d4

by Sherrie Cronin

  “Maybe he’s having buyer’s remorse about talking to you, and he’s having you followed. You could consider filling him in on this odd premonition thing of yours just a little, you know. It might ease his mind if you shared too.”

  “Are you crazy?” Ariel had spent a lifetime guarding her secret well. She was hardly going to start blurting it out to everyone she met just so that they’d trust her.

  “I’m just saying. Confidences exchanged with honesty can go a long way. You could use a friend, and from what I see, so could he. Think about it.”

  ******

  Toby was pleased at the response his study had received, and he was realistic enough to realize that it wasn’t his own reputation or powers of persuasion that were compelling most of the interested parties. Many in the know had been eying the fairly recent phenomenon of high frequency trading with great wariness. Everyone knew that various trading algorithms had caused the flash crash in May 2010 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell a whopping one thousand points in fifteen minutes, forcing a slew of automatically triggered sales before rising back just as quickly. Angry investors who had found themselves selling at a huge loss were still complaining, and still looking for exactly what had set the whole thing in motion. A good many of them suspected HFT was the real culprit. Just last February, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission had formed a special working group of academics and experts to advise them on high frequency trading.

  Meanwhile, although Baldur and his company did their best to maintain a low profile, their unprecedented success was making others nervous. This task force that y1 had instigated spoke to a need in the financial community to police its own, and it looked like preliminary answers would be available to circulate and publish in only a few short weeks. Toby’s cheerful assessment was interrupted by a call from Zane.

  “I’m getting to talk to you a lot lately,” he laughed.

  “Yes, well, if anyone is bothering to check your phone records, you and I certainly are friends,” Zane agreed. “Look, I don’t mind being a verbal courier for you guys, but I have to tell you that some of this stuff is starting to scare me. I talked to my sister last night and she was upset that some guy is planning on amassing most of the globe’s wealth and it sounds like she somehow figures into his plans for world domination. This creep tied her to a massage table and tried to suck away her powers or something. You know about this?”

  “Yeah,” Toby said. “I’m involved. I’m trying to look out for her, Zane, although frankly she’s pretty good at taking care of herself. My Plan A is to bring this guy down quickly, for everyone’s sake.”

  “Can someone actually take over the world?” Zane asked. “I mean, like, the whole world?”

  “You wouldn’t think so,” Toby said dryly, “but then again you wouldn’t think people could alter their appearance or see the future, now, would you?”

  Zane ignored that. “Ariel says that your study has caused a lot of turmoil in her office, and to tell you that she’s posted more information for you on the same secured place online. She also knows more about someone else, another client, who is trying to save humanity from something else bad that has nothing to do with this first guy. How many catastrophes are we talking about here?”

  “I only know of two,” Toby assured him, “and Ariel says not to worry about the second one right now because none of it is happening anytime soon. This must be one of her other clients that she is talking about. Did she say which one?”

  “The real secretive one,” Zane confirmed. “Something about sending people to Mars, and she sent you all the details. I’m to remind you that it’s very private and they are for your background only, and that she’s trusting you. No studies or other actions at all on this one. You sure we’re not all going to die in an asteroid attack next week?”

  Toby chuckled. “No, I’m not sure, but your sister doesn’t seem to think so, and I’ll go with that. Please let her know that I got the message about secrecy and will comply. Tell her that I said I’ll look at it right away, and that I appreciate everything she tells me.”

  “There’s one more piece of information,” Zane said. “She asked me to tell you that she met someone who can do what I can. Can you believe it? It’s a woman who works with her other client, and Ariel says that the lady is really good at it. She’s using her talents to gather information for him.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got to find a way to meet this person.”

  ******

  Ariel did not have a boyfriend back in the U.S, nor had she formed any sort of a romantic relationship in London or Dublin, according to the sources Baldur had hired. The bad news was that eliminated finding a lover to hold hostage, but the good news was that it left open the possibility of igniting a romance that could be convenient for Baldur’s needs.

  He reconsidered the option of trying to court her himself. He had always taken a rather pragmatic approach to dating, and he had already planned to make the time to find a suitable wife over the next few years. It was a social convenience if nothing else. His first choice would have been an Icelandic woman who shared his native tongue and his culture, but Ariel was attractive and smart and would do fine. What better way to control both her and her assets?

  He would be the first to admit that his sales technique with her probably needed a little work. Were there people he could hire to help with that sort of thing? He decided there must be. Someone could surely help him with flowers and apologies for the forced experiment with her capabilities. Someone could write him professions of his growing respect and admiration for her that he could no longer deny. In his experience both men and women had a soft spot for flattery that seemed to be unlimited. For now, he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a romance with her.

  It might be useful to know something about the boys and men Ariel had dated, slept with or even liked over the years. Baldur had read somewhere that everyone had a type they favored. Maybe for the courtship period he could manage to be a bit more of her type. He would ask his people to look deeper into Ariel’s past.

