Seduction of Steel: The Complete Series (27 page)

The ride was a pleasant one, though it felt like a bit of an anachronism sailing on the river in this old-looking boat while surrounded by modern skyscrapers, bridges and freight ships.  Still, Jessica found herself enjoying the trip, walking from one end of the boat to the other, exploring all of the decks, and taking pictures at every opportunity.

Lunch was welcome, and while it wasn't as impressive as dinner the night before, it was both tasty and filling, representing a nice spread of southern favorites, such as corn bread, fried chicken and mustard greens.  Jessica was having fun, and she was glad she'd decided to take this trip.  She hoped that Ryan wouldn't be too late today.

As she was finishing her meal, with about a half an hour to go on her ride, Jessica received a text message.

J- I need your help.  R.

Jessica wasn't sure what to do.  This was the message that Ryan had warned her about, but she wasn't even on land, let alone near the hotel.  The envelope that Ryan had given her was back at the room, and she didn't even know what it contained.  He had asked her to look it over, but somehow, she never quite got around to it.

She began to worry, and there was nothing she could do until the boat docked again.

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The guard escorted Ryan to a small room and asked him to empty his pockets.  The guard took Ryan's cell phone, his badge, a few dollars in cash, and a flash drive from him.

“You don't have a wallet?” the guard asked gruffly.

“Not on me.  You've taken all I have.”  Ryan reached into his pockets and turned them inside out to indicate that he was hiding nothing else.  The guard put the contents into a plastic bag and took them with him. 

“Wait here.”  The guard left Ryan in the room and locked the door as he left.  There was a window that faced the hallway, and a table and a couple of metal chairs.  Otherwise, the room was empty.

He sat there for about fifteen minutes, wondering what was going to happen next.  Finally, the guard returned with another company employee, a fortyish brunette in a gray skirt with a matching jacket and a dour expression.  She stepped forward and spoke.

“My name is Elaine Joseph.  I'm the head of security here. What were you doing in that office?”

Ryan said nothing.

She turned to the security guard who had caught Ryan.  “What did you find on him?”

“Just what you see in the bag.  His cell phone, his badge, some cash and the flash drive.”

“We'd better take a look at the flash drive.”  She turned to Ryan.  “You're a temporary employee here, and it's pretty apparent that you've used that as a ruse to spy on us.  We don't know what you're up to, but we're going to find out.  Do you have anything to say?”

Ryan said nothing.

She took the flash drive out of the bag.  “We're going to have a look at this drive and see what you've put on here.  If there's any proprietary information on here, you're likely looking at a long prison sentence.  I'll be back.”

She turned and left, with the security guard following her.  They locked the door behind them.

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After what seemed like an eternity, the steamboat returned to the pier.  Ordinarily, Jessica would have enjoyed the ride and the lunch tremendously, but that was all forgotten as she panicked over not being able to respond to Ryan's message quickly.  As soon as the boat docked, she ran from the pier and immediately hailed a cab.

When they arrived at the hotel, she asked the driver to wait for a few minutes.  She  ran up to her room and found the envelope.  Inside were a number of documents, a badge, and a note:

Jessica-

If you've received a text message from me, do the following:

Dress in business attire.

Take a taxi to the Peavy Manufacturing plant at 134 W. Mechanical Road.

Follow the instructions on the next page.

Trust me.

-Ryan

Jessica quickly threw on her business suit and some sensible, low-heeled pumps, ran a comb through her hair and put it in a bun, touched up her makeup, grabbed the envelope and headed down to the street to get into the taxi.

“Take me to 134 West Mechanical Road, please.  The Peavy Manufacturing plant.  I'm in a hurry.”

“Yes, Ma'am.  I'll get there as fast as I can.  It's about fifteen minutes away.”

Jessica looked at her watch.  It had been more than an hour since she'd received Ryan's message, and she had no idea what kind of trouble he might be having.  She had even less of an idea as to what she was supposed to do about it.

She opened the envelope the look at the contents.  On the first page, Ryan had outlined a specific scenario that he thought might happen.  He also outlined a solution, and provided Jessica with a specific set of instructions, telling her what to do and what to say when she arrived at the plant:

When you arrive at the plant, tell the receptionist that you want to speak to the head of security, Elaine Joseph.  Tell them that your name is Robyn Holbrook and explain that...

She read it several times and decided that, while she was a bit uncomfortable with the whole situation, she could probably go through with it.  Jessica was nervous; she had no idea what kind of legal trouble she or Ryan might encounter.  He had promised her no legal problems, but was that wishful thinking? 

Jessica had loved the idea of traveling with Ryan and even helping him out on some of his spy missions, but once again, reality differed from fantasy.  It's one thing to think about globe trotting, staying in nice hotels, eating fine meals and engaging in espionage in the abstract.  It's another thing altogether to realize that this sort of work could also cause you to wind up in prison, perhaps for years.

