No, he couldn’t. And try she did. Every chance she got. Which, if the truth be known, he liked.
Who didn’t want to be wanted?
“My right leg from knee to ass is dead asleep,” she said. “Ergonomic chair, angled keyboard. Right. None of it’s worth a damn.”
One thing loomed in her fault column—she was a bit of a hypochondriac. What had he read about carpal tunnel syndrome? Supposedly data entry clerks were in the high-risk category. But what the hell. Every job had its problems. He routinely dealt with enough voltage and amps to fry the body to a crisp.
She stood and gathered up a stack of files. A drawer across the room hung open and she squeezed the manila folders back inside. He knew company policy. Hard copies were retained for six months then discarded to make room for new paper, all of which would eventually have to be entered into the computers too. Southern Republic was not the most modernized when it came to record retention. Old school still prevailed.
She popped the joints in her back and worked her legs. Beyond the lime-encrusted windows the night sky loomed dark and threatening. Storms had been creeping in for the past hour. Now the worst had arrived. Rain began to smear the panes. Lightning crisscrossed the sky. The building vibrated from a roll of distant thunder. It had been a dry spring, the usual late-afternoon thunderstorms few and far between. A thorough soaking wouldn’t hurt a thing, and his tomatoes could use a good watering.
They engaged in this ritual from time to time. He would come to her house and she would provide a tour through the company files, which she could remotely access. She’d come to learn what interested him most. Sales reports. Workers’ comp claims. Litigation. And anything and everything that had to do with the owners. Was it corporate espionage? Probably. But he didn’t see it that way. More a familiarization with the enemy. A gathering of intel. Nations did it every day. You could learn a lot if you knew where to look. And together they did. His thirty-sixand her twenty-one years at the mill more than enough of an education.
She came close and wanted another kiss.
“Can we do that after?” he asked.
“Nope. You owe me a big one.”
He was curious about that debt, but he paid it anyway.
They were both divorced with grown children and grand-children. Never had she stayed over at his house. But he had been known to spend a few nights at hers. She could be a pain in the ass—pushy women came with that liability—but most times she was a jewel. Even more important, she knew the company’s computer network like the grocery shelves at the Piggly Wiggly. And there was nothing better, sex included, than good information.
The kiss ended and she handed him a flash drive. “All there. Lots of facts and figures. Some interesting emails. And a memo I think you’re going to love.”
Tonight’s bounty.
He smiled.
“Everything you might need to prepare for the upcoming contract negotiations,” she said.
“So what is the debt I owe you?”
“I made some progress… on that other matter.”
He caught the conspiratorial look in her eye.
For the past few months, ever since she’d first noticed the anomaly, they’d tried to gain access to a particular section of the company records. But a thick firewall had been intentionally erected, one that could not be breached by her finely honed computer skills. Not knowing something always irked him, particularly when it was being deliberately hidden. So it had become a challenge for them. Now he realized why she’d wanted to meet here tonight.
“I’ve piddled with it some, off and on,” she said. “And I made it past the first security level. You want to see?”
He motioned to the computer. “Give it a whirl, baby.”
She grinned at his term of affection as she sat at the terminal. Afew keystrokes gained her access into Southern Republic’s central banks. A few more and she found the main directory.
More lightning flashed outside.
The building’s power momentarily flickered.
“You better hurry up,” he said, “before the whole thing goes to backup generators. There are surge protectors that will shut things down.”
Which his electricians had installed. The company’s main servers sat just down the hall in a room kept at a perpetual fifty-five degrees.
She scrolled through a long list of folders and positioned the cursor over one nondescript entry titledPRIORITY. She pressed theVIEWkey and requested an index be displayed. The cursor blinkedONE MOMENT PLEASEthen announced in flashing letters,PASSWORD REQUIRED.
“We’ve never gotten that far before,” he said.
“I know. Any ideas what the password could be?”
