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Theo already had his phone to his ear, rattling off her requests to Bit. Adrian was speaking into his phone, warning Agent Ingram that he needed to try and postpone Agent Tonkel from interacting with any lawyer until after they arrived at the station.
If they were right about their theory, the day would proceed at a rapid pace.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bit Nowacki
January 2022
Wednesday — 5:17pm
TheofficesofS&EInvestigations were so quiet, Bit could hear the low hum of the cooling fans inside the various nineteen-inch computer racks that he'd positioned around the room in rows. He still had a hard time believing that he'd secured a legitimate IT job that included a salary that he'd never imagined achieving in his lifetime. On top of that, he was also being given healthcare benefits and a retirement plan. Hell, he never thought he'd live past thirty, and here the firm's accountant had been talking to him about setting up his 401k plan and being able to be independently wealthy in his late sixties.
The whole thing was mind-blowing, but there hadn't been a snowball's chance in hell that he was turning down such an amazing gig if it meant helping his sister with her medical bills. She had health insurance, but she'd been enrolled in a clinical trial that had cost way more than either of them had ever anticipated. It had been the sole reason that he'd gotten caught up with a Russian racketeer to begin with, but Bit had no regrets. He'd done what he had to do.
Every decision that he had made had eventually landed him right here in this chair.
And it was a nice fucking chair.
Bit ran his hands down the arms of the desk chair as he watched some of the employees from the hedge fund across the hall leave for the evening. He really shouldn't have included a wide-angle camera over the biometric scanner, but no one would ever know. It was well hidden behind a tinted plastic cover. He'd concealed the additional security feature more for his sanity than anything else. He figured extra measures were better. Regret was only emotional baggage if you decided to lug it around with you.
Who would have ever imagined that Brooklyn Sloane's brother was a serial killer?
Bit was learning more and more about how investigations of this nature worked, but a psychopath was a psychopath in his book. All the talk about signatures and preferences flew out the window in the end. In Bit's experience, a caged animal would do whatever it needed to do in order to survive. A psychopath probably had the same mentality when he or she was cornered, and Bit didn't want to be perceived as the one doing the cornering.
Boss had seemed confident that none of them needed personal security. She'd also stressed that they needed to keep things above board when it came to his talents, but she didn't seem to understand was that his true superpower was sidestepping the physical and digital barriers that people built to keep people like him out. He'd already accepted that they would never see eye-to-eye on such things. It had been what he'd been trying to tell her since the first day that they'd opened the doors of S&E Investigations.
His first words to her that morning had been "there's something you should know". Then she'd sidetracked him with her speech about not doing anything illegal. He couldn't very well turn around after that and say that he'd done something illegal. Technically, it hadn't been about the new case. He'd said that to lead in on why he'd pulled up security footage of the General's estate. The man had a state-of-the-art custom commercial system that should have been impenetrable.
No system was impenetrable, though. Not with his understanding of computers.
Not even the ones here at S&E Investigations were truly secure, though Bit had memory resident programs running that would monitor every weakness, from the I/O ports to the operating system and the software applications. Basically, anything that stood a chance of being breached. Any connection to the outside world was suspect.
Movement outside the elevator bank showed Chet Johnson talking to another man as they waited patiently for the doors to open. Bit grimaced at the way Chet's hair was styled and slicked back.
What the hell did Sylvie see in him, anyway?
Granted, they weren't technically in a relationship. Sylvie had only had lunch with him a couple of times, but she was still smart enough to know a player when she saw one.
She was too good for some pretty-boy face without a brain like that.
As for the other man, Bit didn't recognize him as one of the other employees. He pretty much familiar with everyone on the hedge fund's payroll, so Bit rolled his chair closer so that he could press a couple of keys to take a picture. Once he had the man's features zoomed in, Bit then began to run a facial recognition program.
The boss didn't need to know that he'd hacked into the federal database to do it.
She had gone on and on about how everyone underestimated her psychopath of a brother, so Bit had promised himself that he wasn't going to be one of those dimwitted people.
He was going to stay vigilant.
He was technically the last line of defense, anyway.
If Jacob Walsh was so cunning, then he'd be smart enough to grow facial hair, wear a hat, or even use a scarf to camouflage his square jawline. There were a number of ways to avoid public facial recognition programs. The man standing next to Chet Johnson had a full beard.
The elevator doors opened to reveal Sylvie returning to the office. She had her purse over one shoulder, a large shoebox under one arm, and was carrying one of those cup holders from a local cafe. Inside were two large to-go cups, and he held out hope that she'd thought of him. It was doubtful since he usually preferred his energy drinks.
Chet began talking, clearly making introductions, but Bit couldn't make out what they were saying. He quickly pressed the button that would activate the two-way communication system he'd set up for the receptionist...if they ever got around to hiring one.
"...grab lunch tomorrow?"
