Cyber Genius

by Patricia Rice

  “All right,” she reluctantly conceded, watching MacroWare’s employees stream into the already crowded shop. “Call Mallard, tell him to use his creativity to get you past the cops and in the back door of the house. There’s a limo out there somewhere, give it a call, but I doubt it can fly over gridlock. Don’t get arrested. Go save the world. I’ll take care of the stampeding camels.”

  That made no sense at all, but confident Ana could do as she said, Tudor headed for the back door. He’d learned bolt holes at his mother’s knee.

  ***

  Ana holds a meeting

  The MacroWare geeks running across the street were frantically shouting into their phones. Even the panicked crowd inside the shop noticed as the first few burst in shouting “Call the cops! We can’t reach 911! It’s a terrorist attack!”

  I sighed. That was bound to lead to logical thought and sensible results.

  “Just common ordinary criminals,” I shouted back. A woman standing next to me kept yelling into her pricey Peanut phone. Irritated, I snatched it away. “I need a little attention here,” I yelled. She smacked at me but I was already climbing on a table—not a pretty sight in the crappy skirt.

  “The cyber-attack is coming from inside MacroWare. They’ve blocked emergency services,” I fabricated. The roar of hysteria didn’t lessen. “All of you, sit the hell down!”

  No one listened. I kicked the shoulder of a big man shouting into his cell. He turned to glare, and I took his phone too. “Pay attention! Shut this crowd down so we can save ourselves.”

  The clamor reached jet engine decibels. I couldn’t possibly yell over it.

  When the big man didn’t seem interested in helping me, I figured he deserved what came next. I pulled my super-whistle from under my blouse and blew hard enough to puncture eardrums. In a small room like this, the effect echoed off high ceilings and ricocheted like bullets.

  That did the trick. People held their ears and turned to glare. Well, I’d tried to make them listen. Every time someone started talking, I shrieked the whistle. Even dogs learn after a while. The crowd started thumping any of their fellows stupid enough to argue.

  “Where are the gunmen now?” I asked one of the late arrivals.

  “Searching the building,” he shouted over the heads of my audience. “Wyatt was supposed to be getting us back online while we waited for the fire department. What’s going on?”

  Okay, the smoke had been a distraction. That made sense.

  “The city is shut down,” I told them. “Emergency services can’t get through. And my bet is that Wyatt wanted it that way. I’m also betting he’s dead and the gunmen aren’t.”

  That got the crowd murmuring again. Only half the people in here knew what I was talking about.

  While I waited for the crowd to sort things out and more MW employees squeezed in, I handed the big guy’s phone back to him and unwillingly gave up the pricey Peanut-phone. I hated being stuck with Tudor’s piece of crap, but at least it had Graham’s secret contact number in it.

  “You’ve got two choices,” I informed the crowd once I had them listening again. “I can’t make them for you. Wyatt sold you out. I don’t know how badly he’s sabotaged your servers, but all emergency services are currently offline, and that seems to include jamming the street traffic computers. He was killed before he completed whatever he was doing.”

  Whispers passed through the crowd. People were snapping shots of me, making me nervous. But I had my hair hidden by my knit hat and still wore the bulky coat. I shouldn’t be too recognizable. They waited for me to finish, and that was all I could ask.

  “The goons who killed Wyatt are still out there, probably looking for me. I didn’t interview them and don’t know.” That produced some nervous giggles. “You could, and probably should, try to find your way home and hide until the dust settles.”

  “And the alternative?” some smart ass in back asked.

  I focused on that guy because he was paying attention and reading between the lines. No geek glasses or knit cap, big build—I pegged him for ex-military, at the very least. Testosterone driven, for certain. Interesting. “You go back in and straighten out whatever Wyatt did and bring the city back to its feet again.”

  Several people cheered that suggestion. I figured they weren’t MacroWare employees who would have to risk their necks.

  “Anyone choosing to go back in—find a leader,” I suggested. I didn’t see any pin-stripe suits in here ready to earn their hefty salaries and lead their employees into the fray. “You’re going to need someone to coordinate your efforts.”

