His heart leaped up to his throat as they topped the hill, the west mesa spreading out miles in front of them, a flat and desolate skyline where the setting sun each evening glowed a brilliant red. The sunset would splash against the Sandia Mountains to the east and light them up in a red or often deep orange hue. Kyle had learned in school that Sandia was Spanish for watermelon. As he gazed out the window to the Sandia’s he could see the area of the city where is house was located, and wished he was there. He thought if anything ever happened to him, who would come take care of Sammy?
At the edge of the gravel clearing was another car, a six-door limousine with black windows. The driver pulled behind it and the man with the gun opened the door, stepping out and pointing the barrel toward Kyle.
“Move,” he ordered, his voice harsh and cold.
Kyle eased his way out of the car, keeping an eye on the man, his helmet in hand. He looked to the limo and the door opened, the man with the gun motioning for him to walk toward it. Kyle moved forward and glanced at the rear of the limo, wanting to memorize the license number. The plate was covered with a black cloth.
He felt more at ease. If they had taken him out this far to whack him, he would have been lying face down in the gravel by now. This looked more like a scheduled meeting where they likely would threaten to kill him if he pursued his quest for the truth. Kyle wondered if they had given Charlie the same consideration.
He stopped at the door, looking back. His motorcycle was parked behind the car he had ridden in. He stepped into a limousine for the first time in his life. The interior was dark as well, seats on either side of the door facing each other. To the right in the far rear seat sat a man he had never seen before. He was older, hair starting to gray, a gut that filled his suit snugly.
“Come in,” the man said, and Kyle did, the door closing behind him.
He sat opposite the man, giving him a hard, long look. Kyle knew he wasn't FBI, unless, of course, he was part of the bogus FBI. He sized Kyle up as well, as if a reputation preceded him.
“Can I assume you’re the one who killed Charlie?” Kyle asked, indignant but still keenly aware of who was in control and pulled the strings.
“I want to talk about you,” the man said. “You seem to be popular with the FBI lately.”
“Not by choice, I assure you.”
“What do you think it is they want?”
“You, I imagine.”
The man formed a smile, but it wasn’t a pleasant one. “It’s come to my attention that you are going down the same path as your predecessor, Charlie Duncan.”
“Perhaps.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“What are you telling me?”
The man leaned forward. “If you leave well enough alone and return to your regular corporate responsibilities, I guarantee no repercussions.”
“Sounds like a threat,” Kyle said, starting to feel more confident.
“If I threaten you, you’ll know it, Kyle.” After a brief pause, he added, “or may I call you Drew?”
Kyle’s heart skipped a beat and a feeling of nausea swept over him. Somehow this guy knew his identity, at least the former identity the FBI had given him. It was just a matter of time before they traced it back to his original name. Kyle tried to appear calm and collected, but had a difficult time holding it back. He looked up at the man and sensed victory issuing from his cold smile.
“I guess you get an A for effort,” Kyle said. “So, what’s the deal? I stop looking into Charlie’s death and you forget that I am a protected witness?”
“Something like that,” the man said coolly. “There’s nothing to gain from you pursuing it further. Allow me to put it succinctly, Drew – no more private investigations and no more contact with the FBI. Just drop it and go back to fixing computer code. That’s what you want to do anyway, isn’t it?”
“Who’s responsible for Charlie’s death?”
The man thought for a second before answering. “Charlie is.”
“Excuse me?”
“Charlie is responsible. One of my men wanted to talk with him and he pulled a gun. He fired first.”
“You broke into his house. He was protecting himself.”
“This is not a point of discussion, Kyle. But I’ll tell you what is. I understand you have a lot of sisters, and your mother’s still alive.”
Kyle jerked his head up, his eyes thin slits aimed at the stranger sitting across from him. “Anything happens to them and nothing will stop me from killing you.”
“Now who’s throwing out threats.”
“Not a threat. Consider it something in the nature of a guarantee.”
The man reached in his coat pocket, revealing a Smith and Wesson, pointing it directly at Kyle. “I could kill you right here if I wanted, and don’t think I wouldn’t. I’m giving you a chance to make a different choice than Charlie.”
Kyle considered this for a moment, his eyes fixed on the dark barrel of the gun. “I can’t control the FBI beating down my door or taking me for rides downtown.”
“You can take a ride in their car, just don’t say anything.”
“Is that all?” Kyle asked.
“That’s it. Be smart, and you’ll live long enough to spend your 401k.”
Kyle opened the door and stepped out, looking back at the man. “You wanna know what the funny part is – I haven’t told the FBI a thing.” Kyle paused, then added, “but somehow I think you already knew that, didn’t you?”
The man didn’t answer.
Kyle looked around. The man who pulled a gun on him earlier was now directly in front of him, the gun in clear view. The guy who had ridden his motorcycle was getting in the passenger seat of the second car, then glanced back at Kyle and yelled “nice ride” before closing the door. Kyle and the armed gunman walked together to his bike.
