Musgrave felt along the binding and withdrew the device. “Have you watched it?”
Caleb Cain nodded. “To confirm the contents.”
“Outstanding.” Musgrave opened his own briefcase and placed the items inside. Then, he turned and withdrew a small laptop from the wall safe behind him. “You prefer Bitcoin, as I recall from our conversation.”
The fixer handed him a slip of paper. “Here are the transfer instructions.”
Musgrave pecked away on the keyboard while Cain rechecked his messages.
“There's talk about the ship in that video. The Maestro.” Cain threw out.
“You don’t strike me as a man who trades in idle gossip.” Musgrave kept his attention on the laptop.
“So, The Conductor is a myth?” Cain pressed.
“A fiction. You’d be wise to remember that,” Musgrave warned.
“There have been a lot of rumblings over the years.”
The senator stopped typing and looked up. “There's an expression on the farm. Don’t piss upstream of the herd. Protect your revenue sources, Cain. Speculation like that doesn’t do anybody any good.”
Effectively chastised, Cain returned to his phone. Three minutes later, their business was concluded.
At the door, Musgrave placed a hand on Caleb's shoulder. “You’ve done very well. I’m sure I’ll be in touch.”
“Actually,” Cain commented, his arrogant demeanor returning, “I’m retiring.”
Musgrave scanned the man's face. “That's a shame. It's hard to find reliable help these days.”
Cain was impassive. “There are plenty of others who do what I do.”
Musgrave snorted. The fixer had cast his rod fishing for a compliment. Musgrave wasn’t biting. “True enough. Take care of yourself, Cain.”
Closing the door, Musgrave returned to his desk. He had calls to make.
Constitution Avenue was bustling as Miles Buchanan made his way out of The Russell Senate Office Building, slowly shedding the persona of Caleb Cain as he walked. He made a quick right onto Delaware Avenue and cut across the Senate Park. Twenty yards in, Nathan peeled away from a coffee kiosk and moved in next to him. Walking abreast, the men continued on their path.
“Everything go as planned?” Nathan asked.
“Better,” Miles replied. “The little gadget worked like a charm.”
The device to which Miles referred was the remote cloning device Twitch had fine-tuned for this meeting. Musgrave would assume it was a phone. Miles simply had to sync the tech to Musgrave's WiFi, which he did—with a bit of help from Twitch—when he first sat down, then wait for the Senator to access his hidden financial accounts. Miles had pretended to check messages while Musgrave made the bitcoin transfer. In reality, he was watching the progress bar showing the successful mirroring of the hard drive.
“Outstanding. Let's cut over to D Street. I have a car waiting.” Nathan motioned to his right, and they continued.
“Where are we headed?” Miles asked.
“Our former parent company, Knightsgrove-Bishop. Their cybersecurity people rival—”
“The Pentagon?” Miles supplied.
Nathan replied, “I was going to say they rival Twitch, but yours works. Come on. Let's send that rat Musgrave back to the sewer.”