by R Weir
“Am I next?” asked Cong.
“No. We are going to take you away and ask some hard questions. After that, it depends on my mood.”
“And what of me,” I asked. “Am I going to be asked some hard questions too?”
“No. You are free to go.”
“Really. I doubt I can walk out of here. Can you drop me somewhere?”
“No, but I can call you a cab.”
“How about an ambulance.”
“No. We have some cleanup to do here. But I’m sure they will take you to the nearest hospital.”
“That would be swell of you. But again, I have to ask why?”
“Let me say an acquaintance hired me to watch after you.”
“Who?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. We were to assist in any way we could.”
I thought about it for a moment, a request coming to my bloody tongue.
“Does that include you getting me some answers?”
“Ask, and we will see.”
I stood up slowly and walked over to him, whispering my request.
He smiled while looking at Cong, still standing in the ring, and nodded his head convincingly.
Chapter 60
We were sitting in a meeting room, designed by a male who was compensating for a lack of a certain physical prowess. The room was huge, with long rectangular marble-top table, with thirty chairs, and acoustics to amplify the sound in the room so everyone could hear those speaking in the other zip code. Mandy was sitting to the left of me, Barry to the right. Both had their computers out and were typing away. I felt quite low-tech holding my smartphone in my right hand, checking on baseball scores. The Rockies weren’t in the playoff chase again this year, which bummed me out.
I was working the phone one-handed, as my left arm was in a sling. The damage was bad, but repairable, either with time or possibly surgery. A shoulder socket dislocation and rotator cuff tear was the prognosis. My face was still bruised and swelling in places, cotton and tape no longer needed for my broken nose, which was slowly healing. Other parts that didn’t show, much the same. I was walking stiffly, though Ibuprofen helped. I’d spent twenty-four hours in the hospital, twenty-four more than I cared for. The only good thing about the stay was the pain meds, which helped me sleep. I had lived through the battle to carry on another day, though I’d wished it had been less painful. More than I could say for Lok, whose body had been disposed of, who knows where. No news of it ever being found. When I was delivered to the hospital, when they asked what happened, I said I’d been in a fight, but couldn’t identify who it was. When questioned by the local Littleton police, they took the statement, but you could tell they didn’t believe much of it. Another local civil service department that would have a file on me, with little or no detail to work with. I’d soon be flagged in all the state-wide systems. A don’t ask, for he won’t tell designation.
For now, we sat by ourselves waiting, a pitcher of ice water to keep our glasses filled. Mandy was outfitted in a long blue skirt, with white boots, and white silk short-sleeved blouse. Barry was in expensive black suit, with yellow tie, white shirt and mirror polished black shoes. Next to them I looked like I was slumming it, with green polo, white slacks and less than polished white Nike running shoes. We had a meeting with the power structure of WANN Systems. We were going to state our case and hopefully bring this whole situation to a conclusion.
After about a thirty-minute wait, in walked a parade of WANN power management. Don’t all big executive types make the little people wait? There were four of them altogether, two I knew and the other two I didn’t. The two I didn’t know dressed more upscale than the two owners. They took seats on the opposite side of the table, each pouring their own ice water from another pitcher within their reach. They all got settled into their cushiony chairs, and I felt the cold stare of Logan across the table. No doubt remembering me even with my black and blue face.
“I am Maddix Bishop, the lead counsel for WANN Systems,” said the third man from the left. “Immediately to my right is Chief Security Officer, Kyle Lambert. To my left is Logan Albers and to his left Burton Waterton, both the founders, owners and co-CEOs of WANN Systems.”
“I am Barry Anders, representing Mandy Bailey, the beautiful young lady to my far left. And the gentlemen next to me is private detective Jarvis Mann.”
“Since this is an informal meeting,” stated Maddix, “we will not be recording any of the proceedings. If at any time any of the parties are uncomfortable with this, we can begin recording, if all parties agreed.”
Barry nodded his head.
“Counsel Anders, you called this meeting,” continued Maddix. “What do you want to discuss?”
“Jarvis has been leading this investigation,” said Barry. “I will let him have the floor to spell out what he has discovered.”
I would have loved to stand up and walked the floor, giving a summation like the best lawyers you see on TV, but I was too sore. So I remained seated.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” I said. “I will begin with a short synopsis of how all of this began, for anyone not familiar. A few months back Aaron Bailey was found murdered in the parking garage of your Denver office facility. Aaron was a software engineer, who was beaten, shot in the leg and then in the chest, which killed him.”
“All ruled a robbery gone bad by the police,” added Kyle.
“Exactly. So Mandy, the widow of Aaron, did not believe this to be the case. So she hired me to investigate. When I first looked at the case, I found one odd item, and that being the fact that the security system was offline at the time of the shooting. If it had been working, the culprit would have easily been identified.”
“Purely coincidental,” said Kyle. “Computer systems go down like that all the time.”
“In fact, that is not the case for this system. It had a record of being nearly hundred percent operational.”
“Who did you hear this from?” asked Kyle.
