Borne Darkly Read online

  Borne Darkly

  by Lee Perry

  “I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar…”

  - Percy Bysshe Shelley

  INTRODUCTION

  Shatter

  Marlboro, NJ

  “Mommy!” came the loud stage whisper, “Mommy, up!”

  Cathy Sparrow looked down at her diminutive four-year-old daughter, Chelsea, and held her finger to her lips with her free hand, “Yes, it’s okay to use the old boot discs, but I’d rather you didn’t. I’m telling you I checked your system before I called you back and everything really and truly is okay.” She switched the phone to her other hand and reached down to her daughter, who was waiting patiently with upraised hands, and deftly swung her up and onto her left hip. “It was a DoS attack, but it was killed at the firewall, just like the last two times. I’ll do a more thorough check of it tomorrow Alan, and I’ll call you…”

  He interrupted her again and she resisted the urge to sigh heavily into the phone.

  Cathy shifted the mouthpiece away a few inches and heaving an enormous sigh, ran her fingers through short blond hair. Denial of service vandalism, or attacks, as they were known, happened when some malicious cracker, or hacker, flooded a website with repeated requests for information, making the site unavailable for use by anyone else. Alan’s large linen mail-order business had been hit several times in the past by such vandalism, and despite the fact that Cathy’s new software, designed to detect and kill such attacks at the system’s firewall had successfully caught every one of the three attacks since installation, she still got a long and protracted call from him every time he got an alert from the software that it had done its job.

  Alan Hisely, or as she privately referred to him, Alan Hissyfit, was one of her more paranoid clients and she was giving serious thought to fabricating some excuse so she could turn him over to a friend she desperately wanted to incorporate into the business. She made, as Alex called it, “a nice chunk of change” designing and maintaining the intrusion detection programs for the databases that controlled Alan’s inventory and accounting systems, but his nearly constant panicky phone calls were wearing her down and seriously cutting into the time she had for her family and other clients.

  Phone in one hand and her daughter seated comfortably on her hip, Cathy left her office and made her way down the hallway to the stairs, only half listening to Alan now and murmuring the occasional “uh huh” as the pauses in his conversation seemed to warrant. She knew from experience that for the next ten minutes or so he would repeat, reiterate, refine, and redefine his concerns until he felt he’d reached some sort of reassurance threshold before he’d let her off the phone. After his initial phone call forty-five minutes earlier she had promised to remotely check his site and had called him back within minutes to tell him the good news, but now she realized he would never be satisfied or have confidence in her work. It no longer mattered that she charged him by the minute for these calls; she needed to pass him off on someone else. As she passed the spacious library that served as Alex, her wife’s office, she caught her eye and waved her in.

  Cathy Hope Sparrow had been with Alexandra Sparrow for ten years although they had only been able to legalize their union two years before. Together they ran their own computer systems company Alex had named Sparrow Data Protection Services. They built their business from the ground up, but now they needed to expand their base of clientele and hire some outside help. Without at least a couple of employees to take over some of the work, Cathy knew she would never be able to take any time off. It had been years since either one of them had been able to get away; and Cathy didn’t think taking off a week for both of her pregnancies qualified as a vacation.

  “Uh huh...” she muttered again and raised her eyebrows at Alex who gently pulled their daughter from her and onto her lap so she could hit the mute button on the phone.

  “What’s up?”

  “The program keeps freezing out the mail server,” Alex gestured frustratedly at the monitor, “it won’t hold the IP address and I can’t figure out why.” Cathy leaned forward to peer at the lines of script and numbers on the screen, the phone still held to her ear. Alex could hear the incessant chatter and snickered, “Is that Hissyfit again?”

  She rolled her eyes expressively, “Yes, but this is the last time, I swear. Come Monday I’m passing him off to Roland, if he’ll have him.” She caught the look of disapproval from her wife and added, “It’s time, Alex, it’s not like I want to make him a full partner for god sakes, but we need at least one employee if we’re ever going to have a life.” She leaned over and planted a quick kiss on her cheek, adding, “Maybe the Bahamas aren’t calling out to you, but they are positively shrieking at me,” she whispered in her ear, “get down here and get your ass in a bikini!”

