Wolf Trap (Casey Reddick Book 1)

by Charles DeMaris

  “Thanks coach. Not what I want to hear…you’re a straight shooter…guy couldn’t ask for a better coach.”

  Casey held up his arms and his coach leaned over for a heartfelt embrace before leaving the room. As he was leaving, he heard one of his players say, “What’s he doing here?”

  He looked across the lobby and there was a large young man wearing an Alabama hat and looking forlorn. Jefferson Braxton, defensive end for the Crimson Tide. He walked up to him and stuck out his hand.

  Jefferson shook his hand and said, “Come to check on Casey.”

  “Lot of nerve he had showing up here,” a player said from across the room.

  The coach looked up at Jefferson and noticed his dejected demeanor and the redness in his eyes. He turned to his own players.

  “Mr. Braxton deserves your respect for showing up here tonight. I don’t want to hear anything else out of any of you. Got it?”

  “Yes, coach,” a few voices answered.

  “Come on, young man. You can see him now.”

  “You sure he’ll want to see me?”

  “It shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s go.”

  The coach stuck his head in the door and said, “Casey, there’s someone here who wants to see you. Give him a couple minutes before I let your teammates in, okay?”

  “Sure thing, coach.”

  Jefferson entered the room with his hat in his hands and his head bowed. He walked to the side of the bed and looked down at Casey.

  “Sorry, man.”

  “You the guy that hit me?”

  “Yeah, didn’t mean to…was tryin’ to sack you…didn’t mean to go low…feet taken out…feel real bad.”

  “Hey, I didn’t figure you meant to. So, what happened, you beat Mike with that inside move and he tried to recover and tripped you on the way by?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “You’ve been beating tackles with that move all season. Mike should have seen it coming.”

  “Maybe. I’m just sorry man. How bad is it?”

  “Dislocated, tore the ACL and MCL.”

  “That don’t sound good.”

  “You can say that again. Coach says I might not play again.”

  “Dude, you were going first round. That sucks.”

  “Tell me about it. How about you? You going to the draft? You’re good enough.”

  “Haven’t decided yet. Mom wants me to get the degree.”

  “You should do that. You never know what might happen.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. Just real sorry about all this.”

  “No worries man. I forgive you. It’s a rough game. Keep in touch?”

  “Sure thing brother, go Bucks.”

  “Roll tide, brother.”

  Earl was just walking out of the shower when he heard the doorbell.

  “Man, who’s at the door this early?”

  “I’ll get it,” Jenny said.

  “Hi Thad, come on in,” she said when she opened the door, “You’re just in time for breakfast.”

  “That guy has a nose for free food,” Earl said as he came into the room.

  “How do you think I keep my trim figure,” Thad said.

  “So, what do want to drink,” Jenny asked, “tea, coffee, milk, juice?”

  “You got chocolate milk?”

  “Probably have some powder around here someplace.”

  “That’ll work.”

  “So buddy, you takin’ my wife shopping today?”

  “Sure, you coming?”

  “No way, man. You need the exercise more than I do.”

  “We’re only going to a computer store. That place in Sharonville where you can get everything.”

  “You’ll never get her out of there before they close.”

  “I have a list,” Jenny said.

  “You better hold her to that list. She’ll buy the whole store if you’re not careful.”

  “I could probably afford that,” Thad said.

  “Yeah, tell me again how you pulled that off. Just lucky with numbers?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So, you said you’re keepin’ the shop open?”

  “Yep, going to do another remodel though.”

  “But you just fixed it up.”

  “Gotta make it accessible.”

  “Accessible?”

  “Yeah, ramps and everything.”

  Jenny set eggs, bacon, and toast on the table.

  “Here you go guys, dig in.”

  “Mmm, bacon. You sure know the way to a guy’s heart,” Thad said.

  “Easy big guy, I’m already taken,” she said as she gave Earl a peck before sitting down to eat.

  “You got a sister? If she’s half as cute as you…”

  “So,” Earl said, “what’s this about making the place accessible?”

  “Not just that place. All of them. I’m putting shops all over the country. Got deals with twenty lakes so far. Have to make all of them accessible.”

  “Why expand? Surely you don’t need the money now.”

  “No, I’m gonna build the places and staff ‘em with wounded vets. Plenty of those guys around, and some of ‘em don’t get around on two legs anymore. Each one will be a franchise owned by a wounded combat vet. I give the guy the franchise and he pays back the franchise fees out of the profits. He has to hire guys to run it, as long as they’re also wounded vets, and any franchise fees I collect go to charities for vets. I’m not making a dime.”

  “What will you do with your time?”

  “Fish a whole lot more, and travel around to check out the shops, and invite you guys to share my boat. Oh, and another thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Gettin’ your business off the ground is gonna take a bit.”

  “Not really. Jenny can start with just a couple computers and hire more people as she needs to.”

  “Not just that part, the other part. The secret part. What do you think we’re gonna buy today? It’s more than just a couple computers. You should see her list. We can get a lot of it there and we’ll have to order the rest.”

  “I just assumed a computer or two would do that.”

