“It’s the only car in the parking lot that I haven’t seen before.  It shouldn’t be the FBI… or anyone else that I can think of.  Let me get someone to find out who that might be.”

Bill got up from his desk and stepped into the lobby.  A few minutes later he returned.  As Terry looked out the window, he saw un unmarked police car pull into the lot and drive toward the unidentified Mercedes.  Before it got to the grey car, it peeled out of the parking lot.  Bill walked back in a minute or two after that. 

He sat back down at his desk, “I don’t think that was any of our agencies.  I’ll get to the bottom of it, but in the meantime, where were we?  Oh, yeah, I was about to offer you a job.”

“Huh?” Terry responded. 

“Terry, you’re in kind of a crappy place right now, and I’m going to take advantage of that.  But you should be ok with it.  Let me make my offer, and then you can thank me, ok?”

“I guess…”

“Here’s what I can do.  I want you to finish school, so I’ll pick up the cost of that.  You can stay at Christopher Newport or you can jump over to Old Dominion full-time.  On top of that, median salary for programmers is about twenty-seven thousand a year, I’ll pay you thirty thousand this year, with a bonus in September of a new Z28 Camaro… or something else if you want to talk about that.  Then next year you’ll go up to thirty-six thousand.  And, of course, we have health insurance, dental and all that.  Ready to say yes, yet?” Bill finished with a smile.

Terry was a little stunned.  He was trying to process what he’d just heard.  Before he could answer, Melody stepped into the office. 

“Bill, I have a report on the license plate.  It is registered to a company that we are pretty sure is a foreign intelligence front company.  Best guess is Soviet.”

“Thank you, Melody.  Can you talk with Gunny about security arrangements?”

“Sure thing, Boss,” Melody said before she left the office again. 

“That isn’t good at all,” Bill said, mostly to himself. 

“You mean that the Russians are following me?”

“Well, that… but mostly that the Russians even know who you are, to follow you.  It means there is a hole somewhere in someone’s security.  They shouldn’t know who you are.  So, about the job?” 

“Honestly, that sounds amazing, Mr. Prince.  When do I start?”

“Talk to Steve.  You’ll belong to him.  But before you go, there are some things you need to know.  A lot of the work we do is classified.  We handle contracts for the federal government, as well as a variety of state government agencies.  We also have data that is from businesses doing classified work.  Security around here is tight.  It has to be.  You can talk to me or Melody about anything you see here.  And there really isn’t anything you should see that you can’t talk with Steve about.  Aside from that, everything you do is compartmentalized… need to know.  

“Don’t talk about your projects inside or outside of work, and nobody here should be telling you about theirs.  If they do, I need to know.  And, as much as I hate to say this, you might be set up… someone might say something to you to see IF you report it.  Don’t let that happen without reporting it.  It’s not that we want to be brutal about that, but we have to be tough.  Got it?”

“Yes, Sir,” Terry replied.  He got up to leave the office after shaking Bill’s hand. 

As soon as he left, Bill picked up his phone and dialed a number, “Prince here, is the Director in?”

…

“Tom, Bill.  We have a big problem.  I hired a guy for our security operation… a hacker… and when he came in this morning, he was followed by someone from a foreign intelligence agency.  We think it is KGB.  I think there is a leak that came from your end.”

…

“I’m putting him under our watch for security.  I’ll have him covered.  But we need to find the leak.  Aside from me there are two people here that know who he is.  If it didn’t come from someone there, then the problem is even bigger.”

…

“Tell you what, I’ll get his security set up, then I’ll set up a couple of bluffs.  You can tell some different working groups different information and we can see which one draws the heat.  We’ll find the leak.”

…

“I can’t say he’s the DoD hacker.  He’s just a talented kid we are trying out.  But he got someone’s attention.”

…

“Sounds good, I’ll let you know.”

Bill hung up the phone and decided to make another call.

“Gunny, it’s Bill.  Melody tell you that the Russians are on my guy?”

…

“I think it came from the Bureau.  We need to run a counter op on it to see who’s leaking there.”

…

“Do we have a few places we can afford to burn?”

…

Gunny and Bill talked about properties that they could potentially expose without blowback.  They had a few, including one that came from the operation to get Paul Murphy… the house in Kitty Hawk by the Wright Brothers’ National Monument. 

***

Steve stopped working when Terry came out of Bill’s office.  He wasn’t out in the bullpen anymore.  He didn’t do his “regular work” out there.  That was where he worked on his side-project, the game.  He had an enclosed office where he did his secure work.  He had floor to ceiling windows that looked outside, covering about half the length of that wall, with privacy shield so that people couldn’t see in, and the wall opposite that was glass and looked into the bullpen.  Those windows could be toggled from opaque to clear with a dimmer switch at his desk.

