Talk old ladies out of their homes?” “Computers,” Ethan mumbled, backing toward the door. “I worked at a bank.
There was a mistake. I’m just a programmer.” “Programmer,” Val repeated, tasting the word.
“So, a hacker. Push a few buttons and the money goes poof.” Without warning, he slapped Ethan across the face.
The glasses flew off and clattered on the concrete floor. One lens spiderwebbed with cracks. Ethan gasped and brought his hands up.
“What was that for?” “For not saying hello the right way,” Val said calmly. “And for lying.”
He bent down, picked up the glasses, turned them in his thick fingers, and shoved them back onto Ethan’s face. Now the world was split into fractured pieces. “Listen up, hacker.”
Val grabbed Ethan by the sweater and lifted him off the floor like he weighed nothing. “You know what kind of cell this is?”
Ethan shook his head, though he knew perfectly well. A pressure cell. The kind of place where they softened up inmates who wouldn’t cooperate with investigators.
Nobody landed here by accident. “This isn’t jail,” Val whispered in his face. “It’s a holding pen before the breaking starts.
The lieutenant says there’s paperwork you won’t sign. Passwords you can’t remember. Accounts.”
Ethan felt the man’s fingers tighten against his throat. “I’ll tell you everything,” he rasped. “I don’t know any passwords.
I was just tech support.” Val let go. Ethan dropped to his knees, sucking in air.
“Tech support,” Corkscrew said with a grin, hopping up from his crouch. “Val, let me help with his memory. Little pressure on the kidneys, maybe things come back.”
“Plenty of time for that,” Val said, returning to his bunk. “Let him settle in. Let him think.” He glanced at the cheap wall clock hanging over the door.
“You’ve got one hour, programmer. Think hard. Numbers, stashes, sins.
In an hour we start. And trust me, you’d rather remember on your own, because Corkscrew”—he nodded toward the wiry man—“doesn’t like quiet customers. Makes him jumpy.
And when he gets jumpy, he cuts.” Val picked up his puzzle book again. The clock had started.
Sitting on the floor, Ethan adjusted his cracked glasses. Through the shattered lens he saw the cell distorted, broken into fragments. He saw the tattoo on Val’s shoulder—a snarling wolf.
But underneath the wolf, if you looked closely, there were traces of something older, something covered over. A shield and sword? Ethan blinked.
His brain, trained to process terabytes of data, switched instantly from victim mode to analysis mode. Everything in this cell was a lie. Big Val wasn’t what he claimed to be.
The tattoo had been reworked. A shield and sword—law enforcement insignia. Corkscrew.
Junkie in withdrawal. His pupils were blown wide, and the tremor in his hands wasn’t rage. It was need. Silent Mike.
Silent Mike lay too still, but his ears were alert. He was listening. One hour, Ethan thought, feeling fear give way to a cold, digital calm.
I’ve got a full hour. That’s enough time to crack the system. He slowly got to his feet and sat on the edge of the free stool.
The game had started. And they had no idea they hadn’t locked a victim in the cage. They’d locked in a virus. Fifteen minutes passed.
Usually, in a pressure cell, a new guy went through three stages by then—panic, hysteria, begging. He’d curl up in a corner, cover his head, or pound on the door asking to be moved. But Ethan sat on the stool.
He took a handkerchief from his pocket, neatly folded and clean, and methodically wiped the unbroken lens of his glasses. There was no rush in the movement. It was the way a man cleans a microscope before starting lab work.
Corkscrew, who had spent the whole time circling him and tapping the sharpened spoon against his palm, started getting irritated. He needed a reaction. Fear was fuel for a sadist.
And this skinny guy wasn’t giving him any. He was dry as a dead screen. “You deaf or something?”
Corkscrew jumped in front of Ethan and jabbed the point through the air near his nose. “Val gave you an hour. You remembering, or what?
Where’s the money, huh? Where are the accounts?”
