by Ken Dean

Tony DiMarcio was breathing heavy. His pulse rate was way up also. Having someone holding the sharp tanto point of a samurai sword at his neck was bound to cause some anxiety.

He had heard a slight noise downstairs and went to investigate, but not before grabbing his auto Glock and an extra thirty-three round clip. He thumbed the firing selector to full auto. Quietly he crept down the stairway. Lucky there was a solid wall all the way down the staircase; his stocking feet on the carpeted stairs went undetected.

Peering cautiously around the corner at the bottom, he was able to make out five armed females, one with only a sword, advancing slowly through the living room. He jumped out quickly from the landing and managed to pepper four of the armed intruders with several rounds apiece due to the rapid firing rate of the Glock. At thirteen hundred rounds per minute, you were hosing your target with lead. They had got off two – three rounds at the most, but fortunately for him, they had missed.

The fifth female had gotten the drop on him with her sword, coming in from his left. The swordswoman was half–Asian, half –Caucasian; she definitely knew her sword skills. The combination of races made her an absolute beauty with flawless skin tone, and perfect hair. Staring at her face had proven to be the only good aspect of this encounter.

She held the sword precisely, applying just enough pressure to show she was serious: this after fighting Tony with the help of her four now-dead comrades who were lying on the living room floor of his house. It had happened fast; the blood was still spreading from the bodies onto his hardwood floors.

He had emptied his Glock during the fight; he could swing up and hit her in the head with it, but he didn’t bother trying. She was giving him her full attention, as any professional would do. Any sudden movement on his part and he was dead.

“Your slide is locked back, so thumb your magazine release and let it fall free. Then drop the gun to the floor, Mr. DiMarcio, and you get to keep on living for the moment.”

Tony did as she asked, letting the Glock slip slowly out of his fingers, clattering to the floor. She quickly picked it up without changing the pressure on his neck from the sword.

“You have another magazine. No one who shoots like that would be unprepared. ”

“Yes.”

He pulled it from his back pocket and handed it to her.

She backed up quickly and sheathed her sword, inserted the magazine in the pistol, and thumbed the slide release to chamber a round in one smooth motion. She was now pointing the Glock at him.

It felt good to have the sword off his neck. He thought, those swords are just too damn sharp. He was bleeding! It wasn’t much, just a few drips from the skin being broken.

“You bitch – you cut me!”

“Keep mouthing off and you’ll have a few holes to match,” she said, gesturing with the Glock.
They heard a faint bubbling noise from one of the other women who wasn’t quite dead yet. Without missing a beat, the woman deftly swung over and sliced through the still alive woman’s neck to ensure she was dead.

“Bloody intern; none of you girls were worth the money.”

She turned quickly back to Tony.

“Now Mr. DiMarcio – where is the virus?”

Tony worked with the National Security Agency, one of the most secretive of government agencies. Some of the stuff they pulled off made the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s antics look like a bad day at an amusement park. He worked on the programming staff, writing some of the most interesting code he had ever had a chance to come up with. They touted him as a programming genius, but with an IQ of 161 it all just came naturally.

The NSA had loved the program he put together called ‘Cipher’. It could take any code a nation or entity was using and crack it within five minutes. He was golden.

Through the NSA, he was able to use some of the most sophisticated computer equipment he had ever seen. They let him write programs for spy satellites, eavesdropping devices, network sniffers and firewall/port crackers that would let the NSA cull any information they wanted from a variety of sources: wired or wireless computer connections, cell phone connections, city-wide broadband, other countries satellites, etc. There was not a scrap of information they couldn’t retrieve, given the chance.

He lived the golden lifestyle. They bought him an ornate house in upper class DC, gave him a fast car and paid him a six-figure income for what he was able to do. Tony also knew it wouldn’t last forever, unless he moved up to the higher ranks in the NSA. But you always needed a backup, trump card, etc. to use if trouble came along.