Chapter 2 #2
“I’m sorry to hear that you think so.” I’m careful not to sound the least bit sorry. “I’ll thank Hans Wagner for the recommendation and tell him this didn’t work out.”
“Wait!” Rochester barks before I can end the call. And then he whines, “I don’t even know how this happened.”
“It happened because you had a hole in your security. And that hole was exploited when you failed to implement appropriate procedures for employee termination. I can deliver a rock-solid solution in record time for the first part of that equation. But my work won’t mean a thing if you don’t have human resource procedures in place to manage the next unhappy employee you let go. ”
He’s silent for nearly a minute, but then he says, “Record time?”
“Record time.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“I can’t know until I look behind your firewall. But I can assure you Cayman Rochester will be my number one priority until this matter is resolved.”
He wastes another minute, but he finally asks for my account number to deliver my retainer. I get the name of his in-house IT manager and settle down to work.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m turned into a liar by another phone call.
“Wolf,” I answer.
“Francoise Blanchard,” responds a cool, professional voice. Blanchard is the chief administrator of the largest hospital in Quebec. She wastes no time adding, “We are being held captive by a ransomware attack.”
“What systems do they have?”
“Everything. I have surgeons in the middle of procedures, and they can’t access robo-knives.”
Swearing under my breath, I send the Rochester data to an auxiliary monitor and pull up the information I stored the last time Blanchard called. I throw the display to one of the large screens on the far wall of my office and start to work through options.
Another call comes in before I’ve found a thread I can pull. “Just a moment, Francoise,” I say. “Can I put you on hold?”
“Call me when you have a way out of this merde.”
I agree, then snag the new call before it disappears. “Wolf.” I don’t look away from the hospital’s information.
“Cole, I don’t want to be difficult.”
I recognize the voice, three words in. Fiona Moran is captain of the Irish mob up in Boston, another one of my colleagues in the Diamond Ring.
Generally, I enjoy talking with her—she’s smart, she’s creative, and she’s determined that no man will ever get the better of her.
I’ve even helped her out when she couldn’t pay for my services, taking her marker for a future favor, a debt I’ve yet to redeem.
But Fiona has also been a major pain in my ass, ever since Lone Wolf took over computer support for her illegal empire. So far, I’ve put my three best people on Fiona’s account, but she’s been dissatisfied with each of them. Worse, she’s been justified in every one of her complaints.
“You aren’t difficult,” I lie. “But I’m in the middle of an emergency for another client. Can I call you back?”
“By close of business,” Fiona says, with the absolute certainty of a woman who has killed to make her point.
“Close of business,” I promise.
I’m half an hour deeper in the Quebec fiasco when my phone rings again. It’s an unknown number from a 667 area code. I have no idea where that is, so I let the call roll to voicemail.
One minute later, the same number calls back.
I don’t like being handled, and I don’t have time to field another crisis. I let it roll over again.
Fifteen seconds this time, and the number reappears.
Still intent on the Quebec data, I punch the button to put the caller on speaker. “Wolf,” I snarl.
“You are a hard man to reach.” It’s Nikolai Tarasov. His voice is like kerosene poured over gravel.
“Fuck you,” I say, surprised by how difficult it is to keep my voice even.
“I sent you a message forty-eight hours ago,” he says. “And you did not have the courtesy to respond.”
“Fuck you,” I say again. “That’s my response.”
“Strong words,” Tarasov says. “For a man who holds none of the cards.”
“I’m not playing your game.”
“But you will,” he says with absolute certainty.
I start to hang up, but my computer chimes with an incoming message from the same 667 number. The text includes a link. Growling, I tap the button, automatically sending the new content to one of the screens on the wall across from my desk.
The video is shot in black and white. A timestamp runs in the corner, showing today’s date. The recording was made an hour ago.
I watch Linda Anderson tend the garden in the back yard of her brick suburban home. I know that vegetable patch well. I set the railroad ties that form the raised bed, and I lashed together the heavy wire trellis that supports the beans and squash.
Mrs. A is the closest thing I ever had to a real mother.
Unlike Shannon, Mrs. A has worked hard to teach me right and wrong.
She and her husband took me in once I was finally released from juvenile detention.
If not for them, I probably would have been murdered years ago, after one con or another went bad.
The video ends with Mrs. A settling a fistful of green beans in her wicker basket. She’s completely defenseless, utterly unaware of being filmed.
I breathe through my teeth before I say, “Make one move against Linda or Evan Anderson, and our deal is off.”
“You,” Tarasov points out. “Are in no position to bargain. Besides, a broken heart can be nearly as deadly as one with a knife through it.”
“What the fuck—”
“Excuse me, Linda Anderson.” Tarasov sounds like he’s reading from a script. “I will not take more than a few minutes of your time. These are routine questions to verify the security clearance for Cole Wolf. What can you tell me about how he made his first billion dollars?”
The Andersons think I’m a mid-level coder for a massive defense contractor.
They believe I learned from all my youthful mistakes, and now I keep my head down and my record clean.
They’d be astonished to hear my net worth.
I’m fairly certain it would put them in their graves to know that I regularly do business with criminals like Nikolai Tarasov.
“Of course,” Tarasov says. “There are worse things than finding out the man you have invited into your home every Sunday for years is a liar. The man who recorded this video is one of my best soldiers—so long as he does not get bored. When Kostya gets bored, he gets creative with his knife. And he has become quite an expert at keeping his toys alive while he plays with them.”
“If the Andersons so much as glimpse one of your men, I’m taking you to the feds.”
“You still do not understand, Wolf. You are not in control here. You do not get to set the rules.”
“Fuck y—”
“Perhaps I should send one of my videos to your precious Andersons. What will they think when they see my Pyotr’s body carried out of your home?”
I don’t give him any further ammunition by responding out loud.
“The DC police will be interested in that one as well. As for the feds… My Pyotr left me so many files. The FBI will be very interested in the Red Cap Raiders, do you not think?”
That’s the hacking collective Kate led. The one Pyotr Tarasov infiltrated years ago.
Nikolai purrs: “How quickly will the FBI move when they find out that the infamous CyberGhost is none other than our little Katie Lynch?”
My silence is interrupted by an animal wail. Kate is standing in the doorway, hair wild, lips tight. “I’m not Katie!” she howls. “Your son ruined Katie! My. Fucking. Name. Is. Kate!”