“Where is this resource? Is it a man, a woman?”
Wednesday, 10:39 a.m.
It will be a windy morning in Chicago, like so many others at that time between late autumn and early winter.
John Whiley will come out running from the library, covering his neck from the freezing rain sloping sideways, raising the lapels of his sports jacket, and entering the crowd on a main street. A few minutes later, he will return to the alley at the back of the ancient sandstone building, gaining momentum on the three steps that will take him to the secondary entrance from the courtyard, and open the entrance door to the building with his own key.
“Hi, Mrs. Nielson, I went out to rob a bank, write it in the report!” the young researcher will joke, looking into the concierge’s booth at the woman sitting and watching a holographic program. The grumpy concierge will not only have the role of facilitating the entry of the very rare visitors to the building, but also of recording all the movements of guests and the employees of the Spin Off University, to report to the agency. The man will climb the steps cheerfully, stopping to look at the camera, before placing his finger on the entrance bell.
It’s broken again. I’m going to have to report to Professor Borman to send someone to fix it.
Only a couple of seconds later, he will realize that the front door is ajar. He will push through, shrugging his shoulders as he enters the offices.
The dark flying car will stop in the parking silo of the Allerton Hotel. In the driver’s seat will be the man with the leather jacket, and by his side, the German with the raincoat.
“Stay here,” the Vietnamese woman will say, opening the door.
The woman will head to the elevator and go down to the ground floor. Then she will cross the plaza with its manicured gardens and enter the Hotel Hall. She will head to the bar area and sit at the table, in front of the gray-eyed man who, watching her through the news on the holographic projector, will sip a coffee with cream.
The redhead will look at the sea in the distance before answering.
“Our file is extremely poor in information. Male, uncertain age, presumed between thirty-five and forty, first official assignment accomplished as a parachutist mercenary, third African War of Independence, many years ago. He has worked for the leading multinational recycling companies, for at least six governments. He speaks three languages fluently in addition to his native language, which, you will agree, in the age of simultaneous translators, is a note of interest. He has at least twelve eliminations officially attributed to him, but unconfirmed reports give a much higher unofficial number: thirty-seven.”
The two men will look at each other without comment.
“He does not appear to have obtained diplomas or degrees, but he certainly attended the fourteenth course of the Master & Liu for student mercenaries of the Wars of Africa seventeen years ago.” The woman will turn on the mini-projector connected to her holographic personal identifier imbedded in her right forearm. “For a dozen years, he was a contract operative for different services. We know that he uses at least four different identities and has altered international identification systems as many times. We do not know his usual place of residence, assuming he has one, and he loves to work alone. A Middle Eastern report states that his birthplace is in Bohemia. There are no personal ties.”
The man with the tie will whistle. “You mean, we don’t know shit.”
The overweight man will move on the deck chair, leaning towards the woman. “And does this ghost arrive today? Do you think we can have the honor of inviting him to stay for dinner with us?”
The woman will turn off the small projector, looking at the sea.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself? The girl at reception texted me ten minutes ago. He’s already here.”
The redhead will warmly shake the hand of a man who is at least twenty centimeters taller than she is.
“You don’t want me to really call you Mr. Kevin Palmer, do you? I guess you already know my colleagues.”
The elegant man will smile affably. “Of course.” He will sound calm and confident. “By reputation, I mean.”
“We cleaned the sled,” the Vietnamese woman will say, looking at the menu. The stout, middle-aged, well-dressed man will nod his childlike rosy face topped with thin hair, continuing to read the paper with his small, gray, short-sighted eyes. At one time, before the medical evolution in eye care, he would certainly still wear glasses.
“Is the job done?” the man will ask, sipping coffee and continuing to look at her through the transparent quotes of the Hong Kong stock exchange.
The room will be almost empty. At that time in the morning, four tables away, a couple of elderly tourists, probably European, will be having a late breakfast. A young man in green uniform will approach.
“What would the lady like?” the young waiter, dressed in the elegant hotel uniform, will ask, looking at a sheet of orders projected about two spans from his chest.
“A coffee with milk. And one of those slices of cake with a double layer of cream. A generous slice, please,” the Vietnamese woman will respond with a smile.
“Immediately, ma’am.” With his index finger, the waiter will touch the holographic space in front of him, and the order will have already arrived in the kitchens. With a hint of bow, he will move away.
A little girl, probably the elderly couple’s granddaughter, will rush into the café, addressing the two old people in an Eastern European language. They will have her sit with them at the table, with great care and gestures of affection. No other person will be present in the spacious room, illuminated by golden soft lights to make up for the lack of natural brightness on the cold autumn day.
“Good choice, they make some great cakes here. But then you can afford it. I’ll have to limit the sugars, my doctor says,” he will comment, turning off the holographic program, the stock prices disappearing from the perfectly made-up oval of the Vietnamese woman sitting opposite. “Why did you want to see me? Couldn’t we talk to each other on a protected line?”
