Under the Knife(85)

Eighteen goddamn million dollars.

Now that was decent money. He’d be set up for life. They’d all be set up. It would once and for all get him out of this shitty line of work. Chump change to Finney, a billionaire a few times over. The bastard probably netted that much in interest in the time it took him to take his morning piss. Sebastian would be a fool to turn it down. So he’d rolled the dice, taken a calculated risk. He’d play Finney’s game. For now, anyway. The trick was making sure he’d get paid, in the end. For that, he needed some insurance.

Sebastian was a problem solver. Methodical. Professional. Good at improvising solutions on the fly, trained to expect the unexpected. Finney had altered the rules on him. No big deal. A proper response would simply require fresh preparations, and he’d bought himself some time by telling Finney he needed a few more hours to finish Finney’s stuff, which he didn’t really: Finney’s plans, as disturbing to Sebastian as they were, were straightforward.

He had a good idea of what he needed to do next.

He’d studied the tapes.

(The teenager in her cell.)

He’d studied the device.

(The teenager curled up in her cell don’t think about her.)

And though he couldn’t grasp all of the theory underlying it, he knew the device as well as anyone, including its inventors, and Finney. He just needed a little help to figure something out.

He muted his line to Finney, picked up his phone, and made an encrypted call. Three rings, then an electronically altered voice answered: “Blade.”

“Blade. It’s Scepter.” His own voice, he knew, would likewise be unrecognizable on the other end, transformed by the electronic filter.

“Scepter.” The electronic distortion could not hide the surprise of the person at the other end. He wondered, as always, if Blade was a woman or a man. The distortion made it impossible to tell. “Been a while.”

“Yes.” Six months, in fact, since he’d last hired Blade, when Blade had helped him hack into Turner’s electronic medical record and security systems.

“What’ve you been up to, Scepter?”

“This and that.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I need some help getting around a firewall. It’s a rather … unique … system.” He explained.

“Sure. By when?”

“By 8:00 A.M. GMT.” Midnight tonight California time.

Blade chuckled. The electronic filter made Blade sound ominous, like a horror movie villain. “For you, my friend, I’ll clear my calendar. But it’ll cost you.”

“It always does.”

Blade named the price. Sebastian winced: Between his sister, and Blade, before the end of the day, his slimming bank account was going to be a whole lot slimmer: like, zero. Except for the cash he was carrying, he’d be out of money, and in dire need of the 18 million. This had better goddamn work. “Okay. Ten percent down. The other ninety on receipt of the algorithm.”

“Twenty. Twenty down.”

“Fifteen.”

“No. Twenty.”

Sebastian sighed and briefly considered taking his hacking business elsewhere. But Blade was the best and always available on short notice. “Fine. Twenty, then.”

“You know what I’ll need.”

He did. Sebastian transmitted the data, including electronic payment, to the IP address Blade provided, routing it first through five separate overseas servers, to be safe—although, given Blade’s formidable skills, he had to assume Blade had already traced him. Couldn’t be helped: The risk came with the territory.

Blade confirmed receipt of the data and hung up.

Sebastian tossed the phone onto the front passenger seat and leaned back, listening to the audio feed from Wu’s device.

She was sleeping, as best he could tell. He heard her steady breathing and the background hum of the Turner ER. Nothing much had happened since her last seizure: a few more blood tests; a brain MRI; her glasses with the camera confiscated and in storage, so they were useless.

There was a rustling.

He sat up straighter.

Something was going on.





SPENCER


Back now in his street clothes, Spencer was studying the large digital screen mounted over the ER nurses’ station, searching for Rita’s name. Roughly the size of a twin bed, the screen displayed all of the ER patients—their last names, working diagnoses, and beds in which they resided—and appeared like the departures and arrivals board in an airport.

One hand was behind his right ear, touching the EEG electrode; the other was in his pocket, idly fingering the extra electrode Raj had given him—the one he’d grabbed from his bag during his morning drive to work. The one that Raj wanted him to test on someone else.

He knew now who that was going to be.

There. Room 5. They’d moved her since he’d helped the code team bring her to the ER.

“Spencer! Hey, man.” Spencer turned to the man in white coat and scrubs who’d appeared at his side: Brian Ford, one of the head ER docs.

“Oh, hey, Brian. What’s up, man?”

Brian was black, with two hypnotizing rows of the straightest, whitest teeth Spencer had ever seen. He liked Brian; but, as always when around him, Spencer experienced a twinge of envy as the two bumped fists. Brian was one of those guys who projected effortless, intelligent manliness. A man’s man. Women loved him; men wanted to be more like him. He was tall and lean, but strong. He and Spencer played in a rugby league, and routinely bought each other beers at their favorite brew pub after games.