What I was about to do was insanely risky—the equivalent of walking up to a complete stranger with twenty thousand pounds in untraceable banknotes. Madrox could be a cop. He could be someone who just fancied twenty grand without earning it. If he pulled a gun on me—or let’s be honest, just punched me anywhere in the vicinity of the weeping wound under my clothes—that would be it. I would have to hand over the private key, and with it any chance of getting into Gabe’s backup drive.
My heart was pounding as I crossed the tarmac, and I was concentrating so hard on the figure in front of me that I didn’t see the speeding sports car until it was nearly on me. I skipped out of the way just in time, the blare of its horn drowning out the splash of puddle water that drenched me, and resisted the urge to stick two fingers up at the driver. Then I drew a deep breath, trying to calm my suddenly racing pulse, and stepped off the road and onto the grass verge by the KFC.
The figure looked up as I did so, and I saw it was a man—a kid, really, probably not more than twenty. He was slight, and looked almost as nervy as I felt, and that was saying something. He was wearing a gray hoodie, not waterproof at all, and the rain was dripping off his fringe.
“Are you ReddyBrek?” he said in a voice that started off deep but broke on the last syllable, and I nodded.
“Yes.” I was pleased that my voice at least sounded steady, and that my shivering could be passed off as down to the chilly rain. I didn’t want to come across as intimidating—edgy people made bad decisions—but I couldn’t afford to look weak. “Are you Madrox?”
“Yeah.” He had relaxed a little as I came closer, presumably relieved by the fact that I wasn’t a six-foot bloke with fists like hams, but now he seemed to remember the situation we were in and said, with a slight shake in his voice, “Put down the bag, yeah?”
“I mean… I will.” I lowered the pack gingerly to the wet pavement. “But, like, are you going to frisk me as well? Should we both strip to our pants? It’s a bit wet for that kind of thing.” Create a rapport. Make them laugh.
He chuckled at that, a proper South London cackle, his face breaking into a grin that made him look about fourteen.
“Look, luv, you’re fit and all, but I’m here for the cash, not the dogging.”
I didn’t feel like laughing back, but I forced out a weak ha ha.
“Relieved to hear it. Have you got the phone?”
He nodded, serious again, and held up a cheap burner mobile, the screen dark and speckled with rain.
“Yeah. My contact’ll do the swap when I tell him I’ve got the money.”
“Phone first,” I said firmly, clenching my fists to try to hide their trembling, but he shook his head.
“Sorry, love. No money, no phone. Money, or I walk.”
I felt sick. I had no idea how to go about this. I could see why he wouldn’t want to hand over the phone without an assurance that I did at least have the cash. It wasn’t like I could show him a suitcase full of notes—a private key meant nothing unless you actually knew what was in the wallet. But on the other hand, I had no idea if he was just a bullshitter with a Tesco mobile. Most of all, though, I couldn’t afford to let him walk away. This was my absolute last chance.
“Okay, I’ll transfer the money first,” I said at last, “but I need to see that the mobile works. I need to know you’ve swapped it.”
“Mate, I’ve done thousands of these,” he said, a little nettled, and then seemed to realize that was a bit far-fetched, and amended, “Well, hundreds anyway. I’m good for it.”
“Look, I believe you—but I have no idea whether—” I stopped. What I had been going to say was that I had no idea whether the police might have put some kind of lock on the SIM. But I didn’t want to tell him the police were already involved in this. I had a strong suspicion the price might go up if I did—or that he might just cut and run, leaving me in a freezing car park with a useless string of numbers in a paperback book. “I’m worried the SIM might be locked. I need you to make sure the swap has gone through before I hand over the cash. You don’t have to give me the phone, I just want to make sure it’s worked before I press send on the transfer.”
There was a long pause.
“Come on,” I said, as persuasively as I knew how. I put every ounce of friendliness into my voice, everything I’d learned over ten years of social engineering, sweet-talking complete strangers, charming them into helping me for no reason other than that they wanted to. I made myself smile, though my face felt numb and cold. “It’s twenty grand. I think I get a preview for twenty grand, no?”
