Armchair Safari (A Cybercrime Technothriller)

by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

  She couldn’t get the thought out of her head. Megan crawled out from the rock cavity and found Haas picking through a pile of equipment he had made from the slain bodies. There were daggers, axes, and other weapons, some jewelry and personal effects, even wilderness supplies. Haas crouched and inspected a gold locket in the palm of his hand. He tossed it to Megan as she walked slowly toward him and she caught it with both hands.

  “There. A present for you,” the ranger said.

  The locket had a fine chain and was delicately small. The workmanship was exquisite. The locket itself opened to reveal a small space for a portrait or other memento to be placed, but it was empty right now. The intricate etchings and platinum thread were like nothing Megan had ever seen before. It was certainly valuable.

  “Thank you, Haas.”

  “No problem. I think your little scare is worth some jewelry.”

  “No—no. I mean... thank you. For saving my life.”

  Haas stopped his rummaging. He looked at her with his unsettling stare for a moment, then stood up without any further acknowledgment and walked over to the body of Benz. It took a moment for Megan to realize that that was all she was going to get from him. He did not show any sympathy, any relief, any anger or irritation. He just... was. She followed him over to the body and watched as the ranger struggled to free the wavy blade from the terrible wound it had inflicted on Benz. It was stuck fast in the dead man’s chest.

  “That’s a very unique sword, Haas. I’ve never seen one like it before.”

  “It’s quite rare,” the ranger said as he placed his foot on Benz’s breastplate and jerked on the handle.

  When Haas did not volunteer any more information, Megan decided to press for more. She had to know how he had really won the swordfight.

  “It must be very useful to have such a powerful magic blade.”

  The ranger finally yanked the sword free. Megan could see runes on the exotic metal under the coating of gore. Haas raised it vertically in front of him and studied it. Then, to Megan’s surprise, he handed it to her so that she could examine it as well.

  “This is a Gaussian blade,” the ranger said. “Very nasty in dealing damage. But surprisingly, it’s not magical. The nature of the metal resists enchantment. Either way, I’d like to not advertise it. Much like your... device. Wouldn’t you concur there’s not exactly a lot of good that comes out of sharing one’s tools of the trade?”

  “Yes. Yes, most definitely.”

  “Good. I feel the same way about my sword.” Haas brought his piercing eyes down to her level. “I suppose we should just keep this all to ourselves.”

  “S-sure,” she nodded.

  It didn’t really sound like a threat. But it was clear that Haas valued his secrecy and was prepared to take her down with him. The last thing Megan wanted was for anyone to know about the Portable Hole. If the price for that secrecy was to keep mum about Haas’s capabilities in a fight, she would absolutely keep her mouth shut.

  She looked down at the dead body of Benz. “I think your secret looks like it has a tendency to get stuck.”

  The ranger stared at her. “Yes, that does happen sometimes. Just got to pull harder.”

  Megan smiled queasily.

  Megan and Haas went through the brigands’ camp and packed a small sack of booty to haul back. The walk was absent of conversation. Megan couldn’t stop thinking about the fight she had seen. Here she was, thinking Haas had been about to sacrifice himself to buy her some time to escape. Hardly. Hidden beneath this facade of a ranger was some kind of hard-core killer. No wonder he kept to himself. He didn’t want anyone to know more than they had to about him.

  Megan was usually like that herself. Perhaps they had more in common than she thought.

  It was near dawn when they reached camp, and all of their companions were up and apparently equipping themselves for a rescue sortie. Kalam was visibly relieved when he saw them. Then he became very angry. “Damn it, girl, where did you go?”

  “I’m sorry, Kalam. I wandered away to look at the scenery. It’s one of the few things keeping my sanity right now. I could be earning a lot more money if I had stayed up north.”

  Kalam drew a deep breath. “All right. I understand. But—please. You shouldn’t have left camp. That was very dangerous. It’s why we’re adventuring as a party.”

  “I know. And I know that this quest is bigger than just me.” She sighed. “I’ll try harder.”

