Mad Powers (Tapped In)

by Mark Wayne McGinnis

  “I’m sorry, Rob. That’s not an option. I pride myself on living by certain rules. Structure. Life is so much more challenging if a game has parameters. Neither of us can opt out of this one. There’s one more caveat not mentioned in the contract on your lap.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Cassie will put a neat round hole in the head of whoever leaves before the three matches are completed.”

  In the distance I saw a reflection. A gun sight was pointed in our direction.

  “I’m supposed to just take your word on that? That she’ll shoot her own employer?”

  “Her employer will be determined by the signed contract—she comes with the house.”

  Drako lived for the game. Any game. He was telling the truth and had every intention of following through with all aspects of the contract. He also was a far more dangerous man than I had suspected. His reach into the U.S. government was profound. Numerous senators and congressman were in his pocket. I saw no specifics since his attention wasn’t focused there. Also, he, or his associates, had countless active moles hidden within the various covert agencies. True to what he said, information was worth far more than money to Drako. He traded information. That was his business.

  “How will you know if I’m telling the truth?”

  Drako glanced up at the lawyer, who then withdrew from his briefcase a small square device with several long leads hanging from its end. “This is a lie detector. Incredibly accurate—light-years ahead in a technology that is more advanced than anything you might be familiar with.”

  “Looks like you’ve thought of everything. One problem. I know only a few answers, maybe three, to your six questions.”

  The lawyer stepped in closer and placed one of the adhesive leads on my neck—on my carotid artery. He placed another one on my temple. He turned the unit on and handed it to Drako.

  “Which questions do you not have answers to?” Drako asked, keeping his eyes on the device.

  “I know the answer to number one. Number two, I’ll tell you who the highest-level person I know about is; number three, yes, I do know the answer to that one, but I don’t know the answer to numbers four or five; and number six, I could count the number of people I know about on one hand.”

  Drako looked up. “You’re telling the truth.” He reached over and took the documents off my lap. He took back the pen from the lawyer and crossed out several lines of text and initialed where he’d made changes. He passed them to the lawyer who reviewed them and also initialized the changes. The lawyer passed both contract packets back to me.

  I signed the documents, but I had no intention of telling Drako anything more than I already had. I couldn’t care less about owning this monstrosity of a house. In the end, if it meant taking a bullet, then so be it. For now, I’d play some chess.

  “I believe it’s your turn, Rob.”

  Chapter 29

  We played chess. The lawyer stayed—he pulled up a chair and watched us; apparently familiar enough with the game that his expression changed when one of us did something warranting a reaction.

  The last time we played we had multiple games going at once. Now, it was only one game at a time and Drako was impressing the hell out of me. He was the better player in every way. Every way except one—I could read his mind and observe his calculations and his typical five-to-six-moves-ahead strategies in real time. In some ways, this made things more difficult. I was being forced to track these multiple play-scenarios right along with him. Often, his choices, new directions of play, were made split seconds before he repositioned his pieces.

  Halfway into game one, Drako was instigating a double attack, where two or more pieces are attacked in a single move. It was gutsy, and only the best of players could carry it off. What amazed me most about Drako’s playing was its deceptive nature. He would lure me on with what appeared to be a simple misplay on his part, and only by stepping back, sensing the intended trap, a trap set for several moves ahead, was I able to not only anticipate, but also foil, his strategy.

  Game one was almost finished. We both had a mere handful of pieces on the board. There was a sheen of perspiration above Drako’s upper lip. His mind was still moving incredibly fast, but his frustration at my ability to anticipate his moves, his strategies, was evoking inner rage. He suspected I was somehow cheating but saw no possible way that I could be. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I could beat him—even with my ability to read his thoughts.

  I’d come here for a reason, and it was time to bring Drako down. Before I did that, I needed to personally verify that he, in fact, was responsible for the death of Skykora’s family and all the others who died in that sealed shipping container.

  “I don’t know many Slovakians,” I said, “but there is one, who’s also a master chess player. Perhaps you’ve met him—Ladislav Skykora?”

