Hush-Hush

by Stuart Woods

  —

  Stone arrived at his desk the following morning, approximately on time, and his secretary, Joan, knocked and came in. “We don’t have any computers,” she said. “Just black screens. Nothing works. Shall I call somebody?”

  Stone thought about that: if he said no, he’d never hear the end of it. He handed her the sheet of paper.

  She read it carefully. “There’s nothing pertaining to you, explicitly. He doesn’t use your name, address, or phone number. It’s a scam. He sent out a zillion of these, and it’s just a phishing expedition. Don’t bite.”

  Stone said nothing.

  “You bit,” she said firmly.

  “I only told him to go fuck himself.”

  “Hook, line, and sinker,” she said.

  “Hardly that.”

  “Now he knows you exist. Before, you were just a file name among millions he stole from some mailing list. And it never hurts not to be disrespectful. What’s in it for you to piss him off?”

  “You’re exaggerating the problem,” Stone said. “From now on, I’ll just ignore him.”

  His computer made a rude buzzing noise, and he and Joan both looked at the screen.

  Now, it’s a million and a half.

  Stone swung around and aimed for the keyboard. Joan took hold of his chair and held him back. “Don’t, you’ll just make it worse!”

  “How could it be worse?” Stone asked.

  “Well, he could be listening to our conversation.”

  Stone opened his mouth to speak, and he clapped a hand over it.

  “Shush.”

  Stone nodded and removed his hand.

  Joan whispered in his ear, “Call Lance.”

  3

  Stone did not want to make this call. Every time he asked Lance Cabot for something, there were repercussions. Lance always wanted something in return, and it was usually more than he had given Stone, or more than Stone wanted to give him. He dialed the number.

  “Good morning, Stone,” Lance said in his silken baritone and New England accent.

  “Good morning, Lance,” Stone replied.

  “What may the Central Intelligence Agency do for you this fine day?”

  “I have a problem, one that involves the Agency, you specifically.”

  “I don’t much like the sound of that,” Lance said.

  “Neither do I, but there it is.”

  “There what is?”

  “There is an attempt at extortion, concerning the computer systems in my home and office.”

  “Let me guess. Someone claims to have made a movie of you masturbating to a porno movie.”

  “Not that one. No grounds.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so.”

  “What then?”

  “Someone has frozen my computers and threatens to destroy and expose their contents unless I pay him one and a half million dollars in Bitcoin.”

  “I don’t see the problem,” Lance said. “You surely have that many dollars to spare. Our investigation of your background shows that you do. Pay the extra two cents.”

  This was from an old Yiddish joke dating to the days of vaudeville, but Stone didn’t bite. “If it were only two cents, I still wouldn’t pay it.”

  “Oh, Stone, you choose the oddest times to become a man of principle. Why do I care what happens to your computers?”

  “Because there are many communications and documents from you lodged on their hard drives,” Stone said. “The man purports to have read all my important information, and one assumes this would include all those little love letters of yours and the details of a number of Agency operations, some of which may still be running.”

  Lance took a moment of silence for that to soak in. “We are not going to give your extortionist one and a half million dollars in Bitcoin,” he said.

  “As I’ve said, neither am I. So where does that leave us?”

  “Where do you think it leaves us?” Lance snapped.

  “It leaves you worse off than me.”

  This stopped Lance for a full ten seconds. “Are you threatening me, Stone?”

  “No, an extortionist is threatening you—and, of course, me, as well.”

  “What do you propose I should do about this situation?”

  “Well,” Stone said. “Best case: you have your people track down the extortionist, destroy all his equipment, put his name on every conceivable watch list, which would keep him from finding this sort of work again. And, come to think of it, maybe slap him around a bit, just enough to give him a glimpse of his own blood.”

  “You’ve been watching too many Bruce Willis films,” Lance said.

  “No, I’ve been reading your ops reports. Now, have you a counterproposal for action?”

  “‘Action this day,’” Lance muttered.

  “Fine with me. I’ve got until noon Friday.”

  “I was quoting Winston Churchill,” Lance said, “not making a suggestion. Churchill used to attach notes with those words to his orders. For a while everybody jumped, but after a little longer, people got used to them and ignored them.”

  “Is that happening to you, Lance? Are your people beginning to ignore you?”

  “Not until after their resignations have been accepted.”

  “Let’s go back to the beginning of this pinball game,” Stone said. “I am not going to pay the extortionist a million and a half dollars in Bitcoin nor in quarters, dimes, nor pennies. Your turn.”

  Lance sighed. “All right, I’ll send somebody around to your office.”

  “Thank you. Please stress to your man that he is being sent to restore my computers to their previous health, not to bowdlerize them and leave them in a smoking heap on my office floor.”

  “I’ll try to remember,” Lance said, then hung up.

