You get to read it here first!
The monitors flickered as the power went out and backup
generators engaged, and I crouched in the dark, hidden room, unable to look
away from the frightening display. Screaming, blood, curses. It all rang in my
ears, echoed in my head, and the visual tattooed itself in my mind, never to be
forgotten.
Fear overwhelmed me, and I ran. Down a hidden flight of
stairs, through a secret tunnel, and out into the silent night. I ran until my
legs gave out, and I found a hiding place, somewhere that they would never find
me. I was cold, so cold, and I kept seeing death, over and over. But the sounds
were overridden by one statement, the voice of my father. Hide in plain
sight.
I was alone. And as terrifying as that was for a child,
it was preferable to the nightmare I’d run from.
****
Interrupted from my dream, at precisely 1:04 a.m., the monitor on my nightstand
sounded, a quiet but obvious whimper from one of the children, and I quietly
crawled out of the bed, tiptoeing down the hall toward the twins’ room. I
stopped to check on the two of them, both just as deep in the throes of sleep
as their father, and I headed straight for their closet.
I had counted my blessings that Corbin never questioned
why I was so dead set on this house when we’d moved to Richmond, nor had he
made any bones about a few ‘renovations’ I requested that delayed our move-in by a
couple of weeks. I’d asked for new granite countertops and a couple of other
miscellaneous upgrades, on paper, and I’d added a bit of a structural change
that wasn’t on the record books.
I don’t think I could have explained it if I’d tried. But
as I pulled a lever behind the faux wall at the back of the twins’ closet,
opening the panic room, 'I' understood my request perfectly, and that’s what
mattered. Always be prepared, my late father had taught me. It was one
of many lessons I applied in my life on a daily basis.
These high-tech monitors gave me comfort, whereas the
alarm was just a precaution that couldn’t be ignored but didn’t help my piece
of mind. It was too easy to cut the wires to a generic, everyday alarm system,
but my state-of-the-art security system hidden in these walls couldn’t be
destroyed unless someone found this room. It was all wireless, and the power
lines went straight into the ground, through the internal walls, and nothing
could be accessed without entering the hidden space or tearing down the inside
of the house.
I’d come in here for a specific reason, and I would be
fast about that business. But first, I checked the bank account, as well as the
GPS tracking system that told me where Corbin had been all day. It wasn’t that
I expected my husband to do something untoward or shady. He was open and honest
with me, and I didn’t doubt his loyalty. But my late father had also repeated
another covenant – Never completely trust anyone.
I lived by Randall Carpenter’s code.
He’d stopped for coffee on the way to work and paid $4.27
for whatever he’d ordered, and otherwise, he’d been nowhere else but his office
today. I smiled, glad that my husband was as trustworthy as anyone could be. As
a software engineer for the CIA, most people would expect no less, but I knew
better. Even the good guys turned bad all the time. There was always a driving
force to bring out the evil in people. I had seen the proof with my own eyes.
The thought made me shiver, my parents’ screams of
protest as they died echoing through my head for the second time that day.
I turned to another computer, this one reporting on the
people I was tracking so closely. I hadn’t seen anything come through in
months, which concerned me because a crime ring like theirs wouldn’t lie low
for so long. That meant there had been something going on to which I wasn’t
attuned, but tonight, my phone had alerted me to action.
I checked the camera that showed my room; Corbin was
still sleeping soundly, rolled onto his stomach and likely snoring with his
mouth open. It gave me time to trace the ping and connect to the CIA, FBI,
Homeland Security, and Interpol. I may have been on the payroll of the CIA, but
I would send the information to any and all agencies that could make something
happen. I wanted the people I was tracking locked in a bunker with no windows
and no doors for the rest of their lives…or dead.
I checked the monitor and made sure Corbin still hadn’t
twitched, and I compiled the information into an encoded file and sent it along
the secure connection to the government agencies. They had the proof they
needed, including transaction information, IP addresses, locations, and the
date. From there, they would be able to arrest one or more of the members of
the Cybercrime ring. It was the first real victory for me, with decades of work
involved, and I silently cheered. It looked like I might finally get the ball
rolling and see justice served.
Once the confirmation of receipt came through, I shut
everything down, save for the security system, closed the room, and headed back
to bed. I lay down beside Corbin and looked at the back of his head, amazed
that he loved me as much as I loved him. I hadn’t exactly been given prime
examples of how to attract a man, and I certainly hadn’t counted on finding
someone who could look past all my quirks and my need for control. Our romance
had been anything but storybook, and to be completely honest, I’d started it
with deception. But today, there were no lies between us, only classified
information we couldn’t share.
