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  When Kayla could only nod, Tal grinned. This time she leaned in toward him and locked her mouth over his, slipping her tongue inside to briefly wrap around his. Tal groaned.

  Before he could take control of the kiss, or she could lose herself in it, she pushed herself away from him and smiled. “Now I’m ready.”

  He opened his eyes, his dilated pupils giving him a slightly dazed looked. “Huh?”

  It was her turn to grin. She had made the right decision. It was nice to know she had the same effect on him he had on her. “We have a lunch date, remember?”

  Tal quickly recovered and pulled her back into his arms. “Lunch, yes. How about we get take out and eat in?”

  Understanding his innuendo, Kayla moved out of his embrace. “Oh no, you don’t! You promised to feed me, and there are a few things we need to talk about.”

  “Oh don’t worry, I can feed you just fine right here and we can talk later.”

  “Nah-ah,” she said wagging a finger at him. “You’re not getting out of this. Besides, I have to go pick up my car.”

  Smiling, Tal held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, we’ll go out. And the only reason is because I have to get back to the bank this afternoon. So if we’re going then we better go now. I’ll tell you about what happened at the bank this morning.”

  The couple walking into the crowded restaurant was oblivious to the stares following after them. They made a stunning couple. Both tall and statuesque, his paleness made for a striking contrast to her dark beauty. Many a man envied him the woman at his side, and many a woman wanted to shove her out of the way so she could get a crack at him.

  Kayla sat down continuing the conversation Tal had started in the car. “I can’t believe he did such a thing!”

  “Neither could I. He changed your access codes and his own codes, completely locking us out of some of the larger private accounts at the bank.”

  “How could he have that kind of knowledge?” Kayla asked. “I thought he was just a human resources guy, not a computer tech.”

  “It turns out Newington does have a computer tech background. He helped to write some of the very codes the bank uses, when he was only eighteen. The sonofabitch was able to circumvent the security system for the bank. He completely bypassed all the checks and balances in place because he put them there to begin with.”

  “But that’s all still unbelievable. How come he wasn’t in the technical section?”

  “He worked for a computer company years ago,” Tal replied. “It just happens this company wrote bank codes, amongst other things. Near as we can figure from the file his last employer sent us, he stopped working there at twenty-one. Newington went back to school for a masters in human resources, which took him a year to get, then he got a job in the HR department of a small bank, and ended up here two years ago.”

  “And this wasn’t on his job history?” Kayla asked incredulously.

  “No. He conveniently omitted part of his work history for us, the part about his designing our codes or even working for the company who did. It was in his file from his last employer who faxed the information over to us. I was on the phone with them just before I left the bank. He was an average employee, no negative marks from them, yet managed to work his way up to management there. But before I took over this bank his personal file showed he was not one of the more favorite employees. There had been numerous complaints about him from the staff. Even without the merger, he would have probably been fired.”

  “Wow!” Kayla replied raising her eyebrows. “I had no idea. I still don’t understand what he hoped to accomplish by locking you out of some accounts. Surely all of the larger accounts are constantly monitored by the account holders, so they would have notified the bank immediately if there was a problem?”

  “That’s the beauty of it. As far as we can tell, he chose personal accounts handled almost exclusively online and not closely monitored. He stayed away from corporate accounts.”

  Kayla nodded in understanding. “That makes sense, because they’re monitored more frequently. The minute he touched any of those accounts, red flags would have gone off from the account holders ends.”

  “Exactly. Personal account holders usually don’t have the safeguards the corporate accounts do because of the volume of transactions.”

  “But I don’t understand. The account holder can still just check the account online. Surely they’d notice any discrepancies?”

  “Normally yes, but remember we’re dealing with the person who designed the safeguards. If an account is checked online, the information the account holders’ access is what they expect to see, but it isn’t accurate. It’s not what’s really in the account. We’re still trying to figure things out.”

  She shook her head. “What a mess.”

  “My tech people have been working all morning on breaking his codes and accessing the frozen accounts. So far they figured out he set it up so any withdrawals coming in, as far as the account holder is concerned, are seemingly honored, but the electronic transfers are not getting to the party doing the withdrawing. The transaction is either considered received and on hold or not responded to from our end, and any deposits made aren’t going to the account holder’s account. Both are being rerouted to another account.”

  “But how did he plan on getting away with it?” Kayla asked. “Sooner rather than later, when folks haven’t been paid the account holder is notified.”

  “Yes, but this guy didn’t need a lot of time. Most account holders aren’t usually notified if an automatic payment is late for a month, at the earliest a week. He also put some on hold. All he needed was a few hours.” Tal paused and shook his head. “Newington must be some kinda genius. A crooked genius but still a genius. This has all the markings of something that took a lot of advanced planning. Maybe even as far back as when he first designed the codes. He must have left himself some sort of back door.”

  “Have we been able to identify all of the affected accounts?”

