Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (3 page)

With a conscious
effort, she controlled her breathing and surveyed the office. Cream-colored
walls without a single picture or photograph. No plants. No decoration of any
sort, just mind-numbing plainness. There was no indication of the personality
of the man who worked here.
Probably because he doesn’t have one.

Donna turned her
attention to the laptop on the desk. Her breath came in short bursts as she
raised the lid.
The keys to the kingdom
, she thought as she removed an
aerosol can from her cleaning cart and blew the keyboard clean.
I have to be
patient.
She worked diligently, cleaning the office from top to bottom to
operating-room standards.

Finally, she
closed the blinds, turned off the TV and pushed her cart to the door. A smile
spread across her face.

Maybe the extra
money wouldn’t be so bad. Taking her family to Cabo, when winter closed in on
them, might just be what the doctor ordered.

“Boo! Hiss!”
Someone threw peanuts at Richard Freeman’s image on the big screen TV. Catcalls
filled the conference room.

Híjole,
Ted
thought,
these dudes are wired.
He watched the scene on the television
shift to Justin getting out of the van in the parking garage of the Millennium Tower.

Ted had never seen
Justin in anything but his tank top and shorts. In the coveralls he looked like
any working Joe.

“We have hidden
cameras following Mr. McCormack’s progress.” Janet’s professional voice-over floated
through the speakers. “He wore a disguise in case MS security had warned its
staff to watch out for him.”

On TV, Justin stepped
out of the elevator and looked around the office. People hustled busily about.
No one paid him any attention.

“We’re looking for
the department manager’s office, checking out the attentiveness of management
and employees.” Justin’s voice-over covered his actions.

Even though Ted
knew the outcome, he held his breath.

On the screen, Bear
stepped behind Justin. The camera hidden in his glasses zeroed in as Justin
typed in “JAPOTT” and hit the “enter” key.

“I was denied
access three times,” Justin said. “Then the system locked me out. That’s good
security practice.” On TV, Justin picked up the phone. “I called the help
desk.”

He did his song
and dance routine with the help desk agent. “We call it social engineering,”
Justin told Janet. “Human beings are always the weakest link in any security
system. They would have seen from their caller ID that I was calling from Mr.
Potter’s desk. They heard what they expected to hear. They reset the password
and I was in. I returned to my office where I have better tools and less chance
of detection, to hack their system.”

“Woo Hoo!” The
room erupted in applause. People high-fived, fist bumped, hip bumped and chest
bumped.

Caramba
, Ted
thought,
you’d think they just won the Super Bowl.

“It took you five
minutes to break into one of the most secure computer systems in the world.”
Janet Petersen’s voice cut through the celebration.

Ted leaned back in
his chair. There was a lot to learn here. If Justin could break into Millennium
Systems network, he could hack any system in the world. He smiled to himself.
What
he can do, I can do. You have been given great power, my son. Use it wisely.

****

Donna put her
cleaning cart in the closet, punched out on her time card, removed the rubber
band from her ponytail and shook her hair free. She had let the streaks of gray
show in her chestnut brown hair for this assignment.

Donning a ratty,
old wool coat, she stepped out of the downtown high-rise and made her way to
the corner bus stop. Her timing was precise. The ST545 bus pulled up only
moments after her arrival.

On the long bus
ride across Lake Washington to the Bear Creek Park N Ride lot in Redmond, Donna read a Susan Wiggs novel and tried to decompress. She didn’t want to bring
the stress of work home.

The sun crept over
the Cascade Mountains as she disembarked. The Park’N’Ride lot was just
beginning to get busy. She walked the short distance to a silver-blue BMW X5
SUV. Clicking her key fob flashed the lights on the BMW and started the engine.
She climbed in and pulled out of the Park’N’Ride lot.

She hummed an old
Marvin Gaye song along with the oldies station on the satellite radio as she drove
into the long, curved driveway of her large brick-fronted home.
The
gardeners must have been here yesterday.
All of the leaves had been raked
up.

