THE CHAMELEON (8 page)

CHAPTER 13

(Stephanous Petros: nine years old) Stephan folded the wad of money and tucked it quickly into the leather billfold that hung from his neck. He no longer counted the bills. He was past that with Gregory as a solid trust and respect built over the past year between the two was cemented.

The old man handed him a piece of paper and watched as the young boy slid it into his pants pocket without reading it. Stephan had far exceeded his expectations in every way: finishing every job given, quickly and proficiently, never questioning why something needed to be done. The child just did it. It was time to take it to another level, and Gregory wondered whether this would be the first job Stephan would reject. Gregory reminded him constantly that he could say no any time he wasn’t comfortable, with no strings or recriminations to follow. Gregory soon learned that no was not in Stephan’s vocabulary.

The cold water Aisling splashed on her face slid slowly down her skin as she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked a wreck: the dark circles were prominent against her porcelain skin; her hair was up in a rough ponytail. She wanted to blame her appearance on her work schedule, considering she’d been working twelve hours or more a day for the past three days to research Stephan’s history, only taking time to eat and sleep. She slumped over the sink and heaved a sigh. She knew only too well that her funk had more to do with Stephan than work. For the first time, she wished she could pick the phone up and call a best friend, or even her mother. The loneliness pressed in around her. Aisling felt lost. This emotion was new for her and she wanted it to go away.

Her computer chirped to let her know that new information was coming through. Giving herself one last look in the mirror, she strode back to her home office and quickly keyed her password into several layers of firewalls that she had set up as protection. So far, the technology had prevented many hackers from accessing her files.

Once past the layers, she entered the main room where she could retrieve anything that was sent to her. The moment she had access, her screen went completely white.

Bold black letters, centered in the middle of her monitor slowly spelled out:

“Who are you?”

Aisling froze. Someone had gained access, unbeknownst to her.

Her screen cleared. The person on the other end repeated the question.

“Who are you?”

Moving at lightning speed, her hands flew over the keyboard to divide the screen into four sections. She flipped on the other two hard drives and monitors on either side of her.

“You first.”

She typed the question as she waited for a reply and erased files while throwing up dummy folders to slow down the hacker’s progress. If the hacker was able to reach her then she knew he was good enough and could reach even further. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest at the thought of every sensitive piece of information on her clients that she had. She watched as the second screen scrambled the files fragment by fragment, the first part of the erasing process.

“Fuck! You bastard.” She yelled at the monitor as she watched some of the files blinking. The mystery hacker was trying to dig deep. Spinning in her chair, she typed on a separate computer, running her deep purge on all of her systems. Whoever it was, they were good, and there was no way for her to stop him unless she was able to throw more firewalls up to block his path. Her main computer beeped again. She watched as the words were typed out.

“You are gathering information on someone I work for. They are not happy. Who are you?”

“Go to hell,” she muttered. She entered her third window on her screen, sending the code to track the offender and watching as the map lit up. As it found the many buffers and false leads they had set up, Aisling just kept typing, keeping up with the person on the other end. She could picture him typing just as frantically. Whoever it was and as skilled as they were, she knew she was better. She had spent many years honing her technical skills and working with some of the best the underground had to offer. There was no hesitation on her part as she entered more codes to release a nasty virus. A chameleon avatar weaved its way through the map, following the tracker faithfully. The moment the computer system was found, it would inflict complete chaos, including destroying any files that they copied. So far, they were only grabbing the dummy ones that she had placed as decoys. Even without the virus that she sent, just opening one of those files would cause a major disruption in their service. She needed to keep them online.

“I have many jobs. Which one are you referring to?”

Spinning from keyboard to keyboard, Aisling felt exhilarated. This was exactly what she needed to get her out of her depression. This fed her soul and as frightened as she was, she was in a strange way having fun. Wanting to taunt her attacker more, she started to type again but stopped as two words flashed on her screen. Aisling’s hands froze over the keyboard while her blood ran cold.

“Stephanous Petros.”

Even though she had only asked which job they were referring to, to keep them occupied, seeing his name appear on the screen bothered her. A lot.

The simulated sound of an explosion reverberated behind her on the computer. Staring at the screen, she watched as the letters shimmered in front of her. “Got you, you son of a bitch.” She knew the virus had finally hit its mark and was doing its job, and there would be nothing that the person could do as it slowly turned their hardware into scrap metal.

