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404 looks up at him. “Then you should have said what you meant.”

Clay inhales deeply. “I forgot how much I hate you.”

“No you didn’t,” 404 says.

Clay rubs both his hands over his face, and I decide I like this guy already.

404 stands and surveys the desk. “Where is it?”

Clay points to the drive, and 404 reaches for it. I expect him to plug it straight into one of his laptops, but he waits. “Who owns it?”

“Jensen,” I say when Clay grunts at him.

“Surname?”

“Layne.”

He puts down the drive. “And does this Jensen Layne know you have it?”

I shake my head, and Clay sighs. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“No.”

The answer comes so quickly I laugh, and 404 looks at me.

“Why am I accessing it?”

“We need to know what’s on it,” Clay says.

“That is not an acceptable answer.”

Clay’s jaw tightens, and I step in before Clay loses his mind. I don’t know what has gone on between these two, and I don’t want to know.

“Someone hired Jensen to acquire something. He got it, and it’s on that drive, then he refused to hand it over. The same person hired someone else to retrieve the drive and kill Jensen.”

“Who was hired to kill him?”

“The Jester.”

404 looks at Clay. “The guy obsessed with Vesper?”

Clay stares at him. “How the fuck do you know that?”

404 laughs. “Everyone knows that.”

Clay rolls his eyes, and I turn my head to hide my smile.

Clay points at the drive. “Can you open the fucking thing or not?”

“Probably.”

Clay’s hands tighten into fists. “What do you mean, probably?”

404 sits down in front of his laptops. “I haven’t tried yet, so I can’t say for sure.”

He takes something from his case and connects it to one of the laptops before doing the same with the drive. Nothing happens for a moment, then the screen changes. 404 leans forward and his fingers move across the keyboard. He stops frequently and reads the code, then types something, waits, opens something and types again. I watch for a while before accepting I have no fucking clue what he’s doing.

“Encrypted?” Clay asks.