by Billi Jean
Rob allowed himself to crack a smile, but quickly nodded to the door.
All four men were within. The plan was simple. They would stun-gun the two guards, secure them, then talk to the good ol’ senator.
Rob held up five fingers.
Walters nodded and shoved the white camouflage hood off his head. Robert did the same and cleared his side arm as well, while he kept his rifle up and ready. By the count of five they were both primed. The door gave with the first kick and they used the moment of surprise to take out the two guards with their tranquilizers.
Inside the spacious room the other two men jerked to their feet. The hacker’s sloppy clothing and hazardous haircut marked him, while the other man’s business suit and tie put him in a wholly different category.
The hacker shot his hands up, clearly shaking in his boots.
The senator was much cooler.
“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.
Robert holstered his tranquilizer gun and positioned his assault rifle a fraction lower than the man’s heart, but kept the scowl on his face. He’d learned early on that his frown got things done most men had to yell to accomplish. His looks had always drawn the ladies, but his remote coolness had worked to drive them off. He used his most pissed off, serious expression now without much effort. His anger was at the dangerous level and he hoped like hell the man didn’t push because the drug flooding him with power also added to his aggressiveness.
Instead of answering the man, he scanned the room, taking in the expensive mahogany desk bigger than most people’s dinner tables, the leather sofas, chairs and more intricately carved tables in a comfortable U shape. A long grey and black marble topped bar anchored one side of the room all the way up to the two sets of floor to ceiling sliding glass doors while the other side of the room was lined with bookshelves and a door leading into a bathroom. Expensive paintings, mostly of landscapes, covered all the other walls.
Next to them, two marble statues of naked women in postures of submission knelt holding up their bound hands. Walters lifted his eyebrows in appreciation. Rob’s stomach sickened at the meaning behind the artwork—or what passed as artwork. He nodded towards the downed men, and Walters went to deal with them.
Rob zeroed his gaze back in on DeRoy, taking in the kid’s still raised hands as well. DeRoy’s face was red, blotchy with anger, and he’d not stopped demanding to know what the hell he was doing. Walters quickly disarmed the men on the floor and took up position by the bar.
“I would like to know what’s going on here!” DeRoy snarled, really getting himself worked up.
“What’s going on here is you are now under arrest for stealing and attempting to sell top secret government information, but you know that, don’t you, sir?”
DeRoy puffed himself up and some of the colour drained from his face. He couldn’t cover that he’d dropped his drink and spilled some of it on his dark suit jacket, or that his floor was littered with glass and brandy, but he pulled himself together quite easily for an old guy facing a man holding a gun.
“I can see you have the wrong idea—” he began, stopped, and combed his silver hair off his brow with a hand that shook slightly. With a heavy sigh, he dropped his hand and shook his head at them as if they were unable to understand their mistake. “This is my home, I’m—”
“Hold on, sir.” Robert turned slightly from him then motioned to Walters. “Secure the kid.”
His second in command walked over and bound the hacker’s hands behind his back, roughly twisting him so his arms were at an uncomfortable angle before shoving him down on the couch.
“I’d stay quiet if I were you,” Walters said when the kid opened his mouth to say something, then quickly shut it. As soon as he did, Walters turned back and raised his rifle back on DeRoy’s chest with another nod.
Rob shouldered his own rifle and met the old man’s worried eyes. “Look, I’m certain you’re used to getting what you want, when you want it. A man of your wealth and age has to be, right?” He paused but his question was met with complete silence—the kind that some men thought gave them power but really only proved how powerless they were. “But right now, right here, I’m the only thing keeping you alive. There won’t be a lawyer, or a judge, or anything to aid you in getting out of the shit you’ve dug yourself into, sir, so I suggest you sit down and we discuss who the buyers are, how you got access to Dr Chung’s computer, and why I shouldn’t kill you.”
Rob pulled out his cell phone, scanned the man with it and sent the picture to the men on the hill as planned, then waited.
