Page 31 of Wanted
She shifted in her seat.
“You got off on it,” he said slowly.
She didn’t answer.
“What was it, the attention? The money?” He looked at her closely and shook his head. “No, it was the power. You liked being in control.”
She ran a hand through her tousled hair. “It beat cleaning kennels. I certainly made a lot more money. Do you know that I made as much stripping as I did writing computer code?”
He set down his coffee cup slowly. “I thought that Quad paid good money.”
“They do, but a computer programmer doesn’t make tips.”
“No bills in your G-string for a good line of code?”
“Not in that manner of speaking.”
Reno sat back in his seat. It was time to get into it. He couldn’t let this liaison go on for long. He needed to clear her name before anyone at HQ found out that he’d made love to her. “So money could have been a strong motivation for whomever accessed that code,” he said.
She went still. “Are you sure we can talk about it here?”
“Here’s as good of a place as any.”
“I’ve thought a lot about it,” she finally said. “Whoever took that code did it for either money or political reasons. There are countries out there that would pay a lot for that application.”
She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, but he listened carefully to see if she recalled anything he might have missed. “Explain it to me again,” he said. “Tell me exactly what the code is intended to do.”
He could see she was tense. She picked up a paper napkin and began smoothing it on the tabletop.
“Fighter planes are governed by a system called fly-by-wire,” she said. “That means that the controls such as the ailerons, the elevators, and the rudder are governed electronically—not with the old-fashioned hydraulic and cable systems.”
He nodded his head in understanding, and she looked quickly around the restaurant to make sure that nobody else was listening to their conversation. With that one unconscious gesture, Reno knew she was innocent.
He’d believed it before, but now, he knew it with certainty. Relief filled his chest, and suddenly, his interest was upped a hundred-fold. Now hehadto prove her innocence—for himself as much as for her. His job was to jail the criminals, not the victims.
She lowered her voice. “The code that Quadrangle Computing is writing will double the speed with which the commands are relayed to the control surfaces. I mean, it’s already fast. It’s imperceptible to humans, but there is room for improvement. Once that code is installed on our fighter planes, they’ll be the most maneuverable birds in the air.”
“They’ll be able to respond to the pilots’ commands that much faster.”
“Exactly. That split second could be the difference between life and death.”
Reno sat back in his seat. “There are armies out there who would kill for that advantage.”
“I know.” She tossed her napkin on her plate and looked him square in the eye. “That’s why the project was top secret. That’s why I’ve never talked about it with anybody outside the company. Until now.”
He leaned forward and set his elbows on the table. “Dani, the section of code that was intercepted was one that you had written.”
“I know.”
His eyebrows rose. “What do you mean, you know?”
“Why else would the FBI send their bloodhounds after me?”
“A bloodhound? Do I look like a bloodhound to you?”
“I’ve always thought of you more as a wolf.”
Well, that was better.
