Calculated Risk

“You think?” she drawled.

“This is a highly offensive maneuver, but one I think is necessary. There are only three people who are aware of the plan I laid out. The director of the CIA, you and myself. It must remain this way. As far as everyone else in the agency is concerned your only mission is to decrypt the data. An agent will pick you up to take you to the server’s location. You will convince that agent that it was your idea to lure Kahsan into the open. Regardless of what happens from that point forward, your mission stays the same. If it looks like we’re pulling the plug, you must convince that agent to continue to work with you. Or you operate on your own. The agent is expendable, do you understand? Kahsan is the primary target. He’s the only thing that matters.”

Sabrina processed that. “What if I make contact with Kahsan and he has me kidnapped before your agent comes?”

“You don’t know where the computer is. Kidnapping you makes no sense. He has to have you and the computer together for this to work. Once there, either you or the agent will take him out on sight.”

“And if I fail, and somehow Kahsan gets the data and meets up with the other bad guys and boom!, the White House ends up as toast, then what?”

“Then the CIA will disavow all knowledge of any plan to bring him into the country and you’ll be known as the worst traitor in American history since Benedict Arnold.”

“You guys suck,” Sabrina muttered.

“It’s not going to come to that. Without you he can’t get the data, without the data he can’t get to the cells. Besides if something does happen to you…”

“You make that sound like a broken fingernail, when what you mean is if he kills me.”

“If something does happen to you…we’ll still have a bead on Kahsan that we’ve never had before. And I personally will see to it that he doesn’t leave the country alive.” Krueger sighed. “I know what we’re asking is a lot.”

There was the understatement of the century. Sabrina pulled her hand through her hair and thought about what she’d been doing the same time last night. She was pretty sure she’d been in the middle of a hot bath and a whiskey. Now she was being recruited as bait for one of the most frightening killers on the planet. Life certainly had some interesting twists.

“You’re sure he’ll come?” She wanted to know.

“Reasonably sure. Our profilers tell us the man is an egomaniac. It’s not just money, but the attention that will follow if he pulls this off that will attract him. It’s a hell of a carrot. If he doesn’t come, of course we’ll still give you an opportunity to get through Arnold’s password and decrypt the data.”

“Oh joy!” she squealed facetiously. “I still have that opportunity.”

“Sabrina, may I call you that?”

Unbelievable. They were here discussing what was possibly the riskiest plan of the century to capture one of the most dangerous men ever, and he was worried about etiquette. Strange as it seemed in that instant she both lost a little and gained a little respect for him.

“Sure.”

“Sabrina, why did you call me?”

Good fucking question. Because Arnold told her this was a chance to get back in the game. Because she thought she was ready to get back in the game. But Krueger was offering her a chance to be quarterback in the Super Bowl. She didn’t know if she was ready for this.

So she ignored his question and asked him one of her own. “What if I say no? What happens?”

His answer was too quick. “We’ll put plan B into place. We believe there might be someone else who can perform the same role we’re asking you to perform, but because of your previous training you were our top pick.”

“Who?”

He hesitated.

“I need to know. I need to know whose head is going to be on the proverbial chopping block if I pass.”

“You’ve heard of Sal Ploxm….”

“A hacker?” she blurted. “You’re going to use some virus-spreading geek to catch Kahsan? Do you even know who he is?”

“We’re following some leads. He’s had success hacking into some of the most secure networks. That and the fact that he works outside the law, we believe he’s the next logical choice.”

Sabrina considered him for a moment. The CIA was resorting to an insubordinate ex-agent and a hacker. One thing became crystal clear. “You don’t have anybody on your staff who can hack through Arnold’s password, let alone decrypt his code. Not even close. You know that your project is over and that this… is a last-ditch attempt to salvage something from it.”

