by Dale Mayer
He searched her gaze for a long moment, then as if satisfied, he turned back to Rhodes. “So catch me up on your ops over the last year,” he said.
Sienna sat quietly and listened to the two men share the events they’d gone through over the past twelve months. She wanted to hear as much as she could, but at the same time, she had work to do. Sienna stood up, patted her brother on the shoulder and said, “I’m not sure when you’re leaving, but I have to get back to the office.”
He reached out and caught her hand and said, “I leave in the morning.”
She bent down, kissed him on the cheek and gave him a quick hug. She stepped away and tossed back, “I’ll let you two old ladies sit here and gossip.” She smiled at Alfred as she filled up her coffee cup, then headed to the office.
She still didn’t understand everything that went on at Legendary Security, but she was starting to. Her first few days here had been hairy, but it had given her an interesting insight. Initially it had been unnerving, wondering what she had gotten herself into and with whom, but then she quickly realized how much and how well they took care of not just her but the entire place.
And how similar they all were to her brothers.
There was a certain freedom in being here. In an odd way she hadn’t been free for a long time. She’d also met a kindred spirit here—Katina, Merk’s partner, who was also an accountant. Not a programmer like Sienna was, but still Katina understood the financial world. And she’d been to hell and back herself.
In Sienna’s case it wasn’t her job that had done her in, but the people around her. She’d worked for an independent contractor looking into a series of banking irregularities inside the programming, hackers stealing within the system. Very detailed work. And a special niche career.
She found what she thought was proof and handed it over but hadn’t realized that her lover was part of the same criminal organization. When things had blown up, and the dust had settled, she’d been blamed for all kinds of things, like sleeping with the enemy. She’d lost everything, including her good name.
She’d walked away and started fresh.
Now nobody knew who she was, what she’d done, and where she’d gone. She told Jarrod some of it, but outside of it being a bad deal, there was no going back.
In fact, compared to what Lissa and Katina had been through, Sienna’s life was bland and boring. Sure, she’d lost her job and had been betrayed by her lover, and was pretty damn sure her boss had been involved in the whole deal too, but all that was mild when compared to their lives.
Back in the office she settled down at her desk, pulled out her cell and checked the time. She was surprised it was so late already. She buckled down and started on the bookkeeping.
Compared to what she used to do, this was incredibly simple. But the mindlessness of it was also a joy. She didn’t have to study lines of endless code or worry and fret over patterns she could see but not yet understand. She was fine not having to dig and follow trails and puzzles in order to ferret out the information needed. No subterfuge was here, and that alone was a relief. When her phone rang an hour later, she didn’t think anything of it. She picked it up and answered, “Hello?”
“Sienna?”
“Yes, who’s this?
“Bullard.”
She sat back with a grin. “Hey, Bullard. Normally you don’t call me directly.”
“Nope, I don’t. But this time I have a question for you.”
“What’s up?” She tossed down her pencil, leaning back in her chair. She liked Bullard, from the little bit she’d seen of him. He planned on coming back soon. She looked forward to that.
“You used to troubleshoot financial systems—banking software, accounting discrepancies—didn’t you?” His voice gentled. “I remember Levi mentioning something like that.”
She frowned. “I used to do something like that,” she said. “I don’t anymore.”
“Any reason why?”
“Yeah, it didn’t work out so well,” she said in a dry tone. “Sometimes keeping your nose clean is better than digging for dirt.”
He gave a bellowing laugh. “So true. But the business we’re in doesn’t keep our noses very clean. If I sent you some files, could you tell me where they’re from?”
“Not necessarily,” she said with a frown. “What type of files? And what do they have to do with my skills?”
“It’s a little bit confusing. A friend, part owner of an African bank in Ghana, has found some discrepancies in their accounting. He has someone in mind who could be responsible, only that employee’s son has worked with them for about a year as well, and both family members make up their IT department, doing all the upgrades and tweaks to the banking software. So he’s reticent to have those guys look at the problem in case they are involved. He sent us access to the back end and several sheets found in the old man’s desk. Only my computer specialist isn’t accessible, and we aren’t making heads or tails out of this.”
In spite of herself she was intrigued. Impulsively she said, “Feel free to email them to me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll help.”
“Done,” he said triumphantly.
She rolled her eyebrows as she realized the email sat in her inbox, staring at her. “Is this something Levi knows about?”
“He’s been giving me a hand on this case.”
She nodded. “In that case, I’ll look.”
“Can you do that while I’m on the line?” he asked hopefully.
She double-clicked on the email and then opened the attachment. Instantly the lines of code appeared. She leaned forward to study it. “Do I get any contextual reference?” she said with a laugh. “This means nothing with so little.”
“Money, drugs, and/or weapons,” he said succinctly. “We think money is siphoned from a bank here in Africa, then transferred into a US account, where it’s used for drug deals and buying weapons—to ship possibly back over here again. The trail led to Dallas.”
“Oh.” She winced.
She studied the figures, rapidly scanning the columns, her mind quickly interpreting the data. “Okay, so these are from the back end of a banking program. They are transactions, but very little information is here.”
