by Finian Blake
“No Boris,” Rhonda said in a brooding voice, “we are just both in a dark mood. Colleen just found out how close Adam came to cashing it all in. It killed everybody’s enthusiasm.” Boris smiled rolling on the bed kissing both women on the back of their necks holding them close waiting for somebody to break the silence.
“Adam is my brother and I came this close to losing him,” Cherry held up her hands with her fingers barely a quarter inch apart. “I have seen a lot of death and injury but somehow this incident has come too close to home.”
“I have always seen you as being impossibly strong emotionally. It is strange seeing this vulnerable side of you.” Boris pulled both women back on the bed kissing them tenderly. This lasted for about fifteen minutes until an alarm in Boris’s workstation brought everybody back to reality. Boris jumped out of bed running to his seat typing in several lines of code until the beeping stopped. Both Cherry and Rhonda looked really pissed off at Boris.
“I am sorry about the interruption,” Boris pleaded. “I am working the interface which will connect our two contract computers with the NSA computers and the alarm will sound to tell me what to do next.”
“I know Boris,” both women said at the same time, “come back to bed until the next alarm rings.” Boris appreciated both Cherry and Rhonda since they seem to understand his little quirks. Boris was kissing Rhonda passionately slipping his hand inside of Cherry’s bra when the alarm rang again.
“I have to do this for six damn hours.” He started to get up and Cherry pushed him back on the bed walking over to the console, grabbing his keyboard and mouse returning to the bed with them.
“You may have to respond to your mistress, but you don’t have to get out of bed every time. Work from bed!” Cherry straddled Boris holding the keyboard against her breasts for him to type on. Boris picked up the mouse placing it on Rhonda’s upper thigh using it as a mouse pad. He worked the mouse until he was able to get the security camera to focus on the human tangle that was on the bed transferring the picture to one of the secondary screens so that the three of them could see it.
“I want the cover of modern computing magazine,” Boris said with cheerful pride as Cherry and Rhonda broke out laughing.
“This is why we come down to see you when we are in a mood,” Cherry said suddenly in a mood to play.
“I have five more hours of this before I can get a complete interface. Could you…?” Cherry brought a nipple to Boris’s lips and Rhonda bit his nipple.
Ted and Nadia decided to get rid of their jet lag with a good workout. There was a jogging track around the edge of the property which was three quarters of a mile with a half-mile inner track that was more like a steeple chase course. There was an indooroutdoor competition size swimming pool and a large well-equipped gym in the center of the 60 acres where they planned on finishing the workout. Nadia and Ted did the first lap of the jogging track at a brisk pace moving to the inner half-mile steeple chase course scrambling over fences, boulders, streams, and walls across extremely uneven ground. They did a second lap trying to beat the time of their first lap ending at the gym going directly to the training room where they did a half hour of intense sparring. Nadia and Ted did their cool down by walking the gym. As they walked in the weight room they were glad to see Tom and Helen.
“It’s good to see you,” Ted greeted Tom. “I see that this project is just about finished I’ll bet you’re glad to be out of the construction.”
“The construction was only a minor inconvenience,” Tom said. “We can’t even see any of the buildings over here from my house. The way they finished this makes it an excellent Riding Park for Helen and Sue.”
“Yes, I ride every day,” Sue said enthusiastically.
“Rhonda set up a modest little steeple Chase area where we can jump the horses,” Helen continued. “There is no real need to go anywhere else for recreation. Even the helicopter pad is far enough away from the houses that it is no real inconvenience.”
“How do you handle your security,” Nadia asked Tom with a laugh.
“The monitoring center is actually located right here in the basement of the gym with a microwave repeater that transmits directly to Four Diamonds Security which is only three miles away, so there is no hardware that can be cut or compromised.” Ted continued, “We use the gym here for training the guards and we have two guards on duty 24 7. All the residences are also covered by Four Diamonds Security and of course I live on property. All the residential buildings main house, guest house, and outbuildings have panic rooms which exit directly into the underground tunnels that connect the whole complex.”
“Sue and your daughter Cher are at the swimming pool. Why don’t we all go over to our place for lunch and we can catch up on old times,” Helen asked? Helen collected the girls letting them lead the adults down the stairway into the basement opening the door that proved to be a parking lot for electric golf carts. There were only four seats in the golf cart and Nadia wondered how the six people would fit. Tom loaded Ted and Nadia in the back seat of their golf cart and started to drive off. Nadia looked over her shoulder to see Sue sit down in the driver’s seat of another golf cart and Cher in the passenger seat. Sue followed Tom through a tunnel finally coming out into a large circular room with two tunnels branching off. Tom selected a tunnel and continued to drive.
“There is a right and left tunnel for the residences and a tunnel going from this hub back to the rec center and finally to the computer center,” Helen explained as Tom drove on. Helen pointed to pipes mounted on the side of the tunnel. “All the utilities are underground for each residence and one of these pipes is a hot water feed which supplies radiant heat to all the residences we also use it to keep the tunnels at a steady 60 degrees all year long.” Helen pointed to cameras mounted in the ceiling of the tunnel. “All common areas of the project are monitored by audio, video, and infrared, which are controlled from the security center located in the basement of the rec center.”
