Fake

by C. L. Stone

  I looked at Brandon who nodded curtly; he agreed with this.

  I nodded from behind the couch. For now, lay low and wait. Seemed everyone on our team was aware who was in the room now. We’d have to trust each other to get out of this.

  Brandon closed his eyes. He did nothing. I wondered if he had passed out sitting up. I was peeling my eyes open every couple of seconds. I was fighting sleep, too.

  He’d fought to slow them down when I asked, getting beaten in the process. I could have kissed him then for being one of the bravest guys I’d ever known.

  Doyle stared at the two monitors. He tapped at the screen. “A pop-up keyboard? What is this shit? The man can’t afford a proper keyboard?”

  “This new technology is a bitch,” Mr. Murdock said. “Just do your job.”

  Doyle groaned, but focused on the screen. He stabbed at it with his fingers as he worked. “I need a cigarette.”

  “Please hurry,” Alice said. “And no smoking.”

  “It’s not like this is rocket science. That shit is easy to read. This is code. It’s going to take a minute.”

  “Will it take a shorter or longer amount of time with a bullet in your leg?” Eddie asked.

  “Longer,” Doyle said, although he was still reading the screen. “Because I’d be in pain, and I don’t like that.”

  “What if we shot your friend?” Eddie asked, motioning to Blake. “Would that motivate you?”

  “Shoot him,” Doyle said. “I don’t like his hair. It’s too shiny.”

  Blake groaned softly.

  Doyle continued to study the computer and occasionally made comments, usually complaining that the code was crap.

  I glanced up at Raven, who was hanging up there. He was pretty exposed. With everyone lounging around, one of the guards might spot him.

  Suddenly, there was a sound downstairs.

  “Hello?” someone called. “Honey? Alice? You home?

  Ethan. My eyes widened, I looked up at Raven.

  He gave me a thumbs up.

  There was a thunder of footsteps on the stairs. Mr. Murdock went to the panel, putting the computer back into the floor. Mack Truck and the other goon repositioned themselves, guns drawn but behind the wall in the middle, on the other side of the door. The dragged Brandon with them.

  “Everyone else stay calm,” Alice said. “Hide your guns and try to smile. I’ll take care of him.”

  The other guards that were exposed put their guns at their sides, sitting down on the sofas.

  In came Ethan Murdock, followed closed by a dressed-up man behind him, and on Ethan’s other side so I couldn’t see who he was.

  Ethan spotted his father, Alice, and then Eddie. He looked at everyone on the sofa. “Who’s here? Leftovers from the party?” He turned to his dad and beamed. “Dad! You made it. I thought you were in Brazil.”

  “Change of plans,” Mr. Murdock said. “The wedding and all. I came up to check out the observatory. I wouldn’t have decorated it this way, but there’s no accounting for taste.”

  Doyle on the couch still, picked up his head. “Are there leftovers from this party? I don’t suppose I could get a whiskey. You know, something expensive and obviously disgusting but gets you drunk faster.”

  “Is this your relative?” Ethan asked. He turned to Alice. “Alice. Sweetie. Are you okay? Did they wake you? I thought I left you sleeping.”

  I cringed, and made a face. I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea.

  “Ethan,” Mr. Murdock said, standing. He held out his hands. “He’s got a good idea. I need a drink, too.”

  Ethan shrugged, but his eyes were on his wife. “Do you want to join us? We could all go downstairs.”

  Raven caught my attention by waving and then made a motion with his hand, pointing to the guy that had come in with Ethan.

  I couldn’t see without leaning over more. I waited until I was sure no one was paying attention and then leaned further.

  His hair was slicked back, and his face was freshly shaven, but once I saw his face, I realized it was Avery. He wore a dark suit coat and slacks like the others.

  Alice and Eddie looked at him, but since he came in with Ethan, I supposed they couldn’t very well ask who he was when they had several of their own goons in the room. They seemed to dismiss him, maybe assuming he was a friend of Ethan’s, another party guest.

  My head snapped up to Raven. Avery. What about him?

  Raven looked confused, shook his head and gave me a thumbs up.