“You will pay.”
The words faded in and out before they completely disappeared.

“Maybe,” Aisling said aloud to her screen, “but right now you are.”

For the next several hours, she completed the purge of her system, doing a complete wipe of all of the files hidden and otherwise. She would have to start again with a new system and the thought killed her. It was way past time, and she was actually lucky that she had gone this long before a major breach like this one had occurred, but one was more than she ever wanted. No, the part that was killing her was that she was going to lose valuable time in her research of Stephanous and would have to go old school. And then there was the decision how much should she tell her client about what just happened. Separating her emotions was harder than she had thought it would be. This person on the other end was very pissed. What had started as a warning to her could quickly escalate into something so much more. Then again, it could be a bluff. Already behind on an update to Stephan, she quickly typed her message.

Stephanous Petros

Was able to obtain several leads. Wasn’t sure if they were valid, until my system was compromised. A warning was issued to anyone digging into your history. Cages have been rattled. Unclear as to level of threat. Will update you when I learn more.

Chameleon

It took Aisling a moment before she sent the message. She wanted to add “be careful” but if she hadn’t known him personally, she would never send it—that would be too personal.

CHAPTER 14

Quincy Market was packed with people, tourist and locals alike. It was exactly what he needed after being stuck in his office for so long. Sitting on the bench, he watched as people circled a living statue of a woman all in silver. She was beautiful, and didn’t move for very long periods of time. He had no idea how she could stay so still in the hot sun. He thought of the street vendors in the markets in Greece, how sharp their tongues had been and quick their hands were to smack him upside his head if he did anything slightly out of place.

A mother walked by, pushing a stroller with a child who was crying. The young boy had his hands outstretched, as if trying to convince her to turn around and go back the way they had come. Her face was red in the afternoon sun and beads of sweat broke out over her forehead. She did not look as if she was having a good time as she chided the child, telling him that he had enough balloon animals and didn’t need any more. Passing by the crying child, a couple strode arm in arm. The woman’s stomach was burgeoning, obviously in the late stages of pregnancy. She smiled up at the man; she whispered something to him as she rubbed her stomach. He found it ironic that they were oblivious of the stressed mom and screaming child. He had no doubt that was going to be their future.

Stephan wondered whether his mother had stroked her stomach the way that the young woman did. Whether she strolled arm in arm with her lover through the cobble pathways in Greece the way they did in the heart of Boston. He grimaced. He doubted it.

“Stephan? Are my eyes deceiving me or are you sitting outside in the fresh air?”

Grinning, Stephan rose and shook Derek’s hand. “What are you doing here this time of day?”

“Karl and I always take a break in here. Love the coffee.” He raised his coffee cup in the air and nodded his head toward his partner as he rolled his eyes. “Not all of us have eight weeks of vacation time handed to us. Give us a minute, Karl?”

After his partner strode away, Derek stared Stephan down. “You haven’t been returning my phone calls. What gives with you?”

Sitting back down, Stephan waited until Derek did the same. “Just a lot going on in my head. Nothing personal.”

Derek took a sip of his coffee. “You know, friends are great mediators with the voices in their friend’s heads. They don’t always need to be just for fun.”

“I appreciate what you are saying…”

“I hope at some point, you open up, Stephan. You never know. Other people may be going through the same kind of issues.”

He stared at the crowd without really seeing them this time. He knew his friend meant well. “I don’t think so, not in this case.”

“You’re not in trouble, are you?”

With a laugh, Stephan shook his head. “No. I can honestly say that, for once, I am not. Well, at least not yet.”

Derek shot him a sharp look to determine whether he was joking or being serious. He caught a lot of flak from his superiors about who he hung out with on a regular basis. As a lieutenant for the ATF, mixing with gun dealers was probably not the smartest thing, but they had gotten out of that line of business. Derek stood and scanned the crowd for Karl, quickly seeing him leaning against the brick wall of one of the businesses with a cell phone pressed to his ear. “I need to get back to work. How about we double date tonight? Would love to meet the redhead.”

“Aisling.”

Derek laughed. “Yeah, Aisling.”

“I will see what I can do and call you.”

The moment Derek was out of sight, Stephan dialed Aisling’s number. He hadn’t spoken to her once since she left his apartment and quite frankly had no idea how this call was going to be received. But as it rang, he hoped she would pick up. Rarely did he ever have regret. Allowing her to walk out was probably one of his first. Alicia was right. He had enough of his own secrets—who was he to judge?

