The Associate

The briefcase in Roy’s hand was also a black Bally, identical to the one Kyle bought back in August, the third one required for this mission. He left the elevator alone on the thirty-fourth floor and walked past the vacant reception desk, down a hall to the right, four, five, six doors, and there was his client, sitting at his desk, sipping coffee, waiting. The exchange was brief. Roy swapped briefcases and was ready to go.

"Where are the feds?" Kyle asked, very softly, though no one was in the hall and the secretaries were just getting out of bed.

"Around the corner in a van. They’ll do a quick scan to make sure there are no tracking devices. If they find one, I’ll bring it back in a sprint and we’ll concoct a story. If not, then they’ll take it to their lab in Queens. This thing is heavy."

"The blue box. Specially designed by some evil geniuses."

"When do you need it?"

"Let’s say 7:00 p.m. That’s twelve hours. Should be enough, right?"

"That’s what they say. According to Bullington, they have a small army of geeks just itching to unwrap it."

"They can’t screw it up."

"They won’t. You good?"

"Great. Do they have arrest warrants?"

"Oh, yes. Wiretapping, extortion, conspiracy, lots of good stuff. They’re just waiting on you."

"If Bennie is about to be arrested, then I’m a motivated young man."

"Good luck."

Roy was gone, leaving behind the Bally with the same scuff marks and name tag. Kyle quickly stuffed it with files and legal pads and pens and went to find more coffee.

TWELVE LONG HOURS later, Roy was back with the second briefcase. He took a seat as Kyle closed the door. "So?" he said.

"It is what it is. It’s a customized computer built along the lines of those used by the military, everything is heavy-duty. Designed for nothing but downloading. Two hard drives, with 750 gigabytes each. Basically, enough memory to store everything in this building and the three next door. Highly sophisticated software that the FBI geeks have never seen before. These guys are good, Kyle."

"Tell me about it."

"And there is indeed a wireless signal so they can monitor you."

"Dammit. So I have to download something?"

"I’m afraid so. The wireless signal cannot indicate what you are downloading, or how much. It just lets them know that you’re inside and that you’ve started moving the database."

"Shit!"

"You can do it, Kyle."

"That seems to be the consensus."

"Do you know where you’ll meet these guys?"

"No. It’ll be a last-second notice. Assuming I download without setting off alarms, I’ll call Bennie with the happy news, and he’ll tell me where to meet. I’m going to the room in an hour, and I plan to quit at nine, regardless of the download. So, by nine fifteen, if I’m lucky, I should be on the street."

"I’ll stay at my office. If you get a chance, please call. Pretty exciting stuff, Kyle."

"Exciting? How about terrifying?"

"You’re the man." With that, Roy exchanged briefcases again and disappeared.

For sixty minutes, Kyle stared at the clock, did nothing but bill Trylon for an hour, and finally made a move. He loosened his tie, rolled up his sleeves, tried to look as casual as possible, and took the elevator to the eighteenth floor.

Sherry Abney was in the room, and he had to say hello. From the looks of her table, she’d been there for hours and the research had not gone well. Kyle chose a station as far away from her as possible. Her back was to him.

Despite his bitching and moaning, he foresaw little danger of being noticed by another member of Team Trylon. All ten chairs faced the outside walls, away from the center, so that while doing research, he could see nothing but the monitor, the computer, and the wall behind it. The danger was up above, lurking in the lenses of the video cameras. Still, he preferred to have the room to himself.

After fifteen minutes, he decided to visit the men’s room. On the way out, he asked Sherry, "Can I get you a coffee?"

"No, thanks. I’m leaving soon."

Perfect. She left at 8:30, a nice breaking point that always made billing easier. Kyle placed a legal pad on top of the computer, then a couple of pens, things that could roll and slide and need retrieving. He scattered a couple of files beside the monitor and in general made a mess of things. At 8:40, he knocked on the locked metal door that led to the small printing room, and there was no answer. Then he tried a second metal door that led to places unknown, but he suspected it was the room where Gant hung out and secured things. He saw Gant occasionally and figured he worked close by. There was no answer. At 8:45, Kyle decided to plunge ahead before another associate arrived for one last hour of work. He walked to his table and bumped the legal pad on top of the computer, sending the pens flying against the wall. He threw up an arm, said "Shit!" as loudly as possible, then leaned over as if to retrieve things. He found one pen, couldn’t find the other, but kept searching. On the floor, behind the monitor, under the chair, then again behind the computer, where he deftly inserted the tiny transmitter into the USB port just as he found the missing pen and held it up so the cameras could see it. Settled down now, composed, not cursing, he took his seat and began clicking away at the keyboard.

He slid the briefcase closer under the table, directly under the computer now, then he flipped the switch.

No alarms. No virus warnings screaming from the screen. No sudden entry by Gant with armed guards. Nothing. Kyle the hacker was downloading files, stealing at a dizzying rate of speed. In nine minutes, he transferred all Category A documents  –  letters, memos, a hundred different varieties of harmless information that had already been submitted to APE and Bartin. When he was finished with the Category A documents, he repeated the process and downloaded them again. And again, and again.

An hour after he entered the room, he again went through the charade of searching for lost pens, and while bumbling about, he plucked the transmitter from the USB port. Then he cleaned up his mess and left. He hurried to his office, got his jacket and trench coat, and made it to the elevators without seeing another person. As he rode down without a single stop, he realized that this was the moment he had always feared. He was leaving the office as a thief, with enough stolen files in his briefcase to get him convicted of numerous crimes and disbarred for life.

As he stepped into the raw December night, he immediately called Bennie. "Mission accomplished!" he said proudly.

"Great, Kyle. Oxford Hotel, corner of Lex and Thirty-fifth. Room 551, fifteen minutes away."

"I’m on the way." Kyle walked to a black sedan, one duly registered to a well-known car company in Brooklyn, and jumped into the backseat. The small Asian driver said, "Where to?"

"And your name is?"

"Al Capone."

"Where were you born, Al?"

"Tutwiler, Texas."

"You’re the man, Al. Oxford Hotel, room 551."

Al the Agent immediately called someone and repeated the information. He listened for a few minutes, drove very slowly, then said, "Here’s the plan, Mr. McAvoy. We have a team on the move, and they should be at the hotel in ten minutes. We’ll take our time here. When the supervisor is in the hotel, he will call me with more instructions. Would you like a vest?"

"A what?"

"A vest, bulletproof. There’s one in the trunk if you’d like."

Kyle had been too preoccupied with his thievery to contemplate the actual events surrounding the arrest of Bennie, and hopefully Nigel, too. He was sure he would lead the FBI to his handler, but he had not given much thought to the details of his betrayal. Why, exactly, might he need a bulletproof vest?