The Paranoid Thief (16 page)

The craft settled down in the middle of the
island so every space of beach property could be exploited. The fugitives were
greeted with fake smiles and insincere welcomes all the way to their overpriced
room, which looked out over the island and not the ocean, as that was another
three hundred credits extra a night.
However,
Randolph thought,
looking about with a
calculating eye, if you ignore the obvious insincerity's and over priced
drinks, meals and gift shops, the place is as advertised.
Warm
to hot weather, clean beaches with miles of sand, sun, and ocean.
As for
activities to lose
yourself
in, everything is designed
around their theme of couples getting acquainted or reacquainted. Including the
lax dress code I witnessed when checking in. Seeing couples walking around,
even indoors, without clothes, some of whom really shouldn’t, while others fit
into my wish some people should be forbidden to wear tight-fitting clothing.
Randolph shrugged off the image with a shiver. He unpacked as Jill sat down in
a round chair big enough for two and flipped the video channels to see what
other amenities the place had to offer.

Their first day on the island, Randolph had
to admit, was very enjoyable. Jill had let her softer side out and after only a
few hours, and Randolph felt as if she were just another average woman. She
giggled, laughed,
played
coy and all the while held
onto his arm with true affection, something he’d never experienced with a
woman. By mid-afternoon, Randolph could truthfully say he was pleasantly
surprised. Although he’d already had a taste of her softer side back at Global
Rift Supply and Demand in
Calaway
, this was the first
time she was out the whole day long. The following day turned out quite
differently, as it was Jill’s tougher side’s turn to enjoy the local
festivities. However, because she was constantly looking for danger or an
alternate meaning in anything said or done by the staff or couples they came
across, she acted and sounded like a nervous virgin, finding it hard to appear
normal because of her training.

“I’m sorry if I’m such a burden, Tom,” she
confessed, using his marriage license name as they stood in line for the
parasol ride. “I normally withdraw for activities like this, as my other side
is so much better in dealing with the normality of civilian living.”

“In other words, you never let your hair
down and tried to enjoy the small pleasures in life?”

“Not true,” Jill defended herself. “I can
drink any man under the table and bluff with the best of them at poker.”

“I see; so any activities usually
associated with the males need to challenge and over come, besides making a
fool of themselves,” Randolph remarked. Considering this after her acknowledgment,
he inquired, “Perhaps this part of you is better suited as a man. Have you
considered dating another woman?” Randolph looked down into her eyes.

Jill looked up into his eyes with such
disgust, Randolph thought for a moment she might hit him, but all she did was
say in total conviction, “No Tom, I LIKE men. I’d rather be around men
then
women, and as for sex, there’s no substitute for
wrapping myself around the hardness of a man’s body…even your body,” she added
with a smile.

Still looking for a way out of her marriage
proposal, even though it would be very hard to say goodbye, Randolph asked,
“Have you ever even tried sleeping with another woman?”

“Tom, drop it!” Jill snapped, becoming more
like the military Jill he knew. Then subsiding after a bit, possible trying to
apologize for her gruffness, she asked, “Tell you what, why don’t we try the
tables after this, then later I’ll show you what I mean.”

“As much as I’d enjoy the tables, it’s the
one place we need to avoid.” Leaning closer to her ear so as no one could over
hear him, Randolph whispered, “We’d be photographed the instant we walked in,
run through the works and before we even made it to a table, they’d know who I
am.”

Jill pulled away skeptically, receiving a
shrug and look of regret from Randolph as he answered her unasked question.

“Before I knew any better, I used what I
knew about their random number computer systems, knowing full well computers
are nothing but precise, as long as they’ve been programmed sufficiently.”

To this Jill looked forward, frowning, and
said with a sigh, “And they won’t let me in on my own.”

“A good thing too,” Randolph hinted. Jill
gave him a grimace, understanding what might happen if she were video graphed.

Afterward, the two chose other activities
which ended with them both in their hotel room enjoying the extras which
enhanced that night’s intimacy, something they both had already done last
night, save Jill was more submissive with her softer side out.

