Infiltrator

It had all been so civilized. The hotel was wonderfully cooperative and sympathetic. American Express had sent a card over to her by courier within the hour. She'd dropped her small suitcase in her room, a very nice room, and had gone shopping for a laptop at a nearby computer store. She was very pleased with her purchase and ready to begin the next phase of her integration with society. If she had actually been robbed she thought that by now she'd be quite soothed.

By tomorrow she should be able to begin acquiring references.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS: THE PRESENT

Serena had decided that her first job out of college was with Worlon Systems. It was a small company that created software and software security systems for a very select client list.

The company's decor was sleekly modern, but with soft plush edges, everything open plan and in shades of beige and gray; the whole room whispered money.

What their unfortunate clients didn't know, but the 1-950 did, was that Mr.

Griffith, Worlon's chief of security, could access their accounts anytime he

wished, make any adjustments he wanted to, and then leave without a trace.

Well, there's always a trace, Serena thought. And she had the evidence stored in her laptop.

'Could I use your phone?' she asked the receptionist. 'Just to make an internal call.'

The woman pointed to a phone on the counter and Serena tapped in a four-digit number. Griffith answered on the first ring with a sharp, distracted, 'Yes?'

'Mr. Griffith, my name is Serena Burns. Could I come up and talk to you?'

'You'll have to make an appointment with my secretary,' he said. There was a pause. 'How did you get this number?'

'Irrelevant, Mr. Griffith. I'm calling in regard to the Babich, Fisher account. A matter of some… delicacy.'

'Who did you say you were?' His voice sounded slightly belligerent, but she could detect micro-tremors that said he was surprised and nervous.

'Burns,' she told him. 'Serena Burns.'

'Right now is inconvenient, Ms. Burns.'

'I think now would be an excellent time to discuss my work, Mr. Griffith. I have other parties interested in my program.'

There was another pause, a longer one this time.

'I'll send my secretary down to escort you up,' he said. He didn't trouble to hide his anger, but he couldn't hide his alarm from her educated ear.

* * *

'What are we talking about here, Ms. Burns?' Griffith asked as soon as he'd shut the door in his secretary's startled face. He was a compact man of about fifty, clean-shaven, dark hair receding in classic male pattern baldness. He sat behind his shining ebony desk and assessed her with an expert's eye. 'You're not what I expected.'

'What we're talking about today is an exchange of favors, Mr. Griffith,' Serena said brightly. 'I have evidence that you've been selling insider information and that you've been siphoning funds and altering accounts in your clients' files. I'm prepared to give you that evidence and to teach you how to better cover your tracks.'

He looked at her without blinking for a long moment, then took a deep breath.

'In exchange for?'

'There's a job I want,' she said. 'But my employment record is sketchy. Much of the work I do is extremely confidential, and so my clients can't provide references. So when someone calls you up and asks about me, I need you to tell them that you remember me and found me reliable and smart and that you expect me to go a long way.'

For a long moment he looked her in the eye. Serena supposed he was attempting some sort of dominance game, but he hadn't a chance. She held all the cards here

and she, genuinely didn't care how he felt about it.

'And when were you supposed to have worked here, exactly?' he finally asked.

'I've already created a record of my employment and installed it in your system,'

she said. 'It was approximately five years ago. It would look suspicious if you were too specific about the dates, don't you think?'

'You must be pretty good,' he said with a tilt of his head.

'Yes,' she said frankly. 'Too good for you to fool. Come now, Mr. Griffth—let's do business. I'm not asking for much, I just want a fair shot at this job. And I have no particular interest in hanging you out to dry. In exchange for your cooperation I'll give you peace of mind by erasing all traces of your activity at Babich, Fisher.' She cocked her head. 'You don't have to tell them you liked me.

In fact you can say you hate my guts. All I ask is that you tell them I'm good at my job.'

'All right,' he agreed.

She stood. 'Thank you, Mr. Griffith.' Serena placed her laptop on his desk and extracted a disk. 'This contains all of the information that I've found, with instructions on how to avoid leaving the same trail. Shall I remove your footprints from your clients' files or would you prefer to do it?'

He took the disk from her. 'I'll take care of it,' he said gruffly.

'You won't be sorry, Mr. Griffith.' Serena went to the door then stopped, her hand on the doorknob, and glanced over her shoulder. 'Unless, that is, you let

me down.' Her eyes promised that he'd be very sorry indeed if he did that.

'I don't break my promises, Ms. Burns.'

She smiled and let herself out. This from a man who's stealing from his clients.

NEW LIFE ORGANIC FARM, OREGON: THE PRESENT

'I'm sorry about that scene the other night,' George said.

Ronald stopped spraying the soap mixture and looked down at him. The fresh spring air and the scent of blossom wafted by, unnoticed. Birds hopped and cheeped, and something small and furry scurried through a row of blackberry bushes not far away, intent on its own affairs.

'That wasn't a scene,' Ron said, 'that was an assassination attempt.'

George curled up his lips and looked down at his work boots. 'No one is trying to kill you, Ron,' the older man said.

Labane climbed down the ladder so that he could look him in the eye.

'You have all lost your focus,' he said. 'You now want nothing more than to have a nice peaceful life with slippers and babies and apple pie and screw the revolution. Let the kids take care of it, I'm tired,' he mimicked. 'When we were kids we were going to do it. Now you want the ones you were going to do it for to do it for you!'

George shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. 'Maybe we're older and we've got a better sense of perspective,' he offered. 'We know what a giant job it is

and that maybe it's too much for just us to do.'

'You know what, George? The only people who ever accomplish anything in this world are the ones who are prepared to risk everything. People who try to hold on to what they've got and play by the rules just get old and die and a generation later nobody even knows they ever lived at all. They don't get rich, they don't change anything, they just spawn and die.'

He moved a little closer, standing in George's space.

'But I haven't lost my focus. I am willing to risk everything and there isn't one of you that doesn't scare easy. You resent it, too. And that's what that 'scene' the other night was really about. It was about fear and knowing that you'll never accomplish your goals because you've lost the will. And envy that I haven't given up.'

George stepped back a couple of paces and frowned. 'You keep using these violent words, man. 'Assassination' and 'revolution' and 'fear.' Just what do you mean when you say stuff like that?'

Ron looked at him in mild exasperation. Sometimes he thought George was a bit dim. He was a wonderful