Ava McCarthy - The Insider

‘Black-box testing is the closest thing to a real hack from the outside. I start with nothing except your corporate name. I use outside sources of information to snoop around your network, and then I break in.’

She paused to make sure he was getting it. He nodded and smiled.

‘For a white-box test, I know everything about your internal systems right from the start. Your firewalls, your network infrastructure, your databases, the works,’ Harry said. ‘In other words, I’m attacking from the inside.’

The door creaked opened and a man in his late fifties eased into the room. His grey hair fluffed out like a pair of wings on his balding head.

Coco the Clown, Harry thought.

‘Please carry on,’ the newcomer said and slid into a chair against the wall behind Harry.

God, how many more people were coming to gawp at her? She eyed up the conference table that could seat twenty people and feared the worst.

Jude watched the older man for a moment. Then he turned his attention back to Harry. ‘So which approach would you recommend, Ms Martinez?’

Harry tried to concentrate. ‘White box. In my experience, insiders are far more of a threat than external attackers.’

‘And I guess you’d know all about insiders, wouldn’t you?’ Felix said.

Every muscle in her body went still. ‘Just what are you getting at, Mr Roche?’

‘Come on, let’s put it on the table here. We’re all thinking it.’ He spread his arms as though the whole room was full of people on his side. ‘Your daddy was the master of all insiders, wasn’t he?’

Harry blinked. Then she dropped her gaze and fiddled with her pad, willing her voice to be steady. ‘What my father may have done is not part of this discussion.’

‘ May have done?’ Felix said. ‘He was found guilty of insider trading, wasn’t he? Put away for eight years.’

Harry took in his clenched fists and the angry splotches on his cheeks. She stared at him. ‘You’re taking it all rather personally, aren’t you?’

‘Damn right, I am. Salvador Martinez nearly brought this company to its knees.’

‘Felix, you’re out of order.’ Coco the Clown’s voice behind her made her jump.

Jude shifted in his chair. Felix glared at Harry; it looked as if he had more to say.

Harry didn’t bother turning to acknowledge the unexpected support. To hell with it. She’d had enough. She placed her palms on the lacquered boardroom table. It was smooth and cold, like a mirror. She pushed herself up and stood to face them.

‘Mr Roche, I came here to talk about the security of your IT systems, and that’s all I’m prepared to discuss with you.’

She grabbed her bag and turned for the door. Then a thought struck her. She knew she shouldn’t say it out loud, but she was going to anyway. She swung round and faced them.

‘Who knows, maybe my father wasn’t the only insider trader around here. Maybe his arrest just spoiled the party.’

Felix’s jaw fell slack. Jude drew himself up in his chair, his lips disappearing into a tight line.

Coco the Clown stood and held up his hand. ‘Gentlemen, please –’

Jude cut in. ‘Don’t make accusations you can’t back up, Ms Martinez.’ He clenched the silver pen in his fist. ‘Some of us still believe in the integrity of our profession, even if your father didn’t.’

‘Well, well, an investment banker with ethics,’ Harry said. ‘Who’d have thought it?’

She marched to the door as fast as she could without actually breaking into a run. The damn room was longer than a tennis court. She yanked open the door and slammed it behind her.

She was halfway down the corridor before she realized she was shaking. She blundered around a corner, searching for the way out. Dammit, the lifts must be back the other way. Her sense of direction was dyslexic at the best of times, but this was no time to get lost and call for help.

She doubled back, retracing her steps past the boardroom, and found the lifts. She punched the button, pacing up and down while she waited.

The boardroom door opened, and voices growled from inside the room. She checked the lift. Two floors to go. She scoured the corridor for somewhere to hide. No doors, no closets. Nothing but polished marble floors.

Someone came out. Coco the Clown. He saw her, and bowed his head.

‘Ms Martinez, please accept my apologies.’

He walked towards her and held out his hand. His eyebrows were tilted upwards into his high domed forehead, his expression mournful.

‘Ashford is the name,’ he said. ‘Chief Executive of KWC. You were treated very badly in there and I assure you the individuals in question will be reprimanded for their lack of professionalism.’

Harry ignored his outstretched hand. ‘Since when does the Chief Executive sit in on routine IT meetings?’

Ashford dropped his hand. ‘Good point. Very well, I admit it: I was curious. I wanted to meet you.’

The lift pinged and the doors opened. Harry stepped in and jabbed at the button for the ground floor.

‘I’ve known your father for over thirty years,’ Ashford said. ‘Salvador’s a great personal friend and a fine man.’ He smiled. ‘You’re very like him.’

The lift doors started to close. Harry glared at him through the shrinking gap.

‘I’ve known my father all my life,’ she said. ‘And I can assure you, I’m nothing like him at all.’

5

Cameron knew he didn’t blend in well with his surroundings. It was the colour of his hair that did it. Half a shade short of albino, a girl had once called it, as he’d rammed himself into her scrawny body. Afterwards he’d tightened his fingers round her throat and squeezed till she’d stopped moving.

He pulled the black woolly hat further down over his eyebrows and looked at his watch. He needed to get going before someone noticed him, but his instructions had been to wait for another hour.

He’d never been to the International Financial Services Centre before. As far as he was concerned, it was a place where rich people came to get richer. He could remember this part of the city before it had been redeveloped, when it was still the old Custom House docks. He’d preferred it then; vast faceless warehouses spread across bleak tracts of land. Now it was a landscaped city within a city, playing host to banks from all over the world.

Cameron stared up at the multi-storey office buildings, all made from the same green glass blocks that sparkled in the sunlight. Like the fucking Emerald City of Oz.

He leaned against the steel barrier near the edge of George’s Dock. It used to be a real dock that smelled of tar and dead fish. Now they’d transformed it into an ornamental lake. Jets of water crashed down on its surface from five spurting fountains. The noise was deafening, but it was the perfect position for observing the building opposite.

Cameron straightened up as a young woman stumbled through the revolving doors. He checked her out against the description of the Martinez girl. Five foot three, slim, with dark curly hair. Face kind of heart-shaped. She was clutching a black satchel with some kind of silver logo on it. It was her all right. She reminded him of the Spanish waitress he’d had in Madrid last year. He felt himself harden.

Cameron fell into step behind her. It was late on Friday afternoon and the city was clogged with people. He stared at her without blinking, fixing her in his sights.

He’d received his instructions by phone, his bowels clenching as he’d listened to the familiar voice. It was a voice he’d taken orders from many times before. He told himself he did it for the money, but he knew it was more than that. The blood had pounded through his body as he’d listened to the voice on the phone, anticipating the hunt.