Recker and Haley were sitting at a table, a couple of drinks in front of them. They had a bottle in the middle of the table, already knowing what their guests liked.
Haley looked at his watch. “A couple minutes late.”
Recker turned around to look at the entrance, just in time to see Tyrell walk in. “Well, speak of the devil.”
Tyrell walked over to the table and high-fived his friends before he sat down. Recker looked over at his clothes.
“You know, it seems like you get fancier and fancier every time I see you.”
Tyrell smiled, appreciating the compliment. “You know. Got to look good.”
“How’s the new business?” Haley asked.
“Going good, man. You know how it is when you’re getting something new off the ground, though. A lot of hard days and long nights.”
“You’ll get it.”
“Oh, ain’t no doubt. You know, just starting small, doing local deliveries and all, but business is already good. A lot more than I expected at this point. A couple more months like this first month, I’ll be able to hire another driver or two.”
“Good stuff.”
“Miss your time on the street?” Recker asked.
Tyrell scrunched the left side of his face. “Nah, not really. Man, it was too much hustling, you know? Too much danger too!”
“We’re happy for you. You deserve it. All the success. You’ve earned it.”
“Hey, it wouldn’t have been possible without you. All the money you’ve given me over the years working for you, plus the prof, I’m thankful, man. I’m really thankful.”
“Like I said, you earned it. You still got your ear to the ground, though?”
“Yeah, I still keep up with some of my contacts from time to time. Nothing like the old days, though. Whatcha got? Need something?”
“Yeah,” Recker replied. “And this might be as big as anything we’ve ever worked on.”
“Shoot, no kidding?”
“It’s that big.”
Tyrell was about to ask some more questions, but looked over to his left and noticed another glass on the table. He pointed to it. “Is someone else coming?”
“Malloy. He should be here soon.”
“Ol’ J-Dog. Haven’t seen that boy in a while. Must be four or five months now.”
“Anyway, I’ll wait until he gets here before I explain everything,” Recker said. “You know I hate repeating myself.”
“Man, you got that right. No worries.” Tyrell poured himself a drink. “I’ll just sit here with my little friend until the time comes.”
Haley looked back and saw Malloy come in. “Looks like your time’s already up. He’s here.”
“Awe shoot, I didn’t even get to finish one yet.”
Malloy walked over to the table, shaking hands with everyone before he sat down. He looked at the bottle in the middle of the table.
“Already know what I like, huh?”
Recker grinned. “The curse of being observant.”
Malloy instantly poured himself a glass. “So what’s going on? You said this was big?”
Recker cut straight to the chase. “Somebody’s targeting us. Well, maybe us. Might be only Jones. Can’t be sure yet.”
“The Prof?” Tyrell asked. “What would someone wanna target him for?”
Recker shook his head. “We don’t know. We can only guess at this point.”
Malloy rubbed his chin. “How would someone target him? He’s not actually out and about on stuff, is he? And nobody knows where you guys live and work, right?”
“Someone hacked into his computer system and sent him a message?”
“A message?” Tyrell said. “Like what, ‘I’m coming for you’, or something?”
“Actually, yeah. That’s what they said.”
Tyrell quickly wiped the smile off his face. “Oh. I was only guessing on that.”
“Someone hacked into his system?” Malloy asked. “I thought that was impossible.”
“Supposed to be,” Haley said. “He thinks maybe it’s someone from his old NSA days.”
“We think that would be the most likely option,” Recker said. “We don’t know who else would have the knowledge to be able to get into his system.”
“That would make sense,” Malloy replied. “Have you gotten any leads yet?”
“Not so far.”
“So what do you need us for? I mean, I’d like to help, but trying to find someone like this might be a little outside of my scope. Honestly, David’s probably the best guy to do that.”
“I agree. But that’s only if the person behind this is actually the person with the skills.”
Tyrell started nodding. “Ah, I get it. You’re saying… what if there’s another guy, who hired a guy?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Recker answered. “What if it’s not someone from his NSA days, and it’s just some schmuck off the streets and he had to go find someone to do this?”
“So that’s where we come in.”
“That’s where you come in. If you’re willing. I know you’re recently retired and all, so I’m not gonna pressure you to get back in the game if you don’t want to.”
“Hey, didn’t George Foreman retire like eight or ten times or something before coming back? Didn’t Rocky retire a few times before coming back? Didn’t Evander Holyfield retire a few times before coming back?”
“Is all you know boxing?” Malloy asked.
“Hey, that’s my sport, man. Don’t you knock it.” They all got a chuckle out of it. “Seriously, though, if you need me, I’ll get in touch with my peeps again. I can start laying the wood down.”
“You’re sure?” Recker said.
“Yeah, no sweat. Just because I’m out of the game right now, doesn’t mean I’m not still in the game, you know what I mean?” Judging by the looks of everyone else, they had no idea what he meant. “Wait, did that make sense?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“OK, scratch that, then. But what I’m saying is, I still got one foot in the door. Does that work better?”
“I would say so.”
“All right, good. I can still reach out to people, see if they’ve heard anything. So we need to ask around, see if anybody’s heard about a guy, or girl, who’s been putting some feelers out about a high-tech computer person, right?”
“That’s about the size of it,” Recker said.
