Heart-Shaped Hack(39)
He sat down heavily on the bed, reaching for the buttons on his shirt. His fingers wouldn’t cooperate, and if it hadn’t been for the complete lack of the smell of alcohol, Kate would have sworn he was drunk.
“Here, let me do it,” Kate said, brushing his hands away.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She gave him a quick kiss. “I know. We’ll talk about it later.” She took off his glasses and set them on the nightstand.
He seemed to fall asleep as she was undressing him, but then his eyes opened suddenly and he looked disoriented, as if he wasn’t sure where he was.
“Don’t worry. You’re home,” Kate said soothingly. When she had him down to his underwear, she pulled back the covers on his side of the bed and managed to slide him underneath, which was difficult because he was deadweight and almost incapable of helping her.
“My phone…” He was fading fast, the words trailing off.
Kate stroked his head. “I’ll take care of your phone. You go to sleep.” It was as if she’d flicked a switch. One moment he was with her, and the next he was out.
She found a few crumpled twenties, his company credit card, and his phone and charger in the front pocket of his jeans. The phone was exactly like hers and down to two percent battery. She plugged in the phone and placed it on the nightstand. Then she went into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water in case he woke up and needed a drink.
He was so still. She thought about sliding in next to him, wanting to put her arms around him and hold him, but she was wide-awake. She pressed a kiss to his lips, closed the bedroom door, and went into the kitchen to make coffee.
He woke up fourteen hours later. She was on her way to Ginger Hop to pick up an order of pad Thai and General Tsing’s chicken when she received his text.
Ian: I’m awake. I don’t remember coming home.
Kate: You were pretty out of it. You must be starving. I’ll be back soon with dinner.
Ian: Starving and still tired. I’m going to take a shower. I missed you.
Kate: I missed you too.
When she walked in the door, he took the carryout bag from her, set it down on the floor, and slid his hand under her hair, gripping her by the back of her neck and pressing her face to his chest.
“Thanks for taking such good care of me,” he said, raising her chin for a kiss. He tightened his hold on her, and she hugged him back.
“Anytime.”
His eyes were still red, but they weren’t nearly the road map they’d been when he’d come home.
“Please tell me you didn’t drive here.”
“I took a cab from the airport.”
“Good.”
“You’re probably wondering what I was doing.”
“I have a few questions, but let’s have dinner first. We’ll talk after.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
They dished up the food and brought their plates into the living room. Ian ate ravenously, finishing his meal and polishing off the rest of hers too. She waited until he set his empty plate on the coffee table before she asked her first question.
“Do you work for the FBI?” Kate had read everything she could get her hands on about hacking after Ian explained the difference between white and black hats. The subject fascinated her, and they’d had several in-depth follow-up discussions about certain aspects of the culture. She remembered from her reading that the FBI had a number of task forces dedicated to fighting cybercrime. If Ian was as good as he said he was, it made sense that he might be involved in something like that.
“I work with the FBI. But they have priority over my other clients. Always.”
“Do they often whisk you away on airplanes without notice?”
“Only when absolutely necessary, and only if it’s something that can’t be handled out of the field office.”
“What exactly are you involved in?”
“Remember that day at breakfast when I told you about the cyberthieves who steal credit card numbers and then sell them to people called carders?”
“You said they make new cards and use them to buy things. Then they return the merchandise for cash or sell it.”
He nodded. “The credit card information is traded on a forum. It’s basically an online black market for cyberthieves. Attacks against retailers and consumers have increased, which means more of this information is being bought and sold now than ever before. The FBI created a team whose sole purpose is to dismantle one of the biggest carding rings.”
“The FBI hired you to help them with this?”
“It’s not uncommon. They simply don’t have the technical skills to do it themselves. Sometimes it takes a hacker to catch a hacker.”
“So you’re an informant?”
“More like a special consultant.”
“Does the FBI have something against letting you sleep?”
“No, but one of the team members logged on to the forum from his government IP address, which prompted accusations that it had been infiltrated by the FBI. Most cybercrime rings have been, so the paranoia is rampant and, in this case, justified. The leader of the task force summoned the team to headquarters to do damage control. My phone started blowing up after I got the call, and the plane was already waiting for me on the tarmac when I arrived. They brought in food, and we could take a quick break to stand under a cold shower in the locker room, but no one slept. We’ve spent over two years earning the trust of the forum’s key members, and we stayed online around the clock until we’d convinced them it had been a false alarm and they had nothing to worry about. Then I got back on the plane and came home.”