I’m beginning to understand why Barry Lynch shuttled his daughter off to Ireland when she was a child. My private jet hasthe range to get her to Dublin. My house could be back to its usual peace and quiet by dinner tonight.
I don’t want peace. I don’t want quiet. I don’t want an ocean between me and my wife.
I start to stare straight into her eyes, to face her without blinking so she’ll believe the lie I’m about to feed her. But then I remember the fight we had the morning after I leashed her, when she said I had a tell. My own behavior gave away my lie.
So this time, I slide my gaze to the point of her chin. I fiddle with my trackpad, just the tap of a fingertip. And then I deliver my answer: “I promise it won’t come to that.”
“Youpromise,” she says, her voice full of doubt. “And how will you take care of that?”
“I havemywork,” I say. “And you have yours.” I turn back to my computer as if we’ve actually settled anything.
“That’s the problem,” she snaps. “I don’thaveany work.”
For just a moment, exasperation tightens my chest. I’m tired of telling her she can’t take care of Lone Wolf’s clients. She has to learn that I’m more stubborn than she is.
But even as I master my reflexive sigh, I realize I’ve won this round. We’re back to fighting last week’s battle. Tarasov’s access to the Canton Crew is temporarily back on the shelf.
So I press my advantage. “Youdohave work,” I say. “The same as you did before we ever met. It’s time for you to plan your next online raid.”
“I tried that!” she shouts. And then, quieter: “I can’t do it myself. I need a team. And I can’t exactly reach out to the Red Cap Raiders.”
The answer is so obvious, I can’t believe she hasn’t seen it herself. “Then build another team.”
“Who? How? I only found the Raiders after months of playing Winter Reckoning.”
I call up the command module of the game with a few brisk keystrokes. One line of code creates a second administrator. I throw the login credentials to Kate’s phone.
I watch shock transform her face. She still wants to fight. But she wants to explore the game’s hidden background more.
“There,” I say. “Find yourself new Raiders.”
I wonder what Pandora’s box I’ve opened as she leaves my office without another word.
11
KATE
Build a new team.
Of course I’ve thought about it. I haven’t forgotten the early days of playing Winter Reckoning, the rush of solving so many maths puzzles built into the game. I remember my hesitant queries as I asked players to join my raiding party, my cautious overtures moving in-game contacts from imaginary quests to real ones.
I know exactly how to do it.
And I know exactly how badly things can turn out. Because it never crossed my mind in the six long years I spent cultivating the Red Cap Raiders that I might be building a team with the first man I ever hated.
Nevertheless, here I am, typing in my administrator password and imagining a new ideal crew.
I’ll only recruit women. We’ll each bring a dowry—unique skills we can teach to all the others. We’ll cooperate in the realworld as well as we do in the game. We’ll support each other with words and deeds instead of slinging shite in private chatrooms.
There’s just one catch: Short of meeting in the real world, I can never be certain my new team members are actually women. And the type of hacking I do doesn’t lend itself to in-person meetings, where the police and FBI can make real-world arrests.
But what if I change the type of hacking I do?
The question comes to me with the icy shock of standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down at waves breaking on a rocky beach below. I don’t have to be CyberGhost anymore. I can choose a new name. I can choose a new life.
What if my team didn’t break through unsuspecting victims’ electronic back doors? What if we weren’t always slashing things to ribbons, smashing through firewalls and grabbing whatever we could carry on our way out?
What if we were white hat hackers?
