by Dale Mayer
If she didn’t fulfill the contract, she’d lose the house and also the ability to care for her father. With tears rising, she forced herself to finish eating. Her father dropped the fork and it clattered to his plate. She studied the amount he had eaten and nodded. It was about as good as it would get.
Carmelita appeared almost instantly. “I’ll take him back to his room.”
Bristol nodded and stood. With her father on his feet again, she reached over, kissed his cheek. “Have a good evening, Father.”
But he didn’t acknowledge her in any way. He hadn’t for a long time.
As soon as they were gone, she took a deep breath, swallowed hard and sat back down at her plate. She took several bites to regain control and then glanced at the men. They’d been watching—of course they had—but they were all eating now.
Devlin asked in a quiet, understanding voice, “How long?”
“Two years. It’s been that long since he last knew who I was.” She settled back to eat. “Just one more reason why this contract is so important.”
“And a very long two years,” Tesla said with sympathy. “He was such a vibrant man.” She glanced around the table at the others. “Bristol and I did a stint at MIT. I came here a couple times on holidays. Her father was fascinating. He had his fingers into a million different designs. He was doing everything from computer programs to chemical warfare.”
“The trouble is, I didn’t realize over the last five years how he was already sliding,” Bristol said. “So when he started into the chemical warfare—and a few other adventurous things—it got a little scary.”
“I’d say.” Corey shook his head. “Chemical warfare is a science all on its own.”
Bristol smiled. “And yet my father has several PhDs.”
Stunned silence filled the room. Then Ryder groaned. “This is where I get to say I’m probably the most uneducated person seated at this table.”
“You might be,” Devlin said, “but you’re the best at reading people, and you can’t be taught that from a book.” He glanced at Bristol. “Ryder’s gotten our asses out of trouble just based on that alone.”
“Interesting,” Bristol said. “That’s a fascinating concept.” She shrugged. “I really suck at that. But I can tell when people are hungry, and your plates are empty. There’s lots of food here, so please help yourselves to more.”
Several of the men did. But ten minutes later Ryder stood and said, “Thank you, ma’am. That was excellent, and I’d like to get back to work now.”
All the other men rose and followed suit. Bristol glanced at Tesla, who was grinning like a fool. She leaned forward and said, “Yes, they mean it.”
Bristol stood then and said, “Well, I’m not one to stop the work train. Let’s go.” She turned and led the way back downstairs. Only this time, Tesla was at her side. And damn, it was good to see her old friend.
*
Downstairs the two previous groups of men returned to their assignments. Rhodes looked at Bristol and said, “I’m here to help you build the drones, but both Harris and I are pros at finding hackers and security breaches.”
Her eyebrows shot up. Devlin grinned. He had been listening but didn’t know if she believed it or not. “Bristol, that’s what I said originally about these two.”
She nodded. “I’m torn between having you tear apart my system to figure out what is going on or having you help with the software I need to build.”
“Both,” Harrison said. “Let’s do what we can on the first, see if there is a leak, and if so, we’ll plug it. That way nothing else goes wrong. We can’t have anybody knowing you have all this help, with the potential of making your contract good. Because they are likely to up their agenda. Let them think you’re a limping duck today, heading for the slaughter.”
Devlin winced at the analogy but saw she got it.
She nodded. “What do you need from me?”
“Permission to access your system.”
This time Bristol winced.
Tesla reached a hand over and squeezed her friend’s shoulder. “I know exactly how you feel. But you need to do this.”
She nodded. “I’m not sure exactly what you need access to. The laptops on the table were all over Afghanistan at the training session, and my main server is through that door.”
Harrison turned toward the server.
Devlin stopped what he was doing, walked to Bristol and said, “You’ll need to let them into the server.”
Her breath rushed out with a whoosh and said, “Fine.” She opened the double doors.
Devlin trailed behind. He halted when he saw the banks of servers. “Really?”
But Harrison was in the middle of the room, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “Oh, I do love it when people put money where it belongs.”
Rhodes whistled. “This is nice.”
“I’m glad you approve,” Bristol said. “It took a lot of money to do this. The trouble is, for all I know, someone is coming in the back door to hurt me hard.”
Harrison looked down at his watch and said, “You’ve got a lot more going on here than I expected, so I need a few hours. I also need you to logon, and let me and Rhodes work.”
Devlin held his breath. It was a huge moment of trust for Bristol. But given the situation she was in, she didn’t have much of a choice. If she didn’t trust these men—the ones who could potentially help her—then there was no way to save her. But if she could, then she just might make this happen.
She stepped forward, dropped the keypad onto its lower level and quickly typed in her password. Instantly a four-wall bank of monitors turned on.
She glanced at Harrison and asked, “You do know what you’re doing, right?”
“I’ll be fine. Let me just go take a peek.”
She shook her head, and with a shudder, she turned and walked back out. At the doorway, Devlin wrapped an arm around her and tugged her in for a hug and kissed her temple. “Trust. Remember that.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide, confused. “A little hard right now.”
He nodded. “But you’ll lose everything if you don’t let us help.”
