Intentional Consequences

by Charles Harris

  Eva nodded yes.

  The man slowly released his hand from her mouth. Loosening his grip around her arms and chest, he turned her toward him. His face and head were completely covered with a tight-fitting opaque black nylon head cover. The man could see out of it, but Eva could not see in. He had a large hunting knife in a sheath on his belt and a pistol stuffed in his waistband.

  Without taking his eyes off her, the man reached for a small walkie-talkie on his belt. Pressing the talk button, he said, “Engaged. Over” Following a beep from the message security code, a distinctly female voice from the walkie-talkie said, “Copy”.

  Eva was terrified but even more pissed off. Who the hell is this guy and how did he get in here? Her first instinct was to knee him in the balls and run like hell. She’d taken two personal defense classes, one back in college and one after she moved to Austin, and she had no doubt she could outrun him if she could get a head start and knew where she was going. She didn’t think he’d shoot her, but she was terrified of the knife. She decided to hold tight and get her bearings.

  Her first job was to remember his description, or whatever she could see of it. He was a short muscular man, stocky but far from fat, about five feet six, wearing blue jeans, black sneakers and a tan short-sleeved polo shirt. His arms were well-tanned with no tattoos. Maybe white, maybe Hispanic, she thought. He hadn’t said much, but so far she hadn’t detected an accent.

  “Good,” the man said, clipping the walkie-talkie back onto the holder on his belt. “Now, let’s get down to business. I want the login information for your online password vault. Once I have that and can prove it works, I’ll be out of your life forever.”

  Amazed, Eva said, “What? You want the password to my PassPass account? You broke into my house with a gun to get a password? That’s the craziest thing I ever heard of. Is this a joke? Who sent you to do this? Why would you think I even know what it is?”

  The man said, “I don’t make up the assignments. I just get the job done. Now, I think you do know that information and, if you don’t, I bet you can find it somewhere around here so we can keep our little conversation cordial and short. I’m very good at getting cooperation when I need it and I don’t think you want to find out how. So, let’s get on with it.”

  Eva could not believe the man was serious. He’s risking jail to get my passwords? Why not use spearphishing, like any normal hacker? Clearly, he was sent by someone. But who the hell sent him?

  As her mind raced, Eva remembered the login details. Playing games with this guy did not seem smart. Better to cooperate now and recover later. She said, “OK, I think I remember how to do it.”

  “Write it down,” the man said. Pointing toward the kitchen, he said, “Over there, write it on the pad by the laptop on the desk. Username, then password.” She complied.

  “Now, we need to prove this works. Let’s see you log in.”

  “You want me to log in? Eva asked?

  “That’s right, sweetheart,” the man said, pointing at the laptop. “Put the paper where we both can see it as you type.”

  As the man stood behind her, Eva logged into the laptop, pulled up a Safari browser page and entered the PassPass web address. When the login box appeared, she typed in her username and password and hit Enter. Almost immediately, another box appeared saying “Unknown Username or Password. Please try again.”

  Eva said, “I’m sorry. I must have transposed something. I’m just a little upset. I’ll get it right this time. You watched me. Do you want to do it?” she asked?

  The man snarled, “Hell no, I don’t want to do it. You need to focus.” Pulling out the knife and pointing at her, he said, “If you think you’re scared now, think about how you’ll be after I cut off some of your hair or maybe carve a little tattoo on those breasts.”

  Eva shivered, took a deep breath and re-entered the information, this time getting it right. A new message appeared on the screen that said “Processing”. Seconds later, her iPhone pinged. She looked at the man and said, “That’s for the two-factor authentication. I need to use my phone. It’s in my waistband. Can I pull it out?”

  “I’ll be happy to get it,” the man said. He grabbed the top of the phone and slipped it out of the waistband of her shorts. He handed her the phone and said, “Here you go, but show me the authentication request before you press anything.” Again, she complied. Seeing the phone was connected to an authenticator app, the man nodded and said, “OK.”