“You try and follow us, I’ll kill you on the spot,” the gunman threatened, tucking the pistol down the front of his pants.
Kyle climbed on his motorcycle, started the engine and slipped on his helmet. The cars started as well, waiting for Kyle to depart first. He throttled a few times and headed out, considering turning around and throwing a few doughnuts in the gravel to pelt their cars, but thought better of it. They had guns, which a bullet could easily outrun his motorcycle.
He rode back the same way they had brought him, stopping at Dion's Pizza at the bottom of Montano, ordering a Coke and two slices of pepperoni and mushroom. He took a seat in one of the booths and resisted the urge to look out the window to see if they were driving down the street. His hands were shaking and his stomach felt tight. He hadn’t anticipated them discovering he was in witness protection, although Kurt had predicted they would. Worse, they threatened his mother and sisters.
He sat alone near a window and ate slowly, trying to calm his nerves before he had to get on the bike once more.
____________
Rene Ornelas hid in the cube at the far end of the hall, peeking out once in a while to see if Robert had gone to lunch yet. She could hear him behind the closed door, typing away at something. She positioned herself in an empty cube about 20 feet from the office where he was working. She had taken an early lunch in hopes of sneaking into his new office right away, seeing what was there and leaving before he returned.
Her nerves were shot. She had been putting in plenty of hours, yet as an exempt employee, only got paid for half of those she worked. Her son Benjamin spent most of his time at her mother's, which saved on babysitting and kept them afloat. That and the money from Santiago, which started flowing in over eight months ago. She hid the money from her ex as well as the courts, not that it really mattered. The courts had ordered Tony to pay just under $400 a month, yet she was still waiting for the first dollar to hit her checking account. When Santiago came along, the money situation was getting desperate and she was afraid of losing Benjamin to the same courts that ordered Tony to pay child support. She knew they would put more effort in enfor
cing her son’s removal from her home than they would into squeezing money out of Tony. The judge had told her that if Tony had wages to garnish, he would have ordered so. The judge, of course, did not know Tony had wages coming in, good wages in fact, but were not reported to the government. She figured two could play that game, so she wasn’t about to disclose the income from Santiago, although she knew it would come to an end soon enough, and hoped her actions would not bankrupt the company. Lately she pondered the idea that she might be getting rid of her own job in the process. She tried not to think of that too much.
She dashed behind a partition as she heard the doorknob jiggle. Robert emerged from the office, stepped out into the hall, locked the door, and left. She waited a few minutes before retreating from the sanctuary of the empty cubicle. She walked toward the door, looking around to make sure no one was watching. The entire row of offices was vacant, reserved for guests and visitors, which were few, so it was easier to hide than being upstairs in a heavy traffic zone.
She tried the door.
As she anticipated, it was locked.
She walked to the end of the hall and down the next aisle until she reached the network team. There were three people who would likely help her, but one in particular. She walked slowly, looking into each cube as she passed. It was lunchtime and thus deserted for the most part. She caught a glimpse of Pam sitting at her desk nibbling on her lunch, but didn’t consider asking her. She favored Kyle too much, and Rene couldn’t chance it. She finally reached the cube she intended all along. Leroy Ortega was sitting at his terminal with a pickle stuck in his mouth. He looked up, recognized Rene, and quickly dropped the pickle to the table, covering it with a napkin.
“Rene,” he said.
Rene summoned her soft, sexy voice, all for Leroy’s benefit. “I came to ask a favor, if you don’t mind.”
Leroy stood, his eagerness obvious. “Computer problem?”
“Actually,” she said, running her fingers through her hair, “I just need to get into an office. You still have a master key, don’t you?”
Leroy seemed to be taken aback. “Yeah, well, I guess so. Yes.”
“You see, Leroy,” she said, inching her way closer to him, “I’ve been working on this HSI project, and some of our customers were concerned about their programs. You know, about security for their intellectual property. So, a couple of us moved into the vacant office in the corner, but I left my key upstairs and need to get one thing.”
Leroy thought for a second, then smiled. “Sure, why not.”
Rene led the way, knowing Leroy would have it no other way, especially since he had the vantage point of gazing upon her as she walked. Rene added a little more spice to her stride to ensure his full cooperation, while at the same time glancing in each direction, hoping no one grew curious. They stopped at the door Robert had locked and Leroy pulled out his keys, about two dozen on a single ring. He located the master key for that type of lock and inserted it. The door clicked opened as he turned the key and the knob.
Rene stepped in, looking back. “Thank you so much.”
Leroy smiled, happy to oblige. “Anytime.”
She stood watching as he turned and walked away. When he was out of sight, she entered the office, closing the door behind her. Two computers had been set up, one of them definitely Charlie’s. She could easily tell, the small photograph of his kids still taped to the upper left corner of the monitor. Their faces staring down at her while she typed on the keyboard made her feel uneasy. She felt like they were accusing her of killing their daddy, and deep down, she wondered if she had played a role in his murder. She consciously pushed aside the thought, fearing the answer.
