Big drops of rain crashed against the windows as Justin Timberlake made his way through the empty building. He was thankful for the distraction. Instead of the usual silence, the sound of the rain pitter-pattering on the roof seemed to calm him.
It would help him to get the job done.
He walked down the last stretch of the hall before reaching his destination. Without even looking, he knew that the door would be equipped with some sort of high-tech security lock. Luckily, research wasn’t his expertise, and his boss, Colby, had prepared him for everything he might happen to encounter. Justin held a card between his fingers, and knew that it contained everything he needed to get into the door.
Soundlessly, he reached for his pocket flashlight and snapped it on. Just as he expected… a simple swipe and he would be in. Why, this lock looked little less than that on a hotel room door. He almost chuckled. Some people just didn’t know what they were up against.
With one quick swipe, the door softly clicked open. Justin reached down and placed the palm of his hand protectively over the revolver that Colby had given him, and slipped into the room. It was dark, and he sincerely hoped he’d been informed correctly that the only other security the room had was inside the computer itself. Even so, Justin’s eyes searched intently. When he was convinced, he stepped further inside, toward the main computer. Without hesitating, he punched the memorized code into the computer. When he hit the enter key, a screen filled with numbers and symbols scrolled down automatically. Justin reached into his pocket, pulled out a black floppy and shoved it into the machine. With a few more keystrokes, the information was saved and safe on his disk. He took it out and put it back into his pocket. Now, all he had to do was get out. For all he knew, some silent alarm could be going off.
Suddenly, he heard a police siren somewhere nearby and froze. He blinked a few times and forced himself to take a deep breath. This was downtown Minneapolis… how many other crimes were being committed? Justin figured it was a lot… and they were probably being committed by people a lot dumber than he was.
But he did know that he had to get out fast… before they actually realized that he was there. Quickly, Justin took quiet steps to the door, and without leaving a trace, he was gone. He silently raced to the exit and slipped into the back alley, unnoticed.
A Minneapolis police officer threw the door open and pointed her pistol straight ahead. When the door hit the wall with a loud bang, she stuck her foot out and stopped it from closing in on her.
Inside the room, everything looked untouched, but she had an instinctive feeling that someone had just been there. The whole place was eerily quiet except for the two cops behind her, rattling their teeth nervously at the whole situation. Why the chief of detectives matched her up with this pair was beyond her reasoning.
With her gun still positioned in the air, she motioned for the other officers to remain at the door so she could walk around and check the place out. After closer inspection, she determined that whoever had been there, was long gone, and she lowered her weapon.
The department was after a group of hackers who had been making their way through Minneapolis corporations, stealing valuable data and using it to their own benefit, in effect also stealing millions from the companies themselves.
“Coast clear?” officer Pertel asked from his spot at the door. “Looks like no one’s been here.”
“Yeah,” the other one whined. “C’mon, Brady. Pertel is right. There’s nothing we can do here.”
She put up her hand for silence as she looked over the computers, suddenly smiling. “Oh, someone’s been here all right,” she told them. The two words on the screen gave her the best message she’d received in a long time.
‘Access granted.’
Obviously, whoever had been there before them, had left in such a rush, they forgot to exit out of the program.
Chapter 1
Paying the Consequences
Justin {Fiction}
My Fiction
I'll Never Stop {Fiction}
Email Me