  “What about you?” military guy asked.

  “I don’t have your knowledge of computers. And I have some bad asses to kick.” Just as soon as I figured out how to go where I needed to be to kick them.

  I jumped down from the table and left them arguing. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope for an office full of sales people, but I’d done the best I could. Sales people knew other people. They could make it work if they put their heads together.

  People tried to grab me to ask questions, as if I were the only authority around, but I didn’t have any answers. I threatened them with the whistle if they held me up, and stepped on toes until they let me pass—out the back, after Tudor.

  I discarded my black coat on an employee coat rack and stole an equally cheap fake-down jacket in bilious green nylon. It had one of those squared-off, billed caps smashed into the pocket. I wasn’t squeamish about lice when bullets were more likely, so I left my black knit in trade. Then I eased into the alley, keeping my eye out for goons with guns. In the growing dusk, I was as likely to startle them as vice versa.

  I checked Tudor’s phone and hit up Graham’s fake number. “You might want to meet me at the hospital,” I cheerfully told his voice mail. The call would go through as Tudor’s, but I didn’t think he’d have a problem figuring out the trade-off. “Or maybe not, because I’m going to kick your shins for not answering our calls.”

  I traipsed down the alley and headed for the nearest Metro. I wasn’t hiking out to the hospital in this weather.

  Wyatt had been a peon. He may have killed Hilda, but a hired professional had killed Kita. I couldn’t see a geek salesmen like Wyatt knowing assassins. And the poison plan... well, he might have come up with some portion of that, but he wasn’t high enough up the MacroWare ladder to have been at the head honcho table, and I was betting he wasn’t smart enough to be there either. Wyatt was merely the puppet. I was after the puppet master.

  There had been only one person at MacroWare with the clout and financial skills to associate mortgage companies, MacroWare, and Top Hat. I didn’t have all the connections yet. I couldn’t envision Wyatt poisoning his own brother, for instance. And it was hard to see how anyone at the head table thought they’d survive if they poisoned themselves along with everyone else. But time was running out. I had to start asking the really tough questions from men who were surrounded by security.

  The Metro was chaos but still operating. I was feeling lonely out here on my own, facing another foray into the impossible. A normal person would have called it a day, gone home and had dinner and let Graham handle his own idiot problems.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t bent that way.

  Tudor finally texted that he was safely in the carriage house. That didn’t mean he hadn’t been seen or that the police wouldn’t come calling. I just had to hope that the cops or the FBI would be safer than gunmen.

  I had no idea how to reach my objective once I arrived at the hospital where the MacroWare execs resided. The poisoned CEOs were out of ICU the last I’d heard, but it wasn’t as if anyone was advertising where they’d been moved. I could look for floors with heavy security, I supposed. The hospital had coyly refrained from posting a map of their internal corridors anywhere on-line.

  I hit the first restroom I found when I entered the main doors. I needed to stash my bilious green coat but I figured I wouldn’t get it back if I left it on a st
all hook. Hospital environments are so darned sanitary and uncluttered.

  The phone rang, although since it was Tudor’s, I didn’t recognize the ring. I glanced at the number and it appeared to be an international call. “What floor?” I demanded, hoping it was Graham but figuring I could scare Magda if she was trying to call Tudor.

  “Cafeteria, basement, kitchen door. The food tray racks are lined up there.”

  Graham clicked off before I could tell him that rolling racks couldn’t talk and wouldn’t help me find anyone.

  I found a directory map of the hospital lay-out, located the cafeteria and employee-only areas, and took the elevator down. Maybe I should become a kitchen worker. I could reside in my natural underground habitat all day and theoretically never get shot at.

  Given my personality, that probably wasn’t a sound theory.

  The bilious green coat got stashed in an unlocked locker. In the laundry room, I debated camouflage. I preferred anonymous scrubs. But I didn’t want to give up the bag of tricks in my attaché, and I was wearing black pumps. Not too many overworked nursing assistants wore pumps and carried attachés. So white coat it was.

