Hong Kong dollars to the bruiser manning the reception desk.
‘You got it,’ said the bruiser and gave Damon a hotel swipe card and nodded towards the stairs.
‘And another innkeepers’ law bites the dust,’ she murmured as they started up the stairs. Damon glanced at her, his gaze faintly mocking.
‘Time to put the lawyer away, Ruby.’
‘You don’t say,’ she countered grimly and stepped over a pile of what looked like discarded clothing on the stairs. ‘Please tell me we’re not staying here the night.’
‘We’re not staying here the night.’
Good news, because room 203 was charmless, airless and decidedly unclean. Ruby stood in the centre of the room sipping her suddenly mighty fine coffee and watched as Damon slung his backpack off his shoulder and withdrew a small laptop from within it. He set it on the bedside table beside the window and set its innards whirring.
‘Pull up a chair,’ he said, but Ruby didn’t feel like sitting.
‘Mind if I pace instead?’
‘No pacing allowed,’ he said. ‘Sit.’
So she pulled up a chair and sat and stared at the computer screen, her heart beating too fast for comfort, and her eyes noticing the speed with which Damon’s big hands flew over the keyboard. Logging into the internet somehow, without logging in.
‘How do you know where to—? Oh, boy,’ she whispered as all of a sudden they were somewhere within FBI-land and screen after screen of information was opening up in new windows, with Damon chasing them down, one by one, and entering string after string of code.
‘Easy, Ruby,’ he whispered, his eyes on the screen in front of him, his focus absolute.
‘Relax.’
She wanted to ask him what he was doing and how he was doing it but she didn’t have the breath for it.
‘There’s a rhythm to hacking, to navigating the information flow and pitting your wits against a security system built by another,’ he said softly. ‘For some, reaching their destination without detection is thrill enough. Others, they only want to destroy. For some of us, the destination is just a portal to a bigger game and it’s a game based on power and knowledge and balance on the grandest of scales. That’s my game, and it’s more dangerous than you know. I need your silence on the issue, Ruby.’
‘Believe me, you have it.’
‘Not yet I don’t.’
A blur of information. So fast; all of it too fast for comprehension. A download option.
Damon’s hands falling away from the computer keys.
Ruby’s breath coming rapid and strained, adrenalin coursing fiercely through her body as she stared at the little arrow on the screen that Damon had placed atop the download link.
‘Your turn.’
Damon’s voice low and husky as he transferred that intense focus to her face.
‘It’s the FBI’s file on your father.’
Time slowed down to crawling as Ruby stared first at Damon and then at the screen. ‘I, ah—I’m not—sure. Oh, hell,’ she whispered, because she wanted that information and Damon had made it so easy for her to just reach out and take it.
‘Or we leave the information where it is, I tell my handler I’ve blown my cover with you and we see how that unfolds.’
‘No.’ Not with her father’s file sitting there just begging to be taken. ‘My father’s whereabouts in return for my silence. I get it, Damon. And I agree to your terms.’ Her hand moved. The download began. Her choice, and she wore that knowledge like a stain.
‘Guess I’m not as principled as I thought,’ she said faintly.
‘Who is?’ muttered Damon, his focus back on the screen.
The file took an agonisingly slow ten seconds to download, and then Damon was back at the keyboard, fingers flying.
‘You’re getting out of the FBI pages now, right?’ she said.
‘Right.’
And straight into the British intelligence system, and Ruby’s stomach lurched and her pulse rate soared all over again. ‘Hell of a ride,’ she said but he was gone again, skimming through supposedly secure cyberspace with an ease that made her gasp.
Another download link, but no agony of hesitation this time for Ruby. They were done and gone, with a swiftness she found hard to comprehend. All the way out this time. Two files stored on a USB the size of a thumbnail. Laptop off and opened up with a tiny screwdriver. One of the motherboard components replaced.
Fifteen minutes from start to finish, and they were walking back down those shabby hotel stairs and handing the door card over to Reception.
‘Any decent cheap yum cha restaurants around here?’ he asked the man, and got directions and nodded, while Ruby sweated and smiled and tried to resist the urge to flee.
‘Please tell me we’re not going back there,’ she said when they were two shopfronts away and Ruby was walking faster than she’d ever walked before, every nerve ending buzzing and every neon sign a thousand times brighter than it had been fifteen minutes ago. She ran her hands up and down her arms, mildly surprised she didn’t give off sparks.
‘We’re not, right?’
‘Right.’
Damon’s pace had quickened too. Ruby was practically skipping. ‘So … where are we going?’
‘Yum cha?’
‘Are you serious?’ He couldn’t possibly be serious. He was.
‘Not yum cha,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t be able to sit still. I’m feeling …’ ‘Wired.’ ‘Exactly.’
‘It’ll pass.’
‘Yes, but when?’
‘Soon,’ he said with a kick to his mouth that warned her she was amusing him.
‘Look!’ She pointed to a shopfront across the road. ‘Chinese massage. They’re very relaxing. We could have one of those.’
‘It’s a brothel, Ruby.’
‘Oh.’ Ruby took a closer look. ‘Brothel. Good pick-up. Maybe I just need to go back to the apartment and go for a swim. Soothing. Tactile. Potential to expend energy.
Plenty of energy happening here at the moment, Damon. Possibly a little too much.’ ‘Breathe, Ruby.’
‘I am. It’s not helping. I really need to get rid of some of this energy now. You are so hot when you’re hacking, by the way. Who knew?’
‘The
