Page 139 of The Obvious Check

“What the fuck does air-gapped even mean?”

Matty drops the duffle bag on the picnic table at our now official meeting point behind the Wildcats stadium. He unzips the bag and rifles through a tangle of wires before finding a USB drive and placing it on the table.

He sighs and looks at me flatly. “It means it’s not connected to any network. No Wi-Fi. No Bluetooth. Nothing. They’re completely isolated, believe me. I spent hours last night trying to get through any of his fail-safes, and I couldn’t.”

He shakes his head, grumbling as he blows his floppy brown hair out of his face.

“So you’re telling me it was a waste of time?”

“No,” he replies firmly, a small smile quirking at the edge of his lips. “Trimming my girlfriend’s ferret hair is a waste of time. This was fun.”

“For you maybe,” I mumble, holding back my frustration.

It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be fine.

If I keep telling myself that, then maybe I’ll believe it. After all, it’s not Matty’s fault that Luke knows what he’s doing. In fact, Ithink it’s probably how he’s managed to stay in business for so long.

“Seriously, though. How bad is this guy? If his entire system is offline, then he must be hiding something big, and I love uncovering shady shit.”

“Isn’t money laundering linked with an underground fight club big enough for you?”

Matty raises a brow and his lip quirks just a little. “I’ve hacked worse.”

“So, if he runs this offline, does that mean there’s no way to hack into his system?”

Because if there isn’t, I’m back to square one.

“Now I didn’t say that.”

He taps the USB in front of him. “I can still hack him using this. It’s just going to take a little more effort on your end.”

I eye up the USB, unsure of how it could help us.

“There’s malware on it,” he explains. “Once it’s plugged in, it scans the entire computer and copies all his files. As soon as they’re on here, I can sort through everything and find whatever you need. Just five minutes. That’s all it takes. Once it’s out, I’ve got him.”

I blink at him a few times, repeating what he said in my head just to make sure I heard him right, since my brain is still a little fuzzy after using a vibrating ring pop on my wife last night. The same wife I had to leave behind in our bed to come here before she could ask any questions.

“So let me get this straight. You want me to sneak intoBehind Closed Doors,plug this thing into their system, and extract the information for you?”

He shrugs as though it’s no big deal. “If this is the way you want to take him down, then yes.”

I slap my hand against the wood. “Fuck.How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

Luke’s not going to let me just walk in there unless I’m fighting ever again, let alone get close enough to his internal computing system so I can stick a USB in it.

“I have no idea. I’m just the tech guy. If you can get it in, then I can get the information out for you.”

I laugh bitterly. “Yeah, I get that. I just have no way of infiltrating. Every asshole in that bar either works for him or owes him. They’d all sell me out to Luke in a heartbeat if it meant clearing their debt.”

Maty pushes the USB drive in my direction before zipping his bag up. “Then you’ve gotta find his weak link. There’s always someone in an operation who desperately wants out. Give them that opportunity.”

“And if he finds out that we’ve infiltrated the system?”

“That’s the beauty of my malware design.” He grins. “If anyone starts poking around, it triggers a failsafe. Fries the whole thing, then poof—no trace.”

“You better be fucking right,” I mutter under my breath as Matty stands. “Wait, where are you going?”

“Practice,” he says. “Drills this morning. Coach’ll bench me if I’m late.”

---