by Matt Rogers
Mary froze. ‘Shit.’
‘Don’t be so shocked. It happens more than you think.’
The condescending tone brought a little of Mary’s fire back, which in hindsight was probably exactly what Alexis wanted. ‘I know exactly how much it happens and why. I’m head of R&D at a company that specialises in the brain chemistry surrounding addiction, specialises in turning those receptors on and off. My shock comes from the fact that by the time it gets to that point, it’s usually irreversible. So whatever you did to my aunt, I can’t thank you enough for it. It would’ve only taken a step toward the tipping point and she’d’ve been just another overdose victim.’
‘Ava did all the work,’ Alexis said. ‘I was only there at the right time. Gave her the push she needed.’
‘And now you’re here.’
‘I am.’
‘This is different to putting a junkie on the right path. This is serious shit.’
‘That wasn’t the only thing I did for your aunt.’
Silence.
Alexis said, ‘If it wasn’t for me she’d be dead.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s for her to tell you, if she wants. I’ve said enough. Now, back to what you said just before. I understand you’re head of R&D, but I was under the impression Vitality+ only pretends to specialise in anything.’
Mary sighed. ‘We were almost there. I swear to fucking God, we were almost there…’
‘So it was promising?’
‘It was better than promising. All the research indicated we were on the cusp of breaking through, of actually getting it to work. And then Heidi ran her mouth before we had a finished product. She got blinded by the fame and fortune and the company became…some monster.’
‘She had an old man beaten to death,’ Alexis said. ‘I hate to break it to you, Mary, but nothing blinded her. She was like that all along. You don’t lose your conscience in an instant.’
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
Alexis’ green eyes were brilliant even in shadow. ‘I’m going to save your life. Like I saved your aunt’s.’
21
Over the course of the evening, Alexis got to know Mary Böhm.
They had a glass of wine each, and they talked. At first Mary was apprehensive. Alexis had come all the way here. Shouldn’t she be permanently on guard?
‘I am,’ Alexis said, cradling her pinot noir. ‘One drink won’t change anything. And they won’t come for you tonight. Trust me. I’ll fix this tomorrow. For now, tell me about you. How you found your way out here. What drew you to Heidi. What she’s like.’
So Mary opened up. It was difficult at first, what with the stranger barrier, and the omnipresent fact that Alexis was here to make an enemy of the head of a billion-dollar corporation, fight back against someone who had the whole world within their grasp. That initially made her clam up, but she let a few details slip and Alexis returned with her own story, where she’d come from and how she’d ended up here in this armchair across from Mary.
Quickly they realised they were very similar people.
Mary had come to SF with a burning desire to challenge herself and put her newly acquired STEM degree to use, and Heidi Waters had sensed that potential. They’d met for coffee at a popular café in Palo Alto and within the hour Heidi had sucked her in, convinced her to join the research and development team. A combination of intensity and persuasive ability had won Mary over, just as it had sold all her fellow employees and most of the board members. Four years ago, Vitality+ was nothing but a pipe dream, but Mary had stayed the course, never quite attuning to the wool Heidi had steadily pulled over her eyes. When she saw the photo of Jack’s body, it all came crashing down, and hindsight had revealed to her all the red flags she’d missed over the years.
Alexis had been about to share the similarities between Mary’s early days in San Francisco and her own past as a paralegal in New York City, but the red flag comment made her stop, switch gears. ‘How could you possibly have missed it all?’
‘I guess I didn’t,’ Mary said, lowering her head. ‘I guess, maybe, I knew subconsciously. That the promises Heidi was making to the media didn’t line up with the product we had, all its flaws and failures. But she was a master manipulator. She still is. There would always be a brilliant excuse, a pivot into something else. “Oh, don’t pay attention to the interviews, Mary. It’s standard procedure for a company offering a minimum viable product. Now, tell me about the imbalance analysis issue.” Stuff like that. Suddenly I’d be talking about the troubleshooting woes, and the interviews would be forgotten. It was like that all the time. She kept me so busy I thought I might implode, and that didn’t give me a whole lot of time to worry about what Heidi was telling people about the company.’
‘But you said subconsciously—’
‘That probably makes me a bad person. There’s no way I can sit here and say I couldn’t have figured out the extent of it. But our brains…they do funny things to keep us sane. I should know. It’s what my company is trying to help with…well, what I thought they were helping with…’
‘You said it’s not a sham.’
‘What Heidi’s telling the public are absolute lies. The product is good, but it’s not what she’s promising. She’s hoping she can fix everything before we go to market.’
‘Can she? Can you?’
‘Not a chance.’
‘There has to come a point when she realises that.’
‘Doubt it,’ Mary said. ‘You haven’t met her.’
‘Did you ever think she seemed capable of…this?’ Alexis asked.
Mary shrugged. ‘She’s clearly capable of it, isn’t she? She’s done it.’
‘I’m wondering if it’s her doing. Or if someone’s pulling her strings.’
