Point of Contact

A waiter approached with a tray, loaded with a giant tropical fruit drink, a massive wedge of pineapple sticking out of it.

“For the lady, a mai tai, compliments of those gentlemen,” the waiter said, nodding at a table across the way. Three large white men in their twenties smiled lustily at Lian. The one with the bulging biceps, and seemingly the oldest, lifted his own half-consumed mai tai in a toast.

“That thing is as big as your head,” Jack said. He remembered the Shirley Temple he’d sent Park earlier that day. Karma is a bitch.

Lian told the waiter, “Tell the gentlemen thank you, but I respectfully decline the generous gift.”

“What’s wrong? Don’t you like mai tais?” Jack asked.

“I love mai tais. Just not from strangers.”

The waiter blanched. “Ma’am, the gentleman means no harm. It might cause him offense if I returned it.”

“You can call security if they make trouble,” Lian insisted.

The waiter said, “Better if no trouble is started. Lah.” His smile, a plea.

“How much did they tip you?” Jack asked.

“Ten dollars, Australian.” The waiter leaned in close and whispered, keeping his eyes on the three lecherous musketeers. “I’m afraid they get angry if I return the drink. Best if you accept it, my lady. They’ll leave soon enough.”

Jack pulled a Benjamin Franklin out of his wallet and held it up. “That’s one hundred dollars, American. It’s yours if you take that drink away right now.”

The waiter snatched the bill and pocketed it before grabbing the drink and scurrying away.

“We should go,” Lian said. “Those men are trouble.”

“Friends of yours?”

She flashed a knowing smile. “No, not at all. But they’re men, aren’t they?”

“I’m enjoying myself. Let’s stay put.”

“Are you sure?”

Jack looked her straight in the eye. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

She studied his face, then stole a glance at his powerful hands and shoulders. “Yes, you are, aren’t you?”

“Let’s just say I’m a good judge of character.”

“We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”

They ate and drank in silence for a few minutes, Lian casting wary glances at the table full of trouble between bites, her street-cop instincts on full alert.

Jack refused to look at them, but in his peripheral vision he saw them finally get up and leave. Once they cleared the bar, he waved the waiter back over.

“Sir?”

“A mai tai for the lady.”

The waiter frowned in confusion. “Sir?” He glanced at Lian for guidance. “Ma’am?”

She smiled.

“A mai tai sounds good,” she said, “but that thing was as big as my head. You better bring two straws.”

The waiter laughed. “Okay, lah!”

21

While Jack was enjoying the mai tai and the spectacular view, Paul was drinking hot tea and sweating bullets.

He sat at the kitchen table, staring at Rhodes’s USB drive, as well as the dummy drive containing his Smithsonian photographs.

His test of the security system went about as expected. Well, he’d hoped Dalfan’s security was lax, but he expected it to be like other high-security environments in which he’d worked, and his expectations proved correct. That wasn’t good for him.

Pretending to hide a USB drive in the bottom of his computer bag was Paul’s way to test how thorough their search procedures were. He was a little surprised Dalfan went to the trouble of opening up his personal USB drive to check the contents instead of just handing it over to him. If there had been a virus on that drive, it would have infected the security station computer, but that also meant that the security computer wasn’t connected to the mainframe, so all Dalfan would lose in an infection scenario was one computer.

Smart.

The fact Dalfan security also checked for explosive residue meant they were very serious about both kinetic and digital threats. Paul now assumed that at least some of Lian’s security team must have been concealing weapons as well.

Bai was a pain in his rear end. The guy never left his side. But his explanation of the electronic lock on the USB ports of every Dalfan computer was useful. No USB drive could be loaded without the encryption code.

The only problem was that Paul didn’t have the encryption code.

That meant he couldn’t load Rhodes’s USB drive directly.

Which meant he couldn’t complete the mission.

Which meant that he was seriously and irrevocably cornholed.

Paul picked up Rhodes’s USB drive and examined it again. Was there something he was missing?

The only good news was that the Dalfan people didn’t do a full body search. It might, in fact, be possible to smuggle Rhodes’s drive into the facility by hiding it in one of his pant cuffs or a shoe. But even if he did that, what good would that do?

And just because Dalfan security hadn’t wanded him or patted him down last time didn’t mean they wouldn’t do so on his next visit. Getting caught trying to smuggle in a USB drive he couldn’t load anyway was a special kind of stupid.

He also couldn’t connect his laptop to a Dalfan computer or the mainframe — the same encryption code prevented it.

Paul took another sip of tea. He formulated a list of questions for himself.