by P. R. Adams
Ichi. Her strides were long, her form poetry.
The front door opened, and a guard burst out. He knew where Ichi was.
I said, “Danny, discourage him.”
A section of the wall just ahead of the guard shattered, spraying the air with concrete chips. The guard dropped flat a second before the rifle’s muffled whumpf echoed through the air.
I tore away the concertina wire. “Take out their vehicles. We’ll need a lead.”
Another whumpf, followed by a car alarm, then others.
On my belly now, I dangled an arm down for Ichi. She jumped, caught my hand, and ran up the wall as I hauled her higher. I twisted, sat up, pivoted on my butt, and lowered an arm down the other side of the wall. She slid over me, dropped down my arm, then hit the ground and bolted for the ditch. I followed her down a second before pistol fire told me the guard had rediscovered his courage.
Chan said, “Private security. En route. Locals. Fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes could be forever, or it could find us hemmed in. Huiyin would have to take us cross-country, get us back to the highway without putting us in the path of incoming vehicles. Our eye in the sky gave us a chance.
I reached the road and started closing on Ichi. Lights flashed on and off, and the SUV’s motor grew loud enough to hear. A minute later, we were inside, buckled up, and headed across the field. Ichi pulled the stainless steel device from her backpack with a mischievous grin and handed it to Chan with a bow. Chan rolled the thing around with pale umber fingers that were hooked like clamps. There would be no dropping the device in the bouncing vehicle.
Huiyin glanced into the rearview mirror, then at me. “Where to now?”
The device might as well have been a block of uranium for all the potential danger it held. We needed to get rid of it as soon as possible, but there was only one hardware hacker I trusted. “Back to D.C. We need to go into the Canyon.”
We needed Abhishek Varma.
Huiyin drifted through the smoky haze of Abhishek’s shop, touching one piece of ancient equipment after another. Chan ignored the MSS agent and focused on the old data devices lining the table closest to Abhishek’s storefront window. I smirked when Huiyin stopped to examine an ancient video recorder with a cracked metallic-painted plastic chassis, then moved on to a slightly newer smartphone, then examined the control paddle for an old entertainment system. She cocked an eyebrow at me, as if to ask if this was all for real.
Abhishek glanced up from the tall stool he’d set behind the grimy, smeared glass case where he conducted business. Even seated on the stool, he was shorter than me. His nicotine-stained fingers patted the tangle of salt-and-pepper hair curled around the back of his head. Like most days, he wore dress slacks that were too short and a long-sleeve shirt. The slacks were slate gray, the shirt either white or gray or saffron; the staining was so severe that it ended up a dull gray. He took a long drag on a cigarette that was near its end, and when he exhaled, the smoke crawled along the deep chestnut and gray of his face.
He pointed his cigarette at Huiyin before crushing it out in his old elephant-shaped ashtray. “You find this one at one of those…” He bowed his head.
Don’t say it.
His head came up, asymmetric eyes wide in delight. “Massage parlors?”
Huiyin’s nostrils flared, and she took a step toward him.
I barred her path with an arm. “That’s his way of saying you’re pretty.”
Abhishek tittered, then squinted at the disassembled cryptographic device with his larger eye, huge behind the lenses of his old, greasy glasses. “You never bring ugly ones with you.”
Chan’s head came up, magenta eyes dancing around for a moment, then turned back to the old data devices.
Had that been confusion on Chan’s face or embarrassment?
I tapped at one of the circuit boards laid out on the countertop. “Quit trying to stall. Can you help Chan or not?”
Abhishek waved me away, agitated. “This is all new. No one manufactured it. Not abroad.”
“So it’s something built here.”
The agitated wave continued. “No one builds here. Too expensive.”
“A boutique manufacturer. Robotics cost the same everywhere. Can’t you reach out to some of your contacts?”
He shook his head. “No need. The story is the same, no matter. This is something built for a specific, limited purpose. The hardware encryption modules are all new. The power system, very innovative. No one will have design information on this. It is secure on many levels.”
