“So how does a family from New York end up in Worcester?” he said.
He was surprised to see frown lines appear when she turned back toward him. “Oh, I don’t know.”
He waited for her to finish the thought, but she didn’t.
Tim saw his mother marching back up the hill, replacement basket firmly in grasp. He was struck by the certainty that if he missed this chance then he could stop waiting. Such an opportunity wouldn’t come up again. Gathering his small store of pent-up courage, he stepped to the edge of the cliff of vulnerability and leapt off.
“Are you busy tonight?” he said.
She hesitated, and Tim began to experience ground rush toward the boulder-strewn surface beneath the cliff. His breath caught in his throat. He could feel red heat blossoming on his face.
But then Lesley rescued him by saying, “No, I guess not.”
Tim found he could breathe again. He swallowed and said, “Maybe we could see a movie or something.”
She recovered from her initial hesitancy with incredible grace.
“Sure,” she said with a warm smile.
Tim’s happiness lasted just over three weeks. Twenty-three days filled with texting and studying together and holding hands between classes. Three weeks when he learned to kiss and even flirted with making it to second base. Three weeks when he could hold his head up while traveling the hallways at school, when he was a part of the conversations in the corners, when his self-image started to transform.
And then Rob stole it all away.
Lesley was nice enough when she broke up with him. She used all the right words, like “This is going too fast for me,” and “I still want us to be friends.” But Tim knew there was more to it than that. She would never hurt him on her own. There had to be someone else, a source of malevolence lurking in the shadows.
Two weeks later he saw Lesley and Rob together in the cafeteria. That’s when the hatred began.
So Tim went back to waiting. He waited to see if Rob and Lesley would last. Then he delayed his own plans until he learned they were going to Boston College. His true feelings stayed hidden behind a happy-go-lucky façade while he remained in the picture by becoming good old life-of-the-party, just-a-close-friend-now Tim. He even waited to accept a job offer until Rob had chosen.
Tim smiled grimly as he scrolled unseeingly through another page of computer program code. A lot had changed in the seven years since high school. The one constant during all that time, however, was Tim’s certainty that he would find a way to get Lesley back.
* * *
Stan Dysart stood looking out the plate glass window of his ninth floor office. Midnight had come and gone. The other office buildings nearby were mostly dark. He had considered going home but knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Instead he paced in his office and waited for a bunch of keyboard tappers to tell him whether he was likely to lose his bank.
After all the years of calculating risks and hustling to make deals, everything could come crashing down because his computer people were incompetent. What an unbelievable fiasco. The muscles at the base of his neck throbbed from hours of unrelenting tension.
Dysart heard a tap on his door and John Kelleher stuck his head in.
“Got a minute?” Kelleher said.
“What do you think,” Dysart said, “I’ve got something else to do this time of night?”
“I think we’ve identified the problem,” Kelleher said as Paul Dees followed him into the room. The two men ended up standing in front of Dysart’s desk.
For the first time that night, Dysart felt a spark of optimism.
“We’ve been over the system from top to bottom,” Kelleher said, “and the only possible place the attacker’s program could be hiding is inside AMS itself.”
“I don’t follow you,” Dysart said.
“It’s called an Easter Egg,” Dees said, “when someone slips their own procedure into a larger program. It can happen with all kinds of software. For instance Rob told us he owns a computer game where if you press a weird combination of keys, like the question mark twenty times or something, then one of the female characters flashes her boobs. Apparently one of the video game programmers put it in for a joke and it ended up in the commercial version.”
Dysart felt like screaming. He should have known better than to get his hopes up.
“You’re saying that scrambling bank accounts is someone’s idea of a joke?”
“Not at all,” Dees said, “just that it’s possible to hide one program inside another.”
Dysart picked up a wooden-handled letter opener from his desk and started slapping his palm with it in agitation.
“Can you look inside AMS and see if anything nasty is in there?”
“Yes and no,” Dees said. “It’s kind of complicated because a computer program like AMS actually exists in two different forms. When we build the thing, the programmers write source code using a textual language that people can understand. Then we convert it into a different format the computer can execute. A person can make sense of the source code but the executable program is just a jumble of ones and zeros. Normally that’s no problem, since the source code tells you all you need to know.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” Dysart said.
Dees nodded. “I found something strange tonight. I keep the master copy of all AMS source code files. I’m the only one who’s supposed to be able to update them and none of them should have been touched since the AMS executable was created four months ago. Tonight I discovered several files were changed a few hours after the executable was created. That means someone tampered with them, because I certainly didn’t change them.”
“Someone could have inserted a scrambling function into the source code,” Kelleher said, “and then waited until after the executable was created before changing the code back again.”
“Someone,” Dysart said. His lips were thin white lines. “You mean someone who works here.”
“It would have to be,” Dees said, “and almost certainly an AMS team member. No one else would have the system knowledge or the access privileges to pull this off.”
