Page 67 of Calculated in Death

“How’s it going here?”

“It’s up. I’m getting the same buried code as I did on the building security. Same guy hacked it, the same method. It’s like a fingerprint.”

“So you said. How can I use the fingerprint?”

“When I get done here, I figured I’d do some research, see if I can find out who wrote the code. It’s a style, you know. Like shoes.”

Shoes and fingerprints, she thought. E-style.

“Okay.”

“Here’s the thing. I’m not seeing any access of her outgoings. Me, if I’m hacking in, I’m hacking all, and looking through. But it’s like the job was get the files, compromise the unit, move on. I don’t think whoever did this bothered to find out she’d copied them. She did it from a disc, see?”

He gestured to the screen where she understood nothing at all.

“If you say so.”

“I totally do. It’s right there. I figure accountant types are anal types, right? Back up your backups, then make a spare copy in case the world blows up. So she backed up the files on the discs, then went ahead and copied to her home unit from the discs, one disc for each file. Me, I’d’ve put it all on one, just separate docs, but the one for each is careful to analyze.”

“Okay.”

“She probably had the backup with her in the briefcase. In fact, she pretty much had to have them with her with the analysis factor. So when they got them, they figured they were covered. You have to be anal to deal with analysis.”

That she got. “So, it’s reading to you like someone got an assignment, did exactly what that entailed. Nothing more. No ‘let’s just be thorough.’”

“That’s the zip. Most hackers are going to play around some, scoot around. Hey, you’re in there anyway. This one didn’t. Straight through, no detours.” McNab zoomed his arm through the air. “At least nothing I’ve found yet.”

“Good, it fits.”

She left him to his bouncing and rocking, wove her way through the prancing and dancing traffic of other e-geeks to poke her head in the door of Feeney’s mercifully calm, dull-colored, and motionless office.

He sat at his desk in a beige shirt. As he still wore a shit-brown jacket over it she assumed he’d come in from the field. He’d loosened his shit-brown tie but hadn’t pulled it off, so he might have planned to go back out again. His hair, a combination of ginger and salt sprang untidily around his sleepy basset hound face.

He worked a touch screen and keyboard simultaneously.

He might’ve dressed like a cop, thought like a cop, walked like a cop, but he could outgeek McNab and the rest of his department combined.

She gave the doorjamb a quick rap. “Got five?”

Feeney held up a finger, continued to do whatever the hell he was doing, then gave a satisfied grunt.

“Now I got five. Son of a bitching cyberstalker. Thinks he can terrorize women, slide in through their security, rape and rob them, then stroll away whistling a tune? He’s going to be whistling in a cage before much longer.”

“You got him?”

“Got his signature, got his location, and now the primary has them. If he can’t bust the asshole now, he should be whistling in a cage.”

“Who’s on it?”

“Schumer.”

“He’s good. He’ll close it.”

“Yeah.” Feeney scrubbed his hands over his face. “Long couple days. You, too.”

“Yeah. Looks like yours is wrapping up. I can’t say the same.”

“The boy’s working on it.”