Loverboy Read online

  Loverboy

  Sarina Bowen

  Tuxbury Publishing LLC

  Copyright © 2020 by Sarina Bowen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by: Hang Le. Photo by Wander Aguiar.

  Contents

  1. Gunnar

  2. Posy

  3. Gunnar

  4. Posy

  5. Posy

  6. Gunnar

  7. Gunnar

  8. Posy

  9. Gunnar

  10. Gunnar

  11. Posy

  12. Gunnar

  13. Posy

  14. Gunnar

  15. Posy

  16. Gunnar

  17. Posy

  18. Gunnar

  19. Posy

  20. Gunnar

  21. Posy

  22. Gunnar

  23. Posy

  24. Gunnar

  25. Posy

  26. Gunnar

  27. Posy

  28. Gunnar

  29. Gunnar

  30. Posy

  31. Gunnar

  32. Scout

  33. Posy

  34. Gunnar

  35. Posy

  Also by Sarina Bowen

  1

  Gunnar

  “Excuse me, sir. I'm here to pick you up.“

  I squint at the blond kid who’s approached me near the baggage carousel. He's holding one of those signs that drivers use to help their passengers identify them. Instead of my name, the sign bears a silhouette of a skeleton key, and nothing else.

  That's The Company logo. And as further proof of his identity, the blond kid tugs aside the V-neck of his T-shirt to show me that he wears the same key inked on his skin.

  I have one, too. In fact, I was the second person to ever get the team tattoo, just moments after Max Bayer—my college roommate and now boss—got his.

  Even so, I won't get into a car with anyone unless I am certain the situation is legit. I’ve spent the past four years running our West Coast operation, so there are a bunch of New York-based agents I’ve never met.

  But when I glance at my watch, there’s a new text from Max: I sent a kid to pick your grumpy ass up. The name is Duff. You're welcome.

  "What's your name, kid?" I grunt.

  "Duff, sir." He takes the handle of my suitcase right out of my hand. “Shall we go?”

  “Thanks, Duff. What's your specialty?" I ask, because everyone in The Company has a specialty.

  “Precision driving and high-speed ops."

  “Sweet,” I say as we head for the doors. “Maybe you can take me for a spin on the track before I head back to San Jose.”

  “It would be my pleasure," he says, holding the door. "How was your flight?"

  “Fine. First class makes things bearable." Although I’m not sure why I’m here. Max called me to New York for a short-term assignment, but he didn’t provide details. All he’d said was: it has to be you.

  Now, I like field work as much as the next guy. It keeps me sharp. But the lack of detail from Max is troublesome. And now he’s sent an obsequious man-child to carry my luggage and drive me around? There’s only one logical explanation.

  This assignment must be horrific.

  “I’m parked right over here,” Duff says, rolling my suitcase toward a gleaming sedan. “Make yourself comfortable. If you’re hungry, I’ve brought a meatball sub from ‘Wichcraft and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice."

  My grip freezes on the handle of the passenger door. “You brought me my favorite sandwich?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ."

  "Is there a problem?" The kid looks alarmed.

  “Absolutely. You know Max, right?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Right. So he took the time to send you in search of my favorite sandwich and my favorite beverage? Does he do that for everyone he asks to take an assignment?”

  “Uh, I’m still kinda new here,” Duff says carefully.

  “The answer is no. He doesn’t do that. Exactly what am I walking into, young Duff?”

  He gets into the car, then hands me the bag from the deli without meeting my eyes.

  I buckle in, and the radio comes on when he starts the car. The first thing I hear is the windbag of a mayor giving a press conference. Lovely. I hit the power button on the stereo and settle the car into silence. Then I open the deli bag.

  Even if I have my suspicions, I’m not willing to let a perfectly good sandwich go to waste. So I take the first bite as he navigates to the Triboro Bridge. “God, this is good. Do you know what it is?"

  “The sandwich?” Duff asks, eyes on the road.

  “No, the assignment.”

  The kid looks uncomfortable. "I'm not at liberty to say."

  “Oh fuck. Come on, kid. You're going to make me walk in there cold? Let me know what I'm up against.”

  “He made me promise I wouldn't tell. You wouldn't want to get me fired, would you? I have student loans.”

  “Likely story,” I grumble. “This better not involve crawling through a drainpipe. I have done that kind of Shawshank Redemption thing once for Max and never again.”

  Duff visibly shudders. “It's nothing like that.”

  “Will I need a wetsuit? Or hazmat gear?”

  “No! But that's the last question I'm answering.”

  I stew on that as we reach the FDR. “This juice is really good, damn it. But if you let it slip that Max squeezed the oranges himself, I will have to dive out of this moving vehicle just to save myself.”

  Duff barks out a laugh. “Keep your seatbelt on. The juice is from the deli. You're making a BFD for nothing. It's a cushy assignment.”

  “Likely story.” Why would Max insist I fly to New York to take a cushy assignment? Like I'm not busy enough making both of us rich in California? And he knows I hate New York. “You'd better not be lying, kid. Do you know what my specialty is?”

