by Mike Faricy
“The only reason I’m sitting in this chair is to warn you about trying anything else. Next time I catch someone in there, and I will catch them, but next time I’m not going to let them off. I’m going to hurt them, and then I’m going to come looking for you. Believe me, you don’t want that, and I certainly don’t want that.”
He gave a small laugh, then said, “I think you’ve seen far too many movies, Haskell. But what if, just for the sake of discussion, what if I could offer you enough money so you’d never, ever have to work again? You could just relax, take it easy, never have another worry, for the rest of your life. I have to believe something like that would interest you. Make you think maybe it was worth the risk. Except that, I forgot to mention, there is no risk. It’s all scot free, more money than you ever dreamed. All you have to do is sit on your ass, hold your hand out and get paid.”
“Sounds great. Unfortunately, I’ve already got a job, and I intend to see it through.”
“Yes, your current form of employment. Hitting people over the head with a board, wrapping someone up with an extension cord, showering with a sex-crazed blonde…”
“She’s not a natural blonde,” I said, hoping I was able to hide my surprise.
“I’m aware of that fact,” he said, raising his voice. He paused for a moment, regaining control, then took a deep breath and continued. “You’re working for a certifiable individual, wrapped in tinfoil, who thinks the highway department is using electromagnetic fields to scan his brain. Not to mention his partner, a woman who’s betting on her good looks and a prayer that she can sell a revolutionary software package to the largest retailer in the world.”
“Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up.”
“Tell me, do you have connections on the police force?” Wegger asked as I got out of my chair.
“I have some favorite arresting officers.”
“Better tell them to get ready. You leave my offer on the table and you may just find yourself in a heap of trouble.”
“Interesting, and here I thought I was going to go the extra mile just by warning you.” I picked the flashlight up from his desk and shoved it into my pocket.
“I thought you were returning that.”
“Yeah, that was the intention, but on second thought I think I’ll just hang onto it. Don’t underestimate me, Wegger, and stay away from Iggy and Bonnie.”
He half laughed, “I can get whatever I want sitting right here.”
“Enjoy your day. Nice meeting you. You got a pretty nice joint, here. Hey, don’t get up, I’ll see myself out.”
His face grew red, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a basketball, and that left eye seemed to roll up into his head as he watched me leave the room. On the way out I counted two more security cameras, one in the hallway and one on the staircase. I let myself out the front door, thought about leaving the door open, but, ever the gentleman, I closed it behind me.
I climbed in the Lancer and attempted to start it. The thing finally coughed to life on the third try. I revved the engine a couple of times to make sure it was going to stay alive, casting a large blue cloud of exhaust across the cul-de-sac in the process. As I pulled away I noticed a large oil slick the size of a dinner plate on the driveway behind the Jag compliments, of my Lancer. Nice to meet you, Wegger.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Come on, Iggy, open up, we need to talk.”
I’d been knocking on Iggy’s locked door for the past ten minutes. I wanted to let him know what had transpired so he could prepare himself for whatever Wegger had planned. I was sure Wegger was going to try something. I just hoped Iggy could tell me what it was.
I could hear him moving around on the other side of the door, heard his Mylar blanket rustling in the dark. It dawned on me once again that the guy was certifiable, and this was who I was hanging my hat on since Bonnie was gone for the afternoon.
“Iggy, come on, man, don’t make me kick in the door.”
“You, you wouldn’t do that, Dev. Would you?” he called, not sounding all that sure about me.
“I’m putting my door kicking boots on as we speak, Iggy. I’m going to kick in that door and then when I do, well, the highway department will just have an easier time for any scanning they might want to do.”
I heard muttering from the other side but couldn’t make out what was being said.
“Iggy, I’m pretty much out of time, so I’m going to count to three. If you don’t unlock the door, I’m going to kick it in. Here we go. One. Two. Three. Hey, did you hear me? I said three, Iggy, three.”
Still no response. I slammed the palm of my hand against the door, hoping it would sound like a kick from inside Iggy’s cave.
“All right, all right, just a moment, don’t kick it again,” he shouted from the other side, then unsnapped the lock. A moment later the door opened. “Okay, okay, but hurry in before they’re aware of the breach. Come on, hurry, hurry, please.”
I hustled into the dark, and Iggy quickly slammed the door behind me, hitting the back of my heel. He snapped the lock and then wedged a chair up beneath the doorknob.
“Thanks for letting me in, Iggy. I know you…”
“It’s not like you gave me much of a choice. They monitor my defensive perimeter constantly. I can only hope they weren’t able to breach it. I’ll know in just a moment,” he said then rustled past me and sat down in front of another bank of computers I hadn’t recalled seeing on my previous visit. He rapidly ran his fingers over the keyboard, issuing a series of commands, then pulled the Mylar sheet tighter around his shoulders and braced himself as he read the screen.
“Look, Iggy, while you’re checking on your defensive perimeter, I don’t know how aware you are of what’s been going on here the last couple of evenings.”
“You mean you and Bonnie? Pounding and riding one another through the night? Rather impossible not to miss the activity. Relax, the system automatically destroys the images after twenty-four hours, well, unless I override that capability.”
