Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(17)

She nodded, very slowly. Taking it all in.

“I wasn’t lying about the hope,” I said.

? ? ?

The Wardriver pulled into the Carmichael-Sterling Nevada parking lot. Pixie found an open spot and parked the van, quiet and anonymous. She was quiet, too. Hadn’t had a lot to say since our conversation. The office building was a three-story wedge of granite and glass on the outskirts of the city, gleaming bright in the morning sun.

Bentley and Corman weren’t far behind. The silver Caddy rolled in and prowled the lot in slow circles like a shark in shallow water. We were early enough that employees were still arriving, a few more every couple of minutes, giving me my pick of targets.

While Pixie set up her equipment in the back, I relaxed and focused on the building. Its reflection in the rearview mirror didn’t glow, didn’t shimmer with mystic traps or dangerous swells of occult power. It just sat there like a perfectly normal office complex.

That worried me.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. Corman.

“I don’t like it,” he said, and I knew exactly what he meant.

“They’re not expecting an attack here,” I said, “but they didn’t put up any wards. They practically laid out a welcome mat for us. It doesn’t make sense.”

“What about mechanical traps, like the ones at the Silverlode? You almost got a razor-wire haircut.”

I shook my head. “No way. Meadow Brand loves those, but they’re not gonna rig a building full of clueless citizens with deathtraps. They’d kill their own employees. Same goes for Brand’s mannequins. Can’t have those things running around in public.”

I thought about it for a minute and snapped my fingers.

“Because,” I said, “they’re not here. We know they don’t want a head-on fight, not until Lauren gets her strength back and brings in some new followers. She’s the CEO. She can work from home if she damn well wants to. Same with Brand. Hell, they can work from Bermuda. Wherever they’re holed up, it’s someplace remote, defensible, and with no civilians around to complicate things.”

“They could be using a VPN,” Pixie said from the back of the van. Her fingers flew over the keyboard attached to the console, two monitors lighting up at once.

“A VP what?”

“Virtual private network. Pretty common for telecommuters. Basically, they log in remotely. Their network traffic still runs through the building here, so they can access the company servers. Long story short, we’d still be able to see their email and activity just as if they were sitting in their offices.”

“You think that’s likely?” I asked.

“Given how tight their network security is? I can’t imagine they’d invest that kind of money and then swap their dirty secrets over an unencrypted home network and a Gmail account. Yeah, I’d bet five bucks they’re on a VPN.”

“All right,” I said. “Did you hear that, Corman?”

“VPN, VCR, whatever. Bentley’s the computer whiz in our house. Bottom-line it for me, kiddo.”

“I’m going in. Wait for my sign. We’ll pull a Mr. Magoo with a bump-’n’-catch.”

“A what?” Pixie said.

“You have your lingo,” I told her, “we have ours.”

It didn’t take long to find a mark. The one who pulled into the lot in a VW hatchback with a Federation Starfleet sticker on the back bumper suited me just fine. He was a younger guy, maybe in his mid twenties, with a rumpled dress shirt and his employee ID clipped to his belt with a bright blue plastic lanyard. I got out of the van and gave the sign. Bentley caught it and swung the Cadillac around for another pass.

I strolled around the lot, taking the long way, to come up from behind.





Nine

Bentley pulled up between the mark and the sidewalk leading to the building, cutting him off. Corman rolled down the passenger-side window, and as I approached, I watched the young man lean close to talk to him.

“—my damn glasses at home,” Corman was telling him, showing the kid some scribbles on a sheet of yellow notebook paper. “Are we anywhere near the right street?”

I walked up from behind and kept my footsteps light on the asphalt. I came in on an angle, making sure Bentley could see me. The kid squinted to read Corman’s chicken scratch.

“You know, I think we might—” Bentley started to say, turning in his seat. The car suddenly lurched, just a jolt, as he pretended to let his foot slip from the brake pedal. The kid jumped, startled, and I plucked the clip-on lanyard from his belt like I was snatching a fly with chopsticks. People can only keep track of so many sensory inputs at once, half that if they’re caught off-balance. In the split second of confusion, focused on the car, he didn’t notice a thing.

I speed-walked right on by, turning back toward the van. Pixie waited for me at the window. I tossed her the card. She caught it and disappeared into the back. Just when I was starting to get anxious, she passed it back to me. Across the lot, the kid pointed east, giving Bentley and Corman directions to the other side of town. They hit the road, their part complete. I broke into a jog and caught the kid near the front door.

“Hey! Excuse me, is this yours?” I called out. He turned, and I showed him the card and lanyard. “I found this in the parking lot. Did you drop it?”