Ruth Run - Hardcover

Kaufman, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593832647 ISBN 13: 9780593832646

Verlag: Penguin Press, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

"A wildly fun and thrilling read in this age of digital theft, Ruth Run introduces us to an irresistible heroine and, in Elizabeth Kaufman, a scintillating new voice in contemporary fiction." —Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Today Will Be Different

Cybercrime leads to a cross-country pursuit as an ambitious, misfit young thief exploits a hacked microchip to rob banks, and learns too late that the wrong people have been watching her

Twenty-six-year-old Ruth excels at microchip design but decides to get rich the old-fashioned way: robbing banks. She becomes a cybercriminal and devotes five years to siphoning more than $250 million out of the banking system using a hacked firewall chip that she created and only she knows how to access. Then one night an alarm goes off and she realizes she’s been discovered.

Five hours later she’s on the run, chased across California and the West by a slew of government agents who see her as both a high-level national security threat and a potential intelligence asset. They’ll catch her dead or alive—whatever it takes to make sure no one else discovers what she knows. Each of these men is obsessed with the woman he’s hunting, certain he knows what makes her tick. But Ruth, always a step ahead, armed with her ironic wit and a reluctant dog, eludes their understanding; can she elude their capture, too?

A nonstop oddball thriller for the age of digital theft, Ruth Run introduces an irresistible new heroine and a fantastic new voice in contemporary fiction.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elizabeth Kaufman had a career in data networking, specializing in network security products and architectures. She now lives in rural northern Colorado.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

Ruth

The Cookie Vanishes

I was dreaming about a ginger cookie-soft-centered, crunchy with sanding sugar-when the alarms went off. It was three a.m., and somewhere someone had hit one of my electronic tripwires, triggering phone alerts that shocked me awake. I flung my arm to mute them, then lost a moment wondering what thief falls asleep mid-thievery. In my defense, a yearslong cybercrime can get dull.

I checked my laptop. Someone had poked the software that transferred money from my East Coast accounts through the hacked firewalls. They'd halted a funds transfer. Had they found any of the offshore accounts? Either way, it was time to delete everything and go. Past time. My years of peaceful bank robbery were done. As I started removing scripts and scrubbing log files, I asked myself for the hundredth time: cover-up first or getaway? That answer should be in some crime FAQ. But a compelling advantage of digital theft is that your hunters rarely start where you live. Someone had discovered my work and was probably searching for me, but my apartment was dim and quiet. I ordered myself not to freak my shit. I still had time to clean up and get out. No one could see me here.

2

Mike

Watch Her Run

Ruth adjusted her shoulder bag and turned a slow 360. She wore her brown jacket, jeans, running shoes, a plain white blouse. In the bag were two prepaid phones still in plastic, a charger, toothbrush, hairbrush, wallet and passport, a pen and a small yellow pad, two changes of socks and underwear, large sunglasses, a pink BIC lighter, one very good blond wig, a Red Sox cap, and $25,000 in twenty-dollar bills, still stacked tight in violet bank bands.

Early sunshine streamed into the room, illuminating the airborne dust. She stood and studied every surface. I knew she was wondering what she had forgotten, what was left to help a man hunting her. She'd swapped her hard drive for a backup full of card games and crochet animal patterns. The original she'd zeroed, baked in the oven, and shoved into her bag. She examined the books, stacked in no order on the crappy plywood shelves. Account numbers scrawled in the margins? No. Random, self-betraying scribbles? Impossible. But this situation was outside her experience. She had no idea how capable or relentless my team might be. Or who we were.

There wouldn't be much to find in that apartment: Goodwill plates and cutlery, plastic cups, a French press that made coffee at once weak and full of grit. Getting rich had been a lean process. The refrigerator remained empty. She ate packaged crap when she bothered to eat-an unholy assortment of turkey jerky and the occasional Trader Joe's frozen ethnic dinner. There was a cheap window bird feeder, and her father's old violin in its bright painted case on a side table. I'd been sure she would take it. How far did she expect to get, really, with me in pursuit? A flowered violin wouldn't sink her. With a little planning, she might even have stored it somewhere. But there it sat, and she walked away from it.

