The click of the lock releasing sounded like a cannonshot in the hallway. The agent twisted the handle and shoved the door open, holding it back with his free hand. The laser sight mounted on his pistol strobed the darkness in the room. “Got it?”
Becerra held her own weapon while in a kneeling position. “Go.”
Striding into the room, Roarke disappeared from Matt’s view. Then a moment later, the agent called, “Clear.” The lights came on inside the room. “No joy.”
Becerra followed him in, staying alert.
Matt was at her heels, swinging into the room an instant after the detective. He scanned the room quickly, taking in the neatly made bed, the clean room, and the total absence of Oscar Raitt.
19
“Peter wasn’t one for the rough stuff,” Zenzo Fujikama was saying as he guided Mark and Andy through the Net. “But he showed up pretty often to learn. Hacker hangouts are some of the best places to go to learn cutting-edge programming. And who’s doing it.” In freefall over the huge metropolitan area below, he glanced back over his shoulder at Mark. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Mark didn’t reply.
Andy studied the city below as they fell through the fog toward it. The coastline and the bright lights looked familiar. When he saw the Space Needle, the unique saucer design flattened out below him, he knew where they were. “Seattle?”
“I’ve got some friends I want you to meet.” Fujikama stretched out his arms.
Andy’s vision went away for a moment. When it returned, he was standing inside a small warehouse that looked condemned. Smashed crates, broken boards, and debris covered the scarred concrete floor. The blacked out windows allowed no outside light in. Illumination came from a small room at the back. “What’s this place?”
“Spy headquarters,” Zenzo said, grinning. He started forward and lifted his voice. “Yo, Tommy T!”
Mark kept his voice low. “Don’t get fooled by this place, Andy. It might not look like much, but there are lots of layers we’re not seeing.”
Andy nodded, understanding. “Spy headquarters?” he asked Zenzo.
Zenzo nodded. “Sure. Every year a group of us stake out the gaming convention. We hack into communications feeds, media feeds, the hotel security systems. Whatever we can find.”
“That’s illegal,” Mark said.
“Maybe,” Zenzo admitted. “But it’s the only chance some of us have got.”
“Got for what?” Andy asked, intrigued. The warehouse smelted rank, and he kept curling his nose up, breathing shallowly. He knew they were down near the docks leading out into Puget Sound. The way some of the shadows shifted and moved led him to believe they were rats.
“To break into the biz,” Zenzo said. “If you’re a true gamer, that’s like the quest for the Holy Grail. You game?”
“When I get the chance.”
A door at the other end of the warehouse opened, letting more light into the warehouse and the thundering crash of techno-pop rock. A heavy guy in jeans and a black T-shirt with an imprint of Arachno-Boy in full battle mode stepped out. “Zenzo?”
“Yeah, Tommy,” Zenzo said. “It’s me. Want to shut off the security so we can come in?”
Tommy lifted a hand and pointed. A green button formed in the air, and he pressed it.
Andy saw dozens of light beams suddenly strobe to life, bouncing from one corner of the warehouse to the other, running from side to side and from top to bottom. The only neutral ground inside the warehouse was the spot Zenzo had brought them to.
“Oscar Raitt’s records have been purged from the gaming convention database.”
Matt looked at Catie’s face on his foilpack’s vidscreen. “What about the off-site location?” He’d asked her to check the records, looking for some kind of proof that Oscar had existed.
They’d already checked the phone records from his vidphone link, but they had been erased from the phone company. The phone company remained a prime target for hackers, and with all the access they had to promote in their business, they were still easier to penetrate than most corporations.
“I checked there, too,” Catie confirmed. “Nothing there.”
“Thanks. I’ll be in touch.” Matt closed the foilpack, wishing his head didn’t hurt so badly.
“Hey, kid,” Roarke said. The Net Force agent stood near the hotel room windows overlooking the enclosed passageway leading back to the Bessel. A helo with police markings buzzed through the sky. “Don’t get so down.”
“Kind of hard not to,” Matt said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was imagining things, too.”
Roarke shook his head. “These people, whoever they are, can try to cover up this stuff as much as they want, but it’s already gotten through the seams. When it gets this messy, more than likely we’re going to figure it out.”
“More than likely?” Maj echoed.
Roarke gave her a grin. “Better than fifty-fifty odds.” He leaned against the wall. “The trick is to figure it all out in time. These things tend to have a perishable date on them.”
Matt couldn’t help thinking of Peter Griffen. Is he still being held hostage somewhere, or has that date already run through? He glanced up at Maj and saw the dark look on her face, knowing she was wondering the same thing.
“Agent Roarke?”
They looked at the door to the hotel room and saw the three men in green overalls standing there with equipment cases in their hands.
“You forensics?” Roarke asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“You know what you’re doing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, if you’re waiting on me, don’t.”
“Yes, sir.” The three men moved into the room and opened their cases, removing aerosol applicators. “Where do you want the luminol, sir?”
“Let’s start with the floor,” Roarke ordered. “Blood tends to follow the laws of gravity. If we find anything, we’ll broaden the search.”
Matt swallowed dryly as he watched the men work.
Standing in the huge warehouse, Andy watched the security systems wink out around them.
“We make it hard for anyone to find us,” Zenzo said. “And if they do, we make sure we have plenty of time to log off and run.” He started forward. “Anyway, getting back to the games. As I was saying, any true gamer’s dream is to design games other people will play. A lot of guys build games and put them on the Net for free.”
“I’ve got some friends who do that,” Andy said.
“I could have figured that. Maybe you’re not hardcore, but I bet you know the guys who are. There’s a lot of natural talent out there, and there are also a lot of guys who really aren’t as good as they think they are. However, that doesn’t stop them.”
Andy followed Zenzo into the small room at the end of the warehouse. It was filled to capacity with five workspaces and the three guys and two young women who occupied them. Computer hardware lined the walls, and Andy didn’t doubt that over half of it was designed for security.
“We design games,” Zenzo said, “but it’s tough getting the attention of publishers. They’ve got their own people. They’re not looking for guys like us, total independents who’ve taught themselves.”
“They usually recruit people from video game design colleges,” Mark said.
“Yeah, and they make money off those colleges, too.” Zenzo said with obvious cynicism. “They make profits off the guys they choose who become successes, and they make money off the dreamers, too. And that is truly bogus.”