Rene’s luck was holding out as there was no screen saver password set. Robert probably relied on the door being locked to protect the computer. She shot to a DOS prompt and headed straight for the root directory. She ran a DIR command to sort the subdirectories by date so the newest entry would appear at the bottom of the screen. Bingo. The last directory in the list was named HSI, created yesterday. She switched to that directory and ran a file list. She recognized some of the source code, mixed together with bitmap files and text documents. She didn’t really care what it was, just as long as she had something to hand over to Santiago.
She zipped up the files, constantly looking to the door, fearing Robert would come through at any moment. After the archive was created, she pulled a floppy from her pocket and inserted it into the drive, copying the new zip file over. Once complete, she deleted the archive from the hard drive and exited DOS, taking a deep breath.
She scooted to the other computer and repeated the process, finding an almost identical HSI directory on that system as well. From the quick file scan she ran, it was easily apparent the files were different, newer. She pulled a second disk out of her pocket and ran the same procedure she had on the other machine, deleting her tracks when she was done.
She looked around the office. Papers were scattered about, some stacked, others strewn haphazardly. She briefly scanned through the main topics of the paperwork. Customer invoices, source code printouts, procedures, e-mails, and a photocopy of a smart card, enlarged to fit an entire page. She picked it up, looking at it, curious. She had never seen such a card and found it intriguing. She held onto the page as she left the room, leaving the door unlocked behind her.
She hurried back down the hall and once again found herself in Leroy’s cube, asking him if there was a copier around. He stood and pointed two cubes over, against the far west wall. She hurried over and pressed the page against the glass, burning two copies. She would keep one just in case.
As the second copy landed in the tray something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. She turned in time to see Robert’s head just above the cubes, heading back to his office. She held her breath for a few seconds as she lowered her head, her eyes peering over a partition wall, watching Robert as he made his way around the far corner and toward the office. She froze when she saw him open the door. He stopped in his tracks, stared at the door, then turned to look around.
She gasped and quickly ducked, grabbing the original and two copies from the tray. She remained hunched over as she scurried down the adjoining hall, then stopped at the main hall and looked both ways. No one was in sight. She kept low and scrambled for the elevator, punching the button several times in succession as if it would actually speed it along. She turned and stared at the corner, certain Robert would come running to see who had broken into his office.
The elevator doors opened and she disappeared inside, a sigh of relief escaping her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kyle felt better after he finished the second slice, then rode back to work somewhat slow and careful. His heart was troubled by the threat made by persons unknown, as Norm aptly titled them. Kyle would remember their faces, that much was sure. He thought of having Robert pull up stakes and stop everything, but knew that wasn’t possible. Robert was to report his findings to Curtis. He was in too deep to simply back out and in too much danger to proceed forward. The triad of the fake FBI, real FBI, and his employer made him feel claustrophobic. He remembered a saying he had heard long ago as he approached Robert’s office – it’s not paranoia when they’re really out to get you.
He knocked twice and the door opened, Robert highly excited. “Come in, Kyle.”
Robert pulled Kyle in hurriedly, poking his head out the door and checking both ways before closing it.
“What’s the problem?” Kyle asked, taking a seat.
“I went to pick up lunch and brought it back here. When I returned the door was unlocked.”
“Did you lock it when you left?” Kyle asked, setting his helmet and backpack on the floor.
“Absolutely. I even double checked it. There’s something else. The printout I had of the smart card is missing. It was right over there on my desk, and now it’s nowhere.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No. No one.”
“Did they get anything else?”
Robert nodded, his breathing heavy. “They copied files from both systems.”
“How do you know?”
“I always run doskey in the autoexec. I hit F7 and read the command line history. Whoever came in here exited to DOS, located the most recently created subdirectory, and copied the files onto a floppy disk.”
“Well, I guess that eliminates security,” Kyle said, glancing over at Charlie’s monitor, his eye catching the picture of Suzie and Johnny. “They wouldn’t know how to use DOS, so that limits it to someone who knows computers.”
“Not to mention someone more comfortable working in DOS mode. Most people would navigate with the mouse. And it’s not someone that’s especially proficient in DOS, either.”
“Why’s that?” Kyle asked.
“All they would have had to do is hit the alt key and F7, at the same time, and it would have cleared the buffer. I wouldn’t have seen a thing.”
“So, you think it’s someone on our team?”
Robert pondered for a moment, moving across the room and sitting down in his chair. “Either our team or the network group. I am near their area. Maybe someone saw me and became curious.”
“No,” Kyle said, standing up. “I don’t think it’s simple curiosity. They took specific files from both machines, so it was deliberate. What we need is bait.”
“Bait?” Robert repeated.
“Yeah, something to draw them out.” Kyle thought for a second, then turned to Robert. “You remember that PC virus Charlie stumbled on last year? The one that made the PC speaker squeal like a pig?”
“Sure,” Robert said. “It’s still on one of my floppies upstairs. The PC Scream Virus. Why?”
“That’s a boot sector virus, right?”
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