Headhunters

by Charlie Cole

  I watched her drive away and missed her even before she was out of sight.

  That night, I fell asleep in my leather chair in the living room with Melissa in one arm and David in the other. Their faces were perfect little angels, innocent and beautiful as they slept. I should have put them in bed, but I needed my kids just then. Time would take care of itself. For now, I needed my babies around me and for the first time in a long time, I had sweet dreams.

  ***

  I got up on Monday morning and went for a run. Six miles every morning. That was my routine. I sought out hills in the area and punished my legs by sprinting up the incline, then jogged to the bottom and pounded out push-ups, crunches and then back up the hill. I retraced my path and returned to the house. I let myself in the back door and went up the stairs.

  Everyone was still sleeping. It was just after 6:30 in the morning. I showered, shaved and dressed quickly. I kissed the kids in their beds and passed Alaina in the hallway.

  “I’ll be home early tonight,” I said.

  “Would you like me to start dinner?” she asked.

  “No, I’ll bring something. Chinese?”

  “Sure!”

  “Sweet and Sour chicken, right?” I asked.

  She nodded and smiled. I said good-bye and ducked out the door.

  I listened to the radio on the way into the office, caught the news, weather, then had to flip to avoid the incessant chatter of early morning radio shows. Finally I gave up and put in a CD. It was Miles Davis’ “Birth of the Cool”. Davis had contributed to major changes in jazz, surrounded himself with only the best people in his profession. I felt like I could relate.

  I pulled into the parking garage and circled up until I got to my level. The lot seemed relatively sparse at that hour and I realized that I’d actually beat Max into the office. It was a little competition that we had. Who could get in first? It stoked the professional fires and helped me get a jump on the day.

  Grabbing my briefcase, I walked across the skywalk, greeting the security guard as I went and showed him my employee badge. I took the elevator up to seven and exited. I had to punch a code into the office door before it allowed me inside. I walked past Isabelle Athabasca’s reception desk and made my way back to our offices. I’d seen Ms. Athabasca when I was out with Jessica after work one night. I had barely recognized her. Her hair was down and she’d abandoned her perfect business suit for a clingy blue top and jeans that perched so precariously low on her hips, I wondered at the physics required to keep them up. Few women can pull off wearing jeans like that, but Ms. Athabasca did it very well. I saw her eating sushi, alone, and wondered if she was waiting for someone. When I saw no one approach for a while, I thought about inviting her over to join us. I didn’t really want to break the mood that Jess and I had working, but sometimes it’s good to be gentleman. I tried to catch her eye, but Athabasca looked right at me and then away, as if ignoring me. I considered then that perhaps it wasn’t me she was ignoring, but us. Were we breaking some company code about fraternizing after hours? I couldn’t imagine. I decided to let Ms. Athabasca return to her cold fish alone. They seemed suited for each other.

  I entered my office and flipped on the light. I’d decorated or decorated by default. Max had offered some paintings. Jess had brought me a plant. Ellis gave me a couple books that he recommended. And Catherine… well, Catherine seemed to have grown to tolerate me. We shared a professional rivalry and I had to concede that she was good at what she did. But for every consultant that she placed, I placed two. I knew that I needed to be on top. I had to keep my forward momentum going, building, like a shark, never stop swimming.

  First thing in the morning, I began making phone calls. It’s incredibly easy to want to put off making phone calls, so I did it right away. I put on my headset and began dialing, calling managers first, catching them at their desk before the work day began. Then as the morning wore on, I switched to calling candidates on home phones and if nothing worked there I’d switch to emails.

  Max waved to me as he walked past my office, then doubled back and dropped a contract on my desk and mouthed the words “Talk to you later” and continued out of the office. I kept working until I saw Jessica. She smiled at me, saw that I was on the phone, kept walking. I wrapped up and disconnected and ran after her.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  Jess checked her watch and made a face at me.

  “It’s nearly noon,” she said with a smile.

  “Oh, well… sorry I didn’t see you sooner,” I said.

  “You apologize too much.”

  “I do,” I replied. “And I feel badly about that.”

  Jess laughed and I liked the sound of it.

  “Care to join me for a coffee?” I asked.

  “It’s nearly noon,” she repeated.

  “Iced tea, then,” I offered. “To go with lunch?”

  “Lunch, hunh?”

  Jess and I had lunch together and as much as she put on the pretext that I had to ask her out on a date every time I offered lunch, we’d become a regular thing. We had lunch together nearly every day and talked until we nearly lost track of time and had to run to get back to the office.

  It was the same today and we found a little deep dish pizza place around the corner from the office. It was the kind of place that made Chicago legendary and yet was unlikely to be found be someone who wasn’t a denizen of the city.

  We ate and talked about nothing. TV, music, movies… I’d learned that Jess was a hell of a cook. If there’s anything that’s a waste, it’s a woman who knows how to cook who lives alone. I didn’t think anything about Jessica was a waste, though. We finished lunch and returned to the office. For once we caught the elevator and were alone for a moment. I was hyper-paranoid about security cameras but I allowed my hand to find hers while we rode up together, alone for the moment. Our fingers intertwined and we held hands.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said.

