Ruth Wind - Countdown

LEXLUTHOR: Yeah? Wanna brainstorm?

WINDTALKER2: Might be getting too scattered to think now. A.M.?

LEXLUTHOR: No can do. Big meetings.

Kim was overtaken by a yawn. She typed:

WINDTALKER 2: All right. How come you’re working so late?

LEXLUTHOR: Politicians up the wazoo in Chicago this week. Green candidate today. Prez appearing tomorrow. Monihan on Thursday.

WINDTALKER2: Bomb scares?

LEXLUTHOR: Dozens. Every lunatic in the greater metro area has a plan for saving the world. Gotta check ’em all. Been over the courthouse twenty times. The airport at least 452.

WINDTALKER2: 452? That would take a little time.

LEXLUTHOR: Well, maybe it was only six times. FELT like 452.

WINDTALKER2: Any bombs anywhere?

LEXLUTHOR: Nope. Real bombers don’t call ahead.

WINDTALKER2: Ah.

LEXLUTHOR: Hey. I looked up your picture on the company site.

WINDTALKER2: That’s creepy, Luthor.

LEXLUTHOR: Somebody told me you were hot.

WINDTALKER 2: It was probably me. I am hot, and don’t you forget it.

LEXLUTHOR: Kinda short. But then, I’m kinda ugly, so I guess we’re even.

WINDTALKER2: Short is a state of mind.

LEXLUTHOR: I might be in your area next week. You up for a cup of coffee or something?

WINDTALKER2: Hold on.

LEXLUTHOR: What are you doing?

WINDTALKER2: Checking out YOUR picture. What if you’re really ugly?

LEXLUTHOR: No fair going to the academy photo.

She opened a second window on the computer and ran a search for Alex Tanner, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Chicago, then clicked on the first link. Which was the Academy photo.

Kim grinned. It showed a serious-looking young man, about 21, skinny and with a nose almost too big for his face.

WINDTALKER2:

LEXLUTHOR: Damn. I’ve put on a few pounds since then.

WINDTALKER2: Good thing.

LEXLUTHOR: We’re all geeks at 21. Check this link out: www.oaksidetelegraph.com/article00364.htm

WINDTALKER2: Yeah, yeah, Luthor. It’s probably a link to Heath Ledger.

But Kim clicked on the link, which took her to a newspaper site, and a headline that read, “Bomb Squadron Safety Record Vetted.” Beneath it was a photo of a man in a black T-shirt that showed off very nice shoulders, a good chest and excellent arms.

Kim raised an eyebrow. His hair was cropped to show a well-shaped head, high cheekbones and, yep, that aggressive nose. Which was a lot sexier on a thirtysomething face.

And he had that mouth, a Denzel Washington mouth, with an overbite and a full lower lip that looked very sexy.

Kim had a weakness for lips like that.

WINDTALKER2: Okay.

LEXLUTHOR: Okay, what?

WINDTALKER2: Okay, you won’t shame me. I’ll have coffee next week.

LEXLUTHOR: Not sure I can handle the exuberance, babe.

WINDTALKER2: Babe? What century are you?

WINDTALKER2: Hang on….

WINDTALKER2: Something coming up on my decryption.

The computer was making a soft, double beep that meant something had been noted in a special file. When she opened it, she frowned.

WINDTALKER2: Hmm. Odd.

LEXLUTHOR: Que?

WINDTALKER2: It’s an odd signature file.

LEXLUTHOR: Not my area, kiddo. I’ll let you get to it.

WINDTALKER2: K-O.

LEXLUTHOR: Next week.

“What am I missing?” she asked herself, peering hard at the screen.

And if she didn’t find the answer, who was going to die because of it?

A small musical noise told her an e-mail had arrived in her personal in-box. It brought the total to twenty-eight, and Kim remembered she’d meant to check the box. Her eyes burned and she knew she needed to get to bed if she was to have any brain at all the next day, but her little sisters were always wounded if she didn’t respond, so she dutifully opened the folder marked “Family.”

“Shit!” she said aloud.

There were two messages from her mother. One was—Kim sighed—an e-mail hoax that had been around for years, about people flashing their headlights erroneously.

The other…

TO: kvalenti@rsme.net

FROM: eileenvalenti@dearbornhosp.org

SUBJECT: Sunday dinner

Hi, honey. I’ve been on the phone all day and the girls finally stole it from me. Don’t forget, next Monday is the Columbus Day parade and your sisters’ hearts will be broken if you don’t show up to watch them tap dance on the police float. I was going to have our big meal that day, but nobody wanted to shift the tradition, so we’ll just do it Sunday, as always. Try to come for both, huh? Bring a friend if you want. Maybe your big handsome partner??

Love,

Mom

Below the message from Eileen was a list of twenty-seven e-mails, repeated over and over down the length of the window. Each carried her sister Lynda’s e-mail address, lyndavalenti2@rsme.net, and the same subject line: LOOK WHAT I FOUND ONLINE! A paper-clip icon sat beside each one.

“Lynda, Lynda, Lynda,” Kim said, and opened her virus protection software to isolate and examine the virus. “How many times I gotta tell ya not to open attachments, kid?”

When the box was cleared, she examined the isolated virus. It turned out to be a relatively benign form that simply replicated and sent e-mails to every address on an account. Not such a big deal if the infected computer was the personal machine of a teenage girl, but costly and damaging if it was the mainframe of a big corporation.

The fact that she did have a teenage sister was one of the reasons Kim kept her e-mail accounts so rigidly separated.

She sent her sister a warning message with instructions to remove the infected files from her own computer. In capital letters, she typed:

DO NOT OPEN ATTACHMENTS. EVER. Love, Kim.

Something jiggled in her brain, right at the edge.

The answer.

It was there, then gone, like a phantom.

“Get some sleep, Valenti,” she said.

Without dreams.

Please.

Tuesday, October 5

T he following morning, Kim glared at the computer screen at work. They still had not made significant progress. Whatever clue was niggling at the edge of her brain had refused to come forth.

Her partner, Scott Shepherd, dropped down beside her, a sheaf of papers in his hands. “Anything?” he asked. His eyes looked as red as her own probably did, and she offered her bottle of eyedrops.

“That bad?”

“Three-day-bender bad.”

“Real men don’t use eyedrops. We just belt some bourbon and make it look authentic.” He rubbed his eyes. “The whole place needs new monitors, however. The refresh rate sucks.”

Kim leaned back and pointed at the screen with the eraser end of a pencil she’d been chewing on. “What do you make of this signature file? It shows up on all of them, invisible in the e-mail itself, but running in the background.”

He frowned at the screen, stroked his chin where he’d worn a goatee until joining the NSA. “I see it, but it’s not bringing anything up for me right this second.”

Rolling her tired shoulders, she stood. “I feel like we’re so close. It’s driving me crazy.”

“I know.”

She pushed her chair under the desk, smacked his arm. “C’mon. Let’s get on the treadmills for a half hour, talk it out. Maybe there’s something we’re missing.” She stretched the muscles of her back, hard.

“Sounds good.” He dropped the papers on her desk. “I pulled these up. Maybe there’s something else here.”

“Last one on the treadmills is a rotten egg.”

In the women’s locker room, Kim stripped out of her day clothes, a straight blue skirt, white blouse, stockings and low-heeled pumps. It was great to shed the uniform for stretchy shorts, a sports bra with a T-shirt over it, her comfortable Nike running shoes. She tugged her dark hair into a scrunchie and tucked her earrings into her pocket.