He smiled at the thought. Now that would be fun, watching that little toad squirm for a while.
His phone buzzed. He tapped his earpiece. “Go ahead.”
“Sir.” It was Renton. “I’ve been working on your request and I think I’ve got something solid.”
“Details.”
“When Singleton was working for the CIA, he may have been with a covert ops group called either Group Seven or Team Seven, depending on the source.”
“I assumed as much. How does this help me? I’m paying for actionable intel, Renton, not a biography.”
“Some of his early records were available through a Dark Web broker, from the CIA leak of about nine years ago. They’re not substantial, but they do mention his championing a tech expert they’d contracted, a man named Nicholas Velasco.”
“And this is the man—”
“In a roundabout way… I think so, yes. He’s supposed to be serving ten years’ federal time for wire fraud. Before he was sentenced, the FBI did up an extensive profile on him, noting he had a preference for running credit card impersonation scams, with the details obtained via elaborate email phishing campaigns.”
“But… I thought you said he’s in jail.”
“I did, yes. Then I talked to an operator I met at Hackathon here in Vegas a few years ago who swore she’d seen him in DC not two months ago, running a phishing or wardriving scam at her husband’s golf course. I had an algorithm running models to match his profile against current patterns of reported credit card fraud.”
“And?”
“I got a pretty compelling match. I reached out to an associate with gang connections. They got me a cell phone photo of the man serving Nicky Velasco’s sentence. And I don’t think it’s him. He’s got a similar facial structure, but when I compare him with Velasco’s old staff ID photo…”
“He pulled a switch somehow.” Van Kamp was fascinated. “Could someone…?”
“This guy? Yeah. Getting into off-limits databases and manipulating them is his jam, especially banking institutions and government. His CIA sheet, attached to the Singleton disciplinary case, said he was the finest security breacher they’d ever run across, a guy so potentially dangerous they felt it better to recruit him, particularly, it noted, because he’s immature and somewhat self-centered.”
“And your pattern recognition match? Where?”
“Silver Spring, Maryland,” Renton said. “If he’s who I think, he’s been running a security consultancy under the pseudonym ‘Ray Edwards’. Just small-time stuff for nervous companies. But his office is based in a house that’s almost dead-center the source of the phishing pattern.”
“Book me a ticket.”
“Already done. Tomorrow at nine in the morning. Emailing you the details.”
“Good. Good work, Renton. It almost makes up for the other thing, but I’ll probably get past that,” he said.
“Yes, sir. Wait… what oth—”
But Van Kamp had already gone.
39
Bob woke suddenly, with no memory of having dreamed.
One moment, he’d had a moment of consciousness, the sensation of a hospital bed being lowered.
The next, he was waking up, blackout curtains shrouding the room. He sat upright, using his elbows. A sharp pain shot through his left side and he winced. He moved the sheet aside.
The burns had been covered with bandages, then covered once again by the thinner, tight wrap keeping his ribs immobilized. Blue-green bruising peeked out of the top and bottom of the covered area.
His face felt thick, swollen. Bob reached down the side of the bed and found the lift button, raising the head of the mattress up.
He glanced over to the side table to see if they’d left his phone nearby. They hadn’t, but his clothing was neatly hung in a small closet.
The addictions clinic. He looked down at his left arm, a slight itch on the underside of his elbow drawing his attention. An intravenous drip led back to a rack by the head of the bed.
He’d driven there directly from the Kopecs, the pain from his fractured ribs and the burns conspiring with fatigue and waning adrenaline to almost knock him out at the wheel. Then he’d dialed Sharmila. He didn’t remember anything past that. She must’ve gotten him into the bed, had the painkillers administered.
Sharmila.
He’d barely registered the small figure curled up on the two-person sofa, next to the tall, open-faced closet. She had her knees drawn up to her chest, her hands grabbing her knees.
Bob pulled back the sheet and swung his legs out of the bed. They’d garbed him in a backless hospital gown, but he was in too much discomfort to care. He winced again, the mere pressure of standing sending shocks through torn cartilage, tired muscles.
Sharmila roused from her slumber. She stretched. “What… Bob! No! You’re supposed to be in bed!”
Bob shook his head. “Nope. Too much to do.”
“You have fractured ribs, and your face looks like you just fought a professional boxer.”
“None of which changes the fact…” he took a deep breath, warding off fatigue, “…that the painkillers are averting the worst of it, and I have things to do. He squinted at the thin beams of light making their way between the curtains. “What time is it?”
Sharmila yawned and looked at her phone. “It’s… oh boy, it’s past noon. I need to get going…” She stared him down. “But you need to get back to bed.”
“Not an option. You stayed here all night?”
