by CD Reiss
“Gotta tell you, when I got to Stanford, it felt like I could get shot any minute. I didn’t know anyone. All new faces. It takes getting used to.”
“Did you feel like that at MIT?”
She’d been there a long time ago for less than a year. I mention it because I want her to know I have information, no matter how surface it is. It seems only fair.
“No. My head was up my ass. Anyway, I’m going to be honest now, since you just basically told me stuff I never told you, so you must have a file on me.”
“There are a lot of files on a lot of things.”
Whatever effect my admission is meant to have—mollifying her, distracting her, lying, because she doesn’t have a file—seems irrelevant to her.
“Keaton, the guy you questioned?”
I try to stay relaxed, but my skin tingles at the mention of his name. “Yes.”
“He needed heating lamps on the roof and a little round table last night. I needled him about it until he told me why.”
“Really?”
“Really. It was fun to watch him squirm.”
I can’t imagine Keaton Bridge squirming under Harper’s interrogation. She looks so young and defenseless as she sucks on her straw until she’s getting nothing but air and ice. She’s a kid, in a way, but not to be underestimated.
“So.” She places the glass to the side. “Here you are this afternoon, over twenty miles out of the way for cupcakes I don’t remember seeing on the belt. I figure you’re going to ask me a bunch of stuff and get around to Keaton at some point. I don’t know what it has to do with who’s getting shot or anything, but I don’t like people getting shot. Not even in Springfield.”
There are rules about what to tell civilians, and I follow them to the letter.
“You hacked into QI4 before it was released.” Common knowledge. Even the NY Times covered the hack and the revelation that a small-town girl had cracked the world’s first quantum system.
“Most fun exploit ever.” She smiles as her teeth bite the straw flat.
“So you’re a pretty advanced hacker.”
“If you say so.”
“As is Taylor Harden.”
“He’s the best.”
“And his partner.”
“You know I can’t say anything about that.”
I take the labyrinth coin from my pocket and lay it on the table. Her gaze locks on it as I push it toward her. “Do you have one of these?”
Our food comes. We ignore it.
“Where did you get this?” She doesn’t pick it up. She only touches the edge.
“I won’t lie. So I won’t tell you.”
I recognize something brash in her at the moment. Something show-offy and cocky. Something that makes her head sway with defiance as she takes out her phone.
“I can’t believe you guys don’t know about this.” She pokes her phone and points the camera at the coin as if taking a picture. “What do you do all day?”
“Look for crooks,” I say as she watches her phone spin. The first thing QI4 did was build cell towers, but the signal out here is still terrible and she probably has seven layers of VPN. “I’m trying to find out if Third Psyche was involved with the shooting.”
“Shit, no.” She puts her phone face down and regards me seriously. “Those guys are no good. They’re the devil.”
“I know.”
“I’m so glad you’re trying to get them, because seriously? That’s the kind of thing I can’t even look at or I’m going to lose it. Did you hear about the thing last Halloween? When they tried to do a coordinated attack against seven synagogues?”
“Yep. Then they moved servers.”
She slides her plate in front of her.
I take the coin back. “Do you mind?”
She picks up her phone instead of answering, holding the glass up to face me. It’s a picture of Keaton looking straight at me, and suddenly I’m surrounded by the smell of him and my ears are filled with the danger in his voice.
I glance at the list of names below.
4LPH4_W0LF
X7R3M3_157
D0XX_D3V1L
There were more, but she puts the phone down before I can note them all.
Still chewing, she digs her keys out of her bag. “I should ask where you got this, but obviously you stole it.”
I admit nothing. The waitress refills the drinks.
“What is it?”
“You guys.” She shakes her head and ribs me. “What do you do all day?”
“Clean our guns.”
She isolates a tiny charm on her keyring. The same coin with a different fingerprint. She points her phone at it. This time, the VPN connects immediately and her picture comes up, filling the screen where Keaton’s was. She hands me the phone. “Scroll.”
She eats her burger as I scroll through a list of avatars, IDs, height and weight stats.
“It’s a verification system,” I say. “A passport. And the swirls are like a QR code—if you have the software to read it.”
“Right.” She gently removes the phone from my hand. “Because hackers never really know who we’re talking to IRL… in real life.”
“I know what IRL means.”
“We could meet and you could say you’re anyone, unless you have one of these.”
“Why did you just show it to me?”
She smirks and takes a pull of her soda. “Keaton said if you came to me with a cert kwon, I should scan it.” She wipes her mouth. “You should have told me you were after Third Psyche right away. From now on, you tell me what you need and I’ll get it for you. I won’t try to romance you on the roof or kiss you in the parking lot…”
I nearly choke on my burger. Harper finds this delightful.
“Come on!” she cries. “Do you think Taylor’s not going to look at the security video to see why he needed a heat lamp and a pitcher of water, just so? Please. He’s known Keaton since he was fifteen, and he’s never seen him try so hard.”
I’m flattered. I’m honored.
I’m swooning, which is completely inappropriate and unprofessional.
