by Brandt Legg
“Why, what’s wrong? she asked, turning serious.
He filled her in on the basics, telling her just enough to worry her, but not enough to freak her out.
“Go away? No, no, no,” she said. “I’ll call Dobber to keep an extra eye on us. I’m sure nothing will happen.” Dobber was Chief of Police Ray Dobson. Daisy had taught him to drive maybe thirty years earlier. He was a good man, and a fair law enforcement officer, but it would take Rong Lo two seconds to cut him in half, and another five minutes to annihilate the entire Cotati, California police department.
Chase told her he would send a security team down there, but, worried that might take too long, he implored her to leave town. She finally said she’d discuss it with his father later. Chase hoped his dad would return his call first.
Just before the plane started its descent into San Francisco, his older brother called.
“How’d you get my number?” Chase asked, since it was a new phone.
“Mars gave it to me.”
“You talked to Mars?”
“I had to. Mom’s pretty upset after your call.”
“I’m glad she’s upset. This is serious. These people after me already killed a former employee, three of my security people, and a friend trying to help.”
“I don’t understand why you’re not going to the cops or the FBI.”
“These are the kind of people the cops and the FBI can’t help with.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Let’s just say that foreign governments and major corporations are sort of immune to our laws.”
Chase’s older brother, Boone, took after his mother. He’d been a SCUBA diver, skydiver, rock climber, and general adrenaline junkie, since elementary school. He’d started what had become the biggest window-washing outfit in San Francisco while still in college. Chase had worked with him on the outside of the mighty skyscrapers during high school and his first couple of summers home from MIT.
“Have you told Mars about all this?” Boone asked. “I mean, even the stuff you’re not telling Mom and me about?”
“He’s not entirely up-to-date on account of it’s kind of a fluid situation.”
“Tell him.”
“I will, but get Mom and Dad out of Cotati.”
“Mom won’t go, and—”
“I don’t have time to argue about this right now. We’re about to land. You need to just believe me and trust me. Get them out of there. A bleeding man, dying in my arms, told me that my family was in danger. He used his last breaths to plead with me to protect my family from the people trying to kill me. I’m talking about the Chinese secret police here, Boone. Get them out now!”
Thirty
Wen kicked the agent in the ribs three times as she got to her feet. The advanced Kevlar vest had taken the bullet that, otherwise, would have penetrated the middle of her chest. She had stolen the vest before leaving China. It had been a big risk, but being hunted meant risks were now part of her every moment.
As the man lay on the ground groaning, she quickly stripped him of his weapons, phones, and other equipment. More would be coming. She contemplated killing him. It would be the only smart move, but Wen disliked the idea of leaving another body on her trail to freedom. The throwing stars had not hit anything vital, but his neck and face were bleeding heavily. Just to be sure, she broke his gun hand and took his shoes.
By the time Wen made it to the car, she was working on the next plan. It wouldn’t take them long to track her vehicle. She had to get off the island. There was now no chance to catch Chase in Vancouver, and going into the US without papers presented too many risks. The best remaining hope meant she had to get lost in Western Canada.
Rong Lo handed his Diplomatic passport to the customs official in San Francisco, knowing it always eased his entry. This time, however, he was asked to follow another officer to a windowless room that smelled of pine cleaner and printer toner. A supervisor appeared a few minutes later.
“Thank you for your patience, Mr. Cheng,” the supervisor said with a curt smile as he sat behind a long empty table and faced his guest. “We’d like to know what the purpose for your visit to Vancouver was?”
“Wouldn’t that normally be a question for the Canadians to ask?” Rong Lo asked, priding himself on his perfect English.
“Please answer the question.”
Rong Lo stared coolly at the officer, but kept up a smile. “The same purpose for visiting the United States—State business.”
“Of course,” the supervisor said. “Where did you stay while you were in Vancouver?”
“This is somewhat confusing,” Rong Lo said, involuntarily fidgeting with his necktie, wanting to yank it off as a weapon he’d used so often. “I am entering the United States. Why do you continue to ask me questions about Canada?”
“We ask the questions, Mr. Cheng. Please tell us about your stay in Vancouver.”
“I stayed at the Four Seasons. Met with colleagues at the Chinese Consulate, and prepared for a series of meetings I’ll be attending in San Francisco.”
“Regarding?”
“State business,” Rong repeated, annoyed, forcing his fingers to look relaxed.
“And the Consulate in Vancouver will verify this?” the supervisor asked.
“Yes,” Rong replied with glaring eyes, still maintaining his strained smile. “I wish you would call them so I can be on my way.”
“Of course,” the supervisor said. “However, before I make that call, I do have one more question. Did you have any occasion to visit the Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel during your time in Vancouver?” The supervisor never took his eyes from Rong Lo, who didn’t flinch.
“No. I don’t believe the accommodations are equal to the Four Seasons.”
The supervisor continued to stare at Rong Lo for a moment, his expression making it clear that he did not believe him.
“I assume I am free to go,” Rong Lo said. “Or should we call my Embassy in Washington?”