Silence came first. “Wow. That was fast.”
“Fast but useless,” she said cheerfully. “You need more data than this, a lot more.”
“Did you check the second attachment?”
She quickly opened and scrolled down to see a PDF of spreadsheets, potentially from a ledger book. What he’d given her was just a drop of water in a missing lake of knowledge. She took a couple minutes to assimilate the information, then said, “I need so much more, preferably the program itself.”
“It’s all about the gold standard.”
She returned her attention to the code. “Right, I can see it now.” Indeed, on the last page she found one of the identifying banks, a small regional bank in Ghana. She continued to peruse that line of code. “This is old COBOL code. With a lot of updates …” Her voice petered off as she studied the subsequent lines of code. “Interesting. It’s quite an antiquated system. I’ve seen a lot similar to this, but still wince every time I find some.”
“Wow, again so fast. No wonder Levi hired you.”
“No, he doesn’t really know I can do this type of work.” She laughed. “My skills are not a highly prized skill set in the world of private security companies.”
“You’d be surprised. But for Levi’s company, he’s more interested in security on the human level. Mine on the other hand, is more interested in software security. So, any programmer who can see what and how code has been hacked, … that’s worth a lot.”
She shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it. “Nah, I’m sure your guys would’ve figured this out. I might’ve gotten it in ten minutes, but they would’ve in twenty.”
Bullard laughed. “We’ve had it for hours and had no idea what we were looking at.” He added, “If you find anything else, please
give me a ring back.”
“The snippets aren’t enough if you want me to see exactly what the developer has done,” she said. “I’ll need full access.”
“Not sure that’s possible. My guy sent me several videos of code streaming. I can send that to you. What we’re really looking for is a connection to the spreadsheets and some explanation as to what they mean.” He quickly said good-bye and hung up.
She studied the sheets on the screen but really needed them as a hard copy, so she clicked on the correct icon and pulled them from the printer. She wanted to study the code, but had her own work to finish first.
She settled back to her usual job. She had tons of bookkeeping transactions to enter and then papers to file. By the time she was done, she felt like she’d accomplished something.
Levi stepped into the room as she put away folders. She glanced at him and said, “Bullard called and asked me to look at some code snippets he had for a banking scheme.”
“Good. I told him you might help.”
“I just printed the sheets off, actually.” She pointed to them on the side table. “But they are nothing that I need.”
He looked at them. “He sent them to me too.”
She finished clearing off her desk and said, “I’m putting in a shorter day because Jarrod’s here.”
Levi waved a hand at her. “I don’t care how short your day is. When the work’s done, it’s done.”
She laughed. “In this job the work is never done. There’s always something for tomorrow.” She quickly told Levi what she’d said to Bullard. She liked the way Levi’s eyebrows shot up and how he studied the pages, as if seeing what she said. He’d have to know programming for that. But with Levi, who knew the extent of his knowledge. He might understand a dozen languages—even computer ones.
“Nice.”
Bullard’s email came in just then with more attachments. She quickly opened the first and clicked on the video. Instead code streamed on her monitor. Her gaze danced across letters and numbers she was very familiar with. She opened up the other two, both shorter.
“Interesting.” Levi studied the monitors behind her. “Does the code mean anything to you?”
“Maybe,” she said, her focus intense, all three videos running at the same time.
She sat back and pursed her lips. She could see the transactions running through the code and accounts, but at the moment, it meant nothing to her. At least not yet.
“We’ll be late for Alfred’s dinner if we don’t get going.” She grabbed up the sheets and stacked them on her desk. They would take a lot longer. While the remnants of code still whispered through the back of her brain, she headed to the doorway.
“I’m right with you.” Together they walked downstairs. “Are you okay that Jarrod visits?” Levi asked. “With the two attacks here on the compound, it’s natural for all of us to call family when someone could be in trouble.”
She gave him a shuttered look. “Yet—twice—nobody considered asking me beforehand.”
He grinned. “That’s family. It often takes somebody else to point out what we should’ve done in the first place.”
She rolled her eyes at him, stepped into the dining room and sat down at the table. Jarrod came in with a bunch of the other men, taking a spot beside her. Instantly the room filled with boisterous conversation. Once Alfred carried in platters of food, the conversation slowed down. She caught Rhodes eyeing the roast pork coming his way and smiled. He looked like he planned on having the whole thing.
She glanced around the room, unable to hold in her smile. How lucky that she’d landed here. She could have ended up so many other places. But Ice had been a godsend. Sienna focused on the table and served herself some food—and froze. She slowly raised her head to stare out the window on the far side. There was just something about one of those lines of code, … and now she understood.
With her mind spinning, she realized something else. She’d seen similar entries in one of the classic textbook cases she’d been taught years ago. She pulled out her phone and quickly hit Redial on Bullard’s number.
“It’s Sienna. The program is converting currencies and rounding them up and down. I won’t know for sure unless I have access to the entire system, but at a guess, I’d say the fractional differences were moved to a third account. Fractions of a cent add up damn quick and are almost impossible to trace like this.”