I clear my throat to get back my bearings and take a bite of my lunch to buy time, because I don’t deserve that kind of effort. I’d never say it out loud, but I’m convinced of it. I’m a regular woman in a masculine job. Men don’t treat me like a queen. It’s disorienting and exciting.
“You all right?” she asks.
I’m all right. Better than all right. I’m high on never seen him try so hard.
“I’m concerned.” I sip my Coke. Swallow. I pause to feel my feet on the floor and my ass in the chair. Time to get over it. “Keaton alerted them to the fact that we were looking for them so they could ambush our guys.”
“Yeah, no.” She shakes her head so vigorously, her hair sways under her chin.
“He is Alpha Wolf.”
“Whatever. I’ll tell you something about Keaton that I know and Taylor would totally back me up. Keaton’s interested in money. Em-oh-en-ee-why. Long-term dollars. Nazis are losers. Short-term, risky cash that’s soaked in blood. I mean, the first thing he did was fuck credit card companies over Luhn’s formula.”
That’s a slip on her part. Not because the crack was a secret. Luhn’s formula is the reason you’re asked for the expiration date when you buy something with a credit card online or over the phone, and why giving the wrong one leads to a rejection. The formula’s used to checksum the credit card account number against the expiration date. If they don’t match, the card’s rejected, but if they do, the purchase sails through. Anyone who has the formula has the keys to a kingdom of wealth.
“Taylor Harden cracked Luhn’s,” I say, touching base with known fact before moving on to a new reality.
“They did it, and Taylor took the fall with you guys. Keaton didn’t even get to look a federal agent in the eye over it.” She wags her finger at me. “You’re counting in your head. Statute of limitations is up.”
Nailed
it. I was indeed counting the number of years since Taylor cracked Luhn’s.
Harper gathers a skein of French fries in her fingers and bites it in half, runs the raw ends through the last of her ketchup, and finishes them off.
“And then Alpha Wolf was born,” I say.
“Wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn’t.
“Taylor sent you to talk to me, didn’t he?” I ask.
“He said if I saw you, I should say ‘hi.’ But I’m here because I like the burgers and I like Keaton. I want to check you out. See if you’re trouble for him.”
“Am I?”
“Probably. Actually, definitely.”
“If he hasn’t done anything, he has nothing to worry about.”
She laughs as if I’m such a card she can’t help herself. “Oh, I didn’t mean like that. I mean he likes you and you like him. I can see it and I think it’s great, but it’s trouble. Every time. Especially for that guy. He’s allergic to commitment.”
“I’m not available for him.” My voice snaps as if I’m irritated by the notion that I’d be interested in a man who has to worry about statutes of limitation. Even though I do want him, very much so, and it’s that very real threat that he is lawless that piques my interest as much as never seen him try so hard.
“Crap,” she says, looking at her phone. “I have to go.” She slips her coat off the back of the chair. “Keaton’s a better guy than Taylor was, that’s for sure. And if you have to pretend you don’t want him, you go ahead. You do you.”
“I’m just doing my job.” I reach for my wallet even though we haven’t gotten the check yet.
“The bill’s taken care of.” She swings her coat behind her and gets her arms in the sleeves. “It was nice to meet you again.”
She bounces off, hair swinging across her back as she calls everyone in the place by name. I’m left staring at my half-eaten burger and wondering who Keaton Bridge really is, because with the cert kwon, I know more than ever, and less of what makes me truly curious.
Taylor’s never seen him try so hard.
* * *
“It’s a coin about the size of a dime.” I’m in the parking lot of the grocery and the restaurant, watching the edge of the sky go from orange to blue. “Heavy. Steel maybe? Check their personal effects and I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
Keaton’s cert kwon sits in my fist. I pretend I’m trying to decide whether to show them or not, but I decided before I even called Orlando. I’m going to tell them I know about them, not that I’ve seen one.
“Where did you get this intel?” Orlando asks.
“A good asset. A different one.”
“If we find one on these guys, it’s going to break this wide open.”
“I know.”
“Tell me what you think about the shooting.”
“I think my asset either sold us out or revealed himself.”
“There’s a lot happening between ‘either’ and ‘or,’ Agent Grinstead.”
“I don’t think they sold us out.”
He makes a weary sigh. “Who is your asset?”
I don’t have to tell him. Not unless I need money to pay him. The fact that I’m under no obligation to tell him does not remove the pressure to do so. I should tell him. He’ll keep it under wraps. That’s his job.
And if he doesn’t?
I’ve betrayed Keaton, and my guts twist at the idea. My reaction to revealing his name isn’t sensible. It’s not logical. It is not the result of a thoughtful calculation. My body doesn’t want me to say his name. I won’t be able to take it back.
“I trust him,” I answer by not answering.
“Is this person known to you personally? Or is this an online ID?”
“Personal.”
His lips are personal. His touch. The sound of his voice. They’re personal, and they’re mine.
