Necessary Pursuit (A Trinity Masters Novel)

by Lila Dubois

  “And there are still too many questions we don’t have answers to,” Sebastian continued. “Including how he found you at that safe house.”

  “We’ll ask him,” Oscar said.

  “Wait, and we’ll question him once we extract you.”

  Oscar glanced at Selene and shook his head. Selene frowned, but then nodded in agreement.

  “There’s one additional piece of information,” Selene said. “He thinks we’re members of the Masters’ Admiralty. He admitted that until he met Langston, he hadn’t known that the Masters’ Admiralty also operated in America.”

  Another long silence, then Sebastian said, “Keep it that way. Don’t offer any information, and whatever he does think about the Masters’ Admiralty, confirm the information as if it’s correct, even if it’s not.”

  “Very well. Is there anything else we should do?” Selene asked.

  “Don’t get close to him. You can’t trust him.” Sebastian paused, then sighed. “And whatever you do, don’t fuck him.”

  Oscar sat up slowly and tried to work the kinks out of his back. He knew sleeping on the pull-out couch was going to suck, but after the beating Luca had taken, he’d agreed with Selene on giving him the bed. Having Selene on the pull-out beside him made it suck a lot less than it would have otherwise.

  Last night, after their phone call to Sebastian, they’d found a jar of spaghetti sauce and some noodles in the kitchen pantry and shared a peaceful dinner, pausing occasionally to check on Luca. It was only after he was asleep that they’d considered maybe he shouldn’t have been allowed to sleep in case of a possible concussion.

  Once dinner was over, they’d cleaned up the kitchen, then pulled out and made the bed with some sheets and a blanket they’d found in a trunk in the corner of the living room. Selene had curled into his arms, put her head on his chest, and fallen asleep within moments.

  He hadn’t been too far behind her, given the fact they’d only gotten a few hours’ sleep the night before.

  He glanced through the remaining front window—outside, the world was white and gray, a blanket of snow on the ground and trees and an overcast sky above.

  He felt Selene’s hand stroke his bare back, and he twisted around, smiling at her sleepy expression, admiring how beautiful her hair looked, tousled on the pillow.

  “This bed is crap.”

  He chuckled and nodded. “Never slept on a pull-out couch that was comfortable. Tonight, if Luca feels better, we’re flipping a coin for the bed.”

  “What time is it?”

  Oscar glanced toward an honest-to-God cuckoo clock that hung on the wall. The damn thing had squawked every hour on the hour, waking him up with the stupid racket from three in the morning on. Prior to that, he’d been too dead to the world to hear it. “Not quite eight. At least the snow stopped.”

  Selene sighed. “For now. Looks like it could start again any minute. There’s at least two feet of snow out there. I doubt, even if it doesn’t start up again, they’ll be able to get us out today.”

  “We could be here a while,” Oscar grumped. “Thank God there’s enough food.” He and Selene had gone through the pantry and taken stock of their stores while investigating dinner possibilities. While there was no fresh food—no milk or eggs or produce—there was enough soup and canned fruit and vegetables and spices. And, mercifully, the freezer had been stocked with quite a bit of frozen meat. He’d found a pound of bacon amongst the chicken and pork chops and steaks and moved it to the refrigerator to fry up for their breakfast this morning.

  Clearly, they’d broken into someone’s weekend cabin. The owners had two distinct interests—farmyard animal decor and hunting. In addition to all the chicken shit, there were three deer heads—Jesus, he hated those things—mounted and hanging on the living room walls. He’d felt their glass eyes on him all fucking night.

  Given this didn’t appear to be someone’s primary residence, at least the worry of anyone actually making their way through the blizzard in an attempt to return home was lifted.

  Oscar scratched his chest as he rose slowly. He’d opted to sleep in just his boxers. None of them had a change of clothes, though he planned to see if there was anything in the bedroom they could pilfer.

  Oscar was just bending over to retrieve his jeans when Luca came in.

  “Buongiorno,” Luca said, before recalling himself. “Uh, good morning.”

  Selene sat up and smiled at the Italian. Oscar was still trying to decide how to feel about the man. The stories he’d heard from his brother of Mina’s torment, the haunted look he’d seen in her eyes when she’d returned to the hotel after her captivity, were still fresh in his mind, but now that he’d learned the reason for Luca’s actions…Oscar couldn’t fault the man for trying to save his sister.

  Of course, it didn’t matter how Oscar felt about it. If Rich and Langston ever got their hands on Luca, there would be no minimizing the beatdown they’d give him.

  “How about some breakfast?” she asked Luca. “We found some bacon last night. Or there is leftover spaghetti, though I hesitate to give it to someone who lives in Italy.”

  Selene obviously didn’t share his reservations about Luca.

  Luca gave her a grateful grin. “Food would be good. I am very hungry.”

  Selene stood up and crossed the room, gently touching Luca’s slightly swollen, bruised cheek. Oscar felt an unexpected tightening in his chest as he watched the compassionate way her fingers caressed Luca’s face. Faith had accused him of being a jealous bastard a time or three thousand during their relationship, and he figured she hadn’t been too far off the mark. Of course, hindsight was twenty-twenty, and Faith, during their “off-again” times, had dated plenty of other men, which always provoked in him the other fault she constantly complained about. His temper.

