Encrypted (7 page)

The techno-geek cleared his throat before he answered
.
“Well, you see…”

“Warp!”

“She’s on the
other
roof.”

Turning back to the ledge, Zach looked at the gap between the buildings
.
There’s no way
that
she jumped it
.
No way, right
?
He checked the ledge, no sign of a grappling device or ladder.

She
had
jumped it.

He backed away from the ledge as Warp reported to the rest of the agents
,
“We have lost the suspect atop the
—
”

Warp didn’t finish his sentence because Zach wasn’t backing away in defeat
.
H
e was giving himself room to build up speed before he leapt
.
The distance flew by
,
and Zach actually thought he had a chance of clearing the ledge
,
but at the last second
,
his trajectory flattened
.
His body made it over, but his shins weren’t quite so lucky
.
He went down, hard
.
But he was across.

Damn
,
that hurt
!
B
ut he rolled up and was on his feet before his body
could
tell him to stay down
.
Nothing broken, or least nothing bad enough to stop his pursuit.

“Belay that last,” Warp said as Zach brought his gun to bear
.
“Hunt is still on her tail.”

* * *

Ronnie ducked behind another chicken coop
.
Unlike
the last bare rooftop, this one was a maze of shacks, coops, and downright garbage
.
Good for hiding,
but
not so good for navigating while still attempting to siphon money protected by triple
-
encryption layers
,
and now the
FBI
.
Especially when half
her
beads were out on
her
keyless
-
keyboard
-
mode gloves.

She also made a note to
tell
Quirk
that
he was right about one thing
.
They
did
need a cooler name for those
.

“Ronnie,
come on
,” Quirk begged
.
“We’ve got over a billion
.
Let’s cut and run.”

“Never,” she said as she made her way to the other side of the stinky coop,
and
then typed frantically, making certain that money still flowed into her account.

P
igeons squawked
t
o the north
,
irritated by her pursuers.

Quirk must have heard it
,
to
o
.
“Okay, can’t you hear the heavy footsteps of fate behind you?”

Damn it, she had to stop again to block an extremely clever move on Warp’s part
.
“Yes, but as you know, we don’t get our ‘commission’ unless we nab the entire amount.”

“Which sucks, I might add.”

Grinning, Ronnie overrode another line delete and the money really started pouring in
.
“It does, and I don’t know about you, but I want to buy some more toys.”

Shouts carried
on the wind took a little bit of the satisfaction away, but she was still the best
,
and that money was
hers
, damn it
!

* * *

Crap
.
Real crap
.
Chicken crap
.
It was slippery
.
Zach quickly scraped the bottom of his shoe and continued his pursuit
.
She was so close.

“Well?” he whispered into his headset.

“Yeah, hold on.”

Zach’s brow furrowed
.
Warp might give you the wrong answer to your question
.
He might hyperventilate
.
But put you on hold
?
That didn’t sound good.

“Hold on?” Zach asked.

“I’m, yeah, okay
.
No
bueno
.”

Zach paused his steps
,
but kept his gun at the ready
.
“To what, Warp?”

“Um, well, you see…
we
lost not only the satellite feed, but the patch into the corporation’s account.”

“So we’re
all
blind?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Behind him, Zach could hear the other agents gathering force, weaving through the ramshackle maze
.
Bolder, he moved forward
.
Satellite or not
.
Patch or not
.
He was going to get his woman tonight.

* * *

Hah
!
Ronnie had kicked Warp out of the server onto his pasty white ass
.
The money was pouring into her account like a thunderstorm
.
Only a few more minutes
,
and her life would be enriched by another two billion dollars
.

Sweet.

“Resting on your laurels?” Quirk asked.

W
ith the
FBI
out of the cyber picture, she could resume her headlong flight, because two billion dollars didn’t do
anyone
a lot of good in prison
.
And she could see the stairwell door
.
Another ten steps
,
and she would be free!

But the muzzle of a gun at her neck brought her to a skidding halt
.
She was caught
.
Red-handed
.

How?

The gun cocked
.
It didn’t matter how
.
H
e was serious.

Slowly
,
she raised her hands in the air
.
“All right
.
All right
.
I give up.” Still
,
the
man pressed the
barrel to her flesh
.
“Just don’t shoot.”

The
man pulled the
gun back,
then
pulled the trigger
.

Water shot all over her chest and face
.
Laughter poured out of the maze as half a dozen kids tumbled out, all firing water guns at her.

“Damn it,
remember
what I said about expensive electronic equipment and water toys?” Quirk demanded in her ear.

Ronnie couldn’t answer
,
as she was laughing too hard
.
Even when she “lost” these little simulations, there was fun to be had
.
She got to hone her skills, keeping her sharp for the day
that
the
FBI
was
really
on her ass
,
and she gave these kids a fun-filled evening of cat
and
mouse.

Flipping several coins in the air, Ronnie smiled
.
“
Mucho
b
ueno
.”

The kids scrambled for the American silver dollars as she looked out over the horizon
.
Mexico City
.
Alive with
Cinco
de Mayo
festivities
.
Alive with fireworks
.
Alive with youth.

A view like this
,
and
,
very shortly
,
two billion dollars richer
?

Nights like this didn’t come along very often.

* * *

“Oh
,
G
od!
”
Warp wailed as if it were his own money being stolen
.
“She’s got one point six
.
Point seven.”

The geek’s distress
stripped
away any last bit of caution in Zach’s search
.
He rushed through the maze
.

“Point eight
.
Point nine!”

Was that her up ahead
?
If he was going to stop her, it needed to be now
.
He burst through the last of the shacks, gun arm out, safety off.

“Freeze!”

No Ronnie
.
No one at all
.
Zach stumbled to a stop as Warp finished his countdown
.

“An even two billion
.
She’s got it all!”

But he didn’t need the geek’s announcement
.
Zach already knew it
.
Knew it
,
because a laptop
was
propped open on a chair
.
The screen flashed an orange $2,000,000,000.00
,
along with her
lovely
catchphrase “Better Luck Next Time!”

Zach charged
over to the keyboard
.
M
aybe with Warp’s help
,
he could somehow trace her
.
F
ind out where she really was.

But before he could even voice this hope, the number on the screen started going down
.
Fast
.
Maybe they were able to get the upper hand on her
,
for once.

“Warp, were you able to install the reverse worm?”

“Hell, no
.
She shut that puppy down hard.”

Zach stood there
,
confused
.
“If
we
aren’t reclaiming the funds, then where is the money going?”

But he didn’t need to wait long
.
Once the new account had drained one hundred million off, it automatically closed and flashed, “Ethiopian WHO Hunger Relief Program.” Immediately
,
another account opened
,
and twenty five million filled it
.
The “Ukra
i
nian Alternate Energy Source Program
,
”
and
then another
.

Enraged, Zach knocked the laptop from its perch
.
“Damn it!”

Other agents rushed to the sc
ene, staring at the spectacle Zach
was making, but he didn’t care.

How could this have happened?

How?

Behind him, Agent
Halbaucher
called in the update
.
“She’s left us a decoy
.
Let’s set up a four
-
mile perimeter and
—
”

“Don’t bother,” Zach stated, regaining his composure
.
“She’s nowhere nearby.”

He looked up into the night sky
.
There was a satellite tasked directly above their position in Texas
.
A satellite specifically located to capture her movements
.
Instead
,
Zach was certain that she had used it to track
him
.
She was p
robably using it to watch him right this very second.