“You-you’ve got video of us, too?”
“And audio,” he said, then paused. “You mean Bonnie records her activities?”
“Bonnie? No, but Niles Wegger knew,” I said, without going into specifics.
He didn’t seem too surprised and asked, “Are you going to tell her I’ve recorded both of you?”
“How much upstairs do you have under surveillance?”
“How much? Why, everything, of course.” I detected a slight smile illuminated by the computer screen.
“And outside?”
“Enough to keep everyone safe.”
I moved on. “So what did you see regarding our last two visitors?”
“Well, the one you assaulted, Wayne, I was alerted a good ten minutes before you interceded. As a matter of fact, I was about to phone the police when you pulled the door open and introduced yourself. Well done, I might add.”
“Thank you. What about the guy last night?”
“The perimeter alarm wasn’t activated because someone left that sliding door open. He just walked right in. It wasn’t until the voice activation kicked in that I was made aware of anything.”
“And you have an image, a recording?”
“I thought you might be asking that. I’ve already reproduced an image. I ran it on the local and national data base. I have a match, ninety-seven-point-nine on the national base. Ninety-nine-point-three on the local base. You can just round that up to a hundred percent certainty. It came up Delmar Wegger on both databases, although I could have told you that without running it through the database. I’ve met him two or three times, he’s the younger brother of Niles.”
“You know this?”
“It was my job, and I took it very seriously. Niles was, at one time, a trustworthy member of our team. Unfortunately, he became enamored with the financial potential of our work and, well, that’s why he finds himself where he is today.”
“And where is that?”
“So you guys were part of a team that worked for a government agency. What was it the FBI, the CIA, NSA?”
“I’m really not at liberty to discuss that.”
“Sorry I asked. But let me ask you this, what can we expect from your former colleague, Niles Wegger?”
“You mean after your meeting with him this morning?”
“How did you know about that?”
“I was there, listening.”
“What?”
“I was there, in his computer. He has two somewhere in that room. It’s a rather simple procedure to hack in and utilize a microphone. I can tape things and then listen twenty-four hours later if I choose. Although I listened to the two of you live this morning.”
“But how did you ever get in there? Into Wegger’s library?”
“I did it from a remote location. It’s relatively simple, anyone can do it, even you. Well, maybe.”
“You haven’t seen me in action, I can screw up Windows 7 faster…”
“Just for a start, I use Linux. It allows me to turn off their antivirus system, embed a software key logger and…”
“You know, if the lights were on in this place you’d be able to see my eyes spinning opposite ways right now.”
Iggy actually laughed, or was it a groan? I wasn’t sure. Then he said, “You know he wasn’t kidding, Wegger. He meant what he said, you could go with him and never have to work another day in your life.”
“Yeah, and all I’d have to do is live with the fact that I let him rip off you and Bonnie, two people who trusted me, for the rest of my life. No thanks. I’m just not wired that way.”
Iggy stared at me in the dark for a long moment, then said, “They’ll be returning, although not today. Bonnie’s scheduled to fly out to Seattle tomorrow. They’ll be back once she’s gone.”
“Do you know who? How many? And while we’re at it, if you can record conversations from Wegger’s library, how come they can’t do the same thing here? Why do they even have to break in?”
“I’ve a number of VPN’s established, and they change every twenty-three minutes. It makes it virtually impossible to…”
“Wait a minute, back up, what the hell is a VPN?”
Iggy gave a long sigh. “VPN stands for virtual private network. I have a number of them that change regularly. It’s basically like a large safe where some aspect of the combination changes every few minutes. It’s simple yet impossible to hack. Therefore, they have to gain physical access, imbed their program and depart without my knowledge. It’s why we’ve had the last two break-ins. It’s why I’ve locked myself down here for the past six months. Ultimately, it’s why Bonnie contacted you.”
“Why not just get some armed guards or move everything in the dead of night?”
“Armed guards bring attention and, even if we moved, they would be able to track us. On the one hand, it’s quite complex, but then on the other, it’s pretty basic. Here, look at this,” he said, then clicked about a hundred keys in just a second or two. All sorts of lines of computer code and things I had no idea what they were began scrolling across the screen.
“See, just a simple click of the keys and look at the information.”
“It looks like an algebra problem from high school. What the hell does it mean?” I said.
Another sigh. “It’s his position, Niles Wegger.”
“Position? Like he’s sitting down or standing?”
“No,” he sighed again as if to say ‘I don’t believe it.’ “No, this is his location, where he’s at, the specific geographic coordinates. If I click here, insert some code,” he clicked another fifty or sixty keys. “I can see his position, apparently a Super America station out on Pilot Knob road. I’d guess he’s refueling his vehicle.”
“Getting gas.”
“Yes, Mr. Haskell, he’s getting gas.”
“And you say we’ve got until tomorrow night?”
“To the best of my knowledge. However, while we know a lot about Mr. Wegger, we are rather limited when it comes to those in his employ. If he meets with an individual, say in a restaurant or a park…”
“Or a bar?”
“Yes, or a bar, it’s quite possible we would have no knowledge of such a meeting. Do you understand?”
