by S L Shelton
“I see,” I muttered, getting exactly the answer I had hoped for. “Do you feel you could work in an environment where honesty is essential but rudeness could damage the work environment?”
“Honesty will be no problem,” she volunteered without hesitation. “Though I’ve found the concept of rudeness to be subjective, I can only promise I would try to meet your expectations.”
I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect answer if I had written it myself. Finally someone in my life besides my shrink who will speak her mind—even if I am paying her to do it.
“Jo.” I beamed while standing and extending my hand. “Welcome to the island of misfit toys.”
She smiled, rose, and shook my hand. Bonny rushed over and gave the girl a hug, clearly making her uncomfortable for a second. She returned the gesture with a gentle, though brief tap on her back. When she pulled away, Jo’s face had turned beet red.
“Awww. How cute!” Bonny exclaimed. “You blush.”
“Bonbon. Maybe Jo has boundaries you need to recognize,” I offered.
“It’s fine,” Jo replied shyly.
“Yeah. See! It’s fine. Everybody likes to hug,” Bonny protested, giggling, happy to have another broken doll on the team.
“You can move your personal effects to the cube outside my office as soon as it’s convenient,” I said. “We’ll have some construction at this end of the building soon. But until then, that cube will keep you close to the action.”
“Construction?” Bonny asked.
“Yes. The contract we're operating under requires a certain level of physical separation from the rest of the company. A NOC fishbowl has been ordered for this corner of the tech floor,” I said.
A NOC fishbowl is a glass-enclosed structure for a Network Operations Center. The one that had been contracted for us included biometric entry panels, glass that could be made opaque by remote control, and a separately firewalled mini server room.
“Cool!” Bonny exclaimed. Then she hooked her arm through Jo’s and led her outside my office to the cubicle she would be working from.
**
5:30 p.m.—Fairfax, Virginia
“I’m taking you out tonight,” Barb chirped excitedly, “to celebrate your first day back at work.”
I was exhausted from the excitement of the day, but a night out sounded like something normal. “I would love that, hon. Great idea,” I replied, sounding sincere, playing the good boyfriend.
It would have been nice if I felt it as well, but something the shrink said had stuck in my head. “Sometimes if you start doing normal things, normal feelings come back.”
I was willing to try anything. I felt guilty about not being the person Barb had come to expect after our return from Europe. She wouldn’t come out and say it, but I could see the disappointment on her face when I responded counter to her expectations—which left me feeling resentful. It was an ugly cycle.
But my response to her invitation had put a broad smile on her face. She was positively giddy as she readied herself for “date night”, singing a tune as she primped and preened. “Hey there, mister. Ain't that sister, sister on the radio,” I heard coming from the bedroom as I dried off from my shower.
Her lyrical confusion usually amused me. But since we had returned from Europe, all I wanted to do was yell out that she had the words backward.
I resisted the urge, fully aware it would have been a douchebag thing to do. The change in my personality was beginning to frighten me. It was like being trapped below deck in a sinking ship, watching out of a portal as the water rose above the window. I sat there, warm and dry, not being able to do anything about the ocean swallowing me whole.
When I entered the bedroom, I instead told her how beautiful she looked. She glowed at my compliment. She really did look fantastic. I, however, immediately felt angry at myself for manufacturing a compliment to hide frustration.
You don't want to be here, Scott, I argued with myself. You don't want to be in this relationship, you don't want to be friends, you don't want to play house. Why aren't you just telling her that?
Because, my other voice chimed in, startling me, you don't trust that you are sane enough to make that decision.
Shut up or I'll tell Dr. Hebron about you, I thought in reply—a hollow threat.
No response.
While on our way to the restaurant, Barb insisted on hearing every detail of my first day back to work. She giggled and clapped like a little girl when I described the cheering mob when I entered the office. She was very excited about the raise, the stock options, and the promotion.
“You have to let me come by next week and put some stuff up on the walls for you,” she insisted.
“Most of the walls will be covered with hardware and monitors,” I replied.
“I’ll figure something out,” she said and then winked.
I told her about the hiring ritual I had practiced. She frowned.
“I don’t have a choice,” I explained quietly, leaning forward. “Bonny swears like a sailor when she’s frustrated, and I’ve been known to drop the occasional F-bomb. But aside from that, I need people whose first inclination isn’t to pre judge. We are going to be working on projects that require objectivity and abstract reasoning skills. I want out of the box thinkers.”
She understood my reasoning, but I knew she couldn’t picture herself in a work environment like that.
“It’s a different culture in tech,” I explained. “A subculture, in fact. And often, the more comfortable someone feels with the machines, the less adept they are with people. Tolerance is crucial.”
She shrugged it off and began asking about the new office designs as we entered the restaurant. We were seated and then resumed our conversation. I described the fishbowl to her and all the biometric entry requirements, both for the new office cluster and the server room—which would be like a fishbowl inside of a fishbowl.
