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  As the car drove off through the diminishing rain, Heat asked, “You think they’ll be back?”

  “No, they’re done for now. But I’d watch my back if I were you.” Max had no idea whom they might be working for, yet he got the impression they weren’t from any of the government’s three-letter agencies. Though in this town you never know. “And now that I’ve saved your ass, you want to tell me why you’re here?”

  “Fair enough. I’m researching a story about a hunting club for billionaires and political elites.”

  “Funny.”

  “True, actually.”

  “Sounds like bullshit to me. But what does that have to do with Josh Pierce?”

  “He contacted me about a month ago, said he was interested in exposing the corporation he’s working for. He claimed they’re doing illegal biogenetics research, possibly toward the goal of human cloning. I haven’t heard from him in about ten days, so I figured I’d stop by and see what I could dig up.”

  That grabbed Max’s attention. Looks like the senator has good reason to worry. He thought it over a moment before speaking. “You just said you were here investigating some hunting club for billionaires. For one, hunting isn’t very controversial. And two, what does it have to do with illegal genetic research?”

  She gave him an enigmatic, almost patronizing look. “One and one don’t always make two, Max. Sometimes they add up to one and the same.”

  “So the hunting club and the genetics lab are the same operation?”

  “I don’t know for sure yet, but I’m thinking so.”

  “Where is it?”

  She chuckled. “Oh no, Max. It’s not that easy. The first hit’s always free.”

  “Then how much do you want? Hundred grand sound good?”

  “Oh, it sounds great!” The smile fell from her face as quickly as it appeared. “But I’m not for sale. If you want to deal with me, you’ll do it on my terms.”

  “Which are?”

  “We’re both looking for Josh, so we search together. Where you go, I go.”

  “That’s landed more than a few people in a coffin.”

  “Don’t care. I have a job to do. Besides, I could apparently use the muscle. Do we have a deal?”

  Don’t. She’s a liability you don’t need, not to mention a distraction. Unfortunately, he didn’t think he had a choice but to accept since she seemed to have all the leads. “You should quit searching for him right now. Let me go it alone, and I’ll deliver him to you when I find him.”

  “Nice try, but you don’t know where to begin looking.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you do, either.”

  “I know more than you think. I know about your little outing in Alaska, for example.”

  This again? He was so damn tired of hearing about Alaska. “It’s not exactly broadcast news anymore.”

  “Never was. And you’re lucky I never looked into it, or it would be.”

  “I don’t give a damn if it is.” A true statement and it gave him an idea. “So how about this: I give you an exclusive, no-bullshit account of the whole Alaska ordeal when I’m finished. All you have to do is stay home.”

  “Hmm, tempting. But no. We’re doing this, either working together or against each other. Choice is yours.”

  “Okay, fine. But you’re likely to regret it. Now, what do you make of that guy’s tattoo? Is he some sort of secret society goon?”

  “I’d say so, likely Illuminati. The eye is easily recognizable, the owl not so much, but both have been used in their symbology. Though I don’t think they’ve ever been combined. I’ll be looking into it more.”

  Max suspected as much. “Have you searched upstairs yet?”

  “I haven’t. Lead the way and we’ll get started.”

  Max led Heat upstairs to search three bedrooms and one bath. To no one’s surprise, the upper story likewise lay in ruin. Josh’s bedroom and a spare bedroom revealed nothing special. The smallest bedroom, which served as an office, had been torn apart most thoroughly.

  “Oh, fuck,” Heat said upon viewing the room.

  “Something amiss, other than everything?”

  She stepped over a smashed bookcase to a broken flat-screen monitor that lay atop a severely dented desktop computer tower, some of its broken internal components visible from the side. “Maybe it’s salvageable.”

  “I’m guessing they downloaded everything before they destroyed it, provided they broke the password.”

  “And I’ll bet you they won’t find anything, because they don’t know what to look for.”

  And I take it you do? He didn’t bother voicing the question. As he’d told both Marklin and the senator, he was not a detective. But I’ve got one on staff now. And I don’t even have to pay her.

  “So how are you gonna get answers out of a busted computer?” Max asked.

  She hefted the tower under one arm. “I have a friend who might be able to fix it.”

  “Gotcha. Let’s get going then.”

  She nodded and stepped to the door. “After me. I’m parked on the next block, a quick walk through the neighbor’s yard.”

  “Not worried about being spotted?”

  She shrugged. “He works at the Pentagon, won’t be home until after five sometime. Same with his wife.”

  Heat obviously knew her shit and how to dig up more of the same, so Max wasn’t going to argue. His apprehension at partnering with her dissipated somewhat. She might just be the break I need...

  ***

  “Your friend must live close to my hotel,” Max remarked as they drove through downtown.

  “Nowhere near it, actually,” Heat said as she darted through traffic in her battered Toyota Yaris. The cracked windshield looked as if someone had taken a brick to it. Max assumed that freedom of the press had something to do with it.

  “I’m dropping you off,” Heat continued, “then I’m taking Josh’s computer and the thug’s cell phone to be hacked. I’ll be back for you tomorrow morning at nine. He should have them ready by then.”