Tom parked the cart and Sue parked her cart next to theirs. Tom indicated three doors, “main house, guest house, and the barn, you will be going up through the barn because Cher would like you to say hello to her dog Tom. The girls led the way up the stairway coming out into the main aisle of the barn. Susan led the way over to the kennel. When the dog spotted her he opened the door racing to meet her.
“Tom you remember Cher,” Sue said as Tom jumped up placing his paws on Cher’s shoulders. Tom was a large one hundred and ten pound German Shepard that was her pride and joy. Cher was used to large dogs because she owned Tom’s brother Hans who was back in Manchester. Nadia noticed a zipper surrounded by fabric.
“Helen is that what I think it is?”
“Yes that is the zipper from Felix Owen’s pants that Tom claimed. Remember when, Felix broke into the barn while you and Sue were having a sleepover. He really is quite proud of his trophy,” Helen said.
“Zipper Tom,” Sue said quietly causing the large dog to start snarling at his trophy. Sue and Cher both laughed as they stroked Tom affectionately, “good dog Tom.”
“Sue, why don’t you and Cher play with Tom while we go in and fix lunch,” Helen said knowing that the girls had a lot of energy to expend. Helen led the way out of the barn toward the main house pointing at a small cottage that was between the house and the barn.
“That is our guest house there are two bedrooms and a great room which includes a small simple kitchen. It is comfortable, but not too comfortable if you know what I mean,” Helen laughed as they proceeded to the main house.
Adam was awakened by Colleen’s voice talking to somebody in the other room. The voices became louder and Colleen cracked the door peeking into the room.
“Oh good you are awake,” Colleen said softly dragging another man into the room. “This is Doctor Peters I called him to change your dressing.”
“You shouldn’t have called the doctor,” Adam protested.
“I know how you make light of your injur
ies,” Colleen explained quietly, “so the good Doctor is going to show me how to do a proper dressing and make sure that you are still sewn up properly.”
“Come on then let’s get it done,” Adam said with a pained acceptance knowing that arguing was a waste of time. The Doctor removed the dressing probed around the large dimple caused by the wound. Examining the stitches, he found that everything was in reasonable shape considering the injury.
“As far as bullet wounds go this appears to be a good clean wound, the bullet did not start this spall until it made its exit, and somehow or another it did not tear into any tendons, so the only thing that needs to heal is red meat which heals fast. He pulled out a bag of gauze and tape proceeding to show Colleen how to dress the wound. “You’re lucky young man,” the doctor said using his most optimistic tone.
“More than you realize,” Adam said sounding completely depressed. The doctor turned raising an eyebrow.
“And what do you mean by that my friend.”
“Immediately after I was evacuated my team was called to clear another building and somebody set off an improvised explosive device collapsing the building on my team. I lost a whole team to a man.” Adam said with the depression being obvious.
“That was a shattering experience but you have to be able to accept your good luck,” the doctor offered.
“Right...,” was all Adam could say as he flopped back on the bed. The Doctor took Colleen by the arm leading her out of the room closing the door behind them.
“There is no problem with the wound healing, but the depression seems to be a serious thing. It has only been a short time since the incident. At this point I can only advise you to keep an eye on him. There is no doubt in my mind that the body will heal, but the heavy depression from the loss of his team could be critical.” Colleen returned to the room forcing Adam out of bed and into the shower. She taped plastic over the new dressing and proceeded to carefully wash both of them. She went in Adam’s bag finding only military uniforms. Not being discouraged she walked over to one of the dresser drawers pulling out fresh civilian clothes which she kept on hand in case Adam decided to visit. Colleen walked over to the telephone keying in the number zero two, for Cherry’s intercom number.
Boris, Cherry, and Rhonda had completed doing the interface about a half hour ago and were in a state of sleepy happiness when the intercom started to ring.
“Colleen, this is a very bad time.” Cherry said as she tried to brush Boris’s hand out from between her legs.
“Then I’ll be brief Rhonda, Boris, and you will be having dinner with us tonight. I’m going to see if I can get Nadia, Ted, Helen, and Tom to join us. I would like Adam to have a good first evening at a nice dinner with everybody.” Colleen switched the intercom from speaker to handset. “Adam was having some issues and I was hoping that a large get together might help him.”
“Would you like to make the arrangements or would you like me to do it.” Cherry knew that Colleen may not be able to talk in front of Adam so she did not question why.
“I would really love it if you would make the arrangements I would like the crowd to be as large as possible.”
“It’s almost three o’clock now I will make a reservation for seven at your favorite steakhouse.” Cherry hung up the phone, grabbed her clothes and tossed Rhonda her clothes.
“Rhonda we are doing a fancy dinner for Adam and Colleen in her favorite steakhouse at seven o’clock. Get on the phone and call everybody you know I would like at least twenty people for dinner. Boris darling will that be a problem for you?”