At the end of their two weeks within the
paradise of adult pleasurable sins, Randolph used some of their dwindling
credits to find and rent out a cheap office and hotel on the main island of
Jamaica, to work up new credentials and unshakable identities. But to make them
survive a total investigation even by the FBFC, he knew both of them needed
facial changes in order to fool the matching programs into discarding their
videos without notifying their operators.

This then was the tricky part as Randolph
also knew these programs considered any facial video down to a low sixty
percent match good enough to present to its human controller. But even knowing
plastic surgery to be a necessary evil, this time Randolph truly felt a face
change was a real shame, as he’d gotten to like how he looked with the long
face, short stubby nose and cropped blond hair.
Oh well,
he sighed,
it comes
with the territory. I just hope Jill will be as understanding.
After
hooking up a hard line to the local net, Randolph typed in a simple ID program
any small corporation would have to investigate the seventeen passports he’d
lifted during their first three days on the pleasure island and set aside any
thoughts of surgery till he’d paid back Mr. Hilden. This little mission he’d
already discussed with Jill in some length, assuring her they’d have the
credits to disappear afterward, but for the moment they only needed passable
IDs to get them off the island and back on the mainland without setting off any
alarms. “Simple enough to do, as long as I do it by the numbers,” he’d assured
Jill.

Randolph typed out the last of the code to
set the program its task but before he hit enter, he heard Jill shift in her
chair next to the white office wall and file cabinet. Today she chose to wear
an outfit that best showed off her all-over body tan she’d received, with her
legs crossed like any lady so no one could look up between her purple mini
skirt covered thighs to the dark green bikini underneath.

With a glance her way, seeing the soft and
affectionate look in her eyes, Randolph knew the softer side of Jill was out,
watching him with interest. Seeing he’d taken notice of her, Jill smiled
lightly and said with feeling, “You look quite handsome in that pin-striped
suit, John. You’ve good fashion sense when you wish to use it.”

Randolph spared Jill another glance, now
quite sure her softer side was out, because only that personality called him
John. Mildly annoyed with her presence, as he needed no distractions, Randolph
let his fingers work over the two keyboards to the two computer systems he was
using to verify and correct any mistakes he might make.

“Are you too busy to tell me what you’re
doing, love?”

Still confused with Jill’s use of that particular
endearment, Randolph kept his voice natural. “At present, I’m checking my
programs. Debugging as I see errors in my test runs. As these are simple
programs, I’m peeling off tracer programs which attach themselves to mine,
looking for government watchdogs, search and destroy viruses, advertiser
spiders and security programs that gather up information on computer users. And
while I’m doing that, I’m learning the current sophistication of possible
threats, like the one I’m mutating to worm through the firewalls to the
information I’ll need to get us set up with new passports and ID cards.” After
a couple more key strokes, Randolph picked up his coffee and noticed the look
on Jill’s face. “I take it you’re not following me?”

“Sorry, love, but I lost you at tracer
programs,” Jill admitted, taking a sip of her diet soda.

Randolph scratched his ear to the usage of
the L word and suggested, “This will take awhile. Why don’t you go out to the
beach and finish up your tan?”

“I’d rather sit here and watch you.” Jill
kicked off her native beach sandals and folded up her legs beside her in the
chair, as it was larger than most he’d gotten from a used furniture store.

“All right, but what say
you go out and get us a bite to eat?”
Randolph ventured
,
to get her out from underfoot while he concentrated on an
especially tricky problem.

Apparently Jill caught his hint. She
unfolded her tan legs in getting up and stretched out her hand. “All right,
I’ll leave for a bit, but I’ll need some hard credits for food and something to
gain my attention.”

Randolph opened the top drawer and handed
over a hundred-credit chip, which she slipped it into her bikini cup underneath
her purple, tie-dyed half shirt. She threw Randolph a kiss before walking out
the office door.

As Jill walked away, Randolph watched her
slender feminine form and the easy way she moved, still not believing within
that innocent-looking average-minded woman lurked a cold-blooded
military-trained killer with an IQ at least 20 points higher. With a shake of
his head and a rub to his neck, Randolph banished thought of the packaging
encompassing the two entities and took a deep breath before he put himself back
to work.

