Exponential
Page 62
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By the end of the day, Mike felt they were ready. He had the van packed with the gear and batteries he thought they would need. They found the address of the person who was likely running the I-Data operation and felt that he would be the best person to begin the job with. By the time they were ready to set out, it was past six in the evening and the foreboding late November sky already was hauntingly dark with thick ghostly clouds moving rapidly from the southwest. The stiff breeze was damp and surprisingly warm for November.
Mara grabbed a few things from her makeshift purse – money, remaining credit card and keys and put them into the pockets of her light jacket. She found a comfortable position behind the driver seat and settled in for the drive. As they pulled out onto the street, Annette said, “Sure seems like it’s going to rain… Do you think we’ll have problems? The equipment is not weather tested and I sure hate to see it ruined.”
“We’ll need to take a look at the layout of this guy’s house first. If we can get close enough without looking obvious, most of the stuff can probably be set up in the van. The transmitting antennas I’m not too worried about, the rest of the stuff will need to stay dry,” Mike answered.
From the back seat, Mara asked, “Who is this guy anyway?”
“His name is Damian Sanders. Since the company is not public, there’s not too much information that the investigators could turn up, just the normal legal paperwork that must be filed with the government, stuff like that. This guy seems to be the best candidate for knowing what is really going on at I-Data and who might be involved at Viiradium.”
Mara sat back and considered this name for a while, but she wasn’t familiar with it at all. Could this be the shadowy figure behind her torment of the last several days? Was she finally about to face the enemy? Was she merely a ‘spot’ to him? A stain to be ‘cleaned’ away? It must be so impersonal to him. But to her, it meant everything. Her family – wiped out. Her dignity, her trust, changed forever. In the back of her mind she wondered if it could really be this person, this ‘Damian’, that was behind it all. She was expecting someone she would recognize. A face to associate with all the trouble. Someone she could hate. That she could attack, even if the attack would only be in a courtroom – at least they would finally suffer what they deserved. No, they deserved worse, but there was little she could do about that. The revelation that the character behind her misery was someone unknown to her, left her a little deflated.
Mike’s voice broke her from her contemplation, “We called this guy a little while ago and got a recorded voice mail message, so he probably is not home yet. I thought we would take a drive over and have a look at the landscape and then go for something to eat while we wait for him to show up. Hopefully he’s not out of town on a business trip or something.”
They made their way to an expensive country development in the north suburbs. There were winding lanes throughout the hilly terrain with magnificent upper class homes sort of tucked-in attractively throughout the development. Eventually they found the place they were looking for. There was some automated outdoor lighting and perhaps an inside hallway light that gave the place that ‘no-one’s-home-right-now’ look. It happened to be at the very outskirts of the development with what was probably a nice view of farms and woods out the back, although it was difficult to tell for sure in the gathering darkness.
“We stick out like a sore thumb here…” Mike complained in frustration.
“Take a look over there, just past the house… there,” Annette indicated. “It looks like the road winds around the end of the house a bit.”
The road did indeed take a turn to the right and immediately crossed a small wooded brook that carried run-off water from the development out toward the farms. After cruising across the bridge, there was a scrap of a dirt track that went off the road to the right some more. They pulled in and Mike brought the van to a stop.
“Probably a path the farms used before that development went in. We could drive down it a bit. It looks to me like we can get close enough to set up the antenna array and hopefully not get noticed.” After a moment’s consideration, Mike said, “Hang on here just a minute guys.” He got out of the van by himself and began walking down the path in the direction of the house.
In the awkward silence between Mara and Annette, Mara asked, “So do you work for Mike?”
“We work at the same company, but we work in different departments. We’re a small enough group that we all sort of do a little bit of everything. Mike’s main job is corporate security and I maintain and manage our computer networks. This time though, we are together since we’re talking about computers and security.”
“Is he a pretty good guy to work with?”
“I don’t know too much about him, but he has a reputation for being a bit of a maverick. He has certainly fit in well at Sequitus. He gets along great with everyone and the group is sort of nonconformist anyway, so mavericks fit right in. I’ve heard he’s regarded as being a tough guy, but I’ve never seen him act it.”
After a few moments, Mike emerged from the gloom of the trail and climbed back into the van. “I don’t know if the cables we brought will reach from the antenna placement to the van, but I think they will. Definitely looks like he’s not home right now. Let’s eat! That Chinese lunch is history and I’m getting hungry.”
They drove back up to the street and left the neighborhood in search of a restaurant.