  Drako’s eyes stayed on the board and I knew he had actually heard. Finally, he said, “I know this man. He is not a friend, but we have done business together.”

  Drako was indeed telling the truth. His mind had flashed quickly to a sea freighter—to a metal container stacked full of women and children. He felt no remorse. His mind only calculated the loss of revenue upon discovering all had died. That image was all I needed: confirmation that he was indeed involved, not only in that sordid business, but directly tied, also, in the killing of Skykora’s sister and her young daughter.

  I found his mind was somewhat distracted from that point on—nowhere near his typical level of chess play.

  I finished game one by cornering his king with my knight. It was check and checkmate.

  “Excellent play. I believe, though, I have finally figured out how to beat you,” Drako said. He stood and stretched.

  I repositioned the pieces on the board and spun it around. What I discovered in his mind was startling. He knew, beyond little doubt, that I was reading his thoughts. He had been testing my thought-invasion prowess over the second half of our game. How had I missed it?

  I moved first with a pawn to d4. He surprised me with knight to f6—Indian Defense. I did not perceive it first. He was now playing by sheer instinct—his mental strategies weren’t coming across; all his cognitive thoughts were kept at bay. This level of mental control was a huge hindrance for him, but at his level of play, he could very well still beat me. I moved another pawn out to c4. He followed with a pawn to e6. I moved my knight out to f3, and he followed with his bishop to b4: Entering the Bongo. I had a sinking feeling in my chest. This second game was not boding well for me.

  His plays were much faster now; the game would be over in minutes. After the next four moves each, I was quickly getting creamed.

  “Checkmate,” he said.

  I hadn’t realized his other knight was where it was. I’d been distracted by his over-active queen. I looked over the chessboard at the paltry four pieces I had remaining to his nine. He’d schooled me, and both of us knew how he’d done it.

  “All tied up,” Drako said. Now it was him resetting the board. His expression was passive; a slight smile lingered on his lips. “One more game. I can’t tell you how enjoyable this has been for me, Rob. There is nothing more satisfying than beating a worthy opponent.”

  I simply nodded and tried to mentally prepare myself for our final game. Drako sat down and we commenced playing. Both of us brought out pawns to e4 and e5. Then both our knights went to f3 and c6. Drako’s mind was quiet; I saw no imagery, no emotions … he was a robot.

  As with the second game, Drako was making fast work of me. My chess pieces were collecting at the side of the board twice the rate of his. I was going to lose the game. I had just about resigned myself to that when I tried something new. Since Drako was playing purely by the seat of his pants, with no real thinking going on, I wondered if he would accept my mental suggestions as his own. Looking at the board, my only chance at this point would be for him to move his queen to f3. From there I’d nail him with my bishop. His thoughts were in chess nomenclat
ure mode, so I simply placed the thought of Bf3 into his mind. He moved his bishop to f3 and I quickly took it down. From that point on, evening up the score was only a matter of time. Emotions crept back into his mind: desperation, anger, and finally hopelessness, became self-consuming.

  “Checkmate,” I said, sitting back and watching Drako continue to look at the board.

  I looked out toward the horizon where the last semblance of sunlight reflected off the scope of what was probably a high-powered rifle. I reached out with my mind to the tiny figure stationed there, lying flat on the rocky surface. It was indeed Cassie. She had been watching the match. She knew the rules—and what must transpire, depending on which man was the victor of two of the three games. In her mind, she no longer worked for Drako—she worked for me. Looking through her eyes in real time, I saw the crosshairs of her rifle trained at a point between Drako’s eyebrows.

