CHAPTER NINE
As the two men stepped out of the office and stood in the passageway, they could see a few guests chatting in the lounge. Jake closed the door and locked it, and then led the way into the lounge.
When they entered the lounge, Jake noticed a couple sitting on a couch.
"That's one of my chief programmers. Come and I'll introduce you," Jake said.
Danny followed Jake to where the couple was seated.
"Bill. Nice of you to make it."
"Mr. Waters. It's a pleasure to be here. This is my wife, Belinda," Bill said.
Belinda smiled.
"Honey. Meet my boss, Mr. Jake Waters."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Waters," Belinda said.
"Please, call me Jake. And it's a pleasure to meet you too," Jake said.
"Bill, Belinda. This is Danny Rogers, my personal security services provider."
"Nice to meet you," Bill and Belinda said.
They shook hands with Danny.
"Nice meeting you too," Danny said.
"Now, you two make yourselves feel at home while I finish my discussions with Danny, okay."
Jake excused Danny and himself. They walked away from the couple, and as they did so Danny noticed a familiar face looking at them.
"Hey, Jake. Isn't that the receptionist broad I met yesterday?"
"Where?" Jake asked, while scanning the room.
"There, by the chair in the corner," Danny said, avoiding pointing her out.
"Oh, I see her now. Yes, that's Alicia. I invited her too," Jake said.
"Let's go say hello."
They walked toward where she was sitting and she stood up when they arrived.
"Mr. Waters. Good morning, sir," she said as she extended her hand and greeted Jake.
"Good morning Alicia," Jake said.
"I'm sure you know Danny Rogers, my personal security services provider. Danny this is Alicia Bills, my receptionist and personal assistant."
"Yes, I do. We met yesterday. Good morning Mr. Rogers."
"Good morning, Mrs.—"
"Miss, please," Alicia interjected.
"My apologies. Good morning Miss Alicia Bills. It's great to see you, again."
"Okay," Jake said, sensing some friction between the two.
They both looked at each other for a while.
"Please excuse us Alicia. Danny and I have a few things to attend to."
They walked away from Alicia.
"She's quite cheeky, isn't she?"
"You just had to say that, didn't you," Jake said.
"Couldn't help but test the waters, you know."
Jake chuckled as they walked toward the main entrance doors. At the entrance, they met some of Jake's employees who were passing by the metal detectors. They greeted them as well, and Jake introduced Danny to them and vice-versa. When Jake and Danny finally got outside, Danny joined his crew and began inspecting their progress, while Jake stood by the main entrance, welcoming his guests.
"Hey guys. I see Joe and Rick have things under control at the metal detectors. Is everything going according to plan?"
"Yes. Everything is going well, boss," Antonio said.
"Good."
"There are only a few motion sensors left to be installed. But I'm going to the roof now, to be on the lookout from there."
"See you later, sniper," Danny said.
Antonio walked away, laughing.
"Ricardo. I guess this means you and I should go and install the last of those motion sensors, right?"
"Yeah, boss. But let's install them at the back because we already installed some this side."
They walked to were the truck was parked and took out the sensors from one of the boxes. After that, they walked to the back of the house and began looking for appropriate places to install them.
"So, what kind of money are we talking here, boss?"
"You're really anxious to know, aren't you?"
"Well, I wouldn't say anxious, but I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in knowing just how much it is that we are getting paid for doing this job."
"I will disclose that information when we are all together, with the others present. Let's start installing these sensors so we can move on to other things."
They placed the motion sensors at strategic and well hidden spots, turned them on and tested them. They all seemed to work fine so they activated them and went back to the house's main entrance.
When they arrived at the doors, they stopped by the metal detectors to see how things were going.
"Everything okay here?"
"Yeah. No problems here," Rick said.
"Okay. I think Ricardo and I will do a quick patrol around and then come back later. Keep up the good work."
Danny left with Ricardo and patrolled the yard's perimeter for about twenty minutes, and then went back to the entrance.
"If this guest list is accurate, then there are no more guests left to arrive, boss," Joe said to Danny as they arrived.
"Good. Ricardo and I will see how things are going inside now."
Danny went inside the house with Ricardo. Rick and Joe remained by the metal detectors.