DeRoy’s face darkened again. “What, what are you doing? What do you mean I won’t receive an attorney? Just what do you—?”
The phone beeped, indicating an incoming message, and Robert held up a hand for silence. The image of the man they’d sent back was a bit younger, but the congressman in the picture didn’t appear to be as frightened either. The confirmation that this was in fact Senator DeRoy tightened Robert’s anger to an icy rage. Rob tightened his control before he met the man’s furious gaze.
“Ah, I see. So, Senator DeRoy, you’ve got yourself into a tough spot. You can see why there won’t be an attorney, a case, or a judge involved in this. Stealing from the government, especially information that was supposed to be under review, due to its dangerous side effects, is no matter for the media.”
DeRoy spluttered. He didn’t give the old man time. “Those side effects have caused damage resulting in mood swings, memory loss, and inability to stem killing rages at the slightest provocation, just to give you a few examples. I assure you personally that the drug is not ready for anyone, least of all the market you’re trying to sell it to.”
He let the implications that he had used the drug sink in. The senator took a step away from him then stopped himself when he hit the couch. He looked frantically over at Walters but he must have concluded that he’d find nothing there because he quickly returned to watching Robert as if he might murder him at any second.
“The drug, as I’m sure you know from your research on it,” Robert ground out with all the sarcasm he could muster, “creates blackouts for the men and women who’ve taken it. Some have committed crimes in these lapses, others have harmed their families, while more have been unable to return from the blackout period and have become uncontrollable. You can see why this kind of technology, this type of science, sir, isn’t stable and, more, why it can’t be sold to the highest bidder.”
DeRoy skirted the couch and Robert reined himself in, only then realising he’d been stalking the man. He gathered his calm around him, focusing his mind on getting information and not killing DeRoy. When he had some control, he glanced at Walters, who simply stared back at him, clearly not worried.
DeRoy shook his head frantically, looking from the two of them, then back to Robert with a grimace of fear. “I wasn’t, I mean I would never sell something that caused harm to the—”
“Sir, I find that hard to believe that an intelligent man like you wouldn’t know everything about this product. But that’s not the issue, is it? The issue is simple. I want the names of the buyers.”
The senator paled and sweat broke out on his brow, but he remained silent. Robert gave him time to think and walked around the perimeter of the room, checking in on the two silent, unconscious guards and the kid. Walters didn’t speak, but then Robert didn’t expect the man to. At the window, Robert paused. The view of the night sky outside was mostly blocked by his own reflection and that of the room behind him, but he made out the differences in the darkness indicating where the rugged mountains stood in the distance.
“These mountains, they can be hard on skiers. Even vacationers with no use for skiing can be lost, never heard from again. Do you see my meaning, senator? Am I making myself perfectly clear?” Robert asked, turning to face the old man.
Anger buzzed through his body again, making it harder and harder for Robert to hold onto his gut instincts and not just kill the
greedy bastard. DeRoy was responsible for the flawed tanks in Iraq, or should have been. It was his company that had got the contract for the armoured tanks that were supposed to be designed to protect soldiers in the field, but hadn’t been able to withstand gunfire let alone anything stronger.
DeRoy was also responsible for the cuts in military spending that had cost many service men their life after coming home from combat. The senator’s insistence that the military paid its retired soldiers too much had caused several thousand injured vets to lose their pensions and be without medical assistance.
Meanwhile, DeRoy had siphoned off funds and cut corners on production so that he made the most money he could on the contracts with the military while leaving men and women in danger simply because he wanted to earn a greater profit by using less than optimal materials.
“So, this is DeRoy, huh?” Walters mused, drawing Robert back from the brink of no return. “Sounds to me like you’ve got your hand caught in the cookie jar, huh, Senator? What do you think, Tazz, my man?”
