by Dana Marton
“Are you coming to lunch?” Anita smiled at them in turn. In the short time they had spent together, she’d emerged as the peacemaker of the team. “It’s almost one o’clock.”
Gina pinned Carly with another dark look before she walked away.
“Not right now.” Carly turned back to the computer and tried another string of code. “I’m so close I can smell their server. I want to push this through.”
“Can we get you anything?”
“No, thanks. I’ll go down later. I could use the walk.”
“Down” was a fab little café across the road from the office building where Savall, Ltd. had set up business in a fifth-floor office. Café Carib had the best hot sandwiches around, a plethora of salad choices, and espressos that were liquid hand grenades—when tossed in through your mouth they blew your eyes wide open.
“Okay,” Anita said and left.
It was the second day in a row that the three women had gone to lunch together. Maybe they were forming a bond. Good for them.
Even if she were a team player by nature, she would have had trouble trusting them: two thieves and a murderer. No thank you. She had different goals to work toward, other things in her sight.
She opened another window on her laptop to check her messages. She had ordered a set of fake IDs through an anonymous e-mail, the first step toward becoming truly free. She scanned her in-box. No word from the man yet. Might as well get back to work.
She scrolled through the few hundred lines of code on her screen. What was she missing? She had come up with a brilliantly streamlined solution that should have worked. Carly reread the code line by line, ignored the phone when it started to ring. She didn’t realize until the fifth or sixth ring that she was alone in the office.
Her desk was covered in program manuals seven, eight deep in places. She’d been inhaling one after the other since she’d gotten free access to the computer lab back at the FBI training base. She could absorb a four-or five-hundred-page manual in a matter of days.
She pushed the piles around and found the phone, picked up the receiver. “Savall, Limited. Carly Jones.”
“Took you long enough,” Nick said on the other end of the line.
They hadn’t seen him since they’d arrived on the island, although he was here, checking in every once in a while. And she could, over the last week or so, sense him out there, the distinct feeling that on her way to work and home she was being watched, followed. She never could spot him, though. He disappeared every time she turned around.
Maybe he wore a disguise. She had nearly approached a bulky, older woman that morning, half-convinced that it was him before she got close enough to hear the woman’s voice. Nick Tarasov in drag. The thought brought a smile. “Any news?”
“Costa-Costa has been busted. Good work.”
“Haven’t done much.” The FBI had already had their eyes on the company. She’d just provided confirmation when she’d broken into their system and found record after record of fictitious sales that didn’t match up with inventory. The mission hadn’t been all that bad so far. Actually, close to fun.
“It worked. That’s what counts. How are you doing with the other targets?”
“Close.” She tried to put the problem into words, looking away from her screen and out the window at George Town, the bustling business center of the island.
Somewhere in the distance, flocks of tourists sunned themselves on Seven Mile Beach. She couldn’t see that or the ocean from here. Someday soon, she would find her own beach, someplace far away from here. Africa came to mind. She’d been there once when she was six. She didn’t remember much of the trip, but it seemed like the kind of place where a person could get lost even in this day and age. On the other hand, Canada had the highest number of doughnut shops per capita—a fact not to be dismissed lightly.
“Going for the elegant design?” Nick was asking.
She bit back a surprised grin. “Yeah.” It was a hacker thing, always going for the route that was more challenging, attacking the problem from its most difficult side, hoping to learn something in the process, hoping you’d need new toys along the way. An “elegant” solution was a thing of pride. Clear, simple design when there wasn’t a single line of code that didn’t belong.
“Too proud to stoop to a kluge?” he baited.
“You bet.” A “kluge” was a fix that came from instinct, something that by logic shouldn’t have worked but did. “Any news on T.?”
They’d been calling Tsernyakov T. The phones were supposed to be one hundred percent secure, but none of them wanted to take any chances.
“Nothing specific, but big money is being moved around in his circles. It might or might not be connected to him. You watch TV?”
The only monitor in her apartment she was interested in belonged to her brand-new laptop. “Did you know that by the time the average American reaches sixty-five, he or she will have watched nine years of television?”
“And yet, it can be useful to stay on top of what’s going on in the world. You should check out the news from time to time.”
She clicked over to the Internet and did. Among all the hurricane warnings, it wasn’t hard to pick out which news item he was referring to.
“Two mines bombed in North Africa, over three hundred dead,” she read the headline out loud, then clicked on it, winced at the picture of bloody body parts among the wreckage. The mines, both foreign owned, had been blown up in simultaneous, timed attacks.
She’d seen disturbing news before, but she’d never been part of it. Now she was involved in something big, something that linked her to an evil man. A man who did things that resulted in pictures like the one she was looking at.
Money was moving around. In his circles.
It was supposed to be her job now to break into those circles, find the money and track it to Tsernyakov.
“You think he was involved in this?” she asked, voicing the question stuck in her throat.
