Cyber Genius (25 page)

I snapped the phone off and finished munching my breakfast.
Threats were the only way to get through Graham’s paranoid fixations.

Let Sean have him
, he messaged
back.

OK, so he was furious with Sean and didn’t want to hear my
musical voice at this hour. Got it. I could rearrange Graham’s head if I had
time, but I didn’t. Family first. I called Sean and left a message saying I was
sending Tudor his way and to have a computer ready. Then I faced the puzzle
that was our friendly policemen in the bushes.

“Call in a murder on the corner?” Tudor suggested. “Wouldn’t
they be first on the scene?”

“And when they find no murder and trace the call and arrest
you for filing a false report, how will you get back to school?”

I called Nick in the house. “Tell the cops with the warrant where
the bodies are buried so we can get out of here.”

He chuckled. I heard him shut a door. “I’m about to sashay
to work and leave the blue boys with Mallard. They’re singularly unimpressed
with the lack of evidence that Graham exists, and they really don’t like that
they can’t get into your computer.”

“And they’d better have a good reason for searching or
impounding it,” I said firmly. “Or we’re calling our lawyers. Not that the
drive there has anything except my client files, but it’s the principle of the
thing. The guys crouching in the bushes probably need coffee about now. What
can we arrange?”

“Dogs or donuts,” he suggested.

“Or both. I got it. Tudor and I will go exploring shortly.
You may as well go on to work.”

“Don’t do anything I would do,” he said cheerfully.

Nick didn’t give me all that protective crap that Graham
shouted. Nick and I had spent our childhoods creating diversions. He knew I
could handle myself. Pity Graham didn’t respect my brain.

Well, maybe he feared what my warped brain was capable of.
He’s not dumb.

I called a local dog walker and offered big bribes via my
anonymous Paypal account. That was going on my expense report. Then I ordered a
donut delivery to our front door. Mallard could provide the coffee.

The dog walker came through with flying colors.

Dogs big enough to yank leashes out of their walkers hands
are a noisy and sometimes dangerous nuisance. Not long after my PayPal
transfer,
oops
, the pack followed a
cat and escaped their handler. They ran howling and yapping into the bushes
surrounding the garage—where our men in blue were hiding.

I admired the chaos from the monitor—pit bulls and poodles,
nice.

On another monitor, we watched Mallard stoically open the
back gate to allow the dogs in so the cops could herd them where their tearful
handler could catch them.

While Mallard was passing out coffee and donut rewards,
Tudor and I slipped out the side door and moseyed on down to the Metro. At
least this time, I had my army jacket, although I’d slept in the clothes I was
wearing.

On Massachusetts, I watched with wary interest as all around
us, men in expensive suits frowned at their newspapers or fancy tech. Some had
already taken to shouting into their phones.

I had a nasty notion that the stock market had started its
plunge. The FBI would camp on our doorstep until they found Tudor and/or Graham.
I needed to turn their heads in the right direction—pronto.

I took Tudor down to Sean’s newly-remodeled newspaper
office. Thanks to Patra’s last little escapade with Top Hat’s benevolent
mobsters, half the offices had been burned or waterlogged a few weeks back.

The new tile and fresh paint had improved the décor
considerably, I decided, as we took the elevator up. Sean had left a message
giving us entrance under our Patty and Paul Pasko aliases. I wasn’t about to
give Tudor’s name to a bunch of nosy reporters.

A secretary installed him in an office with a new computer.
I admired the layout of shiny new machines in the cubicle farm and asked if
anyone was beta testing MacroWare.

The secretary gestured toward a guy taking apart one of the
desktops. “Just that one. He reports on new software.”

No cookie-eating monsters or spy holes in here, then. I
approved their tech guy’s excess of caution.

Deciding I’d left Tudor in safe hands, I set out to develop
a clothing stash for the next few days. For years I’d lived without phones and
credit cards. I didn’t have a driver’s license and my phone isn’t under my
name. Family had ended my hiding months ago, but I still didn’t like the world
knowing where to find me. I was desperately trying not to be my rootless mother,
but old habits die hard.