“What if the person who’s behind this isn’t even here?” Malloy asked.
“It’s entirely possible. But we gotta start eliminating possibilities. This is the first one.”
Malloy nodded. “I’ll start putting some of the boys on it, see if we can come up with something.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“What do you think this person’s plan actually is? They just trying to make his life miserable, want to do physical harm, just let him know someone’s out there to make him worry, what?”
Recker shrugged. “Honestly, it’s all on the table. At this point, it’s just too soon to tell what their actual plan is.”
“They hacked into his computer for what? Just to send him a message?”
“That’s how it appears so far.”
“So they don’t actually know where he physically is yet?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Recker replied.
“Just the one time?” Tyrell asked. “No other incidents?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“OK. We’ll get Prof sorted out. I’ll get some people on it.”
“We’ll do the same,” Malloy said.
“Great,” Recker said. “We really appreciate it.”
Malloy looked at the bottle on the table again. “We should probably finish that before we get started, though.”
Tyrell smiled. “Reading my mind.”
Before going home for the night, Recker and Haley stopped back at the office, just to make sure that Jones was doing all right. Even though he was putting up a brave face, they knew Jones was worried. To what degree, they didn’t know, but there had to be at least a small level of concern knowing his system wasn’t as impenetrable as he previously thought it was.
Once Recker and Haley walked inside, they saw Jones sitting at the desk, working on a computer. It didn’t look like he had moved much since they’d been gone. Jones hadn’t looked at them since they walked in, but he knew they were there.
“What are you two doing back here?”
“Just figured we’d check in, see how you were,” Haley said.
“I don’t need to be babied, you know.”
“We know. Just making sure everything’s good.”
“Well it is,” Jones said. “So you two can now go home to your significant others.”
Recker and Haley looked at each other. Jones then stopped typing, realizing what he said, and glanced over at them.
“Well, one of you.”
“Any progress?” Recker asked.
“On?”
“Anything. Diago, the hacker, anything else?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“The Diago situation.”
“Anything you’d like to share?”
“Not yet,” Jones replied. “Perhaps tomorrow.”
“OK. I guess we can wait until then. You really don’t have any idea who’s behind this?”
“No idea. Think I’m keeping something from you?”
“Well, I mean…” Recker put his arm up towards the bookcase.
“Fair point, I suppose. But no, I don’t have any clue as of yet.”
“And nothing else has happened?”
“No, nothing else has happened,” Jones answered. “Mike, I promise, if anything else occurs, I will let both of you know immediately. You have my word.”
As they continued talking, they were interrupted by the sound of one of the computers beeping. Everyone snapped their heads and looked in the direction the noise was coming from.
“When one of your computers beeps, it’s never a good sign,” Recker said.
Jones quickly slid his chair over to the computer and started typing away to see what the issue was.
“What’s going on?” Haley asked.
Jones was furiously typing away, his eyes glancing between the screen and his keyboard. He didn’t answer the question at first, deeply focused on the matter in front of him. Neither Recker nor Haley persisted, not wanting Jones to break his concentration if that matter was urgent. And they knew it was. The two of them stood there for the next several minutes, watching Jones frantically pound the keyboard.
“No, no, no,” Jones said.
“David?” Recker said.
Jones continued his frenetic pace, looking like he was in some kind of race. He kept striking the keys quickly, not wanting, or able to, let up.
“You’re not getting me,” Jones said. “You’re not getting me.”
“What’s going on?” Recker asked.
Jones heard his friend, and slightly turned his head in that direction, but never took his eyes off the monitor. “There’s a hack in progress.”
“You mean this person’s trying to get in right this second?” Haley asked.
“Yes.”
“What’s he trying to do?” Recker asked.
“I don’t know yet. I’m trying to prevent him from getting in.”
“Does he know you’re there?”
“Oh yes,” Jones answered.
“So what is this, like a chess match or something? You’re both actively trying to thwart the other?”
“Something like that.”
“Who’s winning?” Haley asked.
“Right now it’s a draw.”
Haley looked at Recker. “I guess that’s better than the alternative.”
“Not as good as winning,” Recker replied.
Over the next several minutes, Jones kept at it, not slowing down in the slightest. Then, he just suddenly stopped. Recker and Haley glanced at each other, not sure what was going on now. Jones leaned back in his chair, looking exhausted.
“Is it over?” Haley asked.
Jones let out a big sigh, though the others weren’t sure whether it was of relief or frustration. “Yeah. It’s over.”
“So what’s the result?”
“He didn’t get access to any information or anything.”
Jones still didn’t sound very pleased at being able to keep the hacker out of the system.
“So why don’t you sound happy about it?” Recker asked.
“Because I don’t think that was his plan.”
“So what was?”
Jones pointed to his monitor. “Probably this.”
Recker and Haley walked over to it and looked at the screen. It didn’t take much detective work to figure it out. Jones had enlarged the text to make it more visible, though it really wasn’t necessary.
“Your days are numbered, “David”.”
Recker cleared his throat after he saw it.
“I would say this makes it pretty obvious who the target is,” Jones said. “Wouldn’t you say?”
Recker sympathetically looked at his friend. “Yeah. I’d say it’s pretty clear now.”
Jones looked down. “They’re coming for me.”