The entire room froze, and maybe she shouldn’t have made the call in the dining room. She lifted her gaze and caught sight of Rhodes. He frowned at her.
But Levi leaned across the table and said in a hard voice, “Sienna, are you sure?”
Slowly, she nodded her head, hearing Bullard’s exclamation on the other end. She answered, “I’m as sure as I can be without having access to the program. But a developer would be doing this. The code is robust but antiquated. A programmer would need to know COBOL and the more modern languages. It’s been heavily upgraded and patched but still based on that system.”
“Why is that?” Rhodes asked.
“Because it’s too expensive for most institutions to change from the original, and as it is robust, it’s a great foundation block. Then, like any old infrastructure, it needs updating, debugging, and constant testing. Myriad third-party products support these issues, but again you need a good developer who understands COBOL in the first place. Or several, depending on the size of the bank, the job done originally, and the maintenance.” She glanced around the table. “Whoever is doing the tweaks on their end, chances are he’s older and looking for a way to retire. And he’s likely been doing this for a long time …” She added, “He’s not making much off the system initially but over time …”
“Oh, very nice,” Bullard said. “I’ll be in touch with the bank and get back to you.”
“Wait,” she cried. “I haven’t looked at the spreadsheets yet. I don’t understand the connection to the code.”
“Maybe there isn’t one, but we’re hoping so.” He chuckled. “After this I’m expecting great things from you.” And just as quickly he was gone.
She groaned. “Great.”
But she got no help from the others. They were too busy grinning at her.
Chapter 2
Sienna woke the next morning tired and achy. Instead of enjoying a peaceful dinner last night, the place had erupted with questions and phone calls. She hadn’t meant to create such a stir, but when she had connected the sequences in her head, she realized she could look at them in a completely different way. And apparently, that made a difference. She still had to study the spreadsheets …
The group had discussed the issue at length even though she’d said, “I could be wrong.”
“But you could also be very right,” Jarrod said, sounding impressed. “I didn’t know that was the kind of work you did.”
“I was doing all kinds.” She smiled at him. “It was fun until it blew up in my face.”
“Time to tell me exactly what went wrong,” Jarrod said in a hard voice.
“It’s over.” She shrugged. “What difference does it make?”
Katina reached across the table and covered her hand. “I’ve been there, and it sucks,” she said. “But it’s much better if these guys know exactly what happened to you in the past.”
Sienna frowned. “It’s just so … embarrassing.” The last thing she wanted was to air her dirty laundry in front of anybody else.
“Give.”
Her brother had always been like that. One to bark out orders and expect her to follow. She glared at him. But his expression never eased. She threw up her hands and said, “Fine, I was part of a criminal investigation into a leg of the Mafia. Hard to believe they’re around, but they are.”
Katina gasped in horror.
“Anyway, while I was looking in the banking transactions to prove they were involved in money laundering, I didn’t realize who and what they were after until finding all the information. And my current boyfriend at that time was actu
ally part of the Mafia family.” She winced. “It all went south. My bosses said I was sleeping with the enemy, that my information was tainted, so the case was thrown out. I lost my job and good name.” She glared at everybody. “Embarrassing enough?”
Jarrod reached over and grabbed her hand, tugging her into his arms for a hug. “You didn’t know who he was. That’s a heavy weight you had on your shoulders.”
When he released her, she said, “Everybody just likes to have a scapegoat. I was it. The stupid thing is, I’m pretty damn sure my boss was part of the same family. I think I was given that job specifically because I was in a position that would compromise the case.”
She fisted both hands and stretched them back out again to make them relax. “But it really makes you reassess who you can trust in this world.”
“And there is not one person at this table who has not already had to reassess that exact same issue,” Jarrod said quietly.
“We were all betrayed by somebody we trusted,” Rhodes said. “Maybe we were foolish to trust in the first place. For some of us, the betrayal was more serious than for others.” Rhodes shook his head. “It’s a hard lesson to learn but better to know.”
“Did you go to the police and report what they did to you?” Katina asked Sienna.
“The police were all over me by that time. I’m lucky I wasn’t charged,” she said in a low voice. “There was talk of it. Only because I gave as much evidence as I could, was I able to walk away. As it is right now, everybody walked, because whatever I found was supposedly tainted.” She lifted her gaze and said, “It was pretty humiliating at the time. I felt so stupid. I had no idea my boyfriend was involved.”
Katina patted her hand. “And it doesn’t matter. That’s all in your past. Time to face forward and forget about him.” She gave a lopsided smile. “These guys are good at helping you do that.” She linked her arm with Merk. “Merk helped me out of my jam.”
“Nobody can help me out of mine,” Sienna said. “It’s done and gone. The aftermath was pretty rough, and the fallout was terrible. I would have kept falling, but Ice found me, and I am very thankful for that,” she admitted. “I couldn’t do anything to undo it, so I just moved forward,” Sienna said. “We’ve all come to crossroads in our lives where what we used to do isn’t what we currently do.” She shrugged. “Honestly, I’m going to enjoy my new life.”