Time Bomb_On The Run Romance

by Madi Le

  Misty kept moving, slowly but surely.

  "I think they're working together," Grant said softly as they pulled onto a country road. He figured that a few miles down the road, they would rejoin the interstate. He just wasn't about to ask, for fear that he ended up looking downright stupid.

  "Who's that?"

  "The cops and the bad guys."

  "The cops are the bad guys," Misty said.

  Grant knew in his gut that she didn't mean anything by it. He tried to tell himself so that he believed it. It almost worked, in its way. Misty read the expression on his face, and her own expression soured to match it. He let a breath out through his nose and tried not to feel as irritated as he was.

  "The hackers," he said.

  "Hackers, huh?"

  "I told you about them," Grant suggested.

  "Right," Misty agreed, with a voice that said that she didn't believe it, but wasn't willing to argue the point. Grant didn't bother to fight her on it. He had other things on his mind that were a little more pressing than whether or not she believed he'd already gone over everything.

  So he gave her the short version of it again. Misty nodded as she listened, though he had no doubt that if he brought it all up again, with the listening that she had just done, she was going to be telling him a second time that she'd never heard anything about it.

  "My point is this. We're fighting two fronts. We've got the government, with all their powers, and all their tools, on one side."

  "Sure," Misty said. This had already occurred to her, he knew.

  "And on the other side we've got these kids. Guerrilla tactics. We're trying to protect ourselves on all sides, and it's not going to work."

  "No," she agreed.

  "So we need to take somebody out. To give us a fighting chance."

  She looked over at him, then, and for the first time she seemed to be thinking seriously about the question of how they could get out of the situation they'd found themselves in.

  "Sure," she said quietly. "But how are we going to do that?"

  "You know about computers," Grant said. He let the comment hang in the air, hoping that she would get what he meant without needing it explained in detail. He wasn't sure that he could count on it. The silence suggested that maybe he needed to spell the whole thing out, in the hopes that it would turn into a dialogue rather than spouting his ideas with no feedback.

  "I don't know how to deal with these guys. I've been floundering for weeks on this thing, and it just keeps getting worse. I saw you the other night. You know what you're doing."

  "What's your point?"

  "You think you can hit them where they live?"

  Misty let out a breath, rocked her head from side to side. "I mean, I think I can try."

  Grant's expression soured.

  "Okay," he said, feeling very much like he was being forced to swallow an entire, living frog. "So what do you need?"

  It was never as simple as it seemed like it would be, and there was never an easy answer that made everything so much better. That was a given; it was how life worked in the world, and there was nothing unexpected nor unusual about it. What he didn't like was the look in Misty's eyes. The look that said that what she really needed in 'a computer' wasn't something that they could get for a couple dollars used at a pawn shop, or something they could use in the library.

  Not, of course, that they could afford to stop in at the local library to use their computers, even if it would be adequate. It would be tantamount to telling the police to come and arrest them, and they had already taken enough risks in the past week.

  She started to talk about computer specs like she knew what she was saying, and Grant started to think about how much money that was all going to cost. How little they had, at this point, to spend. The two weren't going to meet; the cost was going to skyrocket a thousand times higher than their ability to pay for it. But the issue remained, even still. His lips pressed together sourly.

  "Yeah, okay. I get it."

  "What's that supposed to mean? You don't want to do it any more?"

  "No," Grant said. He hated to do it. Hated it. "I have one idea. There's a guy I know."

  "And he's… what?"

  "He sells that sort of stuff. He's an informant, sort of."

  "What do you mean 'informant'? What do you mean, 'sort of'?"

  "I mean that he's involved with the hacking kids, and I managed to catch his name in some digging. So far, he's been cagey, but I've been thinking that if we let him off of some charges, give him immunity where we can, then we could get him to talk."

  Misty didn't ask what he was implying by that. It was obvious on the face of it. Grant's jaw kept tightening so much that it hurt. Then he would have to force himself to relax. Trying not to think about it was the best way, but he had to think about it.

  "Does that mean we need to go back?"

  "No," Grant answered. "At the very least, we don't have to do that."

  "How were you going to offer him immunity, then?"

  "He was aiding and abetting known felons, Misty; he doesn't necessarily have to be living in the county for me to come after him."

  "No," she agreed finally. "I suppose he doesn't."

  Grant gave directions, but the important thing was getting everything set up in advance. There was no way that they were going to be able to go in without a prelude. It was something, at least. He let out a long, low, frustrated breath, and made a call. The phone picked up on the third ring.

  "R.T.C. P.C. Repairs, this is Jason."

  "Jason Wright?"

  "That's me," the voice said.

  Grant had heard his voice before, but only in private conversations. The sound of his voice, professional and friendly, was almost sinister in its tone, because it implied something that Grant had always known and had never been a big fan of: the fact that it was impossible to tell a criminal apart from anyone else, unless you caught them committing a crime.

  "I'm Sheriff Grant Morrison, with the Franklin County Sheriff's Department."

