“We know account and routing numbers. We retrieved them from Francis Senft’s phone.”
“Well, I don’t know what the login information is,” she retorted.
“Try your usual banking username and password.”
“I don’t have a ‘usual’ banking username and password. For banks, I use one of those randomly generated ones that are a thousand characters long and half of them are punctuation.”
“How do you log in with a big password you don’t even know?” he asked.
Dree smiled. “It’s stored in my password manager.”
“Where is your password manager?”
“On my phone,”Dree said.
It was Kir Sokolov’s turn to swear, and Dree laughed and laughed at him.
Finally, Kir said, “Francis Senft was not so smart. Try his usual username and password.”
The drug-dealing kidnapper had a point, so Dree typed in Francis’s usual username and the three passwords he normally used, all of which were based on his parents’ pets and his own birthday.
The computer blinked incorrect password warnings at her and threatened to lock her out. “Nope. None of them worked.”
Kir started swearing in earnest and in Russian now, his voice rising as he first combed his fingers through his sparse hair and then grasped it in both of his fists. His eyes widened as he snarled his obscenities.
He looked as frightened as he did angry, and that worried Dree.
Chapter Four
SUNLIGHT
Maxence
Maxence didn’t recognize the attacker lying unconscious on the floor as he jumped over him.
Even though it was late January and the sun was barely above the eastern horizon, the Mediterranean sunlight warmed the ship’s metal deck. The metal and rivets were warm under the soles of Maxence’s feet as he sprinted toward the side of the vessel.
It was a container ship, as Max had feared. When he jumped over the side, it was going to be a long way down, like jumping off a bridge.
More shouts rang out behind him.
A gunshot cracked the air.
Maxence dodged around the side of the wheelhouse, an enormous building on the massive ship that must have been eight stories or taller, not including the mainmast that stuck out of the top and held the radar array.
The railing was too high at this part of the ship to leap over. If Maxence had taken the time to climb it, he would’ve been stationary long enough for his kidnappers to shoot him.
He kept running.
Far ahead of him, down at the other corner of the wheelhouse building that must’ve been the distance of half a city block away, more people ran around the deck shouting to each other and waving guns.
With that avenue of escape cut off, Maxence had no choice but to try to scale the railing and jump.
He leaped and caught the top of the wall with his hands, stupidly glad that Casimir had insisted they play all those games of basketball where Max learned to dunk. The rusting metal was sharp and sliced into his palms and the pads of his fingers, but he grabbed harder and hoisted himself up.
Hands grabbed his legs.
Maxence kicked, trying to dislodge the attackers, but more hands clawed his bare skin and dragged him down.
