One from Without

by Jack Fuller

  “Well, hello,” she said. “You’re looking better today.”

  His hand went to his pocket, where it made contact with the changeless gold.

  “And you?” he said.

  “A glitch in the United Airlines billing,” she said. “Your guys were quick off the mark.”

  “They aren’t mine anymore.”

  “To me they are,” she said as the elevator reached her floor. “Well, I guess I’d better go tell the customer the good news. When you fix a problem, it is usually better than never having had one.”

  “There’s a thought,” he said.

  “Win-win.”

  “The best most games get is zero-sum.”

  “You lost me there, Sam,” she said and got off.

  He continued up and found Alexa Snow waiting for him in his office. He had forgotten that they had a meeting. She looked at him as if she were going to wrap him.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “I always think of you as punctual,” she said.

  She had covered his round table with files in neat little stacks. Even before he could take off his coat and sit down, she was reciting the details of her pursuit of the hacker, step by tiny step. From time to time she opened a file and passed it to him. It was incredibly tedious. Was this how qualitative people compensated?

  “I’m with you,” he said. “You can skip ahead.”

  “I thought auditors were supposed to obsess about methodology,” she said then went right on, pencil to yellow legal pad, checking off each item on her list.

  Gunderman struggled to pay attention. Preemployment test results from the shamans at the industrial psychology firm, records of annual evaluations, salary and benefits history (including medical), individual assessments by supervisors for succession planning, telephone records, e-mail—and, of course, credit records.

  “The e-mail review,” he said. “I assume it was Boolean?”

  “Excuse me?” she said, as if he had belched.

  “A keyword search,” he said. “What were the parameters?”

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” she said then went on again with the pad, the pencil, the list, the files.

  He sank into torpor until he heard her say, “Long story short, I think we found her.”

  “Her?”

  “The hacker.”

  “Who?”

  “You are going to be surprised.”

  “It’s not Sara Simons,” he said.

  “Stay with me,” she said.

  Her evidence began with the database itself. Nobody in the Sales and Marketing hierarchy had been tampered with.

  “Sara is not stupid,” said Gunderman.

  “Her preemployment intel test showed her to be well above average,” said Snow. “Not in your league or mine, of course. The database did show some late payments in earlier years.”

  “It’s highly probable that most people have missed a payment or two,” said Gunderman.

  “Sixty-four percent in the past five years,” said Snow, “though only 40 percent of D&D’s managers and directors.”

  Finally some numbers, and they were irrelevant.

  “Simons has received an average of 4.7 out of 5 on her performance reviews,” said Snow, “and this has been remarkably consistent over the past decade. It puts her in the 93rd percentile of managers and directors companywide, and 87th percentile among directors and their direct reports.”

  Why did HR people even try? The trouble with performance ratings is that there was no constant. Gunderman had tried to make this point when Snow had first started reporting numeric comparisons among the divisions. The ratings were as much about the rater as about the ratee. Gunderman had not given up until the room began to groan.

  “Who are we talking about here?” said Gunderman.

  “A name would bias you,” said Snow. “We are talking about evidence.”

  “We’ve been talking about Sara Simons.”

  “You’re the one who put her on the table.”

  His eyes went to it.

  “There is evidence of personal usage of company landlines and cellular phones,” said Snow. “I’m sure that when we’re able to pull the numbers, we will find the same pattern in nonbusiness Internet usage during business hours.”

  “How many people reimburse the company when they call their bank or make a dinner reservation?” he said.

  “I don’t have that figure,” said Snow. “But it doesn’t matter, because it turns out that the medical history tells the story. The suspect is deep in analysis and has been for years. It turns out that the visits increased in the period before the first database breach was discovered. One of the diagnostic criteria on the insurance claims suggested anger-management issues.”

  “You get this kind of information?” Gunderman said.

  “We’re self-insured,” she said, as if that were an answer. “Unfortunately our e-mail scan proved disappointing. There were no inappropriate references to Sara Simons or anyone in senior management, not even to colleagues or subordinates. Frankly, we were expecting to find expressions of racial hostility.”

  “Racial?” said Gunderman.

  “She’s African American,” said Snow.

  “You’re not talking about Margery Strand,” he said.

  “There have been complaints over the years,” she said. “None has risen to a level that required a formal inquiry, but from time to time I have had to ask Simons to counsel her.”

  “What have people complained about?”

  “An attitude,” she said. “Strike that. Make it an edge.”

  “These are all white people, right?”

  “Let’s not go there.”

  “Where else is there?” said Gunderman.

  “Next step is to get hold of her laptop,” she said. “We’ll need to think up some reason. You can help.”

  “Saying we need the laptop to search for viruses will certainly fool somebody who managed to get into our database and make a mess.”

  “Let’s not get sarcastic.”

  “Do I have an edge?”

  “I assume that’s one of the things you are working on with your coach,” said Snow.

  “I can’t let you do this,” he said.

  “We don’t need a warrant,” she said. “Check your employee handbook.”

