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

the garage. One of them spent some time by the water heater
looking around the pilot light, and the other one went into the
kitchen and sniffed around the stove. Oh, and he went upstairs for
a minute to check the heater in the attic. They said everything
looked fine... What? Why are you looking at me like
that?”
    “So the one in the house was alone some
of the time?”
    “Well, now that you mention it, I guess
he was for a minute or two. Steven, you’re scaring me. Why are you
asking all these questions? What’s wrong?”
    Steven sighed. “Probably nothing. It’s
just that the website was hacked last night, and my system crashed
this morning, and I guess I’m a little rattled.”
    “You didn’t say anything about any of
that. They were very polite, had the little blue jumpsuits – I
didn’t even think twice about it.”
    “No worries. How long ago was
that?”
    “About forty-five minutes... Steven,
should I be worried?”
    “Nah. I’m just a little wound up right
now. Damn...I’ll be right back, I forgot something in the
car.”
    He hurried into the garage and looked
around. Everything seemed fine, nothing out of place. Still, his
stomach had a knot in it, little butterflies singing the
‘something’s not quite right’ song. He pushed the garage door
opener and went out onto the street. Looked in both directions. No
Gas Company trucks. Didn’t mean anything, but didn’t mean that
everything was okay, either. He lowered the door and went back
in.
    “Did you find it?” Jennifer called from
the couch.
    “What? Oh, I just left the top down. I
wanted to put it up so it wouldn’t wrinkle. I’m going to go hit the
head.”
    He ran upstairs, checked on his
watches. None missing. He’d held onto a few high-end Rolexes and
Pateks from his collecting days to wear occasionally on dressy
occasions. The Gas Company ninjas had apparently passed them
by.
    Maybe he was just being
paranoid.
    He snagged the phone as he went into
the bathroom. Dialed information.
    “Newport Beach, the Gas Company.” He
selected the ‘put me through automatically’ option, before entering
a call tree from hell. “If you’d like to be put on indefinite hold,
press one. If you’d like to report your house blew up, press two.”
After a few symphonies of music-on-hold he got a real, live person,
who grilled him for his account number, which he didn’t know, then
took him through the fifth degree to establish that he wasn’t an
identity thief. Once he was verified as genuine, he asked about
testing at his address.
    That led to another five minutes on
hold because the customer service rep didn’t know – such knowledge
required a supervisor. When the supervisor came on the line Steven
repeated his question, but the best she could do was take his
details and commit to calling back with more information later –
the crew schedules weren’t accessible from the telephone service
center. Steven gave her his information and hung up.
    He returned downstairs and got on the
computer. Allied had closed down almost a dollar, an unexpected and
happy development. The message boards were relatively quiet. He
logged onto his ‘Group’ forum and posted a greeting. A message
immediately popped up.
    [Dude, the site’s awesome, but man, if
I were that Griffen prick I’d be pissed – Pogo]
    He bantered a bit, before telling the
Group about his ISP getting hacked. One of the more heavyweight
guys, who sometimes intimated a deeper knowledge of a broad range
of topics, some not strictly legal, posted
    [That’s a pretty alarming breach on the
firewall. I just pinged it and it’s bulletproof at first glance. If
they were able to not only breach but also access security areas,
that’s heavy talent. You better be careful. Gordo]
    He spent some more time debating
strategies to safeguard his privacy, but had been set on edge by
Gordo’s post and the open Gas Company issue, so he logged off
sooner than he normally would have. He heard Jennifer in