Schema looked unimpressed. “That’s a foolish idea. The Joule is tighter than Fort Knox. Trust me, the ship is impenetrable.”
“Nothing is impenetrable.”
“The Joule is. Its security systems can’t be breached. And it keeps its periphery. If anything comes within three hundred meters, it submerges. Its protocols are unbending.”
“Which is why we need you to help us steal it. We need to know the ship’s security features and its crew’s protocols.” The voice leaned back in his seat. “If you help us steal the Joule, you get your life back. We’ll give you a hundred million dollars from the boat and allow you to regain control of the Elgen company.”
“I want Hatch’s head on a stake.”
“You can get his head yourself. Take your money and buy an army. But first we need to steal the boat. We need protocols and security features.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Schema said. “But Hatch has probably already changed the protocols.”
“We’ll take what you can give us.”
“I can get you the boat’s schematics. . . . There are plans—blueprints.”
“Where are they?”
“They were on the Ampere.”
“We sunk the Ampere.”
“I know. I was there. But the plans are still on it. And the Ampere is resting in only seventy feet of water. The Peruvian government hasn’t started to move it yet. The plans are protected in a waterproof safe in the captain’s suite. If you can get to the Ampere, I can tell you how to get into the safe.”
The voice nodded slowly. “All right, that’s a beginning.” He turned. “Cassy, please tell Maggie to come in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then come back yourself. I want you here for this. I want you to know everything about our plans.”
Cassy’s eyebrows rose. “I’m going to be involved in this mission?”
“Maybe. This might be too big even for the Electroclan.”
Cassy followed Maggie into the room, and the two women took seats next to Schema.
“Tell us everything you know,” the voice said. “Use the board.”
Schema walked up to the whiteboard mounted on the wall on the west side of the room.
“Use the stylus. Just write. It will automatically record everything on my computer.”
Schema lifted a silver, pen-like instrument. It beeped slightly when it touched the board’s surface. “This is what I know. First, the Joule always stays at least six hundred meters from any shore.”
“It was docked in Peru when we sank the Ampere.”
“I’m telling you the protocols I know,” Schema said. “Like I said, Hatch could have changed them. In Peru, it was likely that with the number of guards and ships in the area, Hatch felt invulnerable and got lazy and impatient, so he moved it in to load before crossing to Tuvalu.”
“All right, so he’s human—almost. Are there any other exceptions to that protocol?”
“During maintenance. But the Joule is only maintained in the Elgen shipyard.”
“Where’s that?”
“Off the western coast of Italy, near Fiumicino.”
“That’s a long way from Tuvalu.”
“If there was an emergency, they’d have to improvise.”
The voice thought for a moment, then said, “We could create an emergency. That might be usable. Continue.”
“Most of the time, the Joule stays partially submerged and only rises for supplies or when the crew changes, which is every three months.”
“When is it due a crew change?”
Schema bowed his head to think. After a moment he looked up. “If they’ve maintained their schedule, then they changed crews just two weeks ago.”
“That won’t help us. What about their supply schedule?”
“The galley crew leaves the Joule on surface boats and handles the food and necessities. No non-crew personnel are allowed within three hundred meters of the boat. Ever. If the guards or land crew see any unknown person or if the crew reports anything suspicious, the land crew is abandoned and the Joule submerges. Everything is done by a strict schedule that is only known by crew and top Elgen brass. The only exception allowed is if the admiral-general visits. Or an EGG.”
“How often do they do that?”
“They don’t, that I know of. But they could.” Schema lifted the stylus and wrote. “Number two, the crew constantly monitors the waters around them. If anything comes near, the boat submerges. I mean anything. It once submerged for a school of barracuda. Also, if there is an emergency onshore, it submerges.
“Number three, the Joule always travels with a battleship escort.”
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Cassy said.
“Easy?” Schema said, smirking. “It’s impossible. I told you, she’s impenetrable.” Schema looked at them. “Trust me, the security is perfect.”
“Nothing is impossible. Nothing is perfect. There must be some way.”
Schema thought for a moment, then said, “The only chance would be with help from the inside. It would have to be someone high up.”
“How high?”
Schema shook his head. “Hatch or an EGG. Nothing less. But you’ll never get an EGG. They’re the elite—sworn loyal to death. They’ll never turn.”
“One already has.”
Schema looked at him disbelieving. “Hatch has lost one of his EGGs?”
“His chief EGG,” the voice said.
“David Welch?”
“Yes.”
Schema’s brow fell. “That’s unbelievable. And Hatch hasn’t already killed him?”
“Welch is on the run. For now.”
“Where is he?”
“If we knew that, we might not be having this conversation.”
“Welch knows everything. If something had happened to Hatch, Welch would have taken over the Elgen. Welch could get you onto the Joule.”
The voice thought a moment, then said, “All right, our priority has changed to find Welch.” He turned to Maggie. “Get me Simon at Christmas Ranch.”
