Cassy popped the second flash drive—the one containing the real anti-virus program—out of her machine and palmed it as she glanced at Masters, who was on the phone, his back to her.
The woman ex-cop that Hardy had stationed across the room had pulled a chair over twenty minutes ago and was glancing at a magazine, looking up every so often.
“Is that it?” Donni asked. His eyes were wide, but he was grinning.
Cassy nodded. “Are you ready?”
“This is serious, isn’t it?”
“Dead serious. We’re going to take the remedy to someone who can help us. Outside the company. I don’t trust most of our people upstairs. That’s why I’m going to give Julia a fake drive.”
Donni looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car, his eyes wide. “Why don’t you trust them?”
“I’m almost sure that the worm started right here in our system, not from outside somewhere.”
“Is it Francis, do you think?”
“I don’t know, but everyone is treating me like the enemy, not someone just doing her job,” Cassy said. She looked away for a moment then turned back. “I want to trust Julia, but I’m not sure.”
“Okay, I guess I’m your man,” Donni said.
Cassy stepped over and hugged him, and as they were embracing, she slipped the correct flash drive in the back pocket of his floppy linen plants. Taped to the back of it was the password. “My hero,” she whispered.
“Reluctant hero.”
“Showtime,” Cassy said.
They parted, and Cassy erased all traces of the fake anti-virus program from her machine. The two of them then went over to Masters’s desk.
He turned and looked up. “Gotta go,” he said and put down the phone.
“We’re going to lunch,” Cassy told him.
“Have you finished copying your program that’s going to save the firm?”
Cassy held up the fake drive, and Masters reached for it.
“I’ll drop it off at Julia’s office on my way out. I need to explain a few things to her.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Masters’s eyes narrowed. “I’m your goddamn boss.”
“And Ms. O’Connell is yours,” Cassy said. “Now, do you want to argue about it, or can we get out of here?”
Hardy had come out of nowhere and was just suddenly there. “Is there a problem, Francis?”
“Yes, Ms. Levin has the flash drive with the anti-virus, and I volunteered to hand-carry it up to Ms. O’Connell’s office, but she refused to hand it over.”
“I need to tell her a few things about the program,” Cassy said.
Hardy glanced at Donni, who shrank back. “No problem,” he said.
“Well, get the fuck out of here,” Hardy said, and he glanced over at the woman cop and nodded.
“We’ll be back in a half hour,” Cassy said.
“See that you are,” Masters told her.
She and Donni headed out to the elevators in the corridor, passing the woman cop, who glared at them.
On the way up, Cassy punched 6 for the cafeteria floor, and then 23 for O’Connell’s office. “Wait for me, and we’ll leave the building together,” she said. “Just don’t lose that drive.”
“Not a chance.”