Chan hovered a few feet away. “Nothing like it? Anywhere?” Challenging. Not good.
Abhishek pulled a cigarette pack from a breast pocket that was coming loose. He dug a cigarette out, eyes locked on Chan. “Those things.” He tapped the top of his head. “Spikes? They looked better. Now you’re just another girl. Skinny. But you have very bouncy hair. You wash it now?”
Chan’s eyes closed. “The—” A gulp. “The encryption. Modules. Hardware.” Arms crossed over narrow chest, Chan looked to me, near tears. Imploring.
I blew out a frustrated breath. “Okay. Maybe we should take this somewhere else.”
Abhishek nearly spat out his cigarette. “No! I did not say it couldn’t be done! No one but me could do this. Not the same thing.”
He wandered into the back room and rumbled around through who knew what, kicking up a raucous clattering and mumbling indecipherably.
I sidled up to Chan. “He always gets defensive over challenges.”
Chan ran a finger under an eye and shrugged.
“But he meant what he said about your hair as a compliment.” I snorted. “He just doesn’t know how to deliver them.”
Chan looked away. “Bouncy? That’s nice?”
“Wavy, full. Guys don’t do good watching advertisements. We either like what we see or we don’t.”
Chan ran black-metallic nails through magenta waves. “I…I guess.”
“Don’t let him get to you. He means well.”
Abhishek pushed back through the curtain separating the shop from his personal space and set a couple devices on the countertop. One of them had a large antenna on the back and several things that looked like specialized probes or antennae on the front. The other looked like a signal capture device, the sort I’d used to try to steal signal traffic in my early military years.
He searched around the exposed circuits, pointing antennae at different spots, then flicking a few switches. The strange device hummed, then the signal capture device came to life.
That made him chuckle; he patted the top of the odd device. “It is an old simulation system.”
Chan edged closer, neck craning head forward. “Simulation?”
“Feed an array of signals—sine waves, square waves, sawtooth. See what goes across the circuit, adjust, capture, interpolate. Like your software hacking? All guesswork, no grace. Very brute force.” Abhishek dragged on the cigarette. “Where did you get it?”
“The—” Chan turned to me.
“We honestly don’t know,” I said. “We need this to figure out who’s behind trying to kill me.”
Abhishek tapped at the simulation device. “You have any more to it?”
“The computing device? Chan?”
Chan pulled the device I’d taken off the assassin outside Denver and passed that to Abhishek.
Abhishek tapped ashes into the tray and then fiddled with the computing device, tapping through the interface. “You talk to the FBI agent? The black woman.”
“Lyndsey Hines? She came to you?”
“A few weeks after you went away. She had questions.” Irritation flashed across his face. “Don’t like having FBI in here. Not at all.”
“What kind of questions did she have?”
“She asked about a Chinese man.” Abhishek pointed his cigarette at Huiyin. “A spy. Like her. You tell him you’re a spy? She works for State Security, same as this man the FBI was looking for.”
Huiyin looked like she was ready to shoot Abhishek right there.
I stepped between them. How much did Abhishek know about foreign intelligence? His act about not caring was authentic to a point. I had never considered the possibility he worked both sides of the fence. “His name was Dong Jianjun. He’s dead. Huiyin’s trying to figure out why he flipped sides, probably the same as Agent Hines.”
Abhishek squinted and shook his head. “Dong didn’t work for the Agency.” Low, where only I could hear it.
A bell rang, and he straightened. He shuffled through the curtain, mumbling and sniffling.
Chan seemed transfixed by the devices. “He found signals.” Out came a computing device, and Chan began tapping and swiping away. “Signals. The same keys.”
Abhishek set an old computing device on the countertop. “Not quite so innovative. Those are old circuit designs. Modified. Updated. But still old designs.” He tapped at a miniature keyboard, yellow fingernails somehow sliding between tight spaces. “What do you see?” His eyes looked up from beneath bushy black brows.
