Chương 4
Ryan called while they were crossing the river.
Lisa watched his name brighten the dashboard screen.
Nina did not touch the steering-wheel control.
“Do you want me to answer?” she asked.
“No.”
The call ended.
He called again two minutes later.
Then a third time.
Nina glanced at Lisa. “That’s not normal.”
“It used to be.”
“What does that mean?”
“He called three times the night we met.”
“That’s romantic only before someone hits you with a military baton.”
“Evelyn hit me.”
“And he watched.”
Lisa looked out the window.
The river below was black except where streetlights broke into it. A delivery truck moved beside them, its driver drinking from a paper cup and singing to something Lisa could not hear.
“I know,” she said.
At the townhouse, Nina turned on every light in the kitchen before asking where the pain medication was.
“Bag.”
“Which bag?”
“The hospital bag.”
“You have three bags.”
“One is my purse.”
“That is still a bag.”
Lisa sat at the table and let Nina search.
The kitchen looked almost exactly as it had the last time she slept there. White cabinets. Narrow butcher-block island. A ceramic bowl containing two dead batteries, a key to an unknown lock, and a grocery receipt from seventeen months earlier. The refrigerator held mustard, seltzer, and a jar of capers she did not remember buying.
Nina found the medication.
“You have no food,” she said.
“There might be crackers.”
“There are not crackers.”
“Then there are no crackers.”
“Why do you own capers?”
“I don’t know.”
Nina filled a glass with water. “I hate this house.”
“You liked it when I bought it.”
“You owned chairs then.”
“I still own chairs.”
“Two chairs is a warning sign.”
Lisa took the pills.
Her phone vibrated against the table. This time the message was from Ryan.
I DIDN’T KNOW SHE WOULD HIT YOU.
A second message appeared.
I KNOW HOW THAT SOUNDS.
Then:
PLEASE DON’T SEND THE SECONDARY PACKAGE.
Nina read the screen from across the table.
“What secondary package?”
Lisa did not answer.
Nina pulled out the opposite chair and sat. “Lisa.”
“It’s a timed release.”
“To whom?”
“Outside counsel, the task force, our board audit committee, and our insurer.”
“What’s in it?”
“Complete access logs, the financial transfer records, certificate histories, device attribution reports, and copies of internal communications.”
“Ours?”
“Yes.”
“How complete?”
“Complete enough to expose the vulnerability.”
Nina’s expression changed.
The fear was professional first. Lisa saw it arrive before the personal anger.
“You put the company’s raw incident data into an external release package?”
“Encrypted.”
“That was not my question.”
“It’s held by outside counsel.”
“That was not my question either.”
“Nina—”
“Two hundred people work for us. We have hospital clients. We have defense work. We have notification duties in four states before anyone has even decided whether there was a reportable breach.”
“I know.”
“You triggered release?”
“Not yet.”
“But it’s pending.”
“Yes.”
“What stops it?”
“A passphrase and a hardware key.”
“Where is the key?”
Lisa looked toward her torn uniform jacket, folded across the back of the second chair.
Nina followed her gaze.
“You hid it in your jacket?”
“In the lining.”
“The jacket the paramedic cut?”
“Different seam.”
Nina sat back.
For a while the only sound in the kitchen came from the refrigerator compressor. It rattled twice and settled.
“You did this alone,” Nina said.
“I used outside counsel.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because one of the compromised administrator accounts could access your credentials.”
“You thought I might be involved.”
“I thought someone might be using your access.”
“That is not the same sentence.”
“No.”
Nina rubbed both hands over her face. “How long?”
“Eleven weeks.”
“You sat across from me every morning for eleven weeks.”
“Yes.”
“You asked me to lead the federal renewal meeting.”
“Yes.”
“You sent me to reassure the board that our internal controls were sound.”
“I believed they were sound outside a narrow privileged-access pathway.”
Nina stared.
Lisa stopped.
The words sounded obscene in the small kitchen.
Nina rose and walked to the sink. She looked out at the dark back courtyard, where a plastic planter had tipped over beneath the fire escape.
“When does the package release?” she asked.
“At eight tomorrow morning unless I delay it.”
“Can you cancel?”
“I can revoke it.”
“Will you?”
“I don’t know.”
Nina turned. “You don’t know?”
“If I revoke it and Ryan destroys his phone, we may lose evidence.”
“The police have his phone.”
“They photographed it. They did not seize it.”
“How do you know?”
“Vega told me.”
“Why would they let him keep it?”
“Because he consented to the photograph and wasn’t arrested. They need legal grounds or a warrant.”
Nina folded her arms. “And your package provides grounds.”
“Maybe.”
“At the cost of exposing our company.”
“Maybe.”
“Stop saying maybe like it absolves you.”
Lisa’s shoulder throbbed beneath the sling. She wanted to stand, but the medication had begun to soften the edges of the room.
“I built the company to contain other people’s disasters,” she said. “I don’t know how to contain one when I’m part of it.”
Nina’s anger did not disappear. It shifted.
“Then you should have told someone who wasn’t part of it.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“You were protecting your ability to control the response.”
“That too.”
Nina looked down at her mismatched shoes.
“I’m going to make coffee,” she said. “Then we’re calling counsel. Then we’re waking the board chair. You are not making another unilateral decision tonight.”
“I’m chief executive.”
“You are concussed.”
“I’m still chief executive.”
“Then act like one and use the people you hired.”
May you like
They called outside counsel at three sixteen. They called the board chair at three forty-two. At four ten, Lisa delayed the secondary release for twelve hours, long enough for counsel to coordinate with investigators and determine what data could be disclosed without unnecessarily exposing client information.
She did not revoke it.
