“Excuse me?”
“We donated some caviar to tonight’s event. Very last-minute. Eight ounces of Beluga. Another eight of Osetra.”
This explained his receiving an invitation.
This man who had watched her children, who had threatened to expose the videotape, said, “We have interests in common, you and I.” He had yet to take his eyes off her, holding her with that steady stare.
She felt weak, almost faint. Whatever Lou, Foreman, and Riz had thought, none had prepared for this moment. Rather than show her weakness, she fought against the urge to step back, stepping forward instead, nearly touching him. “I share nothing in common with you,” she said while looking him squarely in the eye.
A grin parted the graying beard and mustache. Svengrad was amused by her, nothing more. “A few minutes of your time is all, Elizabeth.” He lowered his head to where she felt his voice as it warmed her neck. “I love how you look in satin,” he said. Standing erect again, he regained that confident smile. He raised his voice. “Yes, I’d love a tour. Please, lead the way.”
Liz caught a signal from Charlotte, who was no longer at the reception desk but standing in the doorway that led back to the hallway where she’d just been with Foreman and the caterer. Charlotte moved her fingers to signal she was about to kill the lights, and Liz nodded, holding up a single finger-one minute-knowing her moment had come.
She walked away and Svengrad followed. They passed through a few knots of conversation until Liz heard her name shouted out. She processed it as Phillip’s voice-a summons from the boss. She turned, waved, and quickly pointed toward Charlotte, then tapped her wrist indicating “time.” To her relief, this proved enough to stop the man. In her peripheral vision, she picked up Danny Foreman, an empty tray held high and carried in front of him. Without making eye contact, she hurried on, Svengrad following. She imagined that behind her Foreman was now plowing through the cocktail party to catch up.
With thirty seconds to go, she navigated past a group of workstations, reaching the glass barrier that contained the first of the AS/400s.
She turned in time to see Foreman in his waiter’s garb, his bow tie crooked on his long neck, hurrying toward them. Liz’s left hand hesitated above the green screen of the palm reader, a book-sized device mounted by the door to the glass room, her own ID card ready in her right. She slipped the edge of the ID card into the card reader.
The lights went out. The guests cooed and turned to face the candle-bright cake that appeared in the doorway at the opposite end of the room. Liz pressed her hand to the screen and watched a small red light turn to green. She heard the click of the electronic latch. Svengrad was now pressed up against her, physically contacting her.
“Wait!” Foreman called, still a few steps off.
The room was all ghostly shadows and cutout silhouettes, the only light from EXIT SIGNS and the distant glow of the cake visible in the reflection off the door’s security glass. A smaller image appeared behind Foreman’s tall silhouette. “Agent Foreman,” the female voice said, “Detective Gaynes, SPD. You’re interfering with a surveillance op.”
Liz used the distraction to pop open the door and slip inside, but with Svengrad immediately behind her and coming through as well. She turned quickly and bumped the man out of the way and hurried to push the door shut. A satisfying click rang out just as Foreman turned from Gaynes and lunged for the door. The thick glass muted whatever Foreman said to the detective, but even in the limited light, Liz saw his fury.
Liz hurried to the door of the neighboring server room, got it open, and turned to pull Svengrad through behind her just as the overhead lights switched back on. A dull electric hum filled the room. The server was a brushed, dark gray. It looked much bigger close up than she remembered. She went to work immediately, having no idea how much fuss Danny Foreman might make, how much trouble he might cause her. She dropped the manila envelope on the floor, slipping the optical disk it contained into the server, grateful that such operations required little of the operator. The disk auto-loaded. A few small lights on the server flashed, and Liz intently watched the screen, awaiting its instruction to input the wire information.
INPUT
USER ID:
PASSWORD:
This was her moment. Without her, the server would not permit access. Lou had been clear about how to play this moment, and she rose to what she considered the most important performance of her lifetime.
“Without me, this doesn’t happen,” she told Svengrad.
“You didn’t go to all this trouble just to change your mind.”
“The video.”
“You’ll have it.”
“Yes, I will,” she said. “And you will have your company back and your passport reauthorized when I do.”
“What’s this?”
“From my husband. Quid pro quo. You understand Latin, Mr. Svengrad? He said to tell you that he talked the government into releasing your product. But he also had INS make your passport invalid for travel outside the country. It all depends on the return of the tape.”
“Enter your password,” he said.
Lou had stepped her through this carefully, believing the conversation would take place over the phone. In person, she found it much more difficult to say it with conviction.
“Your company and your freedom for that tape,” she said. “Your word on it.”
“My word,” he said. She didn’t believe him.
Lou had insisted she bargain with Svengrad, despite her repeated arguments that he held all the cards. “It’s complicated,” had been Lou’s reply, who went on to say he couldn’t tell her everything that was in play.
She typed in her user ID, and then her password, which appeared as a series of asterisks.
Svengrad pushed her out of the way and sat down in the chair, and Liz did not attempt to fight him. She told him, “I was going to use whatever account information you gave me. You could have trusted that.”
Svengrad watched the screen as various commands were announced and small graphs, indicating loading time, moved like the mercury in a thermometer, marking progress. He said only, “This is better.”
One of the loading instructions caught her eye-an account number she recognized-and for the first time she understood what David had done to hide the money. Brilliant, she almost said aloud.
Finally the screen they had both awaited presented itself, a preprogrammed menu offering wire transfer options. Svengrad instructed her to stand back from him. He slipped out a piece of paper, pulled the keyboard into his lap, leaning over it, and carefully input the information into the machine. She wondered if he knew about the camera looking down from above, or if his instincts were nothing more than blind luck. Either way, she thought he’d probably used Hayes’s know-how to cut off the surveillance. The entire process passed quickly. Liz marveled that all these weeks of agony had culminated in a few keystrokes and no more than a couple minutes of time.
Svengrad hit the ENTER key. The screen hesitated, then delivered a graphic announcing the transfer was complete. “Done,” he said, looking at Liz with a triumphant look.
Lou had fed her several lines, making her repeat them carefully, on the off chance Svengrad left the phone line open as he gave her wiring instructions. She said them now. “Yes, well… I, for one, never trust David when it comes to his programming.” Svengrad’s triumph suffered a momentary twitch of concern. “You and I saw that money get wired. For your sake, I hope it goes where you think it’s going.”
“David Hayes knows better than to cross me.”
“Yes,” Liz said. “That’s exactly what I thought.”
The screen indicated the drive was “REFORMATTING.” David had programmed the disk to erase itself and all traces of the transaction after the wire transfer was complete.