“We don’t know anything yet. But even if he wasn’t in on this one, we think he has something substantial in the works.”
She moved to close the screen, but instead ended up clicking on the More Pictures link. Rubble everywhere, bricks and splintered beams, blood mixing with dust. Her stomach roiled.
The next image was of the families as they picked through the rubble with the police to find their loved ones. A little boy, no more than three, stood to the side, dressed in nothing but a pair of dusty shorts, watching his mother try to roll a large stone covered with blood. His face was streaked with dust and tears, his hands stained with blood. His father’s? He looked lost and frightened, trying to make sense of the macabre scene around him.
While she played with elegant solutions, people died.
She sat there and stared at the screen.
This has nothing to do with me. She looked away, but a moment later her gaze strayed back to the picture again.
She was in over her head. They all were.
She had to get out and away before she got sucked deeper in. Tonight, she would work on her plan all night if she had to and come up with a time line.
But in the meanwhile…She could at least try harder, pointing the rest of the women into the right direction before she left.
Her hacking had never had stakes before. She’d done it for the challenge, for the intellectual stimulation she couldn’t get at work. She’d done it as much for the enjoyment of the process as for the end result and the bragging rights. But this time, the game was dead serious.
“Okay,” she said, ashamed suddenly that she hadn’t grasped the bottom line before, that she’d been wasting time. “I’ll find a kluge.”
She threw herself into the work as soon as they hung up, focused on the problem and let her mind wander, got into the state where instincts sharpened and solutions floated out of the ether. Her fingers moved on the keyboard without the lines of code consciously appearing in her brain first.
Two hours later,
she was in.
“Yes.” She pushed her chair back and grinned from ear to ear as she stood to stretch her legs, which had fallen asleep.
Sam looked up from her work at the reception desk that sprawled in the middle of the floor space outside Carly’s office. She drew up a black eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. She was growing her hair out—no more spikes—and limiting the number of eyebrow rings in an effort to look more professional, but drew the line at giving up black for clothing.
Gina and Anita were talking in front of Anita’s office. When had they got back from lunch?
“Progress is being made,” Carly told Sam and sat back down.
Sam would have made a willing accomplice in skipping out—she’d hinted as much on their first day on the island. The government was no friend of hers either. She saw no point in risking her life for it. Carly watched her for a moment. Better not go that way. She worked alone. She preferred for her failure or success to depend on only her. So Sam could come in handy with her car-boosting skills. So what? Even without that, Carly was smart enough to figure a way out.
She turned back to her PC, took the UNIX server in hand and made herself root, which gave her access to just about everything. Bingo. She was now all-seeing and all-powerful. She scrolled through the various folders, identified the accounts of the company heads, then went to work on trolling through the gigabytes of data to find what she was looking for, lists of clients and movements of money.
Peter Alexeev.
The name jumped out at her from among the others. It was on the FBI’s list of people with possible ties to Tsernyakov. She e-mailed the information to Nick and the other women, cautiously excited. Alexeev could be the very thing they were looking for—a connection to the man they wanted. They all had to keep an eye out for his name, pay attention if they came in contact with him in any way.
Since she had the list of names she wanted—one in highlights now—next she went into the financial files. Anita was into movements of money. She could analyze later for clues whatever data Carly would find.
And she found quite a bit, took her time to make sure she didn’t miss anything.
“Our four o’clock client is here.” Anita was standing in the doorway. “Can you come over for a quick introduction?”
Carly looked up and had to blink a few times to bring her into focus. Her eyes were getting tired from staring at the screen all day. She needed a break anyway. “Coming.” She stood and followed Anita back to her office, to the man waiting there.
“Mr. Zener, let me introduce Carly Jones, our computer expert.”
Since Anita was the only one among the four women with management experience—she’d been vice president of accounting for a large firm before she’d run off with the money, which she still vehemently denied—she was the acting boss at Savall, the main contact for their clients.
“Nice to meet you,” Carly said as the man stood.
They had to keep working on their cover as hard as they worked on their real mission. It was part of the job.
“I’m looking forward to working with you, Miss Jones.”
He was in his early forties, dark hair, dark eyes, great smile. Nick had warned them to be careful with anyone they came in contact with. They would never know which client might become a connection to Tsernyakov, whether brought in by their legal business or the other one. She tried to figure out what kind of man Zener was.
He caught her watching and gave her a slow smile. “Will you be helping me with purchasing the IT equipment as well?” His voice was warm.
“Absolutely,” she said. The only thing that topped going on a computer shopping spree was going on a computer shopping spree with someone else’s credit card. “We can schedule a meeting to discuss your goals for your new company and I will put together a list that fits your budget.”
“That would be great. I already leased an office. We’ll have the space ready by the first of October.”
Savall, Ltd. offered everything a start-up company needed on the island. They set up the business. All the owner had to do was to bring his employees in.
