Don't Look Now Read online

  After another long, hard stare, the two of them separated, heading to opposite ends of the camp. Janiqua pulled a plastic cord out of her pocket as she bent over one of the guys, then used it to tie his wrists behind his back. Two other kids helped her.

  Teo’s head was spinning—this was all too surreal. There were eight kids total, and they each moved with purpose. On the concrete buttress next to where he kept his sleeping bag, a scrawny black kid was spray painting a logo in red: the letters P and A, intertwined. The rest of the group hunkered down around the two guys who’d assaulted him, securing their ankles and wrists with impressive alacrity.

  Teo suddenly saw the encampment through their eyes—small, cramped, dingy—and felt a twinge of embarrassment.

  “Sure you’re all right?” Noa asked, examining him. “You look a little shaky.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, fighting to keep the squeak from his voice.

  “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “T-Teo,” he stammered. “Teo Castillo.”

  “Nice to meet you, Teo,” Noa said distractedly, her eyes scanning the clearing. She raised her voice and announced, “We’ll take the blonde.”

  Teo realized she was talking about the guy who had first spoken to him. He watched a girl in a black pleather miniskirt and torn fishnet stockings matter-of-factly place a strip of duct tape over the blonde’s mouth. “What did you do to them, anyway?”

  “Taser,” Noa explained, holding the remote up. “We don’t like guns.”

  “Okay.” He wasn’t a big fan of guns, either. “So are these the guys who have been experimenting on kids?”

  She scrutinized him. “You heard about that?”

  Teo shrugged. “Yeah. Everyone has.”

  “Well, it’s true. Don’t go anywhere alone from here on out. They might still be after you.”

  A cold ball of fear formed in Teo’s gut. He glanced back over his shoulder, half expecting to see more huge guys huddled in the bushes. He wondered where everyone else was—had the other kids known, somehow, that these guys were lurking around? And if so, why hadn’t anyone warned him? Suddenly, he felt more alone than ever. “Where are you taking him?”

  “Better if you don’t know.” More loudly, Noa added, “Don’t forget the tarp.”

  Obediently, a few of them wrapped the first guy up like a burrito in a large blue plastic tarp. Once they had him inside, they lifted him off the ground, spreading his weight between them. Teo watched them march toward the bushes. They were like an army, he realized. Organized, following commands . . . despite their ragged appearance, he was impressed.

  A minute later, he found himself alone with Turk, Noa, and the girl in fishnets. She was cute, despite her wild shock of blue hair. She caught him looking at her and raised an eyebrow. Teo flushed and shifted his gaze, examining the ground at his feet.

  “The usual with the other one?” Turk asked.

  Noa eyed the guy in the ball cap. “Yeah.”

  “You want to mess him up first?” Turk asked solicitously, directing the question to Teo.

  “What? Uh, no. I’m good.” Teo stared at the man on the ground; Jimmy, the other guy had called him. Jimmy was coming around, his eyes darting frantically from side to side.

  “We’ll leave him for your friends, then. I’ll bet they’ll have some fun with you, huh, jerk-off?”

  The guy flinched as Turk dealt him a hard kick to the ribs.

  “Turk,” Noa warned sharply.

  Turk threw her a sneer, then seemed to catch himself. He knelt down to tighten the zip ties another notch. The guy on the ground winced as the narrow bands dug into his wrists. “Just wait,” Turk muttered in a cold, flat voice. “World of hurt coming for you, buddy.”

  Teo watched Turk haul Jimmy to his feet and frog-march him to the nearest pillar. Turk held him in place while Fishnets wound duct tape around him, pinning him to the concrete support beam like a trapped moth.

  “All right, let’s get out of here.” Noa lifted a small radio to her mouth and said, “Back at the van in five.”

  “Copy that,” a voice crackled in response.

  And without another word, the three of them headed for the footpath.

  Teo stared after them. In less than five minutes, it felt like his whole world had been turned upside down. And now what was he supposed to do? Go Dumpster diving for dinner, then grab a little shut-eye? “Wait!” he called out.

