“Confessions” Serial, Tech Wars 6
It was Sandy’s day in the office of the corporation where she was contracted as a programmer. She was only required to check in with them once a week, present her progress reports and receive any new briefings from her boss. The rest of week she worked at home and managed her time as she wished.
She had gotten up quite early despite Brett having made good his promise of “seduction,” not that she needed seducing. She had to admit though that last night had been special. She was a little concerned about the money he had spent on the show and the dinner. It was the one area that they had never really discussed. Brett was always insistent on paying for anything they did together, but this was the first time he had splashed out on a really expensive evening. And now this unexpected move to a much more expensive apartment. What was going on? She hoped that he wasn’t over-reaching his budget just to impress her.
Sandy opened her laptop to check on what she was going to present at the office. After a few moments she frowned and looked anxiously at a blank screen. There was no sign of life at all. She couldn’t even check the battery although she was certain that it was well charged. She reached into her computer carrying case, withdrew a charger, plugged it in and tried again. Nothing. She went cold. Her computer had been hacked or a virus had destroyed everything despite the anti-virus system that she had believed to be the best available.
Fortunately, she had long ago established the habit of backing everything up on an external hard drive as well as using memory sticks for anything really important. She sighed. It crossed her mind that the problem with using the Internet to find data was that it was a double-edged sword. She could find the data but others could also find out that she was finding the data. Most of it was hidden in plain sight but what she was doing was beginning to reveal patterns of behavior that could have alerted the baddies behind it. Were they onto her? More alarming still, she had stumbled on something even scarier just the other day. Something she had not even had the time to discuss with Brett. In fact, it was so sinister that she even doubted whether the pattern she had seen emerging really existed. Ironically, her chat with Brett the previous night had touched on conspiracy theories and this new pattern tied in snugly with some data she already knew about.
OK, first things first. She had to get to the office, sort out what had crashed her computer with one of the techies there, complete her reports and get back home when she would tell Brett exactly what she may have uncovered. This included the frightening prospect of being closed down by the baddies, or even worse.
As she was heading for the door, Brett emerged from the bedroom in his boxer shorts. He reacted as he saw Sandy fully dressed and carrying her computer case. “Damn. I forgot. It’s your office day.”
Sandy grimaced. “Yeah, Running late. Stuff to tell you … later!”
Brett followed her to the door. “Listen. Didn’t want to tell you last night but I have a feeling we’re being followed. Be careful out there!”
Sandy looked at him in shock. “You sure?”
He shook his head. “No. I could be being paranoid, but I thought I should …”
“Oh my God. I’ll watch out.”
“Wanna wait while I throw on some clothes?”
“I’m real late. Call you from the office.”
Sandy dashed out of the door which slammed behind her. Brett anxiously moved across to the window and waited until he could see her car emerge from the underground parking and head off towards her office. He scanned the road below for any sign of a vehicle pulling off behind her and was alarmed to see a black SUV pull out from the curb where it had been parked. He rushed back into the bedroom and found his cell phone. He dialed Sandy and hoped that in her rush she had still remembered to put her cell into the hands-free slot in her car.
She answered after two rings. “Hi … sorry I ran out on you.”
“OK … As you left the parking, a black SUV pulled out from the curb and followed behind you. It may be nothing but … can you see it?”
“Hold on …” Brett waited impatiently, wondering if he should get dressed and follow her. His immediate reaction to the SUV had been that they were watching him. It came as a real shock that they should be watching Sandy. She must have uncovered something major in the course of her campaign against injustice.
“I can see a black SUV about five cars back.” Sandy sounded frightened.
“D’you think you can give it the slip?”
She gave a nervous laugh. “You kidding? I’m in downtown Manhattan, remember? Cars piled on cars. See what I can do … Jesus, Brett, I didn’t sign on for this kinda shit!”
“Sweetheart, relax. It could still be a coincidence.”
“Not after what happened this morning.”
“What?” Now Brett was really worried.
“My computer crashed. I was going to tell you later. Hey, if I’m gonna give him the slip, I’d better concentrate ….”
“Do that. I’ll stay on the phone.” Brett put his phone on speaker and moved around grabbing clothes as fast as he could. He was already out of the apartment heading for his car before she spoke again.
“I may’ve done it. Took a side street, with the traffic backed up behind me. By the time I hit the next intersection there was no sign of the SUV. I took a right, away from the office. Traffic was easier there and I’m now circling around to approach the office from the opposite direction. If there’s no sign of ’em I’ll go up the ramp to my parking. If they’re in sight … I guess I’ll just keep going.”
“OK. I’ll shortly be at that deli on the corner of your street. I’ll wait around till you can leave …”
“Later.” Sandy disconnected the phone and concentrated on checking behind her. With no black SUV in sight, she turned at the last minute into the office parking and drove up to the fourth level, where she and other freelance programmers had three parking spots available to them. Their weekly meetings were staggered so that no more three of them were in the office at any one time.
Brett could hardly believe what was happening. He was geared up to evade any further attacks from Zoltan’s men but now, suddenly, it seemed as though Sandy was also the target of another group upset by her probes into fraudulent property deals. He figured it was time for both of them to disappear.
• • •
“Sorry, boss. We lost her.”
Johansen grimaced but was not overly worried. “No biggie. We know she’s due at the Pendulum offices every Thursday. We’ll pick her up from there. Did she make you?”
“Dunno. We wus about four cars behind. The traffic snarled up and she suddenly took a side street. Coulda been just avoiding the jam.”
“OK. Just in case, switch with Benedict and return to base. I’ve got another job for you.”
Johansen closed his phone and thought about it. Putting a tail on the O’Reilly woman had been just the first step in their handling of any problem she might create for them. All he wanted to know at this point was whether she had seriously connected all the dots or whether she had inadvertently seen something that made no sense and would shortly decide to leave it alone. It was not as though she were an investigator or part of any group seriously opposed to what they needed to achieve.
He was less certain about the boyfriend. Brett Gibson was something of a mystery man. Did he have some undercover operation and, if so, which side was he on? Enquiries through his normal channels had come up with nothing so far but he would continue digging. The only reason he had had Sandy O’Reilly followed was to see if she was meeting with another person or group. Hopefully, the fact that they had wiped her computer clean would discourage her from pursuing their specific project. Other bureaus were handling the steady destruction of people’s wealth, forcing them into greater and greater reliance on just surviving the way they were intended to – unless they were part of the group he worked for, of course. He had sent through a report to the other bureaus to keep an eye open for any moves on O’Reilly’s part to expose or in some way try to prevent a global operation that had been running very successfully since 2020.
Johansen felt that he was overall a compassionate man. He did not want to unnecessarily eliminate either O’Reilly or Gibson. However, he would not hesitate to act if he felt at any time that they presented a serious threat.
He reached out for his computer and continued the process of digging for more data on Brett Gibson. He had other experts doing the same, but he was very much a hands-on kind of person and could not just sit back and wait for others to report back to him.
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.