Boston—a short time later
“They’re past the Russian ships,” said Johansen. “There was an explosion on one of the Russian vessels. Very fortunate.”
Massina, greatly relieved, got out of his seat. He doubted luck had anything to do with it—more likely, he guessed, they had used one of the UAVs as a weapon.
Which undoubtedly would have been Chelsea’s doing. So she was meant to be on the mission. And she could take care of herself.
“Next coms will be when they land,” said Johansen. “There are no Russian vessels between them and the shore. We’ll monitor for air traffic, but all the Russian patrols are based far to the southeast, in Russia; they should be OK.”
“That’s a relief,” said Massina. “I’m going to check on things. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be here.”
Massina had a mental list of improvements he was going to make if he continued working with the government: Constant real-time communications that could not be detected. Full coverage of the target area to show where any “obstacles” (such as the Russian ships) were located. Some sort of quick reaction force ready to bail operatives out.
It could all be done with his devices.
Johnny Givens, who had taken over temporarily as his bodyguard, was waiting outside the box.
“How’d it go?” asked Johnny.
And that was another thing—his people would have access to the box. Period.
“They have a ways to go,” said Massina. “Johnny, you have a clearance from the government, right?”
“There’s different levels of clearance. They do background checks—”
“You could pass a CIA clearance check, right?”
“Of course.”
“You’re with me when I’m inside from now on. Nobody tells you no.”
“Great.”
Massina made his way across the large room to the elevator.
“You know, I’d rather be out there with them,” said Johnny.
“You have a long way to go.”
“Next time.”
If there is a next time, maybe, thought Massina, but he didn’t say it.
Borya Tolevi leaned toward the screen, looking at the string of integers and symbols. She had the entire day off from school, which meant she could work here until early afternoon, when Martyak got back from her classes and would be expecting her.
Borya was working on a defense against application layer attacks similar to what she had used to compromise the ATM networks. In her case, she had used coding that attacked a flaw in a database that left account information intact rather than purging it. The block of instructions in front of her sought to fix that.
She hadn’t understood everything involved in her original attack; mostly, she had followed a script she’d found on the Internet and made some slight adaptations as she’d gone. Now she saw that fixing the problem was somewhat complicated, a puzzle that forced her to think in metaphors as well as code. The instructions were like keys fitting into locks that had to then disappear without a trace.
People didn’t do that. Her father was gone, yet so much of him was still present, in her, in others.
“Have you broken the program yet?” asked Louis Massina.
Borya jumped.
“Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“How’s Chelsea?” Borya asked.
“She’s fine. So’s your dad.”
“Where are they?”
“Still can’t say. They have you working on the database hacks?”
“I’m looking at it. It’s pretty involved,” she confessed. “It’s like a college class.”
“Graduate level,” said Massina. “Keep at it.”
“Hey, Johnny.” Borya waved at the tall former FBI agent. “You hanging with me tonight?”
“If I’m on the schedule.” The security people took turns.
“Mary was wondering when you were coming back,” said Borya. “You should ask her for a date.”
“Can’t mix work with pleasure,” said Johnny shyly.
“Why not?”
Martyak’s blond curls and ample breasts were a powerful attraction. She was pretty, and before his injury Johnny wouldn’t have hesitated asking her out.
Now, though . . .
Johnny followed Massina down the hall to the elevator. Shadowing him inside the building was pretty boring. It did take him everywhere, though; he was really getting to know his way around.
“You’re looking a little pale,” said Massina as they waited.
“Yeah.”
“Tired, too?”
“Time for the meds.”
“Go ahead.”
“I feel like a junkie.”
“If you want privacy . . .”
Massina turned his back to him. Johnny reached into his jacket and took out the syringe set. He pulled up his shirt and injected himself, à la a diabetic, as the elevator arrived.
“Good as new?” asked Massina.
Never as good as new, thought Johnny. But good enough, and sometimes better.