48.
Nadine
Nadine took care not to even get into the shower spray this time, because she anticipated a long call with Abner. She held herself to the side of the spray and then immediately punched the keypad to activate the door, slipping into the darkness and fumbling for the phone, dialing before she’d even really settled in her seat.
“Hello?” Abner asked when he picked up the phone.
“Abner,” she said, as close to exultant as she got without a one hundred percent return in a day. “I saw the news. Did we—”
“It’s almost entirely done,” Abner said. “The bank job distracted them and allowed us to hit FBI headquarters by using the stolen SWAT van as a Trojan horse. I also used a different contractor to hit the US Attorney’s office. Whatever evidence they had on you is safely destroyed, save for the digital backups, and, uh,” he chuckled, “those will be gone soon enough. I’ve got a man on them now.”
“Sounds like a tall order,” Nadine said, breathing a rush of relief into the cool darkness. “I hope your man can handle it.”
“He’s quite good,” Abner said, matching her with a coolness of his own. “Professional hacker. His handle is ArcheGrey1819. He’s a legend in the digital underworld. They won’t realize it until later, but the job should be done within the hour.”
“So I’m about to be a free woman?” Nadine mused.
“They’ll be watching you for quite some time,” Abner said, the voice of caution. “But in essence, they won’t have a thing on you. They’ll have to at least allow you to resume your ordinary activities.”
“How much is this going to cost me?” Nadine asked. She didn’t care, so long as she was able to get back to work, but she was curious.
“Not as much as you might think. ArcheGrey—or whatever his actual name is, because I don’t bloody know—he didn’t want money. He wanted something else.”
“Curious.”
“I suppose when you’re as good as he is, you can make money appear in your account like turning little bits of ones and zeroes into water. Anyhow, he’s going to be a happy camper because I’ve got him what he wanted and you’re happy because it only cost you—well, we’ll talk about it later. You’ll get a lulz out of it, as Grey says.”
“I look forward to it,” Nadine said, shifting in her chair. The plasticy seventies-era material was sticking to her naked ass. “When will we be able to meet? I want to discuss prevention of future occurrences of this.”
“Try not breaking the law,” Abner said with amusement. “Failing that … this will be more difficult next time. We’ve left signs that this was a terrorist action rather than evidence disposal, and hopefully it’ll be enough to cover what we did. The mercenaries we hired are almost all dead as well.”
Nadine raised an eyebrow. “They are?”
“Their boat just had a tragic explosion,” Abner said with rough amusement. This was why she’d hired him. “It wouldn’t have been worth it, leaving that many loose ends out in the world. They knew what they were there to destroy, after all. The only survivors are the bank team, and they were the distraction, so … doesn’t matter if they talk, they didn’t know what the others were up to.”
“Clever, Abner.”
“I kept it compartmentalized.” Now he was just bragging, trying to impress her. Lucky for him she was impressed. He’d done a good job, and he was a very good man to have in her corner. “Safer that way.”
“So, what happens now?” she asked, letting the chair squeak as she spun it very slightly back and forth, the sticky material pressing against her thighs like flypaper.
“I’ve got people verifying whether or not the FBI is going to back off you now,” Abner said, the gloating fading as he went back to the business at hand. “Once we’re assured they’re off, you’ll be able to move into a hotel and resume your life unwatched for a time. And you should get your money and your other assets back, though the bastards will hang on to those for as long as they can. We’ll need to be vigilant, because with all the damage we’ve done, it’s possible they’ll get suspicious once they realize how much effort has gone into destroying all the evidence for their cases.”
“But they’ll have real criminals to chase, won’t they?” She frowned. “Murderers and such? Why would they waste time with little old me?”
“I don’t know that they will,” Abner said. “But we should be prepared just in case. We’ll up your security, upgrade your phone to one of those un-hackable models they sell these days, keep your digital footprint to a minimum, and … well, you’ll need to scale back your activities at work. If you step a foot out of line and they can prove it, they’ll be all over you again.”