  I couldn’t focus on him for too long since I was afraid one of the others would catch me. I sank back and when I was hidden, I looked up again. Raven was giving Avery another thumbs up. Then he pointed to me, to Alice and then to me again. He gave me a thumbs down. He did it again.

  I was getting frustrated. I didn’t know what he meant.

  Avery wasn’t moving or talking. He stood beside Ethan, still, like an assistant or driver. He was waiting for something to happen.

  I groaned inwardly. I was going to have to tackle someone. I was so tired. My head was spinning. Why couldn’t Blake do it?

  Blake, however, had his sights on Eddie and then the guard.

  As quiet as a spider, Raven made his way across the rafters to hover right over where Mack Truck was.

  “Do you still want to see the sunrise?” Ethan asked his father, and then looked at Alice. “Should we make some coffee for our guests? The sun coming up over the ocean is beautiful. We should grab some breakfast downstairs and bring it up here.”

  The guard next to Blake started to shift.

  “Easy,” Blake whispered. “Everyone just hold back.”

  The man next to him muttered something in German.

  Mr. Murdock sliced his hand through the air. “Enough.” He grabbed his son’s shoulder and directed him to the stairs. “Why don’t you and I go downstairs and grab this coffee. We’ll come back up in a minute.”

  “Sure,” Ethan said. He looked at Alice. “Alice? Want to come along?”

  He was trying to get his dad and Alice downstairs. Either there was a trap set for them, or Ethan was trying to get Alice out before something big happened. I had a sinking feeling maybe he still believed his wife was innocent.

  Alice held up her hand. “I’ll stay up here and keep our guests company.” She winked and smiled at him.

  “It might take more than two of us to carry it all upstairs.”

  Alice turned to the guard that was near Blake. The guard stood, keeping his gun behind his back. “He’ll help,” Alice said. “Won’t you, Cousin Jim?”

  The corner of Ethan’s mouth dipped but he recovered it quickly.

  But if Axel and Marc were downstairs… maybe the plan could be to get people downstairs one at a time, even if it were the guards or Alice. If we couldn’t get hostages out, we could at least reduce the number of bad guys in the room.

  Alice did approach Ethan and gave him a kiss. Then she hugged Mr. Murdock. “It’s great to have a sweet father-in-law.”

  Alice’s movements seemed stiff while Mr. Murdock grunted.

  And then I caught Alice’s hand as she slipped something into his pocket. She patted at it once and then released him.

  It had looked like a prescription bottle. The poison. She passed it to Mr. Murdock, either to hang on to, or Ethan was about to get a dose.

  Once Ethan had started to head down the stairs with Mr. Murdock and the extra guard, Alice closed the door. She pushed a series of buttons on the panel and the desk started to rise again. She turned to Eddie. “He doesn’t suspect.”

  “Not yet,” Eddie said. “But we should hurry.”

  “His father will keep him contained,” Alice said. “But you’re right. If we get this done now, we can go downstairs.” She turned to Brandon and Doyle, but addressed everyone. “Keep calm, gentlemen. We’ll get out of this unscathed yet. Just deliver what you promised.”

  Ethan hadn’t seemed bothered with Eddie being there. He might have been around before now
. As a friend of Alice’s no doubt. That meant they’d been working together for a while. And with Alice marrying Ethan, she had a chance to take her time with getting into the core

  So why did the game change? Why suddenly kidnap everyone? My head felt hot and I was sucking in air slowly, fighting my need to simply ay on the floor and sleep. Plain and simple, Alice and Eddie had manipulated us. Hate burned in my heart at being duped. I was angry for Ethan, who seemed innocent, for falling into their little trap.

  I looked up, seeking out Avery, but he was gone. Had he left with Ethan?

  Eddie came over to Doyle. “Are you done yet?”

  Doyle shrugged. “I got distracted. Hard to focus with everyone coming and going.”

  “Look,” Eddie said. “Just get rid of the security packet. That’s all we need.”

  “I know,” Doyle said. He tapped at the monitor. “It’s a real pain in the ass. Tell me about it. I’m looking at it right now. It’s not like pushing a button. You have to pull the code from the core without it flipping out and shutting down. It’s like brain surgery…hence why I was asking for the whiskey.”

