“So, what are you going to do?” he asked instead.
“Thinking about marrying him, to be honest,” she said but couldn’t meet Gibson’s eyes.
Marrying Sebastião Coval would mean parting ways, and Gibson could hear the guilt in her voice. It had no reason to be there as far as he was concerned. They all owed her, not the other way around, but Gibson thought that abandoning George might kill her. Thing was, though, staying with him might kill her another way.
Jenn stood. She’d reached her threshold for sharing. “Anyway, you’re definitely not invited.”
“That’s cool. I hate weddings.”
She looked down at him, her eyes shining like the shattered glass on the floor. “Gibson,” she began, then stopped. “Don’t get yourself killed trying to put things right.”
“I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
“I know, and I’m trying. I’m trying real hard. Just need to know you are too.”
“I can’t leave those kids like that,” he said.
“That’s not what I mean.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “A person shouldn’t be defined by their worst moment. I mean, who would that leave? Best we can do is learn from our mistakes, not kill ourselves over them. Penance is overrated.”
She squeezed his neck affectionately and left him alone with his thoughts. He sat there for more than an hour, staring out the window, thinking about penance. The penance he’d done, the penance he continued to do. Who it was for and whether any of it made a damn bit of difference. In all that time, not a car passed, and the night grew so still that Gibson swore he could feel the turning of the planet beneath him. A quiet hum filled his ears. He thought he’d drifted off and sat up straight to wake himself. The humming grew louder.
Outside the window, a drone descended on a cushion of air. It stopped at eye level and hung there. Gibson stared back neutrally and reached for the gun. The drone floated forward and landed on the windowsill where Jenn had sat. From inside the drone, an ominous click. Gibson flinched. The three bricks propping up his chair flinched too. It sent him sprawling onto the floor. From his back, he watched the drone lift off again. It hovered in the window a moment as if saying good-bye before buzzing away into the night.
Gibson climbed to his feet and brushed himself off. The fall had cost his chair a second leg, and he left it there amid the broken glass. His ankle, which hadn’t bothered him in hours, throbbed irritably. On the windowsill, a box sat where the drone had been. Gibson limped over and studied it. What did he think he was going to find? Up close, it still looked like a plain cardboard box. The unthreatening kind. He decided, spontaneously, to open it. If the aim had been to blow him up, he figured it would have cut to the chase by now.
Inside, he found a brand-new air card, a small device that provided a cellular connection to the internet when Wi-Fi was unavailable. Kind of like now. Interesting. Printed on a white index card was an http address and password. He opened his laptop and plugged in the air card to his USB port. On his screen, a window popped up, warning him explicitly not to connect this unknown device to the laptop. Gibson did it anyway. There was nothing on the laptop he cared about, and if this was some elaborate social-engineering hack to tempt him into a stupid mistake, well, then it was working.
The http address led to a blank page with a simple log-in box. He entered the password. A chat window appeared.
Dol5: This wasn’t part of our deal.
Vaughn: It’s not not part of our deal.
Dol5: Are you actively trying to get yourself killed?
Vaughn: It’s not my primary motivation.
Dol5: We’ve made a sizeable investment in you.
Vaughn: I solved your little puzzle box.
Dol5: And yet, no report.
Vaughn: I’ve got to take care of something first.
Dol5: Like I said, that was not part of the deal.
Vaughn: Neither were those kids. Do you know what’s going on in that warehouse?
Dol5: We’re aware.
Vaughn: If you’re that worried about my well-being, you could take care of it for me. You have the resources here to do it.
Dol5: Now that’s definitely not part of the deal.
Vaughn: I’ll give you the money back. Write the report for free. Just get those kids out of there.
Dol5: You’re a principled guy. I admire that.
Vaughn: And you’re not?
Dol5: I am. Different principles. We’re not getting involved with this sideshow.
Vaughn: So what now?
Dol5: Hypothetically—what would you say if we threatened to kill Jenn Charles unless you backed off?
