“It’s the target,” Tank said stubbornly. “She’s got him all screwed up.”
Moses shot him another look. “She does not.”
Before the argument could continue, Adam came into the computer lab. He was wearing a sports coat and slacks, his hair still wet from the shower. “Do I look rich or what?” He turned in a circle, looking pleased with himself, then stopped when he saw the expressions on everyone else’s faces.
“What did I do?”
“What makes you think everything’s about you?” Kook asked.
“Because I’m a narcissist?”
Kook snorted. “I’ll give you that.” She jerked her head toward Moses. “We’re talking about Wonderboy getting wrapped up in the target.”
Adam blew out his breath. “Yeah. That was sloppy with the headmaster.”
“He let her bite him, too,” Tank said glumly.
“Are you serious?” Kook looked interested. “You should probably get a rabies shot.”
“Don’t be nasty,” Moses said. “She doesn’t have rabies.”
Kook snorted and went back to her coding. “And there you have it. He’s wrapped up in her.”
“Girls are trouble,” Adam warned. “I try to tell you that.”
“I’m fine,” Moses said.
“If you say so. Now do I look okay to go out in public or not?” He stood straight, grinning, waiting for the approving inspection.
“You really are a narcissist,” Kook said.
“I’m a good-looking narcissist,” Adam shot back.
“You look perfect,” Moses said. “No one will notice you—” He broke off. A white rat was poking its nose out from the pocket of Adam’s jacket. “Uh…” Moses pointed. “Are you planning on taking that with you?”
Adam frowned as he plucked the rat from his pocket. “I could’ve sworn I locked them all up.”
“That’s the beginning of a horror flick, I think,” Tank said. “Rats getting out. Eating people in their sleep.”
Adam laughed and made kissy faces at the rat. “This little guy? Nah. He wouldn’t dare touch me until my body was cold.”
“They’re rats,” Kook said as she started typing code. “They eat the ears off babies.”
“Really?” Adam regarded his pet with interest. “I thought it was ferrets that did that.”
“They’re all rodents. They’re going to take over the fucking world,” Kook said.
“If I were a mouse, I’d live in the walls,” Tank said. “No one would ever find me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, little guy,” Adam said. “If you were a mouse, you’d build a better cat trap. Fuckers would never know what hit them.”
The images on the camera feeds changed abruptly. Moses leaned forward, suddenly interested.
“Hey there, looks like our friends are finally waking up.”
Cop cars were arriving. A lot of them. Official vehicles starting to gather. Chevy SUVs. A Lincoln town car. Moses zoomed in and started snapping license plates, capturing faces of people as they emerged. Storing images, all of them coming fast and furious now. Lots of activity. More than he would have expected. He’d expected some reaction, sure, but this looked more like straight-up panic.
“What do you make of this?” Moses asked. He pointed at an SUV as it pulled up in front of the Bankses’ house and more people emerged.
Tank peered over Moses’s shoulder. “Williams & Crowe, for sure. Recognize them anywhere.”
Adam pressed in for a look. “Hello, old friends.”
Kook got up from her workstation to join them. Everyone peered at the screen and the ants’ nest of activity swarming around the Banks household. “Damn. That’s a lot of heat,” Kook muttered.
“More than I expected,” Moses agreed.
“We screw something up?”
“Don’t know, but it looks like we kicked the ant pile, whatever’s happening.”
“They’re freaking,” Tank observed. “For sure, they’re freaking.”
“Some of those guys look like feds,” Adam said.
“We might need to speed things up,” Moses said. “If the FBI is getting in on this, everything gets more serious.”
“Or else slow down,” Adam suggested.
“This was bound to happen sometime,” Kook said. “We’ve got to be on some watch list already, and you know it. NSA, FBI. Big data has got to have something on us by now.”
“If they had something on us, we’d already be caught,” Moses said.
“Does this mean we need to be worried?” Adam asked. “Should we think about pulling back?”
Should we? Moses turned the question in his mind. Thinking of all the work they’d done, all the setup. Everything.
We’ve been careful. I’ve been careful.
Except it wasn’t totally true. He’d been careful all the way until he’d let that private school stuffed shirt throw him off his game. Even if he denied it out loud, inside he knew it had been a mistake. He could have stolen the guy’s key card anywhere. Waited until he was off campus. But against all reason, Moses had been driven to go onto the campus itself.
Sloppy. His uncle would have shouted at him that he was sloppy.
So why’d you do it?
Moses shoved down the question. What was done was done. He focused on the activity. Was this something he needed to be worried about? Had he made a bigger mistake that he couldn’t see? Did he have a blind spot?
“No,” Moses said, finally. “There’s still no way they could have any idea what we’re up to.” He studied the people all going in and out of the house, figuring the angles. “I sure wouldn’t mind being able to hear what they’re up to inside, though.”
“I told you we should have bugged it right from the start,” Kook said.
“And that would have gone real sweet if the little brother messed with the Xbox and found us peeking in before we were ready.”
“You think it’s worth the risk now?”
“I don’t think we’ve got a choice. With Williams & Crowe on the scene, we need to be inside their heads. No more of this outside-looking-in stuff.”
Kook pinched her lip. “With Williams & Crowe on the scene, it’s going to be harder to bug.”
“We can do it, though, right?”
Kook gave him an annoyed glance. “Of course we can do it. Who do you think you’re talking to? We’ll have eyes inside before you blink.”
Tank was nodding in agreement. “They got tons of gear in there we can piggyback.”
“So let’s do it,” Moses said. “I want to know what they’re thinking before they think it. Information is power. I want to make sure we’ve got more information than they do.”
Kook studied the activity boiling around the house. “Kind of fun to see old Simon Banks guessing and in the dark.”
“It’s going to be even more fun once we’re inside his head.” Moses clapped his hands. “Okay. Let’s get some eyes and ears inside that house.”
“No problem, boss.” Tank slammed down his helmet shield and headed off.
Kook waved to Adam. “We’re going to put some more things on the shopping list,” she said.
They started conferring while Moses lingered at the monitors, watching the Banks household scramble.
What’s got you so spooked? Sure, we’re poking at you, but you look like you’re prepping for the zombie apocalypse. What’s got you so riled up?
It didn’t matter, he decided. The plan would keep rolling. This time, he knew more than Simon Banks.
Knowledge was power, and information was control. And for the first time in his life, Moses Cruz had more of both than Simon Banks.
You can call in all the guns and favors you like, Moses thought. It still won’t save you when I bring down the hammer.