by D S Kane
William Wing was shorter than Ann. He was a stocky Asian and wore black plastic glasses with thick lenses. He stared at the giant and asked, “How are you, Avram? I saw some of the Requests for Proposal that came in over on the website. You’re gonna need more mercs.”
Avram Shimmel just nodded. Ann felt confused by this exchange. She knew Cassie ran a consulting company but had no understanding of how large it was or what a consulting company did. Ann wondered what a ‘merc’ was.
The third man, Adam Mahee, a dapper black man in a conservatively tailored charcoal suite and burgundy rep tie smiled at Cassie. “How are you?”
Cassie nodded. “Adjusting to a more normal life. Lee is still recovering from PTSD, delivered at Gitmo courtesy of my former employers. How are you, Adam?”
“Got lots of news for you.”
Cassie nodded. “Let’s get started. Please be seated.” She motioned to the dining room table. “First, a status update and then the first meeting of the board of directors for our new company. As of yesterday, Swiftshadow Consulting Group is incorporated as a C corporation in Delaware and we have a bank account at Citibank. So we’re legit now. The website name is registered with Internic, so we’re open for business. William, what’s the status of the website?”
Wing’s eyes blinked through his thick glasses. “Uh, Cassie, it took less than an hour to complete the initial setup. I spruced up that clunker you had last year, so the feds can see it without wondering about us. The old website has all the raw materials except for the photographs of the board members.”
William pulled his cell from his pocket. “It’s why I asked you all to dress for business at this meeting. The feds want our photos to complete the approved vendor application. Please stand up.”
He attached a tiny tripod to the cell and pulled its legs out as far as they would extend, about twelve inches. Placing it at the far end of the table, he brought his chair around. All four chairs now faced the camera. “Smile. Three, two, one…” The cell flashed.
“Okay, now one of each board member individually.” Minutes later, William pulled his chair back to its original position, pocketed the cell, and collapsed the tripod.
Cassie asked Adam, “What’s happening with the GNU Radio patents?”
Adam replied, “Stillwater Technology Corporation is having difficulty going from prototype production to ramp up. Probably a year before they can even approach the FCC and FTC for approval. Until then, I’m just an adjunct professor at NYU’s Stern Graduate Business School, teaching entrepreneurial courses. If you want, I can help out with William’s hackers.”
Cassie said, “That’s up to William. Every one of you is the head of your own household, so to speak.” She asked Avram, “What’s our status on merc assignments?”
Avram looked at the table as he spoke, his voice just above a whisper, counting out the points on his fingers as he spoke. “As William mentioned, we have a wide choice of assignments. The sixty-four of us in merc ops can only handle two or three of the medium-sized ops and there are also twelve that require three men or less. It appears we’ll have a backlog of at least three months when we’re ready to go. Average length of an assignment is about three weeks. We should generate about four million dollars from the work, including backlog. That’s no better than break-even.”
Cassie frowned. How many of these assignments deal with terrorism?”
“All of them.”
“Well, okay then. How many are outside the Middle East?”
“All of them. Right now, after what we did in Afghanistan and Riyadh, we’re pariahs in the Middle East. No one wants us except Israel. And Mossad told me we owe them for their help a month ago. So we’ll give them a few weeks free sometime down the road when our cash flow breaks even.”
Cassie nodded. “William, what about covert ops for the Hacker Division?”
Ann watched Wing blink through his eyeglasses. His eyes looked as if each were in its own little fish bowl. He said, “Nothing as yet. But we’re busy right now, hacking cash out of terrorist bank accounts to pay for the two Middle East ops last month. I expect the feds will want us to grift for them soon. We’re at the top of the favored vendors list. A little patience.” He looked up and smiled.
Ann saw William’s teeth were yellow and broken. Everyone else had perfect teeth except for Ann, and Cassie had scheduled her for a visit to the dentist. Ann wondered what that would be like. She guessed William didn’t like dentists and took that as a warning that if she suggested he needed a dentist, he’d take it as an insult.