By the end of the second day, Randolph had
peeled away all he needed from the captured leech and watchdogs his simple
programs brought into the trap. Using their information, he tapped into the
city’s registry and reviewed passport records, IDs, and devastated counties
from natural disasters. When he discovered a natural volcano and following
earth quakes had wiped out a Scandinavian county’s records, Randolph began an
in-depth task of working up solid identities. Thus spending the next couple of
weeks on all possible angles any agent could uncover, he pieced together two
unshakable identity cards with an eleven-year background that could be traced
back to that county’s disaster, eleven years ago. Standard procedures for ID
checks rolled back ten years. Randolph had to smile briefly, knowing if further
investigation were applied, they would hit that dead-end. To further guaranty
untraceable backgrounds, Randolph made Jill and himself both orphans, having
their parents killed in the border wars some fifteen years prior to the
volcano’s eruption, rendering a check on their parents impossible, since neither
of them were ever claimed by any relatives. In fact, the only flaw in his
deception was their DNA. Neither held Scandinavian DNA, but who was to say
their parents weren’t there on business or vacation?

Randolph was doing touch ups on their
background history to render polish and color to their new identities when the
door to his office opened and two poor-quality-suited native muscle men walked
in. As Randolph hadn’t flipped the sign over to let the public know his
accounting firm was open, their entrance caused him some concerned.
On second thought, make that very concerned,
he corrected, as an average native wearing beach attire walked in behind the
two as if he owned the world, smoking a large cigar, totally ignoring the very
plain ‘No Smoking’ sign in the window. At once Randolph applied a business
man’s smile on his lips to possible clients, even though he knew quite well
these men had other agendas. He calmly tapped up his accounting programs and
sent his work to a back file, and waited for the spider to tell the fly how
much of his blood he would have to provide to stay alive.

At first Randolph fell into natural habits
of playing unaware of what was to come, then he remembered Jill, and the fact
she would be back shortly. Even though he felt certain Jill’s harder side could
handle the situation, her softer side could endanger them both, and of late
Jill softer side had been the controlling personality. This by necessity
changed his tactics to get the men on their way before she arrived.

The native boss man arrived at Randolph’s
desk, and rudely turned Randolph’s cheep video screen around for his viewing
pleasure before beginning his shake down spiel. “Tell me, Mr. uh…”

“Tabor, Luke Tabor,” Randolph supplied,
even though his fake name was clearly painted on the door window in broad
letters and printed in sliver on the white name plate facing the local crime
boss.

“Tabor, right.
So
tell me,” the relaxed native asked in a heavy Jamaican accent, “why is it you
have chosen to open an accounting office here in my lovely island.”

Since any answer given would be the wrong
answer, Randolph declined any response and watched the man sit in Jill’s
favorite chair next to the wall. With a careful look to the two heavies,
Randolph folded his hands slowly on the desktop to keep the over-watchful goon
squad from becoming anything more then they presently
were
.
After a moment of silence from Randolph, the native boss blew smoke Randolph’s
way, tapping the ashes off the end of his cigar onto the clean floor without
any thoughts for even looking for an ashtray. Crossing a leg, he asked, still
in a calm but menacing voice, “You haven’t answered my question. Now, why is
that?”

“Because any answer I give is truly
irrelevant to you as I know you don’t care, so I’m waiting to learn how much I
owe you for the protection you’ll grant me from the abuse of your two friends,”
Randolph said in the nicest manner he could, so the native boss wouldn’t take
offence to his reaction to this shakedown.

The native took another drag of his cigar and
eyed Randolph, judging, saying at last, “You appear to be relatively calm about
the facts of life.” He faked a look of thinking and said, motioning with his
lit cigar, “I like you. You understand the price of conducting business.”
Adjusting his sitting posture so he could lean back a bit more, the
extortionist opened his mouth to spell out their new-found relationship when
Jill chose this inconvenient moment of time to walk in.

