by D S Kane
The social worker said, “Well, that’s all I have. We’ll contact you with our decision in about a week.”
Cassie didn’t wait for approval as a foster parent. It might not go her way.
After they returned home that afternoon, she hacked into the CPS computer network, and found and modified the record for Ann the social worker had created. She placed Ann in her custody and then sealed the record.
When she and Ann met with the Assistant Principal of the Stinson School the next day, they accepted Ann. The fifty-thousand-dollar gift Cassie made to the school didn’t hurt. On the way home, Ann asked, “Why do they all wear the same clothes? Are uniforms required? I never wore one to PS 109 in Brooklyn.”
Cassie drove their rental car from its parking space, looking at the traffic. “It’s a form of discipline. One that may help you adjust, since no one will look better or worse than you.”
Ann remained quiet after that, but Cassie could see than she wasn’t happy about the school.
When the mail came the next day, she sat at the new dining room table and opened everything. Three envelopes. There were Ann’s medical reports, a negative report from the doctor who’d tested Ann for sexually transmitted diseases, and a confirmation notice from the private school she’d be attending. Cassie smiled, reading the papers providing her with guardianship for Ann.
Within a month of Lee’s return from Guantanamo Bay, they looked like the ideal family. Their neighbors seemed friendly enough.
No one knew their dirty secrets.
Ann found it all quite unbelievable.
Early one evening about a week after they moved in, Cassie told Ann they’d be having guests. The teen was to be on her best behavior and dress appropriately.
The doorbell rang just after the sun set. Ann turned on the house outside lights as she walked to the door. “Who’s there?”
“Avram,” came the reply from outside. “You must be Ann. I work for your mother. Please tell Cassie I’m here.” Ann looked through the tiny peephole in the door. Standing in front of her, the man was a giant, a well over six feet tall, with the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen, and silhouetted by the setting sun, she couldn’t make out his face. She gasped.
“Cassie told me never to open the door. For anyone. Ever. Hold on, I’ll get her.”
The man outside laughed quietly. “I’ll wait.”
As she walked toward the stairs, she heard a car door slam. A man’s voice called out, “Hey, Avram. She invited you, too?”
Ann went up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom, where Cassie was putting on earrings. Cassie was wearing a charcoal gray business suit that covered a white button-down collared shirt. Ann’s eyes bulged. She thought, she’s mag! She watched for a private moment before saying, “Cassie, there are some men downstairs. I left them waiting outside.”
Cassie smiled at Ann. She looked in the mirror as she hummed “Midnight Hour,” a blues song written by Leroy Carr, then adjusted the necktie she was wearing, a rep tie in black and red. “Good. Thanks for not opening the door. Lee, let them in and offer them something to drink. There’s some single malt Scotch and wine in the cabinet by the fireplace in the living room. There’s beer in the fridge. Ann, you can have a soda. Ask the guys to sit at the dining room table.”
Lee completed dressing in a white shirt, bow tie, and business suit. “I’ll come down with you, Ann.” They glared at each other. “Cassie almost never dresses for business so she’s a bit slow trying to figure it out.” Lee led her down the stairs.
He opened the door.
Ann was unsure whether she should stay so she returned back to the bedroom and met Cassie on her way out. “Cassie, should I sit in or should I go to my room and do homework?”
Cassie thought for a second. She nodded. “You should listen. I’d like you to know what we do. But don’t ask questions. Speak only if someone asks you a question. This is a business meeting and it’ll take about an hour. After it’s over I expect you’ll have lots of questions, and Lee and I will answer them after Avram, Adam, and William leave.”
Ann nodded and found a seat on the living room couch where she could listen unobtrusively. Gizmo launched herself into Ann’s lap. Ann smiled and petted the purring kitten.
Lee placed various bottles of single malt, including his beloved sixteen-year-old Lagavulin, on the counter. He added arak, a liqueur native to Israel, similar to ouzo. On the bar were several brandy snifters, beer and wine glasses, and a corkscrew.
