Chapter Thirty-Four
Daniel slept on. Six hours later, when Diana waved a cup of unadulterated coffee under his nose, he finally blinked awake. He sat up, groaning.
“Jesus. What happened? How long—?” He looked at his watch. “Quarter to four. Christ. Is that all it is?”
“You told me to wake you for the meeting,” Diana said.
Daniel looked at the coffee she offered him and winced, but then took it and drank some. He glanced around. “We got anything to eat?”
“There’s that egg sandwich you got me this morning. It’s a little tired, but—”
“Nuke it. Nuking kills anything that can kill you.”
“Interesting theory.” She found the greasy paper bag and stuffed it into the microwave. When she hit the switch, the light came on, and the little carousel inside started turning. After a bit, the odor of egg oozed out. Diana had been so busy, she hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She’d even have eaten that disgusting egg sandwich.
When she turned back, Daniel was staggering to his feet. “So, are we ready for the meeting?”
“We”—Diana paused—“are all set. Just waiting for Jake to e-mail me the coordinates and the pass code.”
The microwave dinged. Diana opened it and handed Daniel the hot sandwich. He stared at it for a moment as if she’d handed him a dead frog. Then he opened a corner, sniffed, and took a bite.
Diana’s stomach rumbled. God, she was hungry. She’d drunk most of the coffee milk and a PowerBar that she found, but that had been hours ago.
“If you want me to attend this meeting,” she said, “then you’ll have to unlock her.” She jerked her thumb toward her computer, where Nadia stood in suspended animation in her business clothes in OtherWorld’s re-creation of the mill’s silo.
“Huh?”
“Nadia. She seems to be stuck in neutral.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Daniel shambled over to his worktable and glanced at the dark screen of his computer. He jiggled the mouse but nothing happened. Pressed the on button. The screen came to life. As he waited for it to boot up, his gaze traveled across the computer equipment on the table, down the cables to more equipment on the floor, as if checking that everything was the way he’d left it.
A beep brought him back. He swiped his index finger across the fingerprint reader attached to his laptop. When his desktop materialized he glanced at the bottom corner of the screen. “I can’t believe it’s so early. Feels like I slept for days.”
“Oh? And what, exactly, does that feel like?” Diana asked.
Daniel grimaced. “Hey, I said I was sorry. Besides, drugging your sister was Jake’s idea.” As he scratched his head and yawned, Diana heard a barely audible electronic voice: “Hel-lo So-kay-oss. Wel-co-me ba—”
She’d inadvertently left the Bluetooth earpiece turned on in her pocket. Clearing her throat to cover the noise, she casually reached in and tapped the Bluetooth silent.
“Oh, yeah.” Daniel fiddled at the computer for a few moments. “Liberate Nadia.”
“Makes a good bumper sticker,” Diana said.
Daniel scanned through the messages that had popped into his queue. “Here it is. Jake with the meeting coordinates,” he said. “He copied you.”
“Uh-oh. What’s this?” She bent down and pretended to pick up the Bluetooth from the floor. “This yours? I almost stepped on it.” She slid the little audio receiver onto the table.
Daniel barely glanced at it. “There. Reboot your system and you should be all set.”
Diana settled at her computer and restarted it. She turned on the audio and slid the volume control louder. When she got back into OtherWorld as Nadia, messages streamed into her queue. She found the one supposedly from Jake, clicked it open, and pasted the coordinates for the Vault meeting into her transporter.
“Engage?” She looked over at Daniel.
Daniel laughed and pulled his chair up behind her, gave the screen a two-fingered salute. “Make it so.”
Diana clicked go and the silo dissolved around her avatar. A moment later Nadia was hovering over a barren OtherWorld island. A box appeared and Diana typed in the pass code. A whirring sounded, then a click, like a safe opening. Clever touch.
Pixel by pixel, a meeting room rezzed around Nadia. The walls were the uneven dirt of an underground cave, but the table that Jake’s avatar was seated at along with four other avatars, all in business suits, was a regulation conference table. There were two empty chairs. Diana sat Nadia in one of them.
In the real world of the silo, Daniel stooped behind her and draped an arm over her shoulders. “Here we go.”
