Page 33 of Factory Thief

“Where did you hide the drive?”

“Upstairs. Come on.”

We rush up the steps to the attic. A hot gust of musty air washes over us as we clamber into the attic’s cramped environs. Jack touches a ripped poster of a busty swimwear model and feels around the hole in the middle.

“It’s gone,” he groans. “They found it. Son of a bitch, they found it…wait, what’s this?”

He extracts a crisp business card with red enameled lettering. We move under a sky window to read it.

“It’s Brian Livingston’s card. He’s the CEO of Xtera.” Jack flips the card over. The words ‘call me’ have been scrawled across the back in ink pen.

“Shit.” Jack rushes down the steps to the ground floor. In the kitchen, he snags the phone off the wall. I want to laugh. The line has to be dead. Surprise, surprise, it’s not.

Jack begins to dial in a stiff-fingered frenzy.

“Jack, are you sure you want to do that?” I ask, ready to hang up for him. “He’ll know we’re here if you call from that phone.”

“He already knows we’re here, I’m sure. I know it sounds paranoid, but I’m sure they’re the one responsible for the line working. They knew I would come for the flash drive. Damn them. Somehow, they knew.”

The volume on the old-style cradle phone is not great. I signal for Jack to lean over so I can hear. For several tense moments the phone only rings.

“He’s not going to recognize the number. We’ll have to leave a mess—”

“Hello, Jack,” answers a jovial, rough-edged voice. “How are things on the outside?”

“Livingston, you son of a bitch, you set me up! Stole two years of my life.”

“Tit for tat. You stood to cost me billions of dollars. But I’m willing to let that all be water under the bridge. I have the drive, as you no doubt know since you found my card. All you have to do is walk away. Forget what you know, and we’ll never bother you again.”

“That’s it?” Jack asks.

“Would I lie to you, Jack?”

His face twists up in a sneer. “Fine. I’m done with this bullshit, and I’m heading to Mexico. Don’t come after me or I won’t rest until I bring you down, you understand? We’re finished.”

“That’s all I could ask for, Jack. That’s all I could ask for.”

He hangs up the phone. I scowl at him.

“So Xtera is going to get away with it? You lost the flash drive and you’re giving up?”

“No,” he says quickly. “I’m not giving up. We can’t give up. It’s not even an option if we wanted to. Livingston’s not going to let us go free, no matter what he says. So, for as long as we’re alive, he knows his empire hangs by a thread.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“We’re getting the hell out of here,” he says, grabbing my hand and moving toward the front door. “Livingston’s probably already got men on their way here right now to kill us.”

JACK

Urgency drives our feet as we stomp down the porch steps. The rust bucket of a truck awaits, promising little salvation if Livingston’s goon squad gets here before we flee. Its old, contoured chassis seems meager protection from bullets, indeed.

The damn cheerful sun lends a pastoral quality to the scene utterly at odds with our life-threatening danger. I want to strangle the birds chirping so happily on the branches overhead. How can they be so cheerful? The bad guys are holding all the cards.

I’d pinned a lot of hope on that flash drive. As in all of my hope. Without it, how can I possibly hold Xtera accountable for their actions? I’m as helpless as I had been when sitting in solitary confinement at Sandpiper Cove State Prison.

I leap into the passenger side as Victoria turns the engine over. She reaches under her seat and extracts a wide-brimmed straw hat and a pair of glasses.

“What’s this for?”

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