“My uncle’s secretary. I can’t tell her anything until I know for certain. She knows way more about this side of the business than I do. She was the one calling the cleaners.”

“I’ll handle this” said Stretch as he walked to the door.

“Not that way!” Pretty Little Thing said almost in a panic.

“Relax” I said. “He may be gay, but when he wants to he can charm the pants off any woman. He will buy you a few days. After that you are on your own.”

Stretch didn’t close the door all the way. Pretty Little Thing quickly got up behind it so she could hear.

“Hello Rachel” opened Stretch in his charmer voice. You know. As much as these guys do with their voices, I can never understand their fascination with mime school.

“How may I help you?” asked Rachel.

“Well, the young lady in there will need a change of clothing. Umm complete with unmentionables I believe” Stretch began. “There are some management changes in progress so it might be best for you to take a couple of days off starting this afternoon, until it sorts itself all out. Probably best to use a burner phone for the next few days. Here is a sticky with a burner she will be carrying. When you get your burner contact her so the number is stored. Please be certain to activate your out of office response on email and voice mail. I think three days should suffice. The young lady may or may not be in the office for the next few days and until this all gets sorted out it is best not to use company owned communications.”

Not commanding. Not threatening. In the friendliest most sympathetic voice I have ever heard Stretch use, he charmed this woman into doing just what he wanted. If she was petrified she didn’t show it. When he turns on that voice, people just believe everything he says and that it will all be fine. It just kind of leaves them feeling they were a scared child now wrapped in the loving arms of their mother.

From the small glass panel beside the partially open door I could watch her face change from all business to doe eyed. Had he been a straight man he could have asked her to shag him on his desk and she would have done it no matter who was watching. He is the total package and the scariest man alive. That charm lets him use those hands for that spine-skull separation thing he is famous for and most come willingly into the embrace. The old Greek tales spoke of siren songs luring ships to destruction and every man willingly going. Until I met Stretch I believed it was bullshit. Whenever I hear that voice I’m always on my guard and believe nothing he says with it. On me it has the opposite effect, but I have seen it have the same effect on other straight males so it is not a female or gay only thing. It’s like those old vampire stories where Dracula could hypnotize anyone with his eyes.

Closing the door I turned to Pretty Little Thing and said “Sorry to be a geek here, but, if that system is air gapped, how do the messages get to our phones?”

“Where you going with this?” Giant asked.

“Do people read and key them into another system? That’s a security problem waiting to happen. Do they have the equivalent of a cell phone plugged into the machine? With all of the hackers, that is a penetration point. An x86 based system with an operating system written for it can never be made secure. The things are too cheap and the software is written too horribly.”

“You are worried about Meltdown, Spectre and a host of other maladies for that platform?” queried Pretty Little Thing.