“The key.” Excitement made Chan’s voice higher. “The other half.”
They raced against each other—tapping, swiping, dragging, shrinking windows, expanding them. Chan’s lips seemed to convulse, then a smile broke through.
Abhishek pulled another cigarette out and lit it from the dying glow of the old one. “Not the Agency.”
“Yeah.” I had been sure of that for a while. “So who?”
“Cytek?” Chan looked up, clearly confused. “What is that?”
Huiyin pushed up against Chan and turned the computing device to where both could see the display. “Cytek’s a front. An old MSS company.”
Chinese Intelligence was trying to kill me? Because of Dong? “You sound surprised.”
“Cytek was compromised years ago.” Wrinkles danced across Huiyin’s brow. “A double agent told the Agency everything. It was sold off. Is this someone’s idea of a joke?”
Chan pulled the computing device free and handed it to me. “Ever heard of her?”
A hard-looking woman glared at me—thick neck, square jaw, dark brown hair cut shy of the collar of a blue jacket that almost looked like a uniform.
“Lilly Duvreau? I can’t recall the face or the name, no.” I flipped through the data Chan had dug up. “Marines.”
Huiyin’s head reared back. “Military running a company? That sounds very Chinese.”
I couldn’t help chuckling. “It’s an American thing. The Marines are…proud. They say things like ‘once a Marine, always a Marine.’ But she’s ex-military. She’s run this Cytek company for the last six months. Is that right? She’s a security specialist, not a business executive. They’re in debt up to their ears. No revenue streams to speak of, no products or services announced. Does that sound like a real company?”
“No.” Huiyin held a hand out for the computing device; I handed it to her.
Abhishek waved for me to follow, then headed through the curtain. The back room was dark, lit by flickering fluorescents strung from the ceiling where there should have been tiles. Instead of walls, there were shelves stuffed with electronic equipment, components, and an assortment of tools.
He scratched at whiskers that were silvery in the white light. “You stole this thing?”
“A couple days ago.”
“From this Cytek company?”
“Looks like. It was an old data center. Converted. Lots of additional space. Enhanced security.”
“There is someone.” The scratching intensified. “Someone you should talk to. Wendy Politkovskaya. She is an investigative journalist. She has watched the corporations for years. The money and politics.” He shook his head. “Very diligent. Very informed. She has many enemies, so she is also very hard to find.”
“I had no idea you were so deep into this sort of thing.”
“In this world, you either let things happen and watch it burn or you act in some way.” Agitated. I’d struck a nerve. He leaned back so that he could look out through the curtain. “Only you. Not this Chinese woman. Pretty enough but trouble.”
“I’ll take Chan.”
Abhishek nodded. “Very strange one. Smart, though. Don’t put Wendy at risk. There are few like her.”
“I’ll be discreet.”
That satisfied him. He pulled a palm-sized device from a shelf, handed it to me, then pulled out a data device and typed something on it. “Your birthday—month, day, year. That’s the code. It has her address. She will be waiting for you.”
I tested the code on the small numeric keypad. The address was in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We’ll head out tomorrow.”
“Good. That encryption device? You’ll take it?”
“Destroy it.”
He waved his hand. “Gone.”
I turned to go, stopped. “How deep into this are you?”
“Into saving my country?” His larger eye seemed to bug out. “I have watched fools and villains tear it apart since coming here. It used to be so much more. Now? People don’t get who they want on a ballot? They stay home. No voting. And they wonder why things grow worse. No, no. I love what this should be. I do what I can. Like you. You understand?”
Heat ran through me. He was ancient, not even born here, and his motives were purer than mine. “How much do I owe you?”
“Fifty thousand. Pay me later. And that Chinese woman? Don’t turn your back on her.”
It was getting to the point I didn’t know who to turn my back on.