“The Head of Security of the Denver office, Mitchell Crabtree.”
“Former head. He was fired for his incompetence.”
“Then he is to blame?”
Kyle gave me a hard stare now that rivaled Logan’s. The combo would keep the ice in my glass from melting.
“We are not saying that,” said Maddix. “No one who worked at WANN is directly responsible for Aaron’s death. But being the Head of Security, he should have made sure the system was operational.”
“Even though he wasn’t working at the time? Come now, gentlemen, we know he was a scapegoat you could blame to take the heat off of all of you. You even paid him to keep his mouth shut.”
“Where did you learn this?”
I just shrugged my shoulders.
“Any agreement we had with Mitchell is between us and him,” said Maddix.
“Sure it is. And after talking with him, three Russian men paid him a visit, attacking him and fire-balling his classic Corvette. A damn shame, as well as a crime to destroy such a pristine vehicle.”
“Do you have witnesses to prove this?”
“Not directly. Mitchell went into hiding along with his family, in fear for their lives. Those three men later attacked me outside of my favorite watering hole, wanting to know who hired me to investigate the Aaron Bailey murder. Fortunately, a police officer friend stopped by and kept them from beating me senseless.”
“There must be a point in all of this,” said Kyle.
“Oh, there is. A conspiracy to prevent me from finding out who actually murdered Aaron Bailey for knowledge he was about to spill about a WANN Systems software security issue, which was allowing them to steal information from their unknowing customers.”
“Ridiculous,” said Burton. “Our software is as secure as any on the planet.”
“Really. Is that true, Mandy?”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “With the security vulnerability I have discovered, I can shut your entire network down. If you were to buy someth
ing I would be able to steal all the information in the order.”
“Why should we believe you?” said Burton.
“Because she is the computer genius in the Bailey family,” I said. “Watch what happens when Mandy takes over your network. Go ahead, Mandy, demonstrate.”
Since Mandy had hacked back into the WANN Systems she had been working on coding to take advantage of the computer vulnerability. It was a Trojan horse that once inside could do most anything she commanded. It took her a whole five minutes to activate it.
“Check with your tech people,” she said. “I just rebooted several of your main routers and firewalls, telling each to block all incoming and outgoing traffic for ten minutes. I made it think your network was under a denial of service attack, so it’s shutting down everything until the attack ceases.”
The four men looked at each other, trying to decide what to do. Kyle got up and went over to a phone on a small credenza. When he couldn’t get a dial tone, since the phone system shared the same network, he pulled out his massive iPhone and called. He spent several minutes talking, getting angry at what he was hearing. We caught him saying “fix it or else” and then he hung up the phone. Once back in his seat he confirmed what Mandy had done.
“Hacking into a network is illegal,” said Kyle. “We should call the cops or, better yet, sue you.”
“You already sued her,” said Barry. “But we have a judge looking at it right now. From emails we obtained you manipulated her to sign that settlement agreement. That judge has now suspended the Cease and Desist order. We plan on countering with our own legal action.”
Barry pulled out some copies of the emails and tossed them in front of Maddix. He went through each one, before passing them on to the other three. All read them, accept for Logan. He didn’t need to because he already knew what was in them. When Burton read through each one, he turned and gave Logan a nasty look. Burton got up and walked over to Maddix and whispered in his ear.
“We need a few minutes to discuss some things,” said Maddix. “Could you please step out and we’ll call you when we are ready.”
Mandy and Barry closed up their computers and the three of us walked out. I had grabbed my water and took a long drink while we stood, waiting.
“How do think it’s going?” asked Mandy.
“They are sweating bullets,” answered Barry.
“What do you think they will do?”
“What do most big companies do when in trouble? Buy their way out of it.”
“How will we respond?” I said.
“I want Aaron’s killer or killers brought to justice,” stated Mandy. “And a big payday would be a nice bonus.”
“The plan was to get both,” Barry replied. “So we’ll see what they have to say.”
It took about twenty-five minutes before they called us back into the room. When we reached our seats, the power quartet looked worried but confident they could deal with us. Barry insisted on recording the proceedings now, as he wanted it on record. After a long discussion among themselves the four of them agreed. Barry pulled out of his briefcase a high-end digital recorder and placed it at the center of the table and pressed record.
“What will it take for this to go away?” said Burton.
When flying out we had discussed figures and what we would ask for, looking at Aaron’s income potential for the years he had remaining. The pain and suffering for the loss of a loved one. And of course the fees for Barry and myself. We came to a pretty big number.
“Twenty million,” said Barry.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” responded Burton.
“No, I’m not. Mandy’s pain and suffering, the jeopardy her life has been in since she hired Jarvis, and the income potential that has now been lost with Aaron’s murder. You are lucky it’s not higher than that. And we want all the money up-front. And not paid out over time.”
“Not a chance,” said Logan, speaking for the first time.
“He speaks,” I said. “Logan, you know we have you. In the end you will deal. But there will be one stipulation. And that is the murderer of Aaron Bailey will be brought to justice. Of this there will be no negotiation.”