  Noa stopped and turned to face him. “What?”

  “Take me with you,” he said, surprising himself.

  She shook her head. “That’s not how this works, Teo. Sorry.”

  “Please,” Teo pleaded. “I can help. Seriously.”

  She looked him over skeptically. “You do drugs?”

  “No.” He shook his head ferociously. “Never. I don’t drink, either.”

  Turk grumbled something, but Noa threw him a look and he shut up. She stared at Teo for a long moment, then nodded brusquely. “Fine. But any trouble and you’re out.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Teo said, hurrying to catch up. As he followed Noa through the maze of brush that led to San Bruno Street, he felt something he hadn’t experienced in a long time: hope.

  Peter Gregory pulled down the brim of his Red Sox cap as they passed yet another security camera. He stuck close to the office assistant escorting him; the staccato tap of her high heels punctuated the steady chatter she maintained. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to expect a response, aside from an occasional nod and sympathetic grunt. Terri was a moderately attractive woman in her midthirties with brightly hennaed hair, a form-fitting dress, and a gemstone manicure that flashed every time she waved her fingers to illustrate a point. Traces of a repressed Boston accent bubbled out during her diatribe against the gremlins bedeviling their mainframe. “It’s the third time this week the servers have gone down,” she said with another exasperated hand flourish. “Can you believe that? Do you know how embarrassing it is to explain to people that we can’t even send email?”

  Peter nodded, trying to look shocked while surreptitiously examining his surroundings. Knowing about the atrocities Pike & Dolan perpetrated, he’d expected their corporate headquarters to look more evil lair-ish. But instead of a shark tank, the lobby sported glossy floor-to-ceiling posters of cheerful people enjoying the company’s many fine products, which ranged from vitamins and shampoo to pharmaceuticals.

  The interior offices were even more of a letdown. Clearly Terri took her unofficial role as tour guide seriously; she was especially enthusiastic about a roof garden that offset carbon emissions, and the sustainably harvested bamboo floors. Listening to her prattle on, Peter was tempted to enlighten her about her employer’s off-site facilities, where kidnapped street kids were treated like lab rats. He was willing to bet that none of them featured low VOC paint and solar hot water panels.

  “For what we’re paying them,” Terri complained again, “you’d think our in-house IT guys could fix this mess.” Holding a sparkling hand beside her mouth, she lowered her voice and said, “They’ll probably all be fired over this.”

  Peter murmured something noncommittal. In spite of everything, he felt a twinge of sympathy for Pike & Dolan’s beleaguered IT department. It wasn’t their fault that the servers had crashed repeatedly after being bricked four months ago. Not only had Peter been the one to brick them, he’d made it his mission to continually develop bigger and better bugs to confound their firewalls.

  Then last week, he came up with a way to take things a step further. His goal was to install a sort of Trojan horse known as a “packet sniffer” in Pike & Dolan’s data center; basically, a wire-tap device that eavesdropped on network traffic. But instead of listening in on people’s conversations, this “sniffing” program intercepted passwords and emails, and acquired all the data transmitted throughout the company.

  With any luck, that data could finally give Noa and the rest of Persefone’s Army an advantage over the conglomerate.

  To gain access to
the servers, he was posing as Ted Latham: freelance tech genius for top computer security firm Rocket Science. Ted was also the fictional foster dad that Noa had created to escape the foster care system and earn enough money to support herself.

  Peter had been nervous about assuming the identity, especially since he hadn’t cleared it with Noa first. But he was hoping that if things panned out, she’d be happy he took the initiative. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.

  Based on what little Noa had told him, Peter knew that no one at Rocket Science had ever met Ted Latham; all of their business was transacted virtually. The CEO hadn’t even blinked at “Ted’s” rambling email about spending the past several months offline while doing a walkabout. Moreover, when “Ted” offered to step in and handle their most troublesome client, Pike & Dolan, the CEO was beside himself with gratitude.

