Chapter Twelve
Bec woke slowly, confused and disoriented by the bright light that had her squinting against it. She was on her stomach, her arms behind her back as someone tried to tie her wrists together.
“Help!” she screamed, unsure if the Secure One team could hear her from where they were.
“Somebody help me!” She kicked and fought, finally getting the better of the person so she could flip over.
Her lips froze on the next call for help when Iris was the person holding a computer cord in her hands with her eyes wild. “Iris, what are you doing?”
“I’m stopping you from hurting anyone!” she exclaimed, her eyes darting around the room. “I trusted you!”
Bec raised her hands in front of her and tried to speak calmly. “Iris, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I hurt someone?”
Iris reeled off a bunch of numbers and letters that only confused her more. “Does that ring a bell?”
“No, Iris. I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is going on?”
“We know, Dr. Roth,” she said, and Bec’s gut sank when she used her full name.
“Know what, Iris?”
“That the malware was written on a computer attached to the mainframe within the facility.”
Bec stood but kept her hands out in front of her to show she wasn’t being aggressive. She wanted to calm Iris down but not scare her. “I don’t know what a mainframe is. Is that a computer?”
“Everyone knows what a mainframe is!” Iris exclaimed and Bec shook her head slowly.
“I’ve heard the term, but I don’t do computers for a living. What was that other thing you said? All the numbers and letters.”
“That was a line of code from the malware I’m trying to patch. Mina said it originated here.”
“If that’s true,” Bec said softly in hopes she’d listen to her, “It didn’t come from me. I don’t know how to write code. I can perform the tasks I need to, but they don’t include that. If that were required for the job, I’d have to attend code-writing school.”
Iris snorted as she rolled her eyes. “Code-writing school. It’s called computer science. You must have taken that in college.”
“I took computer classes, sure, but never for coding,” Bec promised. “There are specific programs we use here for different aspects of the research, but none of them were written here. They’re available nationwide to any lab who purchases a license.”
Iris dropped the cord to her side and took a step toward her. “What’s Python?”
“A snake?”
“Java? PHP?” Iris asked and Bec grasped the other woman’s elbows.
“Coffee and a drug? No, that’s PCP. What’s PHP?”
“Python, Java and PHP are all types of coding languages. Java has been around forever, Bec.”
“I grew up isolated from electricity, much less computers,” Bec reminded her.
“By the time I started public school, I was so far behind that the only way to graduate was to concentrate on the core classes. It wasn’t me, Iris.
Why would I call you in to help me secure the labs if I was the one who wrote the malware? That doesn’t make sense.”
“But you said Walter doesn’t know anything about computers, either.”
“He always acted like he didn’t,” Bec confirmed.
“Who takes care of your technology needs then?” Iris asked as Bec pulled on clothes.
“An IT firm, as far as I know. That information should be in Walter’s files. Let’s go look.”
Iris waited while Bec used the bathroom and brushed her teeth, which gave her a few minutes to calm her breathing and try not to be hurt that Iris thought she was capable of this kind of deception.
Once she got Iris to calm down, she could see in her eyes that she was scared and confused, but Iris didn’t really believe she had anything to do with writing the code.
“How did you figure out the code was written in the facility?” she called from where she put her socks and shoes on.
“I found a suspicious line of code and sent it to Mina.”
She grabbed her phone, slipping it into her pocket just in case one of the investors called her.
“You said you were going to look for a signature. Is that what you meant?” she asked as they hurried upstairs.
Bec would have preferred to start the day with a kiss and a cup of coffee instead of accusations and attempted confinement, but this was not a normal day.
“I’m sorry for trying to tie you up and making accusations that weren’t true,” Iris said as they stood in the elevator.
“I shouldn’t have let the anxiety take over the way it did.
You’ve been here the whole time helping me, so I should have known you weren’t behind it because that doesn’t even make sense, but—”
Bec put her finger to Iris’s lips before she hit the stop button on the elevator panel.
