Encrypted (4 page)

With any hope, permanently
.

She had some serious wealth to redistribute.

* * *

Special Agent
Zachary Hunt grabbed his coat and holstered his weapon in the same motion
.
“Come on!” he shouted to the other agents
.

This was it
.
The
Robin Hood hacker
was
online
.
This was his chance to catch her.

Running through the maze of desks
comprising
the
bull
pen
of the El Paso
FBI
field office, Hunt didn’t even bother to
enter
the glassed-in tech support room
.
He just pointed a finger at their r
esident geek, Warp
.

“You know what to do!”

“We’re on it!” the tech replied, even though he was the only person in the room
.
But Zach didn’t have time to worry about Warp’s multi
ple
personality
disorder.
Zach
had one thing
,
and one thing only
,
on his mind.

Her.

Still on the run, Zach hit the back of his partner’s head
.
“
Grant
. N
ow!”

He hit him hard enough to spin Special Agent Fifer around in his chair
.
T
he twenty-nine year
-
old
stood up
smoothly
, his weapon holstered
and
his
coat already on
.
Within two steps, Grant was at his shoulder
.
Too close to Zach’s shoulder.

Six months ago
,
when Zach first met him, the guy was five
feet,
nine
inches.
M
aybe on a good day,
he stood
five
feet
.
But n
ow?
Fifer was somehow almost
six
feet
tall
?
Grant might be
young enough to still use the
“
I trained at Quantico
”
line to pick up women, but old enough that his growth plates
had
closed
.
Clearly
,
Fifer
had to be
putting
lifts in his shoes
.
What level of hidden insecurity did that reveal
about his partner
?

Across the room, t
wo agents laughed
,
causing
Zach to crack the verbal whip
.

“Move, people!” he shouted as he made his way to the door
.

Ten steps out
,
and he’d be in the car
.
In thirteen minutes
,
he w
ould be in the vicinity of the world’s most
-
wanted hacker
.
Within the hour
,
he’d have her bagged.

“Wait
!
” Special Agent
Markum
called out.

Zach did
n’t even break
his
stride as the salt
-
and
-
pepper agent
hustled over, handing
him a “High Priority Fax.” Okay, anything faxed couldn’t be all that high priority
.
As Zach
fixed his jacket
collar
, he scanned the page
.

“Outbreak of Bubonic Plague in
Europe
.
Report ASAP any cases in the United States.”

“No kidding
,” Zach said as he tossed the paper onto his desk
and
exited into the warm evening air
.
If he saw anyone with black, blotchy blisters
in
his travels, he’d let them know
.
O
therwise
,
his focus was absolute
.

Tonight, this yearlong chase would end.

He
would
arrest the
Robin Hood hacker
.

* * *

Ronnie
curse
d
under her breath, which me
ant that Quirk
heard every expletive
,
given the subvocal microphones implanted on either side of her voice box.

“Now, now,” her assistant chided
.
Like he didn’t cuss a blue streak if a single line of his own code got corrupted.

But even with the colorful language, the bright
,
gold symbols were back
,
covering her screen
.
Covering the back door to the company’s financial accounts
.
Obviously
,
her assessment of permanently shutting down the
IM
s had been
a bit overoptimistic
.
But she had to admit
that
something else distract
ed
her almost as much as the glowing text.

The
FBI
had been alerted
.
Which meant that
he
was
alerted that she was up to no good
.
Was he on the job when he heard
?
Was he at home
?
Was he on his way?

So many questions
.
So few answers
.
How could she concentrate on a bunch of stupid numbers when her instinct was to pace until she knew for sure?

“You planning on breaking into this account sometime tonight?”

Ronnie put on her game face
.
“I’m getting to it
.
Patience,
goth
-boy.”

This was crunch time
.
She had a large fortune to acquire
,
and no FBI agent, no matter how hot, was going to get in her way.

* * *

“You’re going too fast,” Grant whined.

Zach’s eyes flickered over
to him
.
Special Agent
Grant
Fifer
was holding
onto the
“
granny
”
handle for
dear
life
.
Once his partner realized
that
he was under scrutiny,
he removed
his hand, but his left hand remained plastered against the dashboard.

“We’ve got to slow
down
to make a right up ahead.”

Like Zach hadn’t already memorized the route they had to take
.
It was etched in his mind even deeper than the Miranda rights he recited to anyone he arrested.

“Seriously, it’s not that far ahead,” Grant persisted
.

Overhead
,
the night sky lit up with silver as firework
s
exploded brilliantly
.
Zach should have known
that
she was going to strike tonight
.
She would u
se the crowds to limit mobility and the
loud explosions
to cover any noise she might make while accessing electrical panels
.
The
Robin Hood hacker
did not make the
FBI
’s
M
ost
W
anted
L
ist for lack of brains.

Zach prepared for
the
right turn
that
Grant was so worried
about when red lights
flash
ed
and bells went off
.
A train crossing
.
A train
-
barreling
-
down
-
the
-
tracks kind of crossing
.

He wasn’t going to make it.

Zach s
lamm
ed
on the brakes
. O
ut of the corner of his eye
, Zach saw
Grant’s body fly forward against his seat belt
.
Even with braking
that hard
, they still weren’t going to make it
.
Jerking the wheel
to the right, Zach pulled the emergency brake until he couldn’t pull it up anymore
.
The smell of rubber filled the car as the tires skid
ded
into
a nearly perfect ninety-degree turn
.
Sure
,
Grant’s door bumped the red and white crossing bar and they sprayed gravel everywhere
, b
ut they were on the
ir
way.

Fishtailing through the loose rocks lining the tracks, the tir
es finally found pavement
and accelerated
once more
.
The train laid on its horn as they passed
.
Given
that
it was going in the opposite direction, it seemed like they were traveling hundreds of miles an hour
.
The windows were just a blur
,
and before
they
could count the number of cars, they were clear of the train.

“Oh
,
G
awd
…” Grant moaned
.
He must have realized
that
the next left turn they need
ed
to take was just up ahead.

The bars rose
over the train tracks as Zach repeated his earlier maneuver
.
Hard braking, wheel
s
spun to the left, emergency brake for a crisp turn, release all of the above
,
and step on the gas
.
After nearly flying out of their seats over the tracks, they were zeroing in on their prey again.

“You know,” his partner
began
,
and
then licked his lips again before finishing, “you
really
need to get laid.”

No, Zach needed to
catch
her.

Warp’s excited voice came over their earpieces
.
“We just ramped up our new twenty
-
two gig RAM processor and
—
”

The geek was answering a question from
,
like
,
five minutes ago, and not even the right one
.

“That’s great, Warp
,
” Zach said, trying to remain patient
.
“But are you integrating with the
insurance company’s computer
?
”

“We will be in the loop in…
Three
.
Two
.
One!”

* * *

A
Star Trek
-like
K
laxon sounded from Ronnie’s four-way speakers
.
Red lights flashed from her illuminated keyboard
,
warning her that the
FBI
had docked with the company’s mainframe.

“Honestly, Quirk, could you be
any
more of a nerd?”

“I just keep raising the bar,” her assistant said with a certain amount of satisfaction
.
“Warp’s begun his countermeasures
.
P
lus
,
they’ve got six
cars en
route.”  With a playful tone, Quirk finished up
.
“Check your watch.”