Mortal Lock (22 page)

“Face-to-face.”

“But what if the other person’s far away?”

“Nobody’s ever far away enough that you can’t reach out and touch them.”

“You’re … so, like, strange. Here,” she challenged, pointing a blue-lacquered fingernail at the screen. “Do you even know what that means?”

“I know! I know!” the hypermuscled man said excitedly. “Buffy TVS. That’s
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, right?”

“No-oh,” the girl said, mock-annoyed. “That’s ‘Buffy, TV Show.’ See, there was a
movie
, too. Very OldSchool, but it
was
the first one. Most people, fans, I mean, they like the TV show. But there’s always the ones just have to start where
it
started. That’s so—”

“There was a
movie
?” the bodybuilder demanded, turning slowly toward the jump-suited monster, an accusatory tone in his voice.

“Well, of
course
,” the girl said. “I mean … it’s old now, but it’s still around. You can still catch it on cable, on one of those movie channels. And there’s all kinds of Web sites for Buffy fans, so if you really wanted, you could—”

“Rhino …?” the bodybuilder asked, plaintively.

“Yes,” the monster replied. The single word came out a high-pitched squeak. “We’ll check the Internet. We’ll find out when the movie will be on TV. And we’ll watch it. And if we’re not around, we’ll record it, and then watch it later. All right, Princess?”

“Awwwriiight!”
the bodybuilder shouted, firing a high five that the behemoth met deftly. The sound was slightly softer than a sledgehammer on steel. The girl turned toward the unremarkable man. He made a “don’t mind them” face, then asked, “So how do you know, then? The people you talk to online, how do you know who they are in real life?”

“You
don’t
,” the girl said tartly. “You sound just like my father.” She sighed, larding the words with that world-weary emphasis only teenage girls have ever mastered. “I know this is all a game. Like I
actually believe I have a thousand ‘friends’ just because they’re on my Facebook page. As if!

“This is … it’s just playing. But
he
thinks there are monsters hiding under my bed. Is that what you’re here to do, check under my bed, make sure the closets are clear? You’re not going to find anything.”

“We get paid to look,” the unremarkable man said mildly.

2

“You know what?” the girl said an hour later. “If I
did
tell anyone about this, they’d never believe me.”

“Is that right?” the unremarkable man said, indifferently.

“Oh, I don’t mean
you
,” she said haughtily. “I mean Princess. He’s like … I mean, you’re
all
like—I didn’t mean to talk about you like you aren’t even here, that’s what
they
do all the time with me—but you really
are
like something out of a movie.”

“What movie?” Princess eagerly asked the girl.

“One of those kung fu ones, maybe,” she answered thoughtfully. “Only, with your … with all that … I mean, maybe a rock video …?”

“I don’t like those so much,” the human rock sculpture said, petulantly. “They’re no fun. People are mean in them. The karate ones are good, though, right, Rhino? Especially when they fly around and stuff.”

“They’re swell,” the mammoth said, busy with an oversized keyboard he had connected to the girl’s computer. A maze of anaconda wires ran from the back of the girl’s computer into two separate boxy devices he had removed from a duffel bag big enough to house RPGs.

“What
is
all that stuff?” the girl asked, bouncing slightly on her bed, to which she had retreated in a huff, arms crossed over her chest.

“Test equipment,” the unremarkable man told her.

“What
kind
of equipment? I’m not dumb. If you explain it to me, I’ll understand.”

“We’re trying to find out if anyone has put anything into your computer.”

“You mean, like a virus?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said, sternly. “There’s no way my father paid all you … guys to come in here and see if I got some stupid virus—you’re not exactly geeks, if you know what I mean. I think he’d be
glad
if I did, anyway. Then I couldn’t go online for a while.”

“There’s different kinds of bugs,” the unremarkable man replied.

“Well,
what
kinds?” she demanded.

“Yeah, what kinds, Cross?” Princess joined in.

The unremarkable man squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as if fighting off a severe headache. Then he breathed deeply through his nose, exhaled slowly, and said, “When we came in, your computer was already on, right? You were using it for … whatever you do.”

