Fatal Transaction (Thriller & Suspense, Cyber Crime) by W. Richard Lawrence Read Free Book Online Page A

reader. This one will take longer to run because there are several programs running in the background. For at least the first week or two, watch the transactions closely, check for messages every morning. If there are any problems or errors, let me know immediately.”
    “What about the money?”
    “What money?”
    “I was told I would get enough to pay off my debt.”
    “That’s between you and Levy. But I wouldn’t count on ever being out of his debt.” Sara almost felt bad at telling him the truth. Idiot .
    “Where will the money go from the credit cards?”
    “That’s none of your business.”
    “What if the card companies find out? They’ll come after me.”
    Sara gave a short laugh. “Good luck with that.” Even though she hated working for Levy, she was proud of this part of her work. “Look again at the account name. It changes every time you close out the account at the end of the day. Today’s business is Johnson’s Drycleaners, and the address is completely invalid. It’s for a police department halfway across the country. Tomorrow’s will be something different. There is nothing that links it back to you, not even the point of origin on the transactions. I set that up to go all over the place. No two days in a row will come from the same location. It’s amazing what you can do with the Internet.”
    Jasper glanced at the card reader. “Okay, I guess you know what you’re doing.”
    Sara felt a little insulted by his comment. “Need me to go over it again? Only use—”
    “I told you, I got it.” Jasper’s voice was harsh and loud.
    “Good. Here’s my card. Show me.” This part was too important for her to allow his anger to bother her.
    Jasper swiped the card. On the screen, fourteen transactions showed up. “What is this?”
    “It’s the first test. I went to a small store before coming here to give us a test case.”
    “Will I always see this?”
    “You will always ignore this. It’s none of your business. Okay? The only thing you need to know is that the card was read.”
    “But what if—”
    “Someone sees this?” Sara cut him off.
    “Yes.”
    “Like who? You already said that no one comes over here but you. Anyway, go ahead and do the end of the day close-out.”
    “Now?”
    “No, tomorrow. Of course now . I need to see if you know what you’re doing and make sure it works.”
    Jasper huffed a little as he ran the end-of-day routine. “Done.”
    “Good. Check for messages later to see if everything went through, and let me know if there are any problems.”
    Grabbing her purse, Sara left, leaving the empty boxes and papers on the floor.

Chapter 8
    “I just received word that your test was a failure. What’d you do wrong this time?”
    Sara’s heart sank. She turned away from her monitor.
    Hands clenched at his sides, Levy glared at her. His frame filled the doorway. Behind him, off to one side, stood Mike, wearing an amused smirk.
    “You lied to me. That’s something I will not tolerate.”
    Sara searched for words. “I didn’t lie. I can fix this.”
    Levy stepped into the room. “Is this bug going to delay my project again?”
    “I told you it would take some testing. I never said it would work the first time. That’s why we test.” Sara was defensive.
    Kai pulled her chair closer to her desk, keeping her face toward her monitor.
    “What if this failure alerted the police? Cost me the whole program? I don’t accept failure, incompetence or disrespect. Do I need to teach you a lesson in respect?”
    Levy’s dark gaze seemed to penetrate deep into Sara’s mind. His lessons involved pain and quite often death.
    “No. No. I’ll get this fixed in the next day or two.”
    “You know what the problem is?”
    “It looks like my program decrypted some files incorrectly. I just need to find why the wrong routines were called.” This may or may not be the real reason the test failed, but it made the whole situation sound more positive than she felt