Dysart pointed the letter opener at Dees. “And you’re the only one who has access to the system files?”
“I’m supposed to be. Of course anyone who knows the system administrator password can do whatever they want on the whole computer. Or someone could have looked over my shoulder and stolen my password.”
“Or you’re the one who attacked my bank,” Dysart said.
A look of stunned horror spread across Dees’ face. Kelleher looked grim but said nothing.
“You can’t be serious,” Dees said.
Dysart was rapidly losing what little patience he had started with. He angrily tossed the letter opener onto his desk, where it clattered to a stop against the phone.
Glaring at Kelleher, he said, “At least tell me you can prevent more accounts from being scrambled.”
“Our best bet is to replace the AMS executable. Rob and Tim are going through the source code as we speak, making sure there are no obvious problems. Once that’s done, we’ll generate a new executable and run through the automated test suite we used four months ago.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Working around the clock, a day or two … and that’s assuming we don’t find any problems.”
“Can you protect the other accounts in the meantime?” Dysart said.
Kelleher looked at Dees, who still looked furious from Dysart’s accusation. Dees shrugged and said, “I don’t see how, except by shutting down the system. But that’d basically mean closing the bank.”
Dysart gave his desk chair a frustrated shove and turned away to face the window behind his desk. Angry blooms of condensation formed on the cool glass when he exhaled.
“Forget that,” Dysart said, turning back to face the other two. “That’s what the attackers want, not to mention what it would cost. How would we explain to our customers that
we’re out of business for a couple of days? Oh, our computers are down. Bear with us. That would do a lot for customer confidence, wouldn’t it? No, the system stays up while you fix it as fast as you can. And I mean nobody even thinks about going home until it’s done. Is that clear?”
Kelleher and Dees nodded in unison.
“And,” Dysart continued, “you have to assume someone on your team is a rat. You need to smoke them out, or at least make sure they can’t do more damage.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Kelleher said.
“How should I know?” Dysart shouted. “I don’t run the computer department.”
Kelleher’s cheeks turned a mottled purple. “And we’re not investigators. If you ask me, we need to call the police.”
“We can’t,” Dysart said. “As soon as we do, then it’s out of our control whether this thing goes public. We have to make this go away quietly.”
Dysart pointed an index finger at the two men, his face flushed with anger. “But if I find out someone working for me did this, they’re going to wish they had never been born.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Tuesday
A LATE LUNCH crowd filled most of the seats in the Burger King. Lesley and Shayna sat at a table along one wall. Lesley took a bite of her burger and moaned with pleasure.
“Oh, man,” she said. “My stomach was looking for this hours ago.”
Shayna finished swallowing her mouthful. “Mine too,” she said. “I thought that press conference would never end.”
They ate in silence for a while, and then Shayna said, “You’re staring at it.”
Lesley smiled. She hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off the diamond ring all morning.
“Caught me again.”
“I still can’t believe you let him get away with not taking you to dinner.”
“I didn’t have any choice.”
“That’s almost as bad as my cousin. Her husband proposed to her between the national anthem and the opening tip-off so he wouldn’t miss any of the game.”
“Well this wasn’t that bad,” Lesley said. “And he called this morning to make sure the flowers he sent showed up. Said he worked all night and he’s still at it.”
“I guess we can forgive him, then.”
“As long as he grovels properly next time I see him, right?”
“You’re learning,” Shayna said with a grin.
Lesley laughed. “And you’re a bad influence.”
“I’m not bad. I just act that way.”
“Lucky you.”
“You should be so lucky,” Shayna said.
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“I know Rob’s getting lucky. Ain’t no other reason a man waits seven years to pop the question.”
Lesley wiped a spot of sauce from the corner of her mouth. “Maybe he’s just careful.”
Shayna’s black hair swayed as she shook her head.
“Nah, men are all like that when it comes to getting hitched. And it’s not their fault. It’s Mother Nature. Every one of them is programmed to be a stallion, to think he ought to be out servicing a whole herd of us little fillies.”
“Oh, thanks. That makes me feel better.”
“But they can be trained out of it you know.”
Lesley shook her head. “God help the man who settles down with you. He won’t stand a chance.”
Shayna took a pull on her Coke and peered over the top of her glasses at Lesley.
“Don’t you worry about my men,” Shayna said. “Right now we need to figure out if Rob’s good enough to marry my number one girlfriend.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“We’ll use Shayna’s Test For A Good Man.”
“Oh, you have a test, do you?”
“Your mother didn’t give you one?”
“She must have forgotten.”
“Honestly,” Shayna said. “Sometimes I wonder how you white people survive long enough to reproduce.”
“We manage.”
Shayna pursed her lips and rubbed her chin for a few moments.
“It’s a multi-part test,” she said. “You ready?”
Lesley made a show of pushing aside her drink and napkins. She folded her hands on the table and looked directly at her friend.
