“I assume you tried all the obvious ones?”
She nodded. “Names, dates, places. Anything I could think of. But that would be too simple. It’s surely a long, complicated mix of letters and numbers. Totally unique.”
He agreed.
More thunder and lightning came from outside. It sounded like the center of the storm was directly overhead.
She leaned back. “That’s a bugger bear. Nothing else in the system has that kind of heavy restriction. Especially from me. I know every password into the central files.” She pointed at the screen. “Except that one.”
“Maybe they don’t trust you?”
She chuckled. “Look at us, Hank. Are we trustworthy?”
He grinned. “Absolutely.”
He’d suggested a few months back that she ask the main office for more information, but she was told to leave it be.For owners only, had been the explanation. Which made him want into it even more.
“Somebody has to input data into that folder,” she said. “God knows the owners aren’t doing it themselves. But no one in my department, or anyone at the main office, has ever been inside there.”
He glanced at the wall clock.
10:44P.M.
He should leave before plant security made their rounds at the top of the hour. Last thing he needed was to be seen here, with her, at this hour.
More lightning strobed the room, which caused a momentary break in the power. The overhead fluorescents flickered and the computer screen faded in and out.
Just as he predicted.
Marlene reached to shut off the terminal. “You’re right, we need to—”
Suddenly, the screen changed. The password request page had been replaced with a menu labeledPRIORITY.
“We’re in,” she said, astonishment in her voice.
Forgetting about the storm, they both scanned the index. Not much there. Which made its security even more puzzling. She opened the first file, scrolled through its contents, and printed a copy. Then did the same for the other three. None were long. He retrieved the hard copies from the printer.
“Get out of that file,” he said. “Now.”
She exited the central banks and switched off her terminal.
“Does that get me another kiss?” she asked.
“Honey, that gets you whatever you want.”
11:54P.M.
THEASSOCIATE MADE SUREBRANDONPABON DIED, THEN LEFTDIXIEPond and drove north until finding Interstate 20. There, he started back the 130 miles west toward Atlanta. Halfway he exited, turned south, and entered Reeling, another tiny middle Georgia town.
One last appointment before the night ended.
The Priority, Tim Featherston, took an early retirement from Southern Republic at sixty-two and spent the last six years doing nothing but visiting doctors. Five years ago it was his pancreas. A year after that his heart. Then Featherston became convinced he’d contracted lung cancer, the end result of being a pack-a-day smoker. But test after test revealed nothing. Just recently, stomach cancer had become his latest obsession, and Featherston spent days trying to convince various specialists he needed an operation.
Those doctors, though, were not privy to the fact that Tim Featherston learned an awful lot from the latest edition of theConcise Encyclopedia of Modern Disease. So when he showed up at their offices and vividly described symptom after symptom, all consistent with known and identifiable afflictions, it was perfectly understandable why they covered themselves on a possible malpractice claim by performing test after test.
To a medical insurer Featherston was an expensive nightmare. To a medical provider he was a godsend. And no legal way existed to stop his extravagance. In fact, with all the changes in health care laws over the past few years, it had become even easier for Featherston to abuse the system. Even worse, vested retirement benefits and guaranteed health coverage assured Featherston of full coverage, and myriad federal laws protected him from cancellation. A seemingly never-ending cycle of Featherston satisfying his psychosis, and the medical providers their greed.
But all that ended tonight.
