Even as she was pulling out her phone, Spence eased around to where she could peer over Tommy’s shoulder in an effort to find out what had caught his attention. In the tight beam of the torch he still held focused on the rear of the printer, she could make out a small white stub sticking out of a USB port on the back of the printer. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yep,” Tommy muttered glumly even as he came to appreciate his task had taken a deadly turn. “It’s a GSM dongle, sure enough, a big fat back door that’s left the whole system swinging wide open in the wind. With that little sucker plugged in, anyone with its phone number can hack the printer. From there it’s a hop, skip, and a cat-five cable to the servers, which is how I expect the bastards managed to hack their way into the medical files. So if you don’t mind, be a good girl and give Marbury a call. Tell her she needs to get her skinny little bum back down here, PDQ.”
The next morning, after making an entrance that would have startled a corpse while sporting a cat-who-got-the-cream grin, Tommy sagged when he saw Spence wasn’t at her desk. “Where’s Tinker Bell?”
Looking up from the report concerning the Kirkland Hospital incident that Karen Spencer must have dropped on his desk after he’d left, Andy frowned. “You know she doesn’t like it when you call her that.”
Tommy’s grin took on new life as he gave Andy a quick wink. “I know.”
Realizing he was hell bent on gloating over the way he had cracked the case, Andy eased back in his seat and watched Tommy as he made his way to a desk that was once more cluttered with a fresh layer of crumpled paper, sticky notes, sweet wrappers, and bits and pieces of computer hardware not even Andy was able to recognize. “I’d wish you would go easy on her,” Andy stated flatly. “She’s new to this twisted little world of cybersecurity that you and I have been dealing with for better than a decade. Given time, I expect she’ll not only be able to keep up with us, she’ll be able to run rings around us.”
Unlike Karen Spencer and — to a degree — Andy, who’d earned his master’s degree in cybersecurity compliments of the Army Reserves, Tommy was a graduate of the school of hard knocks. He’d learned his trade the same way he’d earned his stripes when serving in the Queen’s Dragoon Guards. Like everything else in his life that mattered to him, he’d done it the hard way. That, in his opinion, was the only way someone learned what was important when dealing with the majority of hackers, people who’d never read a book on cybersecurity in their lives. So he was far less willing to cut a novice like Karen Spencer any slack. Naturally, he didn’t tell Andy this. He had no need to since Andy already knew how Tommy felt, which was why he was issuing what, for Andy, was a gentle warning.
Deciding it would not do to start the day off on the wrong foot with the boss, Tommy nodded. “Okay, boss, you got it. Not a word about how I pulled Tinker Bell’s tiny toes out of the fire.”
Rolling his eyes, Andy gave his head a quick shake before going back to Spence’s report. He was more than pleased she’d made it clear that had it not been for Tommy’s suggestion to go back to the hospital and his discovery of the GSM dongle, the poor night nurse would have been rotting in jail. While Tommy would always be Tommy, Andy concluded, at least Karen Spencer was a team player who understood the need to work together, even if doing so required biting one’s tongue from time to time.
5
It was almost a year later when DS Marbury invited Spence to join her in court. Remembering when her first collar was sent down, she knew the younger woman would want to be there the day Richard Graham’s sentence was pronounced. From the back of the crowded courtroom, the two women watched as a somber-faced judge sentenced Graham to life for a crime the judge declared in sonorous terms was “so callous and so unthinkable that all right-minded people shudder. Your lack of remorse, your persistent denials, and an ardent refusal to identify you coconspirators leave me no option but to sentence you to the maximum penalty permitted by law.”
Leaning closer to Spence, Marbury whispered in her ear, “I expect like you, the most frustrating part of my job is I’m seldom able to be here when a little git like Graham is sent down. So whenever I have the opportunity, I damn well make the time to watch when a case like this is wrapped up.”
Spence sighed. “I appreciate you asking me along. I’ve never been involved in anything like this, let alone seeing the face behind the crimes. I expect seeing this can be so… so…”
Only when Marbury realized the young woman next to her was unable to find the right words, words that would not come across as unseemly or inappropriate to describe her feelings, did she finish Spence’s thought. “So glorious?”
Grinning, Spence peeked over at the detective sergeant out of the corner of her eye. “I was actually thinking sad, given what Graham did, but glorious works just as well.”
The two of them were on their way back to New Scotland Yard when Spence glanced at Hannah Marbury, who immediately understood what was behind her young friend’s mischievous little grin. “Tea again?” she asked as she began to grin, as well.
“I don’t see why not. I think we’ve earned it,” Spence replied airily. “Besides, we got a long-term contract with Kirkland last month. I don’t see how Andy could possibly object.”
“I don’t suppose that contract covers the cost of my dry-cleaning bill,” Marbury ventured. “You wouldn’t believe the grief I got the last time you and I had tea when I returned to the office with chocolate smeared on my blouse. To hear my inspector, you’d have thought I’d been nice to a politician.”
“There’s an easy work-around that’ll keep that from happening again,” Spence ventured. When she saw she’d suckered Hannah in, she tilted her head to one side and smiled. “Leave the éclairs alone this time!”
“You cheeky moo!”
They were still chuckling when the tea service arrived, and Hannah took it upon herself to serve them both. “I should be the one buying you tea,” she muttered somewhat shamefacedly. “I don’t know how we missed that dongle.”
“You and me both. I can’t tell you how annoying it is to have Tommy rub my nose in it every time Andy isn’t around. It’s seriously starting to piss me off.”
“You’ve got to give the devil his due. He did find it.”
“I know.” Spence sighed as she took her cup from Hannah. “Still, it irks me no end having to be grateful to an odious, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal like him. That’s the absolute cherry on the cake.”
“Sounds just like my first governor when I’d made detective constable. He was a bitter little jock with no time for women in the service, let alone as a DC.” Hannah paused in recollection for a moment. “I do have to admit, as much as I hate to, that by the time he was invalided out two years later, I’d learned a hell of a lot from that miserable bastard.”
Spence perked up. “How did he get injured?”
“Cirrhosis of the liver, dear. He really was an old-fashioned copper.”
While Spence and DS Marbury were still very carefully negotiating their way through a cream tea, Ellen Graham finally arrived home, for once blissfully deserted by waiting hacks and photographers. After putting the kettle on, she dug out a couple of chocolate digestives, drew the curtains, fixed herself a cuppa, and settled down on the sofa. Only then did she allow a smile to finally touch her lips.