“Wha—” mumbled Desh.
“Wake up and tell me what the hell’s going on here?” demanded Griffin accusingly. “Why did I just wake up in the middle of my floor? What the hell are you doing here sleeping on my couch?” He delivered the lines convincingly, throwing himself smoothly into the role as Desh had hoped he would.
“Sorry,” said Desh, doing a good job of sounding groggy. “I stopped over a few hours ago and couldn’t get you awake. I fell asleep myself while I waited for you to sleep it off. I was exhausted.” He paused. “Still am for that matter.”
Desh went on to repeat the conversation they had had earlier when he had filled Griffin in on the night before. He then repeated the specifics of the assignment he wanted Griffin to work on, an extensive foray into Kira Miller’s past. “Look, Matt, I’m really sorry about this, but I still need to regenerate. Do you mind if I continue to sleep on your couch while you work?”
“Go ahead,” said Griffin.
“Thanks. Can you wake me in exactly two hours and give me a progress report?”
“Will do,” responded Griffin.
Desh gave the thumbs up signal to Griffin and then put his finger to his lips. He carefully returned the bugs to the soundproof container.
“Nicely done, Matt,” he said appreciatively.
With any luck anyone keeping tabs on them would relax for a while and decide that any satellite use for the next few hours would be a waste of resources.
Desh continued to visualize different scenarios that might arise and considered making a stop at his apartment for bulletproof vests, but quickly ruled this out. It would be risky and take too much time. Besides, the vests could only stop handgun fire and not rifle-fire. If the military were involved in this, even a small rogue element, they would assume he was wearing a vest and choose their weaponry accordingly. In this case the vests would be a disadvantage rather than an advantage. He enjoyed the Star Wars movies as much as the next guy, but had always seen Storm Troopers as the height of stupidity: their head-to-toe white body armor did nothing but slow them down and make their movements awkward while failing to protect them one iota from even the weakest blaster.
Desh removed the thick wad of hundreds from the case he had brought and held them out in front of his face to show Griffin. “An ample supply of cash can prove just as useful in certain emergency situations as a weapon can,” he said, and then shoved the bills into his front pants pocket.
Griffin raised his eyebrows. “And here all these years I was under the impression that carrying a huge amount of cash actually put you in greater danger, not less. Who knew?”
Desh grinned. “Do you have a cell phone on you?” he asked.
Griffin nodded.
“Leave it. I’m sure you know they can be used as homing beacons.”
Griffin pulled his phone from his pocket and set it on his desk. “Okay,” he said, nodding toward Desh. “What about your phone?”
“It’s a special design issued by my firm. It can’t be tracked. You can’t protect people effectively if their enemies can track you.”
Desh slipped out the door and scouted the area for ten minutes, until he was satisfied the coast was clear. Even so, they took separate exits from the building, keeping their heads down and walking as unobtrusively as possible.
Griffin retrieved his car, a blue Chrysler minivan, and met Desh two blocks from the apartment complex. Griffin slid over into the passenger seat. Desh jumped in, quickly adjusted the seat and mirrors, and drove off. The minivan hadn’t had a bath in some time and it was cluttered with empty water bottles, Starbucks containers, and even an empty pizza box.
Desh turned to Griffin and raised his eyebrows. “A minivan?” he said with a smile. “Interesting choice for a single guy like you, Matt. I hear these are real chick magnets.”
“You Special Forces sissies may need flashy sports cars to attract the fairer sex, but not us hackers,” responded Griffin with mock bravado. “Women find us irresistible. We get swarmed like rock stars.”
Desh laughed. “I see. So the minivan is actually a tactic to fend them off?”
“Exactly,” replied Griffin with a grin.
“Good choice, then.”
Griffin laughed. “Actually,” he said, “I use it to haul around scores of old computers, sometimes rebuilding and reselling them and sometimes cannibalizing parts.” He smiled slyly. “And as for women, I do very well for myself. And I really don’t need a fancy car. I meet and attract them all the old fashioned way.”
Desh gazed at Griffin quizzically.
“Online, of course,” he said in amusement.
Desh’s smile remained for several seconds. When it was finally gone, a grave expression replaced it. “All right, Matt,” he said. “It’s time to tell you what I know, incomplete as it is.”