The young man smiled affably and extended a hand. “Hello Conrad, thanks for coming in. My name is Agent Lorenz. I have a few questions for you about your father.”
Conrad stood there staring at the hand until Agent Lorenz gave up and used it to wave to the chair and said, “Please sit down.”
Conrad sat.
Still smiling, Agent Lorenz said, “First off, I want to assure you that you aren’t in any trouble. You’re a good kid with a clean record,” he looked into the distance, he must have had smart contacts on. “A very clean record.” He chuckled. “I can safely say the cleanest I’ve ever seen. So, you have nothing to worry about. All we want to know where your father is.”
Agent Lorenz waited patiently as Conrad continued to look around the room. He knew he was being monitored. His pupils were watched for dilation, infrared cameras monitoring any changes to his skin temperature. There were probably all sorts of fancy sensors in the chair and table. They were probably even monitoring him for sphincter contractions. He wondered if they could tell if someone was lying from sphincter contractions.
“Conrad, do you know where your father is?”
One piece of advice his dad had given him was that if he was ever questioned by the Man that he should say absolutely nothing. Conrad didn’t know where his father was, but he suspected that he was under the Bergs. He did not want Agent Lorenz to know about the entrance into Fuji.
His sphincter contracted involuntarily.
Dafuq!
“Conrad, it’s in your father’s best interest for him to come to us voluntarily. Are you in contact with him? Can you get a message to him? Tell him that it’s in his best interest to come to us?”
Conrad wished he knew Morse code. If he knew Morse code, he could spell out D-A-F-U-Q in sphincter contractions.
“Now Conrad, we can hold you for three days as a material witness in a serious Federal investigation involving national security. But we don’t want to do that. There’s no need for us to inconvenience you that way. But we do want to be fair and give you time to decide what is best for both you and your father. So how about we sit here for some time and let you think about this, think about what’s best for your father. How does that sound?”
His dad had tried to teach him Morse code once. He was pretty sure ‘D’ was dash dot dot and ‘A’ was dot dash. He had no idea what F was.
“How about I leave you for a bit while you think about it. Are you thirsty? Hungry? Can I grab you a sandwich from the cafeteria?” After a few moments he said, “Okay, I’ll be back in a little bit.”
It was over an hour before Agent Lorenz returned. Once again he tried to convince Conrad what was in his father’s best interest. Once again Conrad remained silent. Eventually Lorenz nodded and said, “Very well Conrad, I’ll have someone bring you back to your apartment.”
On the way home Conrad realized why they were letting him go. They were going to watch him in the hope that he would try to contact his dad.
He wished that he could.
Chapter 46
After taking a shower Terri dressed in pink sweats and got a tub of Ben and Gerry’s Cherry Garcia from the freezer. After pouring in a dash of rum for taste she curled up on the couch and dug into it with gusto. She had taken her contacts out before the shower and was now wearing an old pair of smart glasses—retro cat-eye style with sequins—and watched mindless television and ate her ice cream for an hour. When the doorbell rang she considered ignoring it without even seeing who it was. After the fifth ring she used her glasses to look out the apartment door camera—Natalya was outside.
The rum had added fuel to the flames of her anger. She put down the ice cream and stormed to the door, swinging it open.
“How could you!” She yelled at Natalya. “How could you do that to Conrad? And to his father? How could you do that?’
Natalya’s face was placid, serene. “I was so worried about you,” she said, completely ignoring Terri’s anger. “Where have you been these past few days?”
“Don’t you do that! Don’t you play dumb! You planned all of this! You ruined Conrad’s life!”
“Yes, I should have been more careful,” Natalya said sadly. “I should have taken more precautions before talking to Kimbra—but I couldn’t talk to you. I let my guard down talking to Kimbra, and for that I’m sorry.” She walked into the apartment past Terri. Terri slammed the door.
“Conrad hates me now! He hates me because he knows I was a part of your plans. He knows!”
“You weren’t a part of anything. There was no ‘thing’ for you to be a part of. It was an accident on my part, and I feel terrible about that, but the real culprit is our corrupted society. It’s society’s distain for privacy that has caused all of this. Conrad will see that.”
“No! You planned all this! You had someone take that video of you!”
Natalya smiled condescendingly. “That’s ridiculous. I’m an advocate of privacy, and so is Conrad. We are all on the same side. We all despise how society plots to uncover our secrets—the secrets that keep us safe.”
“This is one secret you won’t keep safe. Our conversations will prove that you planned this. I don’t care anymore—I will show them to everyone. I’ll show everyone what an evil bitch you are!”
“What conversations?” Natalya asked innocently.
Terri brought up her time-line and scrolled back to the conversation where Natalya first came up with her plan to use 3CV—but instead of the conversation there was just a blank space. She quickly scrolled through her time-line, back and forth, and saw it was filled with blank spaces.
“I went through your account recently and cleaned up the dead space that was taking up computer memory—you know, since I’m paying for your account it only makes sense for me to purge any useless recordings, times that you’re sleeping or when you’re just staring mindlessly at the clouds. There’s some app that goes through all your memory and uses some artificial intelligence to figure out what is useless. And then the useless bits get erased. Maybe it accidently deleted some of our conversations.” She smiled innocently.
