FIRST SNOW

FIRST SNOW

Luke stumbled out of his bedroom and shuffled down the hall to the kitchen wiping the sleep out of his eyes and yawning loudly. Last night had been a late night, a very late night; the party had continued on into the wee hours of the morning. His head felt like it was two sizes too big for his neck and shoulders and his tongue felt like it was wearing a little fur coat. He padded softly over to the window and slowly pulled back the curtains, letting his eyes adjust little by little to the light that started to filter in through the curtain. He unsquinted his eyes at the sight that beheld him. There on the lawn was a soft blanket of snow. Large fluffy flakes were falling rapidly and you could almost see the snow deepen in front of your eyes. It was a virtual winter wonderland. Snow nestled in the crook of the branches of the six white birches in the front yard and the snow on the driveway was deep and crisp and even. Luke chortled at the thought of the lyrics that popped spontaneously in his head and then winced at the sound. The monkeys were still playing the bongo drums in his head, and clapping their tiny little cymbals… time for a coffee.

Coffee in hand he sat down on the window bench and stared at the tableau in front of him.  The first real snow of the season was always an event. There had been a few feeble attempts at snow this year but nothing that had accumulated or lasted for more than an hour before melting into a slushy puddle.

 Across the street, the neighbour’s children were building a snow fort that was guarded by a three-tier snowman that they had already constructed. A scarlet scarf was wrapped around Frosty’s neck and some tree branches poked out of his body for arms.  His head held a baseball cap which was rather an incongruous look for a snowman but perhaps that was all the children had available, I mean who has a tophat stuck in a hall closet these days?

 Luke took a sip of his hot coffee and bent closer to the window. He could see the neighbour's beside Frosty’s house, the family with the super long driveway, the house being set back far from the road. The Lee family was out in full force Mum, Dad, and five kids, each with a shovel. The shovels appeared to be sized in order of their rank in the family. The oldest child had a double wide shovel that she used with determination and precision, the next had a single wide shovel that he gave a valiant attempt to replicate his older sibling's style. The next two, whom Luke had always assumed to be twins, were still in training as far as Luke could ascertain from the way they wielded their shovels, and the youngest, a little more than a toddler, was flailing around with his dollar store shovel, falling down more than he was standing up. The twins(?) it appeared had been given the additional duty of hauling his butt out of the snow every time he fell down; which was often. Mum and Dad were clearly on a mission and were taking large biting chunks of snow and shifting them to the side of the long driveway. Luke now understood why they had an army of children, what was that expression; ‘many hands make light work.’

I guess it's a snow day, Luke thought when he saw all the kids home for the day and then his foggy brain realized that it was a Sunday morning. He glanced at his watch, make that afternoon, he had slept the morning away.

He heard a motor next door and watched as old man Carson next door revved up his new snowblower and blew a stretch down his driveway. Carson then proceeded to blow a path down the middle of the road. Luke began to wonder if the old man was half crazy when he noticed Mr. Carson turn his snowblower into the driveway where the Lee family was hard at work shoveling and pulling the toddler out of the snow bank. 

Carson's super duper snowblower seemed to be a powerhouse machine and quickly ate up the snow and blew it like a rooster tail along the driveway while the children danced and jumped with glee. Mrs. Lee stood silently and rubbed her aching back. With only a short few days before Christmas, Carson was definitely in the season of good cheer and what was it, oh yeah… goodwill to all mankind. The man was definitely a “Do Gooder.”

Luke took another deep gulp of coffee and turned from the window, Carson might be a “Do Gooder” but Luke was definitely not. He believed in taking care of number one… and in his books, he was number one. He picked up his cell phone and checked the multitude of pictures he had taken last night at the party. It wasn’t a party that he had been invited to, as a matter of fact, he had crashed the party, but he was sure not one person was aware of it.  Dynicorp was a huge company with hundreds of employees. Nobody knew everyone. The hoard of Dynicorp employees appeared to have spilled out of their temporary party room and were running amuck throughout the entire building, which was just fine by Luke. It made his “mission” a whole lot easier should anyone inquire. He had helped himself to the free liquor and h’orderves, but only after he had carefully documented the building, with dozens of photographs on his cell. He didn’t stand out because he wasn’t the only one taking pictures. Dozens of Dynicorp employees were snapping selfies or group pictures of their fellow employees doing the weird and crazy things that people did at staff Christmas parties. It was fortuitous that he was able to get access to the entire building tonight as this particular job was a time-sensitive job and he had promised faithfully to his client that he would have the job completed by the next evening and his client was not the understanding type of man that one could wish for. He was a barbarian man whose close friends nicknamed him Attila the Hun,  who was one of the most brutal men known throughout history.