The garage door
opened at the touch of the remote control. She backed into the garage, killed
the engine and just sat for a minute, still humming
I Heard it Through the
Grapevine
and smiling to herself.

Stepping out of
her vehicle, she removed her old coat and put it, along with her battered purse,
in a locker near the SUV. She removed her gray, cleaning lady dress and donned
a stylish Nike track suit. She kicked off the clunky cleaning lady shoes and
slipped into mulie slippers. Her wedding band set sat on a shelf in the locker.
She slipped it onto her finger.

“I’m home, honey.
Are the kids up?” She stepped through the door from the garage into a kitchen
filled with granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. She reached
into the light-stained oak cupboard over the stove and grabbed a pair of coffee
cups. The aroma of fresh coffee, from the automatic coffee machine, called
seductively to her.

“Hi, Hon.” Her
husband entered the kitchen pulling on a light jacket. “How was work last
night?”

“The usual. Are
the kids ready to go?” She planted a light peck on his lips.

A teenage boy and
girl swept into the kitchen, grabbed breakfast bars, and blew through to the
garage.

“Tammy, Billy,
good morning,” she called after them. “How’s school going?

“Not now, Mom,”
the girl yelled back over her shoulder. “I need to be there early today.”

“What’re your
plans today, Bill?” Donna asked as her husband reached for the door knob.

“I’m going to make
a Costco run, then I have the furnace repair guy coming for annual maintenance.
I’m hoping to clean the fish tank and vacuum. I’ll try to keep everybody quiet
so that you can get some sleep. Bye, Hon.”

“Bye, guys.” Donna
stood holding two coffee cups as her family disappeared into the garage. She
heard the garage door open and Bill’s Hummer pull out. She looked at Bill’s
cup, then shrugged and sat it on the counter.

She took her
coffee into her office and sat on the comfortable swivel chair in front of her
desk. While she booted up her computer, she sat for a moment, glancing at the
cup in her hand. It had a big pink heart on it and said “The World’s Greatest
Mom.”

For just a second,
her heart felt heavy, then a long, elegant Seal point Siamese cat jumped into
her lap. She rubbed his ears and he began to purr. “At least somebody’s glad to
see me.”

The morning light
broke through the gloom. A pair of doves picked seeds from the bird feeder
outside her window. The sunflowers along the cedar fence were at the height of
their glory.

When she reached
for the mouse, the cat attacked her hand. Then he jumped onto the desk and
batted at the moving cursor on the computer screen. Donna laughed and double-clicked
on an icon on her screen. “That’s a very bad cursor, Maxie. It must be
punished.”

The Cisco VPN
application opened. She gently picked up Maxie and cuddled him in her lap, then
clicked on the DigiGuard link, clicked on the “Connect” icon and was challenged
for her credentials. She entered her user ID, pin number, the constantly
changing code from the SecurID token on her key chain, then her pass code and
waited for a minute for the virtual private network to connect to her work
network. A popup box on her screen prompted her to scan her fingerprint.
The
best security is something you know, something you have and something you are,
she thought.

The logo for her
company, DigiGuard Security, flashed on the screen along with the usual legal
warning notice that she was entering a private network. She clicked “OK” and
went to work.

Her email in-box
was full. She rubbed Maxie’s head and sorted through the items. Her assistant
had scheduled two meetings later in the afternoon. She had an email from the
vice-president and another from the controller. Maxie stretched and rubbed his
head against her cheeks.

The last item on
her list was marked urgent. The message was comprised of only six words.
“Donna, call me immediately. Urgent. Alison.”

“Good morning,
Mr. Chris.” The small Filipino nurse pushed back the drapes. “Today’s your big
day.”

“Morning, Maria.”
Chris Hardwick sat up in his bed. “I can’t wait to get out of here.” He tossed
his head to get his shaggy blonde locks out of his deep blue eyes. “I don’t
remember the last time I saw the sun shine.”

“There’s not much
danger of you seeing that today, Mr. Chris. The weatherman says it’s going to
rain all day.”

