I am a self-motivated, versatile worker and have served on both commercial and passenger cruises, as well as privately owned yachts and superyachts. My most recent position was Lead Steward for a 128-day, 23-country tour beginning in Los Angeles and concluding in London.

Please click on the hyperlink below to review my full professional background and contact information.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Yasmani Rodon

Amina followed the link, scanned the résumé and instantly decided Mr. Rodon was a model candidate for employment with Seven Winds. She also found herself looking at his photograph and allowing herself a momentary fantasy. Rodon was dark-eyed, handsome and thirty-six years old. Four years her senior, and unmarried.

Clicking on the photo to enlarge it, Amina sighed wistfully and forwarded the email to the hiring manager.

She had just been successfully spear-phished. The moment she clicked on the photo, Kali Alcazar’s sophisticated backdoor Trojan had loaded and detonated inside her computer.

Within hours, its stealthy crawlers would spread throughout Seven Winds Malaysia’s human resources network.

New York

Nine o’clock Thursday morning in Penang was still nine o’clock Wednesday night in New York, where Kali shut her laptop, stood up, meshed her hands and stretched her arms over her head.

Carmody was looking at her from the couch.

“So?” he said.

“We have a hit.”

“That was fast.”

“It only takes a single person, at a single desktop.” She lowered her arms to her sides and turned to him. “The packet still has to penetrate the network’s defenses from the perimeter inward. There could be threat alerts.”

“Threat alerts don’t sound good.”

“How very astute.”

He smiled a little. “What if they go off?”

“It isn’t likely. Most of them should be disabled. Others will look like false positives to the system administrators. But nothing is foolproof. There’s a slim chance a breach will be discovered.”

Carmody thought for a second. “Say it is. What then?”

“The crawlers propagate laterally.”

“English, please.”

“They jump from computer to computer in the network. A machine just has to be turned on to be infected.”

“So the ITs would have to disinfect every machine in the department?”

She nodded. “I should be able to exfiltrate the files before that’s done.”

“When will you know?”

“Hopefully by tomorrow morning.”

Carmody digested that. She strode over to the closet and reached inside.

“Going for a ride?”

“A walk.”

“Company?”

“Not tonight.”

Carmody heard the distance in her voice. She was already barely present in the room. He watched the door close behind her and heard the click of the lock. Then he sat there in silence, curious about where she had gone. Technically she was in his custody. If he had wanted to know badly enough, he could have followed her. But he wouldn’t, and she knew it, though she would still be keeping an eye peeled for him.