6
“So it’s true,” I said, ignoring his question. “How long did it take to find it?”
Bruce’s lips pursed. “I’m not saying anything else without counsel present. You can show yourselves out.” He stood.
“Wait,” Jackson said, rising, too. “We’re not here to blackmail you or the company. We’re not talking about going public. This is personal.”
“What are you talking about?” Bruce asked.
“Just hear me out,” I said. “Please.”
He hesitated, then sat down again. Jackson did the same.
“My mother knew about the back door because the man who did it told her. It’s possible she was killed for knowing that information. I’m trying to find out if she was, and if so, who was responsible for her death. Any information you have on the company or software could help me.”
“And why should I help you?” Bruce asked. “If I validate your information, you could use it against me. If it went public that Fortress had at one time knowingly compromised the New York Stock Exchange, it would destroy our company as well as have ramifications for every trade we made during that time when the software was installed.”
“Are you sure you were able to really remove the software?” I asked. “And reverse anything it might have done? It had to have taken you time to replace it, and during that time, it would have continued to run the Exchange. You didn’t go public then for the same reasons. The Exchange would’ve had to shut down for who knows how long. It would’ve destroyed the economy.”
Bruce’s face was like granite.
“We could help you,” I offered. “Jackson and I can look at the software you replaced, find out exactly what it did and what the back door was intended for. We can report to you quickly and quietly, and if there’s anything you need to retrace and correct, you won’t have to tell a soul.”
“I know Jackson could do something like that, but you’re barely older than my daughter. Why should I believe you?”
“China’s skills are exceptional,” Jackson said before I could reply. “She’s worked for me, and I can vouch for her abilities. She can do what she’s promising.”
Bruce was thinking about it. I could tell.
“You want to make sure all the cobwebs are clean, don’t you?” I prompted.
“All right,” he relented. “I’ll give you access to the old software, but it has to stay on property. You cannot make a copy, and you will use our equipment on a separate network to examine it.”
“Agreed.”
“It was in place for nine months before they realized something was wrong,” he said with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. “This was before I was CEO, so I’m relying on secondhand sources. I wasn’t directly involved.
“The matter was fully disclosed to me when I was offered the position,” he continued. “To my knowledge, the back door was in place but was never accessed. It was found via a code review post-Y2K. Everyone kept it quiet, and it was fixed with a software patch thirteen months postdeployment.”
“That’s a long time to have a back door available to the New York Stock Exchange,” Jackson said.
“We monitored the vulnerability closely, and to our knowledge, no one accessed it.”
“But you aren’t one hundred percent sure,” Jackson said.
“This was over fifteen years ago,” Bruce said. “If someone had accessed it, we’d know by now.”
“Let’s take a look at that software,” I said, “as well as a database of transactions for those thirteen months.”
“That’ll take some time to pull together,” he warned.
“We’ve got time.”
Bruce set us up in a conference room where he had three IT people produce four computers with three monitors each and establish a network between them. Someone else brought in a portable hard drive.
“Here’s the software as it was delivered in 1999,” he said. “Both the uncompiled and compiled files. I’ll have someone bring you the database when it’s ready.”
It took a few minutes to copy the software, and I shed my jacket while I waited. Jackson did the same and also loosened his tie.
“How do you want to do this?” he asked.
“We’ll start at the top and work our way down,” I said. “It would go faster if we took separate modules, but I don’t want to miss anything. Two sets of eyes are better than one.”
A ding from the computer said the file copy had finished. We each took a seat and went to work.
Reviewing someone else’s code is like reading their handwriting. One person’s capital S may look different from someone else’s, but it’s still an S. Coders had their own ways of doing things, and in most cases, there were about a dozen ways to skin the same cat—an idiom I’d learned but thought was truly barbaric. If you looked carefully, you could identify how many developers were involved in the same project. By the time three hours had passed, Jackson and I had identified five main styles, which we creatively referred to as Coders A, B, C, D, and E.