“You bitch,” Terri spat. She was done with Natalya. There was no going back now. She felt both fear and exhilaration at the new found freedom that had been released by her anger. But the fear was starting to eclipse the anger as she looked at Natalya’s serene, scheming face.
“I love Conrad,” Terri said, it came out as almost a growl. “And you made him hate me.”
“He doesn’t hate you,” Natalya said. “Once he realizes this is all just a big misunderstanding he will come back to you. And then you two can go off and live happily ever after. Conrad wants it to be a big misunderstanding, just like you want it to be. And guess what?” She smiled brightly. “That’s what it is! But I need one last favor from you, and when you do it for me you can live whatever life you want to live without me. I will talk to Conrad, tell him that you knew nothing, which is the truth, because there was nothing to know. And when the government finds David Hicks I will make sure he has the best lawyers money can buy, because he is the founder of 3CV. He is my hero, and I want him to be safe and free.”
“No you don’t,” Terri said, backing away from her. “You want him to get arrested. You want him locked away for life. With him locked away he will be a martyr to your cause. He won’t be able to interfere with your plans for 3CV. But I won’t let you get away with it!”
Natalya bit her lip, apparently trying to suppress a laugh. When she regained her composure she said, “Now you sound like some stock hero trying to stop an evil villain. ‘I won’t let you get away with it’. Please. I’m not trying to get away with anything. I’m only trying to spread truth, freedom, and compassion. I have compassion for you and I want you to be happy.”
“You’re not going to fool anyone.”
This time Natalya couldn’t suppress her laugh. “You’ve got to stop saying things like that. I can’t keep a straight face. You’re like Superman talking to Lex Luthor. List
en, this is all I want. I’m meeting with Marja in the Blank Room my father set up at one of his hotels. She’s bringing her number two so I have to bring my number two, who is still you. So all you have to do is stand there and look serious, like you’re looking now. Perfect. After that you and I will part ways. I’ll do whatever needs to be done to get you and Conrad to reconcile. Deal?”
Under most circumstances Natalya would have been in a raving fit, considering how Terri had been defying her. She was well aware of what Natalya could do if she wanted to get revenge on someone. She could make life hell for her. If this was the only way to make a clean break from her, it was worth it.
“Deal,” Terri said through her teeth.
“Great,” Natalya said. “The meeting is at one o’clock tomorrow.” She headed for the door. “I’ll text you with the details.” She opened the door and turned to Terri. “It’s so sad that you let a boy come between us.”
She left before Terri could find something to throw at her.
Chapter 47
The back doors of the van opened, sunlight streaming in from the setting sun, casting shadows from many silhouetted shapes in the street.
“We have to take him to his door,” the agent seated to Conrad’s right said.
The agent to his left just grunted and stood, grabbing his upper arm and saying, “Trip is over, time to get out.”
Obey and stay quiet. Conrad stood and stepped out of the van with the agents. There were some reporters in the crowd, people in nice clothes approaching him with microphones but stopping a few meters away, shouting questions. But the majority of people did not look professional. Young and old, some dressed in 3CV t-shirts, some holding signs reading FREE CONRAD HICKS and WHERE IS CRAYNIUM? Many were chanting 3CV! 3CV! A middle aged woman broke from the crowd and came to within a meter of Conrad and said with tears streaming from her face, “We freed you Conrad! We freed you!”
Most of the crowd kept their distance as the agents led Conrad down the steps to his apartment. The agents turned toward the crowd that gathered around the top of the steps as Conrad went through the ritual of opening his door. When it opened the agents started up the stairs and he went inside, locking the door behind him.
He could still hear the chanting outside.
“What the hell?” he said to himself and went to the sink and poured himself a glass of water. He gulped it down and poured himself another one. He was starving, but with all the flip-flops his stomach was doing he couldn’t possibly eat anything. He put on his smart glasses and got on the local network. His father had security cameras pointing outside and he now had access to them. He panned the camera over the crowd. He had his glasses count the people—four hundred and sixty-three. Some had set up tents on the sidewalk. There were plastic barrels of water with spigots and a make-shift outdoor kitchen with a grill. There was even a port-o-potty.
Dad really had followers now. What would he think about all this? Would he be pleased? Now that his secret was out and there were people who actually followed the precepts of 3CV?
One part of Conrad wanted his father to remain hidden—so he could imagine that he was hiding out someplace safe, incognito, using his wiles to foil the Man. He could imagine that, even convince himself of that—but the other part just wanted to know what happened to his dad. The uncertainty, when he faced it, was unbearable. Was his father hurt, was he dead? And if so, Conrad would always, to some extent, blame himself.
Chapter 48
Natalya was nearly overcome with nervous excitement. The plan was moving forward perfectly—but she was worried about her meeting with Marja. Her strategy was to play it straight—she was now an adherent to 3CV and she would invite Marja to join the cause. Of course Marja wouldn’t—how could she join a cause that called out her uncle as one of the most evil people in the world? Ideally, Marja would leave the Blank Room declaring to the world that Natalya was a fraud. She needed someone to do it, someone she could confront and declare her sincerity to. It might as well be someone with a vested interest against 3CV. The narrative was too perfect for the press to ignore. And with a rift that big it would squash any talk from her father about any reconciliation between the two of them.
