Encrypted

Ten more minutes until the weekend could begin. Tamia enthusiastically wrapped up the last phone call lingering in her queue. Praying the call would be complete in six minutes or less, she was happy to find herself and the customer working together to resolve the issue. A glance at the lower right-hand corner of her computer displayed the time proudly.

Four minutes.

With only four minutes to go through her two-minute end-of-day shutdown process, Tamia started to relax as the plans for her weekend trip materialized before her eyes.

And just like that, out of nowhere, a call beeped into her headset with only one minute to spare. She was well-aware of the company policy about not disconnecting or hanging up a phone call even if it was time to clock out. Tamia wondered how a system created to adjust the agent work-call status managed to funnel a call to her phone. That feature was one of the main reasons she opted for working with the company over other call centers. To receive a call when she should not have been accessible in the queue caused a vein to pop up near her temple.

A matter of seconds was all she required to pull herself together enough to smile through her frustration. Her right hand gently lingered on the mouse with the cursor arrow idling over the clock-out link on her computer.

Tamia maneuvered that hand to position the cursor away from the clock-out icon. She deeply inhaled and exhaled a few times to focus her mind on the last call of the day. Navigating back to the customer service screen required at the beginning of every call reset her mouth and mind to plunge into the service the company paid her to do.

"Thanks for calling Portland Logistics. My name is Tamia. How may I assist you today?"

Despite the frustration growing in the pit of her stomach, a professionally tailored customer service presentation was an essential opener for every call. This method was considered the best way to set the tone for all call center conversations.

Receiving the highly coveted award for Customer Service Agent of the Year, Tamia felt the weight of such an honor compelling her to treat each call with the same care and consideration that led to her employer acknowledging her exemplary performance in the first place.

The plaque, including its twin hanging in a Maplewood trophy case in the hall leading to the production floor, came with lots of perks making it a highly sought-after treasure. The award came with an all-expense paid extended weekend with Outdoor Adventures Incorporated for the winner plus one.

Within a few seconds, Tamia considered all of this before repeating her bubbly greeting once again.

"Thanks for calling Portland Logistics. My name is Tamia. How may I assist you today?"

The greeting was spoken again verbatim with just enough interest and enthusiasm to convince the caller that their business was valuable to the company.

Repeating herself once more, since there was no doubt the call was being recorded and would most likely be flagged since it came through so late into her shift, again there was nothing.

Muffled background noise could be heard from the caller’s side of the phone. She was surprised to find that no one spoke a word. So, she did what was customary in that situation.

"Because there seems to be some difficulty in connecting with the caller, I must terminate this call. Please feel free to call back, use our chat system, or send us an email in the Contact Section of our website. Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks for calling Portland Logistics. Goodbye."

Logout Time: 4:04 pm.

*****

If anything, she could count on rush-hour traffic to never change. Only those who never experienced traffic in the Metroplex would believe it would be easy to navigate since it wasn't the weekend. Until they lived in Dallas for at least a good two months, unrealistic hope would convince them that traffic wasn't that bad.

The moment the newness of the city wore off, the average person would be smacked in the face with the hell that is the daily commute. Sitting in traffic for a good hour or two was a good day. Try doubling that time and maybe add another hour for good measure when some numb-nut caused an accident because they were playing with their cellphone instead of watching the road.

Tamia was immune to all of it, be it good or bad.

As she made a right turn down the street leading to her neighborhood, she was relieved to feel the headache that was threatening to ruin the rest of her day began to dissipate into thin air. A smile lightened up her face as she saw her house come into view. She turned down the private alley as she remotely keyed in her code. The gate opened and closed behind her as soon as her vehicle cleared the sensor. A few minutes after she closed and locked her backdoor, the house phone began to ring.

Tamia rushed to drop her belongings on the kitchen table as she made her way into the living room. She picked up the receiver from its base.

"Hello."

Nothing.

At first, she took the phone away from her ear and looked at the caller id. Had she noticed a private number on the screen before picking up the phone, she would have allowed the call to go straight to voicemail. Because she was hoping to hear from her unreliable guy friend, Tamia answered only to be disappointed yet again.

Her frustration quickly reached a boiling point after a crappy end to a long workday, and of course, she did what was normal for her in similar situations.

