The Hacker

by Herkness, Nancy

  She shrugged and chose the ones she would most like to wear again: the Louboutins. They didn’t shout their origin like the others. Besides, the leather was delicious.

  “Did you find something that fits?” Leland called through the door.

  “Yes, I’m coming.” She packed all the extra clothing back into the bags and carried them out with her. “What do you want to do with these?”

  “They’re for you,” he said. “Keep them.”

  “Look, you may not realize it but this stuff is all designer. It’s bad enough that I have to keep this one outfit because I’m wearing it. You can return the rest of it.” She held up the bags.

  He hesitated a moment before he took them out of her hands. “We won’t argue about the clothes. It’s more important for you to take a look at the website.”

  The elevator whisked them downward to stop at a floor that required Leland to key in a code before the doors would open.

  “This is the executive level of KRG,” he explained. “If you don’t have the code, you have to go through multiple guardians of the gates to be escorted up here. Unless you’re staff, of course. They always have full access.”

  The doors opened onto a sleek, contemporary seating area done in shades of blue and taupe. The wood-and-chrome reception desk was unmanned whereas the one on the floor she had originally been sent to by Alice’s arrangements was attended by a security guard. He had directed her up to the pool enclosure on the roof.

  Leland led her across the thick blue carpeting and down a hallway lined with glass-walled offices until he turned into a windowless interior space. What it lacked in windows, it made up for in computer equipment, all clearly cutting edge, with slim, curved monitors set on utilitarian gray built-in desktops. Giant screens hung on all the walls while high-end gray-and-chrome ergonomic chairs stood scattered in front of the various workstations.

  “Is this your office?”

  He set the shopping bags down on the floor and gave a short laugh. “Define ‘office.’ This is where I spend most of my working time. I have an official and fairly useless office in one of the building’s corners because partners’ offices are required to look impressive.”

  “This is a lot more impressive than a view of some skyscrapers. It looks like something out of that old movie WarGames.”

  Leland’s eyes lit up. “You know WarGames? It was one of my favorites as a kid. I bought a used DVD of it and watched it until the disc wore out.”

  She was fascinated by this unexpected glimpse into the young Leland. “So you were into computers from a young age?”

  The excitement drained from his face. “You might say that a computer was my best friend.”

  She wanted to bring the light back. “My oldest brother loved that movie. Every time he’d see me doing my homework, he’d say, ‘Learn, goddamn it!’ And then Mama would yell at him for cursing.”

  She winced. The mention of her mother had just slipped out. She would have given anything to take it back.

  Leland did smile, but with such an effort that she ached for him. “Of course, I completely missed the overarching message of the movie. I was only interested in the computer teaching itself. I tried to write programs that would do that, which is what eventually brought me here.” He swept his hand around the room, clearly wanting to move on. “My partners call it Mission Control.”

  “Yeah, I can see why. Does anyone else work in here during the week?”

  “Any staff member assigned to a project under my supervision is welcome. Some like it here. Some prefer to work alone because they can concentrate better.” He rolled an extra chair over to what was clearly the central workstation since it had the biggest monitors arrayed around it. “Let’s take a look at Tactical Arms.”

  Dawn sat in the chair he held. Leland slid onto the chair beside her in a way that showed he’d done it so many times it had become second nature to him, requiring no conscious thought. He woke up the screens in front of them with a sweep of his finger over a large, freestanding touch pad. She watched in fascination as his long fingers seemed to dance over the touch pad’s surface, reminding her of how skillfully he touched her body. As a frisson of heat surged through her, she considered how much demand there might be for a cross-training course that used a computer to train men’s hands for other, more intimate purposes. She figured wives would be a good source of funding.

  “There,” he said, wrenching her attention away from her inappropriate but entrepreneurial thoughts. He sat back as three monitors displayed the image of a man pointing a gun straight at the viewer.

  “They sure did a good job of making the product they’re offering obvious.” She scanned the copy beneath the website’s name. “Wow! They have quite a selection.”

  “It gets better . . . or worse, depending on your perspective.” His fingers did a jig on the touch pad and a menu with photos of various types of guns flashed up.

  “‘Handguns, rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, machine guns, grenade-based weapons, portable antimateriel weapons,’” she read. “I don’t even know what that last one means.”

  “Those are used to shoot at tanks, airplanes, and buildings.”

  “Jesus H. Christ! Are they outfitting an army?”

  “Someone could, if they had the money to spend.” Leland clicked on the first menu heading, and a listing of handguns with accompanying photos popped up.

  Most of the pictures were just a gun against a white background, but a few showed someone’s hands wrapped around the grip as though they were shooting it.

  “It’s a long shot—pardon the pun.” Leland gave her a tight smile. “But I thought you might take a look at the ones with actual backgrounds. Maybe you’ll recognize a location in or near Cofferwood.”

  When Dawn examined the screen more closely, she realized the photos with hands had more than blank walls behind them. Some seemed to have trees or grass or even an occasional bit of building. “They’re cropped so tightly around the gun that I can’t see much.”

