by Joyce Jordan
Her trustworthy SUV was due for maintenance. Ten miles overdue, actually. After today, it would be well over a hundred miles overdue. She knew Sandro would be angry with her, but if she took it to him tomorrow morning it would still be okay, she hoped. Hopefully she could catch one of his mechanics and have him do the maintenance without Sandro being aware.
It took a while before Jes realized there was something strange about her car. Two huge men were standing next to it. For a moment she was disturbed thinking they were here to mug her. No it was broad daylight and her neighbors were right there looking on with interest. And besides, they looked like the guys she had seen with Evelyn and the rest of her family.
“Ms. London. Nate Sullivan sent us to take you into the city.”
“And you are?”
Jes sipped her coffee as Chris Romano introduced himself and then told her his side kick was Ken Barfoot. At least they had normal names.
“Sorry fellas. I have my own car and make my own travel arrangements,” she told them and pressed the remote to open the driver’s door. “Excuse me,” she said to Ken who was in her way.
“I don’t mean to be rude, ma’am. But we have strict instructions from…”
“Then don’t be. Ken, is it?” she didn’t wait for him to respond. “Excuse me please,” she said and went around him to open the door.
Jes sighed in relief as she closed her door and locked it. She inserted the key in the ignition and pulled away. She saw them get into the sedan she had thought had been following her. So yes, she was right after all. Yeah! No mental issues after all.
She was just out of the driveway and her car’s rear was hanging out in the street when it stalled. That had happened twice, no three times in the last two weeks already. Sandro wasn’t going to be happy. She tried re-starting it again, and yes, that was a sigh of relief, which not five seconds later turned back into a grimace. Jes kept turning the key back and forth, but nothing happened. She hit the steering wheel with anger.
The two heads on either side of her windows didn’t help. Could they have done something to her car. Jes quickly put that thought out of her mind. She hadn’t met the family until just about a week ago. She rolled her windows down.
“Yes?”
“The more you keep doing that, the more you damage the car. We can push it back into your driveway and take you into the city,” Ken said.
“And just so you know, we didn’t do anything to your car, Ms. London,” Chris added from the other window.
Jes laughed. “I know that. This is actually the fourth time it has happened,” she told them as she speed dialed Sandro. “As for the other, I’ll just take the train. Easier and probably faster too, don’t you think?” She quickly rolled her windows up and answered Sandro.
“Sandro, can you come to my house, or send one of your mechanics? I think I might have a slight problem with my car.”
“I’ll be right there Jes, I was just on my way to the shop.”
Jes didn’t have to wait long. Sandro parked along the street and came to meet Jes who was opening her car door. He saw the two men standing next to her car and wondered if they were threatening her in any way.
“You know these two?” Sandro asked her as he came to stand next to her.
“Sort of. Don’t mind them,” she said to him and put her head back into the car, pulled the lever for the front and shot back out. “Just tell me you can fix whatever it is. I need to be in the city as of five minutes ago.”
Sandro nodded to the two men and went to open the hood of Jes’s car. “What happened?”
“It just died on me when I was reversing.”
“Give it one try and let’s see,” Sandro said to her. “Stop!”
Jes grimaced.
“How many times has this happened, Jes?” he asked coming round to the driver’s side. “Never mind, don’t tell me. I’ll have the boys at the shop come pick it up. In the meantime, I’ll drive you into the city.”
“Thanks Sandro, but it’s not necessary. Just drop me at the train. It will be faster anyway,” she told him. She grabbed her tote bag and ran to his passenger seat.
She looked in the side mirror and found the sedan following them. She grinned hoping the guys knew their way around, because she was going to have a cat and mouse game with them. And what fun she would have. Suddenly the thought of being late or missing out on her agenda didn’t seem so gloomy anymore.
The one strength Jes knew she had in her corner, was quick to adapt. She suddenly switched plans and decided to do her other errands when her car was fixed. Today she would just concentrate on visiting shops within the city. She might still be able to carry a few samples, but it would need to be small items that could fit in her tote bag.
Jes wasn’t surprised to see one of them get out of the car as she was dropped off at the train station. She smiled and shook her head. Let the games begin. She wove her way through the crowd and waited for the doors to open. She pulled her phone out, checking for messages. It was already ten thirty.
Jes exited the train and went to do some business, and not more than thirty minutes later she was back on the train. Her trusted shadow was with her. Now he wasn’t even making a pretense of following her. It was going to be harder to lose him if he were that close to her.
Jes took the next few stations making believe she was attending to business as usual. Some stops were legitimate but others were the diversion she needed to confuse her tail. She needed to keep up the fake itinerary so his counterpart couldn't really follow.
Finally she reached one of the bakeries she used often. Once she was done, she went to the bathroom, then took a back corridor and left by the back entrance. Jes was grinning from ear to ear as she took the train and made the exit that she really wanted. Now she was free to stroll around. She was hungry. It was almost noon. She thought about the lunch she should be having with Nate. It would most likely be better than the sub she was ordering.