Mary masked a laugh. ‘Then you definitely haven’t met her.’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘Heidi Waters has never let anyone pull a single string in her life. Everything she’s doing is calculated and deliberate. I’m sure there’s an endgame, like you said. A point of no return, a point where she realises it’s unsalvageable. I don’t even want to think about what she might do when she gets there. She swindled her way into hundreds of millions of dollars, right at her fingertips. She—’
‘Isn’t it the company’s money?’
‘You don’t understand the control she has. She can get anyone to do what she wants. I don’t know how she does it, but it’s gotten her here, and now I doubt she ever gave a shit about positively impacting people’s lives. So she’s been a witch from the beginning, and now she’s a witch worth nine figures. There’s a hell of a lot you can do with a billion dollars.’
Alexis smiled. ‘There’s a hell of a lot you can do with a gun.’
‘You don’t have one.’
‘I will tomorrow.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘You mentioned you’re getting followed.’
‘Like I said, there was a guy at the café this morning. Eastern European. Scared the shit out of me. I’m not sure if he’s got friends.’
Alexis nodded. ‘He’ll have a gun.’
A long silence.
Mary thought about asking how Alexis intended to make the transfer of ownership, but thought better of it. She was already reeling from everything that had happened the last couple of days. If this mystery woman was offering to help, so be it. Mary didn’t need to know the gritty details. She was as far from a fighter as you could get, and she decided to voice it. ‘I’m not like you. I can’t stomach this. I can’t thank you enough for helping me, but don’t blame me if I cower under the blankets tomorrow while you’re doing your thing.’
Alexis shook her head. ‘You should stay here, yes. But, for future reference, you can stomach anything you choose to. Trust me.’
‘That’s not a choice I can make.’
‘You’d be surprised. I told you where I came from. That was all I was. I wasn’t special. My partner pu
shed me to places I didn’t think it was possible to go, but I made the choice to follow him. At the time it only felt like a small step. And now I’m someone who can interfere with situations like this.’
She paused, letting Mary digest the words.
Alexis said, ‘Who we are is always our choice.’
22
King and Slater touched down at eight a.m. after an uneventful overnight red-eye.
They’d each managed a few hours sleep, so compared to past ops they were practically rejuvenated.
First stop after they put boots on ground and rented a car: the Fillmore District.
The historical stretch of inner-city San Francisco was once the epicentre for jazz, but redevelopment for myriad reasons (most of them controversial) had turned it into a complicated and diverse zone. Parts of it were re-emerging with ample live music and performances, and other parts weren’t. Between the Fill and the nearby Tenderloin, crime and poverty weren’t exactly hard to stumble across.
Alonzo had fed Slater an address on Golden Gate Avenue, a pair of L-shaped tenement housing complexes that the affluent one-percenters from Silicon Valley would cross the street to avoid. King drove the rental car through bumper-to-bumper traffic for nearly forty minutes before they finally completed the journey from the airport. He slotted into an empty parking space across the street from the huge buildings and peered up at them through the windshield. There had to be hundreds of apartments between them.
The Golden State hadn’t lived up to its nickname, not even in summertime. It was hot, humid, and overcast — the worst of both worlds. It would soon rain. The mugginess stifled them.
King said, ‘And we’re supposed to find this guy how?’
‘We’re not,’ Slater said, busy with his phone.
Slater zoomed in on a very recent satellite image Alonzo had acquired using covert government technology. The black-ops community wasn’t aware he still had access to most of the software he’d pioneered in the first place. He’d yet to be shut out from a number of back doors.
Crisper than Google Maps, the satellite feed revealed the colour and shape of each car parked along Golden Gate Avenue. Alonzo had used a program to digitally circle a single vehicle: by the looks of it, a white four-wheel-drive. Slater lifted his gaze and scanned the opposite side of the road. In front of a graffiti mural dedicated to Rosa Parks that took up the entire front wall of a single-storey house, he found the car he was looking for. An old Subara, almost on death’s door.
Time to help it along its trajectory.
Slater pointed it out.
King said, ‘You got this?’
Slater wordlessly stepped out of the car. He waited for a break in traffic, then jogged across and crouched by the front right-hand wheel with a concerned look on his face, faking worry for a ride that wasn’t his. Surreptitiousness would be key. He’d have to do this in front of potentially dozens of witnesses. Just the nature of a job in a major city. In one motion he slipped an open switchblade out of his jacket pocket and, shielding it with his body, he stabbed the tyre twice. Air hissed out in twin bursts. Feigning outrage like he’d stumbled upon the damage instead of inflicting it himself, he quickly rounded the hood and carried out the same action with the other front tyre. Then he stood up to his fullest height, the blade already tucked away. He snarled and stormed back across the street. Got back in the passenger seat and let the act fall away, his face turning blank as King gunned it away, slotting into a narrow gap in traffic.
King said, ‘You think it’ll work?’
Slater checked his watch. ‘He won’t make it on public transport in time. And he won’t get an Uber.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He won’t have room for discretionary spending. It’d cost him everything he would’ve made today.’
‘You’re sure?’
Slater looked pointedly over. ‘You know what coaches get paid.’
It took them thirty minutes to cover the six miles to Hunters Point, but the traffic eased considerably for the last leg of the journey, through industrial zones and towards the naval shipyard. Sleek ride-share vehicles and luxury sedans were replaced by the second-hand pickups of blue-collar workers from the docks. The last of the apartment buildings and family homes receded as they left the edge of Bayview behind, and then it was only warehouses and empty lots and padlocked gates.