“Shoot.”
“Has he ever bought you a gift when it wasn’t a special occasion?”
Lesley had to think about this one. “He brought me a bag of chocolate chip cookies once when I was freaking out over a sociology exam.”
Shayna raised one eyebrow. “Girl, that is totally underwhelming. But technically it’s a pass. I’ll give him a C-minus. Okay, question number two. Is there anything he doesn’t like to do, but he does it anyway because you want him to?”
“You’re saying a good man is one you can put under your thumb?”
“Nah, this just goes to the trainable aspect of the animal. Now answer the question.”
Lesley munched on a french fry as she tried to think of something. After a moment she said, “He’s been known to sit through an entire chick flick with me.”
“But only because you got to the theater and there was nothing on with guns in it, am I right?”
“Absolutely.”
“And I bet he bitched and complained so you’d know how lucky you were.”
“Oh yeah.”
Shayna nodded her head in apparent satisfaction. “Good. For a moment there I was worried he wasn’t male.”
“He is,” Lesley said. “I checked.”
Shayna’s voice dropped to a barely audible level. “Now for the most important part,” she said, her face grave. “Question number three. After you have a fight—” She pointed a finger. “And don’t even think about telling me that never happens. Now after you two claw each other’s eyes out, does he always apologize? Even if you were the one who was wrong?”
Lesley grinned again. “I don’t know about that, but I have to admit he’s pretty good at making up.”
“Oh, this is bad,” Shayna said.
“What?”
“He passed the test. You’re going to have to marry him.”
“Works for me.”
Shayna’s wide smile lit up her whole face. “Good. Now I can start planning how I’m going to embarrass your skinny ass at the stagette party.”
Lesley’s purse warbled with the sound that meant she had received a text message. She pulled out her cell phone and punched a button to bring up the message. The caller id said Private Number.
Go to the First Malden Bank right away. You’re going to find some angry customers. The bank lost their money.
* * *
Rob splashed water on his face and ran wet fingers through his hair in an effort to wake himself up. After toweling off, he returned to his cubicle and found a blank sheet of paper on the floor by his desk. He looked at it for a moment with his head cocked to one side. He had no recollection of dropping any paper—and for that matter he couldn’t remember having any blank sheets of paper on his desk.
The strange part was that this had happened before. Every so often he would find an envelope in the middle of his desk, a USB memory stick he had never seen before beside his computer keyboard or, as was the case this afternoon, a blank piece of paper lying around.
Rob shook his head. He was getting punchy after pulling his first all-nighter in years. He dropped the sheet into his recycle box, sat down and went back to work.
* * *
Tim huddled forward in his chair as he finished the text message to Lesley. If anyone happened to walk by his cubicle he didn’t want them to see him sending a message. He doubted anyone would be able to make the connection with Lesley receiving one at the same time, but still, there was no sense taking chances.
He slipped the cell phone back into his pocket. He had paid for it with cash, specifically so he would have an untraceable way to send messages like that one. Soon he and Lesley would have to look out for each other, a
nd Tim knew she had been struggling for bigger stories. The media was sure to hear from their customers that there were problems at First Malden, so Lesley might as well be the first to arrive.
Not that the news people would have any idea about the true cause of all the excitement. Dysart and Kelleher had made it crystal clear that no hint about the sabotage was to be discussed with anyone outside their team. The public was to think any problems were strictly technical, just as Tim had predicted.
Tim glanced at his watch again and saw it was finally two o’clock. A thrill of anticipation filled him. The spectacle should soon begin. He stood up and wandered over to Rob’s cubicle. Rob was hunched over his computer terminal, working away.
“Hey buddy,” Tim said. “How’re you holding up?”
Rob swiveled to face Tim and stretched.
“I’m completely wasted,” Rob said. “Usually by mid-afternoon I’m just getting my second wind, but not today.”
“Tell me about it. I haven’t pulled an all-nighter like that since my senior thesis was due.”
Rob rolled his stiff neck in a circle. “I slept for an hour or so leaned over my desk, but it wasn’t nearly enough.”
Tim noticed the blank sheet of paper wasn’t on the floor where he had planted it earlier. It was now in the recycle box. He made a mental note to return later and use the pair of tweezers he kept in his pocket to slip the paper into a large brown envelope. Then he would have one more item with Rob’s fingerprints for his collection. Tim didn’t know if he would need this one, but it never hurt to be prepared.
Paul Dees appeared beside Tim with an anxious look on his face.
“Did you get it too?” Dees asked Rob.
Rob looked puzzled. “Get what?”
“The email,” Dees said. “I got another one from the Financial Patriots a few minutes ago. Have a look and see if you got it too.”
Rob turned to his monitor and clicked on his email program.
“Yeah, I did,” he said
He opened the message.
Tim read the email over Rob’s shoulder, though he could have recited it from memory.
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