software of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Or not caught, exactly: detected; surprised in the act of the hack. But apparently in pinging him, the authorities had pinged themselves as well. Yuan shut down his operation and hopped the first Qantas out of town.
“Our concern,” said Scovil, “is that Yuan has found a way to compromise the bank’s security and will, at a later time, attempt penetration.”
“I love it when you say penetration,” I said, again yielding to the urge to provoke her. Some people you just don’t like. Her eyes clouded over in anger, but she swiftly regained her dark poise. It was clear that she wouldn’t let herself be baited by the likes of little me. Which, of course, just made the likes of little me want to bait her all the more.
And don’t think I wasn’t mentally looking over my shoulder at Allie during all this. I had no idea what I was to her just then, although the word tool, in all its manifestations, sprang to mind. In any case, I wanted her to know that as far as I was concerned, she wasn’t the only woman in the room, and I hoped that pissed her off. I also wanted very much to know what her role was here, but that wasn’t the sort of question I could just come right out and ask. I’d have to nibble away at its edges, just like Billy Yuan had, seemingly, nibbled away at the bank.
“How did he get so good?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” asked Hines.
“You’re telling me he’s a top-flight grifter and a world-class hacker? That’s a rare combination.”
“He’s a man of many talents, Radar. Just like you.”
“Not like me. I can guess a password in a pinch, but I couldn’t hack bank security. Hell, I can’t hack a piggy bank without a hammer. So I ask again: How did he get so good?”
Scovil looked unhappy. “We trained him,” she said at last.
I laughed. “You what?”
“After he got out of prison, we, ah, persuaded him that there was more benefit in working with us than against us.”
“So you taught him everything he needed to know to go after your own national bank. That is rich.” No one else seemed to find it particularly rich. Mirplo had gone all mopey, perhaps feeling overlooked, his ego underfed. Hines seemed worried that I wasn’t buying all of this. Allie was where Allie was. And Scovil had just made an embarrassing admission. So, yeah, everyone in the room was unhappy but me. In the spirit of Schadenfreude, I decided to turn the screw. “So what’s his real name?” I asked.
“What do you mean ‘real name’?” asked Scovil. “It’s William Yuan.” I snickered. “What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“The yuan is the currency of China, yeah?”
“So? It’s also a very common name.”
“Yes, it is. And how does it translate into English?”
“I don’t know. ‘Dollar,’ I suppose.”
“There you go,” I said. “Billy Yuan. Dollar Bill. A grifter’s inside joke to himself if ever there was one. He might as well have called himself Billy the Kid.”
Hines looked altogether too pleased with this. “You see?” he told the others. “This is why we need Radar. He thinks just like Yuan, or whatever his name is. They’re going to get along great.”
“Yeah, we will,” I said. “Once I find him. Anyone know how I should go about that?”
“Oh, we know where he is,” said Hines. “That is, Allie does.”
“Well, if she knows,” I couldn’t help asking, “why doesn’t just she go after him? I’m sure they’ll get along famously, too.”
“Not so much,” said Allie, and I thought I heard a piece of her past in her voice. What was there? Wistfulness? Regret?
“Oh, my God,” I said. “You dated him.” I didn’t know if this was true or not, but looking at Allie, I could see that she didn’t much like being the object of my inspection. Okay, I thought, that’s a card I can probably play again. But save it. Don’t overuse it.
They told me where I could find Yuan and gave me a generous forty-eight hours to make contact. With that, the meeting started to wind down. I could tell that from Hines’s and Scovil’s point of view, it was all mission accomplished. Allie looked less smug—in fact, it seemed to me that her smug was at its lowest ebb since the moment we’d met. Clearly the notion of me hooking up with Billy Yuan was stirring some ambivalence in her. And that only