Hardbingers

10

In a black fog he walked over to Russ Tuit's place on Second Avenue in the east nineties. Smelled like they were frying tortillas in the Tex-Mex restaurant below.

Russ greeted him at the door.

"How'd that timer work out?"

"Perfect."

Russ, a redheaded code head with pale skin that most likely had not seen the sun in the thirty-odd years of his life, had garbed his pear shape in a flannel shirt and old corduroys worn almost smooth. No matter what the season, he wore flip-flops.

"Still not going to tell me what you used it for?"

"Probably better you don't know."

Jack handed him the flash drive.

Russ's eyebrows shot up. "Eight gigs. Cool. But what's this crud on it?" He scraped at the crusty stains with a thumbnail. "Hey this looks like—" His head shot up and he stared at Jack. "—blood. Is it?"

Jack said nothing.

Russ nodded, looking a bit queasy. "Yeah, yeah. Probably better I don't know, right?"

"Probably. Thing is, I think it may be messed up. I can't make any sense of what's on it."

"Let's take a look."

Russ plugged it into his computer and hit a few keys. Jack watched his screen fill with the same gibberish he'd found.

"See?" Jack said. "It's screwed up."

Russ turned to him. "Yeah, it's screwed up, but in a special way: It's encrypted. Probably one-twenty-eight bit."

"And that means?"

"Means we need a decryption key."

"Where do we get that?"

"From the mother computer that encrypted it, or…" He smiled.

"Or what?"

"Or I run it through my own personal decryption program."

"What do you mean, personal?"

"It means I wrote the code. It's the reason—all right, one of the reasons—I'm not allowed online for the next twenty-two-point-two years."

Russ had done a two-year, soft-time jolt in a fed pen for a shopping list of Internet crimes, most of them bank related. One of the conditions of his parole had been a quarter-century ban from the Internet.

"Okay. How long and how much?"

"Can't say how long. Can't even say I'll succeed."

"I need it yesterday, Russ."

"Okay, okay, I'll crank on it. As for how much: two-fifty just for trying, five hundred if I break it." As if anticipating a protest, he quickly added, "The two-fifty is for my time and the use of my proprietary software." He gestured around at his front room, furnished in contemporary crummy. "I need cash to maintain this lavish lifestyle."

"Deal."

Russ rubbed his chin. "Got a feeling I low-balled myself."

Jack grabbed a pad off his desk and scribbled his cell number, then wrote "Nantucket."

"I need anything and everything on that drive that has to do with Nantucket. And I need it fast." He peeled five fifties from his cash roll. "Here's the down payment. Another two fifty later and a five-hundred bonus if you get it done before six tomorrow morning."

Russ grinned—he really needed a new toothbrush. "Awrightl I'm on it. If it's doable, I'm the guy to do it."