William Bernhardt - Deadly Justice

Her eyes became tiny slits. “Is he alone?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“That son of a bitch.” She collapsed against the secretarial station. “I might have known.”

“For whatever it’s worth,” Ben said, “I think the less you have to do with Herb, the better.”

“Easy for you to say. You were brought in at an Attorney Four level.”

“At what?”

“Attorney four. Two levels and twenty thousand dollars above me. Since I started working here five years ago, Crichton has promoted every man in the department on a regular basis. But not me.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t play the game. Didn’t communicate my ideas via male intermediaries. Didn’t sit back and let men take credit for my work. And there was the Herb problem.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Herb had been coming on to me since day one. Suggesting that I should dress like a woman . Asking what I’d be willing to do to keep my bosses happy. Touching me when he talked. Making off-color jokes. Then he got bolder. He started asking if I wanted to come over to his place and watch porn movies. Asking if I ever got the urge to fuck various Apollo employees. Did I like to do it with other women? Did I like to do it with myself? He was disgusting. I rebuffed him at every turn.”

“Good for you.”

“Easy to say. Soon Herb was badmouthing me to everyone in the department, including Crichton. I confronted Herb, asked what the hell was going on. He hinted strongly that I wasn’t going to rise in this organization until my male colleagues—like him—stopped reporting that I was an unpleasant bitch. But he had a price for his positive recommendation.”

“Surely you didn’t—”

“I resisted for years. But after awhile, after I saw assholes like Chuck and idiots like Doug make Attorney Three and Four while I was still Attorney One, I thought, what the hell. Sure, it was a compromise, but…” She waved her hand shakily in the air. “I started giving Herb what he wanted.”

“And?”

“And, just four months ago, I made Attorney Two. First and only woman in Crichton’s department to be promoted. Of course, it was just a token promotion; even Crichton knew he might have legal problems if he didn’t toss a bone to one of the women in the department.”

“So that’s how it started with you and Herb.…”

“Yeah. Herbert the Pervert.” She laughed bitterly. “I hate him. All those fights between Herb and me that you thought were fake? They were only fake on one end. Maybe not even that. I came here to tell Herb it was over. I know Herb could still crush my career in an instant, but I just can’t stand it any longer.”

“I don’t think you want to go in right now.”

“No, this is fine. He’s made it even easier for me—if I catch him in the act, maybe he’ll feel guilty. Or maybe I can blackmail him. You wouldn’t happen to have a camera on you?” Ben shook his head. “Anyway, I’m going in there.”

“Do you really think that’s—”

Ben’s words were useless; she had already passed him and was practically in Herb’s office. Ben decided to move quickly in the opposite direction. A few moments later, he rejoined his group.

“What’s all the commotion up there?” Christina

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Later, schmater. I want to see for myself.” She started down the hallway.

Ben grabbed her arm. “Believe me, Christina. You absolutely, positively do not want to see for yourself. I have a hunch that in a few moments the whole corridor is going to go ballistic.” He swung her back toward the elevator lobby. “Let’s go around the other way.”

They tiptoed through the elevator lobby and emerged on the other side of the floor. Ben thought he heard a sound ahead of him—some kind of movement. He approached the corner cautiously, his back pressed against the wall.

“Be careful,” Christina whispered. “I heard it, too.”

Ben breathed in and out, trying to slow his racing heart. All this creeping around was starting to get to him. But why should he be afraid? Who hadn’t he met up here already? He spun around the corner.

“Ahhhhhh!” the man on the other side cried out.

“Ahhhhhh!” Ben cried back, startled.

After the initial shock, Ben pulled himself back down to earth and focused. “Loving?”

It was in fact Loving, Ben’s private investigator from his previous life. Loving was dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans.

“What are you doing up here?”

“Covering your backside,” Loving answered. “I thought you guys might need some protection.”

“If you’re covering our backside, why are you in front of us?”

“ ’Cause you keep changing directions!”

“Oh. Sorry. How did you get up here? I didn’t hear the elevator.”

“I didn’t take the elevator. I took the stairs.”

“All the way up? You must be exhausted.”

“Piece of cake,” he said, trying to conceal his gasping for air.

“Look, why don’t you sit down and catch your breath? We have to move on.”

“No way. You guys might need some muscle. I’m sticking to you like glue.”

Ben resigned himself to the inevitable, and motioned for Loving to follow. Down the chain of hallways, Ben led them to his office and, on the other side of the hall, the main computer room. Various computer terminals and printers lined the walls, while one much larger terminal rested in the center.

“That one must be the big mama,” Jones said. “It probably controls the entire LAN.”

“Think you can get in?”

Jones wriggled his fingers. “Let’s find out.” He sat down before the terminal and turned on the CPU. “It boots directly into a Wordperfect database. Let me review these files and see if there’s anything that might’ve interested Hamel.”

Jones reached for the keyboard—then realized that it was locked in a wooden case. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Someone doesn’t want unauthorized personnel playing with the computer.”

“Does this prove they have something to hide?” Ben asked.

“Not necessarily. Corporations are notorious for going to great lengths to keep secrets. After all, if their records were open to any hacker in town, they’d soon have no secrets at all.”

Ben examined the rectangular pine box. “It’s locked up tight. I don’t see how we’re going to get in without a key.”

“Allow me,” Loving said. “This is where you need some muscle.” Loving extended his fingers, concentrated, then brought his hand down hard on the top of the box.

“Owww!” he cried out. “That smarts.”

“Have you ever studied karate?” Ben asked.

“No. But that’s how those guys do it in the movies.”

“Ah. Jones, did he do any damage?”

“Well, not to the box.”

“Blast,” Ben said. “We’re never going to get in there. All this risk, all this sneaking around, all for nothing.”

“Don’t give up yet, o intrepid adventurer,” Christina said.

“Why not?”

“Look what I found.” She dangled a single key hooked around a brass ring.

“Where’d you get that?”

“From the back of the storage cabinet. That’s where they keep the spare.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Well…” Christina glanced at the ceiling. “I just happened to invite Marilyn from Bookkeeping out to lunch today, and we got to talking about the Apollo computer system, and one thing led to another….”

“You sly dog,” Ben said. “You were way ahead of us.”

“What else is new? I thought our plan should be more detailed than, ‘Let’s sneak in and see what happens.’ ”

“Thank goodness you were here.” Ben unlocked the box and withdrew the keyboard. Jones took control and began punching buttons.