The Warning Sign

by Mia Marlowe

  And he’d managed to prove it.

  ALICE would warn of hackers or any kind of external breach. She was impervious to cyber-attack. But she could be weakened from within. Like a tragic Greek heroine, she held the seeds of her destruction in her own code. Valenti’s use of artificial intelligence to sneak in beneath ALICE’s built-in defenses was deviousness itself.

  And brilliant.

  And lucrative, Harold had realized immediately.

  Valenti expected to be hailed as the latest whistle-blower, maybe even win a Nobel Prize over the debacle. The slightly pudgy, unremarkable MIT brainiac had visions of himself as the savior of democracy as we know it. The day might come when he, or someone equally talented—he wouldn’t consider that someone might be smarter than he—would devise a fool-proof electronic voting system, but that day hadn’t dawned yet.

  Hell of a day for the air conditioning to go out in the building. Fortis sneaked a finger under his tie and loosened his collar.

  He had it all worked out. The incumbent senator Wellesley was lagging in the polls in the wake of a scandal involving an underage intern. Harold was amazed that politicians kept making the same damn mistake and never expected to get caught. The senator, or his people at any rate (plausible deniability had to be maintained, after all) had been only too willing to take Harold Fortis up on his offer to swing the election his way.

  The sagging campaign surely had the money.

  Harold would make sure they had the votes.

  He urged Valenti to set up the system to “fail” naming the senator the winner, just to prove his ‘rabbit hole’ would work, and then sounded him out about making the test a reality. He should have foreseen that Valenti would be the type who couldn’t be bought.

  Damn shame, really, but what else could Harold have done? If Valenti went to the press, it would mean scandal and ruin and prison time.

  And the senator would claim ignorance and walk.

  So it was left to Harold Fortis to contact the only person he could think of to eliminate the threat. Nicholas Garibaldi was willing to “do him a favor.”

  But now that the Feds were sniffing around, it would be Harold’s lily-white ass on the line and no one else’s.

  No further assistance possible.

  The cryptic warning had his hands shaking almost as much as the surprise visit from that FBI agent had yesterday. They were looking into Anthony Valenti’s death and wanted to know if Harold sensed any change in the MIT wizard in the final phone calls he’d received from him.

  After the agent left, Harold had walked 6 blocks from his office and bought a disposable cell phone. Then he called the number he’d memorized and left a frantic message demanding Garibaldi help him tie up the loose ends of Valenti’s death. After all, it was his hit man who screwed the pooch. He ought to make it right.

  No further assistance possible.

  Now he wasn’t sure what to do. Sure, Garibaldi could bow out now. He wasn’t the one who was in up to his armpits. Harold couldn’t even turn state’s evidence against Garibaldi over Valenti’s death without admitting guilt over his plan to steal the election.

  Anyway, if he did that, even if he managed to broker a deal to avoid prison, Garibaldi would see to it Harold didn’t live long enough to spend the senator’s money he’d prudently stashed in an off-shore account. He’d been smart enough to demand half payment now, the rest on election day.

  Now Garibaldi was weaseling out. Since when did a crime boss get so squeamish.

  Sanctimonious bastard.

  “Commissioner Fortis,” his secretary’s voice squawked over the inter-office speaker. “A representative from the Deaf Community is here to speak with you.”

  “I’m busy,” Harold lied. He thumbed through the stack of unread papers on his desk and produced satisfying rustle he hoped carried over the antiquated speaker for his secretary to hear.

  There was a few moments silence as his assistant relayed his message. Her civil-servant monotone droned like a smoke-numbed beehive. Her bored, ‘cross-every-t, dot-every-i’ attitude was enough to dissuade most unwelcome callers, but evidently not this one.

  “She says if you don’t make time to address her concerns about accommodations for the hearing impaired in the upcoming election, she’s sure a reporter from the Boston Globe will be happy to listen to her.”

  Harold sighed. Every frickin’ special interest group, from the blind to the illiterate, wanted a concession from him. “Send her in.”

