“Black’s right. You are afraid of women. Is it all women or just me? If you are afraid of all women it’s a shame and you might learn something from me instead of pushing me aside because you don’t know how to act around me. Plus,” I continued, “just because I’m a woman doesn’t make me as hard to get along with as you might think.”
“No, you’re right. I just don’t understand why you would hike all that distance. Was it to prove a point?”
“A little but mainly it was because I just wanted to scream and I wanted out of there.”
“Good enough. Alex, don’t take this the wrong way but you and I need to form a relationship. Like Blue, I’m in charge of making sure everyone is fit, but instead of the physical, I treat the mental. You need to be comfortable enough with me to tell me intimate things, and I need to be comfortable enough with you to be able to predict what you might do.” I was about to reply when he cut me off. “I know we aren’t at that point and I know it’s not just you. I will admit I am used to dealing with men in this capacity and women think differently. I will work on my end if you promise to work on yours.” I nodded my agreement.
“Good. I will start with a show of good faith and tell you what I really think of you coming back to the office alone…” he took a small breath but then a smile covered his face. “That was awesome. It infuriates me that you made us worry about you that way, but I don’t know if I would have done that. It shows determination.”
“Okay, here’s my show of good faith… It had a little to do with determination but more to do with unreasonable anger. My feelings were hurt, I was angry and I didn’t really think it through before I left. If I had it to do over again I wouldn’t leave. It was a little scary being alone in the mountains, not knowing where I was going. What kept me going was the hope I might have a chance to get back here before the rest of you and the fact that I did was pure luck.”
Red and I talked a few minutes more before I left to go back to my apartment. I spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening working on building a single report on Strom. Each of the men had submitted reports on him so I retrieved them and began the long process of sorting the information and putting it all in corresponding piles. Before I was even close to being done I called it quits for the night. I could hardly keep my eyes open and decided I would get an early start the next morning.
It took me several hours the next day to finish sorting the information. Next I moved onto reading and comparing all the information to remove repeated data and organizing it so it would be easily referenced. I eventually got bored with this and moved onto the other aspect of my assigned job. I started to research Penumbra.
I first collected all the newspaper articles I could find on Penumbra, printed them and sorted them by date. I know Red had said we were just looking for connections to either the company or me but I didn’t think having a nicely compiled background would hurt. I worked on this for at least an hour. I didn’t take the time to read the articles but just sorted them by date. It might have been easier if I could have gone to the library because I knew I wouldn’t find all the articles ever written on Penumbra this way.
That’s when I got an idea. If anyone would have all the information I needed on Penumbra it would be the government. I had used this method of finding out information before, but it had been a while. I used to access government computers all the time using my fathers pass code but it was never for anything quite as important as this.
Dad had warned me about messing with the Penumbra subject, but now I had a job to do. First things first, I needed to find out if Dad was connected from home to his account. I didn’t need to tip them off that I was not who I said I was by signing in twice. I went to my phone and called home. It rang repeatedly until I hung up. I now knew Dad wasn’t home but I would still be taking a chance logging in because he could be connected from another location. I decided to chance it and returned to my computer.
Dad hadn’t changed his password since the last time I accessed his account, which was strange. It made me wonder, fleetingly, if he did it on purpose. I typed “Penumbra” in the search field and was immediately required to enter a second password. This had happened to me before. Finally, something interesting, I found myself thinking. I must be an adrenaline junkie. I could go to jail for this and I’m loving it.
Okay, take a deep breath and think. I would just have to figure it out. I had no idea what this password would be so I tried his original password. It didn’t work so I sat and thought about it. Dad had never been all that elaborate with his passwords and he would try to make it relevant to what he knew about Penumbra and since I didn’t know any of that information I was stuck. I decided to open the change password screen. I was greeted with what I had hoped to see. The old password was there, large as life. Well, not really but the amount of digits or letters were there in the form of six little dots in the password field. This information was good to have but it didn’t really help me out much. I racked my brain and decided it could be a date, two digits for the month two for the day and two for the year. This might be it, my stomach did a flip and I quickly jumped up to go rifle through the newspaper articles I had just printed and sorted.
Dad had mentioned he had been the person who recruited Penumbra so I went to the earliest article I could find. Luck was with me; it was one of the first articles ever written about Penumbra. I made note of the date and went back to my computer to research my own father. I was working on the assumption the password was a date and more specifically, the date he recruited Penumbra so I needed to find out when that was.
I had to be careful here. My father has a job that is highly secret. If I did find something important it could compromise his job, or worse, my family. Dad had said he was the one who had recruited Penumbra and finding out his identity could affect “people very close to us.” I was walking on shaky ground here and knew I had to think things through before I made any decisions. That, I told myself, was something I hadn’t been doing lately.
