The Gamma Sequence

by Dan Alatorre

  “I’m afraid I’ll be working late tonight, sir. Our friends to the north and elsewhere have expressed concerns about all of this. Indonesia does not want a war.”

  The car came to a stop in front of a set of tall, iron gates. Men with machine guns blocked the entrance. Behind them, a series of huge warehouses spanned over acres of cleared jungle.

  “I understand. Go hold their hands. Tell them, sometimes you simply have to do what needs to be done—and often the best choice is clear, but unpleasant.”

  An attendant looked at the driver’s credentials, and the gates opened.

  “And don’t worry, I’ll take care of things at my lab.”

  * * * * *

  The blueprints were unfolded over a filing cabinet in the hangar’s small office. DeShear stared at the pages, rubbing his chin. “On paper, the genetics facility doesn’t look as big as I thought. I’m not sure what I expected, but not this. A building or two? Seems kinda small.”

  From her seat at a nearby desk, Lanaya glanced up from her computer. “I didn’t think they’d match, but I didn’t expect them to be this different, either.” She pointed to the overhead images on her screen. “I count twenty buildings, all over a hundred feet long. That’s a far bigger campus than any research facility I’ve ever seen.”

  “How big was the one in Arizona?”

  “Two buildings that size, with an annex. A lot like the blueprints.”

  “So they used the same format to get a toe in the door, and then expanded.” He shrugged. “I guess that makes sense. The labor’s cheaper here.”

  “Hamilton, with that many buildings, they could house every genetics lab in the world. What we want is in those buildings, I’m certain of it. But they’re so big, and there’s so many . . . And I’m sure there’s security.”

  A Marine opened the office door. “Time to go, folks. Your ride has arrived.”

  “Thanks, private.” He nodded to Lanaya. “Grab a screen shot.”

  She frowned and tapped the keyboard. “I’m not sure what good it’ll do. Who knows how often the Indonesian government allows these satellite images to be updated.”

  “It’s a start. We’ll learn a lot more once we’re able to get on site and start looking around. ‘Improvise, adapt and overcome,’ right, private?”

  The young Marine smiled. “Oohrah, sir.”

  * * * * *

  The escort vehicle carrying Dominique Carerra and some other Angelus board members pulled up to the Viceroy hotel. Its expansive, elegant white façade and columns were a sharp contrast to the jungle nearby.

  A uniformed attendant opened her door. “Welcome to the Viceroy Bali, Miss Carerra.”

  “It’s Doctor Carerra,” she said, sliding out of the car.

  “How clumsy of me. My apologies, madam.” The man bowed and greeted the other board members by name. “Bali welcomes you all. Please, follow me. Your suites have been prepared, and our staff will attend to your baggage.”

  A red helicopter approached, with an “Air Bali” logo painted on its side. It swooped in and landed on the helicopter pad across the drive. The attendant waved to the pilot before returning his attention to his guests. “This way, please.”

  The lobby of the grand hotel was lavish. Its dark bamboo ceiling stretched upwards three stories in an elegant cone shape, towering over the white marble floor below. Each suite was equally impressive. The massive beds looked out onto stone balconies and the lush landscape beyond.

  A young bellman followed Dr. Carerra into her suite, her suitcase riding on his shiny brass cart. “Shall I unpack for you, madam?

  “Thank you, no. I can manage.” She inspected the room. It had one phone on the nightstand, and a large stone ashtray on the coffee table. “But I’d like a pack of cigarettes. Salem lights, if you can find them.”

  “That will be no problem, madam.”

  “And then I’d like to walk the grounds and stretch my legs. Can you recommend a running trail?”

  “I shall have the concierge call your room, if it pleases madam.” The boy said. “She will know the best path to recommend.”

  “Very good.” She tucked a bill into his hand. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, madam.” He bowed, his eyes widening upon seeing the denomination of the bill. “I am Rafi, and I am assigned to this floor. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to call.”

  “Thank you, Rafi.” She strolled to the balcony. “I shall need some things from time to time during my stay. And please have the concierge call me about a trail.”

