“You hobos need a ride?”
Meeting Lewis yesterday was interesting. He had a presence much larger than his physical body. In his black jeans, crisp white shirt, and black raincoat, he reminded her of nothing more than a sleek dark muscle car with the engine idling and the clutch engaged, all controlled combustion just waiting to be released. She should have been scared of him, but she liked him. He made her feel safe. That probably should have scared her, too.
“Your Cadillac got an outlet for my laptop?” she asked him, climbing into the back seat. “My battery’s about dead.”
“Hand me the plug,” Lewis said, reaching back. “I’ll take care of you.” He had the assault rifle barrel-down in the footwell, the stock rising up along his door. She felt her pulse picking up speed. Maybe she didn’t need another cup of coffee after all.
Peter threw the pack into the cargo bay and closed the hatch. Now he hopped into the front passenger seat and dropped the bag of trail mix onto the center console. “Breakfast?”
Lewis gave him an amused look. “I already ate. Salmon omelet, hash browns, two sides of bacon, and a quad mocha with extra whip.”
“Jeez, I knew I should have stayed with you,” June told him. “All I got was a lousy banana. Okay, go straight out of this parking lot. You’ll follow the arterial left, then right again.”
Lewis put the Escalade in gear. To Peter, he said, “Weapons on the floor, wrapped in the towel.” Over his shoulder to June, he asked, “Learn anything new?”
In the car the night before, she’d told Lewis how her mother’s algorithm had ransacked Nicolet’s firm’s servers and found a contract with a company called Citadel Security, signed by Charles Dawes IV, for negotiating the purchase of unnamed intellectual property from unnamed owners. It was the lack of detail in a legal document that made her suspicious. Then Tyg3r had found a report from Nicolet to Citadel that noted four unsuccessful negotiation attempts. The dates of the attempts lined up with the dates of Nicolet’s emails to June’s mom.
“You just wandered into a law firm’s internal network and started reading documents?” Lewis had asked, incredulous. “That’s like strolling into Fort Knox and slipping gold bars in your pockets.”
“There’s more,” June had said. “Last month, my mom tried to use Tyg3r to do the same thing, but failed. The algorithm is learning. Quickly.”
Now she said, “I looked at Citadel overnight. A corporate security firm, only six years old, but becoming a player very quickly. It specializes in defending companies against corporate espionage, both virtual and real.” She poked her arm forward, pointing. “Stay to the right here, then down the hill and across the bridge.”
“Which means they’re probably also working the other side of the fence,” said Peter. “Defending companies, but spying for them, too.”
“Did you get into their servers, too?”
“For about five minutes,” she said. “Not long enough to learn anything. Then I lost the connection. Either they kicked me out or expanded the air gap.”
“An air gap,” Lewis informed Peter, “is when sensitive information is kept disconnected from the Web, to prevent hacking.”
“What, you think I don’t know that?”
Lewis snorted and turned back to June. “What else you got?”
“Citadel is privately held,” she said, “so they don’t have to disclose anything. Tyg3r did get me into the state tax website, which only lists twelve employees. It’s a subsidiary of a holding company based in Belize.”
“And the shooters work for a different company called SafeSecure,” said Peter. “Owned by another holding company. Also based in Belize.”
“The iceberg strategy,” said Lewis. “Mostly invisible, hiding below the surface.”
“Exactly,” said June. “SafeSecure has sixteen employees.”
“Now down to eight,” said Lewis. “At least in theory.”
“Plus subcontractors,” said Peter.
“Shee-it,” said Lewis. “I ain’t afraida no subcontractors.”
The bridge was clogged with commuters. Approaching Fifteenth Avenue, they crossed over the railyard and passed the Interbay soccer fields. “Left here and merge,” she said. “Then your first right.”
“Who laid out these roads?” asked Lewis. “This city is like spaghetti.”
“Not if you know where you’re going,” said June. “It’s all about the shortcuts. That’s the ship canal on your left.” Now they were on Nickerson by the Fremont Cut, the funky old neighborhood on the other side rapidly converting to blocky new condos and office buildings, Seattle’s software wealth doing development on steroids.