Untangling the Black Web

by T. F. Jacobs

  We decided to leave my car in a lot in north Anaheim, which is about a half hour away from where we are now. Figured it was best to lose the car in case we were being followed or tracked.

  We make our way up the paved hillside, me in my gray slacks and white button-down and Aly in her scrubs and white tennis shoes. We’re tired, hungry, and thirsty, and we both look like shit.

  I decided against calling Evan ahead of time in case my phone is tapped. We also took the batteries and SIM cards out of our phones to avoid being tracked.

  We pass a three-story glass mansion almost as big as my entire apartment building.

  My calves start to burn with a stinging intensity. My knees still ache from the jump earlier, and each step adds just a bit more tension.

  A few more houses up, and we’re here.

  The truth is I’ve only visited Evan’s place twice. I can make excuses all day long about the traffic and the distance, but the reality is that I simply didn’t want to visit. The lavishness is too much, something Lexi and I couldn’t have ever dreamed of. And when they’re at home, we get to see Christie’s nagging magnified.

  “Be sure to wipe that up, Evan.”

  “I think you forgot to wash the dishes, Evan.”

  It’s fine. Her day-trading job affords them this lifestyle, and Evan seems happy. It’s just not for me, and it’s difficult to watch.

  We approach a two-story metal and bamboo modern oasis lined with palm trees and pink hydrangeas.

  We ascend the steps to the bamboo front gate. It’s got to be around ten o’clock by now, and it’s highly likely Timmy is in bed. Probably Evan and Christie too for that matter.

  I ring the doorbell.

  We don’t hear it, but I know that it’s chimed through the house, probably waking all three of them.

  Here goes nothing.

  We wait in patient silence for a good two minutes, but still no one comes to the gate. I don’t even see any lights turn on inside the house.

  Could they be out?

  On a vacation?

  I consider pulling out my phone, reinserting the battery and SIM card, and trying Evan, but it’s a risk. I decide I better ring the doorbell once more before moving on to that option.

  I press the bell, and we wait some more.

  The only noise on the entire street is that of the palm trees swooshing in the wind. The perks of being rich, I guess. No car horns, drunk bums, or sirens. Only peace and serenity.

  Aly fidgets beside me. I can feel the contempt in the air. This idea was a flop, and now we have no car, no place to go, and are no closer to going public.

  I pull out my phone, and as I do a rustling sound draws my attention forward.

  “Did you hear something?” Aly whispers.

  I don’t answer, listening hard to confirm that we aren’t hearing things.

  The gate springs open and a shotgun aims directly at my chest.

  “Wow!” I yell. My hands are sent straight into the air out of instinct. Aly jumps behind me, her hands up too.

  “What do you want?” the man snaps.

  I squint toward him and make out his eyes. His tousled surfer-blond hair.

  “Evan, it’s me. David,” I plead.

  The guns lowers an inch as his head comes forward and his eyes narrow.

  “David?” There’s genuine shock in his voice. “What the hell, man? What are you doing here?”

  “It’s an emergency. Can we come inside?”

  Aly steps out from behind me as Evan lowers the shotgun.

  When the hell did he even get a shotgun? He’s been anti-gun since he was a teenager.

  He looks over his shoulder to the front door of his house.

  “Sorry, man, I didn’t know it was you! Come in, come in.”

  We follow him through the gate. He closes and locks it behind us, then continues through the stepping-stones of a Japanese Zen garden. It’s new. I remember them working on it, or hiring someone to work on it, the last time I came by. But that was over a year ago.

  Dim lamps hidden inside of large stones light the way as we continue toward the enormous frosted-glass front door.

  “Wait here a second. I don’t want Christie to get startled when you guys come inside.”

  His eyes hover on Aly, obviously curious about who she might be.

  I turn around to face the manicured pebble garden bordering a koi pond and golden ginkgo tree. The immaculate twenty-by-twenty setup probably costs more than a year’s rent at my apartment.

