“I’m Attack,” said Jessie.
“I’ll make that decision.” Max pulled up a problem on his laptop. “Show us your stuff, hotshot.”
Jessie scanned the code. Within a minute she’d spotted three “vulns,” or vulnerabilities, and called each out to Max. “How’d I do?”
“Like I said, you’re Attack.” Max pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. “Linus said you want to beat Rudeboy.”
“I have to beat him.”
“No one has ever beaten him,” said Max. “But if you can spot vulns that quickly when the game starts, we just might have a chance.”
80
Tank parked the Ferrari next to an old oak on a deserted side street in East Austin.
“Pull up your shirt,” said Mary. “Let me take a look.”
“I’m okay. Let’s check that key.”
“The key can wait.”
Tank reached for the tablet on the rear console and Mary blocked him, pushing him gently back into his seat, raising a warning finger to let him know there would be hell to pay if he tried it again. She opened the glove compartment and freed the flashlight. The tan seat ran wet with blood.
“Gosh, Tank. You really are hurt.”
Tank lifted the tails of his shirt, revealing a pale, corpulent midsection. Blood dribbled from a hole the circumference of a pencil eraser in one of his rolls of fat. She helped him lean forward. There was an exit wound on the opposite side of his love handle. “Went through.”
“I knew there was a reason I decided to put off getting in shape till fall.”
“You need to say a prayer tonight.”
Mary opened the car’s first aid kit and took out a roll of gauze, tape, scissors, and an antiseptic. Carefully she fashioned two bandages and put them on the center console. She cut another piece of gauze and doused it with disinfectant. “Sit still. This may hurt.”
“I played ball, remember.”
“One…two…”
Tank hollered and drove a fist against the armrest. “You didn’t say three.”
“Old trick. Now, relax. The second won’t be as bad.”
“The second?”
“I thought you played ball.”
“That was a long time ago. Be gentle.” Tank looked away, eyes watering, and bit back the pain as Mary finished dressing the wound.
“Try not to move too much. I’m not sure how secure the tape is.”
Tank pulled his shirt over the wound. “Can we check the key now?”
Mary grabbed the tablet and plugged in the flash drive. An icon of a hard drive appeared on the screen. It was named Snitch. “Let’s see what Mr. Stark has to offer the FBI.”
She double-clicked on the icon. A directory listing three folders filled the screen.
“Merriweather, Orca, and Titan,” said Tank.
“Merriweather. That’s the guy who accused ONE of extortion.”
“Your boy Fergus Keefe led the investigation that cleared ONE of any wrongdoing.”
“He’s not my boy.”
Mary double-clicked on the folder. It contained a list of over one hundred documents, Word files, photographs, and spreadsheets. Her eye landed on one titled “Prince Directive to Briggs/Nov. 10.” It was an internal e-mail from Ian Prince to a Peter Briggs, head of corporate security, and read: “Peter, pursuant to our conversation regarding M, follow up on attached list of target shareholders with a view to influencing positive outcome: our interests.”
“Clever,” said Tank. “Prince says everything and nothing. Doesn’t specify who M is, doesn’t come out and say, Extort the uncooperative bastards who won’t get with the program.”
Next Mary opened a file titled “Weekly update/Keefe to Prince.” It was an e-mail sent from Fergus Keefe’s private address to Ian Prince and offered a detailed summary of the latest developments in the FBI’s investigation into ONE. “Keefe was in Ian Prince’s pocket all along.”
“I’m sorry,” said Tank.
“You just might have your story.”
Tank started the engine. “I’ll need a lot more than that. One thing’s for sure. We can’t stay here and read it.”
“Where are we going?”
Tank pulled away from the curb and drove down the street, lights dimmed. “Off the grid.”
81
“Ed, this is Don Bennett.”
“Don…hold on…Jesus, what time is it?”
“It’s five o’clock here in Texas.”
Edward Mason cleared the sleep from his throat. “Five o’clock. Yeah, all right. Give me a second.”
Don Bennett stood on his back porch, gazing over his share of the American dream: a large, rolling square of crabgrass, dichondra, and dirt that made up the backyard of his home in Westlake Hills. Toys were scattered everywhere. In the dark he could make out a tricycle, a Big Wheel, baseball mitts, and a Slip ’N Slide that did double duty as the family pool.
He picked up his oldest son’s mitt, a black Rawlings Gold Glove Gamer. In his day it had been a Steve Garvey with a webbed pocket. Don Bennett had bled Dodger Blue his entire life. Vin Scully had called the play-by-play of his youth, and though he hadn’t lived in L.A. since he was eighteen, he was still a die-hard fan. He tapped the glove against his leg.
Garvey. Valenzuela. Kershaw.
It was all about loyalty.
“Hello, Don-sorry about that. I had to get clear of the wife. I don’t imagine you’re calling with good news at this time of night.”
“It’s about Mary Grant.”
“Christ…what now? Did something happen to her?”
“She stopped by the impound yard where we were keeping the Ferrari, posing as an FBI agent.”
“Asking about the car?”
“Yessir. Details are sketchy, but at some point there was an exchange of gunfire and a significant explosion. One woman was slightly injured.”
“And?”
“She stole the Ferrari.”
“Mary Grant stole the fucking Ferrari?”
“She was in the company of a tall, dark-haired male. We assume it’s Tank Potter, the reporter who drove her to the airfield yesterday. Apparently his car was towed to the same yard after he was arrested for a DUI. He must have seen the Ferrari when he came to claim his vehicle.”
“And this happened when?”
“Thirty minutes ago. I’ve been working with local police trying to locate the vehicle, but so far we’ve come up empty-handed.”
“She came at three-thirty posing as an FBI agent to steal the car?”
“That’s about all of it, sir.”
“Shit,” said Mason, almost to himself. “That’s where it was. He must have told her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing, Don. Just thinking out loud.”
“So you have an idea why she wanted the car?”
“This matter doesn’t concern the Austin residency.”
“A question of national security. Yessir. I remember.”
“That’s right.”
“But you see, Stark worked at ONE. Even if it’s a question of national security, as SAC here in Austin, I think I ought to know about a case involving one of the biggest corporate concerns in my area. At least about what angle Joe Grant was following.”
“If you needed to know, we’d have told you already.”
Don Bennett laid his son’s mitt on the porch and set out across the lawn, the dew cold on his feet. He told himself that he was an obedient man. He believed in the chain of command. He was a reliable man. Above all, he was loyal to his own. And that included Joe Grant.
Bennett was thinking about the call Mary Grant had asked about when they’d met for lunch two days earlier. Who, she’d demanded, had called 911 to look after Joe?