  Eva pressed ‘Accept’ on the app. Almost immediately, the password vault opened to her vault home page, showing icons for all the accounts and devices for which the vault held her access credentials. The usernames and passwords for her iCloud account and her Apple ID were included.

  The man said, “Good. Now logout.” She logged out. “Write down the passcode for your iPhone on that same piece of paper and hand it to me. She complied. “Now hand me your phone and stay exactly where you are. Do not move.”

  He locked her phone to be sure he could open it with the passcode after forcing errors in the facial scan. Seeing he could, he took out his mobile phone. Glancing back and forth from the sheet of paper to Eva and his phone, he texted the password vault login credentials to someone. As the text whooshed away from his phone, the man said, “Let’s hope I get an authentication request on your phone soon.”

  Two minutes later, the request appeared. The man hit Accept on the authentication app and said, “Almost there.” A couple of minutes after that, the man received an incoming text on his phone. He read the text and said, “OK, now we wait awhile. Keep your hands away from the keyboard unless I tell you to do something.

  Five minutes went by. No one spoke. Then, Eva’s phone started pinging every minute or so with authentication requests. The man responded to each of them by pressing ‘Accept’ or texting the authentication code displayed on Eva’s phone to some colleague on his phone.

  Sensing each ping meant another of her accounts was being breached, Eva said, “What’s going on? I gave you what you asked for. When are you going to get out of here and leave me alone like you promised?”

  The man said, “Stay calm. You’ve done fine so far. We’re making progress. Just don’t do anything stupid.

  The pings became less frequent. Eva looked outside, trying to think about something else but ultimately wishing she could be anyplace but where she was.

  Checking his phone, the man handed her the pad of paper and said, “OK, now I need you to write down the username and password you used to log into your laptop over there. After you do that, shut down the laptop and put this USB drive in the USB port.” He handed her a thumb drive. She complied. “Now, show me you can reboot your laptop with the username and password you gave me. She followed his instructions. He watched her as she rebooted the laptop with the credentials she gave him. No second authentication factor was required. Keeping one eye on her, he sent a text with the login information. As he was doing that, a message appeared in a box on the laptop screen. It read “Auto-run Blocked by Admin Policy.” She quickly clicked on the “OK” button before the man could notice the message. The box closed. She knew the laptop security protocol had blocked whatever was on the USB drive from running, which was probably a good thing.

  Finishing his text, the man looked up and said, “Now we wait some more.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Eva stood up. As she started to speak, the man stepped toward her and pulled the knife from the leather sheath on his belt. “I told you not to move,” he said, raising his voice and pointing the knife at her.

  Eva froze but remained standing. She said, “I’ve got a cramp in my leg. I’m just trying to stretch it out. Don’t be an asshole. I’m trying to cooperate with you. When are you getting out of here?”

  Glaring at her, the man took another step toward her and said, “Sit down, lady, or you’re going to get hurt. Do it. Now!”

  She locked eyes with him for a moment and then sat.

  Ten minutes later, his phone ping
ed with an incoming message. Watching Eva, he read the message and smiled.

  “Looks like we may have a little more time to kill,” he said, walking over to her. “You might as well stand up if you need to stretch.”

  Eva stood up, looking at him defiantly from about four feet away. “Is it OK if I walk around the kitchen island,” she asked.

  He said, “OK, but only if we walk together. I don’t want you getting ahead of me.”

  When they reached the side of the island along the wall of glass doors to the pool, she turned abruptly to face him and said, “Can’t you do whatever you need to do somewhere else? You’ve got my phone, take it with you. Take the laptop if you want to. Why do you need to be here?”

