Outside two of the seven SUVs had moved. The others remained parked with the patient authority of vehicles belonging to people who are not finished with a place yet. Investigator Harris came through the lobby with two members of her team. She stopped when she saw Andre. Mr. Williams, are you all right getting there?
He said, "What happens to Caldwell?" Harris sat down in the chair across from him. She had the careful measured manner of some who had delivered difficult information and had learned which parts to lead with. He's cooperating, she said to a degree. His lawyers arrived 20 minutes ago.
Of course they did. The financial evidence is substantial. 14 months of transactions through Shell vendors. The data he transferred two nights ago. We've recovered most of it from the drive we traced to his parking structure locker.
She paused. He's not going home today, Mr. Williams. Andre nodded slowly. The badge cloning, he said. How did he do it?
A remote capture device installed in the corridor near your locker in the suble maintenance area. Every time you badged in or out of that corridor, your biometric data was being copied. She watched his face as she said it. He had access to the maintenance schedule. He knew when you'd be there alone. the corridor near his locker, a place he had walked through hundreds of times, a place he had never thought to look at sideways because it was his space routine.
Familiar, safe, he studied me, Andre said. He identified you as the most likely person to notice the irregularities he was creating, Harris said. And then he positioned you as the explanation for those irregularities before you could become a problem. She said it without softening it, which Andre appreciated. The truth was better than cushioning.
It was a sophisticated plan. It almost worked. Almost, she said. Because of a paper copy in a maintenance binder, he almost smiled. Almost.
Harris stood. We're going to need a formal statement from you later today. Can you be available this afternoon? I'll be here, he said. She walked away.
Andre sat alone for another moment. Then Evelyn Carter appeared from the direction of the administrative wing, moving with the particular purpose of a woman who has been waiting to do something for a long time and has just gotten the green light. She sat down next to him without preamble. I heard, she said. I figured you would.
I want you to know something, Evelyn said. She folded her hands in her lap and she looked at him directly. When you came to me in April in the breakroom, I knew more than I said, and I've been carrying that. Andre looked at her. What did you know?