BooksBarbecue
Back The Short Drop
Chapters (61)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. CONTENTS
  5. START READING
  6. PART ONE
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. PART TWO
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  49. PART THREE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  56. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  57. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY
  59. EPILOGUE
  60. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  61. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

He saw now what last night had been about. The camaraderie at the diner. Jenn had been putting on her own show. She’d tried to hack him, appealing to his insecurity and his vanity. She’d taken him out for dinner, held his hand, and whispered sweet nothings in his ear. All to get him to go back to DC peacefully.

What was the first rule to getting someone to fall in line? Figure out what they need and give them a taste. Not enough to sate them, but enough to whet their appetite. Enough that they wanted more. Needed more. Well, what did he need? Respect? Appreciation? Accomplishment? Wasn’t that what Jenn had fed him last night at the diner? Buffed his ego until it shone. Played on his loyalty to Suzanne and counted on it to control him. Gibson looked in the passenger seat at the manila envelope. Inside was ten thousand dollars. In cash. A bonus from ACG for his “outstanding” work. That had certainly been meant to help the medicine go down, hadn’t it?

If this had been the plan from the beginning, to send him home after they found WR8TH, the next question was why. What was it George Abe said to him the day they’d met about wanting to have a serious conversation with the man who took Suzanne? Something about giving the FBI the leftovers. Well, wouldn’t it make sense to have him safely out of the way for that? Did they even care about finding Suzanne? And if not, what was it they were after?

The real question was what he was going to do about it. First things first. He drove to a UPS store, folded a thousand dollars into his hip pocket, and boxed the rest of the money. He mailed it to Nicole with a note. If this went badly, at least she would have the money. He walked out into the sunshine and jangled the car keys in his hand.

Let the games begin.

He might not be able to tail Hendricks, but he didn’t really need to. When Hendricks had forgotten his phone outside his room, Gibson had taken it as an invitation to make a few personal upgrades. Hendricks’s personal data was all encrypted, of course, so it wasn’t easily accessible. But since Gibson didn’t want or need access to the data, it had been simple enough to move it off the phone temporarily, jailbreak the phone, install a program of his own, and reload Hendricks’s encrypted data back onto the device.