  None of those anxious, angry feelings were present as he watched Selene with Luca. And he tried to tell himself that was normal because Selene wasn’t his. Not truly. But…fuck…over the course of the past week or so, he couldn’t deny wishing she was. So why wasn’t he jealous of that touch, or of the genuine—shit—desire he saw in Luca’s eyes as he looked at her?

  “Does anything still hurt? Would you like more medicine?” she asked.

  “The pain is tolerable. Thank you for your concern.”

  Oscar pulled on his jeans, but didn’t bother with his shirt. Selene, like him, had shed her jeans, sleeping in just a T-shirt. There wasn’t a shy bone in the woman’s body, her lack of inhibitions one of the things he admired most about her. She was confident and direct.

  “I’m going to fry up some of that bacon we found last night,” Oscar said. He was risking grease splatter on his chest, but he’d rather deal with that than having his one shirt get dirty.

  Luca’s eyes lit up at the mention of food, but he said, “American bacon?”

  “Similar to fried pancetta,” Selene said.

  “I’ve seen it on American TV and movies…”

  Oscar waited. If Luca tried to turn down the bacon the way he had the wine—talking about religious purity—the other man was going to find himself on the receiving end of a proper “Come to Jesus” lecture.

  “…and I’ve always wanted to try it.”

  “Right answer,” Oscar said.

  The three of them made their way to the kitchen, and Oscar rummaged around in the fridge and pantry while Selene and Luca sat at the table.

  They both offered to help, Luca hesitantly mimicking Selene’s offer, but Oscar had waved them off, telling them they’d just get in his way. Pulling the bacon out of the fridge, he placed half a dozen slices in the pan, then opened a can of whole potatoes he planned to turn into hash browns. He’d kill for an onion, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  While he cooked, Selene and Luca had a supervillain conversation while sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee out of novelty chicken cups.

  Oscar tried to remember if any comic book villains had the equivalent of Alfred. It
was odd, because in his family, he was the morally ambiguous one. Walt saved lives, Langston blew shit up, but also built robots to help blow up things safely, and his sister was an artist who used her platform to address social justice issues.

  He wrote programs that could find almost anyone and anything. Data mining wasn’t what most lay people thought of when they heard hacking, but it was infinitely more valuable than being able to send someone a computer virus or steal credit card information from big box stores.

  Maybe this was one of the reasons he objected so strongly to the idea of the Trinity Masters. It was exclusive and secret. The kind of secret that he would never have even known to look for.

  Selene wished they were having this conversation in her office at Cornell, or even better, one of the labs. Either place would have had the tools she wanted, even if that “tool” was as simple as a whiteboard or a full-sized piece of paper. Instead, she was sitting on one end of the couch, which she had converted back from a bed while Oscar dealt with the breakfast dishes.

  The blank backside of a junk-mail envelope was the best she’d been able to come up with for her notes.

  “I want to finish our talk about the bomb.”

  Luca looked uncomfortable. “I’ll tell you what I can.”

  “You’ll tell us everything,” Oscar yelled from the kitchen.

  “I’ll tell you what I can from memory. I do not have every detail memorized.”

  “First,” Selene said, pulling Luca’s attention back. “Where did you learn about nuclear physics and bomb making?”

  Luca shifted in his seat, taking a moment during which he frowned.

  “When I was sixteen, I was switched from a regular secondary school to a…a training program. The Bellator Dei had just been blessed with a new facility, part of which they turned into a school.”

  “A training program that taught a sixteen-year-old how to make bombs?” Selene felt sick at the idea.

  “Fuck.” Oscar popped his head around from the kitchen. “So an extremist terrorist organization, not just a cult.”

  “Terrorist…” Luca looked away.

  Selene cleared her throat. “Next question. Where’s your data? The math to back it all up?” They’d talked through the top-level details while Oscar cooked breakfast, but now it was time to get into the fine-grained details.

  Luca’s lost, remote look faded as he focused on her, his eyes bright and intelligent. “Ah, I did it on a non-networked computer and paper and then threw both away. I knew what I was doing was dangerous, and I didn’t want anyone to find it.”

  “But you had the schematic to build it on your tablet.”

  “I had the schematic for an easily disabled version on my tablet. There is no unaltered version any longer.”

  “Why actually create it?” Oscar asked as he walked out of the kitchen. “Why not just put a bunch of random shit on a piece of paper and tell them you made a bomb.”

  “I wasn’t the only person in that particular training program.”

  “Your work was checked by other members who would have known how to read the schematic,” Selene said.

  “Yes.”

  “But bomb making and nuclear physics are distinctly different. Did they teach you atomic physics? Nuclear weapons training?” she asked.

  Luca shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. She and Oscar shared a glance.

  “Actually, I taught myself,” Luca said slowly.

  “You taught yourself theoretical nuclear physics.”

  “Yes.”

  Selene was hard to surprise but that had done it. “How? I mean, where did you get that kind of information from a very small and regulated academic discipline?”

  “Er…your TED talks,” Luca muttered.