Frankie Booth’s MMA gym was a single warehouse on dry and barren land, framed by more undeveloped lots that culminated at the end of the road with the shipyard’s gate. You couldn’t see the water, even though it was only a few hundred feet away, which might’ve been the only appealing part of the commercial property. A huge sign above the front doors read, “COSTA MIXED MARTIAL ARTS” with the subheading, “Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Boxing, Wrestling, Fitness & More.”
King said, ‘Costa?’
‘He’s Frankie Costa here,’ Slater said. ‘Frankie Booth had a rap sheet a mile long. Seems he wanted to leave his domestic-abuse charges in Massachusetts.’
‘So he started in Boston?’
‘I would assume that’s how Griggs found out about him. I’m guessing Frankie knew he’d escaped justice by a hair and decided not to push his luck. Probably had grand dreams of coming out here and living by the beach, continuing his streak of general scumbaggery under a new name. But something changed out here. He probably realised he only had enough coin to train out of this shithole, then desperation set in. I’d say he became something far worse. In Boston he was scum, but I’m not sure if he was a killer. If this really is connected to Vitality+, then Frankie must’ve realised there were criminals in California who needed messages sent, needed people punished. Whether Dwayne found out about him after Boston or not is anyone’s guess.’
‘That’s a lot to assume.’
‘You think I’m wrong?’
King shook his head. ‘We’ll find out anyway.’
‘We always do.’
Slater parked up the back of the lot. There were nearly twenty cars in front of the warehouse. A soft breeze blew up from the ocean, which was still invisible after Slater turned a wide circle on the asphalt. The sounds of feet and fists smacking against pads and bags echoed out through the open doors, mixed in with grunts and shouts of exertion. If the location didn’t scare regular San Fran fitness enthusiasts away, the noise emanating from the warehouse certainly would. This place was for the hardcore. Slater shielded his eyes with one hand and headed for the doors.
King followed suit.
23
Alexis wasn’t about to pretend she was some seasoned operator.
She thanked the gods for delivering appropriate weather as she pulled the hood of Mary’s raincoat over her head. Warm drizzle hissing through thick and humid air was never pleasant, especially not in summertime where expectations betrayed all, but nothing about this was going to be pleasant. She’d be working up a sweat regardless, so why not start early? The heat rippled off her as she took the elevator down to the lobby.
Everything about the way she walked out of the building was coordinated, tactical. If she stared at her feet the whole time there was a chance Mary’s stalkers would be too incompetent, and they might miss her. If she panned her gaze across the street, searching them out, they might notice the slight differences in complexion, skin tone, the contours of her face, and they’d recognise her as an imposter. So she alternated, glancing up and down at the congested traffic and the damp sidewalk, acting as nervous as expected from a civilian whose life was in danger.
Two men stood in the shadow of an overhang across the road.
Watching.
She locked onto them in her peripheral vision but didn’t turn her face to them. She looked past them, winced as if distressed, then hustled along, weaving past pedestrians. She upped her pace. In truth she was almost as nervous as Mary would’ve been. She was ready for that. Exposure to King and Slater’s side of the world had taught her that the fear never truly leaves you. Doesn’t matter how ex
perienced you are. The survival instinct exists for a reason, and it can never be fully suppressed. But there are ways to use stress, control it, and she implemented them now. Let the tight stomach and the racing heart fuel her gait, bring sudden energy to her motion.
She hurried west, walking fast but never allowing herself to jog. Running would make them pounce, maybe even in public. She didn’t know how reckless her pursuers were willing to be. What they’d been ordered to do. She made her way to Benton Street, crossed at a set of lights, and then made a sharp right up off the sidewalk into a secluded stretch of grass. She weaved around a concrete sign reading: Earl R. Carmichael Park.
There wasn’t a witness in sight.
No one in Santa Clara picnicked in the rain.
She avoided the basketball courts and the public bathrooms and walked into a copse of trees opposite the empty tennis courts. A thin creek gurgled in the distance, swollen with rainwater. She took cover next to the largest trunk she could find and busied herself with her phone, hunching over it. Tried her best to look conspiratorial. She kept her back to the street she’d walked up from.
She waited twenty seconds.
Thirty.
No footsteps squelching in wet grass. No one approaching.
She brought the phone to her ear, miming a call.
Instant movement. She sensed it even before she heard the hurried footsteps. Something jostled against a belt, a hard object. She didn’t turn around.
She spoke into the phone. ‘Yeah. I’ll hold.’
It’d be brazen of Mary to attempt anything close to this, and the stalkers would’ve received instructions to stamp out any hint of resistance. Sure enough an urgent male voice said, ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
An Eastern European accent.
Alexis whipped around, her face a mask of shock. Mouth open. She let the phone fall from her hand. It thunked to the grass beside her foot. She locked eyes with the watcher for the first time. He was only an inch taller but he still dwarfed her, his weight considerable under the leather jacket and jeans. His pale head was round, his eyes beady. The size difference carried implications.