The supervisor could not detain Rong Lo. His orders had been clear—orders that came down through a chain of command from an agency he did not even know existed. But he knew better than to raise questions, even though all his training and instincts told him that this Chinese national was involved in the bloody incident at the Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel. “Thank you, Mr. Cheng. You are not being held. We’ll be in touch.”
Rong Lo knew this peon could do nothing and that no one would ever be in touch—he was untouchable. He maintained his composure, bowed slightly, and said, “Bu zuo busi,” which the officer would discover literally translated to, “Not do, not die,” meaning if you don’t do stupid things, you won’t end up in tragedy.
Dez and Adya huddled in a conference room on an upper floor of the TransAmerica Building gazing out at the dazzling San Francisco skyline at night. Adya’s father’s international finance company occupied half the floor.
“We’ve got to persuade Chase to bring in the authorities,” Dez said, munching on a pecan, maple, bacon burrito wrap left over from his breakfast. “Want one?” he asked, offering a container to Adya.
She shook her head. Normally, Adya loved his cooking, but had no interest in bacon. “Chase is distracted by Wen suddenly surfacing again after all this time. Worst timing. But I agree with him that the government is not going to intercede. The simulations are not conclusive.”
“Actually, they are,” Dez said. “SEER could not be more concrete unless they had already happened.”
“Okay, whatever,” Adya said. “No court is going to interpret your algorithm as evidence.” Sipping a mug of hot tea, her delicate fingers held no rings, but her right forearm dazzled with at least twenty glass and gold bangle bracelets traditional to her culture. She’d grown up comfortable, yet surrounded by poverty, and had long been devoted to Chase’s “Balance” philosophy; not just that all technology should be used for the common good, but that all aspects of life should be in balance—personally and for
society as a whole.
“Because they’re idiots,” Dez said, frustrated that it would be impossible to convince the world of the peril facing humanity. Dez, like Adya, had been attracted to Chase’s ideas because of his upbringing. As an African American, history’s injustices were ingrained in his DNA, leaving him with an acute sense of fairness and a skeptical hope that one day all people, regardless of race, could find balance and live in peace.
Adya poured a cup of tea for him. “Maybe, but without that, and now that Porter is gone . . . it’s just us. Chase knows RAI better than I know myself.”
“Porter told us that TruNeural has done some radical changes. Adding the N alone changes everything we know.”
“I get that, but Chase seems undeterred, so—”
“Chase thinks he can do anything. You know this. He believes he’s a coding god.”
“Isn’t he?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Dez conceded. “Great tea. Still, the feds can do a lot more than us, a lot faster . . .”
“Thanks, my mom’s special brew from the village where she grew up. Can’t get the spices here.” Adya smelled the dark liquid without drinking. “You’re underestimating GlobeTec. They are extremely powerful, and . . . ” She paused, looking again out to the lights on the bay. “GlobeTec is ready for trouble. They proved that with Porter.”
“All the more reason we need help. So we don’t wind up like Porter.”
Thirty-One
Adya held an encrypted conference call with her father, Azim, who was currently in Dubai. She asked him to assist with their attacks on GlobeTec and TruNeural. A secret committee at BE had developed a plan including scandals, economic hits, market manipulation, and governmental regulatory intervention. Azim had incredible connections in all the world financial capitals and on both sides of the law.
Her father listened, but did not commit. She’d send him the digital file and he’d review it later. But she knew he would help them. Family and loyalty were the most important things in his life. It was her next request that she believed would concern him even more.
“Chase must be in serious trouble if you are considering this kind of move,” her father said after listening to her request. Azim Patel, born into modest means in Chandigarh, India, had, through brilliance with numbers and an equally bright personality, managed to build a thirty-million-dollar fortune. He’d known Chase for a long time, and was concerned. Azim spoke five languages, but his expertise was money—raising it, investing it, finding it, moving it, and hiding it. It was the last talent for which Adya needed his assistance.
As the Balance Engineering corporate jet taxied to its private hanger at San Francisco International Airport, Chase was already on the phone with Dez. “Listen, this is out of control, and I can’t be fighting you along with everyone else. We need another week at least!”
“I know you think we have a good plan, and we do,” Dez began. “We have some of the best people building the programs. Not to mention you going after RAI’s core. But we’re just a bunch of ordinary people. I mean, as ordinary as tech geniuses and computer geeks can be.”
“This isn’t funny,” Chase said.
“Of course it isn’t. We need help. The public has to know what’s happening. GlobeTec may be massive and powerful, but against the rest of the world . . . they can’t handle that kind of pressure.”
“Think of the SEER simulations,” Chase said impatiently. “With RAIN, they have the power to do anything.”
“Except we don’t know how far they’ve taken it.”
“That’s my point,” Chase said.
“If Porter had lived, we might know, but counting on the Garbo-three is totally different. Porter had the data, they have to find it, copy it, and then somehow transfer it to us, without getting killed. That could take weeks, maybe months. And after they discovered Porter, you know Sliske increased security by a magnitude of ten.”
