Chapter 17: Sweet Dreams

It was ten after seven when I called Andi. It wasn’t a happy call.

“Hey! I cooked. When are you going to be here?” I loved her voice.

“Um, I got a little tied up at work,” I said. “I’m not sure I’ll make it.”

“Tied up?” The disappointment in her voice hurt.

“Well, it’s more like locked in.”

“Can’t you call someone to let you out?”

“I’m locked into a room that I’m probably not supposed to be in.”

“Probably?”

“Definitely.”

“Dag, what do you do for a living?” Andi was trying to make light of the situation while hiding her disappointment.

“I guess there’s nothing for it but to tell you. I’m a spy.”

“And the government has sent you undercover in a credit card company because they are suspected of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.” She was taking it well, but I had to be truthful with her. I wasn’t planning to make a practice of getting locked in places I shouldn’t be, but it was pretty likely that in the course of my career I’d be unable to keep some personal appointments. It was just the nature of the business.

“Andi, you know I’m contractor here and not really an employee, right?”

“Yes. I thought you were troubleshooting a computer network glitch.”

“More or less, that’s the story they gave out. I’m supposed to investigate ways to improve network security. But the truth is they sent me in here to find out who has their fingers in the till. I’m trying to track down someone who’s stealing from the company.”

“It’s never going to end, is it?” she said softly. “I thought the thing with Henderson was just because it personally affected you.” It was true that the Henderson case was personal. My retirement funds were part of the money that was missing. But the deeper into computer forensics I got, the more likely I’d be dealing with cases like this.

“Well, when it looks like you’re an expert in a field, then others line up to use you, I guess.”

“What can I do? Can I bring you dinner? No I suppose that won’t work unless you’re just locked in the women’s restroom. You aren’t, are you? I didn’t think so. Is there an outside latch I could open? Should I call someone for you? I could create a distraction outside the office if you need.” Andi had suddenly shifted into Cali mode. I understood now that it was a method of coping with information that was flooding her brain. I became just a little more aware of how her daughter’s mind worked.

“Andi, I’ll find a way out of here. It just might take me a while. I don’t do a dangerous job, I just got stuck. I’m sorry I can’t join you for dinner.” I really was sorry. Why the hell did I do this before my date? It could have waited until tomorrow. It’s that single-mindedness that takes over when I start working on a puzzle.

“Me, too.” I could hear longing in her voice, even over the phone.

“Andi, is this serious?”

“Oh, no. I’ll eat my share of dinner and the rest I’ll refrigerate. Cali always comes home from rehearsal hungry.”

“I don’t mean dinner, Andi. I mean us. Are we really more than friends? Because I think I’m falling in love with you and if you think I shouldn’t, I’d like to know that before it gets worse.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you said that before we had sex. I mean, not that we’re going to have sex. Yet. It’s just nice to know that you feel that way before, or without, or ... I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time,” she blurted out. That surprised me. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t I’d been feeling closer and closer to her for months. I could feel my face stretch into a grin.

“I’m really sorry I’m not there for dinner.”

“If you get lonely, all locked up there by yourself, you can call me anytime.”

“Thanks. I should get started figuring out a way to get out of here. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Yeah. Later.”

Oh, yeah. Later.

I needed to get out of this room. I was almost willing to crash the doors and let the alarm sound. Almost, but not quite. It was just that the thought of Andi saying she loved me ... I really needed to get out of here.

I could see the setup pretty clearly. As with most robotic manufacturing rooms, this one was extremely clean and the air conditioning kept it between sixty-six and sixty-eight degrees if I judged the temperature correctly. Some of the equipment generated a lot of heat. The robots were controlled by their own set of computers in a room on one side that I guessed was probably kept even colder. These computers were not on the company network or a part of the cloud. I was pretty sure they could connect to get data from the network, but they’d be hidden behind another firewall inside the company. The workstations in the offices on the twelfth floor were slaves to these powerful computers. I’d have to do some investigating to find out how information on customers was eventually connected to billing and customer service.

The room with the computers was also secured behind a door with a keypad lock. With the information that I now possessed, I knew that if I had the keypad code, I could steal all the customer data I wanted from the company and it was unlikely it would be detected for weeks or even months. Unfortunately, I lacked the keypad code, so it was a moot point.

I had few options. I was sealed in a locked room.

I went back to observing how the equipment worked to see if there was a way I could use any of it. There was a freight elevator that had a door on this floor, but the call buttons had the same keypad lock on them that the doors had. Apparently, all raw materials came up in that elevator and all finished letters went down in it. There were no apparent robotics for moving the boxes of finished mail that were stacked on palettes as they came off the conveyor belt. That meant that workers had to enter the room at some point to load the material in the elevator and actually do the shipping at the post office. The palettes were nearly full, so I began to wonder what time the night shipping crew arrived.

I looked for all the usual ways to get out of a room. The heating ducts and air vents were twenty feet overhead. The few places where the ceiling was only one story high were behind locked doors like the computer room. I sat in a corner near the door and pulled out my tablet, connecting remotely to my company laptop in the office. From there I began searching for access codes in the manufacturing center. Wherever they were located, they were well-guarded. It looked like I’d found the one truly secure place in the company.