Dunkin said, “Hey, Jake, I thought you were headed out on vacation today.”
Jake smirked and said, “I was, but I’m apparently needed here more than there. I’ll be leaving as soon as I can.”
Jake put his eye to the scanner, and they were both let in, the walk down the long hallway awkward, with neither talking.
Dunkin had reported Jake two months earlier, after Jake returned from the ill-fated F-35 flight in Japan. The plane had slammed into the ocean at six hundred knots, and after the endless investigations, when Jake finally came home—the one person from their cell sent to help with the construction—he’d been noncommittal about the crash. It was quite possibly the biggest setback in F-35 operational capacity, with all of the various countries demanding to know what had occurred, and Jake had acted like it was expected.
Nobody in their company seemed to pay it any mind, but Dunkin did. He’d watched Jake on the floor and seen him do strange things. Nobody was allowed to have any separate media on the floor. All work had to be conducted on the terminals they had been assigned. Nothing was ever recorded or transferred from one computer to another—unless you had one of four accounts.
Jake was one of them. A genius at artificial intelligence, he’d been recruited from a start-up in Silicon Valley, and had the all-important gold badge. The one that let a person actually download information from a system and transport it to another.
The Department of Defense had realized early on that a thumb drive could be a recipe for disaster, and had forced all subcontractors to work through the problem within the systems themselves, over established secure lines, which was inefficient as all get out when dealing with similar problems across different platforms, but it prevented theft or hacking of the very information in play. That had lasted about a year before the contractors began screaming for a fix. And they came up with one—the golden badge.
Only select individuals would have the ability to transfer information outside the network of their specific program, and because of Jake’s travel to oversee the software installation in Japan for the initial F-35s, he had that badge.
Dunkin had seen Jake do some quirky things prior to leaving, using his badge to access systems that had nothing to do with his work, but at the time he’d just thought Jake was a scientist. And scientists did quirky things, like Doc Brown in Back to the Future. There was no doubt Jake was a genius, with skills that eclipsed Dunkin’s own.
And then the F-35 in Japan had gone down into the ocean, with Jake the sole representative of their company on site. The company that designed the artificial intelligence for the entire fleet of aircraft.
Dunkin followed the mantra of “If you see something, say something” and informed his superiors. They’d done a check of Jake’s access and had determined that he was working within the parameters prescribed. Dunkin thought the security team was lax, intent on protecting their own fiefdom from embarrassment. So he’d held his tongue.
It hadn’t taken long for the insular world inside the company to spring leaks about the attempted whistleblower. Dunkin’s life had grown more difficult, with everyone assuming he was out to torpedo the company for a vendetta, while Jake had been allowed to roam free.
There was no love lost between them, even as they pretended nothing had happened. No official report had been filed, and no official reprimand had been administered, and thus, standing in the hallway, scanning their retinas to enter one of the most classified projects in U.S. Department of Defense history, they both just acted like the entire affair did not exist.
Chapter 10
They reached the elevator together, and Jake pushed the button.
“Where you headed for your leave?” Dunkin asked.
“Cairns. I only have another year here and I haven’t seen anything of the country. I’m taking the train from Sydney all the way up.”
The elevator opened and Dunkin said, “I’m thinking about taking my leave up there too. I got a buddy coming into town today, and he’s talking about diving the reef. You going to do that?”
Jake gave him a sideways glance and said, “No. I just have a relative that lives up there. A cousin from China.”
“No shit? What are the odds of that?”
Jake chuckled and said, “I don’t know. My parents moved to the United States, and his came to Australia. We’ve never met.”
“Well, how’d you even know he was here?”
Jake gave him a look and said, “Family.”
Dunkin took the hint and they rode the rest of the way in uncomfortable silence. When they exited on the third floor they had to badge in at yet another door, this one unmanned, and entered the beating heart of Gollum Solutions. Taking up the entire floor, it comprised nothing more than computer terminals in a cube farm, like one would see on Wall Street or in a library, with the outer area ringed by offices.
Dunkin went to his cubicle and logged in, keeping his eye on Jake. That last look Jake had given him seemed almost like a threat telling him to back off, and he didn’t like it. He was a computer geek, sure, but one with more than a little skill. He’d been through the direct support training course at the Taskforce, and had served in the military. While he wasn’t an Operator, he was decidedly better than the average geek.
Most of the floor was empty, the majority of staff already having left for their Christmas break. In truth, Dunkin wouldn’t have come in today at all, except his girlfriend had to work until three. He figured he could wrap a few things up and make a little money instead of just sitting around his apartment staring at the television. He did wonder why Jake was here, though. Dunkin knew that there was no rush for anything they were doing. The F-35 had been plagued with delays from the inception, and he knew it was a complete fabrication that management had “ordered” Jake in because he was indispensable for some problem. If that were the case, they’d all be in here working.
It crossed his mind that maybe it was because nobody else would be around.
He did his work, but occasionally scanned the floor, looking for Jake. He always saw him behind his own cubicle, banging away on some artificial intelligence code. Four hours into his shift he glanced up and saw Jake at a different terminal, doing something strange, and Dunkin knew he had no business at that terminal. Dunkin stood up, and Jake saw him, his eyes hooded like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
At least that was what Dunkin thought.
Jake shut down the computer, and Dunkin saw him pocket a portable hard drive. He went back to his own computer, logged out, and walked to the door, passing Dunkin. He said, “Done. Gotta catch my flight to Sydney. How much longer are you staying?”
The conversation raised Dunkin’s hackles, because the two were most decidedly not friends. After the elevator ride, the question was odd, to say the least. That he might acknowledge Dunkin’s existence with a head nod on the way out of the door would have been odd. Dunkin said, “I got a couple more hours until my buddy arrives. Might as well make some cash until then.”
Jake nodded and said, “Enjoy your leave.”
Dunkin smiled and said, “Same to you.” He waited another twenty-five minutes, ensuring Jake was off the compound, before getting up and jogging to the security office in the corner.