Avram poured some arak into a snifter and rolled a taste of it around his mouth. He inhaled and sighed. William sipped a glass of 2014 Sokol Blosser Chardonnay. Adam held a bottle of Chimay Belgian beer in his hand. Lee stuck his nose into a snifter containing a bit of the Lagavulin.
Cassie walked downstairs and the others looked up. Each man smiled at her. She poured some white wine into her glass.
William Wing was shorter than Ann. He was a stocky Asian and wore black plastic glasses with thick lenses. He stared at the giant and asked, “How are you, Avram? I saw some of the Requests for Proposal that came in over on the website. You’re gonna need more mercs.”
Avram Shimmel just nodded. Ann felt confused by this exchange. She knew Cassie ran a consulting company but had no understanding of how large it was or what a consulting company did. Ann wondered what a ‘merc’ was.
The third man, Adam Mahee, a dapper black man in a conservatively tailored charcoal suite and burgundy rep tie smiled at Cassie. “How are you?”
Cassie nodded. “Adjusting to a more normal life. Lee is still recovering from PTSD, delivered at Gitmo courtesy of my former employers. How are you, Adam?”
“Got lots of news for you.”
Cassie nodded. “Let’s get started. Please be seated.” She motioned to the dining room table. “First, a status update and then the first meeting of the board of directors for our new company. As of yesterday, Swiftshadow Consulting Group is incorporated as a C corporation in Delaware and we have a bank account at Citibank. So we’re legit now. The website name is registered with Internic, so we’re open for business. William, what’s the status of the website?”
Wing’s eyes blinked through his thick glasses. “Uh, Cassie, it took less than an hour to complete the initial setup. I spruced up that clunker you had last year, so the feds can see it without wondering about us. The old website has all the raw materials except for the photographs of the board members.”
William pulled his cell from his pocket. “It’s why I asked you all to dress for business at this meeting. The feds want our photos to complete the approved vendor application. Please stand up.”
He attached a tiny tripod to the cell and pulled its legs out as far as they would extend, about twelve inches. Placing it at the far end of the table, he brought his chair around. All four chairs now faced the camera. “Smile. Three, two, one…” The cell flashed.
“Okay, now one of each board member individually.” Minutes later, William pulled his chair back to its original position, pocketed the cell, and collapsed the tripod.
Cassie asked Adam, “What’s happening with the GNU Radio patents?”
Adam replied, “Stillwater Technology Corporation is having difficulty going from prototype production to ramp up. Probably a year before they can even approach the FCC and FTC for approval. Until then, I’m just an adjunct professor at NYU’s Stern Graduate Business School, teaching entrepreneurial courses. If you want, I can help out with William’s hackers.”
Cassie said, “That’s up to William. Every one of you is the head of your own household, so to speak.” She asked Avram, “What’s our status on merc assignments?”
Avram looked at the table as he spoke, his voice just above a whisper, counting out the points on his fingers as he spoke. “As William mentioned, we have a wide choice of assignments. The sixty-four of us in merc ops can only handle two or three of the medium-sized ops and there are also twelve that require three men or less. It appears we’ll have a
backlog of at least three months when we’re ready to go. Average length of an assignment is about three weeks. We should generate about four million dollars from the work, including backlog. That’s no better than break-even.”
Cassie frowned. How many of these assignments deal with terrorism?”
“All of them.”
“Well, okay then. How many are outside the Middle East?”
“All of them. Right now, after what we did in Afghanistan and Riyadh, we’re pariahs in the Middle East. No one wants us except Israel. And Mossad told me we owe them for their help a month ago. So we’ll give them a few weeks free sometime down the road when our cash flow breaks even.”
Cassie nodded. “William, what about covert ops for the Hacker Division?”
Ann watched Wing blink through his eyeglasses. His eyes looked as if each were in its own little fish bowl. He said, “Nothing as yet. But we’re busy right now, hacking cash out of terrorist bank accounts to pay for the two Middle East ops last month. I expect the feds will want us to grift for them soon. We’re at the top of the favored vendors list. A little patience.” He looked up and smiled.
