Chapter 10

I went in the next day, and between the utility software I had written and Glenn’s good eyes, we had the program fixed and debugged in a few hours. It was a fantastic fuck up job by Gary, but we got it. Renee, Glenn and I went to the legal department and described what had happened and they called the police and filed a complaint to have Gary arrested for his fraud and industrial espionage, and since we wrote software for some government and military applications, the Feds took interest.

As a sidebar, we won the suit and won damages, which amounted to nothing, but Gary ended up serving 15 years and a few companies lost government contracts. Because of our self reporting and the ability to fix the problem, we came out smelling like roses to several government entities, and that kept us rolling in high cotton for years. .

The few weeks after our visit to the company and my joining the programming group, Renee and I re-baptized my recliner. I finished the same way, but this time Renee’s womb was unprotected, and I knocked her up royally. Three months after Helen was served, I was single again. A month after that Renee got her divorce from an imprisoned Stan. It seems that the IRS was not happy with him. Plus, when the Feds were done with him he was going to have several more years to serve because the State of Idaho also jumped on him.

A week after Renee’s divorce, we had a small wedding and BBQ in the yard with the managers from work and my Marines. I thought Digger and Recon would bust a gut they ate so much. Renee got Recon off to the side and asked about my code name, ‘Wildman’ and about all the scars. When Recon was done telling the story Renee was in tears and she ran over to me and wrapped me into her arms.

“My God! What did I ever do to deserve to have a man like you in my life? Mick, please take this in the best way possible. You are a man. I love you so much and now I swear that I WOULD take a bullet for you.”

“Renee, I hope you will never have to live up to that vow. Especially with that big old belly of yours.”

“Hey, it is not that big. It is barely showing.”

“It is big enough for me. When were you going to tell me about the doctor visit?”

“I wanted to wait until after the wedding in case you freaked out.”

“Why would I freak out?”

“Because it is official. I am knocked up!”

“We knew that.”

“Did you know that it is a boy?”

“A boy?”

I teared up. A son. I was going to be a dad and to a boy. My blessings overflowed in the form of heavy tears. I took Renee in my arms and held her tight as I cried into her shoulder.

“Mick?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful, you are going to squash my daughter.”

I looked at her confused.

“But you said it was a boy.”

“It is.”

“But if it is a girl that means that you...”

“Really got knocked up my one hell of a man. Twins Mick. One of each.”

I took off screaming and running around the yard, stopping once in a while to jump up in the air with a raised fist.

“The last time he did that was when we heard the choppers. I thought he was going to be killed, but he had already taken out the three machine gun nests that had us pinned. He was so shot up I didn’t think he could move and then he went wild.”

“Recon, I think he has a good reason to be overjoyed. I just told him I was pregnant.”

“I thought that was already general knowledge what with you having that cute little belly. By the way those shorts and that halter top really do a nice tasteful job of showing off your baby bump.”

“Um, Recon? Actually, it is a babieS bump.”

“Babies? As in twins?”

“Yup!”

“Renee, you did good.” The big tough Marine gave me a huge hug and swung me around causing Digger to come running over.

“All I did was get lucky enough to marry a hell of a man. Recon, thank you for telling me about Wildman.”

“Hey, you asked. Digger told me that you would someday. Wildman would never volunteer it, ever. Most of us don’t talk about the sandbox. Ever. My dad never spoke about Viet Nam and his dad never spoke about Korea or WW2.”

“It’s another world and another time,” added Digger.

“Renee, all I know is that every man here has a family and a future because one guy took incoming fire and killed a lot of bad guys, all while shot up. He kept us safe. That is a debt that we will never be able to square.”

I finally calmed down and announced to the assembled group that there was a reason for me to be happy. They all went nuts and congratulated Renee and the women all touched her belly. Recon reached for Renee’s belly and his wife smacked him.

“Good way to lose an arm Marine!”

“Yes ma’am,” he straightened right up.

The wedding and BBQ were all winding down when Recon and Digger came to me and hugged me and kissed Renee on the cheek. They silently nodded, and I returned the nod. When everyone was gone, and I took my now real wife in my arms.

“Let’s get on with our lives, Renee. We have a company to grow and babies to grow and a lot of joy to share and spread around.”

We went to bed and curled up in a tight cuddle and slept until noon.

Glenn and I had taken on the back log of software jobs and had the company on good timelines less than three months after I started with the company. The sales people had a new tool in their toolbox. We could not only sell great software, we could fix the crap that our customers were buying from other companies.

