The Last Minute

7

Amsterdam

Jack and Ricki had met under less than auspicious circumstances: she appeared in a hacker’s chat room when he was still in New York City, looking to trade piracy software for counterfeit DVDs. Jack didn’t think film piracy was really very cool, he knew it was theft, but in her postings Ricki was funny and charming and she was Dutch and so he thought she was hot. No one on the hacker discussion group knew he was Jack Ming, the guy the New York police wanted to bring in for questioning.

I got to run and hide. My parents are so uncool, he’d written.

Come and hide in Holland, she wrote in answer.

So he had, just on impulse, and he and Ricki had met for coffee in Delft after he arrived on a fake passport a friend back in New York helped him get. Instead of the dainty Dutch girl he imagined, Ricki was half a head taller than him and an immigrant from Senegal. She was funny, smart, pretty, and oddly tough. He was thoroughly overwhelmed and intimidated by her. He didn’t know what to say. Their coffee dates became fewer; he figured she was disappointed in him. He was a geek on the run. And he kept too much hidden in himself for her taste. How unappealing was that?

The hacker community tended toward what Jack thought of as a distant tightness. They stayed close online but they didn’t hang out much in real life. A person who was socially nimble behind the cocoon of a screen could be one who consistently missed normal interaction cues in a cafe or a pub. Ricki was one such individual. She arrived at the coffee shop thirty minutes late, stuck a wad of cash into one hand and a bag of cheap clothes into his other hand and said, ‘You owe me.’

‘Where’d you get the clothes? All the stores are closed.’

She shrugged. ‘Old boyfriend before you left them behind, but I think they should fit. You’re about the same size.’

He tried to ignore the stab of jealousy he felt. ‘Yes, I know. I’m going to owe you more. I need a place to stay. Just for tonight.’

‘Please.’ Ricki rolled her black-lined eyes. ‘Now you’ve decided to talk?’

‘Just one night.’ He glanced in the bag; the clothes were a lot more colorful and stylish than he would have selected.

‘What kind of trouble are you in?’

‘Nothing major, I just need a place to crash.’

‘Do the police know you’ve checked yourself out of hospital?’

Information was currency. ‘Look, I’ll write a program for you, a Trojan that’ll send you back information from the infected computer. Could be valuable.’

Ricki touched the corner of her mouth with her tongue. Please be greedy, Jack thought. Please.

‘You don’t need to bribe me to help you, Jack!’ She looked wounded. ‘I took a huge risk to find you.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘No. I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean that. I was going to give it to you as a gift. For helping me.’ His voice trailed off.

She sighed. ‘So smart, so clueless. Buy me a coffee with the money I brought you and we’ll go back to my place. I’m just glad you’re okay.’

‘You are?’

‘Duh. No, I’ve often wished you dead. Honestly, you are dumb as a rock.’ But Ricki smiled at him. A short, sweet flick of a smile and it nearly made him cry, he was so happy to see a friendly face.

He changed clothes in the tiny bathroom of the cafe. He bought her a coffee to go. He wanted to put as much distance between him and the hospital as possible. He felt he’d nearly gone insane waiting for her.

The first thing he thought when he saw her apartment was blink and wonder where she actually lived, because there was hardly space for her in the rooms. When they’d dated months ago, she’d never let him come to her place. She was in Amsterdam, he lived in Delft and she came to see him, not the other way around. The apartment was small. One entire wall was full of bookshelves, each holding at least two dozen DVD burners. On the opposite side of the wall he saw neatly packaged DVDs, mostly of films currently playing in theaters. Hundreds of them. He started doing the math in his head.

‘It’s probably about fifty thousand dollars’ worth,’ she said.

‘Wow. And you sell these on the street?’ She had not really talked much about her ‘work’.

‘I used to. That’s how I came here from Senegal. The counterfeiters start you off selling on the streets. I sold DVDs better than anyone. I got promoted. Now I have a street team.’

‘Don’t you get caught?’

‘Not me,’ she laughed.

The machines whirred, all creating illicit product. Machines began to beep, completing their copying, and she started to pull the finished discs from the machines.

She tossed him a T-shirt from a freshly opened box, for a new vampire film that wasn’t out for another three months, with a still shot of the main characters at a critical moment silk-screened on its chest.

‘So. You got shot and had a vacation courtesy of the police,’ she said. She glanced at the raw scar on his neck. He would, Jack thought, need a scarf. The thought of wearing the vampire shirt while having a healing neck wound nearly made him laugh.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a dangerous boy now, Jack.’ She touched the skin below his scar. ‘Who shot you?’ Excitement brightened her dark eyes.

‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, excuse the cliche, in my case it’s apt.’

‘Nic was shot to death,’ she said. ‘It was in the news.’

‘Yes.’

‘When you were shot?’

‘No. Before. He was dead before I got there.’

‘Well, that wasn’t in the papers.’ Her voice rose. ‘Why not?’

‘Because it wasn’t.’

‘Why?’ Her voice sounded accusatory.

‘Because I suppose the police were protecting me.’

‘And, what, now they’re not.’

‘Now they’re not.’ He weighed his choices. He had few. ‘I killed a man there tonight, Ricki.’

She laughed. Then she didn’t. She sat and stared at him.

He fought down a surge of shivers. ‘Maybe some tea?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but decaf. You don’t need any more stimulation. You won’t sleep at all tonight.’ She got up and microwaved two cups of water and stuck a decaf English Breakfast teabag in each cup. He watched the steam curl and stayed silent while he let her process his confession. She produced a bottle of brandy from her cupboard and raised eyebrows at him and he nodded. Ricki dosed both cups.

