Instead of ten minutes, it took him two hours to get the specs that he needed. He liked what he saw. He knew the software and hardware inside and out, and the fact that the network was well maintained would actually make writing the program easier if he found a way to piggyback on the wireless network’s infrastructure. He closed his eyes and visualized how he could exploit it. He sat there until he had it in his mind, and then a small smile creased his lips. He opened his eyes, cranked up his music, and began to write.

Programming wasn’t really his strong suit; he liked the intellectual challenge and the cold logic of code, but it wasn’t what made him good. Contrary to the public’s misconception, hacking was not a duel between two fast-typing programming geniuses. In the movies, it was always this overdramatized, adrenaline-fueled high-wire act—hackers with guns to their heads, given sixty seconds to hack some impenetrable network. Lightning-fast keystrokes and split-second timing.

The actual penetration of a secure network was about as far from exciting as exciting got. It was slow. It was tedious. And it required patience and a painstaking attention to detail.

There were those who had an innate feel for a machine’s language and could ferret out possible exploits as if they had a sixth sense. But a secure network was much more than just machines. It was also the people who operated and maintained those machines. Nine times out of ten, the easiest path into a secure computer network was not the hardware or the software, but the wetware—the people. And that was where Gibson excelled.

Gibson had always had a gift for looking at a secure network and the people who operated it, then seeing the fault lines between the two. He found the fissures between proper security procedure and the shortcuts people took because they didn’t think anyone was paying attention. Ignorance, curiosity, habit, laziness, greed, stupidity—computers were only as good as the people operating them, and there was always a weak link. To Gibson, hacking computers was boring. But hacking people? Now, that was fun.

But in a pinch, he was a capable coder too. He just wasn’t especially fast. So when he was finally done coding and debugging his program and ran a successful test, it was past eleven on Tuesday night. He hadn’t slept but for a few hours on Sunday night, and the lack of sleep had cooked him.

Gibson ran his fingers through his hair and stuck his head out his motel room door. Hendricks greeted him and stubbed out a cigarette. The few times Gibson had left his room to clear his head, Hendricks hadn’t been out smoking. He almost missed him.

“Tell her it’s done,” he said wearily.

“Okay.”

“I’ll test it tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Anything happen since yesterday?”

“Nats lost.”