 Luke’s  Christmas party pictures had a bit of a twist. He scrolled through his numerous pictures, however, his pictures gave a detailed analysis of the security system throughout the building from the loading ramp area which would be his point of entrance, to the elevators, the labs, and office area.

 Luke was a professional, this wasn’t his first rodeo. He had been doing workplace espionage for the past seven years and found it to be extremely lucrative.

He was, however, extremely selective in his targets. He chose a few assignments each year, spent a lot of time researching the job, and always kept a low profile. His home was comfortable but not ostentatious and his car was by no means a flashy car that would draw attention to itself. But inside his home where no one but himself could see, were computers, entertainment and gaming equipment that were all state of the art.  He spent a lot of time traveling throughout the year and had major profitable investments that would provide for him throughout his entire life and then some.

 Corporate, industrial espionage and dabbling in cyber espionage, kept Luke as busy as he wanted to be.  Trade secrets were garnered and would be sold to the highest bidder or to certain select, repeat customers who employed him. He never asked questions other than those needed to complete his end of the job. What the employers did with the secrets and formulas that he obtained was really none of his business. Trade secrets were obtained in various ways.

  Luke had started his career by reverse engineering products and making his findings available to people who wanted a shortcut to their business. The Research and Development  Department of any major corporation is fraught with years of work on products that might never even reach completion and be able to be marketable. The manpower for R and D programs was also extremely costly.  It all involved time and money which his clients were not willing to spend. They preferred instant gratification for their plans, or rather, someone else's plans.

The next step for Luke had been competitive intelligence where he legally obtained information that could be obtained by ethical means, studying the competition patents, and public records, studying information gained off their websites This gleaning of information involved much time and effort, a lot of collecting and analyzing before handing the data over to his client. Luke felt there had to be a faster and more lucrative way and his contacts were willing to go along with his ideas.

As a lonely boy without siblings and with few friends,

Luke had spent his youth reading many adventure books and watching many movies about swashbuckling adventure types who would shout “Stand and deliver,” they were brave highwaymen who would brandish their sword or their pistols.  Luke was also thrilled by the stories of Pirates and Buccaneers who traveled the seven seas and robbed unsuspecting ships or brigands and ruffians or rogue Barons and Lords who lay siege to a castle. These were his heroes, daring adventurers who became his idols and he vowed to, someday, become one of them. But carriages drawn by horses,  pirate ships, and stone castles were few and far between so he had to adapt and overcome these small details and become a modern-day adventurer and besiege corporations instead. Highwayman Dick Turpin, and Pirates like William Kidd, Blackbeard, and Jack Sparrow all had a prominent place in Luke’s life.

 Luke had then started to gain employment with companies and covertly worked as an insider and infiltrated the company, eventually selling their secrets. After several times doing this, he discovered that it was just too time-consuming and chose to simply break into the corporations and extract the necessary data or items that were required by his contact.

 He was familiar with numerous safes and could open one in mere minutes. His computer skills were off the chart and he could hack into pretty much any system. He was in the business of selling trade secrets from one competitor to another by whatever method worked best, removal, copying, bribery, blackmail, or technological surveillance. It mattered not to Luke.

The corporations or companies that he preyed upon were usually chemical, energy, auto biotechnology, or aerospace companies. It was the Research and Development sections that he usually targeted.

Not only was Luke involved in the theft of industrial espionage but he would often mess with the target company's computer, malware, and spyware or attack with a denial of services action. Stealing or destroying their recipes, formulas, tech ideas, and any intellectual properties that he could. He preferred denial of access to key information that would give a competitive advantage to his contact and confound the competition from which he stole or befuddled.

Jack finished viewing Dinicorps surveillance system and making his plans. His coffee had become cold and his head still felt like a giant pulse. A nap was definitely in order.

It was hours later that Jack once again woke up. Daylight had slipped into dusk and dusk into darkness. Jack strode to the window and froze. No longer was the window framing a  scenic winter wonderland, an out-and-out blizzard had crept in while he slept, and the snow-covered his car and driveway. Standing close to the window he could hear the wind whipping through the yard and howling between the houses. The street was totally blocked with snow. There would be no getting out tonight. The jig was up and he knew Attila would have his head for this failure. Tonight's scheme was canceled on account of the snow. The first snow of the season.