“Terry, come on into my office and let’s talk,” he said across the bullpen.

Terry walked briskly though the space in the center of the room.  As he entered Steve’s office he was impressed by the arrangement.  He had a computer set-up that included multiple color monitors.  His computer was beyond “top-of-the-line”.  It was a budget-busting, state-of-the-art beast.  He also noticed that the temperature was rather cool in the office, to keep the machine running cool, he assumed. 

He sat down across the desk from Steve, “When do you want me to start?”

“How about now?  Melody told me I needed to keep you occupied for a little while.  Apparently, you have some annoying friends that won’t leave the party.”

“That’s what I heard… and they like Vodka,” Terry replied, trying to sound as cool as he thought Steve sounded.

“Let’s go over to your office,” Steve said, rising from his desk and heading for the door.  He led him to the door next to his, which was a mirror image of Steve’s office.  It had the same desk, chairs and even the computer. 

“Seriously, I get one of these bad-boy computers too?”

“Kinda need it for the job, Hackerboy,” Steve quipped back. 

“Yeah, but I didn’t expect something like this.”

“What are you using at home?”

“Intel 8008 based computer I built… it runs eight hundred kilohertz,” Terry replied proudly.

“Wow, really?  I feel bad now.  You beat the system with that, and I couldn’t with this.  These are 80286s, overclocked at sixteen megahertz with a hundred-twenty-eight megs of RAM.  And we have direct lines to most of the networks we are on.  I’m guessing you were dialing in?”

“Yeah.  I was running twelve hundred baud, though,” Terry said with a sheepish grin. 

“Well, you’re going to love this.  And we get experimental stuff to test, too.  From a Nerd standpoint, this is the coolest place, ever.  You’re going to love it.  And Bill is super cool to work for.  I was working on a game one night and he came in unexpectedly.  Now we are partnering on it. 

“I should mention, though, don’t flirt with Melody.  Her husband, Gunny, is a beast.  Nicest guy you could imagine, but he could break both of us in half.”

“He’s married to Melody?  I’ve met him… at one of Jack Dixon’s Boy Scout meetings.  He was trying to get me to join.”

“So, then I guess you won’t flirt with the Boss’s daughter, either, since you know Jack,” Steve added with a smile.  “Aside from that, you are the new ‘Rock Star’ here.  And everything will be pretty flexible.  Bill probably told you that he wants you to finish your degree.  That isn’t for us.  That’s all about you.  He wants you to have it because he wants you to accomplish your goals. 

“We can talk about your schedule so that we can figure out when you’ll work.  Because of school, you likely won’t be working forty hours, but I can’t let you completely slack off, either.”

Melody walked into Terry’s new office, “What do you think, Terry?” she asked.

“This is incredible, Melody.  I don’t know what to say.”

“What are you doing the next few days?”

“Uh…”

“We have a couple of beach houses down on the Outer Banks.  Bill wants you out of sight for a little bit because of your friends.  Maybe you and Steve could head down there until Saturday or Sunday.  It will make keeping an eye out a little easier.  My husband and I can stay next door.  There isn’t much traffic, either.  And there is a computer already down there to work from.  Steve can show you the ropes.”

“I’m game if Steve is,” Terry said.

“I love the beach house.  It has a full set-up because it is my home away from home.  I can take another machine down there and we’ll be good to go.  Is it provisioned, or do we need to get that on the way?” he asked Melody.

Melody told him that she would grab some groceries.  She also let them know they could take a company Wagoneer to carry everything.  Steve needed about an hour to get ready, and Gunny would be there to pick up Melody about the same time.  Melody volunteered to take Terry home so that he could pack. 

***

Terry walked in the door of his parent’s house near the Buckroe area of Hampton.  His mother was on the couch watching the noon news. 

“Hi, Honey,” she said as Terry opened the door.  “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, sorry, Mom, this is Melody, from my new job.  Melody, this is my mom.  I’ll be back in a minute; I need to go pack?”

“Pack?  What for?” his mom asked. 

“Oh, I’m going to the Outer Banks until Sunday.”

Terry’s Mom’s eyebrow raised considerably.

“Oh, Mrs. Gates, it’s a work thing.  His supervisor, Steve, will be sharing a house with him.  I’ll be in the next house over with my husband.  Actually, if you and your husband would like to come down, you are welcome.  I enjoy watching the wild horses down there.  It’s still a little cool for surf fishing, but it’s warm enough to hang out on the beach.  You can also run down to town.  We’ll provide a four by four for you.”