  Beside her, Oscar started to laugh so hard, he began to wheeze. She hit him with a pillow. “Shut up, Oscar.”

  “Super…villain…” He dissolved into gales of laughter.

  It didn’t help that Selene was fairly sure she was blushing.

  “Ignore him. He thinks I’m going to go nuts and become a supervillain.”

  Luca nodded solemnly, then paused, seeming to consider his words before saying. “You would make an excellent villain.”

  She threw the other pillow at Luca.

  When the boys had settled down, she pointed at Luca. “I want to talk specifics. Why neptunium?”

  One by one, she asked Luca the questions that she hadn’t been able to answer for herself when all she’d had to look at was the bomb design. They discussed how and why he’d selected that particular heavy atom. The answer—because it wasn’t as tightly regulated as uranium and plutonium—is what she’d guessed, but it was good to have confirmation.

  The next question was how he’d planned to create a particle accelerator that was both portable and able to generate the needed speed. The answer—responsive nanotech pathways—theoretically sounded possible. However, she would need to investigate more thoroughly as she didn’t know much about nanotech.

  And her final, and most important question. “How did you exponentially increase the output from existing known levels given that amount of base material?”

  Luca talked her through it. They passed the envelope back and forth until both sides were covered in squiggles. Luca was brilliant, and if he’d had a different life, he would be an incredible and innovative scientist, rather than the manager of a small, private forensic explosives lab.

  But, the more they talked, the more she began to suspect that his calculations were, quite simply, wrong.

  Selene frowned down at the envelope. “I don’t think this is possible.”

  “I did the math.” Luca took the paper, looking it over. “I should not have destroyed my original calculations.”

  “Does that mean the bomb doesn’t work?” Oscar asked.

  “I’m certain it will explode, but not, perhaps…” Selene closed her eyes, eliminating the visual stimulation so she could focus on running and re-running the calculations in her head. “I need to get back to my lab.”

  “Blizzard.” Oscar was up and pacing.

  Luca was staring down at their notes. “If I’m wrong, then it doesn’t matter. We can release the plans.” He swallowed hard. “But it also means…”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Oscar warned.

  “We need to know for sure what the bomb output would be. I need someone with access to Pleiades.”

  Oscar whirled around. “We know someone with access to Pleiades?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait, can I get access to Pleiades?”

  “What’s Pleiades?” Luca asked.

  “NASA’s fucking sexy super computer.” Oscar was all but purring.

  Selene was already on the phone. A quick call to Sebastian got her Preston Kim’s number, and ten minutes later she was on the phone with him. He’d done some consulting work with JPL and had contacts at NASA. There were undoubtedly NASA scientists who were members, but Preston had been read in—he knew the situation. She quickly explained, and a second later his husband Lance was also on the phone. She made Luca give her the envelope so she could read the notes.

  Lance was already running first-level simulations and had promised that they wouldn’t even need to involve other people for access to Pleiades. He could access DARPA’s supercomputers, which he declared had double the processing power of Pleiades.

  Oscar, who had been shamelessly eavesdropping, looked like he was going to have a stroke at that particular piece of information, which was not common knowledge, the way Pleiades’ existence was.

  After telling Preston to contact Sebastian in order to get ahold of her, she hung up the phone and shook her head at Oscar.

  “You can’t hack DARPA to find out about the supercomputer.”

  “Can’t or shouldn’t?” he asked.

  “Okay, shouldn’t.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to do it.”

  “Enjoy federal prison.”

  “Fuck that, t
he Grand Master better bail my ass out. The least I should get for having to join this stupid…”

  Selene left Oscar muttering and pacing and went back to Luca in the living room. “Luca?”

  He was still sitting, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. “I hope you are right. What I created was an abomination. I did it because I thought…I thought it might be enough to allow me to free myself and my sister from them. I thought if I could get out, and then give modified plans to the world…”

  “You were thinking small nuclear power plants.” Her colleagues at MIT were working on that too.

  “Yes. I could give, or sell, plans for a stable nuclear energy source in exchange for protection, resources, a…a life.”

  “But first you had to follow orders, build them a bomb, so you built in a flaw.”

  “If I didn’t create it, they would have asked one of the others.”

  “So you made sure you were the one to design the bomb. That way, you could make sure it had an exploitable flaw.”

  “Yes, but…but that doesn’t mean people wouldn’t die.”

  “True.”

  “I am not a good man.” Luca looked so cold and grim that she wanted to hug him.

  “Well, you’ll have to do a bit better than a maybe-bomb if you’re going to be a supervillain like me.”

  That got a small smile out of Luca.

  Oscar, apparently done with his rant, came to sit on the couch. “I have a question.”

  “About the bomb?” Selene asked.

  “No, I’m not stupid and I could follow that conversation. About your sister.”

  Luca stiffened.

  “You said she’s bought into the cult.” Oscar leaned forward.

  “Only because she has not—"

  Oscar held up a hand. “Not judging. But I’m wondering why you think they’ll hurt her to get to you. I mean why would they do that, if she’s loyal?”

  “I don’t know why they do any of the things they do, but I know they will hurt her.”

  “Maybe they’ll just think—” Selene started.