The guy wasn’t stupid enough to be surprised. He shifted gears and asked a different stupid question: “I hear that it won’t cost me anything until I put it to use.”
Morton looked him in the eye. “You don’t pay me until you’ve sold whatever you’ve got that my information enabled you to get.”
“Yeah?” he asked in a tone that said, What’s the scam?“What makes you so sure I’d pay you, ever?”
“Self-interest,” said Morton. “You will pay me because you will want another tip— Excuse me a sec.”
One of five cell and sat phones tucked in a row of custom-tailored pockets in the lining of his leather jacket was vibrating. He checked the screen. SITA SATELLITE AIRCOM. Someone calling from an airliner telephone. And that was all. Not who they were, what plane they were on, where they were going. Just somebody who flipped over their in-seat handset, ran their credit card through it, and punched in Morton’s number, which SITA’s OnAir service routed through a satellite to vibrate his phone. Not as much as he wanted to know, but they did have his number.
“Hang on a minute; I have to take this,” he said to the thief, hurried out to the parking lot, which contained the sort of recently detailed, certified preowned Audis and BMWs you could cruise a bedroom community in without drawing the attention of the police.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t hang up.”
“CatsPaw,” said a woman.
“Go ahead,” he said, trying not to sound too eager. CatsPaw meant money. A lot more money than walking the wild side with house thieves.
“Has my sat phone been compromised?”
“Give me the number.”
She did. He said, “Turn your phone on, ringer off. Call me back using the airplane phone in five minutes.”
The thief had stepped out the door to smoke a cigarette. “Hey, what about—”
“Later.”
Morton got into his unassuming Honda, locked the doors, Wi-Fied into a large computer under the backseat, and punched up her number. When she called in five minutes he said, “They scored you big-time, sweetheart.”
She muttered something that sounded like, “Fuck.”
He waited a second for the usual indignant How did they hack into my phone?At that point he would explain that since he hadn’t been there he could only guess that they got her by walking alongside her in the airport terminal with a powerful transmitter disguised as a laptop or sitting next to her in the lounge or even on the plane. Unless they simply “borrowed” her phone for a minute when she left it lying around, which, being CatsPaw, she probably hadn’t. Instead of asking a dumb question, she asked the only pertinent one: “When did it happen?”
“Twelve hours ago,” he answered, which would tell her where it had happened. “Do you remember how to upload your SIM card?”
“Yes,” she said in a pissed-off voice that made that single syllable sound like, Fuck, yes, who the hell do you think you’re talking to here?
“Upload immediately to this number.” He gave her a number. “Okay, turn your sat phone off. Turn it on again in ten minutes. Wait five minutes, then call me back on the AIRCOM phone.”
He got another yes. Hey, not his fault she got hacked.
He found the routing drone they had slipped onto the SIM card. It was a sophisticated East Europe jobbie that redirected her voice and text signals to some number in Bucharest. Oddly, it also blocked her communications; the usual way was to let the messages through; that way the target wouldn’t know she was hacked and would keep sending more messages to spy on. He wiped the drone and uploaded the contents of her SIM card back to her otherwise intact.
First thing she wanted to know when he told her the sat phone was now clean was, “What did it do to the guy’s phone I’ve been calling?”
“His is clean as a whistle.”
“How do you know it didn’t give his the virus?”
“I know because he called a half hour ahead of you with the same sort of problem and I checked it for him.”
“He called before I did?”Now she sounded pissed off she’d come in second.
“Yeah. He was hip to the issue.”
“Fuck! Did it give the hackers his number when I called him?”
“Well, yeah. If we’re talking about the same guy. About whom I can tell you nothing, just like I can’t tell nobody nothing about you, because I don’t know nothing.”
“Did you change his number?”
“Well, yeah. Like I’m going to change yours.”
“How do I know how to call him?”
“The old number will ring through. If he wants to answer you, he will.”
“Okay. I got that. What about these people who hacked me? Were they able to see where he is?”
“Only if he was dumb enough not to disable his GPS when he answered their call.”
“He’s not.”
“I didn’t think so,” said Morton, “but let me give you some advice.”
“What?”
Why am I doing this? he wondered. The answer was, he could not help himself. Deep down—way deep down—he was a white hat.
“What advice?”
“Don’t call him from where you’re at now. For all you know, whoever hacked you twelve hours ago could be on the same plane you’re on.”
“Thanks for the help.”
“Pleasure doing business with you.”
Morton returned his phone to its slot in his jacket, chose another, and called his mother. Thankfully, the machine answered. He left a message that he would not be home for supper. Then he drove to New York City to find an expensive woman to celebrate earning in two twenty-minute sessions of private security consultation more than top IT guys earned in a month.
Hours later, avidly watching his reflection in a mirror over a king-size bed, Morton suddenly remembered the routing drone’s odd feature of blocking the woman’s calls when it passed them on to Bucharest. He probably should have mentioned it to her. But she would figure it out in the end, Morton supposed.
* * *
HURRYING FROM THE arrivals gate, looking for the first place she could call Janson without getting arrested for violating the rule posted on huge signs that you couldn’t use a mobile phone in a security area, Kincaid paid close attention to the crowds streaming off their planes. Had one of them hacked her in the Johannesburg airport?
She got through Immigration and past Customs.
Finally, in an exit corridor that led to the terminal hall, she called Janson. And wouldn’t you know it, the goddamned phone dropped the call. As she redialed she noticed other people were staring perplexedly at their phones and poking buttons as if they, too, were losing calls. She looked at her screen.
“No Service.”
She felt the skin prickle on the back of her neck.
She looked around to see who was jamming the signals. Passengers, tired from the long international flights, were all carrying and rolling bags big enough to conceal electronic blocking devices. She slowed down and watched the faces of the people she had been tracking since she went by Customs. Businessmen and -women, tourists, homecoming Aussies with backpacks, families, two look-alike tall, stocky blondes, sisters, each dragging a yellow-haired kid.
Ahead the corridor opened wider and Kincaid could see people lined behind ropes hopefully gazing to greet their loved ones. She slowed more and let people overtake her. One of the blondes went ahead with both kids. The other was bumping into Kincaid, making excuse-me gestures as she jammed a pistol into her side and whispered in a nasal Australian accent, “It’s wearing a can, doll. No one will hear.”
Kincaid saw a sound suppressor screwed onto a Beretta, a quiet weapon to begin with.
“Hollow points. No blood, either. The bullet won’t leave your liver.”
TWENTY-THREE
Jessica Kincaid ground her teeth. They nailed her good. She never saw it coming.
Now who was the football clod?
Forget it.
New Game.
How did the woman get a gun into the secure area? Had to have an accomplice among the security officers, who would be watching closely for Kincaid to resist. No way she could fight back, not here. There were people all around and security cameras everywhere. The Australian was holding the Beretta with reasonable competence, but she looked jumpy, nervous enough to be unpredictable. If Kincaid screwed up taking the gun away from her, some bleary-eyed yawning travelers would end up with hollow-point expanding slugs tearing through their lungs.