“Please, call me Bea, Melody.  That’s quite the offer.  I didn’t even know he was starting a job.  When did all of this happen?”

“It was today, Bea.  Bill Prince, the owner of Prince Systems, talked with him yesterday, and extended him an offer today.  Terry accepted.  I understand that he’s quite the Computer Programmer.”

“And he hasn’t even finished school, yet.”

“We’re picking up his tuition, too.  And let me know if you want to go down to the beach house any other time.  I’m the one that arranges all that.”

“So, what do you do there, Melody?”

“I’m Bill’s Administrative Assistant, but I do most everything in the office.  Also, my husband’s company provides employee security when needed, and I’m somewhat involved with that.  We do a lot of government contracts and sometimes we need security around people working with sensitive information.”

“So is Terry going to be doing ‘Top Secret’ work or something,” Bea said jokingly.

“Yes, actually… not specifically, but the data in the systems he will be working with is often highly classified.”

Terry’s Mom didn’t know that to make of everything she just heard.  She was thrilled that they weren’t going to have to keep paying his tuition, but she didn’t know what she thought about him going to work for a company where employees sometimes needed personal security.  She was awfully curious how much money he was offered.  It all sounded too god to be true. 

She excused herself for a minute to go call her husband to find out about going to the beach.  She thought it would be neat to see the horses and stay right by the water.  Her husband had to work, but Melody said she could work all those details out.  She’d have him flown down on Friday after work.  Duke Smythe was flying down to his beach place on Friday and could pick Terry’s Dad up at the office. 

Melody used the phone for a couple of minutes as Terry finished up packing and made the arrangements. 

***

Terry, Steve and Terry’s mom, Bea, pulled up behind the beach house in Carova.  Prince Systems had purchased it about a year ago from the estate of John Clinton.  He’d died suddenly in January of 1982 when he was involved in a single car accident on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.  He lost control and his car rolled and went off the side of the bridge.  His wife didn’t want the house anymore.

Next door, Gunny and Melody Grafton had purchased the house she’d arranged to use for surveillance of the Clinton property a year and a half ago.  It was now their weekend getaway, although it was still fully outfitted with communication gear as well as anything else they might need for an operation. 

Melody and Gunny pulled up behind Steve, Terry and Bea.  She had the guys carry in and stow the extra provisions she’d purchased on the way down while she spent a little more time talking with Bea Gates.  She let her know that on Friday she could take one of the 4x4s, or have one of the guys take one, to pick her husband up at Duke’s beach house on the other end of the beach. 

***

Gino Bell and Ronny Torres pulled into the garage of the house in Kitty Hawk around the same time as the others pulled up to the beach house.  They’d picked up their groceries back in Hampton, and spent a few moments putting them away.  They were the primary target for the Russian teams if there was a leak from the Bureau.  The other locations had GRIT Group teams watching them. 

They set up infrared camera systems watching toward the house, as well as looking out from the house.  They wanted to know if anyone approached, as well as if anyone was trying to keep an eye on them. 

The Narcotics Enforcement Agency owned this property through shell companies, along with several other “safehouses” sprinkled around the east coast.  They weren’t generally known by law enforcement, nor even the intelligence agencies, but GRIT Group had found out about all of their properties a year ago after taking down their Director and Deputy Director, along with several of their agents that had gone rogue or been involved in the cover-up.  Since NEA had to scale back their operations, the properties were used even less than they had been before. 

Gino and Ronny expected the call to be made by Bill any time relating where they were hiding the real DoD hacker.  Ed Dixon’s training group had stationed a bunch of trainees in DC to keep an eye on various Bureau staffers that would have access to the intel regarding Gates.  They were to watch for someone making a dead drop or otherwise overtly contacting someone from KGB.  The Bureau had taps on office phones to listen to any phone calls… and Steve Evans was getting copies of any electronic communications coming from the office staffers. 

Melody was a little annoyed… and curious. From her time doing surveillance on Amy and Jack, she knew many of their friends, at least she knew what they looked like, but not this guy.  She was trying to figure out if he was even in high school.  If so, he was a big guy.  She estimated that he was six-two or six-three, and probably between two-fifty and two-seventy-five.  He had a mop of light brown hair and a scruffy beard… like he wanted to grow one, but his chin wasn’t cooperating. 

“Mr. Prince, there is a gentleman here to see you,” Melody said into the phone, “he didn’t say, but he says he is a friend of Amy’s.”

A moment later Bill Prince stepped through the door.  He looked at the only person in the waiting area aside from Melody, and surmised it was his guest.  After just a moment’s hesitation, “Terry, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Sir,” Terry responded, impressed that Mr. Prince had remembered him. 