Nadine stared into the darkness. It suddenly seemed so hot inside the steel panic room. “What if I don’t want to scale back?”
“Then you’d best be prepared to go to jail, this time without any sort of way to get out.” Abner shifted on the other end of the phone, his breathing getting heavier. “We cannot pull this off again. Not in this way, not and get away with it. This was a one-time-only get out of jail card. They’ll be prepared in the future, and what they’d have you for if they could tie this to you? It’s so much worse than what they were threatening before.”
Nadine’s cheeks burned at the thought. Abner was the only one who could tie this to her. “They should have just left me alone. I wasn’t doing anything that anybody else hadn’t done. They just made an example out of me because I’m a woman, and I was better at it.”
“Be that as it may,” Abner said, “they’ll make an even bigger example out of you if they can ever trace what we’ve done here. So let’s not give them another chance, eh? You’re going to be free to go back to work, to have your freedom, to trade again … but I can’t help you next time if this happens again. Once is a coincidence, twice is going to be the death of us. They will figure it out.”
“All right, fine,” she said airily. Next time she’d just take it easier, that was all. She’d still beat them all at their own game, but she wouldn’t be as obvious about it. As flagrant. She could still be Queen and rule quietly. “So this business is settled.” She thought about Gravity Gal and her cheeks burned harder. “What about the other thing?”
“Oh, you mean your, ah … your revenge?”
“Yes, that.” What an idiot. As though she was talking about anything else. Her estimation of him was sinking already, now that he’d denied her when she’d asked how they could get her out of this next time.
“My people saw her leave Staten Island this morning, but she did so from a different location,” Abner said. “She left from a somewhat disused industrial section of the city, and … well, the owner of the nearest business is one Jamie Barton. I was going to have my people identify every employee and try to match them to their home addresses, but as soon as we looked up Ms. Barton, we found out she lives right in the middle of that radius I set up earlier, and when I looked at the picture—covered up the bottom of her face … I think we’ve found our Gravity Gal.”
“Are you sure?”
“I sent someone into her work to ask for her once we made the connection, tried to play off like they were interested in buying some of her designs. She makes clothing.” Abner sounded like he was smiling, proud of himself. “Her assistant, a very eager young lady, said she wasn’t there but enthusiastically tried to set up a meeting. I had someone check at her house —no one at home, either. I set people down the street from her house and outside her office, so the next time she comes to either we’ll be sure, but … I did some preliminary digging and I think you’ll like what I’ve found in terms of vulnerabilities …”
Nadine smiled in the darkness. “And you’ll be ready to move the moment you’re sure?”
“With a vengeance,” Abner said. “Business in deep debt, failing. Teenage daughter is experiencing some troubles at school, it seems. Yeah, I think this one will be easy to push over, even before we unmask her to the public. Gravity Gal is not exactly the most popular hero in New York, after all. I might even be able to tie her to this mess we’ve made today.”
Nadine thought of her, that stupid, sanctimonious cow, with her stupid, sanctimonious cow face, looking down on others. It was going to be a pleasure to see her get her comeuppance. “She won’t be so high and mighty after we drag her through the mud,” Nadine said with a smirk.
“Indubitably,” Abner said. “I’ll get started on this as soon as we know—”
“Don’t wait,” Nadine said. “Get started now.”
There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line. “What if we got the wrong person?”
Nadine snorted. “Abner, how many FBI agents died this afternoon when we blew up their headquarters? Who cares if it’s the wrong person? Life’s tough. Bring her down, and if it’s the wrong person … well, who gives a damn, really? We’ll just move on to the real deal.”
“As you like it,” Abner said, his resistance disappearing without a hint of a fight. “And … about the teenage daughter? How do you want me to handle—”
“I’ve heard losing a child is among the most painful things a parent can experience,” Nadine said, feeling the rough edge of her nail where she’d bitten it unevenly. “That seems like a good finale to me. Why don’t we build up to that? Because it seems like if these stupid heroes got to watch what happens when someone as exalted as Gravity Whore falls, it’ll probably be a good lesson for all of them.”