Robert Haney sat rocking in a small boat, back-to-back with a good childhood friend, Tony Russo. They were in Canada, on Reindeer lake, taking a vacation. Fishing. Rob always felt a little relaxed on the lake, with it's glassy water, and Tony just liked getting away from the cubicle. They were heading back to the dock, after wasting time floating around. The plane, a pond skimmer, was three hours late.
Rob thought, out loud, whether or not Tony would taste very good, and he looked through the frozen landscape and grunted, "Fuck you."
"Hey, I think I hear it."
"Oh?" Tony looked up.
"You?"
"No."
"There it is!" Rob pointed to a tiny red dot in the sky, hugging the tops of the trees, and redoubled his efforts to beat the speck to the dock.
"Some lady kept calling for you!" The pilot cocked his head back and screamed to Rob, "said it was an emergency!"
"Ellen?" Ellen was the only person he could possibly think of that would need to get to him
right now.
"No. Said her name's Tracey!"
Rob didn't know a "Tracey". The violent hum of the private plane took hold of the rest of the flight.
Once back at the Boston Logan Airport, Rob stepped away from the tiny plane and into a lady wearing a long overcoat, with long, dark hair. She introduced herself as Tracey.
"Robert Haney."
"I know. John, John Morgan, is dead."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean he's
dead! Dee-Eee-Aye-Dee! And You're the only person I could track down that knew him."
"I've worked with him, like, twice. If we're talking about the same 'John'. That isn't particularly a rare name."
"We are. He worked with you in Burlington."
She wasn't supposed to know about Burlington. No one was. And that convinced me. "What happened?"
"Says he got shot. Paper published it two days ago, so it must've been three."
"Doing?"
"Can we sit down?"
"Uhh, sure."
I lead her to a little cafe`, and we talked. She showed me the paper. It got a small article on page three. Said that he was shot to death by a patrolling security guard, after he caught the victim digging around their company's server, using a stolen pass card. When John was caught, it said, he pulled a gun and fired four shots, one hitting, before he died. "The problem is, I know John, I mean, he's my cousin. He would never carry a gun, let alone
use it."
"Maybe he had good reason to. True, he didn't ever strike me as a gunner, but..."
"He wouldn't."
"...But it says he was stealing top-secret information. About Di-Ci."
I suppose I should stop, right now. Tell you who I am. I'm a computer guy, of sorts. Not like "The Matrix", no. I don't like guns. As much as John didn't. My regular work involves stealing stuff, and selling it to someone else. Car designs, stats, chatter, and whatnot. Mostly using my own bugs. In fact, the failed Aztek, if you remember, was failing because I sold the plans to Ford. Unforeseen, of course. And I did work with John, three times. All three were decent income. I'm also an artist. Don't do clay, though. Too messy.
"Di-Ci," two ciphers, was an encryption chip. Hackers hated it, and it's dying. It was a government job. Was a little chip that had a super-strong encryption, that only two people had the keys to: the receiving party, and the government. They liked it because it gave them absolute control over things ranging from ICBM's, to cell phones. Hackers hated it because they were already using coding harder to break, and the chip would remove both their strength and their privacy. Destroy our way of life. Like a tiny Godzilla. Ironic.
"The story just doesn't feel right. The only people who could interview were KeyStone execs, and the gun thing..."
"I'll look into it. D'you live in town?" I changed the subject.
"No, I live in Dallas."
"Do you have a place to stay?"
"Was considering a motel next to the airport."
"I know a better place, besides, I need a phone line."
"Are you coming on to me? Jerk!"
"No, please, Tracey. Just listen. I'm going to find out about John. I promise. But I need to get you in the car so that I can drive to a nice place to stay."
We drove to a decent hotel. I didn't have any spare rooms in my place. My mind began to wonder about her, though -- guessing her nationality. At first she struck me as almost, Latino, with her dark eyes. But something about her face looked Asian. I don't know. Maybe Irish? Her skin was fair enough. "Robert, what are you doing?"
"Calling a friend. And call me 'Rob'."
"Okay, Rob, explain what you're doing with a laptop?"
"calling a friend." I hooked up the laptop through a few cords to the phone jack, and plugged in a set of noise-canceling headphones with a mic. I started a talk-to-text program, another of my creations, and clicked on an unnamed desktop shortcut.
Phone?
y
Enter?
8001598234
?
rh
There was a shrill beeping noise, followed by a note reading "connected".
Hello.
Hello Bobby. Stanford died.
Heard, shot. Sad.
Stanford Cousin contacted me. Thinks something's up.
Does she know?
Didn't see. Safe.
I'll look at it. Feds closing in. Dumping new number in AOL and Google box.
Stay safe.
Contact you tomorrow. this time.
Bye.
"Well?" Tracey looked impatient.
"We don't know anything yet, but my friend's looking."
"Okay. Enjoy your night."
"You too. I'll see you here tomorrow, same time."
"Rob?"
"Yeah?"
"Why did they shoot him?"
"I don't know."
"You said something about a chip?"
"Yeah."
"Why'd you say John died?"
"Maybe he stole something from KeyStone."
"Alright."
"Sleep well." And with that, I went home, and awaited Bobby's new number.