My heart is pounding so hard I’m worried it’ll give out. “What? What do you want me to do?”
He makes a disappointed face. “And here I thought you were supposed to be clever.” He shakes his head. “You’re going to hack their servers and erase all the evidence you gave them. No evidence means no trial. No trial means no jail time for me or Lancaster or Linus.”
He’s nuts. Certifiably insane. Unfortunately, I don’t think pointing that out at this moment is going to do me any favors.
“And, if you do it all perfectly…” Birkin’s hand reaches out to stroke my face; I feel the side of the plastic needle pressing against my skin and tears of horror fill my eyes despite my best efforts. “…Then maybe I’ll let you go.”
I don’t dare to breathe with the tip of his needle so close to my eye socket.
“Oh, don’t cry, Zoe!” Laughing, he stumbles backward a few steps. “We’re going to fix everything.” He tilts his head. “Well… you’re going to fix everything.” His grin is manic. “Because, if you don’t, I’m going to kill you.”
I swallow hard.
Fuck.
* * *
Birkin tows me by my bound hands like a dog on a leash, leading me through the abandoned offices using his cellphone as a flashlight. The power was cut in this building a long, long time ago. We step over piles of trash and medical waste, around discarded particle-board furniture and past broken light fixtures.
“This used to be a nice place, you know,” he says conversationally. “I had a successful practice. A loving family. A good life.”
“What happened?” I ask quietly.
He goes silent.
“Drugs,” I guess.
He jolts to a stop and looks back at me with his unfocused eyes. His fist tightens on the needle in his hand. “You don’t know. You don’t know anything about it.”
I press my lips together. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
He nods and continues pulling me down the hallway. Eventually, we reach an office. There’s a crappy laptop sitting on the dust-covered desk. Birkin pushes me toward it with an angry shove.
“Fix it, little hacker girl.”
I stare from him to the laptop.
I couldn’t hack a Girl Scout Troop blog with that piece of crap.
Am I going to tell him that?
Hell to the no.
If I can get online, maybe I can somehow call for help.
“Can you unbind my hands?” I lift my chafed wrists, bloody from the zip-tie’s sharp edges. “I won’t be able to type like this.”
He stares at me flatly. “You’ll manage.”
Thinking it’s probably best not to argue with the crazy, needle-wielding drug addict, I nod and walk toward the chair, trying not to sway. My head still feels foggy from Steve’s punch; I wonder if I might have a concussion as I settle onto a creaky, springless chair.
“This is going to take a while,” I warn, trying to buy myself some time.
He leans back against the wall and glares at me. “You have an hour.”
It takes all my energy to keep my face from reacting. Even with a super-computer, I couldn’t hack the FBI in under an hour. His demands just show how out of touch with reality he’s become, addled by morphine and god only knows what else.
That actually works in my favor.
“Okay,” I say in what I hope is an agreeable tone. “I’ll do my best.”
He nods. “Don’t try anything stupid. I’m watching every keystroke. You try to call for help, I’ll kill you before they ever get here.” The look in his eyes tells me he means every word.
I take a deep breath.
So…
All I have to do is figure out a way to call for help while making it look like I’m hacking into a government agency on a computer so crappy, I’m surprised it’s able to piggyback off the weak WiFi signal Birkin’s iPhone is broadcasting, without alerting the drug-addled madman watching my every move.
Simple.
Right?
Mind reeling, I turn to the computer, prop my bleeding wrists against the edge of the dirty desk, and get to work.
* * *
“This is taking too long,” Birkin says for the tenth time.
He’s getting twitchier by the minute; either he’s coming down from his high, or he’s starting to get suspicious that I am not, in fact, halfway through my hack into the FBI’s secure servers, as I assured him five minutes ago.
“Almost done,” I say, fingers typing nonsense into the terminal window. I figure so long as it at least looks like something out of the movies — green code on a black background, lots of complex number sequences — he won’t know the difference. But if he’s coming down from his high…
He might start paying better attention.
He might realize I’m lying through my teeth.
He might jab that air-filled needle into my neck.
I blink back tears as my fingers move, trying to push the thoughts away. If I can just stall a little while longer, until they get here…
“How much longer?” Birkin appears at my side, looking sweaty and feverish. His pupils are slightly more dilated.
“I’m almost inside their network,” I assure him. “Should only be a few more minutes.”
Where the hell are they? Come on, come on, come on.