Jeffery Deaver - The Broken Window

We, at Survivor Counseling Services, recognize the difficult challenges facing persons like you, who’ve suffered a serious loss. Our trained staff can help you get through the difficult times with a combination of medical intervention and one-on-one and group counseling to bring you contentment and remind you that life is indeed worth living.

Now, Miguel Abrera had never considered suicide, even at his worst, just after the accident eighteen months ago; taking his own life was inconceivable.

That he received the flyer in the first place was worrying. But two aspects of the situation really unnerved him. The first was that the brochure had been sent to him directly-not forwarded-at his new address. No one involved in his counseling or at the hospital where his wife and child died knew that he’d moved a month ago.

The second was the final paragraph:

Now that you’ve taken that vital first step of reaching out to us, Miguel, we’d like to set up a no-cost evaluation session at your convenience. Don’t delay. We can help!

He had never taken any steps to contact the service.

How had they gotten his name?

Well, it was probably just an odd set of coincidences. He’d have to worry about it later. Time to get back to SSD. Andrew Sterling was the kindest and most considerate boss anybody could ask for. But Miguel had no doubt that the rumors were true: He reviewed every employee’s time sheets personally.

Alone in the conference room at SSD, Ron Pulaski looked at the cell phone window, as he wandered frantically-walking in a grid pattern, he realized, not unlike searching a crime scene. But he had no reception, just like Jeremy had said. He’d have to use the landline. Was it monitored?

Suddenly he realized that although he’d agreed to help Lincoln Rhyme do this, he was at serious risk of losing the most important thing in his life after his family: his job as an NYPD cop. He was thinking now how powerful Andrew Sterling was. If he’d managed to ruin the life of a reporter with a major newspaper a young cop wouldn’t stand a chance against the CEO. If they caught him he’d be arrested. His career would be over. What would he tell his brother, what would he tell his parents?

He was furious with Lincoln Rhyme. Why the hell hadn’t he protested the plan to steal the data? He didn’t have to do this. Oh, sure, Detective…anything you say.

It was totally crazy.

But then he pictured the body of Myra Weinburg, eyes gazing upward, hair teasing her forehead, looking like Jenny. And he found himself leaning forward, crooking the phone under his chin and hitting 9 for the outside line.

“Rhyme here.”

“Detective. It’s me.”

“Pulaski,” Rhyme barked, “where the hell have you been? And where are you calling from? It’s a blocked number.”

“First time I’ve been alone,” he snapped. “And my cell doesn’t work here.”

“Well, let’s get moving.”

“I’m on a computer.”

“Okay, I’ll patch in Rodney Szarnek.”

The object of the theft was what Lincoln Rhyme had heard their computer guru comment on: the empty space on a computer hard drive. Sterling had claimed the computers didn’t keep track of employees’ downloading dossiers. But when Szarnek had explained about information floating around in the ether of SSD’s computer, Rhyme had asked if that might include information about who had downloaded files.

Szarnek thought it was a real possibility. He said that getting into innerCircle would be impossible-he’d tried that-but there would be a much smaller server that handled administrative operations, like time sheets and downloads. If Pulaski could get into the system, Szarnek might be able to have him extract data from the empty space. The techie could then reassemble it and see if any employees had downloaded the dossiers of the victims and the fall guys.

“Okay,” Szarnek now said, coming on the phone. “You’re in the system?”

“I’m reading a CD they gave me.”

“Heh. That means they’ve only given you passive access. We’ll have to do better.” The tech gave him some commands to type, incomprehensible.

“It’s telling me I don’t have permission to do this.”

“I’ll try to get you root.” Szarnek gave the young cop a series of even more confusing commands. Pulaski flubbed them several times and his face grew hot. He was furious with himself for transposing letters or typing a backward slash instead of a forward.

Head injury…

“Can’t I just use the mouse, look for what I’m supposed to find?”

Szarnek explained that the operating system was Unix, not the friendlier ones made by Windows or Apple. It required lengthy typed commands, which had to be keyboarded exactly.

“Oh.”

But finally the machine responded by giving him access. Pulaski felt a huge burst of pride.

“Plug the drive in now,” Szarnek said.

From his pocket the young officer took a portable 80-gigabyte hard drive and slipped the plug into the USB port on the computer. Following Szarnek’s instructions, he loaded a program that would turn the empty space on the server into separate files, compress them and store them on the portable drive.

Depending on the size of the unused space, this could take minutes or hours.

A small window popped up and the program told Pulaski only that it was “working.”

Pulaski sat back, scrolling through the customer information from the CD, which was still on the screen. In fact, the information on customers was mostly gibberish to him. The name of the SSD client was obvious, along with the address and phone number and names of those authorized to access the system, but much of the information was in.rar or.zip files, apparently compressed mailing lists. He scrolled to the end-front matter, Chapter fourteen.

Brother…it would take a long, long time to pick through them and find if any customers had compiled information on the victims and-

Pulaski’s thoughts were interrupted by voices in the hall, coming closer to the conference room.

Oh, no, not now. He carefully picked up the small, humming hard drive and slipped it into his slacks pocket. It gave a clicking sound. Faint, but Pulaski was sure it could be heard across the room. The USB cable was clearly visible.

The voices were closer now.

One was Sean Cassel’s.

Closer yet…Please. Go away!

On the screen in a small square window: Working…

Hell, Pulaski thought to himself and scooted the chair forward. The plug and the window would be clearly visible to anybody who stepped only a few feet into the room.

Suddenly a head appeared in the doorway. “Hey, Sergeant Friday,” Cassel said. “How’s it going?”

The officer cringed. The man would see the drive. He had to. “Good, thanks.” He moved his leg in front of the USB port to obscure the wire and plug. The gesture felt way obvious.

“How d’you like that Excel?”

“Good. I like it a lot.”

“Excellento. It’s the best. And you can export the files. You do much PowerPoint?”

“Not too much of that, no.”

“Well, you might some day, Sarge-when you’re police chief. And Excel is great for your home finances. Keep on top of all those investments of yours. Oh, and it comes with some games. You’d like ’em.”

Pulaski smiled, while his heart pounded as loudly as the hard drive whirred.

With a wink, Cassel disappeared.

If Excel comes with games, I’ll eat the disk, you arrogant son of a bitch.

Pulaski wiped his palms on his dress slacks, which Jenny had ironed that morning, as she did every morning or the night before if he had an early tour or a predawn assignment.

Please, Lord, don’t let me lose my job, he prayed. He thought back to the day when he and his twin brother had taken the police officer exam.