  “Mommy…” her daughter’s tone was perfect match for her own when she chided her. Unrelenting, Alex leaned back and pointed at her screen again, tapping the glass.

  “Let me have a look at it after I put the kids down for the night, okay?” Cathy begged, “I’m going to get Alan off the line and start dinner.” She straightened and pressed the mute button on the phone, “Uh huh…” she muttered then muted the phone again.

  Alex pulled a flash drive, embossed with her initials, from her desk drawer and held it out to her, “This is the job with the client who wants the moon plus a labyrinthine series of scrubbers and firewalls and I can’t make it all string together.” She held it out to her, “Okay?” she asked, her voice taking on a flat and brittle tone, “The file name is today’s date.”

  Cathy quickly smiled and nodded, taking the small drive. She had no spare time and Alex knew it, but her wife was easily frustrated by problems she couldn’t solve quickly and it was just easier in the long run for Cathy to fix the problem herself. She clicked the mute button again, “Uh huh...” then put a hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “Can you get Cam up?”

  Alex nodded, if reluctantly and handed Chelsea back to her, who eagerly clambered back onto Cathy’s hip, and turned back to her monitor. Cathy returned to her office and stuck the drive into a small zippered pocket in the bag for her laptop; I’ll check it tomorrow when I take Cameron in for his checkup... and rolled her eyes at the thought. Oh, who am I kidding, she moaned silently, visualizing herself working on her laptop while holding onto her son in a chaotic pediatric waiting room. When she reentered the hallway, she decided to make a quick stop in her son and daughter’s room to check on Cameron.

  Cameron Matthew Sparrow had only made his rather abrupt entrance into the world just nineteen months before. A robust and blond-haired baby, he had weighed in at robust 8 lbs. 6 oz. at birth, and her expression softened as she looked at his softly snoring form in the crib. His face turned to one side and his cherished Glowworm toy tucked under his arm, Cathy grinned at his diapered butt, poised pointedly in the air.

  Her daughter slid from her spot on Cathy’s hip to the floor and ran to her tea set in the corner of the room, “Ted!” she exclaimed, grabbing at the stuffed bear seated in a tiny, toddler-sized chair.

  Cathy spun on her heel and put her finger to her lips again, “Chels,” she whispered, “come on.” She looked back to see if Cameron woke, but he slept and snored on; butt still high in the air. Relieved, Cathy motioned to her daughter and together they slipped from the room, her daughter perfectly imitating her mother’s exaggerated tiptoeing.

  She left the door slightly ajar and made her way down the stairs, daughter and bear in tow. Cathy loved it when Chelsea adamantly proclaimed that her teddy bear preferred to be called “Ted” and not “Teddy.” She still vividly recalled the day the two-year old had stubbornly demanded both her parents get the name right, “For hen sakes, it TED!” She smiled at the memory and raise
d the phone to her ear. Making sure the mute button was off, she attempted to end the call, “Okay, I…. Alan?” she interrupted, but Alan seemed not to hear her and kept talking, apparently now he wanted some new function added to the program that wasn’t possible for Cathy to create.

  “Actually, Alan, I can find out who exactly is sending the attacks to your site, but it’s still unlawful to go poking around in their computer and delete the entire contents of their hard drive as punishment.” Alan continued to argue and Cathy rolled her eyes again as she reached the bottom of the stairs and headed for the kitchen.

  Aside from their children, their home was Cathy’s pride and joy; it was a two-story Stone Center Hall Colonial built in 1793 and was registered in the National & State Historical Society. At over 3500 hundred square feet it boasted three fireplaces, one in the kitchen, dining room and living room. It had French doors, window seats, hardwood flooring and the views from their bedroom and the fourth bedroom that served as her office afforded them a stunning view of the creek that ran through the property. It was perfect, although Cathy knew she would regret having only one and a half bathrooms soon enough. Alex liked the house well enough, but she took the most pride in being the owner of almost fifteen acres of prime horse pastures and woods. “Fifteen majestic acres”, she would always correct Cathy since that was how the realtor had advertised the place. With her own money, Cathy had purchased the house in a buyer’s market and had the four-bay enclosed pole barn and outbuildings remodeled and brought back up to code. But she had no spare time with the business and two small children to keep up with, so her dream of filling her barn with at least two horses for her and her children to ride seemed on infinite hold.