Of course, Marja probably anticipated this angle. Natalya was sure that Marja was examining the 3CV movement and making her own plans on how to deal with it. Natalya’s worst fear was a collaboration between Marja and Conrad. Fortunately, Conrad was stuck in his apartment surrounded by reporters, police and the riff raff that made up his new following. It was a good thing that Metronome had bugged his hard line when they were there. If there was any contact between Marja and Conrad she would know about it.
But Conrad wouldn’t always be trapped, and Natalya had to have Marja make a public statement against Conrad and his movement as soon as possible to prevent any possible collaboration between the two. Now was the time to provoke her to speak out against both her and Conrad.
Okay, let’s assume Marja knows my plan to have her speak against Conrad. What are her choices? If we come out of the Blank Room and she makes no public statements I can say that we reconciled and hint that she seemed receptive to 3CV. That would force her to make a statement against it. Since there are no recordings it will be her word against mine.
But what about Terri? Is it a good idea to have her be there? What if she publically takes Marja’s side? I want her there because of her connection to Conrad, but that’s dangerous because she could flip.
No, she won’t flip. She wants Conrad. She knows I’m the only one who can convince him that she is innocent and is only looking out for his best interests. It’s in both her and Conrad’s interests to be on my side in this.
Natalya prided herself on how she could read people, but with so much riding on this Blank Room meeting she had to be ready to deal with whatever tactic Marja decided upon. She didn’t see Marja having too many options, but Marjaana Kekkonen was not someone to be underestimated.
Chapter 49
Terri was at the gun range firing at a target, feeling the gun’s recoil hammer at her wrists. Natalya had texted her, telling her to bring the gun with her to the Blank Room. Natalya wanted the gun back, since, as she said, she had paid for it and it was really hers. Terri had wanted to fire it one more time, to get her frustrations out in the little explosions in her hands, imagining Natalya’s face on the target. It felt good, it felt powerful. She could understand how people could get caught up with guns. That was something she could never talk to Conrad about.
After firing a hundred rounds she brought the gun back to her apartment and cleaned it, like Detective Martinez had shown her. She made sure the two magazines were loaded. Natalya had given her the gun with two full magazines, so she would return it with two full magazines. She didn’t want to owe her anything and it was the kind of thing Natalya would notice.
The Blank Room had been incorporated into the Borgan Enterprise Hotel next to the airport, in the industrial section of the city, just north of the Bergs near where she and Conrad had been taken by Felicity Black. Terri arrived at 12:45. She was wearing jeans and a baggy gray t-shirt with a red rose floral print. The leather pocketbook slung over her shoulder was one that Natalya hadn’t given her, it had been a present from her mother. The Blank Room was on the fifth floor, room 512.
As she stood in front of the door a disclaimer appeared, projected by her smart contacts, saying that she agreed to all of the terms for entering a room that didn’t allow for recording and that she would not hold Borgan Hotels Incorporated responsible for anything that happened within that could be related to a lack of recording or communication with the outside world. She pressed the virtual button that said “I Agree”.
The door opened immediately. Natalya stood in front of her, her face betraying no emotion. She was wearing what seemed to have become her new uniform these days—a knee length black skirt and plain white blouse, her hair pulled back.
“Hello Terri, thank you for coming,” Natalya said formally,
standing aside so Terri could walk in. As she did so the words, “Network Connection Lost,” appeared briefly in front of her. As Natalya closed the door she heard the soundproof seal adhere to it.
“Well, we can now speak freely here, if there’s anything you want to say before Marja arrives.”
The room was a typical business suite, two couches facing each other and a no-nonsense desk with an office chair in the corner. The curtains were drawn, no light coming in from outside—perhaps they had boarded up the windows, the Blank Rooms in police shows always had no windows. Between the two couches, on the coffee table, was an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne. Four champagne flutes were next to it. Near them was a tray containing bruschetta bites.
“I have nothing more to say,” Terri said. “I just want to get this over with.”
“Fine,” Natalya said. “All you have to do is stand there and look grim. It seems you’ve got that down. Do you have my gun?”
Terri removed the gun and extra magazine from her pocketbook and put them on the coffee table. “Careful, it’s loaded,” she said.
Natalya slid the gun and magazine into her black clutch. “You might not have anything to say, but I need to tell you that all this makes me very, very sad. Although you might think we are ending our friendship now, I’d like to think that we are just taking some time off, and there are no hard feelings on my part.”
Terri wasn’t sure what scared her more—the old brutally honest, in your face ready to explode at any moment Natalya—or this new creepy fake ethical Natalya. Whatever, she thought, it doesn’t matter, after this I’ll have nothing to do with her anymore.
Natalya paced as they waited for Marja. Terri remained standing, looking at everything in the room but Natalya.
Girl in a Fishbowl (Crowbar Book 1) Page 23