Looking around, Kurt saw a dozen people huddled in the far corner of the darkened room. They were hiding behind a pile of mattresses, a small table, and several chairs. He counted three men, three women, and seven children of various ages. They seemed as frightened of him and Joe as the guards had been. After what they’d been through, Kurt didn’t blame them.
“It’s all right,” he said, “we’re here to help you. We’re getting you out of here.”
They seemed too afraid to respond, so Kurt flipped up his goggles and pulled out a flashlight, shining it on them. He didn’t recognize most of the group, but two of the grimy-faced children looked like Sienna’s son and daughter.
“You’re Tanner, right?”
The boy nodded.
“And you’re Elise?”
The girl was too afraid to say anything. She just stood there, gripping the hem of her shirt.
“It’s okay,” Kurt said, brushing her hair back. “We’re taking you home. Where’s your mom?”
Elise just stared at him, but Tanner pointed at the guards. “They took her.”
Kurt looked at the guard on his knees.
“Where’s Sienna Westgate?”
“I don’t know,” the guy said. “They took her up to the main house, but I don’t know where.”
One of the other adults came forward. He looked familiar. “I saw you in the tunnel in Korea,” Kurt said.
His English was vaguely European. Kurt guessed that Spanish, Portuguese, or even Italian was his first language.
“You’re Montresor,” Kurt said, using his hacker name.
The man nodded again. “My real name is Diego. I know where they took her. The man who runs things, Sebastian, he has a control room on the top floor. He watches everything from there, I think. Directly below him is a networked series of high-end processors and computers. When they took me up to the house to work, that is where they kept me.”
“What did they have you do?” Kurt asked.
“I hack into a system and edit programs. I create hidden doorways and what we call hides or blinds.”
“Those are hunting terms,” Kurt said. “What do they mean in the programming world?”
The man paused as if thinking of a way to explain it. “They’re like black holes into which we can hide a virus. Even the most advanced antivirus software will not find it. And then at a later date, we activate the code.”
“And what does the code do?” Kurt asked.
“I just create the blind,” Montresor said. “Others build the virus.”
“And what does the virus usually do?”
“Takes control of the system,” he said. “Forces it to do something it is not supposed to do.”
Montresor, Kurt thought to himself. How perfect a handle for someone who hides things in a labyrinth where they will never be found.
“What kind of systems did you hack? Pentagon? CIA?”
Montresor shook his head. “Banking systems mostly. Accounting programs. Transfer protocols.”
Kurt’s mind raced. Banks and a gang descended from bank robbers and counterfeiters. He wondered if there could be a connection and then decided this was not the time to find out. All that mattered was stopping the Brèvard family, whatever they were doing.
He turned to Joe. “Call it in,” he said. “I’m going to find Sienna.”
“I should go with you,” Joe said.