Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (13 page)

He obviously had
had one too many Margaritas. Or maybe four or five too many. He remembered
starting the night at Doc Maynard’s in Pioneer Square. Yeah, she came up to him
at the bar. She was a little older, but quite a looker, what his co-workers at
YTS would call a cougar on the prowl. He remembered her wearing heels, a black
skirt and a very low cut black sweater.
Oh well, if you’ve got a good
product, it pays to advertise.
He smiled at his own wit.
Shit.
Smiling
hurt his head, too.

But how did she
get here? He looked down at her tits again. Man, he hoped he’d had a good time
with those things. Why couldn’t he remember? What was her name? Something that
started with a “G.” Ginny? No. Gail? Gillian? This was bad.

There was that
buzz again. His phone. He had a phone call.

He slipped out
from under Miss G’s head, sat up and reached for his Blackberry. “Ugh.” He felt
a sharp pain in his ribcage.

She stirred,
stretched her arms and opened her eyes. “Good morning.” She smiled at him.

Ted saw the number
on caller ID, held his finger in front of his lips and pushed the talk button
on his phone.

“
Buenos Dias
,
Mama
.” What would his mother be doing calling him this early on Sunday
morning?

“
Eduardo, es tu
mama
.” Mama and Papa always spoke to him in Spanish. He usually answered in
English.

“Hi, Mom.” He exaggerated
the words so Miss G would know who he was talking to and be quiet. He needed to
get away from her. He couldn’t talk to Mama with a naked lady in his bed.

“¡Teddy,
Tango
noticias grandes
!” This must be important. “Your papa, he won the lottery.”
Mama switched to English.

Ted sat opened
mouthed. Had he heard her right? He glanced furtively at the naked woman. She
rolled over and cast off the sheets, revealing both of those wonderful tits.
Her soft, smooth belly and the patch of curly dark brown hair called to him.

“Teddy, are you
there? Did you hear what I said?”

With a tremendous
effort of will, Ted turned his attention back to the phone. “Mama, did you just
say that Papa won the lottery?”

“
Sí, mijo
.
He won the SuperLotto. A seven-million-dollar pot jack.”

“Seven million
dollars?” Ted couldn’t imagine that much money. “How much does he get?”

“I don’t know. He
just saw the numbers in
La Opinión
.”

“Seven million?”
Miss G sat up and spoke softly. “Let’s see, for a lump sum payout, they usually
give you about fifty-five percent. That would be . . .” Her eyes rolled up and
to the right. “Three million, eight-hundred and fifty-thousand dollars. Then
there’s federal withholding. At twenty-five percent he would get…two million,
eight-hundred eighty-seven-thousand five-hundred. Of course, with a good
accountant, he could reduce the tax burden.”

Ted stared at her.
Now he was getting annoyed. Who was she anyway? A human computer?

“Teddy, are you
there? Are you listening?”

“I’m here, Mama. I
just can’t believe it. Pop’s been buying tickets as long as I can remember and
he never wins anything. I can’t believe it.”

“
Tenemos una problema
,
Teddy.” Mama’s voice got softer. “Your papa, he can’t collect the money. He’s
not a legal resident. We need you to come home. You have to collect for him.”

“Sure. I’ll get
tickets on-line today.” Suddenly his heart beat faster. He had an overwhelming
urge to be home, to see Mama, to see his family. “I’ll get the first flight
down there.” He knew Mama would have tamales or chile verde waiting for him.

He didn’t remember
much more of the conversation. They chatted a few minutes. His little sister,
Esperanza, was at the top of her class at Garfield High. Uncle Ben was
recovering from his heart attack. His cousin Carlos had been arrested for
dealing dope. And, oh yeah, his Papa won the lottery.

He hung up and
stared blankly into space.

“So, your father
won the lottery.” Miss G finally broke the silence. “Where do your parents
live?”

“East LA.” Ted was still stunned. Gina! That was it, her name was Gina something.

Gina got up from
the bed and walked to the bathroom. She jiggled in all the right places. That
brought his mind back to the present.

“You know, your
father is going to have some big decisions to make. A high percentage of
lottery winners are broke in five years. He needs to consider taking the lump
sum vs. the twenty-six year payout.” She turned and leaned against the door
frame.

“For the most
part, I’d recommend the lump sum. You have a larger tax liability up front, but
if you invest carefully, you’ll get a better return than you would on the
annual payout.”

Ted stared at the
naked woman in his bathroom door.
Who is she? How does she know all of this
stuff?

