by Estes, Danny
“So what’s this all about?” Randolph questioned.
“It guarantees no interference from personnel or company heads,” Jill confirmed, adding, “Therefore we walk in, order what we need, including an office, and get to work.”
“That maybe how you work, but it’s not my way,” Randolph reminded her.
“And what precisely is that?” Jill asked sounding skeptical.
“Simple,” Randolph began, noting the stewardess had resettled herself behind the wall to give them some privacy. “I research an area, acquire a warehouse as a base, piggyback my equipment onto the city’s grid, then get to work on the target by learning everything about them, from the building structures the target lives or works in, to daily habits. Only after acquiring all this, do I plan out what may be done to accomplish my task, whatever that may be from the contract I’d drawn out with those who hired me.”
“Sounds time consuming,” Jill said dryly.
“Yes, Jill, it is. First I back log the building so it appears rented out to those who rented last. Then I set up security, covering all the ways in, including the sewer system—”
“Enough already,” Jill slammed her hand down. “There’ll be no need for all that. All you’re required to do is get me past what security measures there are for a line of sight to the target. Period.”
Randolph sat back in his chair and glared at Jill.
She asked, without sounding as if she cared, “You don’t like your role, I take it?”
“You got it in one,” Randolph admitted, folding his arms in a statement of closure.
“Well, tough! This is how it’s going to be. I’ve had far more experience on these missions—”
“And lost partners,” Randolph threw at her, shutting Jill up with that jab. “I may be a rookie, but take a good hard look at my record. I’ve been pinched twice in twenty years, and those times were in my teens when I knew no better. Since then, zip-o. And I’ve done over sixty high-profile jobs, each one escalating my skills, and not a single fatality in any one of them!”
“Not until your last one, anyway,” Jill jabbed back with a smirk.
Randolph sat up straight. “I told you I didn’t kill those people. I was set up!”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re just in denial,” Jill said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
Randolph considered flipping her off but instead told her, “I’m not going to help you kill someone, and that’s final.”
“You’ll do as I say, or you’ll get one hell of a headache,” Jill threatened.
“What, you gonna call Mel?” Randolph sneered.
“No, I’m quite capable of making you wish I did call Mel,” Jill replied in such a matter-of-fact cold voice, Randolph thought he saw icicles forming in the air.
“I’ll not argue”—he swallowed—“but it’ll do no good. I don’t believe in killing.”
Jill sat back, taking a sip of her hot coffee, and tried out a scenario on Randolph. “Let’s say a gunman has your family, and orders you to kill the first person you meet on the street or he’ll kill them. What then?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Jill waved her hand in frustration. “What’s there not to know? You take the gun he hands you and shoot the first person you meet. It’s as simple as that.”
Randolph shook his head. “But it’s never that simple. Even if—and that’s a big if—I do, what’s to stop him from killing my family anyway? I’ll have killed a perfect stranger for no reason, thus the reason to do so is moot.”
“So you kill him instead,” she countered.
“No, Jill, I can’t. It’s not for me to take someone's life. That’s reserved for the man upstairs.”
“Damn, Randolph, you really are a lifist!” Jill shook her head and put her cup down. “All right fine. I’ll take out the target without your help, but you damn well better get the information Mel wants in this folder afterwards,” she demanded, tossing it at him.
Randolph caught the folder and stammered, “Now hold on. Can’t you at least wait till I’ve gotten the information? Doing him will bring down every security measure they have, making my job a thousand times harder.”
“And how long would that take?”
“Cripes, I don’t know. I need time to research, say a month to do the preliminary background on the company—”
“And what do I do during this fishing expedition?” Jill interrupted, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Hell, I don’t know. I’ve told you time and again I haven’t worked with a partner since the last time I got caught and convicted. Besides, I have to unravel the rat nest Mitch and Patrick left behind.”
“If that’s your reason, then don’t worry about it. Mel wouldn’t send us against the same building they screwed up in.”