  A young woman came through the doors. He stood as she offered him a hand to shake, barely listening as she introduced herself as Sara O’Brien from the league of some-such or other.

  While she spoke, Harold tried to give the appearance of attentiveness, but his mind was churning furiously. He had far bigger fish to fry. He didn’t have time for this drivel.

  He jerked suddenly when he realized she’d stopped talking and must have asked him a question.

  “Let me assure you, Ms… Ah…O’Brien was it? We have the matter well in hand. We want to insure the voting rights of all citizens, especially the handicapped—“

  “Deaf. We prefer Deaf,” she said frostily. “Or hearing impaired, if you must.”

  The way she stared at him, almost without blinking, made him feel as if an ant colony were trekking up his spine.

  “Let me assure you, Ms. O’Brien, that every effort is being made to accommodate people with…um…challenges. We have hired translators for multiple languages, but since the ballots are visual, I don’t see how the Deaf can be—”

  “Written English and written American Sign Language are not identical. The grammar is very different and while many in the Deaf community read English, it is for them, a second language. Most prefer written ASL. But actually,” she went on. “I’m most concerned about the use of ALICE in the electronic voting machines. Without a paper trail, how will you guarantee the validity of the vote, not just for the Deaf Community, but for the population as a whole?”

  “If you know about ALICE, you know the system was devised by the brightest minds from MIT,” Fortis said.

  “And yet, two of those bright minds are now dead.” She fixed him with a penetrating gaze, almost as if she were intent on reading his thoughts.

  “Two?” he blurted out before he thought.

  “Anthony Valenti and Cerise Keep,” she said. “Both worked on ALICE.”

  Fortis digested that information for a moment. “I’m sorry, Ms. O’Brien. Who did you say you were with again?”

  Before she could answer, his secretary buzzed in again. “Urgent call on line one, Commissioner.”

  “Take a message,” he snapped.

  “I tried to, sir, but he said it was personal. Something about your mother.”

  His mother had been dead for fifteen years, not that it mattered. He’d rarely bothered himself with her even when she was alive, but a mention of her was the part of the code he’d used with Garibaldi.

  “Excuse me a moment,” he said to the young woman. “I have to take this call.” He brought the receiver to his ear and punched the button for line one. “Harold Fortis.”

  “Shut up and listen, Fortis, because your life depends on it,” an electronically altered voice said from the other end of the line. “When I do ask you questions all I want you to say is yes or no. Now if you understand me, I want you to frown like you’re concerned and say ‘yes.’”

  Harold’s brows nearly met over his narrow nose. He really was concerned. “Yes.”

  “Is there a young woman in your office—red hair, kind of hot?”

  “Yes.” His gaze flitted to Ms. O’Brien.

  “Whatever she might have told you, her name is Sara Kelley and she’s the one who blew the whistle on Valenti’s death. If she’s in your office, it means she’s connecting the dots, Mr. Fortis, which puts you in rather deep shit, I imagine.” An electronic chuckle grated against Harold’s ear. “Is there anyone else with her?”

  “No.” This time the voice
didn’t have to tell him to look concerned.

  “Good. Now all you have to do is tell her whatever you want in order to get rid of her and then I will get rid of her permanently for you. Is this plan acceptable?”

  What choice did he have? “Yes.”

  The voice went on to name an extortionate price for Sara Kelley’s removal. Harold’s breath sucked over his teeth. The sum was nearly half of his payment from the senator, but it couldn’t be helped. He could hardly drive a bargain for a murder-for-hire with the target right in the room. The voice told him to write down the account number he was to deposit the money into. Harold jotted the 9 digits and added a 0 with dashes to make it look like a phone number in case Sara Kelley was sharp enough to remember it.

  “Make the transfer today. The sooner the money shows up in my account, the sooner I go to work. Do we have an agreement?”

