Hellbent

“But the good thing with virtual machines? You hit a button and you have two of them. Or ten thousand. In data centers all over the world. Here — look — I’m replicating them now, requesting that they’re geographically dispersed with guaranteed availability.”

He looked but could not keep up with the speed at which things were happening on the screen. Despite his well-above-average hacking skills, he felt like a beginning skier atop a black-diamond run.

She was still talking. “We upload all the encrypted data from the laptop to the cloud first, right? Like you were explaining poorly and condescendingly to me back at the motel.”

“In hindsight—”

“And we spread the job out among all of them. Get Hashkiller whaling away, throwing all these password combinations at it. Then who cares if we get locked out after three wrong password attempts? We just go to the next virtual machine. And the one after that.”

“How do you have the hardware to handle all that?”

She finally paused, blowing a glossy curl out of her eyes. “That’s what I’m telling you, X. You don’t buy hardware anymore. You rent cycles in the cloud. And the second we’re done, we kill the virtual machines and there’s not a single trace of what we did.” She lifted her hands like a low-rent spiritual guru. “It’s all around and nowhere at the same time.” A sly grin. “Like you.”

“How long will this take?”

“Not sure. I have to oversee the control programs, check results, offer the occasional loving guidance. After all, they are just machines.”

“Okay. I have to get back. Towels in the bathroom. The fridge is stocked with food.”

“Wait — you’re leaving me here?”

He crossed to a cupboard, pulled out a burner cell phone, and fired it up for the first time. “Only call me. You know the number?”

“Yeah, 1-855-2-NOWHERE. One digit too long.”

“Yes.”

“So that’s it?” She looked around at the blank walls, the mustard-colored couch. “This is my life?”

“For now.”

“Is there a TV?”

“Nope.”

“What do I do?”

He picked up the keys to the Enclave from a dish on the kitchen counter. He’d left his Ford F-150 in a long-term parking lot at Burbank Airport; he’d do one last vehicle swap before going home. “Get into that laptop.”

“Okay,” she said. “And when I do?”

He headed for the garage. “Then I follow the trail.”

“No — I mean, what happens to me?”

He spun the keys around a finger once and caught them in his fist. He started out. “Just crack it, Joey.”

“So what? We’ll just figure out me later?”

“This isn’t about you, Joey. It’s about Van Sciver. You understand what I need to do here. That’s my only concern.”

He held her eye contact. She gave a little nod.

And he left her.

32

Cleaning Agent

Home.

Evan nudged the big Ford pickup into his spot between two concrete pillars, killed the engine, and released a sigh. Castle Heights’ subterranean parking level was vast and gloomy and more pristine than any garage had a right to be. A pleasing whiff of oil and gasoline lingered beneath the aggressive lemon scent of environmentally friendly floor cleaner. The cleaning agent, part of the HOA’s “go green” initiative, had passed by a narrow margin after a heated debate at the monthly meeting, a debate that Evan — as the resident industrial-cleaning-supply expert — had been roped into. His tie-breaking vote for the more expensive ecological product had drawn the ire of some of the older, fixed-income residents.

That was life in the big bad city.

At times he found the inner workings of Castle Heights — the rivalries, squabbles, and bureaucratic maneuverings — to be more exhausting than eluding teams of hit men.

He stayed in the truck. It was so quiet here in the garage.

He took a moment to inventory his body. His broken nose looked passable but still ached across the bridge. The cut in his gums from the exploded windshield had mostly healed, but it gave an angry throb when he ran his tongue across it. Lower back, still stiff from the collisions with police cruisers on the road outside Hillsboro. A sharp pain under his armpit, maybe a cracked rib. His hands, scuffed from swinging off the metal overhang on the train platform. His shoulder injury, exacerbated by the recoil of the Benelli shotgun. All of which he could cover up.

But his eyes were still sufficiently bruised to elicit inquiries.

Turning on the dome light, he took out the concealer wand and dabbed a bit of beige makeup on his lower eyelids. As he smudged it with his fingertip, he couldn’t help but grin a bit.

He’d let down his guard and a sixteen-year-old had broken his nose. Joey had played him perfectly. Crouched against the wall to hide her combat knife, that wounded-bird glance over her shoulder. Can you help me?