“Hello?”

“Aisling, it is Stephanous.”

“Yes?” She sounded cold. But what else had he expected?

“I would like to see you, if that would be okay?” He could sense her hesitation over the line.

“Why?”

“Aisling, I think you know why.”

His statement was met with silence. She certainly was not making this easy on him.

“I want to see you. No, I need to see you. I didn’t like the way it ended at my place and I think we should give it another go. Can you meet me, hear me out?” Stephan refused to beg, but if it meant her agreeing to meet with him, he would. Just once.

“Where are you now?”

Stephan heard his phone beep, signaling that a message had just come through. “I am at Quincy Market…do you—”

“I will be there in fifteen minutes. Meet me at the harbor over by the Marriott Long Wharf.” Aisling hung up the phone before Stephan could respond.

Pressing his messages, he saw another from the Chameleon.

Stephanous Petros

Going underground for a couple of days. Will contact you when I return.

Chameleon

~~~

By the time Stephan walked from Faneuil Hall past the Rose Kennedy Greenway to the Harbor, Aisling was already waiting for him.
No games this time
, he thought. Steeling himself inside for the tough conversation, he wished he could talk to Cassie first. She was always one to speak from the heart, not caring how it affected the person on the receiving end, but whatever she said was always truthful and she would definitely know how to handle this situation with Aisling. He stopped in his tracks; that was his resolution. Cassie would tell him to be honest.

Locking eyes with Aisling, who leaned against one of the stone barriers on the Harborwalk, he strode toward her, smiling. Somehow she was even more beautiful today, from the top of her beautiful red hair down to the ridiculously high heels that she seemed to love to wear. At least these ones didn’t seem as if they had her teetering. From her posture and frown, his relaxed pose did nothing to ease her position.

On the outside, Aisling knew from his expression that she was doing a great job, exuding a cool attitude. Internally, she was a wreck. He looked fabulous as he strode toward her; his smile warmed his whole face. She had a hard time not smiling back. After going all of this time without hearing from him, she wanted to be careful to not let her guard down again.

Stephan gripped her shoulders gently as he kissed her on both cheeks, while Aisling rose on her toes to reciprocate the gesture.

“Thanks for meeting me, Aisling.”

“Look, Stephan, I am really not sure why you called, but I am sure that this is probably not a good idea.”

“But you came anyway.”

Ignoring his comment, she crossed her arms. “How can I help you? Or better yet, what do you want from me?”

“Give us another chance. That is all I want,” he implored.

Aisling stared at him and chewed on her bottom lip. This was wrong. This whole situation was going to explode around her. Aisling didn’t think that she could be both Chameleon and Aisling without some sort of damage happening at some point.

She relaxed slightly. “Come, let’s walk.”

“In those heels?” Stephan looked horrified.

For the first time in many days, Aisling laughed out loud. “I can walk in these probably easier than you can in your shoes, trust me.”

Stephan didn’t seem convinced, but followed her as she slowly strode along the harbor. The afternoon was warm, but not unbearable. His hands clasped behind his back, he opened up.

“I behaved badly the other day, Aisling. For that I owe you an apology. It is not right for me to get angry with you and speak of honesty when I wasn’t upfront with you from the beginning either.”

“I hear a but coming.”

Glancing down at her, he shook his head. “There is no but this time. I find myself in an interesting time. My boss is away in another country, allowing me a freedom that I truly have not had before, to do whatever I would like. It is hard for me to separate my work from my personal life, yet they are two different entities, are they not?”

“Sometimes,” she replied warily. “And sometimes they are wound so tightly together, that it is hard to differentiate between the two.”

Halting her with his hand on her arm, the intense look on his face told her more than his words ever could. He was nervous. The stoic, strong Greek was unsure of himself and he didn’t like it.

“Maybe we could just take it an hour at a time and see how we do. I promise that I won’t ask you business questions, if you don’t ask me.”

“That could be tough to do.” She was very unsure of what he was asking of her.

“But, it could be possible. Right?”

Laughing at his expectant look as he waited for her answer, Aisling realized that she liked this side of him, but she was still doubtful. “Yes, it could be possible, Stephanous Petros.”

Still blocking her way, he gently took her hands in each of his. “One more chance.”

Squeezing his fingers, she nodded. “Fine! One more chance it is.”