Just when Vincent thought his mood couldn’t get any worse, a small icon on his tablet lit up, and expanded to fill the entire screen with video. His eyes went wide. He swore.
He was just about to whirl and run to his own car when the SUVs pulled up. But instead of one, it looked like they had two prisoners…
***
The two vehicles pulled up to the Cobalt Data Mining Systems server farm and came to a stop. Men flooded out of each, securing the two gagged and blindfolded prisoners as they were brought forward.
They were surprised to find their employer impatiently waiting for them. Luther Cobalt stood outside the back door. He seemed to be watching something on a tablet. He looked up from the screen as the hired thugs dragged the two prisoners through the door.
As the second prisoner went past him, Cobalt arched his eyebrows and stared at the men dragging him. One started to speak, but Cobalt shook his head and pointed to the prisoner. He didn’t want to have the conversation in front of him.
Inside the building, the men went toward the same stairway that led down to the room he was holding Moira. But before they could open the door, Cobalt stopped them. Silently, he pointed up.
One of the men asked, “Upstairs? But—”
Again, Cobalt touched his lips for silence. Shrugging, the thug continued forward as his colleagues dragged the two prisoners behind them. They came to an elevator and rode it up in two groups
Luther trotted up the stairs and met the group as they arrived at Doyle’s office. As a group they walked in, and Doyle stood up from behind his desk. He’d been looking at something on his computer screen but immediately looked away from it and at the surprise arrivals.
He got out, “What the—” before Luther silenced him with a gesture.
Doyle stared as Luther supervised the two men being tied to conference table chairs — much more comfortable than LeBlanc’s accommodations in the basement. One of the hired men stayed behind to guard the prisoners. The rest, including Doyle, followed Luther out through the secretary’s office and then into the hallway.
Once there, Luther grabbed the first one he could reach by the throat and shoved him against the wall.
He shouted, “Idiots!”
The man he was assaulting struggled against the grip on his throat while all the others stared with wide eyes.
“Luther, what—”
Luther released his choke hold. The man fell to his knees, rasping and gulping in air. Cobalt brought his shouting down to a harsh whisper so the prisoners wouldn’t hear.
He asked, “Do you buffoons have any idea who your second guy is?”
They all shrugged, except for the one who was still recovering from being choked.
One said, “He showed up at the target’s room just as we were moving in to snatch him.”
“So you brought him here?”
“What were we supposed to do? Kill him?”
Cobalt punched the man who gave that response. He, in turn, fell down to his knees holding his jaw.
“That is my brother’s opponent in his election, you idiots! And we’re holding him against his will at our office! If he ever figures out where he’s being held, or who’s holding him, or sees me, or sees my brother, it will ruin everything.”
The men around Cobalt who were still on their feet looked from one to another. One of them finally worked up the courage to ask what they should do about it.
“We’ve got to get him out of here without him figuring out where he was held. That’s going to take some finesse. For now, I want you all to split up. I want this office watched, I want the other prisoner in the basement watched, and I want constant patrols through the halls. You have no idea how much danger you’ve put us in by bringing that guy here.”
The muscle he’d hired split up, heading off to deal with the tasks he’d given.
Doyle stayed behind and said, “This is your grand plan to solve the problem of that video you told me about? Kidnap Mike Vincent?”
Luther growled, “It’s the reporter with him who was part of my grand plan. Vincent was an accident.”
Doyle replied, “Doesn’t matter what the plan was. Now we’ve got a serious situation here. If Vincent sees me…”
“I’ll take care of him,” Luther said. “I’ve got to go take care of someone else first but right after that, I’ll take care of Vincent.”
Doyle blinked and asked, “Wait, what? You’re going to just leave him here while you leave the building? Luther, we have to control this. We’ve got two guys locked up in my personal office who can expose us to the press.”
The younger brother nodded. He thought for a while and then spoke.
“OK, here’s the solution. You get out of here. Go home, go to a bar, I don’t care. Just get out of here. That way, if Vincent somehow gets loose, you have plausible deniability.”
Doyle sighed and said. “I suppose it’ll have to do. But I want this cleaned up, Luther. I want it cleaned up fast.”
Luther’s lips wore a feral grin as he said, “Vincent’s going to have a very rough night. But he won’t be the first one whose world I rip up tonight.”
CHAPTER 14
He was skinny, as if he’d forgotten to eat in weeks. His dark hair had not seen a brush or a shower for days. He stood outside the door to his apartment, fumbling with his keys. He’d been out with friends, patronizing many of the bars of McLean, Virginia, and it showed in his clumsy efforts to get the key in the lock
Success! He got the key into the door’s deadbolt and went inside.
Then he swore violently and dropped the keys that had been giving him so much trouble.
Leaning against the work table at the back of his studio apartment was a beautiful woman with long, braided black hair. She was dressed all in black that was as dark as her hair. She smiled at him.
“Hi, Zack.”
He started to back out of his apartment, but she said, “Please don’t do that. I just want to talk to you. I knew Moira in prison.”