Chris was dying to
get out of the hospital room. He hated the institutional gray walls, Formica
covered cabinets, the IV stand by his bedside. He couldn’t get the IV out of the
back of his hand soon enough. That had to be the worst part of his hospital
stay. No, the second worst. The catheter tube was the worst.

“Maria, I want to
thank you for all of your help. You’ve been the best.”

“Just doing my
job, Mr. Chris.” She smiled as she recorded his vital signs. “Besides, we have
to take care of our big hero, don’t we?”

Chris’ heart
skipped a beat; he felt tears forming in his eyes.
Hero?
They stopped
the al-Qaeda terrorist, saved Dad and Sarah, but he lost Meagan.

Unconsciously, he rubbed
the left side of his chest. The bandage was just under his collar bone. That’s
where the bullet had penetrated his lung. There was a matching bandage on his
back where the bullet exited his body.

I’ve got to
think about something else.

Being in a
hospital setting, seeing Maria, made him think of Mom.

“Did I tell you
that my mom was a nurse? Actually, she was a nurse’s assistant. That’s how she
met my dad.”

“Really? She’s
been gone a long time, hasn’t she?” Maria took his wrist and felt for his
pulse.

“Yeah. . . She
died my senior year of high school.”

An awkward pause
filled the room. Chris didn’t like to think about his mom dying either. This
was getting rough. Now he had two things he couldn’t think about. He needed to
teach himself to think about the good memories.

“Hey, Chris-O!”
Sarah Hardwick breezed in through the open door. “You’re getting out today.”

Chris could hardly
believe his eyes. The last time he saw his little sister, she had been a Goth.
Black hair, black lipstick, black nail polish. She dressed in nothing but
black, with black combat boots and wore a studded leather collar around her
neck.

The sister he
remembered from before Mom died peeled off a tan rain jacket. Her short, sandy
brown hair matched Dad’s hair color. She wore jeans with new Reebok sneakers
and a Gap sweatshirt. She even had red nail polish.

“Who are you and
what
have you done with my sister?”

“I decided that
today’s a big day for us. We’ve both starting our lives over. Like Mom used to
say, we get a ‘redo.’”

“How are
you
starting
your
life over?”

“I started classes
today.” Sarah raised her hands in the air and twirled around. “Surprised?”

He was. Sarah was
adamant that she wouldn’t follow Dad and him to the University of Washington. “But I thought . . .”

“I didn’t do it
for Dad, I did it for you. I’m moving into your house. I’m going to take care
of you while you recover. I figured that I had to have something to do, so I
went ahead and enrolled in school.”

“You’re moving in
with me? There’s only two bedrooms. Where’re you going to sleep?”

“That’s all worked
out. Ted’s already found another apartment. He’s moved all of his stuff.”

Ted’s moved
out?
“He hasn’t said a word to me.”

“I wanted it to be
a surprise. SURPRISE!” She tossed her hands in the air again.

Chris didn’t know
what to think. “Don’t I get a vote in this?” Ted had been his roommate since
freshman year of college. He couldn’t imagine not living with that crazy
hermano
.
On the other hand, he was getting his sister back. Since Mom died, Sarah had
been off in her own little world. They used to be so close and she had
completely shut him out.

Maybe this can
be a good thing.

****

“
Adelita
se llama la joven
.”
Ted always sang Papa’s old Mexican songs when he
cooked. He flopped the large pork loin onto the cutting board. “
A quien yo quiero
y no puedo olvidar.”
There was no one around to hear him butcher the tune.
Butcher
the tune?
Ted slapped the pork loin with the flat of his hand and chuckled.
Teddito, you’ve still got it.

He loved cooking.
It made him feel close to Papa, close to his roots. He thought back on all the
Saturdays he spent with his dad cleaning the kitchen in the restaurant where Papa
worked, the evenings peeling onions, chopping lettuce, always under his
father’s watchful eye. He could feel Papa’s hand on his shoulder as he showed
Ted how to hold the knife.

He pulled an oak-handled
carving knife from the knife block. It had that familiar feel. Everything else
in the kitchen may be junk, but Papa had sent him away from home with a good
set of knives.