  A few days later Baldur was surprised to learn that the last man Ariel had been seen with romantically was none other than Siarnaq, his Greenland ally who wanted to see Mikkel stopped. How in the world had those two crossed paths? At the airport in Nuuk, according to his sources. There were those in town still talking about the Inuit man and girl from Ireland standing in the middle of a restaurant rubbing their arms against each other.

  That made some sense. Ariel had reason to go to Greenland, and frankly there weren’t that many people in Nuuk. The two of them could have touched each other somehow. Casually. Certainly they had experienced some subset of what he and Ariel had when they touched.

  Baldur found himself feeling a bit of jealousy. Interesting. Did Ariel prefer her long-range experience with Siarnaq to the quick fluctuations that Baldur could show her? He impatiently pushed the question out of his head.

  Sources reported that the girl had come back to Greenland for a second visit with Siarnaq a month later. Not to Nuuk, but to a town on the east coast where according to the proprietor of the small lodging facility, they had pretty much spent the entire time in the bedroom together. But no visit since. So had they been too busy to schedule a third tryst, or had they broken things off?

  Baldur wondered if he had ever come up in their conversation. Why would he? Yet now that he thought about it, Baldur was hard pressed to imagine what sort of research could have alerted Siarnaq to the financial rivalry between Mikkel and Baldur. Siarnaq had been vague about his sources. The man hardly had the means to hire a private detective the way that Baldur had. Wasn’t Ariel a perfect source for the information?

  Baldur studied the calendar on his desk. He had met with Siarnaq more than three months ago, and since then the two men had communicated occasionally as they worked together to slowly sabotage Mikkel’s project in Peary Land. Baldur had the resources to make things happen, and Siarnaq had provided
the insight into both the land and the people that Baldur lacked. Together they had become an effective team for slowing Mikkel’s work down.

  It sounded like Siarnaq and Ariel might have gone their separate ways about the time that Baldur and Siarnaq had joined forces. Did Ariel know what he and Siarnaq were doing? Did she disapprove? Of course she disapproved if she knew about it.

  Now that Baldur thought about it, she and Mikkel had been spending a lot of time together at the Blue Lagoon restaurant and had even wandered off at least once to talk. Baldur had been annoyed because it kept him from being able to have a little fun, poking at Ariel after the spa treatment incident, but perhaps he had missed something larger.

  What if Ariel knew about Mikkel’s space project? What if she liked the idea? What if she found Mikkel attractive? Wouldn’t it be considerably less messy to get the woman to have feelings for someone else? Maybe this was going somewhere useful.

  Screw his promises to Siarnaq, Baldur thought. He could carve out a small financial niche for Mikkel and his pet project if doing so would buy Ariel’s cooperation. How helpful would she be if she were to discover that aligning herself with Baldur was the only way for Mikkel to be allowed to succeed?

  Clearly, she was going to have to care a lot more about Mikkel. What could Baldur do to move things along?

  Hulda knocked on his door and brought in an afternoon cup of tea for him.

  “You’re a woman,” he said to Hulda like it was a little known fact. “What can a man do to get a woman to care more for him?”

  “You could send her little gifts,” Hulda offered, “Everybody likes presents.” Hulda smiled to herself as she thought of the beautiful crystal sun catcher hanging in her window at home, a keepsake from an Irish fortune-teller who had stolen Hulda’s heart almost two years ago.

  “I misspoke. I don’t want to get her to like me. I think that it might work better to get her to like someone else.”

  “Oh.” Hulda looked puzzled. “I guess that you could send little gifts from him, then.”

  “You’re right.” Baldur looked more pleased with Hulda then he had in weeks. “Now that you mention it, I could actually conduct a damn fine courtship for him. Probably a much better one than he could for himself.”

  “Why would you want to do such a thing?” Hulda asked.

  “For the same reason I always do anything,” Baldur said, in the tone in which an adult would happily instruct a child of which they were fond. “I do it because it’s the best way to get what I want. If you think about it, what other reason is there to do anything, really?”

  ******

  Eoin studied the latest set of instructions in the email from Baldur and frowned. There are some lines an honest man doesn’t cross when they are drawn firmly on the ground, he thought. However, make it a series of lines, each one only a little bit more dubious than the last, and many a good man can be led to a place he never expected to be.

  Eoin took a look at his current spot and acknowledged that it was a long way from where he wanted to be standing. The walk back to a place he preferred would not be easy. Hell, it might not even be possible.

  Was Baldur crazy? He seemed to be on the verge at best, seeing psychics everywhere now in a way that smelled faintly of paranoia. Could other companies like d4 really be formed? Eoin didn’t think he’d believe Baldur at all if he hadn’t analyzed the results of the man’s trading history himself and found no other explanation.

  Eoin had avoided Ariel altogether ever since the trip to Iceland. He could not accept that the quick-thinking young technical woman had any of the faerie about her, but there was no doubt that Baldur thought so, and he meant her harm for it.

  It was one thing to cover for Baldur, to try to keep his secret and direct the staff in ways that made Baldur happy. It was quite another to participate in a plan, misguided or not, that involved hurting an innocent young lady.

