Page 25 of The B-Team

“You think it was smart that you and your brothers all used your one phone call to talk to the same person?” Abasi asked. “It might have been a better idea to let your brothers call your mum and for you to call some hacker friends to help.”

It was as though he were invisible.

“I’ll never survive prison. Everything about me screams, ‘punch me.’ Plus, it’s a well-known fact everybody hates gingers. We’re the most discriminated against people on the planet.”

“You’re talking to a black guy,” Abasi reminded him.

Miracle of miracles, Evan seemed to hear him. “At least you look tough. I have blue skin and orange hair. Do you know what that’s like? The slightest glimmer of sun, I turn into a lobster and my hair becomes glow in the dark.”

“What was I thinking?” Abasi drawled. “Oh, how you’ve suffered.”

“On top of that, my girlfriend will forget all about me.”

“You have a girlfriend?” Color Abasi confused.

“Technically. We haven’t met in person yet, but all signs point to her being the one. Don’t be fooled by my fashion-forward sense of style. Little Evan only salutes the ladies.”

Abasi wondered if a swift punch to the jaw would knock his cellmate out without causing any permanent damage. If anyone asked, he could tell them Evan had been hysterical, and he’d just wanted to snap him out of it. It wasn’t that far from the truth. He reminded himself that his new boss probably wouldn’t appreciate him knocking out a teammate. But Rochelle could be reasonable, and if there was any further mention ofLittle Evan, all bets were off.

“You don’t have a girlfriend,” Abasi said. “You’re sexting a stranger. For all you know, it could be some big, hairy guy called Karl.”

“You old people don’t understand modern dating.” Evan dismissed him.

“Old? You’re only ten years younger than me, and I date fine.” Abasi glanced down at his tailored trousers and shirt. “And unlikeyou young people, I know how to dress like a man instead of a dollar store piñata.”

“Is the air in here getting thinner?” Evan was off again. “I don’t see any vents. Where’s the air coming from? Is it hot? It feels hot.”

If he started to strip, Abasi was definitely going to knock him out. He shifted on the tiled platform that was equal parts freezing his arse off and being so hard that he had pins and needles in his thighs. Another hour with Evan, and there was a good chance he’d confess to whatever the hell the cops wanted to accuse him of, just to bring this torture to an end.

“My lawyer said that the cops want to talk to me about hacking for terrorists.” There was a mixture of horror and fear in his expression.

In fact, he appeared to have paled some at the thought, which was saying a lot. Abasi didn’t think it was possible for a blue-tinted white Scot to get any paler.

“They’re saying lots of stuff,” he reassured Evan. In his experience, cops threw as much mud at the wall as possible to see if any of it stuck.

Evan stared at him. “Are they investigating you for terrorism?”

“Not that I know of.” It was far more likely they wanted to get him on a whole range of criminal charges from his days with the London mob. Off the top of his head, he could count at least sixty offenses that would get him life behind bars—if they had any evidence to back them up. Which he highly doubted.

“Then why are they talking to me about terrorism?” Evan demanded. “Do I look like a terrorist to you?”

No. He looked like a terrified kid. “Don’t worry about stuff until you know it’s really happening,” Abasi advised.

And was, once again, ignored.

“I mean, I could probably build a shoe bomb if I had to,” Evan said. “You can download plans for anything off the internet these days. But what would I do with a shoe bomb? And why would anybody want to walk around wearing one? I’ve seen Callum’s prosthetics, and sure, he rocks them, but I don’t want to do that to myself. Those shoe bombs seem unstable. You’d have to be crazy to build one.”

“Will you please stop talking about shoe bombs?” Abasi rubbed the top of his shaven head. “There’s more to terrorism than shoe bombs.”

It was like speaking into a void. “I suppose they think I hacked the government and sold secrets to our enemies. But why would I do that? And how would I even contact our enemies? It’s not like you can google the phone number of a Chinese spy. Those things are secret. Hence the spy part.”

Now Abasi knew why the duty cop had confiscated his tie. If he’d had it, he would’ve used it to end his suffering. It was a toss-up as to whether he’d have used it on Evan or himself.

“There’s nothing in my past that even hints at selling sensitive information. Hell, the government forces me to hackfor them.”He stopped dead. “Crap. That’s supposed to be a secret. Don’t tell anybody I said that.” He looked around the room, scanning from ceiling to floor. “There are no cameras in here, are there? It would be illegal to put cameras in a cell without telling the inmates, wouldn’t it? And cops have to play by the rules… I mean the laws, don’t they?”

“Do you actually want me to answer any of these questions?” Abasi asked with a groan.

It was as though Evan remembered he was there again. He spun toward him. “You’ve been questioned by the cops before. Loads of times, probably, when you were still with the James Gang, right? In fact, you’ve probably been in this very detentioncenter before, haven’t you? But I don’t remember you doing any prison time. How did you manage that? Gimme some advice. What do I need to do to stay out of jail?”