He ran the blade
through an automatic knife sharpener.
Papa’d have a fit if he saw me doing
this.
His father always insisted that knives be sharpened by hand on a whetstone.
That was the only way to get the edge right he said.

Chris’ dad bought
the eighty-year old Craftsman-style house in the University District for Chris
to live in while he went to school. This old place had been home for Chris and
Ted for the last three years. To Ted, the big old kitchen felt comfortable. It
wasn’t new and it didn’t have all the modern conveniences, but it was homey.
Glass-doored cabinets revealed Chris and Ted’s collection of assorted serving
ware. “Garage-sale modern” was how Chris referred to it.

Now Chris was
coming home. Ted and Sarah spent the previous day cleaning the house and moving
the last of Ted’s belongings to his new apartment. Sarah didn’t have a lot to
move in. They had accomplished that with one load in the Hardwick’s old
Suburban.
Chris would’ve blown a gasket over that. Me, driving his mom’s old
car.

How did he feel
about moving out? Ted brushed back the lock of black hair that always fell in
his eyes. They had some good times here. He had never felt as close to anyone as
he did to Chris. Still . . . he was starting a new chapter in his life. This
would be good. Exciting. New.

The pork loin was
a big piece of meat, maybe seven pounds. Ted delicately carved it in
quarter-inch thick slices.

He peeled and
sliced several onions and a pineapple, then threaded the pork slices onto a
spit until they were about an inch thick. He put on a layer of onion, then another
pork layer followed by a layer of pineapple slices. Then he started over again
with a pork layer.

The spit was full
of the meat/onion/pineapple slices. He secured the end prong and set the
spitted meat down over the sink, then brushed on the rich
adobado
sauce
from the bowl of his food processor.

Life would be
different now, but what was next? Chris was going to be okay. It didn’t matter
whether he went to law school or not. He was getting out of the hospital and he
would be as good as new. The image of Chris, dropped by terrorist bullets, flashed
into his mind. For an instant, he was back on the sailboat far up Canada’s Inside Passage. He saw their friend Jack, lying on the cockpit floor, bullet holes in his
chest.

He shook his head.
For the most part, he had driven these images out of his waking mind. He didn’t
think about them all the time anymore. It was the night that haunted him.

In the early
morning hours, the horror came back. He found himself caught in the explosion,
flying through the air, plunged deep into the frigid water. He saw the missile
launch and knew he could do nothing to stop it.

But the worse
nightmare of all was when he woke screaming, feeling something warm and sticky
running into his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. He would lift Meagan off of him
and see the glazed look in her eyes.

“Ouch!” Ted cut
his finger with the super-sharp knife. “Damn.”
I’ve got to pay attention to
what I’m doing.
“Shit.” He held his finger to his mouth while he reached in
the cabinet for a Band-Aid.

He took the spit
to the back porch and placed it on the barbeque. The short roof over-hang
protected the grill from the rain.

The tiny lanai at
his new apartment would just about hold the big grill. Ted loved the third
burner in the back of the grill for the rotisserie so that the meat juice
didn’t drip down into the fire and flare up. Turning on the motor, he slipped
back inside the house with a grin on his face.

“Meow.” Oscar,
Meagan’s cat, rubbed against Ted’s ankles.

“Hey, little guy.”
Ted reached down and scooped up the sable Burmese. He had never liked cats. His
family never had pets when he was growing up. Papa refused to have anything
living under his roof that didn’t pay its own way.

When he was on the
boat with Chris and Meagan, Ted had done everything in his power to keep the
cat away from him. But, somehow, Oscar adopted him. After Meagan was killed in
the terrorist attack, Oscar came home to live with Ted. Now he ruled the house
with an iron paw.

Ted smelled the
sweet aroma of the meat roasting on the rotisserie.
Tacos al pastor
was
one of his best dishes. It impressed people whenever he served it.

Ted scratched
Oscar’s ears and took a pull on his
Corona
. No matter what internal
demons chased him, cooking always centered him, brought him back to his roots.