Cassie nodded. “So much for status. Now the board of directors meeting.” She handed a piece of paper to William. “This is the bank account authorization resolution. I need all of you to approve the opening of our bank account by signing this form. I’ll get it back to Bank of Trade and they’ll complete the account opening.” William signed the paper, then passed it to Avram. He signed it and handed it to Adam, who also signed it. Then Cassie signed the form. “Now I need each of you to read and sign papers that grant you your positions with the company and issue you salary and stock. She handed Avram, Adam, Lee, and William stacks of paper and each shuffled and scribbled their signatures on the papers. When they finished, she said, “Congratulations. I signed my papers earlier this afternoon. With the exception of Lee, who will be on the board of directors but not be a corporate officer, we’re all officially with Swiftshadow Consulting Group.”
Cassie waved one hand to signal something important was now complete. She said, “That concludes the board meeting. But now, I have a personal request for all of you. When we wrapped up merc ops and the dust settled, I found that I had lots of money, more than I’d ever dreamed of still in my bank accounts. Right now there’s about two billion dollars but there’s more arriving every day. When I was hunted, I never thought I’d end up having to so many human beings. It left me damaged in a way I cannot comprehend. But with all this money, maybe I can set things right. I vowed that Swiftshadow would be a force for good in the world. I’d like to use some of my own money the same way. I have more than I’ll need for twenty lifetimes, so Ann will inherit what Lee and I haven’t spent. But what can I do with all the excess money in the meantime? I’ll give much of it to charities, and some special projects. But there’s just so much.”
Avram said, “Sashakovich, I know that you bear a great deal of guilt for the people you tortured and murdered. This is only natural. I feel the same way for some of the souls I’ve taken, even though all of the ones I murdered truly deserved to die for the people they killed. I don’t have any advice to offer you. This is your own issue and you have to solve it your own way. But if you can use the money to assuage your guilt, then do it.”
Ann listened carefully to this exchange, more questions looming in her mind.
Mahee said, “You know, Cassie, you’ve done well with the Stillwater development. The product you had them produce for th mercenary operations, well, it works. And it has potential military applications. All they need do is complete development and ramp up. It should net you about an eight hundred percent return.”
Cassie shook her head, her brows arching. “Adam, that doesn’t really benefit anyone besides you and me. No, I want to invest my money in a way that might serve some higher purpose.”
Mahee ran his fingers through his short curly hair. Ann watched as he smiled. “Maybe you should join an angel investment group, where you can network with other investors that have been through the process. That way you’ll learn what companies are currently available for investors and how to judge quality. Once you‘ve learned how to be an effective investor, you can form your own venture capital company. You certainly have enough money to do a few early stage investments, and if they don’t work out, at least they’ll teach you what you need to know. There’s an angel network at NYU’s Stern Graduate Business School. I could provide you with a letter of introduction if you want.”
Cassie replied, “Thanks, Adam. Please do that.”
The men rose as one and Lee opened the hallway closet to get their coats.
After Cassie’s board members left, Ann said to Cassie, “Okay, Cassie, I’ve been patient, waiting for the right time. Now I have lots of questions. You have to give me answers.”
Cassie replied, “Okay.”
“Who are those men? What does Swiftshadow do? What will you do that’s different from what you told me before?”
Cassie gulped. “One question at a time.”
It was time to tell the truth. Ann wondered what she would discover.
CHAPTER 6
September 27, 9:46 p.m.
220 East Kirke Street,
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Cassie and Lee sat next to each other, with Ann across the other side of the dining room table. Cassie began, speaking way too fast. “I’ll tell you everything, but I’ll start at the very beginning, so you understand how Lee and I were set up so easily.”
She sighed. “To understand, you need to go back to when I was your age. I wanted to be a chef, to be able to create food with marvelous taste and aroma. After college, I went to a chef school. But I found the strong odors of many of the ingredients made me sick. I loved eating the final product, but hated the raw flavors and smells. My father suggested I go back to school and study something that was less offensive, and—”
“What do you mean? You smell things the rest of us can’t?” Ann seemed to find this unbelievable.