  The bald fighter sat down on a rock near the dark edge of the campsite. He invited Megan to do the same. He looked her over before speaking. “Megan, each of us has a defined role in this expedition. Father Corman is our healer, to keep us alive and fed. Haas is our navigator through the wild. Sameer can destroy huge numbers of enemy in one fell swoop with his combat magic. Boris and myself are the brawlers, the tanks.

  “But you... you are critical. A good thief is hard to find, and with where we are headed, with as much money as there is at stake—we need you to stay alive. The treasure we’re seeking is bound to be trapped, guarded, and very well protected. We can’t make this investment in time and effort only to have our thief killed carelessly along the way. We cannot reach our destination and be short the most important, key member of the expedition.”

  Megan nodded guiltily. “I know. You’re right. At least Haas came along when he did.”

  Kalam raised an eyebrow. “How do you mean?”

  Megan hesitated. It occurred to her she had seen something of which even Kalam—the guy who recruited Haas in the first place—was not aware.

  “I, uh... I just mean, what if I had gotten into trouble? Haas happened to come upon me and convinced me to come back to camp. Like you said, I’m a thief. I’m no good in a straight-up fight.” She paused before adding, “Nor is a ranger, right?”

  “No, they’re not.” He almost seemed like he puffed his chest out when he continued, “You’re very lucky. If you had stayed out there too long, Boris and I probably would have had to come to your rescue.”

  “No doubt.”

  As if the matter was all settled now, Kalam stood and patted Megan on the shoulder. He glanced down at her neck.

  “That’s a pretty necklace. I hadn’t noticed that before.”

  “Yeah, uh, thanks,” Megan said. She had to fight to not cover up the locket from an encounter that never happened. “Guess I should help pack up and get on the move, huh?”

  “Indeed,” said Kalam, and they wandered back over to the fire.

  15

  Boston, Massachusetts.

  “That was wicked awesome!”

  Robby Callahan was standing at the rail in the upper section of Fenway Park, pumping his six-year-old fists and cheering at the grand slam homerun that the Red Sox’s Hugo Fuente had just put over the left outfield fence. Derek was smiling as he watched his son. Even at his young age Robby seemed to understand baseball. He was already obsessed with trading cards and had a Sox motif all over his bedroom. When Derek had driven by to pick him up from Jules’ house, he had even been waiting with his glove and a baseball, sitting on the front step anxiously ready to get to the park as fast as possible. He seemed like he was practically expecting to play. Derek loved it. He couldn’t help taking a minute to fantasize about all of them living down in Austin, he and Jules and Robby, where he would take Robby to baseball games all the time—even if they were the minor leagues—and play catch in the front yard in the evenings after work.

  That truly would have been wicked awesome, Derek thought. It was too bad that the way things were going, that probably wasn’t going to happen.

  At least Juliana was being civil again. Derek thought back to what the year prior to their separation had been like—constant arguments, screaming and crying, him feeling like shit and her accusing him of causing her to feel the same. It was painful to think back and wonder what had happened to the woman he had fallen in love with. What had caused her to change? Or, had he? Derek didn’t think it was him, never mind the
accusations. He had always busted his hump to be a provider, to take care of others. He didn’t understand why that wasn’t good enough anymore.

  He remembered back to when they had first met—him fresh out of the Marine Corps, thank God, and in his first year at Harvard Business School. Blowing off steam after exams, out with friends at a local bar, drinking like a Marine, standing up to a couple local toughs who were picking a fight with a couple that clearly didn’t want to be bothered. When the brawl was over, after the ambulance took away one guy and the cops took away the others, Derek’s friends begged him to go to the emergency room himself after seeing how badly his arm had been cut up by a broken beer bottle. It was totally overblown—there wasn’t that much blood. But he went anyway, and after sitting patiently in the ER at Mass General while car wreck victims were wheeled in on stretchers and weird, homeless drunks wandered around, he noticed an exceptionally cute nurse keeping an eye on him. Suddenly, he found himself acting like his arm was on fire and in danger of falling off, if only just to get her to come take his temperature.