“I just need another week,” Chase implored as he stepped off the mobile-stairway and headed toward the waiting BE limousine, where two new security guards, sent by his office, were waiting.
“What can you do in seven days?”
How can this be happening at the same time everything is exploding with Wen? Chase thought. Seven days? I can change the world, save Wen, and . . . if we get the information from the Garbo-three, I can write the AI anecdote that will crash RAIN.
“I can solve this,” Chase answered, desperately trying to keep his voice measured and calm.
“How? With your good looks and charm? We need real help.”
“I can code the damn solution!” Chase snapped, in spite of himself, as he reached the car.
“Not without the Garbo-three pulling off a miracle. The odds are something close to eighty-seven million to one. But if we go to the FBI, they can raid GlobeTec and TruNeural offices and shut them down—”
“Sliske won’t let that happen.” The driver opened the back door to the corporate limousine. “GlobeTec is protected. Without proof, they’ll brush off our claims without even slowing down. And that’s assuming—”
Suddenly, before he could get into the limo, eight armed men in dark suits surrounded Chase and his two bodyguards. In a rapid succession of seamless motions, his people were relieved of their weapons and Chase’s cell phone was taken from his hand.
The IT-Squads had made progress in New York, Seattle, and San Francisco, but Edmonton was still coming up empty. The Hong Kong unit, working a different and more dangerous assignment, were now operating covertly within mainland China. The team in the Netherlands, after locating an Astronaut, were keeping him under close surveillance. The Panama unit was also following their Astronaut. Las Vegas had become mired in a complex and shadowy trail, and Tess was considering sending in another IT-Squad to help them, but first she had to deploy a team to Dubai.
“Wheels up,” the Operational Officer told her, less than twenty-nine minutes after she gave the order. She also put a financial-crime specialist from within the agency on the case. He’d opened hundreds of digital files and was utilizing NSA reverse tracking and real-time intercepts to follow the money.
“Chase, you think you can hide a billion dollars from me?” she muttered out loud while typing notes into her laptop. “You are sadly mistaken.”
Thirty-Two
Luck had always been a friend to Chase, but he wasn’t surprised that it had finally run out. In the past few days, he’d felt it bleeding away, as if everything good and solid in his life was hemorrhaging.
“Let’s go!” one of the men shouted as another gave Chase a shove, urging him to move. Chase, surprisingly, found himself more angry than afraid. His first thought wasn’t wondering how soon before he was dead. Rather, it was his amazement that GlobeTec’s Gestapo had gotten to him before the Chinese secret police. At least he believed these thugs were working for GlobeTec, since even in the dim light he could tell that two of them were African-Americans and the other six were white guys. He was no expert on international intelligence agencies, but he figured that MSS agents would at least be Chinese.
With his hands instinctively raised as half a dozen automatic weapons were pointed at him and his bodyguards, Chase assessed their chances against the team of killers sent to silence him.
One of the men let his weapon hang slack at his side and stepped close to Chase, speaking within inches of his face. “Chase Malone?”
Chase, feeling like he was caught in the scene of a B-movie and likely about to be killed, adopted the attitude of a poorly written action hero. “Who’s asking?” he barked.
The man flashed identification in front of his face, but didn’t hold it there long enough for Chase to see more than a blur of some sort of seal and a photo, which in that light would have been impossible to tell if it was the man even if he’d had longer to look at it.
“I didn’t catch your name,” Chase said defiantly.
The man smiled. “Mr. Malone, you need to come with us.”
“I’d ra
ther not.”
“Did I phrase that as a request? My bad,” the man said sarcastically. “You’re coming with us Malone.”
The cold steel of handcuffs hit Chase’s wrists. The pain surprised him. Was duct tape on his mouth next?
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t able to read your identification. Are you pretending to be some sort of FBI agent or something?” Chase glared at the man as he realized his mouth had gone dry. “Because if you are a federal agent, I’d like my phone back so I can call my attorney.”
“You can decide if you want to talk to a lawyer later,” the man said. “But right now, you’re coming with us.”
A black SUV pulled up. Someone quickly pushed Chase inside.
“Where is my security team?” Chase asked as the vehicle began moving. Four of the suits sat in the back, surrounding him. No one answered his question.
At least they didn’t blindfold me, he thought. If they were MSS, I’d already be dead, left bleeding on the runway like Twag.
Then it dawned on him.
GlobeTec isn’t going to just kill me like they did Porter. Not only am I a well-known public figure, I know stuff—information they need. They’re going to interrogate me first. Intimidate me. Maybe make a deal.
Or throw me off a bridge.
“Where are we going?” He didn’t ask anybody specific, but the only one who’d talked to him thus far was in the front seat, so he aimed his question in that direction.
No response.
A few minutes later, the SUV stopped in front of another plane.
Oh no, they’re going to fly me somewhere. Seattle? New York? Where!?
Strong hands pulled him out of the SUV; not roughly, but not exactly in a friendly manner either. The cuffs made him feel trapped and weak, both unfamiliar sensations to Chase. Fear began to win, but as he grew more scared, anger swelled deep.