“How . . .?”

“I’m an
accountant. We play that game all the time at work:
What would you do with a
million dollar lottery payout?
We change the amounts to make it
interesting.”

“You’re an
accountant?” She didn’t look like any accountant Ted ever imagined.

“Usually, you want
to take the lump sum pay out, but if it’s discounted too steeply, he might be
better off taking the annual payments. We really should run the numbers before
deciding.”

Ted reached for
his boxers on the floor.

“A lot of it
depends on your father’s tax situation. What bracket is he in? Does he have
other deductions? We need to decide how to best leverage the money. Does he
need a large sum right away? Is he planning on making any large purchases? We
need to outline a strategy for how to manage that much money.”

“Wait a minute.”
Ted’s mind was now hitting on all cylinders. “I don’t want to be rude, but you
don’t even know him.”

“It’s just a game
that we play, Teddy. No one ever thought that we’d really need to use this kind
of knowledge. Anyway, all I’m saying is that we need to get your dad a good
accountant.”

“We?” Had she
suddenly become part of the equation? He didn’t even know her. Was she really
an accountant, or was this a scam of some sort?

Ted sat at his new
desk sipping coffee. He grimaced slightly. His jaw gave him much less pain than
his ribs, but sucking still sucked.

Was he out of his
mind? He gave up a good paying job with the potential to become a millionaire
for this dump? What was he thinking?

His “office” was a
grey metal desk shoved in the corner of the big room shared with about two
dozen female co-workers. An array of antique computers surrounded him. Shit,
some of them were probably steam-powered. There was everything from WindowsNT
and Windows 95 to one fairly modern box.

Flaherty &
Associates “server farm,”
he chuckled to himself. It could hardly be called
a server farm; his personal laptop had more computing power than any three of
these boxes combined.

They had nowhere
to go but up. Any changes he made would be an improvement over what they had.

He opened an Excel
spreadsheet on his laptop and began building an inventory. The first thing he
needed to do was assess the “as is” situation. Once he knew what they had, he
could begin figuring out where they needed to go.

Budget would be a
big consideration. Basically, he didn’t have one. Catrina said that she would
see what she could do, but she didn’t promise him anything.

The ringing phone
on his desk startled him. “Hello?”

“Ted, Catrina. Step
into my office for a minute.” She didn’t wait for him to answer, she just hung
up.

Well, the boss
lady calls…

As Ted entered
Catrina’s office, he instantly recognized the well-dressed, middle-aged woman
sitting in front of Catrina’s desk. He knew her as
Time Magazine’s
Person of the Year and from
News Front
and other TV shows.

Catrina stood as
Ted entered the office. “Alison, I’d like you to meet Ted Higuera, our new
resident computer geek.”

Ted’s heart
jumped. Reaching her hand out to him was one of the most powerful people in the
computer world.

“Ted Higuera?” The
woman’s hand froze in mid-air. “You’re the hero of the Inside Passage terrorist
attack, aren’t you?”

Ted felt the color
rushing to his face. “I’m not a hero. I was just there.”

“Ted, this is
Alison Clarke, CEO of Millennium Systems.” Catrina sat as Ted took Alison’s
hand.

“Everybody knows
Alison Clarke.” Ted appraised the petite woman. She emanated an aura of power
that awed him. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Clarke.”

“Call me Alison.” She
flashed Ted a warm smile and looked him straight in the eyes.

Her firm handshake
filled Ted with a sense of sincerity. He immediately felt like she was a
regular person.

“I wanted Ted to
hear our conversation. He’s going to be helping on your case.” Catrina leaned
back in her chair. “Go ahead; tell Ted what you were just telling me.”

Alison looked from
Catrina to Ted and back again. “I was hired by the board of directors about
five years ago when MS was failing. It wasn’t a popular decision. The former
CEO, Terry Metcalf, inherited the position from his father. It had been a
family business for eighty years. I was the first non-Metcalf to head the
company.

“Terry and his
cronies on the board have done everything in their power to make me fail. I
have five board members on my side, Terry has four on his. It wouldn’t take
much to turn one vote and toss me out.”

Ted saw the pained
look on Alison’s face.

“As I’ve told
Cat,” Alison continued, “we have a new product coming out. We’re going to set
the technology world on its ear. Someone high up in the organization’s leaking
information about it. We have a few bugs to work out before rollout, but
they’re trying to make it sound like a technical failure. They want to sabotage
the rollout.”