  Harold wanted to ask for some assurance, some proof that his money wasn’t going to just disappear like a vapor with no benefit, but there was no arguing with the voice. It was like Death talking. A superstitious shiver slithered over Harold’s skin.

  “Yes,” he said. The voice had mandated simple yes and no responses, but he gathered his courage in both hands. “When will Mother’s funeral be?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. “Nice touch, Mr. Fortis, but I told you to confine yourself to yes or no. If you wire the money today, the answer is tomorrow. If you don’t, I may just let your mother live and do you instead. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.” Harold’s voice quavered.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Fortis.”

  The line went dead. When Harold cradled the receiver, he was distressed to find his hand shook.

  “Bad news?” Sara Kelley asked.

  “Yes, my…mother…“ Harold cleared his throat and stood, hoping she’d get the hint that the interview was concluded.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “But about Mr. Valenti and Ms. Keep—”

  “Please, Ms.…O’Brien,” he caught himself in time to keep from calling her by her real name. “Surely you understand that in the face of my own loss, I am ill-prepared to deal with that of others. But I want to thank you for bringing the issues of the handica—um, hearing impaired to my attention. I will appoint a task force to design a ballot screen in written American Sign Language for use by the Deaf Community. Will that satisfy you?”

  “Very well. You’ve told me what I needed to know.” She extended her hand to him. “Thank you.”

  “Rest assured, it is my goal to make sure the votes of those with special needs are just as secure as the rest of the electorate.”

  A wry smile curved her lips. “Of that, I’m certain.”

  Chapter 29

  Sara caught a cab back to her apartment, hating the expense, but anything was better than chancing the T alone again. She found herself looking behind her, checking the taxi’s rear view mirrors at each stop light, but she saw no one who seemed interested in following her.

  Still, she breathed a sigh of relief when she opened the door to her home and little Lulu greeted her with ordinary dogly enthusiasm. She took her for a quick walk, stopping to chat with Mr. Kaplan on the way back in, feeling more normal than she had since that horrible day she first speech-read the name Valenti.

  Once she was settled back inside her apartment, she texted Special Agent Arnold Griffith, the FBI guy who’d interviewed her before, telling him about the discovery of Valenti’s laptop. She followed the text with a detailed email, describing her recent visit with Harold Fortis. She knew with bone-deep assurance that he was lying through his teeth. Before she hit ‘send,’ the agent had texted her back with a firm order to stay where she was. He’d be there to collect the laptop shortly.

  She wasn’t really hungry, but it was dinnertime, so after she refilled Lulu’s bowl with kibbles, she whipped up linguini for one.

  “Cooking for two was more fun,” she told her dog as she plopped onto one of her remaining wobbly dinette chairs. Matthew told her he’d tossed the one he and Ryan destroyed at their first meeting, but he promised to replace it on payday.

  She twirled up a bite of linguini without much enthusiasm. Seeing Ryan enjoy her cooking had warmed her to her toes. Now, the emptiness of her apartment settled over her like a suffocating blanket.

  When she and Matthew were first married, she loved hearing the little sounds he made—the buzz of his electric shaver in the morning, the creak of the closet door as he tried to sneak out his clothes without waking her, a myriad of small noises that proclaimed another beating human heart shared her space. She couldn’t hear them now, even if they’d been there, but knowing there was only silence around her was somehow even worse than not being able to hear it.

  Perhaps she didn’t need to remain in an empty space.

  She sat alone at her small round table, fiddling her fork through the long strands of pasta. If she half-closed her eyes, she could see him—Ryan on the WaveDancer with the sunlight kissing his bare chest, the fine golden hairs whorled around his brown nipples, Ryan adjusting his glasses up on the bridge of his nose as he frowned at the computer screen, Ryan heavy-lidded with spent passion, his soul shining in his cobalt eyes.

  Then those eyes morphed into the soft brown ones of Matt Kelley, eyes she’d tumbled into as young girl and never thought to escape. Loving Matthew was part of who she was.