“Uh … 
yes
,” the girl said, managing to blend annoyance and sarcasm into a single word.

“For how long?”

“For how …? Oh, I see what you mean. I was online for, I don’t know, maybe an hour or so.”

“Then there’s no way we could have seen your password, right?”

“Well … no. Especially with the one I—”

“And nobody but you
has
your password?”

“Not a chance,” she sneered. “I mean, who’s that stupid? You give even your BFF your password, you have a little fight, and, the next thing you know, your page is all vandalized. Anyway, it’s
my
computer, and I—”

“Sure,” he interrupted. “You’re right. Okay, Rhino, let her back at the keyboard for a minute.”

“What do you want me to do?” she said, as she reclaimed her chair.

“Just turn it off.”

“The IM I was talking on, the Facebook I get off Mozilla, or the whole thing?”

“You have a password just to turn the computer itself on, or only for the online stuff?”

“I’m always online. I mean, it’s a DSL connection, so I don’t have to log on to—”

“Never mind. Just shut it
all
down, okay?”

“Well, I don’t see why.…” the girl muttered to herself, but she haughtily tapped on the keyboard, clicked her mouse, and the computer went quiet. “There! Happy now? Or do you want me to disengage the monitor, too.”

The unremarkable man ignored her. “Rhino …”

As the girl went back to sitting on her bed, the mammoth immediately keyed in a series of commands. The screen blinked, flashed twice, and then “Recovery in Progress” appeared.

“What’s he doing?” the girl asked.

“Running a password-recovery program.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s for people who forget their passwords. It works just as good for people who want to get inside your system.”

“You mean he can just—” she asked, suddenly cutting herself off as her screen name popped into life.

“You’re back online,” the unremarkable man said. “You’ve even got mail. And DMs waiting, too. Now how about you go play with Princess or something and let us finish what we’re doing?”

“Play? I’m not a—”

“Yeah. Sure. Right. Fine. Okay. Why don’t you and Princess go have a few drinks or smoke some dope? How’s that?”

3

“Do you have an appointment?” the brunette behind the blue-veined white marble reception cube asked the unremarkable man.

“Three-fifteen.”

“Yes, I understand,” the brunette said, speaking slowly, so she wouldn’t confuse the obviously dull individual standing before her. “You told me that. All I need is your name, if you don’t mind.”

“Winslow, he’s the boss, right?”

“Mr. Anthony Winslow is the CEO of Rampartel Enterprises, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s who I have the appointment with. At three-fifteen.”

“Yes,” she said patiently. “I understand, sir. But I
still
don’t have your—”

“Call his secretary,” the man said. “Ask
her
my name.”

“That’s not the way we—”

“Yeah, it is.”

The brunette hadn’t been hired just for decoration. “Please wait over there,” she said, gesturing toward a white leather couch.

The man didn’t seem to move. But when the brunette looked up from her console, he was standing in front of the couch, still facing her.

“Jani,” she whispered into her headset. “There’s a man here who says he—”

The brunette listened for a minute, intently. Then she looked up saying, “Sir? You can go right …” But she was talking to empty space—the man was gone.

4

“You’re certain you can … solve this problem?”

Cross scanned the speaker. He clocked the facts: a man in his late forties, trim and tanned, with a haircut that cost more than
some men pay for a suit. The man’s own suit was bespoke dark green alpaca, with just a hint of ecru raw silk peeking out from the arms, hinting at high-status cufflinks.

Probably has a different wristwatch for each outfit
, Cross thought to himself. But all he said aloud was, “Yes.”

“Just … ‘yes’?”

“I don’t get paid by the word.”

“What
do
you get paid by, then?” the man behind the desk asked, the faintest trace of annoyance wafting over his words.

“Degree of difficulty.”

“And how … uh,
difficult
do you anticipate this particular solution to be?”

“The most difficult solutions are the permanent ones.”

The man behind the desk turned pale under his eye-color-matched tan. “I won’t have my daughter … bothered. I suppose that isn’t the right word. I don’t know what the right word for all this would
be
. You’re certain she’s being … what was that word you used … lured? Enticed?”

