on the event, stifling their laughs.
...50
...Thursday, February 12, 11:02AM EST (UTC-5:00 hours)
...Randy Turner’s Residence
...New York, New York
A rapid tap on the door woke him up. He groaned, the typical groan of a nineteen year old when he has to wake up before noon. He turned on the other side and mumbled.
“Who is it?”
The tap reoccurred. Randy tried harder this time, getting out of bed and dragging his feet to the door.
“Yeah?”
A voice from behind the door said quietly, “I have your money.”
Randy took the door chain off in a second and welcomed the man in.
“Come on in, man, I am so happy to see you.”
Helms walked in, looking around.
Randy grabbed a pile of clothing scattered on the old, beat-down couch and made room for his guest. The air was stale and smelled of dirty laundry, but Randy didn’t smell that anymore. However, any time his friends dropped by they bitched about it, so Randy opened the sliding window to let in some fresh air. The frazzled window sheers waved in the brisk winter breeze.
“Here, sit down. Fuck, man, am I glad to see you!”
Helms continued to stand. He patted the kid on his back. Helms looked scary, just as scary as the day he had met him. He was smiling, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Cold as ice, the man’s blue eyes gave him the willies. He hated how this guy skeezed him out.
“Where can we speak privately?”
Randy hesitated for a second, confused by a question with an obvious answer.
“Right here. There’s no one else here.”
“Good. You did good on the assignment, kid, show me.”
“Show you what?”
“Show me how you saw the intrusion. Can you figure out what that person saw in the system?”
Randy went to his old laptop and demonstrated, flipping through screens fast, so that Helms wouldn’t catch the date on the intrusion report.
“Yeah. See? This is the app I’m running; it shows the hack alert here, on this screen.” He displayed the report screen for half a second. “Then in here you see what he saw.”
“He looked at multiple records?”
“Yeah, the dude checked a few of them out. Checked this one pretty thoroughly, then looked around some more.”
“Which one did he check first?”
“This one, umm . . . Melanie Wilton. But there ain’t any info that makes any sense in there. The other records have info in them, see? They have dates, names, activity, socials, stuff like that. This one has nothing, just a name and some codes and acronyms.”
“Good, good,” the man said, grabbing Randy by the back of his head, gently, as if to pet him like a parent would stroke a child. “You did really good.”
“Great, so I get my money now?” Randy asked, turning around to look at Helms.
Suddenly, the grip on his neck became forceful, not allowing him to turn his head any further. He kicked around, flailed his arms, tried to grab something, but he was almost paralyzed.
“What . . . ? The fuck . . . ?” Randy managed to say as the grip turned to steel.
“Yes,” the man said, “you did good.”
With a rapid twist of his right hand he gripped Randy’s neck rendering him helpless. His left hand then grabbed his chin and executed a sudden right-to-left movement. Randy’s legs turned to jelly as loud cracks marked the multiple fractures in his cervical spine. Before glossing over, Randy’s eyes continued to express the utmost disbelief.
Helms dropped the body to the floor gently to avoid making too much noise. He closed the window after looking around and checking for any unusual activity. He grabbed the laptop, slid it under his overcoat, and left, closing the door behind him without a sound.
...51
...Monday, February 15, 10:14AM EST (UTC-5:00 hours)
...DCBI Headquarters, 6th Floor Conference Room
...Washington, DC
Robert fidgeted before settling down at his conference room table. He was about to enter a new phase of this madness, a phase in which he had to involve his team. To some extent. They’d be ignorant players, manipulated into taking certain actions by a man they had learned to trust. The thought made him sick to the stomach; he hated lying to his people, or to anyone for that matter. Making things even worse was knowing that someone was watching his every move and listening in to every word being said, waiting for the tiniest misspoken word or hint of betrayal to kill Melanie. It was a very fine line to walk, but he felt determination replacing his anxiety. They were going to pay