“No I need just one more hour to link with the mainframe in my old department at the NSA building. I promised the director that we would start doing contract work tomorrow.” Boris had an afterthought, “would you like Tamar to join us.”
“That is a wonderful idea darling,” Cherry said stroking Boris’s cheek lightly. “I need to have a discussion with her anyway. Rhonda and I have a lot of arrangements to make for the winter line. Call Four Diamonds and arrange six limousines there will be heavy drinking tonight.” Cherry grabbed Rhonda by the arm dragging her out the door.
Boris called the director on his private cell phone. “Director we have four out of four mainframe computers up and running. Two of which will be dedicated to your needs. When I have your confirmation we will establish a direct link. After that we will be able to begin remote monitoring of the Russians once again.”
“It’s about God damn time, you and those two divas caused me considerable distress setting up this change. How many people can you put on this?”
“I am dedicating four of my people to this. I also have sixteen other people available for support but they are working for computer security. They are all premier hackers from all over the world with a reputation for doing some serious disruption to very secure computer networks,” Boris said with pride.
“Aren’t you worried that they will resort to old habits,” the director asked.
“That is what I am counting on,” Boris said with pride. “As I have said we hire premier hackers from all over the world I have six hackers from Europe, five hackers from Asia, three hackers from the Middle East, and two hackers from Nigeria.”
“Nigeria,” the director said in disbelief, “why in the hell would you take hackers from Nigeria?”
“The Africans have some very accomplished hackers and a number of attacks actually originate from Nigeria. Each group of nationals has very individual hacking signatures and my hackers are familiar with several other hackers in their area.”
“So how do you decide who gets hacked,” the director asked.
“There are companies, and countries that actually pay us to hack them,” Boris said gleefully. “We figure out their weaknesses by doing a hard assault on their systems and then we correct the areas of weakness. It is all very profitable and most of the time they are grateful to us for hacking them. When we’re finished with the contract we destroy all the information that is been hacked. The DOD, FBI and the State Department are currently paying us to hack their computers, soon we will finish negotiating with the NSA and we will begin hacking you. We are busy little bee’s trying to hack the hard lines, microwave, and satellite communications.”
“But you already work for us.” The director said sounding confused.
“Yes and we are giving you are patriotic rates,” Boris said cheerfully. “We are a private contractor billing for business as agreed upon. If we get caught doing something inappropriate we have no official connection with the United States government. Our facility merely happens to be located in the United States, so any wrongdoing on our part will not reflect on the Country.”
“And all of this generates enough money to pay for your facility,” the director asked showing genuine interest.
“God yes,” Boris exclaimed, “private industry is more interested in our work than governments and they make up two thirds of our business. We have only been in business for two years and we have already ordered an expansion of three more mainframe computers. In two more years we will have paid off the initial investment being completely in the black. I must go now Director it seems that I have developed a social life. Rhonda and Colleen will be in touch with you shortly to finish negotiating the contracts.” Boris hung up the phone thinking of the twenty hour days that he put in as a salaried employee.
Helen returned to the kitchen after delivering lunch to Sue and Cher. “Nadia, the girls have informed me that they will be jumping the horses after lunch, so it looks as if we will have time for a chat.”
“I see that Tom has really become attached to Sue. Will he be joining the girls,” Nadia asked?
“Of course he will,” Helen said with pride, “he does as well on the jumps as the horses do. He is Sue’s shadow. When Sue is home he is never more than a few feet from her which both Tom and I love to see.”
“I see Felix’s zipper hanging in the kennel,” Nadia said trying not to laugh, “Have you heard anything from
that idiot?”
“Yes but he will not cross the county line,” Tom said driving a carving knife deep into the cutting board with a dull thud. “I promised Felix that I would cut his balls off and feed them to the dog if I ever see his face again.”
“So tell me Tom how is my U.S. division doing?”
“Nationwide we are doing well, but in the Washington DC area we are hard pressed to hire enough help. Running the security for, Four Diamonds Computer Security is putting a large drain on our resources. They pay well for our work, but we want to hold the line on quality people.” As if on cue the phone rang.
“Hello Boris how are your wives today. Yes, I see. I think that we could manage ten. We will see you at dinner, Boris.”
“That was Boris,” Tom said to Ted, “Colleen is throwing a party for Adam and it seems that we will all be doing some heavy drinking tonight, so Cherry has ordered ten limousines for everybody attending the dinner.”
“Can you really handle that many limousines,” Nadia asked.
“Yes since this is a social evening we can use reserve driver’s instead of trained bodyguards. The cars are no problem. We are only going ten miles and can use rookies for the driving. What about the girls? Do you think they should join us,” Tom wanted to feel out what Nadia’s position would be on the issue of children attending the party?
“Cher would be wounded if we left her behind and so would Sue. They absolutely adore Adam and look forward to spending time with him.”
A line of limousines pulled up in front of the steak house disgorging their passengers. Four Diamonds did not use stretch limousines. Their main business was catering to dignitaries and not party groups. Cherry had made arrangements for the party room so everybody was escorted to their tables immediately. As he walked through the bar Boris noticed the director from NSA having a drink at the bar.
