“Yeah?” I say, walking over. “We got it all?”
“Yep. A few more days of decrypting, you get your muck-raking dude up and mucking, and we proceed to my personal favorite phase of Tiny Girl’s Ultimate Plan for Revenge.” He cracks his knuckles ostentatiously. “Liquidating bank accounts! I’ve already picked out the bag I’m going to buy with my cut: a Louboutin clutch in vermilion patent leather. It’s the gayest thing I’ve ever seen, and my mother is going to have a fit and beg me not to wear it out of the house, but I will. I will wear it every day because I love it so, so, so much.”
“Uh-huh.”
He finally looks up at me. “Okay, what? Say something, Tina. You’re making me nervous.”
“Everything’s fine,” I say, and suddenly become very interested in a mosquito bite on the back of my arm. “Hey, have you ever heard of a security company called First Solutions? Michael thinks Mwika’s working for them in Congo. Can you see what you can dig up?”
“You know where he is?”
“Just that. But if we can find him, maybe I don’t need to wait on Michael to do it.”
Boyboy gives me a long look, then sighs. “Fine. I’ll add it to your tab. Come here, ingrate. I want to show you some things I found.”
“Good dirt on our bad man?” I ask, perking up.
“Oh yeah. Real good bad stuff. You know that other payment I showed you yesterday and how it didn’t actually incriminate him?”
“The one to the South African place for security advice?”
“Right, well, I found the key code.” Boyboy points at the screen, running a lavender nail along a line. “Here’s what he actually paid for: Security advice equals two tons light munitions. All of this below is the exact invoice list—a bunch of guns and stuff. Dude is one organized arms smuggler. He’s going down. No question.”
“Nice,” I say. “Can we link it to the militias yet?”
“Working on it. I still haven’t decrypted most of this stuff. I’m sure there’s something here, though, if everything else is this detailed.” Boyboy looks up at me. “Now is when you start doing happy backflips. Go on, let’s see them.”
“Sorry. Yay!” I make dazzle fingers.
Boyboy watches me for a second. “What’s up with you?”
I let my smile slide. “If you see any additional payments to Mwika, will you let me know?”
“Payments?”
“Like, beyond his salary. I think Mwika might have been more than just Greyhill’s head of security.”
“Sure, I’ll look.” He pauses. “Wait. What was the name of the company he works for?”
“First Solutions. Why?”
Boyboy goes rapid fire at the keyboard. “It’s in here. I know I’ve seen that name.”
I wait, tensed on the edge of my concrete block, while he searches.
“There,” he finally says. “I knew it sounded familiar. Two payments of thirty-five thousand US dollars.”
I hunch in, trying to see what he’s showing me. “To First Solutions?”
“Uh-huh, I think so. That’s what it looks like. Both within days of each other, two years ago.”
My mind races. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I mean, according to this.”
“Does it say where the payment went? Any way to find Mwika?”
Boyboy runs his finger along the lines on the screen. “Western Union. In Walikale Town.”
“That’s near Kasisi,” I say, my heart starting to thump.
“There’s a contact phone number. Maybe it’s Mwika’s.” Boyboy scribbles it off and hands it to me.
I stand up, staring at the little piece of paper. Mwika’s phone number. He’s in Walikale. Finally! Some answers! But . . . I pace toward the window. Mr. G sent him payments. Does that mean Mwika was working for him? Or was it hush money? I stop in my tracks, my stomach dropping. Maybe Mwika sold the video back to Mr. Greyhill again. In which case, I’m screwed. I’ve got nothing. If it showed Mr. G killing my mother, then the video is gone, obliterated.
“Did you find any video files in all that?” I ask Boyboy.
“Tina, come on. Don’t you think if I found your mom’s murder video I’d tell you?”
So it could be gone, or maybe Mr. G never bought it. I keep pacing.
“Hey, before you go back to being all pensive and uncommunicative, do you want to see the last thing I found?” Boyboy calls.
I circle back to look over his shoulder at the screen, my thoughts still a jumble. “The photo of my mom?”
“I checked it, after Mr. Greyhill was mooning over it last night. Just so I could mark it off the list, really. I wasn’t expecting to find anything. But look.” He clicks something and Mama and the girl fade, their faces replaced by what looks like a scanned sheet of notebook paper. It’s covered in hand-drawn tables and figures.
I lean closer. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I mean, the photo is a stego file, obviously.”
I roll my eyes. “Obviously. Meaning?”
“It has data concealed in the noisy bits.”