Dave Zeltserman - Outsourced

Dan stared evenly at the bank manager. Brown blinked several times before looking away. “I think we’ll need to talk to other firms,” he said gruffly.

“That’s your choice, although I’d have to think you’d want to resolve this as quickly as possible. I’d also think you’d want the guy who designed the system to be the one looking at the code. But if you don’t care about the public relations aspect of this, that’s your business.” Then to Resnick, “Any more questions, Detective, before I leave?”

“Not right now. I’ll need a number where you can be reached.”

Dan handed Resnick a business card. “This has my home and cell numbers.” As he turned to leave, Brown stopped him.

“I’ll get you a check.” Brown met Dan’s eyes briefly and then lowered his gaze. “How quickly can you start on this?” he asked.

“Right away. I’ll need the full amount up front.”

Brown nodded. “Give me a minute,” he said. After he locked up the security system, he started towards his office. Dan was going to follow him, but Resnick stopped him. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to you alone,” he said.

“Sure.” Dan maintained his pleasant smile. He was amazed at how calm he was able to appear. In reality it was more of a numbness. Almost as if he were on autopilot, reacting without any thought or plan. But still, no perspiration, no heart palpitations, nothing but a flat evenness.

Brown wavered as if he wanted to eavesdrop on the conversation. Reluctantly, he kept walking. After he was out of sight, Resnick asked Dan what he thought. “Could Brown be involved in this?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think he’d have the balls to try something like this. It’s a nice thought, though.”

“You don’t like him much, do you?”

“No, not much. I warned him about the dangers of sending out this type of code to a place where there would be no oversight and he ignored me. I even offered to do the work at a discount.” Dan paused, his amiable smile fading. “I don’t want to appear insensitive,” he added. “I know people were killed during this robbery, but this thing really fucked me over too. I make my living designing security systems. Who’s going to want to hire me after this? All because some incompetent bank manager wouldn’t take my advice.”

“Are people going to know you worked on this security system?”

“Yeah, it’s a small industry, word gets around. Plus I’ve got dozens of resumes circulating now that mention this last contract.”

Dan stopped and let his smile drop completely. “What you asked before about Brown being involved – there is something that seemed odd to me. In my original proposal I had a backup line that would’ve been tied directly to the alarm buttons and would bypass the security system. This way if the system was down for any reason, the police would still be called if any of the buttons were activated. Brown got rid of it. The damn thing would’ve only cost about three hundred dollars a month. I just assumed he made his decision out of shortsightedness, but who knows?”

Dan spotted the bank manager walking towards them. As Brown handed him a check, he made a lame joke about how the bank was being robbed for the second time in two days. Dan noticed that Resnick was looking at Brown differently now, more intensely, and Brown seemed to notice it also, his smug little smile quickly growing strained. Dan told the bank manager that he’d be calling him as soon as he found something and then shook hands with Resnick, who thanked him for his time.

As Dan walked through the bank lobby, sights from the other day rushed through his mind. The dead girl, the other one squirming along the floor, all that blood leaking out of them. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to rid his mind of those images. Stepping outside, the numbness he’d been feeling was gone. A tight fist squeezed his heart. His knees buckled.

Damn, it would be something if I passed out right here. What the hell would that cop think?

Somehow he stayed on his feet. Staggering, he made it back to his car, amazed that he had been able to pull off talking to that cop. But as he’d been noticing with Carol, lying just keeps on getting easier.

Petrenko pulled the latex gloves from his hands and dropped them into a garbage bag. Grimacing, he grabbed his fingers and rubbed them vigorously. It had been a grueling four hours.

“He didn’t know anything,” Petrenko said.

“No, I don’t believe so,” Yuri agreed.

“We have lost a lot so far,” Petrenko noted bitterly. “Not only what was stolen yesterday, but all the potential millions we could’ve gained in future diamond purchases.” He stopped for a moment to rub his eyes. “We’ll find them. Sooner or later I’ll get my hands on them and they’ll suffer worse than these Arabs did.”

Petrenko gazed off into the distance, his expression turning somber. Slowly, he looked back at Yuri. “We’ll offer a reward,” he said at last. “If any diamond dealers have come across uncut diamonds, we’ll find out about it. Take care of it.”

Yuri nodded and left the room.

Petrenko glared at the two other Russian men working for him. “Why are you two standing there?” he demanded. He waved a hand in the general direction of where the remains of the dead Arabs lay. “Take care of this mess!”

After Dan Wilson had left, Resnick stuck around to try and gauge whether Brown could’ve been involved in the robbery. Somebody inside the bank had to have been. Somebody had given the robbers Petrenko’s box numbers, and it made sense that somebody had arranged with the offshore programmers to put a backdoor into the software. Brown seemed as good a bet as anybody. What bothered Resnick, though, was remembering the look on Brown’s face when he had discovered the system was still on after the robbery. To Resnick, it looked as if Brown had fully expected the system to have been turned off. Of course, it could’ve been an act – the bank manager knew where the surveillance cameras were so he would know he was being videotaped – but still it would’ve been a damned good act, close to Academy Award caliber.

When Resnick tried asking Brown why he chose not to have a backup line for the alarm system, the bank manager first got flustered and then indignant. He claimed it was his fiduciary responsibility to avoid unnecessary expenses and that there was enough redundancy built into the system as it was. Resnick tried shaking him on that, but couldn’t get anywhere. After that, he had Brown go over the payments that were made to the Indian contract firm, hoping he could catch an extra payment or some other irregularity. If Brown had used bank funds to pay something extra to one of the offshore programmers, he did a good job hiding it. Resnick decided he was going to have to ask for an audit and he was sure Hadley wouldn’t be happy about that.

When he got back to the station, he was surprised to find Maguire wasn’t there waiting for him. They had separated so that Maguire could stick around the FBI offices and see how the Lombardo investigation progressed, but he should’ve been back to the station by now.

Resnick checked his phone messages. A desk sergeant working out of the Revere station had called about an abandoned car found at the Revere Mall. Resnick couldn’t help smiling when he brought up the owner’s driver’s license from the Registry of Motor Vehicles database. Printing out a copy, he brought it into Hadley’s office.

“You’re back,” Hadley said stiffly. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“Take a look at this first.”

Resnick showed him a copy of Gordon Carmichael’s driver’s license. Hadley stared blankly at it for a moment before he recognized who it was.