Thanking Walters silently for easing the tension in his chest, if not the room, Robert gave the surfer-slash-warrior a narrow-eyed look and nodded to the hacker. “Let’s see what the kid has to say. I’m not wasting time on trash. If you can’t talk, sir, your wife and your children will be having their next Christmas without you. And let me assure you, they will be missing you in a lot less comfort than they are used to once word of your acts hit the papers. I believe espionage kills the benefits package, doesn’t it, sir?”
“Hell, even that hot secretary is going to go without a lot more than she’s used to,” Walters added, eyeing DeRoy closely. “But if she was with you, she was used to that, in certain areas, if you catch my meaning,” he added thrusting his hips to make his words perfectly clear.
Robert glared at the man, but he also noticed that DeRoy’s face went from ghostly white to a red that bordered on purple. If he’d been a decade younger, a hundred pounds lighter and not a worthless scumbag, Robert might have worried he’d pull something stupid. Instead the old man croaked something like a curse, glanced from him, to Walters then to the hacker, then finally back to him.
There was something wrong with old men getting angry and being helpless about it, but Robert felt no sympathy for how pathetic and weak DeRoy appeared now that he knew the real deal. It disgusted him, and he’d need a shower and several days of drinking to get the old man out of his thoughts, but in his life, he’d seen much worse than a privileged old man finally realising he’d not get out of the mess he’d landed in.
“I have no idea—”
Robert just walked over, that’s all he did, but whatever expression he wore had the older man sitting down as though Robert had cut his legs out.
“I’ve killed men for less than what you’ve done. And I liked them a lot more than you. Don’t give me any more bullshit because right now, my finger is itching to simply blow your brains out all over the wall behind you.”
“Whoa, Tazz, man, settle down.”
He shot Walters one look and the other man backed down.
“I was waiting here for the buyers,” DeRoy said softly, drawing his attention back on him. The old man had pissed himself, Tazz noticed with a grimace.
Robert backed up and sat on the polished mahogany desk across from DeRoy to wait for more.
“They are bringing me the money and in exchange, I hand over the hard copy of the programme. Benjamin has it in the brief case.”
Tazz’s com link buzzed a second before he heard Jansen say, “Tazz, man, we have company coming. Helicopter due. Five minutes tops.” The com link grew quiet but they didn’t have to say more. The buyers had arrived.
Walters met his look with a slight nod.
“Get the senator cleaned up, he’s pissed himself. And you, kid, if you make one wrong move, just one, you’re toast. You got me?”
The kid, Benjamin, looked too young to be caught up in the kind of shit he’d landed in.
But he had. Robert cut the plastic Walters had placed on his wrists and hauled him closer by his thin arm.
“I’ll kill you, kid. Simple as that,” he added with pressure on his hold until Benjamin nodded quickly. “You make one wrong move, that’s all you get. No second chances here. No detention after school. No community service.”
“Got it, I got it, sir, I really got it.”
Walters grunted under his breath about nursing home duty but led DeRoy from the room at gunpoint. As soon as they left, Robert turned back to the kid’s frightened face feeling suddenly old.
“How old are you, kid?”
“Twenty, sir.”
God damn. Twenty years old and on his way to selling secrets that could kill thousands without even understanding.
Robert snorted. The kid was spoilt. The Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt, the jeans made to look old but probably purchased off the shelf of some store that charged a thousand just for the extra rips in the knee, together with the haircut, expensive but useless footwear plus the attitude pegged the kid as one of the privileged elite.
“Do you realise what you’re in the middle of?”
Benjamin opened his mouth, shut it then shook his head. “No, no, I just got the—”
“How do you know the senator?”
“He knows my mom, they’re friends, sir. I—”
Friends. The wealthy in this world stuck together. No doubt this kid thought his actions came without consequences because his parents’ always had.
“Do you know that what you’ve done could land you in jail for the rest of your life? Not a state or even federal prison, but a military installation where you’re not let out to see your folks, or given a television, or even a magazine to jerk off to? Do you understand what happens to terrorists? What we do with them?”
“I’m not a terrorist, I swear. I simply got this computer and pulled a file, that’s it, sir,” he said frantically. “I swear.”
