Free Zero Sum, Book One, Kotov Syndrome by Russell Blake

waited patiently for
Windows to restart all the files. Halfway through the process, the
system crashed again. An error message declared ‘damaged sectors or
files’. He’d been meaning to get a new computer for the last six
months, and today of all days his hard disk had decided to give up
the ghost. One more try, but no go. Damn.
    Fortunately, he’d backed up his data to
CD-ROM, so he grabbed his laptop from upstairs and hooked up the
monitors and peripherals. He copied all the data to his hard disk,
and then logged in and reloaded the site. The whole annoying
process had taken almost an hour, and the market had been open for
most of that time, so his next step was to load the quote systems
and see what the damage was. Amazingly, they were down eight cents,
on light volume. That was a relief.
    Finished, he went back upstairs to
check on Jennifer, who’d left a note for him when he was out
running that she’d called in sick and was asleep. She’d started
feeling out of it Sunday night and was pretty miserable by Monday
morning.
    He got her some water and gently woke
her. No fever, just a little achy. She insisted she’d be fine and
wanted to stay and just hang out and watch TV. No problem. Provided
the market kept stable today, and he wanted to go out and run some
errands anyway.
    He checked on the stock one more time.
Still up eighty-four cents, low volume. No fireworks. On the way
out the door, the phone rang. Steven snagged it.
“Hello.”
    Silence on the line.
    “Helloooo…”
    Faint clicking and more silence. He
hung up. After a few moments, ring ring …
    “Hello?” More clicking, line
buzz.
    Odd…still, with cell service you
occasionally got dead spots where you could hear the other person
but they couldn’t hear you. It happened sometimes when the caller
was driving. The wonders of a digital world. If it was important,
they’d call back.
     
    Steven hopped into his car, a
convertible mid-eighties Porsche he’d owned for eons. Still ran
like a charm, looked good, and was indestructible. He dropped the
top and pulled out of the garage, narrowly avoiding taking out a
skateboarder who rolled behind him as he backed out. The kid glared
at him like he was the biggest asshole on the planet. Have a nice
day, and welcome to Newport Beach.
    He buzzed up the peninsula, enjoying
the sharp acceleration from the powerful, throaty engine, and
dropped off his dry cleaning, hit the coffee shop, and stopped in
at the grocery to pick up some odds and ends. Next up, he went by
the tackle shop to collect a reel he’d left for
maintenance.
    The whole exercise took half the day –
mainly due to the summer beach traffic clogging the streets with
the usual chaotic abandon. Throngs of bikini-clad nymphettes
orbited PCH like satellites, checking out their male counterparts,
who were displaying every variety of tattoo and piercing and
nonchalant muscle-flexing conceivable. It was a state of
barely-controlled pandemonium that occurred every summer; part of
the price one paid for living in paradise.
     
    Steven arrived back at the house to
find Jennifer languishing in the living room, watching the parade
of humanity go by on the boardwalk.
    “How’s the head?” he asked, moving the
grocery bags into the kitchen.
    “Getting better. I went back to sleep
after you left, then the guys from the Gas Company woke me up, and
I’ve been down here ever since.” She sounded better, if a little
groggy.
    “What guys from the Gas
Company?”
    “They knocked on the door, needed to
check the kitchen and garage with their sniffer. It was routine.
They said they were doing all the houses around here
today.”
    The hair on the back of his neck
prickled. “What exactly did they do? Where did they go?”
    “Why? I just told you, they sniffed
around in the kitchen and the garage. What’s wrong?”
    “Were you with them both at all times?
How long were they here?” He tried to sound light.
    “Well, I let them in, and walked them
back to