She rubbed her hands together nervously.  They were sweating profusely.  She was anxious, and knew that she'd have to compose herself in a hurry if she was going to help get Ryan out of trouble.

The cab pulled up in front of the main entrance to the plant.

“Here you are, Ma'am.  That will be $31.50.”

“Here you go.  Thank you.”  Jessica handed him two twenty dollar bills, grabbed her envelope, and got out of the car.  She pulled the photo badge out of the envelope and clipped it onto her jacket.  She straighted out her skirt, adjusted her shoes, and opened the front door of the building.

She approached the receptionist, trying her best not to appear nervous.  Inside, she felt as if she were about to explode.  She didn't see how Ryan's plan could possibly work, but she loved him, and she was determined to do everything she could to get him out of this jam.

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Elaine Joseph returned to the room where Ryan was being held. 

“I've looked over this flash drive and I can't find anything on it.  Nevertheless, it's obvious that you were using the computer in that office for something.  That office belongs to the Director of Manufacturing, and he's out of town for the entire month.  You were seen coming out of the office.  The computer was warm, so you'd obviously been using it.”

Ryan just stared at her blankly.

“You might as well come clean, Mr. Smith, if that's really your name.  You might get a shorter prison sentence if you tell me what you're doing here.”

Ryan continued to sit in silence.

Just then, her cell phone rang.

“Elaine Joseph.  What is it?”  She listened for a moment.  “Fine.  I'll be there in a minute.”

She turned to Ryan.  “If that's the way you want to do things, fine.  I'm going to call the authorities, and you can tell your story to them.  I'll be back shortly.”

Once again, she left him locked in the room.  Ryan hoped that the phone call meant that Jessica had arrived.

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Jessica sat in the lobby, trying her best to look professional and not betray how much she was shaking inside.  She attempted to reassure herself and remembered that Ryan does this sort of thing every day.  She also trusted him, and he told her this would work.

A door opened and a Elaine Joseph came out.  Jessica stood up and offered her hand.

“Ms. Joseph?  My name is Robyn Holbrook.  I'm an information security supervisor; I work at corporate in Schenectady.”

Jessica showed the woman her badge.

“How can I help you, Ms. Holbrook?  I'm really very busy right now.  I have a bit of a crisis at the moment.”

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Ms. Joseph.  I want to talk to you about Ryan Smith.”

Ms. Joseph stared at her.  “What do you know about Ryan Smith?”

“I'm aware that you have Mr. Smith in custody.  That's why I'm here.”

“I don't understand.”

“Can we go somewhere and talk in private, rather than here in the reception area?”

“Of course. Please.  Let's go to my office.”

They walked through the secured door and down the hall to Ms. Joseph's office.

“Have a seat, Ms. Holbrook.  Could you tell me what this is all about?”

“We've been having some problems lately with industrial espionage at the corporate level.  Nothing serious has been compromised, but we've had people try to hack our networks from the outside and we've had people try to steal information from the inside.”

“Go on...”

“Because of this, we're trying to test our security company-wide to see if there are any areas where we need to increase security.  These tests include both external and internal penetration.  Mr. Smith is part of that test.  We hired him to see if he could discover what the company's most sensitive secrets are and to see if he could manage to steal them.”

“He was unsuccessful.  We caught him.”

“Yes, you did, and as he set up an automatic text messaging alert system, I became aware of that shortly after you caught him.”

Ms. Joseph smiled with pride.  “So we're doing OK on the security front, I guess?”

“It looks that way.  Was he able to steal or download any information?”
 

“It doesn't look like it.  We caught him with a flash drive, but it was empty.  Apparently, he couldn't find what he was looking for.”

“Well done, Mr. Joseph.  I commend you and your staff for being so alert.  Unfortunately, we haven't been quite as successful elsewhere in the company.  In our Peoria plant, one of our 'spies' was able to obtain some information internally, and in Schenectady, a couple of people that we hired to hack the system were able to get in successfully.  We'll have to close those loopholes, but it looks like you're doing a great job here.”

“Thank you.  So, what happens now?”

“Nothing, really.  Mr. Smith and I will go back to Schenectady, and work up our reports on this matter.  We'll add what happened here to the report and in another month or so, we'll have an idea as to what we need to do to improve security company-wide.”

Jessica rose to leave.

“If you don't mind, Ms. Joseph, Mr. Smith and I have a plane to catch.”

Ms. Joseph looked positively proud.  “Of course, Ms. Holbrook.  Thank you for filling me in.  I'm glad we were successful in stopping Mr. Smith's attempts to compromise our project data.”