Whatever It Takes: A Joe Beck Thriller by Alastair Brown

Author:Alastair Brown [Brown, Alastair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Joe Beck, Alastair Brown, Whatever It Takes
Publisher: Ablaze Books
Published: 2020-11-28T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-four

The phone rang three times before a male voice answered. "Joe Beck," the guy said, speaking in a thick southern accent. "Been a while, brother. How the bloody hell are you?"

"Sure has, Finlay," Beck replied. He thought about the gunshot to his shoulder. "Been better, my friend."

“Shit,” Finlay replied. "You still with the force?"

Beck shook his head. "No. Been out a while now, doing my own thing."

Finlay sighed with delight. "Good to see you finally took my advice. I told you for years, the private sector is the place to be."

Beck declined to mention his branching out wasn't exactly initially through choice. "Listen, you still into all that computing shit?"

Finlay made an agreeable sound, then said, "You know how it goes, Joe. A man's gotta pay the bills."

Beck nodded his agreement. "Great. I need a favor."

"Anything for you, brother."

"Appreciate that," Beck said and winced. "What it is, there's a hotel in Vegas, place called the Silver Sevens. A guest checked in there, maybe six or seven days ago." He looked at Martin. "And an associate of mine has found himself in a real tight spot with the guy. We need to find out his name, and we need it like yesterday."

Finlay made an unamused grunt. "So, you're asking if I can hack into the hotel's database and extract some customer data?"

"Yeah. ASAP."

"Won't be easy, brother," Finlay said. "I'll tell you that for free."

Beck furrowed his brows, creating little creases on his skin above his nose. "You joking? Guy of your ability? From what I remember, you could've cracked anything back in the day. CIA, NSA, they had nothing on you."

Finlay grunted on the other side of the line. "Maybe so, but corporate information security is more and more sophisticated than it used to be. Data protection is big business these days. To get to data, there are all sorts of controls you've got to get past, from military-grade encryption shrouding data servers to firewalls lurking behind firewalls. Getting into a server isn't as easy as it looks. Hell, it might even be easier for you to just go in there and steal a housekeeping log or slip somebody a couple of bucks."

"Yeah, yeah," Beck said. "I see what you're saying. Tell you what, how about I wire you a couple of bucks? Make it worth your while."

Finlay sucked in a deep, ponderous breath then said, "You know the drill, Joe.”

“How much will you need?”

“Let's call it five hundred.”

“Deal.”

“OK. Let me have the specifics."

"The guy we're talking about, he would've checked in some time last Sunday or Monday," Beck said and moaned in a little pain.

“You OK, brother?” Finlay asked.

Beck nodded. “Yeah. Don’t worry about me,” he said and continued. “The guy at the hotel, he was staying in room three-zero-eight."

"OK. Can you tell me what he looks like?" Finlay asked.

"Dark-skinned. Dark, shoulder-length wavy hair."

"So, you want to know the name of the long dark-haired black guy who booked number three-owe-eight at the Silver Sevens six or seven days ago?"

"That's right," Beck confirmed.

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