  He said, “Not my decision.” He was standing close to her, his eyes sweeping her body and focusing on her breasts. Stepping forward, he pulled out the knife. Pointing the razor-sharp eight-inch blade at the string holding the two sides of her top together, he said, “Maybe we should improve the scenery around here while we wait.” She was terrified, but she stood her ground, glaring at him. Without saying a word, he calmly reached the knife out and cut the string. The top stayed in place. She didn’t move. He grinned.

  That was one sexual advance too many for Eva. She had to get away from this guy. The time was now. Sucking up every ounce of courage she had, she looked the man straight in the eyes, took one step back and pulled her top open to expose her bare breasts. “So, you like these do you?” she asked. When she saw him shift his eyes from her face to her chest, she pivoted on her front foot and used her back leg to land a roundhouse kick to his head, slamming her shin into the side of his head and knocking him off balance. Thank goodness for a short guy and two years of kickboxing classes a few years ago, she thought. As he staggered, she followed through by jamming her knee into his groin and shoving his shoulders back. Stunned and gasping for breath, he dropped the knife and fell backwards, hitting the back of his head on the stone countertop of the island. As he struggled to get up, she picked up a bar stool and crashed the heavy seat against his masked face. He screamed and fell back.

  Taking whatever advantage she had created, Eva grabbed the knife and ran out the door to the pool deck. She raced for the wooded area on the far side of the yard. To hell with the gun, she thought as she ran. The bastard may shoot me, but he’s not sexually assaulting me. The front sides of her orange top flew open behind her as she ran. It was a hell of a day to be wearing a high visibility vest that clearly was not contributing to her safety.

  Reaching a line of trees and bushes on the far side of the property, she crouched down and looked back at the house. No sign of him yet. Catching her breath, she stayed low and pulled her Apple Watch out of her pocket, strapped it on, entered the passcode and called 911. When the operator answered, Eva gave him her name and location and said, “I need the police. A man broke into my house and threatened me with a handgun and a hunting knife. I got away. I have the knife. He’s still on my property with the pistol looking for me.” As she was speaking, the man appeared outside by the pool, looking down toward her studio. Staying out of sight as well as she could, she pulled off her orange top and hung carefully it in the branches of a bush.

  Keeping the 911 operator on the line, she cautiously made her way through the trees and bushes to the tram platform that led down to the steep slope to the lake. When she looked back, the man was walking to her studio. She heard the secure message alert beep on the man’s walkie-talkie as he received a transmission from someone. The man pulled out the walkie-talkie, listened and then spoke into it. She wondered whether someone was telling him the cops were coming. As he spoke, he saw the orange top where she left it and started walking toward it.

  Eva knew it wouldn’t be long before the man realized she was not with the top. She had to get someplace safer until the police arrived. She looked down the tram run to the floating boathouse, surprised to see an outboard center console fishing skiff tied up to the dock. Must belong to the man, she thought. He’ll coming back to get away.

  The land along the lakeshore dropped off sharply to a rocky shoreline. The side lot lines were fenced down to the lake on both sides. She couldn’t go back to the house or her studio and she needed to get away from the tramway before the man or his partner went back to the boat. She walked parallel to the water along the rocky terrain, holding the man’s knife and keeping her head just below the lip of the grassy yard above the steep slope.

  About halfway across the lot, she crouched in a group of small trees and bushes on the rocky slope, hoping the vegetation would be enough to hide her. Terrified, her mind flashed to her father, who had taught her how to be strong and summon courage to overcome fear. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and said a short prayer, thinking about him, drawing energy from him, as she did whenever she was afraid. As her breathing slowed, her panic melted and her composure returned, then forged her will to steel. Eva was 14 when her father was erased from her life, killed along with 228 other souls when a Swissair MD-11 jetliner went down off the coast of Nova Scotia on a flight from New York City to Geneva. Investigators blamed the crash on faulty electrical wiring that started a fire in flammable insulation, filling the cockpit and cabin with smoke. Power failed six minutes before the plane plunged into the water almost upside down. Eva still cried whenever she thought about it, wondering how he found the courage he must have had as he faced certain death.