Chapter 17
Around four in the morning, we pulled into a place near Norfolk that Danny and I had both stayed in over the years while laying low. It was like the place where we’d hidden out for Chan’s hack—single story, multi-room units spread around a large parking lot—but this motel was well maintained, and the units were larger, separated into back-to-back rooms three across. The carpeting smelled like it was shampooed with some frequency, and the doors were sturdy and secure enough to put everyone at ease. Used mostly by military personnel when they wanted to party away from station, the staff had no problem accepting cash cards and barely checked Huiyin’s ID. She had the best fake ID among us, and there was no one looking for her specifically, so she rented out five rooms spread across separate units.
“All Chinese names,” she said. “Tourists.”
It was a believable cover, especially since the place had no cameras other than in the lobby and high above the parking lot. We could have been anybody in the video that would capture.
Still, we set up an alarm among our data devices, and we all checked in on each other once before shutting down for the night. I left my jalousie windows open while I showered, cooling the stuffy room and letting in some of the fresh, woodsy air. My back still ached from all I’d put it through, so I stayed under the hot water as long as it lasted. I toweled the fogged mirror outside the bathroom and checked the flesh of my cybernetics for any damage from the rifle rounds and concertina wire. What would have torn human flesh away had done nothing to the artificial flesh. It was a welcome change from my scarred torso.
I owed Dr. Jernigan.
After turning off the lamp, I closed the windows and climbed into bed. I hadn’t yet figured out how to slip away with Chan to meet with Abhishek’s reporter friend. I wasn’t even sure we needed to. We had a name for the enemy. Understanding their motivation wasn’t necessary.
Except that it was. If Stovall was ultimately behind what was going on, then eliminating Lilly Duvreau and whoever else was behind Cytek wouldn’t solve the problem for long.
The seemingly endless cycle of connections from one dark organization to another tumbled around in my head until everything ran together, and I began to drift off. I was no closer to a plan than I had been before, and the same questions kept running through my mind: Who were these people? Who did they work for? What did they want?
A knock at my door drew me back with a flinch.
I pulled my pant
s on, realizing at the last moment that they were slacks taken from the dry cleaner so many weeks ago. Before my return to Emmett. Before losing Margo.
Huiyin was hunched outside the door in a long, black coat that covered the top of a pair of black boots with heels that gave her a few more inches. She was still a full head shorter than me. She shivered, and I caught a whiff of something floral and sweet. All that was missing was fog, a cigarette, and maybe a distant buoy bell ringing.
She tilted her head. “Aren’t you cold?”
“It’s not that bad.” The parking lot held our vehicles and a few others. The humid air haloed the lights running along the walls. “I was almost asleep. We all need to get some rest if we’re going to figure out how to go after Cytek.”
“What did that old man say about me?” Irritated. Vulnerable.
“Abhishek?”
“He took you into that back room, and when you came out, you were different.”
I snorted. “Well, yeah. I finally had a name for who was trying to kill me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “He sells the MSS data. He provides technical support. Did you know that?”
“I suspected as much after what he said.”
“He works for the Indian Intelligence Bureau.”
“Doubtful. I’ve seen a background check on him.”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s lying about me. You should at least tell me what he said.”
“He told me what you already told me: You work for MSS. Dong worked for MSS.”
“Stefan, I need you to trust me. This mission means a lot for my career. Dong was my trainer. He guided me through the first years on the job. Honor has been lost because of what he did.” She seemed on the verge of tears. Sincere tears. Or good acting.
I stepped aside. “Ten minutes.”
She dropped into a chair in the small space across from an entertainment system while I turned a corner floor lamp on. I crossed my arms and said, “I’m listening.”
“I was twelve when my aunt married an American teacher and moved to America. My parents lived in a small farming community. My future was either going to be marry another farmer and spend the rest of my life managing the robotic farm equipment or move to the city and try to find a job somehow. I didn’t have the sort of education that would give that a good ending. My aunt changed all that when her husband died. She let me come to America and live with her. I got a chance to see what it was like here, and that’s what I wanted.”