Cyber Genius

by Patricia Rice

  “You scared Wyatt into stopping the entire city,” he countered. “I couldn’t do anything with emergency services shut down. What if Wyatt really had set fire to MacroWare?” He leaned against the elevator wall and looked more weary than angry. Beard stubble looked good on him.

  “I didn’t stop the city!” I protested the unfairness of his assessment. “I just stopped Adolph. How was I supposed to know Wyatt had flipped over the edge? As far as I’m concerned, anyone who takes a human life is subhuman and wasn’t rational to start with.”

  “The gun used to kill Hilda and Kita will be traced to Wyatt,” Graham informed me as we got off the elevator on the ground floor.

  “The chances are pretty good that Wyatt did kill Hilda,” I pointed out, hurrying after him as he headed for transportation—I hoped. I needed an express ride home. “Wyatt could have texted the hotel manager to mess with the wiring and black out the room, and Livingston wouldn’t even have questioned why with all chaos breaking loose. All these guys knew each other through MacroWare, one way or another. The police can talk to Tray and Adolph and Livingston and confirm everything. Wyatt was the only one in that room who knew enough to want Hilda to shut up, except Mrs. Stiles, of course.”

  “Of course,” Graham said stonily, with heavy emphasis.

  “Oh crap.” I got his message. I didn’t like it. I tried picturing that small room packed with people and shook my head. “I don’t believe she’d dirty her hands like that.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed, heading out a back door near the Metro. “But who do you think had more power to order someone to black out the safe room, Wyatt or Louisa?”

  I’d been thinking Wyatt had texted Livingston, but Louisa probably had bodyguards who could have crossed the wires without even involving Livingston. Crap, and double crap. I wanted to go home to my relatively sane family.

  “Louisa wanted to keep the spyholes?” I asked incredulously.

  But now I remembered where I’d see the rose pin similar to one Livingston had been wearing. Louisa Stiles—a Rose supporter?

  Graham didn’t answer. He just kept stalking across the parking lot, his long legs outstripping mine.

  Surely he wasn’t taking me to the damned Metro? “What, no helicopter to whisk us to safety?” I asked, seeing nothing that would take us anywhere.

  I was agog with curiosity. Graham never showed himself in public, and the Metro was as public as it could get. Besides, I hadn’t had time to rescue my ghastly green coat. I was about to freeze my buns off.

  He flung his scrubs in the nearest trash can. Underneath, he wore dark trousers and a long-sleeved heavy knit black sweater pushed up to his elbows. “Go home,” he said. “I’ve got clean-up to do.”

  “I hate you. I really hate you,” I told him, tagging on his heels. “You can’t hint at Louisa’s involvement and walk away.”

  “Stephen told me she’s a closet Rose supporter. He was afraid she was involved in the program cover-up, which was why he was so furious. If even Stark doesn’t know that, we can’t prove anything.”

  Before I could formulate a retort, Graham hauled me off my feet and kissed away any form of thought. All my frost melted.

  He dropped me as abruptly as he’d kissed me. “Go home, Ana. You’ve done what I paid you to do. I’ll take it from here.” He walked faster and slipped into the shadows before we reached the Metro.

  I ran to the place where he’d disappeared—a dark alley I didn’t want to enter. A motorcycle roared out the other end, in the opposite direction.

  Damn the man, I should have kicked his shins when I had the chance.

  But the kiss had been infinitely more satisfying in ways I wasn’t prepared to consider.

  Twenty-seven

  Tudor’s Take:

  Tudor applied the final code to the O/S patch, backed it up, and shot it off to his cracking new friend in MacroWare’s programming department. The swot had caught him cyber-digging in the files, only because he’d been doing the same. Ana had apparently sent the MW employees back to work with fire blazing in their eyes. After these last few hours, Tudor was confident the crew he’d been working with intended to memorialize Stiles by updating all the beta programs overnight.

  Once the holes were closed, his wonky cookie monster would be blocked. And the blokes would go looking for whomever or whatever had warped it. For now, they’d taken his code apart and created an anti-virus. And they had servers back online so emergency services should be up and running shortly.

