by Brandt Legg
“We’ve had this discussion before,” he deflected. “We should just go back to sleep.”
“It’s an ongoing conversation,” Wen said, taking his hand and rubbing it gently. “It has to be. Our lives are somewhat complicated.”
“We’ve got the MSS after us, multiple corporations have hits out on us, and then the damned shadow people . . . so many people are trying to kill us.”
“We’re still here.” She kissed him.
“Yeah, but we don’t know why the shadow people want us dead. They’re the ones that keep me up. And we don’t even know who they are. That’s the worst of it. At least with the MSS we know why. We know which corporations are dangerous, which ones we’ve interfered with.”
“We’re hours away from finding out about the shadow people,” Wen reminded him.
“You’re assuming that Grimes knows who they are.”
“No, I’m not. But he knows a lot more than we do. Either way, we’re going to get closer after this meeting. We’ll have new information we can get to The Astronaut and input into SEER,” she said, referring to the Search Entire Existence Result program Chase had developed in strict secrecy. It employed advanced photonic quantum information processors and utilized deep learning, AI, quantum algorithms, and virtually every data point in digital existence to predict the future with stunning accuracy. “What we learn in the Caymans will be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for.”
“You’re right,” Chase agreed wearily. “I just get worn down by the running. Now with Tu, it seems so much more is at stake.”
Wen thought about Tu, the DNA-altered boy they had rescued from a Chinese lab when he was only seven. “I feel like a parent, too,” she admitted.
“He’s already been through so much, yet we keep putting ourselves in harm’s way. One day we might not come back. What happens to him then?”
“Dez and Bull would take care of him,” Wen said, referring to Chase’s business partner and his girlfriend, a hacker who also worked with them.
“You never heard back from The Astronaut, did you?”
Wen shook her head. “No. But he’s been working on something really big. It’s taking a lot of his time.”
“For who? WOLF?” The group of revolutionaries, also known simply as “The Cause,” was a point of contention between Chase and Wen.
“He hasn’t said, but it’s definitely not WOLF.”
“Nash could be in trouble,” Chase said, calling The Astronaut by his real name. “He works for some dangerous people.”
“You mean us?”
“No,” he chuckled, kissing her again, “you know what I’m talking about.”
“He’s been working with the Mossad recently, and the Germans,” she replied.
“I’m sure we’ll hear from him this morning. He knows we’re heading to the Caymans to meet Grimes.”
“Yeah.”
“You brought up WOLF,” he said.
“No, you did.” She pulled Chase in for another kiss.
“WOLF seems to be edging more toward the radical.”
“They are still heavily engaged in their cyber-attacks.”
“Sure, but I think they’re doing more assassinations.”
Wen felt differently than Chase concerning this subject. Although she did not enjoy killing, she believed things had gotten to a point in the world that strategic assassination was a far more efficient and safe way to bring about change. “They only remove people who need to be removed.”
“I’m not sure I trust them to decide.” Chase sought more nonviolent ways—exposing people through cyber breaches, compromising situations, even blackmail if necessary, using media as propaganda and a weapon. The Cause was good at producing fake news and manipulating events.
“We don’t really have to go into all the issues with The Cause right now, do we?” Wen asked. “It’s a big day ahead. I’d like to get some sleep.”
“You just don’t want to discuss WOLF because we usually end up arguing about them.”
“Not arguing,” she said. “I don’t remember ever arguing with you.” She winked.
“True.” He kissed her again. “Let’s see if we can get a few more hours of sleep before we go to face the people who’ve been trying to kill us for the past few years.”
“Sweet dreams.”
Eight
Washington DC - April 2nd - 3:06 am - Eastern Time
The monuments and memorials seemed to be protecting The Astronaut. He knew they couldn’t actually be doing anything; his logical mind believed in not much beyond the power of numbers and facts. Yet knowing that Washington DC was going to be destroyed, that every single person within the historic power center was going to die a hideous death, he felt reality bend a little, as if trying to get his mind to accept the imminent tragedy, the proportions and cost of it, changed the way facts were establishing themselves.
If the reflecting pool had just been grass, I might’ve been able to escape that way. But they are funneling me in, trapping me.
He so desperately wanted to warn people, to stop the attack.
Wait, the reflecting pool . . . my watch is waterproof! The watch had been specially modified—it could hold four terabytes of data, and had many other special features. I have to save the watch . . . it will live on and warn them.
When he reached the end of the reflecting pool and could finally turn the corner and cut over to the Lincoln Memorial, he took off the watch. Well concealed by his stride, he moved into a shadow and tossed the precious watch, with its vital data content, into the pool.
Knowing it might be found by the right people, calculating the odds, he decided the chances were good that it would not be discovered by one of his pursuers. Then he heard a chorus of shouts and worried his actions might have been witnessed. Despair overtook him for a moment.
Keep going, he told himself, fighting the urge to go back to the pool to try to save the watch.
The Memorial glowed before him. He revered Abraham Lincoln, the great man who had issued the most famous executive order, known as the “Emancipation Proclamation.” With his signature, he declared that effective on January 1, 1863, more than 3.5 million African American slaves—men, women, and children—would forever after be free.