  “Alan?” she tried again as she entered the kitchen and handed two green plastic dinosaurs to her daughter from the table so she could set it for dinner. She continued to try and interrupt him as she set three place settings at the table and pulled Cameron’s high chair from its place against the far wall and placed it next to her chair. Chelsea started to make growling noises as she played with Ted and her dinosaurs on the kitchen table and Cathy made no attempt to silence her.

  “Alan, I really have to….”

  “Mommy,” her daughter tugged at her jeans pocket, “mommy?”

  “Yes, honey, what is it?” she turned to Chelsea, not caring anymore if Alan thought she was rude.

  “There’s someone at the door.” Cathy looked up to peer through the doorway in the direction of the front door.

  “No, not that door,” Chelsea emphatically entreated her, “that door.” she said, pointing in the direction of the French doors off the formal dining room to the right.

  “What?” Cathy said, perplexed. “Look, Alan, I really have to go… Someone’s at the door.”

  Cathy walked to where the charging unit for the phone sat on the counter and said firmly; “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Alan.”

  “Mommy?” Chelsea’s voice sounded faint and… frightened. Still holding the phone to her ear, Cathy turned to look down at her daughter and was suddenly blinded by a brilliant white flash. Her brain hardly had enough time to register the large man filling the kitchen doorway let alone be surprised by the loud bang. She flew backwards, slamming into the wall, dropping the phone and clutching at the blood gurgling from her throat as she slid down the gray brick surface and collapsed on the floor.

  Alex sat at her desk; slumped to one side in her chair, chin on fist as she stared at the hooded figures slinking their way across the screen. She was bored with the game but she didn’t feel like doing any more work with it being so close to dinner. She had worked on smaller projects throughout the day, encountering irksome problems with her client’s software that left her feeling cross; And I am done for the day! she thought irritably. Idly, she clicked the mouse, sending one of the hooded figures shrieking into The Realm of the Dark Void. Just as she was sitting back in her chair to wait for the next level of the game to load she heard a loud bang and spun in the chair, her eyes wide with surprise. Another sharp bang issued from the ground floor and she started again, reflexively gripping the arms of the chair. Slowly, she got up and made her way cautiously from the room and down the hallway, gradually picking up speed until she was running down the stairs.

  As she rounded the corner to the living room she nearly ran straight into a large man who grabbed her by the front of her blouse and easily tossed her backward onto the sofa, six feet away. Placing a hand on the back of the couch for support, he leaned in close to Alex’s face, close enough for her throat to close involuntarily at the stench of his breath. He jabbed a thick forefinger at her and said in a clear voice that made Alex’s blood run cold,

  “We told you you were in too deep to quit… Now get back to work.”

  Too calmly, the man straightened and casually crossed the room, leaving the house via the front door, closing it quietly behind him. Alex stared at the door in horror and disbelief. Her arms remained outstretched against the back of the sofa where she’d been flung and after a long moment her heart began to slam in her chest and her breath came in strangled gulps. A few, excruciatingly long, seconds passed when she heard the thin wail of her infant son as he began to cry from his upstairs room.

  Alex gulped again and licked her lips; her mouth had gone dry. She turned her head toward the kitchen, “Cathy?” she called and struggled shakily off the sofa. With feet made of lead, she walked to the doorway leading into the kitchen, “Baby?”

  As she approached the open doorway and took in the scene, her eyes opened wide in shock and horror and she covered her mouth with a shaking hand, “Cathy?” she whispered, her voice quavering, and quickly crossed to where the phone lay on the floor, next to the bodies of her wife and daughter in a kitchen awash with blood.

