by Lee Winter
“Hell,” he said, his voice breaking. It was the most human Lauren had seen him. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Look, if it’d gone to plan, the bribes story would have been run already. They would never have known who was involved and be too busy arresting corrupt officials and investigating SmartPay.
“But Barry went and named me, and the moment he did, the moment the government found out how good I really am, what I can do, then SmartPay found out, too. I knew what the next step would be—they’d be wondering what else I might have found out and they’d put me in their sights. This, here,” he waved his hand around the camp site, “is my pathetic Plan B—to hide out with Dad.
“And of course I couldn’t tell Della, because while my wife has many incredible qualities, discretion isn’t one of them. She cannot keep a secret to save her life.”
“So you parked where you did to tell her you were safe? Was she right?”
“You know I was right there on the lake, fishing, that day you were standing around my car with the cops,” Sands said.
Lauren started in surprise.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “It gave me some hope. I wanted you staying interested in the story, and there’s nothing like a turf war mixed up with a weird mystery to keep the media sniffing around.
“But I didn’t want Della to worry, either. So I left the note to let her know I was fine and prayed you were curious enough to keep digging. Please tell me I didn’t put my family through all this for nothing? Tell me you’ll run the story now?”
“We will,” Ayers said. “But I’m curious about how you knew how to play the media so well. You know far more than any ordinary IT worker should.”
“Well, that’s because of my sister. It’s her line of work—dreaming up publicity stunts to get the media’s attention. She and her husband run a big New York marketing agency. Last Christmas, we were sitting around after a few drinks, and I challenged them, pretending it was a hypothetical, to come up with one way to get the attention of a roomful of journalists at a party attended by politicians. I said it had to be a guaranteed front-page story.
“Susan suggested billing crates of the world’s worst pink champagne to the politicians using the taxpayers’ money. And the genius part was not to actually serve it to anyone, because missing cheap pink champagne sounds far more mysterious.
“Mark suggested it’d be more dramatic billing the taxpayers for a room full of Las Vegas showgirls—and then leaving the invoice lying around.
“It turns out you can do both quite easily if you know how. Although I found out showgirls are way more expensive to hire than prostitutes. Besides they lack that essential tawdry quality you in the media so love.”
Lauren ignored the dig. “And your plan worked perfectly. Until Barry blabbed.”
Sands’s lip curled in annoyance. “The human equation is always the weakest part of any plan.”
“So no one knows what you know about SmartPay? What you really have on them?”
“No.”
“Then why have two gorillas broken into your home—both here and in LA—and mine? And why do they keep following us?”
“Only two? I’m surprised it’s not more. It’ll be little more than a fact-finding mission on their part. Anytime anyone sniffs around SmartPay, men in suits turn up. What did these two look like?”
Lauren sheepishly pulled out her own cell phone that she hadn't volunteered earlier when he was deconstructing their burner. He shot her an admonishing look. She showed him the photo.
“Can you zoom in above the ear, right there? He tapped the screen. Lauren did as he instructed.
“See? The coiled wire there? That’s standard issue for the CIA, NSA, and a couple of other intelligence agencies.”
He plucked her phone from her hands, removed the battery and SIM card, and passed it back silently. He then reached for his own phone and scrolled down. He showed them grainy black and white pictures of two men in Italian suits.
“I call this pair ‘Dolce and Gabbana.’ I still have no idea which agency they’re from. I ghosted this snap off SmartPay’s security camera at the Nevada HQ. They randomly turn up at the same restaurants I eat at. Follow me when I take my girl to the park.” He scrolled to another picture. A tall man with a thick neck and dark eyes was staring past the camera, adjusting something in his collar. “I call this one Fido. He’s security for SmartPay. He follows up industrial espionage mostly. He followed me for a little while when I first started implementing the system in Nevada. He follows us all from time to time, just to check we’re not up to anything. There are others—I’m not sure who they’re with.” He flicked through his phone, photo after photo of people with cool eyes and sharp suits greeted them. “It’ll make you crazy if you think about them watching you for long enough.”