Lincoln was his last hope.
The Astronaut kept having flashes of memory about August 28, 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in front of a quarter million people.
I have a dream.
Finally, reaching those historical steps, he climbed the marble ledges. I remember reading about tunnels underneath the Lincoln Memorial, he suddenly thought. If I can find those tunnels, I might escape.
“Eighty-seven steps because four scores and seven years . . . ” he whispered as a mantra. “Eighty-seven steps . . . ” He knew the thirty-six columns represented the thirty-six states in America at the time Lincoln saved the union. “Who will save it now?” he asked, at the same time realizing with dread that he was their best chance.
Inside the building, two rows of four Ionic Columns caught his attention. He recalled that each of the giant columns measured fifty feet tall and was five point five feet apart from each other at their base.
More fives and fours . . . there must be a message in these numbers.
He knew these things because numbers were his core language. He saw them everywhere. All the great buildings in Washington had symbolic uses of numbers, and accidental equations occurred from there.
The imposing statue of America’s sixteenth president was elevated on an eleven-foot high pedestal. The statue itself rose another nineteen feet high, but if standing, Lincoln would be twenty-eight feet tall. The Astronaut glanced up at the president, depicted as a warm, yet strong man. The protector of the oppressed. The Astronaut whispered a silent request for help as he passed the base of the statue, now frantically desperate to find a way into the tunnels that might lead him to safety.
However, t
hat last remaining hope faded in a brutal instant as he looked over in horror at the bleeding, unmoving body of a security guard.
Bullets ripped through The Astronaut an instant before he heard the suppressed fire echoing through the marble edifice.
The Astronaut saw his own blood splattered on the polished white marble of Lincoln’s throne. He watched the hard floor come up at him, not realizing that he was falling. The agony of his body being torn apart stole all semblance of logic. The turmoil and terror lasted only seconds, yet seemed like forever. It ended when his head cracked onto the stone floor.
His breathing stopped as all the numbers, colors, angles, and ideas inside his mind ceased to exist. At least on the earthly plane, the man was no more.
Nine
An undisclosed location - April 2nd - 5:02 am - Eastern Time
They waited until five am to call Tolstoy, because there was no reason to wake the often cranky, and always lethal, operative in charge of the mission.
They didn’t know Tolstoy had been awake for almost an hour. Sleep would not be enjoyed until Blackout was done. Tolstoy had been selected to coordinate the mission in the United States for specific talents that few possessed—an ease of killing regardless of whom or how many, great organizational skills, strategic thinking, vision, and a complete disdain for the Americans and capitalism.
“The Astronaut is dead,” the man said once Tolstoy answered.
“When?”
“Little over an hour ago.”
“Confirmation?”
“Yes. I sent you a photo. There is no doubt.”
“Witnesses?”
“No.”
“Did you recover anything?”
“We have his phone.”
“Excellent. Leave it at the usual place.”
“It’s already on the way.”
“And his residence?”
The man, a seasoned killer with nearly two decades of field experience doing covert missions in combat zones around the world, had anticipated the question, but still had not come up with an answer that was not going to bring Tolstoy’s wrath. “We came up empty.”
There was a brief silence. “Do you need a signal fire?”
He didn’t really know what that meant. “No.”
“Apparently you do not understand the scope and importance of this mission. Arguably your failure has become part of the mission that now the rest of us must overcome.”
He decided saying nothing at that point was the best course.
“Are you anatomically incorrect?”
“Excuse me?”
“There is no excuse! Do you understand? There is no excuse.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“I understand.”
“You do not understand! Am I to believe that The Astronaut, who did not know we had located his residence, and did not know he was going to die, did not hide the materials we seek in his home?”
The man frowned to himself. “We ripped the place apart. Six of us covered every inch. There was nothing there. It must be at another location. Perhaps his workplace.”
“And where is that, exactly?”
“We don’t know.”
“No, you don’t, because you are an idiot.”
The man didn’t think he was paid enough to take this kind of abuse, and that’s what he wanted to say to Tolstoy (a few other things as well), but he was actually being paid handsomely, and beyond that, he knew that just one word from Tolstoy and there would be a bullet in his head. As it was, he worried that after whatever it was they were planning—perhaps weeks, months, even years from now—he would be standing in line at a grocery store, sailing on his boat, catching a beer with friends, whatever, and that bullet would come. He’d heard stories of it happening. It was one of the reasons he worked so hard, that all of them did.
Fear.
Tolstoy started speaking again, but he missed the first few words. In his mind, he was running, fighting, desperate for a way out. Yet he only knew the ways of the warrior: honor, fight, survive.
“You need to go back to that apartment. You need to find what I need. This is not a little thing we are doing here. Lives are at stake. The Astronaut was the first casualty, but he is not going to be the last.”
Tolstoy ended the call, greatly relieved that the biggest threat to Blackout had been stopped. Still, until The Astronaut’s data was recovered, there was the potential for disaster.