  I hoped Graham had eliminated security down here because I had no name tag and no ID and no business in these environs. I sauntered into the kitchen corridor as if I belonged. Hoping my white coat was camouflage, I took a clipboard out of a rack and began flipping through charts, pretending I had a clue what to expect.

  “About time you got here,” a familiar rich baritone complained.

  A tray rack mysteriously emerged from the ranks and rolled toward the elevators. “The top floor patients complain if we’re even a minute late,” the rack said.

  I gaped, strode after the talking metal frame, and tried to process. Graham couldn’t have an intercom in here. He had to be right here, speaking to me in person. The spy in the attic was out in public!

  I assumed he was actually speaking for someone else’s benefit, since I didn’t care if privileged patients learned how it felt to go hungry. I glanced around and saw a couple of salmon-coated workers heading our direction.

  I was having a hard time grappling with the knowledge that Graham had actually emerged from his techno-cocoon to help me. My brain was a little slow from shock, but it caught up.

  “Room 1140 will complain when he sees that diet,” I said, flipping pages authoritatively for the benefit of our audience. “Let’s get this over.”

  We rolled the tray rack into the freight elevator as soon as the doors opened. They closed without alarms screaming.

  “Security could be waiting when we get off,” I murmured, trying to see around the rack concealing my nemesis. Graham wasn’t exactly invisible in any setting. He needed to stay between the tall rack and wall just to conceal his conspicuous height.

  “I am security,” he murmured back, sending a thrill up my spine. I do love a man with authority who knew how to use it.

  “Mrs. Stiles didn’t think you were,” I reminded him, trying to keep my attitude while my hormones were reacting to his proximity.

  “Louisa only knows what she’s been told. And she’s one of the reasons I don’t want my cover blown, so let’s try to play this safe. Our patients are due to be dismissed in the morning.”

  I wasn’t lonely anymore. And my hunger wasn’t for food. Graham was the only man who could distract me with just the sound of his voice. Knowing that he came to help me gave me a thrill beyond the physical. I wasn’t used to having reliable back-up. Grasping that I wasn’t out here on my own would take a while, but I liked the way it felt.

  We emerged in a hushed corridor of closed suite doors. Uniformed security watched us pass without question. I didn’t dare ask Graham how he had arranged that. As he’d said, he got paid the big bucks because he had the big connections.

  Unlike hospitals I was familiar with, no weeping relatives, screaming patients, loud TVs, or chattering nurses broke the smothering seclusion of this private floor. I wanted to rattle aluminum pans and wake everyone up, except our rack contained carefully wrapped and arranged china on heating trays.

  “Where’s a little fish poison when it’s needed?” I muttered, consulting my useless clipboard while Graham located the suite we wanted.

  I sure hoped Graham had picked the same suspect I had anyway. It wasn’t as if he’d acknowledged any of my messages. But we’re both pretty biased against Paul Rose supporters, so I hoped he’d connected the dots.

  He knocked politely on a closed door. At a murmur from inside, I opened the double doors and let the rack roll in. I still couldn’t see Graham, just his blue scrubs through the shelves. If anyone noticed, they ought to be suspicious about the rolling frame in a private room, but no one appeared to complain. Security had to be watching... but if Graham was actually working undercover security... Wow, just wow.

  Feeling truly empowered for a change, I turned my attention to the patient in the bed. This wasn’t a simple cot but a large, adjustable mattress. It sat up like any hospital bed except it had a lovely desk that could be rolled across the patient’s lap.

  The last picture of Bob Stark, Macro’s financial officer, I’d seen had shown a short, balding, rotund man. I couldn’t tell his height from his sitting position. He was still hair-challenged. But judging by the space between his desk and his belly, he’d lost a few pounds. He glanced eagerly at the food tray, so I assumed he was still a good eater despite the poisoning incident.

  Graham remained ominously silent. Despite his prior diplomatic life, he wasn’t precisely a people person these days. That made this my show. How the hell did I get this guy to talk?