  “No?”

  “Information extraction.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You are new, aren’t you? I’m just fucking with you. My specialty is covert ops and surveillance equipment. You still don’t want to fuck with me. I could rig your toilet paper roll to blast your farts over a sound system in Times Square.”

  He laughs again. “I’ve been warned.”

  “How is Max, anyway? I haven’t seen him in a few months.”

  “Intense,” is the first word out of the kid’s mouth.

  Eh. That doesn’t tell me much, because Max is always intense. “How’s the vibe around the office?”

  The kid is quiet for a moment. “My great-grandfather used to tell me stories about what England was like during World War II. And it’s like that. Everyone is hunkered down, trying to get by with too few personnel. We’re rationing our time off.”

  “I see.” It’s not a bad analogy. The Company is at war in a manner of speaking. Our high-tech clients are all locked in battle with a common, invisible enemy. A ring of shady tech manufacturers has been trying to infiltrate Silicon Valley. Max is trying to shut it down on behalf of our clients, and also on behalf of civilization.

  “Morale is pretty good even so,” Duff adds. “Because we’re on top of our game, and our clients are happy to have us. It’s not a thankless job, you know?”

  “I do know that, kid. I absolutely know.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later I'm handing my driver’s license across the reception desk at The Company. The young woman on duty glances at my ID. “Welcome back to the New York of
fice, Mr. Scott! Your security clearance is still active, even though it’s been a while.”

  “Seven months,” I mutter. I hate New York. It reminds me too much of being a young, stupid kid. So I don’t come to town very often.

  “Max is waiting for you in his apartment.”

  “Where nobody can hear me scream? Awesome.” She and Duff both laugh, but I'm not really kidding. I press my hand to the sensor on the turnstile that allows me to pass through to the elevators. And then I do the same on a panel that summons the only elevator with access to Max's living space on the penthouse floor. “Thanks for the food and the juice, Duff,” I say as I step inside the car.

  “Anytime.”

  The elevator begins its smooth ascent toward the private living quarters of Max Bayer. His father started this company many years ago as an ordinary security firm. Meanwhile, Max and I graduated from Columbia together and then went off to D.C. to become top ranking intelligence officers together.

  It worked. Mostly. But after some years went by, we both wanted out, for different reasons. Max left because an operation he was running went sour. Lives were lost, including someone very special to Max. He felt a lot of guilt. Not that he ever talks about it. Max is a vault.

  But after he left, the place wasn’t the same. I was tired of risking my life for a bureaucracy that didn't seem to care about me. Nothing can make a guy jaded faster than upholding dubious government secrets.

  “Join me,” Max had said at the time. “I’m going to reinvent private security for the internet age.”

  It was a lofty statement, but that’s Max for you. Besides, he has a way of delivering on his lofty statements. And although I’m not half the genius Max is, I was one of about three people in the world he actually trusted. So—in spite of the New York location—it was an easy decision.

  Now, as I let myself into Max's magnificent lair, I have to wonder what I've gotten myself into. There's a decanter of single malt sitting on the table. There’s a glass waiting for me, too, with one of those giant ice cubes—the kind that melt slowly, preserving the hundred-dollar shot of whiskey you pour over it.

  "What's the occasion?" I ask. "Thanks for the ride and the sandwich. But you can imagine that I’m deeply suspicious.” I look around the vast room, trying to spot him.

  My eyes come to rest on a pair of Max-shaped legs. That’s all I can see of him. They’re standing on an upholstered chair that probably cost the GDP of a small nation. The rest of him is inside a large air-conditioning unit that’s mounted through the old brick wall of his converted factory building.

  “Moment,” he says.

  I wait.

  There’s a small bang. Like the sound of a .22 firing. In the company of another man, that might be alarming. But Max calmly steps down a moment later, removes a pair of headphones and begins to disassemble a Ruger rifle and return it to its case. “Hey, Gunn. Great to see you.”

  “What were you doing with that thing? Capping pigeons?”

  “Nah, I don’t mind pigeons. But I do mind that the City of New York has decided to install a surveillance camera on my corner. That’s not good for business.”

  “So you just—” I make a finger rifle and pop him one.

  “It’s very efficient,” he says, carrying the gun to a safe on the wall and locking it away.

  “You don't think you'll get caught?”

  “Nah. The butt of the rifle is too small to see in the air conditioner grate. I checked the view first with a drone.”

  Of course he did.

  “Great to see you, man. Let’s drink scotch.”

  “What's it gonna cost me? When you start spoiling me, I get nervous.”

  He frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “You invited your brother Eric over for tacos. Then you shipped his ass to Hawaii. Now he has a baby and he’s engaged to be married.”

  Max scratches his chin. “We’re not having tacos. You’ve got nothing to fear.” He picks up the decanter and uncaps it. “The job I have planned for you is a piece of cake. In fact, there are literally cakes involved.”