∞∞∞∞
Nate was angry. Anger didn’t begin to describe it. Livid was more like it. How could a small person like Jes get the best of two trained operatives? Why the heck hadn’t they just forced her into their car? In hindsight, he should have probably made that a last resort effort if she refused. But how had he known she would refuse? She wasn’t here, was she? And why was that? Why had she blown their meeting? And without a word?
Nate snarled and banged his fist on his desk. The papers and lighter objects on top flew up and came back down to rest on his desk. Other objects shook and moved a few inches here and there. Not satisfied he pushed the papers closest to him off the desk until they were fluttering around before finally resting on the floor.
His only hope was that Jeremy Maynard didn’t know about her and try to resort to some kind of revenge ideas in his twisted mind. He had declared war on Gabe, and his whole family and all those he held dear. At least the parents had finally surrendered when they realized they were now penniless and with no friends to run to, and the threat of what they had done being publicized, they had made a hasty exit out of New York. According to Mitch, they had left the US altogether.
Unfortunately, their son had refused to see that things had changed and that the money he had always hidden behind, wasn’t there anymore. The fool didn’t even realize that his trust fund had been gambled away by his parents who should have been the ones to protect it. It was disgusting how some parents gambled away their children’s inheritances all with the intention of correcting some business gone wrong with the misguided guarantee that things would work out and they could return the funds before anyone was any the wiser.
Nate couldn’t stand being in his office anymore. He needed to get out. Maybe he could go and see how Ana was doing. Her home office had finally been finished by Manuel and his crew and so was ready for move in. She and Tom were moving all her equipment from her old apartment to the new office beside Gabe’s penthouse. It was a little two bedroom apartment that had been redone to reflect a pr
oper office. He had been amazed after the final reveal by Manuel yesterday.
“To what do we owe the pleasure, Nate?” Ana looked up when the door opened and was surprised to see Nate being led inside.
Nate looked around. It was chaos. All he could see were machines with a million power cables. He looked from Ana, to Tom, to her bodyguards and then to the chaos.
“Organized chaos. We’ll be done in no time,” she replied his unasked question.
He smirked. “Whatever you say, honey.” He thought he had problems. Ana was delusional. How would anyone remember which one went where? He suddenly felt better about the whole Jes issue.
She laughed. She had the indecency to laugh. Out loud too. Nate wondered if all women were against him or what? Was this some twisted turn of fate to punish him against his sins against all womenkind?
“You want to wager, Nate?” She smiled at him as she turned to Tom. “Tom, tell me, what would you like? Huh? I have a conference coming up that I’ll need to attend. How about Nate agrees to let you attend and pays for your portion of the trip out of his personal account?”
“Seriously Ana? You’re not shitting me or something?”
“No, I’m not,” she said. “Just watch your language, especially around our good boss here. So what do you say Nate?”
He laughed. “And what do I get? When I win that is?” This was turning out to be a good day after all. He needed this time away from thoughts of Jes. Ana and Tom had just provided him some entertainment.
“Name your price? We wouldn’t want to be accused of being unfair to the elderly, would we Tom?”
Being the kid he still was, Tom couldn’t help but roar with laughter. His voice was changing from a kid’s to a man’s voice. Nate couldn’t hold that against him. His lips twitched but he refused to laugh. Ana was definitely baiting him. He wondered if Gabe knew how to control this woman. She had certainly led his brother on some merry go round. For a while his brother had been insane, during the break up and when she had lay in hospital almost on her death bed.
“I’m a reasonable man. I won’t ask for much. I know how busy you will be over the next few months,” he said.
“Okay. Big guy. Spit it out.”
He heard the sniffles of laughter coming from the teenager, and his lips twitched again.
“Private lessons,” he said. “A couple hours a week, until I’m good and ready.”
“What private lessons? Cooking, perhaps?”
Tom couldn’t contain his glee. Nate couldn’t wait until he won and taught these two kids, lessons in humility.
“Hacking.”
The laughter stopped. Instantly. The silence was a welcome relief. Nate took a seat and sat silently. It was like Christmas morning, waiting to open his presents.
“Anytime you want to start speaking. Time’s running out,” he said with a huge smile. Turnaround was fair wasn’t it? “I may be senile by then and it will just take you longer to teach me what I need to know.”
“I thought you were joking,” Ana said to him. She came to sit beside him. “Nate,” she took his hand. “Are you aware of what you’re asking us to do?”
Nate squeezed her hand. “Afraid Ana?”
“Heck, no!” Ana said standing and walking away. “Tom, how long do you think it will take us to put all this together?”
“A couple of hours?”
“Kids, just to show you I’m not an ogre,” he said pointing a finger at his chest. “I’m actually a very nice man indeed.” He sent a smile their way. “So, I’ll add an extra hour to that. Three hours ought to do it. If not, I can send my most trusted technicians to help sort out the mess.” He smirked at them as he once again looked at the ‘organized chaos’.
“Nate you forget I do computers for a living.”
“Ana, let’s face it. You are good at software. The hardware, maybe when taking one machine out the box at a time. Then reading the manual on how to assemble the parts. Now with,” he said and started counting, “jeez, I lost count at ten cables. Must be the senility catching up faster than I thought.”