“We don’t know who killed Aaron,” said Kyle.
“You may not know, but Logan knows, for he manipulated this person into doing his dirty work for him. You see he has an issue with sex that others have used against him, to gain a foothold in this company. I know Burton knows of his problems and has tried to cover for him for years now. But it allowed you both to keep the company afloat. Both the Russians and the Chinese gave you money to keep the gravy train running. Even twisted you into designing your hardware and software so they could steal from those using it. Identity and credit card theft are big business. And the Chinese hoped with your rising market share that you would be able to sell your products to the US Government. Buy your firewalls, switches, routers and software, giving them the ability to infiltrate and snoop on what our security agencies were doing. Hell, there is a lot of money going across the government network they could access, intercept, and possibly steal.”
“You are full of it,” said Logan. “You have nothing to link me to his murder.”
“Oh, I do. And not only Aaron’s murder, but Wilmar Boylan’s and Adam King’s. They were all murdered by the same person. A couple of Denver police detectives flew out here with us. They got a warrant to search the home of the suspect. We should be hearing from them shortly.”
Logan was now getting nervous. He looked around the room and got up to leave. I jumped up and beat him to the door. Even with one hand I would have no issue with stopping him.
“Sit down,” I said with some vigor. “Or I will sit you down myself, as I did once before.”
His hand went to his stomach, as he remembered the blow to the solar plexus I given him in the hotel room. He turned around and sat back down, this time next to Maddix.
“Ten million,” said Burton.
“Fifteen, and not a penny less,” countered Barry.
Burton paused, not sure what to do. It was a lot of money but his company was worth it, and could afford it, as least for now.
“Alright. Fifteen million. Do we have a deal?”
“Sure,” replied Barry. “Other than Aaron’s killer. Once the police have them in custody, then we can sign some paperwork. They are not part of the deal.”
“You can have him,” said Burton. “I’m tired of cleaning up his messes.”
“You son-of-a-bitch,” said Logan. “You’d be nothing without me.”
“I suggest you both shut up,” said Maddix, while pointing at the recorder. “Before you say something that you both will regret.”
Logan was angry and didn’t care. He stood up to go after Burton, but I stepped over and punched him once in the kidney. He buckled to the ground to one knee in pain.
“You asshole,” he said, while trying to speak through the agony. “I will have you arrested for assaulting me.”
“Actually, I think I was saving your partner from you assaulting him. And I imagine he would testify to it.”
Kyle stood up, thinking he should do something. He was the Head of Security, but didn’t appear to be in charge of anything on the security side at the moment. He walked over and helped up Logan, telling him to sit down. He stepped over to me, trying to look tough, but I wasn’t fazed. I waved my finger at him as a warning, when my cell phone rang. It was Dan Cummings. After I heard what he had to say I went to open the meeting room door. Stu Mallard, Denver Police Detective, walked in and showed his badge so everyone knew who he was.
“What is this about, Officer?” asked Burton.
“I will explain in a few minutes. We are waiting for someone to join us.”
Everyone turned to watch the open doorway. Within a few minutes Bronwen Pearson, Director of Security for the West Region, walked in the door. She was, as I remembered, a tall lady, with broad shoulders and thick hands. She was dressed in black slacks and a peach blo
use. Her black hair was cut short, parted in the middle and combed straight back. From a distance, in the dark, most would not think she was a woman.
“What the hell is this?” she said.
“Are you Bronwen Pearson?” asked Mallard.
“Yes.”
Mallard walked over to her and handed her some paperwork.
“If you want to read that, it’s a warrant to search your home. We’ve already executed it and are there now.”
She looked down at the paperwork, looking over the details, trying to make head or tails of it.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Guns. Specifically, the guns which killed three people.”
Her eyes glanced over at Logan and then back again at Mallard.
“I haven’t killed anyone.”
“Actually, we think you have. We found at least one of them. Once we test it, we’ll know for sure.” Mallard then recited her Miranda rights.
“What did you do to your left arm?” I asked, pointing to a bandage above the elbow.
She looked at it for a second but didn’t respond.
“Maybe a flesh wound from a bullet, from Adam King’s gun,” I added. “Enough to leave blood and DNA at the scene.”
Her expression changed, from innocent to a look of guilt.
“I did what I had to do.”
“Probably should keep your mouth shut,” said Maddix. “Anything you say can be used against you.”
“So you are my lawyer now,” she said back to him, with anger. “What the hell do you know? What all I’ve done. What I’ve been through.”
Kyle walked up to her.
“Bronwen, shut up. Maddix is right. You are only making it worse.”
“You limp dick. You wouldn’t do anything about the problem. Had to delegate it to me for handling. You wouldn’t suck his dick like I did. Hell, he was going to give me your job after all of this. I was tough enough and man enough, where you sat behind your desk playing video games all day. I cleaned up his mess, and what did I have to show for it. Did he love me? Hell no. He’d fuck me alright, like his other sex toys. Hell, we did it in his office, my office and even on this table. He promised me the job. He promised me lust. But not his love.”