  The young man bowed again, backing toward the door. “Right away, madam.”

  When the door closed behind him, she opened her laptop and scanned the Viceroy’s many scenic hiking paths, to locate the one that ran closest to the nearby Kamandalu Ubud hotel. She made a mental note, shut the computer down, and powered off her cell phone. Crossing to the bed, she reached behind the nightstand and unplugged the room phone.

  She grabbed a pair of sneakers and some running clothes from her bag and entered the marble bathroom to change.

  * * * * *

  “Dr. Carerra!” A board member waved at her from the bar. “Will you join us for a drink before we head over to the facility?”

  A rotund man passed her in the lobby, answering for her. “Dressed like that, I’m guessing the answer is no, Patel. But Dominique, isn’t this weather too hot for a run?”

  Rafi appeared, carrying a teal-green pack of cigarettes in a clear plastic bag marked Viceroy Bali. “Madam, as you requested.”

  “Thank you.” She took the cigarettes and slipped them into the hip pocket of her sweat pants. “And thank you, gentlemen, but I’m going to try to exercise my way out of jet lag. A nice, long trail through the hills sounds good.”

  Patel strolled into the lobby from the bar, smiling. “That’s a strange combination, Doctor Carerra. Cigarettes and running?”

  “A good habit to cover a bad one.” She patted the enormous stomach of the man next to her. “We all have our vices, don’t we Dr. Bruner?”

  The men chuckled.

  “Yes,” Patel said. “I was about to treat myself to some carrot juice in the bar. I take your point, Doctor.”

  “Enjoy your run, Dominique.” Bruner waved a hand, ambling toward the bar. “See you at dinner.”

  The bellman walked to the bell stand.

  “Rafi,” Dr. Carerra said.

  The boy whipped around, snapping to attention. “Yes, madam?”

  “The concierge never called me.” She walked toward the front door. “Let’s see about a running trail.”

  Chapter 26

  DeShear’s phone vibrated in his pocket. As the bus rumbled along the broken asphalt, he slid it out and checked the screen.

  Text message.

  Pressing the icon, the app opened. The sender information said Name Unknown, with no number displaying, but their message was short and clear.

  Check black screen site.

  He sat back, raising his eyebrows. Not a lot of people knew about the site, and even fewer knew he had knowledge of it. Could be a trap.

  Next to him, Lanaya sat with her hands in her lap, one massaging the other, a distant look on her face. The last message hadn’t been a threat, so maybe this one wasn’t.

  He chewed his lip and looked at the phone screen again. The message was gone.

  Bolting forward, he clicked the app again. There were no messages.

  The jungle rolled past as the bus rocked back and forth, sending dust clouds out in its wake. DeShear had never seen a message disappear that way. Not a regular text message. Not without manually deleting it himself.

  Its quick disappearance meant whoever sent it didn’t want anyone else to see it. How they made it happen, he didn’t know.

  It’s a move of fear, though. Not strength.

  He nodded to himself. “Lanaya, can you get a signal here? For your computer?”

  She lifted her eyes, blinking as if to remove a fog. “What?”
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  “Can you access your black screen site right now?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” She glanced at the computer. “I thought they said there’d be no access on the bus.”

  Swaying and jolting with every pothole, he faced the front of the bus, holding the seat in front of him as he stood. “Cammy. Any way to get wifi out here?”

  Camilla turned in her seat and looked at him over her shoulder. “I can let you access my hot spot, but out here it’ll be slow. They might have wifi at the lab.”

  He went down the aisle, holding the seat tops with each bumpy step. When he reached Camilla, he brought his face close to her ear. “I’m not sure we can wait until we get to the lab.”

  “What have you got?”

  “Not sure yet. Can you link us in?”

  Camilla rose and followed him to the rear of the bus. Opening her phone, she found the laptop signal and watched for it to connect. “All set. It’s a weak signal, but it’s there.”

  DeShear faced Lanaya. “Check your black screen site.”

  “Why?”

