Alex O'Donnell and the 40 CyberTheives Read online

  Uncle Cass had left a will, and it turned out that he had made Mr. O’Donnell the executor. So there were financial details to go over, and all sorts of financial difficulties to manage. Apparently, Uncle Cass was not as rich as he pretended to be. Fortunately, Mrs. O’Donnell was not only good at numbers; she was good at explaining to bereaved wives that their husband had been hiding the credit card statements from them for a reason. After some understandable histrionics, Aunt Mona was starting to think reasonably about what the next step should be. Her own parents were wealthy, and once she had (at Mrs. O’Donnell’s suggestion) talked to them, it seemed as though they would be willing to help bail her out and settle Cass’s remaining debts.

  All in all, given the O’Donnell’s history with Aunt Mona and her husband, it was amazing that there wasn’t more animosity over the money.

  It probably had something to do with Kitty O’Donnell. Kateri had previously noticed that when tragedy strikes, people tend to reach out for those who’ve already been living with suffering. So Aunt Mona apparently wanted Alex’s mom to stay near her, listening to her and helping her. And Mrs. O’Donnell, true to character, was happy to help out. She managed to keep Aunt Mona calm and even make her laugh. And even more surprising, Mrs. O’Donnell somehow persuaded Kateri to help her.

  So it was that Kateri found herself sitting at the kitchen table at night long after the boys and men had retired, drinking Irish coffee and listening to Aunt Mona and Mrs. O’Donnell reminisce about the past and discuss the future. Mrs. O’Donnell drew Kateri into the conversation, and on their second late night, Kateri found herself talking about pro-life protests, and Aunt Mona, unpredictably, approved. She told Kateri that she had protested against nuclear power plants in the 1970s and had a roommate who knew Karen Silkwood.

  Most surprisingly, Aunt Mona disagreed with her late husband on abortion.

  She was pro-life, at least by default. “My sister had an abortion and never got over it,” she said, tearing up again. “I’m glad you had the guts to stand up to the system.” She poured another shot of Bailey’s Irish Cream into Kateri’s mocha latte.

  Kateri felt a lot more warmth towards Aunt Mona after that.

  So now Kateri lay in a pink, plush, canopy, guest bed, wearing a designer nightgown Aunt Mona had insisted on buying her. Aunt Mona had taken everyone shopping for new clothes and had even bought Kateri some vintage outfits to make up for her lost clothing. Sitting up in bed and leaning against the down pillows, Kateri ran her hands through the tangles in her thick black hair, jerking out the knots, she worked her way through the unruly facts of the O’Donnell Mess, which now included not only Mystery Money, but murder.

  It still bothered Kateri that Mr. O’Donnell was the sort of person who would follow people into locked websites. It was just inviting trouble.

  Sure, some of my brothers are risk-takers, but I doubt they’d sneak into websitesout of curiosity, she thought. How would you even know if you were breaking the law?

  She’d broken the law before, but deliberately, openly, in the name of upholding the moral law, as part of pro-life protests. Hacking, cyberpranks—this was a completely different sort of thing. She didn’t know if she liked Mr.

  O’Donnell’s conscience very much.

  And Alex? She doubted Alex would ever hack websites, but he didn’t seem to question what his dad had been doing. As in many things, Alex was casual and off-the-cuff about it when she would have been passionate and driven. It was enough to make her insane.

  During the past few days, Alex’s job was keeping the younger boys entertained, which wasn’t too hard in a house like Aunt Mona’s. The only difficult part was dragging them off of Uncle Cass’s gaming system at the end of the day. Alex was doing a lot of gaming himself, and Kateri suspected he was still processing everything, including the death. She could tell he was as antsy as she was to get back to normal life—well, whatever the definition of “normal life” was for the O’Donnells these days.

  Then there was the question of this supposed gang of cyberthieves. Did they know that Mr. O’Donnell had hacked into their website? And if they knew, what were they going to do next? Especially now that he’d confessed to the FBI?

