Chapter 6
Home Alone
Jake stretched out on his leather sectional. Sometimes he liked sleeping out here. It made him feel less lonely. He felt more like a bachelor or college student driven to excesses and just crashing.
The only problem was that he could not remember ever being a college student. A diploma on his wall claimed that he had graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue. A photo by his bedside had a picture with him partying with some apparent friends at a college bar. He did not recognize any of them—not even the blonde draped across his lap drinking directly from a beer tap. Next to it was another degree: a Master in Criminal Science from Ohio State.
These photos belonged to him. He knew it. They were there by his bed. Somehow, he felt they were not actually a part of him. They were someone else’s life. Some other time. He had given up on puzzling it all out.
He took this lack of memory and the mystery of his life in stride. He lay back and tried to relax. He did not want to wake with a stiff neck. He stared up at the ceiling in the darkness, wondering about the evening he just had. He managed to escape with his dignity and his sobriety. He could not say the same for the majority of the people who attended the party.
When he arrived home, the snow had piled up so high that he felt like he had to walk up hill just to enter the building. The porter had long before shuffled off to manage his two hour nap in the linen closet.
Giselle could melt the snow at his doorstep. She was that hot. He tried not to think of her specifically.
Jake made a mental note to check out Darius Electric Cooperative in the morning. He was not the one who usually did the legwork and research. He was more point-and-click. Mark a target and watch me shoot. Sometimes he felt like the hunter in that old Atari game.
He listened to the sounds of the leather sectional creak beneath him, the hum of his refrigerator in the kitchen, the knocks and pings of the old building, the cooing of birds outside his penthouse windows. He glanced out the bay of windows, expecting to see more snow falling. It had stopped.
He sighed. He was restless. He could not wait until morning. He had to know.
Jake swung his feet onto the floor and flung the quilt off. He stared at it for a second, wondering again where he had gotten it. He shook his head. It was three in the morning and he was not operating at capacity. Tomorrow was Saturday and he did not need to go to the office to get the information he needed.
He shuffled into the kitchen and flicked the switch to his secure network. He waited as the log in screen blinked for a few moments and watched the stupid circle spin and the Galbraith world logo revolve. He sighed. He should be in bed. Maybe the couch was a bad idea tonight.
He logged in and began surfing anyway. He wanted something to drink. He figured he would get the research done quickly and then reward himself with a glass of milk.
Who knew assassins wore Armani, flossed regularly and drank skim?
The information on the Darius website was the usual cheery and overindulgent propaganda in which most companies participate. Environment this, safety that. Stockholder shares protected, profits maximized, customer retention and satisfaction the best in the world, et cetera. What Jake wanted was the personnel, the big wigs, the locations, and the dollars.
The things that mattered were buried, of course. He could see the place for contacting them, but it was just an email dump to the administrator. Not helpful. Eight-hundred number and industry links. Not helpful. Under the site map, he found it, though. Company secure log in. He plugged in the hacking device that Gary had gifted him for Christmas and watched as its red lights illumined the darkness of his breakfast nook.
While he waited, he got up and poured himself a glass of milk. He liked the way it felt going down his throat, coating it with milky goodness.
I should stay up until three more often, Jake observed.
Gary's device beeped. He glanced at the terminal and saw that he had hacked into their intranet. He felt a little dirty. Irony was so entertaining. Darius was sure to meet with him on Monday. Saturday in the wee hours of the morning, he was going to access all their grubby little secrets.
He hoped he could find some dirt on them so that he could watch their faces on Monday. If he had ever played baseball, maybe a curve ball had been his favorite pitch. He smirked. He wished he could remember.
He sat down at the terminal, the glass of milk at his side. He navigated the Darius intranet, wondering if their security protocols were as lazy and uninteresting as their public site. He stopped when he got to the daily memos.
Jake could see entire conversations. There were perhaps hundreds of thousands of megabytes of files and files inside of files. He had simply clicked on a folder that was marked "Trash.” Evidently, it was a repository for everyone's deleted files.
He opened the first document he found. It was like panning for gold and he just found the mother lode.
He stared at the letter, reading it and not fully believing what he saw.
Calvin,
We will only work with Galbraith if they can get Mr. Monday to take the assignment to eliminate Ms. Chaput. You claim that he is the best they have to offer. We cannot afford to have her to continue to meddle with our affairs.
We can no longer tolerate Sinegem bullying us. We need to send a statement. Get a meeting together with Lars as soon as you can.
Your father has helped us before. I trust his loyalty to our cause will be sufficient for him to see our plight. I am counting on you. Darius is counting on you. Make this happen and we can finally make your promotion official.
--T
Jake was stunned. He had no idea that Lars had a child. That would mean that someone had slept with him. The prospect of that was both repulsive and incredible.
From the correspondence, Jake had to assume that Galbraith had aided them before. Something told him it was for more than just some routine accounting work.
But, why were they demanding that he be the one who pulled the plug? And was Giselle really that annoying? Surely, they could just pen a strongly worded letter to Sinegem threatening a lawsuit, right? And, why were they protecting their company so vehemently?
Jake was sure that if he dug any further, he would be amazed at the secrets he could unveil. His luck in finding this correspondence so quickly was certainly evidence that Darius had more skeletons in its closet than Newt Gingrich.
He sat back, exiting the company intranet site. He was sure he would not be able to sleep tonight.
Jake got up from his desk and poured another glass of milk from the refrigerator. Unlike many bachelors, he had never developed the habit of drinking straight from the carton. He stared at the glass, the milk an opaque swirl, a bubble popping to the surface.
He was good at avoiding the difficult questions in his life. He could not stand to reflect too much. He could not abide self-doubt. As he stood there in the kitchen, his feet cold on the marble floor, he wished that he could go home.
Where ever that was.