“Won’t you feel isolated, being inside the glass like that?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. Even in a cubicle, it’s like being in your own little world. And the glass would only be opaque to shoulder level, except when we need more privacy. We’d still have the sense of being surrounded by the rest of the tech floor,” I said.
She seemed to accept my take on the subject.
When the waitress arrived with our drinks, we ordered our appetizers and entrees. As we sipped our wine, another couple came into the restaurant and was led past to the table next to us. Perhaps in their mid-thirties, he was a large man with broad shoulders and a round belly and she was a petite woman with long black hair pulled back into a girlish ponytail. They were talking as they went by us.
“Try not to embarrass yourself tonight,” I heard the man say as they arrived at their table.
She shot him a shy, hurt look.
“God! I’m just kidding,” he snorted. “Don’t be so damned sensitive.” Then he plopped down heavily in his chair.
Barb and I turned back to each other after shooting him a harsh look and then continued our conversation as the appetizers arrived.
“Aren't you tired of talking about work?” I asked.
“It's your night!” she exclaimed with a smile. “It's supposed to be about you.”
It was always about me. I hadn't been able to get her to talk about what she was doing for weeks. I didn't find out she was signed up for classes at Georgetown until the week before they started…and only then because she told Bonny about it on the phone and I overheard her. It was almost as if she felt that any detail outside of my little protective bubble would crush me.
Maybe there's another approach to get her to show some honesty with me.
“You know,” I reasoned with a smile. “I'm the guy who can learn a programming language over the weekend and then plan a SEAL-assisted assault on a Russian Cargo plane with the time I have left over.”
She looked around nervously, checking to see if anyone had overheard me.
“I think I
can handle hearing how your day went without requiring medication,” I added, grinning.
“Sorry,” she replied.
“And seriously, please stop apologizing,” I said, still smiling but with a little edge of agitation. “You didn't do this to me. And you have gone well above the call of duty to help me since we got back.”
“How could I not?” she asked quickly, a frantic tone to her voice. She regained her composure before continuing. “You're my hero. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you.”
And there it was…the reason for it all. The sense of duty and obligation we both felt to each other was keeping us both miserable.
At the table next to us, the man slammed his hand down on the table, interrupting my sudden revelation.
“Don’t ask me. Do I look like a fucking chef?” Barb and I, and half the other patrons heard the big man say coarsely. “Ask the waitress.” When he noticed others in the restaurant looking at them, he shook his head and pointed at her, smiling. “I can’t take her anywhere.” He turned to her, speaking in a threatening whisper. “What did I say about embarrassing me?”
Quiet returned to their table as the woman sulked behind her menu. I let my glance linger long enough to note the matching wedding rings on the couple and a crooked nose on the woman—a bump that flared out at the bridge and set slightly to one side. Sometime in her past, her nose had been broken and never been set properly. It had healed crooked.
As our meals arrived, Barb and I continued to talk about the goings-on at the office.
“John told me to expect a lot of work being thrown our way by the company,” I said quietly. “I had no idea the setup would be so elaborate. It’s going to be like a business inside of a business.”
“Well. I don’t think John had much to do with it,” she explained with a knowing grin. “I suspect Daddy probably put a bug in someone’s ear.”
My ire began to rise at the weakly veiled disclosure, but again I was interrupted by the couple next to us.
“Stop making that noise when you eat,” the fat man at the table next to us said—louder than necessary for his wife to hear. She sank down into herself, nearly disappearing below the top of the chair back.
“That’s it,” he barked. “I’m not taking you out again. You’re too much of an embarrassment.”
I took a bite of steak, chewed it slowly, and looked at Barb. She was staring at me, clearly upset by the way the woman was being treated. I looked around as I continued to masticate the tasty, bloody flesh and saw that many of the patrons were staring down at the napkins in their laps—a typical response to an assault of any sort; a natural embarrassment for not stepping in and a physical response to a social trigger: “If I don’t look, maybe I won’t be noticed.”
My anger was rising. I could feel it spreading through my cheeks and ears. Barb must have seen the flush on my face, because a worried look crossed hers. Her worry tempered my next action.
I swallowed the bite of steak I had been chewing, and then wiped my mouth casually before turning in my seat toward the couple.
“Ma’am?” I said gently.
She hesitated to look but social niceties required her to acknowledge me. She turned and looked, confused as to why I would be addressing her.
“Do you have children?” I asked.
She looked around nervously and then nodded the affirmative. “Two.”
I leaned forward and lowered my voice so she knew the words were for her, though others could hear. “I would recommend you take your children and leave this man before he ruins them the same way he has ruined you,” I said gently, smiling so she saw kindness in my words.
“Who do you think you are?” the man raged, rising from his chair, bumping the table and spilling his whiskey.
The patrons in the restaurant were all trying very hard not to look at what was going on…all except Barb, who was wide-eyed, staring at me in shock.