Vaughn: I’d say send a lot of guys.
Dol5: Christ, you’re a pain in the ass, you know that? Have you really broken our hijack?
Vaughn: Try detonating. See what happens.
There was a pause. For several minutes, Gibson sat there waiting. He began to worry that he’d crossed some invisible line. Somehow, his new employers didn’t strike Gibson as the types who liked to be shown up. This despite the fact they’d hired him to do exactly that. Better not to stir the pot, no matter how much Gibson would enjoy letting Dol5 know exactly where he stood in the grand scheme of things.
Dol5: How did you do it?
Vaughn: It will be in my report.
Dol5: Which you haven’t written yet.
Vaughn: I’m working on it.
Dol5: If you get yourself killed, the deal’s off.
Vaughn: That’s okay, I don’t think they take euros in hell.
Dol5: If Baltasar catches you, don’t even think about trading us for your life.
Vaughn: What do I really know?
Dol5: We will nuke you from orbit just to be sure. Just saying.
There was a second pause, longer than the first, and Gibson came away with the impression that he was being discussed. Something about this guy rubbed him wrong, and he was glad they couldn’t see his face this time. As soon as he thought it, he realized what an absurd assumption that was to make. He was hiding in an abandoned house, and Dol5 had still managed to land a drone in his lap. Perhaps best to assume they had eyes on him, no matter what.
Dol5: I’m sending you two files.
Gibson clicked on the link and let the files download. One was a text file with hundreds of lines of code. The second was a PDF containing installation and configuration instructions for the code. Gibson scanned it. He had heard talk of this security vulnerability going back at least a decade. Plenty of time to address the problem. Theoretically. But vulnerabilities had a way of going unpatched until it cost someone money. To his knowledge, this exploit had never been used outside of the movies, so he wasn’t surprised that nothing had been done about it.
Vaughn: Is this for Baltasar Alves?
Dol5: Who else?
Vaughn: Does it actually work?
Dol5: If you install it correctly. The internet of things is a beautiful place.
Vaughn: I mean, has it been field tested?
Dol5: On an identical model. It works.
Vaughn: So why? I thought you weren’t getting involved.
Dol5: We’re not. Not directly. But we want that report. And since you’re too stubborn to walk away from Baltasar Alves, maybe this will help level the playing field.
Vaughn: You know what would really level the playing field? A weapons drop.
Dol5: LMFAO. This ain’t Call of Duty, Gibson.
Vaughn: Just thought I’d ask.
Dol5: You’re not what I thought you’d be.
Vaughn: I get that a lot.
Dol5: This is why they say never meet your heroes.
Vaughn: Get better heroes.
The chat window closed. Obviously, the hijacking hadn’t been a one-person job, but Gibson guessed that Dol5 was American, white, and male. His syntax and pop-culture references had an unmistakable ring to them. Gibson was thirty-one. If he had been Dol5’s hero, then the hacker was probably under twenty-five; peopl
e didn’t typically choose heroes who were their juniors. Hopefully this would be the last of their friendly little chats. Gibson really couldn’t stand the guy.
It was time to wake Hendricks, but Gibson didn’t think he could sleep now if he tried. Instead, he spent the next few hours studying Dol5’s malware backward and forward. Coding had never been his strongest suit, but he knew enough to recognize top-shelf work. It was a clean, impressive exploit.
Using the back door he’d installed in the servers at Fresco Mar Internacional, Gibson installed the malware. Baltasar’s estate had a secure connection to the servers, which meant Gibson now had a secure connection to Baltasar’s estate. Once installed, he would be able to execute the malware from his phone. He had no way to confirm that it would perform as advertised, but he was willing to trust Dol5 on this, at least. It was a Hail Mary anyway. If it came down to using it, he was probably as good as dead.
It was a little after five when Gibson finally closed his laptop. He stood and stretched. About time to wake everyone and get ready to meet the morning. George stood in the doorway, leaning on his cane.
