The Siren Project Read Online Free PDF

thought you
understood that.”
    Mitch laughed. “Listen Princess, I’m not
your rich uncle, your sugar daddy, or your butler. I don’t have to do any damn
thing I don’t want to do. I certainly don’t have to give you a dime.”
    “I can’t wear these clothes all the time.”
    “Then I guess you’ll have to go running
back to Uncle Gus, so he can buy you whatever crap your heart desires.”
    “I’m not going back, I’m assigned to this
mission. If you need confirmation, we’ll contact Gus and he’ll confirm your
obligations.”
    “I’ll feed you, and let you sleep in the
spare room, but don’t expect anything else.”
    “Then I’ll borrow your clothes.”
    “Not a chance!”
    She looked at what she was wearing. “Do you
expect me to wear the same clothes, day after day?”
    “Princess, you can wear a gorilla suit for
all I care.”
    “Would you stop calling me that. I have a
name.”
    “Sure, Princess.” Mitch said, putting his
empty bowl down on the table, and stretching.
    “Are you always this disagreeable?”
    “Always. It’s like this, I don’t need you,
so any time you feel the need to get some new clothes, you can run back to
Uncle Gus. I’ll even pay for the cab.”
    “I wouldn’t have thought, from the looks of
this house, you’d be so cheap.”
    “You’d be surprised how cheap I am.”
    Before she could press him further, the
door bell rang. He left her on the wooden deck and went to let in Mouse and Gunter.
They carried cardboard boxes which they stacked in the living room, then
hurried back out to Mouse’s van for more. Within a few minutes, there were a
dozen boxes loaded in the living room, some full of diagrams, maps, magazines
and books, some with electronic components, computer hardware and dozens of
software disks, all hurriedly gathered from their homes overnight.
    Neither Gunter or Mouse lived quite as well
as Mitch, not because they didn’t share equally in the profits, simply because
they had different tastes. Gunter, more reserved, was a shrewd investor playing
the stock market the way others played slot machines, while Mouse preferred the
latest high tech gadgets, especially cutting edge classified technology that
cost a fortune on the black market. Some of those pieces of equipment now
appeared in Mitch’s living room, which was rapidly transformed into their
command center. Mouse connected his micro computer network to cyberspace and Gunter
swept the house with a sophisticated sensor, ensuring there were no listening
devices. As he went, he placed ultra sonic noise makers at each window,
blocking eavesdropping from outside.
    “I thought you said this place was safe?”
Christa said.
    “We don’t take chances,” Mitch replied. “From
now on, the shutters are up. No one is snooping us, without us knowing about
it.”
    She looked unconvinced. “Don’t place too
much faith in these technological toys, Mitch, we had as good or better, and it
wasn’t enough.”
    “In that case, Princess, we’re screwed,
because this is as good as it gets.”
    Mitch watched Gunter finish his sweep,
wondering what else they could do.
     
    * * * *
     
    “Do you have any idea how many secure
systems there are in the Pentagon?” Mouse leant back in his chair without
taking his eyes off the computer screen. “Unless we track down the research
program Steinus worked on, I have no hope of identifying which system to crack.
There are just too many of them.”
    Mitch glanced at the computer screen. “Where
are you?”
    “Inside one of the Defense Department’s IT
sub contractors. I haven’t even tried sneaking into the Defense Department yet,
that’ll take some planning. Since the Chinese started hacking US defense
technology, it's gotten harder to break in.”
    Mitch rubbed the back of his neck
thoughtfully. “I suppose you’ve done the payroll thing?”
    “Number two on the list, right after I ran
a search for his social security number. No social security number, and