Attribution

by Christine Horner

  Out of the news business for several years, Thomas could still spot a tipster like it was yesterday. “You go on ahead. I’ll catch up with you and the girls in a moment.”

  Claire frowned sharply before leaning in with a kiss whispering in his ear, “You’ve been keeping something from me. Whatever it is, make sure you play a damn good game.”

  Feigning interest in the diorama, Thomas smiled at what Claire had said as he waited until the girls were out of sight. She was an extraordinary woman. He was at a loss as to what to do next.

  Seconds later, the man joined him in front of the display. Just as quickly he walked away, tossing a disposable coffee cup into a nearby compost receptacle.

  Thomas hurriedly followed, retrieving the tossed item. Removing the lid, he peered inside. Thomas’s arm jerked when he felt an unexpected hard tap on his shoulder nearly sending the object inside into the air.

  “You’re late.”

  Once again, he refused to sit down.

  “No? Okay, have it your way,” Young said, likewise standing to block the door of the private conference room—his Clubhouse. Frohm MIA, he could do things his way.

  “Your move, Young, hurry up.” Thomas didn’t like the way Young was sizing him up or his passive-aggressive tactics.

  “In a hurry, are we?” he paused enigmatically. “You like liverwurst? Personally, I love it. But there are places where you’d be lucky to get it served on a stick.”

  Thomas knew how to deal with bullies. He’d had one for a boss at one of the TV stations where he once freelanced. Never back down.

  “Come on.” Young tried again, moving in closer. “We know you’re the primary driver behind the Hatchett Report. To paraphrase that incredibly stupid, though other adjectives come to mind, that stupid reporter at the Grand Canyon. What was her name? Ah, Bridgette. You know it was your fault, right?”

  “The video is archived public record if you’re looking for someone to blame.”

  Young’s lips curled into a churlish smile. He’d found the crack in the Hatchett man’s well-crafted façade he sought.

  CHAPTER 47

  Standing before Young, Thomas replayed the double tragedy that had unfolded uncensored during the live broadcast. After the young woman protester had thrown herself under the wheels of the park service truck commandeered by an unknown character, chaos had erupted.

  Enraged, the woman protestor’s male friend had turned in anger on the rookie reporter, shouting and pointing. She’d backed up fearfully all the way to the steel safety rail. Beyond the railing, an 800-foot vertical drop into the canyon.

  “Naïve, ambitious, loose-lipped, releasing the name of the darknet’s illegal rogue news outlet. The one that’s been causing the Global Security Council so much trouble.” Young stepped closer to Thomas.

  Bridgette had begged for her life which had never really been in danger except in her mind. But in a strange twist, she’d climbed the railing to stand on its edge, spreading her arms like angel wings. The crowd began to cheer. Thomas had replayed the scene a thousand times. Was she trying to take destiny into her own hands? Had they been cheering for her act of bravery or hoping she would jump?

  A beam of sunlight had emerged from behind a cloud to illuminate the canyon directly below the woman lost in her private agony. The burst of golden yellow emerging from a moody gray sky against the multicolored layers of rock had been stunning on the media screen, so striking in person the crowd had become silent in reverence.

  Thomas hung his head in his personal hell at the memory. Young was like a mad dog that wouldn’t let go of his bone—Thomas.

  “Poor girl. She didn’t deserve to die like that. But then, life’s not fair. Just when you think you’re doing the right thing.” Young clapped his hands in slow applause. “You were a reporter once, weren’t ‘ya?”

  “Journalist,” Thomas breathed, heart pounding.

  “Right, because there’s a difference. Between right and wrong, I mean.”

  “There’s the truth.”

  “What do you know about truth?”

  Thomas lifted his face to stare into the eyes of his tormentor. “I know the Chinese have a score to settle. Just when the Global Security Council was about to announce the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River as the location of the first WREN installation, a mysterious electromagnetic pulse during a freak thunderstorm fries their computer grid.

  “The compromised dam’s flooding killed thousands. With massive cleanup and the bad P.R., they lost out on the water project bid.”