“There are no more really protected lines.” The woman will take off her fashionable windbreaker. “When did you last check this place?”
The elegant man will shake the hand of the two men getting up from the deck chairs.
“In any case, introductions are not necessary, gentlemen,” he will add. “As someone said, anonymity is a warm blanket in our profession.”
“Do we want to sit down and talk business, then?” the redhead will smile. “I allowed myself to order a drink. It’s the specialty of the place, but if you prefer, I can order something else right away, of course. I think you know the reason for your visit.”
“To answer your first question, ma’am, for this contract, if we come to an agreement, you mean.” The elegant man will mix the drink with the wooden stick, making the ice tinkle in the glass. “Oh, by the way, always try the specialties. Well, I’d say you can call me by my code name, Anna.”
The man with the tie will explode into a short laugh. “Anna!”
“Naturally. One name is worth another. It’s short, symmetrical, written quickly, and pronounced well in several languages. As long as there’s not one already busy with your other ongoing operations.” Palmer will sip the drink.
The overweight man will push his thin hair off his forehead. “As far as I know, we have no other Anna at present.” He will shake his head and smile, taking his drink.
“Well, then that’s decided,” Palmer will murmur. “As to the reason for the visit... this drink is really good... well, let’s say that three operational agents of the Italian services looking for me a few weeks ago passed on as third order news an assault on a van carrying money in the sky of Rome... You were good at spinning an alternative hologram after a few minutes. Had you already predicted failure?”
A couple of guys will run along the shoreline, wearing the jerseys of the local soccer team.
“We always act with foresight,” the man with the leather
tie with grumble.
“We have received precise orders.” The redhead will rest the glass on the wooden coffee table tilted in the sand. “We realize that the goal is, let’s say... unusual. The target worries our client because...”
The man will sip the boiling coffee, looking her in the eye.
“We checked last week; the place is clean. Here we can speak freely. No one can hear us, unless that little girl is a dwarf in disguise.” The man will seem in a good mood. The Vietnamese woman will brush at her trendy jacket, looking for a second at the little girl laughing in her grandmother’s arms.
“Not all the dogs were on the sled,” the woman will suddenly say.
The man’s expression will change. He will start to speak, but then stop, noticing the waiter returning.
“Here you are, ma’am.” The young man will take coffee and a slice of cake from an elegant tray and place them on the table, then walk away.
“The pointer dog?”
“Yes.”
“So, who’s missing?”
Whiley will enter the office. Bach’s music will flood the hallway, coming from the last room at the bottom right. He will enter the room with the lit fireplace, turning right and unfastening his jacket.
“You always break my balls with security and procedures, and then when I’m not there, someone left the door to...”
The woman will be lying on the ground in a dark blood stain.
Whiley will look around, unable to take in the scene. The fireplace will spread a sweet warmth throughout the room. The rain will beat on the colored glass. For a few seconds, he will be unable to look away from the blood on the fine wooden floor. Only then will he notice the holes on the wall above the fireplace. He will turn sharply, heart racing, and look into the front room, through the open door. On the wall, above the desk, a stain of blood and brain matter will drip towards the carpet. Whiley will put a hand over his mouth.
The Vietnamese woman will show the middle-aged man the protected side of a holographic projection, so that the trio of grandparents and the little girl cannot accidentally see it. The screening will show the photos and a detailed report by Whiley. The man will read while the woman tastes the cake.
“Why wasn’t the dog on the sled?”
“It’s not necessary, ma’am,” Palmer will interrupt. “Sometimes I ask where, sometimes when, always how much. But never why. To me, he’s a man like any other.”
For a few moments, no one will comment.
“We’ve decided that action should be taken soon. Our client is in a hurry, you have to do it before…” the overweight man will eventually intervene.
“In a hurry?” the elegant man will interrupt him, laying the glass on the coffee table. “Haste is a bad counselor, they say. I’ll choose the moment.”
“We have studied all the official and unofficial appointments. We have a list of places, security measures, and we’ll provide you with operational cover with an international team,” the man in the tie will say. “Let’s not waste time in preliminary matters. Do you think you can solve this matter, and if so, when? Off the top of your head, how much do you think?”
“Everything can be solved, with time and means.” Palmer will look him in the eye. “I choose the time. How much, seventy-five million. Ten percent upfront.”
“What?” The man with the tie will spit his drink into the sand.
“You’re joking, I hope,” the overweight man will add, clapping his hand on his knee.
“We can’t talk about it, we can’t justify exits of this magnitude, Marta, such a figure can’t be covered, even with our controls,” the man with the tie will nearly shout. “I have already heard from at least three of our best men, and the most expensive does not get to a tenth of that figure, damn it!”
