Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (16 page)

“You can use voice
commands, as you’ve already seen. You can use visual commands. Look at the
‘open file’ icon on the tool bar.”

Ted glanced up at
the icon. The cursor moved to where he was looking.

“Now, blink hard
once.”

Ted blinked and
the open file dialog box appeared.

“You just single-clicked.
If you blink hard twice, you double-click.”

“But how . . .”
Ted’s normally quick mind struggled to keep up.

“The glasses. We
have infra-red sensors in the frames that track your eye movement. Sensors in
the temples sense intentional vs. unintentional blinks. Now close the dialog
box.”

Ted looked at the
“Cancel” button and blinked once. The box disappeared.

“Shit. This would
be great for a quadriplegic. They could control the computer with their eyes.”

“That, Mr. Higuera,
is just the beginning. To the left of the minimize button on the top right of
the screen, you see a hand icon?”

Ted nodded.

“That turns on
hand control. Click it.”

Ted looked at the
hand and blinked.

“Now move your
hands.”

Ted reached out
towards the screen floating in the air and pointed to the printer icon on the
tool bar. The print dialog box appeared.

“
Jesus
!
Where will it print?”

“Your choice.
You’ll see that we have about two hundred printers hooked up to the
application. You can print it in Ms. Clarke’s office or in our Moscow branch. It’s very handy for sharing documents. Now for some neat stuff. Close Word.”

Ted pointed to the
little “X” in the top right side of the monitor. He got the “Do you want to
save” dialog box. He clicked on ‘No’ and closed the application.

“Okay, open
Excel.”

Ted noticed he was
breathing faster than normal. “Computer. Open Excel.”

An Excel spread
sheet opened in front of his eyes.

“Open the Cube
Data.xls file.”

“Computer, Open
Cube Data.xls.”

A three-dimensional
spreadsheet opened in the air. There were columns and rows, but behind the
first spreadsheet was another and another. It must have been twenty-spreadsheets
deep.

“You can perform
any kind of math functions across rows, columns and planes. It’s cube computing.
This brings super computer power to the local coffee house.”

“Cat, you’ve got
to see this.” Ted took the glasses off of his face. “It’s a full computer, just
floating in the air in front of your eyes.”

“That’s hardly all
that Delphi is.” Alison smirked at Catrina. “It’s a cell phone, it’s a GPS, a
PDA. It’ll download full movies, play all of your favorite songs without
irritating the guy sitting next to you on the bus, display network TV. We’re
working on a deal with the cable companies to show cable channels. It has a
full interface to the Internet. You can do your banking, make a doctor’s
appointment and order a new book while you’re waiting for a red light to
change. Doctors can have full access to patient records while they walk down a
hallway. We have applications that allow repairmen to be in contact with their
offices, get work orders, order parts, you name it.”

Catrina took the
glasses and just stared at them. “When will this be on the market?”

“We’re still
working out some little bugs.” Alison took the glasses from Catrina and placed
them on Catrina’s face. She gently brushed back a lock of blond hair that had
gotten tangled in the glasses leg.

“What kind of
bug?”

“Well, they kinda
catch on fire.” Gopi had a look of pain on his face.

“That’s a slight
exaggeration.” Alison stopped Catrina from pulling the glasses off her face.

Ted thought maybe
she held Catrina’s hand a little too long.
Hmm, is there something going on
here?

“They have been
known to overheat a little.” Alison waved away Gopi’s comment.

“Yeah, tell that
to Simmons. He got second degree burns.”

Alison shot a
death stare at Gopi.

“You wouldn’t
believe this thing.” Ted flipped the steaks over on the grill and turned back
to the kitchen. “It’s like having a mobile computer attached to your belt. The
whole thing is about the size of a book of matches and you see the screen
through a pair of sunglasses.”

“Where’d you see it?’
Gina sat on a stool at the breakfast counter, a glass of Merlot in her hand.

Oh shit.
Ted caught himself. “I can’t tell you. Confidentiality and all of that, but
man, was it cool.”