She nodded, and he dropped his arms and returned to Corey, who’d been watching them with interest. Devlin turned to look back at Tesla, taking Devlin’s place, wrapping her arms around Bristol. It was obvious the women were close.
It looked to him like her life revolved around her work and father. Colleen would’ve been a mainstay. And with Colleen murdered, well, it appeared one more support post was gone in Bristol’s life.
Her father. Her contract. And the thought of somebody sabotaging her—that would’ve finished it for most people. But Bristol was strong. Her back was straight, and she was already back to business. Tesla was at her side as the two examined the drone. He wished he were over there, learning, listening. The bits and pieces he did hear made no sense to him. They were talking at a level way above his knowledge. He was damn glad Tesla had joined them. Bristol needed her. Hell, she needed all of them.
Chapter 10
“I’m so glad you came,” Bristol said.
“I would have earlier if I’d known you had this kind of problem.” Tesla’s voice was low and filled with compassion.
“I was handling it until this mess,” Bristol said louder than she realized. She forced herself to refocus. “Right. I think this is the problem we need to work on first.”
The two had been poring over the laptop, testing the software in the drone. It went along with what Harrison and Rhodes were looking for. Troubleshooting software, debugging code—almost a full-time business.
“Colleen told me how she had trouble with it. Called it possessed. At the time, I thought something was wrong with the hardware, like a shorted wire. You know what can go wrong with poor connections.”
Tesla nodded. “But you’re thinking the software was tampered with, like somebody doing a remote control takeover?”
“I was wondering about that,” Bri
stol said. “But if so, it was poorly done as it couldn’t fly properly either. Just doing these crazy dips and turns. The goal could have been to take control, but they only made it that far.”
“If they changed your software just a little, that would be enough to mess things up. But it was only one of the computers?”
“Yes, this laptop.” She tapped the machine. “Using this controller.” She pointed to the remote. “It’s connected to the system.”
“Let me take a look.”
Bristol sat back and let Tesla study the code while Bristol glanced around the room. She’d never had this many people working for her or helping her out. And yet, even though six extra men were here, it didn’t feel crowded. Her lab afforded a ton of space to work without bumping into another person.
“I’ve got it.”
Bristol lowered her gaze to see Tesla pointing at a series of commands. “They are typed incorrectly, but it’s to screw up your main commands.” Tesla kept going down, searching and highlighting text.
Bristol realized somebody either didn’t have the skill or the time because only that one line was off.
“Down here they got it right.”
“Somebody had access long enough while I was in Afghanistan.”
Tesla looked at her and asked, “How many people were there?”
“Hundreds, if not thousands, at the base. As to how many people actually had access to my tent? Not very many. The company, Colleen, Sandra, Morgan, David, and myself. And the odd person who came in and went out. A few of the MPs.”
Tesla nodded. “It’s also possible someone could access this remotely.”
They both looked over at the double doors to the server room. “Let’s clean up the code.”
“I need to take it out for a test run, confirm what we’ve done has corrected the problem, and see what Harrison and Rhodes came up with.”
Tesla stood. “And I fully expect to help you build the rest of these. I’ve taken the week off. From the sounds of it, we are very short on time. And you need fifty units to fulfill the contract?”
“Yes.” Bristol glanced at her friend gratefully. “If we could do that …”
Tesla reached around and hugged her again. “We can do anything it takes to ensure you don’t lose this house.”
“It’s my fault. That damn contract. You were right all along.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty. We can only focus on what’s in front of us,” Tesla said firmly. “Let’s just get our heads onto this problem, lean our shoulders in and fix it.” As her arm fell away, she added, “You’re not alone any longer, remember?”
“Thank you,” Bristol said with a smile. She bent her head, intently working on the issues.
When she next looked up, rubbing her temples, scanning the room again, she realized not one of the men had called it quits. If they were tired, they weren’t saying so. They were determined to keep forging ahead. But she also knew, pushing too hard for too long caused accidents and mistakes. Neither of which she could afford.
She glanced at her watch and gasped in horror. “Oh, my God! It’s after two in the morning.” She bolted to her feet. “You guys have to be exhausted.”
Tesla yawned on cue. “I am, now that you mention it,” she admitted, glancing around at the others. “You’ll have to call a halt to this. The men won’t stop until you do.”
“Right.”
Bristol rubbed her eyes, walked over to the server room and saw the men standing with keyboards open, working like crazy. She cleared her throat. They didn’t notice. “Harrison? Rhodes? How about knocking off for the night and getting started bright and early in the morning?”
The two men spun and looked at her with two pairs of laser eyes. She instinctively straightened.
Harrison looked at the computer in front of him, glanced at Rhodes, and then said in a very polite voice, “I’d rather not. We just had a breakthrough. I don’t want to come back in the morning and find out somebody saw what we were doing and created a wormhole, going in a whole different direction.”
She held up her hands. “Your decision. I just don’t want you to work ’til you drop.”
The men snorted. “Hardly done anything yet.”