  He slumped over the desk and tried to summon his next move.

  “Dinner, now,” the intercom on the desk spluttered.

  He snarled, but that was Ana’s voice. She was home.

  The rush of relief felt weird. Needing to verify that no harm had come to his nutter half-sister, he glanced at the computer clock. It was late for dinner. Mallard must have held it off until she arrived.

  With a gut-load of trepidation, Tudor jogged down the stairs, lured by the aroma of pizza well laden with pepperoni.

  The whole bloody family had gathered in the dining room—even Patra. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d seen this many of his family in one place. Patra was actually looking all grown up in a business suit, with her hair done up fancy—a lot like their mother. Tudor tried not to stare. Head down, he headed for the only empty place setting at the bottom of the table.

  “We can’t talk with a reporter at the table,” Ana warned as he sat down. She helped herself to the salad bowl while EG grabbed pizza slices.

  “I can keep secrets,” Patra insisted. “I helped, didn’t I? I get to know what’s going on and won’t send in anything until you tell me it’s okay. Provided you agree to tell me it’s okay.”

  Tudor tried to ignore the give-and-take. He grabbed two slices of pizza.

  “Will the news get you the D.C. post?” Nick asked.

  Looking particularly daft in his open-necked shirt and scarf, Tudor’s half-brother lifted a glass of wine to admire it. Nick was a useless twit most of the time, but Tudor sensed he knew more than he said. The talk about jobs flew right over his head though.

  “It might,” Patra answered him in satisfaction. “I just sent in a story interviewing the hotel’s kitchen staff about the many ways poison could be introduced to food. It blew my boss’s lid off. The station is sending their top reporters to steal my MacroWare story, but if I could get a scoop on who saved the day . . .” She waited hopefully.

  No one replied. Feeling the silence, Tudor glanced up from his pizza to see all eyes turned expectantly in his direction. He scrunched his shoulders and tried to disappear, but that wasn’t happening.

  He glared. “I just sent a working patch for the spyhole to MacroWare’s office, if that’s what you’re asking. They’re pretty rattled and still trying to route around the sabotaged servers, but they’re installing the patch tonight. That should stop my monster.” He dug his teeth into the pizza so he didn’t have to say more.

  Ana picked up a breadstick and threw it down the table at him. Her aim was blamed accurate. It bounced off his nose. He grabbed it and set it on his plate and scowled, waiting for the usual interrogation.

  “Good job, sport,” she said. “No more hacking contests for you, right? The cookie monster dies here?”

  Just a little chuffed, Tudor nodded and felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders.

  “And MIT in your future?” EG asked with delight. “You’ll be over here next year?”

  Tudor looked to Ana, who smiled as if she actually anticipated that moment. And maybe she did. Maybe he actually was part of the family, however crazed.

  And maybe he was even all right with not being a lone wolf all the time. The pizza was better here, anyway.

  ***

  Ana Does Supper

  “If you get the D.C. job with our story, you have to start taking responsibility for some of the family,” I said, pointing at Patra.

  She looked a little confused. “What
can I do? Tudor will be heading back to London, won’t he?”

  “This is a generic, all-purpose promise to cover whatever happens next.” I was damned if I would be the family doormat forever. We all had to be responsible for each other, and we had to make that promise even before I discovered if we could buy mansions.

  “I’ll try,” she agreed dubiously. “Just don’t ask me to be a Girl Scout leader.”

  “You’ll do it if EG asks,” I said, even though EG looked horrified at the thought.

  “And where is our glorious leader?” Nick inquired, filling his salad bowl again.

  Mallard had thoughtfully waited until I had reported my arrival time before putting the pizzas in the oven. Out of respect for his efforts, I helped myself to a large slice. I wasn’t fond of pepperoni but the marinara smelled wonderful.