  Peter felt a little badly about the subterfuge, but Rocket Science had enough high-profile clients to weather one failure. And if his plan succeeded, and he gained a window into the inner workings of Pike & Dolan, it would all be worth it.

  Hopefully Noa would think so, too. He had the feeling that if she saw him right now, strolling down the corridors of Pike & Dolan in geek business casual, she’d have some choice words for him.

  But she’s not here, he reminded himself, feeling a flare of resentment. In fact, he hadn’t seen her for months; their only contact now was limited to brief online chats.

  “Here we are!” Terri announced, waving her key card in front of a wall-mounted panel. The light turned green, and she pushed the door open.

  Any halfway decent company recognized the importance of this room: These server towers were the modern-day equivalent of a treasure vault. The air inside was noticeably cooler than the outer hallway; temperature, humidity, and particle filtration were all precisely controlled. Also true to form, it was located in the center of the building, far from exterior walls, elevator banks, and any other sources of potential electrical interference or water damage.

  The servers themselves were housed in tight lines of tall gray metal cabinets that resembled the lockers in Peter’s high school. In between the cabinets, metal shelves held rows of what looked like strung-together car batteries, which wasn’t far from the truth; those modules kept the precious servers humming along as they delivered everything from emails to shipping manifests.

  Peter’s palms started to sweat. This was way too easy. He’d expected to encounter resistance; heck, he could hardly believe he’d made it past the lobby. And now that he was here, the enormity of the crime he was about to commit hit him hard.

  “So?” He turned to find Terri staring at him expectantly. “How do you fix it?”

  “Um, I just need to access the servers, to . . . check some things,” he mumbled.

  Terri released a world-weary sigh and said, “Obviously. But do you need me to do anything?”

  “Not really,” he said. “Unless you want to help with the secure socket layers.”

  Terri rolled her eyes. “Well, they said to keep an eye on you, but you look harmless enough.” Her eyes trailed over him, apparently confirming her assessment because she chirped, “Anyhoo, I was going to grab a latte. How much time do you need?”

  “Not long,” Peter mumbled. “Probably ten minutes.”

  Terri smirked. “Fix this in ten minutes and my boss will probably propose to you.”

  Peter shrugged, keeping his eyes down.

  “All righty then.” Terri sighed, clearly disappointed that her little joke had been wasted on him. “Back in a bit.”

  He waited until the door clicked behind her, then went to work. He wasn’t an expert on data centers, but any server should suit his purposes. And for what he intended to do, two minutes would have been more than enough time.

  Peter dug into his messenger bag and pulled out a small device. Hurrying deeper into the room, he ducked down the first aisle and quickly counted off rows. He didn’t want to install the device anywhere too obvious, or on a server that was checked routinely. If the IT department was really stressed about their jobs, there was a good chance they spent a lot of time in here trying to resolve the problem. Fortunately for him, the powers that be at Pike & Dolan had assigned Terri to supervise him, rather than one of them. They probably didn’t want the techs to know that there was a bull’s-eye centered on their backs.

  Which worked to his advantage. Peter was still blown away by how easy it had been to simply stroll inside. Over the past four months, he’d devoted hundreds of hours to scaling the extensive firewalls that protected Pike & Dolan’s data.

  Turns out all he had to do was knock at the front door. Peter shook his head in wonder. Humans were so much less reliable than computers.

  Choosing a server on the next-to-last bank, he opened the front panel and knelt down. He carefully installed the device into a port about six inches off the ground. It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d notice unless you were looking for it. And if he was lucky, no one would find it until he’d gotten what he needed.

  The sound of a door opening and closing set his heart hammering. Peter quickly straightened and closed the cabinet, trying to still his trembling hands. He scurried along the row, almost crashing into Terri as he emerged in the main aisle. She raised a sparkling hand to her chest in alarm and said, “Christ, you nearly gave me a coronary,” her Boston accent twice as thick as it had been minutes earlier.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Whatcha doing back there?” she asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

  Keeping his eyes down, he muttered a string of incoherent sentences peppered liberally with every techie term he could come up with on the fly. Terri impatiently waved for him to shut up. “Whatever,” she said. “You fixed it?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” he muttered.

