by Linda Howard
Kristian stood in the Siebers’ back door, waiting for her. “Hi,” he said in cheerful greeting. He was always cheerful at the prospect of getting his hands on her laptop.
He hadn’t turned on a light. Grace entered through the dark laundry room, passing through the kitchen. Audra Sieber, Kristian’s mother, was sliding a tray of rolls into the oven. She looked up with a smile. “Hello, Grace. We’re having lamb chops tonight; would you like to join us?”
“Thanks, but I’ve just finished eating.” She liked Audra, who was comfortably fifty, slightly overweight, and completely understanding of her son’s obsession with gigabytes and motherboards. Physically, Kristian was just like his father, Errol: tall, thin, with dark hair, myopic blue eyes, and a prominent Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Kristian couldn’t have looked more like the prototypical computer nerd if he’d had the words stenciled on his forehead.
Remembering his appetite, Grace said, “Kris, this can wait until after you eat.”
“I’ll fix a plate and carry it up,” he said, taking the case from her arms and cradling it lovingly in his. “That’s okay with you, isn’t it, Mom?”
“Of course. Go on and have fun.” Audra aimed her serene smile between the two of them, and Kristian immediately loped out of the kitchen and up the stairs, carrying his prize to his electronics-laden lair.
Grace followed him at a slower pace, thinking as she climbed the stairs that she really needed to shed the twenty extra pounds she’d gained since she and Ford had married. The problem was, her work was so sedentary; a specialist and translator of old languages, she spent a lot of her time with a magnifying glass going over photos of old documents, and very occasionally the actual papers themselves, but for the most part they were too fragile to be handled. The rest of the time she was working on the computer, using a translation program that she and Kristian had enhanced. It was difficult to burn many calories doing brain work.
Earlier that day she had been doing just that, trying to access the university’s library to download some information, but the computer hadn’t obeyed her commands. She wasn’t certain if it was a problem with the laptop itself, or with the modem. She had caught Kristian at home for lunch, and arranged for him to take a look at it when his classes were finished for the day.
The delay had almost driven her mad with frustration. She was fascinated by the batch of documents she’d been translating for her employer, the Amaranthine Potere Foundation, a huge archaeological and antiquities foundation. She loved her work anyway, but this was special, so special that she was almost afraid to believe her translations were correct. She felt almost… pulled, drawn into the documents in a way that had never happened before. The night before, Ford had asked her what the documents contained, and she had reluctantly told him a little about them—just the topic. Usually she talked freely with Ford about her work, but this time it was different. She felt so strongly about these strange old documents that it was difficult to put it into words, and so she had been rather casual about the whole thing, as if it wasn’t even particularly interesting.
Instead, it was… special, in ways she didn’t fully understand yet. She had translated less than a tenth of the whole, and already the possibilities were driving her half mad with anticipation, swirling just beyond comprehension, like a jigsaw puzzle with only the border assembled. In this case, though, she had no idea what the finished product would look like, only that she couldn’t stop until she knew.
She reached the top of the stairs and entered Kristian’s bedroom. It was a maze of electronic equipment and cords, with just enough room for his bed. He had four separate phone lines, one each to the one laptop and two desktop computers he owned, and another to a fax machine. Two printers shared the duty among the three computers. One of the desktops was on, with a chess game displayed on the monitor. Kristian glanced at it, grunted, and used the mouse to move a bishop. He studied the results for a moment, before clicking the mouse and turning back to the puzzle at hand. He pushed a stack of papers to one side and moved another onto the bed. “What’s it doing?” he asked as he opened the case and removed her laptop.
“Nothing,” Grace said, taking another chair and watching as he swiftly unhooked the other desktop’s electrical umbilical cords from power port and modem, and plugged in hers. He turned it on and it whirred to life, the screen flickering to a pale blue. “I tried to get into the university’s library this morning, and nothing happened. I don’t know if it’s the unit or the modem.”
“We’ll find out right now.” He knew his way around her menu as well as she did; he clicked onto the one he wanted, then double-clicked on the telephone icon. He dialed the number for the university’s electronic library, and ten seconds later was in. “Modem,” he announced. His fingers were practically quivering as they hovered over the keys. “What did you want?”
She leaned closer. “Medieval history. The Crusades, specifically.”
He scrolled down the list of offerings. “That one,” Grace said, and he clicked the mouse. The table of contents filled the screen.
He scooted away. “Here, you take over while I try to find out what’s wrong with the modem.”
She took his place in front of the computer, and he switched on a lamp on the desk, automatically pushing his glasses up on his nose before he began dismantling the modem.
There were several references to the military religious orders of the time, the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar. It was the Templars she wanted. She clicked onto the appropriate chapter, and lines of information filled the screen.
She read intently, looking for one certain name. It didn’t appear. The text was a chronicle and analysis of the Templars’ contribution to the Crusades, but except for a few grand masters none was mentioned by name.
They were interrupted briefly when Audra brought a filled plate up to Kristian. He positioned it next to the disassembled modem and happily munched as he worked. Grace went back to the main list and chose another text.
