Pablo had left his real passport and ID in the safe at the chateau, and they had closed the door on his old life. They had shaken hands with Sandy once more before heading for Nyon on the Swiss side of the lake. They had left everything about them and their old lives behind. For James, this was the second time he had made someone disappear, and he had been getting quite good at it.
As the ferry had made its way across the lake, James had leaned on the rail and looked back across the lake, gazing at his chateau in the distance. He had felt a deep remorse. In another life, this place would have been an amazing place to live. Then he had stopped for a second and just taken in where he was, letting nature and history just wash over him. This was the same lake that inspired Hemingway after all, and he could feel it every time he allowed himself, when he wasn’t so preoccupied that he forgot where he was. He had watched the boy in similar deep thought and had been left wondering. Why does life have to be so short?
Pablo came out of his daydream and watched the Guaya flow its nice steady march to the Pacific. It never ceased to amaze him how much water flowed by every day, not just here, but in rivers all around the world.
Pablo knew from his reconstruction of the past that just after they had gotten off that ferry ride in Switzerland, Jeremy Lebuff had been correcting papers alone in his office. Pablo switched channels in his thoughts, and pondered about Jeremy.
James had also had the presence of mind to fill him in on all the things he had known about Jeremy. James had possessed a clear picture of what had been going on back at the school, as he had a way of communicating with Jeremy that only the two of them knew of.
On one such occasion, James had recounted that Jeremy had been just about ready to head home from the school when he had felt a presence. He had looked up to find an average looking man standing there. The man had had a dark complexion and had been wearing a fedora, round glasses, and a full-length trench coat, even though it really wasn’t coat weather.
“Good evening,” he had said, “I hope I didn’t startle you.”
Jeremy had answered, “Well you did. Haven’t I answered enough of your guys’ questions, today? How much attention are you giving one runaway boy anyway?”
The man had hesitated and then simply stated, “I’m not from Interpol. I represent a private group trying to help the boy. We were hired by friends of his late uncle.”
“Well, I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. The kid was a loner. He didn’t socialize much, had no real friends, and I could barely get a word out of him. That’s really all I know. I have no idea of where he went or even the places he liked to hang out, and I was his favorite teacher, I’m told.”
The man had handed Lebuff a number. “Would you mind calling me if you hear anything about his whereabouts?”
Lebuff had hesitated, as James had taught him to do. Then it had rolled out: “What’s in it for me?”
“Of course there will be personal compensation for you, Mr. Lebuff. Just make that call.”
He had been able to act relieved and portray that the man’s response was what he had wanted to hear. He had assured the man that if he heard anything, he would be the first to know, even before Interpol.
The man had smiled. The business card had said his name was Enrique Dominguez, but Jeremy had doubted that was even real. The stranger had left saying, “Thank you, Mr. Lebuff.”
“No, thank you, Mr. Dominguez. I will keep my eyes and ears alert.”
The man had left. As Pablo and James had told Jeremy, if his act had been believable, then he wouldn’t be kidnapped that night and tortured to death. Jeremy patted the pepper spray in his pants pocket. After closing the door, he had taken a moment to come out of character and have a little breakdown. He certainly hadn’t been cut out for this type of shit, and thank God he didn’t really know where they went. He had been quite sure if he had known, it would have shown on his forehead in neon. He had taken another moment to reflect on his friends, wondering if they were safe.
* * *
Sarah was filled with angst. She pondered in her head, over and over again, why, Ken, why? Why does your need for advancement, and more truthfully, approval, oftentimes block your big picture ability? I guess that’s why behind every great man, there is a great woman saving his ass. But not this time, this time he went too far, and at the wrong time, so now I’m going to have to go into cover-my-ass mode.
She knew she could have a chopper up there in thirty minutes out of Sacramento. That would cause all kinds of problems and raise all kinds of issues, especially if Rogers found out that Beck was screwing him again. That would get a phone call from the White House faster than shit through a goose. No, she was going to have to take precious resources out of an active search. Well, what choice do I have? Damn him for this!
She dispatched Webster and Macon to get up there and make contact with Assistant Director Beck. She was more than a little nervous about this, and felt guilty as hell about having to cover her ass because she should trust her “Superman.” She was always supposed to trust him to come through—Ken Beck had promised he’d never let her down.
She remembered the night six years ago when that promise had been made. They had been working on tracking down a terrorist cell together. They had been dispatched from D.C. to the area around Troy, Alabama to shake things up on a slowly-progressing case. The chatter, which had been through the roof, had died down, and the assessment had been that whatever threat had been developing had gone away, for whatever reason.
They had both walked out of that assessment meeting secretly disagreeing with the team’s assessment that it was a foreign threat that had gone away. Based on their hunch, they formulated a new plan. Their investigation had ended up yielding a homegrown-terrorist sect that had been getting ready to pull off some pretty heinous things in the name of Islam.
