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She repeated the process four more times.
Carefully she placed the drawings back in the drawer just as she’d found them, relocked the cabinet, and placed the ring and chain around her neck, tucking it neatly inside her blouse. She redid her chignon as she walked, pausing to open the door a crack—just enough to ensure that Lilah was still away from her desk.
There was no sign of anyone.
Ten minutes later, Simone drove through Nano’s gates.
Houdini couldn’t have made a better escape.
Her father would be proud.
17
Four Seasons Hotel, Palo Alto
28 February
Wednesday, 11:35 a.m. local time
Damn the traffic.
Simone burst into her hotel room and rushed over to the desk, not even bothering to take off her coat. She had no time to read Terri’s mini-dossier. It would have to wait. She had twenty-five minutes to make the kidnappers’ noon deadline. Everything else would have to be put on hold.
Aidan knew where things stood. The two of them had brought each other up to speed via secure cell phone on her drive over. Now she had work to do—fast.
Reaching around with both hands, she unclasped the chain from around her neck, then quickly slid off the ring. She placed it in a special dongle that Ryan had engineered. Once the black cable was attached to the ring, she plugged the other end into an available USB port on her laptop. The whole process made her think of how she connected her Fitbit to its charger. She’d be sure not to mention that to Ryan; somehow she doubted he’d appreciate the mundane analogy.
Task complete, she launched the custom file transfer program Ryan had written to extract the image files from the ring itself and store them on her own laptop. Then she closed the application and removed the ring and its dongle.
Immediately, Simone initiated a videoconference with Terri.
“It’s done,” she said.
“And not a moment too soon.” Immediately, Terri assumed control of Simone’s laptop and began the process of downloading and checking the images taken of the engineering drawings.
“Nice work,” she said. “From what I can tell, these will clearly show the kidnappers and their overlords that the drawings are real and that we’re not bullshitting them. That said, the content i
s interesting but not sufficient for them to take the technology and run with it. There’s much more needed to make that happen.”
“So which ones should I send to the kidnappers?” Simone asked.
“I would send numbers two, three, and five. Those should suffice for now.”
“Terri, since you’re already in control of my computer, can you do this for me?” Simone was looking at her watch. “We’ve only got twelve minutes to meet the kidnappers’ deadline and you’re the expert at this, not I. Plus I’ve got to get back to Nano before anyone becomes suspicious.”
“Done.” Terri was already at work as Simone rose to dash to the bathroom before returning to Nano for her next round of interviews.
Terri fired up a virtual Linux machine on Simone’s laptop, giving her a sandboxed area from which to conduct her clandestine work. Inside the VM, she started a Tor browser, which would mask her identity from prying eyes. She followed the kidnappers’ instructions verbatim, typing their assigned link in the address bar. She then logged in using the code name baba. Once inside, she efficiently uploaded files two, three, and five. She then terminated her Tor browser session and closed the Linux VM, restoring Simone’s computer to its previous state.
All with six minutes to spare.
Terri picked up her phone to call Aidan.
Franklin Wales Executive Recruiting
San Mateo, California
28 February
