Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2)

by Wallace, Pendelton

  “They believe that it’ll keep the wives faithful to their husbands. If the women don’t have a clitoris, the reasoning goes, they won’t have any sexual desire. Then they will only engage in sex with their husbands to fulfill his needs.

  “Abeba left her husband. She came to us to save her daughter from going through the same thing she did.”

  Wow! This woman was not only Wonder Woman, she was The Shadow, defender of lost souls. As Papa would say, she was mucha mujer, much woman. Ted didn’t know what to think. He just sat and let his feelings run wild.

  “The pay’s lousy. I can only offer you about half of what you’re making at YTS. The hours are terrible. We work when we have to. Sometimes we work four or five days straight. Whatever it takes to keep our clients safe.” Catrina leaned forward in her chair.

  “There are benefits though. You go to sleep at night knowing you make a difference. That the world is a better place because you’re in it.

  “There’s also bonuses. Any cases we take that have bonuses, like the MS case, we split with all the employees who worked the case. It might not amount to much, but it could be a couple of thousand dollars a year. It just depends on the work we take in.”

  Ted fidgeted in his chair. He already knew what his answer would be. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything.” Catrina got up and extended her hand to Ted. “Go home. Think it over. Talk to your family about it. I think your mama will approve. When you make the decision, you noticed I didn’t say if, I think I know you pretty well...When you make a decision, give me a call. You have my number.”

  Ted felt foolish. She knew him inside and out. How could she amass so much information about him so fast?

  “And, by the way, I hear you’re a pretty good cook.” Catrina smiled at him. “After you make your decision, you’re going to have to invite me over for tamales.”

  Chapter 13

  Ted was no sooner out of her office, than Catrina’s desk phone rang. She recognized the number on caller ID.

  “Tom?” She was never sure how she felt about Tom. Their relationship, (would she even call it a relationship?) rode a wild rollercoaster.

  They had been seeing each other for four or five years. She saw Tom when it was convenient to her, when she was feeling selfish, she shut him out. Tom had to keep it on the QT. Catrina was a pariah among the Seattle PD. He wanted a more permanent relationship, but she wasn’t too sure. She liked Tom well enough, she craved the physical release, but she didn’t trust him. After her abusive marriage and all the cases she had handled, she couldn’t bring herself to fully trust any man.

  “Hi, Cat. I’ve got some news for you.” Tom sounded monotone and somber, not at all like his chipper self.

  “What is it?”

  “That computer consultant you’ve been looking for? We found her. Floating in Elliot Bay.”

  “Shit.”

  “She was naked, her fingers and teeth had been removed to keep us from identifying her. Whoever did it really knew their stuff. No physical evidence at all.”

  Catrina stared at the picture of her son on her desk. “How did you identify her?”

  “When I first came on the force, she would have just been a Jane Doe. We got lucky, matched her DNA to some hairs we got off her comb.”

  “Damn.” Catrina felt ice water running in her veins. “Do you know how long she was in the water?”

  “Coroner thinks a couple of days. But there’s more, Cat.”

  There was a long pause.

  What more could there be?

  Catrina didn’t answer. Finally Tom continued. “She was tortured.”

  “Jesus God.”

  “Coroner says that someone hooked alligator clips up to her nipples and ran an electrical charge through her. COD was heart failure. Apparently she had fairly advanced heart disease. The electric shock put her over the edge.”

  Catrina took a deep breath and relaxed her clinched fist. She had been here before. She had to put her personal feelings aside. She had to be professional. She had to focus.

  “Do they know where she went in?”

  “CSI thinks it was around Harbor Island. With the tides and the amount of time she was in the water, that’s their best guess.”

  “That can be a pretty isolated part of town. If there are ships to unload, they work twenty-four hours a day. If there’s nothing in, it’ll be deserted.”

  “I gotta go, Cat.” Tom’s voice became almost a whisper. “Cap’s calling me.”

  Catrina knew that it would be Tom’s hide if the captain knew he was giving her any information. “I’ll call you later.” She said and hung up.

  “Damn!” She pounded her desk. “Damn, damn, damn.”