“Stop, stop!” Palmer will exclaim, almost under his breath. “Are you telling me, gentlemen, that you have already informed at least three other people on a subject like this? If you were going to organize a sports team, you could also run an ad. My price is related to confidentiality because this is inversely risk-related, and when confidentiality tends to zero, as in this case, my price increases to infinity. If this is the day of the cheerful amateur, then my price changes, gentlemen.”
The elegant blond man will bend over the coffee table in the sand, put down the glass, and look his interlocutors in the eye.
“There was a signal on his personal display,” the Vietnamese woman will observe. “We do not know why he wasn’t there. Maybe he left it with a colleague, maybe he forgot. We couldn’t wait. Someone from the section might have called, and without answers, they might have become suspicious and sent someone to check.”
The man will tap the white tablecloth with his fingers, lost in thought.
“So far, no one has reported anything. But it could be a matter of minutes.” He will push away his coffee. “Have you cleaned up?”
“As always. No trace, all recordings deleted.”
The man will observe the elderly couple about ten meters away patiently trying to play with the little girl.
“And now what do you plan to do?” he will ask anxiously.
The woman will bite into the cake with an appetite, chewing vigorously. Then, she will clean her lips with the napkin, without any haste.
“When he shows up, tell us.”
The man will look at the woman without breathing. Even indoors, the beat of the violent rain will be heard on the glass, driven by wind gusts. The woman will sip the coffee, then put the cup on the saucer, looking at the napkin.
“We have another problem,” she will say, smoothing it on the table.
Whiley will come out of the bathroom, confused, a hand on his forehead, almost staggering, trying to remember things he learned unwillingly so many years before, thinking that they would never be of use.
In cases among those we’ve seen in this lesson, don’t call the police, but call the emergency line and wait for instructions.
He will be afraid. What if the killer’s still there? He will carefully enter Professor Borman’s office, looking around, as if, absurdly, someone could hide behind the transparent curtains over the windows with their colored glass. The flashing signal lights of a flying car in the distance will curiously move to the last row of colorful tiles.
“The rate has changed,” the blond man will say. “Now my price is one hundred million, in Eurodollars, fifty percent on assignment, paid into a secret encrypted account in a Hong Kong bank. I’ll have a single contact with which I’ll operate exclusively in protected holographic. I’m not going to take orders or get information from anyone, and certainly not from you. I’ll choose the place, the means, and the moment, and I can tell you right now, gentlemen, that I have something a little less explosive in mind, and certainly not in Rome, since the plaza is, how would you say it? Burned.”
The sun will begin to disappear behind the highest cliff on the island. A hydrofoil in the distance will spark for a moment, covered in light, overtaking an old fishing boat just off the harbor. Some seagulls will circle the fishing boat. The beach near the deck chairs will now be deserted, and for hundreds of meters, no humans will be in sight. In the end, the overweight man will speak.
“I don’t think they’re reasonable conditions.”
The elegant man will nod and tap the palms of his hands on his knees, smiling gently.
“In that case, gentlemen,” the elegant man will say, getting up and fastening his jacket, “turn to your usual contacts. But I advise you to prepare something more original next time. I wouldn’t want the insurance on armored vans to go up too much.”
The redhead’s hand will take his wrist.
“Why don’t you finish your drink?” she will say calmly. “Anna.”
Call from a public line if possible.
Whiley will think, Professor Borman was an Army major, the only one on the team to have advanced gun experience. Actually, the only one who could have some logic in a team like that. His university c
areer was more recent history, but in his youth he had attended the military academy, graduated with flying colors, and had also been a military officer in the air force, from which he had been discharged nine years earlier with the rank of major. Several times he had shown him his medals, and especially his own gun, a 44 pulse.
Reason, reason, reason.
Whiley will open the shelf above the bookcase, climb on the platform, and pull out the wooden box with U.S. Air Force insignia. Inside are a pulse gun and a magazine. He will take it in his hand. A red light will appear on the metallic barrel and for a couple of seconds, a long dark sound will disturb the celestial eighteenth-century melody. Whiley will run into the room in front of the meeting room, trying not to look at the corpses again, and in particular, that of the little Chinese woman over the flower vase. He will sit at his desk, sadly looking at his personal identifier.
I didn’t leave it in that position.
He will retrace his steps, sure that he had laid it near the flower vase, on the saucer, wondering why it had not fallen to the floor with the vase. In doubt, he will decide that it is better not to take it, knowing that the easiest way to be tracked will be to keep the personal identifier in his pocket.
Spy satellites can detect movement of an object by a couple of meters.
Given what happened, this is more than a probability.
If the object were already under observation, it would be reported within a matter of minutes.
I have to do it with a file next to Borman’s hand.
He will run to the bathroom.
Let’s hope it’s there.
Trying not to look at the corpse and the distorted bent leg, he will rummage through the pockets.
Futura: Parallel Universes. Book 1 Page 6