  “Okay. It’s still pretty early though. What are you doing for dinner?”

  “Eating. You?”

  Max shook his head. “No wonder you’re a spinster.”

  She laughed. “And damn likely to stay one.”

  “With that attitude you can count on it.”

  “Save your ham-fisted come-ons, Ahlgren. Get some rest; you look like complete shit.” She pulled to a stop beneath the hotel’s porte cochere, receiving disdainful sniffs from the doorman and the parking attendant.

  “Yeah, that seems to be the consensus.” And he had to admit he was rather tired. Torture could be such a wearing occupation.

  4

  “Christ, are we there yet?” Max asked as they exited a stairwell that reeked of urine. The elevator was busted but probably smelled the same. The piss stink covered, or perhaps accentuated, the overall scent of despair pervading the old tenement building.

  “Two doors down,” Heat said as they walked the narrow, tenebrous hallway on the fifth and highest floor.

  The sun had finally come out in DC, but up here one would only know by the oppressive heat rising from the asphalt below. The upper floor smelled like a human stew bubbling away in a witch’s cauldron—sweat, dirty laundry, foods pungent with spice and heavy with grease, and even more piss. A muffled shout emanated from behind one of the closed doors, uttered in a language Max had never heard.

  “Here we go,” Heat announced as they stood before the door of apartment 5F. She produced a key and began unlocking the first of three locks. “It’s me,” she called through the door.

  No one responded.

  A blast of wintry air tinged with marijuana smoke hit them in the face when Heat opened the door. After she’d locked up behind them, they continued down a short hallway that ended in a
room perhaps fifteen feet to a side. dominated by electronics in various states of function or repair. Monitors and indicator lights in half a dozen hues provided almost all of the illumination in the apartment. The massive air conditioner in the apartment’s only window must have been cranking about ten thousand BTUs. The amount of electronics continually in use lent the place a faint scent of ozone.

  “What’s up, Paws?” Heat asked the space’s lone occupant, who sat on a corner stool before two desktops and one laptop hooked together with cables.

  “Not much,” said the man as he reached for a glass bong. “’Nother day in paradise.”

  Paws embodied the typical millennial slacker: skinny, unwashed, pale from a life spent indoors tearing apart computers and invading people’s privacy. His long blond hair hung unbound and could have used a thorough shampooing. He wore a black t-shirt emblazoned with an African tribal warrior in yellow, bearing the caption Jah No Dead!

  “This is Max, dude I told you about.” Heat picked two empty pizza boxes off a chair and discarded them on the floor amongst the other garbage, then sat down. “This is Jake, but we call him Paws.”

  “Nice meeting you.” Max made no move to shake Paws’ hand, nor did Paws make any effort at cordiality.

  “You brought a fucking agency man here?” Paws demanded of Heat.

  “Former agency,” Max answered for her. “I’ve been done with that for a while.”

  “Right. All you guys sing that song.”

  “Look, he’s okay,” Heat told Paws. “So just relax and tell me what you found.”

  Paws shrugged and then ripped the bong, blowing out a massive cloud of smoke accompanied by a coughing fit that belonged in a cancer ward. He offered the bong to Heat, who declined, so he hit it again.

  “You didn’t offer me any,” Max teased after Paws had cashed the bong.

  “You didn’t want any.”

  “True enough. What I do want is information. You gonna get to that anytime soon?”

  “Yeah, dude, just chill the fuck out. What’s your hurry?”

  “My hurry is none of your concern. Now tell us what you have.”

  “I don’t work for—”

  “Easy, Paws,” Heat said. “We’re just in a bit of a rush, okay?”

  “I don’t fuckin’ care. And Jack Reacher here needs to calm the fuck down.”

  “Jack who?” Max growled.

  Heat held up a hand before Max. “Max, take it easy.” To Paws she said, “Look, you’re primed up now, so just tell me what you have, and we’ll be on our way. Were you able to access the hard drive?”

  “Yeah, I pulled it out, got it working, and broke his pin easy enough. I don’t know what the fuck you wanna do with the thing though. I went through all the files and tried that password on everything encrypted. It doesn’t appear to open anything.”

  “Password?” Max asked.

  “We think that’s what it is,” Heat responded. “The last email Josh sent me consisted of one word.” She pulled down a yellow Post-it note stuck to one of the computer monitors and handed it to Max. It read: ASPARAFUA(96.

  “Odd password,” Max said. “And if it didn’t open any of the encrypted files it must be for something else.”

  “I tried it as the password for all eight of his email accounts,” Paws said. “Doesn’t open them either. Maybe it’s for his Netflix subscription or something...”

  No one laughed. No one said anything as they contemplated their options.

  “What about the dark web?” Max asked. “Any signs of an onion browser?”

  “What do you know about the dark web?” Paws asked, intrigued for the first time. “Spend much time there?”

  “Yeah, actually I do. You have a problem with that?”

  Paws held up his hands and appeared amused. “Nah, ’s cool, no judgment here. But I’m way ahead of you. He has a TorChat profile, password protected. And that isn’t the password.”

  “You can break us into anything,” Heat said. “We just need to figure out where and what you should hack.”

