Clever me, I muted the speakers before Viljo’s WatchBot could announce to the world that I’d logged on. Ha, take that! I slipped the headphones on as the webcam window popped up.
“That you, Jesse?”
“Who else would it be?”
Viljo chuckled. “I do not know. I have nightmares of your beautiful wife logging on by mistake, and me saying something highly inappropriate to her.”
“I’d kill you, you know.”
“Not if she killed me first.” He stretched in the grainy window and shook his head. “So, I have learned some strangeness, if you are interested.”
“Hit me.” I cringed as windows started appearing on the screen. “Just tell me, okay? I don’t need a full-color presentation.”
Viljo just chuckled. “Ivan pays me to be the best. Enjoy the show.”
More windows popped up on the screen, and the computer took on a labored wheeze. “Hey, Vil? Remind me to have you look at this thing later, okay? It doesn’t sound so good.”
“Shoot it. Bury it. Let me build you a new one. In the meantime, I have messages from Sveta, and Father Gregory, and all is well with them.”
“Father Gregory?”
“The senior member of the Ordo Sancti Silvii. It turns out, he is a very pleasant man, and he said to thank Ivan for the consideration.”
“Well, that’s good.” Yay for diplomacy, I guess?
“And in the bad news, I did confirm that the phone number is a prepaid cell phone. Nothing useful there.”
“Dammit.”
“Indeed.” Windows vanished, others reappeared, and the computer whined plaintively.
“Seriously, Viljo, stop with the windows. I don’t think this thing’s gonna handle it much longer.”
He frowned at the camera. “That bad? Strange…” Still, the windows shut down immediately, and the noise in the tower subsided a bit. “I was very disappointed about the phone, as you may guess, but I have discovered something else that may redeem me.”
The image on the webcam got choppier, and I couldn’t even make his mouth match up with the words I was hearing. I frowned, fiddling with the buttons on the monitor in the vain hope that it would help. It didn’t. “Well, what is it?”
“Miguel’s credit card was used, one week ago, in Del Rio, Texas.”
“Say again?”
“Miguel, or someone with his credit card, used his card in Texas.” Even his voice over the headset was starting to hitch. “They booted me out once. I am still looking for another back door so I can get more specifics.”
“Viljo, man, you sound like a drive-through intercom. What’s up with the connection today?”
He peered into the camera, giving me a close-up of his nose for a second, as if he could see across the distance between KC and Colorado. “Did you get a second computer?”
“No… why?”
His frown was very clear, even in the grainy feed. “Because… there is something…” I could hear his keyboards rat-a-tat-tatting as his fingers flew over them, and Mira’s computer gave a strained whine.
“What are you doing, Viljo?” I’m not even sure he heard me the first time. “Viljo? What’s up, man?”
“Shit!” He vanished from the webcam’s view for a few frames, but I could still hear him. “He’s… in your… -chine!”
Who was what? I watched in fascination as the geek’s choppy image flitted around his little control room frantically. “What the hell is going on?”
“Hack-… in… machine. Catch this… -ther fucker.. .”
Meanwhile, the computer was making a horrible roaring noise, like a jet engine about to take off. I eyed it warily, wondering if something evil was going to jump out of it at me. Stranger things had happened. “What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing… -got it…” There was a pause, and then he added, “I think.”
I could only watch, and I had a crappy view as it was. Viljo seemed to be teleporting around the room, so badly did the image jump. One moment he was at his usual keyboards, the next he was in the back of the room fiddling with something, and then he was front and center again, a snarl on his geeky little face.
Though I had no idea what he was doing, I saw the moment it all went wrong. There was a look of absolute horror on Viljo’s face. “Shit shit shit!” He vanished again; then his silhouette appeared in the rear, yanking cords out of equipment willy-nilly.
I lost the visual feed and the sound at the same moment, Viljo blipping out of existence. Then my monitor went black, and Mira’s computer gave one last ominous pop and was silent. Blue smoke trickled from the tower in a stench of burned electronics. “Oh shit.” What the hell just happened?
