Black Hat Blues (37 page)

“Who are you again?” he asked.

“Maria Lanier, and this is my associate, Mr.—”

“I heard that part. I meant who are you? Who are you with? What

do you do?”

“We’re consultants. Consultants for, among other companies, PWS

Agricultural and Kore Construction, limited.” These were names they’d

gotten from the original briefing files that Isaiah had sent them when

they were still in the planning stages. Both companies provided labor

and management for their clients, and by labor they meant slaves and by

management they meant guards. They were part of the extended Enemy

empire and had been among the hardest hit in Isaiah’s attack.

“I don’t recognize your names,” Clover said.

“We’re recently promoted. I worked out of Miami and Mr. Orozco

here is from our European office.”

“How do you do,” said Sacco. The accent sounded just right to Chloe;

all that practice paying off.

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Clover just nodded at him and fixed his eyes on Chloe again, not

saying anything but clearly expecting more. “If you’ll allow me,”

said Chloe, holding up her briefcase, “I have letters of reference from

some of my partners who you are more familiar with. I realize you

are involved in your own difficulties and may not have heard, but our

organization has suffered some rather traumatic setbacks in the past

month and many of our top-level executives are either indisposed at

the hands of the U.S. government or are out of the country and entirely

unavailable.”

He thought over what she said and then stood aside, ushering them

in. “Alright, let’s see what you’ve got.”

Only two groups of people could know everything that Chloe laid

out on Clover’s kitchen table as evidence of her identity: the real slavers

or the people who’d conned them. Their whole plan counted on him

never believing his enemies would be crazy, stupid, or daring enough

to come see him face to face like this. Between his own records stolen

from his server and the data they had from Isaiah, the Crew had been

able to piece together the most important (or at least most often used)

connections between Clover and his slaver clients. With both of them

under heavy and public investigation, the odds of them continuing

to contact one another by anything other than in-person proxy were

pretty slim, or at least that’s what Paul reasoned and what all of them

were counting on.

“So what’s the story with you guys?” he asked, once he’d gone over

each piece of false evidence with diligence and care. “I’ll admit, I’ve

been distracted.”

“It has been very bad,” Sacco said, taking the cue he was waiting

for. “Almost our entire Caribbean-centered operation lies in tatters and

there is grave concern at home that these troubles will make their way

across the Atlantic as well. At first we supposed it was some unfortunate

combination of over-zealous, under-bribed law enforcement and Norte

Americano incompetence and security lapses…”

“Which turns out to have been a faulty assumption,” Chloe inter-

jected, pretending some measure of pride in her alleged employers. “Our

security measures met all the agreed upon parameters.”

“And these parameters proved insufficient. As Maria says, it was not

entirely their fault. The protocols were set up to protect our interests

from a certain type of interference and attack. Governments, competi-

tors, and so forth, you see? But this attack, this attack it comes from a

direction unexpected. It comes from criminals, anarchists.”

This revelation didn’t seem to surprise Clover. “Yeah, I know.”

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“You do?” asks Chloe, feigning surprise. Well, maybe not entirely

feigning. It was good confirmation about their assumptions that he was

behind the attacks on their Crew, or at least in touch with those who

were. “What do you know about them?”

“You show your cards first. Then I’ll share.”

Sacco shrugged as if it were no big deal and continued. “So, not the

usual incompetence, but some criminal threat we never suspected. Nor,

I think, that you ever suspected either, no? Otherwise you would not be

so badly in shape as you seem to be, I think. Like you, our operations

on this side of the ocean are all but extinct.”

“We’re not dead yet,” Chloe said.

“Dying, then.”

“Not dying either. But we’re not good.”

Clover gave a wan smile. “I know how that feels. What the hell hap-

pened to you all exactly anyway?”

“It was a multi-front attack,” Chloe explained and then shot Sacco a

dark look. “Totally unprecedented. There was a mass protest among core

groups of workers spread out across a dozen different clients. Protesters

and activists we can handle, of course, but we’d never seen it on this

scale and with this kind of timing.”

“Still, nothing you shouldn’t have been able to handle,” Sacco said.

“Nothing we couldn’t have handled, I assure you, except that we suf-

fered a massive communications breakdown across our entire network.

Cell phones, landlines, and internet access all went down within hours,

sometimes minutes of each other. Our clients couldn’t contact us and

we were focusing on our own problems and so remained unaware…”

“Tragically unaware,” Sacco said with a sneer. “Tell him of the errand

boy’s radio.”

Chloe shook her head, showing both annoyance at Sacco and sadness

at her own tale. “It wasn’t until one of our junior analysts was driving

back with lunch for the office and listening to the radio that we learned

three of our biggest clients had been arrested by the FBI, charged with

harboring illegal aliens and violating anti-terrorism statutes. I should

say that even the cable television in our office and in our homes had

been shut off.”

“Quite embarrassing, no?”

“Sounds pretty shitty,” said Clover.

“From there things went from bad to worse. Workers on many of the

farms set fire to offices and equipment, seized private computers and

files, and made their contents public. Light industrial facilities were

vandalized, managers attacked and in some cases beaten. Police coming

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to investigate found nothing but evidence they could use against the

owners, the workers having fled the scene.”

“And then those politicians we pay people like you to keep in our

pockets,” Sacco said, turning his gaze on Clover, “They took our diffi-

culties as an excuse to solve their own political problems. This of course

only made matters worse. More arrests, bigger investigations, public

embarrassment. And the worst is yet to come. There will be the filing

of more charges, the cutting of deals and the spilling of information. If

there’s any left to spill.”