  “What is it, Mrs. Flaherty?” Abeba was at the door. “You don’t sound too good.”

  ****

  Hardwick, Burstein & Johnson was a seat of power with all the trappings. The views from Harry’s throne in the corner office on the sixty-sixth floor of Mount Rainer, Puget Sound and Vashon Island were stunning. The offices flaunted hardwood furniture, an espresso bar, tropical plants, CNN playing continuously on wall-mounted monitors, original art by local artists on the walls and standing in vestibules and Chihuly glass on well-lit pedestals.

  But, back in the sweat shop, beyond the areas where clients ventured, Chris labored in a common garden variety gray cubicle. He hadn’t done much to personalize his box yet, just a copy of Scott Adams’ Cubeville on the shelf and a Dilbert calendar. Any further protests against the establishment would bring swift and angry conflict with his dad. He had to keep up the “Hardwick Image.”

  Chris smelled lilacs and roses before he heard the voice.

  “You Hardwick?”

  It was a hard, demanding female voice. When he looked up from his desk he was surprised to see one of the tiniest women he had ever met.

  She couldn’t be five feet tall. Chris doubted if she weighed a hundred pounds. But man, what there was of her was prime. Dark almond eyes, long, lustrous black hair. She was the perfect image of Asian beauty.

  “Ah…hi. I’m… Chris…” Damn! It was happening again. He couldn’t get out a coherent sentence.

  “You belong to me.” She spoke without a hint of an accent. “You’re assigned to my case. I’m Kathy Nguyen. I expect you to be here when I get in and be here after I leave. I only accept exceptional work. Any questions?”

  “Case? What case?” Jesus that sounded lame.

  Her crepe dress covered a classic Asian body, long waist, short legs, and tiny breasts. Her skin was so smooth he wanted to reach out and touch it.

  “I’ve just been assigned the Metcalf file.” She flipped her long black hair back out of her eyes. “There’s tons of paper to go over. This will be your first case, right?”

  Mesmerized, Chris tried to recall what she just said. “Yeah…I just …started this week.”

  “Stop by my office, I’ve got four cartons of files for you to go through.” Kathy threw him a derisive smile and walked off. She didn’t so much walk as kind of floated over the carpet.

  Damn. She must think I’m a complete idiot.

  Chris paused a minute, then picked up the phone. I need to find out about more about her. He speed dialed a number.

  “Spencer.” Will Spencer, another paralegal, was the first person Chris felt close to at HB&J.

  “Will, Chris.” Chris’ breathing returned to normal. “I need the 4-1-1 on Kathy Nguyen.” Chris heard a pause.

  “You want to know about the Dragon Lady?”

  “I’ve just been assigned to one of her cases.” Chris heard his friend chuckle before answering.

  “Kiss your social life good bye, buddy. She’s the number one hard ass. Puts in at least a hundred hours a week. Never takes a day off. She works her paralegals into the ground. No one wants to be on her cases.” Will chuckled again. “Good luck, big guy. Maybe she’ll be a little easier on the boss’s son.”

  Chris groaned to himself. S
ince he walked in the door, he felt like he had a target on his forehead. Anything he did right, it was because he was Harry’s son. Anything he did wrong, everyone said he got away with it because he was the boss’s son.

  He spent his entire life in his father’s shadow. He refused to play football in high school, despite his obvious talent, because his father had been a Heisman Trophy candidate. Everyone expected Harry Hardwick’s son to be a star. He resisted law school because everyone expected Harry Hardwick’s son to follow in his footsteps. Why couldn’t he just be a veterinarian or pharmacist instead?

  “So, what do you know about her?”

  This time, Will didn’t chuckle, he laughed out loud.

  “Don’t let that China Doll exterior fool you. Messing with her is like playing with fire. She’s second generation Vietnamese and all she thinks about is work. No one here has ever heard of her having a date or going out for a drink after work. I don’t think she has an ‘after work.’ If she’s not working, she’s sleeping, and she doesn’t do very much of that.”