“Exactly. For example, could you smell Adam’s cologne when you let him into the house?” In response, Ann shook her head. Cassie said, “Well, I could. And underneath that aroma, I could smell the scent of the woman Adam’s been dating. Both her perfume and the smell of the sex they had before he came here. There was a trace of her still on his fingers.” Ann’s eyes bulged and she gulped. “Yes. As for William, I could detect the odor of marijuana on his clothing. I think he uses it when he’s alone.”
Ann nodded her head. Even though she’d also missed this aroma on William, she was familiar with it from her homeless days. Now as she thought back, she remembered something familiar about him, and that was it.
Cassie continued. “My dad, Kiril, became a professor of economics at Stanford University after he and my mom fled the Soviet Union as it started wobbling before it fell. He wanted me to earn my PhD in economics there. And I did. It turns out I have a natural talent for math. Dad helped me, of course. Before my parents came here, dad used to work with the KGB.”
“The KGB? Aren’t they Russian spies?” Ann shook her head.
“The Soviet Union’s global spy agency. But the government fell after it ran out of money fighting a war in Afghanistan.”
“So your dad was a spy and a killer too?”
She shook her head. “Neither. Daddy was an economist and he worked in central planning. But he worked with spies and killers. So it didn’t surprise me that after I graduated with a specialty in economics, one of our country’s intelligence agencies approached me and asked me to go to work for them. Our government wanted me to be a spy.”
Ann’s felt the shock of understanding. Raw, like a slap on her face. “Oh. So that’s why people wanted to kill you.”
“It’s a much longer story. Both Lee and I worked for an intelligence agency. I have special talents in global banking and I’m a pretty good hacker. A thief. Not in William’s league, but he claims that he’s the best and I believe him. As for Lee, he handled the agency’s technology and security. Networks, including voice, telemetry, and support for satellite uplinks and downlinks. He was director of security.” Cassie’s brows rose with Ann’s confusion. “Sorry, a technician, not a spy.”
Ann shrugged and Cassie continued. “But, one of the assistant directors—my boss—was a mole secretly working for terrorists. He compromised my identity and sold it. Terrorists hunted me, assisted by the agency mole. I fled for my life and that’s when I met you. I was desperate, homeless, and without much hope for a future.”
Ann nodded her head. She remembered this exactly as it happened.
“But Lee helped me and we prevailed. I stole money from the terrorists who hunted us, using computers to do the stealing. I stole almost two billion dollars from their bank accounts.”
Ann shook her head. “You stole how much? Isn’t that impossible?”
“Not for me. I didn’t go to into any of the banks. I just used a computer to do it.”
Ann raised her eyes to show the doubt she felt.
“I used the money to hire a private army, mercenaries. They’re the heart of Swiftshadow Consulting Group, and Avram leads them. We attacked and defeated the terrorists in two battles in the Middle East, one in eastern Afghanistan and the other in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We massacred over seven hundred terrorists.” Cassie waved her hand for emphasis and Ann flinched.
The teenager’s jaw dropped. “No way. You killed hundreds?” Then she remembered Cassie’s behavior in the tunnels and she just nodded.
“The agency mole had Lee arrested and sent to prison where they tortured him. I went back to the mole with evidence of his treason and blackmailed him. So they released Lee and now the mole works for me. I told him if he tries betraying me again, I’ll take the lives of his entire family.”
Ann now understood just how deliberate Cassie’s violence could be. She gulped. This woman was a thief and a mass murderer. Her face scrunched in focus. “So, you and Lee kill people. Swiftshadow kills people. And, and, uh, you steal their money, too,” she added in a whisper, almost as an afterthought.
