But his name shows up in the game.
It only takes a few keystrokes to drill down. Two years ago, a snow elf ran a solo campaign in the DarkWood. When a stormbear attacked, the elf spun up half a dozen WindWalkers, sending them in six different directions to lure the bear away. One of those walkers was named Cornelius Cantrell.
It might be sheer coincidence. But Cornelius isn’t exactly Liam or Noah or Oliver, a name you hear every day.
I pull up the snow elf’s account. The character is run by a fifty-year-old woman named Barb Hamilton who lives on Riverside Drive in New York City.
Anyone can lie when they set up an account. Iexpectpeople to lie. That’s one of the filters I use to determine which players are worth watching. I won’t hire a hacker who doesn’t cover his tracks.
I check Cornelius/Barb’s IP address, the numeric code showing where their computer is located. Despite that New York City address, they’re logging in from Monaco.
No one logs in from Monaco.
That’s not true. 40,000 people live in Monaco. At some point in time, I’m sure one of them decided to play Winter Reckoning.
But it’s a hell of a lot more likely that Cornelius/Barb is hiding their physical location, only pretending to be from Monaco. The same way a Red Cap Raider pretended to log in from Monaco when they went after Banque Wagner.
Lynch is getting impatient. “So this NightSaber crypto. It’s a good bet, right?”
“It’s a risk, like any cybercurrency,” I say. “It isn’t backed by any government. It’s not controlled by any bank.”
“But Cantrell says?—”
“Cantrell might be a sixteen-year-old kid playing hooky from high school.”
“But the website?—”
“Your daughter could throw that website together in under fifteen minutes.”
“Breagha doesn’t know a thing about computers.”
“Not Breagha. Kate. My wife.”
Lynch’s snort sounds like surprise. It only takes him a moment to regroup. “But you don’t see any special risk from the crypto.”
“Nothing special.”
That’s not entirely true. But I won’t elaborate to a man who forgot one of his daughters, or who thought no daughter of his could draft basic code, or who’s already overlooked yesterday’s wedding ceremony.
After a little more bluff and swagger, Lynch signs off. I’m certain he intends to throw away his money on the crypto scam, which will come back to bite him in the ass. And I’m left staring at my computer screen, at the Winter Reckoning records for Barb Hamilton.
I don’t like coincidences. Especially not when they involve my game.
I start to dig with a lot more determination. Even without Barry Lynch babbling in my ear, it takes time to find the connection. It’s buried deep, in a string of old accounts, almost lost in a thicket of data.
But the linkisthere: Barb Hamilton is MaskedMarauder, one of the players who runs with Kate on her Winter Reckoning campaigns. MaskedMarauder is almost certainly a Red Cap Raider.
I push back from my desk.
The simplest thing would be to go to Kate and ask her. Find out what she knows about MaskedMarauder in real life. See if she has anything to do with NightSaber, with the crypto opportunity that landed in her father’s inbox. Learn exactly what my wife is doing behind my back.
But going to Kate would mean letting her know I run Winter Reckoning. And that’s not something I’m willing to share yet. Maybe ever.
It only takes a few keystrokes to set a tracker on Kate’s account in the game. I add surveillance on all her Red Cap pals too. While I’m at it, I activate monitors on the network here at home. In seconds, I have access to every word she types.
If Kate finds out? If my wife chooses to complain? I have one easy answer: All’s fair in love and war. And if she’s going after one of my clients, we are most definitely at war.
28