  That’s how he met Juliana.

  They started dating. When Derek graduated and rejoined Deloitte, they would schedule long weekends and exotic getaways at wherever his engagements seemed to lead him. It was a wonderful, romantic relationship in all respects. They got married. They planned to have a family. Jules got pregnant and their son Robby was born. And then... somewhere along the way, things just started changing. Their relationship became a lot of effort. Derek’s demands from work began to drive a wedge of resentment between them—she had a busy schedule as a nurse, and he was on the road a lot, and why was a nanny left to raise their child? He got on several engagements between Boston, which was great, and L.A., which was not. He became closer friends with Jim Palmisano during the latter. But the problems at home remained and got worse. Robby started to become a source of contention instead of joy.

  Now they were separated and contemplating divorce. Oh, how far they had fallen from those early days when Jules had looked at Derek like he was a god come down from Mount Olympus.

  Sometimes Derek didn’t know why he had taken the job at Netertainment. He knew what he told himself. A stable job, focused around working from a desk rather than an airplane. That meant being around a lot more. Austin was a great town and a fine place to raise a son, though it was different than Boston, for sure. There were good hospitals in Austin and Derek was certain Jules would have no problem finding work. And Netertainment offered lots of upside; there were things Derek needed for himself, for his mental health and sense of being. The potential for bigger and better things down the road, instead of a never-ending sprint on the hamster wheel, was important to him. These were all the things that should have put his marriage back on track.

  But they hadn’t.

  And now, who knew where it would go.

  After the ball game was over—and a bunch of hot dogs, popcorn, and cotton candy had been devoured like they were bears getting ready to hibernate—they piled into Derek’s rental car and drove back out to Wellesley. It was dark now, but Derek knew the roads and exits like the back of his hand. He pulled up to the curb outside the familiar Cape Cod-style house and turned off the engine. Robby was asleep in his car seat in the back. Derek sat there for a time and just watched him, studying the features on his face, the unruly brown hair, the baseball glove clutched to his chest. The idea of leaving him behind when he flew back to Texas stabbed at his heart.

  Eventually, Derek carried a groggy boy up to the doorstep and rang the doorbell. It was only a moment before Juliana opened the door for them.

  “We had a good time,” Derek started to share.

  “Shhhh.”

  Juliana smiled as she saw her little angel. She took Robby from his arms and shuttled him off toward his bedroom, leaving Derek standing there in the entry alone. He wandered over to the living room on the left and looked around. It was just as he remembered it—the loveseat, the big, padded end chair, the antique coffee table, the bookshelf turned diagonally in the corner. This used to be his home. Not that he spent a lot of time sitting around the house, but he had always needed a mental anchor of where normalcy and stability existed, and that was home. Derek saw the picture frames still on the bookshelf and went to them, looking through the memories, thinking back to the happier times in his and Juliana’s life together. There was the one of Robby as a baby, another of Juliana, her sister, and her parents. It dawned on him suddenly that there were no photos of Derek anywhere on the bookshelf.

  By the time Juliana came back, Derek was sitting on the couch, feeling tired and lonely. Juliana sat very formally in the end chair across from him, her legs crossed.

  “Is he in bed?” asked Derek.

  “Mmm-hmm. Very tired. It’s ten o’clock, you know—way past his bedtime,” she said in a scolding tone.

  Derek sighed. “It just worked out that way, I guess. It was a long game. But I think he had a really good time.”

  “I’m glad for you two. Robby should be able to spend time with his father.”

  “Thanks for letting me take him out.”

  “Yep.”

  They both stared around the room without speaking.

  “Look, Jules,” Derek said finally, “there’s almost no travel with this job in Austin. Why don’t you come down and try living there? See what it’s like?”

  “We’ve talked about this. I don’t want to live in Austin, and your moving down there isn’t the answer.”

  “The answer?”