We’d met senior year at MIT, and I was floored to meet
someone as attractive he was with a level of intelligence that actually
challenged my own in some ways. I’d tested off the charts long ago, hell I could have graduated MIT at age fourteen, but I’d
learned to hide it, remaining the ghost and hiding in plain sight just like my
father instructed. But with Corbin, I knew I could mostly be myself, so I’d
hacked into the school database, tracing all the information on him I could get
my hands on and making sure his background came up squeaky clean. He was an
only child, a bit spoiled, having been handed new cars and plenty of allowance
money, and he’d had a trust fund as well. But he was also a genius and had
received the same scholarship to MIT that she had.
A week later, the ‘random’ partners assigned for a class
project in the 400-level information technology class we shared paired the two
of us together, and it seemed that being flirtatious and staring into Corbin’s
translucent green eyes until he smiled shyly and blushed a bit did the trick.
He asked me out, and after a short time, I discovered the domineering side of
him which wasn’t present in his daily life. It gave us the perfect exchange,
since I was always one to be in control and needed the relief at times.
He proposed two months before college graduation, and we
were married the following September. We were both intent on landing a job at
the CIA; with my history, I really didn’t fit the profile for anything else,
and they’d had their eyes on me for nearly ten years already. Besides, I wasn’t
sure a psychological evaluation that would be required for any other job
my studies qualified me for would return favorably, and that would blacklist
me. No, I was determined to follow the path that had been laid out for me by
the people who had been my first influences.
As far as Corbin was concerned, I suggested him as a
recruit, his intelligence and drive to perform making him the prime candidate
for the job. With my backing, he was a shoe-in, no questions asked.
Our careers took off, and I’d insisted on waiting to have
kids, though I’d already determined this house would be perfect for a family.
After three years, it was time, and the twins had changed a lot of things.
Now, they were four, and I was settled into my lifestyle.
Most people were still figuring out their paths at 29 years old, and here I was
with a family, a career, and a beautiful and extremely secure house. I did as I
was taught, engaging people as if I were the typical mom, working part time at
a normal home office. While Corbin still worked long shifts from 7 a.m. until
at least 5 p.m., I’d changed my hours with the birth of the twins, only working
from 9 to 3, with the occasional trip into the panic room at any and all hours
of the night.
To the average observer, neither of us set off alarms,
and most of my children’s playmates’ parents assumed I sold antiques on Ebay or
did medical billing or some other home-based business. I let them believe it
because I never knew if someone else was playing a role much like I was, and I
didn’t want to be noticed or singled out in any way. It wouldn’t serve my
purpose at all.
It proved better for me to work from home anyway. I could
have worked at any field office, but being that visible would have compromised
my ability to remain a ghost, which was far more important to me than
accolades. So, I was paid as if I were a consultant, under a different name.
For the CIA, I was Kresley Martin, not Tess Foster. I had ID and everything to
match the assumed name, and the paychecks were rerouted on a regular basis
through several unnamed accounts around the world until they hit my joint
account with Corbin.
I couldn’t become a spectacle; there were too many people
who would come for me the minute anyone took notice of my existence, and now,
so many years later, I still didn’t know what they wanted. To protect my
family, I was willing to do just about anything, and that meant being
absolutely nobody special, so that I could lead a life outside of work. My kids
needed normalcy, and so did my husband, even if Corbin was a little closer to
knowing the truth about my life than the kids. I wanted friends, and I wanted
my children to socialize, I wanted to take them to the zoo and to the movies.
And that was how we would continue
to live. I would continue hiding in plain sight and not draw attention to
myself or my particular genius or skill set. I was just a normal wife and
mother.
I’d made a huge first step in removing the threat to my
life tonight, and it allowed me to sleep better than I had in months. After
tonight, I was on the road to a real normal life and my heart leapt in joy.
As I entered my office the next morning to check my
email, I clicked and opened the first one and there was just one sentence that
made my breath catch in my throat.
Last night was a terrible mistake for you.
I put a tracer on the email
instantly, and as I waited for results, my breath came faster, and my heart
pounded. I felt violated, a sentiment I’d avoided for nearly twenty years...not finding anything I tried a different approach, isolating the time and date on the email and tracking any IP address that had pinged my connection within five minutes of that time, but still I found nothing.
Ready to panic, I got up and locked the door, just in case one of the kids
tried to slip in as they did from time to time. I was
invisible, untraceable. I knew plenty of people who could have leveled such a
threat, but without leaving a single clue behind?
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Hide in Plain Sight - Look for it October 23rd!
