. There was no way she could cut through the rest of the metal and climb through in three minutes.

  “I’m going to have to wait until the next guard sweep,” she said.

  “And what about if they don’t go next hour?” Quirk asked the question that had already popped into her mind. “What if they take the rest of the day off?”

  From a break-in thief’s standpoint, that would usuallybe a good thing. Now, however, when she needed the guards to activate the elevator? Not such a good thing.

  “We can abort,” Quirk said, sounding more than a little hopeful that she would agree. He was not that fond of her working out in the field.

  “So, what happens if I let the laser get hot to the touch?” she asked.

  “You mean like how it could blow up in your hand and take not only take you but the entire wall?”

  Ronnie gulped. “Yes, like that.”

  But she had to risk it. Those billions weren’t going to transfer themselves into Greenpeace’s account by themselves.

  As the pen warmed in her palm, she could only hope Quirk was exaggerating. Still, she kept her eyes squinted, just in case.

  * * *

  “No way,” Warp said for the fifth time as he fidgeted in his ergonomic chair.

  Zach grabbed the tech by the shoulders and held him still. “Warp. You can do this. We can do
this.”

  “But, but, but,” Warp said pointing to the dot on monitor. “I am certain the Robin Hood Hacker will strike El Paso, but I don’t know where in the city.”

  As the map zoomed in, that tiny point of light over El Paso broke off into half a dozen smaller lights.

  “So those are the companies that the hacker has pinged during his ramping-up period?” Zach asked.

  Robin Hood was good. Weeks before the actual job, he would hack into a wide range of companies’ financials. The hacker would test dozens of firewalls, never tipping his hand to which company was the target. So it was great they knew Robin Hood was in El Paso, but with so many targets, how could Zach hope to hone in on the one that was being hit today?

  “Come on, Warp. You’ve come this far,” Zach encouraged. “You’ve got to have a way to narrow down the pool.”

  “We’re not even the cyber crimes division,” Warp whined.

  “Who needs those pussies?” Zach countered. “If the Robin Hood Hacker is in town, we are going to bring him down. Think of the bragging rights.”

  Warp’s eyes scanned back and forth over Zach’s face. “It would be nice to hold my head high the next time I’m in DC for a tech conference.”

  “For a conference?” Zach snorted. “They will call you to DC permanently.”

  Zach knew that the computer array in Washington was like a geek’s mecca. Just the thought of the banks and banks of computer servers brightened Warp’s expression.

  “You are a world–class hacker,” Zach added.

  Unfortunately, the tech didn’t take that as a compliment. “Hacker? You think I’m a hacker?”

  God, how Zach hated having to talk with the tech staff. It was like they lived in a different world. Operated on a different wavelength, and seemed to get pissed off at random stuff.

  “I am a cracker,” Warp stated proudly.

  Again, what did you say to that? As Zach knew it, “cracker” was derogatory slang for a white person. He really needed to bring in an interpreter with him.

  “Okay, honky,” Zach responded, just trying to get Warp back on track.

  “No,” Warp said, shaking his head so hard that his mini-fro swayed back and forth. “I don’t hack. That is an illegal entry into a system. I crack. I break through code to pursue hackers.”

  “Whatever,” Zach said. “Can you crack this case?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to try,” Warp said. “Right?” Although Zach was pretty sure the tech wasn’t talking to him. To prove his theory, Warp cocked his head as if he were listening to someone, then answered himself. “Right.”

  Zach clapped Warp on the back and nearly knocked the kid over. “That’s the spirit. Now, how are we going to do this?”

  The tech bit his lip as he called up each possible target. “I have a theory.”

  “Of course you do.”

  That got a wavering smile from Warp. Zach needed the tech confident. They needed to figure this out fast. Christmas was rapidly waning. This might be their best chance…ever to catch the Robin Hood Hacker.

  “You see, I have tracked his last twenty jobs and found that in a median band width, he—”

  “Warp,” Zach stopped the tech. “If you’ve got a hunch, let’s hear it.”

  “I don’t do hunches,” Warp said, scratching his arm like he was about to get hives. “I deal in statistics and relative factors and—”

  Zach gave the tech’s shoulder a squeeze, trying to infuse every ounce of confidence Zach had to share. “Warp, today we deal in hunches. So hit me with yours.”

  Still, the tech didn’t seem so sure.

  “What are hunches, Warp?” Zach asked. The scraggly-haired man looked at him with a blank expression. He was probably having a lengthy conversation internally, so Zach pressed on. “Your brain is the most sophisticated computer known to man. A hunch is just your subconscious working faster than your rational mind. So let’s get cracking.”

  Warp slowly nodded as his fingers went back to his keyboard. He brought up a single company. The B & L Oil Refinery Holding Company. Zach stepped around the tech to get nice and close to the large monitor.

  “I can find another one,” Warp offered, seeming to slip into his insecure persona, but Zach shook his head. He liked this one.

  “No, this is inside the hacker’s wheelhouse,” Zach explained.