  Who she’d been.

  Sara shoved away the plate of pasta and covered her face with both hands. Maybe Matthew was right. She did push people away when their only crime was trying help her.

  But didn’t he realize how important it was for her to make it on her own?

  Her hearing loss diminished her. Maybe not in other’s estimation, but in her own, which was far more damning. So she overcompensated by blustering her way through life, determined not to need anybody.

  If she’d let Matthew see how much she needed him, would he have strayed?

  She thrust away the thought as unproductive. There was no use speculating on what might have been. What had actually happened was all that mattered. She had withdrawn from Matthew. She could see that now. She buried herself in her work. She bundled herself in a self-protecting layer of independence that made no room for vulnerability, no concession for weakness. She edged Matt out of their marriage by pulling back into herself like a snail tucking its soft body into its protective shell.

  Did it excuse his affair?

  No. But Sara began to understand why it happened.

  “Marriages live in every room of the house,” her mother always said.

  Sara and Matthew’s marriage was in critical condition in the kitchen before it died in the bedroom.

  “I’m sorry, Matt,” she said softly. She’d always fretted so about whether she could forgive him, it hadn’t occurred to her that she needed forgiveness too. The next time she saw him, she’d ask for his.

  With this decision made, a strange sense of peace settled over her heart.

  Lulu was resting her little muzzle on her forepaws, watching Sara with an intensity that would have bordered on obsession in a human.

  “Hoping I’ll drop something, aren’t you?” Sara asked.

  Lulu shot her a doggie grin, her pink tongue lolling. Then lifted her head and looked at the door. She scrambled to her feet and launched into her alert dance.

  “Good girl,” Sara said, rewarding the dog with a strand of linguini. She put her eye to the peephole and recognized the distorted features of Special Agent Griffith.

  She let him in and gave him the laptop and cell phone. Along with the physical evidence, she delivered the short version of the information she and Ryan had unearthed about how to access Valenti’s ‘white rabbit’ and how it might be used to subvert an election.

  For reasons she wasn’t entirely clear on, she refrained from mentioning Ryan by name.

  If he really was involved with his uncle’s business, as Matthew seemed to think, Sara still didn’t want the Feds t
aking a closer look at Ryan. And if he wasn’t, she didn’t want Ryan’s Uncle Nicky to discover he’d helped the authorities in the investigation.

  Either way, Ryan might be endangered.

  If she continued a relationship with him, this was the tightrope she’d always have to walk.

  “You did what?” Agent Griffith exclaimed when she told him about her visit to the election commissioner, Harold Fortis.

  “It was the only way I could know whether or not he was aware of Valenti’s White Rabbit,” she said. “Even though I can’t prove it, I’m sure he is. And I think you’ll find he intended to make use of it.”

  She was certain she detected falseness in Harold Fortis. Part of relying on speechreading as well as her hearing aids meant she was a better judge of subtext than most. If a person’s words and body language were at war, she knew they were lying.

  The way Mr. Fortis fidgeted as he spoke, his darting gaze, the tightness at the corners of his mouth—everything about him screamed ‘liar.’ Even that phone call he took was certainly not about his mother’s death. And that was a particularly smarmy thing to lie about. If he wanted to end his conversation with Sara, he could have pleaded another appointment.

  Why could she read a stranger so well and still not be sure of Ryan?

  Maybe because her emotions were getting in the way of her other senses, she decided.

  “So you’re saying you couldn’t testify against Harold Fortis?” Agent Griffith shouldered the backpack. “He made no direct admission of guilt?”

  “I could only testify to my gut feeling, which I know is worthless in a court of law,” she admitted. “I’m afraid you’ll have to prove the rest, but with the phone records and whatever other voodoo the FBI possesses, I’m sure you’ll find enough to connect Mr. Fortis to at least attempted election fraud.”

  She wondered if Harold Fortis was instrumental in Anthony Valenti’s death. A nervous little bird of a man, he didn’t seem the type.