  “Poor, little, hurt Chinese feelings,” exaggerated Young. “Too bad for them. Good for us. That’s what I mean about truth. Or was that right or wrong? Kinda like truth, it’s so subjective.”

  Initial adrenalin rush decelerating, Young flopped down into a padded conference room chair. “Seems your gift for gab is not going to get us out of here as fast as you like.” He dug out Frohm’s breath mints from his uniform jacket. “Yeah... Too bad about the Chinese. How do you prove a bolt of lightning is not just a bolt of lightning?

  “But that’s not my concern. Here’s my concern, and what you should be concerned about. As if I really need to point it out to you.” Young opened the box, studying its contents, before closing it again. “You are one lucky dude. If your daughter, or whatever, wasn’t so valuable to us, you might be enjoying liverwurst on a stick or that girl’s fate this very second. Just talking hypotheticals, of course.”

  Thomas reached into his pants pocket, peaking Young’s curiosity. He threw an easy slider, the rock skidding to a stop in the center of the conference table. “If I can’t tell the truth, this will.”

  ___

  “Are you coming or not?” Cadence hastily packed, shoving personal items into a small bag.

  Pete noted Zedd was flustered and didn’t know what to do. He took another puff on his cigar, “Leaving when the gettin’s good?”

  “Just following the lady.”

  “Said the devil.” Pete exhaled long and slow.

  “Stop calling me the devil, old man!”

  “Dance with the devil, you become the devil,” Pete exhorted without flinching.

  “Why don’t you go back to your dead old lady!” Zedd picked up Cadence’s sleeping bag, flinging it.

  Truby stepped in to catch the bag just in time. “That’s right. Go home. I don’t need you here.” She threw it back at Zedd—hard.

  Inspecting the tip of his cigar, it was as if Pete was completely unaware he was about to eat a sleeping bag sandwich. “The pitcher is on the mound,” said Pete enigmatically.

  “Pathetic. C’mon, Zedd. Let’s get out of here.”

  Like a flower poking through frost, Rose exploded into camp, soccer ball under one arm, a new friend on the other. It was the teenager who had been bouncing the reincarnated ball off his knee yesterday. Pete eyed the young man warily. Truby just eyed him, noticing both of his arms bore the deformities associated with short-lived home stem cell kits filled with promises of overnight herculean strength and lurking popularity.

  “This is my new friend, Sway. We’re putting a team together.”

  “Truby just sent her team home.” Pete pointed his cigar in Zedd’s direction. “Or was it the other team?”

  “Well, maybe I want to stay,” Zedd stammered. “What about Hector, and Vegas, and—”

  “Rare Earth minerals?” Truby let it hang.

  There was an end game to this, and she was going to find out what it was. It was time to add flame to the fire.

  CHAPTER 48

  2022 :: Stockholm, Sweden — Thomas’s mustache tickled the hairs of his nose. Standing impatiently in the back of the line for his kaffe as instructed, he had an uneasy feeling. Over his shoulder, an artificial tropical bird whistle announced a customer had opened the door to the Whistling Winds Trading Co. But it was the rush of cold air on his back that told him the patron decided to enter five minutes after closing anyway.

  “We closed,” called out the baris
ta in English, though most of the customers looked like Stockholm natives.

  Thomas could hear sounds coming from a body bouncing to loud European discothèque music coming from earbuds. Out of peripheral vision, glowing yellow, pink, then blue light cast a kaleidoscope of color onto anything in the room able to reflect it. Must be that psychedelic clothing with fiber optics the teenagers are wearing now. Add a strobe light, subliminal message, and you could control an entire generation.

  Thomas turned, waving the kid ahead of him. The bleach blonde in sunglasses either didn’t speak hand gestures or purposely ignored him. He wished he could have locked the door behind him when he came in, but that would have been a violation of fire code.

  A couple of satisfied customers left with their hot drinks when the barista had had enough. “Dat’s it, honeys. She’s all out of a good ‘ting. Past ‘de hours anyway.”

