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

right now.
    As Levy closed the gap between them, Sara’s gaze shifted between his face and his hands. Any moment, she expected him to hit her or grab her hair.
    “How can you sit there and tell me you’ll have it fixed by tomorrow if you’re not sure what caused the problem?”
    “I don’t know the whole problem yet, but I know what area of code it is in. It won’t take me long—”
    He grabbed her by the throat, cutting off her air. “You’d better get this fixed today.” Shoving her back, he added, “I gave you a schedule, and you will meet it.”
    Rubbing her neck where his fingers had dug in, Sara fought to keep back the tears. “We’re still on schedule. It hasn’t changed. We will have a successful test before the end of the week.”
    Levy moved back a step; Sara’s heart started beating again.
    “Good. I have six runners ready to hit the streets on Monday. Be ready.”
    “Yes, sir. I will.”
    Levy turned away and moved out of the room. Mike gave her one last ‘You’re in trouble and I’m happy’ smile before he followed. Sara sat frozen until they were gone.
    Glancing over at Kai, “What are you looking at?” Sara snapped.
    Kai returned to her work, then stopped and turned back. “Can you really get it working that fast? I mean, it’s tens of thousands of lines of code.” Was she really worried? If so, was she concerned for Sara? Or just about the possibility of having to finish the work alone?
    “I don’t have a choice, now, do I?” Sara felt the reality of what failure would mean. She stared at her monitor. “I need access to your code. Send me the path and allow me to log in.”
    For the next several hours, Sara completely ran the show while Kai helped her run tests on various parts of the code.
    The reality of the situation made Sara rude and bossy. The few times Kai was brave enough to ask a question, Sara told her she didn’t have time to explain every little thing.
    Around nine that night, Kai finally asked if she was hungry.
    Sara wanted to say no, her stomach was in knots, but she needed Kai out of the room for a while. She’d finally found the problem; it was in one of the programs she’d modified on Kai’s computer.
    “I’m starved, but I can’t leave ‘til I get this fixed. You want to make a sushi run?”
    Kai stood and stretched her back. “The pizza place is a lot closer. I can make a call and have them deliver.”
    Pizza sounded good, but it wouldn’t work. Kai needed to be gone for at least forty minutes so Sara could make the changes and test them out. “I need something to keep me awake. Pizza will put me to sleep.”
    “But the sushi place is so slow. I’ll be gone for an hour.” Kai walked around the little office, stretching her arms and shoulders.
    Sara also felt tired and sore, but needed to make the changes before she let the fatigue overtake her.
    “Look, I need to fix this, and I need food. You gonna help me or not?” Her words had just enough bite to send the right message.
    “Fine, sushi it is.” Kai grabbed her bag and left.
    As Sara listened to the footsteps descending, she pulled out her jump drive and plugged it in. Grabbing a string of code from one of her files, she did a search for it in Kai’s files. The code was missing.
    Just what I thought.
    Kai had either switched files or edited the lines out. In order for the other changes to work, these lines had to be in her program.
    The building was quiet. The others who worked in this area had left hours ago. Even with an empty floor, Levy was probably watching Sara through the cameras. Taking a quick glance into the open area, she found it empty. Sara went to work, afraid that at any moment Kai would return and she’d be caught.
    The changes and testing took most of an hour. Sara was mentally exhausted. Her brain had been running a marathon for the last hour and needed a break. She started the last set of tests just minutes before she heard Kai coming up the stairs.
    “Food!” Sara