The two entered the lounge just as Jake was about to make a speech. They sat down on one of the seats in the room and watched Jake.
"May I have your attention? May I have your attention please?"
The noise of people conversing died down and everyone in the room turned their attention to Jake.
"Thank you."
He cleared his throat.
"Most, if not all of you, know why we are here today, but I see no harm in stating the reason why we are in such good and celebratory spirits. Our company has just signed a deal with one of the biggest electronic retail businesses in our nation. A deal that will see us creating customized security solutions for the retail business. This achievement is the result of some rather disastrous and unfortunate event that occurred last month. I'm sure you all know about the major security breach that gripped the company in discussion, resulting in the theft of credit card information belonging to millions of it customers."
Many heads in the crowd nodded at Jake's statement.
He continued, "This tragedy caused the company to look for new security solutions as its in-house security solutions failed them. This put us in the right place at the right time. The whole security industry is still trying to catch up to our new and advanced encryption technology, which we recently developed, thanks to our team of genius programmers. This means we are ahead of the pack, and that's why BuyNow approached us. So, today we are celebrating the beginning of a new, crucial and, I must say, highly-lucrative business partnership. Here's to innovation and dedication, here's to Secusol and BuyNow's future. Here's to—success."
Applause resounded throughout the room, and cheers too. It took almost five minutes for the guests to calm down after Jake's speech.
"He sure hit the right note," Ricardo said to Danny.
"Yeah. He knows the right words to say," Danny said.
"It was big news though, right? The hacking, I mean."
"Yes. The media ran with it for weeks. And now they are going to run with this partnership for days."
"That's true. I wonder if they'll ever catch the guy who really did it, you know, the one responsible for the whole thing. The police say they have a number of suspects, one of them a former BuyNow employee."
"He's probably going to be the one who takes the fall for this one. I heard the case against him is strong. They've got evidence and he has motive, ability and the insider knowledge to do such a thing," Danny said.
"I kind of feel sorry for the guy. I mean, he lost his job, his family is devastated and now he faces jail time. I heard he claims that he was set up."
"I sometimes don't know who to believe, Ricardo. I guess at the end of the day, the one with the most power, be it money or something else, wins the case. I mean one former employee versus a corporation; it's a no-brainer, really. But enough about that. Let's talk about what you're planning to do with your three thousand dollars."
"Three grand," Ricardo half-shouted, momentarily ignorant of being in a room full of people.
"Boss, that's great," he added in lower voice this time, as he regained his composure.
Damn, this kid sure knows of the perfect subjects to discuss at the wrong time.
Danny smiled at Ricardo.
It's a good thing I didn't involve him or any of the other guys in the last job.
"That will go a long way in fixing my house. Its got serious pipe leaks," Ricardo continued.
"Well, I haven't decided on what to spend mine on, yet. I can't say I have immediate liabilities or responsibilities to attend to," Danny said.
He looked at his watch and decided to do another perimeter patrol.
"Let's go around the yard one more time. You mustn't forget that we are working and not partying," he told Ricardo.
"Right boss, let's go."
They went out of the house and went around the yard. They also took the opportunity to check on the motion sensors. They found nothing wrong with them and moved on.
The party went on smoothly, without any unexpected occurrences. The guests drank, talked and laughed together. Some stood, some sat, with some being in groups and some alone.
As the time got closer to eight o'clock Danny made an announcement, thanking the guests for coming. After his announcement, the level of activity steadily decreased, and so did the number of guests present, as they gradually departed.
Danny, coming back from his patrol around the yard, saw Jake escorting the last of the guests to her car.
"Thank you for everything Alicia. I hope you enjoyed yourself," Jake said to her as she entered her car.
"It was a great party, sir. Thank you for inviting me," she said and closed the door, and then brought the window down.
"Goodbye, Alicia."
"Goodbye sir."
Alicia started her car, and then drove off.
"Jake," Danny said, walking to him.
"Danny. Let's go to my office and finish our business."
They walked toward the main entrance and past Joe and Rick as they disassembled the metal detectors. They walked through the lounge as the maids were starting to clean up, and went straight into Jake's office.
continues in Chapter 10...
Copyright © Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Thank you for reading my work.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9