Hi!
I'm back again with a new chapter - oh and if you thought Anna was in trouble in the last one, you were wrong. Read and you'll find out why!
;-)
Lara
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Chapter 19
I stared at him. "The Circle? But... does that mean Chris was trying to accumulate information on the Circle's financial doings?"
Which would totally make sense.
"It would seem so," Kenneth said.
I picked up the paper, staring at the list of unknown transactions, breathless. Round sums that didn't correlate with the rest of transactions in Chris' list. Three ten-thousand Dollar withdrawals within the last few months, transactions to an unknown account number. Ten thousand Dollars each time. Damn it.
Was this just another line of evidence that was going to peter out? Why would Chris Hayes have the information in her highly prized, private files, then?
"What else did you get?"
Kenneth made a dismissive motion with his hands. "Didn't get far. But it looks like the other two transactions match."
"Were they all the same – coming and going to the same account, I mean?"
"No, I meant that it looks like they were coming from the same account. I'm not sure about the receiver. I haven't had a thorough look yet."
I frowned. That didn't make any sense. Why this list of transactions? If Chris was trying to gain more information on the Circle and, who knew, spy for the Raven too, why this list?
"Did you find out where the money went to with this one?"
He pushed the glasses up his nose. "Not yet. It will take more time to crack that one. I couldn't identify the receiver. They go to what I think has to be another phantom company. I tried to dig deeper, but it all goes muddy. I suspected that it was a private person hiding behind, but I can't be sure. Well, I poked around a bit, but whoever's at the receiving line of all this money is very good at keeping his identity a secret. Maybe I could get more if I had more time. All I can tell you is that the money most likely came from the Circle."
I stared at the papers, absent-mindedly. "Kenneth, can you send everything to my private e-mail account? I want to have another look at it when I'm at home."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him nod. "Sure thing."
Well, at least we knew that the money was probably not payment for the mole. I frowned, trying to process the information. It was like trying to put together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in the eye of a freaking tornado.
I had no idea what to do with this information, or what it meant. Still. Something didn't add up here. Something bothered me, hovering at the edge of comprehension, waiting for me to make the connection and see. It was frustrating and I hated it!
Kenneth shook his head. "I have no clue what this is all about, but I don't like it Anna. This." He pointed at the sheet again. "If I'm right, this is serious shit. Because if I'm right, these are transactions assigned by the Circle's leader personally, done from Brown's office, and Chris Hayes had them on her computer. You know what that means? That means that whoever got his hands on the information was inside Brown's office."
I stared at him.
"Anna, I know the security in and around Brown's office in terms of IT. Whoever got this information not only had the authorization to enter the office, he had to have been a hacker himself," Kenneth said.
My breath whooshed out of me, hard and fast. My eyes relocated on the computer screen to my left, doing its black routine in stoic silence.
"Can you check who of the security personnel had access to Brown's office?" I said, words pouring out of me.
"Already did that. I checked the day of the last transaction that showed up on the record of the unknown account, figuring whoever took the information did it that day or at least one or two days afterwards. All in all there were three shape shifters on duty. Two of them members of the Fade pack."
I was still staring at the black computer screen. "Show me."
I saw the funny look he gave me from the corner of my eye, but ignored it. He moved his chair back to his computer and the screen flared to life. He logged in wordlessly, while I made my way over, tension spiraling up and down my arms.
A few mouse clicks and the rapid blinking of colors and dots on screen.
"It's here," he finally said.
I leaned forward, staring at two unknown faces. Members of the Fade Pack. I remembered both Alexander's and Fabrice's words. That the alpha of the Fade pack wouldn't work together with the Raven if his life depended on it. There had to be something else. I stared at the screen for a long moment.
"Show me who else worked within that time frame and had access to Brown's office."
He turned to look at me. "Why? I thought we were looking for shape shifters in particular?"
"Just do it."
He raised an eyebrow. "Bossy, aren't we?"
I have him a dark look.
He sighed. "Fine."
* * *
Night had begun to settle, darkness drawn over the city like a blanket of cool silk. I watched the clouds move and shift over the rising moon. The light arched over the Circle's headquarters like a pale, dirty half-halo.