***

“You guys about
ready?” Candace pushed the wheelchair into the stark hospital room.

For an instant,
the old resentment rose in Chris’ throat. He choked it down.
What the hell,
I guess I’m going to have to get used to her.
After all, Candace was his
new stepmom and he was too weary to hate anyone anymore.

Dad could have
done worse, but he was sort of robbing the cradle.
Candace was closer to
Chris’ age than she was to Dad’s. Chris eyed Candace as she adjusted the foot
rests on the wheelchair. With her long legs, large breasts, long black hair and
emerald green eyes, she could grace the cover of Playboy. Still, there’s more
to her than looks. She’s wicked smart. Dad saw that right away.

“Come on, big guy.
Let’s get you dressed.” Sarah pulled clothes out of a Nordstrom shopping bag. “Candace
and I got you all new stuff.” She laid out underwear, jeans, a white T-shirt, a
Husky’s sweatshirt, socks and sneakers on the bed.

“You went shopping
with Candace?” Chris felt that old bitterness rise up in his throat.
That’s
getting a little chummy.
He took a deep breath and stifled it. “You guys
aren’t going to stand there and watch me dress are you?”

“No time for
modesty now, bro.” Sarah ripped back the covers. “We’re breaking you out of
here.”

By the time Harry,
Chris’ dad, entered the room with a bag of drugs from the pharmacy, Chris was
dressed. Harry was tall like Chris, but he carried a few extra pounds. His sandy
brown hair just began to show flecks of gray.

“How’s the hero
today?” Harry asked.

“I wish you’d stop
saying that, Dad. I’m not a hero.”

Sarah bent down to
tie Chris’ shoes. “He still can’t bend over to tie his shoes, that’s how he is,
Dad.”

“That’s OK. We’ll
be there to do that for him for a while. You ready, Chris? I’ve got the car
downstairs.”

“Yeah.”
Dad is
taking time off during the middle of the day to pick me up?

“I’ve got some
good news for you.” Harry said as Maria moved the wheelchair next to the bed.

“Uhhh” Chris started
to get up, then dropped back down to the bed clutching at the bandages on his
chest. Beads of sweat broke out on his brow. He hated feeling helpless. He’d be
damned if he’d let them treat him like fine China. He’d be even more damned if
he had to listen to Dad’s “good news.” “Let’s roll.”

“Take it easy.
Here, let me help you.” Harry put his hands under Chris’ arms and eased him
into the wheelchair.

Chris grimaced.
At
least that shut Dad up.

“Take it easy
son.”

“I’ll be okay.”
Chris breathed out heavily. “Let’s blow this pop stand.”

Maria wheeled
Chris down the hallway with Harry, Candace and Sarah following. Harry pushed
the elevator button. “I’ve got some good news for you,” he repeated.

I guess there’s
no way to avoid it.
Chris was used to his Dad’s manipulating. He just sat
in the chair.

“I’ve talked to
Dean Curtwright.”

So, that’s what
this was all about. Dad was adamant that Chris follow him to U Dub Law.

“You still have to
take the LSATs in March, but you’re in. He’ll watch for your application and
process it himself.”

There was a slight
silence before Chris responded. “Great, Dad.” It was over. He’d always known
that he was going to law school anyway. Dad always won. “Thank you.”

“When you get back
on your feet, you can come to work as a paralegal until classes start next fall.
It’ll be good experience.”

The elevator door
opened and Maria pushed Chris’ wheelchair in.

****

All faces turned
to Donna Harrison, dressed in a Navy Pierre Cardin suit, as she breezed through
the office doors. She knew that the smile on her face telegraphed the good
news. The thirty or so people, scattered through the gray cubicles, all
depended on her.

“I think we got
it, Jules.” Donna grinned at her administrative assistant, her best friend
since high school, as she slipped into her office. “That was Power Lunch 101.”
She dropped her alligator purse onto the glass-topped table she used as a desk.
“A big steak and a couple of Daniel’s famous Martinis and I think we’ve hooked
‘em.”