by Boyd Craven
“Sure thing. Dad, you don’t mind?” she asked.
“I don’t mind,” Steve told her.
“Can Matt ride with me?” she asked, a hopeful note in her voice.
Steve looked at Matthew and shrugged. He shrugged back and the men looked at Angela. She took a sip out of her wineglass and noticed everyone was looking at her.
“It was my idea. I told her earlier. Dwight must have overheard me,” she hissed to Steve who grinned back at her.
“I don’t care,” Steve said, “but remember I know how long it takes to drive over there and back.”
This time it was Amber who turned a bright red, and seeing that, Matt laughed. That stopped half a second later when she playfully slapped him across the chest with a backhand. He stood up and took the rest of his and Amber’s paper plates and plastic cups to the trash can and threw them away. Dwight got up and held out a hand.
“I’m glad you’re one of the good guys,” he said to Matthew. “I’ll see the rest of you at the church on Sunday, yeah?”
“You bet,” Steve told him. “You need a hand to the Jeep?”
“I’m old and drunk, not dead and stupid,” he snapped back, making the teenagers grin behind him.
“I should get headed home. Matthew,” Matthew Sr. said, “Make sure you two don’t get side tracked or break down somewhere. I heard that Jeep has been rebuilt top to bottom.”
“Yes sir, but I’m not driving,” he said lamely.
“But it’ll be your fault if something happens, come on,” Dwight said and grabbed Matt’s shoulder for balance.
“See you,” Amy shouted, and everyone said their goodbyes.
“I thought you were going to sleep?” Steve asked her as everyone but the three of them left.
“I’m tired, but I couldn’t sleep, not with everyone outside. I ended up playing some Minecraft.”
“So how do you go from Minecraft to asking about a movie I will never let you watch?”
“Because YouTube has commercials now,” Angela finished. “Come on bug, let’s help your daddy clean up, and we’ll all head to bed.”
“Aren’t you going to stay up for Amber to come home?” she asked.
“I’ll hear her; I have my stopwatch going,” he said holding up his cell phone.
He didn’t tell her it had died earlier, but she didn’t question it. He found that out when he tried to check the time ten minutes later when he heard the low rumble of the Jeep pulling in and plugged it in before drifting off to sleep, letting his wife talk with Amber about girl stuff.
CHAPTER 8
Waking up to a hangover was very low on Steve’s favorite things to happen, but besides the one beer Angela had, the three guys had killed the rest of an eighteen pack of Budweiser—his other go-to beer when he wasn’t drinking Corona. He rolled over, trying to focus and let out a small moan, as tiny jackhammers started pounding behind his eyes. Just out of his reach, he saw a glass of ice water and two white pills. He swung his legs off the bed and saw that they were Tylenol. For the millionth time, he sent up a prayer for having found an understanding and forgiving wife.
After he cleaned up and felt more or less human, he padded into the kitchen to the smell of frying bacon. He breathed in deep and walked in to see his daughters sitting on their knees on stools in front of the bar top that was just behind the cooktop where Angela was working. She had two skillets going at once, bacon in one and an egg concoction in another. It wasn’t the food so much that had his attention, it was how his wife’s shape filled out the t-shirt of his she was wearing, and how it barely came down to her thighs.
“Don’t be creepy, that’s Billy Wilson’s job,” Amber said.
“Oh hey, how are you feeling?” Angela said, putting down a spatula and wrapping her arms around Steve, giving him a hug.
“Pretty good, all things considered,” he said, bending down to kiss her and noticing she’d been filching bacon already.
She pushed him back, smiling and went back to work.
“What are we doing today, Dad?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, grabbing plates and beginning to put them out on the bar, one for each of them, and then repeating that with the silverware.
“Can you take me to the mall? I want to get a new game for the Xbox.”
“Sure,” Steve said, knowing her idea of a new game wasn’t the same as his older daughter’s.
“Mind if I drive over and hang out with Matt some, today?” Amber asked.
“I don’t mind if your mother doesn’t,” Steve said.
“Just make sure his father is going to be home,” Angela said, using the spatula to point at her.
“Sweet!” Amber said, pumping her fist.
“Dude,” Steve said back to her in a monotone.
“Huh?” Amy asked.
“Dude,” Angela said.
“Sweet!” Steve said with a little more enthusiasm.
“I think I’m lost here. What?” Amber said.
“Dude,” Angela repeated.
“Sweet!” Steve almost yelled, but his head killed him.
Angela busted up laughing and started grabbing plates and dishing up the food.
“What was that about?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know. When old people start acting funny, it means they are about to kiss, or go coo coo. I saw it in a movie once,” she told her little sister with a straight face.
“Ohhhhh,” was all Amy came up with in reply.
“It’s from Dude, Where’s My Car,” Steve told the girls.
“Even the name of that movie sounds lame. So when can I go?” she asked, holding up her phone.
“How about after breakfast, and you do the dishes?”Angela asked.
“Moooom,” she said in one long drawn out word.
“Whaaaaaaat?” Angela called back.
