The hacker scowled and gave his beard a few more scratches, but then started forward again. His trophy awaited.

They caught up to Randi on an empty cobblestone street and crossed over to a square lined with outdoor cafés. It was barely noon, so there were only a few scattered customers drinking coffee, reading magazines, and fawning over dogs they were taking a break from walking.

The restaurant they were looking for ran along the back of the square and was the least inhabited. Only three chairs were taken—two by a young couple who could see only each other and the last by a thin, thirty-something man with shaggy black hair and clothes that seemed to have been pulled randomly from his laundry hamper.

“That’s him. That’s Javier,” Zellerbach said. Randi immediately turned right, leading them on a circuitous route that would allow them to come up behind the Spaniard.

Not surprisingly, there was a Merge hanging on his belt. She deftly flipped the power switch before the three of them dropped into chairs around him.

“Eh!” he said, reaching behind him to turn it back on.

Smith grabbed his wrist. “We’re going to leave that off for a little while, okay?”

De Galdiano used the near-perfect English he’d learned before dropping out of MIT. “Who the hell are you?”

Smith didn’t answer but Zellerbach waved a hand manically to get the Spaniard’s attention. “Javier! It’s me!”

“Marty?” he said, trying to see through the beard and contacts.

“In all my luminous magnificence.”

“Who are these people? Why did you bring them here?”

De Galdiano’s tone had a nervous edge that wasn’t surprising. He had a family, an incredibly high-paying job, and a respectable position in European society. The press and authorities thought he’d left his hacker life behind long ago, and being linked to a group competing to break into the NSA mainframe wouldn’t exactly fit that image.

“They’re my friends. Jon and Randi.”

“Why are they here?”

“Don’t worry. They know about the hack.”

De Galdiano blanched a bit at that, immediately reaching for a bag at his feet and holding it out. “You were supposed to come alone, Marty. If you want people to know about this part of your life, that’s your business. But these are your friends not mine. You had no right.”

“Don’t be mad,” Zellerbach said, pulling out an enormous clown shoe and running a hand along it as though it were a holy relic. He seemed entirely mesmerized for a moment, but then a profound sadness seemed to come over him.

“I can’t accept this.”

“What? But I saw the report on CNN. You won.”

Zellerbach shook his head. “I didn’t do it. Jon did.”