Honor Thy Mother & Thy Father Ch. 01a

"My name is Patricia, and if I give you my last name, your father will have you check me out, from the day of my birth until today. So if you do not mind I will remain just Patricia for now."

"You have a very low opinion of my father."

"No, Stephano, quite the opposite; I have a very high opinion of your father. You are his only son, and he will protect you with his life. He will not allow anything to happen to you, and will not allow you to date anyone he feels is beneath you. I received my invitation to come here at the last moment. I did not think I was going to be invited. That is how far down the list, my family and I are in the pecking order."

"Well, Patricia, I am very happy you are here. You are quite beautiful, and unlike many of the other young women, you did not throw yourself at me, and try to sleep in my bed with me tonight."

"Stephano, if that is what this dance is about, you may as well stop now. I promised my God; and my parents that I would not have sexual intercourse of any kind, prior to my wedding night. Several men have gotten close, because I let my guard down. I have learned through experience, to stay away from liquor, so I can keep my wits about me."

"Patricia, this dance was just to get to know you. I had no ulterior motive. I am having a wonderful time, and I hope you are too."

"If these damn new shoes were not killing my feet, I would be having a very good time, also."

"Why don't you take them off, and leave them at the table, while we dance?"

"You are very tall, and if I take off my shoes, I will be 3 inches shorter. Are you sure you will not mind?"

"I could always pick you up and hold you in my arms, while we dance."

"One of the gentlemen that nearly got lucky said the same thing. I had to box his ears to convince him that 'No' meant 'No!'

"I promise you, Patricia, if you say the word No, I will understand what it means. I can also promise you that I will not do anything that will even remotely get close to anything that will make you uncomfortable this evening."

"All right, Stephano, I will give it a try. Please do not make me regret this decision."

"Where would you like to go, and what would you like to do, for the rest of the evening?"

"I suspect we will have an entourage with us; so why don't we go for a walk in Central Park, and I can walk barefoot in the grass."

"Oh, the adventurous type; I like that in the woman."

"Did I tell you I am a third degree black belt in tae kwon do and jujitsu?"

"No, you left that out of our previous conversations."

"It is probably because it is not true. However, it does scare people, I do not trust."

"So what you are saying is you trust me."

"I am trying to trust you. We will see how the night goes."

The night went just fine, and Stephano was smitten with her. However, she still would not give him her last name. She did give him her cell phone number so they could talk whenever the spirit moved them. He asked her to go out with him the following Saturday. She said that he should wait a week or so before he asked her out, just in case he changed his mind. This way no one's sensibilities would be hurt.

Stephano looked at her and said, "You are a strange egg. Most women look to form attachments, and then run away from them. I am trying to get to know you, and you are not giving me a chance. This is definitely odd behavior for woman. "

"Stephano, most men look at a woman in her early 20s, and want what is between her thighs. I have a brain. I can do things with computers that could make your hair stand on end. I also have a moral code that drives men crazy. They are not willing to wait, until after marriage, to play house. I will not have it any other way. If I die an unmarried woman that is the way it will be. I will not compromise my principles to please someone else."

They walked and talked for a little more than an hour, and returned to the hotel. His parents were beside themselves, because they did not know where he had gone. He introduced them to his new friend, Patricia, told them they went for a walk in Central Park and had just returned. His mother smiled at him, but his father showed no reaction at all.

Patricia excused herself, using the ladies room as a ploy, and tried to sneak out a side exit.

One of Stephano's guards said, "I do not think he would like you to leave, without saying good night, ma'am."

Patricia replied, "Did you see the look Don Valentino gave me? I think I would be safer in California."

"Miss, if Stephano likes someone, the Don will not stand in his way."

"I will bet you a penny that you are wrong."

"Here comes Stephano, ma'am, we will find out which one of us is correct."

"Are you running away, without kissing me goodbye?"

"I did not know kissing was part of saying goodbye, Stephano."

"My mother likes you."

"Your father's eyes bore holes straight through my head."

"I want to see you again, and I am not going to take no for an answer."

"All right, I will not say no."

"When and where shall we meet?"

"I do not know. You are the one that said you would not take no for an answer. I never said yes, and you are being presumptuous."

"You are correct, and I apologize. I will call you, every five minutes from now until your cell phone battery dies. I will not give up, until you tell me when and where we are going to meet for our date."

"You are spoiled rich kid. You are used to getting your own way. We will see which one of us can hold out the longest. I have been a virgin for eighteen years. I intend on staying that way until there is a ring on my finger and a man says...'until death do us part.'"

When Stephano saw how the accountants had the books arranged, and the money accounted for, he went ballistic. With his father standing by his side, he said to them, "No wonder the Feds nearly put everyone in jail. A teenager could have pulled the stuff off the web, taken your spreadsheets, and figured out your codes. I want you to download everything and make hard copies. Then erase everything from your computers and destroy them; not just the hard drives, I mean the computers. Bring them to a junkyard and have them smashed to pieces."

Stephano turned to his father and said, "Dad these men may have had your best interest at heart, but they nearly fucked you over. I am going to be spending a ton of your money. However, I am going to put your finances in order?"