  The other line was silent for a moment before Jason managed to catch himself. "Is there a problem, Officer?"

  "There is," Grant said.

  "What is this call regarding?"

  "Are you busy?"

  "I don't understand why you're asking."

  "I know about your... extracurricular activities, Mr. Wright. And while you may not be concerned about a Sheriff's department in Idaho, I'd be willing to bet that you're doing enough that if I put some Feds on you, they'd be on you like white on rice."

  There was another moment of silence. Grant guessed that he was collecting himself. It never sounded good when you denied charges with a trembling lower lip.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, in a voice that would have failed to convince anyone.

  "I'm prepared to make all that go away, though."

  "How is that?"

  "I need computer access."

  "Computer access?"

  "Access. To a computer."

  "I don't understand."

  "I didn't ask you to understand, I asked you to let me use a computer."

  Grant pointed at an exit, a quarter-mile up the road. Misty pulled over into the right-hand lane, and then smoothly pulled off of the interstate and onto the surface street, not asking which way to go from there. She pulled off and meandered down neighborhood roads.

  "Alright," Jason answered finally. "That's not such a high price to pay, I guess. You know where the place is?"

  "I've got a pretty good idea."

  "Alright, then. And when you're done, you're done. You leave me be, and you don't come back around later trying to claim that you get to give me more shit later. Fair?"

  "Completely fair."

  Grant hung up the phone and started giving directions. Twenty minutes later, they were sitting outside of a P.C. repair shop that looked almost respectable. There weren't many around, but if he'd passed this one on the street he might not have giv
en it a second glance.

  "You know what you're doing?"

  "Don't worry about what I'm doing," Misty answered.

  Grant let out a breath. "Alright, then. We'll get going."

  They went inside, and Grant put on his best sour expression. The guy in back was taller than he'd looked in the photos that Grant had seen, and the two men had never before stood face to face. It made his thin arms look even thinner. He was a slender guy, and might have been handsome if it weren't for the pallor of his skin.

  Then again, he probably wasn't dealing with someone threatening to burn down his entire life under normal circumstances.

  "Look, you can use the computer I've got back here, but I don't want any trouble, okay guy? Just do your thing and get out."

  For a moment, every cell in Grant's body wanted to give the guy a piece of his mind. The moment didn't last long before he realized that there was nothing he could do but get himself into even worse trouble. "Of course," he said finally.

  He turned back to Misty. She had already started working, not bothering to deal with the posturing or questioning. There was something pleasant in that. Something that Grant liked. He watched her work, the way that people might watch a mechanic work.

  She looked at home doing this. More comfortable with it than she had with anything else that they'd been doing for the past two days.

  Half an hour later, she pulled all her stuff off the table, disconnected a couple of wires, and stood up. Her expression was serious.

  "We should go now. Talk on the road."

  Sixteen ♥

  *

  "How about you drive?"

  Misty's brain hurt; it always did, when she had to work too hard at something. She felt like she was always reaching for information that wasn't there, to get names and dates. To remember where she'd learned something.

  The information just wasn't there, and looking for it was a waste of time on the face of it. But it was worse than that; she had to be constantly dealing with the headaches. Under normal circumstances she almost managed to forget that there was anything to remember. She could go through her day and just try to feel natural about everything.

  There was nothing natural about her understanding of computers and networks. Someone had spent months or years teaching it to her, and she had learned a lot. Now she remembered the majority; the trouble was that those years were long-since gone, and everything that she knew how to do was linked in with sensations and experiences that she had no access to at all.

  They started driving, and Misty rubbed her head.

  "Which way?"

  "Whatever way you want to go. Just drive. You want to be out of here before the cops show up."

  "Cops?"

  "I'll tell you all about it when my head stops pounding," Misty answered. She knew that she sounded sullen, and there wasn't a whole lot that she could do ab out it at that point. The best that she could try to do to keep up was to fix her headache and let herself breathe a little bit before everything started trying to mess her up again. It wasn't exactly high hopes, but it was what she could manage.

  They drove until they hit the interstate again, Grant drove up a few miles, and broke the silence in a voice that was soft enough that no librarian in the world would complain about it; to Misty, it sounded like he was shouting.

  "You hungry?"

  "Starving," she admitted. They pulled off, ran through a drive-through window and had themselves a bag full of greasy breakfast food that was probably as sure to kill them as getting caught would, albeit slower. They didn't exactly have time for the gourmet treatment, though, regardless of what Misty might have liked. She let out a breath as they pulled in to a parking spot. Grant left the car running; Misty had her doubts that he'd be able to get it started again without her help.

  She pulled hard on the straw. Soda hit her tongue, and then went down her throat, and at the end of it she almost felt like a human being again.

  "Okay," she said finally. "So."

  "So?"

  "Let's talk."

  "You sure that you're ready? I don't want to cause any trouble."

  "We've got names."