Our conversation that was held under the scrutiny of White and Associates kept playing over and over in my mind. There was a warning there and if not a warning then a hint. I thought about how easy it had been to access my dad’s account. He regularly changed his password and he either hadn’t changed his password for months or he changed it back to the one he was using the last time I went rummaging through his things. Why would he do this? My thoughts went back to the conversation held in front of the cameras.
“I am the one who recruited Penumbra and his or her identity or lack of identity is of the utmost importance, not only to the security of this country but to people very close to us as well,” my father’s voice echoed in my head.
First of all, who was close to us? My circle of family and friends had consisted of Mom, Dad and Colin and his family and I suppose I should include Chief Slade. I did not want to do anything to hurt any of those people. Maybe the comment was meant that we could be hurt indirectly. Maybe I could figure out a way to get all the information I desired for the company and myself without hurting anyone.
I did a search on the government’s computer for my father’s name. I was shocked at the amount of information I had access to because I had done the same search before and had come up with hardly any information. I soon became engrossed in the computer screen, reading things about my father I could hardly believe. He had an extensive resume. The information presented to me was in depth and staggering. However, it didn’t take me long to narrow down the date of when he could have recruited Penumbra so I reluctantly reverted back to my Penumbra search that had initiated the new password entry. It was hard to pull myself away from my father’s information but I told myself I needed to stay focused. I tried the date I thought was the password and was surprised to find I was wrong.
“Always assume the worst case scenario,” my father had said. “You need to know who, when and most importantly, why.”
“Fine,” I said aloud. “Who, when and why.
” My thoughts circled around in my head. I had too many questions. I was certain this information had been put here for me to find. But why? Was my dad in trouble? This thought made me sick to my stomach. I immediately went to the phone to check my messages at the guesthouse. I pressed the appropriate buttons and found I had one message. My stomach was churning but I made myself listen to it.
“Hi sweetie,” my father’s voice came through the receiver. “Your mother and I are going on a little vacation. I just didn’t want you to worry about us.” Strangely, he emphasized the word us. He left a contact number and ended the message with, “We will see you soon.”
I had written the number down and was already dialing it.
“Hello?” My mother answered promptly.
“Mom? Is everything okay?”
“Fine. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Oh, no reason. Where are you?” The worry in my voice dissipated.
“Your father and I are taking a cruise. It’s been a while since we did something like this so we just took off. Besides, White contacted us about your problem and we thought it might be best if we didn’t add to the confusion. Have you gotten that worked out?”
“Not yet. Does Dad have any idea’s who could have that kind of a grudge?” I was referring to the contract on me.
“All I can say is to follow the same path you are on and you’ll figure it out. I better get going. Good luck.”
“Wait. You know? Tell me.”
“No, I don’t know or I would have had your father take care of it by now. I’m just trying to give you words of encouragement.”
“Well, give my love to Dad.”
I was somewhat relieved when I got off the phone with Mom but I knew I had to figure this out.
I returned to my father’s information. I read on and on, taking notes, and finally reached the time of his life when I was born. I know this from not paying attention to the dates but because my birth announcement from the paper was in the file. Amazing, I thought. I started correlating his data with times I could remember when I was young. A pattern emerged so I stopped reading my dad’s biography and started reading the Penumbra articles. An idea was forming in my head so I returned to the beginning of Dad’s information and added the information from the Penumbra articles. They fit in perfect with what I remembered until around the time I was born and then the pattern didn’t entirely quit but it was interrupted. I was relieved. It didn’t entirely dispel my previous thoughts, but I guess the pattern made sense. He was with Penumbra until I was born and then he started staying home. I continued to read and things became clearer. I hadn’t realized until now how many questions I had about my father’s background. Now I knew everything and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know it all. Other memories started to intrude themselves and another alarming thought came to mind. I immediately switched back to my search for Penumbra and typed in a six-letter password. This is laughable, I told myself but still found myself praying it wouldn’t work. To my dismay, as soon as I pressed the return button I was granted access.
My doorbell rang and I jumped out of my chair. I found myself looking around like I had been doing something illegal. What was I thinking? I was doing something illegal!
“I’ll be right there…” I yelled toward the door as I shut my computer down.
I opened the door to White. My breath caught in the back of my throat. I had half expected to open it to the F.B.I. because I had been caught “hacking.” We both stood there with different expressions. I know mine, no matter how hard I tried to hide it, was one of fear, but he wore an amused little smile. I came to my senses a few seconds into the moment and stepped aside from the door, gesturing with my arm for him to come in.
I composed myself and asked, “What’s up?” as I shut the door.
“Not much. Just wondering what you’ve been doing for the last couple of days. You didn’t call in or answer your phone.”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t even think of it. I shut the ringer off on my phone because I’ve been working.”