  I carefully collected my chess pieces, being extra-mindful not to touch the top of the white bishop. That chess piece was covered with Batrachotoxin poison. Thanks to SIFTR resources, a poison I had acquired earlier in the day and meticulously applied to that sole chess piece. A lethal dose to humans of this alkaloid is estimated to be 1 to 2 µg/kg. I’d used this poison before and I didn’t want the effects to occur too rapidly. A very fast-acting lethal dose for a 160-pound man about Drako’s size would be approximately one hundred micrograms, equivalent to the weight of two grains of ordinary table salt. I had adjusted the dose to half that. My guesstimate was Drako had less than two hours to live. There would be no antidote. At least nothing Drako would have access to in the limited time he had remaining on this planet. Soon, Drako’s motor skills would start to falter. Neurons would cease to fire. Most likely, his heart would fail first. Unless this poison was specifically sought during the autopsy, Drako would be pronounced dead from cardiac arrest.

  I stood and walked over to the pool; I then knelt down and dipped my hands in the water. The chlorine would neutralize any effects of the toxin still left on my coated fingers.

  Drako stood. His anger was all consuming. He had never considered any possibility of losing the match. Right now he was looking for a way to countermand the contract. A way to still win. His mind was reeling. Drako’s eyes leveled on the two stacks of paper still lying atop the lawyer’s briefcase. He lunged for them. The sound of a high-velocity bullet ricocheting off a close-by marble pillar, followed by a distant gunfire report, stopped Drako in his tracks. Unsteady on his feet, he sat back down.

  “Chapleau, do you work for my interests in this, as well?” I asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And all this is legal? Binding?”

  “Absolutely. Here, take my card.”

  I pocketed the card. “Good. Have Mr. Cervenka’s personal items cleared out of here within the next few days.”

  “Will do.”

  Drako leaned back on his lounge chair. He seemed to be having some trouble breathing.

  I sat down on the chair opposite him, leaned in, and spoke in a low tone. “I want you to know Ladislav Skykora sends you his special regards. Your actions have caught up with you, Drako. Human trafficking and murder, to name a few. You’ll be dead within ten minutes.”

  Drako tried to move his hands, tried to move his lips. Attempts that failed.

  “No need to speak, Drako. Yes, I can most definitely read your mind.”

  Go to hell, Rob.

  You first, Drako, I answered right back, directly into his mind.

  I stood and turned to face the far off, rocky horizon and gave a quick wave to Cassie. I headed for the exit.

  Chapter 30

  Pippa was en route to Dulles on Calloway’s Gulfstream G550. Although the luxury jet sat sixteen comfortably, there were only a handful of people on board. Pippa sat directly across from Calloway and found him an interesting, and highly intelligent man. Fastidiously dressed in sharply creased suit pants and polished wingtips, he looked just as fresh as he had five hours earlier, in the Beale Hotel. What surprised her most was how much he already knew about her—her life as a child, growing up in Westchester County, New York; her years in college; as well as her time at the CIA—and, most recently, at DHS. Her mind flashed back to the cellar of Hotel Beale and Calloway, standing above them, firing a bullet into Harland’s head. He’d done it with an air of indifference, as if he were buying frozen peas from a supermarket. Pippa needed to remember just how ruthless, how dangerous, and possibly, untrustworthy, this man truly was.

  “Do you own this plane?” Pippa asked.

  “God, no. Charter service. We have a special arrangement,” Calloway answered.

  Pippa, feeling his eyes on her, felt somewhat uncomfortable by his always on intensity. Baltimore moved forward from the back of the cabin and took the seat next to his boss. He leaned in and said something into Calloway’s ear. The older man nodded several times and then raised his eyebrows, as if surprised or impressed by the last thing Baltimore said. Baltimore sat back in his seat and looked out the window.

  “Seems Mr. Chandler has accomplished his directive in Kingman. Remind me to never underestimate that man.” With that, Calloway glanced over to Baltimore and the two exchanged a quick smile.

  Pippa was uncertain what they were referring to but guessed it had something to do with those crazy-mad powers of Chandler’s. If she hadn’t experienced them herself, she wouldn’t have believed such things were possible. Sitting here, on this fifty million dollar jet at thirty thousand feet, conversing with one of the most powerful men on the planet, she was reminded how important it was for Rob’s secret to remain just that—a secret, and one that could never be revealed to men like Calloway.

