“Roger.”
Illuminati—or rather Gary—lifted his phone, but she swatted it away, raising a stubborn chin.
Watching the two of them without being able to hear their conversation, Castle recalled the last IRC exchange between Kit01Y0L0 and Illuminati411 that was burned into his mind verbatim.
K: Hope u found something. We’ve been owned, hardware to blood.
I: What are you wrapped up in? Got the 411 you requested on Z-1984. Need a meet.
K: Too dangerous. DEFCON 5. A meet could mean a bullet in my head.
I: Have questions for my blog. Need a meet. You name it.
K: Fine. The park near Mass Ave. Two hours. Come alone.
When Gary held the phone back out to the woman, the speaker icon on the screen was brightly lit. The blogger wanted to record their conversation.
Kit01Y0L0 shifted away from him, her features pinched. She tipped her head to the sky, bottom lip quivering, hands clenched.
Castle’s gaze zeroed in on her mouth.
Oh God. Please. Someone, please, help me. He read the words on her lips.
The blogger kept talking, but from the look of despair on her face and the way she shook her head, he wasn’t saying anything she wanted to hear.
A brisk breeze kicked up, gusting through the park, cutting over the blades of grass. The sun disappeared behind a bank of clouds and the temperature dropped a couple of degrees.
Trembling, she rubbed her hands down her bare thighs to her calves. The simple act of trying to warm herself, that forlorn look, those delicate features, held Castle transfixed.
He should’ve shifted his gaze away for a few beats—his training demanded it. People sensed when they were being watched after a while, but the moment dragged, distended around him, the passage of time slipping as a strange sympathy took hold of him.
The woman’s big eyes flickered up and her anguished gaze crashed into his. She looked right at him, straight through him. Those eyes, desperate and fierce, pierced him like daggers.
Who are you?
03
Kit locked onto the beefcake staring at her. He was low-key about the way he watched her, not giving a full-frontal glance, sunglasses shielding his eyes, petting his dog. But she sensed the raw intensity of his attention like an electric tongue licking her spine, making her body draw tight.
Did he see the phantom bull’s-eye painted on her forehead? Had the stench of death clinging to her drifted to where he smelled it?
If not for the carefree game of frisbee—though nothing about him appeared carefree—and how his presence failed to trigger her anxious awareness, she might’ve suspected the big guy was there for her head.
Scratch that.
Big was too small a word to define him. He’d run all over the upper park in effortless, explosive strides as he’d played with the dog. For a powerhouse, he moved fast. A tough-looking type other guys wanted to stand with, not against, but easy on the eyes, resembling a thirtysomething Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson with his bald head and golden-brown complexion.
A serious badass.
He lowered his head, severing the filament of connection, and her senses snapped back to the annoying Gary Hodges sitting beside her.
“Quid pro quo.” Gary’s voice prickled her ears along with her nerves. “If I tell you what I found out about Z-1984 first, you’ll bolt, leaving me with no material for my blog.”
He was right, but the gall of the parasite to milk her for a story in exchange for life-or-death information. Unbelievable!
She’d been clear as glass about the gravity of the situation in her message.
DEFCON 5…could mean a bullet to my head.
This meeting was dicey, but she’d chanced it to find out about Z-1984. Jasper had made a point to mention it before he was killed, a clue for her to follow. She had only been able to decrypt a single video from the backup hard drive so far. It wasn’t as if she had a personal computer connected to Wi-Fi. Internet cafés belonged to a bygone era, much like payphones. But gaming centers were prevalent in the outskirts of Virginia and Maryland, a short Metro ride from DC. With her limited skills, she hacked the center’s firewall to message Gary over the dark web and search for any relevant information. Not that she’d risked staying in any one place too long. A shame she didn’t have a stitch of real talent to whiz through the encrypted files on the drives.
Once she discovered whatever the hell Z-1984 was and figured a way to get her passport from the loft, she would be on an international flight. Her hacker buddies in Romania would give her a place to hole up and help her crack the rest of the data lickety-split.
“The Outliers won’t be fodder for your damn blog. Are you insane?”
“You’re the crazy one if you think I’m going to tell you shit before you clue me in on what’s going on. Whatever this is, it’s huge. I won’t let you leave me high and dry.”
Something inside her flared hot. “You won’t let me?” She grabbed him by the sweatshirt and yanked his face close. “Exposure is dangerous. Every minute sitting out here costs me. Do you even know anything?”
Gary’s shifty gaze dropped and his face blanched, only for a moment, before he regained his arrogant composure and said, “Of course I do.”
But his recovery wasn’t quick enough to save his charade. He didn’t know a damn thing.
She let him go and clicked her tongue, bitter with disappointment at herself for coming here for nothing and disgusted with Gary for putting her life at even greater risk. Out in the park, she was a perfect target. And for what? So he could capitalize off her tragedy?
Selfish douchebag.
Desperation had driven her to this gambit. What was she going to do now? She was out of cash and needed answers yesterday. There were no easy solutions to her predicament.
Gary prattled on, spouting more lies, trying to squeeze any juicy nuggets from her, but she barely heard him. Her attention was focused over Gary’s shoulder, hooked on a man strolling in their direction with a folded newspaper under his arm. Dressed in drab cargo pants, a nondescript utility jacket, and shades, nothing about him screamed violent intent. But something did make her gut clench and set a shrill alarm dinging in the back of her head. He walked with a dark sense of purpose yet never glanced directly at her, didn’t acknowledge her staring in the slightest. Way too nonchalant.
With the ball cap and shades, she couldn’t be sure, but…was that Delta?
A creepy sensation tickled the soles of her feet and crawled up her ankles, swarming the backs of her legs like hundreds of spiders. She jumped up and spun toward Constitution Avenue.
“Hey!” Gary called after her. “Where are you going?”