“But you are under a lot of stress, and fighting the anxiety is hard minute to minute in a situation like this. Suddenly discovering that the code was written in the facility made it easy to jump to conclusions.”
“Yes, but I shouldn’t have. Not after last night. I know you on a level that…”
She paused and Bec waited, but she didn’t finish the thought. She slipped her arms around Iris’s waist and snugged them belly to belly. “You know me on a soul-deep level that strips away everything but the truth, even if we’ve only known each other for a few days?”
“Yes,” Iris whispered, lowering her forehead to touch hers. “You said I can’t say I’m sorry, but I truly am.”
“I’m not upset, sweetheart,” she promised, lifting her face to kiss her lips. “I understand that you’re stressed and tired, not to mention scared. We can get through this if we trust each other, okay?”
Iris didn’t answer with words. She lowered her head and kissed Bec deeply, reminding Bec of the passion and desire they had shared last night when they bared their souls to each other.
Bec smiled at the woman when the kiss ended, gazing deeply into her eyes.
Her heart melted, knowing she trusted her enough to do that without fear.
“What do you say we get to the bottom of this nightmare so we can get on with living?” When Iris nodded, Bec hit the start button for the elevator.
“I find it difficult to believe that an IT firm would be behind this,” Iris said as they left the elevator and walked toward Walter’s office.
“Unless it’s one bad apple that they don’t know is in their midst,” Bec answered, skirting the glass still on the floor as they walked into the office. “I sure wish we had access to the security videos.”
Iris leaned on the desk and crossed her arms over her chest. “Why? There’s no way to know when the code was written, so it’s a needle in a haystack situation.”
“No, not for the coder,” Bec said, pulling out the drawer marked operations and rifling through the files. “For the kidnapper. Something is bugging me about the person, but I can’t put my finger on it. The flash-bang disoriented me and blurred my vision, but I feel like they were familiar.”
Iris pushed herself up and grabbed the walkie-talkie off her belt. “Secure Watch, India.”
“Secure One, Charlie.”
“Cal? Are you here?”
“Just arrived with Selina,” he answered when she released the button.
“Would you come to the lab? We have a question.”
“Ten-four.”
“Oh great, he brought the torture nurse with him,” Bec muttered with a grimace.
Iris immediately pulled her into her arms. “She means well and is trying to keep you from getting worse. I’ll hold your hand if that will help.”
Bec patted her back before ending the hug. “That was a joke, Iris. I very much appreciate Selina. I was teasing.”
“Oh. Sorry, I’m not good at picking out sarcasm or teasing. I take things quite literally.”
“No need to apologize. I should have thought of that. I’ll tell you the next time I’m teasing, okay?” Iris nodded as Bec returned to the cabinet to pull out the file she’d been looking for, holding it up in victory. “Got it!”
“Let’s go to the lab and wait for Cal,” Iris said, motioning for Bec to go first. They were barely out of the office when Iris’s tablet started ringing. She grabbed it from the desk and hit the answer button. “Secure Watch, Whiskey.”
“Secure Watch, India,” Iris said, and Mina joined them on the screen.
“Is Bec there?” Mina asked, and Iris nodded. She walked over to a high lab table and propped the tablet so she could see them both.
“Good morning, Mina.”
“Hey, Bec. I know Cal and Selina are on the way, but I discovered some information about one of the employees I wanted to run past you.”
“Sure, whatever I can do to help. I haven’t personally worked with many of them, though.”
“This one you have,” Mina said. “Zafar Zimmer.”
“Yes, our lab tech. He’s been here as long as Dr. Hoerman, so close to six years. I’ve only been here five months. What about him?”
“I don’t think he exists.”
“What now?” Bec asked, glancing at Iris before turning back to Mina. “I work with him every day.”
“What I mean is, I don’t think his real name is Zafar Zimmer. The few people in the world with that name don’t live in the United States, nor have they bought plane tickets to Poland from the United States.”