  Something inside Kateri tensed. She’d been the target of criminal activity before, but she doubted the O’Donnell family had. They might not know what to watch out for. She had to be ready.

  Right now, everyone seemed to be acting as though things would be fine as soon as today’s funeral was over and the O’Donnells returned to Hunter Springs that afternoon. But would it?

  She heard someone moving around downstairs and got up. Pulling on a robe, she tiptoed down the steps to the living room to find out who was awake.

  It was Alex, up unusually early. Wearing grey sweatpants, his hair loose about his shoulders, he stood in the center of the living room, his back to her, illuminated only by the soft light of dawn. In his hands he held a long wooden stick. With practiced moves, he struck, lunged, and stood, then struck, lunged, 102 Alex O’Donnell and the Forty CyberThieves and stood, moving easily through one stance after another. He was practicing his kata, the exercises that kept him prepared for combat.

  She didn’t interrupt him, just watched, and felt a bit reassured that on some level, Alex was on his guard as well.

  Despite the fact that Cassidy O’Donnell hadn’t been a practicing Catholic, the funeral service was held in a Catholic church. That was Dad’s doing, Alex knew.

  During the service, Alex stood in the pew next to Kateri, not looking at the urn that held his uncle’s ashes, and praying with the priest that Uncle Cass would find some mercy as he faced his Maker. It was fortunate that Cass had asked to be cremated, as his death from biohazard contamination had made cremation mandatory anyhow.

  It was a sunny day, ironically, and Alex hoped that the future would be kinder to Aunt Mona, who had turned out to be a nicer person than Alex had suspected. He even felt sorry for her when the husky dog Persia, the only other casualty of the ricin poisoning, had been put down at the animal shelter a few days ago. Though it would have been easier to sympathize if Persia hadn’t bitten him more than once over the years.

  The Mass was over, and the priest, carrying the ashes, left the church, followed by a strangely sober Sam and David, who were altar servers. Behind them, Dad escorted a sobbing Aunt Mona. Mom followed in her wheelchair.

  Behind them, Alex genuflected to the tabernacle, took Kateri’s hand, and started down the aisle.

  Something caught his eye—a man in the back corner of the church holding up an iPhone towards the procession. When he saw Alex, he quickly thrust his phone back into his pocket, and left the church.

  At last, their family obligations were over. Aunt Mona thanked them profusely for all their help, hugged Kateri, and even kissed Alex, Sam and David, and they were back on their way to Hunter Springs. Alex had never thought he would be so happy to leave Northern Virginia.

  Once they were home, they threw themselves into hotel work, taking reservations and reorganizing the office and service rooms, fixing and updating and cleaning. Dad went to work, installing the new electronic locks on all the doors, which meant removing ceiling panels to install circuit boards and wiring.

  The Mystery Money still sat in the bank account, collecting interest, but it seemed to Alex and the O’Donnells that any day, the government would seize it as evidence. So they did all they could to save money.

  Alex was determined to find a suit jacket, but combed the thrift stores fruitlessly for one he liked in his size. After sending up a prayer to St. Anthony, he remembered that Mr. Bhatka had given him the keys to the storage room in the basement and decided to look down there. The storage room was a veritable treasure trove. There he found not one, but an entire rack of red jackets. He showed them to the family, and Mom remembered that the entire hotel staff used to wear them. So Alex decreed that all of them should follow suit (no pun intended), over Sam and David’s loud protests.

 
After a family council, the staff of the Twilight Hills Hotel decided that the new uniform for male staff should be black dress shirts and pants with the red jackets. (On weekdays, the waitstaff and bag carriers—Sam and David—were allowed to wear black t-shirts.) Mom found some black and red patterned blouses for herself at the thrift stores. But Alex found an outfit online for Kateri, and in a burst of extravagance, bought it and had it shipped to the hotel.