Ann saw William’s teeth were yellow and broken. Everyone else had perfect teeth except for Ann, and Cassie had scheduled her for a visit to the dentist. Ann wondered what that would be like. She guessed William didn’t like dentists and took that as a warning that if she suggested he needed a dentist, he’d take it as an insult.
Cassie nodded. “So much for status. Now the board of directors meeting.” She handed a piece of paper to William. “This is the bank account authorization resolution. I need all of you to approve the opening of our bank account by signing this form. I’ll get it back to Bank of Trade and they’ll complete the account opening.” William signed the paper, then passed it to Avram. He signed it and handed it to Adam, who also signed it. Then Cassie signed the form. “Now I need each of you to read and sign papers that grant you your positions with the company and issue you salary and stock. She handed Avram, Adam, Lee, and William stacks of paper and each shuffled and scribbled their signatures on the papers. When they finished, she said, “Congratulations. I signed my papers earlier this afternoon. With the exception of Lee, who will be on the board of directors but not be a corporate officer, we’re all officially with Swiftshadow Consulting Group.”
Cassie waved one hand to signal something important was now complete. She said, “That concludes the board meeting. But now, I have a personal request for all of you. When we wrapped up merc ops and the dust settled, I found that I had lots of money, more than I’d ever dreamed of still in my bank accounts. Right now there’s about two billion dollars but there’s more arriving every day. When I was hunted, I never thought I’d end up having to so many human beings. It left me damaged in a way I cannot comprehend. But with all this money, maybe I can set things right. I vowed that Swiftshadow would be a force for good in the world. I’d like to use some of my own money the same way. I have more than I’ll need for twenty lifetimes, so Ann will inherit what Lee and I haven’t spent. But what can I do with all the excess money in the meantime? I’ll give much of it to charities, and some special projects. But there’s just so much.”
Avram said, “Sashakovich, I know that you bear a great deal of guilt for the people you tortured and murdered. This is only natural. I feel the same way for some of the souls I’ve taken, even though all of the ones I murdered truly deserved to die for the people they killed. I don’t have any advice to offer you. This is your own issue and you have to solve it your own way. But if you can use the money to assuage your guilt, then do it.”
Ann listened carefully to this exchange, more questions looming in her mind.
Mahee said, “You know, Cassie, you’ve done well with the Stillwater development. The product you had them produce for th mercenary operations, well, it works. And it has potential military applications. All they need do is complete development and ramp up. It should net you about an eight hundred percent return.”
Cassie shook her head, her brows arching. “Adam, that doesn’t really benefit anyone besides you and me. No, I want to invest my money in a way that might serve some higher purpose.”
Mahee ran his fingers through his short curly hair. Ann watched as he smiled. “Maybe you should join an angel investment group, where you can network with other investors that have been through the process. That way you’ll learn what companies are currently available for investors and how to judge quality. Once you‘ve learned how to be an effective investor, you can form your own venture capital company. You certainly have enough money to do a few early stage investments, and if they don’t work out, at least they’ll teach you what you need to know. There’s an angel network at NYU’s Stern Graduate Business School. I could provide you with a letter of introduction if you want.”
Cassie replied, “Thanks, Adam. Please do that.”
The men rose as one and Lee opened the hallway closet to get their coats.
After Cassie’s board members left, Ann said to Cassie, “Okay, Cassie, I’ve been patient, waiting for the right time. Now I have lots of questions. You have to give me answers.”
Cassie replied, “Okay.”
“Who are those men? What does Swiftshadow do? What will you do that’s different from what you told me before?”
Cassie gulped. “One question at a time.”
It was time to tell the truth. Ann wondered what she would discover.
Chapter Six
September 27, 9:46 p.m.