All of it had been an attempt to get people moving against anyone of Middle Eastern descent, and these nuts had been recruiting like mad, only in a different sector of the populous. Sarah had only had to spend a week biker blogging before she had arranged a meeting for Beck. He had gone in alone, and Sarah had been his remote backup.
Prior to the meeting, he had been fully tattooed and pierced. The fake tattoos had been applied with a special Agency dye that wouldn’t wear off for months. It had been Beck’s idea to overkill the tattoos so that they couldn’t place a brand on him. He had even done his penis.
He hadn’t shaved or showered for a week, and he had stunk. He had ridden a Harley into the meeting. Even his own mother would not have recognized him.
The group had let him in based on fake prison information he gave them. Some drunken asshole had helped him out as they dragged him out of a crowd and asked, “Do you know this dude?” The guy had stared and said, “Yeah, I know him. We did time together.”
That had been it. They had never pushed it past that. No one had talked about where they were from other than the city or state, so he had been cool.
For a month Beck had become one of them, but only after being vetted properly. He had always been able to pretend inhale when it came to Sherms or weed, so that had been no issue at all. Plus, his eyes had been so red from the constant smoke of one kind or another that that faking being stoned had been no problem.
But on his fourth night, after he had drunk the punch that was handed to him, the real Ken Beck had come out. He had gotten into two fights with much bigger opponents. Fortunately, he had remembered not to use martial arts, but his opponents had lost anyway. He had shagged numerous girls of all types, and after what seemed like hours of fucking and fighting, he had finally run out into the yard and started firing rounds off into the night sky. He had been buck-naked, screaming like a madman. The next morning, the group had nicknamed him “Madman.” That had cost him six months of active duty after his debriefing, when it emerged that the punch had been laced with Ecstasy. It also emerged that he might have contracted an STD and was tested monthly during his hiatus.
They had spilled all their hopes, dreams, and fears. That’s when he had told her to follow him no matter what.
The words hung over her now that she was doubting his abilities. Based on his past, this should be an easy slam-dunk, and she has no reason to doubt him professionally. He should be calling any moment, and they should be moving offices soon. Sarah took a quick second to fantasize about what her new office in Langley was going to look like.
* * *
The plane rose. Matt could see the area like daylight. What a night for a full moon.
He looked back and saw that Vera was still unresponsive. He went through the backpack and found a myriad of items, including a medical kit and some large strips of fabric, which he could only assume were meant to tie-off a wound.
He also found a bottle of water and some ibuprofen. He took four for himself and made his pilot take four as well, knowing it wouldn’t be long before his headache kicked in. He asked him, “How are you?”
Doug replied, “I’m sore. That asshole really messed me up. Who was he? Did he do to her what I think I saw?”
“Yes, he did, and that proves to you what I said. This isn’t about law and order. This is about corporations doing whatever the hell they want. They’re getting to be stronger than nations, Doug. That’s why I’m not kidding you when I say you will be let go and compensated. These guys are businessmen, resorting to violence only when necessary.” Matt could see he found comfort and logic in that.
“You said, ‘these guys.’ Aren’t you with them?”
“Let’s just say, I’m a special contractor to a lot of people, and we’ll leave it at that. Now, we’ll all be okay if we relax and you do your job, which is to simply fly us at treetop level seven hundred miles through at least two military zones. Do that and we’re all set.” Matt concluded his pronouncement by slapping Doug on the shoulder.
Doug gave him the look someone gives when they’re trying to figure out if they’re dealing with a dry-witted individual, or a certified nut job. Matt didn’t let him off the hook.
Matt unbuckled himself and went back to her, asking Doug to keep it steady for a few minutes, if possible. God, she was a mess. There was brain matter all over her, and the inside door of the plane, which had been open when he took the shot. He started with her hair. He had to pick out the fleshy particles, as there was just no other way.
He got what he could see and then started to clean her face. Her eyes opened with a start when he touched her face with the cool of the wound cloths he had converted into a damp wipe. She seemed to be coming back to reality. Thank God. He gave her a slight touch on the cheek. There was no more reaction from her after that. She remained completely catatonic.
She had a pair of shorts and a t-shirt in the backpack, but no underwear. Matt unbuckled her and undressed her, manipulating her out of her pants suit and ripped underwear, discarding them near the smattered door. He wiggled her into her shorts and manipulated the shirt on, trying not to be so lame as to think about sex with her. Much to his chagrin, when her breasts inadvertently touched his face, he got aroused. What is wrong with me thinking of sex at a time and circumstance such as this?
Then he caught a faint whiff of her fragrance and realized that something about her aroma was intrinsic to his infatuation. He didn’t know why, but he never wanted to be without that scent again.
The whole process took a good fifteen minutes. He could tell she was going to be of no use from this point forward.
Then he remembered his first aid training. She was in shock and needed warmth. The plane had been stocked with a first-aid kit, and fortunately there were two blankets as well. He took them both and wrapped her as best he could. Then he used the cotton swabs in the kit to clean the blood out of her swollen nose. He could tell she was not breathing well.