I took a membership at the Y. That gained me a locker and a
shower. I found a thrift store—nowhere as upscale as the nifty consignment
shops in our part of town but sufficient for a boring business suit. I stocked
up on used walking shoes and a few basic no-iron clothing items that I carried
out of the thrift store in a vinyl gym bag which would fit neatly in my new
locker. I wasn’t wasting money on hotel rooms as Graham was doing.

I glanced longingly at the boxing bags in the gym at the Y.
I’d love to have a little attitude adjustment time, but the week was almost
half over, and I had to get Tudor back to school. I resisted. I showered, put
on my business suit, transferred some of my weapons from my army jacket to my
attaché, locked up the rest of my clothes, and headed for Goldrich
headquarters.

High finance, as I’ve mentioned, was not exactly my forte. I’d
never had money, a mortgage, or a loan of any kind. Mutual funds pushed my
limit and worrying about them gave me ulcers.

I recognized that experience divided the haves from the
have-nots, and I vowed some day to educate myself about the money I’d never
had.

I had learned that in my research that Goldrich was an
enormous mortgage company right on the top of the list of companies the banking
committees were investigating. Goldrich, along with several mega-banks and
investment firms, also had a huge political lobby. Our congress-critters were
stepping delicately as they discussed new regulations on fraud in a wealthy,
powerful industry. Whether or not Goldrich was taking advantage of the spyhole
in the government operating systems, I had no way of knowing, but two and two
normally make four, so my calculated guess was that they’d take any and all
information offered.

The fact that every single Macro exec and their families
used Goldrich for their mortgages yelled collusion to me. I’d already seen how MacroWare
execs traded favors. Bob Stark and Hilda owned controlling shares of Goldrich. That
said they had a lot of influence on the banking front as well as the software
level.

Adolph and Trey in their expensive houses were already high
on my suspect list. Bribery by mortgage was innovative but not unthinkable.
Murder for cover-up was logical, no matter how I disliked the thought.

Ana doesn’t get a mortgage

A few weeks ago, Patra had nearly got herself killed by
infiltrating a media conglomerate’s office. Unlike me, she actually had
credentials to land the job. Given my GED and lack of college degree, I doubted
that my resume would get past the trash basket at Goldrich, but a job wasn’t my
real goal.

Carrying my attaché, wearing a dowdy black business suit and
an ugly three-quarter wool coat found at the thrift store, I entered the
glass-walled headquarters of Goldrich Mortgage a little after noon. I’d texted
Graham and Tudor to let them know where I was. Both ignored me. I figured they
had some heavy crap on their hands and didn’t have time.

I’m a loner. I didn’t need anyone’s approval. But I wanted
to have sex again in this lifetime, so I tried to stay alive and somewhat on Graham’s
good side. I approached Goldrich headquarters warily.

Unlike many city offices, the mortgage company apparently
liked to make the public feel welcome to walk in off the street. They
apparently owned the building and had no off-putting security sitting at a
barren desk in an empty foyer, keeping people out. I entered what appeared to
be a busy office, with business suits striding briskly through the foyer and
disappearing down corridors.

I introduced myself at the receptionist’s desk and requested
the head of Human Resources, a fellow I’d found on the internet. She asked if I
had an appointment.

“Yes, of course,” I lied through my pearly white teeth. It’s
easy to lie when you know no shame.

She tried to look up the Patty Pasko name I gave her. After
studying her computer with some consternation, she made a phone call.

With interest, I observed the suits behind her rushing
around more frantically, frowning and talking into their phones, just like the
suits on the street.

How fast was the stock market dropping? I knew the
possibility of losing all our money was giving
me
failure of the heart, but what did the stock market mean to
mortgage companies? Bad vibes were pulsating so loudly through the office that
even insensitive me could feel the tension.

The receptionist apparently wasn’t getting any answer to her
calls. Welcome to my life, I thought wryly. But this time, I applauded the lack
of response. She was forced to apologize and step away from her desk to seek
higher-ups. She took the corridor on my right.