That changed everything. Zack stopped in his tracks. He was suddenly conscious of the disastrous state of his studio apartment. The bed was unmade. Unwashed dishes from several days sat in the sink. Empty bottles sat where he had left them. He was dressed only in sweats and a tank top. Here was a person who might talk to Moira about him and what message was he sending?
But then, who exactly was she, anyway? A beautiful woman who knew his name materialized out of nowhere in his apartment? Such things just did not happen. He was a black hat, part of the computer underground – a hacker, to most of the world, although he would never call himself that. His skin was pasty white, his hair sorely unkempt, his body so scrawny that he would have trouble doing even a single push up. Women did not seek him out. Especially not gorgeous women.
The most likely thing was that she was an FBI agent. He was very small time in his hacking; they had no particular reason to look for him. But he was a criminal nonetheless. Urban legends abounded in the computer underground of the FBI using beautiful women in sting operations to lure in black hats.
He asked, “Who are you?”
She said, “My name isn’t important right now. I apologize for catching you by surprise. I know it would have been more usual to make contact electronically first but I’m rather pressed for time.”
Zack didn’t reply. He wanted to say something witty and debonair, but his mind was not yielding results.
When he didn’t speak, she did.
“I assume you’re concerned that I’m a law enforcement agent here to arrest you or entrap you into cooperating in their efforts against other black hats. I assure you that’s not true. I am not a law enforcement agent. I just got out of FCI Rocky, where Moira was.”
Finally, she had said something that left him no option but to open his mouth.
“Was?”
The woman nodded. “She escaped a couple nights ago.”
Zack asked, “How? What happened? Why hasn’t she contacted me? Where can
I find her?”
The woman said, “Well, she and I broke into a computer server room, from which it turned out there was an HVAC vent we could use to get outside the secured area. She brought me into the scheme because she needed help picking a physical lock, which I’m good at – for example, you’ll notice your own deadbolt was not exactly an impediment to me. We didn’t stick together after the escape, so I don’t know where she is now. However I need to find her again, and she talked about you while we were in prison together, so I figured you might be able to help me find her.”
“I’ll help you on one condition.”
The woman raised her eyebrows by way of asking what it was.
“Take me with you. I want to see her.”
She smiled at him. “You like her.”
Zack stammered for a while before he said, “None of your business. You’re asking for my help. I’m telling you my condition. I will tell you where to look for Moira, but only if you take me with you.”
At first, the woman didn’t say anything. She just stared at him, openly evaluating him. Again, Zack was made to feel self-conscious about his appearance.
Finally she said, “You don’t know what you’d be getting into. I don’t want to say too much, but this situation is dangerous in the extreme. I almost got killed before I came to see you. Someone had set an explosive trap that I almost fell into. If you came with me you’d be dealing with people who are willing to set traps to murder other human beings, and who are willing to use explosives, and cause untold amounts of collateral damage, to get that killing done.
“I mean no disrespect, Mr. Ravenberg, but it’s a world in which training and experience are required to survive. You have neither.”
“Hey!” Zack shot back indignantly. “You just met me. You have no idea–”
She shook her head. “Actually I do. I do this for a living. If you’ve ever even seen a firearm, or dodged a punch since 7th grade, I’ll eat the nearest available hat.
“Look, I get wanting to see your friend. I get it. But coming with me makes that less likely, not more. If you just sit here quietly and wait for me to tell Moira to call you, your odds of seeing her go up from where they were before I broke in here. If, on the other hand, I actually agreed to let you tag along, and the next murderous trap we discover kills you, then your odds of seeing Moira again are zero.”
Zack pressed his lips together. He glared at this stranger who had invaded his apartment. He wanted to just give her the bird and tell her to get out.
He said, “Fine, make fun of me. So I’m not a brawny jock. I don’t care. But you can make as much fun as you want, it won’t change the fact that I know where Moira will be heading, if she really escaped from prison, and I won’t tell you unless you agree to take me with you.”
The woman opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a noise. Zack had left his front door unlocked when he came home and found the woman. Now, both of them heard the squeak of the poorly maintained hinges as it opened.
***
Alyssa Chambers leaned against the grimy work table, her backside pushing an empty wine bottle slightly back from the edge as she rested. She pondered the young man’s desire to go with her on the search for Moira. So far, she had avoided telling him any outright lies. But that was likely to get harder and harder as they went on.
Alyssa wanted to do this job without getting completely back into her old life. She wanted to be done with secrets and lies. She still wasn’t sure if receiving a Presidential pardon was a real world miracle but if it was, she felt guilty about responding to it with violence, lying, and stealing.
In talking to Zack, she had fed him a bunch of mostly true statements with strategic blank spots where the real facts might have caused him to turn against her. But that couldn’t go on forever. If nothing else, turning Moira over to the Federal Government was going to make Zack a little unhappy.
The squeak of the door opening interrupted her train of thought.
Zack stood with his back to the door, but Alyssa was leaning on the table facing the opposite direction. She saw the door open.
She grabbed an empty wine bottle from Zack’s unkempt desk before the door even finished opening.