"Look. I don’t know who you are, but quit playing on my phone." The sound of every word was laced with pure annoyance.

Never one to be rude at work, she left the sweet professional customer service agent behind when she clocked out and replaced that person with a no-nonsense individual who lacked the time or the patience for foolishness. Since the phone call hit a nerve, Tamia was struck with a sense of deja vu when she realized the call seemed remarkably similar to the last call she had received on the job.

Muffled background noise could be heard from the caller’s side of the phone. In response to her rude comment, there was nothing. Tamia was about to hang up the phone when the call took a different turn.

"I don’t know who you are, but this is not funny."

“Miss Perushia. I would like for you to shut your mouth and listen closely.”

"I don’t know who the hell you think you're talking to, but this is my phone. I didn’t call you. By the way, how the heck do you know my name?"

“As I stated before, close your mouth and listen before you find yourself in a bad situation.” The gruff statement most certainly belonged to a foreigner.

His mastery of the English language was seriously questionable. Though he made a concise statement, the accented voice was so thick she struggled to make out what he was saying. Without the years of experience speaking to people at home and abroad, she would have been faced with quite the task of understanding the man.

“A package is on your front porch. Someone contact you to retrieve that package. Should you decided to call the authorities, a device inside the package will be activated, and I can promise no one will find enough pieces of you to identify your remains.”

The caller paused as it seemed to add a sense of terror to his words.

The silence was well calculated.

His words forced questions and concerns to race across her mind.

“I take it I now have your full attention?”

“Yes.” She whispered.

“Someone will make contact with you in exactly 30 minutes. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“You have been watched for some time, now. We know everything there is to know about you. Where you work, where you live, where you shop, your friends... we know it all.”

Tamia desperately wanted this to be a prank call. If only it were some stupid prank, she would be highly pissed, but she would get over it. The problem for her was her gut. It told her this was no prank, and her it never lied.

“Twenty-nine minutes and counting, Miss Perushia. Do not make the mistake of contacting the authorities or that disgusting pig you call a boyfriend. You can thank that piece of garbage for getting you in this mess in the first place.”

There it was.

Once again, he had managed to let her down in the worst possible way. For years, there was excuse after excuse for him being the worst boyfriend on the planet. His lies, cheating, and penchant for stealing money from her wallet were nothing compared to this. Receiving a call from a total stranger regarding a mystery package and some spooky person who would be arriving at her home to retrieve it.

Regardless of whether the call was real or not, her ties to Braxton Witherspoon were now permanently severed.

“Go to the front door and secure the package. If anyone retrieves that package before the man whose picture is taped to the bottom of the phone base retrieves it, that will be your death sentence.”

Tamia rushed back over to the end table where her phone base was resting. She turned it over to find a picture of an Asian man she had never seen before. The smiling stranger in the picture seemed as if he only smiled when he was strangling the life out of people. There was a death stare on in his eyes that made her involuntarily cringe. As she examined it, she was forced to admit to herself that someone had been inside her home. Her brain felt like it would short-circuit from the situation overload.

“My suggestion is that you move your ass to retrieve the package, now. There will be no leniency for you if you fail. Your guest will be there in 28 minutes.”

CLICK!

She made her way to the front door scared to death of what awaited her as she opened her door. But she was also too terrified of what would happen if someone were to steal the package from her porch.

Because of her height, the peephole was always a bit of a pain. Tamia grabbed a footstool to step on so she could peek outside. Sure enough... there was a small brown package the size of a shoebox sitting right where anyone driving by could see it from the street.

Of course, she hesitated to open the door because the whole thing could be a setup to draw her outside. She ran back to her purse and grabbed a mask, taser, pepper spray, a plastic grocery-zip lock bag combo, and some nylon gloves. Covid-19 changed the way people interacted with one another, and that included the surfaces other people touched. If someone decided to come after her, they were in for one hell of a fight. And if anybody thought they would expose her to some toxic substance, she was already masked and gloved up.

Feeling like the biggest idiot in the world for not installing one of the peephole cameras everyone insisted was a must-buy, she peered outside once more before opening the door.

*****

Li had one assignment. Meet with the contact and retrieve the package. His years as a Chinese secret operative prepared him for every form of combat and business transaction known to man. What happened to him when he met Tamia Perushia was much more than he ever planned for in all his years as a spy.