  PART 1

  Darkly

  New York City, NY

  The ICU was preternaturally quiet. Jordan didn’t want to call it spooky, but it did give her a slight case of the creeps. Little cubicles filled with people on the threshold between life and death, How can people work in a room like this, day after day? she wondered silently. The ICU was dimly lit to reflect the lateness of the hour, and she walked somewhat gingerly to the nurse’s station, waving to the nurses seated behind the counter, “Is it okay to go in?” she asked softly. The one with Danielle emblazoned on her nametag, stood and leaned over the counter, her voice equally low,

  “She’s still sleeping so don’t wake her. Let her wake up on her own, okay?”

  She nodded, “Okay, thanks.” She quietly slid open the door to Unit #9 and slipped inside, closing it just as quietly behind her. Standing next to the bed, she looked down at her witness then glanced at the door. The grieving wife will be here soon enough… this is as good a time as any… The curtains were closed and reaching into her suit pocket, she withdrew a small listening device and after turning it on, checked to make sure it was operating correctly by softly murmuring the day and time before fixing it by the magnet to the underside of Cathy’s bed. The device was sound activated and would make time-stamped digital audio files Jordan could download remotely onto her tablet while she sat in the room. Sighing tiredly, she turned and leaving her tablet on the chair, shrugged out of her suit jacket and draping it over the back, sat in chair next to it, in the furthest corner of the room from the bed, crossing one long elegant leg over the other.

  Special Agent Jordan Hawkins, a sixteen-year veteran of the bureau, had served all of those years in the FBI’s organized crime unit. Her supervisor, assistant Director Stewart MacLaine, called her nearly seven and a half hours earlier; informing her fingerprints of Eduardo Coastanoa, enforcer, or hitman for the Rossi Crime Family, had been identified at a crime scene in Marlboro, New Jersey. Jordan had scowled as she dragged herself from her bed; Marlboro was not a hotbed for organized crime and after blinking in the harsh glare of the overhead lights of her bathroom, stared in bemusement at her reflection in the mirror when Stewart told her Coastanoa had shot to death a four
year-old and gravely injured the mother. “This case is yours,” he had informed her, “figure out what’s going on so we can finally pin something on these fuckers.” She sat back in the chair and looked at the petite form in the bed, I’ll bet she’s pretty when she’s not hooked up to a respirator and all this invasive medical stuff… she thought wearily. Even in sleep she looks… she searched for the right word, lost. Yes, she looks lost.

  Yawning tiredly, she tucked errant strands of her long dark brown hair behind an ear and plugged her tablet into the outlet next to the chair, intending to recharge it while she perused the latest information she had downloaded via the cafeteria’s wifi. I’ve only been here three hours and already the evidence logs are piling up. As she scanned through the files, she noted a video statement of Cathy Sparrow’s wife, Alexandra. She fumbled in her suit pockets, looking for the earbuds she carried and plugged them in, re-crossing her long legs she shifted the paddle holster and her weapon, a Glock 21 semi-automatic, making herself more comfortable in the hard vinyl-covered chair. She opened the file and adjusted the volume; her friend and fellow agent, Don Maynard spoke into his phone, identifying himself and the date and time then turned the camera to his primary witness:

  “Please state your name…”

  “Alexandra Sparrow”

  “Okay Alexandra…”

  “Please call me Alex…”

  “Okay, Alex, I know this has been a terrible night for you, but I need you to tell me what happened again…”

  Jordan’s nose twitched as she stared at the images on her tablet: Alexandra, Alex, Sparrow looked to be a tall, willowy woman, with curves in all the right places.... Jordan thought dryly. The corner of her mouth twitched, noting how Don had surreptitiously panned the camera in his phone up and down the length of the woman who wore finely tailored jeans and an expensive-looking crew neck cardigan before zooming in on the finely sculpted high cheekbones. The reddish-blond hair was longer than shoulder length but heavily styled, probably permed… Jordan cocked her head to one side, the hair looked disheveled, but she probably looked quite stunning before Coastanoa shot her wife and daughter.