My phone rings again. Pyotr Tarasov. This time I let the call go to voicemail. I refuse to dance for the man who brought a gun into this house yesterday.
But he doesn’t leave a message. Instead, he calls back. A third time. A fourth.
The fifth time, I answer. “What?”
“I expect my men to answer promptly when I call.”
I’m not his fucking man. But I say, “What do you need, Tarasov?”
“I’m texting you a link. I need access to the company’s payroll records. Stat.”
Fucking bratva. I agreed to get Tarasov into the Canton Crew’s computers. I never signed on to be his tame hacker.
But I knew this test was coming. Not just the assignment, but the timing of it—well after hours on a Friday night. Tarasov’s reminding me he’s in charge, that Kate’s future depends on me.
I have the utmost confidence in the security on my end of this phone line, but I can’t speak for his. For all I know, he’s trying to entrap me into breaking the law. He might have bargained with law enforcement, saying he’d bring them Lone Wolf in exchange for going free.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you with another company’s computers.” I do my best to sound like a choir boy.
“The last man who told me that ran his tongue through his paper shredder.”
“Sounds like he was clumsy.”
“Or I had my Makarov jammed halfway up hiszhopa.”
Apparently, Tarasov trusts his communications security as much as I trust mine. “Send me the link,” I say. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“By midnight,” he says, ending the call.
Once I get the name of the target—a mid-size Baltimore construction firm—I wonder if Tarasov actually owns the company, if that’s part of the test.
Or maybe Barry Lynch does.
I expect this to be a five-minute task. But my first three attempts bring me up hard against electronic defenses—further suggestion that the business is Tarasov’s. Or MaskedMarauder’s, as I came to know him in Winter Reckoning.
My fourth try, though, reveals an unexpected weakness in the system. I poke at it. Pry it loose. And when I finally get access to the payroll records, I see that a full hour has passed. Beating my midnight deadline by a full thirty minutes, I send Tarasov the credentials he needs to duplicate my work. I log out, carefully erasing any tracks that can lead back to Lone Wolf.
I’m back to glaring at the blackmailer’s message when my phone rings yet again. It’s another call I can’t send to voicemail—Hans Wagner, the head of Switzerland’s Banque Wagner Privée. He’s one of my oldest clients, paying another massive retainer. But it’s not just the money he pays me; his recommendations have earned me a full third of my client list.
“Hans,” I say, keeping my voice perfectly level. The fact that he’s calling early on a Saturday morning, Swiss time, does not bode well.
“We have a security breach,” he says.
I’m already logging in to his computer system as he explains the problem—a manager terminated for cause, somehow wreaking havoc within the bank’s complicated structure.
I ask a few questions. Explore a few nodes of the familiar computer architecture. The ex-manager is moving fast. If I weren’t already familiar with my client’s inner workings, I would be outmatched.
But Iamfamiliar with the structure. And I’m ruthless as I fence in the now-former employee. It takes almost two hours, all of it spent with Hans murmuring in my ear, reminding me how many Euros are at risk if the bank’s business is exposed.
“You work miracles,” Wagner finally says.
“I try.”
He thanks me and terminates the call—which gives me the opportunity to discover three new messages, all from important clients, all of utmost urgency. Just another typical Friday night for a hacker king.
Swearing, I automatically do triage, diving into the New Jersey pharmaceutical manufacturer’s emergency first.
“Cole?”
