Six months later

Cowan sat at a table in the bar’s promenade section, nursing his beer.  The waitress had been abrupt with him because he wouldn’t order any food, and her mood didn’t improve after she caught him checking out her ass.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Marco, sitting down, still wearing his jacket and tie from giving remote testimony.  The waitress ignored Cowan and took Marco’s drink order.

“How’d the sentencing go?” asked Cowan.

“Twelve for twelve.  All to be jaked.  That magistrate must have adamantine connections to stand up to Chadwell’s people.”

“Well, you presented some pretty damning evidence.  Or so I hear.”

“There was nothing we could do about the protective order.  If it went public, we’d have lost control of the jury.”  Marco’s “scotch” arrived.

“Anyway, congratulations,” said Toby, raising his glass.

“Thanks.  Listen, Toby, I don’t think I ever properly expressed my appreciation for your assistance to Pri—Centurion Mukhopadhyay in tracing my transponder signal.  Hacking the NSA is some serious kung-fu.”

Cowan accepted the compliment with all the humility of an Ottoman sultan.  “I can never refuse a damsel in distress,” he said.

“Lockeridge also agreed to convince WA to take you on as a forensic consultant.  You’ll get the best pipes in the warren.”

“Cool,” said Cowan.  Then he got a horrified look.  “I don’t have to wear a suit, do I?”

“Nah.  All remote.  You don’t even have to shower.”

Cowan visibly relaxed.  “Did you get a chance to talk to Mukhopadhyay this time?” he asked.

“In fact, I did.”

“She gonna get a promotion?”

“She doesn’t want to jinx it but Matsuno’s told her that Kobick is going to LA and she’s gonna take his spot.”

“Tribune, eh?  Sweet.”

“She gave me a message for you.”

Cowan sat up like a trained puppy.  “For me?”

“She wants you to know that she’s aware of all your attempts to hack her domestic system, including her surveillance video.”

Cowan adopted a dismissive look.

“She also wants you to know that if you try it again she’ll have WA cut your pipes and you’ll need a crystal radio to answer your front door.”

Cowan deflated.

“Of course, she was also berating herself for having left one of her older servers with only factory security.  With all the sentencing paperwork, she probably won’t get around to securing it until tomorrow.”

Cowan stared dumbly at Marco as the detective finished his drink, threw down enough to cover the cost of both drinks and Cowan’s ogling, and stood.  He grasped Marco’s extended hand and shook it.

“Be good,” said Marco.

Cowan made only the most ginger of approaches to Priyanka’s system, but he had a solid guess as to which server Marco had referred.  Sure enough, none of Priyanka’s custom recognizers challenged him.  Only two files were resident, and Cowan quickly imaged the entire partition and withdrew.

Unpacking the partition on an isolated drive, he saw that the first file was the audio and video from Donte LaFontaine’s fatal encounter with Sofia and Kiki, albeit with Donte’s face blurred out.

The second file was a list of the warrens to which each of the convicts were to be assigned.  Cowan didn’t imagine their reception would be very warm once the details of their crimes became known.

Somehow, he found himself returning to the first file.  After watching it all the way through six times, he couldn’t take his eyes off Sofia, although in his mind he was seeing someone else.