“What do they want?” Lauren asked.
“To make sure nothing stops what SmartPay is doing.”
“Which is?”
His mouth tightened. “The thing I can’t prove and can’t directly end.”
“Tell us?” Ayers asked.
“You can’t stop it. You can’t prove it. You can’t print it. And I won’t back you up if you try to do any of these things. It’d be suicide.”
“You could go to the FBI.”
He shot her a pitying look. “You really don’t get what this is about, do you? How big this is? The FBI couldn’t do jack to stop this. There are many forces wanting this rollout to happen without interference, forces far more powerful than the FBI.”
“So tell us why.”
He sighed. “You don’t know what you’re asking. And you won’t thank me for knowing it, either. It made me paranoid for months. Della thought I was going mad. Because this stuff…it really does make you crazy.”
Lauren exchanged a look with Ayers. She saw a curiosity and determination that matched her own.
“We’re prepared to take the risk,” Lauren said quietly. “Tell us.”
Sands stared at them for a long moment, then took in a deep shuddering breath. “Okay but remember you asked. SmartPay plans to spy on us all and sell the data it gleans to the highest bidder. Namely, an intelligence agency.
“How can SmartPay do that?” Lauren asked, perplexed. “You mean track what we spend our wages on? Or what?”
“No. First they sell payroll technology cheaply to get as many people using it as possible—SmartPay sells its product at cost, making no profit, to drive out competitors and be more enticing to employers. Next, once people have their wages in a SmartPay account, it’s deliberately made very tempting to leave your money there because the deals offered through SmartPay’s bank are phenomenal. And do you know why that is?
“It’s all because to perform transactions using SmartPay’s bank you have to use their patented security dongles. And, quite by accident, I discovered one day that their dongles have sleeping dragons in them. A special, tailored virus buried deep in the source code under many layers of high security. Only a top programmer would recognize it for what it is.”
Lauren saw fear flitter across Ayers’s eyes, and she swallowed.
Sands looked at them grimly. “Yeah,” he said, reading their faces. “That’s how I felt when I saw it. What happens is the first time your dongle gets plugged into a computer, the virus hops over into that machine then goes back to sleep, waiting for a command to wake it. The wake command can be done remotely by anyone—well, anyone who has paid for the code. Someone, like an intelligence agency, for example.”
“What happens when someone wakes the dragon?” Lauren asked.
“SmartPay’s virus has the power to take over everything on your computer—the webcam and microphone, and it has a keystroke logger built in, too. Everything you type or say or do around your computer, it watches, listens, records, knows. SmartPay essentially supplies its espionage clients with a double agent in every home. And it doesn’t stop there. The virus copies itself onto any subsequent USB device inserted into that computer and sprea
ds itself well beyond SmartPay customers. Now from the sudden activity I’ve seen on their visitor’s e-log book, SmartPay appears to be getting very near to selling the wake-up code. Someone, somewhere will soon have unprecedented power over us. Now do you see why I couldn’t just let that happen?”
“Why wouldn’t a spy agency just develop this themselves?” Lauren asked.
“Times are tight, and research and development budgets aren’t what they used to be,” Sands shrugged. “I’m guessing SmartPay saw a gap in the market. Rumor has it key board members have NSA or CIA links, so they probably had this planned from day one. And the agencies get deniability later if anything bad blows up—it’s real easy to toss a private operator to the wolves and call them a rogue element.”
“Why can’t you prove any of this?”
“Because SmartPay made their virus too well. Once it copies itself the first time, it deletes itself from the dongle and then we have no way of linking the copy of it back to SmartPay. I only stopped the deletion on my dongle in the nick of time. But to prove any of this I need a brand new dongle, still in its packaging. These things are surprisingly hard to get hold of—there’s huge security on them. They make one per customer and each is keyed to an employee’s ID.