He didn’t deny it. “The radiation patterns will fade eventually and no, we don’t believe anyone can access the information in time. We have enlisted cryptologists from every department in the government to work on one of Arnold’s predecessor programs in an attempt to see if anyone could come close. No one has. Not even your father. As far as we’re concerned the project is a write-off. The FBI has sent agents out to the last known location of those people we’ve tagged. If we lose them somehow, then we’ll merely revert to our previous methods—good old-fashioned legwork—to find them again. But in the meantime, the lure of this data might be our only opportunity to push Kahsan out of hiding. We’re going to take it.”

“Arnold thinks I can do it,” she suggested. “If you gave me a chance—”

“We don’t have that kind of time. As I said, Kahsan is not without resources. We have to move quickly and we have to make it look real. Salinski’s death will leak. There’s no stopping that. This has to go down like a well choreographed ballet.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “It’s a list of Web sites that he uses where you should be able to make contact. I need to know now if you’re in.”

If she wasn’t, then the job would go to Sal Ploxm, a virus pirate who got off on infecting systems that were deemed foolproof. Apparently, there was no firewall that could stop him. A hacker with more balls than brains as far as she was concerned. If he was that talented, he’d be making more money and fewer headlines. The fact that she knew his name meant he got off on the rush. A hacker like that had to have one hell of an ego.

Was this the person she wanted responsible for heading up a mission to take down Kahsan?

Then she chuckled softly. Hell, she thought. Who would have thought that she should be the person to take him down? Who was she but a drifter, a cheat and an ex-operative?

Sabrina focused on the stone burial monument directly in front of her windshield.

Cowan.

She didn’t know who the poor son of a bitch was, but he’d died for something. He’d believed in something. His country, his family, who knew. He gave his life in what Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion. For too long Sabrina had only been devoted to herself. Frankly, she was growing bored.

“Don’t you want to know what you get in return?”

Of course he would be expecting her to ask that. It’s who he thought she was.

“Absolutely,” she lied.

“There is a sizable bounty on Kahsan’s head. If you agree, if your work leads to his capture or death, you would be entitled to it.”

She glanced at the monument again. Cowan hadn’t done it for the money. In fact, she was embarrassed they were having this conversation in front of his grave. What if he was somewhere shaking his head at her, more than a little disappointed in this new breed of American hero.

Without a word, Sabrina took the slip of paper from his hand and shoved it in her pocket.

“Just one more thing,” Sabrina said, catching his arm before he could leave. “This agent that you’re sending. The one I need to convince…make sure he or she is damn good.”

“Only the best.”

Chapter 2

“H ey, Bubba. What’s shaking?”

The hardened old bartender with a missing front tooth looked up from his beer taps to smile at his latest customer. “What’s a girlie like you doing in a place like this?” he asked, performing their common ritual.

“Just staying out of trouble,” Sabrina replied with a smile.

“The usual?”

She considered that for a moment, then ordered. “Make it a double.”

She shrugged out of her winter paraphernalia, a task that took almost more effort than she had, and waited for Bubba to finish pouring another customer’s beer. She sat down on the high stool with the ripped leather seat and sighed at the familiar comfort.

Peace and a little distraction. It’s what she’d been looking for when she decided to go out tonight and she always seemed to find it at Bubba’s. Maybe it was his smile. Or maybe it was his whiskey. It didn’t matter.

It was Monday. Three days had passed since her conversation with Krueger. Three days since she’d followed orders and done what she needed to do, but still no contact from any agent. She’d been edgy, irritable and impatient. To top it all off, a major chunk of crown molding had fallen from her living-room ceiling.

That’s when she’d decided she needed a break.

The crowd was light tonight. A few diners sat at the tables along the wall eating burgers and fries. There was a group of men at a five top in the back. And she sat alone at the bar except for an older gentleman with a semifamiliar face who sat two stools down. She nodded toward the older man and he replied with a similar nod. Then they both went back to staring straight ahead into the rows of bottles that lined what Bubba liked to call his top shelf but what was in reality his only shelf.

It was protocol among the regulars to respect the nod and the straight-ahead stare. Most people came to this place looking to unwind. Sometimes that called for small talk. Sometimes it didn’t. Tonight she didn’t want to hear about the weather, or the score of the basketball game, or why the economy sucked. She just wanted a little time to not think about what was going to happen. And perversely when it was going to happen.