If it hurt he couldn’t tell, since she never flinched. But when the plane bucked and the jolt almost killed her, he decided it was time to call an end to the cleanup session. He belted her back in and made his way back up to the cockpit.
Once settled in, he asked Doug, “How’s it going?”
* * *
The problem with being able to recount the past in the way that Pablo did was that he sometimes fused two realities. He would come out of a fugue believing James was still alive, and then he had to deal with his death all over again. It was an unfortunate side effect of his ability to enter into deep thought.
He got up, stretched his arms and looked around his very modern office. It was time to go. He loathed this part.
He had only been to his own company twice, arriving by helicopter both times, which had built walls between him and the common folk running the place. Pablo really hated projecting such an image, but he had no desire to meet the people. Juanita was a good, loyal secretary, whom he actually let run the place as if she were the CEO. For all intents and purposes, she was.
All his companies turned a profit, and this one was no exception. He carefully chose the secretary for each company in light of what their jobs would really entail. Secretaries could run most offices of their own accord anyway. This simplified things for Pablo, since less people would be asking questions.
Today Juanita’s reward for a job well done was a set of keys handed to her with an address on the tag. Pablo told her that she had a new house, and that she should go enjoy it right away. He left the stunned woman sitting at her desk. He was sure that the minute he was gone, the buzzing would start. He was also sure Juanita was going to be keeping her new address secret from curious gossipers.
After some of the warehouse guys loaded his contraption, the chopper lifted off. He watched the building and the river get smaller and smaller, and then finally fade away.
His phone rang. The display read “Felipe.” He answered.
Felipe asked, “Have you heard from her, Pablo?”
“No, I haven’t heard from her since the last call, but that doesn’t mean she’s off schedule. We need to add more resources, since she might have to go off course and use one of the alternates. Felipe, do not fail me, spare no expense, and don’t forget where I told her to go first. You have your control station set up?”
“Yes, Pablo.”
“Okay. If I’m not back in time to take control, you know what to do.”
“Yes, Pablo. It’s such bad timing that something brought you away.”
“Although the timing was bad, Felipe, after setting this up for as long as I did, there was no delaying this meeting.”
“I hope it was a good meeting, Jefe.”
“Oh, it was, Felipe, it was. But now, we need her out.”
He hung up the phone and looked up at his laptop. The world news was getting serious, as well it should be. The payasos have figured out that whatever was in the safe was as serious as it gets. Little did they know the real reason he went into the safe had nothing to do with the EMP technology and everything to do with James’s back door access drive—a drive that could access every institution known to man.
In their time together, James had given him all his warfare knowledge firsthand, but he had not been able to give him the drive. The coding had been too much to try to convey while he was teaching him everything else. Time had been a barrier.
In the two years since then, he had already gotten ahead of his mentor’s EMP work. He was already in the production stages of a couple of new kinds of weapons. Well, at least they were new in the way he would deploy them. No, it wasn’t the EMP technology he was after.
The back-door codes were a little di
fferent. James had had insider knowledge of the Internet when it was young. He had gotten in and placed back doors before a lot of security was even invented. He had been a true “Ghost in the Machine.” Pablo desired that absolute power even more than his other aspirations.
Speaking of power, sitting in the back seat of the chopper, he looked back at the power. Not too many men ever came close to wielding this kind of power. It terrified his soul to think that it must be used.
His Russian friend had thought he was insane for even inquiring about the thing, until he told him the truth about how he planned to use it. Then the impossible became possible. No matter if Vera succeeded or failed, nothing was going to stop him from finishing what he started with that “suitcase,” as it was called.
He had come here to buy the suitcase, and that had been successful. Now he hoped that by the time he made it back to the compound (he no longer called it a hacienda), he would either hear from her or find out that she failed.
He settled back and looked at the screen once more. But he wasn’t into it, so he closed it and drifted back into his thoughts of things past, of him and James embarking on a new life.
They had crossed the lake with ease, taking in the scenery, but in a private, contemplative way. Immigration had been a breeze, and their car was parked in the marina parking lot. James had purchased a long-term spot there and had left a car with Swiss plates on it, just to make things easier while he was traveling back and forth to Zurich frequently.
They had both leaned on the marina rail, looking back one more time and saying goodbye to the life they had known. Every step was now going to be a whole new experience for Pablo, forcing the past out.
He’d had a flashback of his sister Jasmine, who had been the next youngest after him. One time his family had traveled to a mountain lake. He remembered their Papa had been playing with them. They had been running from the “monster,” played by their Papa. He had chased them around while they screamed. How could it be true? How could a whole family get wiped out? How could anyone be so callous as to murder my Jasmine? The tears fell. He had known it would take months, or years even to stop crying all the time. He had also known that when the tears dried, when he got his resolve back, then the pieces would move forward and he would get some closure.
The Harbinger of Change Page 17