“If that’s not bad enough, I also need a top computer expert—someone independent—to witness and prove what I’ve said is true, or people could claim it’s a lie or I created it myself.
“I also need a federal government willing to stop this madness before it starts. But it’s too late. The power available is too immense for the spy agencies to pass up—especially given SmartPay plans to go global.
“Imagine the CIA, for example, able to tap into virtually any computer in the world to see what its enemies and allies are up to. They could read the emails of an Israeli soldier in Hebron or a British protestor in London or just some teenage girl gossiping with her friends in Maine—they could get all their secrets in a single data upload from their computer. Now do you see why this stuff will make you crazy if you head too far down the rabbit hole?”
“No wonder they’ve been looking for your laptop,” Lauren mused. “Given what they fear you could have found out.”
“What?” he said sharply. “As if I’d keep anything on my work laptop.”
“I meant your other one. The My Little Pony thing.”
The color drained from Sands’s face. “How could you possibly know about that?” he asked.
“Della really wanted us to solve this mystery of your disappearance. She thought that could help. She gave it to us.”
“She… I had it hidden under my… How could… Oh my god. Tell me you have it in a safe place? That no one else knows about it?”
“Uh…” Lauren looked at her boots, drying with caked-on mud. “Okay, well, a cop in Carson City saw me leaving with it, and maybe she told someone who told someone. Or maybe someone else was following us? But now everyone seems to want it.”
“Who has it now?” Sands whispered. His pallor had gone gray.
“Some friends of a friend. Computer experts. They’ve cracked it, too, I think.”
“Then they’re in a great deal of danger,” Sands said darkly. “And therefore so are we.”
He jumped to his feet, eyes darting. “Run with the bribes story, make SmartPay political poison, and hope like hell that stops everything. Because right now we’re all in deep trouble if they get their hands on the laptop and realize how much I know and speculate on how much I have told you. And if you found me, they may be able to, as well. Dad and I have to leave. Now.”
“How can we contact you?” Ayers asked.
“You can’t. I’ve been using a burner phone, but…” He took it out of his pocket and slid the cover off it. He dug around and tossed the SIM card into the fire. He took a rock and smashed the cheap plastic phone. “It was time to upgrade.” He glanced up. “Just make sure you print the story soon. I don’t want to be on the run forever.”
“It’ll be run in a matter of days,” Ayers assured him.
“There’ll be pressure to stop you,” he said. “The intelligence agencies—they’ll know what’s going on. Why the bribes story is running.”
“There’s been pressure already. But it will run.”
“Okay.” He nodded and turned to Lauren.
“The entertainment reporter,” he said. He considered her for a moment. “You know, I only met you that day to see how far along the media was on the story. Imagine my dismay when I found you only wrote about parties. Looks like you showed me.”
Lauren shot him a wry look. “And I thought you were an officious jerk stonewalling me. I had no idea you were this…brave.”
He shook his head and stuck out his hand. “Not brave. Just a father wanting to keep his daughter’s future from being some Orwellian nightmare.” He gave her a respectful nod. “Good luck, Ms. King. With everything.”
“You too.” She shook his hand.
He disappeared inside his tent and after a moment reappeared with his father’s rifle in one hand. He dropped a plastic bag at their feet.
“Some clothes and towels for you. You can’t leave like that. Last thing we need is people reporting to police two strange, battered women crawling out of a ditch.”
He loaded two bullets in the rifle and gestured to the tent. “Get changed. I’m going to get Dad back and relocate.” He shouldered the gun and strode away.
They stepped inside the tent. A bunk bed to the right had been made with military precision and a worn Aldous Huxley novel sat on it. Brave New World. To the left lay a new sleeping bag and a trio of computer journals, neatly stacked.
Lauren glanced over at Ayers.
“He’s not wrong about how conspicuous we look,” Lauren said, squeezing some mud out of her T-shirt. “I look like I’ve gone a few rounds with the creature from the black lagoon. Even you look like shit—and you never look bad.”