“But that still doesn’t give me a free ride in. Security’s been alerted, thus all their buildings will re-impose procedures which have been relaxed, actively looking for breeches of security.”
Jill rotated her chair left and right, apparently thinking instead of arguing, then nodded. “I’ll give you two weeks, after which we do it my way.”
“For crying out loud, Jill, what’s your hurry?”
“Cause and effect.”
Bewildered at hearing such a simple statement, Randolph stared at her, whereby she sighed, explaining.
“Because you and I are supposed to be dead, thus the longer we’re out on a job, the greater the possibility we’re discovered, which in effect makes us useless to Mel, and thereby we get our brains fried. And being as I’m not ready to die, I’ll give you only two weeks while I do some recon.” Holding up a hand to Randolph’s counter argument, Jill told him she would subtract a day for every minute he continued to complain.
Forced to ‘shut his mouth’. Randolph rolled his eyes skyward, petitioning for patience, and stewed in his chair for the remainder of their trip.
Chapter Ten
The craft touched down as schedule on the roof of a second Global Rift Supply and Demand building somewhere in the upper state of Yanncy. Once down the steps, Randolph and Jill found themselves greeted by the chief security technician, a corporate lawyer, and two executive managers whose assistants accepted their guests bags from the baggage handlers assigned to the hover port. Escorted past sound proof doors, Jill and Randolph had their credentials verified then were asked of their needs and comfort. As Randolph’s time table for even the barest essentials had been scrubbed, he begged out of the V.I.P. tour to unwind in a large conference room on the executive’s level. Pulling up an over-large chair to one of two terminals, he settled in, letting his fingers fly.
First on the agenda are my four seemingly simple search programs. Randolph wrote the programs from memory, which when activated in order would combine bits of code from each to seek out hard wired lines to the outside world while looking at the security programs working on this side of the firewall. Randolph allowed these programs to run in the back ground while he wrote up a meaningless program to randomly run out on the hard lines to any nodes and open computers. Next came out of his memory a piggyback program to see what type of guard dogs ran freely here-a-bout on the hard lines; once identified, each dog was tagged and the program marked the nodes of its territory.
Randolph’s next task on his cut-down list of things to do was a bit more complex, as he stripped down the second computer so he could disable any hardware allowing other eyes into the computer, including three spy-ware chips he found which had to have been installed by the security people. Next he opened up his briefcase and took an etching pen to the last quarter of the hard drive, destroying any invisible programs the operating system never sees but always installs for government agencies to have random checks for activities which could be considered criminal or detrimental to the government strangle hold on average people’s lives. After this came the tedious measures of removing all bugs and optical videos attached to the video-screen that allowed a face to be
attached to the program being run.
With this completed, Randolph set the computer to reformat to its original out-of-the-box settings minus spy-ware programs which send information to the builder about what the computer is being used for. Only after these start-up procedures had been accomplished did Randolph push back to the first computer and begin the next phase of capturing the strongest guard dogs and any leeches attached. This arduous task, though boring as hell, was his most important quest. For with the guard dogs, Randolph could take them apart and sic’em back on their makers, which then would give him entry codes to begin phase two.
After countless hours over the keyboards, Randolph yawned and rubbed tied eyes, pushing away from the second computer to glance over at a halo-video of an antique grandfather clock; 3:32 a.m. With a stretch of his arms, Randolph got up to walk around a bit to reacquaint his legs with movement and spied a video-phone. To Randolph’s touch of the call button, a polite female voice answered without hesitation, “Yes, Mr. Arlington?”
Randolph raised an eyebrow to the prompt answer from a wide-awake secretary. “Do you have a recorder handy?”
“Yes, Mr. Arlington.”
Randolph smiled and began ticking off a list of computer parts, tools and other devices he could take apart for the items inside, finishing with, “and I need them by 6 a.m., is that possible?” Once more hearing her acknowledgement of “Yes, Mr. Arlington.” Randolph signed off. After a bigger yawn, Randolph used the facilities reserved for high class stuffed shirts then laid on the conference table, using the suit jacket as a blanket, and promptly fell asleep.
