Street Game (GhostWalkers, #8)(73)

“Talk to me, honey,” Mack said. “Not to the machine.”

“He found my main backdoor and shut it down, but I’ve got another, much more subtle. And he didn’t find it. No one would unless they knew exactly where to look and what to look for. The first one would have given me his six-word password straight away. Much easier.” She hunched closer, her eyes glued to the screen. “But this isn’t impossible. What the second backdoor enables me to know is which ‘experience schema’ the password is based on—and that should narrow down the possibilities.”

Mack groaned. “Narrowing things down sounds like it will take some time.”

“Of course it will. The kid’s good. He managed to get his hands on top-notch protection. It’s his bad luck that it’s my program.”

Javier burst out laughing. “Everyone calls him ‘the kid.’ He’s older than you are, Jaimie.”

“Everyone’s older than she is,” Mack pointed out.

“Ha, ha, ha,” Jaimie said, without looking away from the screen. “There you go, boys. ‘Low-grade traumatic childhood experience.’ I’ve got him now.”

Javier lifted an eyebrow. “How is knowing that going to help us figure out his six-word password, Yoda?”

“Because, little grasshopper, as creator of the program, I know how the program goes from the schema to the six-word password.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t,” Mack said.

“See the six pairs of brackets where you’re supposed to type in your six-word password?” Jaimie pointed to the screen. “Here, let me show you.” She dragged a notebook across the desk and hastily sketched a picture for them.

LOCATION WHAT HAPPENED WHY TRAUMATIC [ WORD1 ] [ WORD2 ] [ WORD3 ] [ WORD4 ] [ WORD5 ] [ WORD6 ]

“My backdoor showed us that his six words describe a ‘low-grade traumatic childhood experience’ that he had. As the designer of the program, I happen to know that, together, word one and word two describe the location where that experience occurred, such as ‘cellar stairs’ or ‘front yard.’ Word three and word four describe what happened—something like ‘pit bull growling’ or ‘gun fired.’ And the final two words are used to describe why it was traumatic, like ‘terrified me,’ that sort of thing.”

“Jaimie,” Mack said in his best you’re-driving-me-crazy-get-on-with-it voice.

“Okay. Sheesh, Mack, things take time. I’m running a special purpose, ‘brute force’ program. The two words for the ‘location’ are drawn from a database of about a million words. The two words for ‘what happened’ are drawn from another database of about a million words. And the two words for ‘why the experience was traumatic’ are drawn from a database of about 100,000 words.”

“That sounds like it’s going to take more time than I think we have.”

“Mack, come on,” Javier said. “This is a miracle. If Jaimie hadn’t written the program in the first place, it would be virtually impossible to even get close. We’d have to try all combinations of six words and that would take centuries.”

“Exactly. It may sound like a lot of combinations, babe,” Jaimie assured, “but it’s small enough that we can ‘brute force search’ our way through all the possibilities in under two hours. Can you give us two hours?”

She’d called him “babe.” She hadn’t done that in two years. It had come out easy and natural, with that little intonation of affection she could never quite mask. It had always annoyed him before because she’d begun doing it in retaliation when she objected to his calling her “baby.” He liked calling her “baby,” not because he thought of her as a baby but because it was a term of endearment his father had used with his mother. It was one of the few memories he had of his father. He supposed it was silly on his part, and he should have stopped when she’d objected, but he’d continued. She’d retaliated and then gone on from there. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that small exchange between them.

“I can wait a couple of hours. That kid is quite the puzzle,” he added, toeing a chair around and straddling it.

“Actually, boss, everyone likes him. He’s secretive, really keeps to himself, but he pulls his weight and never once has objected to the ribbing we give him. He sometimes even gives back as good as he gets,” Javier said.

“Who, of the men, is Paul closest with?” Mack asked.

“Gideon, but Gideon gets along with everyone,” Javier said immediately. “Probably Lucas and Ethan.”

“Turns out our Paul is a very valuable commodity,” Mack said. He lowered his voice from habit. “We think he’s a psychic surgeon.”

Javier turned in his seat so fast he nearly fell. “I thought that was a myth.”

Jaimie frowned. “How come you didn’t know, Mack? That’s big. Huge. No one really believes such a thing exists. I can hardly believe someone has that kind of talent. If he does, no one else must know about it or he wouldn’t be in your unit.”

Mack frowned. “Every unit should have a psychic surgeon going into combat with them. Think of the lives you could save. If you could take the violence, even you, Jaimie, would have an easier time of it if we had a skilled surgeon. Hell, we talked about this for months when we were in the hospital undergoing the psychic evaluation and enhancement. Psychic surgery was the one talent they screened for aggressively.”