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He said, “No. That computer is not on the net.”

“Can I put it on the net?”

“Well, yeah, if you can get into it and connect it to Wi-Fi.”

Great.

Jennifer came to me, saying, “There’s nothing here. Just cleaning supplies. I’m not sure this is the lair of the bad man.”

Shoshana came up and said, “It is. I promise it is.”

I said, “But there’s nothing here but this old computer. Are you sure?”

She turned her face to me, blinding my eyes, and I held my hands up, saying, “Turn off the damn headlamp.”

She did, then said, “Pike, this is it.”

I said, “Yeah, I think so, too, only because I found a password underneath this computer that’s exactly the same as the one that the Mossad gave us in Zurich. No way is that a coincidence, but it doesn’t work here.”

Jennifer said, “What is it?”

I showed it to her and said, “It’s the Jenny’s number thing. With the hashtag that worked in Zurich.”

She said, “Jenny’s number?”

“Yeah. Just like before. Jenny and a hashtag.”

She said, “Move over.”

And she typed 8675309, then hit the enter button. And the screen cleared.

I said, “What in the world?”

She grinned and said, “That’s Jenny’s number.”

I couldn’t believe it. The idiot in Zurich had literally used the password sent, when they were sending him a clue of what the password should have been.

I said, “You are a literal genius.” I clicked on the net and said, “We’re in. Putting in the dragonball now.”

I connected an extraction device that looked like a blob of different cables, all designed to use a different port, then connected to the Wi-Fi of the palace. I hit the power button on the ball, and Brett said, “Creed sees it. He’s got it. Stand by.”

Three minutes later, he said, “We have a mirror of the drive. Free to go.”

I said, “Thank the Lord. Knuckles, Knuckles, we’re coming out same way we came in.”

He said, “Roger that. Good job. Standing by.”

I turned to my partners in crime and said, “Going out the same way. Slow and steady.”

We went up the stairs, waited at the door, listening. I clicked on the net and said, “Any activity?”

“None that we can see, but there’s no camera at the basement door.”

I said, “Roger that,” swung the door open, and hit a security guard right in the ass.

If I’d have thrown it open with my weight behind it, I probably would have slammed him into a wall, knocking him off balance for a strike. Instead, it basically tapped him in the butt, pushing him out of the way and causing him to freak out.

He shouted, flipped his light on me, and I reacted instantly, knocking the light to the side and ripping his legs out from underneath him, flattening him on the ground, but it was too late.