Chapter 3: Couple

Present Day

For the next couple of weeks, Amy and Jason teased each other about how they learned about sex and their favorite lessons. Then Jason asked Janey Rukowski to come over on Friday evening. When Amy asked why, he said, “So we can go out on a date, of course.”

“Oooh! Nice! Anything special planned?”

Jason smiled. “Remember when we first met six years ago?”

Amy nodded, though she had a curious look on her face. “Sure. It was the spring, April or May, I think. So?”

“It was the last week in May, and I asked you out on a date that Friday, remember?”

She giggled. “I remember.”

“Do you remember our third date?”

Amy giggled even more.

Six Years Ago

Brad Whitlock walked into the lobby of Brenlee Associates followed by his assistant, Jason Beckers. He went to the reception desk and smiled. The receptionist smiled back and said, “Welcome to Brenlee Associates. How can we assist you?”

“Brad Whitlock, Cyber Security Partners, here to see Mike Johnson, with my associate.” Jason smiled at the beautiful receptionist. She was definitely his type – blonde and blue-eyed, buxom and voluptuous with a gorgeous face.

The young woman nodded and picked up the phone. She dialed a number and spoke for a few seconds before setting it back down. “Mister Johnson asked me to bring you up, so if you would follow me?”

“We are in your hands,” Brad said, smiling.

Meeting Amy

The receptionist smiled back, nodding to both men, and then led them to the elevators. Jason’s initial assessment of the young woman was reinforced when he saw her hips and legs. They were spectacular! She took them up four floors and down a hallway before knocking on a door. They entered an anteroom with a secretary who greeted them and took over. Two minutes later they were in an executive’s office, shaking hands.

“So, what can Cyber Security Partners do for Brenlee that we aren’t already doing inhouse?” asked Johnson.

“Well, we specialize in detecting and preventing cyber intrusions into your networks. Surely you are aware of the issues facing organizations like yours.” Brenlee Associates was a lobbying firm in Alexandria; they worked for a variety of automotive companies and specialized in lobbying the Democratic Party.

Jason interrupted, pulling out his cell phone and glancing at it. “Excuse me, Brad, Mister Johnson. I need to respond to this, and a text just won’t do it. Any chance I can excuse myself for a few minutes.”

“Fine by me,” answered his boss. Johnson simply nodded and Jason took his leave.

Jason left the office and went down to the lobby, where he found the beautiful young receptionist. “Hi. I need to get online for a bit. Mike said you could put me in an empty office for a few minutes.”

“Mister Johnson wants me to put you in an office for a few minutes? Okay. We have something down here. I can only let you have guest access, though.”

“That will be fine.”

The receptionist led him to a small office down a hallway and opened the door. She pointed him towards a desk and jotted down the guest login information before leaving. Jason smiled as she walked away; the view from behind was as good as the view from the front. Then he went to work.

A half-hour later, Jason left the office and went back upstairs. He found his boss and Mike Johnson still talking, though it seemed that Brad wasn’t getting anywhere with his sales pitch. He gave Brad a smile and a subtle nod before waiting for a response.

“I think we can continue to handle this issue in-house,” said Johnson.

Brad nodded but turned to Jason. “I asked my associate here to see if he could penetrate your system.”

Johnson snorted. “Impossible!”

“Jason?”

Jason nodded and turned to face Johnson. He had practiced this sort of sales technique with Brad several times. The results were often very unsettling. “Yes, I was able to discover a number of... disturbing items. First, I was able to log in to your system as a guest and found more than a few vulnerabilities, though none were terribly serious. However, I was able to initiate a phishing attack that has resulted in over a dozen responses, since they all seemed to indicate it was an internal request and not an external assault. At least two of those responses gave me unlimited access to your system, regardless of whether it was internal or external, and that gave me administrator level access. That gave me access to your email and text correspondence with three different automakers and parts suppliers; I would have found more information, but I was under time constraints. Finally, while not really a part of my specific assignment, I discovered a significant cache of pornography being stored on your servers.”

Johnson stared at the young man. He looked barely out of college but seemed self-assured as if he was ten years older. “You’re kidding! Who?”

Jason didn’t answer directly, simply stating, “I looked through enough to satisfy myself that it was fairly routine. Nothing illegal, so to speak.”

Brad cleared his throat and Johnson turned to face him. Brad said, “Let me just comment on that. We aren’t here to pass judgement. For instance, we won’t comment on anything we discover that is work related. However, if we discover anything blatantly illegal, we won’t be able to hide it. The only thing worse than breaking a non-disclosure agreement would be to not disclose child pornography, for instance.”

Johnson looked like he was about to throw up. He turned back to Jason, who shook his head. “That’s not a problem, at least as far as I saw. Still, we won’t lie when the Feds show up.”

