Page 13 of A Touch of Treachery
Diego pulled a laptop out of his padded case, sat down, and connected his device to the reception desk computer.His fingers flew over the keyboard in a quick, graceful rhythm, and he quickly pulled up the security footage.Gia, Desmond, and I crowded into the space behind Diego, and the four of us studied the different feeds and camera angles.
Everything played out just as it had earlier.Me heading toward the elevator on the left side of the lobby with Iris Berriston.The other three thieves accessing the elevator on the right side.Desmond ambushing the thieves on the lower Vault level, neutralizing them, and leaving them in the storage locker.My own fight with Iris on the deserted fifth floor.Then both Desmond and me hurrying back to the lobby.
Gia stabbed her finger at the screen again.“Focus on the lobby this time.I want to see everything that happened here at the reception desk.”
Diego rewound the footage, this time showing only the lobby.For several seconds, nothing happened.Then a shadow fell over the smooth, shiny counter, and a man stepped forward and dropped into the empty chair.
Gia blinked a few times, then bent down, her chin hovering over Diego’s shoulder.“Is that ...”
“Bryce Finkley,” Desmond growled.
“Who is he?”Diego asked.
Gia drew back.Her lips puckered as though she’d just bitten into something rotten.“A former Section cleaner.”
On the footage, Bryce sat down, fished a flash drive out of his pocket, and plugged it into Iris’s laptop.He also slid a comms device into his right ear.Bryce bent forward and started typing.The security camera angle wasn’t quite right, but I could still see lines of code streaming across the laptop screen.
A few minutes passed.Bryce kept working, his lips moving every once in a while as he communicated with the other thieves.The former cleaner played his part perfectly, smiling at everyone who approached the desk and even pausing his typing long enough to answer questions from passersby.
Another minute passed.The lines of code vanished, replaced by a status bar, as though Bryce was uploading something onto the flash drive.His fingers tapped out an impatient rhythm on the desk, then abruptly stopped.
“That’s when I came back into the lobby and spotted him,” I said.
Once again, everything played out as it had earlier, with Bryce vaulting over the counter, plunging into the garden, and escaping through the manhole.
“Bryce never left the lobby,” Gia said in a thoughtful voice.“He didn’t even try to access the Vault level with the other thieves.”
“Which means whatever he wanted was onthiscomputer,” Desmond growled again.
“Diego, can you tell what Bryce was doing?”I asked.
“Give me a second ...”Diego’s voice trailed off, and his fingers flew over the keys again.“Looks like he—”
Diego’s fingers stilled.His head jerked back, and he blinked several times.“The flash drive he plugged into the laptop contained some serious decryption software.”
A few weeks ago, Diego had given me a flash drive loaded with similar software, which I’d used to hack into Elsa Eisen’s laptop during the Tannenbaum mission.If Bryce had done something like that here ...well, today’s mission was even more of a disaster.
Diego clicked through several screens, following a trail of electronic breadcrumbs only he could see and understand.He stopped and let out a low whistle, although I couldn’t tell if it was one of admiration, concern, or both.“The decryption software breached several Section firewalls.He got into our servers.”
Gia tensed.“Can you tell what information Bryce accessed?”
Diego shook his head.“It was a sophisticated attack, and he pulled up hundreds of thousands of files.I’ll have to examine the decryption software and sort through everything before I can pinpoint what he was really after.”
Gia pinched the bridge of her nose.“All right.Pack it up and return to headquarters.I want an update in two hours.”
Diego nodded, got to his feet, and unplugged the compromised laptop.
Gia went over to the Section charmer.The other agent had calmed the onlookers and was now talking to the mortal cops and firefighters who had responded to the scene.
I picked up the smoke-stained briefcase, which felt as heavy as an anvil.I thought I was being clever by dangling the Grunglass Necklace in front of Henrika, but it had turned into a giant albatross hanging around my own neck.
Desmond laid a hand on my shoulder.“You can’t blame yourself for this, Charlotte.”
“Of course I can, and I absolutely should,” I muttered.“This wasmyplan,mymission.I should have realized Henrika would see this as an opportunity to steal more than just the Grunglass Necklace—that she would target Section secrets.After all, the more she knows about Section, the easier it is for her to stay three steps ahead of us.”
Desmond’s hand dropped from my shoulder, and he shifted on his feet.“Henrika wasn’t just after Section secrets—she was after ours too.”
“What do you mean?”