Krueger had told her they needed to move quickly. Leave it to the government to interpret three days as quick.

Reaching for the bowl of peanuts that sat on the bar, Sabrina studied them for a moment. Finally, she decided, based primarily on her current level of hunger that not too many grubby hands had already foraged through the bowl, therefore they were safe to eat.

As a bonus they were salted.

After all, Bubba’s did have a reputation to maintain as the respectable bar in town. The competition with Nick’s down the block was often fierce. A little thing like dirt-free, salt-covered nuts could make all the difference.

“Eighty-two,” Sabrina counted before she popped a handful into her mouth. A faint sound from the TV that sat on a high ledge in the corner of the bar caught her attention. Sabrina turned and saw the logo of a familiar show appear on the screen. “Hey, Bubba, you’ve got to turn this up. Entrée Hollywood is going to have some hot scoop tonight.”

With a gleam in his eye, Bubba found the remote and increased the volume to the furthest dash on the right.

“…And in other news, it was discovered that Marsha Lowery, the second finalist in American Star Maker, had previously worked as a prostitute known to her customers as Sweet Sugar in the high class LasVegas brothel called Mother’s Milk. Several men came forward today after the story broke to share their memories and experiences with the then twenty-eight, now thirty-four-year-old hooker.

“…Sweetie and me…we were more than just friends if you get my drift.”

Sabrina chuckled to herself as Bubba put the double shot of Jack Daniel’s in a reasonably clean glass in front of her. Yeah, Bubba’s would, in her mind, always be head and shoulders over Nick’s.

“How did you find that out?” Bubba questioned with a sly smile.

“I’ve got my ways.” Sabrina wiggled her eyebrows in another old dance she and Bubba had often performed. She reached for her drink and continued to watch as the broadcast cut to one man after another, each john more pathetic than the one before, until finally a sobbing Marsha filled the screen and confessed her misspent past. She also asked the American public to forgive her for lying about her age.

It was a hell of a moment for TV.

“Shoot, girl, you can find out anything. You should be out there working for the CIA,” Bubba said.

“That’s the idea,” she muttered under her breath.

Three days. Three days and nothing. She didn’t like the smell of it. What if this was some kind of setup? What if Krueger wasn’t who he said he was? She’d done a preliminary check after she’d received Arnold’s e-mail, so she knew he wasn’t lying about his position in the organization, but what did that mean? Doubt crept in from every corner of her mind. To push it back she took another sip of her drink and let the burn of the whiskey coat her throat.

“Hey, you know who you need to get next? That really bad dude.”

“There are a lot of really bad dudes, Bubba.”

“No, you know who I mean, the baddest.”

Kahsan, Sabrina thought. He was the baddest.

“That one who keeps breaking all the computers. That Ploxm guy.”

Sabrina smoothed out her expression at the mention of her competition’s name. Had they decided to go with him after all? Had the play already been called out to the field while she’d been left to sit on the bench? Man, she was going to be annoyed if that was the case.

She shook her head and smiled at Bubba’s irritation. The bartender still hadn’t gotten over the fact that he’d been the victim of a cyber virus. “Are you still mad about that? I fixed your computer for you, didn’t I?”

“But I lost some important e-mails,” he wailed.

“You’ll find another girlfriend on the Internet, Bubba. And she’ll replace all those love e-mails you lost, I promise.” Sabrina tipped the glass back and finished her shot. “Another.”

Smoothly, the bartender pulled the empty glass away and quietly replaced it with another. There was no judgment. She and Bubba understood each other.

Sabrina felt the customer next to her turn and stare. She stared back. “Problem?”

He nodded to the TV with his chin. “You found that stuff out about the girl?”

“The information was there to be found.”

The old man looked skeptical. “The producers of that show couldn’t find it. Heck, they thought she was only twenty-four.”

“Yeah, well, I aim to serve the public by providing the truth.”

