Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [5]
He’d arrived at the Omaha airport just in time to catch a red-eye to New York City. This would be his first trip there since the death of his fiancée, Cynthia, at the World Trade Center on 9/11, and he was almost overwhelmed by a range of unwelcome emotions. For an instant it was as if he were reliving the horror all over again. By the time he’d taken a taxi downtown, checked in and showered, he’d pushed his terrible memories aside and caught exactly ninety minutes sleep before shaving and dressing to arrive for this 9:00 a.m. meeting with Joshua Greene, managing partner of Fischerman, Platt & Cohen.
“Mr. Aiken?”
Jeff opened his eyes and realized he’d fallen asleep. He glanced at his watch: 9:23. “Yes?”
“Mr. Greene and Ms. Tabor will see you now. Are you sure you don’t want some coffee?”
“Thank you. You were right. I’ll take a coffee after all. Black.” He smiled sheepishly. “Better make it a large.”
The receptionist laughed, flashing brilliant white teeth. She showed him through the double door into the managing partner’s office. “I’ll get that coffee right now,” she said.
The reception area had been designed in a 1920s art deco style that Jeff believed was inspired by the original interior design, given the age of the building and the exterior motif. The impression was reinforced as he entered the conference room. Dressed in brown penny loafers and wrinkled tan chinos, a dark blue travel blazer with a matching light blue polo shirt, he was accustomed to looking out of place in most corporate offices. After all, he reasoned, they hired him for what he knew and could do, not for his wardrobe. With short sandy brown hair and dark eyes, he was six feet tall and thirty-six years of age and had mostly kept his athletic build despite his work. Even catalog clothing fit him well, a girlfriend had once commented.
The pair sat at an expanse of glassy mahogany. The lawyer, Greene, was well dressed, to put it mildly, reminding Jeff of Gene Hackman in The Firm. That had been the mob’s law firm, and Hackman had been the bad guy. The other was their IT person; she was almost, but not quite, a fellow traveler with Jeff, though her clothes had a Gap and Banana Republic look.
The well-suited man stood and introduced himself as Joshua Greene. “This is Sue Tabor, our IT manager. I thought it would save time if she sat in.”
“We spoke late Saturday,” Sue said as she rose to shake hands.
“Yes, I recall. Barely.”
They waited as the receptionist returned with a large black coffee and a Danish Jeff had not requested. Greene waved her off before she could ask if anyone else wanted anything.
Sue was slender, of partial Asian heritage, late twenties, with jet-black hair stylishly cut in a bob. Her slender lips were a crimson slash, and she wore more makeup than he was used to seeing in offices. Beneath her shirt he detected modest breasts, but her figure struck him as all angles. Her grip was firm, but there was no denying a certain shine in her eye as she met his gaze.
Greene was perhaps sixty years old and had the look of a man who spent his share of time in the gym. Broad-shouldered, he had graying hair and wore glasses with scarcely any rim, the lenses reflecting as if made of crystal. If someone told that Jeff Greene had once played football, it would have come as no surprise. While Sue was clearly West Coast in her accent, Greene came from somewhere in the Midwest. Jeff had heard a lot of that Johnny Carson talk in Omaha.
“I don’t want to waste your time, Aiken,” the lawyer said, “but I’d like to give you a brief summary before I hand you over to Sue. Saturday morning one of our associates came in earlier than usual and found himself the first in the office. When he attempted to use his computer, he could not. He checked with other computers and discovered that none of them were working.