Home - Hard Day at the Office by Jason Black

Greg finished setting up one of the laptops. The first thing was to wipe off Windows and replace it with something a bit more useful like Linux. Anton had provided him with a bunch of DVDs containing various flavours of Linux, like Ubuntu, Debian, Suse but Greg had chosen Fedora.

"What are you making ?" asked Heike looking over Greg's shoulder. She really meant "what are you doing" but sometimes found she mixed German and English phrases.

"Making ?" said Greg. "I'm replacing Windows with Linux on this laptop."

"OK, what is wrong with Windows ?" enquired Heike.

"Windows is like last century, it's what little old ladies use to email their grandsons !" sneered Greg "Linux is where the action is now and ..." he was interrupted.

"Heike ! Keith ! get ready for a quick job." shouted Anton.

"I must go to work now." said Heike, pulling out a Glock 17. She fitted a silencer, a laser sight, put on a magazine and cocked it. "Auf weider sehen Greg."

"Shit ! what's with guns ?" said Greg nervously.

"They are the hardware to your software." explained Anton passing a small piece of paper to Keith who put a magazine on his .45 HKM23 pistol and left with Heike.

Greg finished setting up and got to work on tailoring the Zeus Trojan to their needs, while Heike and Keith got to work shooting someone who had broken into one of the secret workshops.

The intruder didn't know who owned the workshop and really didn't care. He just wanted to grab some expensive looking gear and sell it, so he could afford his next fix. He picked up an LCD monitor and saw a red laser reflecting off it. He turned around to see Heike aiming her pistol at him. He threw the monitor at her and ran ... straight into the .45 round Keith had just fired. The left side of his face exploded in a shower of blood and bone.

"Nice shot." said Heike watching the deceased's leg twitch a bit.

"Thanks." said Keith pulling out his mobile and dialling. "Job done. One dead intruder needs to be disposed-of." he said into the phone.

"OK, the clean-up crew should be here in 10." said Keith.

"I need a shower." said Heike wiping some blood from her face.

"Ah must be your birthday !" joked Keith.

"What !!" growled Heike "You fucking cheeky bastard !"

Keith grinned. "Did he hurt you ?"

"Yes, the screen hit my leg." said Heike limping a bit.

"There is a seat over there. We will be done in a while." said Keith going through the semi-faceless corpse's pockets. "Good, no phone so he can't be traced here. The clean-up should be easy."

The clean-up crew duly arrived, cleaned up the mess and took the body away to be dissolved. Keith and Heike made their weapons safe and went back to the apartment.

"What the fuck happened to you !!" yelled Greg at a bloodied, limping Heike.

"Hard day at the office." said Heike shrugging it off.

"But you're covered in blood !" said Greg.

"Don't worry, it's not mine." explained Heike.

"Er ... who's is it ?" said Greg nervously.

"A stupid punk who was in the wrong place at the wrong time." explained Keith.

"What happened to him." asked Greg wondering if he would like the answer.

"He lost his marbles !" joked Keith.

"I didn't see any marbles !" said a confused Heike, who after many years in England, still didn't quite get English humour.

"Enough questions." barked Anton "When you two have cleaned up, come to my room and debrief me."

After a while the other members of Unit 5 returned, cleaned up and joined yet another party by the pool. The conversation of the night was Keith and Heike's hit at the workshop. Greg noticed that there was one person missing.

"Where's Deborah ?" enquired Greg.

"She is a go-between." explained Keith "She is a liaison between the various units and the people who run the show. She will pop round in a few days if you want to say hi."

"You like her ?" asked Heike a bit jealously.

"No, she was the first person I met." replied Greg.

"Oh OK." said Heike feeling a bit relieved. She moved a bit closer to Greg.

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