  I was watching, waiting, when I spotted Avery slinking along the far side, going around the center walls that hid the stairwell. Avery low, ducked behind a couch.

  I kept an eye on him. He was circling behind Mack Truck and one of the other goons. There were still plenty of people with guns up here, even if two people were downstairs now, hopefully getting taken out by Axel or Marc.

  What now?

  Raven signaled to me. Giving me a thumb’s up. We were good to go. I didn’t know what he wanted at first, but he then pointed to Doyle and gave me another thumbs up and then a slice across the throat. He wanted Doyle to stop.

  Blake was alone on the couch right now. I reached up quietly, and eased my hand on the back of his neck. I wrote my name on his skin.

  Blake stayed perfectly still. If he knew I was behind him, he wasn’t going to give my position away.

  I released him. While Alice and Eddie were busy, I inched up as close as I dared to the back of his head and whispered.

  “Tell Doyle to fail. Now.”

  Blake coughed, looking at Doyle.

  Doyle ignored him, looking at the screen.

  Alice and Eddie were talking quietly to each other. I sank back as Mack Truck started to circle the room, moving closer to Blake, gun raised. They stayed out of line of sight of the door though. Apparently they were expecting Ethan to possibly come back and wanted to hide again just in case.

  Raven above kept quiet and moved, staying above wherever Mack Truck was.

  Blake coughed again.

  Doyle slid a look to him. “Do you need a drop? Because I don’t have one.”

  Blake made a face and then winked. I only caught his cheeks bunching, but I took a guess he was signaling to him what we needed.

  Doyle straightened up, tapped several keys, hit the enter key and stood. “Okay,” he said to the group. “I’m done. This is stupid.”

  Eddie and Alice turned. Mack stayed where he was with the gun pointed down, but clearly keeping an eye on Blake now. The other men came around, two with Alice and Eddie, and the other keeping by where they’d stashed Brandon on the other side.

  Avery slipped, silently behind where Doyle had been sitting, staying close.

  Alice and Eddie came over to Doyle to look at what he was doing.

  Doyle showed them a moving screen with lots of code in it. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Well, guess what? Unless we’ve got a magic lamp, there’s a brick wall.”

  Eddie stared at it and then spoke to Alice. “You mean the security packet can’t be dropped?”

  “You want it to keep operating while dropping the encryption?” Doyle asked. “Check this shit out. It’s designed to stop working if the signals can’t be protected. It’s a safety feature built in. The moment I take this out, it’ll stop the service.”

  Alice leaned in, studying the code. “Yes,” she said. She made a kissing face with her mouth. “But look at the volume of calls coming through. Sweet husband, you have been busy. I never knew how many you really sold your service to.”

  “What is it?” Eddie asked. “It’s the data?”

  “Yes,” Alice said. She pointed at the screen. “See that? Lots of it. This is better than I thought.” She stood up. “At least we know it is there.” She turned to Doyle. “So you’re saying you can’t do the rest?”

  “I could puke on it and short it all out,” Doyle said. “Because it’ll be about as effective as anyone reaching in and trying to take out that encryption. Might as well pull the plug.”

  “Not yet,” Alice said. She turned to Brandon. “I bet Corey could help us. Sorry, gentlemen. I’m afraid your services aren’t required after all.”

  Blake stood up. Mack Truck pointed his gun at him, but Blake waved him off. “Hang on a second. We got you this far.”

  “But you didn’t deliver what you promised,” Alice said. She looked once at the guards with guns. “Take them downstairs, put them in a room on the second floor without being seen by anyone on the first floor. Keep them contained.”

  The two gunmen escorted Blake and Doyle to the door. Eddie, Alice, Mack Truck and one more goon were left. They were outnumbered, but with the guns, we couldn’t exactly jump them. At least they were splitting up. I wasn’t sure if Axel and Marc could take on two men with guns in their condition, but hopefully they had backup on the way, if not here already.

  Brandon was alone now as a hostage. He glared at them, hate raging from his eyes.

  “Well,” Alice said. “We’ve got a conundrum, don’t we?”

