Kill Decision(112)

Odin, Foxy, and the rest of the team embraced him one at a time with slaps on the back.

Foxy looked saddest. “Mouse, man. We owe you. Again.”

“You don’t owe me. Just complete your mission, and earn your damn paycheck.”

“Wish you were coming with us.”

He laughed good-naturedly. “Fuck that. I got my own war to fight. Find the bad guys and get back safe—and keep the professor here out of trouble.”

McKinney hugged Mouse too.

He studied her with his one eye. “You remember what I said.”

She nodded. “I will. Give my best to Lalenia. Hopefully we’ll see you both again.”

He saluted as they all entered the railcar, and the doors closed behind them.





CHAPTER 25

Personae Management



Linda McKinney gazed across the street at a generic four-story stucco office building near Palm River in East Tampa, Florida. It was the type of building you could drive past for years without noticing. The rest of the neighborhood was dotted with liquor stores and check-cashing outlets. She was dressed in business slacks and a cotton blouse, with a leather handbag over her shoulder. Odin walked next to her in khakis and a green polo shirt with loafers. It was a balmy seventy degrees and sunny. They traversed the cracked, weed-encrusted sidewalk to enter a musty lobby with a faded NO SOLICITING sticker stuck to the window.

Odin perused the disheveled lobby directory and tapped the black-and-white push-on letters above “Zion Strategies” on the fourth floor. He led the way to a worn-looking elevator carved with messenger graffiti.

McKinney spoke after the doors closed with a loud thump. “Would we need this person if we hadn’t lost Hoov?”

“Probably. Hoov had scruples.”

“How do you know this guy?”

“Someone I worked with in the past. His specialty is data—getting it and misusing it.”

She looked at the shabby elevator car. “Looks successful.”

“Flies below the radar. That’s why he’s useful to us. Which reminds me: Don’t believe anything he tells you. He has talents we need, but this man is a manipulative sociopath.”

“Sounds like a great addition to the team.”

The doors opened and Odin brought them down a mildewed hallway past cheap wood veneer doors with no-frills black plaques listing immigration attorneys and mail order companies. Soon they arrived at a door with no plaque at all, only a peephole and a massive dead-bolt lock. None of the neighboring office doors had either.

Odin examined the lock. “An old Medeco biaxial. I should be able to bump this.” He reached into his pocket to produce a small leather case, which he flipped open to reveal an array of tools. He slipped a small brass key out, then took his small Maglite with the end wrapped in duct tape. “If anyone’s coming, cough.”

McKinney raised her eyebrows. “Are you really—?”

“Watch the hall.” He worked so fast, she barely had time to see it. He slipped what looked like a simple filed-down key into the lock, pulled it out slightly, and then gave it a quick whack with the taped end of the Maglite. He then turned the dead bolt as though he had the correct key and entered the office. A glance inside, and he nodded for her to follow.

Before McKinney had time to debate breaking and entering, they were both walking into a low-end reception area without an actual receptionist, just an empty front desk piled with FedEx and UPS packages. She could hear people talking and hands clattering on computer keyboards as they moved down a central hallway. The hallway opened up to a modest cubicle farm with tinny Christian rock music playing on PC speakers somewhere.

“. . . my savior! Savior! Say-vii-ooorrr!”

Odin walked with purpose, having put away the key and Maglite, and he headed toward the closed office door at the far end. McKinney couldn’t help but catch the eye of one of the office workers, a twentyish white kid with piercings and dyed blue hair. She nodded to him and kept going. He immediately turned back to his keyboard, uncurious.

Before they reached the office door, a heavyset, middle-aged blond woman in jeans and a bright pink T-shirt for a charity 5K came around the corner holding a manila folder blooming with colorful Post-it flags. She slowed. “Can I help you?”

Odin shook his head. “He gave me a key. You his admin?”

“The office manager.”

“Then, no, you can’t help me.” He kept walking straight to the closed door at the end of the hall. It opened up into a sizable corner office containing IKEA furniture, a flat-screen TV, and gaming consoles. The whole office was a mishmash of styles. There were thick folders piled everywhere and stuffed shelves lining the walls, overflowing with fat programming books—dozens of languages and methodologies, from Perl to Java to Hadoop, to pen-testing, and exploiting online games.