He hesitated a moment. “And as far as we can tell, our target, Tsernyakov, has only one weakness—beautiful women.”
He looked uncomfortable saying that, as if he expected them to jump up and yell sexual harassment.
She glanced at the others. They were all looking around at each other. He was right, she realized. Anita was a classic Latin beauty. Gina was petite with pretty features, her body round in all the right places, and a pronounced presence that made her hard to ignore. Sam had the beauty of youth, in spades, those large green eyes that would swallow you up. She was the odd bird out, Carly thought of herself. Too tall, too athletically built to be called feminine. They got her for her hacking.
“How will we find him?” Anita regained her balance first.
“You don’t find Tsernyakov. Nobody does. Your job is to make him want to find you.”
“How?” Sam drew up a black eyebrow that had two silver rings in it. She’d somehow managed to get her hands on an amazing number of body ornaments within days of release.
“We are going to put you in his way. The rest is up to you.” Law brought up another slide, a map. “Cayman Islands, off-shore banking paradise. One of the money-laundering centers of the world.”
“We’re going?” For once Sam seemed to forget her aloof pose and sounded genuinely excited.
Carly tried hard to keep the grin off her face. One of the to-do items in her slowly forming escape plan was to find a way to get out of the country once she got away from the “mission.” Looked like they were going to help her out with that. Excellent.
“He’s got businesses there?” Gina asked, then when Law paused, she added with some sarcasm, “No, don’t tell me. You don’t know.”
“We don’t know whether Tsernyakov has interests on the island or not,” Law said in an even voice. “But we suspect that some people he’s involved with do. Your job will be to get to know these people, get them to trust you and have them lead you eventually to Tsernyakov. Or—” he paused “—more realistically, lead Tsernyakov to you.”
“What will we be doing exactly?” Anita asked.
“Your cover will be a consulting company that facilitates entrepreneurs in setting up small businesses. Miss Caballo will handle accounting, Miss Jones will do IT, Miss Torno will take care of security, including background checks on employees, and Miss Hanley is the support person for the team.”
“I’m the freakin’ secretary? No way.” Sam threw herself back in her seat.
“You’re an undercover agent in a top secret operation.”
Apparently, Law said the right thing because Sam didn’t make another comment. God, if she bought that line, she was obviously way too easily scammed. Somebody ought to watch out for the girl.
The agent brought up another slide that had the name Savall, Ltd. at the top with a logo, an address, phone and fax numbers, Web site address and mission statement.
“What else do you want us to do? A start-up consulting company isn’t going to attract much attention from the type of people Tsernyakov would hang with,” Gina said.
“Correct. Savall, Ltd. is your cover. What you’ll really be doing is money laundering.”
“Are you asking us to engage in illegal activities?” Anita sounded shocked.
“You need to move in the same circles that Tsernyakov’s associates move in. You are authorized by the FBI and CIA to use whatever means necessary to get close to the man.”
Carly shifted in her seat. Official carte blanche. Man, it sounded weird. She’d spent the last six years angry at the government for making something as innocent as a quest for knowledge a punishable offense. And now here was an FBI agent telling her to go ahead, break the law as she pleased.
“This is not gonna come back and bite us in the ass, no matter what?” Gina nailed the man with a hard look.
“Correct.”
“You need us, people with authentic backgrounds instead of existing agents, because if we get lucky enough to get this guy’s attention he’ll have us checked out and he knows people in the right places,” Gina thought out loud.
“Yes.”
“I’m guessing something like this would be a last-ditch effort,” she added.
Law didn’t respond.
“You tried before with your own men and didn’t succeed. Did he have them killed?” Gina pushed.
“We lost a number of operatives.”
The room went silent for a long minute, then Law brought up the next slide, more on what Savall, Ltd. did and a list of how they could help their clients.
“Miss Caballo was convicted for the embezzlement of nearly four million dollars that was never recovered. Your operations will imply that she had that money safely stashed away, met up with the rest of you in prison, and decided to start a company that would grow her nest egg outside of the United States.”
Four million dollars. Carly glanced at Anita, whose lips were pressed into a thin line. Damn, she hadn’t given the woman enough credit. She was all educated and classy, soft-spoken. But Anita had stolen four mil. Sam had done breaking and entering and boosted a couple of cars. Gina had killed a man.
Carly caught herself chewing her bottom lip and stopped. What was she doing here? She didn’t do teams. She’d always been the odd person out. All through school she’d taken accelerated classes, graduated from high school by fourteen, had her M.A. in computer science by twenty-one. She’d been the freak kid in every class. Her classmates, years older, had wanted nothing to do with her. She hadn’t been invited to parties, to sleepovers, to clubs. So she’d stayed home, on her computer, found online places to hang out where nobody had to know her real age.
Then she’d found her way into the vast and accepting community of hackers where being smart was no longer a disadvantage—dozens, hundreds of people just like her. For the first time ever there was a place where she’d been a perfect fit.
“So what’s going to keep us from taking off once you cut us loose?” Gina was asking.
Good question. Carly waited for the answer.
Sam seemed to perk up at the idea, too. She was leaning forward in her chair.
“You’ll be under constant surveillance. For your own safety.” Law nodded toward Tarasov, who stood to the side.
Great. Carly hung her head. Anyone but him. How on earth was she supposed to get away from that one? She closed her eyes for a moment. No. She was not going to let him intimidate her. She drew a deep breath and straightened her spine. She would find a way.
“Any questions about this part?” Law asked.
Anita raised her hand. “Has anyone managed to get close to this man and come back alive?”
He paused for a moment before responding, looked at the other two men, then back at the women. “None so far,” he said.
LITTLE PIG,LITTLE PIG, let me come in. Carly’s fingers flew over the keyboard as she bombarded the firewall of her target company with various bits of code, hoping to find the tiniest crack that would allow her entrance into their system.
Anita stuck her head through the half-open door. “That keyboard is about to start smoking. Any progress?”
“Lots. But not enough to get through.” They’d been on Grand Cayman for almost two weeks. She’d broken into Costa-Costa, Inc.’s system, a family owned French firm, on day three. The others were trickier. She was feeling the six years she’d wasted in prison. She’d been working day and night to catch up with the latest versions of programs she had missed. Might as well do that now while she was here, surrounded