  “Not for what she has in mind. You’re gonna need this as well,” he said as he passed an envelope over to Earl.

  “What’s this?” Earl asked as he opened the envelope.

  “Wait a minute? 75 acres, paid for? What do we need all that for?”

  “You need an office, and an office. One office for the main place, and another one, hidden like, for the other part. That should be enough land for it, and room to grow a bit. A lot of that land is wooded, so you can hide a lot in those trees if you want to.”

  “I don’t know what to say?”

  “The usual phrase is ‘thank you’,” Jenny said.

  “You’re welcome. You have a name for the company yet?”

  “Fox Security Consulting.”

  “Fox?”

  “Yeah, after our illustrious wedding guest. One of his nicknames.”

  “Okay, whatever.”

  “You should see what it’s going to look like, honey. We’ll have the consulting offices on the main level and we’ll have the other part underground. We hide the elevators like at Avi’s house. We can even disguise cell towers and dishes in the trees.”

  “That’s going to cost a pretty penny,” Earl said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Thad said

  “You don’t have to do all this for us.”

  “What else am I gonna do with all that money? I got a new truck, a new boat, and a new house. And my mom has a new house, and my sister, my brother…”

  “Okay, I get it. You hear about Reddick?”

  “Yeah, bummer. Hard to come back from that. Probably won’t get drafted now.”

  “At least he won’t have to play for the Browns. Playing QB there is an injury waiting to happen.”

  “Still has a chance. Might get a camp invite.”

  “If
he’s lucky, but he won’t even be ready by then. Rehab takes longer than that. You think any team will take a chance like that? If he’s lucky he gets a camp invite next year when he’s healthy.”

  “It’s a rough game.”

  “It’s absolutely barbaric,” Jenny said, “I don’t get it.”

  “You didn’t grow up in America,” Thad said.

  “Maybe not. Not like I had that option when I was growing up.”

  “You helped remedy that situation,” said Earl.

  “Hmm, interesting write up on that young man,” Jenny said, looking up from her tablet,” Graduated with a 4.0 with a degree in computer science. Wonder if he’ll be looking for a job.”

  3

  Four months later

  Jenny was more than satisfied with the new office for Fox Security Consulting. The property was perfect, 75 mostly wooded acres in rural Hamilton County, Ohio, near the Indiana border. The office itself was nestled in a clearing and not at all visible from the road, a 6000 square foot modern looking structure with an open floor plan and windows all around. It was a light airy well- lit workplace designed as much for impressing visitors as fostering a positive working environment.

  There was only one employee enjoying that positive working environment, a recent graduate from the University of Cincinnati named Ahmed Raza. Ahmed graduated from the Engineering program at UC with a minor in computer science. The minor qualified him to work at Fox, but it was for another skill that Jenny hired him, his fluency in Arabic. He came to the U.S. four years ago from Saudi Arabia to attend school and had no intention of going back. “Too many crazy people over there,” he told Jenny during the interview. She liked him immediately. He was a personable young man, polite to a fault, and thoroughly enamored of his new country.

  While he would do fine at Fox, her hope was to use his skills downstairs. Downstairs was a state-of-the-art intelligence gathering facility she had spared no expense on. The computers and servers were all custom built to her specifications. Each workstation had four 27” monitors and there were a dozen such workstations. On one wall were two large screens, measuring eight feet by six feet where data from any outside source or any of the facility’s workstations could be displayed. The operating system running everything was custom as was the encryption, having been recently developed by Nathan Callahan, a friend recommended by Thad.

  Nathan was something of a prodigy in the programming world. He left a lucrative position with Tempest Games in San Jose to form his own game development company with his wife Phoebe, but his programming talents ran far beyond designing games. He had an understanding of computer systems and software development that Jenny had not seen anywhere else, but he wanted to design games. He was quite good at it, as Jenny had found out by the amount of time her husband wasted playing them. Nathan and Phoebe had bucked the trend and located their company in nearby Fairfield, close to where he grew up, choosing to leave California for the somewhat slower pace of life in Ohio.

  His new company, Turtle Games, was doing quite well. Nathan and Phoebe were both more talented than anyone else still shy of thirty years old and they had hired a quality team to work for them. In business less than a year and with one title out and more games in the works, they were a rising star in their industry.

  They were also running late. They were coming to meet Jenny and go over some final details on the encryption and decoding software that would be essential to the operation downstairs. She looked at the clock on her desk. It was nearly 5:00 and she was expecting them at 4:30.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Grant. I’ve finished that report you asked for. Would you like it now or in the morning?” Ahmed asked.

  “You can send it to me when you come in tomorrow. Have a good evening.”

  “You too, Mrs. Grant. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Ahmed, just call me Jenny, okay?”

  “Okay, Mrs.….Jenny.”

  She saw her bookshelf move to the side and a moment later, Thad and Earl came walking out of a secret elevator. They sat down on a leather couch that was there for guests.

  “Looks like some kind of mission control down there,” Thad said.

  “It will be ready to go operational as soon as I finish consulting with Nathan to make sure his software is fully debugged,” Jenny said.

  “I sure hope he’s better at that than he is at fishing.”

