“I might have to pass on that. I hear it can get expensive if you want to get that waxed, but I’ll bet it saves you on your heating bills in the winter.”
Sanders let out a big laugh. “Stay here, boys, while I get Special Agent Moynihan and me a brew.”
The men laughed as Moynihan and Sanders headed up to the kitchen. One of them chimed in and said, “Word has it that Jakester’s chest carpet is legendary.”
They walked into the worn galley kitchen, and he turned to face her.
Moynihan looked Sanders in the eye and said, “So how long are you going to let that poor girl sit in there?”
He frowned and said, “She’ll be ready in an hour or so. That would be my guess.”
Moynihan was weary of this latest move by the FBI’s leadership. She kept telling herself she needed to follow orders and trust Director Culder. She decided the director had to have clearance with other top brass before making moves like this. Telling herself that was a way of getting past this without placing the phone call she had been avoiding. “What if she doesn’t talk?” she asked.
“Oh, she’ll talk. Believe me, she’ll talk.”
Moynihan didn’t like the sound of that. “You can’t be planning to break a seventeen-year-old. She’s just a kid.”
Sanders rummaged through the cupboards and said, “We’re not planning to, but Culder said this case has to do with national security. We have to find out what she knows.” Sanders stopped his search momentarily to look her in the eye. “There’s no choice, I’m afraid.”
She could sense it wasn’t something he was looking forward to. The fact that this case had to do with national security had taken her by surprise. She decided the less she said, the better.
“Understood.”
“God damn it,” Sanders barked suddenly.
Moynihan jumped. She was glad he didn’t see her.
“It’s fuckin’ common courtesy in my book. Why can’t people replace shit when they finish it off? Jesus.” Sanders walked toward the staircase and yelled down, “Gotta pick up some Joe. Be back in twenty.”
A group laugh roared back from the basement.
“Go fuck yourselves,” Sanders blasted back.
“I’ll drive,” Moynihan said. “My car won’t be as conspicuous.”
Sanders smiled as the two made their way out the door to her blue Toyota Camry.
“Don’t they give you a company car?”
“Not on the weekends. I’m not that important.”
He laughed. “Hold on a sec.”
He went to the nearest SUV, grabbed a folder from inside and hopped into her car. She turned her car around, drove down the driveway and made a right.
Sanders turned on the reading light and began to flip through the contents of the folder. “You know where the 7-Eleven is, right?” he said without looking up.
“I know how to get there.” She noticed a Mercedes parked twenty meters from the end of the driveway and asked, “Are there many residents out here?”
His eyes remained glued to the papers. “Nah, not too many. It’s a good place for this setup.”
As they rounded a curve in the road, she saw another parked car. It was black with tinted windows. Two of its doors were open, and she noticed the dome light hadn’t come on to illuminate the interior of the car.
“Did you see the two cars we just passed?”
“What?” Sanders looked up, but they’d already made it past the cars. “Ah, don’t sweat it. We only bought one house, not the whole neighborhood.”
She decided to drop the conversation. She didn’t want to sound like an amateur.
Chapter 39
They stayed at Club Asylum long enough for their untouched beers to turn lukewarm. Trent Turner offered them up to a couple of scruffy bicycle couriers playing pool on the way out.
The two men headed northwest on Eighteenth Street toward Calvert Street and made their way to Connecticut Avenue, using the neighborhood when possible. The police would be on the lookout for two men, so Turner followed twenty meters behind the hacker. Appearing to walk alone, they would be less likely to raise any suspicions. Once they reached Connecticut Avenue, it was a short cab ride to the parking lot where Turner had parked his rental car.
Turner pulled the keys out and unlocked the door. When he glanced over at Etzy Millar, the hacker wore a look of disbelief.
Turner offered him a wry smile and said, “The Aston Martin is in the shop.” He casually opened the door to the Ford Focus as Millar let out a nervous laugh.
“Sure, okay.”
Turner turned to the hacker with a thoughtful glance and started the car. “So tell me. What did the message on your phone say?”
“Nothing.”
“No, really. Something changed your mind about taking the shot back at the park.”
“It was nothing. Literally.” Millar smiled. “A zero. My girlfriend…” He paused for a long moment before he continued. “Well, I’m not so sure she’s my girlfriend anymore, but she sent me a message to let me know my sister was okay.” He looked over at Turner. “You know, it’s binary. One means yes and—”
“I take it she sent a zero.”
“Yeah, a ‘no’. I taught her that, you know. It’s at least fifty percent more efficient when you chat online or send text messages.”
The operative smiled. Good programmers were always looking for ways to minimize the code.
“Well, I owe her one,” Turner said. “It’s been a rough couple of days. I’m glad I didn’t have to test my reflexes.”
“At least they don’t have my sister.”
Turner nodded. “That’s good news.”
“How did you know that they didn’t have her?”
“It’s just one of those things that come with the job. You’re either good at it, or you don’t last long.”
“And what job is that?”
Turner smiled and ignored the question. “We need to call a friend of mine.” He thought about how to approach explaining the protocol for the conversation and looked to Millar. “He calls me Finger. It’s my call sign. We don’t use real names around here.”
“Seriously? What are you? Some kind of secret agent?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Millar raised his eyebrows as if he knew he’d hit the nail on the head. “You say you don’t use real names around here. Can you define here?”
Turner laughed. “Do you really want to know?”
“I’m not so sure, but I imagine it’s probably a good idea.”
“I was going to give you a little time to recover and adjust, but I’ll fill you in if you think you’re ready.”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
The operative thought about it for a few seconds and said, “You can think of it this way. You’re familiar with two worlds. You have the good old US of A. We’ve got a democratic government, laws, a culture, expectations. It operates around a mature system that keeps things stable and makes it a nice place to live.”
“Sure, okay.”
“The other world you know is virtual. Like the US, you’ve got both good and bad, but there’s a lot more of the Wild West out there. You’ve got a whole community of hackers and the like who couldn’t care less about laws, local or international. They’re not worried about how they behave or the systems they destroy. Collateral damage means nothing to them.” He stopped at a red light and again turned to Millar. “It’s easier to wreak unfettered havoc on that which is not real.”
Millar squinted questioningly.
“Let me explain,” Turner said. “Did you ever think about the bots you were deploying? What the consequences could be for the owner of the computer you installed them on?”