It Matters

Matt cruised around the entire property, noting with a photographic memory each section of the exterior. Electric fence and guard dogs barking, glimpses here and there of suited men with large guns. He began to feel with more certainty what his instinct had said all along. He debated just leaving, but there was a lot of money at stake here. The rent on his home for three or four months, let alone the fifty-odd games he had mentally listed to buy this afternoon.



He parked up around the corner and walked to the entrance. If he was going to have to run for it, he'd rather have his car on the outside of this fortress. He was expected. The thugs on both the main gate and at the front door waved him straight through. The house itself was huge. The entrance hall itself could have swallowed up their apartment twice over.



"Ah! Our hacker!" An overly enthusiastic woman swept him up and conveyed him in her wake through labyrinthian corridors and cavern-like rooms. Expensively furnished, all of them. They arrived at last in what looked like a indoor jungle. It was hot enough to be one. "Johan, your guest is here."



The man who emerged from behind a giant plant seemed too tall, too thin to be as dangerous as Matt knew him to be. But then again, he was blond and the most dangerous man Matt knew was blond. He was beginning to wish he'd brought his own dangerous blond with him. "M, I presume? Good to meet you at last."



Matt shrugged, not really at ease with social formalities. He held up an envelope.

"Show me the computer and I'll set it up." He didn't add, 'then let me take my money and get the fuck out of here.' "Got it right here."



Out of nowhere, a huge man appeared and took the envelope right out of Matt's hand. He disappeared with it into the house. Johan's smile seemed nervous, as he laid a proprietary hand on Matt's back and gently, but firmly, directed him further in amongst the forest of greenery. He spoke, conversationally,

"Are you familiar with hothouses?"



Matt blinked. Every sinew and nerve was on red alert, as the planned agenda was derailed so early on. At times like this, he fell back on flippancy or sarcasm. "Yes. I grew up in one." He was starting to sweat underneath his fake fur-lined vest. The heat was tropical. "If you don't want me to set up the database, I'll just have my money and go."



"Ah." Johan hestitated, as if working out how to frame words that he must have had rehearsed for hours. "We have a slight problem there."



Matt's fingers, roasting in gloves and pocket, silently touched his mobile 'phone. The messsge was already typed, the number already selected. He had been holding it so carefully not to accidentally send it, until he was sure it was absolutely necessary.

"And the problem is?"



They had turned a corner and here was a scene worse than instinct had imagined. The paving of the hothouse raised and piled neatly to one side, beside a huge mound of soil. The latter had come from a fairly deep hole, which Matt was willing to bet was six feet deep. After all, that was traditional. Around the clearing stood several men and, behind them, more fell into position. Matt quickly counted thirteen of them and sent his text message. Then he removed his cigarettes and lit one.

"So you're absolutely sure I haven't added a personally encrypted SubSeven to that database that you're loading and that the information isn't even now being taken over by persons known only to me?"



Johan glared menacingly.

"If you have you're already dead."



Matt had weathered stoically far more menacingly glares than that.

"By the look of things, you were planning that anyway."



"What's a SubSeven?" Johan gestured and several guns emerged from all angles, all trained on the redhead in the centre.



"It's the reason you needed a hacker of my calibre." Matt's chin had sunk into the high-collar of his vest, despite the baking heat, but a smirk appeared above it. "Maybe we can talk about this?"



Johan turned, barking at the nearest goon,

"Get Bjorn and get him to check for SubSevens."



With lightning speed, Matt rugby-tackled the taller man to the floor, then rolled over, keeping Johan above him. He jammed his own gun hard against Johan's chin, forcing his head back. There was rushed movement all around, but they all seemed to come to the same conclusion. Matt could not be shot without risking injury or worse to their boss. Thirteen could overpower one, but most of them were stranded on the opposite side of the earthworks and the largest pot plant yet. That left just four close enough to yank him free. They were within seven feet of them when Matt cocked the trigger and Johan screamed at them to stop.



Everyone froze. Matt nodded calmly, his cigarette bobbing in his mouth,

"We've reached what I think is commonly referred to as an impasse." He smirked. "A SubSeven, by the way, is a kind of bomb. We're all going to die anyway."



"Boss?"



Johan, through gritted teeth, gave the command,

"Get Barbara and the kids out of this house."



Matt wondered how long it would take for two men to work out the details. For Johan to wonder how a bomb could feed information back to another computer; and for Mello to decipher his text message far enough to work out that it was an SOS. As terrible as the odds would seem on paper, Matt actually trusted, rather than merely hoped, that the latter would happen first.