Insistent knocking on the conference room door made Randolph rise from his nap, grumbling, I just laid down. Releasing a deep yawn, he rolled his eyes to the halo clock and found it was two past 6 a.m. That can’t be right! Grumbling yet again, Randolph rolled off the table, pulling open the locked door to find three delivery men with carts loaded. Once they waltzed out with their empty carts, a different secretary from the previous day entered unbidden, setting a tray of bagels, toast, coffee, juice and fresh water on the table. She flashed Randolph a sweet smile over an hourglass figure in a white and blue miniskirt and blouse ensemble, stitched to enhance every curve her mother and a plastic surgeon could contrive, and whispered enticingly, “My name is Gentle, Mr. Arlington. If you have any needs of something or “someone”—she winked—“all you need do is ask.”
By that smile and invitation, Randolph knew her IQ was probably lower than her bust size. Still, he watched as her hips swayed side to side on her way out. With a shake of his head, Randolph headed for the door then he heard the woman give out a startled cry as Jill shoved her aside, storming in, and began his morning with an angry demanding voice, “Where the hell have you been all night? And you’d better not say it was with that piece of ass!” She glared, indicating Gentle by slamming the door.
Randolph filled his glass with water and saluted Jill mildly. “Well, good morning to you too, sunshine.”
“Don’t give me that!” Jill snapped, coming closer. “What is all this junk and what are you up to?”
In answer to her question, Randolph selected a slice of lemon, dropped it in the water, and leaned against the conference table. Once relaxed, he told her bluntly while pointing, “These two computers are on so many watch lists in this building, it would take me an hour to list them. Then of course there are the seventy-five watch dog programs sitting on the other side of the firewall of the outside hard line; you couldn’t ask for the time of day without every one of them knowing it.” He took a sip of water and tapped a key, scanning the readouts encoded for his eyes to decipher and corrected, “Make that eighty-two. Apparently my program picked up on seven more while I was sleeping.” Randolph turned back to Jill and waved his glass around in a gesture of including the room, adding, “And I suggest you be careful of what spills forth from your lips, as I’ve found one short-range transmitter, which is lying in the corner over there.”
“That’s impossible.” Sweeping her arm about, she told him, “These offices are swept daily.”
“Okay, then explain this,” Randolph demanded, taking up the coffee cup he’d used last night and dropping it on the floor then crushing it under foot. He bent over, and sifting through the remains, picked up a slightly abused bug and showed it off to her. “Now if you'll excuse me, I have a ton of work to accomplish because of an uneducated partner imposing a near impossible deadline on me.”
“Hold it,” Jill demanded, grabbing Randolph’s arm and shoving the bug in his face. “How’d you find this?”
“My mother could have found that one,” Randolph imbued his tone with an indication Jill hadn’t the capability, “which tells me that’s the decoy or the secretary’s attempt to increase her credit account.” He slapped Jill’s hand off and set down his drink to go through the first of his delivered boxes. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to build a detector to get this room cleared of spying devices before I really get start working at my job.”
“Randolph, why do you have to do all that? Why can’t you simply purchase one from the supply store? Detectors are perfectly legal to buy,” Jill asked with curiosity this time, now that her ego had been deflated a bit.
“Look, Jill, you may wish to put your life in other people’s hands, but I don’t. Working out of my own place is dangerous enough.” Randolph indicated the room with a gesture. “But this, filled with people I don’t know and infested with who knows how many bugs—I can’t take the chance.” Randolph emptied a box on the table. “And as I can’t trust anyone here not to replant their bugs if I leave this room, this will be my living quarters.”
After having his say, Randolph ignored Jill and scattered out the equipment.
Jill stood for a time and contemplated his words and actions. Though she held a perverse wish to continue her argument, she none-the-less left Randolph to his work with a dismissive hand-wave on her way out the door. But once on the outside of the office, she wondered how a conference room could have so many bugs without the building manager knowing? With lowered head, Jill slid her eyes over the secretary, whose only function was eye candy; Jill thought perhaps special measures might be better off on her person, rather than in her case.