She couldn't be certain I'd found her hack or the complex web of scripts and small databases that overlay it. Her system looked innocuous if a person happened to stumble onto it; pieces were spread across the internet. But we must have triggered an alert. At 0300 hours, we'd probed the relays to her offshore account, and the first overnight transfer from the US banks had failed. The next began on schedule, but we'd spooked her. She had already started to dismantle everything, shutting it down. She must have planned to burn it all behind her someday. Still, she'd needed almost five hours to disable and delete the scripts and databases that had collected and directed her stolen fortune over the last forty-five months. The compromised microchips had to stay, of course, but they were useless without her knowledge. Somewhere she must have left me a clue to their access. It would be my challenge to find it.

Ruth closed her eyes. She always got away. That's how it worked. I'd made sure of it. This time, she expected to be staggeringly rich. The light caught her hair, her cheekbone, the curve of her ear. It was a face to be studied in black and white or while she slept. Awake in the world, she had the trick of blurring against her background like a rare nocturnal moth or the bird that hunts it. I memorized her face on the screen. It might be my last chance to look at Ruth before she could return my scrutiny.

She turned again, clockwise this time, unwinding herself from that room, that home, then walked out through the tiny kitchen, carefully locking the door behind her.

3

Mike

Her First Wrong Turn

On the street, Ruth strode to her car. It was the dry season in Northern California. The sky was a relentless blue, and fuchsia bougainvillea sprawled across the trellised porches. She didn't stop to admire it. She didn't look for me. She climbed into her grubby Civic, started it, and pulled into the street. Then, at the stop sign, she hesitated. Parked around the corner, engine running, we waited for her to choose an escape route. I expected she would turn toward El Camino, work her way to Marsh Road, and go north on 101. She had an old cash-bought car parked along the way to trade into. I expected her to bolt out of the Bay Area, as much as anyone can bolt through that morning traffic. But there was still her assistant-in-crime, stupid hapless Thom. He had written most of the software for the theft. His name, with hers, was on the Caymans account. He'd be in his cubicle, staring at the mini crossword, waiting obliviously for the posse (that was us) to seize him.

It had been Ruth's first large heist; she had mishandled her subordinate. Thom had not received the alerts, did not have an escape plan. She should not have involved him in the first place. She should not risk herself to get him out. Too much to hope, in that moment, that she'd turn toward me. I knew she wasn't ready. I approved her loyalty but faulted her judgment trying to save Thom. That choice was her first hint of instability.

A honk behind her-Ruth startled and turned right. She was going to the office.

4

Ruth

No Bread in Moab

I love one thing more than money. Food. It's a fact about me. You know when you're lying there after sex and your partner asks: What are you thinking about? They want to hear "you" or "us" or "love," but my answer is always food. Not food in general. It's something specific: maybe a McIntosh apple warm off an autumn tree or a Neuhaus dark chocolate praline with a double shot of perfect espresso or a hot, fresh croissant. Of course, I don't share these thoughts. I'm aware my answer doesn't fit the storyline.

Years ago, I put aside my first love to go after my second. Because food can't buy money, but money can buy food and most other things as well, like security of sorts and free time and maybe a good dog with a yard to play in. Even things without price tags come easier when you're rich: health, friends, safety in the dark. Some people plan to sleep when they're dead; I've promised myself to eat when I'm rich. By that, I mean I'll eat what I want. In the meantime, food can't be important.

It's stupid to talk about life balance; distraction won't advance any serious goal. I think that balance shit comes from successful people trying to knock out competitors, tossing misdirection behind them like mental tack strips. Every person has a hard limit for focus, for effort, for love. No one is smarter eating Stumptown Cold Brew Coffee Ice Cream at the keyboard or spreading a ripe Brie de Meaux on a thin slice of toasted baguette (with a strip of prosciutto, a dab of fig preserve, and black pepper) while she checks undocumented gates in a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593832647
• ISBN 13: 9780593832646
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 292
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland