Dark Web (DARC Ops Book 2) (11 page)

I
t had been just
an hour of driving, but it felt like more than double that, because most of the trip was spent looking constantly between the road and in her rearview mirror. She kept watching for an old blue pickup truck, the creepy driver of which she’d made eye contact with at a West Wendover gas station. He had stared at her across the pump as they filled their tanks, a neck-bearded mouth breather, complete with trucker hat atop long greasy ringlets of hair.

And now he was following her, no matter how intentionally slow or fast she drove.

“Just pull off up there and let him go by,” said Taylor. She was beginning to sound annoyed.

“No, fuck it,” said Carly. If she spoke loudly enough, maybe she’d even convince herself. “We’re driving to Wells. He can go fuck himself.”

Nothing like fake bravado. Fake it till you make it.

And then she looked in the mirror again.

It probably would have been a non-issue were it not for the little surprise she’d received that morning at the motel. A bouquet of flowers delivered to her door by the inn-keeper. He’d come by their room in the morning, smiling, maybe expecting a tip. But all Carly could afford was a look of confusion and a meek “thank you” before swinging the door back and shutting it in his face. When she’d read the card, her confusion turned into a sharp, stabbing fear.

Cscape

One word written in blue ink. Nothing else. No sender’s name, no note, no explanation.

It was a mystery, and it had been eating away at her the whole afternoon. The flowers, the blue pickup, it had to all be connected to her late-night-hacking efforts. She’d dug a little deeper after Dan’s phone call the night before and what she’d uncovered about the server they were asking her to hack . . . well, it was enough to make her seriously question what the hell she’d gotten herself into. Add on the phone call about Joan’s mysterious death and she could feel the panic attack coming from miles away. From the salt flats of Utah to the rocky desert mountains of northern Nevada, an anxiety grew from Oasis to Pequop Summit, and onward to their destination of Wells. It was a part of their original plan, where they were supposed to meet up with the honey-oil buyers. It would have been a big payoff, the reward for all the risk and all the bullshit—bullshit, in this case, now meaning everything to do with being in a traveling, gigging band.

“I still can’t get into it,” said Megan. “I just can’t.”

Carly nodded in agreement before checking the mirror again.

Maybe in their younger and more naive days, the music itself would have been the reward. There was even a time when they’d been excited about playing for free. But this tour had a way of gutting the last vestiges of youthful enthusiasm. Maybe thirty
was
too old. Maybe she should just finish up the tour, and definitely finish the hacking job, and then settle down in Fort Collins with any halfway decent man. Just get married, have a baby, and fade away like everyone else.

“Like, what’s the point?” said Megan, looking defeated with her head almost resting down at the armrest she’d been picking at. For three days, she’d been peeling at the covering with a nervous, if not angry energy. “We’re not going anywhere. Like, we’re never gonna get signed to a record deal or anything. And touring sucks. I’m sorry, but it does. I have to just say it.”

The van stayed quiet. No one had the strength to muster up a counterargument. Or maybe there just wasn’t one anymore.

“So,” Megan huffed. “So it just makes me wonder what the whole point is.”

“Money,” said Carly. She said it coldly, logically. Just how it should be said.

The van went quiet again, as if everyone knew exactly what kind of money she was referring to. And that was the ugly truth of it. Their tour was not about the music. Or even the music money. Perhaps it never was.

“So, what do you want to do, then?” asked Taylor.

“If it’s about money,” said Megan, “then we should keep going to California. Skip our Nevada shows and just head straight there. We could be in Tahoe by midnight.”

“So we’re just drug mules, then?” said Taylor. “That’s it? That’s all we are? I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather be a failed, broke musician than a fucking drug mule.”

Megan turned around to face her drummer. “Then why’d you agree to this? You knew what it was the whole time.”

“Yeah, a vacation. Roadtrip. We get to play a few shows. I thought we could maybe make some money along the way, like, with the honey and stuff. But no way was that the whole reason for coming out here. If that’s your only reason, then . . . I don’t know. That’s fucked up.”

“Okay,” Carly said. Fuck, the band was about to reach a breaking point. “Now I think I
will
pull off the road.”

“Just keep going,” Megan said, disgust evident in her voice.

“Well, let’s get it together, then. We’re playing a fucking show tonight.” Carly checked her rearview mirror. The blue pickup was nowhere to be seen. “So can everyone just chill? Please? I’m making us a bunch of money, and you all need to be thankful for that.”

There were a few apologetic grumbles from her two bandmates.

“We’ll go big in Reno,” said Carly. “Okay?”

But first they had to go small in Wells.