“You better make sure you know exactly who they are. I don’t want you or this office to be distracted by inquiries into this asset. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“If you need to take some time to vet this person, take it. Come to me if you find out your trust was misplaced.”
“It wasn’t, sir.”
“Prove it to yourself, then prove it to me. I’ll get you Level 4 clearance to dig them up.”
“Thank you,” I say. “One more thing.”
“Speak.”
“I think the answer is online, in the white supremacist forums. And I think I might have gotten access.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But I need to work on it here. I don’t want to shirk my duties if you need me in Springfield, but I believe I can do more good here.”
“Agreed. Keep me updated.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Good work, Agent.”
We hang up. On the drive to the field office, I try to remember the last time Orlando told me I’d done good work and how I felt when he did.
The first time he told me I’d done good work was my first two weeks on the job, when I’d found messages inside the comments script of a website no one could prove was behind a money laundering scheme.
Frieda and I had a glass of champagne that night, and I beamed.
But not today. Has the excitement worn off? Or has something else happened? Because I’m happiest about Keaton’s trust. Not his approval, but his trust that even if I found out about the coin, I’d protect him.
I’m going to live up to it.
* * *
SUBJECT: Keaton Bridge
SEARCH TYPE: Level 4
Everyone is somewhere in the FBI database at Level 4. Having a stub isn’t a big deal. Having a file doesn’t mean as much as everyone thinks. Most of it is automated anyway.
But Keaton?
He doesn’t have shit. For a foreign national with part ownership in a soon-to-be huge company destined for government contracts, he has less than Joe from Petoskey.
I check Interpol.
Nothing.
I check our shared data with MI6.
It was a longshot to begin with, but nothing.
My blood gets cold. My mouth tastes like the inside of my stomach. Something isn’t right. I do a quick check for Taylor Harden, just to make sure the system’s even working.
—BeezleBoy363636 offers Luhn’s formula with bids starting at one million Bitcoin.
—BeezleBoy363636 tracked down to Camden, NJ.
—A bunch of redacted shit.
—Taylor Harden a.k.a. Beezleboy363636, a fifteen-year-old hacker with a nice family who likes to think they raised him better, flips in exchange for expunged records.
—Asset records filed in Delta show Taylor did three years of coding and hacking consultation before heading to MIT, which he quit with three credits left.
No mention of Keaton or Alpha Wolf. They lived in the same town. Went to the same school. I’m amazed at how little he’s actually told me in the time we’ve spent together.
Why is Keaton Bridge even in the United States?
Deeper isn’t the way to go. I need to search wider.
I set my VPN to London and do a broad search. I’ll take anything. A picture. A school. A birth announcement. He was born just as social media was, so I didn’t expect much from that, but what does come up surprises me.
—A Facebook profile with a picture of a handsome boy who looks exactly like the Keaton Bridge I know. Three posts. Fifteen friends from every corner of the UK. None with mutual friends outside the circle.
—His name and photo listed in London’s Dagenham School. No clubs. No interests. No quote. He’s facing slightly left. All the other students face right.
—A crystal-clear birth announcement in a small local paper.
I’m in the process of looking up William and Phyllis Bridge when Frieda pokes her head into my office.
“I’m on my way out to Springfield,” she says. “You’re not coming?”
&
nbsp; “Working Mr. Smirkypants.”
“Always on it.” She looks over my shoulder. “Is that his birth announcement?”
“Yeah.”
“Are his parents famous or something? Rich? Old money?” She leans farther, squinting at the screen. She sees what I see. Crisp digital lines from an analog age.
“Not that I can tell.”
“Kind of odd to have a birth announcement then,” she says.
“Yeah. Everything about him is kind of odd.”
“Sister?”
“It’s fine,” I say.
“You know how much I admire you.”
“Hush.”
“Don’t let him mess you up. Please. I want to call you my boss one day.”
Her faith in me has eclipsed my own for as long as I can remember. She’s my biggest fan, and even when I pat her hand to reassure her, I fear she’s headed for disappointment.
21
cassie
I’m exhausted when I get home. I feel like the cat not only dragged me in, but toyed with me for hours beforehand. I feel wrung out, hungry, tired. My jaw aches at the hinge from pounding at crossed t’s and dotted i’s, coming up empty, and starting over again.
I figure I’ll sit up with Nana for a few hours and do some puzzles. She’ll tell me I don’t need a man out one side of her mouth and talk about diamond rings with the other.
But I can’t take another conversation about men. Not with the fresh memory of Keaton’s fingers in me and the desperation in his voice when he said he was scared for me. My God, I must be tired—because not only am I ranting and raving to my grandmother in my head as I step in the door, but when I see Keaton next to her on the couch, I’m so suddenly awake that by contrast, I must have been near walking in my sleep.
He’s not the only one there, but he’s the only one I see. Molly’s there with her knitting. Fredo, who still has a head full of hair, silver though it is, has a glass of wine swirling. Carol sits next to the box wine, filling her glass. They’re all laughing like old friends, which they are. All except Keaton, who seems perfectly comfortable with the geriatric crowd.