  “Keep looking because even a single location will help us.” He nudged the touch pad toward her so she could scroll through and enlarge the photos. Then he shifted his hand to her back, idly stroking up and down in a way that sent tingly shivers waltzing along her spine.

  She glanced sideways to confirm that his gaze was still focused on the screen. After savoring his caresses for several seconds, she said, “I love it, but I can’t concentrate when you’re doing that.”

  “What?” He swiveled to look at her in surprise, his hand still on her back.

  She gave a little shrug under his palm.

  “Oh, didn’t mean to distract you.” He lifted his hand away. Losing its warmth made her feel chilled, but the sweet seduction of his smile counteracted it when he said, “You generate a magnetic field so I’m drawn to you without being conscious of it.”

  A delicious bliss filled her chest but she couldn’t let that show. “Aren’t magnets bad for computers?”

  “That’s an old fear left over from the days of floppy disks. Nowadays computers actually use magnets internally, so my tech is safe around you.” His smile went a little crooked. “Although I’m not sure I am.”

  The bliss swelled until she thought her rib cage might burst. “I like being dangerous to you.” She shifted to place a kiss on his smiling lips, the feel of them sending a happy little zing through her. “Now let me work.”

  He rolled his chair a few inches away from her, which gave her some smug satisfaction. But she focused on the screen, examining the photos with care. She flipped to the second page and found a submenu that read: “Concealed Carry Compacts.” She clicked on that to find a few small pictures of short-barreled revolvers. One showed hands so she enlarged it.

  And gasped.

  “What is it?” Leland rolled his chair in close and peered at the screen.

  “This is going to sound crazy but I think I recognize those fingernails.”

  “Fingernails?”

&nbs
p; “How often do you see leopard spots and rhinestones together in a manicure?” She scrutinized the picture closely. There were none of the rings Vicky usually wore, but maybe rings and shooting didn’t go together. “I think those are Vicky’s hands.”

  Leland followed her gaze. “Granted, I know very little about manicures, but isn’t it possible for two women to have the same style?”

  “Yes, but have you ever seen another human being with that combination of decorations on their nails? Besides, the shape of her hands is familiar too.” The copy under the photo touted how perfect the gun was for a woman’s small hands. “I guess they decided to make it very obvious the shooter is female. So the nails are a statement.”

  The scary part was how expert Vicky’s hold seemed on the weapon, right hand around the grip, left hand around the right, thumbs stacked along the side. Of course, she might have been coached, but the image still sent a chill through Dawn’s brain, especially when she remembered that there was video of Leland and her going into Vicky and Ramón’s office.

  Leland muttered a curse. “How did a gym owner get mixed up with arms dealers in Cofferwood, New Jersey?”

  “The Mafia? They’re still around in Jersey, I hear. Vicky could be related for all I know.” She certainly looked like a mob moll.

  “My understanding is that these days the Mafia is more about drugs, prostitution, and extortion. Arms dealing isn’t really their bailiwick.”

  “‘Bailiwick’? Has the mob gone British?” Dawn teased. “They have territories.”

  “You’re an authority on organized crime?”

  “More of an authority than someone from Georgia.”

  Leland smiled but it was brief. “What about Ramón? He was a professional boxer. That’s a sport the mob is often involved in.”

  She had been trying not to think about the possibility. But Ramón adored his wife. If she was involved in arms dealing, it was hard to imagine that he wouldn’t know. There was also the engraved gun safe in his desk, a direct contradiction to his claim that he no longer believed in violence of any kind.

  “I just can’t see Ramón doing this.” She rubbed her temples.

  “Although I don’t believe in guilt by association, it’s his gym the data traffic is flowing through, and his wife’s fingernails are on the website.” Leland’s tone was gentle and he laid his hand over hers where it rested by the touch pad. “That’s a lot of connections.”

  She turned her hand to clutch at his. “So what do we do now?”

  “You do nothing. You stay far, far away from this. I call Tully.” His grip tightened and the set of his jaw was hard. “I wish like hell you hadn’t gone to Ramón’s office with me. That was stupid and reckless on my part.”

  “It made the most sense and we weren’t expecting guns.” But she felt as though he meant she was stupid and reckless as well.

  “It involves the dark web. I should have expected the worst.” He raised her hand to kiss the back of it. “Tully will want to talk with you. Is that all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Because I don’t want anything to drag you back into your past.”

  Strange, but nothing about this had triggered her fear in that way. Maybe because she trusted Leland so completely. “No, I’m fine.”

  He searched her face for a long moment before he reached for his cell phone.

  “Tully, it’s Leland,” he said almost immediately. “I need your help.”

  In less than half an hour, Tully strode into Mission Control. Dawn had met him at a couple of the parties thrown by Alice and Derek. He’d seemed like a big easygoing cowboy with his tooled leather boots, plaid shirts, and booming laugh. But the man who entered the computer room didn’t look at all easygoing. His gray eyes were pure steel, his mouth was set in a grim line, and he looked like laughter was an alien concept to him.

  Now she understood why Leland and Derek had been intimidated by him when they first met in business school.

  “Did you find any other indications of a connection to the gym in the photos?” he asked after greeting them with efficient brevity.