“And this is worth
killing someone for?” Ted couldn’t get his head around that.

“I don’t
understand that.” Alison’s hands shook, her complexion turned pale. “It’s just
business. I hired Donna Harrison to find the leak. I never dreamed that I was
putting her in danger. I can’t sleep at night, thinking about this. Who would
kill someone over a computer?”

Catrina leaned
forward in her chair and reached for Alison’s hands. Alison allowed Catrina to
hold both hands over the desk. “Ted’s going to hack into your systems and see
if he can find out what Donna was after. She obviously stumbled on some
information that someone didn’t want her to find.”

Somewhere outside,
Ted heard the beep, beep, beep of a truck backing up, the growl of machinery.

“What happens if
they catch Ted snooping around?” Alison asked. “What will they do to him?”

“Donna made a big
mistake.” Catrina squeezed Alison’s hands. Did some unspoken communication
flash between the two women? “She went physically on the premises. Ted will do
all his work from here. Even if they detect him, they can’t physically assault
him.”

Ted’s hand went to
his side. Suddenly he was acutely aware of the ache in his jaw, the pain in his
ribs.

“I’d like for you
and Ted to come to our headquarters.” Alison picked up her purse and reached
for her camel-hair coat. “I think that you should see our R&D department.
You should know what this is all about.”

“Great, I’ll have
Abeba set the appointment.” Catrina rose to escort Alison out.

“I feel better,
knowing you’re on the case.” Alison turned to Ted. “After what you did up in Canada, I know you’ll be able to help me here.”

Ted hated doing
it. He despised the publicity and the hero status, but he was going to use it
anyway. The less Alison knew about what he was going to do, the better. “Would
you like to see some pictures? I have pictures of the attack taken by
photographers on the ship.”

“I’d love to. I’ve
been fascinated by the whole incident. I read everything I could get my hands
on.” Alison paused a moment. “I was almost on that cruise ship. We had reservations,
but had to cancel. One of my vice presidents went in my place. He could have
been killed up there.”

Ted reached into
his pocket and produced a flash drive. “Here. Load these up on your computer at
work. I don’t think your kids should be seeing this stuff. Just click on the “OK”
button when you get the screen saying that they’re copyrighted photos. You can
look at them for your own use.”

Alison took the
flash drive and dropped it in her purse. “Thank you, Ted. I’ll look at them. My
VP will want to see them too.”

Teddy, you’ve
still got it
. The Trojan horse was planted.

****

Terry Metcalf
liked his office, as much as he was capable of liking anything. For the most
part, he walked through life devoid of emotion. He had mastered anger and was
certainly capable of holding a grudge, but most other human feelings escaped
him. Maybe it was better said, that Metcalf’s office pleased him.

It was quiet, both
because of the sound-proofed walls and the lack of ornamentation. He could
close his shades, turn down the light and shut out the world. He liked the
blank cream-colored walls and heavy dark furniture. For someone as intelligent
and powerful as Terry Metcalf, the world was still a frightening place. It took
every ounce of his considerable intellect to organize the cacophony of sights
and sounds, the visual and aural stimuli, into something that approached order.
And he craved order.

“Terry, everyone’s
gone home.” Janice Swanson, Millennium System’s Chief Marketing Officer, stood
in his doorway. She was still loyal to Metcalf. Despite what that Clarke bitch
had done to his company. “Do you have time to talk?”

Janice was as
close to a protégée as Metcalf would ever have. She was once foolish enough to
think she loved him. The sex had been great, but he knew that he could never
return the love.

“What do you have
for me?” Terry’s voice belied his impatience.

“Alison’s moving
forward with Delphi.” Janice sat on the loveseat along the north wall, a
respectable distance from him. “She thinks they’ve worked out most of the
technical difficulties, but I think the unit will overheat. We’ve had two
prototypes catch fire.”

“And she’s still hell
bent for leather to take this to the consumer market?” Metcalf sat back in his
padded swivel chair. Even with Janice, he preferred to keep his massive
mahogany desk between him and visitors.

“Yes. She thinks
it’s the next iPod.” Janice sat back and crossed her long legs. Her short skirt
rode up her thighs.

Damn, she still
has a fine set of pins.
“She’s out of her mind. This is a business tool.
It’ll revolutionize the way the world communicates. It’ll free the knowledge
workers from their desks. Besides, businesses are more willing to buy cutting-edge
technology.” He knew he was preaching to the choir.