  “Just check it.”

  She tapped on the keyboard, bringing up a series of password pages. Each required a code before allowing the user to move on to the next. When she finished, a new window opened and a tiny message icon appeared on the screen. Next to it was a gray box with a blinking cursor, and next to that were three white boxes. The rest of the screen was black.

  “Man, you’re making me feel old.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know what to do on a website like this.”

  “That’s entirely the point,” Lanaya looked up from the screen. “It’s only to be accessed by people who know how. For example, normally, you’d type a password or command where the waiting prompt is, right?”

  “Sure,” DeShear said.

  “If you do, it’ll lock you out, shut down the site for a few hours, and permanently ban this computer’s IP address. The ban keeps hackers from autosearching web addresses. Nobody can afford a sextillion new IP addresses merely to see what’s happening on this little site.” She pointed to the three white boxes. That tells me my hidden password dock is in the third quadrant.”

  She slid her finger over the mouse pad until the cursor arrow was in the lower left corner of the screen. It flashed a top hat like the guy in monopoly wore, then disappeared.

  “I now have five seconds to enter a code.”

  Her hands hovered over the keyboard.

  “Uh.” DeShear shifted in his seat. “You’d better hurry.”

  She didn’t move, her face blank.

  “Lanaya . . .” He leaned forward.

  She dropped her fingers onto the keys and typed rapidly. None of the letters or numbers were visible. When she finished, a blue window opened.

  “You don’t really have five seconds. You can’t start typing before three seconds have elapsed.”

  “Good grief,” DeShear said. “This site’s gonna give me a heart attack and I’m not even using it.”

  “That’s also the point. It has many hidden features to keep secrets private. The message won’t appear for thirty seconds. That’s so anyone who accessed this screen would think there was nothing there, or they’d hit a glitch. If they type any key stroke in that time, it locks them out. By shutting the site, it lets every valid user know a breach was attempted. Traffic usually slows down for a day or two after that. But . . .” She shrugged. “There are so many people quitting the site lately, it doesn’t matter. They’re so paranoid it’s been accessed by Angelus, it’s nearly a ghost town, and fewer users means those that remain have a greater chance of being spotted. I’ll probably have to quit soon.” She set her hands in her lap. “Here’s the message.”

  Kamandalu Ubud hotel, room 502

  - Double Omega

  Camilla looked at DeShear. “What do you think?”

  “I think somebody calling themselves Double Omega warned us not to go to Indonesia.” His gaze went to Lanaya. “Now they know we’re here, they’d like to chat.”

  “Don’t go,” Camilla said. “If they’re using the name Double Omega, it’s obviously somebody from Angelus.”

  “A team leader or project manager, I’m sure.” Lanaya knitted her hands again. “If they know the name Double Omega, they know everything.”

  “Hold on,” DeShear said. “It could be an outsider she told things to before she died. Even if it is someone from Angelus, we’re still alive, so they might be a friend. There’s no other reason to reach out. I think the first message was trying to help, too.”

  Camilla shook her head. “Dash . . .”

  “Look, these people killed executives and high-ranking people. They’d never make murdering us a priority over knocking off the board members. And they could just wait until we were in our hotel rooms tonight and whack us then. There’s no reason for the killers to schedule a meeting and leave that kind of trail.” He peeked at the driver, then looked back to Camilla. “Can we detour this bus to the Kamandalu Ubud hotel?”

  “It’s not exactly on the way, but yes, we can take you.”

  “Just get us within a half mile,” DeShear said. “We’ll walk the rest. I trust your agents, but I don’t know about a local driver. Who knows what his annual income is. A tipoff about us to someone at Angelus could go a long way to improve his finances.”

  Lanaya typed on the laptop. “About seven thousand dollars.”

  “What?” DeShear said.

  “In Indonesia,” Lanaya pointed at the screen. “The average annual income is about seven thousand dollars.

  Camilla shook her head. “No wonder Angelus moved their lab.”

  “Well, then,” DeShear said. “A little cash will go a long way here, and Angelus has a mountain of cash.”

