Invasion of Privacy - Softcover

Reich, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0307473821 ISBN 13: 9780307473820

Verlag: Anchor, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

While meeting with a confidential informant, Mary Grant's husband, Joe, an FBI agent, is killed on a remote, dusty road outside of Austin, Texas. The official report places blame on Joe's shoulders, but the story just doesn't add up and Mary prods the FBI to investigate. There are just too many questions. Meanwhile, Ian Prince, founder of ONE technology, the world's largest Internet company, has his own concerns about the FBI looking into Joe Grant’s death. Prince's newest invention, the Titan supercomputer, is set to launch, and Mary’s quest for the truth could cause him trouble.  When Mary is stonewalled by the FBI, she takes matters into her own hands. With the help of her daughter, Jessie, a brilliant hacker, she takes over her husband’s investigation, putting herself and her entire family in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful men in America, as well the newest and most terrifying surveillance system ever created.

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CHRISTOPHER REICH is the New York Times bestselling author of The Prince of Risk, Rules of Deception, Rules of Vengeance, Rules of Betrayal, Numbered Account, and The Runner. His novel The Patriots Club won the International Thriller Writers award for Best Novel in 2006. He lives in Encinitas, California.

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1

“Felix will be there in ten.”

“All clear?”

“Nothing out here but tumbleweeds and horseshit.”

“Welcome to Texas.”

Special Agent Joe Grant of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stared out the window of the Chevrolet Tahoe. The ground was barren, scrub sprouting here and there out of the dirt. Across the yard stood an old windmill, the kind with the tiller and the spoked wheel. Farther down the road he spied a telephone pole strung with wires. Beneath it sat the rusted carcass of an ancient tractor. He sighed. The place had probably looked the same in 1933.

“Stay back a ways once he pulls in. Don’t want to spook him.”

“Now you’re even talking like a cowboy,” said Fergus Keefe, a supervisory special agent from the Cyber Investigations Division and his colead on the case. “That ought to go over big in D.C.”

“Ain’t there yet.”

“If half of what Felix says is true, this is your ticket to the show.”

“I’ll believe it when I’m holding the plane ticket in my hand.”

Sacramento’s the last stop, they’d promised him. You’ll get to D.C. straight after that. But that was before Semaphore came around. Semaphore threw a wrench into everything. If he wasn’t so good at his job, Joe thought, he’d be in Washington right now, looking at the dome of the Capitol Building and giving briefings on the Hill. Instead he was parked in the questionable shade of a cedar tree on an abandoned cattle ranch smack dab in the middle of Texas Hill Country. D.C. might as well be on the far side of the moon.

“Felix is turning onto RR 3410,” said Keefe.

“Roger that. Wait right there. He sees that dust behind him, there’s no telling what he’ll do. He’s nervous enough as it is.”

“Felix” was the confidential informant’s code name. For Felix Unger, the OCD half of the Odd Couple.

“I’m pulling over,” said Keefe. “He’s all yours. And don’t take any chances.”

“You think he’s packing? Felix? A PhD from MIT? The guy’s annual 401(k) contribution is bigger than my entire salary.”

“I prefer to think of him as a pill-popping drunk with two DUIs and a reckless endangerment under his belt.”

“Point taken.” Joe laid a hand on his Glock. Tell an agent to be careful and he’s going to check that his piece is where it should be—in Joe’s case, holstered on his waist, butt facing out for the cross draw. He forgot about the weapon and switched off his phone, staring at the picture of Jessie and Grace on his wallpaper. He ran a fingernail over their faces, but it didn’t bring them any closer. Getting so big. He said it every time, just like he said he’d be home more often and he’d stop letting “the job” take precedence over his job as a father.

Someday . . .

Joe drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The exterior temperature gauge read 102, but it felt hotter. Across the yard a clump of tumbleweed rustled. He leaned forward, eyes glued to the windmill. Come on, he whispered. Give us a breeze. The windmill shuddered but did not turn.

Times had changed. You didn’t need a windmill to pump water out of the ground. And you sure as heck didn’t need wires to send a voice from one person to another. Joe knew all about phones and cables and all things telecommunication. He knew more about digital technology than he’d ever wanted to. Semaphore had taken care of that.

Officially it was Operation Semaphore, and it had brought him to Austin two months earlier. For the record it was a routine transfer, a lateral move from Sacramento to shore up the Austin residency’s glaring manpower shortage. He came billed as an agent who knew his way around municipal corruption cases, with a stint overseas policing piracy of intellectual property.

But the record didn’t say everything.

There were rumors about a chronic inability to follow orders. People said that Joe Grant was a cowboy who left a trail of wreckage in his wake. They said that Austin was his last watering hole and that he couldn’t retire soon enough. And whatever you do, don’t partner up with him.

The rumors were bullshit—disinformation designed to give him leeway to act on his own. No one knew about Semaphore except Joe, Keefe, and the task force in D.C.

The sound of an engine made him sit up straighter. He caught a flash of red in the rearview. It was Felix’s Ferrari. Joe believed the model was called a LaFerrari, and it retailed for a cool million five. It was also the most conspicuous car on the face of the planet. He felt certain the boys up in the space station could see it right now with just their eyes.

Felix parked close behind Joe’s car. A scrawny man with a mop of dark hair climbed out and hurried over. The door opened and Felix slid into the seat, eyes bugging, sweat rolling down his forehead. “You’re going to need a bigger boat,” he said.

“Relax,” said Joe. “We’re safe here.”

“Safe. Yeah, right. You got no idea.” Felix spun and peered over his shoulder. His eyes were red-rimmed and sagging with fatigue. He might have just pulled an all-nighter banging out code at the office, but Felix didn’t bang out code anymore. Felix’s real name was Hal Stark, and Stark was senior vice president for special projects at ONE Technologies, the biggest tech company in the United States. ONE was a player in everything: software, hardware, online sales, wireless communications; a gargantuan cross of Oracle, Google, Cisco, and AT&T.

“Why don’t you take a breath, chill for a second. Then you can give me an idea.” Joe pulled a pack of Juicy Fruit from his pocket. “A stick of gum makes you hum.”

“What’s that from?”

“What movie? I don’t know. My wife says it sometimes. Have a stick.”

Stark pulled out two and folded the chewing gum into a double-thick square before ramming it into his mouth. A moment later he was checking over his shoulder again.

Joe lowered both windows. “Hear that?”

“What? I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly. This is Dripping Springs. Austin is twenty-five miles in the other direction. No one’s on your tail. We’ve been watching you the whole way out. You didn’t bring your phone, did you?”

“What do you think?”

“Okay, then. We checked your car earlier. It’s clean. As far as anyone knows or cares, you left the office for a doctor’s appointment. You’re safe.”

“All right, then. I believe you. I’m safe.”

Joe put a hand on Stark’s shoulder. “You have any problem getting it out?”

Stark pepped up. “They didn’t take a second look. The security guard had it right there in his hand. He had no idea he was holding the crown jewels.”

“What did I tell you?” Joe looked at the Ferrari’s nose in his rearview mirror. “Is there anything about that car that’s inconspicuous?”

“That’s the point,” said Stark. “Nothing’s run-of-the-mill on that car.”

“Anyway, thank you, Hal. On behalf of the United States government, we are grateful. Now give me the goods, let me tape you swearing that you downloaded the information of your own free will, and we’ll cut you loose. No one will...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Anchor
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0307473821
• ISBN 13: 9780307473820
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 496
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: SC; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/; ; CL MODESTO LAFUENTE 41; Madrid; Madrid; Spanien