“We’re running out of time. If the police find Aiden, they won’t go through with the immunity deal. There’s too much at stake. The public hate Leah, Joey. This is her only chance to make good.” Matt hated to pressure the kid, but they couldn’t give up yet. There were too many unanswered questions about what had happened last night. And Leah had almost been killed for it. He wanted answers from Aiden aka AggroBoy.

“Okay. Here’s his number.” Joey recited Aiden’s cell phone number in a voice that cracked on the final digit.

Matt didn’t waste any time. He texted: This is Condor. Meet me at my hotel at midnight.

The response was immediate: where r u

He texted the hotel address, his pulse accelerating.

“What’s going on?” Joey asked. “Are we meeting Aiden?”

“He’s coming at midnight. We need to find out as much as we can about him. You start going through his social media. I’m going to see if I can find out his criminal history.”

They opened their laptops, the only sound in the room the intermittent bursts of fingers hitting the keyboard. Joey suddenly said, “I just don’t get why Leah didn’t report the data breach when she found it.”

Matt glanced up. Joey stared at his laptop screen with a fierce concentration. But Matt sensed that it was to mask the tears that had sprung in his eyes. “She wanted to report the breach. But the government had already decided to keep it under wraps.”

“I don’t get why the breach was such a big deal. The only person who has been hurt in all this is Leah.” Joey’s face had turned pink. “Nothing has happened with this data breach at the border. Nobody has complained. Everyone gets their personal data stolen. It happens every day.”

That was the battle that the hacktivists fought. The indifference to the loss of private information. “Joey, have you ever gone through border security?”

“Yeah.”

“So they have all your passport information. Your physical characteristics. Your address. Your destination. Have you ever heard of the mosaic theory?”

“Isn’t that some kind of cryptography technique?”

“Basically, people take all the snippets of information and create a security analysis. So they would use images from CCTV cameras, social network tags, phone records, and any other digital footprint to create theories about corporations, populations, et cetera. Your passport information and biometric data are like the keys to the effing kingdom. In theory, someone could access your health information, your banking account, your tax records, your travel movements. Nothing you ever do would be private. If you went to your doctor for a prescription, it could be accessed. If you sent a private video to a friend, it could be accessed. Someone would be able to know every single thing about you. Everything.”