  “You see me every day,” she replied.

  “No, I miss you.”

  “Oh…” she understood now.

  “We’ll need to find some time together.”

  “Yes…” I replied but then the doors opened and our hands dropped before I could finish the thought. “Find me later.”

  “I will. Miss you too, Simon.”

  And then she was gone.

  I walked back to my office and sat in my chair, staring at my monitor but not really seeing what was in front of me. I shook my head and blew out a deep sigh. Work… work… think about work, I told myself.

  I picked up my headset and began dialing the phone.

  ***

  I’d set the reminder in my Outlook calendar to pop up fifteen minutes before I needed to leave. I’d come to realize that if I didn’t set the reminder, I’d lose track of time and find myself running late. I never wanted to be late for my family again. It was like a pain point. Don’t be late. The promise of coming home early that I’d made to Alaina had not been made lightly, so when the reminder popped up, I began to wrap up my business for the day.

  I dialed the number of the Chinese restaurant that was on my way home. I ordered sweet and sour chicken, beef with broccoli, shrimp egg foo young, steamed dumplings and crab rangoon. They had my credit card number on file.

  I finished my last email and hit ‘send’. I closed out my screen and grabbed my briefcase. The office had settled into its quiet afternoon hum. Max was out at a client visit. Christine had her office door closed and Ellis was chatting up a woman in Business Intelligence who didn’t look like she’d give him the time of day, but he was wearing her down. God bless him for trying.

  Walking toward the door, I saw no one else in my path. I was home free. Then I heard the voice.

  “Simon, wait a second.”

  I turned to see Jess approaching quickly, a stack of files in her arms.

  “Hi, what’s up?” I asked.

  “I was just going through the DHS files,” she said, men
tioning the Department of Homeland Security project. We’d placed five more people in there since Chris Swenson on my first day.

  “Sure, but I’ve got to get going,” I said.

  “Totally understand. It’s just this one thing.”

  Jess pulled a file out of her stack and opened it.

  “I had been showing Max some of our work on the DHS project,” she said. “He wanted to see what progress had been made…”

  “What’s the word from Chris?” I asked.

  “Very positive. He’s done a number of tests, a couple of trial hacks, exposed some flaws and now is going through the data to ensure that the proper controls are in place to prevent fraud, misuse or loss of the DHS data,” Jess said.

  “Good, so what’s the problem?”

  “More of a question than a problem. I was entering my notes in the system and was reading back through the files that Max had returned to me and I found this. He must have accidentally included it in my file instead of his.”

  Jess handed me a single sheet of paper.

  “It’s an email detailing logins and passwords for the DHS site that were sent from Chris back here to Max,” Jess said. “As well as a project timeline.”

  “Is this part of the security protocol?” I asked. “Are these passwords supposed to be kept offsite? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “I don’t know,” Jess confessed. “But here’s the other thing…”

  She produced a second sheet of paper. Another email.

  “Max removed the logins and passwords when he forwarded the email, but he reported the status of the project to someone outside of this company,” Jess explained. “And outside of the DHS…”

  “Who?” I asked, fearing the answer before it came.

  Jessica searched the printout.

  “Someone named Randall Kendrick from a company called Blackthorn, Inc…”

  I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I couldn’t breathe. I needed to sit down. My legs felt as if they would buckle at any moment. My mind flashed through the scenarios of what had happened.

  Randall Kendrick hadn’t introduced me to Max Donovan to help me get away from Blackthorn business. He’d introduced me to Max so that I continued to do Blackthorn business… whether I knew it or not. Max must have known if he’d kept it from me. Known how I’d react. Known what I’d do. I’d been a fool. I’d recruited Chris to the project on my first day, showing off like a complete jackass, trying to impress the boss and in reality only digging the hole deeper for myself.

  Chris had been the only person who could enter into the Department of Homeland Security under the guise of a legitimate organization and hack into the DHS files. But why? Why would Kendrick want to lay bare all those secrets? Or was it Max working independently? I just didn’t know.

  I’d thought I was out of Blackthorn for good, but now, I was only in the heart of the darkness.

  And worst of all, I was going to be late for dinner…

  Chapter Seven

  The smells of the Chinese food mingled together and wafted through the Volvo as I drove home. Miles Davis was still playing over the speakers so I killed the radio, more irritated at myself than at him. There are times I needed the news, times I needed jazz, times I needed what Jess always called “angry music” and times that I needed peace. Nothing more than quiet to let my thoughts rattle around in my head and time to let the pieces fall into place.

  I accelerated through the rain and passed a driver on the expressway. I checked my speed and backed off a little. No need to break the law, just get home, get safe and get my thoughts together.

  Max Donovan.

  Randall Kendrick.

  Blackthorn…

  Like some algebraic nightmare the planes of existence in my worlds were intersecting where they had no business intersecting. I struggled to see what they had in common. I knew Kendrick’s angle most of the time. His endgame had always been plain to me, regardless of whether his methods were obvious or not. And what was Max Donovan doing —

  My phone rang, interrupting my train of thought. I grabbed the earbud attached to my cell and put it in place before answering the phone.

  “Simon Parks.”

