Page 76 of The Money Man
“Oh, thank God!” Alice said as relief coursed through her body, turning her knees to jelly. She had to lean against the island to avoid collapsing on the floor. Her gun clattered onto the countertop.
Derek was at her side immediately, his arm around her waist. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Just my adrenaline draining away all at once.” She sagged into him and felt tears well in her eyes. Wrapping her arms around him for a moment, she drew comfort from the solidity of his body. But she knew they had things to do so she took a deep breath and straightened away from him. “I’m fine. We need to get Leland to Barsky’s laptop to stop the transfers.”
He kept his arm around her waist and turned them both. “Leland, we think Barsky’s laptop is in my office. Tully, maybe we should bring Barsky with us.”
The man who had come through the door first hauled Barsky to his feet none too gently, making the hacker wince. “Where’s the laptop?” he demanded, doing something to Barsky’s injured arm that made the man jerk in pain.
“The office,” Barsky confirmed through clenched teeth.
“Move,” Tully said, shoving him around the table.
“You can’t stop it,” Barsky boasted.
“We’ll see,” Leland said, joining Derek and Alice as they followed Tully.
One of the FBI agents brushed past them. “Gibson, let me clear the way first,” he said. “There may be others.”
Tully stepped aside with a nod. “Make it fast. We have a deadline, only we don’t know what it is.”
“The office is three doors down on the left,” Derek called.
Now that she was anchored by Derek’s arm around her waist, Alice’s brain began to function again. “Will our cell phones work now? I’d like to call my clients to see if they can get their banks to lock down their accounts somehow.”
Leland pulled his cell out of his pocket and swiped a few times with long, elegant fingers. “Good to go now.”
The agent signaled them that the office was empty. As they walked in, Alice gasped. Three large monitors lay on the floor, smashed as though someone had stomped on them repeatedly. Other equipment was strewn around with wires and electronic guts ripped out. Even the high-end ergonomic chairs had been knocked over. A shiver of delayed terror coursed through her. Barsky was angrier than he had let on.
“What the hell happened here?” Leland asked.
Barsky started to laugh but Tully did that thing to his arm and the laughter cut off abruptly.
Derek released Alice to right one of the chairs before offering it to her. “I’ve got a laptop in the safe.”
Leland picked up a chair and seated himself in front of the only viable computer in the room: Barsky’s. The screen was blank but he typed in something and a string of unintelligible code appeared. Leland studied it for a moment, his eyes laser focused, before he began typing again.
“Can you stop it?” Alice asked.
“Maybe,” Leland said. “If the encryption is the same. I broke the other subroutine.”
Barsky muttered something. Tully smiled a scary grin. “You think you’re good but Leland is better.”
Derek put his backup laptop on the desk beside Leland and booted it up. “Alice, do you know which of your clients’ banks process the credit card transfer on Sundays?”
“Yes!” She hadn’t thought of that angle. She rolled her chair through the debris to Derek’s side and began listing them.
“Okay, I’ll start with the biggest bank,” he said, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “I have a couple of contacts there who will pick up on a Sunday morning. Maybe I can get them to hold the transfer until Leland works his magic.”
Leland was typing madly while Tully stood guard over Barsky, occasionally speaking into his earpiece. Evidently, more FBI agents had arrived because new faces appeared at the door. Alice walked to a far corner and pulled out her phone, calling Natalie first.
“Are you okay?” her friend asked. “Where are you?”
“I’m at Derek’s penthouse in the city and I have a heck of a story to tell you but that’s not why I’m calling. I want you to do your best to reach your bank’s customer service and get them to put some kind of hold on your account so nothing comes in and nothing goes out. Otherwise you could lose everything. Tell them there’s malware in your accounting software that’s trying to steal everything out of your account.”
“Everything?” Natalie’s dismay was clear. “That would wipe me out.”
“I’d tell you to transfer it to another account but it’s Sunday and I don’t know if it would happen fast enough. Also, I don’t know if the software can attack associated accounts as well. Get the bank to shut down access, if you can. Now I have to call my other clients.”
