Page 10 of Play the Game

He smiled like a kid at Christmas, and I thought about the pictures he’d shown me from some of his mom’s Throwback Thursday social media posts. Images of him smiling and happy, always being hugged or watched adoringly by one of his parents in the years before his family had fallen apart. I’d had to take deep breaths to keep the tears at bay. Jason didn’t want anyone’s pity, and besides, there was no crying at HEAT. It was an unwritten rule, but I abided by implied regulations, too.

He eased up the edge of the tray and pulled a white folder out from under it. Sneaky. “Before the cops ruined our fun, I copied Franklin’s security key. It saved us days of hacking time, and thank God, because something big is going down Tuesday.”

“Two days from now, Tuesday?”

He nodded and handed over two sheets of paper covered in GPS coordinates, dates, and times.

“These are Franklin’s movements over the past two weeks,” I said, understanding dawning. “And these coordinates put his travel somewhere in Michigan.” My mind was already pulling pieces together, working out the puzzle Jason had presented to me. He and Alder would have already figured it out, but he knew I liked solving mysteries for myself. “Ann Arbor. What’s he doing, driving eight hours round-trip multiple times a week? Unless this has something to do with the Canadian border.”

“Exactly.”

I furrowed my brow. “Then why not set up operations in Detroit?”

“Because the Carbonados don’t have a foothold there. Here in Chicago, they have multiple known entities, starting with Franklin.”

“So, they want hired guns, but not just anyone. They want people they’ve worked with before. Sounds like something big.”

Jason handed me another paper.

“These emails are about renting space,” I said. “The office building we surveilled yesterday and a warehouse in Ann Arbor. And hiring contractors, building out something specific in each place.” This was right up my logistics alley. With a list of builders and materials, I could figure out what they were building. From the paperwork filed to pull building permits, I would know the layout and design.

Jason shook his head as if reading my thoughts. “The rest of the team will be here any minute for the nine a.m. briefing, so I’ll cut to the chase. This is being done under the radar. No building permits, no blueprints, so we don’t have any idea about the interior layout of the warehouse, and the office building could have been modified. But there are purchase orders on this asshole’s phone. They’ve ordered a lot of specific equipment and cabling for Ann Arbor.”

“That sounds like IT.”

Jason nodded. “But it’s more specific than that. It sounds like the kind of pop-up facilities that organizations set up to host hacking competitions.”

“Hacking competitions? Like the ones you used to attend before your ‘arrest’?” I used air quotes.

He scowled at me. “Like the ones I used to win. We’ve cross-checked the location with messages on the dark web, and an unnamed sponsor is hosting a competition. There are big cash prizes for the top three winners.”

The picture clicked into place. “Given Franklin’s association with the Carbonados, you think they’re the unnamed sponsor, and in addition to cash prizes, the winners will get job offers.”

“Probably the kind of offers you can’t refuse.” He mimicked a gun to the head.

“Is Franklin talking?”

“Not to the feds,” Jason said. “But he—which is actually one of our agents impersonating him—is talking to the Carbonados. Luckily, they’re all about the cloak-and-dagger, vague-as-fuck, old-school spy communication. We’re trying to get as much information as possible without making it clear that we’re not sure what’s going on.”

“Not sure, but we have an idea?”

He frowned, then handed me the last piece of paper he’d been holding. “It’s bad. We matched Franklin’s dark web profile with another kind of job announcement. This one is for chemists.”

“And what about the office building?” I asked. “What do the contractors and materials they’re using there tell us?”

He sighed. “Nothing good. They’re setting up lab facilities and containment rooms.

The final puzzle pieces clicked into place. He was right, this was bad. As bad as it gets. “They’re planning to bring a dirty bomb across the border, with the dirty part being a chemical weapon, and transport it here to Chicago.”

“That’s our best guess. Having three hackers—or hell, maybe more, who knows—simultaneously taking down systems of the Border Patrol, National Guard, and state and local agencies all at once would make it a hell of a lot easier. Of course, I’ll know for sure once I report for duty after winning the hacking contest.”

“That would require you walking into that hacking contest without an extraction plan.” My stomach lurched. I told myself that I’d feel this same sick fear if any of my friends on the team were about to be put in this much danger. But even I didn’t believe that lie. Jason wasn’t just anyone or just any friend. He was my best friend. Some traitorous part of me whispered that there was more to the story than that, but I couldn’t listen to that now. I needed to focus on stopping him. “Logistics gets to weigh in on the cost-benefit analysis of an operation. I’m flagging this as high-risk with a low probability of success. I won’t sign off on it.”

The cipher lock beeped again, announcing the rest of the team’s arrival for our morning meeting.

Jason frowned as he collected his papers, then laid his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, Tam, but at the risk of pissing off my best friend again, I’m afraid you won’t have a choice.”

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