  As old as the hills she once lived in, her eyes were still a beautiful deep ocean blue, her skin a rich brown. From her colorful costume and accent, Thomas guessed she was either from the Western or more likely the Eastern Caribbean, on one of those pay-for-citizenship open passports now banned, except she was the real deal.

  “Go on. I see you in da beautiful mornin’, all bright and shiny like dat!”

  A couple of customers shuffled out the door, leaving only Thomas and disco boy.

  The woman’s eyes flashed angrily now. “I said, go on, git!” her hand dismissing them.

  Thomas was confused. He stepped aside to make sure disco boy had also gotten the message. Apparently, the kid really didn’t speak hand gestures. This made steam practically pour out of the barista’s ears. She took off her apron, slamming it on the counter before placing plump hands on her full hips.

  “I tell you someting right now. If you be tinking you two are gonna rob me, you got another ting coming!”

  When nobody moved, she pushed up the sleeves of her frilly red and yellow blouse, preparing for a good old-fashioned rumble. “I have been in dis world for seventy years now. I be happy to take you to meet da devil wit me.”

  It must have been the word ‘devil,’ for the relative newborn threw up his hands defensively, before slowly backing away. The old woman stamped her foot twice making him turn and run.

  Thomas was impressed. Never back down, and neither would he. He boldly walked up to the counter, holding his hands in the air to show he was defenseless, a small object under his thumb in his left palm.

  He lowered his hand, slowly placing the item on the counter. “Barter?”

  “Da currency I deal in is very specific.”

  “Columbian or Honduran?”

  She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, reaching behind the counter.

  “Wait! I surrender! I’ll take your most exotic.”

  She grabbed Thomas’s hands warmly. “Nice to finally meet you in person. Lousy fake mustache. You’d be better off wearing a dress like me.”

  He was just as pleased to meet Obaba. Of course, she was nothing like he’d tried to imagine. “It was short notice. Nice accent, I tink,” quipped Thomas, pulling her in for a warm hug.

  “My grandmother’s. How I remember it anyway.” Obaba locked the front door. “Kaffe?”

  “Since I’m here if you don’t mind.”

  Sitting together at a brightly painted table for two, Obaba held a magnifying glass she wore on a chain around her neck over the unusual rock Thomas had used to barter. “Dis is what the fuss is about?”

  “To China, and the modern world, it’s everything. When China lost the bid for the superstructure, they demanded the Global Security Council broker a deal to get control of U.S. Rare Earth mineral rights since we were no longer mining it. They don’t want to mine on U.S. soil, our environmental restrictions are too tough. They just wanted to make sure we don’t either. We may have sold Manhattan to foreigners, but of course, we refused despite their threat to enact a ban on Rare Earth mineral exports that would shut down our high-tech industry and military.”

  “Yes, I know. China backed down because canceling your trade deal would be too big a blow to their GDP,” said Obaba impatiently waiting for Thomas to get to the good stuff.

  Thomas pulled out a data stick from the inside of his jacket along with his own natural sweetener he added to his drink. “American roast was all you had?”

  “Least popular.” Obaba’s wheels were turning, “You got proof of the sabotage!”

  “I wish.”

  “Mercy me, you got me all excited for nothing. Unless…” Obaba’s eyes twinkled.

  “Unless California’s mine is secretly back in action. Here’s a fun fact. Bundled in one of Congress’s Natural Resources bills is fine print the U.S. government can seize property without restriction if national security is involved.” Thomas handed Obaba his research with a tired sigh. “Satellite images continue to show no activity, though.”

  Thomas knew he was essentially biding his time as enough evidence was built against him before his face was plastered all over Interpol. He dreaded the day he’d tell Claire they were fleeing for their lives in ten seconds and starting over. That day was coming faster than even he realized.

  “Who owns the mine in California now?”

  “I’m still trying to track down corporate filings.”

  Across the street, the last customer of the evening sipped his cappuccino purchased from the Expresso House after being kicked out of the Whistling Winds Trading Co. The night manager said it was cool to hang while he cleaned up. Glancing up from his mop from time to time, the manager was hoping for a special thank you in return for the free stale pastry.

