Page 50 of Protecting You
She walked around the desk and settled in the rolling chair, scanning the equipment. To go with the three state-of-the-art screens were a desktop PC, an iMac, and a laptop.
He settled into the chair by the window that was nearest the computer. “I trust this will be suitable?”
“I won’t know for sure until I power everything up—and until I know what you want me to do.”
“If you find you need something, simply let me know and I’ll have it delivered immediately.”
“Okay.” She pressed power buttons to get the systems running, then checked the different systems’ specs. These were better than anything she had at home.
Orhadhad at home, considering the break-in the night before.
It felt like a week had passed since then, not less than a day.
She swiveled to face Charles. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Straight to business. I like that.”
“Caleb and I have plans, so I don’t have a lot of time. The sooner I get started?—”
“I understand.” He pulled something from his breast pocket and held it out.
She took the small piece of paper and studied it. It was an embossed business card with Charles’s name, a cell phone number she recognized, a website, and a logo bearing the letters SJSS.
“What’s this?”
“Among my many businesses, I own and operate a security company. We provide protection for high-value and well-known individuals—A-list actors, owners of multimillion-dollar businesses, politicians, and the like.”
“You must meet some interesting people.”
He brushed off her remark as if it weren’t relevant. “Some people hire us because they’re paranoid. More people hire us because they want toseemimportant, though there is little true threat. But sometimes, we are tasked with protecting people who are legitimate targets. We have one such assignment coming up next week.”
He paused, perhaps expecting her to ask who the client was. And then he’d tell her he couldn’t say. She wasn’t one to follow a script. “Okay.”
“We have reason to believe there’s a vulnerability in our system. As you can imagine, it’s very important that no bad actors gain access to our schedules and plans. It’s even more important that they don’t gain access to our drone system. We always use drones for overwatch. If somebody were to hack their way into those drones, they could redirect them or even upload bogus video to hide behind.”
“You want me to check your system and make sure it’s secure.” Seemed like a simple enough job. She’d done similar work for corporations in the past.
Footsteps sounded on the hardwood, then voices carried down the hallway. Callan asked a question about the house’s owners. He sounded fine, which meant he hadn’t been taken to a back room and roughed up or threatened.
Alyssa missed the housekeeper’s response, but she felt better knowing he was all right.
Charles waited until their voices faded. “When you find a glitch, it’s very important that you identify each step you used to get there. We need to know about every vulnerability.”
A sick feeling churned in her stomach.
Why had she thought this might be a legitimate job? The man was a terrorist. He wasn’t looking for problems to fix.
He was looking for vulnerabilities to exploit.
She turned her attention to the screens, hoping her epiphany didn’t show in her expression, and navigated to the website on the card.
It led to a typical corporate home page. There was nothing that identified what SJSS stood for, but that didn’t matter.
If she didn’t know who Charles Sanders really was, what would she do now?
She’d never made a habit of praying when she worked. After all, why ask for God’s help when you could do the job all by yourself?
She didn’t stop to consider the arrogance of that thought.