  ****

  Kathy Nguyen’s small office, with no exterior windows, was obviously not a place to meet with clients. Asian hangings, paintings and trinkets lined the walls. Green plants threatened to take over the small space. On one wall, a shelf with Grow Lights was filled with orchids.

  The banker’s boxes on the floor filled what little empty space was left. Chris gazed around the office, mesmerized.

  “When you get through going through those files, I have a drawer full of CD’s with electronic files that need to be entered into the system.” Kathy wasn’t looking at Chris as she talked. Her attention was glued to a file folder open on her desk as she sketched notes on a yellow legal pad.

  Chris loaded the four boxes on his hand truck and turned to head out of the office.

  “Scan all of those documents and enter them into the document management system. Then search them for anything that has to do with Alison Clarke or a product code named ‘Delphi.’”

  “So what are we looking for anyway?” Chris stopped at the door and turned back to Kathy. “What’s this case about?”

  “It’s not really a case yet. Mr. Metcalf has retained HB&J as counsel because he expects Alison Clarke, the CEO of Millennium Systems to file suit against him. We’re doing a little pro-active investigation. Maybe we’ll do a pre-emptive strike.”

  “Why would Clarke file suit. What does she think Metcalf has done?”

  “Ms. Clarke took over control of MS from Mr. Metcalf about five years ago. Mr. Metcalf alleges she used illegal tactics to gain control of his father’s company. Now, the board is making a big fuss about her inability to control their R&D budget. She’s looking for a scapegoat for a failing research project into which she has poured nearly a billion dollars. Mr. Metcalf expects her to try to blame him.”

  ****

  A twenty-knot breeze howled down the Straits of Juan de Fuca. The Millennium Falcon, a high-tech two-hundred and fifty-seven-foot fully-rigged sailing ship sliced through the swells.

  In the raked-back pilot house, on the third deck, a silver-haired man sat at what looked like the control panel on the starship Enterprise. He leaned forward in the padded leather chair and held his hands over a color monitor built flush into the dashboard. The graphical representation of the ship’s rigging gave him unprecedented control over his vessel. He touched a sail icon with his finger tip and it lit up. Then he touched a button labeled “Trim” on the screen. A window popped up on the monitor with a series of options. He selected “To Windward.” He felt a slight vibration in the deck as the entire carbon-fiber mast rotated to meet his command. Any kid who was good at video games could sail this ship.

  Jack Metcalf smiled. Everything was working exactly as planned. Of course, it had to. He spent endless hours doing computer simulations. The sea trails of his new mega-yacht, the only one of its kind, were merely a validation of five years of designing, planning and executing.

  Jack tackled the problem of designing and building the world’s most sophisticated sailing vessel like he would have tackled a software development project. He started by defining requirements: The largest sailing vessel in the world. Accommodations for twenty-five passengers in outrageous luxury. Room for a crew of twenty-four to serve his guests, but no need for seamen to sail the ship, it runs itself. The fastest mono-hull sailing vessel ever built. The list went on and on.

  Then he engaged the best designers in the world to work under his close supervision. There wasn’t a part on the ship that he hadn’t personally approved. When he set the world on its ear with his new yacht, it would be just another manifestation of his genius.

  On his boat, Jack could control every sail, every line, every crew member, down to the finest detail. It had once been that way in his business, before his yellow-bellied board of directors brought that bitch in to take over. He wanted his company back.

  He didn’t need the money. There was no way he could ever spend all the money he had accumulated in his lifetime. He continued to act as a venture capitalist. Some of the most successful new companies in America, Google, AOL, Amazon and Netscape among them, had Jack Metcalf to thank for their initial funding.

  Then there was the bio-tech boom. He had brought a slew of bio-tech companies to Seattle. He was practically single handedly responsible for the thriving bio-tech corridor in South Lake Union. Without his seed money, the neighborhood would still be a squalid group of low industrial buildings.

  “She handles well, Scott.” Jack turned to look at his skipper.

  The hard-bodied young man in khaki slacks and a blue golf shirt with a silhouette of the Millennium Falcon embroidered on the left breast smiled.

  “I was a little nervous about doing sea-trials in November, Mr. Metcalf, but she seems to be handling the weather well.”