  “Can you tell me more about the mission we’re being brought in for?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Calloway replied. “You and Chandler will be posing as Pam and David Craft, a recently-married American couple, visiting your relatives in Germany—primarily, your great aunt, Ingrid Krueger.”

  Baltimore passed Pippa a thick file folder.

  “Where in Germany?” she asked. She’d spent several years working out of the U. S. embassy in Berlin and knew a number of locals there. She would be easily recognized.

  Calloway smiled, as if reading her mind. “Not Berlin. You will primarily be working out of Baden-Baden. Are you familiar with that area?”

  Pippa’s eyes widened and she expelled a breath of air. “Europe’s richest of the rich live there. I take it Great Aunt Ingrid is well-heeled?”

  “Yes, quite wealthy.”

  “What’s our directive?”

  “As a visiting couple, you’ll need to quickly merge into local high-society. Specifically, you will become friends with Mr. and Mrs. Goertz. Leon Goertz is one of the wealthiest men in Germany. Only recently have we uncovered his ties to a fanatical neo-Nazi group called the WZZ. They have one purpose: to bring Germany back to its former glory at the height of World War Two—and to become today’s dominant superpower. The group is dedicated to the destruction of both the United States and Russia.”

  “What do they honestly think their group can accomplish?” Pippa asked.

  “Militarily? Not much. But in the financial realm, Leon is a modern-day Caesar. He yields an immense amount of power within Europe’s financial and securities markets. With his early prowess as a savvy investor, and later, as the founding partner of the venture capital group Wolfgang-Klein-Atkins, he now yields powerful influence into Europe’s political and financial infrastructure. Whereas the 1930-40s Nazi regime’s power lay in its military, and in strategically positioning its troops and artillery throughout Western Europe, the WZZ’s modern-day-war machine is invested in targeting financial markets. They’ve already toppled several small Eastern-bloc corporations. We view these takeovers as running real-world experiments—testing their capabilities, first on a small scale,” Calloway explained.

  “They went after other countries’ companies?” Pippa asked.

  “Yes. In essence, that’s
what financial markets are comprised of … powered by—successful, dominant, corporations. They’ll use any number of methodologies, either to take control of, or outright dismantle, any non-German foreign business. If they succeed, one corporation at a time, the WZZ will become the premier financial player on Earth.”

  “To be honest, this sounds like a much bigger assignment than two lone agents will be able to handle. What specifically are we tasked to accomplish?”

  “We’ve discovered that Leon Goertz’s success over the years is more than having a great financial mind. Something he’s kept secret is that his success is actually attributable to a propriety software program—a complex and highly versatile code, with algorithms designed to analyze financial systems like nothing else before. The software program, called Spatz, was originally designed by a German post-grad student named Horris Spatz. Apparently, the code was the basis of his doctoral project. Not only did Leon acquire the code before Horris was able to publish his thesis, Horris went missing over ten years ago. We need to find the single source of this Spatz program within the WZZ … and we need to destroy it.”

  “If we’re American, why would he befriend us? Wouldn’t we be the enemy?”

  “Definitely. But Rob’s cover as an entrepreneur, in the early stages of taking his highly successful company public, will be enticing to Goertz. Rest assured, he will instigate the contact and friendship. He’ll discover Rob’s company is already a major supplier of a new, lightning-fast server system to companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple, to name a few. He’ll see that as a way to make inroads into the largest of the U.S. corporations. He’ll want Rob’s company for himself.”

  “What’s my part in all of this?” Pippa asked.

  “In some ways, bigger than Rob’s. Heidi Goertz, Leon’s wife, is a formidable, upper-class socialite. She has money of her own … family money. We’ve already determined that Leon keeps the code for the Spatz program away from his office. We’re guessing it’s kept under tight security at their Baden-Baden estate. More like a palace. You’ll need to get yourselves invited to their upcoming celebration—a birthday party for Heidi.”