Free Spark: A Novel by John Twelve Hawks Page B

late if they’re preparing a bond offering or an investment proposal. Ms. Buchanan was sitting at her desk at eleven twenty-four in the evening when she read the message from Dubai. You can see her reaction the moment it appears on her computer screen.”
    Evans fast-forwarded the digital video until “23:24 EST” appeared on the screen. “Okay. Now watch this. The e-mail from Dubai arrived at our server at eleven-eighteen p.m. Our records show that Buchanan accessed her e-mail six minutes later.”
    When the message appeared, Emily shifted in her chair and sat up a little straighter. Suddenly, she turned and glanced over her shoulder—as if she was aware that someone might be watching her. Without my phone download of different expressions, I wasn’t capable of interpreting her emotions.
    “See? You see that?” Evans asked. “That’s the reaction of someone who is guilty of something.”
    “What did her supervisor do when she didn’t come to work?”
    “Buchanan sent an e-mail to Human Resources. It said that a routine gynecological examination had resulted in an abnormal Pap test. She had to get a cervical biopsy and would be out for a week. Of course no one questioned that. A biopsy? Maybe cancer?”
    “So when did you realize that there was a problem?”
    “Five days went by, then her supervisor called her cell phone and discovered that it was switched off. He contacted me and I called the medical contact listed in her file. Buchanan’s doctor said she had no knowledge of a biopsy or any other problem. I called her only personal contact … an uncle who lives upstate in Warren County. He didn’t know where she was.”
    “What did you do after that?”
    “I searched through her e-mail. Yesterday I got permission to decode and found the message from Dubai. I contacted the CEO’s office and now I’m talking to you.”
    I took out my phone and spoke to Laura. “Please display the e-mail address for cloud storage.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    When the address appeared, I placed the phone on the desk. “Send me a copy of Ms. Buchanan’s personnel file and all her e-mails for the last ninety days.”
    “I can’t do that. You’re not an employee of BDG.”
    “You were told to be helpful to me. This is not being helpful.”
    “I don’t have to follow orders from a nonemployee who wants me to violate security protocol.”
    The Transformation had given me a certain kind of cold energy that could influence others. Without saying a word, I stood up and stared at Mr. Evans. He tried to meet my gaze for a few seconds, then gave up and looked down at his computer keyboard.
    “If you don’t wish to be helpful, then I will contact Miss Holquist, my supervisor. Miss Holquist is a very efficient person. She will call someone … and by ten o’clock tomorrow morning, you will not be in this office, you will not be in this building, you will no longer have a job with this bank.”
    “Bullshit. That’s not going to happen.”
    “Most of your job is already being done by the PAL system, Mr. Evans. You’re just the human interface.”
    No response. So I picked up my phone and began to walk out of the room.
    “Hold it! Just … calm down. Okay? Give me the address.”
    I returned to the chair and watched Evans download the requested information. Then he forced a smile. “Anything else? You want my birth certificate?”
    “I want to see the desk she was using in the video.”
    “There’s nothing there. I’ve already searched it.”
    “Then we’ll do it again.”
    Evans sighed loudly, and then guided me down to the fourth floor, using his Shadow to systematically disable the PAL system as we passed through the building. We ended up in a large windowless room that looked like a factory for a mysterious product. A table piled with printed documents was at the center of the room, surrounded by a ring of gray steel desks and battered file cabinets. The brown carpet was stained with ten years’ worth of food