Within an hour of dismantling the equipment, Randolph built from scratch a short-range bug zapper. Once activated, the device killed off seven bugs, including two implanted in the tray brought in with breakfast. After that, he spent the next seven hours constructing a sweeper with directional lights to indicate where any active video-cameras or listening devices were located. When the light on his instrument turned green, after crushing two video-cameras set to view the room at different angles, he set to work building his own computer, designed to handle the open lines of the city with its trap doors and counter spy-ware, to render the computer invisible to the public eye. Next, testing out the computer to see if he missed anything, Randolph inserted the guard dogs and leech programs he’d adjusted and sent them on basic errands to verify his competence in redesigning them for his usage.
With this accomplished, he stood and stretched his legs, ate the last of his cold pizza, downed a warm beer chaser and stretched out for four hours of shut-eye. In the morning, after shoving out the clutter of packaging and accepting breakfast from a bemused secretary, who couldn’t fathom why he’d not taken her up to the executive suite for an entertaining night, Randolph finally began his real work. By the fourth day, wishing he could step out for a shower and shave, he readjusted his many guard dogs, destroyed five infested hard drives and sent out the leech programs with piggy back codes.
At this stage, Randolph wiped tired eyes, marveling he’d done two weeks of work in four days’ time with only the five mistakes. He then shook his head and began sorting through the city’s tax records, county building plans, state leases and a hundred other levels of bureaucracy which allowed a corporation to build and maintain a business. Next came all the support outfits which kept the place operating at peak e
fficiency.
As Randolph was running a basic program to pile and sort by importance, he ran into tax records and gross incomes which didn’t jibe with the size of the outfit. With his curiosity tweaked, he brought up the business and tagged them for further investigation, sending out new programs and starting another file.
Another day and part of the night slipped by as he piled up more details; Randolph was in the midst of designing a special leech when the conference door opened without his permission. Glancing over and noting Jill walking in, Randolph returned to his typing.
“Well, what do you want?” Jill questioned irritably, leaning up against the wall next to the door.
“Need?” Randolph questioned; he missed a stroke and had to backup a few keys to verify the code.
“Yes, need. You left me a message to come right over,” Jill told him in some anger.
Randolph looked over at her with a lead weight landing in the pit of his stomach and deigned, “Jill, I never sent—”
His alarm system went off. Four men in business suits, pointing guns and bearing badges from the Federal Building of Fair Commerce spilled into the room.
“FBFC; freeze!” the first through the door commanded while the others fanned out. “You’re both under arrest under statute 2279, Corporate Espionage Act.”
Randolph, however, did the opposite. He turned back to the keyboard as the words spilled from the agent’s mouth and hit three keys simultaneously, causing the lights in the room to go out and a strobe light to flash. Using the disorientation distraction, he ducked under the conference table as his computer did a complete melt down from the microwave elements he’d installed. By the end of the second strobe, Jill moved and Randolph heard a yell followed by a body hitting the table. Laser beams next appeared, racing across the room to where Randolph had been as he scrambled onto the tabletop and propelled himself up into the crawl space in between floors. Without worrying about noise, as Jill was making a real nuisance of herself, Randolph scrambled across the ceiling supports till he hit the concrete wall, pulled off an opening in the air duct system he’d made, and rolled in, hearing a man scream from within the office. Without any thoughts for Jill whatsoever—she could take care of herself—Randolph hooked himself up to the descending wire harness he constructed last night, hit the on button on the payout machine and was on his way down the air shaft between the walls when he felt the concussion grenade and electric pulse scrambler go off. After a minute of disorientation, realizing his home made device had been rendered useless by the electrical pulse, leaving him hanging like a duck in cold storage awaiting to be plucked and gutted for the pot, Randolph hit the disconnect button and free-fell four stories in the air system before hitting hard, at a T intersection, wishing he’d lost consciousness.