“We need to take a break,” Jackson said, rubbing his eyes. “How many lines have you done?”
I glanced at my screen and did the math. “Three thousand or so. You?”
“About the same.”
Technically, reviewing more than five hundred lines of code an hour wasn’t advisable, but Jackson and I also weren’t your average programmers. But he was right. We needed a break.
“A Red Bull sounds good,” I said.
Just then, Bruce popped his head in. “I’m heading to dinner,” he said. “Care to join me?”
Jackson and I glanced at each other, and by silent mutual agreement, he said, “Sure.”
A limousine took the three of us to a steakhouse, and I felt like a dwarf walking between them, as both Bruce and Jackson had several inches on me. The maître d’ took one look at his auspicious guests (not me—them) and had to conceal his elation. I assumed patronage by famous, rich people helped any restaurant’s standing, though this establishment seemed to hardly need it. The tables were full and the bar held a crowd of people, yet we were led toward the back of the restaurant. It was quieter there, and we were seated at a circle corner booth by the window.
I hesitated about how we were going to sit, but it seemed both men were averse to sitting side by side in a booth, so the dubious honor of being the middle of the sandwich went to me. At least it was big enough so we could spread out. The table was set with a white linen tablecloth and napkins, and silverware so polished, it shone.
Bruce ordered a bottle of wine for the table as I looked over the menu, which was basically meat, meat, and more meat. And potatoes about five different ways.
I chose an entrée at random and ordered. The men ordered as well, and the waiter went away.
“How is it going?” Bruce asked.
“There’s a lot of code to go through,” Jackson said, “but we’re making headway. So far, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Something’s been bothering me,” I said. Bruce turned toward me. “I was wondering how Fortress—a relatively small and unknown firm—got such a high-profile project. I know it was before your time, but still, maybe you know how that happened?”
Bruce grinned. “Actually, I do. It’s called nepotism, and it’s because my grandfather had a seat on the Exchange. If Fortress could land that account, the future of the company was secure.”
I frowned. “But you didn’t work for Fortress at that time.”
“No, but I was eyeing it to buy. The company was ridiculously undervalued. The deal ensured its future, and I bought it.”
Wait a minute, that didn’t fit with what we’d guessed. If Bruce’s grandfather was the one who’d pushed the deal through just so Bruce could buy the company, then he couldn’t have known about the spy. Except . . .
“How did you first hear about Fortress?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He sighed, then he frowned, thinking. “You know, now that I think about it, Grandfather may have been the one to mention it. But that was months before this project was bid out, much less awarded.”
“Are you and your grandfather close?”
He nodded. “I’m the only son of an only son, and my dad died when I was young. He’s been like a second father to me.”
A grandfather devoted to his grandson, who just happens to point out what a great investment Fortress Securities would be only months before helping them land a lucrative and game-changing contract. A contract that would result in someone being able to secretly install a back door into the New York Stock Exchange.
It all sounded too coincidental not to mean anything, and when I glanced at Jackson, he looked like he was tracking the path the same way I had.
“Is there any way we could meet with your grandfather?” Jackson asked.
“Sure,” Bruce replied. “He’s out of town today but will be back tomorrow. I can set something up. But I can tell you, he won’t know anything about this back door. He’s over eighty years old. Technology to him is a pen that takes weeks to run out of ink.” He smiled at his own joke, and I reflexively did the same.
The food came then, and conversation between Jackson and Bruce turned toward business and tech. I half listened as I ate, concentrating on what I’d seen of the code so far and the most likely way to insert a back door.
“Wait a second,” I burst out, belatedly realizing I’d just interrupted their conversation.
“What is it?” Jackson asked.
“Of course, I should’ve thought of it before.”
“What?”
