The email from Mikkel was blistering. Ariel’s thinly disguised vacation to Nuuk violated an understanding between Mikkel and Ullow, it claimed, and any further transgressions would result in Mikkel requesting that Ariel be removed from the project.
Eoin was dismayed that Mikkel had taken this so poorly. The truth was that Eoin had been baffled from the beginning by Mikkel’s extreme insistence on privacy, and Eoin wanted answers too. It had occurred to him that if he gave curious Ariel a little freedom, it might be a safe way to learn more. Yes, Mikkel would be irritated when he heard about it, but Eoin would push the blame on to Ariel, maintaining harmony by chastising her in front of Mikkel while letting her know later that she’d done nothing wrong. Sort of a little public swat on the butt with no harm done.
That, and a brief apology to Mikkel along the lines of “you know how women are, always sticking their nose into other people’s business” should have sufficed, Eoin thought. It had seemed like a good plan.
The worst of it was that she’d come back with very little information, or at least very little that she was willing to share. Eoin knew that he wasn’t the world’s greatest at reading people, but he did better than others suspected, especially when dealing with those who weren’t all that different from him. Ariel seemed troubled, and her claims to have learned nothing rang incomplete.
Eoin had made the mistake once before of letting his curiosity nudge him into trying to learn more about a secretive client. Two years earlier, Baldur had been every bit as angry at Eoin’s snooping, and had vacillated between demanding that Eoin be sent packing and electing to take Eoin fully into his confidence. Eoin himself had pushed for the latter, and for two years now, Eoin had lived with the consequences of that deal.
It had been a bargain with the devil. If you can keep my secrets, then you can keep my money. Or maybe it was the other way around. At any rate, London had leaned heavily on Eoin to make matters with Baldur work or else. The “or else” sounded pretty unpleasant, so Eoin had been faithfully keeping Baldur’s secrets ever since.
He wondered if Ariel had sold her soul as well, and if so what would be the secrets she would keep. Could Mikkel possibly be doing anything worse than Baldur?
9. Spring Begins
Ariel was curious about most things. Why was the sky blue and what was dirt made of? How did frogs have sex? Why did people have to sleep? She liked quick information, not lengthy explanations, and she had gotten uncommonly good at finding out facts fast, as long as her questions had answers.
Sticky philosophical quandaries interested her less. She didn’t want to talk about the meaning of life. It couldn’t be determined, and that made discussing it just a waste of time. Good time that could be spent enjoying life instead, which she rather thought was the point anyway. However, every once in a while a broader question had an impact on her that could not be ignored.
“Why do people want to make more money than they can spend?” Ariel understood wanting to be rich. No problem. Who wouldn’t like to be well off enough to travel and buy whatever clothes struck your fancy and not have to worry about health and safety the way one did when money was scarce. That made sense. What Ariel didn’t get was wanting to be worth forty million instead of twenty. At some point didn’t all the toys and houses and expensive vacations roll together? Why were men like Mikkel and Baldur and even Cillian hell-bent on taking a perfectly fine fortune and growing it into a bigger one?
She picked up her laptop with a sigh. Somebody out there had to have some worthwhile thoughts on the subject.
It turned out that people did. A few inquiries led her to a well maintained site for discussing affluence that seemed to be asking the same sorts of questions that she was. The screamers appeared to have been politely moved off to the side while those of all opinions who wanted to discuss extreme wealth objectively carried on a reasonable conversation. Ariel began to skim through various threads, and then stopped to learn a little more about the site itself.
Wait a minute. This was maintained by a group called y1, which Ariel was pretty sure was headed by her brother Zane’s friend Toby. If this was Toby’s group, and it looked like it was, then the site was certainly worth more time.
Zane had spent his first three years out of college working for Penthes Pharmaceuticals. Ariel had already discovered that Penthes had been one of the major players in giving Cillian’s dad his start in manufacturing prescription drugs years ago. Ariel decided to search around for comments about Cillian. He was mentioned once or twice in the context of children who didn’t share their parent’s passion for the family business, but that was all. This place didn’t seem much for gossip. Ariel already knew that the McGrane family offered plenty of tasty morsels for those who did enjoy reading about the escapades of the rich, and she was rather glad not to find all of their dirty laundry aired here.
On a whim she typed in Mikkel’s name. Nothing at all came back. Okay, what about Baldur? Whoa. The name Baldur Hákonarson got more than eight-hundred hits. Now this guy got talked about. Ariel began clicking, only to discover that the connections were to conversations being held in parts of the site that were open to members only. Damn.
It looked like Ariel was just going to have to become a card-carrying member of this y1 organization so she could find out more. She searched for the page to join. Yikes. These people wanted her to answer essay questions. A lot of them. There had to be an easier way to get access.
Zane was back in school in Chicago. What time was it there? Late afternoon. He ought to be home from class by now and able to put her in touch with this Toby guy. Surely family members of close friends could join without filling out all that information.