The phone’s ringing nearly jarred me out of my seat, and I snatched the cordless before anyone else in the house could get to it. “Hello?”
“Jesse?”
“Viljo?” He sounded different on the phone. Younger, maybe. “What the hell?”
“Shut your machine down. They were hacking through your security clearance.”
I eyed the now-smoking ruin. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. Did you get him?”
“No, dammit. I threw everything I had at him, and he walked through it like nothing. I had to use the air firewall.”
“The what?”
“You know-yank the cords out of the walls. No Net connection, no hack.”
“You’re sure he didn’t get anything?” I could hear Mira coming down the hallway, no doubt drawn by the aroma of charred motherboard. I was doomed.
“I do not think he did. It is going to take me a bit to be sure. Tell Ivan, until further notice, Grapevine is off-line.”
I groaned. Ivan was going to chew me a new asshole, as soon as Mira was done throttling me for nuking her computer. “I’m a dead man.”
“What?”
“Nothing. You gotta get it up and functional again, Viljo. We need a way to keep an eye on everyone, and you’re it right now.”
I could almost see him straighten up, emboldened by his sworn duty. “I will. A day, maybe two. I need to put some extra security in place. It will take equipment I cannot get easily.”
“While you’re at it, order the stuff to build Mira a new computer.” I sighed, shaking my head. “This one is toast.”
“Ouch. You are a dead man. I will call when things are up again.”
“Take care of yourself, Viljo. And here, talk to Mira about her new computer.” I tossed the phone at my startled wife as she entered the room, then fled toward the safety of the shower.
I stayed under the running water until I was certain that Viljo had time to talk Mira out of any retaliatory rages. I also ran out of hot water.
The shower eased my aching muscles, but the right calf still wasn’t sound. Testing it as I moved around the bathroom, I kept thinking that they used to shoot lame horses. The thought of two weeks, two weeks beat inside my skull like a bass drum. I had two weeks to get better again. Two weeks to keep Mira from ending up a widow, and Annabelle from going fatherless.
As I limped out of the bathroom, I could hear my cell phone ringing in the den. “I got it!” I did my best to run down the hall with a towel draped around my hips, grabbing the phone just before it went to voice mail. “H’lo?”
There was a puzzled pause, then, “Dawson?”
“Ivan!”
“I am to be interrupting? You are to be sounding out of breath.”
I flopped into my chair, keeping my weight off the right arm lest I wind up sprawled on the floor. “Nah, you caught me in the shower is all. What’s the word?” Water dripped from my hair to puddle around the castors of my chair as I talked.
“I was wishing to ask you the same question. What news are you to be having?”
Well, let’s see, I had a Mohawked demon stalking me, a blue car tried to run me off the road a couple times, someone just blew up Mira’s computer, there was probably a warrant out for my arrest, and I was gimpy as hell in one leg with a fight comin
g up. I told him none of these things.
“We have a problem with Grapevine. Someone tried to get in again today, and Viljo had to take the whole system off-line to keep them out.”
A string of Ukrainian curses flowed from my phone, and I waited patiently for the flood to subside. “Was any information to being compromised?”
Viljo hadn’t really said, but I was willing to elaborate on his behalf. “No. Viljo shut it down before they got to anything.” I hoped.
“Is there any news that is not to being bad?”
“Well… the phone number was a prepaid cell, as he thought. But right before the system went down, he said that Miguel’s credit card was used a week ago in Del Rio, Texas.” I mentally cursed the mysterious hacker who had interrupted that conversation. “If he found anything else, he didn’t get a chance to tell me before everything went haywire.”
“Then we are to be having two choices. Either Miguel’s brother has taken the card or…”
“Or? Miguel was dead a week ago. It has to be the brother. He either grabbed the machete and went demon hunting or…”
“Or?”
