Page 59 of Twisted Enemy
“Those changes haven’t been made either. But you’ll see them on your end for one calendar year.”
“What happens when I try to transfer my supposed new funds to another account?”
“Viktor builds another simulation, andthatone displays for a calendar year.”
Her attention immediately sweeps back to the monitors. “Show me.”
I pull up the internal clock on my machine, the one that marks year, month, day, hour, minute, all the way down to thousands of a second. I change the date, moving us forward a year. In the time it takes for me to blink, Viktor generates a report of every transaction it’s completed, a perfect record of the crime Kate just committed. Or, rather, attempted to commit.
A question pulses on the screen:Transmit to authorities?Checkboxes wait for me to select local, national, and international forces.
“A year…” Kate breathes. “An entire feckin’ year…”
“And then the trap springs shut.”
“The resources this thing requires… The cost must be obscene.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m obscenely rich. I can’t imagine a better use of my money.” Now that I’ve read her into the scheme,it’s important I tell her the truth. “When I first wrote this, I intended to give it to your father.”
“Da?” She snorts. “He wouldn’t begin to understand this!”
I’ve been wary of her Irish pride, her loyalty to her clan, but she’s clear-eyed enough when it comes to her father’s limitations. “I figured I could load it on his system and let him play at conquering the world. Keep him from calling me with some new demand every hour on the hour. I could delete his activity log at the end of a year.”
Her short laugh is surprisingly sympathetic. “You sayat first. What are you planning now?”
“I’m giving it to Tarasov.”
She shudders, a tremor I might have missed if she weren’t still sitting on my lap. “Giving it to him,” she says, as if she’s dipping a toe into the Arctic Sea.
“This coming Thursday. He expects more access to your father’s files.”
I feel her muscles go tight, but she doesn’t launch a new round in that ongoing fight. Instead, she says, “You think a hacker like Tarasov will load live code onto his computer? He’ll install Viktor just because you ask him to?”
“I’m working on that,” I answer candidly. That’s always been the biggest challenge of this scheme.
She studies the lines of code laid bare on the auxiliary monitors, and I think she appreciates my honesty. Her fingers hover over the keyboard. Her face is gorgeous when she’s scheming.
“What do you need me to do?” she finally asks.
“Break it.”
“What?” I’ve caught her by surprise.
“I’ve tested every scenario I can think of, and I’ve trained Viktor to respond to every threat. Now it’s your turn. TransferViktor to your computer network and use your sysadmin status to try and break it. Think like Tarasov.”
She trembles again. “You’re telling me to get inside that gobshite’s mind?”
I settle a calming hand on her hip. “When it comes to bratva business, yes.”
She swallows hard. “And once I’m done?”
“Then we get Tarasov to bite.”
25
KATE
Cole and I wait outside the front entrance to the National Zoo, eyeing a steady stream of parents dragged through the gates by eager young children.