They chatted for another half hour before Zener left, holding Carly’s hand an extra second or two longer than necessary with his goodbye handshake. Was he interested, or was he suspicious?
“So, like, is this all legit? I mean, when we catch T. and book out of here, will these people lose their money and businesses?” Sam asked from behind her desk, then looked down. “Probably a stupid question.”
“Not at all,” Anita rushed to say. “I wondered the same thing when Brant first told us about the plan. But all we do is consult here. We find the right building for our clients’ businesses, but the lease is in their name. We find the right employees for them, but those will be their employees. We suggest the best type of computer system they should invest in, but it will be all theirs. They pay us for giving advice. We are consultants. If they need more advice about their business after we’re gone, they can go to another firm and get it. While we’re here, they’re getting their money’s worth.”
When Carly got back to her desk, an e-mail was waiting from Nick. He was going after Alexeev, trying to get a location on him so the women could figure out a way to get close to the man. Sounded like a plan.
She wasn’t going to sit around waiting in the meantime. The more leads she turned up the better their chances were for success. Other companies were waiting, firewalls beckoning to be breached.
Carly copied all the files she thought might be useful from the server she’d cracked then covered her tracks. When she was done, she sent the financial files to Anita, interrupted by her grumbling stomach and the fact that the glare of the screen was beginning to bother her eyes. Her office was dark. So was everything outside it.
She glanced at the time on the bottom right of her screen—10:30 p.m. She vaguely remembered the others leaving. That must have been hours ago.
A thick wad of printouts collected on the printer. She picked them up. Might as well look them over on the couch at home. She could brainstorm some queries to run on the data she’d got.
She grabbed her water bottle, but found it empty and tossed it in the trash. After she locked up the place, she took the elevator down. The office building seemed deserted. After six years with scant privacy, she savored every minute of solitude.
She stepped out of the elevator in the lobby and nodded to the sole night guard by the reception desk, making a point to be nice and act normal no matter how much his gray uniform reminded her of the prison guards.
“Good night, madam,” the man said.
The word madam made her smile. Sure sounded better than convict.
“Good night,” she said and stepped out to the street that was just slightly less busy than during the day. Tourists didn’t come to a tropical paradise to sleep. A number of nightclubs speckled the street, several fantastic restaurants, the balmy night perfect for walking around and taking it all in. She drew a deep breath and looked up at the stars.
She was out. Free. The thought still sneaked up on her a few times a day and each time it made her feel light-headed.
The air was warm and thick, smooth like silk on her skin. Coconut palms edged the street underplanted with a plethora of exotic shrubs in breathtaking bloom. The island had its own personality that pulsed with carefree life—even the city and its business district. Everything definitely worked on “island time.” People looked happy and relaxed, nobody seemed to be in a hurry. Most everyone here was on vacation. She liked that a lot. Could her life be like this someday? Easy and relaxed?
Would she become bored eventually if it were?
She walked by the café, chock-full, not a single table free inside or on the terrace. Someday she would be like the people around the tables—not a care in the world, lingering. Her stomach grumbled at the smell of food that wafted in the air from the al fresco seating. She could go home and grab something from the fridge, get some food into her system long before she wo
uld have been served here.
One of the waiters smiled at her as she passed by. Everyone always seemed to be smiling on the island.
A few buildings down, a panhandler leaned forward from a doorway. She dug through her pocket and dropped some change into his cup.
“God bless you, miss.”
She’d only seen one other beggar since they’d arrived. Maybe the government took care of the disenfranchised, or maybe the police kept them away from the tourist areas, not wanting them to mar the image of carefree vacation paradise.
When her stomach growled, she picked up the pace. She could throw something together when she got home and do some more research on possible locations to “retire to” while she ate.
She turned the corner to a side street that was all but deserted, passed a couple of doctors’ offices—closed for the day—a pharmacy and the post office, her mind on what she had in her fridge. Lots of fruit, cheese, leftover spaghetti and meatballs. A black pickup at the end of the street pulled away from the curb just as she stepped off the sidewalk. She could grate cheese on the spaghetti, bake it in the oven and make a fruit salad to go with it. Before she’d gone to prison, she hadn’t given a thought to cooking. Now she relished doing things on her own, making choices. No matter what happened, she would never go back behind bars again.
When the engine revved, loud and aggressive, she looked up, expecting to see teenagers fooling around. But the man behind the wheel was a grown-up, the expression on his face hard and focused. The pickup shot down the middle of the street. He seemed to be looking straight at her. Didn’t he see her?
She froze, unable to decide whether to jump forward or back, still expecting the man to brake. When she realized it wasn’t going to happen, she lunged forward. The pickup adjusted its course.
Oh, God. Hot panic sliced into her. He was aiming at her. And she was alone in the night with no place to go.