“The person or persons making contact through her computer are trying to get her to meet them, yes.”

“How do you know this? Are you just guessing, or do you have some form of wiretap on her computer?”

“No,” Cross told him. “We hijacked it.”

“I’m not following you.”

“We took over your daughter’s address,” Cross said. “We let all the traffic through except for when whoever’s trying to get her to meet them sends a message. That’s diverted, so it goes to us. And the answer they get, it
comes
from us. We’ve been dialoguing with whoever it is for a couple of weeks, now.”

“But when Ariel writes to him …?”

“It’s mostly messages, not really e-mails, but that doesn’t matter. When she talks to him, she’s talking to us, real-time or e-mail. And
we answer her. We use
their
answers, so it always sounds right. To both sides, okay?”

“I … see,” the man said, making a steeple of his fingertips, thinking.

Cross sat in silence, his face as expressionless as the bare top of the man’s desk.

“Let me just understand. This … person or persons, as you put it … is only in contact with
you
, now. So if all Ariel’s attempts to communicate with whoever they are go through you, she’s not in any danger, is she?”

“She talked too much,” Cross said, flatly.

“You mean, before you …?”

“Yeah. If she’d stayed virtual, it wouldn’t matter—your DSL IP floats. But whoever she was talking to wormed her real name out of her. They know where she lives. Where she goes to school. All kinds of intel, right down to what her bedroom looks like. The only thing she’s held back—so far—is a picture of herself. And they’ve probably already got one. School yearbook, places like that.”

“Ariel told you she—?”

“Ariel didn’t tell us anything. She thinks it’s all a game. But once we plugged in, we could see it all for ourselves.”

“I see. What do you propose, then?”

“We set up a meet. Whoever’s on the other end thinks they’re meeting your daughter. Instead, they meet us.”

“And then …?”

“Degree of difficulty.”

The man behind the desk said nothing.

Cross looked through the man’s skull to the wall behind it.

Finally, the man broke the silence. “One of the reasons I’m successful is that I know how to listen,” he said. “You’re the professional. So I leave it up to you. If you conclude this ‘person or persons’ represents an actual danger to my daughter …”

“You
don’t
know how to listen,” Cross said, very quietly. “That ‘actual’ qualifier you added, it’s like a string. You cut it, somebody comes along and reties it. You set it on fire in the middle, it burns down each side until there’s nothing left to tie.”

The man behind the desk didn’t hesitate. His nod wasn’t an indication of understanding, it was one of agreement.

“I already told you how to send the money,” Cross said. “Just a few keystrokes. Transfer the money. When we get half, we go to work.”

“Half of …”

“Half of the max.”

“But what if you don’t have to …?”

“Then the half
is
the max.”

5

“Take out the shunt, Rhino,” the unremarkable man said.

“But keep it on real-time monitoring?”

“Yeah. If he’s going to go for it, we have to give him the chance. It’s the only way we’ll ever know, and we need to wrap this up, one way or the other.”

“Go for what?” Princess demanded. “He’s not going to hurt Ariel, is he?”

“No,” Cross reassured the walking menace. “No, he’s not.”

6

Three weeks later, the girl strolled out the elaborately carved front doors of the private school she had attended since kindergarten. She was wearing her school uniform, but there was a complete change of clothes in the backpack she carried.

The note from her father asking that she be excused from afternoon classes because of a family trip had not drawn a second
glance. Despite the perfect forgery of her father’s signature—Ariel had a great deal of practice—the school had still called to verify.

Ariel didn’t know who would be answering the number printed next to her father’s name on the stationery Cross had handed to her, but her special friend had promised her he could get someone who sounded “old” to take the call.

Ariel thought about that special friend as she walked around the corner. She felt a shiver at the base of her spine when she spied the black limousine. Waiting for her, just as he had promised. Just right for the star she was going to be.

A man in a chauffeur’s uniform opened the back door, and Ariel climbed into the backseat. The partition was closed, but she wasn’t concerned. Her special friend had told her about that in advance. It certainly wasn’t any of some
driver’s
business who she was.