The Never Game

“I just have a few minutes.” He frowned. “I have to get back to my office. I’m only doing this because...” His voice was fading.

Because Trevor had something on Linn. Extortion is a distasteful yet often very effective tool.

“Did you hear about the kidnappings?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. All over the news. Terrible. And one victim killed.” Speaking high and quickly.

Shaw continued: “That man was working on an article about stealing data from gamers. We’re speculating that he was looking into Immersion.”

“Oh God. You don’t think Mr. Hong had anything to do with it?”

“We don’t know, but a woman’s life’s at risk. We’re following up every lead. This is one of them.”

Linn fiddled with his collar. “Who are you? Mr. Trevor said you were like a private eye.”

“I’m working with the police.”

He wasn’t listening; he stiffened instantly as footsteps sounded, the faint grit of soles on sidewalk. Shaw had heard it only after Linn’s reaction.

Linn put his hands on the seat of the bench and Shaw believed he was about to sprint away.

The threat, however, turned out to be two women, one pregnant and pushing a baby carriage that held a tiny sleeping child. They chatted and sipped iced-drink concoctions. The friend was younger and Shaw caught her glancing into the carriage with hints of envy in her eyes. The two women — one an accountant, he gathered, the other the mother — sat down on the neighboring bench and talked about how few hours of sleep they each got.

Linn, visibly calming, continued, though whispering now: “Hong is a tough man. Ruthless. But killing someone?”

“You write code,” Shaw said. “That’s what Marty Avon told me.”

“Yes.”

“For Immersion?”

His eyes scanned the park. Seeing no threat, he leaned closer to Shaw and said, “A while ago. For an expansion pack.”

“I want your impression of an idea we’re looking at.”

Linn swallowed. Shaw realized he’d been doing that a lot since he sat down. “Okay.”

He gave Linn his hypothesis about stealing data via the Immersion goggles. “Could that be done?” Shaw asked.

Linn seemed stunned as he digested this. His first reaction was to shake his head. “The cameras on the goggles are high-resolution. It would be too much data... unless...” A near smile crescented his thin lips. “Unless they didn’t upload video, but screenshots, JPEGs, compressed some more into an RAR archive. Yes, yes, it could work! Then up it goes along with the other information to the mainframe here. It could then be processed and sold or used by the company itself. We have divisions that do advertising, marketing, consulting.”

“I think there’s also a risk that Hong is stealing sensitive government information,” Shaw said. “He’s giving away thousands of copies of Immersion to soldiers.”

Alarmed, the HSE employee flicked his fingers together. He’d just fallen down the rabbit hole of government intrigue.

“What is it?” Shaw said. He’d noticed the man’s eyes faintly squint.

After a moment: “There’s a facility in the basement of the building. In the back. No regular employees are allowed in there. It’s got a whole separate staff. Visitors show up by helicopter, go in, do whatever they do and leave. We heard it’s called the Minerva Project. But no one knows what it’s about.”

“I need you to help me,” Shaw said.

Before Linn could respond, though, Shaw was aware of a rustling sound behind them.

No, no, Shaw realized suddenly: a woman four, five months pregnant isn’t going to have a newborn. She’s pushing a doll in the carriage. He stood and gripped Linn’s arm and said, “Get out of here now!”

Linn gasped.

But it was too late.

The pregnant woman was pushing aside the carriage and rising. Her “friend” was speaking into a microphone on her wrist and the source of the noise behind them turned out to be two minders, bursting from the boxwoods. The large Asian men’s motions were perfectly choreographed. One held a Glock on Linn and Shaw and the other emptied their pockets.

Chill-eyed momma-to-be took the items. When she opened her Coach bag, Shaw saw that she too was armed. It was a Glock, nine-millimeter. The same brand of weapon that had killed Kyle Butler and, presumably, been used to pistol-whip and murder Henry Thompson.

A black SUV screeched to a stop on the wide sidewalk, feet away from them. One of the security men gripped Shaw by the arm and the other grabbed Linn. Both were shoved into the back, the middle-row seats, which were separated from the front by a Plexiglas divider. There were no door handles.

“Look, I can explain,” Linn cried. “You don’t understand!”

A second vehicle pulled up, a black sedan. The two women got inside, the one who was not pregnant held the door for the other, who, Shaw deduced, was the mastermind of the admittedly brilliant takedown operation.

The driver got out, folded up the baby carriage and placed it in the trunk, tossing the doll in afterward.

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