Ted liked where
their relationship was going. He could only see Gina when her ex had the kids,
but when she was available, she was all there. He liked the sex, Gina was open
to just about anything, in fact, she had taught him a thing or two, but what he
liked best was the camaraderie. He could tell her anything, share his day with her.
She was always interested. She always saw things at a deeper level than he did.
She made him think. She made him feel feelings he didn’t even know he had.

“You know, there’s
nothing sexier than a man who cooks.” Gina dangled her black pump off of a toe.
“What do you have going for us?”

“I’m breaking you
in gently. Tonight, New York pepper steaks, twice-baked potatoes and asparagus
in hollandaise sauce. Once I’ve got you hooked, I’ll do something fancy.”

Just getting her
to give him her address had been a major accomplishment. Gina wanted to keep
their relationship totally separate from her family life.

The single level
three-bedroom house in West Seattle fit Gina, small, but well maintained. Her diminutive
yard was neatly trimmed and planted with fall foliage. The sliding glass door
off the patio opened into a neat, well-stocked kitchen. Glass jars with pasta,
flour and sugar sat on the green and black granite topped counter next to the
stove. The stove, and all the appliances, were old, but serviceable.

I need a small
sauce pan for the hollandaise.”

“In the cabinet to
the right of the sink.” Gina smiled.

Who gives a
rat’s ass if she’s older?
Age was a sore spot for Gina. Ted could imagine
himself growing old with this woman, but she was insistent that in ten years,
he would get tired of her, dump her for a younger woman. Who cared if she
sagged a little here or there, she would still be who she was.

Ted bent down to
get the sauce pan. He opened the cabinet and looked in. There was something
whitish behind the pans. It looked like a file folder. He reached in and
grabbed it.

“Did you misplace
this?” She wouldn’t store her files in a kitchen cabinet.

“Oh my God! Give
that to me.” Gina jumped up from the stool.

Ted glanced at the
file. It was labeled “Jackson Schmidt.” “What is this anyway?”

“Ted, you didn’t
see that. Give it to me.” She tore the file from his hand and ran out of the
kitchen.

What the hell?

“Ted, you can’t
tell anyone you saw that file.” Gina stood in the doorway, her olive-skinned
complexion suddenly white. “You have to promise me.”

“What is it
anyway? You know I can keep a secret. If I won’t tell you who I’m working for, I
certainly won’t tell anyone else I saw your file.”

“It’s dangerous.
It’s complicated.”

“Danger’s my
middle name. What is it, Gina?”

She stared hard at
him for a long minute. Then she seemed to make up her mind, she took a deep
breath and let it out. “It’s a file I’m keeping on my boss.”

“Your boss?”

“Yeah, Jackson
Schmidt. Our CFO…he’s cooking the books.”

Ted sat down at
one of the barstools and took a long swig from his wine glass. “Cooking the
books? What’s he doing?”

“He came to me. He
wanted me to post some special transactions. I knew they weren’t right, but
what could I do?” Sweat trickled down her forehead as she sat next to Ted at
the breakfast bar.

“What were they?”

“Receipts for work
done on his yacht. Airline tickets for a trip to Aruba. The reservations were
for him and someone not his wife. And the company paid for it all. He wanted me
to post them to the GL.”

Ted took that in
for a minute. Here’s the CFO of a publicly-traded corporation. He’s using
company money for his own benefit. That has to be some kind of felony. That’s
gotta be a violation of Graham, Leech, Bliley or Sarbanes Oxley or something. “What
business is your company in? You’ve never told me where you work.”

“I work for a
large computer manufacturing company.” Tears streaked down Gina’s face. ‘I’ve
had to do worse. Once he had me, he could make me do anything?”

“He had you?”

She seemed to
deflate before Ted’s eyes. He put out his arm to support her. She buried her
head in his shoulder.

“He had me
investigated. . . He knows about my . . . joint custody agreement. He knows
about my…ah…proclivities for having fun.” The tears and sobs were coming so
fast, it was hard for Ted to understand her.

