Page 2 of Red Hunt

“Yeah, I saw this house when I did some early recon online, and…”

“He bought it, sight unseen,” Peaches burst out and laughed his ass off so much so that he tipped over backward in his chair.

“Max, why are you buying houses everywhere a case leads us?” Carter asked.

Now that was an excellent question. Was it because I lost my home as a kid when my mother died? Was I still searching for that feeling of belonging somewhere, of having a safe place to come home to? Wow. Better leave that can of worms untouched. Maybe I was just trying to make the best out of the current circumstances with us being constantly on the move. I didn’t like hotel rooms. Maybe that was it. And the pictures in the listing were of awe-inspiring nature, and what I’d made out from my Google searches, the location was completely remote. Far away from noisy people, cars, or anything else that could be potentially triggering. Was potentially triggering. “Because I do… Because I can, thanks to you.”

Carter shook his head. “Oh, come on. I just gave you a few pointers.”

I remained silent. I wouldn’t get into that discussion again. I owed Carter a lot more than just my life. He’d saved my life when our paths crossed on what turned out to be a very dangerous assignment early on in my career. I was attached to his unit. The only PJ. Most of my fellow soldiers didn’t even care to learn my name, but not Carter. Our mutual respect on and off the battlefield turned into friendship, and when Carter shared all his investment knowledge and strategies with me, I put them to good use.

“Okay, so when will you be here, then?”

“A few days. I’m driving.”

“You’re what?” He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, and Peaches’ and Goofy’s chuckles turned back into heartfelt laughter.

“I’m taking some stuff, so I’m driving, but it shouldn’t take more than two days.”

“Okay, great. Anyone else?”

“Oh, we’re all coming down as soon as our investment mogul there”—Goofy snickered again—“has confirmed the habitability of his newest acquisition and we can set it up as our new headquarters.”

This time Carter joined in, and even I grinned at the situation.

Those were legitimate concerns, since more than once, one of my new acquisitions had turned out to be little more than a dump.

“Peaches and I could stay with my parents in Three Oaks, though they don’t have a lot of room, so…working from there might not be such a good idea…”

“Okay, boys, I’ll cut this meeting short. Peaches, dig deeper, identify the other players. Goofy, book the flights. I’ll get rooms here at the hotel for you, and you get your asses down here ASAP.”

“Roger that,” Peaches said.

Carter said his goodbyes and left the meeting. Only the three of us were left.

“Hey, boys, I wanted to talk to you about the chatroom. Have you been able to establish any connections?” Peaches asked.

We’d recently joined a chatroom allegedly used by a group of gray-hat-hackers, the Greyhounds, as they called themselves. Peaches had identified them as the group behind an attack on one of the forums we had been gathering incriminating evidence on for the last couple of months.

“Nothing concrete yet from me,” Goofy said.

“Nothing here either,” I replied. I had chatted up a girl—at least I hoped she was a girl since her handle was radical_angel. But besides hitting it off with some easy banter that kept me glued to my computer and me portraying the newbie, there really wasn’t a lot to report on. “I’m chatting with radical_angel and reading up on their documentations. I can’t tell if they’re as good as you say, Peaches, but they’re extremely cautious.”

We soon wrapped up the meeting. In a couple of days, we would all meet face to face. Then these meetings would become a lot more fun, and hopefully, we could make better progress, too.

2

MILLI

I sipped on my tea and leaned back into the armrest of my couch when a direct message window popped up: red_hunt. I didn’t recognize the username, but there had been a couple of new additions to our group, and I hadn’t been as on top of chatty things lately. Not when I had been busy gathering evidence.

red_hunt: Hey. Fancy meeting you here.

I snorted. What a cheesy line. Not very original at all.

radical_angel: ?

red_hunt: sorry, I’m the super n00b here and I’m desperately trying to fit in

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