She shook her head, stepped from the room and walked to where the rest were working. She reached up to touch Devlin on the shoulder, feeling the heat emanating off his body. He glanced down, wrapped an arm around her and tucked her up close. She really shouldn’t let him do that. They hardly knew each other. But the comfort was just so damn nice that she leaned into it and accepted what he was offering.
“I was thinking it was bedtime,” she said to the men. “You guys are really working your asses off.”
Corey snickered.
At first, she didn’t understand his meaning, but when she did, she could feel the heat flash up her neck. She glared at him. “We’re no longer in high school.”
At that he laughed uproariously. “But we had some really good times back then.”
“Maybe for you,” she muttered. “Not so much for me.”
Devlin glanced down at her, a smile at the corner of his lips. “Too many brains?”
“Too many brains, not enough social skills, and a very strange father.” She shrugged. “You name it, I just didn’t fit in with anybody.”
“Doesn’t matter, sweetie. I left school behind a long time ago.”
Devin smiled, making her sigh, almost wishing she were back in school for the teenage feelings washing through her. Who was this man who stirred her so? Who’d come to her rescue over and over again?
“Exactly.”
At Corey’s snicker, she rolled her eyes, pulling her emotional tide back in tight again. So not the time or the place. “I was trying to say, it’s time to knock off for the night, so you can get a fresh start in the morning.”
Devlin glanced around the room to see that nobody had stopped working.
She followed his gaze and realized even Tesla had gone back to work. “I didn’t intend for you to work through the night, you know.”
“Harrison and Rhodes? Are they ready to quit?”
“I don’t think you can say anything to make them quit,” she emphasized the last word. “And apparently they are at some kind of breach, and don’t want to walk away just yet.”
“Good enough. We’ll keep pushing until they got it. If we all leave together, we can start again fresh in the morning at the same time.” Devlin’s arm squeezed her shoulders gently, and then he dropped his arm, returning to his work.
She shrugged and walked over to the last two. “I doubt it makes any difference,” she announced, “but I was telling people to knock off for the night.”
Easton and Ryder looked up at her, and she knew they had caught a glimpse of everyone and heard what she’d said.
“I gather nobody listened?” Ryder asked with a smile. “We’re not real big on quitting.”
“I see that,” she said in exasperation. “But even SEALs need to be fed and watered on a regular basis.”
Easton chuckled. “Look at that. She’s funny.”
She glared at him. “Does it matter that I might be ready to quit?”
Instantly the men stopped and stared at her.
She chuckled. “Okay, I’m kidding. But soon. Maybe another hour.”
“One hour it is.”
She turned back to Devlin, her gaze connecting with his and repeated, “One hour.”
He nodded, but didn’t say anything.
As she walked past the server room, she called out, “One more hour.”
Tesla grinned at her when she reappeared beside her.
“Are they always like this?” Bristol asked in an awed whisper.
“They so are.”
*
When the hour was up, not one person stopped working. Devlin knew she was right—they needed rest. But he also knew nobody would quit until Harrison and Rhodes had done what they needed to. Devlin was curious about how it was going. But for the
muttered expletives coming out of that room every so often, he figured things were less than ideal.
Suddenly a cheer rose up. Rhodes stepped out and said, “We’ve got it.”
“Got what?” Bristol asked.
“We set a trap. We couldn’t find out who was coming into your system until they reentered again, about forty minutes ago. Your system caught and quarantined a key logger, but there have been other attempts. I closed a couple holes,” he said with a big grin. “Harrison’s working on backtracking where it came from. In the meantime, we’re putting in new security systems and a couple extra layers of protection.”
Devlin watched Bristol’s jaw drop. “So I was being hacked?”
“Oh, yeah,” Harrison said with a grin, joining Rhodes. “I can tell you it came from inside ENFAQ Ltd., but no lead as to who is responsible.
“Any idea how long?” she asked faintly.
“Fairly recent, but we don’t have any idea how far the previous attempts might’ve made it in. We’ll find out though soon.”
She nodded. “I’m very glad to hear he’s been booted out.”
“Booted out, locked down, and the system reinforced. No way to know who and what yet, but I’ll be working on that tomorrow.” Harrison stepped toward the server room again, stopped, turned. “But I can tell you it’ll take a hell of a lot more to get back in again.”
Devlin grinned. “I told you they were good.”
With a dazed look in her eyes, Bristol studied him. She nodded, turned to face them all. “Thank you all so much.”
“That hacker mess is related to the drone problem,” Tesla called out. “We figured somebody was accessing the computer, centered on the remote controls, and screwed with the commands, with the ultimate idea of taking over the drones potentially.”
“Like in Afghanistan, when the drones weren’t responding to Colleen’s commands?” Devlin asked.
Bristol nodded. “That’s what we figure. We have to make sure these guys didn’t cause any other damage while they were in there. And that’s a lot of code to check. Plus, we need somebody who can handle the drones for testing. And you can’t just be a beginner.” She glanced at Devlin. “I’m sorry. I know you really wanted to do this, but it needs to be someone with a much higher skill level.”