  “Hmm,” I say, because that does sound better than crawling through a sewage tunnel. But I’m too smart to feel any relief. “Get to the point.”

  “First let me catch you up on a few developments. Xian Smith is in New York.”

  “Interesting.” We’ve been trying to prove that Smith is manufacturing compromised processors in Asia for placement into American devices. It's not easy to stay ahead of the cyber security war. Max is one of the few industry leaders who’s realized that hardware is the new frontier of cybercrime. Instead of hacking into networks, Xian Smith is taking a different tack: hack the modem before it’s out of the box.

  It could work, too. Americans love their electronics, and they love to buy them cheaply. Most of our gadgets are manufactured overseas. Smith and his cohort—we still need to know who he’s working with—are underbidding honest manufacturers of smart speakers, modems, and servers. Smith sells the cheap components at a loss, and then slightly reengineers them, inserting spy chips to activate later.

  Max works day and night to keep our clients’ products clean. But it isn’t easy, because the smorgasbord of “smart” devices keeps expanding. The people crave their phones, their smart thermostats, and their smart speakers.

  If Max and I don’t shut down this ring of savvy information pirates, millions of devices will be used to spy on unsuspecting users. Whoever controls the spy chips can reap our secrets and sell them off to the highest bidder. Blackmail. Industrial espionage. Military secrets. If your toaster or your cable modem is spying on you, nothing is safe.

  “Smith has been here in town for three weeks already, with no signs of leaving,” Max adds.

  “That’s a long stay for him. There’s more business in California. He hasn’t tried to strike a new deal with our friend Alex, right?”

  Max shakes his head. “But only because Alex is using our tech to scan each motherboard for design flaws or changes. She put him on notice.”

  “Which means we still don’t have the proof we need.” I lift my glass of scotch, and inhale the nutty, caramel scent of it.

  “Not yet,” Max admits. “Alex’s products are safe. But Smith has many other clients, any one of whom might be installing his compromised hardware. So I’m picking my way through his client list.”

  “And how are you doing that?”

  “Tireless surveillance. And guess what? I’ve just picked up a new client. He manufactures motherboards designed for onboard car navigation systems. And some of them are compromised.”

  “Damn,” I say slowly. “Car companies outsource their dashboard technology. And people don't watch what they say in the car. If you had access to that ...”

  “Exactly. And guess who made these faulty motherboards? Mr. Smith.”

  “Fine. Well done. But how does that involve me?” I sip the scotch slowly because I need to stay sharp. Last time I let him get me drunk, I lost five grand at backgammon.

  “So—on the one hand—we have Smith in town for an unusual stretch of time. That’s strange enough. But simultaneously there’s some really interesting chatter happening in a dark web hacker forum. Did you read about those three hackers who were poisoned?”

  “Of course I did. I’ve never been so grossed out by a news story about hackers.” I have to fight off a shudder just thinking about it. Three men on two continents have been killed with a toxin resembling nerve gas. They died sitting at their desks—or writhing on the floor beside their desk chairs.

  “Someone has been bragging about those murders. He calls himself The Plumber, and he keeps dropping details that aren’t available in the news.” Max eyes me over the rim of his scotch glass. “And here’s the part that’s going to make you think I’m crazy.”

  “Am I? Try me.”

  “The Plumber is here in New York, and Xian Smith is here in New York.”

  “Could be a coincidence,” I point out. New York is a bi
g city.

  “I’m not done. The third part of this coincidence is that a certain arms dealer has left Turkey. One of our old friends from Langley told me that they think he’s in New York.”

  “Oh.” I set down my glass. “And I take it you don’t mean just any arms dealer from Turkey?”

  Slowly, he shakes his head.

  “Well, shit.” We sit in silence a moment while I take this in. I can only name one man on the planet that Max wants to kill. There’s an arms dealer known as Aga who murdered some of the members of Max’s team.

  Including the woman Max thought he’d spend his life with.

  “I think Aga is in New York,” Max says quietly. “And I think he’s given up shoulder-launched missiles in favor of cybercrime.”

  “Max! What the—?”

  “I know it’s a big leap. I know, okay? You don’t have to tell me. But whomever is talking about those killings says that they all died with a red ribbon in their hands. The newspapers don’t have that detail.”

  For a moment I just stare at him. “I’ll admit that’s creepy. But there are a lot of ribbons in the world. It might be a coincidence. Or a copycat. Those hackers who died were in three different countries.”

  “I know.” He sips his whiskey. “But the chatter is all coming from a New York source. The Plumber posts this stuff from three different places in lower Manhattan.”

  “Wait, what?” This story is getting weirder by the minute. “Who posts sensitive crap in dark web groups and leaves a trail?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that same question. Maybe it’s a competitor who wants to expose him. Or maybe someone is scared. The Plumber moves around. He does his posting on public Wi-Fi in busy coffee shops. He wants people to know what the murderer is doing, without exposing himself. And I need you to find him for me.”