  “Is he not that good at fishing?”

  “Long story. I’ll tell you sometime.”

  “You hear anything from Reddick?” Earl asked.

  “He’s supposed to call me back this week with a decision.”

  “Casey Reddick? Did you offer him a job or something?” Thad asked.

  “Yes. He’s a very sharp young man, and given his recent setback, he could be in need of a job. I made him a very good offer.”

  “Not as good an offer as he would have gotten.”

  “No, we can’t throw that kind of money at someone for a desk job, but I offered him a very good salary and a generous benefits package. He won’t find a better deal from any company out there, not for someone with his degree and no experience. When I spoke with him in January, he said he wanted to focus on his rehab and he would get back with me after the draft.”

  “The draft was last week. He didn’t get picked.”

  “I saw that. Nobody thought he would. Apparently, no teams wanted to take a chance since he won’t be 100% by the time their training camps start.”

  “Didn’t think you were interested in football.”

  “When watching the sports coverage in this country, one must wait through all manner of things while waiting for them to talk about real football.”

  “Looks like Nathan made it,” Thad said, “Wow, I had forgotten his wife was so freakin’ gorgeous. Wonder if she’s got a sister.”

  “Hi Thad,” Nathan said as he walked in, “I think you’ve met Phoebe.”

  “Hi Phoebe, good to see you again,” Thad said, shaking her hand, “Wow Nathan, you got the better end of that deal.”

  “Thank you,” said Phoebe, “I think.”

  Jenny got up from her desk and said, “Nice of you to finally make it. Shall we go downstairs?”

  “Ran into a bit of traffic,” Nathan said.

  “And he drives too slow,” Phoebe said, “never in a hurry to get anywhere.”

  They took the elevator downstairs and Nathan sat down at one of the workstations and booted it up.

  “Everything seems to be running well so far?” Nathan asked.

  “So far, so good,” Jenny said.

  “Have you tested it out?”

  “I did a little snooping this morning before Ahmed came in to work. You want to know what Prince Harry had for breakfast?”

  “Not particularly. I’d be more interested in hearing a bit more about your mysterious wedding guest. Wild rumors going around.”

  “My Uncle Fox.”

  “Is your uncle now on dollar bills?”

  “Striking resemblance isn’t it?”

  “Very much so. Earl told me about your little adventure. Don’t worry. My lips are sealed.”

  “Earl…”

  “Easy, love,” said Earl, “if this guy’s gonna work with us this much…”

  “I suppose. Still, I wish you’d consult with me before telling people how we met.”

  “Like what you’ve done with the place,” Nathan said.

  “Each workstation can project to either of the big screens at the front of the room if needed. That was a good idea by the way.”

  “How is the proxy working?”

  “Fine so far. I don’t think I’ve been detected yet, but even if I am, it will trace back to Beijing.”

  “You know you can change that any time, right?”

  “I’m aware of that. Just picked China for now. Also, your satellite access works like a charm. I can tap into any country’s spy satellites without being detected. Could come in handy.”

  “How about the audio?�
�

  “You mean phone call intercepts? Seems to be working fine so far, but it feels kind of dirty doing it. Heard some interesting things this morning. I could blow up so many celebrity marriages right now.”

  “Spare me the details. I’ll just run a few tests and we can go back upstairs.”

  Phoebe was walking around the room while Nathan and Jenny talked and she turned on one of the large wall screens. A pause screen was there from a game, a game that looked familiar because she and Nathan had helped develop it when they worked at Tempest.

  “What’s that doing on that screen?” she asked.

  Jenny turned around, saw the screen and said, “Earl, you hooking your X-box up here again?”

  Earl and Thad said nothing, but the color rising in their cheeks told her all she needed to know.

  “Well, everything seems to be good,” Nathan said, “I assume I can expect all of you over for dinner tonight? Phoebe is an excellent cook. Bring Clyde and Marlene too. There will be plenty. Come in say…three hours?”

  “Sure, we’d love to,” Jenny said.

  When they all got up to the main floor, Jenny looked at her phone and saw the voice mail light flashing. She wondered who would be calling after hours, but she hit the speaker button and listened to the voice mail.

  Hi Mrs. Grant. Casey here. I’ve been thinking about your offer. I want to talk to you about it, if it’s still good. Thank you.

  Casey hung up the phone after leaving the voice mail.

  “Got her voice mail. Hope she calls back.”

  “I’m sure she will,” Wilma said, “Look at the time.”

  “Oh, didn’t notice. She probably went home already?”

  “Most likely. Most office people leave at 5:00.”

  “I really hope she calls me back. It was a generous offer. Not what I would be making, but…”

  “Spilled milk, honey. No reason frettin’ now. You knew it was a rough game when you started playing.”

  “I know mama, but I can’t help wondering.”

  “Son, you’re the brightest young man there ever was. You’ll do well whatever you set yourself to. I’m proud of you.”

  “I know, and you’re the best mama a guy could ever want. Wanted to buy you that house.”

  “This house is fine. Been here almost twenty years. Won’t hurt me to stay a little longer. What kind of offer did she make you?”