  “If you’re talking about asshat Graham, I assume he’s on his way to anonymously feed his police source everything we know, including a recorded confession and a lot of damning phone numbers. If he doesn’t, I’ve got my backup.” I held up Tudor’s old phone. “Copy this and give me mine back, please.” I shoved the phone down the table toward my hacker genius brother.

  Patra grabbed the phone mid-table and hit the play button. Tudor tried to snatch it away but once the unfamiliar male voice emerged from the gadget, they quit squabbling and listened.

  I was uncomfortable with sharing, but they’d all played a part in unraveling this mystery and deserved a few answers. There were a lot of questions still hanging out there, but I wasn’t the FBI or the cops. Kita and Wyatt had died at the hands of men with enough arrogance and power to hire goons with guns. We had enough evidence to show that Wyatt had killed Hilda, Stiles, and his brother. That didn’t mean the buck stopped there. It just meant I’d done my job—for now.

  Authorities bigger than I was needed to bring down the brains behind the brawn. With corporations and top execs and untouchables like Louisa Stiles involved, I just didn’t see it happening anytime soon.

  Maybe, once we had our millions . . .

  No, I could only use my share of the money for mayhem. The rest of my half-siblings were entitled to their own choice of rewards—once they reached an age of responsibility, of course. I’d have to work that out if the money was ever ours, but we’d never be in the same tax bracket as Senator Rose and Louisa Stiles—maybe not even the same universe.

  “We need Wilhelm and Adolph’s confessions,” Patra decided once the recording had played. “Wyatt’s dead and can’t give us any answers. What about the gunmen who killed Kita and Wyatt? Can we track them?”

  “I think Euan, Kita’s friend, will give the police what Kita knew once she feels safe. That should nail Wilhelm and Adolph,” I said, knowing I’d saved this witness for a reason. We’d finally found her a job at an embassy that preferred vegetarian dinners.

  “The police should be able to find Wyatt’s killers from Stark’s phone records,” I continued, “but the goons will be long gone underground if they’re any good at all. The gunmen won’t know a thing about Stiles or who hired them. Murder on this level isn’t a quiet little affair of wife shooting hubby. There are multiple levels of cover-up, and the cops only look at the first—and that’s Wyatt. They won’t go for the root of the evil. Those people will have to be dug out just as if they’re terrorists, which they are, in their own way.”

  Patra brightened. “Now there’s a story. Money is the root of all evil. I’ll start digging into Goldrich.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes. “This is why Graham doesn’t want us here. Someone at Goldrich quite possibly hired assassins. Does this not ring any warning alarms?”

  Since Patra’s father had been murdered by the clique of wealthy politicians affiliated with Senator Paul Rose and Top Hat, she at least had the sense to hesitate.

  “Pick another firm,” Nick suggested. “They all play the same games.”

  “But Goldrich was essentially responsible for the death of good people,” Patra protested. “Wyatt may have been the trigger, but Goldrich was his motive.”

  “I’ll take care of Goldrich,” I said with satisfaction. “I have a plan that won’t involve guns and poison. You just find a nice safe bank to investigate. And should you turn up an honest investment firm, let me know.”

  All except Tudor waited expectantly for explanations. I took a bite of pizza and chewed contentedly.

  The silence grew long enough that even Tudor finally looked up from grazing his way through an entire plate of pizza, including the crust. He apparently processed the last part of our conversation through his formidable computer of a brain, glanced at me, and shrugged.

  “She’s going to launder money,” was all he said—because really, what else do you do with a filthy rich mortgage banking system that kills good people?

  “We’re going to MIT as soon as you book the train,” I told him proudly.

  ***

  I didn’t actually intend to launder money, although I had taken a few courses. I knew how world-class crooks transferred funds to terrorists and into their own pockets without anyone realizing what they were up to. In this digital age, the ways are countless and really don’t require a lot of imagination.

  But according to my research, the Swiss bank account that Graham had aimed me at contained our grandfather’s money and was thus legitimately ours. Our millions were being held hostage by an antiquated banking system that needed a wake-up call.