  “Let’s bring one of his friends upstairs,” Eddie said. “We could shoot him once every time he stops working. I’ll start with the foot and work up.”

  Alice looked at Brandon for the longest time and then shook her head. “No,” she said. “That won’t work. He thinks we won’t keep our promise about letting them go if they only behaved. So we’ll have to find him a little more motivation.”

  “Maybe I should start shooting him in the foot,” Eddie said.

  “He doesn’t really need his foot to work, I suppose,” Alice said. She sighed. “I’m afraid it’s come to this. Use one of the sofa pillows, will you? It’ll keep it quiet and then you can use it to keep the blood contained.”

  Brandon started to shout, squirming, yelling and cursing at them, even with his mouth taped.

  I saw a hand wave and then looked up. Raven was pointing at me, and then at Alice. I was supposed to distract her somehow?

  And then suddenly across the room, Corey snuck around the corner by the door, and opened it, darting past it as people turned around. “Wait,” he said, standing to look like he’d just walked in.

  Damn it. I bit back the urge to yell at him. Raven looked upset. I was supposed to be the one to stand, not Corey. I’d been too late. Corey couldn’t help but get up and protect his brother.

  Guns moved from Brandon to Corey. Corey lifted his hands up in the air. His cerulean eyes fixed on his brother, though he spoke to the others. “Let him go. I’m the one you want.”

  STRUGGLE

  Alice and Eddie did a circle around Corey.

  “It’s his brother,” Eddie said. “It’s a trick. We checked. We’ve got Corey. He’s got the same cuts I gave him the first time we nabbed him from his room.”

  “I’m Corey,” Corey said. “You’ve got Brandon. I’ve been trying to track you all for days.”

  “How do we know you’re him?” Alice asked. “Prove it?”

  “How do you think I found you?” Corey asked. He motioned to Eddie. “I remember you. From the park. I was there with my girlfriend.”

  “No,” Eddie said. He pointed to Brandon. “He was the one I grabbed from the bedroom with the girl. I put a tracker on him and he still had one on when we caught him again. This is Corey.”

  “I followed the encrypted cell phone signal,” Corey said. “I traced it
here. Who else could do that? You didn’t give me much information to go on. Just a name: Randall Jones.”

  Alice stood still for a minute, considering. She tapped a finger against her cheek, and then pointed to Corey. “If you say you’re Corey, you can help us with our little problem, can’t you?”

  “Let my brother go and I’ll help,” he said.

  Alice smiled coyly. “Such a hero,” she said. “But I think it’d be better if we kept your brother here, for now. It seems he’s having trouble walking on his own.”

  “I can make it harder on him,” Eddie said. One of the goons raised his gun toward Brandon’s leg.

  Corey’s eyes widened and he held his hands out. “Hang on. I’m not going to help if you shoot him.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Raven moving above. He quietly shifted, positioning himself above Eddie and Mack Truck.

  Avery had stilled behind the couch that Brandon was still sitting on.

  “What should we do?” Eddie asked Alice.

  “Hmm,” Alice said. “I think we should let this new Corey take a stab at it. I’ll watch him and make sure he doesn’t do anything funny.”

  Corey moved to the core computer. He looked over the information flowing in front of him. “I’m still catching up,” he said. “But I’m guessing you want the security removed?”

  “Without turning off the core and alerting users that the system is down,” Alice said. “We want them to continue using their cell phones.”

  I checked in with Raven. He held a fist out and then spread out his fingers and lowered them. Lay low. The game plan had changed. We’re giving them what they want.

  I was bitter at the idea of letting them escape.

  A wave of dizziness took over me. I clamped a palm over my forehead. Just a little longer.

  Corey looked over the screens. “What’s to say you won’t shoot us both when I’m done?”

  “I have no desire to deal with blood and dead bodies,” Alice said. She looked at Eddie. “But he will if he has to.” She turned back to Corey, her lips puckered and then she spoke. “Give us access to the core, and we all walk away. Ethan gets his home back. I will quietly disappear. Eddie will go home. Everyone will forget about us, or we’ll come after you. Our access to the phone system will go unnoticed. No one else has to get hurt for this.”