  Aly, clearly uncomfortable, doesn’t say anything.

  A second later the door swings open, and Evan reappears.

  “Okay, come in. Just try to stay quiet. Timmy is asleep upstairs.”

  I nod, and we follow him up the steps and through the door.

  Immediately we are encompassed by a world of white marble floors, glass and bamboo walls, and expensive colorful artifacts on display tables.

  “You’ve remodeled?”

  Evan secures three different locks on the front door, then meets my eyes.

  “Yeah. Almost a year ago. Christie’s idea. Nice, huh?”

  “Incredible.”

  In the back of my head I know Aly is thinking the same thing I am: this is nicer than the hotel in DC.

  Evan’s still got the shotgun in his right hand, and it’s making me nervous. After having a gun shoved inside my mouth and watching Stan blow his brains out, I don’t much care to see any more of what a firearm is capable of.

  “Let’s go have a seat in the living room. You can get me up to speed.”

  We follow Evan down the hall, and he turns back and then looks to our feet.

  “Oh, sorry, I forgot to ask. Do you mind taking your shoes off? Rules of the house.”

  I want to laugh, but I don’t want to disrespect him. Who is this kid? A gun-wielding one percenter who doesn’t want shoes on his floor? The same kid that, as a teenager, would jump into mud just because it would make our mother mad.

  We slip out of our shoes, then proceed barefoot behind Evan down a long hallway. We pass a table of yellow and gold African-looking pots and ceramics.

  Then we pass a table topped with what look to be ivory tusks. I hope they are replicas, but something tells me Christie wouldn’t settle for anything less than the real thing.

  We make our way around a corner and into a beautifully designed indoor/outdoor living room. Gray leather couches form a U shape in the center, with some sort of white fur rug in the middle. Across from the open end of the U is a television the size of a small movie theater screen. It’s at least a hundred and fifty inches, and it’s slightly curved at the ends.

  Wow.

  “We picked that bad boy up a couple months back. Let me tell you, basketball games feel like you are sitting courtside.”

  Evan grins as he looks over to it, admiring its beauty.

  I notice Aly looking up, and I follow her gaze. The ceiling is probably twenty feet high, and golden balls that look like fireworks hang above us.

  The living room continues outdoors onto a patio with matching gray couches and a square glass fire pit in the middle. Beyond that a grassy yard stretches to a pool in the distance. And beyond that I can make out a magnificent yellow reflection of the moon on the all-encompassing ocean past the hillside below.

  “This is amazing,” Aly says.

  “Thank you. And I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Evan,” he says. He reaches out his hand, and after a second’s hesitation, she takes it.

  “Aly,” she returns.

  “Shall we have a seat?” Evan asks, breaking the tension in the room.

  “Sure.”

  We fall back into the extremely comfortable leather couch that conforms to my body’s shape on impact.

  Evan crosses his right foot over his left leg, then sits back.

  “Evan, we’re in trouble,” I start.

  “Okay. How can I help?”

  “Someone is trying to kill us.”

  He laughs. />
  He thinks I’m joking. And why wouldn’t he? Probably thinks I’m insane. The last time he saw me was the funeral, and I wasn’t exactly of sound mind after drinking an entire water bottle of vodka.

  “This is going to sound crazy, but we’re being hunted down. We blackmailed some powerful people, and now they want us dead.”

  He laughs some more. This time his laughing is even louder. I need to rein this in. Slow it down and start from the beginning. My mind is moving too fast, and I know that when making a case, I need to set the scene first before jumping straight to the problem. Classic rookie lawyer mistake.

  “David, I know things haven’t been easy since Lexi’s passing, but do you realize how nuts you sound? You show up in the middle of the night, with some random woman—no offense—and tell me you are being hunted down by powerful people? And I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t have a clue who you are.” Evan’s focus is directed at Aly now.

  I’m about to respond when Aly does first. “Evan, I know David sounds crazy, but he’s telling the truth. I’m a nurse at Hope Hospital. I was Lexi’s nurse.”

