Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,25
want to remind everyone that the content of this meeting and subject of the missing prize money is strictly confidential. No one outside this room is involved. Delegate any tournament work and if you can’t find someone, I’ll do it. I expect full cooperation with Parrish and a hundred percent effort from every department. If anyone asks, tell them the truth: these people are consultants performing an audit. Nothing more.” He glanced at Nora. “From this point on, we’re one team with one objective. And the clock is ticking.”
“What about Logan?” one manager asked.
“She’s here.” Logan walked into the room. She wore a tank top and shiny white leggings that glowed against her skin, as though her darkness had ignited them. Her black hair was slicked back and her makeup was once again flawless, the facade in place.
Dropping into a chair on the opposite side of the table from Gregg, Logan faced Nora with an attitude of detached interest. Their conversation in the steam room might never have happened.
Conscious of Logan’s attention, Nora proceeded to explain the tasks each Parrish team member would focus on, pairing them with wary Strike department heads as she went down the line. One analyst would dive into the statement of cash flows, looking for patterns and one-offs. Another would liaison with the IT department, searching for system weaknesses and possible hacking attempts. The third would focus on the transactions within the accounting group, which earned another scoff, this time from the controller.
“And I’ll be working primarily with the executive team and Inga,” Nora finished.
“Inga?”
Nora nodded to one of her analysts, who swiveled her monitor around. An icon hovered in the corner of the dark screen, a bodiless head with downcast eyes and a benevolent, almost godlike smile cast toward the darkness beneath her.
“Meet the Amazing Inga, Parrish Forensics’ most exclusive partner.”
The controller forced a laugh. “Is that some kind of circus act?”
“We thought about naming her Hal, but Amazing Inga was voted more personable.”
“Artificial intelligence?” The IT manager leaned forward, eyes as bright as a kid on Christmas morning. Nora nodded.
“Make no mistake; this isn’t Siri. Inga is cutting-edge forensic technology developed by my fellow partner, Corbett MacDermott.
“Inga learns. She observes the communication patterns between people and then identifies where and when anomalies happen. She can detect changes in emotion or intimacy, when people are nervous, stressed, or become disgruntled. Off the record, Inga has found twenty-three office affairs and at least fifty, shall we say, budding romances. Between us, the boss-secretary cliché is not strictly unfounded.”
Most of the Strike team laughed, breaking the tension in the room, with the IT manager laughing louder than anyone and looking like she’d be happy to toss another twenty million out the window for a chance to rendezvous with the Amazing Inga. The executive assistant didn’t seem to find it amusing. Logan wasn’t smiling, either. She stared at Inga’s floating head on the computer monitor, as if making rapid calculations.
“On the record,” Nora continued, “she’s the most sophisticated robot in the world for locating pressure. People under stress, people who are being pushed to make choices they otherwise might not make. Pressure is one of the key elements of fraud and when we find the people who are under pressure, we know where to look to uncover the crime.”
“Crime?” The controller, Darryl Nolan, half rose out of his chair, clearly not distracted by robot jokes. “Is this a criminal investigation?”
“We’re not the police, Mr. Nolan. The information we find is confidential unless we are served a direct and properly executed subpoena, but twenty million has been drained from this company in six months. Either it was mismanaged or it was stolen. Whichever the case, our job is to find it.
“When we obtain access to your email server,” Nora turned her attention back to the IT manager, who bobbed her head with the adoration of a puppy, “Inga will analyze the hundreds of thousands of pieces of communication that occur between your employees every year. She’ll look through every email and chat message to determine where the pressure at Strike lives.”
Gregg tipped forward. “With all due respect to Inga, I’m more concerned with where the money lives.”
Nora glanced at Logan, who wasn’t paying any attention to her husband. She stared at Nora with an intensity that made her feel cornered and exposed, like she was still in the steam room with her back against the wall.
“So are we,” Nora nodded to Gregg, “which is why we use artificial