  “You have a better idea?” said Rosten.

  Gunderman and Poole stood before his desk like truants. He had called them in as soon as Snow had launched a preemptive strike against interference with her investigation. The fact was, Rosten didn’t much like Snow’s choice of a target either, but if Margery Strand did turn out to be the hacker, the case would close neatly. Not only had the incident not been material; it had been purely personal.

  “I’ll bet when we look at her laptop, we’ll find that she doesn’t even know how to block the history on her browser,” said Gunderman.

  “Just let it play out,” said Rosten. “Get Greener to help Snow if you don’t want to be party to it. He’s got the chops, doesn’t he?”

  “I trust him,” said Poole.

  “Then we’re all in agreement,” said Rosten.

  When Simons heard the Admin News Network rumors about Margery Strand being in some kind of trouble with the internal auditors, she closed her office door against the world. She had been fool enough to think Gunderman had been shy of her, when in fact he was one of those who waited until your back was turned. She should have seen it all in that Mitteleuropa face of his. It was a map of the geography her father had fled, pursued by such faces.

  She went into the bathroom and ran water over her wrists, something her father had taught her was an antitoxin to rage. Cool, the water; cool and cunning, the mind. Don’t take them head-on. There are too many of them. Closing her eyes, she let the numbing current spread from her fingertips toward her center. When she opened them again, she was looking in the mirror. You are strong. You can do this.

  Gunderman’s closed door did not stop her. His st
artled expression did not stop her, nor did the sweater she had picked out for him, the pathetic, frayed collar of one of his old shirts curling out from under it.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she said.

  As she drew closer to Gunderman, she saw perspiration beading on his forehead. She hoped it was not only the cashmere.

  “I just learned about it myself,” he said.

  He was not a customer that D&D had wronged. He had not purchased her deference with a big, multiyear contract. Do not soften, woman.

  “You did this, you momzer,” she said. “It’s all over the fucking Dome.”

  “I’ve been trying to think,” he said.

  “You’re all think.”

  “Is she in her office right now?”

  “No, thank God,” she said. “She’s off with a customer.”

  “Good,” he said. “Trust me.”

  He sprang from his chair with more force than she had ever seen in him. As he swept past her, there was not much she could do but follow. Keeping up with him as he bounded up the stairs was a challenge in heels. Trust him? She had never met this man.

  “Which office is it?” he said as they approached the Sales and Marketing area. “We’re lucky everybody’s on lunch break.”

  She followed him in, hearing her father’s voice: Be cunning, Sarale. Bear witness.

  Gunderman went straight to Margery’s desk. The computer screen was dark. He booted it up.

  “Stop that,” she said. “I’ll call security.”

  “Security is not Margery’s friend,” he said. “I am.”

  “You barely know her.”

  “I know you,” he said.

  When the time came for her password, he got by it somehow and moved quickly from screen to screen, tapping the keys until something made the machine sit there churning. Then he looked up.

  “This will work if she doesn’t do anything stupid,” he said.

  “What’s this all about?” she said.

  “Someone will come and ask for her computer,” he said. “He will give a reason. Something lame. She has to let him.”

  She looked at the screen, which was like a riffling deck of cards.

  “She’ll refuse,” she said.

  He turned away from her and sat watching the screen until it came to rest back at the opening icons.

  “There,” he said. “Send Margery a message to come see you immediately when she gets back to the Dome. Tell her this: Do not look right or left. Do not listen to anyone. When she is face-to-face with you, tell her what is happening. Settle her down. Tell her I have taken measures.”

  “Measures,” she said.

  He spoke the way her father said they had spoken to him just before he fled.

  7

  Poole, who ordinarily hovered over Berry’s troops at the Dome, had suddenly become elusive. He is behind closed doors. Out of the building. On a conference call. He’ll get back to you. The man’s underlings would not even respond to a simple document request. This kind of thing happened all the time when you were dealing with an adversary, God bless the subpoena. But at Day and Domes it made no sense. Berry’s team had been playing nice, even Szilard.

  The Wall Street Journal article might have been an explanation, but the story had nothing to do with Internal Audit—unless D&D was thinking about mounting a leak investigation. Berry would strongly discourage this, if asked. Don’t put a question you don’t want to know the answer to. This was just basic.

  Thanks to attorney-client privilege, the answers you got from a client very rarely hurt you. The danger there was something you weren’t told. So when D&D froze up, Berry liberated Szilard to be Szilard. The time for putting the greatest pressure on a client was when the other pressures had already taken him to his limit. Someone in that deep, with creatures that did not have names brushing up against him in the dark, was ready to do anything to get back to the surface.

  Fortuitously, Berry’s calendar had a big hole in it. A large agricultural company had canceled. It had become lax about his counsel as its antitrust disaster faded into the past. But it would come back. Eventually they all did.

  Gunderman took Szilard’s call. The lawyer asked to meet. Gunderman put him off then notified Poole.

