Interlude (18 page)

As he sat in the passenger's seat, Karen
punched an address into the navigation system. She frowned in
concentration, and then entered the rest of the information. She
looked over at him with a smile as she backed out of the spot. “I
have to go check on our new merchandise.” She said with pride.

“The helicopters? I thought they were in
Russia.” Cal said with a confused look.

Karen swerved around a group of seniors with
wheeled luggage, her face still a mix of excitement and pride as
she took directions from the car. “The deal took place over there,
but the copters were here the whole time. We're going to go see my
contact at the docks to secure them for transport. Ethan already
has a buyer in Africa lined up.” She finished.

Cal was fascinated by this. She had just
bought them last night, but they were already sold to someone else.
“Wow, that's fast! How did you sell them so quick?” He asked.

“Diversification baby!” She sang as she
gunned the SUV onto the 405.

They drove to a large dock building off of
the main stretch from the rest. As they pulled up, a man wearing an
orange hard hat with a headset opened a set of large sliding doors.
Karen waved to the man happily as she pulled in. The tires made a
squeaking sound that echoed through the cavernous space as she
drove to a back of the building. The light disappeared as the man
shut the doors again. Momentarily blinded by the dark room, Karen
switched on the headlights. Illuminated in the beams were two
Sikorsky helicopters. Karen squealed happily as she slid out of the
driver's seat. She walked over to look at her purchase, her figure
casting long shadows over the helicopters. Cal was startled by a
knock in his window. The man with the orange hard hat motioned for
him to get out.

“Hey chief, I don't think we've met. I'm
Cal.” He said offering his hand to the guy. Orange Hard Hat
regarded him with wary eyes as Karen yelled back from the
helicopters.

“Cal, that's Enrique, Enrique, Cal. He's cool
Enrique!” She was lost in her inspection as Cal finally shook
Enrique's hand.

“Sorry for the tension. Karen usually comes
alone for business.” He said, yelling back to her so she could hear
his dissatisfaction. “It's good to meet you.” He said to Cal in a
more quiet voice.

“Same.” Cal said. “So, do you handle shipping
only, or will you be doing flight testing?” Cal asked as he tried
to keep the conversation going. Enrique guided him over to the
copters as he spoke.

“Man esse, you are green. The buyer deals
with the testing and preflight. We just get the stuff to them and
take their money.” He said with a grin. Cal smiled at his candor.
“So, Karen told me you made the call on buying these birds? Pretty
ballsy Holmes,” He said with a mocking accent.

“The call? I advised her on the avionics. I
didn't think she was buying them solely on my word.” Cal said.

“No man, she did. I did some checking. You
were right. These things have been setup nice. It turns out they
belonged to some private security contractor. Spared no expense
fixing up these birds, then, they sat in a hangar after things
quieted down in Iraq.” Enrique ran his hand along the fuselage as
he handed up a large stack of papers to Karen. “You know that's not
good for the control surfaces girl.” Enrique chastised Karen mildly
as she pulled on the control stick and made machine gun noises. She
smiled timidly at him. “You know the drill, sign on the dotted
lines and you're good to go.” He finished.

Karen hopped down from the cabin. She
straightened her dress as she tried to regain her mature,
business-like persona. “I really owe you one for this. Thanks for
pulling this all together at the last minute.” She said as she
hugged him. Enrique returned the hug with a tolerant smile.

“So, when are you going to bring your wife up
to visit? The last time I saw her was at your wedding.” She said
with a friendly, admonishing tone.

“My girl can't do long car trips. She gets
all barfey. I'll have to fly us up sometime so we can go wine
tasting in Ojai.” He smiled.

“So, she can't do cars, but flying is no
problem?” Karen asked incredulously.

Enrique held up his hands. “Hey, I didn't
marry her because she was easy to figure out.” He joked.

Karen chuckled as she skimmed through the
paperwork, pausing to sign her name every few pages. Cal kept
himself busy checking his email via phone while she finished. Karen
slid quietly into the driver's seat when she was done. She had the
same happy, confident expression as she pushed the ignition button
and drove onto the main road.

