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“Yes, yes, that’s fine.” The woman’s American accent was mid-western.
“What can we do for you, Hope?” Joe leaned towards the phone.
“Um, I um remembered some stuff. I don’t know how helpful it is, but I thought, you know, you said to call if I ever…”
“No. That’s good. You did the right thing,” Joe crooned. “What did you remember, honey?”
The room was deadly silent as they waited for her reply. People seemed scared to breathe, let alone move, in case they spooked the anxious woman.
“It was after a party in the house in Romania. I was pretty drunk. I spent a lot of my time drunk…” Her voice faded out, heavy with shame.
After everything she’d lived through, the last thing the woman should feel was shame. Megan caught Joe’s eye and saw he agreed.
“We understand,” he said. “You did what you could to make it through. No one here is judging you, Hope.”
There was a pause. She cleared her throat and they heard her take a shaky breath. “We were in our suite after the party and I had conked out on the bed. For some reason I woke in the middle of the night. I was thirsty and battling another hangover. I wanted water and some aspirin. I staggered out of the bedroom aiming for the kitchen area off our lounge. Rudi was at his desk. He was shocked to see me. I saw him unplug a tiny USB drive from the computer and put it on his finger. It was such an odd thing to do that it stuck with me.”
Joe’s smile was slow and wide as he looked over at Julia’s hiding spot. “Give us that shot of Rudi again, babe. You know the one I mean.”
Megan heard her tap at her iPad and the lights dimmed. Rudi appeared on the wall.
“What do you mean ‘put it on his finger’, Hope?” It was clear from his excitement that Joe already knew the answer.
Every eye in the room was on Rudi Abramovich’s hands. More specifically, on the oversized gold insignia ring on his wedding finger.
“It was his ring. The one he always wore.” Hope’s voice echoed through the room. “I know it doesn’t make much sense. But I saw it, Joe, I promise you. Somehow that ring connects to the computer.”
The computer expert looked up from her laptop, straight at Joe. “You think it’s a hidden flash drive.”
Joe nodded. “I’m sure of it. It makes sense. Every source we’ve tapped said that Rudi doesn’t have a dedicated computer that he takes with him wherever he goes. The information has to be moving around with him somehow. If he’s carrying it in a hidden storage device, that would explain a lot.”
Elle must have noted Megan’s frown because she elaborated. “A flash drive is essentially a tiny storage device, or a thumb drive. The smallest one I’ve seen was tinier than a penny. It could definitely be hidden in a ring and it would have more than enough space for Rudi’s business files.”
“I may be blonde, but I know what a flash drive is, Elle,” Megan said to the blue-haired tech. “I’m just wondering why the guy keeps his files in a ring. Doesn’t anyone else think that is seriously dumb? What if he forgot to take it off when he showered? Or lost it down the garbage disposal?” She looked at Joe. “Are you sure you aren’t just stretching here?”
Joe faced the speaker phone. “Hope, honey, tell us exactly what you saw.”
They heard her suck in a breath. “When I staggered into the room, he snatched the ring from a USB port in the computer. I remember thinking it was weird that his ring was stuck to the computer. When he pulled it off, there was something sticking out of the ring. He pressed the centre of the ring, the insignia part, and the thing sticking out disappeared. He quickly slipped it on his finger and then he…he became angry about me being in the room…he…”
Yeah, they all knew what he did. She didn’t have to say it. Every person sitting at that table had read through years’ worth of medical reports, filed from a variety of different hospitals, listing broken bones, split lips and swollen eyes. Everyone knew exactly what Rudi did when he wasn’t pleased with his wife.
“It’s okay,” Joe said. “We don’t need to hear the rest. You did good, Hope. This is good information.”
“You did great,” Elle agreed. “We already knew Rudi kept a backup of his records in a secure information site that’s off the grid in Switzerland. Now we know where his localised files are kept too. It makes everything so much easier.” Elle was typing and talking at the same time. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
“I didn’t know about the Swiss thing,” Megan said.
“Read the reports, Buffy, don’t just look at the pictures.”
Dimitri grinned when she gave him a death glare in response.
“Okay,” Elle said, “then most of us knew his record archive was kept offline. Hence unhackable unless you’re on-site. And let me tell you getting into the Swiss facility would be a bitch. That’s why we were hoping he kept a copy on his personal computer. Now we know exactly where to look. This is good.” Her eyes went wide. “Tell me, Hope, does Rudi call the ring his Precious by any chance?”
“Um…” Hope said.
“Nev
er mind.” Elle waved a hand as she muttered something about one ring to rule them all.
