“Software don’t buy me a beer when my guys are working Christmas,” S grumbled. “So who’s handling the dispatch for the chemical shipment tonight? That stuff is volatile. If my guys don’t have the hazmat clearance code signed by a certified officer…”
“That would be Travis,” I said. “Or maybe Crystal. She vibrates on a high frequency, S. I’m sure she can vibrate the hazmat paperwork through.”
“Yeah. I know,” S said. “I ain’t risking my guys. If you ain’t signing off, the trucks don’t roll. Clause 7B, right?”
“Clause 7B,” I confirmed. “Strict adherence to safety protocols.”
“You got it, Jude. Trucks are parking. Enjoy your day off.”
The line went dead.
I smiled. One domino down.
I started the car and drove out of the lot. As I turned onto the main road, I passed a line of Arcadia trucks heading inbound.
They looked so impressive, those big blue cabs with the silver logo. The drivers had no idea that in about an hour their fuel cards were going to get declined because the fleet management vendor, Bob from FleetCorps, whom I sent a Christmas card to every year, was about to read my email.
I didn’t go home. I couldn’t sit in my apartment and stare at the walls. I needed a command post.
I drove to The Depot, a greasy-spoon diner about three miles away. It was a trucker joint. Vinyl booths patched with duct tape, coffee that tasted like battery acid, and eggs that were cooked in grease older than Travis.
It was perfect.
I walked in. The waitress, Marge, nodded at me. She knew me. I’d spent many late nights here waiting for drivers to show up.
“Coffee, hon?” Marge asked.
“Keep the pot, Marge, and give me the Wi-Fi password again.”
I set up my laptop on the sticky table. My phone started buzzing again and again and again.
Incoming call: Swift Logistics Dispatch. Incoming call: Newark Customs Broker. Incoming call: Travis Henderson, work.
I stared at Travis’s name dancing on the screen. I let it ring. He called again immediately. I let it ring again.
I took a sip of the battery-acid coffee. It tasted like freedom.
I opened a new tab on my browser. I wasn’t done yet.
I had notified the vendors. Now I needed to notify the competitors, but not yet. That was too aggressive.
First, I needed to let Travis sweat. I needed him to feel the silence of the phones not ringing in his office and the chaos of the phones ringing in everyone else’s.
I looked at the clock. 10:45 a.m.
At 11:00 a.m., the daily cross-dock status meeting was scheduled to happen. Usually, I ran it. I would tell the warehouse managers which trucks were late, which bays were open, and which orders were priority.
Today, Crystal would be running it.
I imagined Crystal standing in front of a room full of grizzled warehouse foremen, holding her clipboard, trying to explain why half the inbound fleet was parked on the side of the highway, and why the customs brokers were demanding to speak to a Judy.
“Sorry, guys,” I whispered to the empty diner booth. “The frequency is about to get real low.”
Then a text message popped up, not from a vendor, from Linda, the payroll manager. She was a good egg. Quiet, religious, baked excellent brownies.
Linda: Judy OMG, are you gone? Travis is screaming in the hallway. He says you sabotaged the server. He can’t access the vendor portal.
I chuckled.
I didn’t sabotage anything. I just had the two-factor authentication code sent to my personal cell phone because IT, which was outsourced to a cheap firm in a generic overseas location, had set it up that way five years ago and never changed it.
I texted back: I didn’t touch the server, Linda. But tell him the 2FA code expires in 60 seconds. He might want to hurry.
I didn’t send him the code. I just took a bite of my toast.
The war had begun, and I had the high ground.
The diner was filling up with the lunch rush. Drivers, construction workers, guys with names like Mac and Bud wearing neon vests.
It was a symphony of clattering plates and blue-collar gossip. In the middle of it, I was the conductor of a silent orchestra of disaster.
My laptop screen was a dashboard of my own making. I had a tracking site open, publicly available, by the way, monitoring the movements of Arcadia’s fleet.
Red dots were appearing on the map. A red dot meant a truck was stationary for more than 30 minutes.
There was a cluster of red dots forming outside Chicago. That would be the Midwest distribution hub.
The gate codes for the secure yard were changed weekly. I used to text the new codes to the drivers every Monday morning.
Today was Tuesday. We had a security protocol update that required a manual reset. I hadn’t done the reset before I left.
Travis, in his infinite wisdom, probably didn’t even know the gate had a code. He probably thought it opened by magic or the sheer force of his charisma.
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn’t recognize, but the area code was 212, New York.
Text: Miss Miller, this is Davidson, legal counsel for Atlantic Heavy Haul. Our trucks are locked out of the Arcadia yard in Jersey. Your office is unresponsive. Are we in breach or are you?
I typed back: Mr. Davidson, I am no longer with Arcadia. Please refer to clause 7B. I cannot authorize entry. Good luck.
Three minutes later, another red dot appeared on the map in New Jersey.
It was working. The system wasn’t breaking. It was freezing.
It was a safety mechanism, like when the human body goes into shock to preserve the vital organs. The vendors were protecting themselves because the guarantor of their safety, me, was gone.
I ordered a refill on the coffee. Marge poured it with a heavy hand.
“You look like you’re planning a bank heist, sugar,” she said, eyeing my laptop.
“Better, Marge,” I said. “I’m auditing one.”
At 12:30 p.m., my phone rang. It wasn’t Travis this time. It was the frantic, breathless voice of Crystal.
I debated not answering. But curiosity is a vice, and I’m a sinner.