  His patron ignored him, a bouncing head pretending to follow a beat while eavesdropping in on a private conversation. When he’d entered the café across the street, he’d slipped a listening device under a table midway before being nearly woman-handled.

  “What about tracking down da Chinese man who gave you dis?”

  “No trace of him. While we work on it, this is how I want your team to pull the story together.”

  Bringing his smartwatch toward his mouth, “You getting this?” in perfect unaccented English.

  Major Young replied, “Loud and clear. Good Work, Ed. I’ll be in touch.”

  Annoyed, the platinum blonde threw his sunglasses on the café table. “It’s Z, double D. You have my card if—when you need me.”

  Sitting on the corner of an impressive oversized cherry wood desk in a private office, Young ended the call with the new agent that had already gotten the attention of upper management. “Gotta love the C.I.A.”

  General Frohm swung around in his expensive leather chair to face Young, “Hate ‘em. But a necessary evil.” He swung back to face the wall. It meant he was “thinking.” Finally, “Blasted Chinese!”

  “Sir,” Young broached cautiously. “What about...” Young let it hang in the air. He was smart enough to know it always had to be Frohm’s idea. A long silence ensued.

  “Set it up for after Oslo,” Frohm said solemnly.

  “But, sir. He might…”

  Frohm spun around in his chair, “Terrance! Have you no decency?” He regally folded his hands on the desk that had been passed down to him through his family, all honorable military men like himself going back to his civil war era buffalo soldier great-great-great-great grandfather. “Let the man see his child honored,” he said in a quiet voice.

  CHAPTER 49

  2023 :: Oslo, Norway — It was a standing ovation for the radiant twelve-year-old child prodigy in Oslo City Hall. She wore a full-length midnight blue split-panel dress over silk pants with sparkling silver shoes. The sculpted collar was a comet swooping off her left shoulder, lit stars swinging freely from the custom designed ensemble, a gift from her parents. Shoulder length hair sported a newly cut sophisticated graduated pageboy. Hemmy had insisted on the Ganesha elephant that hung from a delicate chain around her neck.

  She displayed her Nobel Peace Prize in its square blue box in front of her heart an
d budding breasts. The strong hands that held it could throw a baseball better than most, like her father. She turned slightly to the left and then to the right as rehearsed to have her picture taken. At peace with who she was, she waved proudly to her cheering family.

  At the far end of the front row, where he insisted they sit, Thomas applauded and cheered the loudest of anyone in Oslo City Hall, and he didn’t care. Tears in his eyes, he loved both his daughters equally. But admittedly he felt a special bond with his eldest. She had experienced what it’s like to give yourself to something you care about with all your heart and soul. In this together more than Hemmy even realized, Thomas both rejoiced and regretted he’d been able to keep it secret from her and was sure it wasn’t without consequence.

  Payton Finley and Starzl, both holding their prizes, were invited to step forward, in line with Hemmy for a group photo op. As the applause continued for all three children, Thomas leaned over to kiss Claire on the top of her head as he waived to Hemmy again. This was her moment.

  A man in uniform stepped in next to Thomas. “I’m sure you’re very proud,” said a mature male voice. “Her legacy is that she has already changed the world for the better. And at such a tender age. Will you be able to say the same?”

  Thomas chose not to glance toward the intruder. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Oh, well... I don’t know about that. Some trees turn rotten and have to be cut down. Nature’s way of removing the bad apples.”

  The ceremony over, aisles began to clear out all except the one blocked on Thomas’s end by the high-ranking officer.

  “She’s a funny one.”

  How did he think Hemmy funny? He relented, turning toward General Frohm quizzically.

  Frohm rocked on his heels like a cliché, his hands behind his back, “Mother Nature, that is. Like a woman, she keeps her valuables hidden. Take, for example, the minerals in the Earth below. So valuable they become the new gold standard. You know the saying, he who controls the gold. Or she. My wife’s a funny one, too. When Prissy and Mother Nature get together, they’re unstoppable. The whole world pays attention.”