Sometime later she became aware that Kristian had evidently either repaired her modem or given up on it, for he was reading over her shoulder. It was difficult to pull herself out of medieval intrigue and danger, and back into the modern world of computers. She blinked to orient herself, aware of the strangely potent lure of that long-ago time. “Could you fix it?”
“Sure,” he replied absently, still reading. “It was just a loose connection. Who were these Templar guys?”
“They were a military religious order in the Middle Ages; don’t you know your history?”
He pushed his glasses up on his nose and flashed her an unrepentant grin. “Time began in nineteen forty-six.”
“There was life before computers.”
“Analog life, you mean. Prehistoric.”
“What kind of gauges are in that muscle-bound thing you call a car?”
He looked chagrined, caught in the shameful knowledge that his beloved chariot was hopelessly old-fashioned, with analog gauges instead of digital readouts. “I’m working on it,” he mumbled, hunching his thin shoulders. “Anyway, about these Templar guys. If they were so religious, why were they burned at the stake like witches or something?”
“Heresy,” she murmured, turning her attention back to the screen. “Fire was the punishment for a lot of crimes, not just for witchcraft.”
“Guess people back then took their religion seriously.” Kristian wrinkled his nose at the electronic display of a crude drawing of three men bound to a center pole while flames licked around their knees. All three men were dressed in white tunics with crosses emblazoned on their chests. Their mouths were little black holes, opened in screams of agony.
“People are still executed because of religion today,” Grace said, shuddering a little as she stared at the small drawing, imagining the sheer horror of being burned alive. “In the Middle Ages, religion was the center of people’s lives, and anyone who went against it was a threat to them. Religion gave them the rules of
civilization, but it was more than that. There was so much that wasn’t known, or understood; they were terrified by eclipses, by comets, by sicknesses that struck without warning, by things we know now are normal but which they had no way of understanding. Imagine how frightening, and deadly, appendicitis must have been to them, or a stroke or heart attack. They didn’t know what was happening, what caused it, or how to prevent it. Magic was very real to them, and religion gave them a sort of protection against these unknown, frightening forces. Even if they died, God was still taking care of them, and the evil spirits didn’t win.”
His brow furrowed as he tried to imagine living in such ignorance. It was almost beyond him, this child of the computer age. “I guess television would’ve given them a real spasm, huh?”
“Especially if they saw a talk show,” she muttered. “Now there are some evil spirits.”
Kristian giggled, sending his glasses slipping down his nose. He pushed them up again and squinted at the screen. “Did you find what you want?”
“No. I’m looking for mention of one particular Templar—at least, I think he was a Templar.”
“Any cross-references you can check?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know his last name.” Niall of Scotland. She had already found his name several times in the portion of the documents written in Old French. Why wasn’t his surname recorded, in a time when family and heritage were so important? From what she had gleaned from her translations so far, he’d been a man of immense importance to the Templars, a Knight himself, which meant he was well born and not a serf. Part of the documents were also in Gaelic, strengthening the unknown tie with Scotland. She’d read up on Scotland’s history in her encyclopedia, but there hadn’t been any mention of a mysterious Niall at all, much less one in the time frame of the Templars’ existence.
“Dead end, then,” Kristian said cheerfully, evidently deciding they had wasted enough time on someone who had died even before the age of analog. His blue eyes sparkled as he moved his chair a little closer. “Want to see this cool accounting program I’ve worked up?”
“I don’t think the words cool and accounting go together,” Grace observed, keeping her expression deadpan.
Shocked, Kristian stared at her. He blinked several times, making him look like a myopic crane. “Are you kidding?” he blurted. “It’s the greatest! Wait until you see—wait. You are kidding. I can tell.”
Grace’s lips curved as she deftly tapped keys, backing out of the university’s library system. “Oh, yeah? How?”
“You always tighten your mouth to keep from smiling.” He glanced at her mouth, then quickly looked away, blushing a little.
Grace felt her own cheeks heating and carefully glued her eyes to the screen. Kristian had a tiny crush on her, based mostly on his enthusiasm for her expensive, powerful laptop, but on a few rare occasions he had said or done something that bespoke a physical awareness of her as well.
It always disconcerted her; she was thirty years old, for heaven’s sake, and was certainly not a femme fatale by any stretch of the imagination. She considered herself very ordinary, with nothing about her to inspire lust in a nineteen-year-old—though God knows, almost anything female and breathing could inspire lust in a nineteen-year-old boy. If Kristian was the stereotypical image of a computer nerd, she’d always thought she looked the typical shy academic type: dark brown hair, impossibly straight, which she had long ago given up trying to coax into curls and now wore pulled back into a single thick braid; light blue eyes, almost gray, usually framed by reading glasses; no makeup, because she didn’t know how to apply it; sensible clothes, tending toward corduroy slacks and denim skirts. She was hardly the stuff of an erotic dream.