  At Tully’s request, Dawn and Leland had combed through the rest of the photos on the Tactical Arms website, looking for any other clue that pointed to Work It Out, Vicky, or Ramón. But there had been no sparkly, leopard-spotted nails highlighted against the grips of the submachine guns or grenade launchers.

  Dawn shook her head. “Just that one photo.”

  Tully seized a chair and wheeled it over to the computer station where Dawn and Leland sat. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Fortunately, the desk and screens were so large that all three of them could sit side by side and view the website. An unaccustomed sense of safety enveloped her as she sat between the two powerful men. Right here and now, no one and nothing could hurt her. She sat very still, savoring a feeling she hadn’t experienced since that hideous, life-destroying Saturday afternoon. If she could sit here long enough, maybe the feeling of safety would become her normal once again.

  Leland was talking about how he’d found the website, using technical language she found incomprehensible. Tully seemed a little more advanced in his dark web knowledge, but even he finally held up his hand to stop Leland’s spate of acronyms.

  “The website is well hidden and encrypted,” Tully said. “I get that. Someone who knows what they’re doing set it up. But that leaves us with a hell of a lot of questions. Like why would they suddenly start directing data traffic through the gym’s router? Can’t they get it there through some other node in the deep web?”

  “Illegal websites tend to have to relocate frequently,” Leland said. “The authorities like your FBI buddies are getting better and better at finding them, so they move to stay ahead of the game. In this case, someone may have gotten too close so they had to move unexpectedly. They wouldn’t want to shut down so they rerouted traffic from the old website address to the new one through a router they already controlled. That’s a simplified explanation, of course. My guess is that the website will move again soon.”

  “Yeah, because you had to go and poke the hornet’s nest.” Tully was clearly not happy about that.

  Dawn refused to let Tully shred her newfound comfort. “We didn’t know the hornets had bullets. And we had a perfectly believable reason for being in the office.”

  “Arms dealers don’t survive without being paranoid.” Tully dragged his finger over the touch pad to scan the website’s menu. “Holy shit, this is a serious operation. They’ve got some military-only weapons on here. Where the fu—sorry—hell did they get it?”

  After rapidly but thoroughly examining every page of the website, he sat back, his expression downright chilling. He swung his gaze around to Leland. “You screwed up, buddy.”

  Leland’s lips tightened.

  Tully rolled his chair back from the desk so that both Dawn and Leland had to swivel theirs to look at him. He pinned first Dawn, then Leland, with that gimlet-hard stare. “You all are done with this situation. Totally, completely, and absolutely done. You will forget all about it. This is for your own safety and well-being. And to keep the sightlines clear of civilians so my colleagues at the FBI can take these bastards down. Do you hear me?”

  Dawn nodded. Leland said, “Loud and clear.”

  Tully’s tense jaw relaxed infinitesimally at their instant capitulation. “You will also stay totally, completely, and absolutely away from each other. Hopefully, that will allay any suspicion these bastards might have that you are working together.”

  She had not expected that and she didn’t like the lurch of dismay that vibrated through her suddenly hollowed-out rib cage. “But Leland just bought a gym membership. Won’t it look even more suspicious if he suddenly cancels it?”

  Tully looked at Leland. “You find a really good reason to try to get a refund. Make it convincing.”

  Leland nodded, his face impassive. “I can do that.”

  The dismay turned to som
ething much more upsetting. Abandonment. No, rejection. He didn’t care enough about her or about their relationship to try to argue with Tully. Even after she’d spilled her guts to him.

  All the stupid, misguided hope she’d allowed to grow shattered under his indifference.

  She blinked back the pathetic tears that burned behind her eyelids. It was her own fault. Natalie had warned her. Hell, she’d warned herself. This should have been just a casual sex thing. She’d been an idiot to believe it could mean more.

  She braced her spine. She’d survived far worse.

  “And I’ll bitch about clients who fill up my schedule and then bail after a few sessions. That should reassure them that we’re not in cahoots.” She was proud of the fact that her voice didn’t waver.

  She snuck a glance at Leland. His expression was unreadable.

  “Do you need anything else from me?” she asked Tully. She had to get out of there before she crumbled.

  “Yeah. Let’s go through all the possible suspects, one by one. Even people you think couldn’t possibly be involved.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts in the face of Leland’s coolness. Opening them, she kept her gaze on Tully as she listed the people she’d discussed with Leland and Natalie. Tully probed deeper with his questions, making her examine her colleagues in ways she didn’t enjoy. She’d spent a lot of time and effort creating this little world where she felt unthreatened. Now Tully forced her to turn that on its head and search for evil in the one place where she had almost convinced herself it didn’t exist.

  “What about the gym’s layout?” Tully asked. “Can you give me a rough description?”

  “I’ll do that,” Leland interrupted. “I think it’s time Dawn went home.”

  His words were clipped but when she turned toward him without thinking, his gaze held a tender concern that made her swallow hard. “But you don’t know about the basement.”

  “Tully can look it up. He has ways to get construction drawings.” Leland stood and made a chopping motion with his hand when Tully opened his mouth. “I’ll get you an anonymous town car to keep Tully happy.”