Hatch inspected his personal guard, then returned alone to his room to read. A half hour later his door opened and Hatch’s servant, a beautiful, long-haired Filipino woman, walked in. She left a glass of Scotch on the table, then bowed to him. “As you requested, Excellency.”
“Thank you,” Hatch said.
“My pleasure, sir. May I do anything else for you?”
“Go to the dispensary and get me Ambien and Seroquel.”
“Ambien and Seroquel?”
“They’re sleeping pills.”
“Yes, sir. How many?”
“Just bring me the bottles.”
“Immediately, sir.”
Hatch went back to his book as his servant hurried from the room. For the last week he hadn’t been sleeping well. Most people living the horror and violence of his life wouldn’t sleep well, if they could at all—their consciences wouldn’t allow it. But Hatch wasn’t wired that way. He didn’t lose any more sleep over sending someone to the rat bowl than he would destroying a digital foe in a video game.
Hatch thought of himself as a warrior in that way, or, even more so, a general. It was logic. You couldn’t become overly sentimental over one soldier if you wanted to defeat an army. Sentimentality didn’t work in war. Hatch prided himself on being above such “small-mindedness,” as he called it. If you couldn’t sacrifice a few men for the many, you could never be trusted to lead.
What was costing him sleep was just one man. Welch. As his former top man and EGG, Welch knew things. No, Welch knew everything. He not only knew the Elgen’s plans; he knew their strategies and methods of achieving them. He knew their technology. He even knew their finances. Most of all, he knew Hatch. Welch was a threat greater than the resistance because he was the ultimate insider—a cancerous tumor inside the Elgen brain. Welch in the wrong hands, or speaking into the wrong ear, could spell disaster for the Elgen, and for Hatch personally. As long as Wel
ch lived, Hatch’s plans were in peril. Welch needed to be exterminated no matter the cost.
Hatch regretted not just shooting Welch the night he was arrested. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. But first Welch needed to be found, and that was no simple matter. Welch had overseen nearly all of the Elgen hunts for more than a decade and was personally responsible for finding six of the Glows. He knew the Elgen search techniques better than Hatch did. Finding Welch in Taiwan would be like finding a grain of rice in a rice paddy—a grain of rice that knew you were looking for it and knew how to be invisible. No matter—he would be found. And next time Hatch wouldn’t wait for a show execution. The million-dollar reward he had offered was for a dead Welch, not a live one.
Former EGG David Welch was barely twenty-one years old the night his destiny collided with the Elgen. In fact, his birthday had been the day before, and he was still tired from staying up too late with his college roommates.
The moon was unusually bright that night, and even that played a part in his fate. Welch was delivering pizzas for a local company, Sasquatch Pizza, when he was sent out on a delivery to the Elgen building.
He had parked his car, a ’72 Camaro in need of a paint job, in the restricted delivery zone in front of the new Elgen building. He thought that the building and grounds were impressive, with a seven-story-high tower and laboratory with a bronze-colored, mirrored glass exterior.
The entire twenty-four-block area had been developed as a research park, and he was always glad when he got called there on a delivery, as many of the people who worked at the buildings were rich and tipped well. Once, someone tipped him a fifty-dollar bill—a near fortune for him.
That night he was about to get out of his car when he noticed a shadowy figure creeping through the cactus garden near the building’s front windows.
Recently some of Welch’s coworkers had been robbed making deliveries, so he kept alert. Welch lifted the vinyl pizza carrier bags from his backseat and got out of his car, locking it behind him—something he rarely did.
The figure in the shadows seemed too active, too intent, to be a homeless person looking for somewhere to sleep. Welch wondered if they were trying to break into the building. That too would be odd, since there were obviously people inside, who, Welch reminded himself, were waiting for their pizzas.
With his arms full of pizza boxes he started up the front walkway toward the entry. That’s when the darkened figure cocked back its arm and threw something at the front window, breaking a large, jagged hole in the glass. The sound of shattering glass was followed by the wail of an alarm.
Welch’s first thought was that he would be blamed for breaking the window, as he appeared to be alone and was within throwing distance of the window. A man in a gray-and-black security uniform appeared near the front window, looking directly at him.
Then the vandal sprang from the garden, sprinting diagonally across the building’s front walkway in Welch’s direction. Instinctively, Welch dropped his pizzas and took off to intercept the man. Welch was built for pursuit. Even though he was large and muscular, he was also quick. He had played both linebacker and lineman on his high school’s football team.
Welch leveled the guy, who was barely half his size and at least ten years older than him, with a waist-high tackle. Then he picked him up by the waist and carried him over to the front entryway, where there were now three security guards rushing out of the building.
“I caught this guy,” Welch said. “He threw a rock through your window.”
“It was a brick,” the head security guard replied. He was a stern-looking man with a broad, flat nose from being broken multiple times. He was a few inches shorter than Welch but even broader of shoulder. He looked at the man in Welch’s arms, then shook his head. “You can put him down. But don’t let go of him.”