"How much is a ton of money, Stephano?"

"I would think someplace between four and five million dollars. I will need legitimate office space, with high-end computers, and a Fail Safe system. If the Feds walk in with a warrant, I want to be able to push one button and destroy every file that is in every computer in the office. That is what is going to cost the money, dad. Finding someone to write that protocol and prove that it works 100% of the time, and instantaneously is going to be a bitch. It is not something you can advertise for, on the web. We have to make sure is the right person for the job. We will not rub that person out either, dad. I know how you think, but we might need to update that program in the future. We do not want to go searching for another person. Do you understand me?"

"When did you become a mind reader, my son?"

"I watched the old James Cagney movies sitting by your knee, dad."

"Do what you need to do Stephano. I will have the office space for you when you need it. How much space will you need?"

"20,000 ft.² will be plenty. A middle floor of a tall building would be great. If the Feds come in by the ground floor, we will know it in advance. If they come in by helicopter, we will also know it in advance. We will download all the information each night, by satellite to a communication center in China, which I will set up personally. We will also set one up in Israel, and then transfer it through a series of banks to an unknown destination that will drive the Feds crazy. It will wind up in Florida, by burst transmission."

"Stephano your education far exceeds anything I ever anticipated. Your mind is wonderful. I have no idea how you thought this up so quickly, and it sounds absolutely amazing to me. Spend what you need to spend. I will call for a meeting of the commission to see if they want to join with us. This is too good to keep a secret from my friends."

"Thank you, papa, if you want me to go with you, and explain what I am doing, I will be happy to accompany you."

"I will ask them Stephano, but it will probably not be necessary."

5. Into the Fire

"Are you out of your fucking mind Patricia," yelled the Director of the FBI. "You were walking in Central Park, in the middle of the night, with the son of a known mobster."

"Can you think of a better way to infiltrate a crime family?"

"You are not a trained agent. If you get caught, they will not be enough left of you to feed my goldfish."

"Michael, I am not one of your agents. I am a civilian, and I will do what I wish to do, when I wish to do it. I am going to help you tear apart the Valentino family. Stephano is just out of college. How deeply he is involved with the family business, I do not know. However, if he gets in my way, he will go down, with the rest of the family. His father said that he is taking over the family's finances; that means he is going to computerize everything. It is good for their business, it is better for us. If you keep an eye on his purchases, and give me a list of what he buys, as soon as he has it set up, I will send in the kill notice. He will have to reroute everything, and when he does, we will be waiting for him."

"You sound very sure of yourself, Patricia."

"I shut you down easily enough, Mister Free."

"I cannot argue with you on that account, Patricia, I know. I do not want you to get hurt. This is not a game for amateurs."

"Mister Free, Bruno Valentino killed my mother, as surely as if he had a gun in his hand. He killed nearly 40 people at the University of Massachusetts, and no one will be able to pin it on him. He blew up a friend of mine, driving my car to my home in New York. Payback is a bitch, Mister Free; and I am the bitch, that is going to pay him back."

"All you want from us is identity papers and a foolproof background that will keep you in the good graces of Bruno Valentino, and you need it by Friday."

Patricia said, "Earlier would be better, so I could memorize who I am, and all the particulars of my life."

"Would tomorrow morning, be satisfactory?"

"Tomorrow morning would be wonderful. Thank you Michael, you are a teddy bear; but I will not tell anyone in Congress, that you are."

"Patricia, I serve at the Pleasure of the President of the United States, not the Congress."

"Okay, I will just screw up his cell phone for a couple of days. Then I will let you take the credit for fixing it."

"Patricia, you would not dare!"

"Of course not, Michael; he is a Republican, and he would never lie to the American people."

She stopped by the next morning to pick up her new identity and greeted the director with news. "I did a little snooping last night, Michael. The other families are joining Valentino on this new computer venture that Stephano is producing. Apparently, Bruno called a meeting and told them what was happening. Everyone was so impressed; they decided to go along with him. The biggest thing I learned is they are downloading everything they have on their computers into hard copies. Then, they are taking the computers to junkyards and smashing them to bits. If you can find out where they are keeping those hard copies, and have warrants to raid those places, you could have a field day gathering evidence against them. You could try to intercept the computers on the way to the junk yards, also, but that would be more problematic."

The director wanted to kiss her. However, he had phone calls to make and he needed the A/D in his office, now. He said, "Patricia, here is your paperwork. Find an empty office, and study it. Any questions; go to the basement and ask for Jeremy. He put this package together for you. He is as good as it gets."

"Thank you Michael, I will keep in touch with you, just in case I hear anything else."

Patricia's caller ID showed it was him again, so she let it go to voicemail: "I see it is you again, so I cannot use the two-letter word beginning with the letter 'N' and ending in a vowel, because you said you would not accept that answer. If you are trying to track my telephone, to find out where I live, I have taken out my GPS chip, so do not bother. I told you I could do things with computers that will make your hair stand on end. You are wonderful young man. Give us some time to get used to the idea that you may really want to date someone you are not going to get anywhere with. If you feel strongly enough about me, to think there is a future for us together, call me in five or ten years and I will consider going out with you. My last name is Gallina. You can run that by your father. When he finishes screaming at you, you will understand why I am hesitant about going out with you. Goodbye, Stephano."

