11

Sucking on a twelve-dollar virgin daiquiri, I studiously ignored the skinny man who’d taken a barstool four feet from me. He’d sat at a table at first, then had fidgeted back and forth, as if he didn’t like the choice. I kept an eye on him from the corner of the bar. After a few seconds, he’d left the table and hesitantly sidled up to the stool. Right next to me. Which I was sure would earn me no small amount of grief from Jennifer. After all, the first rule of surveillance was to remain invisible to the person being followed.

He was older than I would have imagined, maybe fifty-five or sixty, and was dressed like he didn’t belong on a Caribbean vacation. Pale legs, pasty arms, a white T-shirt with stained pits, showing that it had clearly been worn as it should be—under a suit—and to cap it off, white socks jammed into a pair of brand-new Teva sandals. He looked exactly the opposite of someone I would have expected to be siphoning off secrets from a myriad of offshore accounts in the largest data dump in history.

Truthfully, his sitting down near me wasn’t that big a deal. All I needed to do was keep an eye on him while Jennifer did the heavy lifting. My job was to provide early warning in case the target attempted to go back to his room, something I was more than capable of doing even if he sat in my lap, although the “virgin” of the daiquiri was a little annoying. If Jennifer would hurry up, I could order us both a real one.

We’d been in the Bahamas a total of two days, and it had taken a little effort to find our target. Kurt wouldn’t let me take anyone from my team, but he did give me my choice of computer nerds to help locate the source. I’d picked Bartholomew Creedwater, a guy Jennifer and I had worked with in the past. He had a secret crush on Jennifer, which was annoying but not enough to overshadow his computer skills. He was almost supernatural on the keyboard, and I’d need that skill to locate the leaker.

Coming down here, we’d known two things: the location of the meeting—the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas—and the MAC address of the laptop computer that had been used to send the only email we’d intercepted.

We’d gotten a couple of rooms in the so-called Royal Towers; then Jennifer and I had gone down to the pool and left Creed to his work. We needed to conduct a reconnaissance of the grounds for contingencies. At least that was what I told Jennifer. After I told her to wear a swimsuit to blend in.

At the mention of the location for the meeting, I’d just assumed the source was bleeding the reporter’s expense account dry, but after seeing it, I began to believe he actually had a method to his madness. The resort was huge, including everything from a water park to a dolphin pool, and it was swarming both with people staying in the hotels and with passengers disgorged from cruise ships just to play on the grounds. It was a perfect place to disappear, having a transient population that rotated out daily.

And it had some really cool swimming pools.

After I’d convinced Jennifer to check out the lazy river tube ride—you know, just in case we needed to escape on an inner tube—she’d finally demanded that we act like we were actually on a secret mission. She was always a Debbie Downer about such things while we were on official business. I told her I’d agree to go check on Creed if she’d agree to ride the shark tube—a water slide that actually went under a lagoon full of sharks. She’d given me her disapproving-teacher glare, and I’d given up.

Getting back to our small tactical operations center, I’d found out my little bit of fun was over and it was time to go to work. Tunneling through the hotel Wi-Fi, Creed had found the MAC address—a specific numerical identification tied to a specific computer the source had used in the past—and once he had that, like a dog with a bone, he’d necked down the room that housed the computer on the network of the resort complex. It turned out, it wasn’t in our tower. It was in a separate tower called the Cove, down a stretch of land with its own private pool and beach.

He’d handed us the information, saying he was going to get his swimsuit on as a jab at my earlier indiscretion, and we’d gone to work, first renting a room on a lower floor from the target’s in the Cove tower, then building a pattern of life for a break-in.

We’d placed a wireless button camera across from his door, and then Jennifer had practiced her technique with an under-the-door penetration device—really just a flexible metal rod with a wire attached that would allow her to pull the door handle from the inside. Since all hotel doors were made to be opened on the inside for fire escape—no matter the lock position—it would facilitate penetration and we wouldn’t have to worry about duplicating key cards or having our electronic-lock log-ins captured by the system.

After she was comfortable with getting in, we’d watched our little camera feed, the fish-eye lens making it look like we were viewing the world through a door peephole, waiting on him to leave. Thirty minutes later, he had done so, and our first attempt was under way. I’d immediately gone to the elevator of our floor, getting down to the ground level before him, leaving Jennifer the task of breaking into the room.