“Or he’s running, Ivan. I mean, he’s seventeen, and his family expects him to take up the mantle next. I wouldn’t have wanted that job at seventeen.” I still didn’t want it.
“We are only guessing that the boy has taken Miguel’s weapons and armor. What if Miguel has them still? What if he is traveling… somewhere?”
Hope is a cruel, cruel thing. I ruthlessly crushed even the first glimmer. “Without calling Rosaline or checking in?” He was grasping at straws. Calling him on it probably made me a bastard, but it was easier to believe that Miguel was dead. It was better than having the hope crushed later, when the worst was confirmed.
“ Tak. You are right, of course. Most likely, it is Esteban.” The old man sighed wearily. This thing was really getting to him. “I am to be taking an airplane to Kansas City in two days, to be dealing with your contract. I will continue investigating once I am to be releasing you from that.”
“I told you no.”
“I am to be ignoring you.”
Ugh, the man was infuriating. I wanted to bang my head on my desk. “Ivan, I really don’t like the idea…” There were too many ways to screw up, too many ways to hang yourself. There was too much at stake.
“I am not to be asking permission.” Yeah, he’d definitely been military at some point. It never occurred to him to expect anything other than absolute obedience.
And really, what was I going to say? “Sorry, Ivan, I’m just gonna go get my ass killed on my own, thanks.” “Yessir.” The champions were loosely associated at best, but when Ivan snapped, we all jumped.
“God to be blessing you, Dawson. I will be there soon.” He hung up in my ear. Once again, I mentally vowed to stop doing that to people.
Much to my own annoyance and despite my misgivings, I felt better knowing that Ivan would be on the scene relatively soon. It was much akin to the relief felt when, though you knew you were in deep crap, your father showed up to talk to the angry man whose window you just broke.
I had my own little lake pooling on the floor when I stood up. It was amazing how much water my hair could hold even as short as it was now. After fetching another towel to mop that up, I went to get dressed. The T-shirt of the day read IT’S ALWAYS FUN UNTIL SOMEONE LOSES AN EYE. THEN IT’S FREAKIN’ HILARIOUS! Mira hated that shirt, but it always got rave reviews at It.
“Gimme hugs, button. Daddy’s gotta go to work!” The redheaded imp came barreling down the hallway to squeeze my knees tightly, and I bit back a wince. “Be extra good for Mommy, okay?”
Anna nodded solemnly. “I will, Daddy. I promise.”
Passing through the kitchen, I gave Mira a quick kiss. “You gonna be okay today?” She nodded. “Did Viljo get the computer issue worked out?”
“He says he’s going to put green lights all over it. Why do I need green lights on it?”
I had to chuckle. “Honey, by the time he’s done, you’ll be able to pilot the Space Shuttle from it.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “We need to ship him the dead one. He’s going to see if he can recover anything off the drive.”
“Can do.” I slipped my cell phone into her hand. “Answer it, just in case it’s Ivan, okay?”
She nodded, then threw her arms around me, nearly squeezing my breath from my lungs.
“Oof!” I leaned back to look down at her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
She bit her lip, the familiar gesture meaning she was trying to put whatever it was into words. “Something feels wrong today. Everything’s unsettled.” Her eyes were troubled, but finally, she just shook her head. “It’s probably just the storm making me all jittery. Or PMS or something.” I wasn’t about to touch that one. There’s no right answer to that.
“You sure?” She nodded after a short hesitation. I kissed her forehead. “Okay, I’m gonna head out. Call me at work if you need anything. You guys have fun at Dixie’s.”
A feeling I could only describe as lingering ickiness stayed with me as I climbed into my truck. Mira was right. Something felt off about the day. The goose bumps on my arms refused to go away, and I felt as if I had swallowed a fifty-pound lead weight. Neither of those signs ever heralded anything good.