  An ecologically unfriendly company with a history of evading clean-up laws and taxes. But most of the other companies the hacker had pinged were nearly as bad. A pesticide consortium, a bank known to still be issuing high risk mortgage loans, a cigarette retailer specializing in selling to the underage market. All of them perfect targets for a hacker who thought himself some kind of underdog financial vigilante.

  Stealing from rich companies and giving to the poor. Although, Zach noticed, he also kept a tidy sum for himself. Not exactly a purely altruistic Robin Hood. Even if he didn’t take that cut, Zach would still bring him in.

  Laws were laws.

  And this oil company had probably broken most of them, but the business wasn’t the one under investigation. The Robin Hood Hacker was. If he had a target in El Paso, the oil company would be it.

  “Let’s do this,” Zach said.

  Warp looked around. “Do what?”

  * * *

  Ronnie shifted the hot laser from one hand to the other. Even though she’d wrapped her sleeve around her already gloved hands, her palms burned. “Seriously, you didn’t install some kind of heat sink in this thing?”

  “Oh dearie,” Quirk replied, not bothering to cover his irritation. “What? In all of its six inches long and half an inch wide I didn’t somehow cram in a complicated heat conducting system never before created by man? That is what you thought you were holding in your hand?”

  “Still, I think you might have anticipated—”

  “That you couldn’t fit your booty-licious self past some pipes, then have guards completely abandon their professional code of honor?” Ronnie waited for Quirk to think that through. He didn’t sound nearly as haughty as he continued. “Yeah, okay, that should have been on my radar. Point taken.”

  Ronnie might have taken more pleasure in Quirk’s realization had it not been for the red hot metal beating waves of heat at her. Not cool. Not cool on so many levels.

  “You’d better hurry, girlfriend,” Quirk encouraged. “They are making a beeline for the elevator.”

  It was a little hard to hurry physics, though, however Ronnie tried. She stopped going in a straight line and, instead, heated the metal in a perforated line. There just wasn’t time to melt it all.

  Ronnie could hear the rattle of the elevator doors opening. Turning off the laser before it liquefied itself, Ronnie put her shoulder against the metal square and shoved.

  “You did put a magnet on it before you punched it out, right?” Quirk reminded her a second too late.

  Good news, the metal square gave, strings of heated metal dripped from the edges. Bad news, the square was about to fall on top of the elevator. And no matter how much spiked eggnog the guards had consumed, they were going to notice that.

  Ronnie lashed out, grabbing the metal sheet, feeling the heat through her gloves. She tried to hold on, she really did, but damn.

  The metal slipped from her grasp, falling down the long elevator shaft, ten stories. It hit the cement bottom, clattering. She held her breath as the sound reverberated up the access tunnel. The guards entered the elevator seemingly unaware.

  Thank god for Celine’s “Little Drummer Boy.”

  “They’re pressing the floor button,” Quirk informed her. “You’d best hurry.”

  Only she couldn’t. Her stepping on top of their elevator? That they could hear. Ronnie had to wait until that first jerk of the cable to mask her movement. However, if she waited too long—well, goodbye, leg.

  Cocking her head to listen to the motor grind, Ronnie teetered on the thin rim of metal. Balance bar wasn’t exactly her greatest gymnastic event. Okay, neith
er were uneven bars, floor work or vaulting, but that wasn’t the point. She more sensed than heard when the cables snapped tight.

  Just as the elevator jerked upward, Ronnie’s foot came down on the elevator’s steel bracing. She allowed the rising car to lift her past the hole she had made and rise up one floor. With a loud, eggnog-induced laugh, the guards exited the elevator.

  “Who knows how long they’re going to be,” Quirk said.

  Ronnie turned on her laser. She had to get back into the access tunnel. There was no way to breach the penthouse from the outside.

  “Maybe a distraction of some sort?” Quirk asked. “I could turn on a motion sensor on the other side of this floor?”

  “We can’t alert them,” Ronnie said, wincing as the laser heated up. “This has got to be a clean entry and exit.”

  “Like they ever are,” Quirk murmured in her ear.

  How she hated when he was right.

  * * *

  Zach stepped on the gas, but then had to slam his foot on the brake as a blue minivan cut him off. Holiday traffic was really cramping his hot pursuit of the Robin Hood Hacker.

  Speaking of hackers... “Warp, you can do this.”

  “Of course we can,” the tech answered into Zach’s earbud.

  Awesome. The confident Warp was showing up. “ETA until you are in the oil company’s computers?” Zach asked.

  “You do realize that I am having to crack my way in behind Robin Hood, right? I have to tread just as carefully and not set off any alarms.”

  Traffic piled up ahead. Seriously, did a blaring siren and flashing lights mean nothing to these holiday travelers? Zach jerked the wheel to the left, went up onto the embankment, and gunned it, despite being tilted nearly twenty degrees.

  Over the sirens and rattle of the tires, Zach asked, “Are you trying to tell me that the Robin Hood Hacker is better than you?”

  “Of course he is better than me,” Warp answered. “Everyone is better than me.”

  Great. Now the insecure Warp showed up. “We just need you inside the first layer of—”

  “Turn left!”

  “But I’m—”