The guy looked at me as if appraising my strength and size, and I felt a sick tremor of fever, or it could have been fear, run through me. I tried to hold myself steady. Don’t show them you’re afraid.
And then he rolled his eyes.
“Jeez, I must be some kind of sucker, but go on, then.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a different phone, a much fancier one. “What’s the number you want swapped?”
I recited it off; he wrote it down, and then pressed a button on his phone and spoke into it, his voice low.
“Jay? Yeah, it’s Mo—” he started, and then seemed to think better of the name he’d presumably been going to give and stumblingly changed it to “m-me. I’m here with the customer. I need you to do the swap now.”
There was a brief pause while the person on the other end spoke. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I had a strong suspicion he was asking Madrox whether he’d got the cash yet.
“I’m not gonna hand it over,” Madrox said, a little indignantly. He had turned his back and walked a few steps away from me, as if in an attempt to keep the conversation private, but I could still hear what he was saying. “She just wants to—” There was an interruption from the speaker at the other end, and Madrox said, sounding annoyed, “She’s like five foot nothing. She ain’t gonna jump me, man.”
More talking, more nodding and indignant reassurances from Madrox, whose hunched back was starting to look highly embarrassed. He had the air of a teen who’d been trying to be a player in front of his friends and had just been shown up by his mum. I was getting a bad feeling, a hollow dread in the center of my chest—though it was no longer about Madrox, but about whoever was on the other end of the phone. What if they didn’t follow through? What if he told Madrox to take the cash and run? My work had taught me that angry, humiliated marks were dangerous ones. You wanted people to like you. You wanted them to trust you. You didn’t want them to feel like they had something to prove. A friendly, cooperative Madrox I could deal with. One trying to look like a hard man for his boss, that I wasn’t so sure of.
In the end, Madrox hung up and turned around, and I raised my head, trying to look like I hadn’t heard every word.
“My contact’s making the swap,” he said, rather grandly, and I almost closed my eyes with relief. “You can test it by calling the phone. But after that, you transfer the Bitcoin, yeah?”
I nodded. There was a long wait, and then Madrox’s phone pinged and he looked down at the message.
“Should be good to go. You wanna try it now?”
I nodded again and pulled out my own phone. This was it. There was no way now to avoid putting a giant target on my own back. It didn’t matter if I used the fanciest encryption software in the world; the second I phoned Gabe’s number, I would put the location of his new phone—and myself—firmly on the police radar. More importantly, I might have only minutes before the police noticed that Gabe’s phone had been swapped and reversed the process.
I held my breath. I dialed Gabe’s number. I waited, holding my breath, not sure if I was more scared that it might have failed, or that it might have worked.
There was a short pause—not more than two or three seconds. And then the phone in Madrox’s hand rang.
I let out a shuddering exhalation of relief, almost a laugh, but the action was too sharp, too fast—the sudden movement of my ribs made the pain in my side flare, bright and hot, so intense that for a moment I saw stars and thought that I might pass out.
“… you okay?” I heard, dimly, as though through water. There was a hissing in my ears.
“Yeah…” I managed, grinding the words out, trying not to give way to the huge wave of trembling sickness that was threatening to overwhelm me. “Stomach… ache.” It was kind of true—and at least that would give me an alibi if I puked. Madrox was looking at me with a mixture of concern, alarm, and suspicion, and I couldn’t blame him. In his shoes I would probably have suspected some kind of ruse too. I had to get this show back on the road.
“I’m okay,” I said, though I wasn’t, not in the least. I swallowed hard against the saliva pooling in my mouth and the bile threatening to force its way up my throat. None of that mattered now. I needed to get that phone off Madrox and get the code before anyone realized what had happened. “Honestly, I’m fine. Let’s do the transfer. What’s your Bitcoin wallet address?”