She’d used the line before, but tonight it tasted particularly sour in her mouth. What she did was hack allegedly unhackable systems to find information on celebrities that she could then sell to the tabloids. Certainly, not a noble profession. But at least she didn’t contaminate that system with a virus that would shut down the entire network. She was head and shoulders more honorable than Ploxm in that regard. After all, trashy newspaper stories would come and go, but hard drives and data…those were lost forever.

Still Bubba praised her contributions to society much like a father would, if only her father knew where she was or what she did for a living. “Oh, that’s our Sabrina all right. A smart one, I tell you. She was the first to find out about that one Academy Award-winning actor who was gay. And the first to figure out that the big-time cable newscaster was a drug addict. There’s no secret she can’t find. I keep telling her she should go to work for the government, but she doesn’t listen to me.”

“They couldn’t afford me.” Sabrina said. Another old line. She wondered when she had gotten so tired of it. “Speaking of affording me…how bad is the tab for this month?”

Bubba checked the book he kept under the counter and winced a little.

That bad. Sabrina thought about the state of her checking account and winced herself. She’d sold a few stories to the Star Watcher last month, but was still waiting on her check. She hadn’t been completely joking to Krueger when she said finding a job, the right job for her anyway, was tough. A steady income would be nice for a change.

Sabrina shook her head. Yeah right, that’s why you got back in the game, so you could pay off your bar tab.

“Bubba, if you could just give me a few more days—”

“Oh sure, girlie, sure. You know, if you’re interested… Well, it’s not legal or anything, but those fellas in the back behind the partition, if I didn’t know better I would say they were playing cards. Now, I can’t be held responsible for what I don’t know. “

Instantly, she straightened on the stool and saw the chips on the table. Her mouth watered.

“Travelers?”

“They’re here for some convention at the college, but the hotels were all booked up so they’re staying at the Stop and Sleep just outside of town. Came here looking for some food and beer and a chance to unwind.”

“Bubba, are you telling me there is a group of men back there playing poker with real money and not one of them knows who I am?”

Bubba merely smiled. “Like I said, I don’t know about any gambling or anything like that. Just looks like they’re having a nice conversation to me.”

Sabrina leaned over the bar and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Spot me a twenty?”

The man pulled the money from the register and slid the single bill across the bar top.

Sabrina pocketed it and pushed her hands into her jeans. She flicked her curls off her face and strove for an innocent dupe expression.

It had been so long since she’d played cards. She could almost feel her hands sweating. When they found out about her in Vegas, she’d been banned from every casino on the Strip. It had taken less than two days for Atlantic City to catch on to her. She’d made the trip to Monte Carlo once, but she reserved that spot as her fallback for emergencies only.

Naturally, she’d played out her welcome with everyone in town. For the most part she didn’t think about it unless times got really tough and she was forced to seek out an Indian Reservation. But with a bar tab looming over her head and a cell phone bill due that she simply had to pay—especially now—she was willing to take the opportunity that had presented itself.

“Gentlemen. Hello.”

The group of five lifted their heads and checked her out from her boots, up her long, jean-clad legs to the bulky, gray wool sweater she wore. Maybe some thought she was an overdressed hooker looking for a customer. Maybe others thought she was a cop about to bust up their game, it was hard to tell. They would find out soon enough who she was.

“I’m bored and I’ve got twenty bucks to blow. Mind if I sit in on the next hand?”

The group looked at each other, then one man with a mustache shrugged. “I’m out. Let her sit in.”

A portly fellow in the corner chortled. “I don’t have a problem taking a woman’s money,” he warned her.

“That’s good. I don’t have trouble taking anyone’s money either,” she fired back as she took mustache man’s chair. “I’m Sabrina.”

“Chuck.”

“Paul.”

“Bill.”

“Mike.”

“Jim.” The one with the mustache, who was now only a spectator, finally introduced himself.

“So what’s the game?”

“Texas Hold’em,” Chuck, the portly one, announced dramatically. “We’re playing all or nothing. Last man standing wins. Or woman.” He laughed again.

Sabrina furrowed her brow. “Texas…that’s a poker game?”