I turned back to my meal and began cutting another piece of steak, ignoring the big man. He stepped toward me on my left. I tensed my left leg and pressed my foot hard into the carpeted floor in anticipation—but continued to eat.
“I’m talking to you, punk,” he boomed loudly enough for people on the street to hear. “Who the fuck do you think you are?!” His hand came down hard on my left shoulder, his finger digging into the scar from the bullet wound the Serbian mercenary had left, and then he shoved me.
I rolled my arm up and over his arm as I stood, locking his wrist under my armpit and my forearm under his elbow. Shock and fear washed across his face at the speed and strength of my movement. Before he could formulate a response, physically or verbally, my fist slammed into his diaphragm, sending the air out his lungs and him to the floor.
He lay there gasping, and as I returned to my meal, I noted a brief flash of satisfaction on the wife's face, followed by a manufactured mask of outrage. A surprised stare from Barb greeted me as I sat. It slowly turned into a smile. She sat up, proud of her knight in shining armor, once again defending the weak. I heard a chorus of chatter, laughs, and a smattering of applause.
I felt anger rising again.
“Don’t applaud me!” I said loudly, bitterly, rising from my chair again. The applause stopped abruptly. “He was bullying her all night, and any one of you could have said something. But the napkins in your laps were more interesting,”
The man got up from the floor and left the room hurriedly. His wife hesitated a moment before following him out.
I paused, looking around from table to table before sitting and quickly refocusing on finishing my meal. I got a supportive wink from Barb, but the smile was gone from her face. There was silence in the restaurant and mumbling in a corner…and I was suddenly very uncomfortable with my back to the door.
Once we finished eating, I hastily paid for our meal and the other couple’s meal. The waiter told me it wasn’t necessary for me to pay, but I wasn’t interested in a free meal—I just wanted to get home. The tension in my chest had built, and I actually found myself looking over my shoulder, half-expecting to see an assault team burst in.
Barb and I walked to the car in silence. Once inside, a grin slowly started spreading across her face. She looked straight ahead without saying a word for the longest time.
Finally she spoke. “I can’t take you anywhere,” she joked, and then she broke out in laughter.
It was contagious; I burst out laughing as well. “I really did make a scene, didn’t I?” I laughed harder, the manic outburst building on itself. I could feel a tear rolling down my cheek. “At least I didn’t kill anyone,” I gasped out through a ragged breath.
Barb’s laughter stopped abruptly as her head spun to face me, an expression of worry on her face.
Suddenly, all the stress in my life poured out of my chest and my increasingly manic laughter suddenly turned into broken sobs. Tears rolled out; loud, racking shudders assaulted my chest. It was all I could do to pull the car over before I started shaking violently.
She threw her arms around me, and then began sobbing as well. Not saying a word, she wrapped me warmly in her arms, laying her cheek on my head and pulling me down into her breast. Her soft, warm hands stroked my hair and rubbed my shoulder, trying to absorb the ache into her as she softly shushed in my ear.
“Shhhhh,” she whispered. “It's alright. You did a good thing.”
I honestly didn't even know why I lost it. I had no remorse for my actions. It was almost as if the steam valve just needed to blow…and this was as good a trigger as any.
After a few minutes, I regained my composure and sat up, wiping my eyes.
I took a deep ragged breath. Then, without a word, I put the car in drive and continued home.
six
Tuesday, July 20th
1:15 a.m.—Harvest, Alabama, a suburb of Huntsville
MARK GAINES had been up for hours, reading transaction numbers and account information off to Alisha Gordon, the friend and forensic accountant who had introduced h
im to Dee. The print on the papers had gotten soggy and smudged with blood and sweat during his escape from the ambush—he was having difficulty reading a lot of the information.
“Is it a six or an eight, Mark?” Alisha asked as he paused on another set of numbers. “Because even one number off will prevent me from looking them up.”
“Damn it, Alisha,” he muttered in exhaustion. “I don’t know. I really need you to look at them.”
“Then send them to me,” she offered softly for the third time. “The mail isn’t monitored here.”
“You don't know that for sure,” he replied firmly. “If they break through my cover, how hard will it be to find a link from me and Dee to you? As it is, you may already have eyes on you.”
“I’m used to eyes being on me,” she replied, coy.
Mark chuckled. “Yeah, but not for the same reason.”
Just then, his personal phone rang. It was one he had purchased with cash and had kept records of under an assumed company name. Only a handful of people had the number—his family among them.
“I have to call you back, Alisha,” he said. “I’m sorry about how hard this is.”
“Okay, but if you can’t get to a descent document scanner with forensic tools, I’ll come and get them from you,” she vowed firmly—she wasn’t going to let it go.
His phone continued to ring.
“I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you back later.”
He didn’t wait for her reply before ending the call and picking up his private phone. He glanced down and saw it was his sister, Marie, in Colorado Springs.
“What’s keeping you up so late, sis?” he asked when he answered the phone.
