Read Online Exo: A Novel (Jumper) by Steven Gould - Free Book Online
Authors: Steven Gould
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about the snap on the man’s slacks. Davy twisted it and it came away. He turned it over and saw a concealed push-out, plastic handcuff key.
He jumped away, leaving the man on the sand.
The wallet had eighty dollars in cash, a driver’s license and credit cards for Mortimer S. Hunter from Maclean, Virginia. There was also a gym membership, a frequent-diner card from a sushi restaurant, and a worn picture of a girl, perhaps twelve. The town sounded familiar to him, but he couldn’t place it. He took pictures of the ID and other cards, then put them back in the wallet.
* * *
He jumped back to Wichita, to a small, airless self-storage unit next door to Samantha’s retirement village. A massive knee-high deep-cycle battery sat on the concrete floor. Welding-gauge wire ran from screw terminals to a DC-to-AC inverter. The power adaptor of a cheap netbook computer was plugged into the inverter. The netbook sat on a TV tray in front of a green plastic patio chair.
The camera Davy had installed in Samantha’s room looked like the wall-plug transformer end of a phone charger and, in fact, was doing a good job of charging Samantha’s cell phone, but it had a tiny wide-angle lens that looked like a screw hole. It also connected to the nursing facility’s WiFi network, as did Davy’s netbook in the storage locker.
Davy hit the shift key and the blank screen came alive, showing Samantha’s room from the vicinity of the room’s built-in vanity. Samantha was reading from her tablet, which was held above her by a gooseneck floor stand. Her arm was propped with pillows so she could change pages with just the flick of a finger. He turned up the volume on the netbook and heard the muted sound of a television from a neighboring room.
He nodded. He didn’t think they would take her. Besides the logistics of moving a post-surgical bedridden patient, if Millie or Davy didn’t know where she was, then Samantha couldn’t be used for bait.
The netbook was recording the camera feed in space-saving fifteen-frames-per-second video. Davy checked the remaining room on the flash drive. He could store months at this rate. The battery would last weeks.
He switched to the web browser and searched for Maclean, Virginia, then sat back, surprised at the results. Sure, they called it Langley, but the actual address was 1000 Colonial Farm Road, Maclean, Virginia: Central Intelligence Agency.
Davy cleared the search from the browser history, reselected the monitor window, and jumped back to the Yukon.
* * *
When he replaced the battery and powered it on, Mr. Mortimer Hunter’s phone asked for a key code. Davy shrugged, pulled the battery again, and put both the battery and phone in his pocket.
It had rained recently in Singapore’s Sim Lim Square. The pavement was wet, but the sun was barely above the horizon and it hadn’t turned steamy yet. The man Davy was looking for had already opened his kiosk, the International Phone Emporium.
“ Ni hao a , Lucas?”
Lucas was taller than Davy, unlike most of the Singapore Chinese, but he tended to hunch over, to bring his eyes level with most of his customers. “Ah, me very well, one.”
Davy smiled. “I have this phone. I need to get the logs, the pictures, the contacts, and the texts off of it.” He handed the phone and battery to Lucas.
“Huh. Wah lau! So crap one! Five minutes. You want on a different phone or just thumb drive?”
“Thumb drive, please. Uh, I don’t have the security code.”
Lucas grinned. “This one can do lah .”
Davy nodded. “Thought so.”
“Wait lah .”
“Sure.”
While Lucas did his thing at the back of the kiosk with cables and a laptop, Davy stared at the phone displays that ranged from simple cordless phones for landlines, to cell phones of every make and model, up to satellite communications systems used at sea or other places without cell service.
Lucas came back and said, “What else you want or not?”
“Nothing
He jumped away, leaving the man on the sand.
The wallet had eighty dollars in cash, a driver’s license and credit cards for Mortimer S. Hunter from Maclean, Virginia. There was also a gym membership, a frequent-diner card from a sushi restaurant, and a worn picture of a girl, perhaps twelve. The town sounded familiar to him, but he couldn’t place it. He took pictures of the ID and other cards, then put them back in the wallet.
* * *
He jumped back to Wichita, to a small, airless self-storage unit next door to Samantha’s retirement village. A massive knee-high deep-cycle battery sat on the concrete floor. Welding-gauge wire ran from screw terminals to a DC-to-AC inverter. The power adaptor of a cheap netbook computer was plugged into the inverter. The netbook sat on a TV tray in front of a green plastic patio chair.
The camera Davy had installed in Samantha’s room looked like the wall-plug transformer end of a phone charger and, in fact, was doing a good job of charging Samantha’s cell phone, but it had a tiny wide-angle lens that looked like a screw hole. It also connected to the nursing facility’s WiFi network, as did Davy’s netbook in the storage locker.
Davy hit the shift key and the blank screen came alive, showing Samantha’s room from the vicinity of the room’s built-in vanity. Samantha was reading from her tablet, which was held above her by a gooseneck floor stand. Her arm was propped with pillows so she could change pages with just the flick of a finger. He turned up the volume on the netbook and heard the muted sound of a television from a neighboring room.
He nodded. He didn’t think they would take her. Besides the logistics of moving a post-surgical bedridden patient, if Millie or Davy didn’t know where she was, then Samantha couldn’t be used for bait.
The netbook was recording the camera feed in space-saving fifteen-frames-per-second video. Davy checked the remaining room on the flash drive. He could store months at this rate. The battery would last weeks.
He switched to the web browser and searched for Maclean, Virginia, then sat back, surprised at the results. Sure, they called it Langley, but the actual address was 1000 Colonial Farm Road, Maclean, Virginia: Central Intelligence Agency.
Davy cleared the search from the browser history, reselected the monitor window, and jumped back to the Yukon.
* * *
When he replaced the battery and powered it on, Mr. Mortimer Hunter’s phone asked for a key code. Davy shrugged, pulled the battery again, and put both the battery and phone in his pocket.
It had rained recently in Singapore’s Sim Lim Square. The pavement was wet, but the sun was barely above the horizon and it hadn’t turned steamy yet. The man Davy was looking for had already opened his kiosk, the International Phone Emporium.
“ Ni hao a , Lucas?”
Lucas was taller than Davy, unlike most of the Singapore Chinese, but he tended to hunch over, to bring his eyes level with most of his customers. “Ah, me very well, one.”
Davy smiled. “I have this phone. I need to get the logs, the pictures, the contacts, and the texts off of it.” He handed the phone and battery to Lucas.
“Huh. Wah lau! So crap one! Five minutes. You want on a different phone or just thumb drive?”
“Thumb drive, please. Uh, I don’t have the security code.”
Lucas grinned. “This one can do lah .”
Davy nodded. “Thought so.”
“Wait lah .”
“Sure.”
While Lucas did his thing at the back of the kiosk with cables and a laptop, Davy stared at the phone displays that ranged from simple cordless phones for landlines, to cell phones of every make and model, up to satellite communications systems used at sea or other places without cell service.
Lucas came back and said, “What else you want or not?”
“Nothing
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