  Grateful the 911 operator was still with her, she told the operator about the fishing skiff and where she last saw the man. Sirens wailed in the distance. She prayed they were for her. A minute or two later, the operator told her the police had arrived at the gate to her house. Eva gave the operator the gate code.

  The operator said, “Ma’am, can you tell me what you are wearing so I can pass it on to the officers?

  Eva thought for a moment and said, “Tan shorts.” Pausing, she added. “I was wearing a bright orange top, but I took it off to make it harder for the guy to find me. I don’t have anything on my top.” After a pause, the operator confirmed the information.

  Eva saw the man clambering down the old wood steps that paralleled the tramway to the water. There was no sign of anyone else. She passed his location on to the 911 operator. Finally reaching the boathouse, the man climbed into the skiff and started the outboard. Eva slowly moved down the rocky slope from bush to bush, slipping unnoticed closer and closer to the boat dock.

  The skiff started and roared away from the dock just as a female police officer reached the top of the tramway. Seeing Eva on the rocky slope near the end of the tramway, she called down to her, “Mrs. Johnson, it’s the police. My partner’s checking the house. Are you OK?”

  Eva replied, “I’m as good as I am going to be right now. We need to get the guy who just left in the boat.” She ran across the gangplank to the boathouse and used the keypad to open the key box. Grabbing the key to one of the jet skis, she looked up at the officer and said. “I’m going after that guy. Can you get a helicopter on him? Here’s the knife I took from him.” She tossed the knife on the floor of the boathouse.

  Incredulous, the officer said, “Ma’am, you don’t want to go out there, especially like that. Let us handle it from here.”

  Fueled by adrenalin, Eva shouted back, “I don’t want to catch him, I just want to know where he’s going. Get a chopper. I’ll turn back when I see it.”

  The officer shook her head and called her dispatcher to see if there was any way to get a sheriff’s helicopter or boat to help. Eva lowered the jet ski, hit the electric starter and tore across the lake toward the receding skiff.

  She closed much of the distance faster than she expected, then slowed as she moved closer, maybe too close. When she was almost halfway across the lake, she saw the first muzzle flash before she heard the report. The bullet missed her, and she keep going. The man fired again. This time the bullet hit the front cowling on the jet ski, penetrating it. My god, she thought, he’s actually trying to kill me. I
nstantly, she pulled back on the throttle and veered sharply toward the left, slowing the craft almost to a stop in a matter of seconds. The skiff sped away toward the upriver end of the lake.

  As the jet ski slowed to an idle, Eva’s adrenalin evaporated. She buried her face in her hands. She was sitting on a jet ski topless in the middle of Lake Travis and some crazy man had just tried to kill her. Warm as the day was, she was shaking uncontrollably, thinking both about what could have happened to her and about the thousands of women who had endured events like this with far worse results. A couple of minutes later, she stood up on the jet ski and jumped into the 60-degree water, using the cold to shock her mind back into focus. Chasing this guy was not what she needed to be doing. She needed to wipe the content and apps off her iPhone before the man or his friends could do any more damage. She needed to talk to Dan’s IT Director about how to protect her accounts. She needed to talk to the police, who were doubtless still at her house. Most of all, she needed to talk with Dan about all this and what to do so it never happened again.

  Climbing back on the jet ski, she opened the front storage compartment. Nestled above two flotation vests were a pair of huge grey beach towels. She took a towel out and dried off. She wrapped the towel around her neck, pulling the soft terry ends across her breasts. She sat down on the jet ski and hugged herself as the sun warmed her bare back.

  After a few minutes, she wrapped the towel tightly around her body and looked at her watch. Dan’s plane would be landing soon. She had a lot to do. She turned the jet ski back on and headed toward the shore. Looking up, she saw a sheriff’s helicopter in the air above her racing across the lake. She tried to see the skiff, but it was out of sight.