I sat there thinking for a long moment.
“Mr. Haskell?”
“Yeah, I get it, sounds like we’re kind of screwed.”
“Hmmm, I guess in so many words, that could quite possibly be the scenario.”
“I’m thinking I might get some help. Maybe just to keep things a little more even. Then, with you listening in and all the early warning stuff, maybe we got a chance, sort of.”
“Time will tell,” Iggy said, then clicked another bunch of keys and sat there watching the computer gibberish run across the screen. “One more thing before you go,” he said.
I was out of the chair and heading to where I thought the door might be. “Yeah?”
“His warning about the police. I wouldn’t ignore that. He’ll do something. Use your email to send threats to the President or attempt to misappropriate funds from a major charity. Something newsworthy that will cause an immediate reaction and can be traced to you.”
“Not to worry, my computer is turned off,” I said.
Iggy gave an audible sigh. “That doesn’t really matter. Please be careful.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I placed a call to Dog Colli, hoping he’d be able to help, but got dumped into his message center. Then, against my better judgement, I called Luscious Dixon. Luscious was a former NFL tight end for three different teams and never played a game. His anger management issues, along with the felony convictions, proved to be a little more than the revamped, caring, sensitive NFL wanted to deal with. It was close to two in the afternoon when I called, and I had the distinct impression I woke him up.
“Mmmm, what?” a sleepy voice growled.
“Luscious, Dev Haskell, catch you at a bad time?”
“Dev? Oh-oh, what time is it?”
“Almost two.”
“Damn, missed that job interview.”
“Want me to call back, or do you need a ride somewhere?”
“No, too late, it was s'posed to be at nine this morning. That’s okay, didn’t want the job anyway.”
“You looking for work?”
“Not really. My mom lined it up, she’s always got ideas about how I should spend my time.”
‘Yeah, imagine the nerve, wanting her son to get a job,’ I thought. “Well, I might be able to use a man of your…capabilities. Nothing too stressful, just sort of keeping an eye on things.”
“Are meals included?”
“I think I can find a way to do that. You interested?”
“When do I start?”
“Well, I was thinking the sooner the better. You want to grab a shower, I could pick you up in an hour or so.”
“Oh, I can skip the shower, maybe pick me up in a half hour. Then we could stop at McDonalds, if that’s okay?”
At close to four hundred pounds, Luscious skipping a shower didn’t seem like the best idea. “How ‘bout this, you hop in the shower, I’ll grab the McDonalds on the way and meet you in an hour, sound okay?”
“Perfect,” he said and we hung up.
Between the Big Macs, double cheeseburgers, three large orders of fries and three large strawberry shakes it was close to a fifty dollar bill. On the other hand, a small price to pay for the security. No one was getting past Luscious. I could just place him in a chair in the middle of the sliding door and the rear entrance would be effectively blocked. You’d need a forklift to move him. I pulled in front of his building about an hour later. He was already out there waiting for me.
Not exactly an attractive image, he was sitting in the middle of the steps leading up to the front door. Luscious was perfectly placed to be in the way of anyone with an idea of coming or going, and in the process
of finishing the remnants of a giant Butterfinger candy bar. Another wrapper lay at his feet. I honked as I pulled the Lancer to the curb, then lowered the window.
“Hey, Lucious, good to see you man. Hop in back, there’ll be more room and the McDonald’s are all back there.”
He crammed the last of the Butterfinger into his mouth, licked his finger tips so as not to miss a crumb, then reached up and grabbed the wrought iron railing, pulling himself to his feet. The railing wobbled back and forth but somehow managed to remain attached to the steps and the wall of the building.
I reached over the seat and unlocked the back door just as Luscious pulled the handle. He backed into the Lancer, then sort of inched his way across the rear seat, shaking the car back and forth like it had just been hit by a series of tidal waves from either side. “Good to see you, Dev. Now, where are those McDonald’s?”
A moment later I heard one of the bags rustling and then one of the half-dozen dinners being unwrapped. “Mummmph, I was beginning to think I might waste away,” he said, not really joking, and then taking another big bite.
As I pulled away from the curb the Lancer had a decided lean to the left, and the engine seemed to growl a bit more than usual.
“I think you’ll be okay,” I said as we slowly gained speed, then watched in the rearview mirror as he bit into the second double cheeseburger. “We’ve got a pretty easy gig, Luscious. I’m just making sure no one bothers these folks. It’s a house in a swanky suburban neighborhood, deck out the back, big yard. I had two incidents over the last three nights, cracked one guy over the head, the other ran away.”
“What’s so important the dudes are breaking in?” he asked, then crammed the remainder of the double cheeseburger into his mouth.
I went on to give Luscious a general explanation. I told him about Iggy and Iggy’s peculiar lifestyle. I mentioned the program Iggy and Bonnie had developed and how they were going to attempt to sell it to a big internet retailer. I told him the kids were gone. I didn’t mention I’d been sleeping with Bonnie or that I’d gone and talked to Niles Wegger. I skipped telling him about my conversation with Iggy and how he’d bugged Niles Wegger’s computer, or how Niles had somehow recorded Bonnie and me in the shower.
