The Loot

by Schaefer, Craig

  “Sofia and Jake . . . took a big chance, hiring me. I didn’t exactly come with a letter of recommendation from my previous place of employment. They were told that having me on their staff might hurt their chances of getting clients. Hell, for all I know it did. You know I know, right?”

  Charlie didn’t follow. She looked to Beckett.

  “Word’s getting around,” he said.

  “I didn’t need to hear it from the grapevine,” Dom said. “I’m in charge of opening security assessments. Know how many I’ve done in the last month? One. Deep Country. And there’s no way they’re keeping this company afloat with one client’s money. This ship’s taking on water, fast.”

  “Nothing to do with you,” Beckett told her.

  “I can get a tap on Ellis’s phone,” Dom said to Charlie, “but it’s not zero risk. And if I get caught, we’ll lose the client, we’ll probably lose the company, and I’ll be lucky to keep my ass out of prison. That, and I’m in the middle of a divorce, and not the ‘me and my ex are best friends’ kind. My scumbag sperm donor is dragging every skeleton out of every closet he can find and throwing it in my face, and it’s taking every penny I’ve got to keep fighting him. Steady employment is my best weapon right now. I lose my job, that’s it. I’ll lose custody of my kid. I’m not risking that for anybody.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “I didn’t know.”

  “I know you didn’t,” she replied, sounding tired. “Now you do.”

  “All respect,” Beckett said, “but you need to look at the big picture. We already would have lost this client if it hadn’t been for Little Duck here.”

  “We were lucky,” Charlie said, sidestepping the compliment.

  “We won’t be that lucky twice. If we don’t dig up the truth, sooner or later Sean Ellis is gonna get got. Company’s already on shaky ground, and a client dies on our watch? Time to turn out the lights and lock the door. In which case we’re all out of a job—”

  “And my ex-husband’s going to pounce on how I’m unemployed and incapable of supporting a family.” Dom slumped in her booth. “Different lousy ending, same lousy result.”

  “You know I’m right, tigrotta.”

  Dom waved a halfhearted finger at him and sighed. “Uh-uh. You don’t get to tigrotta me today, Beckett, not when you’re trying to talk me into some half-baked gangster shit. Save the pet names. I’m still mad at you.”

  Charlie felt like she was piling on—she hated feeling like a salesperson, doing the hard sell routine—but she needed to throw her two cents in.

  “There’s something else,” she said. “This person, people, whoever we’re dealing with, they don’t care about collateral damage. They used a block of C-4, and according to Saint, there’s more plastic explosive where that came from. A lot more. You told me that nothing matters more than going home to your little girl at the end of the day. Well, if we don’t get the intel we need and track this psycho down, there’s a real good chance that you, me, all of us, could get caught in the blast next time.”

  “I don’t want you to be right,” Dom said. “And yet . . .”

  “And yet,” Charlie agreed.

  “We’re backed into a corner, and nobody’s going to get us out of it but us.” Dom looked at Beckett. “I’m still mad at you.”

  “If it makes you happy,” he said.

  “What’d make me happy is not being in this situation. Okay, so I can inject a trojan into Ellis’s phone that’ll give us remote access: we’ll be able to read his texts, listen in on his voice mails, you name it. Easiest way is under the guise of a security audit. Thing is I’ll have one and exactly one chance to get the job done. Once I’ve ‘audited’ his phone the first time, I won’t have any reasonable excuse for needing it twice. If he gets suspicious, he might run a malware scan himself, and if he does that and catches my little addition, I’m screwed. We’re all screwed, but mostly me.”

  “Have you done this before?” Charlie asked.

  Dom gave her a look that answered her more eloquently than words ever could.

  “Anyway,” Dom said, “the code injection, that’s the easy part. Should take me thirty seconds, tops, once I’ve got access to his unlocked phone.”

  “What’s the hard part?” Charlie asked.

  “You and Beckett keeping him distracted while I get the job done. Don’t worry; nothing’s at stake except our jobs and possibly our freedom. Zero pressure.”

