CyberStorm Read Free Page A

Lauren had slipped one of her hands under my T-shirt and was stroking my chest.
    “I love you too.”
    “Have you thought more about going to Hawaii for Christmas?”
    “—and Bangladesh will be hit hard if China diverts the Brahmaputra. They need friends now more than ever, but I never imagined the Seventh Fleet parking itself in Chittagong—”
    I sighed and pulled away from her.
    “You know I’m not comfortable having your family pay.”
    “So then let me pay.”
    “With money that comes from your father.”
    “Only because I’m not working because I quit my job to have Luke,” she said loudly. It was a sore point.
    We’d completely pulled away from each other, and she turned to grab a cup from the cupboard and filled it with coffee. Black. No sugar this morning. She leaned against the stove and cupped her hands around the hot coffee, hunching inwards and away from me.
    “—starting cyclic ops around the clock, constant launch and recovery missions from the three American aircraft carriers now stationed in—”
    “It’s not just the money. I’m not comfortable spending Christmas there with your mother and father, and we did Thanksgiving with them.”
    She ignored me. “I’d just finished articling at Latham and passing the bar”—she was speaking more to herself than to me—“and now everyone is downsizing. I threw the opportunity away.”
    “You didn’t throw it away, honey,” I said softly, looking at Luke. “We’re all suffering. This new downturn is hard on everyone.”
    In the silence between us, the CNN anchor started on a new topic. “Reports today of US government websites being hacked and defaced. With Chinese and American naval forces squaring off, tensions of conflict heighten. We go now to our correspondent at Fort Meade Cyber Command headquarters—”
    “What about going to Pittsburgh? See my family?”
    “—the Chinese are claiming the defacement of US government websites is the work of private citizen hacktivists, and most of the activity seems to be originating from Russian sources—”
    “Seriously? You won’t take a free trip to Hawaii and you want me to go to Pittsburgh?” Now she looked angry. “Your brothers are both convicted criminals. I’m not sure I want to expose Luke to that kind of environment.”
    I shrugged. “Come on, they were teenagers when that happened. We talked about this.”
    She said nothing.
    “Didn’t one of your cousins get arrested last summer?” I said defensively.
    “Arrested,” she replied, shaking her head, “but not convicted . There is a difference.”
    I paused and stared into her eyes. “Not all of us are so lucky to have an uncle who’s in Congress.”
    Luke was watching the two of us.
    “So,” I asked, my voice rising, “what was it your father wanted you to think about?”
    I already knew it was some new offer to entice her back to Boston.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Really?”
    She sighed and looked down into her coffee. “A partner-track position at Ropes and Gray.”
    “I didn’t know you applied.”
    “I didn’t—”
    “I’m not moving to Boston, Lauren. I thought the whole idea of us coming here was for you to start your own life.”
    “It was.”
    “I thought we were trying for another one, a little brother or sister for Luke? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
    “More what you wanted.”
    I looked at her in disbelief, my vision of our future together unraveling in just one sentence. But there had been more than one uncomfortable sentence lately. My stomach knotted.
    “I’m going to be thirty this year,” she added. “Opportunities like this don’t come often. It could be my last chance to have a career.”
    Silence while we stared at each other.
    “I’m going to the interview.”
    “That’s all the discussion?” My heart began to race. “Why? What’s going on?”
    “I just told you why.”
    We stared at each other in a mutually accusatory silence. Luke began to fuss in his chair.
    Lauren