“The back door. We’re assuming he could’ve installed it at any point during development. But actually, there would have been a very small window of time to do it without anyone else on the team knowing. He had to have done it at the last minute. All we have to do is find the previous version in backups and run it against the final version. That’ll at least narrow it down to showing us what was added last.”
Jackson turned to Bruce. “Do you have backups for the previous versions, too?”
Bruce nodded. “We should. We keep our project backups in case it’s necessary to roll back at some point. And like most developers, we hate deleting files.”
I was ready to go right then, but the men looked at me askance when I said we should just leave. Jackson still had half a steak to eat, and Bruce had about the same. I sighed. Of course. Don’t come between a man and his steak.
“The backups are in storage anyway,” Bruce said, looking at his phone. “I’ll send IT a message to retrieve them. It’ll take a bit. But the good news is that the database is ready.”
I cooled my heels and tried not to fidget. I watched Jackson cut a bite, put it in his mouth, chew, and swallow. It was like he was eating slowly on purpose. Another cut. Another bite. Another swallow. My gaze followed the meat from his plate, to his fork, to his mouth, then back down to his plate.
Bruce excused himself from the table for a moment, but then I returned to watching Jackson eat. Finally, he put his utensils down, sighed, and swung his gaze to mine.
“I feel like I’m being watched by a rather persistent—and hungry—Yorkipoo.”
I frowned. “Why a Yorkipoo?”
“Because they’re cute, small, very smart, and they don’t shed.”
Huh. Well, I’d been called worse. The important thing was, “Are you done?”
“Yes, China.” He sighed, gave one last longing look at the remnants of steak on his plate, and signaled the waiter for the check.
We’d paid by the time Bruce returned, and he politely thanked Jackson. I’d caught a glimpse of the bill, which had been close to $700. The bottle of wine had been old and French, and the steaks, Wagyu. To billionaires, thousand-dollar dinners weren’t a big deal, but I made a mental note to make sure Bruce took us out again and didn’t conveniently disappear to the bathroom when it was time to pay the tab.
The limousine wasn’t waiting outside, but a town car was instead. I got in first, then the men. Bruce sat on the seat facing backward. We headed back to the office.
Even at this hour, traffic was horrendous. I was checking my phone while Jackson and Bruce chitchatted. A sharp turn made me look up from the screen. We were driving down a tight alley.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Bruce glanced out the window. “Probably a shortcut to avoid traffic.”
The buildings on either side were dark and rundown. We passed a dumpster overflowing with garbage, and I caught a figure huddled on the ground next to it. A homeless person. Seeing one always sent a pang of sympathy through me.
The car slowed to a crawl, then stopped, the engine idling.
“Why are we stopping?” I asked, my senses crawling.
“I don’t know.”
Bruce twisted around in his seat to speak to the driver just as my window began to roll down. Automatically, I glanced up to the open window. My breath froze in my chest.
The “homeless” man stood outside my door, an automatic pistol pointing directly at me.
Several things happened very fast. I heard Jackson shout, “Get down!” Before I could obey, he shoved me none too gently to the floor. The boom of gunshots thundered in my ears, as well as the sound of shattered glass. Bruce yelled, diving for the opposite side of the car. Jackson was a sitting duck, his body covering mine.
Reaching up, I yanked the door handle and shoved as hard as I could. There was a solid thump of the door colliding with a body, and the bullets stopped. In a flash, Jackson was out of the car, nearly stepping on my head in the process. He flew at the attacker, who’d stumbled back. The guy raised his gun just as Jackson hit him, and I screamed.
They wrestled, Jackson’s hand locked around the man’s wrist, the gun between them. Jackson slammed his forehead into the guy’s nose, and he grunted in pain as blood spurted.
The driver. He had to be in on it, I just realized.
I scrambled up from the floor. Bruce had jumped out the other side of the car, but I couldn’t see where he’d gone.
I caught the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror. He looked surprised to see me alive. Asshole.