  Zero pressure. Dom’s words resonated in Charlie’s ears as she stood in Sean Ellis’s office, hands clamped to her sides so she wouldn’t start fidgeting. Dom sat in Sean’s new chair, and the CEO loomed over her shoulder as she tapped away on his computer’s keyboard.

  “We’re basically bringing your entire network up to the latest security specs,” she told him. “Firmware, antivirus software, an upgraded firewall package, the works.”

  Beckett was just outside, doing the same routine with Allison. Dom had written up a checklist for him, mostly busywork, guaranteed to take a half hour or so. His real job was to act as their outside eyes and ears and send up an early-warning signal if anyone was about to walk into Ellis’s office. Considering they were about to commit a crime—a felony, Charlie was pretty sure, but she didn’t want to find out—the extra precautions seemed like a good idea.

  “I’m going to need one solid minute of unsupervised access to his phone,” Dom had told them on the elevator ride up. “If we’re lucky, he’ll just hand it over and walk away. Some folks are blasé about their phones, some people freak out if they’re more than an arm’s length away, and we’ll just have to find out what kind of guy Sean Ellis is.”

  “You can hack his phone in one minute?” Charlie had asked.

  “No. I can load the malware that’ll let me in. The rest I can do remotely. Your job is to run interference. Whatever happens, keep him off my back until I give you the nod.”

  “This is kind of a lateral move, isn’t it?” Sean asked Dom now as he leaned in to point at the screen. “I mean, with our virus scanner, we were already running update four point four seven five on the company server, and this is barely an incremental upgrade.”

  The look on Dom’s face confirmed the slow, churning anxiety in Charlie’s gut. They’d both hoped Sean was a hands-off manager and, like most older executives, willing to leave technical details to their IT experts. As it turned out, the mining tycoon was a computer buff. He’d also been glued to Dom’s side since the moment she’d sat down to work. He questioned every move she made, challenging her decisions, quizzing her credentials. Dom held her ground, politely dancing around every question and keeping him pacified, while Charlie—in her role as a new trainee, learning the ropes by shadowing Dom—mostly just tried to turn invisible.

  She felt like a kid bringing a bad report card home to her parents. The minutes stretched out into an hour, but eventually, like she knew it would, the moment of truth came around. Dom pushed the chair back, stretching as she stood, and offered the seat back to Sean.

  “You’re all set,” she said. “Now, if I could have a couple of minutes to update your phone, we’ll get out of your hair.”

  He didn’t budge, beyond lifting a single white-flecked eyebrow. “My phone?”

  “It’s another point of potential intrusion. These days, phone security is arguably more important than network security, at least with the specific kinds of threats our clients tend to face. Attackers mining for personal information, blackmail material, that sort of thing. No worries, we’re here to keep you safe.”

  Dom held out her open palm, not taking no for an answer.

  “It’ll just take a minute,” she added.

  He didn’t move. Neither did her open hand. Finally, he relented. He tugged his phone from his pocket, wrapped in a bulky beige shockproof case, and tilted it his way while he keyed in his unlock code. He handed the mobile to Dom and then, promptly, moved to stand at her shoulder again, watching the screen like a hawk.

  “You can get b
ack to what you were doing,” she said with a nod at the empty chair. “I’m sure you’re busy.”

  “That’s fine,” he replied. He stayed right where he was.

  Dom shot Charlie a flicker-fast look with an SOS written in her eyes. She needed a solid minute of uninterrupted access. Charlie needed a distraction.

  What did she know? People loved talking about themselves, and Sean Ellis was no exception. He also had an elephant-size ego; Charlie remembered her first face-to-face with him, when he’d whined about his press coverage and how the dead miners in Kentucky were detracting from his legacy as a self-made success story.

  Charlie drifted to the map on the office wall, showing Deep Country’s holdings as blood-drop splotches on clean white parchment, and raised her voice.

  “Mr. Ellis? If you have a second, I was wondering about the timeline on this map. I’m really curious about how you started all of this from a single mining operation.”