“All for one—” she whispered, looking up at him.
“One for all.” He looked at her expectantly.
She smiled. “And every man for himself.” She kissed him softly on the lips. Game on.
Then she pulled over the table microphone and spoke into it. “Nadia Varata.”
One of the male avatars stood. She hovered the cursor over him, checking that this image was supposed to represent Andrew Moore, Vault’s head of IT. “We’re looking forward to working with you,” Moore said.
He introduced the others and Diana wrote down the names and titles. Daniel returned to his own computer as she began delivering her presentation. She moved through it as quickly as she dared, lest Daniel zone out or fall asleep again before they got to the good part.
She had an odd sense of déjà vu. Nadia and the virtual Jake were working together just as they had for the last eight months, the pair of them a team making these new clients comfortable, lulling them into what would turn out to be a much more intimate relationship than they’d bargained for. Only this time, the clients wouldn’t be the ones unpleasantly surprised.
She concluded her presentation with, “Bottom line: you need to know if your lost data is being traded or sold, and lock down your systems and procedures to prevent this kind of thing from recurring. We’d like to start right away.”
“The sooner the better,” Moore said. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time. We’re at a critical point in our sales cycle. If this gets out, the results will be disastrous. We want to get out in front of this and manage any fallout. But we need to know exactly what we’re looking at.”
“Excellent. Then we’re on the same page,” Diana said. “We’d like to come at this two ways. Detection and prevention. As soon as we get a copy of the data that was taken, we’ll start tracking globally to see if it’s out there. I understand you’re concerned about security access codes as well and vulnerability in general. We can start penetration testing your network right away too. As soon as we finish with this meeting, if you like.
“One of the foremost experts in the world will be working with us on this.” She glanced over to see if Daniel was listening. “It’s possible that, within a few hours even, we’ll have some answers for you. Then we’ll be able to advise your staff on any changes that are needed.”
“That’s all well and good, but I’m concerned that—” Moore began, but he was interrupted. The audio feed sounded as if conversation was going on at the other end. “I’m sorry. Just a minute.”
Although the avatars on the screen remained seated, Diana could hear muffled voices, then nothing, as if Moore had put his side on mute.
“Uh-oh.” Diana made sure she said it loud enough so Daniel couldn’t help hearing.
“What?” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Shh. I think they’re conferencing about something they don’t want us to hear.”
Daniel came over and stood behind her.
Finally the sound came back on. “Jim Lau,” a voice said, and another male avatar, this one also dressed in a dark suit, his face a cliché from an Asian comic-book, materialized.
“That’s their COO,” she whispered up to Daniel.
“I know that,” he shot back, his face tense. “I thought he wasn’t going to be there.”
“Jim?” A voice balloon appeared over Moore’s head. “These are the folks from Gamelan Security. They’re ready to get started.”
“I’m sorry to have kept you in the dark,” Lau said, his voice deep and resonant like someone who’d had radio training. “It was unavoidable. But there’s been a development, and I wanted to bring you all the news myself because it’s going to affect this project. You understand, the nondisclosure is in effect?”
“Of course,” Diana said.
“No one’s listening in on your end?” Lau asked.
She looked up at Daniel. He covered his ears, then his eyes, then his mouth. “Absolutely not,” she said.
“All right, then. We’ve just received some disturbing news. I’ve been asked not to put anything in writing. To discuss it on a purely need-to-know basis. And you all need to know.” He paused for a moment. “We’ve had a ransom demand.”
Diana looked over at Daniel. He looked genuinely stunned.
“You sure it’s for real?” she asked. “Because sometimes news of these kinds of . . . unfortunate events”—she didn’t know what else to call leaving confidential corporate data on a commuter train—“can leak out. Someone might be trying to capitalize on the chatter.”
“I’m afraid it’s far more serious than that,” Lau said. “We’ve been faxed a copy of one of the missing documents. It’s genuine, all right. The demand is for ten million dollars. If we don’t pay up in three days, they’re threatening to sell the information to the highest bidder. I’ve had no choice but to call in the authorities. The data that was taken is highly sensitive. I can’t go into detail, but suffice it to say that in the wrong hands, the results would reverberate to the highest levels of our government.”