Thrusting my arms over the seat back, I locked one around his neck in a choke hold. He was a big guy with a bald head and thick neck. I grabbed onto my forearm, grunting with the effort of squeezing.
He clawed at my arm, and I thought I was going to be able to hold him, but he reached up and grabbed my head. I tried to pull my head back, but he latched onto my ponytail and yanked so hard, tears came to my eyes. My grip on his neck loosened, and suddenly I was flying over the top of the seat, my back slamming into the console.
I cried out in pain and heard another gunshot outside the car. I couldn’t see Jackson or the attacker, but they were the least of my current worries.
The driver slammed his elbow down into my breast. Excruciating pain shot through me, so bad that I couldn’t catch my breath even to scream.
“Fucking bitch,” the driver snarled, smashing his fist into my cheek. Pain exploded in my head. I heard the flick of a switchblade, looking up just in time to see the blade glittering above me.
Adrenaline poured through my veins in a cold rush. My head was under the steering wheel, which gave me a perfect view of his Man Spread. I slammed my fist into his crotch as hard as I could.
He howled, his eyes closing, and I grabbed his arm holding the knife, pulled myself up, and sank my teeth into his skin. He grunted and tried to shove me away as blood touched my tongue. I wanted to vomit—human blood contained so many pathogens—but if I let go, he’d kill me.
He seized my ponytail again, yanking. Somehow, I twisted around, my jaw still locking on his hand. I used his body as a human jungle gym, kneeing him in the stomach and stepping on his injured crotch. My head was numb, but he yanked anyway, and I couldn’t stop him from pulling my head back until I had to let go with my teeth.
Blood dripped from his hand, and his eyes were livid with rage and pain. I was wedged between him and the steering wheel, straddling him—a grotesque perversion of an intimate position. My throat was bare and too vulnerable. My eyes were glued to the knife. I had both hands locked around his arm, straining to hold the blade back, but it was coming inexorably closer. I wasn’t going to be able to stop him.
The door flew open and Jackson was there, gun in hand.
“Let her go.” The muzzle was level with the driver’s head. The knife stopped coming.
I gasped with relief as the driver let go of my hair, the pressure on my scalp easing, though it still burned like fire.
Reaching up, I pried the knife from his bloody hand. Jackson helped me out of the car. I stumbled, my body still in pain. As I looked up at Jackson, he caught his breath when he saw my face. I could feel blood dripping down my cheek, and I couldn’t straighten all the way—the aches in my breast and back were still too much. I clutched an arm across my chest, cradling the injured party.
The look in Jackson’s eye was pure, murderous rage.
“Get out of the car.” Barely leashed violence threaded his voice.
The guy eased out, his hands raised. Jackson motioned him to stand with his back to the wall.
“Who hired you?”
The guy said nothing, a look of contempt on his face.
Jackson’s hand flashed out, slamming the butt of the weapon against the side of his head. The sharp crack made me flinch.
“I’ll ask again,” Jackson said. “Who hired you?”
Blood dripped from the man’s head, his lips curled in a snarl.
The gunshot made me jump as the man howled with pain and collapsed to the ground. Jackson had shot a bullet into his knee.
“That leg will never work right again,” Jackson said, pointing the gun at his other knee. “Want to be a lifelong cripple?”
His voice was so cold, it sent a shudder through me. I’d never seen him this way before. Calculatingly hurting someone with such precision. It scared me.
“All right! All right!” The man’s face was shockingly pale and twisted with pain. “Don’t shoot.”
“Then talk.”
The man’s gaze moved, looking between us. A sixth sense struck, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. I spun around just in time to see Bruce, pointing yet another gun at us.
I shoved Jackson to the side, tripping and falling with him to the ground just as a shot rang out. I rolled over, seeing the driver dead on the ground, a bullet through the center of his chest.
“You killed him,” I blurted, looking up at Bruce. “You almost shot Jackson.”