  “Your involvement was not contemplated in the audit plan,” Poole said.

  “Why?” said Gunderman.

  “Exactly,” said Poole. When he used his audit voice, he could be holding a handful of nothing or evidence of fraud and you would not be able to tell.

  “I’m off limits?”

  “Precisely,” said Poole.

  “Szilard said he couldn’t get through to you.”

  “There’s a reason for that.”

  “Well somebody had better deal with him,” said Gunderman, “because he sounded like he’s ready to drop a bomb.”

  Poole was silent—no paper rattling, no finger taps on a keyboard.

  “There is a concern about your objectivity,” he finally said. “Hold the line. I have to make a call.”

  The phone went mute. Gunderman clicked on a new folder and applied a strong password to it: 0m,wawg014? Oh my, what are we getting ourselves in for? He dragged a very large file into it and watched the hourglass spin.

  Poole came back.

  “Talk to Szilard,” he said.

  “But I’m out of the loop,” Gunderman said.

  “Exactly,” said Poole. “Fill him in on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Take him through the technical aspects of our financial systems controls. Talk to him only about what you are responsible for.”

  “I feel responsible for all of it.”

  “Within your current job description then,” said Poole. “The rest is off the reservation. Are we on the same page?”

  Not five minutes later the audit admin buzzed and announced, “Mr. Lizards is on the way up.”

  “Szilard,” said Gunderman.

  “Oh, God, I wonder if I said it to him that way,” she said. “I just can’t get it out of my head.”

  Rosten had started the Lizards/Szilard thing. He liked to play with letters the way Gunderman liked to play with numbers. Gunderman’s default was binary. One zero zero one one. One one zero zero one. Able was I ere I saw Elba.

  When the admin showed the lawyer in, Gunderman rose and said, “Has something come up regarding financial system controls?”

  “From what I hear, you’re a lot bigger than that,” said Szilard.

  “A little fish, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re too modest.”

  “It’s only financial forensics you are doing for us, as I understand it.”

  “These things tend to go where they want,” said Szilard. It was clearly not easy for him to produce a smile.

  “Have you ever worked at a large corporation, Mr. Szilard?”

  “This isn’t about me,” said Szilard. “It’s about Day and Domes. Why isn’t anyone willing to talk to me?”

  “An antinomy, right?” Gunderman said. “It’s not about you, but it is about you.”

  “You’re a clever one.”

  “Small fish, small pond,” said Gunderman. If he was even in the pond anymore. Zero zero zero zero was the same any way you looked at it.

  When the crisis team met, Greener reported that he had secured Margery Strand’s laptop without incident. The loop had bellied way out since back when Joyce had stumbled on the first breach. There was Greener, there was Chase, and there was Snow, who had somehow become the project manager, even though when they had done the last upgrade of the HR system, she couldn’t even get the hang of signing on. There was Harms, and finally there was Poole, rubbing his hands with antibacterial.

  The way Lawton saw it, the only one they really needed wasn’t there. He had pushed for Gunderman, but Chase had stood in the way. The man was not reliable, Chase said. Look at the way he had tried to deflect the investigation away from Sales and Marketing. He obviously had a thing with Simons.

  “So we’ve got
the laptop,” said Rosten. “What else?”

  “I talked with Strand,” said Snow, as if she thought this could possibly have been helpful.

  “Greener has already begun the analytics,” said Chase.

  “Wait one,” said Poole. “That’s an audit function.”

  “I believe the Gunderman issue is closed,” said Chase.

  “But there are procedures we must follow,” said Poole.

  “Tom can detail Rob to your team,” said Sebold. “Simple fix. I’ll paper the file.”

  Lawton did not understand lawyers and accountants any better than they understood him.

  Rosten asked Greener to outline his work plan and timeline, which he did at some length. Sebold proposed to do the documentation, an arrangement that Poole approved. Lawton wished he could get hold of Strand’s machine.

  “Perhaps we should have a second opinion,” said Lawton. “What do you think, Bill?”

  “Condom and diaphragm,” said Sebold.

  “Careful,” said Snow.

  “Is that what they call thinking like a lawyer?” said Harms.

  Greener did not laugh.

  “I’ll get it right,” he said.

  “Nobody is questioning that, Rob,” said Lawton, who had had this kind of conversation with his former subordinate many times before.

  “The responsibility is yours,” Rosten said to Greener.

  Then he tapped the edge of the table three times.

  “I think we’re done,” he said.

  After talking to Margery, Sara was desolate. What could she have said to her? What could anyone say to Sara? The thing was too ugly for words.

  That night she could not sleep. She dusted the blinds then took down every keepsake from her shelves and dusted it, too. She vacuumed the carpet, scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors. She bathed the orchids. She ran vinegar through the coffeemaker and oiled the dining room table. Then she started doing things over again. In the morning the doorman called to say that he had a strange man in the lobby who said his name was Gunderman.

  Sara was as silent as a phone recording the message.

  “I’ll do whatever you want with him,” the doorman said.