Whiteout - Ken Follett [11]
So why was he frightened? The face of Toni Gallo, his father’s security chief, came into his mind. She was a freckled redhead, very attractive in a muscular sort of way, though too formidable a personality for Kit’s taste. Was she the reason for his fear? Once before he had underestimated her—with disastrous results.
But his plan was brilliant. “Brilliant,” he said aloud, trying to convince himself.
“What is?” said a female voice beside him.
He grunted in surprise. He had forgotten that he was not alone. He opened his eyes. The apartment was pitch-dark.
“What’s brilliant?” she repeated.
“The way you dance,” he said, improvising. He had met her in a club last night.
“You’re not bad yourself,” she said in a strong Glasgow accent. “Nifty footwork.”
He racked his brains for her name. “Maureen,” he said. She must be Catholic, with a name like that. He rolled over and put his arm around her, trying to remember what she looked like. She felt nicely rounded. He liked girls not too thin. She moved toward him willingly. Blond or brunette? he wondered. It might be interestingly kinky to have sex with a girl not knowing what she looked like. He was reaching for her breasts when he remembered what he had to do today, and his amorousness evaporated. “What’s the time?” he said.
“Time for a wee shag,” Maureen said eagerly.
Kit rolled away from her. The digital clock on the hi-fi said 07:10. “Got to get up,” he said. “Busy day.” He wanted to be at his father’s house in time for lunch. He was going there ostensibly for the Christmas holiday, actually to steal something he needed for tonight’s robbery.
“How can you be busy on Christmas Eve?”
“Maybe I’m Santa Claus.” He sat on the edge of the bed and switched on the light.
Maureen was disappointed. “Well, this wee elf is going to have a lie-in, if that’s all right with Santa,” she said grumpily.
He glanced at her, but she had pulled the duvet over her head. He still did not know what she looked like.
He walked naked to the kitchen and started making coffee.
His loft was divided into two big spaces. There was a living room, with open kitchen, and a bedroom beyond. The living room was full of electronic gear: a big flat-screen television, an elaborate sound system, and a stack of computers and accessories connected by a jungle of cables. Kit had always enjoyed picking the locks of other people’s computer defenses. The only way to become an expert in software security was to be a hacker first.
While he was working for his father, designing and installing protection for the BSL4 laboratory, he had pulled off one of his best scams. With the help of Ronnie Sutherland, then head of security for Oxenford Medical, he had devised a way of skimming money from the company. He had rigged the accounting software so that, in summing a series of suppliers’ invoices, the computer simply added 1 percent to the total, then transferred the 1 percent to Ronnie’s bank account in a transaction that did not appear on any report. The scam relied on no one checking the computer’s arithmetic—and no one had, until one day Toni Gallo saw Ronnie’s wife parking a new Mercedes coupe outside Marks & Spencer’s in Inverburn.
Kit had been astonished and frightened by the dogged persistence with which Toni investigated. There was a discrepancy, and she had to have the explanation. She just never gave up. Worse, when she figured out what was going on, nothing in the world would prevent her from telling the boss, Kit’s father. He had pleaded with her not to bring anguish to an old man. He had tried to convince her that Stanley Oxenford in his rage would fire her, not Kit. Finally he had rested a hand lightly on her hip, given her his best naughty-boy grin, and said in a come-to-bed voice, “You and I should be friends, not enemies.” None of it had worked.
Kit had not found