The building was disguised by and draped in magic, crowned by the neon tubes reading Spira. The sight had fooled many a human passerby. Most of them would never know what the word really meant. The name stood for a computer software company and concurrently a corporation trading in the stock market. That it was basically a phantom company of the Circle and that its headquarters was plastered into the middle of the financial district was unknown to the greater part of the non-magical population.
It had taken me even longer to get back into the city. The drive from the apartment to the Circle's headquarters had been long and tiring. I was caught up in one of those rare traffic jams winding its way through the most frequented streets.
I needed to talk to Andy, discuss what Kenneth and I found out. Or at least what we thought we found out. And I would have talked to him, hadn't it been for Brown's phone call. My boss was one of the last people I wanted to talk to at this point in time, but Brown demanded I meet him at the Circle headquarters. Asap. If the head of the Circle calls in the middle of the night, it means business. I knew that. So here I was.
The steps leading up to the entrance had never looked as steep and high as they did this night. I climbed them anyway. I had no idea why he called me in. Didn't know if I should mention what Kenneth had found. Didn't even know how to do that.
No matter what, this meeting might end in a clusterfuck that could unsettle the whole Circle and have me walk Spanish. If the puzzle I'd completed and solved in my head was more than that – not a puzzle, but stark naked reality – things were going to deteriorate. This might be bigger than even I thought.
I had a theory. A flimsy one at best, and I was praying to nonexistent gods that I was wrong. I thought I knew who our mole was. The picture had unraveled in my mind, puzzle pieces clicking into place, successive sounds like deafening gun-shots.
The one security officer on duty beside the shape shifters? It was Travis. Eye-winking, heavy-flirting Travis. Travis, who'd showered me with talk about the IT world's newest gadgets on our first and only date. Back then I'd shrugged it off as just another macho habit. At this point in time I was willing to believe he was more than a macho and man-slut. He knew what he was talking about. Travis was a hacker and in all likelihood our mole.
While I itched to storm into Brown's office to tell him exactly that, there was something else on my mind. I had to know what really happened, in how far Chris Hayes was involved in this, and what the Circle had been doing with all the money. Had to know all before taking this to Brown and the Circle. Had to know if I could take this to Brown without jeopardizing my already precarious position.
I left the flat in a haste. Fled it, was probably more to the point. Funny that among all the chaos, the vortex of puzzle pieces and revelations, the information about Travis had unsettled me more than anything else. I didn't talk to Andy. I spent the day brooding and going over everything again. Making sure I was drawing the right conclusions. The longer I looked at the data, the more everything made sense. And then again not.
Andy tried to call me twice while I was on my way into the city. Kenneth had probably filled him by now and apparently Andy wanted to have more answers.
I shook my head. I didn't have time for speculation. I needed facts.
I marched up to the entrance like the Circle was still my second home. As things were, I wasn't sure if it had ever been anything close to that.
* * *
I stared at the fabric of his gray suit stubbornly. Brown had been standing at the window with his back turned to me ever since I walked into his office. I'd been waiting for him to make the first move, start his routine by asking me how I was, or at least acknowledge my presence.
Nothing of the kind happened. He didn't do as much as turn around, less glance at me – or the leather chair I was currently occupying for that matter. It scared the hell out of me.
"Why did you call me in?" I was surprised at hearing my own voice. Since when did I take the direct route? I took a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound.
"Is this about my suspension?"
Silence hung between us like a curtain of poisonous smoke, and for a long moment he didn't move. Thoughts about the Raven's mole or my own dark theories and assumptions lifted and fell in my head, dancing like figments and shadows in candle light. Voicing them? Talking to my boss about it?
"I know," he finally said.
Thoughts and theories I'd been trying to sort out, scattered, fell off the edge of my mind like rolling marbles. I gripped the chair's armrests, nails digging into the leathery fabric. Hot and cold showers of goose bumps cascaded down my spine, and it had nothing to do with magical power bursts or vampires. My tongue a rusty piece of metal in a drying river. My heartbeat quick and shaky with the constant stop-and-go. For a moment I couldn't seem to breathe. I licked my lips.