“Bogus,” Daniel muttered under his breath. “Completely bogus.”
Diana tensed, sweat beading on her upper lip. What was he thinking?
“Why isn’t he saying anything?” Daniel continued. “He’s just sitting there like a block of wood.” Diana realized he meant Jake.
“That’s the bad news,” Lau continued. “But the good news is, precautions were taken to safeguard the data. Digital time bombs were embedded in the files, and when one of the files was opened, presumably to print the data that was faxed to us, a homing beacon was detonated. Right now, it’s transmitting a signal. Agents are closing in on a location, as we speak.”
“Agents?” Diana said.
“FBI.”
Diana turned to Daniel. He’d gone pale. He stood, looking up into the domed roof of the silo, a hand cupped to his ear.
“What?” she whispered.
He shook his head.
Lau continued. “Tampering with federal data. It’s a federal offense.”
“Shit,” Daniel said under his breath. He returned to his computer and brought up his network manager. “Can’t believe . . . so stupid . . . idiot,” he muttered. A moment later he was scrolling through log files.
Lau continued to speak but Diana wasn’t listening. “Daniel, what are you looking for?”
He didn’t respond. He just sat there, gaping at his computer screen.
Diana realized that Lau had stopped talking. Presumably he was waiting for her response. Fortunately, Daniel didn’t appear to be paying close attention.
“So, how can we help?” she said.
“Go ahead with the security audit and penetration testing,” Lau said. “But forget about tracking the stolen data. It’s very important that you leave that alone. For now, at least. Understood?”
“Understood. We’ll start testing right away.”
“When do you think you’ll have a report for us?”
“I’ll need a meeting first with your in-house—”
“Jesus Christ,” Daniel exploded.
“Pardon?” Lau said.
“Can you give me a moment?” Diana clapped a hand over the microphone, switched the sound input to mute, and froze the screen. She turned to Daniel. “Daniel, they can hear you.”
He barely glanced over at her. He was scrolling through lists and opening files, swearing under his breath. “Shit. None of these files were here before. And now . . . Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“Daniel!”
“Son of a bitch.” He directed the word at his computer screen. “What the hell is going on?”
“Good question,” she said. “You tell me. What in the hell is going on?”
Daniel was scrolling through network log files. He didn’t even acknowledge her question.
Diana got up and went over to him. “Daniel!” she said, squeezing his shoulder.
He looked up, startled.
“Listen to me. This is just like what happened with my last client. Stolen data. Clients freaked out. I thought there might be a ransom demand, but I didn’t have the evidence to prove it. Now we do.”
A muscle in Daniel’s jaw twitched. His gaze traveled from Diana to her computer screen, where the avatars from Vault and Jake waited in suspended animation, then returned to his own computer.
“Or,” Diana continued, “is this making some kind of sense to you that I’m still not getting?”
Daniel didn’t answer. He continued to gape at the network logs.
“Daniel?”
Finally he shook himself out of it. “Honestly? I don’t know. This time I haven’t even a clue.”
“This time?” Diana said. “This time? Are we in this together or not?”
He gave her a dark look. “Diana, you’re out of your depth. You have no idea what you’re dealing with. Trust me on this.”
Trust you? Right. “Well whatever it is, you’re right about Jake. He’s acting weird. He’s just sitting there, like—”
Daniel narrowed his eyes and finished the thought. “Like he isn’t really there.”
Diana felt as if her heart had vaulted into her throat. Had he seen through the fantasy she’d so carefully constructed? She tried not to react.
“Exactly,” she said.
“I don’t like this,” he said. “It feels . . . wrong. The whole thing feels wrong. End the meeting.”
“But Vault—”
“Frankly, Vault and their security issues are not my biggest concern right now.” A vein throbbed in his forehead. “End the meeting right now. It’s a setup.”
“You sound like me.”
“Paranoid?” He looked up into the silo’s domed roof again, tense and alert. “I’m never paranoid. I know I’m surrounded by the enemy.”
This time Diana heard it too. The churning, low rumble of an engine. A car? A motorcycle? Daniel might even think it was choppers.