  I interject. “Exactly. See, Aly is a witness. We’re building up a case against American True Care. She’s seen the healthcare corruption firsthand.”

  Evan is smiling from ear to ear. Thinks I’m deranged talking about conspiracies and healthcare corruption.

  “Evan, please. Try to have an open mind.”

  He meets my eyes. He smirks, but it’s fading.

  “Okay. Continue.”

  “Thank you. After the funeral, I didn’t quit my job. Instead, I got promoted into a lobbyist position.”

  “Really? Congrats, man.”

  His thinking is so backward, but I’m not here to argue.

  “Yes. I got the position and started by doing a deal with Congressman Byers.”

  “Of California?”

  “Yup. A deal to put forward a bill that fixes prices on vaccines. Ultimately making them cheaper for insurance companies.”

  “And consumers?”

  Is he for real?

  “Yes, but that isn’t the point. In exchange for the bill, we donated a fountain to his daughter’s private school so that she wouldn’t get kicked out. And I hired him a prostitute.”

  I wait for my words to sink in, and when they do, his expression changes.

  “Are you serious? You’re telling the truth?”

  “He is. I’ve seen the footage,” Aly chimes in.

  Evan shakes his head. He’s only starting to see the beginning of what’s going on.

  “From there I met with Congressman Connelly in Washington. Actually, I met Joe Jones too.”

  “The Speaker and the whip?”

  I nod. “I tried to push through a deal about lowering healthcare premiums and raising out of pockets and deductibles. While I was there, Aly joined me and we hacked his computer. We found some files. Really big files.”

  “Hold on, hold on.” He pauses after looking from me to Aly. “Even if what you are saying is true, you are telling me you hacked the Speaker of the House and his whip?”

  “We hacked the whip. Yes. Did you see that story about Connelly threatening Congresswoman Thompson over her husband’s affair?”

  “Of course. Everyone did. You’re saying that was you?” Shock splays across his face.

  “It was us.”

  “Holy shit, David. This is go to jail for the rest of your life type stuff.”

  “Thanks for that, Evan. As I was saying, the story leaked, and we got him to agree to the bill. But there are a lot more files on that computer. We have enough to blackmail nearly every congressman in the House. And we’ve only gone through a few of the files. But we’ll come back to that. After Connelly, I met with Senator Ford in New York.”

  “David, I can barely keep up. You are telling me that you struck a deal with Senator Ford? He’s about to be the next vice president, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Yeah, let’s just say we got something big. We caught him in bed, literally and figuratively, with American True Care. Evan, we’ve got more stories too. We’ve got a case. Even had a journalist with the Post.”

  “Wait, are you telling me Rob Henderson is part of this group?”

  “You know him?” Aly asks.

  “He’s sort of a dark horse in the industry. His name isn’t huge, but he puts out some really big and controversial pieces. Just like that one the other day on Connelly and Thompson. Once in a while he’ll smack one out of the park.”

  “Well that’s why we are here. We think Rob might be dead,” I respond.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There were six of us. Me, Aly, and Rob. Then there was a hacker who is getting deported as of today and a pharmacist that was turned. The pharmacist injected Rob with something and tried to do the same to us. And there was an owner of the cemetery Lexi was buried at. She’s dead.”

  “Don’t forget about Lincoln,” Aly adds. She turns to Evan. “He worked with Rob a while back. Worked his way up as a cyber security officer for the Inner Medical Association. He was supposed to meet with Speaker Jones, but he went dark. They haven’t heard from him in months.”

  “Guys, you have to slow down. You want me to take you seriously, but you sound like crazy people,” Evan interjects.

  “Evan, I’m telling you, someone is after us. Someone broke into each of our apartments and stole flash drives containing all of the stories we had been compiling for a legal case against American True Care. My former boss tried to kill me before killing himself today, because someone leaked some compromising photos of him . . .”

  “Did you leak them?”