  “Hmm?” he said. He glanced at Charlie, then right back at the phone in Dom’s hands. “Oh, sure, in a minute, all right? Be happy to walk you through it, just need to focus on this.”

  “Sure,” Charlie said, “but, um, is this correct? It looks like you have three separate facilities in Birmingham, but the marks are really close together—”

  Dom shot Charlie another look, more frustrated, as Ellis ignored her and poked his finger at the screen.

  “I already upgraded to the latest OS,” he told her. “You don’t need to waste time with that.”

  This wasn’t working. Charlie had to make a choice and make it now: give up, let Dom finish her pointless “upgrade,” and walk out empty handed—or do something drastic. Walking out empty handed was the safe choice. Arguably the smart choice.

  Smart, until the bomber struck again. Sean knew who his attacker was, but he’d rather die than talk. Walking away wasn’t an option.

  Charlie studied the office fast, calculating, breaking every sight line into discrete wedges of information just like she’d been trained to do. Hunting for vulnerabilities, places to hit Sean Ellis at his weakest points and guarantee a distraction that would stick.

  She saw her opportunity. She made her move.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Charlie’s heart pounded as she crossed the powder-blue carpet, making a beeline for Sean Ellis’s pride and joy: the recessed alcove with built-in glass shelves and tiny LED spotlights, casting a shine upon row after row of industry awards. Decades of accolades and glory, enshrined in crystal and gold.

  Then, with all the grace of a six-year-old at her first ballet class, she tripped over her own feet.

  She fell forward, praying she’d judged the distance right, and grabbed at the edge of the top shelf. It pivoted on its moorings and tumbled loose. She turned, trying to take the impact on her shoulder and keep her face clear as glass cracked against glass, awards tumbling down, a rain of prized possessions and broken shelves clattering to the office floor.

  Charlie was right behind them. She landed hard, twisting her hip as a lance of muscle pain shot up her side and along her left shoulder. Her arm seared, and she felt wetness spreading under her sleeve, a fresh cut where jagged glass had scored a white-hot line on her skin. Dazed, she squinted as she looked up.

  She had Sean Ellis’s complete and undivided attention. His jaw hung open, gaping wider than his horrified eyes, as the blood drained from his face.

  “Again,” Jake said, standing on the opposite side of the client’s desk, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  The glass had been swept up, a couple of shelves still salvageable and already lined with the awards that had survived the crash. A trio of victims stood lined up on the desk: a cracked crystal globe, a posing and faceless man with a snapped-off arm, and a glass tower that . . . well, Charlie wasn’t sure what was wrong with that one, as it looked perfectly fine to her, but Sean had been apoplectic about it.

  She stood at Jake’s side, head bowed in anxious contrition and a fresh bandage—courtesy of the admin, Allison, who’d rushed for a first aid kit while Sean had howled about the damage to his trophy collection—wound around her injured arm. The cut had been shallow, thankfully, and the pain had already faded to a dull throb. The pulled muscle in her hip had settled in for a nice long stay; every step she took brought a fresh twinge.

  She didn’t care. At this point, all she wanted to do was to get out of Sean’s office.

  Sean snatched up the cracked crystal globe. “This? Got this in 1984 from the American Coal Federation. The ACF literally does not exist anymore. This literally cannot be replaced. It is literally irreplaceable.”

  “I am literally . . .” Jake paused, catching himself. “Very, very sorry. Of course, we’ll pay for any and all damages.”

  “Damn right you will. This is inexcusable.”

  Charlie bit down on her tongue. She was aching to remind Sean of how she’d literally saved his life in this very room. From the cracks around his apologetic mask, Jake was feeling the same way. He eased a step back, and she followed his lead.

  “Please, send me an itemized bill, directly to me, not the company, and I’ll personally take care of it right away.”

  Sean didn’t answer. He picked up the tower trophy—Charlie still couldn’t figure out what was broken—and mourned over it in silence. She took that as their cue to leave. She followed at Jake’s shoulder like a shadow. Out in the corridor, Jake took one look over his shoulder and let out a held breath.

  “What. An. Asshole.”