******
Siarnaq had enjoyed the encounter with the American girl more than he had enjoyed anything in a very long time. His people took comfort in the pleasures of sex, using its warmth and joy as a countermeasure against the harshness of their lives. Yet he had never experienced the type of closeness that he had with this stranger, this woman who had an odd variation of a gift so much like his own.
With her skin pressing against his, his sense of vision had merged with hers for a brief time, and he had held an awareness of his own life in a way that he never had before. He saw good times in his own future. He saw the material difference that he could make regarding the habits of his own people. Most comforting of all, he saw that she was right about the probabilities. It was easier to see when one looked at the near term. Nothing was ever for sure. This sunset-haired girl had given him the gift of hope, and now he thanked her every day for it.
But every gift has its curse, as Siarnaq well knew. Along with the joys of knowing came information he would rather not possess. Probable sorrows awaited him, and some of those sorrows involved Ariel. Failure, of him and his people, would remain a possibility no matter how diligent he was or what he did. Worst of all, he had learned while lying in her arms that she somehow knew the man responsible for working so hard to undo the very things that Siarnaq was trying to accomplish.
Not wanting to spoil their time together, Siarnaq had kept quiet to Ariel about his distressing visions of Carl Nygaard, his cousin and his childhood friend. Carl apparently was in the process of forcing the modern world into the very corners of Kalaallit Nunaat that Siarnaq was trying to protect. Why would his better educated cousin, at least part Inuit himself, be hell-bent on secretly putting technology right where it was least needed? It made no sense.
His beautiful new friend had written him to suggest that she might come visit again in a few weeks. She had asked if he would like to see her. Like to see her? He could think of nothing that he would like better. It was true that he also hoped that as he lay next to her he could learn more about what Carl was up to. But if not that, then simply lying next to her would be more than joy enough.
******
Ariel’s brother Zane was happy to pass along Toby’s email address and his phone number in Hawaii, and Ariel looked for a good time to make co
ntact with her brother’s friend who lived ten time zones away from Ireland.
A relaxed and friendly voice greeted her once they finally arranged a time to make a connection. He was having morning coffee; she was having an evening drink.
“You could have gotten access to y1 with just an online request, you know,” he chided. “The membership requirement is in place to keep the discussions civil and intelligent, and I’m willing to assume that any immediate relative of Zane Zeitman can at least manage that.”
“I like to think so,” Ariel laughed. “But I was a little intimidated by all the stuff I had to write. I don’t do essay questions.”
“Well, those are in place so that the existing members can get to know more about you. But they can be waived. Maybe you’ll get inspired to fill out some of it later,” he said. “You do understand that y1 is an online organization that analyzes and discusses the flow of money, right? Why the sudden burning interest in world economic policies? I thought you worked with computers.”
“I do. But I work with computers that handle stock trades. My company provides hardware and software for those involved in high frequency trading. You know, buying and selling the same stocks within milliseconds to capitalize on tiny fluctuations in a stock price. I guess Zane didn’t tell you that I work in that field.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“I know exactly what high frequency trading is. Ariel, I’m not sure that I can let you in after all. At least until I know a lot more about you and where you are coming from. My members count on me and the other moderators to protect their ability to speak safely.”
“I’m certainly not a threat to anybody,” Ariel said, a little surprised at the sudden lack of cooperation from her own brother’s friend.
“Probably not, but there are those in your industry who are. The whole site has been lit up lately with conversations about some perceived threat to the world’s financial stability that many members believe is being created by the very industry in which you work. That’s not to say that those in your industry are all bad people or are all automatically excluded from the discussion boards, but I have to be more careful with those in your field than I would normally be. Trust me, we aren’t one of those paranoid groups that sees danger everywhere, but some of y1 believes that we are looking at some unusually ruthless people who operate in your world.”
Ariel sighed and pushed back.
“I ended up on your website, Toby, because I was doing research on my company’s clients. Three of them in particular. Two of them seem to be of little interest to your members, but the third is a big topic of conversation. I can’t get to the information about Baldur unless I’m a member myself.”
More silence. “Baldur is your client?”
“Is that a bad thing?” Ariel didn’t know how to respond.
“You know, Ariel, I’ve got some business in Europe coming up. If this can wait just a couple of weeks, could we meet and visit in person about this?”
“Of course,” Ariel said. “Let me know when you’re coming. I’ll look forward to learning more then.”
“Yeah,” Toby said. “Me too. In the meantime, could you pretend we didn’t have this conversation?”
Ariel shrugged. “Sure. No problem.”
******
Cillian and Nell were each enjoying a Guinness as they sat in front of a peat fire. Peat, once a fuel burned out of necessity on a cold damp island largely lacking in trees, had now become a trendy way to celebrate Ireland’s roots, as had the stout beers in their hands. The two of them inhaled the faintly oily aroma that smelled of dirt and smoke and something else that no one, not even an Irish poet, has ever been quite able to describe, and they felt at home.