Stephano looked at his phone and thought how good she must be to be able to set up a voicemail specifically for him. Could she be the one he was looking for to set up the "Fail Safe" system for his computers? He had to separate his feelings for her, and the safety of the computer system. It was obligatory to run this past his father, and get his approval to test her.

Patricia was right, when she said his father would blow his top, when he heard her last name.

Bruno Valentino went through the generations of disputes, between their two families. He told his son how their family finally won the battles, over the land disputes, in the Piedmont Valley, and forced the Gallina's out of the farming areas of Verbania, all the way into the mountains of Taravisio, by the Austrian border. Both families had suffered terrible losses, to their male population, and it took generations to rebuild the family lines. It was only in recent years that they had started talking, 'family to family,' again. Bruno told Stephano in no uncertain terms that regardless of how we felt about Patricia, he was not allowed to marry her.

"Papa, I do not need your permission to marry a woman that I love. I do not know if I love her enough to marry her, at this point. I am intrigued with her, and I want to get to know her better. She is unlike any woman I have ever met. I do not want to get into an argument with you over it. She is a virgin, and plans to stay that way, until she gets married. She has told me so, just in case I thought that she was going to be another easy mark on my belt. She may also be the computer expert we need to set up the "Fail Safe" system. You can have your people check her out, and when you are through, let me know if I can use her in that capacity. Then we will see if she can do what she says she is capable of doing."

Bruno smiled at his son, and said, "Your mother really likes her. I do not know how one woman can make a judgment on another woman, without saying two words to each other, but she told me that as soon as we left the hotel."

"Mom always did have good taste dad; she married you."

"You already write your own paycheck Stephano, you do not need to butter up your boss."

"I am not buttering up my boss; I am buttering up my father. Now, set your hounds loose, and find out everything you can about Patricia Laura Gallina."

The FBI, Homeland Security, and the NSA were alerted to look for any queries regarding Patricia Gallina. When they started hitting, they sent tidbits of information back, but also tracers to find where the computers were that were asking for this information. The longer they were able to keep these people online, asking questions about Patricia, the more information they could gather about the computer and there location. The codes they inserted into those computers would transmit information back to the agencies, while the computer restarted and then would shut down before any security software could start searching for viruses or malware. These devices were virtually invisible to all security software, except the most technically advanced software used by the military, governments, banks, and large businesses.

After several days of checking, and rechecking their information, the lawyers, and private detectives, found Patricia to be as boring as anyone they had ever checked up on. She worked as a freelance program designer, who barely made ends meet. She currently had no boyfriends, and the ones they checked up on said, One boyfriend said, "She is frigid. All of them said they were unable to get to first base with her, because she told them outright what her terms for a relationship were. When they did not believe her, and tried to start something; she would hit them, berate them, and leave."

One former boyfriend said, "She has one set of standards, and she will not vary from them. She has to be perfect, both in her personal life, and in her professional life. She will not accept anything less of herself. I watched her work on one line of code for a job she was doing. I thought it looked perfect. She saw a flaw. She spent three hours finding the problem, and fixing it. I still did not see a difference; but she did, and it made her happy, because it was perfect."

None of the investigators knew that the men they were talking to were undercover FBI agents. Everything was choreographed, and Patricia's background check went smoothly. When the reports were handed in to Bruno Valentino, he asked, "How did she learn so much about computers with a GED diploma, from high school."

"Sir, you will notice that she got her GED, when she was thirteen. She had a terrible home life. She had an abusive, drunk of a father, who was killed in an automobile accident, when she was ten years old. Her mother was a junkie, and instead of feeding Patricia, she fed her habit. If it were not for the neighbors, the child would have died. The mother finally overdosed, leaving Patricia in the care of the state. All her relatives were in Italy, and had not been in contact with her parents for years. They did not want her. She lucked out, and got a foster family that was good to her. They had a computer, and books about computers. It turned out that she has a near photographic memory. She read those manuals from cover to cover. When she finished one, the family would go to the library, and get her another one. When the library ran out of technical manuals, they sent out for college and professional literature on computers. She started writing computer programs, when she was twelve. The state gave her the GED when she was thirteen, because she was too far advanced to stay in high school. She did not want to go to college; she wanted to learn about computers. She thought the best way to learn about computers was to work with them every day, and night; and that is what she has been doing since.

The first social event she went to this year was Stephano's welcome home party. She received her invitation at the last minute, and did not want to cause any friction between the families, by not showing up. She had to buy a dress, and shoes, because she did not have anything appropriate to wear to the party. She had to put it on a credit card, because she could not afford to pay cash.

Bruno Valentino was impressed by the young woman's code of honor. He was also impressed that she would buy something she could not afford to come to a party that she was invited to at the last minute. He would give this young woman a chance to see if she was as good with computers as she said she was. If it was true, he may change his mind about Stephano marrying her. Time would tell, and he would have Stephano set up a test, after the new computers were installed.