“Two years ago… Amy’s party.  I showed you the garage and you also ran some interference with Paul Murphy.  Come on in, what’s on your mind?”  Then he turned to Melody, “can you grab us a couple of Cokes and maybe some snacks, Melody?”

“Sure thing, Boss,” she said, rising from her desk to get the drinks and food.

Bill Prince ushered Terry back to his office, curious about what was troubling the young man.  He recalled that Terry was a friend of Jack’s and had tried to occupy Paul Murphy, his daughter’s former boyfriend, while Jack was trying to ask her out.  And with Paul’s temper, that was a physically dangerous undertaking. 

“Here, Terry, have a seat.  And please, call me Bill.  What’s on your mind?”

“Well, Mr. Prince… Bill… I recall Amy saying that you were involved in the computer business, and you dealt with computer security, and I need some advice.  I think I might have done something, and I might be in real trouble.”

“Well, I am involved with computer security.  But I really need to know more about what you might have done to know if I can help you.”

“I think I hacked into the Department of Defense… maybe.”

Bill’s eyebrows rose.  He had received a couple of memos about a security breach at DoD in the last few days.  The FBI was trying to track the hacker.  According to the classified memos he had access to, there hadn’t been any malicious activity, but it was a very secure area of their computer network that had been accessed… classified documents relating to personnel.  In fact, one of his own employees, Steve Evans, was involved in trying to track how the breach occurred, who might have been involved and how the hole could be sealed up. 

“Do you mind if a call in one of my guys?” Bill asked as Melody entered the room with a tray of brownies, cookies and several soft drinks.

“I guess not… I mean I don’t know how many people should know about this.”

“Melody, could you grab Steve, and then join us in here?  Terry may have an issue that needs our assistance.” 

“Sure thing, Boss,” she said as she left the room. 

“Terry, I need to be VERY clear here.  You can talk about this openly with us, but nobody, NOBODY else.”  He then casually picked up a brownie and a can of Coke from the tray.  “You should try one of these.  Jack’s sister is an amazing baker and she makes these for us,” he said with a smile. 

Terry was never one to turn down a brownie… or a cookie… so he picked up one of each to try, just as Melody and Steve walked into the office. 

“Terry, let me make some introductions,” Bill started, before he introduced Terry to Steve and Melody.  “Let me level with you, Steve is currently working on a DoD breach that was reported a few days ago.  If you are the breach, he will know from how you entered and what you did.  We aren’t looking to get you in trouble.  We just really want to know more about how you might have accessed the network.”

Terry looked around the room nervously.  At that moment he felt like he was standing in the lion’s den, dressed as a gazelle. 

Steve took advantage of the momentary silence, “Terry, mind if you tell me the method you used to get in?”

They talked for a few minutes, going back and forth about hacking tools and how he found the back door.  Bill and Melody looked at each other, not really understanding the technical conversation.  After they slowed down, Bill looked at the two men, “So, it sounds to me like Terry is who the FBI is looking for.”

“No doubt, Bill,” Steve replied.  “He’s the hacker.”

Terry felt his stomach drop two feet. 

“I didn’t mean to do exactly what I did,” Terry said in self-defense.

“It’s ok, Terry.  There are a couple of things you should know.  First, we aren’t the FBI.  Second, I actually employ ‘white-hat hackers’ that test system vulnerabilities so that we can figure out how to fix them.  Third, you didn’t do anything malicious. 

“I’m more likely to hire you than turn you in to the FBI.”

Steve grinned, “Terry, I’m impressed.  I’ve been working to hack the system for a few weeks.  They just upgraded security and it was from a different vendor.  We were trying to get the contract, but they took another bid.”

Much, but not all, of Terry’s nerves calmed.  These guys were smiling about what he did and didn’t look worried at all.  But the FBI was still looking for him.  That wasn’t good. 

“Are you still at Phoebus High School, Terry?” Bill asked. 

Steve shook his head, knowing the hacks came from ODU.

“No, Sir.  I’m taking classes mostly at Thomas Nelson Community College.”

Steve interjected, “Computer Science classes over at Old Dominion University?”

“Yeah… how’d you know?”

“The IP addresses of the computers used in the hack are from their computer science lab.  I hadn’t told the FBI about that yet.  I was going to go over there and hang out to see if I could figure out who was doing it.  If it was someone like you, I was going to see if we could recruit them.”

Terry was surprised at that revelation. 

Melody piped in, “Look, Terry, it’s obvious that you are good at this hacking stuff.  We’d rather see you hacking ‘ethically’ than sitting in a jail cell.  The bigger question is whether we can get the government to agree.”