Welch did as the guard said.
“His name is Dominic. He used to work here in the accounting office. They canned him yesterday. I think he just lost his severance.” He turned to the guard next to him. “How far out are the police?”
“About five minutes.”
“Let them know we have the perpetrator.”
The disgruntled employee, Dominic, suddenly tried to free himself from Welch’s grasp. Welch clamped down on him until he cried out, “This is brutality! I’m going to report you! I’ll sue!”
The head guard laughed. “What a wuss.” He looked into the man’s face. “Unfortunately for you, Dominic, this man doesn’t work for us. He can do whatever he wants.”
“I’m going to sue you for everything you’ve got!” he shouted at Welch.
Welch laughed. “What I’ve got? I’ve got a lot of school debt, a broken-down car, and some textbooks. I don’t think a lawyer would work for that.”
Dominic continued to rant. “I’ll report you to the police. You have no right to hold me against my will.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the head guard said. “We have every right to hold you. And prosecute you.”
“You’ll pay for this. I’ll make you—”
At that moment Welch belted him across the face, knocking him out. The man dropped to the ground. Welch looked anxiously up at the guards. “Sorry. I hate whiners.”
A broad smile crossed the head guard’s face. “Nice punch.”
The other guards nodded in agreement. “Well done.”
“You think I’ll get in trouble?” Welch asked.
“Nope,” the head guard said. “We saw exactly what happened. Dominic threw a brick through the window. When you tried to stop him, he assaulted you. It was self-defense.”
“That’s what we saw,” one of the other guards said.
The head guard nodded. “We’ll erase that part of the security tape, just in case.”
“Thanks,” Welch said.
A police car pulled up to the curb and two officers got out. They walked up, looking at the unconscious man on the ground. Finally one of the officers asked, “Is that the guy?”
“That’s the loser we caught vandalizing the building,” the head guard said. “He threw a brick through the window.”
The officers looked over at the building. “That hole?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why is he unconscious?”
“The pizza guy tried to stop him and the man attacked him. It was self-defense.”
The officer looked at Welch, then at the man on the ground, then back at Welch. “He attacked this guy? He’s half his size.”
“He was out of control,” the head guard said. “He was trying to get away.”
“If you’re willing to testify, we’ll book him for assault as well,” the cop said.
“Of course we will.”
One of the officers squatted down and shook the man. Dominic groaned.
“Sir, please roll onto your stomach. We’re going to handcuff you.”
Dominic was still too dazed to offer any resistance. The police officers handcuffed him. “Can you stand?”
“I—I don’t know,” he stuttered.
The officers lifted him up, then walked him to the squad car, placing him in the backseat.
After the police car drove away, the head guard turned to Welch. “I’m starving. You brought some pizzas?”
Welch nodded. “Yes, sir. Let me get them.” He ran back over to where he’d dropped his boxes and retrieved them. “Sorry, they’re probably not going to be hot after all that.”
“How much do we owe you?”
“Thirty-nine dollars.”
The head guard handed him a hundred-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you.”
He put out his hand. “My name is Patrick.”
“David,” Welch said.
The guard lifted the lid of the box. “You like this stuff?”
“The Monster Meat Lover?”
Patrick laughed. “No. Delivering your . . . meat lovers whatever.”
“It’s a job. I’m working my way through colle
ge.”
“What are you studying?”
“Criminal science.”
“With your build, you could play football.”
“I did. Lost interest.”
“What’s your last name?”
“Welch. Like the jam.”
Patrick smiled. “All right, Welch-like-the-jam. Looks like you can handle yourself in a jam. Do you want a real job?”
“Doing what?”
“Security detail here. You can work at night, go to school in the day. I guarantee it will pay a lot better than delivering pizzas.”
“I meet girls delivering pizza,” Welch said.
Patrick laughed. “But do you impress them?”
Welch didn’t answer.
“You’ll impress girls working here. Not that every girl doesn’t want a . . . pizza delivery boy.”
“Now you’re mocking me.”
“Am I right?”
“I can see how that would be true,” Welch said.
“Good. Do you have class tomorrow?”
“Until three.”
“Come at four; I’ll take you in to HR and get you hired.”
“Wait. What does it pay?”
“The position starts at fifty K a year. With benefits. Insurance. Christmas bonus and paid vacation after six months.”
Welch had never even made half that. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. The stars aligned tonight. I’ve got a feeling you’re supposed to be here.”
Welch’s childhood had been less than idyllic. His biological parents were drug addicts, and he had lived in and out of foster homes before, at the age of seven, he was permanently adopted by a family.
The adoption didn’t go well. Welch was rebellious and had a violent temper. Part of his problem was that he had always been larger than the other children his age and subsequently hung out with older kids. He was with teenagers four years older than him when they were caught stealing a car from a Walmart parking lot.
After his arrest, his adopted family “un-adopted” him, and Welch was sent to juvenile detention for eight months. It was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Fall of Hades Page 2