Free On the Job by Beth Kery

chest and scurried out of the bed regretfully. “I’m going to take a quick shower. Do you have anything I could put on?”
    He laughed and she smiled. She’d forgotten how much she loved Walker’s laughter.
    â€œI don’t have much in the petite department.”
    â€œI’m not complaining,” she said archly. She snorted with laughter and darted toward what she suspected was the bathroom when he leapt off the bed and lunged for her.
    *   *   *
    Walker tilted his ear, assuring himself that Madeline was still in the shower. When he heard the water running, he picked up his cell phone. Jim Stephano picked up after two rings.
    â€œYou must have a sixth sense,” Jim said in a hushed voice.
    â€œDid you find something?” Walker asked. Jim Stephano was the top expert in his division of the Secret Service for breaking encrypted communications. Tony had been hospitable enough about giving them exclusive access to his personal computers, but he hadn’t given them passwords to several files. They’d agreed that Stephano would try to break in to them tonight while the household slept.
    â€œIt was too easy,” Stephano said. “Most of his firewalls relate to being outside of this room and house. Once we were inside that territory, getting to the payoff was relatively simple, although Hallas had a few good tricks up his sleeve.”
    Walker was surprised at how heavy his chest felt at the news. Stephano had found what they were searching for. Tony was going to prison for conspiracy to commit wire and computer fraud. When he’d committed to this undercover operation, more than a decade of years had cushioned his regard for a childhood friend. Seeing Tony again had changed that. He may be spoiled and impulsive and foolish at times, but Tony was also a brilliant, dynamic man who had remained loyal to Walker over the years. Walker knew he was doing the right thing. Tony’s actions had the ability to affect the stock markets and cause a panic in the banking industry.
    But betraying their friendship tasted a lot sourer than he’d suspected it would.
    â€œTell me what you’ve got,” Walker said.
    He listened closely while Stephano described finding an encrypted message from Tony describing the delivery of a piece of software that could give access to certain financial institution accounts. It was followed by a request for five million dollars to be transferred to an offshore account. Jim had even accessed the account number and delivery date of the funds, which came from a known Russian mob front in Moscow called Finansi.
    â€œThat’s it,” Walker said flatly. “We’ve got him.”
    â€œYeah. And what the fuck? Why would a guy who’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars do something to risk his future for five million measly bucks?”
    â€œHe wasn’t doing it for the money. Not in a direct sense,” Walker said. “He was doing it in order to create a panic in the banking industry . . . a panic that would ensure all of those banks would run to Hallas Technologies in order to buy his security software.”
    Stephano grunted. “The guy’s a genius. Too bad he’s been using that brain of his to cook up some real nasty business. There’s more. Finansi Enterprises, the Russian mob front, sent several requests for additional software, but Tony refused. It appears Hallas’s Russian friends are none too happy with him at the moment.”
    Walker paused, absorbing this news. “Tony must be really sweating about that shot taken at Madeline, then. He thinks his former business partners are trying to tell him he can’t stop playing in the middle of the game.”
    â€œJust like what you suspected, Walk. Hallas was so desperate to protect Ms. Sayer from his prior misdeeds, he let the wolves right into his den. Course, it didn’t hurt a bit that one of those wolves was an old,