The native turned his head in annoyance to
the interruption, and saw what everyone else does, a brown-haired, white and
yellow bikini-clad, shawl-covered good looking woman, missing entirely what
Randolph saw—a soft and easy going personality fading out into the background
while a hard, cold-blooded killer took her place once she noticed the two
suited goons and the cigar-smoking native in her chair.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Tabor,” Jill improvised,
clearly taking in the situation. “I had not known you’d be entertaining clients
this early in the morning.” Jill made a motion to the bag she was holding from
“Savory Delicacies Emporium” and said mildly, allowing no hint of alarm to
enter her voice, “If you wish, I could return with a nice selection to include
your clients?”

“That won’t be necessary.” The boss man
smiled, signaling the over-
steroided
goon nearest to
Jill to move in behind her and close the door as Jill continued to look the
mild, low-IQ assistant who was beginning to realize something was amiss.

“Mr. Tabor?” she questioned with a tremor
in her voice.

“Have no fear, Jill. These men are here to
collect on a debt I owe, so if you’ll remain calm, we’ll finish this quickly so
they can be on their way.”

“Now, now, there’s no need to rush things,”
the over-confident boss expressed with a smile, now adding Jill’s presence as a
bonus into his extortion plan. The native stood, taking the few steps over to
Jill’s side, looking her up and down in a calculated fashion to add more
intimidation into his proposal before he slid a finger along her jaw line,
enjoying Jill’s fake fear.

Or is
that her softer side she’s allowed out to give off a truer response?
Randolph wondered.

“First we must consider all the tangibles
of your business,” the native boss said with superiority coloring his voice,
“before we may negotiate a proper account of its worth.” He gave a signal, to
which Jill’s arms were seized, and the goon behind Randolph landed a blow to
the back of his neck. Jill
give
a squeal of
fright—whether true or faked Randolph couldn’t tell—and look wild-eyed on the
goon who sat Randolph back up in his chair. But since she let out the
high-pitched tone in the boss man’s ear, he viciously backhanded her, growling,
“Enough! I’m becoming bored with the two of you.”

The native extortionist fingered Jill’s
bikini top strap, while Randolph stepped up and played his part in this game of
cat and mouse. “Please, mister, don’t hurt her, I’ll pay anything you want!”

“Oh, I know you will,” the native said
smugly, letting go of Jill’s strap to pat her face, “because if you don’t, she and
I are going to get well acquainted with each other while my men give you a few
pointers in being a good client.” He took another puff of his cigar as he
turned to Randolph and smashed it out on the desk. “Now then, as you are not of
my native island and have neglected to hire local help, my fees by necessity
have to be doubled.” He explained with a wave of his hand, indicating that was
Randolph’s first and second mistake. “You see, you’re taking away the
livelihood of some of my other clients, and that’s not good for our rather poor
economy.” He pulled another offensive cigar out and with the help of the
hormone-infested goon behind Randolph, lit it and continued the shake down by
approaching Jill’s face with the newly lit cigar. “And as I can see the local
custom of my lovely Island women will suffer due to this rather scrawny
secretary of yours, I must therefore charge a bit more to make up for that loss
of income.” He tapped out the ash on her new white shawl and took another long
pull as if thinking up a number. “Adding this all up, your weekly fee well be,
umm…say 1,000 credits, half of which is due right now!” His menacing voice
presented no room for arguments. The arrogant native slid a glance Randolph’s
way, knowing full well a business like this held no such hard credits like that
on hand. With a cruel smile the native boss fingered Jill’s strap once more in
anticipation to Randolph’s up and coming statement of that fact.

Randolph grimaced inwardly, wishing Jill
hadn’t waltzed in an hour early, as it seemed Randolph now had to figure out
how to make 182 hard credits, which was all they had left, look like 500.
Something I hadn’t worried about as we were
already booked on a flight off the islands. But now it’s very relevant, as
these men are not leaving till I hand over the required amount or—
Randolph
never finished that thought as Jill came to the same conclusion as he and
acted.