  “We’re pretty sure we’ve caught them all. While we can’t access them yet, neither can he now. No more transactions are being allowed to those accounts. Thankfully, these aren’t very active accounts, but the transactions appear to be consistent. We’ve rerouted them and given the account holders a line of credit until we can sort it all out. We are having each transaction approved by the account holders before we release any funds.”

  “That’s gotta be a pain,” Kayla said. “And Newington had direct access to those accounts since yesterday, so who knows how much money he was able to electronically transfer before you shut him down.”

  “It was only for a few hours yesterday, until I showed up. From what we could tell it required the use of one of the computers physically located at the bank. But that still left him with plenty of time to access at least twelve accounts.”

  “Good God! What a mess. With that kind of access he could have stolen millions.”

  “Yes, and so far his link has been impossible to trace. We need to unfreeze the accounts. We’ve contacted the computer company he used to work for, the same company who designed the system. They’re sending someone over later this afternoon along with the FBI, which is why I have to get back sooner than I’d planned.”

  “Of course,” Kayla said. “Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. It’s okay if you want to cancel lunch. I can get something to go then pick my car up.”

  “No. Absolutely not. I have been looking forward to seeing you. I want to spend as much time with you as possible, even if it’s only for an hour. Being with you is the one good thing happening for me today, and I’m not going to let this mess ruin it for us.”

  “All right, I’ll just order a chicken salad.” Kayla liked the fact he still wanted to have lunch with her. In the middle of a crisis he took time for her and treated her with enough respect to discuss the problems at the bank. Maybe he was worth getting to know. She had already decided to take the rest of the week and try to get to know him a
little. Hopefully, by the time she started work again next week, she’d be surer of her feelings, and of him.

  “Would you like me to go back to the office with you?” Kayla couldn’t believe she’d just offered to cut her time short, but she cared about the bank, and knew Tal could use a hand. “Maybe I can help.”

  “Thanks, not that I wouldn’t love to have you around, but it’s really not necessary. Even I’m superfluous right now. I’ve personally contacted the account holders involved and we’ve done all we can do. But I do have to be there when the programmer and the FBI arrive. Besides, I promised you the rest of the week off and I’m a man of my word.”

  In spite of Tal’s dire news about the bank, Kayla still enjoyed lunch. She had more insight into Tal’s character and so far, she liked what she saw, both on the inside and out. After lunch Tal dropped her at her mechanic’s. As she was driving home she realized she had completely forgotten to ask him about some of the specifics of her job. Would she be working directly with him?

  No harm done, she’d ask him later. She still couldn’t believe she’d agreed to see him after work. He said he’d call her to let her know about what time she should expect him, and would take her to dinner. After a dry spell of four months, now she had two dates in a row, and with the same man.

  But he was moving fast. She had read somewhere once it only takes one minute to find a special person and sixty to appreciate them. It was more than twenty-four hours for her, and Tal was already special.

  Tal returned to the bank to find the owner and founder of Computer Tec, Zachary North already there. Newington had worked for Computer Tec.

  The two men shook hands, silently sizing each other up.

  “Mr. North,” Tal said. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Call me Zach.”

  “Zach, fine. I’m Tal.” Zach appeared more youthful than Tal expected. A few years younger than his thirty-five, but then again most people found Tal to be younger than expected. Both he and Zach headed up major companies, and physically they were about the same height and build.

  But Zach was as far from the typical nerd as you could get. For one thing, he didn’t wear the trademark glasses. Although, he did wear his blond hair long and pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore jeans with a long sleeve polo shirt, which had no pocket.

  Zach had stood up from his seat in front of the computer monitor to shake Tal’s hand, but sat down again to continue working.

  “Well Tal,” Zach said, “so far from what I can tell this is something Newington planned a long time ago. There’s code in the original programming that shouldn’t be there. It may take awhile but I’m sure I’ll be able to break it and unfreeze the accounts.”

  “That’s great news. Our security people have been working on it for hours now, with no luck. Once we unfreeze the accounts, will you be able to trace the money?”

  “I think so. But you realize the money will no longer be wherever he first transferred it. Enough time has passed he will have been able to cover his electronic tracks, he’s very good.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Tal said.

  “The guy is brilliant but he had a definite attitude problem. Not that programmers and designers like myself haven’t been known to be idiosyncratic. But this guy was even too weird for us, which is why we had to let him go. The good news is I can guess where the funds will end up, so instead of tracking him we can go directly to the end point and see if we can back track from there.”

  Tal could feel his facial muscles tighten into a frown. “Can you do such a thing?”

  “Sure!” Zach replied with confidence.

  “Where do you think the money will end up?”

  “I think I can answer that,” someone said from the doorway.

  Two pair of eyes raised above the computer monitor at the sound of the feminine voice.

  A woman stood poised in the doorway; before either man could say anything, she pulled out a wallet flipping it open to display her FBI badge.