  “Really? What was wrong?” She scanned the room behind him curiously, clearly trying to figure out where he’d just been. “My boss gave me hell, by the way. Said I wasn’t supposed to let you out of my sight.” She glared at him, as if it was his fault that she hadn’t been able to sneak out for a latte.

  “Sorry,” he said again.

  “You apologize too much, you know that?”

  “Sorry.”

  Terri laughed sharply. “Okay, well. If you’re sure it’s fixed.” She smoothed her dress and said, “I’ll walk you out.”

  Peter was careful to keep his head down as she led him briskly back to the lobby.

  Minutes later, Peter was trotting to the nearest T station. From there, he’d switch trains a few times before returning to his car. Paranoid, maybe, but he wanted to make sure no one had followed him.

  The thought of what his little device might already be intercepting added a bounce to his step. If the plan succeeded, he and Noa might finally get enough information to deal a fatal blow to Pike & Dolan, burying them. Peter practically felt like bursting into song.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  The garage door opened and Zeke drove the van inside. Noa sat in the passenger seat, quiet and pensive.

  “You all right?”

  She turned to find Zeke looking at her with concern. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She paused. “That was a good one today, right?”

  “Definitely.” He turned off the ignition. “If Peter hadn’t found out that P&D was sending a squad here, Teo would be lying on a table right now getting his chest sliced open.”

  “Yeah, I know. Lucky he intercepted that email.” Noa rubbed her wrist. For nearly her entire life she’d worn a jade bracelet, one of the last gifts her parents had given her. She’d awoken on an operating table four months ago to find it gone, the final vestige of her past life stolen. She missed the bracelet more than everything else combined. Whenever she felt stressed, she’d still catch herself reflexively touching the skin it had once rested against.

  “Something’s still bothering you,” Zeke noted.

  “I just feel like we’re not doing enough,” she admitted. “We saved one ki
d today, but they might have gotten a dozen more, and we’ll never even know for sure.”

  “That’s why we took one of their guys, right? Maybe he’ll tell us.”

  “Maybe,” Noa said, although she privately doubted he’d say anything. Much as she hated Pike & Dolan, she had to admit they knew their stuff when it came to hiring shadowy mercenary types.

  “So what do we do with him after?” Zeke asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Noa admitted, lowering her voice so that the group in the back of the van couldn’t hear. She’d discovered that a big part of leadership involved acting like you always knew what you were doing. Zeke was the only person she shared her doubts with. “I guess we just drop him somewhere when we’re pulling out.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said comfortingly. “We always do.”

  Noa didn’t answer. The van door slid open behind them, kids chattering as they piled out. She sometimes felt like she was trapped in a play, in a role she was ill suited for. These teens expected her to have answers for everything, down to what they’d be eating for dinner. It was a lot more exhausting than she’d ever have imagined, especially since six months ago she basically had been a hermit living alone in a studio apartment.

  But it wasn’t like she had a choice in the matter. No one else was doing anything to save these kids.

  “C’mon,” Zeke said, nudging her arm. “Let’s get inside. I’m starving.”

  “Hey, Noa. What do you want us to do with this guy?”

  Noa turned to find Janiqua standing at her window. She swiveled in her seat and looked into the rear of the van. The guy was still rolled up in the tarp, bound and gagged, with a black pillowcase over his head.

  “Leave him for now,” she said, forcing some authority into her voice. “We’ll deal with him after dinner.”

  Janiqua nodded briskly and went inside the house. Noa took a second to gather herself—the kids were probably already going over every minute detail about the raid. After that there would be questions: What would they do with the prisoner, where were they going next . . . She felt a wave of fatigue coming on, and tried to fight it back. Ever since Pike & Dolan had experimented on her, Noa suffered from weird physical side effects: She slept less, but exhaustion would overcome her unexpectedly. She only needed to eat every few days, but when she did, she’d consume mass amounts of food in a single sitting. And she healed much faster than normal; sometimes a deep cut vanished after just a day.