Don Bruns - Stuff to spy for

“That’s the point.” He spoke in a soft voice. “Feng and the Nazi storm troopers aren’t going to let us out of here. Meals are being delivered for lunch.”

I thought the security was a little much. We’d licensed and bonded our installers, but I guess if you work for the United States government-“So? You get the bonus of a free meal. And I doubt if it will be crab.”

James gave me a wry smile. When he worked at Cap’n Crab, he got free food. He brought home crab from work. Lots of crab. Sometimes crab every night. We ate more crab than anyone I know, and we both were sick of crab.

“Are we going to follow our Honda Accord, Skip?”

“I like the idea. It scares me, but I’d like to know if this guy is working against us.”

“Now think about this, pard. So what if he is? Is it worth taking this chance?”

James was getting cold feet? This wasn’t like him at all. “Is it worth the chance? If this guy is messing with us, he’s messing with my income. Come on, James, I finally get the chance to make some serious money and I’m not going to let some two-bit tin-horn security geek try to mess up my good thing.”

“Glad to hear you say that, amigo.” James stared out the glass door and floor-to-ceiling windows in the lobby. The parking lot was about two hundred feet away, and we could see the employee cars spread out on the asphalt. “His car is about ten rows back that way.” He pointed to the right.

“So when you put the-”

“Hold on.” James put his finger to his lips, a sign of silence. “I’m not allowed to leave till after we’re finished.”

“And?”

In a whisper he answered. “You are not involved in the actual installation. You can leave anytime you want.”

“We had to set it up that way.” I was whispering too.

“So, you’re the point man.”

“The what?”

“I can’t leave, amigo. You have to put the GPS on Feng’s gas tank.”

A ndy needed some clarification on a couple of technical points, mostly regarding the removal of the old system, and I was glad to get that clarification for him. The system that was in place had to be removed. Not a tough call. Sandy Conroy stopped me in the hall and expressed his desire for this project to be clean, simple, and effective, whatever that meant. Sarah asked me to stop by her office and when I did, she closed the door and told me that if Sandy Conroy hadn’t promised her the moon and stars, she might have been interested in rekindling our relationship from high school. Seriously. She actually said that. I didn’t have the heart to say that a relationship with a hooker was probably out of the question.

I was looking for excuses. Excuses not to leave the building. But eventually the excuses ran out. I found myself with nothing to do as the team of professionals went about their tasks. Jim Jobs, aka J.J., knew the ropes better than anyone and made some great suggestions, surprising even Andy. He pointed out some locations we might have missed, and J.J. had an uncanny sense about the positioning of the smoke detectors. I was feeling pretty good about the group, but not so good about my next assignment.

Signing out, I walked into the parking lot about ten thirty and headed for the Chevy box truck. I unlocked the passenger door, and there on the floor was the gray box, wrapped in plastic bands with magnets attached. A simple metal box that connected to a satellite somewhere miles above the earth. A simple gray box that would let us know, every step of the way, where Feng’s car was located.

“All you have to do, pard, is slide under the car and attach the box to the gas tank.”

I could hear his words. However, I’d never been on the underside of a vehicle. My father had. My dad left home when I was twelve years old, and I have few strong memories of the man, but I do remember he used to change his own oil. I remember him taking a large piece of cardboard, lying down on it, and sliding himself under his car. Isn’t it funny? You remember the strangest things. But Dad, for all his ability to deal with mechanical objects, couldn’t deal with human beings. Especially when it came to dealing with his family. He walked out on us, and no one ever changed oil in our garage again.

There was no cardboard in the parking lot. I was going to have to slide under the Accord on my bare back. Well, with the shirt on my back. I walked down the rows, hoping maybe Feng had an early appointment somewhere else. Maybe he’d taken off and the parking space would be empty. No such luck. The gray Honda Accord was hard to miss.

I almost believed that James had orchestrated the reason that he couldn’t do this deed himself. This had been his idea, and I’d assumed he would take care of it. Instead, here I was. I knew it was ridiculous, but I could picture him taking Feng aside and saying “Hey, Feng. Why don’t you make all of us involved in installation stay inside for the whole day? You could buy our lunch, and-” But I knew he’d had nothing to do with it. Even though he and Sandy Conroy were now best buddies.

The parking lot appeared to be empty of people. Eerily empty and quiet. Something didn’t feel right. Probably the fact that I was about to break the law. I crouched down and peered under the car. How hard could this be? Attach the box to the gas tank. Just reach up under the car, and-wasn’t going to work. The box wasn’t grabbing the tank. The magnets weren’t attaching. I assumed it would be a quick mount, but it wasn’t. I scooted a little, my upper body now under the vehicle. The blacktop was hot, the muffler hung low, and I had to move to the rear of the car. I reached up and pushed the box against the gas tank. Nothing. Sweat ran down my forehead and into my eyes, and the hot asphalt burned my back.

I jammed the unit, shoved it, slid it over the tank, finally putting my hand up and pressing on the gas tank. It was then I realized the problem. The gas tank was plastic. Plastic. And even though I’d done poorly in science classes, I knew that magnets don’t attach to plastic.

There’s an entire metal frame on a car, and I ran my hand over some of the undercarriage. Would the magnets be strong enough to hold the GPS to other metal parts on the car? I’d have to give it a try. I could picture the GPS unit falling off and Feng finding it. Or, even worse, the gray box dropping off, and I’d be out five hundred dollars.

I took a deep breath, and reaching up, I placed the unit against a strip of gray metal. It snapped into place, almost like it was fitted for the position. I looked up, admiring my handiwork. That’s when I heard the voices. Someone, two people maybe more, were walking the lot. I pulled my legs under the car and held my breath. The voices were close, and I could make out some of the conversation. Something about security. Something about letting him think that this would solve all the problems. It made no sense, but I latched onto words and faint phrases.

The voices were closer, and I curled into a fetal position, praying that the Accord would give me the cover I needed.

“When’s the project going to be done?” The voice was low, rumbling, and now it sounded like it came from five feet away.

“One month. They’ll get this security system up and running, and within three weeks Synco will start installing the software.”

“When do they release the codes?” The deep-voiced speaker asked the question. And I knew who was answering.

The voice was Feng’s. I would have bet on it. “We can’t install the program unless they give us the codes.”

The rumbler came back. “It’s that simple?”

“We’re banking on it,” Feng said. “Ralph was supposed to get them. He was the contact, but you know what happened to Ralph.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.