Page 12 of Play the Game

This had been a sticking point in my cover story as a prisoner who earned occasional furloughs by doing special projects for the government. I’d had to stay hidden most of the time. Now, I grinned, because this operation, as dangerous as it was and as much as none of us wanted to have to defend the country against a dirty bomb, was giving me a new lease on life. “You all need to congratulate me on being released three months ago. I’ll be looking for gainful—if shady—employment.”

“We created that trail yesterday,” Alder said. “Backdated files and website posts with the information.”

“Well, that’s one less thing to worry about,” Tam said. “We’re down to a thousand things that could go wrong instead of a thousand and one.” She glanced at TJ. “Without an extraction plan, this is too dangerous.”

“That brings us to my very favorite part of the plan,” I said. My bestie eyed me suspiciously, which was fair, given my track record. “We build one in real time.”

Tam glanced at Kessler and Li. “You two are the best in the business.” She glanced at Kat. “Well, you three. But will you be able to identify points of ingress and egress, potential obstacles, and alternate routes, and estimate necessary equipment and personnel for various scenarios, all while keeping an eye on the Carbonados thugs?”

“I wouldn’t be able to do all that, even if I didn’t have to watch the thugs,” Kessler said. She grinned at me. “But Jensen’s body language is telegraphing that he has another plan, and he thinks he’s pretty fucking brilliant for coming up with it.” Kessler glanced at Kat. “Apologies ahead of time for all the swearing we do here.”

“No worries,” Hart said. “This is why I’m excited to be here. Not the swearing. The way this team works together.” She smiled at me. “Care to enlighten us?”

“Thank you for asking,” I said. “We need someone with a very specialized skillset to go with me into that convention. Someone who can spot all those important details needed for an extraction plan from a mile away and then feed the information to someone on the outside who can coordinate with a team to get everything in place.” I looked at Tam.

“This sounds like a bad idea,” she said.

“It’ll be great,” I told her, because I knew it would be, and not just because we would do a fabulous job and get to spend quality friend time together. “You get to be my fake date,” I told her. “It’s good we’re back on speaking terms, because you, my friend, are going undercover with me.”

CHAPTER 5

Tamela

The easy partof our mission was walking into the converted warehouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan with our digital invitation on Jason’s phone. The hard part had been handled by Alder and a team of HEAT data specialists. In less than sixty hours, they had set up back stories for Kessler, Li, and me and had bulletproofed the fabrication about Jason’s parole. He’d done the damn near impossible work of hacking the system to enter his name into today’s competition. He was one of only six people who’d managed the feat. Of course, we’d done deep dives on every one of them and knew who the winners of the competition would be, to an 87.2% level of confidence, as calculated by statistics genius Alder.

The unexpected bit was stepping into a glitzy entrance hall, complete with a fully stocked bar, strobe lights, and tuxedo-clad serving staff, and being swarmed by dozens of people. This led to the disconcerting realization, as I stood in the center of the feeding frenzy, that in the world of system hacking and data breaches, my best friend was a rock star.

It didn’t hurt that he was dressed in a designer navy blue suit, with a starched white shirt and a navy- and silver-striped tie that matched the pattern of my mid-calf-length, one-shouldered dress. I could barely take my eyes off him, and I had a job to do. I could hardly blame the spectators who were there to watch multiple competitions, culminating in the main event at six p.m., which would then be followed by a buffet dinner. I was a little salty about that last one, knowing the Carbonados could bankroll a fancy, sit-down dinner until Jason explained that the buffet would be filled with foods like Maine lobster tail, Beluga caviar, and Kobe beef.

“We need to part the Red Sea,” I whispered to Jason.

No one else was listening because the building had been outfitted like an enormous Faraday cage. The hacking competitions would be run over specially shielded, wired connections, but no other signals were coming into or going out of the warehouse. Tonight, we’d be relying on good, old-fashioned spy craft. I would snap pictures of the entire interior with a tiny camera hidden on the dress ribbon at my shoulder, tap out instructions in code on the small device in my dress pocket, and then hand everything off to either Kessler or Li, whoever could get closer, to carry outside and transmit the signal to the rest of the team.

“Maybe I can do something about the crowd,” Jason said. He caught the eye of one of the guards at the door, and almost like magic, three other big, black-suited men swept through the crowd and effectively dispersed them.

“How did you do that?”

He shrugged. “The Carbonados do their research, just like we do. They know who I am, know where I’ve supposedly been, and realize I hacked into their system to enter the competition pretty damn easily, even though I stalled and threw in a few mistakes for good measure.”

“So, they’ll protect you from the riffraff?”

“I prefer to think of them as my adoring fans.”

He took my elbow and guided me into the crowd. We moved slowly, stopping constantly to interact with Jason’s admirers, who now approached him in small groups. All of them gushed. Most of them recounted highlights from his previous “career,” a few of which were eyebrow-raising news to me. Some asked for his autograph, a request he politely refused. The conversations allowed me ample time to snap shots of every corner, nook, and cranny from every angle. For good measure, I captured as many faces as I could so we’d have a record of who’d attended what amounted to a criminal-enterprise job fair.

Over the next hour, we made our way, with stops and starts, through the three remaining gaming rooms with active competitions underway. In a moment, when no one seemed focused on us, we strolled into the banquet room where the catering staff was setting up for dinner. I took pictures of them for the record, as well. When I turned in Kessler’s direction, she smiled broadly, knowing she and the three people near her were on camera. From there, Jason and I walked to the corner of the warehouse that had been converted into a temporary kitchen. We asked about a made-up chef, telling the kitchen staff we were supposed to say hello to him, which was our cover story for being in the off-limits-to-players space so I could snap photos there.

The entire time, I’d been sorting the spatial details and layout, marking every potential blind spot, and forming a list of extraction plans in my head. I slipped into the ladies’ room while Jason, with a martini in hand that he wasn’t really drinking, kept watch. I spent five minutes organizing the building photos into an easy-to-decipher order for Kat, then another fifteen typing up my notes and plans. Within minutes of either Kessler or Li slipping outside and beyond the signal-jammer’s reach with my device, the Alpha Team would have the information and be ready for anything that might go down inside these makeshift walls.

Jason and I exited the restroom area. I was relieved to immediately spot Kessler, who’d been put on champagne delivery service, or more likely, had picked up a tray of glasses and started working the crowd so she’d be ready when we were. She approached us quickly and offered me a flute while I slipped the modified phone into her pocket. Then she floated into the crowd and disappeared into the kitchen. She’d go out the back door for a quick break and would read through my notes for the tactical crew while all my data was relayed to the rest of the team parked in vans nearby.

With my main task behind me, I relaxed enough to notice how tense Jason was. His shoulders were tight, and his mouth was pressed into a thin line, except for when he smiled at someone speaking to him. I knew his expressions well enough to know he was faking even that.

When we stepped away from yet another of his admirers, I leaned close to him. “Anything we need to discuss? Are you nervous about the competition?”

“Are you trying to insult me? We both know that won’t be a problem.”

“What will?”

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