I’d decided to let her crack the room because if anything went sideways, she’d be less of a threat and able to talk her way out, acting as management or guest, depending on who initiated contact in the room.

She’d smiled at that and had said, “Talk my way out, or climb?”

Creed had gotten all bright-eyed at the statement, having seen her at work once before, now fantasizing that he was Tom Cruise in a Mission: Impossible movie. I’d scowled at him before saying to her, “Climbing won’t be necessary, but hey, if it comes to it, that skill doesn’t hurt.”

For security reasons, the mission was a two-step process: First she’d just ensure she could get in, find the computer, and employ a thumb drive to identify encryption protocols so Creed could develop a bypass after the fact. She would spend no more than a few minutes in the room. The actual penetration of his laptop would occur later, after we had the lay of the land and Creed had developed a way around whatever security he’d put on the computer.

While Jennifer was doing her work, I’d keep an eye on Johnny White Socks.

Staged in the lobby, I saw him exit the elevator, then turn toward the beach access. I gave Jennifer the go to penetrate. He’d made it only halfway down before Jennifer had called, pulling me off of him. She’d gotten in but couldn’t find the computer.

I’d returned, meeting her in the TOC. We reviewed Creed’s logs, seeing the target had logged off the Internet two minutes before he’d left the room, meaning the computer was inside somewhere, because he wasn’t carrying anything when I’d seen him, which most likely meant it was in a hotel safe. Good for us, bad for him.

Every hotel safe looks secure, but is, in fact, quite a sham when it comes to protection. Because it had to be repeatable for guests over and over, it had to have a fail-safe for the occasional idiot who forgot the code. This was usually a hidden key access or a universal code. All we had to do was figure out which one.

We’d returned to our room, opening the closet that housed our own safe. One look and I knew which one it was: a hidden key access behind a metal plate with the safe’s manufacturer advertised on it. I broke out a Leatherman tool, unscrewed the label, and saw a pathetic lock that could literally be picked with a screwdriver and a paperclip.

I gave Jennifer the Leatherman, and she rummaged around in her suitcase for a lockpick kit, then went at the lock. With a little practice, she was able to get it open in under thirty seconds. Plenty of time.

Jennifer had wanted to have a go at it right then, but I didn’t want to risk breaking in without eyes on the target, so we sat around most of the day waiting on him to return. He finally did, but then stayed in for the night, which was no big deal. Intelligence work was always a game of patience.

The next morning we were up bright and early, staring at our fisheye camera feed. Eventually he left the room, around ten in the morning, and once again, I beat him to the ground floor. I saw him, gave Jennifer the go, then picked up the follow. He headed to the adults-only pool, with me trailing behind. I went to the bar while he did his table dance, and then the jackass sat down on a barstool four feet away, checking his watch every few minutes.

Even at ten in the morning, the place was starting to pick up, with a DJ setting up equipment and more and more hotel guests swarming around ordering piña coladas, some already showing they were on the inebriated side. A guy in board shorts and a man bun asked me if the stool between us was open, and I said yes; then my earbud crackled.

“Pike, Pike, this is Koko. I’ve got an issue. He’s placed some sort of lock over the hotel safe.”

I raised my phone to my ear as if I was getting a call, sliding off the stool and moving toward the back of the pool area, getting some privacy behind a bunch of lounge chairs.

I said, “Koko, Pike. Say again?”

“There’s a band on the front, like the Club steering-wheel lock. It might be alarmed.”

I said, “Creed, this is Pike, you copy?”

“Roger all. Koko, is there a brand name or anything?”

He sounded breathless, I’m sure probably feeling an erection at actually getting to talk on the radio. Okay, that was harsh.

Jennifer came back, “Yeah, it reads, ‘Bloxsafe’”; then she spelled the name.

I heard nothing for a moment, then: “Stand by. I’m looking.”

I glanced at the target and saw he had something on the bar in front of him. A plastic box of some sort. I circled around the bar, the phone still up to my ear, my sunglasses hiding the fact that I was doing anything but retrieving my drink.

It was a portable hard drive.

Holy shit. He’s doing the meeting this morning. That’s why he keeps checking his watch.