  Max looked at the pizza boxes and empty takeout containers littering the room as he considered Josh’s one-word message. One word... Why? Answer: he was in a hurry. Something was about to happen... or did happen even as he clicked send. He had an idea. “Bring up his TorChat profile again.”

  “Dude, it’s not gonna—”

  “Humor me, please.” Max almost bit his tongue on the third word.

  Paws sighed. “O-kay.”

  He plugged a flash drive into a port on a larger external drive and got to work. Max watched him closely, even though he had no idea what the fuck Paws was doing as he typed in various prompts and code on one of his terminals. Soon enough the familiar TorChat homepage appeared on one of the monitors and demanded a password to view the messages of user Djinn8394. “I’ll enter the password again.”

  “Why?” Max asked. “You already know it doesn’t work.”

  “Then why the fuck did we come back to this?”

  “To try other passwords. I’m thinking he was trying to type something else but got interrupted.”

  “Let me see that again,” Heat said. Max handed her the Post-it. “Aspar... hmm, try asparagus, all caps.”

  “Whatever you say,” Paws responded, sounding exasperated as he quickly typed the word. “Nada.”

  “Variations,” Max said. “Try ASPARAGUS8394. The last four digits are his birthday.”

  They tried a couple more variations and remained locked out, until Paws tried ASPARAGUS994 and proclaimed, “Sweet, we’re in!”

  Max and Heat sprang from their chairs and pulled them close to the monitor, flanking Paws at the keyboard as he clicked into Josh’s messages, eleven in all. Ten were bot-generated spam messages advertising various sexual aids: boner supplements, penis pumps, German milfs for fun and Russian babes for brides.

  “Right there,” Max said, pointing to the monitor.

  “One of these kids is not like the others...” Heat sang.

  Not at all. The eleventh message had been sent by Josh to his own account.

  8/19/2018 23:56

  From: Djinn8394

  To: Djinn8394

  Subj: Important!

  I hope you get this somehow. Sorry about all the cloak and dagger bullshit but things have started to get real down here and I think they might be hacking my other email accounts and I don’t want to compromise you. Maybe this will be safer.

  Still don’t know where I am exactly, but I’m certain this island is off the coast of French Guiana. But there are a lot of islands in this area, including the old Devil’s Island, so I doubt that’s much help. Would offer more if I could.

  Not only does Dr. Wilde lead the genetic research team—he’s also involved in the hunt club somehow. I don’t have a lot of details other than some major players being involved. From a distance I saw a senator I’ve met, and I’m pretty sure he was here to hunt. But they keep me constantly busy in the lab, so I can’t be sure. I’ll try to look into it further without raising too many eyebrows. Please conduct all future communications through this server.

  “When did you receive the email with the password?” Max asked Heat.

  “On the twentieth, around noon.”

  The look that passed between them said it all: Josh must have been caught snooping the day after emailing his TorChat account. Max envisioned goons ripping him away from his computer as he typed ASPARAGUS996, since he’d hit send rather than fix the password.

  “Good thing he got off that last message,” Max said. “I’d say we have enough information to make our next move.” He considered the hunt club, the reason Heat had gotten involved in the first place. “What’s the significance of this hunt club? I don’t understand.”

  “The game,” Heat responded. “As in the most dangerous type.”


  “Really? You think they’re hunting people down there?”

  “You read the message, Max. Major players and all that? What do you think they’re hunting?”

  “I don’t automatically assume human beings.”

  “And you haven’t been digging into the matter. I have. As you can see, there’s probably something to it.”

  “I’ll leave the story to you.” To Paws he said, “Were you able to break into that cell phone?”

  Paws shook his golden mane, looked sheepishly at the filthy floor. “Yes and no.”

  “You get an A for ambiguity. Now answer the fucking question.”

  “It shut down when I broke the pin number. I haven’t been able to get it operational again, but I’ll keep trying. Hopefully it doesn’t have some kind of automatic memory-erase function.”

  “Is there such a thing?”

  “Yeah... Have to be careful. It’ll likely take some time, and I can’t promise anything.”

  Oh well... Though a bit disappointed, Max doubted there would be much dirt on Josh in the goon’s phone, but it might hold other items of interest if the guy had connections to the hunt club-slash-genetics operation. They didn’t absolutely need the information at present, however, and hopefully Paws could get it to function sometime soon.

  “Keep picking at it,” Heat said. “You’ll get it eventually.”

  “I usually do. And I enjoy a challenge.”

  “Good luck. We’ll be waiting.” Max turned to Heat. “In the meantime, you need to go home and pack your shit. We fly to Guiana as soon as I can book a jet. Hopefully we can find this island and get Josh out of there.” He didn’t add the words, if it isn’t too late.

  Paws stretched, reached up and plucked a bag of buds from atop a speaker. “You kids have a blast. I’d love to tag along, but it’s too damn sunny out there.”

  “And you weren’t invited anyway,” Max said. “But thanks for breaking into the computer. You’ve single-handedly changed my opinion of dope-smoking slackers.”

  Paws raised his bong in salute. “Conquering the world one opinion at a time.”

  Max started for the door, not looking forward to the musty buffet of smells he would have to walk through again.