“You’re on, old man.”
The muffled laughter started once again. Nate looked at Tom and shrugged. “You can start anytime you want, kids.”
“Anytime, you want to leave,” Ana said to him. “The door is right behind you.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no,” he said shaking his head. “I’m just going to sit here and enjoy the show. Watching the two of you scramble around like rats, mice, whichever you prefer, will be better than any afternoon meeting I could ever attend.” He pulled his phone out. He smiled sheepishly, “I actually forgot I had something scheduled for this afternoon. Hi, Maria. Please cancel the rest of my appointments for today and reschedule for tomorrow.”
He shut his phone. “Now where were we?”
“Nate. You being here will just distract us, which would be unfair for us. You’ve seen what the rooms look like, so it’s not like we can cheat if you leave. All you need to do is be back in two hours and fifty minutes,” she said checking the time.
“I see nothing wrong with that,” he agreed. Nate stood and walked towards the door. “I’ll just go and change. Maybe make a ‘school’ schedule for the times we’ll be meeting.” He reached the door. “Be good kids.” Then he walked out. “Oh,” he said popping his head back in. “Just the two of you. The bodyguards just sit and watch.” He smirked. “After all, I wouldn’t want them to slow you down. It would be unfair to you.” Then he was out again.
“You up for this Tom?” Ana asked him.
“Hell yeah! Going to a conference. I don’t care what it is about, but just being around other computer geeks. That’s a dream come true Ana. Where do I start?”
Ana laughed. “We haven’t had lunch yet. So how about we do this then go out to lunch and be back before Nate gets back?”
At his nod, Ana told him to start with her office. She pointed to the desktop she wanted in her office. The rest they were putting in the bigger room that she had named the ‘war room’. With so much space, she was going to add more machines. More toys. She knew the government always had new toys to test, and she was game. After her conference, she hoped to bring a couple of them.
Seven
Nate knocked and opened the door before anyone could answer. The huge smile on his face died an instant death. What the…? It wasn’t possible. They didn’t even look up. They were both pretending to be reading some computer journals. He laughed because Ana’s was upside down. She had clearly grabbed it at his knock. How original.
She yawned. “Oh, hi Nate. I was almost falling asleep. These technical magazines can be so boring,” she said. She stood up and came to take his hand. “Come on in. We’ll give you a tour of our machines. That way you’ll know we didn’t attach the wrong chords to the wrong machines.” They walked to her war room. “Us kids, wouldn’t like to take advantage of our elderly.” She smirked at him. “Tom,” she called out. “Would you like to do the honors?”
Ana heard the door open again. She smiled at Gabe. “Oh, we have company.”
“Ana,” he said. He leaned down and took her lips in a long and deep kiss. He had been thinking about this all day. “What’s going on?” he asked looking at Nate and then Tom.
“Oh, nothing major,” she said waving her hand. “Just Tom and me trying to show our boss that my home office is working just fine.”
“Your boss?” Gabe asked.
“Yep.”
“Do I want to know what’s really going on?” Gabe asked.
“We wouldn’t want to bore you with the details. Besides Tom needs to be heading home.” Ana turned to the teenage boy, “Tom, go on,” she said to him.
Tom started from left to right. He went machine by machines, giving a little narrative of what it was and what it did. He logged onto each one and gave a little demonstration.
Gabe stood behind Ana and hugged her to his body. “Do you think we can sneak out and christen your office?” he asked. “Ag
h,” he said with a grunt when she elbowed him. “I know it’s your work, but it’s sexier when you speak geek. Turns me on,” he added biting her earlobe.
Ana moaned, then remembered they had a teenager in the room. She elbowed Gabe again, then walked out of his embrace. “I’ll finish the rest Tom. Why don’t you get the bottle we bought earlier and some glasses for a toast? Take everything to my office, we’ll be there shortly.”
“You don’t have to show me more,” Nate said.
“Oh, no, boss. We wouldn’t want to leave you with any doubts.” She moved to the next machine and continued where Tom had left off. Then minutes later, Ana was done. She took Nate’s hand. “Now, how about a toast.” She walked him to her office. Gabe followed behind them. “And this is the last one,” she said logging into her laptop which was connected to her desktop. She drafted a quick e-mail and sent it to him. “Check your inbox,” she said as she locked the screen.
‘Time to pay up’ the e-mail read.
Nate laughed. “I’m not sure how you did it, but I know when I’m beaten.”
“Tom,” Ana called.
Nate looked to the young boy who was holding an A4 sized envelope in his shaking hands, that obviously had papers inside. He handed them to him and he pulled the contents out. Gabe who had come to stand next to him started laughing. The traitor.
He smiled at the yellow smiley face right at the top of the first page. There were three pages, all with sign here flags, and smiley faces on each page.
“Just the standard contract that needs to be signed and the fees paid,” Ana told him as she poured the bottle of what looked like champagne into long flutes. “Of course the deadline is long gone, but I asked for an exception for our dear Tom here,” she said pointing to the young boy who couldn’t hold his grin.