Page 58 of Cops and Robbers

“I shouldn’t ask about the sex then?”

“You…” Raz wrapped his arms around Sid’s neck in a play choke hold. Sid reached back to grab Raz, laughing.

“Kate,” Clyde’s voice interrupted them. “One hacker is close, but I’m still a few minutes away from getting through these encryptions.”

“Prepare to switch to plan B,” she whispered.

Raz released Sid and turned on his microphone. “What’s plan B?”

“Roger,” Clyde said.

After a moment of silence, Raz asked, “Kate?”

“Relax. Don’t look all serious,” Kate said, most likely looking at Caige, but speaking to Raz.

A commotion of gasping followed by cheers and sighs of defeat crackled over his earpiece.

“Well, folks…I believe Sinclair has delivered,” Ziegler said.

“Wait. So has Hackerm,” someone’s shout barely reached over his headphones.

“That part went as planned at least,” Sid said, pointing at the laptop to show the screen that had three different identifications of a blond male named Mr. Mineer, including an image taken from a stoplight camera as he walked down a sidewalk, face highlighted by a red box.

How the hell? These were professionals, capable of getting into systems he didn’t even know were hackable.

Sid said, “Clyde’s program pulled the information from the winner as soon as they got it.”

If that was planned, why was anxiety pumping adrenaline into his veins through the link? He practically wanted to jump out of the SUV.

“Well, now, that is a turn…” Ziegler said.

Kate coughed.

A second later, something red filled half Sid’s screen—coding flashed before it turned black.

“What the fuck?” Sid said, sitting up in the seat and moving his cursor.

“What happened?” Raz asked.

Sid puffed out a laugh. “That was fast. I caught the beginning trail of ransomware followed by a sick-ass virus.”

“What does that mean?”

“Clyde just stole the information Ziegler wanted and attempted to cover his tracks. Everyone’s systems are fried.”

What is she up to?

“Kate, want to explain why you grabbed Ziegler by his balls?” Raz said over the microphone, even as what sounded like mayhem happened on the other side. Yelled accusations shot out along with chatter as people worked to figure out what happened.

“Buying time, baby,” Kate said.

“You bitch,” the feminine shout came close to Kate’s microphone. “How dare your hacker steal that information from me?”

“I thought that was the point,” Kate said smoothly. “Have the better hacker.”

“Yours just fried my fucking system.”

“Excuse me? Why would I fry my own in the process?”