  She was short, petite. She wore a dark blue conservative cut pants suit with matching dark blue pumps. Her only rebellion from the standard uniform was the low cut pink silk blouse. She looked just like a miniature doll, all big blue eyes and short bobbed blond hair.

  “Talbert Reynolds,” she said, watching Tal with a speculative gleam in her eyes. “I’m Agent Margo Patrosky. I’ve been assigned to this case.” She nodded her head in the direction of the programmer. “Zach.”

  Zach returned his attention to the computer screen. “Hi Margo, I see you got my email.”

  Tal looked at them both. “Ah…I guess you two know each other.”

  Margo’s answer was flippant and final. “In another life. But that’s not why I’m here. And yes, I received your email. As I was saying, Zach thinks the money’s either going to end up in Switzerland or the Caymans. My money’s on the Caymans.”

  “Which is the first place I’m going to look,” Zach replied. “Ah hah! Bingo! Got ya!” Zach raised his head from the screen again with a look of such glee on his face, Tal couldn’t help but grin back at him.

  “Did you trace the account?” he asked.

  “No, I just unlocked the code to free them,” Zach said. “I’ll let your people know they can start checking to see how much was moved. Just a little while longer and I’ll be able to figure out if my hunch is right as to where the money’s been moved to.”

  “Meanwhile,” Agent Patrosky said, “do you mind if I ask you a few questions, Mr. Reynolds? I’ve already got Mr. Newington’s profile and an APB is out on him, but I’ve got some questions.” She pulled a small notebook from her jacket pocket.

  “Of course, let’s go to the office next door and leave Zach to work in peace,” Tal stated.

  “Until he’s got that puzzle figured out,” she said, “he’s not even going to know we’re here.”

  “I heard that remark,” Zach said before becoming absorbed in the universal language of computer codes known and comprehended by few.

  Margo rolled her eyes before joining Tal in the office next door. Tal sat behind the desk. While the room was a little smaller than Kayla’s, the furnishing was the same, except there were two pictures and other personal items spread out on the desk and around the office.

  “Here’s what we know so far.” Margo proceeded to recap all of what Tal already knew and he said as much.

  “So what are your questions?” he asked.

  “First off, we don’t think he was working alone.”

  A surprised Tal exclaimed, “What! I don’t understand.”

  “He had to get the information about the accounts from someone. Even if he was able to override the security systems, he had to understand banking enough to be able to fool the system.”

  “He does. With his programming background, he’d know enough about how to set up mirror accounts, which is what he did.”

  “But he wasn’t working blindly on random accounts,” she insisted. “He had to have known which accounts to monitor, which ones to freeze without setting off immediate alarms. And he had to know in advance which accounts were venerable, how to set it up so it looked like transactions were being placed in the accounts they should have gone to. Those mirror accounts were already set up and ready to go. I just don’t see how a guy who worked in the HR department would know so much about specific banking accounts. Do you?”

  “But he had access to the bank’s database, and someone like him would have been able to get through the firewalls without help from anyone.”

  “Maybe, except the accounts hit would have been more random, and originated from more than one bank location. Instead they were accounts all specifically set up from this location. How could he have known which accounts to target?”

  “I don’t know. He’s been with the company for two years, but as far as I know the first time he’s ever been in this bank was yesterday, and then only for a few hours before I fired him.”

  “That’s my point exactly,” the age
nt said. “He had to have had help from someone at this location. Someone familiar with the accounts.”

  “What! Sonofabitch!”

  “Did he know anyone who worked here?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t met the man myself before yesterday.”

  “I understand he got into the system through the branch manager’s computer.”

  “He wouldn’t have had to hack into it,” Tal said running his hand through his hair. “He would have been able to use his own access code to enter the system. Besides, he fired the manager yesterday, along with the assistant manager, so he would have had complete access to all of their files as well as more than one way into the system.”

  “I’ll need to speak to both of them.”

  “Why? I’m sure neither woman had anything to do with this. I don’t think they even knew the guy. Whatever he did he did after he got rid of them.”

  “Maybe. Right now I’m just trying to get a clearer picture.”

  “Of course,” Tal replied. “And you should know, while the assistant manager was slotted to be fired, the branch manager, Kayla Michaels wasn’t. She’s now on leave for the rest of the week. In a couple of weeks she starts a new job at the corporate location as VP of the branch managers of Northern Virginia.”

  “Interesting. I am assuming you can still get a hold of both of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, I’ll need the information ASAP and I’ll try to check them out today either before or after I leave here. I also need to talk to all of the other employees who work at this branch. I’ll start interviewing the ones here right now and call the others who aren’t. Is there an office where I can speak to them privately that I can use?”

  “You can use this one,” he said gesturing to the office they sat in.

  “I’ll also need their personnel files.”

  “Unfortunately, those files are still in paper form here, and they are already in my office. My company just signed all of the final papers for ownership of this bank a week ago, so yesterday was my first visit here. I’ve been reviewing the records on file for this branch’s personnel, trying to determine who we can continue to use and who has to be let go.”