* * *

A
nother small town
, another cheap motel, another few hours of hacking. What else would she do with her time in an old Nevada mining town? Swim in the motel’s postage-stamp-sized pool? Visit the 49er gold trail visitor center? Stand on Main Street and dodge tumbleweeds? In that way, she was lucky. The town’s lack of any worthwhile attractions made it easy for her to focus on work—which was really beginning to feel like work now that the novelty of hacking again had entirely worn off. The transition reminded her of their tour, the arc of it, high expectations that crashed hard and burned fast. At least with hacking there were no illusions, no myth of enjoying hacking for hacking, as if it were some holy experience. It was work. Sometimes dirty work, and she’d been slogging away at its current iteration as best as she could, and for as long as she could before the negative thoughts could throw her off track. She was usually able to go about twenty minutes or so before thinking back to the flowers, how her name looked on the card. She might also think about Joan, wondering if she had received any strange flower delivery leading up to her murder. Or if she was leered at by some creepy guy at a gas station, and then followed by him. If he was the one. . . .

Joan must have been followed by somebody. Stalked like a defenseless prey.

The thought sent a shiver down Carly’s spine. She opened the drawer of her nightstand, relieved to see the sharp, gleaming barrel of her .38 Special safely inside. Maybe that was Joan’s problem. She wasn’t prepared.

But what should she be preparing herself for? Trouble of all kinds was mounting up in all aspects of her life, attacking from all angles, past and present. At least she was in Nevada for it, the loneliest and most isolated state of the mainland. Barren and forgotten, it was a place for off-the-grid survivalists, where people could bug out and drop off the face of the earth. Maybe Carly should try doing just that, follow one of the tumbleweeds from Main Street to the desert. Get lost for good, away from Bryce Johnson or his thugs, or the Feds, or flower-delivery boys.

She was daydreaming again. Procrastinating on the most morbid of thoughts.

It was so easy to dwell on anything other than her current work—on how much she wished she wasn’t doing this again, or whatever horrible thing had really happened to Joan. She would rather think about anything other than how she was hiding out in a hotel room breaking into a secured server a few hours before her next pointless gig at a trucker drive called the Dolphin Club.

With a groan, Carly sat up straight, then pulled the laptop closer. She squinted at the strings of characters on the screen, the names of files she’d just created to cover her tracks. It was part of her countermeasures, setting up more honey pots for any inquisitive cybersecurity agents. It had already worked last night, trapping something, or someone.

Which meant she now had a whole new problem. She’d probably put herself on someone else’s radar. She might now be the next in line for a honey pot, one that she might drown in. It was a concern that had been growing with each round of work, as she inadvertently learned more about the target. It became almost impossible to ignore, especially because the environment looked so familiar. She’d seen similar surroundings on previous hacks, back in her hacktivist days with The Collective. Certain short-forms of words in the various file names. The types of files, their locations in the server. Most importantly, how the server was organized and defended.

And it all screamed United States Government.

Back in her heyday, Carly felt perfectly comfortable in even the deepest and most Top Secret of government webs. It was how she was able to procure a great deal of evidence and leaks, all of it aiding some great humanitarian cause or another. “Go big or go home” was the motto.

Back then, she would “go big” of her own volition, accepting the risk as just another necessary hurdle for enacting some positive change in the world. But what was this project’s positive change? What great cause was she furthering by breaking into a government server and stealing documents? The cause of making money? Trying to recuperate The Dotties’ loss from a botched drug run?

Without the backing of any sensible moral component, and after the novelty of hacking had worn off, the job had begun to feel as empty and mindless as her corporate toils back in Fort Collins. But simple website programming, at least, wouldn’t end up hurting anyone.

She tried not to think about it, about who she’d be hurting.

No, it was no one. Just the government.

* * *

S
he noticed him early
, a few songs into their first set. Dark sunglasses. Ball cap over a possibly shaved head. He was nice to look at—his broad shoulders, the way his biceps seemed to barely fit inside his tight black t-shirt sleeves.

She liked the distraction. At first.

It took well into their second set for Carly to realize that he’d been staring at her, and at her alone. Maybe under different circumstances she’d be intrigued, even flattered by the attention. As a performer, she was used to being looked at. But as part of a group. A visual option, one of three. It was a little unsettling how fixed his gaze was.

Even worse, he sat alone. No one to socialize with. Nothing else to do but to look at Carly. For as much as he was staring at her, it made her want to avoid him at all costs, aiming her gaze at anything else but him and his unsettling intensity.

What was it today with men staring at her? Did someone write something on her forehead while she was asleep? Or maybe no one had the heart to tell her about a glob of bird shit that had somehow landed in her hair without her noticing?

And then Carly remembered that she was in character. A character who wore an eye patch. For anyone wearing a patch, anyone who
wasn’t
a pirate, it would usually attract some attention. But this man, though . . . the way he stared . . . it was not the kind of look one gave to someone who wore a patch or a glass eye, or bird shit. At this point, she would have welcomed that look. Better to be annoyed than scared.

Carly tried a few times to communicate her unease to Megan, giving her a look to get her attention, and then nodding over to the guy. With her eyes she tried to say, “What the fuck is with that muscle-head freak who keeps starting at me?!”

But Megan could never get the message right, remaining oblivious the whole time, as if he were a ghost.

Relief came after the second set, when he left the bar and disappeared back into the Nevada night. Maybe he had some pushups to do, or some other female bass player he could obsess over. Still, it made her reach for her gun at her side holster. Who knows what, or who, would be waiting for her after the show.

But her holster was empty.

She hadn’t remembered her gun.