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Still, her concerns hadn’t disappeared entirely. Laura had paged her confirming her eight a.m. on Monday with Eric, and except for reviewing any possible exceptions her team might have found, there was “Nothing—not a bloody thing so far,” Eunae, her section lead reported, when Charli pinged her for an update.
There was nothing else to be done until Charli got the okay to perform a full audit of every account and every transaction in and out of the wire. She could have performed it anyway, but the information involved was ostensibly private and to be read only by the account manager and the client. Without permission from on high, that meant breaking both the terms of her employment—the bonding they’d all been required to take—and the law. That she wouldn’t do—unlike whoever it had been who’d tapped into her system. And that brought her thoughts full circle. Something about the whole scenario with the server up and downs really irked her. Suddenly, Charli realized what she was contemplating. Was she really going to blow off what could be a great weekend to review and search for what she already had her team doing?
Let me check LOLA again, she told herself and quickly belted on a robe, then toweled her head. If she was still going, she had to pick up the car she’d reserved and tomorrow they’d drive out to…Long Island, she decided. It faced south, easily picking up windswells, which became more common in spring. Besides, late March into April meant some dramatic weather changes.
* * *
LOLA SURF SPOT FORECAST
Time Zone XXX Period XXX
Chart Center: Lat XXX Long XXX
Forecast Center: Lat XXX Long XXX
* * *
She leaned over her keyboard and replaced the placeholder X’s on screen with the coordinates of the location she wanted to investigate. LOLA. Variously nicknamed by its users as “lots of lip action” and supposedly by its makers as “lots of linux activity,” LOLA was a proprietary, Web-based program that allowed surfers and seafarers to plug in coordinates and view the specific forecast for that region.
Charli sat before the forecast she had running. If Plum Beach was anything to go by, she mused as she quickly opened another window to cross-reference and query a few other possible locations. A quick check of the local surf reports and Web cams and…it seemed there was another possibility. She zeroed in on it.
The Jersey shore, with its variable swell, wind, and weather—fifty-degree water in July but seventy-five degree air in January—showed some promise. There were eighty known surf spots in New Jersey, one hundred and nine known ones on Long Island and…she enlarged the weather tracker to get a better look. No. There was a system collecting farther north and that system was tracking toward…she scanned through. Fire Island. Kismet. If they left early in the morning and took the ferry over, they could get a full day in, and if the day ended up as ripping as the forecast promised it would, they could decide if they’d stay overnight either on the drive, or at the end of the day.
She popped open another window to query available locations, then hesitated a moment over the keyboard. What was she doing? She’d just e-mailed Anna to tell her she wasn’t going and besides, the last time they’d actually stayed together—
Charli dismissed the thought and forced away the visceral wash of memory. They’d be all right, just fine, she assured herself. They worked together, they still hung out together, there were no hard feelings about last night, right?
That caught her short: Should there be? Did she herself, Charli, really wish it had gone differently? She’d already keyed the query and she bit her lip as she thought about it, really thought about it for the first time.
For whatever reason, the image and memory of Raven, beautiful, talented, and driven with vision, an artist with a hard-core business sense, a feel for how the world worked in her field, rose in her mind. Raven, she smiled ruefully to herself, was a glorious mistake.
Charli had met the visual artist in the dot-com next door, where Raven worked in graphics, when they’d run into each other several times in the halls, then again at one of the parties thrown by a client their companies shared.
The relationship itself had started out nicely, just enough friendly, just enough heat, and Raven, with her long fall of dark, dark hair and sharp blue eyes that seemed to glow when she spoke about her work, enjoyed Charli’s approach to everything. But that had been the problem too, eventually. Everything, from food to fucking and so many of the little things in between, had ended up becoming Charli’s decision, and Charli didn’t have the time, the energy, or the desire to run anyone’s life besides her own.
She and Raven had never argued, nor had they ever disagreed, about anything, and that was what had ultimately made it end. There was no spark, no anything. Nothing. That’s what had come between them, a growing nothing. Raven didn’t challenge her, didn’t contest her, had never noticed, not once, not even in their closest moments, that there were times that Charli wanted, needed—Christ!
The crawling discomfort that flooded her skin made her slam her hand down on the desktop as she stood, then walked away from it. She strode with deliberate, measured steps through the apartment into her bedroom in an attempt to force one physical sensation to replace another. I’ve got to get this out of my system, she told herself firmly as she reached into her closet.
Charli thought as objectively as she could about Anna as she dressed. She liked her, they got along, and there was no denying she found her very attractive as a person, as a woman. They worked well together, they surfed well together, and she couldn’t—nor did she want to—deny how much she’d enjoyed the taste and touch of Anna’s tawny skin, smooth, slick, soaked in salt and sweat as they moved together. Then there had been that time, the “almost” that Charli knew was the real reason she’d headed out for the train back to NYC.
