Hunt Them Down(54)
“And that’s good news? The door looks heavy as hell. We can’t pick that kind of lock.”
“Maybe you can’t pick it, but I can hack it.”
“You’re serious?”
Anna flashed him a mischievous grin, but there was no warmth to it, only contempt. “You’re not the only one who can keep secrets.”
She watched the green words of code flicker across the screen of her laptop, her fingers burning up the keyboard. She brought up a hidden sign-on screen and entered a code, and just like that, she was in the security mainframe.
“I never asked you where you learned to do that.”
“And you’re asking me now?”
“I am.”
“None of your damn business,” she replied bluntly.
Anna remembered the first time she had cracked into a computer. She was fifteen and still in high school. She did it to change her best friend’s math test result. A handsome young man—Agustín was his name—who used to work for her father had patiently shown her how to do it. For close to two years, every afternoon after school, she spent half an hour or so with Agustín and watched him work. He was incredible. Within minutes, Agustín was able to hack into someone’s bank account and transfer money out of it. After moving the money around the world, it ended up in one of Vicente Garcia’s Bahamian bank accounts. For his services, Agustín—at least this is what he had told her—was getting 20 percent of whatever he sent to her father.
Then, one day, she came back from school, and Agustín wasn’t at his desk. He wasn’t there the next day either. When she inquired about his whereabouts, her father told her Agustín wasn’t working for him anymore.
“Why?” she asked him.
“He stole from me.”
Her father’s reply—the way he said it—had chilled her to the bone, but she’d summoned the courage to say, “I thought you liked him. Didn’t he make you lots of money?”
Vicente banged his fist on his desk, making Anna jump. “I said, he stole from me,” Vicente roared. “If someone steals from me, there are consequences.”
Anna, too terrified to ask what the consequences were, had run back to her room. For a while, she didn’t dare touch another computer. But when the time came to go to college, she couldn’t help herself. She hacked into the mainframes of most of the colleges she applied to just to see how she ranked among her peers. There was no need to change the rankings. She was high enough to pick where she wanted to go. She ended up graduating with a master’s degree in computer science from the Florida Institute of Technology and working for her father doing pretty much the same thing Agustín had done. But better. She beefed up her father’s network security while keeping an eye on their competitors’ vulnerabilities and exploiting them whenever she could. After a few years, though, she needed a new challenge and had gone to work for a couple of start-up companies. That was what she’d been doing when she met Terrance Davis. To be completely honest, she was as angry with herself for being so naive as she was at Hunt for his treachery.
But that was a topic for later. Now wasn’t the time to let her personal feelings or animosity toward Hunt encroach on what they needed to do. For now, Hunt was her best shot at getting Sophia back. Anna simply couldn’t imagine a world without her. She had loved Sophia from the very moment she was born. She had loved her niece every single hour of every day as she watched her grow into a beautiful young woman, and as much as she distrusted Hunt, she knew he felt the same way toward Leila. They had no choice but to work together.
Breaking through a Wi-Fi network, however strong the password, was child’s play for someone like her. She easily wiped clean all the previous passwords and reset them to the factory setting before replacing them with her own. The Schlage lock was linked to a network that gave her access to all the systems linked to that network. In this case it meant that from the relative safety of the Jeep, she could control all the interior and exterior lights, the blinds, the house’s three air-conditioning units, the security cameras, and the alarm system. She could even open the front gate.
“I got us our way in,” she said.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Hallandale Beach, Florida
Emilio looked at his watch. Hector had left for the Hypoluxo safe house ten minutes ago. He had taken with him the rest of his team and the two girls, leaving Emilio and two other local shooters behind. The inside of the house was in total blackness. He had ordered all the interior lights to be turned off. The outside lights were turned off too, so they’d be able to pinpoint exactly where the intruders came from. If anyone’s really coming, thought Emilio. Hector had said a man—the father of one of the girls—and a woman were on their way.
“He’s dangerous, Emilio, so be ready,” Hector had said.
Emilio was used to dealing with dangerous men. This one wouldn’t be any different. His orders were clear: Kill the man and the woman. Bring their bodies inside, and torch the house.
Easy enough.
Emilio had positioned the two shooters on the ground floor, both covering the rear of the house since it led directly to the beach, the most probable approach. High brick walls topped with glittering shards of broken glass protected the three other sides of the house. Six inches above the broken glass, strands of razor wire ran the length of each wall. It was a nasty but effective way to deter petty thieves—or a DEA agent. Even if the man successfully scaled one of the three walls, there was a multitude of motion detector lights positioned outside the house. Getting close to the house undetected would be impossible.