Product services were happy campers because they had very few call backs on software problems once the forensic programmers got their hands on things. We call them ‘Murderers Row’ because their job was to take every job that we did before we sent it out and try to crash it and break it and mangle it. If they found a bug, Glenn and I fixed it before it went out as a final product.

And that is how we started off towards what would become one of the top security software companies in the world. Glenn was as good as me in writing code. I had him on my ability to fix bugs, but he seemed like he could see them better than I, and we formed the core of the programming division of the company.

Renee found out that our former sales staff of men, led by Stan, had been offering to sweeten some sales by offering female employees as sex toys for customers. She put out the word that that practice was over and that our focus was on the quality of our products. The employees that stayed with us were wholeheartedly on board with the idea of an ethical company.

A list was compiled of the companies that had taken advantage of Stan and the sales guys offers and we stopped selling to them and revoked their user agreements under the fraud clause. That put them at a serious disadvantage in the market place. We made it known through channels why we treated them that way and that we valued honor and trustworthiness.

A year after the birth of the twins, Mick Junior (MJ) was born and a year after that Rachel Renee made the scene. What a life. Renee was a mom and President of a very successful company. I got to program every work day and come home to my family. We always made sure to send gifts to our employees on their birthdays and anniversaries including paid days off on those occasions. Our employee turnover was minimal and usually had to do with a spouse being transferred.

Renee and I always made time for the family and never put the business first. We made sensible deadlines, so we rarely had to work, or ask our people to work, extra hours. The whole company was known for being family friendly. Several times during the Spring and Summer and Fall we would have a day in the park where everyone would bring their families to the huge park in the middle of town and we would go for a long walk around the place and have a huge picnic. We were out at the park on one of those beautiful Saturday afternoons when all hell broke loose.

I had the twins, Jack and Jill, (yes, I did!) on the little kids swings at one of the playgrounds while Renee, MJ and Rachel were sitting in the shade when I heard a scream and turned to see a haggard, bag lady running towards us. It took a few second to realize that she was running towards me and the twins, and another few second to realize that it was Helen.

“You bastard! Those were supposed to be MY babies. MY family. I hate you. Die!”

She pulled out a small gun and aimed it at me. Her hand was shaking a lot, but she managed to steady herself and pull the trigger twice, just as Renee jumped in front of me. Two bullets hit my wife and she fell to the ground. I acted on instinct and attacked Helen with all the force I could muster, knocking her unconscious and dislocating her right shoulder and elbow and fracturing her jaw.

I made sure the site was secure and then ran to my wounded wife.

“I told you I would take a bullet for you,” she said softly.

“I believed you, no reason for a demonstration.”

“Mick!” She grimaced in pain and squeezed my hand.

“I’m here Renee. Stay with me.”

I looked down to see her shirt was soaked with blood and that it was spreading fast. I tore her top open to find two small holes in her left breast above her heart. I took the material of her top and pressed it into the two holes. The pain should have caused her to react, but she was silent. I checked her pulse and found none.

I dropped her onto her back and began CPR. She coughed and came to.

“Mick! Baby.” She mumbled.

“The babies are fine Renee. Stay with me.”

“No. This baby.”

She put her hand on her stomach and I almost panicked. I was going to start yelling for help but heard the sirens approaching. I looked at Helen and she was still out, so I returned my efforts to Renee. She was breathing, but unconscious. I had slowed the bleeding and done CPR and then it hit me that she might be bleeding underneath her. I rolled her to find two holes leaking blood. I took off my shirt and pressed it into the holes and then bent her knees to try to keep most of her legs higher than her heart.

There was a rustle of activity behind me and suddenly I was surrounded by police.

“Raise your hands and step away.”

I did as ordered because until they cleared the scene, they wouldn’t let the EMT’s get to my wife. They pulled me off to the side and handcuffed me. They went and checked on Helen and came back to me.

“Sir, what happened?”

“Our company was having a day in the park when that woman attacked me and shot at me. My wife dove in front of me and took two to the upper left chest. I took the shooter out and gave my wife first aid.”

“Do you know why the woman attacked you?”

“She is my ex-wife. We’ve been divorced for years. I haven’t seen her since before the divorce. She didn’t look like that the last time I saw her.”

“What is her name?”

“It was Helen O’Dell. I don’t know if she still uses my last name.”

“So, she just ran up and started shooting?”

“No. She yelled something about my kids should have been hers and that I should die.”

Just then another office approached and spoke to the guy that was questioning me. Following that I was uncuffed and stood to see over the shoulders of the EMT’s that were working on Renee. They had a mask on her and had started IV’s.