Ever a proponent of seizing opportunity, I immediately
strolled down the opposite hall.

A scream from a back office sent me running—not easily done
in pumps and straight skirt.

“My files are gone! All my files are gone!” a blond woman
wearing a shiny gold necklace screeched. “I’ve lost
everything
!”

“That’s not possible.” An African-American man in an
expensive suit pushed her aside and began tapping at her keyboard. “I need that
profile to close this deal.”

“It was there! I had it all done last night, but they’re all
gone!” The blonde’s decibel levels were reaching hysterical.

Realizing no one was about to die, I shamelessly
eavesdropped as curses rang from another cubicle and shouts of fury echoed from
down the hall.

This wasn’t precisely how I’d intended to meet Goldrich’s
bigwigs, but as already proven, I’m an opportunist. I calmly walked in and
shoved aside the black guy and the blonde and shut down the computer.

“This was what I was trying to warn management about. But
would they listen?
Nooooo
. Shut down
all your computers,
now,
” I ordered
in a voice of authority. “The virus attached to the spyhole will destroy everything
in your hard drives if you don’t.”

I was pretty sure I wasn’t lying. What I was doing was
concealing a boatload of alarm—because the MacroWare beta-spyhole was designed
for reading and manipulating files, not destroying them wholesale. After
Tudor’s mini-disaster, the state department’s website had gone back up. I assumed
that was a sign that his monster hadn’t gone too far. But if all Goldrich’s
servers were going down...

Something had crawled through that hole bent on destruction.
I prayed it wasn’t Tudor’s monster.

If a destructive virus had corrupted dozens of very busy
government computers, and the spyhole allowed it to escape, how long before it
actually ate the internet? That possibility savaged a hole right through
my
middle.

I had this horrific vision of our Swiss bank account
disappearing in a swirl of crashing computer bytes while our mutual funds sank
to the bottom of the sea. Staring at poverty again terrified me, and gave me
some understanding of the frantic suits rushing down the halls.

Following my example, the black managerial-sort started down
one side of the hall, ordering computers shut down, while I worked the other
side. Wide-eyed horror was everywhere, not helping my panic much. The air
turned blue with foul language in different accents. I understood and
sympathized with their alarm. If I was about to lose all my hard work, I’d be a
screaming meemie about now too.

Fortunately, my valuable files were in my attaché case. Even
if the cloud collapsed, I had my work intact. I knew how to start over. I just
didn’t
want
to.

A contingent of Italian suits and loafers emerged from a
conference room at the end of the hall. The wearers of said suits looked
mean—as in
, I’m going to kill someone
mean.
And deservedly so, if my fears were correct. I was thinking this was not a good
time to confront the top brass.

I peered around an office door and tried to identify the
hornets. To my shock, I was pretty certain one of them was Brian Livingston,
the manager of the hotel in the center of our little controversy. He looked as
if he was about to be taken out and hanged.

Strangely, instead of the usual conservative American flag
pin in his lapel, he wore a tiny rose. Where had I seen a rose pin lately?

That’s when I spotted Senator Paul Rose and nearly gagged at
the pin’s symbolism—a rose for Rose. I wanted to spew on their shiny shoes.

But my luck had run out. I noticed a couple of Rose’s
dangerous business buddies in the crowd, looking stone-faced, and my gut
clenched. I’d run into those guys my first few weeks in D.C. They hadn’t
reached the top by being nice men. I frantically began hunting a bolt hole.

Power, wealth, and prestige gave Rose and his Top Hat financiers
free rein to do anything they liked. I was pretty certain their minions had
killed my well-heeled, well-protected grandfather. They were capable of removing
anyone
who got in their way—like
Maggie and my entire family.

Rose had seen me once in full Magda mode. I didn’t know if
he’d recognize me in dowdy business attire, but I wasn’t taking chances.

I darted into a restroom and waited until they’d gone by.

If Paul Rose and his cartel had hotel management
and
Goldrich by the balls—who else did
they have? I was spread too thin. I began texting warnings to everyone I could
think of.