  “Dash, listen. You and Lanaya have set me up with a nice sting operation to expose a multinational corporation and their fraudulent business practices. Money laundering, tax fraud—that’s all good for me. What’s your goal in all this now? It’s not to make the IRS look good.”

  “I want to stay alive.” Lanaya closed the laptop, her hands shaking. “Angelus employees are dying at the hands of someone who wants vengeance, and my name is on that list. My life has become a mess of hiding and running, and I’ve endangered my family. By coming here, we thought we’d have a chance to expose what Angelus is up to but also draw the killers out.” She glanced at DeShear, lowering her voice. “That they’d come for the Angelus board.”

  “They will.” He nodded. “They’ll come. It’s too tempting for them not to. Either at the hotel or somewhere at the lab, the killers will try to make a move—and soon. If they know anything about what’s going on, they’re expecting a bunch of IRS accountants to be here. Cammy, all you have to do is ask the FBI to keep their eyes open, and as soon as the killers try to strike at the board, have the feds grab them. They aren’t expecting that. Then we’ll go to the press and expose Angelus Genetics and all of their illegal operations.”

  “Okay,” Camilla said. “So how does going to the Kamandalu Ubud hotel help any of that?”

  “I don’t know.” DeShear pounded his fist into his other hand. “But if this message is from an employee at Angelus, they’re risking their neck to send it to us. It might be a good idea to find out what they think is so important.”

  * * * * *

  The long driveway of the Kamandalu Ubud was smooth and even, as was the public road it connected to, but the scorching heat from the jungle had already worked on DeShear and Lanaya as they walked the half mile to the hotel. By the time they were near the front entrance, his shirt was clinging to his chest.

  “Next time I tell somebody to drop us a half mile from a hotel in Indonesia and we’ll walk the rest of the way,” DeShear panted, “you smack me.”

  Lanaya dabbed her forehead and neck with a handkerchief. “Do you suppose we march right in and knock on the door to room 502?”

  “If we’re not supposed to, I’m sure our new friend has figured out some way to let us k
now that.” DeShear wiped the sweat from his face with his shoulder. “Ready?”

  “No!”

  Smiling, DeShear put his hand on the hotel’s front door. “Just act natural, like we’re staying here. Hotel elevators are usually on the far side of the lobby, past the front desk. Walk with determination and act tired.”

  “I am tired.”

  “Then it won’t be difficult to act that way.”

  The Kamandalu Ubud was a beautiful hotel, with an extravagant air. The lobby was large and spacious; the service staff friendly. Each greeted the couple as they walked by. DeShear returned their hellos; Lanaya stiffened more and more with each one.

  At the elevator, she exhaled sharply.

  “What?” he said. “Were you holding your breath?”

  She shook out her hands like she was flinging water from them. “My breath, my nerves, my heartbeat. Who knows what we’re walking into, Hamilton?”

  He folded his hands in front of him, eyeing the row of lighted numbers above the elevator. “We’ll be fine.” The doors opened. He stepped in and pressed the “five” button on the service panel.

  As the lights glowed with each passing floor, Lanaya’s hands rubbed faster. The doors opened and DeShear led the way down the hall. At room 502, he stopped, glancing at Lanaya. She rolled her shoulders and took a few short breaths, then wiped her trembling hands on her thighs.

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Go ahead and knock.”

  DeShear raised his hand to knock on the door. The latch went down with a sharp mechanical ratchet, and the big door swung open. Standing in the entry was a woman with dark, curly hair, dressed in a sports bra and sweat pants.

  Lanaya gasped, turning white.

  “What?” DeShear took a sideways step from the door. “What is it?”

  “She—she’s on the Angelus board.” Lanaya backed away. “They’ve got us.”

  “I recognize you, too, Dara.” The woman stepped forward. “Please come in.”

  Lanaya held her hands up, shaking her head. She stumbled backwards, bumping into the hallway wall.

  “I think you knew my daughter,” the woman said. “On the black screen site, she went by the name Double Omega.”