The laptop in place. Mordecai eyed the screen. The first set of security protocols easily walked thru. Not so now. He wiped his palms on his pant legs and sighed. Bringing his hands together he cracked his knuckles and stretched. Rolling his neck from side to side. He could hear the creaking of his joints.<br/><br/>Hours. He had been at this for hours. The bitches put away and Helen had seen to them and still he went slow. Cautiously slow. There was too much at stake to screw this up with carelessness. It was frustrating.<br/><br/>Mordecai placed his hands on the keyboard again. He set the anti hacker program to run in the back ground. The curser to the pass word and user name.<br/><br/>Curser. Mordecai grinned ruefully. That was a proper name for it. Curser. It was what he had been doing the last two hours. Cursing and fretting as if he were the victim, as if he were caught and waiting to see what happened next.  Any other time he'd have a raging hard on and stop to get some relief. This time he was just cursing as he used the curser to navigate thru the security to the treasure full of stock options and penny cash flow. A virtual dragon's horde.<br/><br/>Mordecai applied the code and started at it. This was it. This should open it up like a flower. This should be the one quarter that popped open all administrator privileges. He ran his hand over the stubble on his chin and with a nod of his head he hit...<br/><br/>Enter.<br/><br/>Then stared as the tumbles fell away. The page switched. A thin smile creased his lips as he waited for the next one to load. The bar at the center of the page filling with color as the percent ticked off. 76%.  92%.<br/><br/>Yes, Mordecai thought.<br/><br/>The screen went almost entirely black. Almost. Except for two small boxes requiring a password and a username.<br/><br/>Mordecai's mouth opened in a gap of disbelief and he barked, "WHAT THE FUCK!!!!<br/><br/>Mordecai stared at it in disbelieve. Another one. Fuck Maddy!! That bitch. He was definitely going to have some alone time with that cunt later today. She owed him. She owed him big time and she was going to come clean.<br/><br/>A thought nudged into his anger. What if that was all Maddy had. It was as far as she could go and no further without someone over her dropping in the next code before the funds manager opened. What the hell could he do about that? Surely to god they weren't that clever. But if they were, what then.<br/><br/>He took a drink of coffee and stared at the screen as he pondered his options. It was a bank holiday. A great one. Thanksgiving. The mad rush towards Christmas when transactions were measured by the nanosecond. Now was the time. To delay now would cost exponentially.<br/><br/>Mordecai needed a plan B. If his little chats with Maddy were unfruitful he would need something else. A Weapon. Someone he could trust to sit down and punch out a few critical pieces of code and crack the security shell safe. Trust was the problem. He could buy anyone. He just couldn't trust any of them to be loyal to him with this kind of capital leaking out like a pin prick in a plastic water bottle.<br/><br/>People were so damn greedy any more. It surprised him.<br/><br/>So was there a plan B, Mordecai grumbled silently to himself.<br/><br/>Was there anyone in the world so loyal to him that money did not even enter into the picture. Someone who would do anything to please him and have all the right combination of skills to pull this off smoothly. Mordecai ran thru the list in his head and groaned as he came to the first name.<br/><br/>Mordecai stared at the screen as he thought about the pay off. The cost to him personally should he pick up that cell. He stared at the screen thinking. His finger tapping on the table. Deciding. He did not do this lightly. But he saw no other way. This was too big to allow chance to have a had in the way it went.<br/><br/>He picked up the cell and pressed he speed dial number. It range twice and went to voice mail. He waited patiently for the sound of the tone.<br/><br/>"I need you here right now."<br/><br/>