Unauthorized

Chapter 31: Satisfaction

Planning the raid on Andrés's office wasn't easy but with Anansi improving exponentially each day and the worm infecting Surefire's servers, it was possible.

Access to and within the building was controlled by a combination of access cards with an employee photo and six-digit personal ID numbers. Certain areas required fingerprints as well. It required her to blow a chunk of her savings buying and trying out some interesting new toys, but within a few days she had a hidden folder in the employee information directory linked to an ID card, printed based on the template she'd found in Surefire's HR database. A few lines of code added a PIN and top-level clearance to all areas of the building.

Finding an outfit was almost as difficult as the hacking had been. Andrés, Jolene, and Aguilar dressed in what Irena would probably call business casual, which was not how her usual biker chic style could ever be described.

A trip to the Stratford Westfield shopping center yielded a black pencil skirt, lacy blue blouse, black bolero jacket, and low-heeled black boots that rose to her knees and skimmed over sheer black tights. Hopefully, it would strike the right balance between professional and sexy; Liv didn't want to involve Irena in this by asking. A black wig covered the blue streak in her hair and gave her more length than she'd had in years.

Andrés's schedule for the next day showed him at the office and in meetings most of the morning, but there was an hour's gap she could use to talk to him once she'd slipped into his office. Perfect, assuming the office wasn't locked with a physical key and the man actually returned to it after the first two meetings of the day.

Either way, she'd make it work. She had to.

***

Liv's heart hammered in her chest as she stood across the street from Heron Tower the next morning. In all her planning for getting into the building, she'd forgotten to account for more mundane measures to keep people out.

The dark, upside-down domes of cameras hovered in several places, and discreet yet burly security personnel staffed the entries. She could probably blag her way past the human staff but it would take a machine to trick machines. Fortunately, she'd brought a small laptop in the sort of oversized handbag she'd seen professional women carrying.

Ducking into a coffee shop, she ordered a cup of tea to have an excuse to sit and set up, connecting to the tower's internal wifi and then with Anansi over a VPN to reduce the risk of being traced. I really need to set up some kind of speech process and an earpiece or something, she thought grumpily as she typed out commands. Anansi would put the cameras on loop, following her progress through the building using the biometric chip to gauge her location and lessen the amount of time they'd be disrupted.

That done, she tucked everything away, finished her cuppa, and strode with what she hoped was a confident manner toward the building. Her brisk pace didn't prevent the guard from halting her, as she'd hoped it would. "A moment please, miss," the large man said in a thick Cockney accent, holding out an arm. "I don't fink I've seen you before."

Liv gave a small smile and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, hoping she looked shy and non-threatening. "I'm new," she said, keeping it short.

"You weren't on the roster of new hires for the week, miss..."

"Shepard," Liv said, holding up her fake badge. "Olive Shepard, independent consultant. Sorry, I just know I'm supposed to meet Andrés Marin for a meeting at ten."

The guard looked up sharply from scanning her badge with a handheld device when she said Andrés' name and fingered his two-way radio. Shit. Don't make the call.