"And you sound like Ren."
"Do you believe the shit they want us to read? Now I remember why I dropped out and went into full-time hacking. This is worse than prison, man! This is cruel and unusual!"
"Speaking of hacking," Jack said, "the disk is ready, isn't it?"
"What? Oh, yeah. Sure." Simply mentioning the disk seemed to calm him. "Got it right here."
He picked up a red three-and-a-half-inch floppy and scaled it across the room.
Jack caught the little thing and said, "This is it?"
"All you'll need. Just make sure you put it in the floppy drive before you start the machine. That way my disk'll be in control of the startup."
"What do I do?"
"Nothing. You don't even have to turn on the monitor. The disk'll bypass any password protection. It'll disable any antivirus software he's got—Norton, McAfee, whatever—and introduce HYRTBU. All you've got to do is wait maybe ten minutes till the hard drive stops chattering, then pull out the disk—Jesus, make sure you don't leave it there—turn off the computer, and buy yourself a beer. His files are toast."
Jack stared at the red plastic square resting in his palm. "That's it?" It seemed too simple.
Russ grinned. "That's it. That's why you pay me the big bucks. Speaking of which…"
Jack dug into his pocket, saying, "But how will I know if it worked?"
"If you don't see him tossing his rig out a window, you'll see him down at his computer guy's place the next day asking what the fuck's going on."
Jack nodded. He planned to be watching.
But before all that he had to track down a take-out pu pu platter.
12
"Your cousin called," Sister Agnes said.
Maggie froze. She had just entered the convent's central hallway and now she felt unable to breathe.
So it begins.
Had she done the right thing in hiring Jack? She'd know soon enough. She'd either be free of this human leech or her life's work would be shattered by shame and humiliation. Either way, it had to be better than this awful in-between state of constant fear and dread.
"Maggie?" Agnes said, her brow knitting with concern. "Are you all right? You're white as a sheet."
Maggie nodded. Her words rasped over a dusty tongue. "What did he say?"
"He said to tell you your Uncle Mike has taken a turn for the worse and he'll call you back around four. I didn't know you had an Uncle Mike."
"Distant relative."
She went to her room and waited for Agnes to leave the hallway, then she darted out to a public phone two blocks west. The convent didn't allow sisters their own phones, and she couldn't discuss this on the common line in the hall, so she hurried to the one the blackmailer had sent her to the first time he'd contacted her.
It was already ringing when she arrived. She grabbed the receiver.
"Yes?"
"I thought you was going to stand me up," said that nasty, grating voice. God help her, she hated this faceless monster. "I wouldn't have been too surprised, considering how you shorted me on the latest payment."
"I don't have any more!"
Jack had told her to say that, but it was true. Her meager savings were almost gone. She'd told Mike and he'd helped her as much as he could without raising his wife's suspicions. He was being blackmailed too. But although he'd be damaged if those pictures got out, he'd survive—his marriage might not, but he'd still have his career. Maggie would be left with nothing.
"Yes, you do," the voice cooed.
"No, I swear! There's nothing left."
Now a snarl. "But we both know where you can get more!"
"No! I told you before—"
"It won't be hard." Back to the cajoling tone. "You've got all that cash coming in to the building fund. I'll bet a lot of the poor suckers in your parish don't ask for no receipts. All you gotta do is siphon off a little every time some comes through. No one will know."
I'll know! Maggie wanted to shout.
But Jack had told her to string him along, let him think she was giving in—but not too easily.
"But I can't! That's not my money. It's for the church. They need every penny."
The snarl again. "And how many pennies do you think they'll get when start tacking up photos of you and Mr. Capital Campaign Consultant all over the parish? Huh? How many then?"
Maggie sobbed. She didn't have to fake it. "All right. I'll see if I can. But there's not much coming in during the week. What little we do get comes in on Sundays."
"I ain't waitin' till next week! Get me something before that! Forty-eight hours, or else!"
The phone went dead.
Maggie leaned against the edge of the phone booth and sobbed.
How in the world had she come to this? Never, not once, not for an instant since the day she'd joined the order had she ever even dreamed of becoming involved with a man.
If not for Serafina Martinez, none of this would have happened.
Not that she blamed the child in any way. But knowing that Fina and her sisters and brother would be forced to leave St. Joe's had compelled her to search for a benefactor.
And about that time she'd been getting to know Michael Metcalf. Bright, handsome, charming, and he was working to make St. Joe's a better place. Their positions in the fund-raising campaign put them together time and again. They became friends.
One day, out of desperation, she mentioned the Martinez children after one of the fund-raising meetings and asked if he might help. His immediate agreement had stunned Maggie, and as they continued seeing each other at the meetings, and at increasingly frequent tête-à-têtes about Fina and her siblings, she felt herself longing to touch him and be touched by him.
Then one night, when they were alone in the church basement—in the deserted soup kitchen—he'd kissed her and it felt wonderful, so wonderful that something broke free inside her, demanding more… and they made love right there, beneath the floor and aisles and pews of St. Joseph's Church. Beneath God's house.
Maggie had awakened the next morning ashamed and utterly miserable. Bad enough she had broken her vow of chastity, but Michael wasn't just a man, he was a man with a wife and children.
That had not been enough to stop her though. Being with Michael had lit a fire in her that she could not extinguish. A whole new world had opened for her and she thirsted constantly for him.
Seven times… she'd sinned seven times with him. And there would have been more if the arrival of that envelope hadn't shocked her back to sanity. Black-and-white photos, grainy and underlit, but her ecstatic face was clearly identifiable as she writhed under Michael. She'd vomited when she saw them, and nearly passed out when she read the note with its threats.
She'd called Michael who told her he'd been sent the same photos with a similar demand for payment.
Maggie closed her eyes, remembering those photos. To see herself in the act, doing what she'd been doing…
It still shocked her that she'd been capable of such a thing. She'd turned it over and over in her mind, trying to understand it, trying to understand herself.
Maybe because she'd joined the convent directly out of high school. She'd been a virgin then—no experience with men, certainly not with men interested in her as a woman—and had remained so until Michael Metcalf came along. She'd found herself mesmerized by this kind, generous man. He'd awakened yearnings she'd never realized she had.
And God forgive her, she'd surrendered to them.
But never again.
Now she and Michael saw each other only at fund-raisers, and occasionally at Mass where he'd pass Maggie some cash to help her with the payments. But he could give her only so much.