I sat for long moments, weighing the pros and cons of taking my katana with me. The cons won out, knowing that I couldn’t afford to repair a broken window when some jerk broke into my truck to steal the sword. And really, what was I going to do with it, besides stand out in the storm and do my lightning rod impression?
As I pulled onto the highway and headed north, I kept waiting for flashing blue lights in my rearview mirror, but they never came. Twice, I saw cop cars cruising up on my tail, but while I held my breath and kept both hands at ten and two, they sped on by, intent on some other miscreant. I couldn’t believe that Verelli hadn’t gone to the police, but why weren’t they coming after me? I wasn’t exactly hard to find.
What the hell was I going to do if they arrested me? Mira was going to be so pissed, not to mention how much work I’d be missing. My income from It wasn’t much, but those paychecks made the difference between scraping by and breathing a bit easier. There were bills that still needed paying, and her car needed new tires and…
Worry settled between my shoulders and got quite comfortable, the muscles there knotting up painfully. I forced my hands to relax on the wheel and tried to meditate, the low hum of tires on pavement as soothing as any mantra. My thoughts refused to be soothed, and instead they took a forced march through some of the darker parts of my life.
The first line of the Hagakure says that the way of the samurai is found in death. It goes on to say that you should instantly choose death if it benefits your cause, because integrity is more important than life.
That was the part I had a hard time with. Sure, I was accepting of death. I mean, no one escapes it in the end, so why be afraid of it? And living honorably is very important to me. Sometimes, honor is all you have.
Bushido says that to lay down your life for your beliefs is a noble death that few can understand. It is the way of the warrior. But when it comes down to it, if I ever truly have to make the choice between dying to achieve my goal, and living on to fight another day. .. I wonder if I could really do it. I wonder if I really believe it.
They had a lot of absolutes, those ancient samurai, and they never talked about having multiple goals. My short-term goal may be saving the next guy’s soul, but what about my long-term goals? What about growing old with Mira, or seeing my daughter graduate from college? What about being a grandpa someday? If I succeeded in one but failed in the others, did I come out on the losing end, anyway?
Sometimes-a lot of the time, really-I’m a pretty lousy samurai.
Pondering death on a day like today just had to be a bad omen. I turned up the radio to drown out the gloom and watched the sky.
The low-hanging clouds were dark with
unshed rain, and the wind came in fits and gusts, threatening to goose the unwary right off the road. There was no thunder yet, but I could feel it coming, down in that deep primeval instinctive place all humans still have. You know, that place where you are secretly still afraid of the dark no matter how old you get.
Yes, we were definitely in for some bad weather.
20
I wanted it to rain. Maybe if it rained the tension in the air would snap and we could all breathe again.
There were no theme songs for the day. Instead, Kristyn and I kept the radio tuned to a local station for weather updates. The store was nearly deserted. In the three hours I’d been at work, we’d seen two customers. Perhaps two dozen people had walked past the door in total. Sierra Vista looked like a ghost town. No one was willing to brave the ominous clouds, even though no actual precipitation seemed forthcoming.
My punk-haired boss grumbled. “I feel bad calling you in. If I’da known we’d be this dead…”
“You’re not supposed to be here alone. You know that.” We were victims of corporate policy. No one worked the store solo. I think it was supposed to cut down on employee theft or something.
“I shoulda known he was too good to be true.” All morning, she’d been beating herself up for hiring Paulo, our no-show of the day. “He was probably illegal-I never could get him to put his social on the paperwork.”
I had other reasons for cursing Paulo. If fleeing from me in the Wal-Mart hadn’t made him look guilty of something, refusing to show up and face me again certainly did. I had a lot of questions, and very few available answers. Therefore, it was with a heavy heart that I decided to commit that greatest of mortal sins, nosiness.
Under the pretense of reworking next week’s schedule for Kristyn, I set up camp in the small closet that served as her office. Flipping on the turquoise lava lamp for light, I began rifling through the employee files. Later, I would have to point out to her that she should really lock that cabinet, but for the moment it worked to my advantage.
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