“Having fun? I
don’t get it.”

“You don’t really
think you’re the first do you?” She sat up and stared bullets at him. “Being a
single mom is lonely. Sometimes I feel like I just need male companionship…but
I can’t let that interfere with raising my kids. I’m not going to be one of
those moms who keeps bringing men in and out of my kids’ lives.” The look on
her face defied Ted to challenge her.

He waited for her
to go on.

“Mr. Schmidt found
out I like to keep an active social life. When Freddy has the kids, I go out. I
like to go to single bars.” Her face softened. “You’re the first guy I’ve ever
had a second date with. I’ve never allowed anyone in my home before.”

Ted put his arms
around her and pulled her close. “I don’t care about any of that.”

“How can such a
smart man be so naïve? Mr. Schmidt found out about me. About my taste in men.
He threatened to tell my ex’s divorce lawyer. If this got to court, I’d be
declared an unfit mother. Freddy would take custody of the kids away from me.
Teddy, I couldn’t live without my kids.”

“There has to be a
way. What are you going to do with that file? Take it to the Feds, the Security
and Exchange Commission?”

“Are you out of
your mind? I made those entries into the GL. I committed the felony. I’d be
prosecuted. If I turned that file over to anyone, I’d be fired. I’d never work
in accounting again.”

Ted saw the fear
in her eyes.

“I don’t know what
to do with it. What he’s doing is wrong, but I’m implicated. If I blew the
whistle, he’d just say that I was cheating, that he didn’t know anything about
it. I’d be hung out to dry.”

Ted reached out
and pulled her dark hair out of her eyes. He took her face in his hands and turned
her towards him. “Gina, Papa always says that if you’re not part of the
solution, you’re part of the problem. You can’t sit on this kind of knowledge.
If the Feds find out about this someday, and they discover that you knew and
didn’t do anything, you’ll be complicit in the crime. You could go to jail.”

Tears streamed
down her face. “Teddy, I can’t figure it out all by myself. Mr. Schmidt’s too
smart. He covers his tracks too well. This would take a forensic accountant.”

Ted smiled. “You
came to the right place.” Ted pulled his wallet from his hip pocket and fished
out a business card. “Allow me to introduce myself: Ted Higuera,
Hacker-for-Hire. I can get into his files. As far as a forensic accountant
goes, my boss has one on her staff. She uses her to investigate husbands’ finances
and discover what they’re hiding in divorce actions. If there’s a fish in the
woodpile, Leah can find it.”

Gina exhaled a
deep breath. She seemed to shrink before Ted’s eyes. “Ted, I can’t get you
involved.”

“I’m already
involved. Now that I know, I can’t ignore this. Even if you don’t do anything, I
still have to find out what’s going on. There’s thousands of stock holders,
little guy’s pension funds, their life savings, tied up in that company. If
they’re at risk, I have to do something about it. I took a superhero’s oath.”

Gina stared at him
like he was out of his mind for a minute, then threw her arms around him. “Thank
you,” she whispered.

“Just one more
thing, Gina. You’ve never told me who you work for.”

“Millennium
Systems.”

****

Jonathan Jefferson,
a tall slender black man in an elegantly tailored suit, sat next to Ted in the
unmatched chairs in front of Catrina’s desk. “Well, that gives us three
suspects now.” Jeff was the only other male in Catrina’s employ.

“Three? Who’re the
first two?” Ted felt like he was playing catch up. He thought that the news
that Millennium Systems’ CFO was dipping into the cookie jar would crack their
case.

“I’ve liked Terry
Metcalf from the start,” Catrina said. “He got booted out of the leadership of
his father’s company. He has a hard on for Alison. He’s got plenty of motive.”

“Here’s what I’ve
dug up on Steve Winston.” Jeff tossed a file folder onto Catrina’s desk.

She ignored it.
Ted reached for the folder.