Lee had been sitting silent until now. He said, “I know this makes us sound awful, but these are murderers who wouldn’t think twice at slitting your throat. Swiftshadow kills terrorists, who murder innocent people. If no one stops them, they could wipe out entire cities. Which is what they were planning when Cassie and her mercenaries stopped them. We saved millions of lives. We have no pity for these murderers, no remorse about wholesale slaughter of them.”
Cassie’s eyes bored into Ann’s. “I wanted you to meet Avram, William, and Adam tonight. They are the best at what they do. Should anything ever happen to Lee and me, Ann, they promised me they’ll protect you and act as your guardians.”
Cassie waited while Ann pondered their story. Then she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. “Here’s a list of phone numbers and email addresses for each.” She handed Ann the page.
Ann scratched her head as if trying to ignore this crucial bit of intel. Then she nodded her head. “Cassie, why did you want me? How do I fit into any of this?”
Cassie sucked a lungful of air. “You and me, Ann, we’re so alike; I wanted you to be with me.”
As she looked at Cassie, Ann thought she was nothing like her.
“But there’s something more. Please, this is very hard for me.” Cassie’s voice shook. “When the agency sent me to the Middle East, the terrorists I was stealing from set me up. As I told you before, they sent a man to kill me, but before he did that, he raped me and I killed him in self-defense. I didn’t know I was pregnant when I met you.”
Her voice became a mixture of sobs and high-pitched words. “So, I must have been more receptive to the idea of a daughter, and Ann, if I ever had my own child, I would want her to be someone just like you. You’ve been left alone to fend for yourself in the worst of circumstances, and you succeeded. I admire that.”
Cassie tried to smile but it just crinkled her face. “I had an abortion after I left the tunnels. The doctor told me I’d probably never get pregnant again. Scarring inside me. I’ve stopped having regular periods, just once in a while. Without you, I probably won’t ever have a chance for a family. I so much want that.”
Gizmo purred in Ann’s lap as she began petting the kitten again. Ann thought, an instant family. I’m part of an instant family and my parents are mass murderers who steal and kill for a living. She shook her head, not knowing what to say. It was like she’d been blown into another dimension.
It was too much to c
omprehend at one time, but she guessed that the love Cassie felt for her was real. She still wasn’t sure about Lee, but could see they loved each other. She still hadn’t decided whether she trusted Cassie.
She needed to let all she’d heard sit for a while until she could figure it out.
She was sure no one at the prissy school they sent her to had a family anything like this.
* * *
That night, Cassie and Lee twined their bodies together for the first time since she’d left him in California and went with the mercs to kill the Houmaz brothers in the Middle East.
She touched him very carefully, worrying that his body might still be fragile, and the tension built slowly for them both. He knew every trigger point on her body, and used every one of them. He gently massaged her breasts with his fingers, then used his lips, and then bent to her thighs, kissing them gently as she gripped the pillow in an effort to center herself and stay in control. But as their passion grew, command over her body slipped away.
Lee stopped. “It’s been so long since the last time we enjoyed each other.” He touched her lips with his fingers. Softly suckled one of her nipples.
She drew his lips harder onto her breast. “Please, please, more. Please?”
Lee grinned. “Remember the Marriott in Washington last year? You met me at the door to your room, holding a gun in your hand.” He scraped his teeth over one of her nipples, and then with slow deliberation drew it deep within his mouth. “You still taste good.”
Lee took his time, controlled and focused his pent-up passion, being careful to ensure that he touched her exactly where he knew it would work her hardest. His face brushed her crotch, tongue flicking into her, causing her back to arch in a sudden climax, then began sucking her clitoris as if it was a third nipple while his fingers pulled gently, kneading her tiny breasts.
After her third climax, she guided him into her. He entered slowly, slipping, pushing and pumping rhythmically until they both climaxed again. But Lee wasn’t finished. He stayed erect and continued to thrust, slower now, rebuilding sensations at her core until she couldn’t bear it any longer. Cassie began whimpering as he pumped himself into her, gasping, and she felt him flood her with himself.