“It’s not just the grownups who are weird. I hope it isn’t contagious,” Amy said.
Before leaving, Steve grabbed his cell phone and headed to the garage. They were taking his truck because he didn’t stop at the bank to draw cash out the day before, and he wanted to stop in at Sam’s Club. He’d already thumbed in his order while he waited for the girls to get ready. The food items would be ready for him to pick up while he was out. He’d hit the mall first, something about a player skin included in the new something or another for Xbox. He let the info flow right over him. He hit the button to turn on his phone now that it was fully charged and saw that the girls already had the garage door opened, and his truck was running to get the air conditioner blowing before they got out into the sunshine.
He climbed in and set his phone on the seat and started backing out when it went off. He waited till he passed the door, hit the button to close the garage and handed it over to Angela.
“Check that for me, would you? Probably Dwight texting me to see if I’m as hung over as he is.”
Angela took it and swiped his code in. Then she started hitting the screen as Steve started driving down the street, pausing to swerve an impromptu basketball game some kids a little older than Amy were playing.
“Um, head to your work real quick,” Angela said putting the phone face down.
“Oh no. Brandi?” He asked.
Angela nodded, but realized he was watching for the kids and hadn’t seen her. “Yeah, she left three texts this morning. If we can hustle, we can get there in time.”
“In time for what?”
Steve pulled in and they all got out. He held his wife’s hand and she held Amy’s as they crossed the parking lot of IT Bytes, noting the number of black SUV’s with tinted windows. A man in a dark suit, sunglasses and an earwig was waiting at the door as they walked up. He held up a picture, then compared it to Steve and opened the door for them.
“Just you, Mister Taylor,” the man said.
“Naw, that’s not how it works,” Steve said. “I work here. Who are you?”
The man pulled out an identification wallet and showed him. The man wa
s Agent Walling of the FBI.
“Dad, does that mean he’s a G-Man?” Amy asked.
She’d been quiet on the ride in, recognizing that her mom and dad had suddenly gone tense, turned up the radio, and whispered the whole trip here.
“Yeah, he’s with the FBI,” he told her, and turned to face the agent. “Agent Walling, this is my family; they’re with me.”
“I’m sorry sir, I was told no civilians except for you.”
“Well, I’ll give Brandi a call,” he said pulling out his phone.
“Sir, please step inside with us, it’ll only take a few moments of your time.”
“No, I don’t think I will,” Steve said getting a bad feeling.
Technically what he’d done could be considered illegal. Purposefully planting a virus that stole data and trashed the hacker’s computer. He’d done far, far worse, but he was getting some not so good vibes from Captain America here and didn’t want to give up one bit of his freedom unless he was compelled.
“Sir—”
“Naw, tell your boss, or Brandi, or whoever that I’m going shopping instead. I’ll be in touch.”
The agent started talking into a radio mic as the door swung closed and Steve turned and gave Angela a gentle tug. They turned and headed back toward the truck.
“What was that about?” Angela asked, “I thought you said they had a question about the breach?”
“You read the texts too. I don’t know why they won’t let me bring you—”
“Sir,” a voice shouted, and the agent they had talked to before was standing outside the door.
Brandi and another agent walked out. She looked livid, the color high in her cheeks and she walked in a stiff-legged manner that Steve had seen once. Right after her boyfriend had broken it off with her when they had first moved into the Macon area.
“Steve, it’s ok. Angela, Amy, you three can come in.”
He hesitated and then headed back, letting his hands drop to his side.
“What’s going on?” he asked Brandi.
“We had another breach. This time, word got around.”
“When?” Steve asked, suddenly nervous.
“This morning, early. The phone center woke me up about four.”
“I’m sorry, my phone died, and I forgot to turn it back on—”
“Just come inside and help us, all of you. I might lose what little sanity I have left or claim early dementia.”
“What’s demented–ia? Is that like old timers?” Amy asked.
The agent who was walking next to Brandi cracked a small smile, and she just mussed the little girl’s hair before heading back in. Steve followed and saw half a dozen agents working on the side of the office where the round of layoffs had come from first. With a sinking feeling, Steve felt his calm shattering into a thousand pieces.
“She compromised more than one system?” Steve asked.
Brandi nodded at him, a tear slipping down one cheek.
“I’m sorry, she wasn’t supposed to have access to any of the other projects. Which one was it?”
“The worst one possible. We’re going through all the code for the other projects now that we know what her backdoor looks like.”
Steve rushed to his desk, seeing that the projector was already on. He started typing furiously and shrugged off a hand that pulled on his shoulder.
“Mister Taylor,” an agent said, “we’re doing this. We thought it’d be helpful if you assisted us in finding if there’s any more malicious coding.”
“You know what to look for. Hell, I even gave you all the information you needed to go arrest her two days ago.”
The agent coughed and Brandi tapped him on the shoulder.
“What is it?” he asked her.
“She got into the main server here too, till I blocked her access. She deleted all the screenshots and had re-routed the email you sent out with the email. I contacted the FBI when I realized what was happening.”