“So, you think this new girl is going to be a problem in any way?” Cillian asked.
“Not intentionally,” Nell said. “She’s bright, she’d as soon do what’s right, and she’s got no allegiances to any of the players in this mess.”
“Eoin should never have asked the London office to send over someone new,” Cillian complained. “He knows that not a single one of his customers wanted one more person poking their nose into things. I’d have complained to him myself if it wouldn’t have been so far out character.”
“I wouldn’t worry about her,” Nell said. “I pretty much gave her your full public bio. She’s totally bought into the part about your strict parents and your wayward sister and your racing horses, and I added a few personal tidbits that I was proud of. Anyway she heard the whole tale told in a light that was highly sympathetic to you.”
“That was a good call,” Cillian said. “How did she respond?”
“Like you’d expect,” Nell assured him. “You are a pretty sympathetic character, Cill. I mean everything I told her is basically true. It’s just not the whole truth. And now that she thinks that she’s heard all the dirt, maybe she won’t go digging any deeper. By the way, Brendan tells me that he’s been working to the same end in the office, and he says the lady believes that he basically designs bells and whistles for you to play with. She thinks it’s a stupid waste of time, but she accepts the situation. I tell you, you don’t have to worry about this one.”
“My concern isn’t her intentions,” Cillian said. “I agree that the young woman has a good heart. I’m worried about how smart and curious she is. She could easily cause us trouble without ever meaning to.” Cillian took a long slow sip of his brew. “We need to consider filling her in on more.”
“Let’s not rush into that decision,” Nell cautioned. “Brendan is doing a great job keeping an eye on her.”
“So are you,” Cillian added. “Some days I just want this all to be over. I want to stop worrying and just go find out where my kids really are and know that they’re okay.”
“I know. That day is going to come for you, too, but as long as your dad and Doyle still have their icy fingers on your fortune, you’ve got to play this game.”
“Preferably without the self-pity,” Cillian chided himself as he finished the last swallow of his beer and stood up. “How about a brisk ride to clear the head.”
“Sure,” Nell said. She always tried to do what she could to keep Cillian’s spirits up.
******
The noise in the barely lit small hallway just inside the front door to Ariel’s apartment building startled her as she came home late from work. It was a man’s cough, a forced sound made to intentionally alert her to his presence. She turned quickly and saw a tall, balding, faintly Scottish-looking man in maybe his late fifties standing in the shadows, holding a white canoe paddle with a yellow top. It looked just like the one her mother kept in her bedroom—her mother’s relic of an outdoor adventure from long ago.
“I’m a friend of your mother’s,” he whispered. “I’ve been in touch with her by telepathy.” He nodded at the canoe paddle. “I brought this to prove it.”
What?
An hour later she and the man named Donald had finished a pot of tea together and Ariel had a throbbing headache. She had let the man into her apartment once he convinced her that he knew her mother well and had in fact been part of an escapade a few years ago that her mother had been involved with in Nigeria. Mrs. Zeitman worked in the oil industry and traveled a lot for her work. Ariel knew that her mom was part professional and part hippie, and she had a lot of odd friends. Accepting that a man claiming to be a telepath was her mom’s buddy wasn’t as difficult as one might think.
Donald’s story had started to cross into the incredible, however, when he informed Ariel earnestly that her own mother had telepathic abilities too and was a member of a larger group of people with strong empathic and even psychic tendencies.
“And mom never told me this because?” a skeptical Ariel had asked, even as she realized how idiotic the question sounded.
“I don’t think your mother ever intended to tell anyone in your family, dear, except for your dad of course.”
“So my dad knows th
at my mom is a telepath and he’s, like, okay with this?”
Donald sighed and smiled a little sadly. “What are his options? Your mother would never have chosen to send me to convey a message like this, I promise you, except that she can’t risk contacting you directly right now and she really needs your help.”
“My mom’s in some kind of trouble?” Ariel was concerned.
“No, she’s fine. Your sister Teddie is in some kind of danger, and your mother needs you to take a trip to India, under the pretense of visiting Teddie for her seventeenth birthday. You need to go at end of this month. Your mother is fairly certain that your family’s communication is being monitored by the people who kidnapped your sister’s friend. What a nasty bit of business, that. So your mum sent me because…”
“Because you’re a telepath and nobody could trace her communications with you,” Ariel finished the sentence for him, and she was pretty sure that was when the headache had started.
By the time Donald left, Ariel had accepted his story. So her own mother had a skill as unusual as Ariel’s own. Maybe that explained why Ariel had always been so cautious around her mother, so careful not to think about the future that she sometimes saw. On some very deep level, hadn’t Ariel always had suspicions that of all people her own mother would somehow to able to “tell”?
She supposed that she had.
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