“Steven Winston,
member of the MS board of directors.” Ted read the first page. “CEO of First
Washington Bank. Member of the Seattle School Board. Western Washington Boy
Scouts board member. He seems like an all-around good guy.”

“It gets
interesting.” Jeff reached over and flipped a couple of pages. “He had a son,
Steve Junior. The boy was developmentally disabled.”

“Retarded?” Ted
let the word slip before his brain engaged.

“We don’t use that
word anymore, but yes. He was slow.”

“Was?” Catrina
reached for the folder.

“It seems that Mr.
Winston was a little embarrassed by his off-spring. They put the boy in a
‘special’ home for ‘special’ kids. Junior managed to get himself tangled in an
electric cord and strangled himself. The police put the death down as
‘suspicious.’”

“What does that
have to do with MS?” Ted asked. “How does that make him a suspect?”

“You never know.”
Jeff shifted in his chair. “Maybe there’s some connection to his son’s death.
Maybe there’s something at MS that Donna Harrison found. Maybe Winston didn’t
want that information to get out. Someone with a secret to keep is a prime
candidate for blackmail.”

“I’m not buyin’
it.” Ted turned to Catrina. “Why would he keep any incriminating information on
the MS network? If he had that kind of information, he’d keep it on his home
computer, or at least on the First Washington Bank network. He has more control
there.”

“Exactly.” Catrina
leaned forward in her chair. “That’s why you’re going to hack into his home and
work systems. Poke around, see what you can find.”

Ted felt like he
had been hit in the chest with a baseball bat. “No way. Cat, that’s illegal. We
may have permission from Alison Clarke to hack into the MS network, but she
can’t give permission to hack Winston’s home or business.”

Catrina smiled at
him and spoke very softly, like Ted was a little slow. “We follow the clues
where they take us. If he hasn’t done anything illegal, then he has nothing to
worry about. I know you’re good enough to get in and out without him noticing.
If he has done something, then we’ll plant a little information for the police
to find.”

Ted tried to
counter her argument, but nothing came to his mind. This wasn’t right, morally
or legally. Felony computer trespass was worth five years, but he couldn’t think
of any words that would persuade her.

“Jeff, what do you
have on the other board members?”

Ted could see that
for Catrina, the subject was closed.

“No much yet, I’m
still poking around.”

****

“I don’t like it,
Jeff.” Ted poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Jeff.

“You don’t have to
like it, kid. Just keep the boss lady happy.” Jeff’s expensive suit didn’t fit
with the secondhand store décor of the break room.

“How did you get
hooked up with her?” Ted stirred a packet of sugar into his coffee. “How come
you were the only man working for Flaherty and Associates?”

“It’s a long
story.”

“I have time.” Ted
pulled out a chair and plopped down. “All I have to work on is illegally
hacking into people’s systems.”

Jeff scrutinized
Ted for a minute, as if he were weighing his options. “I was on the SPD. My
partner was really good at keeping my secret.”

“Your secret?”

“Yeah. It’s no
secret now though.” Jeff sipped at his coffee. “My partner and I responded to a
burglary at a clothing store. I caught him carrying a leather jacket out to his
car. He outted me to destroy my credibility.”

“He outted you?
You mean . . .?”

“Yeah, I’m gay.”
Jeff swirled the coffee in his cup.

Ted couldn’t tell
if he was proud or ashamed of what he just said.

“Let’s just say
that life isn’t easy for a gay man in the SPD,” Jeff continued. “No one wanted
to work with me. My stuff kept getting vandalized. I responded to a robbery,
the perp took a shot at me, and my backup never showed. I called in ‘shots
fired’ and no one responded.”

“So how does that
get you hooked up with Catrina Flaherty?”

“She’s the Great Saver
of lost souls. When she heard I quit the force, she offered me a job. I had nowhere
else to go, so I took it. I want to be very clear about this: There is no one
in the world that I would rather have my back than Catrina Flaherty.” Jeff put
down his coffee cup, turned and left the break room without another word.