“I’ll fix that now,” Bruce said, still pointing the gun at us. “Drop the weapon, Jackson.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Jackson asked. “You’re going to kill us? Why?”
“You think I’m just supposed to trust you that this news won’t get out? That Fortress installed a back door into the Exchange? My business will never recover. Now drop the weapon.”
“I told you, we’re not interested in ruining your business,” Jackson bit out.
The muzzle of Bruce’s gun swung my way. “Drop the gun or she goes first.”
Jackson bit out a curse, sliding his gun across the concrete. Bruce bent and picked it up, his gaze remaining fixed on us.
“A mugging gone wrong,” he said with a shrug. “It’s New York. Those things happen.”
I still had the knife, but I wasn’t close enough for it to do any good, no matter my mad skills in throwing them. The idiom Never bring a knife to a gunfight ran through my head. I hadn’t thought I’d ever actually experience that particular one.
We just needed a distraction. Anything that would make him glance away.
“You don’t want to do this,” Jackson said, trying to reason with him. “We haven’t done anything to you, and I’ve given my word that we won’t. Killing us is trouble you don’t need. You don’t think with who I am that there won’t be an extremely detailed investigation? And you don’t know this, but she,” he nodded at me, “has the president on speed dial.”
Not at all accurate, but I didn’t think now was an appropriate time to correct him.
“A simple mugging isn’t going to cut it.”
Bruce frowned, thinking. “You’re right. Get up.”
A reprieve, maybe? I hid the knife in my palm and pushed it up the sleeve of my jacket. Jackson stood first and helped me up. I winced as every muscle in my body informed me of its presence.
Bruce reached into the front seat of the car and hit a latch. The trunk popped open.
“Get in,” he motioned.
Well, this was just getting better and better.
We were almost to the car when Jackson lunged at Bruce. The gun went off as he knocked it from Bruce’s hand, then he swung his fist at Bruce’s face. The crunch of bone on bone was loud. I scrambled for the gun, but they were struggling and it got kicked farther away.
The sounds of them smashing into each other and into the wall sent panic through me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Bruce land a nasty uppercut on Jackson, spinning him into the brick wall. Jackson exploded back, smashing his fist into Bruce’s kidney, then the other into his cheek. Bruce went down. Was it over?
I saw it the same time he did. The gun Jackson had tossed away. It was inches from his hand. Bruce grabbed it.
Jackson lunged.
Bruce aimed.
I threw my knife.
The knife hit true, right at the base of Bruce’s skull, in the sweet spot between the spinal cord and brain stem. Death was instant. His body slumped over, the gun clattering to the ground.
My legs gave out and I crumpled.
Jackson was breathing hard, his face battered and bruised. His mouth was bleeding and his jacket was torn. Reaching down, he riffled through Bruce’s pockets, pulling out his wallet and cell. Using Bruce’s finger, he unlocked the phone, scrolled, then took a photo of something with his own phone before tossing it back down onto Bruce’s body.
“C’mon,” he said, hurrying to me and helping me up. “We need to get out of here.”
Three dead bodies lay in the alley, and they’d almost been us.
I began shaking uncontrollably. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Bruce’s body. We’d just had dinner with him. Had he known the whole time that he was going to try to have us killed?
“China.” Jackson’s voice was loud. His hand was under my chin, turning my gaze to him. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Stay with me.” He had his phone in his hand and hit a button. It was picked up almost instantly. “I have a situation,” he said. “Priority one, code red. Send medic, guards, cleanup, and law.” He ended the call.
“The police?” I squeaked. “How are we ever going to explain this?”
“Of course, not the cops. My lawyers.”
He wrapped me very carefully in his arms. I hurt, but not enough to step back. I felt cold all over and I couldn’t take a deep breath. My glasses had fallen off somewhere inside the car, but I wasn’t about to try to get them.
I’d killed someone. Yes, he’d been going to kill us, but still. My knife was the one sticking out of the back of his neck. And it wasn’t as though he was a stranger, like the other two.