“You must have everything you need on Strom by now.” He was looking around at the clutter in my apartment. “We were getting worried about you. No one has seen you since you spoke with Red.”
“I talked to Red just yesterday. You guys are getting paranoid because of this contract crap.” I shook my head.
“Alex, you talked to Red the day before yesterday and it’s already early evening. I’d say we had reason to worry. You didn’t call out for food or anything. Aren’t you hungry?”
I looked at my watch and he was right. I had been so totally engrossed in my father’s history I had lost track of time. I had felt hunger pains, but had forced them to the back of my mind.
“What have you been doing? Have you made any progress?”
“Not really.” I glanced around the room. I was afraid I had figured out Penumbra’s identity, but I hadn’t made any progress on what he was referring to.
“Is everything okay?” He started walking around my apartment, looking into my bedroom and then my bathroom.
“I’m fine. There’s no one here if you’re looking for someone.”
“You’re acting funny. What’s going on?” He was giving me a suspicious look.
“Nothing’s going on. I think I might have had too much coffee.”
“Have you had any sleep?”
“No. I’ve been involved.”
“With what? You said you hadn’t made any progress.” He sounded annoyed.
“I got into Dad’s account and was reading up on Penumbra…”
“What? Why in the world would you do that?” Now he didn’t sound annoyed, he was annoyed.
“Red wanted me to research the Penumbra angle to my problem…”
Again he interrupted me, “What Penumbra angle?”
“He thinks because I spoke with my parents about Penumbra I could have put myself in danger. I didn’t agree with him either, but if someone else had found out…”
“That is absolutely ridiculous. You of all people should know that. Now, however, it’s a whole different story. If you’ve been rooting around in the government data base using your father’s identity we could have major problems.”
“Why? I’ve done it before.”
He cleared his throat and just looked at me for a moment. “What did you find out then?”
“Ah… nothing really.” I wasn’t prepared to tell him now and I didn’t know if I ever would be. I was kicking myself for even bringing it up.
“Ms. Grey…” he was exasperated. He took a deep breath.
Before he could say anything more I said, “I got involved in my dad’s background. There are things in there I had no idea he did. I just got side tracked. I’m sorry. I’ll have this Strom report put together for you first thing in the morning.” I was ushering him to my door.
“Either that or you’ll be telling me exactly what information has kept you cooped up in this apartment for two days.”
“Fair enough.”
“Don’t forget we are trying to find out who’s financing the contract on your head and until we find out we can’t fix it and until we can fix it, you don’t go anywhere.”
“Fine.” I had opened my door and had been pushing him out until he said this. Now I pulled him back in and shut the door. “Hasn’t anyone found out anything?”
“No, whoever is behind this has enough money to keep the right people quiet. Are you going to tell me what you’ve been doing now?”
“I’ll do you one better, I’ll show you.” I had found a way out of this mess and hopefully, some help.
I led him to the separated files on Strom. “If you could just pick a pile and remove all the repeated information that would be great.”
“Great.” He said and reached down and picked up a pile.
The next couple of hours were spent with White separating the duplications out and I was transferring everything to the computer, getting it all compiled for one report.
As I ty
ped I came across some interesting information. Strom was the main financial backer for K&G Systems. I wanted to say something right away but I had noticed several other companies and banks I was familiar with on his financial list. I thought I better do a little more research before I made any accusations. Besides, I thought, what am I going to accuse him of, giving K&G Systems money to start up their company? Strom may be an evil man filled with thoughts of hatred toward people unlike himself but he could possibly have some legitimate deals floating around out there. I filed it in the back of my mind for future reference, just in case. By the end of the evening I was handing White his report on Strom to take down to the office.
“There is nothing in there that points to Strom ordering the hit.” I told him pointing at the report in his hands.
“I gathered that by going through it all. It points to plenty of other nefarious acts however. I’ll get this to your father. He had asked us for any and all information we could come up with on Strom and this seems to be it.”
“It might not be all, give me until later tomorrow to do some more checking, just to be sure.”
“All right. If you really haven’t slept for two days, you better get to bed.” He ordered.
“Yes sir.” With that he stepped out of my apartment. I watched him get onto the elevator before I shut my door.
I had been anxious to get back on the computer and the password I had figured out. I wasn’t fully convinced the password meant what I thought it did and the only way to be sure was to read what was hidden behind it.
I had the screen up within seconds of shutting White out of my apartment. I began to read. There were no specific names mentioned in anything I was reading but I now knew I was right. I found specific’s about Penumbra that could lead me to believe him to be only one person. My shoulders slumped, my heart raced and my breathing was shallow. I didn’t know how I could live with this information. I knew the identity of Penumbra and I knew I could never tell another soul. I decided to try to get some sleep, maybe I could forget by morning.
Shades of Grey: Book Two of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles Page 16
