Chapter Two

"Translate to English, please!"

They were safely inside behind a locked, steel door before her bindings were taken off. She rubbed her wrists, attempting to bring feeling back into them.

"As you know, I am M, your new boss. This is 007, James Bond. He'll be your partner." The elderly woman tried to give a reassuring smile. "I'll leave you two here alone to bond. James, lock up when you're through."

She left the room. Four eyes watched her go. When she'd left, Devon crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

"So…" James began. "From America? Where in the States?"

She gave him a dark look. "D.C."

"I see, the capital. Ever been to the White House?"

Devon uncrossed her arms and stood straight. "Don't try to start small-talk. I'm here for one purpose and one purpose only. I help you catch the goods, and I'm free. Lay off, Bond."

He stepped back. "I don't know what you mean! I-…"

"Your reputation's gotten around, 007. You make a pass at anything that moves and isn't a minor. And you usually succeed. Before you know it, you're in bed, having a good old time. And in the morning the woman is left alone with nothing but a half-smoked cigarette and cold bed-sheets."

He was startled to hear such a condemning statement.

"Miss Hunt, I-…"

"Just…Just don't say anything, OK? I'm not here for a good time. MI6 can burn for all I care, and so can England. But as soon as we've caught the guy, I'll be sipping a cold drink in the Caymans, laughing at how bad I screwed the world."

She turned and went into her room, which was outfitted with bars over the windows and clear Plexi-glass between the bars leading to the small hallway. Slamming the door closed behind her, she climbed onto her bed and proceeded to ignore James until he gave up and left.

"So how do you think this e-mail was sent, Devon?"

Hunt, Bond, and M were all in M's office. Devon sat in the leather recliner next to the PC, M in a comfortable stuffed armchair that had been brought in at her request, and James in one of the mock-leather chairs on the other side of the desk, looking awkwardly at the tilted screen.

Hunt sounded exasperated.

"Whoever did this used a careful line of encoding to make sure they couldn't be traced. But what they don't know or don't care about is that they had to go through about 200 other addresses to get there."

"Proper English, please?" Bond requested. Devon shot him a tired glance, and M gave him a reproachful look.

"They left what's called a 'ghost trail', a path leading from this e-mail to where-ever they sent it from. Unfortunately, there's no telling how far back the trail could go. It could double back and twist and turn all throughout cyberspace, depending on how long they left the encryption running."

She sighed, a deep, meaningful, long breath that seemed to come from the very pit of her soul. She was in her element now.

"There's only one upside. They only have so many lines of encoding they can use."

Bond sighed at this. "Well, how many of them are there?"

"'Bout three billion."

He choked. "Three billion!"

She nodded. "Mm-hmm. So, there can only be a maximum of three billion lines of code. The downside is that they could be in any order imaginable, with no repetitions of the same line. So all that's left is to go through them, one by one."

"How long could that take?"

"With the program I've got currently, it could take days, even going through them at a pace that's faster than lightning. And I've got the best that's out there. So all we need is time. A lot of it."

"How much time?" M questioned.

"Could be hours, could be days. Maybe even weeks. It all depends: there are three billion possible paths out there and only one is going to lead us to the source. So, the odds are three billion to one we're gonna find it on the first try. Not great odds, mind you, but certainly better than if we were going through Unix. Believe, me, old-school code cracking may be more rewarding, but it's hell waiting."

"How long does Unix take? Have you ever had to do it?"

"I was hired more than once to crack Unix-style code. It took me three months to sit there and wait. Four hundred trillion plus lines of code I went through, and only got about halfway through what I could have. I got lucky that time."

Bond was blown away. He had gotten lost the instant she said "Unix", so he was trying to get back into the discussion when she stopped talking to him and began with M.

"Alright, I'm gonna make out a list of hardware I'm gonna need for this project. The sooner you get all of it, the sooner I can get to work."

Devon picked up a pen and scribbled some words on a piece of paper, then handed it to M. "It's gonna take you a little bit of time and upwards about five grand, but you can get most of those things within a couple days. That last item will be a bit more than everything else combined, because technically it isn't legal anywhere except in the CIA. But I know an inside trader who'll give it to you for about eight g's."

M didn't bat an eyelid. "I suppose you mean American dollars?"

"I never learned exchange rates. So, yeah. American cash."

"Alright. Give us some time and the name of your contact, and-…"

"Nope. He only knows me. I gotta be there for the transaction or he'll whip out a Glock and blow your agent away. Trust me, we go way back. It's cool."

M gave her a suspicious look and nodded. "Alright. We'll begin arrangements immediately."

Devon smirked and turned back to the computer, lost in her element.