Street Game (GhostWalkers, #8)(67)

“I’ll take that bet,” Kane said, laying out his twenty. “Anyone else in?”

Ethan poked Paul with his elbow. “You really got letters at the end of your name, kid?”

“I do,” Paul said.

Ethan slammed down the twenty. “Javier hardly went to school. And Jaimie doesn’t have any of those letters.”

Mack tipped his chair back lazily. “Are you crazy, Ethan? She has three paragraphs’ worth of letters behind her name and three or four pages of awards. Javier didn’t need to go to a formal school. He worked with the best in the business and got his education hands-on, not to mention both of them are brilliant. You’re betting against them?”

Brian tossed his money over Ethan’s. “Jaimie graduated high school at eleven, you idiot. Jaimie, all the way. I’m in.”

“Jaimie did your homework for you,” Kane reminded.

“Where did she go to school?” Paul asked.

Mack deliberately smirked. “She received her B.A. summa cum laude from Columbia University.” He tipped his chair forward and looked into Paul’s eyes. “I believe that’s the highest honors there, kid. If I remember my Latin correctly, summa trumps magna any day, am I right?”

Kane grinned. “And don’t you think going to an Ivy League university instead of an engineering institute might give you a little more rounded education?”

“Not necessarily.” Paul sniffed. “If you want to play around with other things.”

“She was only what?” Mack turned his head toward Kane. “Sixteen or seventeen?”

“I don’t think she was even that old,” Kane replied.

“Where’d she get her PhD?” Paul asked, the smugness fading.

“She got her PhD from Stanford University.” Mack tipped back his chair again, balancing on the two back legs. “She specialized in artificial intelligence.” His grin was back. “AI sounds a whole lot sexier than ‘analysis of algorithms’ to me.”

“Is that good?” Ethan asked Paul. “Why would you want to be artificially intelligent? You’re the real thing, right?” His hand hovered over the twenty he’d thrown out.

Kane slapped his hand. “Back off, moron.”

“Don’t worry, Ethan,” Paul said. “This is all about encryption.”

Mack snorted. “And you’re feeling really confident that she doesn’t know much about that, right? Not her strong suit?”

Ethan groaned. “He’s taunting us, man. That’s not good.”

Marc rubbed his jaw. “Maybe we should change the bet. We could put a time limit on her. What does it usually take to do something like this? Minutes? Hours?”

“Try weeks or months,” Paul said. “Sometimes years, depending on the encryption.”

Mack and Kane exchanged a long look, smug amusement mixed with pride in their grins.

Paul scowled. “It will take years. If they can even do it.”

Ethan nudged him. “There’s two of them and only one of you. We should get odds on this. And maybe we could blindfold Jaimie.”

“Just tell us what you’re dying to tell us,” Paul said.

“She did her dissertation on a revolutionary, AI-based encryption algorithm.” Mack delivered the killing argument with quiet satisfaction. “Her AI dissertation is entitled, ‘An Experimental Schema-Based Approach to Mememetric Password Generation.’”

“I can’t believe this,” Paul said and wiped his face with his hand.

“Not so cocky now, are you?” Mack taunted. “Never, ever underestimate my woman.” There was a wealth of pride in his voice.

“Are you saying she might be able to do it?”

Paul shrugged. “It’s possible. Depending.”

“Well.” Ethan’s hand slid across the table toward the twenties. “I got carried away.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Kane said. “You placed a bet, you’re in.”

“You’re so harsh,” Ethan complained.

“Who ate all the lasagna?” Marc demanded. “I’m supposed to go relieve Gideon and there’s nothing left.” He turned his head toward the covered plate. “Unless . . .”

“Don’t even think about it,” Mack warned. “Anyone touching Jaimie’s food loses their hand.”

Marc snatched his hand out of harm’s way and put it behind his back. “It’s cold out there on the roof tonight.” He grinned at Mack. “Those two idiots in the boat are freezing their butts off and Gideon says they aren’t happy.”

“Well, don’t get your head shot off making fun of them,” Mack cautioned as Marc sauntered out. He shoved his chair back and added to the others, “Let’s get this kitchen clean and talk a little shop while we’re waiting.”

The men picked up their plates. Paul hesitated and when no one looked at him, he followed suit. As he approached the sink, his gaze touched briefly on the wooden block of knives and slid away.

“Don’t,” Mack warned wearily. “I’d hate to have to kill someone I like.”

Paul blinked. “You don’t like me. None of you do.”

“Where’d you get a dumb idea like that?” Mack asked.