Steve sat up straight and then punched the button on his desktops DVD reader/recorder. A silver CD-R popped out and he took it, pulling a sharpie and writing EVIDENCE in block letters on it.
“You made a hardcopy backup.”
“On something she couldn’t erase too,” he said handing the disk to Agent Waller.
“Is this all her information?”
“Yes, just like I told you. You already know where she lives, go pick her up.”
“I can, now that I have something to use to compel a warrant on a Saturday.”
That’s when it clicked for him. They had to find a sympathetic judge and with the evidence seemingly gone or erased, all they had was a backdoor in some lines of code that probably looked like a foreign language to them. Waller whistled, and the agents hurried over to a laptop.
“Is that it? Is there anything else?”
“Can you run a search string and see if she left any more surprises?” Brandi asked, “I’ve done it myself three times already, but I’m not sure I would see anything at this point.”
“Yeah, staring at the same code too long gets you like that. That’s why we split things up into teams when we debug it.”
“This is why I hired you,” Brandi said, “You know how to get shit done.”
Amy and Angela were waiting at Steve’s desk. Brandi walked over to the wet bar and grabbed a decanter of scotch and made an inquiring gesture with it. Steve shook his head and she poured herself an inch and walked back to her desk and sat down.
“How bad is it for the company?” Steve asked.
She took a long sip and then put the glass down.
“We lost the account, and while you were checking on the source coding, we had another one call and cancel their contracts with us.”
“So, it’s bad?” Steve asked.
“Unless we can sue the pants off of some twenty-three-year-old girl….”
“Is the company closing?” Steve asked after a minute’s silence.
“I don’t know how we can keep open. It was the accounts in Asia that canceled on us,” Brandi told him, a fat tear running down the side of her cheek unnoticed by her.
She took another long drink, this time finishing off the scotch and put the glass down.
“Are we, I mean Monday…Um…”
“Come on in Monday. I need you most of all. I’m going to spend the afternoon calling everyone else off, unless you need someone from your team?”
“What is left? I mean…that leaves us with—”
“Nothing that can keep the business afloat. I’ve had several offers to buy the business. I think I might have to do that,” she said as another tear fell down on the other side.
“I don’t…I mean…” Steve wished his wife was in here. She would know the proper protocol.
In the south, things were different. The age gap was noticeable, but he never knew when things were proper or not.
“When I hired you on and moved you across the country, I put a year’s worth of your salary on hold in case something happened. You’ll still have your severance package no matter what. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I don’t know if I could face your family while telling you this.”
Propriety be damned, Steve stood up and walked around the desk, and Brandi stood up. She wrapped her arms around him, burying her head in his shoulder and started sobbing softly. He held her for several minutes until she pushed back and reached for a tissue.
“I’ll know more Monday. Hopefully some swift action by the FBI will turn things around, and I can change some minds.”
“Ok,” Steve said, his voice hoarse and at the edge of tears himself.
He knew moving here had been a risk, and he knew with his skills and background, he wouldn’t be out of work long if something should happen. With a cushion like she was talking about, as much as he hated thinking about it, this might work out ok for him and his family. He’d have to be careful, but the other day while he was visiting with everyone he’d realized how much of their lives he wasn’t a p
art of, and it made his chest hurt just thinking about it.
“Are you going to be ok?” Brandi asked.
Steve let out a surprised bark of laughter, “I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine, one way or another. Thank you, Brandi, for trusting me and for bringing us down here.”
“Well, it isn’t over yet,” she said with a sniff, “we still have next week to figure things out.”
“Next week,” Steve said and nodded.
CHAPTER 9
“Thank you for calling Taylor Networking,” Steve said answering his new work phone.
It had been a month after the last breach that IT Bytes finally closed the doors, and in that same timeframe, he’d made moves to open his own consulting business. It didn’t cost a lot of money, but time. Something he now had a lot of. He’d taken the severance package and paid his house payment for a year as well as the property taxes. That was the biggest thing he was unsure of, yet he still had a sizeable nest egg. Business had been good at first, so it was rarely touched other than the initial payments.
“Mister Taylor, my name is Robert Heath. I represent the Eleven Oaks Home Owner’s Association. I was wondering if I could request a meeting with both you and your attorney present?”
Robert Heath was the lawyer the HOA had hired for the fence and gate issue. Finally, some closure.
“Sure, give my guy a call and set something up. I’ll be there whenever.”
“Thank you,” he said and hung up.
He didn’t have anything going on workwise, so he swiveled his office chair and hit the mute button on the remote for his bedroom TV. More between the naval shenanigans between the US, Iran, and China. North Korea was even rattling its sabers now that they saw the economic impact this was causing in market uncertainty in the United States. Steve knew historically war usually meant there would be a prosperous time afterwards, but things had been getting rough fast.
The price of gas had gone up by almost seventy cents a gallon. Nobody knew why, and Steve might have been more upset by it if he had to drive a ton, but he was actually saving money by working from home with a desk, a laptop, and a rackmount server in his wife’s walk-in closet. Still, utility bills had gone up last month unexpectedly and food prices were starting to get higher.