  “Hi! It’s Alaina.”

  “Hi there. I’m on my way home.”

  “Great!” Alaina said, her voice upbeat. “There’s someone here who stopped by to see you…”

  “Oh?” I asked. Years in the business as a headhunter, I’d learned to control my reactions, to temper what I allowed to escape into my voice and my expressions. I didn’t see any reason to alarm Alaina with speculations.

  “It’s your friend from Virginia. Randall…” she said, then her voice trailed off as if looking to someone in the room with her. I heard a man’s voice, muffled, but close. “Kendrick… Randall Kendrick stopped over to see you.”

  I swallowed hard and forced myself to laugh.

  “He’s there now?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he’s right here. Do you want to talk to him?” Alaina asked.

  “No, that’s okay… I’ll be home soon.”

  “OK, see you soon!” “Bye...” I hung up.

  Kendrick was in my home. Then, a moment later, I realized that he’d probably not come alone.

  I steered the car off the expressway and slipped through a yellow light at the bottom of the ramp before accelerating down the road toward home. I passed my neighbor, Carl, who was always outside mowing his lawn on a battered green John Deere lawn tractor. He was outside today and I gave him a quick wave before I turned down his street. I lived on the next road up, but I didn’t want to pull up to the front door. I stopped in Carl’s driveway and pulled up close to his garage so my Volvo wouldn’t be seen.

  I jumped out of the car and nearly slammed the door before realizing I’d left my briefcase and the bag of Chinese food inside. I grabbed the Chinese and left the briefcase, making a mental note to double back for it later. I closed the car door and began to look around for the best path to get to my house.

  “Hey!” I heard the yell from over my shoulder.

  The voice startled me and I spun, fist cocked. Carl was standing behind me in the driveway. Carl stumbled back, realizing he’d taken me by surprise. His Chicago Bears T-shirt was worn and ringed with sweat. His round glasses almost fell from his face as he tried to dodge away.

  “Sorry… sorry, Carl,” I said.

  Carl was the pediatrician for my kids. He was a great doctor. I’d found him through a round-about route. I worked on a job order for a Chicago law firm and found a Network Engineer for their corporate office. In my discussions with the office manager, I’d mentioned that I had kids and, what do you know, so did she. We bonded in that client/recruiter way and then I sprang the question on her that I was new in town, who did she take her kids to when they needed to go to the doctor. Since her firm was in the business of suing doctors for malpractice, the people in the firm went to the doctor with the best record, Carl Cohen, my neighbor.

  “Geez oh Pete’s!” Carl huffed. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “I’m sorry, Carl. Rough day at the office.”

  “Why are you parked in the drive?” Carl asked, then eyeing my food,”Did you bring me dinner?”

  Carl and I watched football together on Sundays during the regular season. He was a Bears fan. Being born in Wisconsin, I rooted for the Packers. We’d razz each other all season and usually alternated who brought over the game food. Carl’s wife, Barbara, could burn pasta, I swear to God.

  “No, I didn’t bring you dinner,” I said. “I’m trying to surprise someone.”

  “Mission accomplished. You surprised the hell out of me.”

  “Very funny. I’m trying to surprise someone at my house,” then after a moment. “Relatives… visiting.”

  “Well, to do that, you’d need to be at your house…”

  I shot Carl a look and he relented.

  “Go on back by the shed,” he said. “Stay low. Follow the lilac bushes. If you
cut through the hedge… be careful. Barb will be upset you mess with her lilacs…”

  “Carl…”

  “Sorry, cheesehead,” he shot back. “Cut through the hedge and you should be able to come out by your wood pile next to the house.”

  I pictured it in my head. The woodpile was on the back corner of the house. Close enough to the back door, but far enough away to not be seen approaching.

  “You’re the best, man,” I said and headed off in the direction he’d indicated.

  I walked along the side of Carl’s garage. At the corner, I peeked toward my front drive. There was an agent standing in the driveway, looking up the road. He was waiting for me. I kept my eyes on him and jogged toward the shed. Carl’s shed was painted to look like a barn, red with white trim. It was where he kept the lawn mower and other yard tools.

  The agent hadn’t seen me so I crouched down and followed the lilac bushes toward the back end of Carl’s property. So far, so good. I was about to push my way through the bushes when I heard an evil sounding mechanical growl. It took me a moment but I realized it to be Carl’s lawn mower. He was back at work again. This was good, I convinced myself, it would cover the sound of my approach.

  I leaned into the space between the bushes and felt the branches give under my weight. I slipped through and immediately saw the second agent at the rear of my house. He was facing away from me, his head hunched, concentrating on something. He was trying to communicate to the agent in the front lot by radio and the mower noise was making it difficult. I broke into a low jog for the woodpile. He might come over to investigate the noise and I wanted to be ready.

  I got to the woodpile safely. I looked to the back lot, then the front. No voices were raised. No one was coming running. They hadn’t seen me so far.

  I put the bag of Chinese food on the woodpile and carefully reached inside. The thing about Ming’s Palace is that while the food is excellent, they always sent along a container of gravy whether I ordered one or not. On any normal day, I’d gripe about it. But today was far from a normal day.