“I have to agree
with you there.” Janice pushed her short brown hair back over her right ear.
“The consumer wants something that works. They’re not willing to hang on while
we work out the bugs.”

“Exactly. Businesses
are always looking for a competitive advantage. They’re willing to take a
little risk. Early adopters will buy version 1.0 to get a jump on their
competitors. Then their experiences in the field will help us perfect version
2.0. Consumers would never live with that. If it doesn’t work out of the box,
we’d be ruined.”

“Here’s the big
news, Terry.” Janice leaned forward and put an elbow on her knee. Her voice
took on a conspiratorial tone. “At our staff meeting today, she announced that
she was going to spin off a new company, a consumer products division, just to
market Delphi. She thinks that this is just the first of a line of new consumer-oriented
products.”

“She’s out of her
fucking mind.” The cream-colored walls turned a pale shade of red. “First she does
away with the Dunn & Metcalf name, now she wants to market our most
important new product in decades with another name?” Metcalf slammed his fist
down on his desk. “Somebody has to stop the bitch before she drives us all into
bankruptcy.”

“What did you have
in mind?” Janet’s carnivorous smile reminded Metcalf of a hungry dog.

Metcalf took a
deep breath and regained control of his emotions. He appraised his protégée for
the thousandth time. She had worked side-by-side with him on several covert
projects. His brilliant mind whirled. Could he trust her on this? Did she need
to know?

Finally he let out
the breath. “Janet, you don’t need to know the details. Just be confident that
I have this under control. She’s finally gone too far. In a couple of weeks, that
bitch won’t be in a position to spin off anything.”

****

“Hi, this is Gina,
and I’m sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to
you as soon as possible.”

She never
answers her phone.
Ted dashed off a text message, pocketed his Blackberry
and stared down from his loft bedroom through the sliding glass doors towards Lake Union.

What was it with
that woman anyway? She was so secretive. She wouldn’t give him her home phone
number, she wouldn’t let him call her at work. Hell, he didn’t even know where
she worked. He didn’t know where she lived either. She’d meet him someplace and
they’d go back to his apartment, but she never let him pick her up. And the
only way he could contact her was by cell phone, usually by text messages.

Ted leaned back in
his bed and picked up his Kindle. Oscar leapt onto the bed and wormed his way
between Ted’s face and the Kindle.

He had it bad.
Yeah, maybe she was a little older than him, okay, ten or twelve years to be
honest, maybe fifteen, but they clicked. He couldn’t ever remember another girl
that he had connected with like Gina. Maybe that was it. Gina wasn’t a girl,
she was a woman. She was pretty and had killer tits, even if she was a little plump,
but, man, she was sharp. She knew all sorts of stuff.

And she got him.
After asking him only once about the terrorist attack, she never brought it up
again. She never pried into his family life, but offered to help Papa figure
out what to do with his lottery winnings.

His Blackberry
buzzed. Ted glanced at the caller id.

“Gina. Thanks for
calling back so quick.”

“Hi, Teddy. Sorry
I couldn’t answer your call right then. I was checking on the kids.”

That’s right, she
had two kids. “I was wondering if we could get together this weekend.”

“Sorry, Ted, you
know my rule. I never go out when I have the kids. This is my week. They’ll be
with Freddy next week if you want to do something then.”

Damn, damn,
damn
. “I’m flying to LA next weekend. Now that we have Pop’s plan worked
out, I’ve got to go down and cash in Pop’s lottery ticket. Can’t we do
something this week? Maybe lunch?”

There was a pause.
She was thinking.

“You know my rule.
I never date when I have the kids. They come first.”

“Maybe we could do
something with the kids. I haven’t met them yet. Can we take them to the zoo or
something? Maybe you could bring them to our Thanksgiving dinner. Chris and I
put on quite a spread.”

This time her
answer was immediate.

“No. Not only no,
but HELL NO! I NEVER get my kids involved with a man I’m dating. It’s hard
enough on them to have to share their dad with another set of sibs. I won’t
confuse them by bringing men in and out of their lives.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t
be in and out of their lives. Maybe I’d be around for a while.”

“Ted. Don’t even say
it. You know and I know that this wouldn’t work. Look, I really like you, but
this is just for fun. We both know that we can’t be together.”

“But, Gina, why
not? I don’t get it? You like me, I like you. What difference does a few years
make?”

“I’m not having
this discussion. I’m sorry, Ted. I have to go. Have a good trip.”