Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [2]
Smiling, Aaron removed another wine glass from the cabinet, pouring the last of the too-smooth Chianti into it.
As he poured, Matt said, "Look, Lisa's got something none of the rest of us have."
"Besides a lack of experience?" Aaron handed the glass to Matt.
"Actually, yes. You assumed that she had no experience retrieving information. But in fact, what she does for a living is work in computer and internet security. She's one of the top people in that field. Before she went freelance, she put in some good years at a lot of the top firms—KPMG, Bear Stearns, Citibank. She's got a killer résumé. Not only that, but Umbrella headhunted her a few years back."
Aaron blinked. "She turned them down?"
Matt nodded as he sipped his wine. Aaron was stunned. If Umbrella set their sights on a potential employee, they rarely stopped until that person was an actual employee.
"Why?"
"She was living in New York at the time, and didn't want to relocate to Raccoon. Couldn't, really. She and Nick were still married, and that was when Nick's mother was getting sick. No way they were gonna leave town with all the care her mother-in-law needed."
"Umbrella has an office in New York."
"Yeah, but they wanted someone for the home office."
Snorting at the euphemism, Aaron said, "You mean the Hive?"
Matt nodded. Most of Umbrella's private sector work was done at their various locations around the globe: technology and equipment relating to computers and health care. The Hive was the underground complex under Raccoon City where the company conducted business relating to its government contracts. Officially, the Hive existed in order to preserve the classified nature of some of those contracts. Unofficially, that was an excuse to do work—both for the government and the private sector—that was not necessarily legal or ethical.
"But she's divorced now, yes?" Aaron retook his seat.
Matt nodded again. "And even if she wasn't, the mother-in-law in question is dead. Lisa went freelance a couple years back, right after she and Nick split. With the economy in the shape it's in, though, I don't think she'll have any trouble convincing the recruiters at Umbrella that she'd like something more secure—if they're still interested. And, given the premium they place on security, I'm willing to bet real money they'll still be interested in taking her on, especially since she's got much more varied experience now."
Aaron snorted. "You're living on a Federal Marshal's pension, and quite a meagre iteration of same, at that, Matthew—you don't have any real money to bet." He sighed. "But what if they find out who she is?"
"They'll know who she is—a top-notch computer geek, who'll be working directly with the company's security people. You've met her, she can charm the socks off anyone. She'll be able to get us the info we need."
"What happens when they run the background check and find out that her brother is a retired Federal Marshal?"
Matt shrugged his deceptively small shoulders. "'We've lived on opposite sides of the country for most of our adult lives; we don't see each other that often. If I tried to get a job with Umbrella, they'd probably dig deep enough to find out what kinds of things I've been doing since I retired, but as the brother of a prospective employee, my"—he grinned—"veneer of respectability should hold up."
Swiveling his chair slightly so he could glance out the picture window, Aaron took a thoughtful sip of his wine. It could work. His reservations notwithstanding, it was actually a better plan than anything else they had attempted.
Well, no, it was a bolder plan. That didn't necessarily make it better, simply one with greater rewards if they were successful.
"There's one more advantage," Matt said quietly.
Aaron swiveled the chair back toward Matt. "Oh?"
"If she's caught, she can't be traced back to us."
It was all Aaron could do to keep from laughing. "What are you going to tell her, Matthew, that the secretary will disavow all knowledge of her mission?"
Matt did smile at