  He brought the package in to her when she was hard at work putting the finishing touches on the organization of the kitchen that serviced the breakfast area. “Open it.”

  She removed her rubber gloves and pushed back her scraggly hair. “Why?

  What is it?”

  “I bought it for you.”

  Giving him her characteristic look, she opened up the white box, and removed the tissue paper. “What is this supposed to be?”

  “Your uniform,” Alex said proudly. “As assistant manager.”

  She lifted the black sleeveless dress with the Mandarin collar from the package and shook it out. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “What’s wrong with it? Look, it comes with this little red shrug.”

  “Alex, I’m going to be cooking. And cleaning rooms. And running around all day long. I can’t wear a dress like this.”

  Alex shook his head. “You shouldn’t be cleaning rooms. That’s what the

  ‘Maid In Time’ service is for: maid service. It’s a great deal. We signed a contract with them. They clean as many times a month as we need it at a reduced hourly rate.”

  Kateri looked adamant. “But it’s an awful lot of money. We can save if we do the cleaning ourselves.”

  “But there’s no need to. Besides, they know this hotel inside and out.

  They’ve cleaned it for years.”

  “They have to impress me first.” She shook her head at the dress. “But how am I going to chase after them in that dress?”

  “I’ll do the running around,” he urged. “Wear it, Kateri. You’ll look great.”

  She held it up to herself, and then glanced at him. “Is this a trophy Asian girlfriend dress?”

  “Possibly.” He felt deflated. “Well, if you really don’t like it…”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” she said, running her hand over the fabric. “It’s lovely. I’m just trying to say it’s impractical.”

  “Oh,” he said, “I got you two matching ones.”

  “Alex!”

  “I figured it’s worth it to have a great-looking assistant manager on duty.”

  “You’re the only one who thinks I’m so great looking,” she said, shaking her hair at him. “I’m no beautiful Lotus Blossom of the South East. Ask my family. For a Viet, I’m pretty plain.”

  “Speak for yourself,” he said, running a finger down her cheek. “You’re so very beautiful.”

  She groaned and started to push him away.

  “Kateri,” he said, in some frustration. He didn’t want to badger her, but he had to say something. “When I give you a compliment, what terrible thing is going to happen to you if you just accept it?”

  She flushed. “It just makes me feel foolish, that’s all.”

  “Well, when you shoot back with a sarcastic remark, then I feel foolish.

  What about if you just start saying, ‘thank you?’ Just to humor me?”

  “Thank you,” she muttered.

  “Much better.”

  Alex is a hard worker, Kateri noted to herself. It wasn’t something she had expected. At school, Alex had always seemed to be the perennial lounger, never far from the video game console or his weapon toys. The only time he seemed to be energetic was in a crisis or when organizing an elaborate prank.

  But now for the first time, she saw him working hard, and she had to admit she’d misjudged him. He spent the day dashing here and there, checking off things on endless lists, taking inventory, answering the phone, entering data in the computer, organizing supplies, and always polishing something with a gray cloth.

  He was inventive with what they had. When they needed something, he scoured the storage rooms in the basement and came up with new uses for old things. When his mom wanted planters for the pool area, Alex discovered a bunch of old brass waste cans that would work for planting herbs and annuals until they could afford something more permanent. And when Kateri had let slip a complaint about having to live with hotel décor, he took the Oriental rug that had graced the O’Donnell living room in their old house, and installed it in her room to cover the plaid carpet she hated. Then he brought her an armful of old Indian-print cotton curtains with rich patterns that he had found in a box in the basement to spruce up her room.

  He only kept one, and used it to make a place for the O’Donnell arsenal on the long drab wall of the hallway, stretching from the door leading to the hotel lobby back to the living suite. With the help of Sam and David, he installed hooks for hanging all the various deadly implements his family owned: swords, throwing stars, knives, nunchucks, and other more obscure weaponry that he and his Dad had collected.

