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He smiles at me and nods at the approaching car. “ThatFordhas a Rhode Island plate. Now we need to find—”
“South Dakota,” I finish for him.
“Let’s go find it,” he says, gunning the engine and racing down the road.
Chapter13
Jeb
Missouri
Our first official stop is in St. Louis, where I con us into the General Managers box at a horse racing track that Patriots Now owns. I lift the guy’s keys and get Eli access to the computer system, where he arranges for the winning payouts on this weekend’s race to pay out higher odds than the sheet. There are going to be some rich gamblers walking out of the arena on Saturday, leaving a bankrupt house behind them.
Afterward, I plan to surprise Eli with a trip toGrant’s Farm, where theBudweiserClydesdalesare stabled and train. It’s the reason I made St. Louis our first stop. I doubt Eli has been around horses much, and since I plan to put him on the back of a horse sometime on this trip, I thought this might be a good introduction.
But Brady, the hacker who thought he could replace Eli as my partner, ruined my surprise. It seems when Brady found out Eli was going to be in his hometown, he asked for a meet-up so he could run some new tech by him.
For some reason, the late lunch meeting is at an Italian joint on the hill. It’s nice, with dim lights, candles, and a jazz trio playing softly in the background. When Eli gives the host Brady’s name, we’re led to a table for two where a curly, brown-haired guy of about twenty-five sits waiting.
Seeing Eli approach, his eyes light up, and he jumps from the table and pulls out a chair for Eli, who stares at the seat suspiciously, forehead creased. After a long, awkward pause, he sits down.
“I hope you like meatballs,” Brady says. “It’s the specialty here.”
I grab a chair from another table and drag it across the hardwood floor and up to the table, not bothering to turn it around. I straddle it and rest my arms on the backrest.
Brady reacts to my additional presence to his lunch plans with a sour look on his face, much like I’d imagine he would if a rat ran across the table.
“Brady, right?” I put out my hand. “I’m Jeb, Eli’spartner,” I say, making sure to put extra emphasis on the word partner. “And I love meatballs.”
Brady stares at my hand, reluctance clear on his face, but then seems to rally and accepts my handshake. I suppose he wants me to feel bad that I crashed lunch.Sorry, not going to happen. He’s the reason I’m not sitting next to Eli on this pretty day, watching horses prance around a field. And worse than that, he just tried to ambush my partner with a date.
It doesn’t matter that Eli is clueless that Brady is trying to woo him. What would have happened if I hadn’t come along? Would he have flirted with Eli over this business lunch, maybe even tried to kiss Eli goodbye? The image of that scenario in my head makes me crush Brady’s hand as I shake it until I see him wince.
After we order our drinks, Eli, never one for small talk, jumps right into shop talk. He tells Brady about some new program he developed that increases the range of RFID hacking and how he sees it being implemented by Archie Hendrix—Brady’s boss and head of a covert organization that Eli is sometimes in cahoots with.
The whole time Eli is talking, Brady looks at him like he’s one of those meatballs he recommended—like he wants to eat Eli up with a spoon.
I sit back and glare at him while he and Eli talk. As a thief, I keep up with technology that helps me do my job better, but the conversation they’re having is so far beyond me that they might as well be speaking a foreign language.
Brady recognizes I’m way over my head. While he’d been happy to ignore my presence at the table completely, he suddenly turns to me. “How about you, Jeb? Do you have anything to contribute to the conversation? Maybe some input into the benefits of BLE technology over RFID? Or do you just hang around to flirt and charm intel while Eli sticks to the complicated stuff?”
For a second, I go blank. I don’t give a shit what this punk Brady thinks of me, but Idocare about Eli’s opinion. He’s beyond a genius, and Brady trying to show me up makes me wonder what Eli thinks about a guy like me who never spent much time in school. Sure, I’m a clever guy who learns on his feet, but Eli is next-level brilliant.Is talking to me a bore for him?
Brady delights in my floundering and shoots Eli a pitying look that clearly says it must be a chore to work with such an idiot.
With nothing more intelligent to say than ‘fuck you’ to Brady, I’m at least hoping to jazz it up with some colorful hand gestures when Eli beats me to my classy response.
“Brady, your CV stated you have extensive field experience?”
He positively glows, having Eli’s full attention on him once again. “I’ve clocked over a hundred hours,” he says proudly.
Eli mulls that over. “Have you picked a wallet before, Brady?” he asks. “Or planted surveillance in a heavily secure and trafficked target area?” Eli takes a sip of his Coke. “Or retrieved information with any other tool than your computer?”
“No,” Brady admits.
“I’m going to guess that your ‘fieldsupport’,” Eli makes the signs of parentheses with his fingers. “Never amounted to more than tech support stashed away in a van somewhere far away from the action?”
“Some of those spots were dangerous,” Brady rushes to defend himself. “Once in Liverpool—”