“Maybe he used a different last name, or someone else bought the ticket for him?” Bec suggested, but Mina shook her head.
“Even if someone else bought it, the ticket must be in his name. There were no passengers on any flight to Poland over the last year with the name Zafar. There were only ten males in the age range you gave me for your lab tech who flew to Poland on or around the dates you gave me. None of them were named Zafar, and none of them were your lab tech.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Bec admitted. “Should I try calling him?”
“We already did,” Mina said. “We got the message the number was disconnected, changed or no longer in service.”
“What is going on?” Bec asked just as the door to the stairs opened.
“Secure One, Charlie,” Cal said as he walked in with Selina.
“Hi,” Iris said, turning to them. “We’re talking to Mina.”
Mina took a moment to catch Cal and Selina up on their discussion.
“Right before she called, we were in Walter’s office,” Iris said. “We were looking for the file with the information for the IT company the research center uses to see if they would know who had written the code.”
“Did you find it?” Cal asked. Bec nodded, tapping the file on the table.
“But in the process, Bec said she wished she could see the security footage from the day of the kidnapping.”
“Why?” Selina asked. “You said the person was dressed head to toe in black.”
“They were,” Bec agreed. “But they seemed familiar to me. I can’t explain it more than that. I caught a glimpse of them after my vision cleared from the flash-bang, but not enough to put my finger on it.”
“I’m afraid there’s no way to look at the camera footage,” Cal said.
“We know,” Iris agreed. “The footage can only be watched on Walter’s computer.”
“Not what I meant. The malware virus also disabled the security cameras. None of them were active when we arrived.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Bec said. “Those cameras don’t even go down when the power goes out. They stream on Walter’s computer, but he can transfer them to my computer or tablet when he leaves for the night since we’re always running double duty out here.”
“When I checked them on arrival, they were turned off,” Cal explained. “I didn’t turn them back on since there was no way to watch them with the computers not working, and it didn’t matter since we were providing security. You didn’t turn them off?”
“Absolutely not,” Bec answered. “We don’t get much traffic out here, but they alert us if someone arrives at the loading dock or approaches any of the doors.”
“What about at night?” Cal asked. “Who watches them at night?”
“My apartment has a computer that I run them on there as well, and it emits an alarm if anything is amiss and wakes me.”
“Why doesn’t the facility have a security company to handle the cameras?” Mina asked, her head tipped to the side. “Someone that could call for outside help if anything happened to the few of you inside.”
“I asked the same question,” Bec said, facing Mina again. “Walter told me the company was always messing up, so the board agreed to move them in-house. I don’t know when, but it’s been this way since I started working here.”
Mina raised a brow. “Sounds fishy to me.”
“Fishier than a Friday night smelt fry at the VFW,” Cal agreed. “Especially since the cameras were manually turned off.”
“I meant to ask how you secured the side door again after the kidnapper broke in?” Bec asked, spinning toward Cal.
He stood there staring at her, his head tipped in confusion. “Secured the side door? It wasn’t broken. You buzzed me in, which I assumed was how you always did it. The biometrics system was down, but the door was locked. Since then, we’ve used the loading dock to go in and out.”
Bec closed her eyes and tried to fight the rising panic as her heart pounded. “Cal, if that’s true, then—”
“The kidnapper had a key,” Selina finished.
“Does Zafar have a key, Bec?” Mina asked.
Bec stumbled backward, caught by the warm chest of the woman she’d spent the night with. “We—we all do,” she said, fear and anger making her body and voice shake.
“Sit,” Selina ordered, pressing a chair under her and helping her down before she took her pulse. “Take some deep breaths.”
Bec did what she said, and the spots in front of her eyes slowly disappeared. “I’m sorry, but it struck me that only three of us have keys to this place.”
“You, Zafar and Walter?” Mina asked, and Bec nodded.
“With the caveat that my vision was wonky after the flash-bang, it’s entirely possible the kidnapper was Zafar.”