"What do you mean?"
He turned around then. "You're bound to him by blood. You're Alexander's servant."
The world stopped turning, the hands of time faltered and stagnated into a complete standstill. I couldn't breathe because there was no air to breathe.
Somewhere deep inside of me there was a part that knew, always knew, it would come to this and that part thought I'd prepared myself, that I'd equipped myself with enough mental armor to handle it.
Just do that one thing, do the right thing. That's what I'd been thinking, the latent straw I'd been grasping and my only remedy, my only justification for lying to everyone around me. Lately I'd been so focused on finding out who the Raven's mole was, I almost forgot what was at stake.
I couldn't speak, couldn't think past the rising panic. All I did was stare at my boss and relearn how to breathe.
The look in Brown's eyes spoke volumes, carried information I wished I'd never learned, or seen to begin with. There was pity, regret, and something else in that light blue that I couldn't quite decipher. If I thought he was going to yell at me, or put me on a verbal trial – a question and answer game I was pretty sure I wasn't ready for – I was proven wrong. He didn't say a thing. Just that look.
I averted my head, simply because I couldn't stand looking at him any longer. This was not how this was supposed to go down. I'd wanted a chance to redeem myself. To set things right.
"How long have you known?" I finally said.
Instead of answering my question, he threw another one at me. "You know what it means, don't you?"
He said it with a detached voice that made me look at him. Gone was the amalgam of emotions I'd seen in his eyes. The lines on his face had disappeared and without me noticing Brown had eased back into his professional self. He was really going to do it. He was going to treat me like a small town criminal.
"Brown," I began, not sure exactly what I could tell him. That I hadn't betrayed the Circle? Was that even the truth?
"You know what usually happens in cases like yours. Not only that you would be discharged, Anna, you would have to face a trial. I'm giving you the chance to resign and step back from your position quietly – under one condition: Leave the TF3 on your own, and never disclose the fact that you were Alexander's human servant while you were still in the Force. But you have to resign now to avoid prosecution. Do you understand that?"
I stared at him. Blinked, trying to process the information. Seconds passed. I nodded slowly, even though I barely knew why I was doing it. He didn't answer my question. His words made little to no sense. Nothing did.
"I can't guarantee anything, but we will try to keep everything under wraps for the time being. I will not make it public until you've settled things," he said. "That's all I can do for you. After that you're on your own."
For a moment his eyes rested on mine before he turned his back to me again.
Aren't you even going to ask?
"When it happened, I wanted to tell you, but-" I licked my lips, hesitating.
You were just too much of a coward to do it. You wanted to save your own skin. Go ahead, tell him.
"I just-"
"Anna, I don't want to hear it. It's bad enough as it is. Don't try to make it worse. It won't change anything about your situation, or the outcome."
I don't remember how I made it out of Brown's office and down to the basement. Everything blurred and paled in the wake of the atomic bomb someone had set off right in my brain. There were only chunks of memories, disconnected and random details that my brain collected like litter.
Handing in my TF3 badge just about slayed me. Never mind that I earned funny looks from the whole collective of security staff downstairs.
I exited the building with the gait of a dead woman walking, making my way to my car in a catatonic state. I got in behind the wheel and stared. And stared. It took me minutes, minutes that might have been hours, to snap out of it and press the reboot button.
I gripped the steering wheel, thinking hard. Nothing made sense. I expected my boss to demand answers, or at least yell at me. Brown had every reason to read me my own personal Miranda rights, then rake me over the coals and back again. And yet, he didn't do a thing.
Why didn't he ask how it happened to begin with? Why go against what Circle protocol demanded and open this magical back door for me? I'd be ostracized as soon as the magical community learned about what and who I had become. So why did Brown give me this chance at a reprieve?
Why that look in his eyes?
A portal of possibilities had been flung wide open in front of me, and each new one I glimpsed made less sense. Just how long exactly had Brown known that I was a human servant?
And then it clicked. The truth revealed itself bit by traitorous bit. By the time I had figured everything out, I was already driving through the fringe area of the Crimson District.