Lockout

CHAPTER SIX

First class cabin, Pangia 10 (2000 Zulu)

Josh Begich was impressed with his own stealth. The smoking hot babe seated next to him in Seat 3A still wasn’t aware he’d been indulging in a delicious, clandestine view of her substantial cleavage.

Thank God for peripheral vision! he thought.

Josh riffled another series of keystrokes across the keyboard of his laptop computer to keep her attention diverted, smiling to himself when a map expanded impressively to fill the seventeen-inch screen and then zoomed in on what appeared to be a phosphorescent aircraft against a black void, presumably as seen from space.

“Is that us?” the girl asked, her eyes riveted on the image as wisps of clouds appeared to pass the depiction. She shifted in her first class seat and leaned in further toward him for a better view—his better view. Exactly what he’d planned.

“Yes, that’s us,” he answered. “It’s the infrared picture I’m pulling off one of our US spy satellites. I hacked into their datastream months ago and… as long as I don’t stay connected too long… they never know why their camera suddenly shifts to something else.”

“That… is… amazing,” she said, a giveaway tone of delectable awe in her voice. “I mean, it’s night, and we’re still visible!”

“Yep. That’s what you can do if you know these machines… and you have a Wi-Fi connection by satellite.” Josh glanced at the “satellite” image running in the three-minute loop he’d constructed. It was streaming from nothing more distant than his own hard drive, and in about thirty seconds it would start again with a slight jump, perhaps giving away his deception. But the girl was apparently buying it.

What is she, fifteen like me, or sixteen? But technologically dumb as a stump.

Josh pointed to the screen again. “This jet we’re on is full of computers. The whole world is now, and I can break into just about any of them.”

She sat back, the slight look of awe changing to a look of skepticism. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really!” Josh replied, feeling suddenly challenged.

“So, launch a missile from North Dakota for me,” she said. “You owe me for five minutes of eye-fucking my boobs!”

“Eye what?”

“It’s okay. I’m cool with it. Now, make good on your boasts. Show me something other than a pre-cooked loop.”

“Pre-cooked…”

“You’re busted, dude. I saw it repeat.”

“You know computers?”

She smiled a disturbing message of hidden sophistication and nodded, her eyes melting his as she sat enjoying his squirming response.

“You might say that.”

“How?”

“Hey, you’re the stud trying to wow the dumb blonde in the next seat, it’s my turn to be mysterious. So throw down, boy. Show me something real.”

Nonchalance was his thing—Joe Cool on ice—and he tried to regain that air of bravado as he shrugged his insubstantial shoulders and worked on looking slightly bored.

“Okay. I’ve got some pretty good moves.”

“Sweet. Show me.”

“It’ll take a few minutes to break into the processor I’m gonna commandeer.”

“Go for it, Rambo. We’ve got hours,” she replied with a smile. “But I’ll warn you… I don’t impress easy.”

“What did you say your name was?” he blurted, well aware she hadn’t offered it and angry with himself for yet another display of awkwardness in the presence of a pretty girl.

“Sara,” she replied, eyes meeting his again for a moment before he looked away in clandestine embarrassment and prepared to do battle with a vulnerable server unseen in the distance, a knight errant out to win the damsel.