It wasn’t because Anna couldn’t affect her, but because she could, she did, enough to make a voice from the buried past echo through her head, a voice that made her question what her real motives were. She put that thought with its unwelcome memory and voice away so she could continue to think clearly, without a distracting overlay of emotion. Her hands moved automatically as she drew up her slacks, the dark wool and viscose mix cool and fluid, a comfortable flow against her legs.
Okay, so Anna was different, Charli could admit that. She enjoyed her company, her mind, and, as she tucked her blouse below her waistband, silk smooth beneath her fingertips, she smiled to herself at the memory that played for her.
Her hands closed the zipper and set the flat-fit hooks as she checked the drape in the mirror, but what she saw was the way Anna’s body leaned and curved and twisted on her board to master the wave. That same fluid grace that had moved under and with her those nights they’d spent together.
All right, too. She wanted. She could admit that as well, and had Kevin not—she huffed one long sigh as she moved through the hallway back toward her desk. It wasn’t Kevin’s fault, she acknowledged with a twinge of something deeper than regret, it was someone else’s, it was her own, and honestly, what she really needed to do was—
The soft ping that sounded as she neared her laptop told her the results had been tabulated and she read through them. Nice, very nice, she considered when she found a location she thought would suit, not more than fifty yards from the beach she figured they’d hit. Charli hesitated, fingers over the keyboard and ready to plug in her credit card numbers as she debated her options.
No one, no company officer, member of the board, not a single member of the accounting team, no client, had complained officially or unofficially to the company or to her team, as far as she could tell.
There had been no hue and cry about theft, of funds or identities, and with the exception of the single crash, there were no residual issues, not even a hiccup. No malware had infected the system, there were no operational delays or information drops—except for the kickover that had wiped the record of inbound and outbound chatter.
“Something’s very wrong,” she said to her screen as
she toggled to another program and opened the window that would allow her to watch traffic flow along the main branch of the network. “This doesn’t make sense.”
Charli reviewed what she knew. Everything seemed fine, but why select such specific, quarterly transfer dates? If the intent was to in effect say “knock-knock—can’t keep me out,” then why was there no calling card, no signature of some sort?
Charli knew how hackers worked and thought, since she was in essence one herself. Hackers were the good guys, they did nothing bad, just had some logical fun, puzzles really, but it was the crackers that gave them all a bad name.
A few idiot journalists who knew nothing about technology but were rushed with deadlines to report about “the cyber frontier” couldn’t be bothered to differentiate, and now everyone was tarred with the same brush of bad intent.
Thing was, Charli considered, white or black hat, when hackers and crackers invaded systems for good or for ill, they wanted bragging rights. It was electronic bravado, machismo, who had the biggest brain and the baddest code. And there was none of that here, at least not in terms of signatures, which meant, as far as she was concerned, that this wasn’t ordinary hacking.
Criminal activity left its own mark. Stolen money was almost always immediately obvious, and identity theft became apparent in very short order—but if that had been part of the purpose, then why had nothing shown up in that arena within the last three months since the system had first been hit?
No. She could see what it obviously wasn’t, and quite clearly what it was: planned, purposeful, directed. She simply didn’t know at what—yet.
What she did know was that she’d never run before, not from anything, especially things that puzzled or challenged her. Everything she did was about tackling things that seemed impossible, insurmountable, from pushing the technology envelope, to challenging the ocean.
When Anna called, maybe she’d have her come over, maybe they’d go out and grab a bite, but either way, Charli decided, she was going into the office in the morning.
Satisfied, she closed the now nonessential windows and pulled out a set of disks: she had a burned copy of every code that ran on her system, and she’d start there.
The program is running. Exit anyway? (y or n)
Fail-Safe
* * *
BB84 Secure Session - - Loss 0
* * *
18:12:02 DsrtFx: you do it?
18:12:03 ChknMan: yes.
18:12:04 DsrtFx: they’ll move soon – don’t worry
18:12:05 DsrtFx: we’ll get her out.
18:12:06
18:12:07 DsrtFx: she’ll go. The other one’s done.
18:12:08
18:12:09 ChknMan: you sure?
18:12:10
18:12:11 DsrtFx: you got your end, I got mine
18:12:12
18:12:13 DsrtFx: 41°102593N, 72°112253W
18:12:14 DsrtFx: 13:00 Sunday. Get to Greenpoint
18:13:15 DsrtFx: I’ll escort the rest of way
18:13:16
18:13:17 ChknMan: ok
* * *
BB84 Secure Session TERMINATED
* * *
*
Ben Cooper’s hands shook. They shook so badly that it took him a few seconds to realize the vibration came from somewhere behind his navel and spread downward through his thighs as well as upward to his chest before it branched out to his hands as he stared at the closed connection through the numbness that pressed against his temples.
He’d done it, he’d actually done it. Ben had been couriered a key, and that key he’d been told would fit a locker at Port Authority terminal. After he gave the junkie with his well-maintained bicycle a few bucks for his next fix, he followed instructions.