  “I really am sorry,” she told him. “The last thing I wanted to do was make any trouble for you or the company. Especially on my first assignment.”

  Hopefully not my last, she thought. If her brilliant distraction led to her getting fired, she wasn’t sure how she’d live with herself.

  Jake just waved a casual hand and wrinkled his nose. “Forget him. You spotted a possible shooter and, y’know, defused a freaking bomb your first night on the job. He can get as butt hurt as he wants about his toy collection. Far as I’m concerned, you’re still in my good books.”

  “Glad to hear that,” she said.

  “You know, some bosses would take the damages out of your first paycheck.”

  Charlie winced. “If . . . you need to, I understand.”

  “Nah. I’m just saying. Some would. So maybe, in the future, remember this gesture of largesse and try extra hard to make my life easier?”

  “Understood.”

  “Do me one favor,” he said. “For the next few days, unless I need you on his direct detail, just kinda . . . be wherever Ellis isn’t. Give him some time to forget your face. We work with clients like this all the time, the high-strung CEO type. They calm down just as fast as they blow up, as long as you don’t keep poking the sore spot. Speaking of sore, how’s your arm?”

  “Sore,” she said.

  “Then I consider you appropriately punished for your literally inexcusable mistake. That will be all.” He glanced at his watch, a cheap Timex, as they walked. “I have to go attend to more high-level boss stuff, such as picking up a roast for dinner tonight. My mother is coming over, which means this afternoon was really just a warm-up for me.”

  They rode the elevator down and went their separate ways in the lobby. Dom met her halfway to the revolving doors, her flats echoing off the span of white marble floor. Charlie quizzed her with her eyes, almost afraid to ask. In response, Dom held up her phone and flashed a lopsided smile.

  “We got it?” Charlie asked.

  “We did indeed. I asked for one minute, and you gave me five.” She shot a look toward the security desk as they passed by. “C’mon, talk more in the parking garage.”

  Down in the concrete labyrinth, in a gallery of silent cars under yellow sodium lights, Dom slapped her on the shoulder. Charlie tried not to wince.

  “You didn’t tell me you were crazy,” Dom said, laughing. “Seriously, that was your distraction? Throwing yourself into his trophy collection?”

 
; “I knew it would get his attention. As far as being crazy goes . . . you do know I used to dispose of explosives for a living, right?”

  “I wasn’t sure about you at first, but I think I like your style.” Dom paused. Her smile faded. “I mean it, though. You had my back in there. You were there when I needed you, and you didn’t leave me twisting in the wind. That means a lot to me.”

  “Forget about it,” Charlie said. “So what happens now?”

  “Now we wait. The malware’s in place, I carved out a nice little back door, and everything that comes to Ellis’s phone is getting copied and shunted to my system. Well, a system that doesn’t have anything to identify its owner by. Because we never did this, and we’re not having this conversation. I’ll keep an eye on it, and the second anything interesting pops up, I’ll give you and Beckett a call.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. Charlie heard back from Dom an hour later, while she sat in the thick of rush hour traffic. Charlie eased across lanes, angling for an exit ramp. She’d been looking forward to going home, soaking in a hot bath, and giving her aching hip a rest, but her day wasn’t over just yet.

  They didn’t meet up at company headquarters. Too many ears, too little privacy. Dom suggested a place she knew, an Italian restaurant called DiMaggio’s. It took Charlie’s eyes a second to adjust once she stepped inside. They were all in on the romance angle, the room cast in the glow of flickering tea lights in glass globes. Violin music played softly on speakers concealed behind rustic wooden trellises and plastic grapevines. The aroma of fresh-baked bread and marinara sauce drew Charlie across the room like an invisible tether, her stomach growling.

  She was the last to arrive. Dom had reserved a table in a cozy side room. It was sized for a small party, but only she and Beckett sat at the broad, candlelit table. A bottle of chardonnay sat out, three glasses waiting, and a wicker basket lined in burgundy cloth offered a bounty of breadsticks. Dom had cleared extra room for her laptop; it was a Toughbook model, its rugged black shell specially engineered for outdoor conditions and fieldwork.