Encrypted (6 page)

With flamboyance that Liberace would have been proud of, Quirk
pressed
a button
,
and a panel under the main computer tower opened up
.
Even at fifty-two degrees ambient temperature, frost poured out from the chamber of liquid nitrogen
.
Slowly
,
the tower lowered into the vat of freezing solution.

He watched as all processes on her laptop sped up exponentially.

“Whoa, there,” Ronnie said as her typing accelerated to keep pace with the processor speed
.
“You
are
lord of the geeks.”

He knew that, but it was still nice to hear it every once in a while
.
N
ot all was
hunky-dory
though
.
“Yeah, the only downside is that we have to finish the transfer before the chips completely freeze.”

“And how long is that?”

“Yeah, um
.
I’d hurry.”

Quirk watched
the computer
’s
internal temperature
plummet as the red dots converged
toward
Ronnie’s glowing green
sphere
.
“And I mean spatially as well as temporally.”

“Huh?”

There was no way to say
it
gently
.
“They’re closing in on your position.”

* * *

Zach paused
.
Were those footsteps
in
the
upper
stairwell?

“Is she directly above me?” he asked Warp.

For once
,
the techie’s
answer was direct and prompt
.
“She’s two floors up
,
and thirty feet to the south of you.”

“So
,
let’s get moving,” Grant
urged
as
he joined
Zach.

If the junior agent thought
that
he had startled him, Fifer was greatly mistaken
.
Zach had picked up
on
his
entrance
a good two stories ago
.
T
hose lifts inside Grant’s shoes
must have given
him away.

“Took you long enough,” Zach grumbled. “Let’s go.”

“Aren’t you going to bitch me out that I’m not guarding the back?”

Zach rolled his eyes as he continued up the staircase
.
“If I’d needed you back there, I would have told you to follow me
.
Now
,
move
!
”

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Grant whined
.
“Why is she going up?”

“Don’t know,” Warp said
,
and then quickly follow
ed
up
.
“
B
ut we’ve got a new problem.”

No,
Zach thought
.
There were no other problems
.
Tonight was a problem-free zone until he caught her.

“Um, yeah, guys, Interpol has requested that we take custody of an arsonist that tried to torch a Picasso at the El Paso
M
useum
of Art
.”

Was that all
?
A modern art critic with a
Bic
lighter
?
That didn’t even register on Zach’s problem radar
.
“Can do
,
after we wrap up
things
here.”

“More like
now
.”

Was that Warp being bossy
?
“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, Hunt, but Interpol is working on behalf of the Vatican.” Zach was about to ask what in the hell that had to do with anything even remotely involving him
,
when Warp rushed on, “And the deputy said to cut an agent and have
him
head over to the museum.”

“Just one?” he asked.

“Just one.”

With a savage grin, Zach turned to Grant
.
He could kill two birds with one stone
.
Make the deputy happy and ditch his partner.

“Screw you
!
” Grant shot back, but his partner must have seen in Zach’s eyes that he wasn’t in the mood to be screwed with
.
The younger agent turned to obey
,
but couldn’t keep fro
m mouthing off
.
“You know, one day they’re going to figure out that you’re trying to catch her for yourself
—
and not because of the warrant, asshole.”

Not worrying about which
statement
was true, Zach headed up the stairs alone.

* * *

Ronnie hit the
roof
door at a run
.
She didn’t need to
look
at
her
watch to know
that
they were on her ass
.
She continued her flight across the dark roof as the firework
s
display reached its crescendo
.
Each explosion
was
brighter and larger than the last
.
And each time, as they were designed to do, her infrared glasses adjusted and avoided that completely uncivilized whiting
-
out normally associated with light bursts
.
She might even consider a raise for Quirk if he kept developing bleeding
-
edge technology like this.

“South by southwest, right?” she asked as she geared up for the jump.

“The wind is coming in from the east
,
so it should be an easy
—
”

Putting all her concentration into her leap, Ronnie didn’t hear Quirk’s next words
.
She was
only steps
away from the edge
.
Throwing her weight forward
,
she planted her lead leg and
—

A series of fireworks exploded one after another in blinding succession
.
A haze of white light obscured her vision
.
Disoriented, Ronnie tried to abort her jump, but there was no way
.
S
he had built up way too much momentum
.
She tried to correct
in
midair, but her legs were forward
.
Waving her arms, desperate to shift her center of gravity, she felt herself start to lose altitude.

In another breath
,
her lower body slammed into the edge of the other roof
.
She tried to force her upper half over the ledge, but gravity was a bitch and she slid down the brick wall
.
Flailing, somehow one hand caught the ledge
.
Forcing herself to
remain
calm, Ronnie
grabbed the ledge with her other hand.
Under that much pressure, her gloves
’
beads began snap
ping
and popping.

“What in the hell are you doing out there?”

Quirk’s tone was livid
.
B
ut she was hanging by ten fingers from the side of a freaking five-story building
.
“You
had
bett
er hope
that
I die right this minute!”

The snapping, crackling, and popping continued
.

“
You’re
upset?” he squealed
.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to wire those beads?”

* * *

“I’ve stopped the bleeding! I’ve stopped the money transfer!” Warp was nearly beside himself with pride
.
Problem was, that wasn’t what Zach wanted to know.

“That’s grea
t, Warp, but I asked
whether
you had
an image yet?”
Zach
repeated
as he carefully checked the fifth
-
floor
landing
.
There wasn’t anywhere
else
to go
.
The
roof
door was right in front of him
.
He needed to know what was on the other side.

“Sorry
.
O
ur satellite feed of the area is
fritzed
.”

Of course it was
.
Hacking into the NSA
-
secured satellite computer was child’s play to this chick
.
Zach’s jaw clenched and unclenched
.
This was not how he pictured this
bust going down
.
“So essentially
,
that means I’m going out there blind?”

“No, no
,
” Warp
assured him,
adamant
.
“
Another satellite will come into view in three minutes
.”

Zach looked
at
his watch
.
The second hand was going around way too slowly to wait another one hundred and eighty
seconds
.
Not when she could be right beyond this door
.
He tightened his grip on the gun.

“I’ll be on the roof
,
then
.”

* * *

Ronnie ever
so carefully swung her legs to the side
.
Her only chance of getting off this damn ledge was to use leverage to counter
act
the gravity that wanted to plummet her to the pavement five stories down
.
But she lost another finger’s grip and had to abort her attempt
.
The added weight popped more beads.

“
Now
what are you doing?” her assistant complained as she hung precariously by one hand.

“So help me, Quirk…”

B
efore she could work up a really good revenge plan, the squeak of hinges stopped her
.
She knew that sound
.
She had just made it when she opened the rusted roof door. They couldn’t be that close, could they? Could
he
?

Adrenaline fueled her muscles
,
and in one panic
-
driven move, she swung her leg over the ledge and wrestled the rest of her body over
.
But she couldn’t stop there
.
She needed to get away.

* * *

Zach
abandoned caution
.
He heard something
.
It must be her
.
“How far?”

“It looks like the south
-
by
-
southwest corner
.
” Warp said
.
“
Sixty feet ahead
.”

He checked his corners
at a run
—
until he realized that wasn’t a step
up ahead
.
T
hat was the ledge
.
“Warp, buddy, twenty feet of that is open air.”

“What?” Zach was about to explain, but Warp’s excited voice cut him off
.
“Hey, we just regained
the
partial satellite feed
.
Oh
,
boy…”

“Oh
,
boy, what, Warp?”