  She waited a moment; Grant's expression was enough to make the whole experience almost worthwhile. When she finally got rid of her headache, that would be a positive memory.

  "Okay?"

  "We've got plenty of names. Clients. Your friend was good at keeping records. Too good. A little cross-referencing between that and my phone's call logs, and then throw in a little bit of searching on the web for any information on known associates…"

  "You get all that on the internet? Must be using a different internet than me," Grant said.

  "Not really. I just know where to look."

  She took another bite, and let the taste and the nutrients and more than anything the sugar take effect, dulling the pain in her head. She hoped it would be enough, but she knew that it was a fleeting thing.

  "That's great. Now we can just call it in."

  "Call it in to whom?"

  Grant's expression, which had been like a kid in a candy shop, or someone who'd won the lottery, dropped. Misty almost felt bad.

  "Yeah. I guess you're right. Call it in to whom?"

  She let out a long, low breath. "Yeah."

  "Well… hm." Grant gripped the wheel tight with one hand, even though they were stopped. Like at any moment he might have to jerk the wheel hard to the right to avoid the tree in front of them, if it made any crazy moves. "I mean, there's got to be something going on, right?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Your, uh… friends. The whole of law enforcement isn't trying to murder you."

  Misty watched him and waited for an explanation. Right now it didn't sound like he was going someplace that she wanted to follow, but she was willing to listen, at least. "Aren't they? Then why bother running? We can just get ourselves both arrested, and go to trial. I'm sure everything will be fine; after all, you said it would, right?"

  "Very cute, miss smart-ass. I'm just saying, you're supposed to be a wanted criminal, but those charges won't stand up. Most guys are going to want you based on that, but if we can prove you're innocent, that you were set up by your corrupt bosses…"

  Misty chewed her lip. There was a lot she didn't know about her history; what she knew was enough to know that she didn't want to know any more if she could help it. She let out a long, low breath and shrugged.

  "What's your point?"

  "My point is, we can go over their heads. Find the guys who are responsible for the guys who are responsible for what's happening to you, and we go to them. Tell them that we want to get all of this sorted out, and talk to them. I'm sure that they'll make all of this go away, right?"

  Misty's face was a studied, careful neutrality. If he wanted to try, well, she didn't have any better ideas, and they had a full day before they could get out of the country, bare minimum.

  "Are you sure you want to risk getting in touch with them? It could come crashing down, you know."

  "I know," Grant said. "But I can't let that affect my decision. There's always going to be risks, but I have to make the right decisions for the situation. To try to find the simplest path. And right now, it seems like the simplest thing to do is to eliminate two birds with one stone."

  "Two birds? It sounded like you were planning on trying to reason with them."

  "That's the long-term plan, sure. But how do I get in the door?"

  Misty took another slug of soda. It tasted like sugar, but that was precisely what she wanted right then. "I don't know, you call them?"

  "And then what? They're not going to let me just talk to their supervisor's supervisor's supervisor without knowing that the whole thing isn't some wild goose chase or prank call." He let out a breath. "No, I'm going to tell them that I have information, and I'm not willing to divulge it to anyone who I don't know can do something about it. So I need someone with the authority to call up the branch office and send someone down, right
now. Right?"

  Misty waited for him to finish.

  "So when I call them, I tell them I've got information. And of course, I do. Then, they connect me through, and what do I tell them about?"

  "The names?"

  "Precisely."

  Misty looked at him and tried to decide if the idea was stupid or brilliant. That it wasn't going to work, she was pretty sure she knew. But it was at least worth the effort of trying, and it was better than no plan at all, which was what they had now.

  "What about the yacht?"

  "We'll move west the whole time," Grant assured her. "But if we get caught along the way, I'd rather not have to worry about some government hit squad coming down on us because of expired tabs on a stolen car."

  The way he put it, the whole thing almost sounded reasonable.

  The plan was never going to work. Misty knew that. It was something that she had expected. She let out a breath and closed her eyes. She couldn't keep looking at the frustration that played out on Grant's face plainly.

  Misty opened her mouth; there was a lot that needed saying, and she knew the words. She shut them again. She knew how she would have felt if someone tried to cheer her up about her situation; Grant was new to it. He was getting the worst parts of it, and no matter how many people were with you there was something about being trapped in between the devil and the deep blue sea that felt discouraging no matter what you did. So she gave him space.

  "I've got an idea," she said finally.

  "Oh yeah?"

  "I'm not in love with it, but it's an idea, and that's better than we've been able to do."

  Grant threw the phone over his shoulder in annoyance. It thumped off the back seat cushions. "Sure, I'm listening."

  "We can't get the FBI to fix this, and we can't go at them directly."

  "Nope," Grant agreed, with a voice that told Misty exactly how helpful that he thought her input had been so far. She wasn't in a position to do much disagreeing with his assessment. She wasn't helping anyone at this point. But that was going to change.

  "But you said it yourself. You've got the FBI who can beat us in a straight fight, and we've got your hacker friends coming after us using this guerrilla stuff."