Cal struggled to stay awake. The jet lag and
the warm car were only serving to make him more exhausted. “You
don't mind if I get some shut eye do you?” He asked Karen as she
hummed along to the stereo.

“No sweetie. Did the jet lag finally hit
you?” She asked.

“Ugh, yes! How do you do this all the time?
It's like I forgot to sleep for two days.” Cal punctuated his
response with a yawn of epic proportions.

Karen looked over at him and giggled at his
giant yawn. “You get used to it. Plus, going west is always harder
since you're essentially racing the sun. Get some sleep; I'll wake
you up when we’re home.”

Cal woke to the gentle “bong-bong” of the
Range Rover's door chime. He yawned once again and moved to grab
their bags out of the back. As Karen made her way to open the door,
she saw a note on the fridge:

Hey kiddo. I raided your fridge. When did you
start cooking? Those cupcakes could be classified as a drug! I
wanted to let you know we're having problems with the computers at
the office. Could you send down your new live-in boyfriend to help
us out? We're gonna take him shooting afterward to fix his shitty
aim. Hope the buy went well!

-Soren

Karen slapped Cal on his ass. In his
half-awake stupor, he almost fell over! “Hey babe, the guys need
help with the computers at the office. Can you handle it tomorrow?”
She gave him her customary green-eyed look that he couldn't
deny.

“Sure, I just need to sleep for about a year
first.” Cal said as he dragged himself up the stairs.

Chapter 7

Cal made his way around the computers at the
office. They were horrible ten-year-old machines that barely
functioned. He found the problem right away; not only were all of
the machines caked in dust, they had also spread viruses all over
the network via downloaded music. Cal shook his head as he cleared
everything up. He had a custom toolkit that was comprised of
software to fix buggy machines, and he put it to good use as the
machines all ran cleanup scans. He decided it was time to lecture
them on the proper use of the Internet.

“Okay, I know you guys are the balls when it
comes to buying and selling weapons, but if you don't upgrade your
computers, and stop downloading porn, you're gonna get in big
trouble.” He used his best I.T. voice to get the point across.
Ethan and Soren gave him a look that spoke volumes when he
mentioned the porn!

Ethan spoke up first. “So lad, what should we
buy, and stop using, to get everything up to snuff?” He asked.

“I'll make a list and run it by Karen, but
you guys will be pretty happy with the setup. Also, I need you to
stop using Google. They give out server logs to the local police,
so it's just a matter of time before you end up getting caught over
something stupid. As far as the porn goes,” he paused for effect
and looked to the men as they shyly avoided his gaze. “Stay away
from the DIY stuff. It's just a matter of time before you
accidentally download kiddie porn. Nothing can save you after that.
The cops will throw the book at you. I'll get you all setup with
better, anonymous browsers when the new equipment comes. Also,
Karen mentioned you guys use your phones to do your money
transfers?”

Soren spoke up. “Yeah, we have an offshore
account that wires money to our contacts after a buy. It's pretty
standard stuff. Heck, all of us 'runners use the same bank
even.”

“That's fine, but you need to stop using your
iPhones to do it. And you really need to stop doing it over
cellular data connections.” Cal pulled out his phone and unlocked
the screen. “This is a Motorola G17X.” It has quad band frequency
capability and a beefier 4G transceiver. I have this running my
data through a tunneled VPN with an anonymous DNS server.” Cal
finished his techno babble with a proud smirk.

Soren looked to Ethan quietly, then back to
Cal. “I have, almost no idea what that all meant may friend.” He
said, adding, “But if you think we need it, then just get our girl
Karen to sign off on it and we're good to go.”

Ethan broke in, “Well, since you fixed all
our computers, hows about we take you up to the range and fix your
shooting problem lad.