Rob didn’t answer, he knew there was more. His instincts raged that more was going on here than just a transfer of a file for money.
DeRoy was too greedy for one. He’d not sell it so quickly. There would have had to be a buyer in place when Kylie was hunting for the files her dad had stashed all over the place. The only computer with the full version of the first formula was the one destroyed, but only after the hard drive had been removed. Kylie had gone over this with Robert enough that he understood this was an inside job. Just what he’d thought from the beginning. But that kind of thing took money. A lot of money.
This entire buyer scheme could be a hoax. A roll of the dice by DeRoy to pass off something he didn’t actually have with him to see what he could get for it. Buyer beware and all that.
But is the man that crazy?
“Did you recover the full file from the hard drive?” Robert asked the kid.
“Yes, sir. I did.”
“How many copies did you make?” Robert asked, shooting in the dark to get a reaction.
The kid’s brown eyes widened and too quickly he said, “Ten, but they’re at my dorm back at college. I swear it. This one and ten more. I can get them—”
Robert shut off the rush of words with an upraised hand. The kid was nervous, but was he nervous because he was frightened or because he was lying? Something wasn’t ringing true. He grabbed the briefcase and opened the thing, revealing a flash drive and the burnt-out hard drive. “What’s your last name, kid?”
For the first time the kid stalled but in a grumble he finally said, “Andrews.”
Benjamin Andrews. “What college?”
Ben had enough nerve to roll his eyes and stall again. Robert expected to hear Yale or Princeton, but the kid muttered, “Wyoming State.” At Rob’s look of disbelief Benjamin said, “My folks were teaching me a lesson,” he muttered. “If I stayed out of trouble I could attend Harvard next fall.”
If he could stay out of trouble? Like going to a state college was a punishment? Rob’s anger shot higher but he controlled it. The
kid was young. He’d learn. “This is the file?”
Again an odd look crossed the kid’s baby smooth complexion, darkening the rough red splotches on his cheeks. “Yeah.”
Robert focused on the kid for a moment more, not liking the way he’d answered that, as if he’d only told half the truth. But he heard Walters coming down the hall and the copters getting closer. He shot DeRoy a quick glance when the two walked back in, taking in the way he met the kid’s gaze then cleared his expression.
The kid looked guilty, and the look he directed at Robert was full of it. Had the kid lied? About what? The copies?
“Go get him cleaned up in the bathroom over there, then get these men out of here and into that side room,” Robert told Walters, silencing the other man’s he wasn’t the potty police mutter with a glare. “I’ll inform the senator of the plan.”
Walters took the frightened kid with him and Robert turned to the senator, leaving the briefcase open on the desk.
“You seem to know my house better than I do,” DeRoy muttered.
“I make it my business to know what I’m getting into senator. It’s kept me alive so far.”
He let that settle in and watched as the man twisted his lips in a grimace then nodded curtly. Rob’s instincts warned that there was more going on here than he knew, much more, and the kid and senator were central to those uneasy thoughts. What was it? He had the flash drive, he had the man responsible for stealing the files, and soon, he’d have the buyer.
The sound of copters grew closer, confirming that idea, but Robert’s neck prickled with unease.
What the kid had said drew his attention again, not because he’d said anything specific, but simply because that’s where Robert felt the most that this shit was going to go wrong. The kid. Specifically, the kid and the senator were up to something else. And there wasn’t shit he could do other than be prepared for the worst.
“Looks like your guests have arrived,” he told DeRoy. “You’re going to play along, Senator. We’ll act as your guards.” He nodded to Walters when he walked back in with the kid combed and cleaned up, looking in better shape than he’d been before. He’d not pissed himself like the old man, but he’d had the glazed expression of a person that had just survived a life or death situation—and he had—but Robert wanted him cool, a bit nervous, but not looking scared to death. “If either of you want to live to see tomorrow, you’ll not make one move that suggests you’re not in agreement with the plan.”