It took him fifteen minutes to get from his apartment to Port Authority, and once there, he found the locker he’d been directed to, then took the cell phone out from within it. Ben dialed the number he’d been told to and spoke the script he’d been given, the one he’d rehearsed over and over in his mind on the subway ride over. Afterward, he threw the phone into the nearest trash can.
It was possible for Ben to be honest with himself to a degree, and for the moment, he was. He felt horrible about seeing Charli blamed for something she didn’t do, and he simply couldn’t take it, the crawling guilt that tunneled under his skin, anymore. He’d called John, aka Desert Fox, to warn him about the audit she had requested and was almost positive she’d receive a go-ahead on—if, he reminded himself, she wasn’t already doing it on her own, manually.
He certainly didn’t put it past her; Charli truly did bleed to lead and was more than likely to apologize later—smile shining in her eyes because she knew she was right, she always was—than to ask for permission.
Still, though, it was a move neither he nor John had anticipated. Ben wasn’t entirely certain how he’d accomplished it; he’d never been a great speaker, had always found it easier to work with code and systems, to communicate his ideas through his actions, but somehow, he’d found a way. This morning, he’d managed to convince the man he’d met online through a chat group over a year ago that Charli was vital, could be, would be, a valuable asset to them.
Within half an hour of that conversation, John with his inside contacts and his rapid-fire planning had scripted Ben’s phone call, had changed the fall guy from Charli to someone else. Their last exchange confirmed this and of course, Ben knew exactly who it was: he’d suggested the substitute.
He drew a still-shaky breath. He felt as if he’d somehow always known it would come down to this, known it since the first time Anna Pendleton had been brought into the original dot-com group.
Most tech jobs were what were commonly referred to as sausage fests: all dicks, no tits, as the guys said. Ben had assumed that after the initial “it’s-great-to-see-another-female-’round-here-besides-the-receptionist” novelty had worn off, Anna would—very much like Charli had—become one of the guys. Not that all of the guys, especially the ones in graphics, he amended with a little snort, were “manly men.” Heck, almost none of them were by the stupid cultural standard, the one that rewarded brawn over brains, but still, there was that thing, a bonding of sorts, a core similarity they all shared.
Charli had proven she was one of them and Ben knew, perhaps better than most in some ways, that it had been pure ability and skill that had landed her in the positions she’d occupied. Any grumbling or resentment from the coder troops in those first few days was quickly silenced by the evidence—Charli worked hard, played harder, and took care of her team; she was great to work with, and even better to work for.
Still, even though she showed no favoritism once she’d become team lead, there was an indefinable something different in how Charli related to Anna as opposed to everyone else, and while Anna had indeed become one of the guys, there was still something different in the way Anna behaved around Charli. Ben didn’t know at all how to describe it, but he certainly knew it when he saw it.
This morning, after he’d finally delayed as long as he’d been able to—after all, there was quite a bit of his own work to do—and brought the printouts to Charli’s office, he’d frozen, then forced himself to calm when he’d seen the way Anna gazed at and stood so close to Charli.
They’d been talking about him and he’d been grateful for it because it gave him a few moments to choke back, to choke down the rage, the sense of invasion that mixed with the fiery pulse he’d felt thud in his neck and the heated punch to his groin when he’d seen it, their bodily proximity, the way they seemed to align, fit to each other, even with the slight space between them.
If he’d been better at self-examination, he’d have caught himself and understood the true reason that led his reaction, and if he didn’t proudly carry the aura of the perpetually persecuted, he might have perhaps even taken a moment to respond to their conversation, perhaps explain his ideas about the importance of natural treatment of the body, the toxin buildup and the resulting damage
from what people considered to be routine parts of their day. Not that he hadn’t held forth on that subject before, when they’d all worked in the Puck building.
Instead, something about Anna’s smile, smirk really, when she’d glanced up at him—so damned arrogant and somehow so damned smug—he knew what she was saying, what she meant. She might as well have yelled it at him, with her “I’m here, right here next to her, and you’re all the way over there. What are you gonna do about it?” damned look. It made him so mad…He could barely breathe, never mind speak.
To make matters even worse for him, it had thrown him back to the days before they’d worn collars and suits, to one of the last peer code reviews the group held before the company had been bought out, and it had been his project chosen for the weekly highlight and discussion.
They needed a new way of allowing customers to view their accounts and their recent activity that was secure, but still end-user friendly, and without compromising their existing security and log-on requirements, he’d told the assembled group as he prepared the laptop to send its display. This is what I gave ’em. A quick keystroke put the code—exactly as he’d written it—on screen before them, and Ben remembered pinching his lips in the hollow of his fist, mouth tucked and tight in the circle of his thumb and forefinger, holding back the smile that so wanted to escape. It was a great joke, and he’d known the team would get it.
There’d been silence for a few seconds, as his audience read, and took the time to understand and then…
While the crew had hooted and hollered and there had been all-over admiration for the functional elegance of his code and even Charli had laughed at first, every smile had disappeared with hers when she was the first to ask, then answer as she realized, “Holy shit…this code is live? Coop—my office—now!”