He thought she might keep quiet. She would never go to the police, not at all. But now he had to win her sympathy to earn her continued help. She came looking for you, he told himself. She must want to help you. At least, until she finds out how dangerous this could be.

‘The man was sent to kill me. I have to vanish for a while. I’m not so scared of the cops but the cops can’t protect me, and I’m not going to jail. They won’t let people like you and me have a computer in jail. Ever.’

She folded her arms as though his dire prediction made her cold. She was immediately weighing her options, he could tell. She wasn’t easily given to shock.

‘Will you help me?’ he asked.

‘Who wants you dead?’

‘Nic got me involved. He did work with a group called Novem Soles. Or Nine Suns?’

She shook her head. ‘What, they’re Catholic computer hackers?’

‘Uh, no. They’re afraid I might know more than they think I do. I’m a loose end. I’m a mouth that could talk.’

‘Do you really know anything that could hurt them?’

‘No,’ he said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. The notebook – Nic’s self-described nuclear weapon – there was no point in mentioning it to Ricki. The less she knew, the safer she was.

‘So, what, you run for the rest of your life? This guy you killed, it was self-defense, right?’ Her voice rose slightly. ‘You won’t be able to finish school.’

‘I was kind of bored with school. You and me, we’re not suited to day jobs.’

She gave him a shy smile and sipped her tea. ‘So you run and to begin with I equip you.’

‘Well. If you can. I’ll pay, of course.’

‘What do you need?’

‘A laptop. I need to be able to transfer my money to a new account. I need to get documentation so I can get out of the country under a new name. And I know somebody who might be able to hide me from these guys, and I need a way to contact him without him finding me after I give him a call. I want to see him on my own terms.’

‘I can spare you a laptop, a year-old MacBook Pro with the latest operating system. I have an anonymiser program on it that can shield you from being easily traced. Is that good enough?’

‘Thank you.’ To hackers laptops were like racehorses; they always preferred the most muscle. A year-old computer was an antique to Jack; he routinely bought a new system every six months. But it would do.

Ricki tapped her lip. ‘A passport and credit cards? I know a guy in Brussels who works wonders, but he’s not cheap. He can probably have you a passport in three days, another day to overnight it.’

‘All right.’

‘Your money, I can ask a guy in Russia. He moves a lot of funds for me. But I can’t promise. Could you just withdraw all the cash?’

‘Yes, but I’d prefer to keep it electronic, less likely to lose it.’ He did not want to add that he didn’t care to keep tens of thousands of euros he’d earned hacking for Nic’s criminal ring about his person. He wanted the money moved, cleanly, hidden where he could reach it under a new name. And where he wouldn’t have to worry about customs, or the police freezing his accounts if they figured out Jin Ming was a lie. He was a potential murderer in their eyes now, everything had changed. He needed to keep as many of his secrets close to him as he could.

‘Okay, this guy you need to contact. He doesn’t want to be found?’

‘He is part of a bureaucracy that can hide me.’

‘Government?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dutch?’

‘No. American.’

Ricki stared. ‘You want me to penetrate a top-level American government network. Did you go to a smoke bar after you left the hospital?’

‘No. I’ll do it. But if I run into a wall I will want your expertise.’

Flattery was the most potent currency in the hacker world. That and respect, acknowledgment of skills. She didn’t smile until she’d lifted the tea cup and she thought Jack couldn’t see her grin. ‘I thought you might have some programs to help me chisel my way in.’

‘I might. You hungry?’

‘Yes. Very.’

‘I can cook some pasta, open some wine. Oh, I didn’t think about giving you more alcohol, are you on meds?’

‘I would very much like a glass of wine. And, no, I have no meds.’

‘Now that would be a challenge,’ she said. ‘Get an online pharmacy to send you what you need, without placing an actual order.’ She laughed and so did he, and for a moment the memory that he had killed a man, albeit an assassin, edged from the center of his thoughts. He was always happier when he had a problem with which to play.

‘Is that all you need?’

‘Yes,’ he said. But it was a lie. He knew where Nic lived. And Nic being dead, and the police would have had all his computers confiscated since he was a known con artist and trader in online filth. So had the police found the notebook and taken it? Surely that would be news, if a murdered man’s notebook could blow open an international crime ring. But the police could keep the discovery silent, the same way they’d shielded his name and location while he recovered.

Ricki brought him wine and sat down next to him. Close to him. She smiled at him, warmly. Was surviving a shooting… was that sexy? He’d avoided most girls at Delft because he didn’t want to risk blowing his cover story. Girls always wanted to know about you, to delve into secrets. But Ricki had secrets of her own. She might not ask too many more questions.

They drank the wine and before he knew it, before he could analyse it, he’d taken her wine glass and set it on the coffee table and he was kissing her warm mouth. She kissed him back. He was alive. He’d forgotten how good it could feel. So he did all the things necessary for living; he kissed her, he laughed with her, they ate dinner, they made love. Then they lay in bed and watched a movie she’d stolen from a studio’s laptop, a film that wasn’t hitting theaters for another three weeks.

When she fell asleep and the movie was over, Jack began to think. He needed a way to figure out where Nic would hide his most potent and powerful secret of all, and he would have to start by breaking into Nic’s house tomorrow morning.