The Target Read Online Free Page B

Mallick. He’s been a naughty boy.”
    The stripper was working it already. Kiya eased up behind her. “I’ve got something for him too.”
    The man barely glanced at her, then stepped back to let them both in. “Sanjay is back in the corner.”
    Kiya glanced in the direction he was pointing. A dark-haired man, skinny as a pencil, stood at a long metal counter, staring into a monitor. Sanjay had posted his birthday information in several social network sites, and the proximity of it had inspired her plan.
    He was surrounded by gadgets, but the microscope was the only piece of lab equipment she recognized. All she needed was for him to step away from his workspace. She touched the stripper’s arm. “Why don’t you set up in the front? I’m sure all the guys will enjoy your birthday song.” Four other men, all wearing white lab coats, had workspaces in the wide room.
    “Thanks, but I know what I’m doing.” The stripper set her boom box on the floor near the solid front wall, then sashayed back to Sanjay’s corner. The researcher looked more scared than pleased. Kiya stood back. The less anyone looked at her the better. She wore fake glasses and pale makeup and had her hair pulled tight into a bun, but she was already taking a chance by doing this so openly.
    “Sanjay Mallick, you’re under arrest.” The stripper winked and led the timid scientist to the open space in front. She grabbed a chair from another workspace and pushed him down into it. As the stripper “read him his rights,” including some weird birthday stuff, the other workers moved into a semi-circle around the chair.
    Roses in hand, Kiya walked boldly toward Sanjay’s workspace, sizing up the area. First, the computer. As she set down the flowers, she slipped a tiny flash drive out of her pocket and into his laptop. The device was designed to automatically copy everything on the hard drive. While it sucked up files, Kiya looked around for the actual product. A small clear case near the back of the counter caught her eye. In it were three little pills, the cylindrical kind with thin, plastic-like coating. A glance over her shoulder reassured her that the men were still occupied with the stripper, who’d just yanked off her peel-away pants.
    Kiya grabbed the case, shoved it into her shoulder bag, and spun back to the computer. Did she have all the files yet? She didn’t care. What they really wanted was the little pill that, once activated by stomach acid, would emit an 18-bit EKG-like signal, which could be detected by a phone or computer, essentially turning the body into a password. Or at least that was how it was supposed to work. The idea seemed brilliant and pointless at the same time.
    Too nervous to wait, she yanked the flash drive out and slipped it into her pants pocket. She strode toward the door.
    A man with an authoritative presence came in, looking directly at her. “Who are you, and what were you doing back there?”
    He’d seen her through the glass. “Floral delivery for the birthday boy.” She pointed at the roses on the back counter. “I dropped them off because the stripper was too hard to compete with.”
    But the man had already turned toward the raunchy music and gyrating semi-naked woman. Kiya slipped past him and out the door.
    Later, she met her client in the back booth of a hole-in-the wall taco stand. The client wore huge dark glasses and a Panama hat that hid much of her face, but Kiya knew who she was and where she worked, even though she’d given her a phony name. They’d done business before. The woman set a small canvas briefcase on the floor under their table and pushed it toward her with her feet. Kiya smiled, sipped iced coffee, and asked if she’d seen the new production at the Civic Theater. A minute later, Kiya lifted the case into her lap and unzipped it halfway. Stacks of cash that should total twenty-five thousand. She would count the money later. Her client knew if she cheated her, Kiya would