“In any case, Mike, I think Cyber Security Partners can help you with your system security. Any chance we can work with you on that?” asked Brad.

Brenlee Associates was a client of Cyber Security Partners by lunchtime. The three men went out to lunch together. As they passed through the lobby, the receptionist smiled at them, and Jason winked at her. He was delighted to see her blush.

Wednesday morning Brad and Jason returned. Jason was sorry that the receptionist was different from the beautiful blonde he had flirted with the previous day. Then Mike Johnson made a phone call, and thirty seconds later there was a knock on his door. The blonde came in and he said, “Thank you, Amy. This is Brad Whitlock and Jason Beckers of Cyber Security Partners. They are going to be working with the IT department for a bit. I’m going to take them down to introduce them, but I’d like you to assist them.”

Amy nodded. “Yes, sir, of course. Uh, what am I supposed to do? I don’t know about that stuff.”

Brad and Jason smiled, and Mike laughed. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll explain it in IT. You just do what they ask.”

Brad chuckled and added. “That’s going to be things like finding us an empty office and stuff like that. Don’t sweat it, uh, Amy...?”

“Newhart, sir, Amy Newhart.”

“Thank you. Most of the time you’ll be working with Jason. We have a very efficient system in our company. We work the security experts like slaves and the managers keep all the money.”

Both Jason and Mike laughed at that, and then Mike led them to the elevators. The IT department had a small office on the second floor towards the back of the building. The manager of the department was waiting for them and looked nervous. The previous day he had been called into Johnson’s office and read the riot act. If one man with guest access could hack their entire system in half an hour, what could a team of dedicated intruders do? The IT manager was to provide total cooperation and support or clean out his desk.

That first day was mostly just preparation for Jason. Shortly after being introduced to the IT department, Brad took off, leaving Jason behind. He would be the team leader and bring in other experts as needed. The IT manager offered Jason a desk in the open bullpen environment of the IT area, but Jason demurred. He turned to Amy and said, “Any chance you can find me an empty office, maybe a small conference room?”

“Yes, sir. Of course, Mister Beckers.”

Jason smiled. “It’s Jason. Mister Beckers lives in Cleveland with Mrs. Beckers.”

Amy smiled. “Yes, sir.”

“And that’s the last ‘sir’, too.”

“Yes, sir!” she said grinning.

Jason shook his head and followed as Amy led him to a small conference room at the end of the hall. After setting his laptop case on the conference table, he said, “This will be fine. I’m going to have a few of my guys come in tomorrow to give me a hand, so don’t be surprised when the geeks descend on Brenlee.”

“Are you one of the geeks, too?” she asked.

He laughed. “Right down to my pocket protector and ugly black plastic glasses.”

“Very funny.” Amy noticed he had neither and in fact looked very much like a young executive. He obviously wasn’t a geek. She excused herself after giving Jason her extension in case he needed something.

Jason worked for a few hours, using his administrator level access to look throughout the system. Then he picked up the phone and called Amy. “Yes, Mister Beckers?”

“Jason,” he chided.

“Sorry. Yes, Jason?”

“It’s lunchtime. Have you eaten yet?”

“Uh, not really. Sometimes I go out with some of the girls, but otherwise I just have some yogurt or something.”

“Okay. Grab your jacket or whatever and we’ll go to lunch. I’ll meet you in the lobby. Thanks.”

The phone clicked and Amy blinked. Lunch? She grabbed her purse and scurried off to the lobby. Jason was waiting for her. “I was thinking something more than yogurt,” he told her.

“There’s a Subway down the street. Occasionally we order in subs,” she told him.

“Subs it is. We’ll do fancy Friday night.”

“Friday night?”

“Glad you agree,” he laughed.

“That was a question, not an agreement,” she protested.

Jason simply laughed and held the door open for her. She went out and he followed, eyeing her from behind. Amy had worn a white blouse and a short black skirt, along with three-inch heels, and she looked spectacular from behind; the front view had been equally enticing.

The sub shop was only a block away, on the first floor of another office building, so they simply walked there and ordered small Italian subs. “We normally just get a half hour for lunch...” she said, “ ... so most of the time we just order in.”

“I don’t worry about the clock, and you are my assistant, so neither do you,” he told her.

“Oh. Okay. Just what is it you are doing? Am I allowed to ask that?”

“Sure, you can ask. I might not answer, but you can always ask,” he replied with an easy smile. Amy gave him a dry look and Jason laughed. “No, what I am doing is not a secret. I can only tell my boss what the result is, but what I do is test your company’s computer security systems. That’s what we do, cybersecurity. First, we figure out what’s broken, then we fix it, if we can.”