“All quiet on the western front?” he asked.
“A car passed an hour ago. I decided not to sound general quarters.” He omitted the drone, although he couldn’t say why.
“Did you take the whole watch?” George asked.
“People needed to sleep.”
“So did you. We need sharp minds, not martyrs, today.”
“I appreciate what you said in the church.”
“It has to be done,” George said.
“Just can’t believe that, in the twenty-first century, we haven’t evolved beyond slavery.”
“That’s not what evolution is,” George said.
“You don’t think?”
“No. I don’t know when ‘evolved’ became synonymous with better. Probably some self-help guru thought it sounded good in the seventies. When a species adapts to survive in its environment, that’s evolution. That’s all it is. We’re not evolving into something better, more enlightened. Or worse. We evolve to survive. Nothing more. And survival is amoral. It is not an enlightened state.”
“That’s pretty cynical.”
“Only because you’re a righteous man, Gibson.”
“Thank you, I guess.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“Ah,” Gibson said.
“It wasn’t an insult either. Simply the reality of who you are—an idealist in an unideal world. It makes you dangerous. To us as well as them.”
“There was also a drone,” Gibson blurted out, much to his own surprise. He figured that he’d fought so hard to make them a team again that the least he could do was to start acting like it. But Jenn was right; it was hard to break old habits.
“A drone?”
“It landed right there.” He pointed to the windowsill.
“I see,” George said. “What did it want?”
“It came bearing gifts from Dol5.”
“A little early for Christmas,” George said. “I hope it didn’t bring lumps of coal.”
“Only for Baltasar Alves. I may have our plan B.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
After the little shoot-out at the traffic circle, the Americans had vanished from the face of the earth. Despite his best efforts, Fernando had been unable to sway his father or prevent him from agreeing to a meeting with George Abe. Even more confounding, Fernando still had no idea what Abe intended to say. His best guess was that the Americans meant to trade what they had found at Fresco Mar Internacional for a payday.
Fernando had driven Sebastião’s Audi across the Algarve like a maniac. He couldn’t quite talk himself out of the notion that Jenn had involved Sebastião somehow. If so, his house would make an ideal place for the Americans to lie low. It was the best lead he had, and anything was better than sitting idly by while the clock ran out on him.
He checked his phone. Anibal was with Baltasar and would let him know if there were any developments. Fernando was still hoping for good news from the Romanians, but Quarteira had gone dark shortly after Baltasar had given Luisa the green light. All he could do was cross his fingers and hope the Romanians lived up to their reputations.
Fernando parked in front of Sebastião’s house and killed the engine. Inside, all the lights blazed. Not unusual for Sebastião, even at this hour, but it didn’t put Fernando’s mind at ease. He slipped the gun into the hollow of his back the way he’d seen his father’s men do. It felt uncomfortable there. He took it out again, checked the safety a third time, and slid it back in place. He liked his ass too much to shoot it off.
The front door was unlocked, the house silent. He didn’t like it but resisted the urge to draw his gun. Better to come in peace. For now. He would know the score when he saw Sebastião. His friend had never been a good liar in person and had always proven a bit gullible. It had provided Fernando endless entertainment when they were children. If Sebastião was truly heartbroken, as he’d sounded on the phone, he would be drowning his sorrows, lost in a forest of empty champagne bottles.
Like many kids who had grown up achingly poor before making something of themselves, Sebastião spent money not out of need but to reassure himself that he had escaped. Fernando remembered the exact moment when Sebastião’s obsession with champagne had begun. Fernando had been fifteen, Sebastião fourteen, and Baltasar had thrown a lavish wedding at his home for a beloved cousin. The happy couple had been married on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. An octet of musicians played in the background. Ninety-nine doves released when they were pronounced husband and wife. Fernando had thought it was the tackiest thing he’d ever seen. Sebastião, who had been invited as Fernando’s guest, had been entranced.
