Late that afternoon, Rudker drove up McBeth and passed by the scene of Sula’s accident. There was nothing to indicate anything out of the ordinary had taken place. He wanted to call the hospital to find out what had happened to her, yet he hesitated and he didn’t know why. He didn’t like having ambiguous feelings. Or being afraid of anything. As he headed back into town his cell phone rang. “Rudker here.”
“It’s Pete Zamanski.”
Rudker was immediately alarmed. Zamanski was Prolabs’ head IT guy, and he had never called him outside the office.
“Why are you calling me on a Saturday night?”
“I’m in the building installing an upgrade. I have to do this when no one’s using the server.”
“What’s going on?”
“We have a security problem.”
Rudker’s panic escalated. “I’m on my way in. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
That’s what you get for getting cocky, the voice taunted.
“Shut up!”
Rudker entered the building, rode up to the second floor, and strode to the large office space housing the IT offices and computer servers.
Zamanski was twenty-nine, prematurely bald, and borderline genius. He was also excitable as a puppy and his enthusiasm made Rudker twitchy. Just being in the same room with the geek and all his monitors and servers and cable lines snaking across the floor made Rudker uncomfortable. Yet a possible security breach demanded his attention.
“What’s the problem?” Rudker stood near the door.
“A hacker has been into our database.”
“And did what?”
“He accessed clinical trial records.” Zamanski’s eyes never left the main monitor.
“Which ones?”
“He searched the entire database but only opened files relating to Nexapra studies.”
Rudker’s blood pressure spiked, making his ears ring. “What files?” He thought he’d erased the Rios entries immediately after Warner approached him with the genetic data. Has something gone wrong?
“Research sites, clinician names, and contact information.”
Sula, that little bitch. Why wouldn’t she stop? “Anything else?”
“I believe he also took a look at our payroll data but nothing was tampered with. It was spying pure and simple. No worms or viruses left behind.”
“Any patient files?”
“Not that I’ve determined.” Zamanski looked perplexed. “He didn’t look at any R amp;D data either, so I don’t think it was a competitive intelligence mission. I’m stumped about who or why. It’s not the work of your typical hacker.”
“How did he, or she, get in?”
“A Trojan horse.” The IT guy blushed a little. “Through an e-mail to you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I told you to let us run a full filter on your e-mail, but you said no.”
“Fix the problem, whatever it is. I don’t want this to happen again.”
Rudker left the IT department and walked out of the building with a clear sense of purpose. Using the stolen cell phone, he called information and got the number for North McKenzie. He dialed the hospital.
“A friend of mine was in an accident this morning and I’m trying to find out if she’s all right.”
“What’s her name?”
“Sula Moreno.”
It was a good five minutes before the woman came back on. “She’s been admitted for overnight observation but she’s fine. A few broken bones and some bruising. She should be going home tomorrow.
Rudker was disappointed but undeterred. Sula had thwarted him for the last time. He would not walk away from her until she had taken her last breath.