Mike was kind enough to explain the rules to her and Bill took the deck and shuffled it fresh, tossing her the first card.

When she looked at her two cards, her face remained expressionless. Pocket eights, a spade and a club. Instantly, Sabrina calculated the odds of winning with such a hand and began to do her thing. She watched the flop and memorized the cards that had been turned over. Then she studied each of the players in turn looking for tells that would clue her into what they were holding.

Going with the dumb blonde approach, she stumbled over the betting. “I want to raise. Raise, that’s the right word, isn’t it?”

“You got it, honey,” Mike told her.

She beamed at him. “Then I want to raise five dollars.”

Paul would be the only one to call her bet. And Paul would lose with a jack and ten off suit and nothing in the flop, turn or river that would help. Bill had tossed his cards over in frustration when he folded, or possibly as a ploy to gauge the table’s reaction. But because of that, she now knew that at least two of the diamonds were on the bottom of the stack.

When Mike started betting heavily against the three diamonds in the flop, she knew that he was looking for the flush. But with only a twenty-nine percent chance of having one of the remaining nine possible diamonds in the deck turn up, she was a lock with her triple threes and she went all in. Sabrina took the pot and eliminated Mike.

Then next to go down was Bill. His shuffling was getting looser with each beer he consumed, which made it ridiculously easy for her to determine what cards were left in the deck and what would be coming out on top.

Glancing down at the ace and seven suited she had in her hand, all Sabrina had to do was keep raising and wait for it. On the flop? No. On the turn? No. There it was…the other ace on the river. Bill had gone all in with the pocket kings. She beat him soundly, and smiled sweetly as she gathered up his chips.

It was like taking candy from a baby. Her next target was Chuck.

A little less than three hours later and three hundred and eighty dollars richer, Sabrina beamed at the table. “Can you believe that? And I had never even heard of this game until tonight.”

The four losers grumbled about beginner’s luck and Jim smiled back at her, apparently pleased he’d left the table before she sat down.

Sabrina counted out the cash and laid down two hundred dollars on the bar in front of Bubba, plus two twenties. One for the spot, the other for the payoff. “That about cover me?”

“That about does it,” Bubba chuckled, pocketing the two twenties. “See you around, girlie.”

After bundling herself back into her winter gear, Sabrina gave the bartender a negligent wave as she walked toward the front door. Behind her she could hear the five guys grilling Bubba as to whether or not she was a ringer. She heard Bubba laugh out loud and thought that at least she had done something good tonight.

Realizing she’d forgotten her hat, Sabrina pulled it out of her front pocket and tugged it on past her ears. She took a deep breath and opened the door to the cold. Walking down the empty sidewalk toward her house, situated just off the main street, she cursed herself for not bringing the Jeep. She hadn’t wanted to risk drinking and driving.

Not that she’d hurt anyone but herself tonight. It was a time of hibernation for Stansfield, Pennsylvania. Once the football season of the state college nearby was over, the town dwindled from a bustling hot spot on weekends to its regular smattering of locals. A few staff members employed by the college. A few shopkeeps and professionals. Two doctors, four lawyers and one sheriff. And Bubba and Nick, of course. Two men whose establishments tried to keep most of the coal miners, now long unemployed since the great “shutdown of ’94,” drunk and numb to their woes.

“What the hell am I still doing here?” she asked the empty newspaper dispenser as she walked by. It wasn’t the first time she had asked herself the question. It’s just that when she did, the answer was always the same. She had nowhere else to go.

Three days and nothing. Maybe Krueger didn’t understand what it had meant for her to take this assignment. Maybe he didn’t understand how desperate she was to get her life back on track. It was a very real fear for her that if she stayed on this endless path to nowhere, she might just disappear. At some point she decided she’d couldn’t let that happen.

What if he found Ploxm?

No, she told herself firmly. It wasn’t possible. She had the best credentials. He’d said so. Arnold had been one of her mentors. There was no question she had the best chance of cracking his code.

And besides, she hadn’t done anything to get fired.