Free Vendetta by Nancy Holder

print reader. Then he keyed an elaborate code into a shielded box, so that no one else could see.
    A steel door at least two inches thick clicked and slowly swung open. The interior was softly lit, and as he ushered them in, the two guards turned toward them and raised their weapons.
    “This is not cool,” Tess said.
    “It’s all right. It’s just a precaution,” Hart said.
    “It’s not all right,” Cat insisted. “They need to lower their weapons
now.
”
    “All right. Okay,” Hart murmured. He said to one of the guards, “Alpha niner zulu.”
    Both guards lowered their weapons to their sides. Then they executed a smart half-turn and faced outward once more.
    A small box about the size of a microwave sat on a black pedestal. Hart came forward and stared into another scanner, tapped in more secret code on a keypad, and the box door opened. The unit inside was a very small cube of matte charcoal-gray with no buttons or switches to mar its sleek surface. The magic was in the computer chips, to which Cat and Tess were not privy. They could only take his word that it did what he said. But give that box to J.T., and it would be like unlocking a universe.
    As for what Hart said it could do: it could lock all doors, windows, safes, and computer hard drives, freeze all elevators, and activate motion-sensitive lasers in any or all of the designated “zones” throughout the house.
    “No one should be able to get in or out,” he finished.
Click-click, click-click.
“But someone did.”
    “And this comes on when the primary security system backup doesn’t activate?” Tess asked.
    He pulled his pen out of his pocket.
Click-click.
“It’s supposed to. But it didn’t. From what I can figure out, the kidnappers reprogrammed my code so that it thought the primary backup
did
go on. So that would keep my system from activating.”
    “So what would be a reasonable point of entry,” Tess began, “to reprogram your code?”
    “Well,” he said. “I’ve initiated a debugger, and—”
    “We’re interviewing the entire security staff,” Robertson cut in. “We’ll let you know what we find.” He waved a silencing hand at Cat as she prepared to protest. “Surely you can understand Mr. DeMarco’s reluctance to share the workings of his private security system with New York’s finest, some of whom are not so fine. No offense intended to present company.”
    Because the FBI is so much more ethical
, Cat thought.
Offense definitely intended to present company.
    Bailey Hart clicked his pen like crazy. He was monumentally uneasy—no; he was
frightened
. Take the situation and multiply it by DeMarco’s temper, and it was clear why.
    “I’m the only one with direct access to its programming. As you can see, I have a retinal scanner, a print reader, and a secret code when I program it.” He swallowed hard. Of course suspicion now focused on him.
    “There
are
work-arounds for scans and prints,” Robertson said, as if to reassure him. Cat knew this from personal experience—Tori Windsor had successfully opened a secret vault that had belonged to her father with her retinal scan, which was of course was programmed to recognize his DNA, and Cat had read about cases where criminals had created fake readable fingerprints off glass and other smooth, hard surfaces.
    They left the bunker with its two armed guards and walked back upstairs into what could only be termed Hart’s lair. Cat opened her purse, grabbed a business card, and handed it to him. “Anything you can share with us that you think would be useful, we’d appreciate hearing from you.”
    Looking flustered, Hart glanced at Robertson and murmured, “I’ll see what I can do.” He sat down, his way of ending the interview.
    There’s another dead end
, Cat thought.
He’s not going to talk to us
.
    Suddenly, red lights began to spin and alarms whooped at ear-splitting decibels. Cat, Tess, Robertson, and McEvers all pulled their weapons. Hart was so startled