  “No. That’s what I’m telling you. Someone is after us. They found us out. We were chased by some uniformed men. We think it might be some sort of black ops. Following orders from the White House.”

  He lets out a laugh again. “So let’s just say there was some sort of government op after you, as crazy as it sounds. Who would have ordered that from the White House?”

  “The Speaker and Connelly. Connelly knows we hacked his computer. He’s afraid of what we have on him. That’s why Lincoln went missing when he was supposed to meet with the Speaker. The Speaker and whip have some shady dealings, and they want to keep them quiet.”

  Aly pulls out her phone, then puts in the battery, leaving the SIM card to the side. She fumbles with the buttons, then faces it toward Evan and presses play. A distant alarm rings in the background. Several black-uniformed men stand at a broken window, staring down toward the camera.

  “Shit,” Evan says.

  I pull out my phone, insert the battery, and show him the video recording of Senator Ford. I let it play long enough for him to see Ford’s face, and then stop it before he can see anything else.

  His eyes go wide, and finally he realizes how serious we are.

  “If they are really after you then why did you come here?” His voice rises.

  “Evan, we were careful. We lost them, then left my car in Anaheim and took a bus here. That’s also why we didn’t call you beforehand. We didn’t want them listening in. We have nowhere to go. And we need your help.”

  Evan’s breathing quickens. He’s thinking. Trying to decide if he should kick us out or hear us out.

  “You want me to help leak this information.” It’s not a question. “I’m a small-time journalist, David. Who’s to say I can even get it out past my reader base of the fifty-plus elitists of Orange County?”

  “Trust me, this will get picked up by every news outlet in the nation. And surely you have friends in the industry. But before we do that, we need to catch Jones and Connelly in the act of trying to make us disappear. We have enough in these folders to sink both of their careers, and they know that. We need to make them think that we want to strike a deal—make them think that we’ll give them the files if they’ll leave us alone.”

  Evan shakes his head. The stress is catching up to him.

  “So wh
ere do we start?”

  “We’ll get to that. But first, do you think we can get something to eat and drink?”

  “Maybe a shower too?” Aly adds.

  He glances over his shoulder toward the stairway at the far corner. Then he nods.

  “Okay. Follow me.”

  . . .

  After eating artisanal cheese with French bread and two bottles of glass-jarred mineral water—costing probably at least twenty dollars a pop—we shower in the two guest bathrooms of the ten-bathroom house. The bathroom I use has a steam room beside the waterfall shower. I think it may be a new feature too, because I certainly never saw it before. Christie must be doing very well on “the street” as they call it.

  If Lexi had seen it, she would have dared me to make love to her inside it. After I warned her that we were guests in the house, she would have convinced me by simply taking off her shirt. There were definitely a couple occasions where something similar to that went down.

  When I round the corner to the kitchen, I hear whispers.

  Two heads turn when they see me.

  “Hey, Christie,” I say.

  She doesn’t smile. Instead, she glares, then exchanges a look with Evan.

  “Hi, David,” she returns dryly. She’s wearing a white robe and her brown hair is at her shoulders, clearly not done up with the hours of care she normally gives it.

  She shoots Evan another telling look.

  He looks to me, distressed. He’s got something he doesn’t want to say.

  “David, do you think we can continue this in the morning? It’s pretty late and Christie and Timmy need their sleep,” he says.

  I can’t believe my ears. I’m being hunted by a black ops team—at least one person is dead, two captured, and one deported—and my brother’s wife needs to get back to bed? Are you kidding me?

  I’m past my limit. My nerves are shot, and all sense of politeness is gone. I don’t care if I am a guest in their house. There are lives on the line.

  I direct my gaze at Christie, because I know that she’s the one who told him to say it. I can’t believe how badly he’s been whipped.

  “I apologize, but no. There is no way I am going to bed at this moment. If you don’t want to help me, then fine. But we are family. I’ve never asked for help before, but my life may very well depend on this. So excuse me if you need some beauty rest, so that when you wake up Evan can tend to you and Timmy, but I need help.”