Page 77 of I Dream of Danger
“And I designed a program that will generate passwords on the basis of keywords. It will generate over a billion and can be sent in one packet to try a massive decrypt just as soon as we have someone’s computer to hack,” Jon said. Elle blinked. God, a program like that could earn millions in the outside world.
She nodded. “That would be really useful.”
Mac continued giving orders. “Also go over satellite shots. Make sure you include Keyhole 18 over a 48-hour spread over the entire Palo Alto area. They might have started rounding the test subjects up early.”
Elle barely stopped from gasping. The Keyhole series of satellites was top secret. Top, top secret. Like having-to-kill-you-if-you-discover-anything-about-it secret. She only knew about it because an analyst who had a crush on her told her about them. She’d gone to the darknet to research it. The rumor was that its lenses could read the numbers on a credit card in moonlight. “You can do that?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking Jon. “Hack into Keyhole?”
“Oh yeah he can.” Mac did something to his face, moving a muscle or two around in an odd configuration that in anyone else might have been a smile.
“We need to go to Elle’s house and find that tracer, download what was on it and reverse-engineer it. Would that be possible, Elle?” Jon asked.
She thought about it. Well if Jon was that good, it was a possibility. Each tracer would have a set of basic instructions and would be programmed to emit a signal. Catch that signal and scan for other signals… She nodded. “Yeah. If we can hack into the basic underlying protocol maybe we can locate the other devices, unless?—”
“Unless they’re all dead,” Jon finished grimly.
Oh God. Elle put a hand to her stomach. She looked at Jon. “And—and suppose the house is still under surveillance? I have no idea if they have enough security personnel to post a guard at each empty house, but it seemed like there was plenty of money available. They just might do that.”
“I’d welcome that,” Jon said, bright-blue eyes suddenly dark and flat.
She shivered. The men who’d rounded up her friends, were keeping them prisoner, and were perhaps planning on killing them, were evil, and she was happy to help in engineering their downfall. She should be happy she had these tough good guys on her side. But that fleeting expression on Jon’s face…
“Okay,” Mac said in his deep bass. It was extraordinary. Every time he spoke Catherine just glowed. As if his words were light bulbs that lit her up from within. “It looks like we’ve got our team and our assignments. So let’s get going.”
“Not so fast, Mac. Aren’t you forgetting something?” A deep voice Elle had never heard before.
The effect on Nick, Mac, and Jon was electric. All three shot to their feet with blinding speed, chairs scraping on the floor. They stood almost quivering to attention, arms stiffly up in a salute, astonishment on their faces.
Catherine stood frozen. Nobody had heard the door behind them open, which already struck Elle as strange. That anyone could get the jump on Nick, Mac, and Jon seemed outlandish.
That the person who got the jump on them was an old, old man, leaning heavily on a cane and on a tall woman, seemed impossible.
“Sir!” Mac barked, echoed by Nick and Jon.
The man had once been tall and looked as if he’d been strong. Now he was stooped and his skin hung loosely on his big frame. He moved slowly, as if every step hurt, which was probably the case because Elle had rarely seen so many surgical scars as this man sported over his big bald head, running down to disappear into the large sweatshirt that billowed on him.
The woman by his side had the most extraordinary face. It was…it was beautiful, but it looked as if Elle was seeing her through a kaleidoscope, lozenge-shaped pieces of her face almost but not quite fitting together. And yet the woman moved with the grace of beauty.
The man shuffled his feet, leaning heavily on the woman, moving steadily until he stood by Catherine and Elle. He leaned over and Elle heard him whisper, “Thanks, Stella.” She threw him a blinding smile, her face stretching in odd ways across the white lines crisscrossing her face. His smile in return was tender. There was a flash of something there for a second, and Elle wondered if he was as old as he looked.
Stella! In an instant the kaleidoscope twisted and rightened and Elle could clearly see who she was. Stella Cummings. Once the most famous actress on the planet, deemed one of the most beautiful women in the world, now Haven’s chef. Elle was so busy gaping at her, wondering if she dared ask for an autograph because Stella in Nobody But Me had given her courage and hope five years ago when Elle had gone through a bad period, that she barely noticed the three men following the old man into the room.
They were visibly young, yet they moved as if they were older than the first man. Big-boned but thin, faces emaciated, hollowed out with suffering. They looked like a strong wind would blow them over, but there they were, shuffling forward behind the older man like wraiths following a ghost.
Stella left the old man for a moment and crossed the room to kiss Elle on the cheek. “Welcome to Haven, my dear.” Elle blushed with pleasure. Stella Cummings, kissing her on the cheek!
Stella went back to the old man. A ghost of a smile crossed his face.
“At ease, men,” he said. His voice was hoarse as if he didn’t use it much. He had trouble articulating. But he continued, each word coming out painfully, though he didn’t stop until he’d said all he wanted to say. “I understand we’ve got a chance to grab the motherfuckers who fucked with us—” His dark eyes scanned the room, lighting on Catherine and Elle and Stella. “Pardon my language, ladies,” he said solemnly.
“We’re scientists,” Catherine said. “I think fuckers is the correct technical term.”
Another ghost of a smile. For a fleeting second, Elle could see something of the man he’d been, hidden deep behind the shattered exterior. And that man had been…handsome. Yes, she could see it now. And Stella saw it too. Certainly her eyes never left his face.
“We want payback,” he said simply.
The three badly injured men nodded their heads jerkily. They clearly had little motor control. “P-p-p-payb-b-b-ack,” one stuttered. He had a big, perfectly round keloid scar right over where the neocortex was. Someone had punched a sensor right into his brain.
All three men were becoming white-faced with the strain of standing up, and the man with the sensor scar was trembling. They didn’t look as if they could face breakfast, let alone a mission. She looked around. No one was saying anything about their obvious physical condition. She waited another second but there was only silence.
