Encrypted (5 page)

She had almost forgotten
.
Pulling back her tight
ly
knit sleeve, Ronnie found a highly
collectible,
yet normal
-
looking
,
Batgirl watch
.
The time flashed benignly, but when she hit the
D
ate button, the entire surface of the watch transformed into a mini
street map
.
Her location blinked in green as four red dots sped
toward
her.

“Is he with them?”

“What do you think?”

Ronnie’s heart raced at the thought
.
Zach not only knew
that
she was on the job, but he was racing to her location
.
She imagine
d
his strong hands gripping the steering wheel
,
and h
is jaw
clenching
with tension.

“Which car?”

“Guess,” was Quirk’s only clue.

Sure enough, the fastest blinking car was a good
measure ahead of the other five
.
As much as Ronnie
thrilled at Special Agent Hunt’s arrival, she didn’t want to actually get caught
.
So with renewed haste, she packed up her laptop and stowed it in her Hello Kitty backpack
.
Okay, maybe a pink and white sack with a large silver reflector strip wasn’t exactly ninja, but a girl had to be true to herself.

Lastly, Ronnie pulled on a pair of black leather gloves, careful not to disturb the rows of white beads dotting the palm
s
. “Switching to keyless
-
keyboard mode.”

“We have seriously got to think of a better name for those gloves.”

Glancing at her watch, she found
that
Zach had already covered half the distance
.
Damn
,
he was a good driver.

“Yeah, I’ll work on a cool acronym in my spare time,” Ronnie countered as she put on a pair of wraparound sunglasses, wait
ing
until the metal in the frames attached to a thin cable running up through her turtleneck
.
The liquid LCD lens
was
now in communication with her laptop and
,
therefore
,
Quirk.

“Reroute visuals,” she ordered. Instantly
,
an image of her laptop’s screen bloomed onto her lens
.
Wireless at its coolest
.
“Infrared ready?”

“Please…”

“Computer buffered image enhancement
online
?”

Quirk had possibly even less patience than Ronnie herself
.
“Just get your butt in gear
,
and let me worry about the hardware.”

More fireworks exploding reminded Ronnie that she only had a narrow window of time before the crowd dispersed
.
“I’m heading over.”

“Just do me a favor and actually lose them before you make the rendezvous.”

Ronnie grinned
.
Quirk hated this part
—
the moment of truth
.
Pitting one’s skills against another
’s
.
His favorite part of any mission was building all these toys
.

Hers
,
though
?

Using
all these toys.

* * *

Damn it
,
Zach cursed as the car idled
noisily
.
A
knot of drunk
and
stumbling
Cinco
de Mayo
revelers
stood
between them and her
.
He could see the goddamn building
she was in
.
H
e
just
couldn’t get to it.

He gunned the engine, but no one seemed to notice
.
All eyes were
on the
glitter
ing
blue
and
orange
sky
.
Zach
didn’t
give a crap
about the fireworks
.
He
honked
the horn. At first
,
people just booed him
.
T
hen
they
noticed the flashing blue and red lights
.
Finally
,
it must have penetrated their
thick
skulls that they were hindering a pursuit
,
for they cleared a path
.
Zach
roared through it, covering the two blocks in seconds.

Skidding
the car
to a halt, Zach
leapt
out
.
He didn’t
bother to check to see
whether
Grant had even survived the journey
.

“I think we’ve got her stumped!” Warp’s
high-
pitched
voice was a little too
much
for Zach’s earpiece.

“Whatever
.
I asked, like three minutes ago, which entrance is closest to her position?”

The techno-geek was a child prodigy, or
,
given his
penchant
to argue with himself,
prodigies
.
Unfortunately,
Warp had the attention span of a gnat.

“Oh
,
yeah
.
North by northwest.”

Zach turned back to Grant
,
who was
only now
extracting himself from the car
.
“I’ll take the front.”

“Who named you
A
gent
in
C
harge?” Grant huffed.

Zach
was in no mood
to
pull rank
.
“Establish the perimeter
, and
then take the back.”

With
out hesitation, Zach
charged
toward
the building
.
He was so close
that
he could smell her.

* * *

Ronnie took the stairs two at a time
.
She had
no doubt what the commotion was outside
.
She was being pursued
.
And a little too close for her comfort
.
W
hile she climbed, Ronnie continu
ed
typing into what appeared to be thin air, watching the results of her actions unfold on her lens
.
This time
,
the money would be hers for sure.

Then
her least favorite command flashed before her eyes
.
“Access
D
enied.”

“No!”

“I told you,” Quirk chirped.

“Stay out of it,” she mumbled as she continued the hard climb, both up the stairs and through the myriad of cyber
defense
s.

“You’re going to have to stop running, Ronnie.” Before she could interrupt, Quirk continued, “
T
he beads
are registering e
ach impact of your feet as a keystroke.”

“Okay,” Ronnie responded, “That’s clearly a design flaw.”

“Hey
!
Those are state
-
of
-
the
-
art, pressure
-
and directional
ly
sensitive ceramic fusion
—
”

Ronnie shook her head vigorously
,
even though
Quirk
couldn’t see her
.
O
f course,
she
kept going right on up the steps
.
“Whatever
.
T
hey’re not working now.”

“Because they are
supposed
to be used in a dust-free, static-controlled room cooled to fifty
-
two degrees.”

“Like I said
.
Design flaw
.”

Before Quirk could retort
, another “Access Denied” flashed across her screen.

“Bitch all you want,” Quirk added. “But you ain’t hacking any deeper until you stop
clod-hopping
.”

As much as it pissed her off, her assistant was right
.
She stopped, turned to the wall
,
and
used
it as if it were a keyboard, making sure each stroke was accurate and precise.

“That’s better,” Quirk stated.

This time, “Access Granted” bloomed on her screen
.
Q
uickly
,
the two billion dollars began to transfer into her little
ol
’
account.

“No,
that’s
better,”
Ronnie
stated
as
she resumed her ascent.

CHAPTER 2

Second Undisclosed
Location

9:21
p
.
m
.
,
MST

Quirk pulled on a
cashmere
sweater, making sure he didn’t muss
his hair
gel as he watched Warp once again
try to
thwart his boss’ attempts to drain the
insurance company’s
account
.

“Sorry, Ronnie, but you’re going to have to keep up the pressure until the account is drained.”

She must
be
heed
ing
his advice
,
because suddenly her proficiency rose steeply
.
Why did she put herself through this
?
Why wasn’t Ronnie content sitting
in a
cozy room like this
?
Quirk surveyed the snow
-
white walls punctuated by plasma screens
.
Why risk exposure
—
or worse, capture
—
when you could snuggle up with
Project Runway
,
or
…

Quirk sat up straighter and watched the telecast
.
Sure enough
,
another plague
bulletin
.
Like he already didn’t have
enough
to worry about with Ebola and the West Nile virus
?
T
he plague
,
too
?
Did his suffering never cease?

“Is it just me, or are they getting better at this?” Ronnie asked
.
Was that a hint of desperation he heard?

Quirk
focused his attention on her laptop feed
.
Sure enough, she was smack
-
dab in the middle of a standoff
.
The great
Robin Hood hacker
was stymied
.
H
e was
actually
happy that
,
every once in a while
,
Ronnie was reminded
of
why she needed him and his very specialized expertise.

“Warp may have made some improvements, but
no
one is as geeky as I
,
”
Quirk
said.
He
knew how to drag out a dramatic pause
.
“We are going
cold
.”