  Stone hung up, too, feeling let down. Somehow he had expected more of a cavalry charge than just a home visit. He looked at his watch; it was still running, and the time was eleven o’clock.

  There was a knock at his door, and Holly walked in, wearing a tailored suit and looking all business. “Good morning again,” she said.

  “Good morning. Are you off somewhere?”

  “I am speaking at a luncheon given by the Foreign Policy Association, to which I have, mercifully, not invited you.”

  “How can I thank you enough?” he replied.

  “I’ll think of something,” she replied. “We have one more night together before I flee.”

  “I’ve learned to take what I can get. What would you like for dinner?”

  “Let’s order in Chinese from that fabulous place you know. We can dine naked.”

  “Then the food hardly matters,” he replied.

  She gave him a wet kiss and left, headed for the garage.

  * * *

  —

  Ten minutes later, Joan buzzed him. “Rocky, from Lance, to see you.”

  “Send him in.”

  Joan laughed and hung up. A moment later a young woman wearing slacks and a cashmere sweater entered his office. Stone particularly appreciated cashmere sweaters that were not marred by bras. “I’m Rocky Hardwick,” she said. “Where’s your computer?”

  “I’m Stone Barrington,” he replied, and pointed at his desk. “And that’s my computer.”

  She set down a briefcase and a leather satchel. “Pardon me, as I change,” she said, producing a pair of coveralls from the satchel and pulling them on over her clothes. “Get out of my way.”

  “I wasn’t aware that computers are greasy,” Stone said, rising from his desk and moving to a leather chair.

  “You never know,” Rocky said. She produced a fat laptop computer, unplugged a circuit board from Stone’s computer, and used a cable to attach it to her laptop. “Now, let’s have a loo
k at your hard drive.” She typed nonstop for about half a minute, then sat back and watched her screen.

  The laptop uttered a pfft noise and went dark.

  “What was that?” Stone asked.

  “That was the sound of your attacker’s bot destroying my computer’s hard drive. At the very least.” She packed up her tools and laptop.

  “Where are you going?” Stone asked.

  “This problem is going to require a trip to the lab,” she said.

  “In New York City, I hope.”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you going to be able to fix this?”

  “That depends on your definition of ‘fix,’” she replied.

  “Cure, heal.”

  “Maybe. Bye-bye.” She packed her boilersuit and left.

  Joan came in. “That was fast.”

  “It was that,” Stone replied.

  “Are we up and running?”

  “Neither. Something on my hard drive attacked her computer. She’s taking it to her lab.”

  “That’s not encouraging,” Joan said.

  “No, it is not.”

  “Shall I start buying Bitcoin?”

  “Not ever,” Stone said.

  “Then you have a plan?”

  “I have the hope that Rocky has a plan,” Stone said, “and as far as Bitcoin is concerned, I prefer my currency with pictures of American presidents on it. I don’t trust zeros and ones.”

  “I’m with you, boss.”

  “That is so reassuring,” Stone replied. “Now, go work without a computer.”

  “Well, let’s see,” she muttered. “I think I still have a typewriter around here somewhere.”

  Shortly, he could hear key tapping on an IBM Selectric.

  4

  They sat on the bed, eating pot stickers, shrimp balls, fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, and two or three other things.

  “This is so great,” Holly said. “I never get to eat like this in the White House.”

  “They don’t have Chinese delivery in Washington?” Stone asked.

  “Will Lee told me—and I didn’t believe him—that he could never get a pizza delivered. By the time it passed through the X-ray and security inspections and they got it up to the family quarters, it would be cold, and he hated reheated pizza.”

  “It’s just one of the human tragedies associated with being President of the United States, I guess.”

  She laughed. “At least they can’t deny me sex in New York now and then.”

  “That raises a question: How are we going to handle it when we get caught?”

  “Caught? You mean red-handed, like somebody kicks in the door and photographs us in flagrante delicto?”

  “No, they’d never get that far. But somebody is going to catch on eventually, maybe very soon. Somebody will bribe a maid at the Carlyle, who’ll tell them you’re not sleeping there when you’re in town. Then they’ll start working their way down the list of your male acquaintances; pretty soon they’ll come to that photograph of us waltzing, and they’ll give ‘waltzing’ a whole new meaning. It’s inevitable.”

  “I thought just death and taxes were inevitable. They’re adding screwing to the list?”

  “They’ll add whatever they like to the list,” Stone said. “And screwing will be number one.”

  “Well, I’ll just have my press secretary announce, when it comes up, so to speak, that the president will have no comment on her personal life.”

  “You think that will satisfy them?”

  “I don’t much give a damn if it satisfies them. I’m not in the business of satisfying the press.”

  “Oh, no?”

  “Well, not about my personal life, anyway.”

  “You’re a brave woman.”