“He means the encrypted files. They were encrypted anyway, but some-

one got the passwords, and a whole lot of information that never should

have seen the light of day suddenly is. There are names and account data

in there that… well, like Mr. Orozco said, it’s going to get worse.”

Clover sighed and leaned back in his chair, biting his upper lip. “And

I really am sorry for you folks, I am. I got caught up in the same web

of shit, as you probably know. These are some bad fellas that came after

me, and I’m doing what I can, I assure you.”

“And what do you know about them?” Sacco asked. “Do you know

who it is that attacked you?”

“Hackers. My whole company got hacked. They fucked over my pri-

vate accounts and paid out checks to a bunch of illegals down your way

in Florida. I’m having to get a divorce just so some of my assets will be

protected by being only in my wife’s name. It’s not good. Especially if

they do end up filing charges on me.”

“But you have found a way to strike back at these people, have you

not?” asked Sacco with a knowing smile.

“What makes you think that?”

“There have been signs. We are not inactive. We seek to strike back

at those who have attacked us. We notice that there are federal agen-

cies investigating others besides us—check cashing businesses, illegal

immigrants, and so on. We see signs of pressure from on high, pressure

we’re not able to currently bring. But perhaps you are?”

“Perhaps, perhaps,” Clover said, trying to hide a smile that was light-

ing up his eyes.

“You see, Maria! Did I not tell you as much? This man is not yet

beaten.”

“Mr. Orozco holds you in high esteem, Mr. Clover,” Chloe said. “It

was his suggestion that we come here.”

“Well, I’m not sure I deserve all his praise, but I’m even less sure why

you came here. Whatever it is I might be doing, I have to tell you, I’m

doing it for me. I have to save my own skin.”

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“And we want to help you do just that!” Sacco said. “What’s good for

you is good for us. This has always been true, yes?”

“What Mr. Orozco is saying, is that we would like to try and pool

our resources. You obviously know some facts about who’s behind our

mutual troubles that we do not. Likewise, we have information about

the groups responsible for attacking us that you might not be aware

of. I’m sure there’s some connection there. If we share data, we both

benefit.”

“Possibly, possibly. I’ll have to think about it. Why don’t you give me

what you got and I’ll see if there’s any connections I can see.”

“Oh, come, come,” Sacco purred. “This is not how business is done.

We must both benefit.”

“You can’t fault me for asking. But I’ve got someone working for me

on this you know, and they’re not cheap. I paid good money for what

I got, and if you want it, well, I might be willing to sell it to you for a

fair price.”

“This is not why we’re here,” said Sacco. “We’re not here to pay you

for information. Are you so blind you cannot see what is in your best

interests?” Chloe wasn’t sure that was the right tone to take with Clover.

She in fact might have been perfectly happy to pay him, if the informa-

tion was right and would lead them to what they needed to get Sandee

out from under whatever charges were being laid on him. But Sacco,

or at least Orozco, was on a roll. “Let us put aside petty concerns over

money and think about the best strategy for all of us.”

“My money concerns aren’t any kind of petty,” Clover said, and it

was clear he was both angry and unafraid of letting them know it. “And

I have put some real information out there for you and haven’t heard

anything but moaning and groaning from you. So you already owe me

something by my calculation and I’m being up front with you. I need

money. That’s what I need strategically. And I’ve got plenty more to

sell. My contact can help you, I’m sure, but you’re going to have to go

through me.”

“What contact is this?” Sacco said, almost audibly scoffing. “I would

be surprised if anyone was taking your calls, your face is so much in

the papers.”

“Like the lady said, I’m not dead yet. I have an ace up my sleeve.”

“And who is this ace, then?”

“I told you, you want to use my contact, you have to go through

me.”

Sacco glanced over at Chloe for some sort of signal. She hoped Clover

didn’t think that was strange, given they’d gone in trying to sell this idea

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of Orozco being the sexist, dominant jerk that Clover could identify

with. Whatever the case, Chloe felt pretty sure that Clover had tipped

his hand on one crucial point—he was down to one single contact that

was charging him an a shit load of cash but was getting results and there

was no way he was going to give up that person’s identity. Chloe didn’t

look at Sacco, but pressed forward with the play she’d decided to make

and hoped Sacco would follow along like Paul would have.

“We could arrange to make a payment through you, of course,” said

Chloe. “That’s a familiar arrangement for us. And naturally we’d mask

the source of the funds, as always.”

“Assuming you can produce the kinds of results that warrant such

payments,” Sacco added. Good, he was saying the right things.

“Oh, you’ll get results. My contact gets results, for sure,” Clover said,

and Chloe could see him start to relax, no doubt seeing a way out of

whatever financial hole he’d found himself in. Correction, that they’d

put him in. If they did end up paying him, it would be with some of

his own money. “I can get you the full file for $150,000. And I’m sure

you’ll want to have some follow-up from there. You let me know, and

I’ll price it with my contact.”

“Can you give us the file now?” Chloe asked.

“You have $150,000 in your briefcase?”

“We could get it here in under an hour.”

“You can have until tomorrow, and I don’t want cash. I don’t keep

anything here, no computers, no files. There are too many search war-

rants with this address on them. No, you give me a number where I can

reach you and I’ll arrange to have someone make the exchange.”

“Surely your phones are tapped,” said Sacco, almost forgetting his

accent.