When the man who came through it turned out to be holding a pistol, the bottle flew at his head while Zack was still turning around.
The young hacker’s eyes went wide as the bottle went right past his eyes. He threw himself backward, collapsing onto the ground.
The man coming through the door reacted instinctively to split-second awareness of an object speeding toward his face. He brought his right hand up to cover himself. Unfortunately, that was the hand holding the pistol.
It went off, and the recoil knocked it out of his hand to the ground.
While everyone took a second to process the accidental discharge of a firearm, Alyssa realized who the man was.
Standing in front of her was the corrupt guard from FCI-Rocky.
This man stood by and watched while Moira was beaten. He had come into Alyssa’s cell and threatened to kill her.
Alyssa charged him and landed a front kick right to his solar plexus while he hadn’t quite reacted to the fact that his gun had gone off.
He shuffled back and faced Alyssa, a snarl on his face.
Without pause, he rushed her. A flurry of punches and kicks bore in on her face and midsection.
Alyssa shifted to the left, blocked and dodged, managing to avoid any serious damage.
She counterattacked by lifting her right leg as if to kick with it, then turning that into a leap. She flew up and kicked with her left leg instead, aiming it right at the guard’s head.
He dodged to the side, and while she was still in midair he landed a hard punch to the inside thigh of the leg she was kicking with. It hurt, and it also altered her airborne momentum. She fell over to the side, rolling out the door and into the hall.
Luther Cobalt stepped out of the apartment and turned to face Alyssa. The sneer on his face was just as bad as it had been that night in her prison cell.
“Who knew I’d get to keep my promise so fast,” he said. “Little miss ‘Clean Up My Life’ is back in trouble the moment she gets out.”
Alyssa stepped back warily, then asked, “Are you really Doyle Cobalt’s brother?”
The only answer was a furious attack. The corrupt guard charged her with his fists driving hard for her head. The man fought with a singular purpose. Each punch had so much force behind it that even blocking hurt. Far better to dodge but sometimes he moved too fast.
She caught a tiny little opening in his non-stop attack and drove her knee hard into his groin.
The man kept coming.
Alyssa knew from experience that sometimes guys could be so hyped up on adrenaline that they kept going after that. He’d be in a world of hurt in a half hour, but that didn’t do her any good right now.
Their fight had carried them a small distance from the door to Zack’s apartment, and the younger man took advantage of that. Alyssa caught sight of him sneaking out his door then sprinting like a madman down the hall toward the stairway. She didn’t blame him for running; this was a serious fight. It wasn’t a good place for innocent victims to stand around.
Cobalt came at her again with punches aimed at her face. Alyssa blocked and dodged, forearms in pain from every time one of her blocks stopped one of his punches.
The final right cross missed her head because she moved and drove a hole through the wall.
Alyssa shuffled back, trying to create some distance and time. This fight was rapidly getting out of control.
But Cobalt – if his last name really was Cobalt, as Moira had claimed – wasn’t about to let her get away. He rushed at her in an animal fury, shouting as he did. Alyssa threw herself against the wall to let his momentum carry him past her. As he skidded to a stop, she ducked down almost to a crouch to drive her fist hard into his solar plexus. Even that didn’t stop the man.
Alyssa started to
feel something like a distant relative of panic. Punching him in the solar plexus wasn’t working. Kicking him between the legs wasn’t working.
She darted in to take a quick shot at his face, but Cobalt took the hit on his jaw without even batting an eye.
Then he grabbed her jacket.
He whirled Alyssa around and threw her to the floor. She landed hard on her back with the wind completely knocked out of her. For a precious second or two, she simply gasped for air.
Cobalt threw himself down on top of her. He grabbed her wrist and bent it backward. Her body instantly obeyed the pain, rolling to the side to avoid having her wrist broken. Then he got his beefy forearm around her neck and began to squeeze.
Pressure on the windpipe triggered the panic reflex, and Alyssa had to fight to keep herself from surrendering to it. She clung to her training. She knew she had only so many seconds of consciousness in which to affect the situation before blacking out and eventually dying from lack of oxygen.
She knew several strategies for breaking a chokehold but most of them required either that she be on her feet or that she have the ability to start fighting before he had the hold in place.
Neither was true. Worse, his phenomenal size and strength made her jerks and thrusts feel like an ant trying to move a boulder.
The panic instinct became harder to fight.
His lips pressed against her ear in an ugly parody of intimacy.
“I told you I’d kill you,” he whispered.
It might be too late. She couldn’t breathe, and hadn’t been able to for many precious seconds. Panic was taking over.
Alyssa’s feet began to thrash back trying to kick her attacker, not entirely consciously. Her reflexes were separating from conscious thought.
What if this is really it? I hope Matt’s right about God. If he is, I could really use a hand here.
A painful, high-pitched siren began to sound, accompanied by a flashing light. Other apartment doors began to open onto the hallway.
Cobalt swore. The siren kept screaming, hurting Alyssa’s ears. For a moment the man kept choking her but eventually he released her neck.
Born with Secrets: A Political Thriller Page 11