  “To us,” Juliana said wearily.

  “Would it hurt to try?” accused Derek.

  “What makes you think I want to try?” said Juliana. Her voice was weary from retreading a sadly familiar argument. She paused for a moment to collect herself. “Derek, I’m glad you got to spend time with Robby. He misses you. He needs his father. But you and I are just... different, now. We want different things. Everything I have is here, up here. I need stability. I can’t just leave all that behind—it would be the wrong thing to do for myself.”

  “That’s pretty close-minded, don’t you think?”

  “Why do you do that?” said Juliana, the exasperation building again. “Don’t tell me what to think.”

  “I’m sorry,” Derek said, raising his hands. “I wasn’t trying to—”

  “Just... just stop. Stop. Please.”

  They looked at each other.

  “I really don’t want to fight, Juliana.”

  “I don’t either,” she replied. “We need to talk about some of this, though. You can’t keep dodging it. It doesn’t do any good.”

  “I agree.”

  “Derek,” Juliana continued, “I didn’t sign up for a husband that was gone all the time. Career, business, duty, whatever—you always prioritize your work over your family, travel or not. It’s the choices you make. That’s the problem. I understand that’s the way you are. You can’t change yourself. I thought... I thought early on that you could, that I could change you. That having me and a family would change you. But that wasn’t realistic. And it wasn’t really fair to you, either.”

  “But part of the reason for me choosing this job is to have a lot less travel. That I would be able to be there for you guys,” Derek said.

  “You’ve said that before, Derek. It’s not the job, it’s you. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s just the way you are, how... restless you get. And it’s not what I need.”

  “Jules. Why won’t you try it with me?”

  “Derek, I don’t want to move to Texas.”

  There was another long, uncomfortable silence.

  “I appreciate the effort, Derek,” Juliana offered finally. “That, I really do. It’s just, this is not the right direction. Not for me, not for Robby. My parents are here. My sisters are here. I don’t want Robby to grow up not knowing them. I don’t want to leave it behind either. I need them in my life. I’m sorry your mom and dad aren’t with us anymore, but to me that makes it even more
important that Robby grows up being involved with his other grandparents.

  “The travel....” Juliana looked sadly over at Derek, as if pitying a dog that had just broken into the kitchen garbage but was too dim to realize the transgression. “The travel isn’t really the point, Derek. How many hours do you spend not working while you’re down there in Austin?”

  Derek shook his head in emphatic disagreement. “That’s a bad comparison, Jules. There’s not much else to do down there without you guys, so of course I put more hours in than I would if you were both down there with me.”

  “But that’s just it. If we moved, it would be exactly the same thing.” Juliana raised a hand to cut off the protest. “I know you, Derek. It was hard when you were with Deloitte. And I’m sure glad that I missed out when you were in the Marines. But this new company—Net-Entertainment, is it?—if it’s still starting up and struggling to grow, I know what you’re going to do. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a plane or living in the same city as your client. You’re going to devote every waking hour to helping make it work. You can’t help it. It’s very admirable and they’re lucky to have you. But it’s too hard on your family, and I don’t want that life anymore, for me or for Robby.”

  It was hard not to stand up. Derek had a habit of pacing when he wanted to argue, but he didn’t want to do that here and tower over his wife. Not that she would be intimidated, but it certainly wouldn’t help them connect. Instead, he fought for what he hoped sounded like a placating, reasonable tone.

  “I think you should try, Jules. This separation isn’t helping resolve anything, that’s for sure. It’s just letting each of us soak in our opinions without trying to bridge to a common ground. Come down with me.”

  “You keep saying you want me to move down there with you. Is that really what you want? Really?” Juliana said, looking him sharply in the eye.

  Derek hesitated. It was. Wasn’t it? To have a family to come home to, a son to raise, a wife to cherish? It had been difficult to do those things as a consultant on the road, where he rarely spent much time in the same city as his permanent residence. But this would be different. It had to be different. He couldn’t just only... work...