I closed my eyes. Jackson was lightly stroking my hair. I focused on breathing. The scent of his sweat was mixed with cologne, and it was familiar.
Jackson employed the best, and the best turned up six minutes later in a flood of cars and vans. I was taken to a special black van outfitted on the inside like an ambulance. I clutched at Jackson, terrified to be apart.
“No,” I protested when they tried to lift me up inside. “Don’t leave me. What if someone attacks you again? Or me? We’re not safe.” Every sense of safety had fled, despite the dead bodies, which I couldn’t see now, as they were being covered up by thick tarps. I had fistfuls of Jackson’s shirt in my grip. He’d shed his torn jacket, tossing it at one of the people cataloging the crime scene.
“You’re safe now,” he said. “Look there. You see those men.”
I looked. At least half a dozen men, wearing full tactical gear and toting some serious-looking weapons, surrounded us and guarded the entrance to the alley.
“Nothing is going to get by them,” he said. “I promise, they will protect us.”
Slowly, I nodded.
“Now you need someone to look at your injuries,” he said. “So be good and get in the van, okay? Maddy will take care of you.” He indicated a woman with a stethoscope around her neck. She was older, maybe in her midfifties, and petite, but looked as though she could take on one of those guards, and it’d be a toss-up as to who’d come out on top.
Maddy smiled at me, her expression warm and open, inviting me to trust her. “It’s okay, China. I’m here to help.”
I looked up at Jackson, uncertain. His lips curved in a reassuring smile, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
Maddy helped me get my jacket and blouse off, making sure that the door was shut so people couldn’t see, and examined me. She cleaned the cut on my face and the blood from the driver. Butterfly bandages sufficed to hold the skin together.
“You have some nasty contusions on your back and ribs, but I don’t think anything is broken,” she said. “You’re going to really hurt tomorrow.”
I hurt already. I didn’t want to think about tomorrow.
“Take a hot bath tonight, that’ll help. And I’ll give you some pain medication. It’ll help you sleep.”
After giving me a shot, she wrapped a blanket around me, and I realized I was shivering. My clothes were torn and bloodstained, though my pants had escaped unscathed. I’d have to get the blouse and jacket cleaned and repaired. They’d cost way too much to merely discard.
Maddy left me alone in the van, and I waited. Now that the adrenaline and shock had worn off, I was hard-pressed to keep my eyes open. They kept drifting shut. I never knew what was worse: when you were so tired but were too uncomfortable to sleep (like on a plane), or when you were desperately tired but couldn’t allow yourself to sleep (like while driving). They were both pretty miserable to me.
I was about to give up and lie down on the stretcher when Jackson appeared. He held out his hand.
“Let’s go.”
He helped me down from the van and handed me my glasses. I slipped them on, then wished I hadn’t. The alley and bodies were in crystal clarity now, as though I needed an HD image of the crime scene.
We got into the back seat of a sedan, this time with two of Jackson’s armed guards in the front. Another sedan, also filled with gun-wielding men, followed behind.
I rested my head against the back of the seat and closed my eyes.
The next thing I knew, Jackson was gently shaking me.
“China. Time to wake up. You can sleep again soon. Let’s just get to the room, okay?”
I was lying sideways in his lap, and I thought I’d drooled some. Nice.
I shifted and sat up, holding in a groan at the aches and pains that brought. Jackson stepped out to the curb, then extended his hand to me.
The hotel was luxurious and exquisite, chandeliers and marble floors, fresh flowers and antique furniture. I hardly noticed. Jackson must’ve had someone else check us in because he took me straight to the elevator. Our suite was near the top floor. I was so drowsy now from the pain medication, it was hard to put one foot in front of the other. I had just enough energy to kick off my shoes and peel my trousers from my legs before crawling underneath the sheets. I closed my eyes and said a prayer that I wouldn’t dream tonight.