“That’s about the size of it, Terry,” Bill said.  “Let me call some people and see what I can find out.  Can you give Melody your contact info?  Also, here is one of my cards.  If, by some chance, you get picked up, call me.  Not a lawyer, not your parents…  Call ME.  I don’t think they will figure out who you are, though, before I can talk to my people at DoD and FBI.  I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

Terry stood up and thanked everyone for helping him as he shook their hands.  He also grabbed an extra cookie and another brownie on his way out. 

“The kid’s a damn genius,” Steve said to Bill quietly a moment after the door closed.  “He bypassed security I have been struggling with for a week.  Where I saw Fort Knox, he saw a wall of Swiss cheese.  You gotta hire him.”

Melody walked back into Bill’s office and picked up a brownie, “Think he’ll work for us?” she asked.

“Wow… I guess we’ll find out.  Let me make some calls and see if I can get him out of the cross-hairs first.”

Steve and Melody excused themselves to go back to work for the rest of the day while Bill made some calls to see how much heat there was.  The tactic he planned on using was to see what his National Security Council contacts thought of the idea of him trying to recruit the hacker.  He didn’t want to give away that he knew where the hack came from, much less who the actual hacker was. 

After a few phone calls, he managed to get a little breathing room from the FBI, if he could recruit the hacker.  But he needed to get to him first.  And they didn’t know the hacker had accessed the DoD from ODU. 

Before he called Terry, he wanted to refresh his memory by checking with two of his operatives that knew him… his daughter and her boyfriend’s sister. 

“Hey Sugar, can you see if the Dixon’s want to come to dinner?  I need to talk with Amy, Jack and Nicole about someone that I talked to about hiring today.”

…

“Thanks, Babe,” he said to his wife before hanging up the phone. 

“Melody, can you call Terry and ask him to swing by tomorrow as soon as he’s done with classes?”

…

“Spring Break… should have guessed.  Fine.  First thing, then, I guess.”

“Nicole, when can you make more cookies and brownies?  I’m going to have to invest in a commercial kitchen for you, my people are killing everything you send over,” Bill said to Nicole Dixon.

“Thanks, Bill.  I should have some more for you tomorrow afternoon.  I’ll be baking all morning.  Maybe you should talk Dad into investing in it…” she replied, winking at her dad as she said it. 

Nicole had graduated high school last June, and she was funding culinary school with baking and catering.  A lot of it was for Bill’s company and her father’s company, but she was building an outside client base as well. 

“Maybe I will… perhaps we should sit down and look at a business plan, Nicole,” Ed said, winking back at his daughter. 

“Jack, what can you tell me about your buddy, Terry Gates?” Bill asked, getting to the point of the dinner. 

“Did he come to you looking to do computer work, Bill?” Jack asked back.

“Something like that.”

“He’s a really good guy.  And he knows what he is doing with computers.  Last year, at school, he went into the school system’s computers and added messages to the teacher’s paychecks at Phoebus.  He didn’t add anything bad, he just wanted to see if he could do it.”

“Interesting.”

“Oh, and don’t tell the school system… they don’t know who did it.  But I really have to say, he does things like that because it’s like a game to him.  He would be great to have on your security team.  If there is a hole, he can probably find it.”

“You’re welcome, Dad,” Amy said.  “I told him last year that he ought to talk to you about the hacking business.”

“Thank you, Amy.  I do appreciate it.  I wonder why he waited so long,” Bill said, knowing exactly why he came in when he did.

Chrissy said to Bill, “I also think he’s a nice guy.  Remember a couple of years ago when Jack was asking Amy out and he was doing everything he could to run interference between Paul Murphy and Jack?  That took guts to jump between a bully and his intended target.  I would say he deserves a shot just because of that.”

“I don’t disagree, Baby.  I’m going to talk with him tomorrow morning.  I had Melody set up an appointment for him to come in.”  He didn’t mention to his family that Terry had already come in because he was worried about getting arrested. 

After dinner was done, Bill stepped out to the patio to clean the grill.  Ed volunteered to help. 

“Bill, is Terry the DoD hacker?” Ed asked.

“Picked up on that, did you?” Bill replied with a smile. 

“All the clues are there… talented hacker comes to you a couple of days after the DoD gets hacked, and you all but hire him on the spot.  I didn’t know it was local, though.”

“The FBI hasn’t really figured out it’s local, either.  And now I’m trying to figure out how to keep the kid in the clear.  I don’t want the FBI to waste a good hacker.  Apparently, according to Steve, he went through their security like butter.  I’m going to make him a heck of an offer tomorrow.” “Good to know.  He’s a good kid.”