  “Hm. Impressive.” Kateri said, when he dragged her away from cleaning the office to view his project. “It’s, um, odd to be friends with a family who has the ability to kill people in so many different ways.”

  “I think it’s good for you,” said Alex. “And us, too. Every band of warlords should always have a Pacifist around to say, ‘war is not the answer’ in a deep tone of voice when the battle cries get too loud.”

  “Is that why you keep me around?”

  “One reason.”

  She pointed to the large Oriental fans hanging in the top corners of the curtain. “Something tells me those two are not simply innocent decorations.”

  “Ah. No.” He pulled one down, and showed her the razors on the other side of the printed cloth. With a deft move, he closed the fan and shook it out again, apparently enjoying the ching! of steel as it snapped open. “Fighting fans. I wouldn’t advise cooling yourself off with them.”

  “I see,” she said. “I’m learning. Now, shouldn’t we return to getting the hotel ready for its first guests under our regime?”

  Alex made an expansive gesture. “No hotel can afford to open unarmed.”

  “No hotel run by your family, that is,” Kateri said, resigned.

  Then there was the matter of the new locks. Mr. O’Donnell proudly demonstrated the new keycards for the entire family. He gathered them around Room 101, where the new brass card lock with a slot for inserting the keycard gleamed on the door.

  “This is a RAC system, ‘remote access system,’” he told the family. “The circuit boards above each door are powered by an EEPROM chip, so that we can set these doors to operate in any way we desire. For instance, when a room’s taken off of the rental list—say, because we need to touch up the paint—the room keycard won’t open it until it’s put back on the rental list.”

  “So how are we going to open it to paint?” David asked.

  Mr. O’Donnell smiled. “Ask me,” he said, “or use the master key.” He held up what looked like a red credit card. “This master key I now hereby bestow on our day manager, my son Alex.” He formally handed Alex the red card, and Alex pocketed it and bowed as his mom and Kateri clapped. Kateri thought he looked rather proud.

  “And now,” Mr. O’Donnell said dramatically, “our new keycard system in action!” He held up what looked like a cell phone, placed a gold room card in the slot, and punched in a number. “Now this card is activated for this room.

  Sam, why don’t you be our first honorary guest and try it out?”

  Sam took the keycard, pushed it into the slot on the door, and the doorknob clicked open. Everyone cheered. With a flourish, Sam stepped inside the room and closed the door.

  As the applause died down, they heard Sam say, “Um, Dad, how do I open the door from this side?”

  “Use your keycard,” Mr. O’Donnell called. The door clicked, and Sam opened the door again with a huge ge
sture.

  “Hey, no one cheered now,” he said, disappointed.

  “Wait a second,” Kateri said, stepping inside the hotel room and examining the inside of the door, which had another keycard slot instead of a handle. “You need to use a keycard to get out of the hotel room? That doesn’t make any sense.

  You should be able to just turn the knob to get out.” She turned the knob on the inside of the door, but it didn’t turn. It was completely stationary.

  “Uh, well—” Mr. O’Donnell seemed embarrassed. “My friend didn’t have any of the inside doorknob hardware. But we had more than twice the right amount of the keylocks. So—I just kept the old interior knobs on the door but added keycard locks to the inside.”

  “Yes, but what mom checked into our hotel is going to want to have to get up and open the door with a keycard every time one of her kids wants to run out into the lobby for something?” Kateri frowned. “Not to mention if there was a fire. . .”

  “If any of the fire alarms go off, all the doors in the entire building will automatically open.” Mr. O’Donnell assured her, holding up the handset.

  “That’s why it’s compliant with the fire code. But you really think it will bother people to have a keylock on both sides? I thought it would make them feel more secure. It’s a double lock.”

  Kateri folded her arms. “Speaking as someone whose parents had eleven kids, I think it would be more annoying than anything else. Can’t you change it?”

  “She’s probably right, Alan,” Mrs. O’Donnell said.