  It was also crossing one line too many to directly insist that one of his own staff deliberately lie. How could a man keep any self-respect after doing that? He couldn’t. Well at least that part of the problem could be easily fixed. Eoin called Jake into his office, and the young man dutifully squeezed his big frame into the little guest chair, clearly expecting a reprimand or more unwelcome instructions. Jake was surprised but happy to hear that Eoin had changed his own mind, at least somewhat.

  “Mind you, I’m not going to defy the man. That will piss him off, and for no good reason. He’ll come after me and maybe even our whole company in ways you and I cannot even imagine. So what I will do is ask you to defy me. Don’t worry, I’ll cover for you, say you’re doing as you’ve been told, then I’ll get you everything you need and more. You just make sure that you nail the bastard. I want you to make it very clear to those study people that something funny, something very wrong, is going on with d4.”

  Jake looked relieved, but he had more on his mind. “What if I told you that I suspected the man of more than cheating? Like, I thought that he had some weird ability to sense minute-to-minute fluctuations in various sectors of the market? You know, an unacceptable advantage?”

  Eoin was impressed. “You figured that out, did you?” Then at Jake’s surprised look, he added, “You’re not crazy, you’re correct. I’ve known for a long time, too, but only because Baldur confirmed it for me a while ago. Promised to take really good care of me, too, if I guarded his secret. He probably isn’t going to do that once you behave so poorly on my watch.” Eoin shrugged. “Maybe this study will move fast enough to put a stop to him, but I doubt it.”

  “I don’t have to tell anyone you gave me the okay,” Jake offered.

  “Nah, that won’t matter much to Baldur either way, but thanks. Besides, in the end I’d like to be on the side with the good guys, even though I personally think that the good guys are about to get their butts kicked.”

  Brendan poked his carrot-topped head in the door. Jake and Eoin both turned his way nervously. “Did I interrupt something?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” Eoin said, regaining his composure. “Jake and I were just talking about this nuisance study. I wouldn’t even bother to give these guys data, except it might make us look guilty of something and who needs that? That reminds me, Brendan, I need you to make sure that Cillian knows about it, and knows that we’re participating and isn’t taken by surprise.”

  “I think Ariel was planning on paying him a visit over the next few days to fill him in,” Brendan offered. “Cillian won’t care much either way.”

  “True,” Eoin said as Jake got up to leave. He asked both men, “Do you know if she’s made arrangements yet to chat with Mikkel about it?”

  “I think he’s coming to town in a couple of days. She was going to meet with him too. He’s having a lot of issues with some major project he is financing and he wanted to talk about options for that as well.”

  “Good to know that she’s on it.” Eoin was glad to hear that while everyone else was acting crazy, the young lady at the center of it all appeared to be calmly taking care of her business.

  ******

  Mikkel and Ariel had been exchanging increasingly warmer correspondence ever since the outing at the Blue Lagoon Spa, and he had promised to fill her in more on his project on his next trip to Dublin. Ariel had suggested that they meet soon. She wanted to talk to him in person about the study y1 had instigated and the ramifications it might have for him and the secrecy of his endeavor.

  He was arriving Friday morning, and Ariel found herself looking forward to the visit. It was nice to be dealing with at least one uncomplicated man, and better yet one who she was growing to admire and genuinely want to help. So she was particularly dismayed when she walked into the office that Thursday morning in mid-August and found a huge bouquet of lilies and white roses and Japanese anemone and amaryllis all lavishly adorned with white baby’s breath occupying half her desk. Now what?

  She touched the flowers and found herself with a quick premory of a young florist’s happ
iness at receiving lavish praise for his fine work at an upcoming local wedding. Never mind. She reached for the card instead.

  “Can’t stop thinking about you,” it said. Her first fear was that the flowers were from Baldur, and then it occurred to her that it would be even worse if they were a make-up gift from Siarnaq. However, she was even sadder when she saw that the card was signed “Mikkel”. Damn. Her one simple relationship had just gone complicated.

  Before the day was out every guy in the office walked by and made some snide remark about the flowers and unwelcome guesses about the identity, and particularly the intentions, of their sender. Ariel endured the comments stoically and refused to satisfy anyone’s curiosity as she spent the rest of the day irritated.

  Damn him. Why did he have to go and do something like this? Now she dreaded Mikkel’s visit.

  She had offered to pick him up at the airport, and he gave her a funny look the next morning as he got in her car and she refused to look at him as she gave him a cold hello.

  “Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

  “That was totally unnecessary,” she snipped. “And embarrassing and inappropriate.”

  “What was?”

  Out came the story of the showy white flowers. The ensuing ride to the office was filled with Mikkel’s discomfort that someone would do that in his name and Ariel’s disbelief of his denial and Mikkel’s irritation at Ariel’s lack of trust in his word and her irritation at his… Ariel stopped. She realized that she was annoyed at having been embarrassed, but clearly she was upset with the wrong person.

  “So who did send the flowers?” they both asked in unison and then laughed.

  “Who wants me to hate you?” she asked.

  “Who wants you to like me?” he countered. “I get why it was embarrassing, but guys generally do send flowers because they want to be liked, you know.”