  “Hello, Mr. Stark. How are you feeling today?” I casually walked to the side of the bed and removed the bell pull from his reach. I took his laptop off his desk as if I, indeed, intended to feed him. “We need to talk, if you’d like to put your phone down for just a minute.” I snatched his very nice smart phone from his hand.

  While he shouted a protest, I glanced at the phone screen. A line of calls to several local numbers without names. I switched on record and handed it off to Graham behind my back. I was hoping the phone numbers were evidence and the recording legal, but mostly, I wanted answers.

  “Those aren’t very nice words,” I told him when he stopped cursing and started to climb out of the bed after his precious phone. He was wearing starched blue pajamas. How cute.

  He grabbed for me. I caught his arm, twisted it, and pinched my fingers into the pressure point at his elbow, nearly bringing him to his knees. Then I shoved him back in the bed. I’d brought down bigger men. This one was still too weak to put up a fight. “Talk is all I want to do. Unfortunately, that isn’t all you did to Wyatt Bates, is it?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He rubbed his arm and glared but he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could overpower me. This was a man accustomed to paying others to do his dirty work for him. He yanked his covers back over his designer pajamas. “Who are you?”

  “I’m usually just an observer, but mostly, I seek the truth. Wyatt Bates had a creative mind, but he wasn’t particularly smart, was he?” I liked to lead my victims down the garden path until they were so lost in the maze, they panicked.

  “Why are you asking me? He didn’t get poisoned. I did. Are you saying he was the one who poisoned us?” His gaze shifted from the window to the door, as if hoping Superman would rush to the rescue. The tray rack nicely blocked the doors and this was the top floor. No one was entering without heavy weapons or a helicopter.

  “I’m thinking initially, Henry Bates poisoned everyone.” Unwittingly went unsaid. I just liked seeing the shock on his face.

  He looked upset enough not to have known. “You’re kidding me! Henry was a straight arrow. Why the hell would he do that?”

  “Because Wyatt tricked him into it. You didn’t know that?” I really wanted the timeline here, but I didn’t have a lot of experience at interrogation.

  “Wyatt was Henry’s b
rother! Why would he poison him?” He was shocked, all right, but he was frowning in thought and still not looking me in the face. Starks was not a stupid man. He knew more than he was saying.

  “I’m waiting for you to tell me,” I said casually, “Or I’ll have to call the cops and let them ask the questions.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Get out of here or I’ll yell for the nurse.” He crossed his arms over his plump chest and looked like an angry bald elf.

  “You do realize that Wyatt is lying in a pool of blood back in MacroWare’s conference room, don’t you?” I asked, watching his reaction with interest.

  He flinched. “Wyatt? Why would anyone kill that overgrown puppy?”

  He was a very bad liar. And he’d quit threatening to yell for the nurse as proof. “You know why, don’t you? I’m guessing the police won’t let you go too far.” I sat at the foot of his bed and tried to look helpful. “If you’ll just give me the bare details, I’ll arrange to have your accomplices rounded up before you get out of here. Less retaliation that way, don’t you think?”

  He turned on his side to reach beneath his pillow.

  Graham broke cover and probably broke Stark’s arm in the process.

  Twenty-six

  Stark screamed as if he’d been stabbed and struggled to escape Graham’s grip. Undeterred, Graham strong-armed the patient off the bed, letting Stark dangle in the air while I removed a pistol from under the pillow. Nothing said paranoid like a gun in a hospital bed.

  Despite the screams, no one came running. Nice soundproofing or Graham had paid everyone to disappear. Given that I’m not in favor of violence, that last possibility was a little discomfiting.

  “Shame on you. Weapons aren’t allowed in here!” I said in a tone reserved for naughty schoolboys as I snatched the gun.

  I hated guns, but I knew how they worked. This was just a small semi-automatic. I removed the bullets and flushed them down the toilet. I stuck the empty pistol in the back of my skirt, beneath my jacket.