But Ford had always said she had the most kissable mouth he’d ever seen, and it flustered her that Kristian had looked so pointedly at her lips. To distract him, she said, “Okay, let’s see this hotshot program.” She hoped the Chevelle would work its macho magic soon, and lure into Kristian’s orbit some smart girl who appreciated both horsepower and multitasking.
Looking grateful for the change of subject, he opened a plastic case and removed the diskette, then inserted it into the disk drive. Grace scooted to the side, giving him better access to the keys. He directed the computer to access the disk in the A drive, there was some electronic whirring, and a menu appeared on the screen.
“What bank do you use?” Kristian asked.
Grace told him, frowning as she scanned down the menu. Kristian zipped the cursor to the item he wanted, clicked on it, and the screen changed again. “Bingo,” he crowed as a new menu appeared, this time of bank services. “Am I slick, or what?”
“You’re illegal, is what you are!” Appalled, Grace watched as he chose another item, clicked on it, then typed “St. John, Grace.” Instantly a record of her checking account transactions appeared on the screen. “You’ve hacked into the bank’s computers! Get out of there before you get in big trouble. I mean it, Kris! This is a felony. You told me you had an accounting program, not a back door into every bank in the area.”
“Don’t you want to know how I did it?” he asked, clearly disappointed that she didn’t share his enthusiasm for the deed. “I’m not stealing or anything. This lets you see how long it takes each check to clear, so you can establish a pattern. Some places only deposit once a week. You can get a better handle on your cash flow if you know how long it takes for a particular check to clear. That way, if you have an interest-bearing checking account, you can time your payments so your average balance doesn’t dip below the minimum.”
Grace simply stared at him, amazed at the wiring of his brain. To her, money matters were a straightforward affair: you had X amount of money coming in, and you had to keep your expenses below that amount. Simple. She had long ago decided there were two types of people on earth: math people, and non-math people. She was an intelligent woman; she had a doctoral degree. But the intricacies of math, whether it dealt with finance or quantum physics, had simply never appealed to her. Words, now… she reveled in words, wallowed deliriously in the nuances of meaning, delighted in the magic of them. Ford was even less interested in math than she was, which was why she took care of the checkbook. Bryant tried; he read the financial section of the newspaper, subscribed to investment magazines—in case he ever had enough money to invest—but he didn’t have a real grasp of the dynamics. After fifteen minutes of wading through one of his investment magazines, he was tossing it aside and reaching for something, anything, on archaeology.
But Kristian was a math person. Grace had no doubt he’d be a billionaire by the time he was thirty. He would write some brilliant computer program, wisely invest the profits, and retire happily to tinker away at more innovative programs.
“I’m sure it’s a real boon to depositors,” she said dryly, “but it’s still illegal. You can’t market it.”
“Oh, it’s not for public knowledge, it’s just goofing around. You’d think banks would have better security programs, but I haven’t found one yet that’s much of a challenge.”
Grace propped her chin on her hand and eyed him. “My boy, you’re either going to be famous, or in jail.”
He ducked his head, grinning. “I’ve got something else to show you,” he said enthusiastically, his fingers darting over the keyboard as he exited the bank’s accounting records.
Grace watched as the screen changed rapidly, flickering from one display to another. “Won’t they be able to tell you’ve been in their files?”
“Not with this baby. See, I got in through a legitimate password. Basically, I put on an electronic sheepskin, and they never knew a wolf was prowling around.”
“How did you get the password?”
“Snooping. No matter how coded the info, there’s always a back door. Not that your bank has very good computer security,” he said with obvious disapproval. “If I were you, I’d consider moving my account.”
“I’ll think about it,” she assured him, with
a baleful glare that had him grinning again.
“That’s just part of the program. Here’s the accounting system.” He pulled up another screen and motioned Grace closer. She obligingly scooted her chair forward an inch or so, and he launched into the intricacies of his digitalized baby. Grace paid attention, because she could easily see it was a good system, deceptively simple to execute. He had programmed it to compare the current entry against past entries in the same account, so if anyone accidentally typed in, say, “$115.00” instead of “$15.00,” the program alerted the user that the amount wasn’t within the previously established range, and to check for an input error.
“I like that,” she mused. She had always paid bills and done her bookkeeping the old-fashioned way, by hand and on paper. However, she was completely at home with computers, so there was no reason for her not to do their household finances electronically.
Kristian beamed. “I knew you would.” His long fingers stroked the keys, downloading the program into her hard disk. “Its name is Go Figure.”
She groaned at the sly corniness of it, the groan changing midway into a laugh. “Do me a favor. When you get busted for playing around in the bank’s computers, don’t tell the feds that I have a copy of the program, okay?”
“I’m telling you, it’s safe, at least until the banks change all their passwords. Then you simply won’t be able to get in. I could get in,” he boasted, “but most people couldn’t. Here, let me give you a list of the passwords.”
“I don’t want it,” she said quickly, but Kristian ignored her. He rifled through a stack of papers and plucked out three sheets of closely printed material, which he stuck in her computer case.