Pulling up the list, Tolstoy looked over the names—brilliant scientists that, under normal circumstance, they would like to kidnap, but the clock was ticking. They had to die, especially if The Astronaut’s data could be recovered somewhere.
Blackout, Tolstoy thought. A fitting name for the removal of Washington DC. However, officially the “project” was Five-Fours, since the programming had been set for ignition to occur at precisely 4:44 AM ET, on April 4th. That would be the exact moment that Washington would be destroyed, its people erased, and the United States would immediately fall from its place as lone superpower. It might even be consumed by its own ashes.
“Listen to how in English ‘Five-Fours’ sounds like ‘By force,’” Tolstoy whispered to the dark skies. “Yes, by force at Five-Fours . . . I like that. Death is coming.”
Ten
George Town, Grand Cayman - April 2nd - 1:58 pm Eastern Time
Wen looked at her phone. “Still nothing from The Astronaut,” the former MSS agent said, concerned. Her natural ability to detect when something was wrong was seldom off.
“We’re cutting it close,” Chase replied as the private jet descended to Owen Roberts International Airport on Grand Cayman Island. Chase Malone, the thirty year-old billionaire and tech wizard, along with Wen, was still on the run. And he didn’t know why.
He glanced at Wen, a beautiful woman a few years younger than he, waiting for an answer. She looked like a grad student, he thought. No one would guess she was one of the world’s most lethal spies. In intelligence circles, by those aware of her presence, Wen was considered one of the top ten agents in the world. She had been trained by the Chinese MSS to be an efficient killing machine. And she was.
Wen Sung’s fluency in countless accent-free languages, proficiency in numerous martial arts, and abilities with weapons made her a super spy. She could identify guns by sight and sound, was as accurate a marksman the MSS had ever produced, and had saved his life dozens of times. He often wished they could disappear together . . . forever.
The two of them were about to embark on another dangerous mission, and he knew one day, inevitably, their luck would run out. Chase just hoped that day wasn’t today.
Wen, distracted by The Astronaut’s silence, stared out the window, always checking for threats. The two of them constantly wound up in the middle of everything; partially because they wanted to save the world, and partially because they had made many enemies while trying to do so. “We’ll make it,” she said, watching the islands come into view. Grand Cayman, with its visible barrier reef and turquoise waters, beckoned to the beach lover in her. Yet she knew this tropical paradise could instead turn out to be a grand trap. “Anyway, I have a feeling they’ll wait.”
The “they” Chase and Wen were flying to meet were two of the world’s top assassins. The deadly pair had been tracking Chase and Wen for years. Finally, Wen captured one of their would-be killers—Lena Shelby. As snipers went, male or female, Shelby was a legend—at least in the underworld of mercenaries, death merchants, and rogues.
“I hope we don’t regret this,” Chase said, for at least the tenth time.
“Grimes and Shelby are also taking a big risk,” Wen said.
“Not because they like us,” Chase said. “Because they like money.”
Wen shook her head. “I’ve told you. They’re scared.”
“Not of us.”
“No.”
Chase fiddled with his multi-tool. Custom made by the Leatherman company, it was one of the billionaire’s prized posses
sions. For a guy who liked to fix things, it was the Holy Grail of pocket devices. It also helped him think, soothed his nerves. It, or one like it, had gotten him out of many a tight spot. “People like Grimes and Shelby aren’t scared of anything.”
“Wrong,” Wen said. “They know how ruthless their employer is, how brutal, how dangerous, how powerful . . . They realize, just like us, that they may not survive the shadow people.” She noticed Chase’s hand in his pocket and knew he was nervously fiddling with that damned tool. She smiled.
“What?”
“Let me see that thing,” she said softly.
He handed it to her. She pretended to be impressed by all of its gadgets, and told him her favorites.
Like Q in a James Bond movie, he explained each tool. His voice relaxed and his anxiety eased.
She kissed him as she returned his prized possession.
“Shadow people” was the name Chase and Wen had given to the mysterious organization that had unleashed a seemingly never-ending stream of ruthless operatives against them.
“Remember, Shelby and Grimes are the only link we have,” Wen said.
Chase knew. That’s why they’d released Shelby, calculating that they might be able to turn her and Grimes to their side, hoping to finally discover who the persistent pair worked for, desperate to know who was after them and, perhaps even more importantly, learn why.
After parking their rental car, Wen surveyed the concrete park. They were surrounded by low walls, historical plaques, an honor roll of names, busts of great people from Caymans’ past, an unused fountain in the pattern of a navigational compass, and two life-sized bronze seafarers at a ship’s wheel.
“I don’t like it,” she said, standing on the brick, herringbone-patterned ground, framed by a patchwork of polished marble with white decorative rock at the base of Silver Thatch Palms.
Wen glanced at another life sized statue of a young girl carrying a globe in her right hand while her left held her mother’s hand. Its base identified it as “Aspiration.” She looked up at the hotels across the street, white three and four story buildings. One may be an apartment, she thought. Traffic on three sides . . .