Ayers’s silk shirt clung to her chest, and her smart navy pants were brown and slightly torn on one side.
“Was that a compliment dressed up as an insult? Or the other way around?” Ayers asked, studying Lauren’s muddy boots and jeans. Her white T-shirt was a dripping brown mess. Ayers tossed her a set of clothes from Sands’s bag. “Besides, whose ridiculous idea was it to turn us into a pair of mud wrestlers?”
Lauren caught what turned out to be a pair of camouflage pants and a T-shirt with an eagle on the chest. “How was I to know Gray wasn’t aiming for us? I could have saved our lives.”
“Uh huh.” Ayers rolled her eyes and began unbuttoning her blouse.
Lauren spun around, faced the other way, and grabbed a towel. She peeled off her sodden T-shirt and jeans and kicked off her boots. She wiped the mud off her legs and stomach and realized they hadn’t yet discussed their next plans.
Back to Ayers’s place? Or a motel and a fresh start in the morning? Either was doable, although the former would be exhausting given how far Ayers had already driven today. Unless she was the one to drive them home? Lauren quite liked the idea of wrangling the luxurious Saab. She turned to ask. And then froze.
Ayers was towelling down her front. Mud was smeared across a skimpy, formerly white lace bra and matching high-cut panties. Her lean, long legs were as stunning as Lauren remembered.
She stared, sipping in air. Her cheeks flushed.
Ayers’s gaze dipped over Lauren’s bare legs, up to her stomach.
Lauren held her breath, transfixed, as twin knots hardened beneath the flimsy lace covering Ayers’s chest. Pink dusted Ayers’s neck but she said nothing as she looked back challengingly.
Two shots sounded in the distance, and Lauren jumped.
Ayers stepped closer. “That’ll be Sands telling his father to come back. No need to be alarmed.”
Lauren nodded and realized only a foot separated them. “Yeah,” she said. She studied Ayers’s lips, and remembered how they tasted. She licked her own lips and watched, fascinated, as Ayers’s mouth quirked up a
t the edges.
“Lauren.” Her voice was low, gently taking her to task.
“Can’t blame a girl for thinking about it,” Lauren replied quietly. “You’re gorgeous under your armor.”
“I look like a human mudslide.”
“It’s your best look to date.”
Ayers’s eyebrow lifted. “Oh?”
“Human.” Lauren flushed at their nearness and turned away to resume towelling down.
“Don’t get used to it,” came the soft, amused reply.
“Too late,” Lauren said, smiling to herself. She vigorously wiped away the last of the mud and then stepped into the pants. They were too long so she rolled them up. She grabbed the eagle T-shirt, slid it on, and then tossed her clothes in the now empty bag Sands had given them. A dripping pile of Ayers’s clothes landed with a plop at her feet.
Lauren scooped them into the sack, too.
“Thanks,” Ayers said. “If you want to do the honors and drive us back, we can leave for home now. I think Sands is right about the urgency. We have to get the bribery story out before anyone else decides to stop us.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Lauren agreed. She glanced at Ayers and laughed.
Ayers had scraped her damp hair back with her fingers, slicking it behind her ears. Her T-shirt was tucked neatly into the loose military-style pants which she’d secured with her Armani belt. With her stylish ankle boots she looked both high fashion and kick-ass GI Jane.
“Well don’t you look like an adorable,” Lauren grinned. “Hell, yes, ma’am, I’d salute you.”
“And you look like you’re on your second tour of duty,” she retorted.
Lauren glared, which only made Ayers offer a gleaming smile. She took a step closer and trailed her fingers pointedly up Lauren’s bare upper arm. She stopped and stroked the taut bundle of muscle.
“You misunderstand. I think you look as though you’re well acquainted with hauling a weapon around.” She gave Lauren’s arm a slow, admiring look, then stepped back and dropped her fingers to her side. “That’s all I meant.”
“Uh.” Lauren’s brain short-circuited.
Ayers turned away and fished out her car keys. “Let’s head home. We have a story to write.”
