The Switch

9

Will was editing a press release in his office, door closed, when his intercom buzzed.

“Send him in,” he said.

The Russian guy had arrived more quickly than Will expected. He could see him through the glass panel in the door. He got up, opened the door, extended a hand.

The Russian gave him a limp handshake. He didn’t look like a hacker. He was too well dressed, in a charcoal suit and expensive-looking tie. He had jet-black hair, combed straight back. He looked to be in his early thirties. He had the pointy face of a rat, narrow brown eyes, a pronounced overbite, a receding chin.

Will showed him in and closed the office door. He didn’t want anyone else in the office to know what was going on.

“Where’s the computer?” the guy asked, the first thing he said.

Will pointed to it, charging on top of the desk. “What’s your name?”

“Yevgeniy. You can call me Gene.”

“How long you think it’ll take you, Yevgeniy?”

“It takes what it takes.” Yevgeniy shrugged. “Interesting shoes for this weather.” He was staring at Will’s brand-new suede wingtips.

Will flushed. He couldn’t help it. He’d just taken the shoes out of the box — they wafted that musky new-leather smell — this morning, having waited for the right day to wear them, and decided today was as good a day as any. He hadn’t bothered checking the weather forecast, just glanced outside, and it looked like a sunny day. Somehow it had turned into rain. Which would ruin the shoes.

“Are we talking hours or weeks?”

“It takes what it takes. I need office.”

“You’re going to work here?”

“I can go away and come back couple days if that’s what you want. But I was told this is rush job.”

“I’ll find you a place.” The legislative director was flying back to Springfield for a couple of days; her office was empty.

The Russian had lifted the MacBook Air from Will’s desk, spun it around, and opened it. “Michael Tanner,” he said.

“You think you can get past the passcode?”

“Look, you just show me to office and let me do what I gotta do. And if this doesn’t work, there’s always other route.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know what you are told, but I am security consultant. I happen to have hacker skills, but my firm does more than this. If for some reason you need more.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged casually. “The senator’s laptop got switched with someone else. Maybe you need other kind of help getting it back.”

Will went still for a moment. The boss must have actually revealed why they wanted the laptop hacked. A serious mistake. Not that he would dare reprimand her. The more people who knew about this, the greater the risk.

So he tried to walk it back. “Well, obviously this isn’t the senator’s computer, but if we can reach the guy who owns this one, we can make the switch.”

Yevgeniy smiled and nodded. Like he didn’t believe a word Will was saying. Like he knew better. “You know how to reach me,” he said. “And you — you just go spray silicone on those suede kicks, yeah?”