220 East Kirke Street, Chevy Chase, Maryland
Cassie and Lee sat next to each other, with Ann across the other side of the dining room table. Cassie began, speaking way too fast. “I’ll tell you everything, but I’ll start at the very beginning, so you understand how Lee and I were set up so easily.”
She sighed. “To understand, you need to go back to when I was your age. I wanted to be a chef, to be able to create food with marvelous taste and aroma. After college, I went to a chef school. But I found the strong odors of many of the ingredients made me sick. I loved eating the final product, but hated the raw flavors and smells. My father suggested I go back to school and study something that was less offensive, and—”
“What do you mean? You smell things the rest of us can’t?” Ann seemed to find this unbelievable.
“Exactly. For example, could you smell Adam’s cologne when you let him into the house?” In response, Ann shook her head. Cassie said, “Well, I could. And underneath that aroma, I could smell the scent of the woman Adam’s been dating. Both her perfume and the smell of the sex they had before he came here. There was a trace of her still on his fingers.” Ann’s eyes bulged and she gulped. “Yes. As for William, I could detect the odor of marijuana on his clothing. I think he uses it when he’s alone.”
Ann nodded her head. Even though she’d also missed this aroma on William, she was familiar with it from her homeless days. Now as she thought back, she remembered something familiar about him, and that was it.
Cassie continued. “My dad, Kiril, became a professor of economics at Stanford University after he and my mom fled the Soviet Union as it started wobbling before it fell. He wanted me to earn my PhD in economics there. And I did. It turns out I have a natural talent for math. Dad helped me, of course. Before my parents came here, dad used to work with the KGB.”
“The KGB? Aren’t they Russian spies?” Ann shook her head.
“The Soviet Union’s global spy agency. But the government fell after it ran out of money fighting a war in Afghanistan.”
“So your dad was a spy and a killer too?”
She shook her head. “Neither. Daddy was an economist and he worked in central planning. But he worked with spies and killers. So it didn’t surprise me that after I graduated with a specialty in economics, one of our country’s intelligence agencies approached me and asked me to go to work for them. Our government wanted me to be a spy.”
Ann’s felt the shock of understanding. Raw
, like a slap on her face. “Oh. So that’s why people wanted to kill you.”
“It’s a much longer story. Both Lee and I worked for an intelligence agency. I have special talents in global banking and I’m a pretty good hacker. A thief. Not in William’s league, but he claims that he’s the best and I believe him. As for Lee, he handled the agency’s technology and security. Networks, including voice, telemetry, and support for satellite uplinks and downlinks. He was director of security.” Cassie’s brows rose with Ann’s confusion. “Sorry, a technician, not a spy.”
Ann shrugged and Cassie continued. “But, one of the assistant directors—my boss—was a mole secretly working for terrorists. He compromised my identity and sold it. Terrorists hunted me, assisted by the agency mole. I fled for my life and that’s when I met you. I was desperate, homeless, and without much hope for a future.”
Ann nodded her head. She remembered this exactly as it happened.
“But Lee helped me and we prevailed. I stole money from the terrorists who hunted us, using computers to do the stealing. I stole almost two billion dollars from their bank accounts.”
Ann shook her head. “You stole how much? Isn’t that impossible?”
“Not for me. I didn’t go to into any of the banks. I just used a computer to do it.”
Ann raised her eyes to show the doubt she felt.
“I used the money to hire a private army, mercenaries. They’re the heart of Swiftshadow Consulting Group, and Avram leads them. We attacked and defeated the terrorists in two battles in the Middle East, one in eastern Afghanistan and the other in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We massacred over seven hundred terrorists.” Cassie waved her hand for emphasis and Ann flinched.
The teenager’s jaw dropped. “No way. You killed hundreds?” Then she remembered Cassie’s behavior in the tunnels and she just nodded.
“The agency mole had Lee arrested and sent to prison where they tortured him. I went back to the mole with evidence of his treason and blackmailed him. So they released Lee and now the mole works for me. I told him if he tries betraying me again, I’ll take the lives of his entire family.”