  It was closing in on midnight. I was totally wiped after an entire day of pretending I was an extrovert. I probably should have gone to bed. But isolation restores my energy, and mischief makes me happy. I sat in my basement office, humming, as I delved through the as-yet-unpatched beta system of Goldrich’s favorite banking committee. While my Whiz worked its way through boring financial files, I opened the nifty little netbook Tudor had hijacked from the MacroWare offices.

  Huh, the netbook operating system had the spyhole, too. Who had been spying on whom? I’d look a little later but figured it was interoffice politics and one asshat snooping on the other.

  It was too damned easy for technology to spy these days. We had absolutely no privacy. The Whiz was protected by Graham’s tech, but it wasn’t protected from Graham.

  The hole in the banking committee’s firewall made it easy to find a file that would auto-send to Goldrich with my remote access attachment. Remote access sounds really cool when we talk about accessing a home computer from work or watching a puppy from a smart phone. Computer technicians use the program to remotely clean computers—normally with permission from the computer’s owners. Graham had made a few adjustments.

  As I said, nothing is private anymore.

  Once I had my little worm past Goldrich’s firewalls, I could roam their data mechanically, reading through the files on the Whiz as if they were my own. See? Technology just makes it too damned easy. Who needs drones? If the government would just learn how to manipulate computers distantly, they could wipe out entire countries with the push of a button. Heck, hackers do it all the time, except they stick to small potatoes like identity theft and credit cards.

  It took a lot of digging, admittedly. I’m not a finance or security expert. But I knew how to run searches, and I knew the types of documents I needed. I located Goldrich’s banking transfer system, fed in the account numbers on my grandfather’s Swiss bank account, and pushed a few more buttons. Bank computers talk to each other better than people do.

  Numbers began to roll across the screen—nice big fat numbers that made my eyes roll and my head ache. In the morning, the headaches would be someone else’s problem.

  I set up several dummy investment accounts and let the numbers from the Swiss banks roll into them in increments small enough and spaced out enough to get lost in the crowd of complex transfers flowing in and out of both banks. A fat amount would trigger alarms, but normal buying and selling and cash flow stayed under the safeguards—as long as I didn’t do this every night.

  I began
another automatic transfer that spirited the funds from Goldrich into the Caribbean bank account where our wicked lawyer had concealed his ill-gotten gains until I’d found them. Dollars weren’t just pieces of paper anymore. They’re numbers on computers all over the world.

  In the morning, the Swiss bank would be immensely poorer and would hunt down the culprit—and blame Goldrich. By the time Goldrich located my ghost accounts, they’d be gone. And so would the cash in the Caribbean account. And there wasn’t a country in the world with the power to force the Caribbean drug lords to open their books for investigation.

  And once I was feeling good and secure with our grandfather’s millions tucked away, I set about relieving Goldrich of a lot more dollars. A few deserving people ought to be rewarded. Goldrich needed to pay for some of their bad karma.

  ***

  “Ana, what the hell are you doing down there?” a familiar voice roared through the intercom after noon the next day.

  I’d collapsed into bed in the wee hours and had just dragged myself into my office a little while ago. I had only had time to take a bite of the egg muffin I’d prepared for myself. I’d wasted valuable minutes carefully cleaning the kitchen so Mallard wouldn’t complain.

  “You’re back,” I responded, mouth full of egg. “No one killed you. What a pity.” I called up the overnight news on the Whiz as I talked.

  Stark and three employees of Goldrich had been arrested on accessory to murder charges—just for hiring assassins to kill Wyatt, mind you. Hilda and Kita were already old news, but the wheels of justice ground slowly. A good D.A. would get there eventually. Stiles and Henry Bates were mentioned as Wyatt’s possible victims with much speculation attached.

  Patra had a nice byline on the story.

  “I’m back,” Graham growled. “I’m not blind. What the devil are these Goldrich transactions?”

  So many tales to tell... Let me count the ways I could tell them. He really shouldn’t be spying on what I was doing with my computers, so I wasn’t telling tales any time soon.