Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,109

the steel gate was rumbling aside.

He exhaled through his teeth.

To his right a rabbit bounded along the perimeter fence, paused to nibble. The MP looked up at it, said, “Uh-oh.”

The rabbit took another step. A click came audible even at this distance, and a land-mine explosion hurled it into the air, its legs stretched wide, brown-gray with a slash of violent red. It hit the dirt with a puff.

The security signs posted on the road leading in made a lot more sense.

The MP shrugged. “Poor little guy.” He waved Evan through. “I assume I don’t have to remind you to stay on the prescribed paths.”

“Not after that.”

“Straight to parking. Third or fourth floor. Check in again at the guard station when you exit to verify your access level.”

Evan entered the inner sanctum. A ribbon of road stretched ahead, the secure facilities placed at a far remove even from the remote perimeter, withdrawn that much farther from civilization. For a time he rumbled forward, kicking up a dust cloud, anticipating what would come next.

Fortunately, a big sign arrowed the way to the parking structure. He dutifully followed. The hologram had allowed him entry, sure, but that didn’t mean that the powers-that-be weren’t using the parking sticker as bait. They’d done so already with success at the impound lot.

Evan had to imagine that the hologram scan had announced his presence—that someone was using Jake Hargreave’s credentials—and that he was being watched from here on out. They’d give him some rope and hope he’d reveal what he was after.

Sure enough, within seconds a Humvee fell in behind him, maintaining a respectful distance. He kept his foot steady on the gas, heading for the parking structure like a good little soldier.

The interior roads seemed to be laid out like the spokes of a wheel, leading to the bunched buildings that served as base headquarters.

The central zone was bustling, fields and runways sprawling all around, teams jogging past in formation, unidentified objects of various sizes speckling the sky. It was all Evan could do not to crane his neck and stare out the window.

The four-story parking structure was covered, a stroke of much-needed luck. The guard station waited ten feet from the structure to receive anyone who walked out of parking from the stairwell or elevator. The Humvee following him was joined by a second, idling casually at the curb.

Evan pulled in and wound up to the third floor and chose a spot facing the open air, a good oversight position for the buildings to the east.

He had a loadout bag in the backseat filled with a change of clothes. Moving swiftly, he pulled on a white undershirt on which he had Magic Marker–ed several peace signs and written DRONES DESTROY OUR HUMANITY. Retrieving a Ziploc from the console, he cracked it open, releasing the skunky-sweet scent of weed. He took a hit, presidentially avoiding the inhale, and blew smoke all over himself. The windows were rolled up, the haze compounding.

A few more strategic puffs and the Civic was effectively hotboxed, the smell suffusing his hair and his clothes. He twisted the vape pen open as Joey had instructed him and clicked an interior switch, the inner core illuminating with indicator lights. He rotated it closed once more and slipped it into his front pocket.

As Joey had promised, the vape pen wasn’t what it looked like. It sent out wireless malware that targeted embedded devices—like printers and monitors—connected to the highly secured, air-gapped computers he really wanted to get into. It compromised those devices and acted as a hub linking them so they could speak to one another around an entire office over the Bluetooth connection nobody knew they had. The malware broadcast through the vape pen used Van Eck phreaking through a wide-band antenna, an ultraprecise oscilloscope, and an amplifier to measure the electromagnetic emissions of the embedded devices’ video signals. Then it correlated those minute readings to the data being worked on to siphon out the passwords and security keys. Those were sent back to the vape pen, which in turn transmitted them to Joey. He just had to get the pen within twenty meters of the nearest embedded device.

Next he freed the long-range laser listening device from his bag, the same one he’d used to spy on Joey at the restaurant. He got out of the Honda, the intake of fresh air making him cough, and sat on the hood facing the compound three stories below. Leaning forward, he saw that the