At the reception, Baltasar had given a toast, champagne poured specially for the occasion. No ordinary champagne would do, of course: the newlyweds were toasted with Dom Pérignon 2004 rosé. Fernando did the math later and estimated that the toast alone had cost twenty thousand. Even the children were permitted a small glass. It had made quite an impression on teenage Sebastião Coval. Years later, when he signed his first big contract, Sebastião had celebrated with the same Dom Pérignon 2004 rosé. Fernando’s only surprise was that no doves had exploded out of the cake. After that, Dom had become Sebastião’s signature drink. His bar tabs routinely ran into the thousands of euros. Fernando should know—Sebastião was one of his best customers.
Fernando found Sebastião alone by the pool, not a champagne bottle in sight. He looked dressed for a night out on the town, and in the moonlight, his hair shone like a brilliant black wave. It was after two a.m., but he had showered and shaved recently. Fernando had taught him that trick. Nothing better than a postmidnight shower to revive a flagging soul and give it a new lease on the evening. Although it didn’t look as though partying was in the cards. So, what was he doing? Why were a cup of coffee and two large bottles of water his only companions?
Fernando decided to play the concerned friend, but the weight of the gun against his back felt reassuring. “What are you doing out here all alone? This is a tragic scene.”
Sebastião turned around and grinned half a smile, the other corner of his mouth tumbling away like a lonely invalid down a flight of stairs. Fernando felt himself relax—it was no act. What could make a man look that way? Jenn Charles was a beautiful woman, no doubt, but beautiful women were nothing new to Sebastião. She must be spectacular in bed to put such an expression on his friend’s face. That was the only reasonable explanation. Although Fernando knew better than to put it in those terms. At least not while his friend was in such a sensitive state.
“I’m waiting for her,” Sebastião said.
“Is she coming back?” Fernando asked, hope rising.
Sebastião smiled his crooked smile again. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
“I prefer it when women wait for me,” Fernando said.
“I asked her to marry me.”
Fernando mo
stly hid his surprise. “Did you mean it?”
“I did.”
“And you’re still hoping she comes back?” Fernando said, unable to resist needling him.
Sebastião ignored it and changed the subject. “How are things with you? What’s it like to almost die?”
“It makes you question your priorities,” Fernando said. “But it passes.”
Sebastião laughed. “It would take more than a brush with death for Fernando Alves to change his ways.”
“I drink in the face of death,” Fernando said with mock bravado.
“Has Baltasar dealt with the trouble?”
“No, not yet.”
In that moment, Fernando decided Sebastião would be coming with him. Assuming Jenn Charles felt something similar, this simpering Romeo would be useful leverage. His first instinct was to draw the gun and make Sebastião his prisoner. But how much simpler it would be if the prisoner didn’t know he was one.
Fernando struck a worried expression. “That’s why I’m here, I’m afraid.”
“What’s going on?”
“We found your car abandoned in Alcantarilha. I brought it back for you.”
“Alcantarilha?” Sebastião stood up. “Where is Jenn now?”
“We don’t know. I was hoping you might have some idea.”
Sebastião fumbled for his phone and dialed Jenn. The call went straight to voice mail, as Fernando expected it would. The Americans’ phones had all been off since setting the meeting. Sebastião hung up and looked accusingly at Fernando.
“What did you get Jenn involved with?”
“Me?” Fernando protested. “That was Baltasar.”
“Your father, Fernando. Your father. He ordered them out of Portugal.”
“Yes, and they didn’t go. My father is very angry.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” Sebastião asked.
“I just have to find them.” Fernando turned to leave. “Let me know if you hear from her.”
He made it ten paces before Sebastião stopped him.
“Wait,” Sebastião said. “I’m coming with you.”
Fernando suppressed a smile before turning back. “Good, because I need to borrow your car.”
Debris Line (Gibson Vaughn) Page 20