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Chapter 69
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THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Chapter 70
Ten minutes later I’m in a car with two strangers. I’m alone in the back, ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ style.The two guys both look decidedly nervous. I’m guessing that Marcel or somebody told them what might happen.“It’s going to be okay,” I assure them.The guy in the passenger seat looks back and smiles weakly. “Euh… je ne parle pas anglais.”I look at the driver. “Do you speak English?”“Euh…” He puts his forefinger and thumb about a centimeter apart, like he’s pinching something in the air. “A leetle.”Great.I settle back and take stock of what I brought with me. There’s the new laptop; the backpack with the cash, GPS trackers, handgun, super glue, and various credit cards; and the burner cell phone Marcel gave me.Not a whole lot to work with when you’re going up against a psychopath. Especially when you’re trying to save the love of your life.I start seeing signs for ‘Charles de Gaulle,’ so I call Mailin on the cell phone. “Okay, we’re close. Where do we go?”“You’re actually going
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Chapter 71
The plane taxis to the runway. Take-off is easy, and so is most of the flight.I wish the same could be said for the hacking.I’m able to get into every major telecommunication company’s satellite system, but none of them are running any sort of Atlantic Ocean uplinks – at least, not where Grant’s plane is.Next I try Russian satellites, Chinese satellites, European Union satellites. I don’t need to speak Russian or Chinese, since I don’t need to read emails or web pages. What I’m hacking is called machine code, which is the most basic of all computer languages, and it’s universal.But I still turn up nothing.“Jesus, I forgot how good you are,” Mailin whispers as he watches me work.I smile grimly. “Coming from an FBI agent, that’s damning me with great praise.”“I’m not FBI right now,” he whispers. “I’m your friend.”I look at him, and my eyes fill with tears.“Thank you,” I whisper. “I can’t tell you how much that means.”He nods, and we get back to work.Since I’m not getting anyw
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Chapter 72
But it turns out the joke’s on me, because the plane flies past Utah, straight on to Nevada – and in a direct line with the Bay Area.“You really think it’s San Francisco?” Mailin asks.“I guess. It makes sense… sort of.” I look over at Duplass. “Now that we know where they’re headed, can we get right behind them? Maybe land immediately after them?”“We’re not arresting them on the tarmac, if that’s what you’re asking.”“Why not?!” I demand.“Because I’m doing this to catch the guy who was behind the deaths of two of my agents, that’s why. Carlson is a distant second.”My anger nearly boils over, but I remind myself that I knew Duplass’s priorities from the beginning. That’s how I was able to manipulate him into letting me come along.“I understand,” I say, holding my temper. “But we want to cut their lead time by as much as possible… just in case.”“Alright,” Duplass says. “Agent Walker, go ask the pilot how close we can get to them.”Mailin stands up.“Hold on,” I say, and activate
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Chapter 73
Two things happen in parallel.The first thing is we land at Marin County Airport. Duplass must have pulled out all the stops with his FBI credentials, because there’s a black limousine waiting for us at the gate as we taxi in. I personally am overjoyed, because the limo has a high-powered wifi connection. I basically log off from the plane and log on seamlessly to the limo during the thirty steps it takes to get to the car. The limo has one of those ‘everybody faces everybody else’ style of backseats. Duplass, Mailin, and I sit on one side, and JP and Dominique sit on the other. I keep the backpack at my feet.I have to give it to Dominique: she takes one for the team and distracts Duplass as much as she can. They’re sitting directly across from each other, and she puts her all into, even going so far as to undo a couple more buttons on her blouse. Despite all his earlier objections about her being a criminal, Duplass certainly isn’t above ogling her breasts.A retractable barrier i
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Chapter 74
Dieter Lassenbach is famous among techies for being a recluse. He’s sort of the J.D. Salinger of tech gods.He’s also infamous for being something of an evil genius… but I don’t think anybody would have pegged him as a serial killer. Which means he has the perfect cover.As teenage hackers, Mailin and I knew him as one of the legendary antiheroes of the internet. And that was more than a decade after he’d done most of his damage.Dieter was the only son of immigrants who escaped to the U.S. from East Germany back during the Cold War. A child prodigy and college dropout, he was also one of the first guys to deal in encryption for banking transactions back in the 1990’s. He sold his company for hundreds of millions when he was in his mid-twenties.During the dot.com bubble era, he was known as a tech Nostradamus who could spot an intriguing startup in its early stages. He’d make an insanely low offer for 51% of the stock, and when he was rebuffed, he would then reverse-engineer the comp
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Chapter 75
“Grant Carlson… we meet again.”Dieter’s real voice is different from Epicurus’s. The main difference is it’s higher pitched. He must have used audio manipulation software, both to disguise his voice and to make it sound more threatening. But the rhythms are the same, and the slight European accent is the same.Grant laughs for several seconds, the kind of laugh when you realize the universe has played a dirty trick on you. Then he shakes his head wearily. “Hello, Dieter.”Wait – What?!“Grant knows who this guy is?!” Mailin asks, floored.Everybody, including Duplass, tries to crowd around the monitor.“How’s the house working out for you?” Grant continues.Holy shit.“He must have designed Dieter’s house,” I mutter.“Magnificently. Even better than the mansion you designed for Erickson.”“Who’s Erickson?” Duplass demands, but Grant answers the question for us.“Then why’d you have to go and burn it down? I liked that house.”“I liked it, too. All those lovely, hidden rooms… simply
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Chapter 76
There’s a pretty big McMansion inside the gated compound. Nobody’s home – which is what I discovered by hacking the house’s security network, and why I chose this house instead of all the others bordering Epicurus’s property. That’s crucial to my plan.So is leaving Duplass and Mailin behind.The limo is parked next to the McMansion. The car doors are open, the windows are down, and Mailin and Tony the driver are handcuffed to the metal door frames. The handcuff keys glitter tantalizingly in the grass about twenty feet out of reach. Duplass is slumped unconscious on the backseat, though he’s still chained to his car door, too.“This is a FUCKED UP PLAN, Eve!” Mailin yells angrily.We all ignore him as JP picks the lock on the McMansion’s front door. I’ve already deactivated the alarm, so there’s no chance a security company or the police are coming.Once JP and Dominique are inside, I hold a cell phone out to Mailin. “Do it like I told you: call the FBI and get a strike team for Epicu
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Chapter 77
Inside the empty McMansion, we’re preparing for war. I use the laptop to comb through thousands of Epicurus’s computer files. At the same time, I keep thumbnails of his security camera feeds onscreen, waiting for Grant to appear.JP is using the McMansion family computer to access Epicurus’s security system through a backdoor I created specifically for him.Dominique has spread out all our available resources on a table. There are three cell phones – one each from Tony the driver, Mailin, and Duplass, not to mention Duplass’s Bluetooth earpiece. There’s the contents from my backpack. The cash and credit cards are worthless, but there are several GPS trackers still left, plus some tubes of super glue.As for guns, we have five: one semi-automatic pistol from Grant, plus four more from the FBI – two from Mailin and Duplass, and two from their fallen comrades. All in all, there are about 100 bullets. Hopefully that will be more than enough.I stop hacking for a minute and stare at all
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