The Broken Window

They entered the Intake Center, painted a grim gray. It was smaller than the data pens and boosted her claustrophobia even further. As in the pens, the only decorations here were the logo of the watchtower and illuminated window, and a large picture of Andrew Sterling, a posed smile on his face. Below it was the caption “You’re Number One!”

Maybe it referred to market share or to an award the company had won. Or maybe it was a slogan about the importance of employees. Still, to Sachs it seemed ominous, as if you were at the top of a list you didn’t want to be on.

Her breathing was coming quickly as the sense of confinement grew.

“Gets to you, doesn’t it?” the guard asked.

She gave a smile. “A little.”

“We make our rounds but nobody spends more time in the pens than we have to.”

Now that she’d broken the ice and gotten John to answer in more than monosyllables, she asked him about the security, to verify if Sterling and the others were being straight.

They were, it seemed. John reiterated what the CEO had said: None of the computers or workstations in the rooms had a slot or port to download data, merely keyboards and monitors. And the rooms were shielded, the guard said; no wireless signals could get out. And he explained too what Sterling and Whitcomb had told her earlier about data from each pen being useless without the data from the others and from Intake. There wasn’t much security on the computer monitors but to get into the pens you needed your ID card, a passcode and a biometric scan-or, apparently, a big security guard watching your every move (which was just what John had been doing, and not so subtly).

The security outside the pens was tight too, as the executives had told her. Both she and the guard were searched carefully when they left each one and had to walk through both a metal detector and a thick frame called a Data-Clear unit. The machine warned, “Passing through this system permanently erases all digital data on computers, drives, cell phones and other devices.”

As they returned to Sterling’s office John told her that to his knowledge nobody had ever broken into SSD. Still, O’Day regularly had them run drills to prevent security intrusions. Like most of the guards, John didn’t carry a gun but Sterling had a policy that at least two armed guards be present twenty-four hours a day.

Back in the CEO’s office, she found Pulaski sitting on a huge leather sofa near Martin’s desk. Though not a small man, he seemed dwarfed, a student who’d been sent to the principal’s office. In her absence, the young officer had taken the initiative to check on the Compliance Department head, Samuel Brockton-Whitcomb’s boss, who had all-access rights. He was staying in Washington, D.C.; hotel records showed he’d been at brunch in the dining room at the time of the killing yesterday. She noted this, then glanced over the all-access permission list.

Andrew Sterling, President, Chief Executive Officer

Sean Cassel, Director of Sales and Marketing

Wayne Gillespie, Director of Technical Operations

Samuel Brockton, Director, Compliance Department

Alibi-hotel records confirm presence in Washington

Peter Arlonzo-Kemper, Director of Human Resources

Steven Shraeder, Technical Service and Support Manager, day shift

Faruk Mameda, Technical Service and Support Manager, night shift

She said to Sterling, “I’d like to interview them as soon as possible.”

The CEO called his assistant and learned that, other than Brockton, everyone was in town, though Shraeder was handling a hardware crisis in the Intake Center and Mameda would not be coming in until three that afternoon. He instructed Martin to have them come upstairs for interviews. He’d find a vacant conference room.

Sterling told the intercom to disconnect and said, “All right, Detective. It’s up to you now. Go clear our name…or find your killer.”

Chapter Twenty

Rodney Szarnek had their mousetrap in place and the young shaggy-haired officer was happily trying to hack into SSD’s main servers. His knee bobbed and he whistled from time to time, which irritated Rhyme, but he let the kid alone. The criminalist had been known to talk to himself when searching crime scenes and considering possible approaches to a case.

Takes all kinds…