  Now Jack smiled. He had never doubted that she would be a good sea boat. Part of his design criteria was to shatter the existing records for the trip from New York to San Francisco. That meant rounding Cape Horn, the most fearsome patch of water in the world. She would have to withstand anything the sea could toss at her to make that passage.

  “We’re going to push her for a few more hours, then I have to fly back to Seattle.” Jack motioned aft, where a Robinson R22 helicopter sat tied down on the helipad. “I’ll let you bring her home. I’ve got to get back for a MS board meeting.”

  Millennium Systems. He still rankled at the name. He liked it, it lent a Twenty First Century kind of panache to his father’s company, but it was her idea, so it couldn’t be all good. Every day he regretted the loss of the “Metcalf” in the company name. Every day he regretted his loss of control of the company. Soon he would have it back.

  ****

  Somewhere, way off in the distance, Ted heard a buzzing sound. Damn. He wasn’t sure which hurt more, his head or his shoulder. He opened his eyes. The light hurt, too. It took a moment for things to come into focus. His mouth felt like it had been stuffed with cotton balls and dog turds.

  He slowly rotated his head to the left. Jesu Cristo! Just moving his head hurt. Whoa! What was this, or rather who was this? A dark brown head snuggled into his aching shoulder.

  He looked down the olive-skinned body. She had a great set of hooters. Well, at least the left hooter, he couldn’t see the other one, but he was pretty sure they were a matched set. She was short and round, what he would call voluptuous. What was her name? He tried hard to think back to last night.

  He obviously had had one too many Margaritas. Or maybe four or five too many. He remembered starting the night at Doc Maynard’s in Pioneer Square. Yeah, she came up to him at the bar. She was a little older, but quite a looker, what his co-workers at YTS would call a cougar on the prowl. He remembered her wearing heels, a black skirt and a very low cut black sweater. Oh well, if you’ve got a good product, it pays to advertise. He smiled at his own wit. Shit. Smiling hurt his head, too.

  But how did she get here? He looked down at her
tits again. Man, he hoped he’d had a good time with those things. Why couldn’t he remember? What was her name? Something that started with a “G.” Ginny? No. Gail? Gillian? This was bad.

  There was that buzz again. His phone. He had a phone call.

  He slipped out from under Miss G’s head, sat up and reached for his Blackberry. “Ugh.” He felt a sharp pain in his ribcage.

  She stirred, stretched her arms and opened her eyes. “Good morning.” She smiled at him.

  Ted saw the number on caller ID, held his finger in front of his lips and pushed the talk button on his phone.

  “Buenos Dias, Mama.” What would his mother be doing calling him this early on Sunday morning?

  “Eduardo, es tu mama.” Mama and Papa always spoke to him in Spanish. He usually answered in English.

  “Hi, Mom.” He exaggerated the words so Miss G would know who he was talking to and be quiet. He needed to get away from her. He couldn’t talk to Mama with a naked lady in his bed.

  “¡Teddy, Tango noticias grandes!” This must be important. “Your papa, he won the lottery.” Mama switched to English.

  Ted sat opened mouthed. Had he heard her right? He glanced furtively at the naked woman. She rolled over and cast off the sheets, revealing both of those wonderful tits. Her soft, smooth belly and the patch of curly dark brown hair called to him.

  “Teddy, are you there? Did you hear what I said?”

  With a tremendous effort of will, Ted turned his attention back to the phone. “Mama, did you just say that Papa won the lottery?”

  “Sí, mijo. He won the SuperLotto. A seven-million-dollar pot jack.”

  “Seven million dollars?” Ted couldn’t imagine that much money. “How much does he get?”

  “I don’t know. He just saw the numbers in La Opinión.”

  “Seven million?” Miss G sat up and spoke softly. “Let’s see, for a lump sum payout, they usually give you about fifty-five percent. That would be . . .” Her eyes rolled up and to the right. “Three million, eight-hundred and fifty-thousand dollars. Then there’s federal withholding. At twenty-five percent he would get…two million, eight-hundred eighty-seven-thousand five-hundred. Of course, with a good accountant, he could reduce the tax burden.”