Cal inched slowly up the dirt road. The
shooting club's location way up in the hills above Santa Barbara
gave them an amazing view. Unfortunately, this came with a very
long, slow grind to the top via shaky dirt roads. The rainy spring
had left the roads rutted and bumpy. He was glad to have a luxury
SUV to glide over the rough terrain, rather than his ratty old
compact car. Would he ever get used to this? He had changed so much
in the last few weeks. It's as if being with Karen somehow made him
stronger and more confident in ways he couldn't really understand.
All of his little projects that he did for spare change suddenly
became very lucrative. He was no longer a struggling IT nerd, but a
professional consultant for an upcoming mobile app company. The
best part of it was, he didn't really have to work at it. He had
programs and scripts that did his work for him, leaving him plenty
of spare time to dote on Karen. All he had to do was check the
occasional email, and have paychecks auto deposited to his account.
He was basking in his own recent success when he pulled up to the
club's parking lot. Ethan and Soren were out front smoking when he
strolled up.

“Nice car. Did Karen buy it for you?” Ethan
probed.

“Yeah, I didn't want her to, but she has a
way of being persuasive.” Cal responded simply. He knew Ethan was
trying to goad him, but he wasn't going to take the bait.

Soren chimed in to break the tension, “That
she does Cal.” He mashed out his cigarette and looked into the
glass entryway of the club. “Let’s get you shooting.”

Cal listened to Soren and Ethan go over the
same safety spiel; Don't aim guns at people, don't look down the
barrel, don't shoot yourself in the foot. That last one kept coming
up a lot. It seemed like a funny thing to mention. “Why does
everybody at this range always warn about shooting yourself in the
foot? It seems like you would avoid that out of self-preservation.”
Cal said.

Soren and Ethan exchanged another look. Soren
finally spoke up after clearing his throat. “Your girl Karen wasn't
always a good shot. When she was younger, she dropped a cocked
revolver and it shot her in the leg. Richard, the club's co-owner,
and Karen's dad freaked out, but luckily it was just a flesh wound.
Somehow the club morphed that experience into a universal warning
to new members.”

“I'll have to tease her about that when I get
a chance.” Cal said with a smile.

“I wouldn't do that chief; she's still pretty
uptight about it.” Ethan warned mildly. He reached into a gun safe
like Karen's, only this one sporting a brass placard with his name
on it. He took out two black automatic pistols and began a quick
visual inspection. As he grabbed a box of ammo, he closed the safe
with his leg. Soren came from around the corner with his own gun; a
chrome automatic with a large scope on top. He was fiddling with
some knobs on the side as they waked to the indoor portion of the
pistol range. Ethan showed Cal the proper way to load the
magazines, as he slid each brass cartridge in. He then had Cal load
a few as well to get the feel for it. The range was busier than
when he and Karen were there. A few other guys were shooting at
paper silhouettes while Soren adjusted Cal's shooting stance.

“You'll want to bend slightly at the hips,
like this.” He said, as he positioned Cal's torso with his
hands.

Ethan held up a pair of amber shooting
glasses. This time though, there was a patch of white tape over the
left eye. “This is to prevent you from using your left eye to shoot
right handed” He said. Cal put the glasses on, and then tried to
let his equilibrium adjust to the loss of one eye. He had never
really shot a gun before he met Karen, except a paintball gun, and
whatever shooting game was hot at the arcade. This was so much
different. He wanted to be good at his. Not just to fill out his
man card, but also to have some common ground with Karen. He didn't
want her to think less of him because he couldn't shoot a gun.

“Well, you're all set. Just look down the
sights and squeeze the trigger, don't pull it.” Soren said.

Cal did as he was told. He felt awkward only
having the use of one eye. He lined up the sights and slowly
squeezed the trigger. The gun went off with a sharp crack, as the
slide bounced back and ejected a spent shell casing. He heard the
“tink” of the casing as it bounced around on the cement floor of
the range. As he looked far down to the target, he saw a neat,
circular hole in the middle of it! Ethan clapped him hard on the
back.

“There you go son! I knew it was eye
dominance!” Ethan said.

Soren grinned and looked down range at the
target. “Well what are you waiting for? Let 'er rip man!” He said,
lifting up Cal's hearing protection so he could hear him.

Cal sighted again. He squeezed off eight more
rounds, the gun bucked in his hand as he pulled the trigger over
and over. He stopped when the slide stayed back and there were no
more ammo in the gun. He hadn't noticed, but he was sporting the
stupidest grin! Ethan pushed the button to bring his target
forward. As it came up, Cal grinned even more when he saw the neat
grouping of holes in the target.