  “No, just randy.”

  “How do you satisfy that randiness when I’m not around?”

  “Let’s just say that you would love watching me.”

  “I bet I would, but I’d rather handle it myself.”

  “Well, you’d better start now,” she said, “because if I eat much more Chinese food, I’m going to be incapable of participating.”

  They put away the chopsticks and moved the tray off the bed.

  * * *

  —

  Stone kissed her goodbye in the garage. “Next week?” he asked hopefully.

  “Not likely. You’ll just have to trust me to do the best I can,” she replied. Then she got into one of the three SUVs, and they drove out of the garage.

  Stone went back to his office, dejected.

  “There’s a message from our extortionist,” Joan said.

  “What’s the message?”

  “‘Ticktock, ticktock.’”

  “Where’s what’s-her-name?”

  “Rocky Hardwick?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “She’s on her way over.”

  “Is she on her way over with a solution, or just on her way over?”

  “We’ll soon learn.”

  * * *

  —

  Rocky showed up in a different outfit, but still bra-less, to Stone’s satisfaction. He liked that look; it helped him put Holly out of his mind.

  “Okay,” she said, “we were unable to restore your hard drive to health, but you haven’t lost all your data. It’s backed up on Joan’s computer and on an external hard disk.”

  “Are you going to be as successful with those as you were with mine?” Stone asked.

  “That remains to be seen,” she replied. “Sometimes we fail.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Failure must be difficult for you.”

  Joan interrupted before Rocky could respond to that. “Right this way,” she said.

  Rocky picked up her briefcase and followed her out of the room, sticking her tongue out at Stone on her way.

  Joan came back in. “I think this will go better if you don’t make Rocky hate you,” she said.

  “Who, me? I’m the sweetest guy in the world!”

  “Then find a way to prove it, before we permanently lose our ability to compute.”

  “I’ll work on my manners.”

  “Always a good idea.” She went back to her office.

  * * *

  —

  Rocky came back into Stone’s office. “Mind if I sit down?” she asked.

  “Please,” Stone said, waving her to the sofa. “You must be exhausted.”

  “Close.”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “Can you put your hands on a bottle of Scotch?”

  “I can. Would you like a straw?”

  “Just a little ice,” she replied.

  Stone poured them both a drink, then sat down at the other end of the sofa. They raised glasses and drank.

  “Ahh, I feel human again.”

  “I’m glad,” Stone said. “You certainly look human.”

  “Thank you for the kind word. Would you like to know how I did?”

  “Love to.”

  “I’ve restored Joan’s computer and the backup hard drive to health. I’ll bring you a new computer tomorrow and transfer all your data. It will be like I was never here.”

  “I’m not sure I want it to be like that.”

  “You are sweet, when you’re trying.”

  “Joan remarked on my lack of manners. I apologize, I was just frustrated.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t want you to feel that way, would we? Maybe some more good news would help.”

  “I love good news. Never get enough of it.”

  “We’ve located the computer from which your trouble originated.”

  “Is it right here in the city? Can I walk around the corner and slug the guy?”

  “Not exactly. The coordinat
es put it about twelve miles southwest of Ames, Iowa.”

  “Have you called in a missile strike yet?”

  “Not yet. We thought a personal visit might be more in order.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Can whoever visits him see that he will never type again?”

  “First, we’ll want to confiscate his equipment and question him.”

  “You have people in Ames, Iowa?”

  “As a matter of fact, we have a team of two, working on a special project, in the computer sciences lab at Iowa State University. They’re on their way, and someone will meet them at the location with a search warrant.”

  “Very efficient. I’m impressed.” He snuck a look at her sweater. “More and more.”

  She laughed. “I’m flattered.”

  “It wasn’t flattery,” he replied, “just appreciation.”

  “That’s even better,” she said.

  “Are you done for the day?”

  “I’m just waiting on a phone call for the results of the home visit,” she said.

  “Let’s wait in my study, it’s more comfortable.” He led the way upstairs.

  5

  Stone lit a fire and poured them another drink at the bar. “Do you have bars everywhere?” Rocky asked.

  “Only where they’re desperately needed,” Stone replied. “One shouldn’t have to hunt for a drink.” He sat down next to her.

  “Where are you from?” she asked.

  “Less than an hour’s walk from here, in the Village. You?”

  “A small town in Georgia you’ve never heard of, called Delano.”

  “I’ve heard of it. What happened to your Georgia accent?”

  “I was led astray by Yankee men and Englishmen.”

  “Englishmen?”

  “I was stationed in London for four years.”

  “Ah. I love London.”

  “So do I.”

  “Why did you move?”

  “One goes where the Agency tells one to go.”

  “I’ll have to speak to the Agency about that.”

  “You must have a connection there, or I wouldn’t be here working on your problem.”