Page 36 of Play the Game

“Just like your colleagues had literal eyes on Pasco?” X interjected, and everyone fell silent.

A screen mounted on the wall opposite me jumped to life, and the interior of a busy café came into view. It seemed X had put an end to the on-the-ground protests.

Jason sat down at his computer, and we all watched Sarah Lockerbee, aka Clara Bee, open her laptop. The monitor was turned to the wall and shielded from prying eyes, but that didn’t matter.

“Good job, Samson,” Alder said, taking a different tack with our reluctant partners. “I’ve got her signal, loud and clear. She’s connecting to a VPN.”

“That’ll be the Carbonados’,” Jason said. He stretched his arms over his head, then settled in over the keyboard. “Now we wait.”

TJ ended the conference call so we could all stay focused on our assignments. A minute later, he and Alder nodded to each other. Then Jason’s phone pinged.

“That’s the SOS,” he told us. Several seconds later, he added, “I’ve got Pasco. He’s stalling, giving me time to find him. Given the first line of code, his target is the national parks’ security system.”

“I guess it’s pointless to ask if you get a lock on his location,” TJ asked.

“Yep, unless you believe he’s in Moscow or Cairo or Honolulu,” Jason said, meaning the signal was being bounced around the world to obscure its origin.

I exchanged a glance with TJ, who then moved closer to me and whispered. “You’re thinking this might be more than a trial run for Pasco’s loyalty.”

I nodded. “It’s possible one of the parks is the target for the detonation.”

Hart typed into her computer, then frowned up at us. “There are 424 of them.”

We all scowled.

Another ten seconds ticked by without more code from Pasco. “Come on, asshole,” Jensen muttered. “Give me more credit than that.” Suddenly, his posture changed, and he and Alder started typing furiously.

Next, Kessler and Li started dropping code into the search program. Line by cryptic line, Pasco’s message to Jason popped up on my screen. It was choppy and came in pieces spaced out over lines and lines of code, but it was understandable.

Prisoner. Not US gov.He knew his captors weren’t the feds.

Drove, flew, drove. Blind.He’d been taken to an airport and flown somewhere, but he didn’t know where.

Trial run today. Real deal Wed. No idea of real target.

Ten minutes later, Jason announced, “He’s almost in. If he has anything else to tell us...”

He leaned forward and typed. Seconds later, he said, “He’s in, and they’ve stopped transmitting, but there’s one last message.

Kessler received the code and processed it. I furrowed my brow as I added it to the whiteboard.

“It’s not a word,” I told Kat. “S-l-o-g-o-v-a-l.”

She typed, then shook her head. “It’s not obvious. This will take a while.”

“Tam, are you sure that last L isn’t a one?” Jason asked me.

“Oh, shit, it is. Kat, try—”

“Don’t bother,” Jason said. “You won’t find it. It’s a new system that’s in beta. That asshole is one smart son of a bitch.” He grabbed his phone. “He can’t tell us where he is, but he’s trying. He put in a little tracking link that might be able to be activated so we can find him. Slogova 1 is the only system that would be able to find it.”

“Does the government have a copy of that program?” TJ asked.

“Too new, too secret, too far offshore. But we don’t need the program. I know the developer.”

He hit a button on his phone and waited. “Hi, Dad. I know it’s not our normal weekly call time, but I need a favor.” He smiled at something his father said, then continued. “It’s about that new program you wrote, Slogova 1.”

PART4

---