by S L Shelton
Jo continued to shake her head. It hurt Storc to see her like this. He knew she was suffering more than she was willing to admit. The loss of life at TravTech, and more than that, the slim sliver of luck that had resulted in her being outside the building when it exploded rather than inside weighed on her terribly. Storc and Jo were the only comfort the other had.
“We have to, Jo,” Storc said gently as if softening his words might make her see reason.
“No.” Her sharp response would have been enough alone to conclude they would have a problem with her. But she stood and left the room without another word or a backward glance.
As she closed the door, Storc sighed in resignation. “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine. I’ll talk with her later.”
Scott nodded. “I know it’s been hard on both of you. I don’t want to cause any heartache, but we have to do this…there’s no way around it.”
Storc nodded again. “I get it.” He crossed his legs on the bed and leaned back. “How do you want to do it?”
“If I’m going to find the accountant, I need to break the Combine firewall…and not with a computer.”
Storc looked over at the rack of computers in the corner then back to Scott. “BeauLac?”
Scott nodded. “BeauLac. Aside from Braun and Spryte, he’s the only other person we know is Combine…and Spryte is dead, and Braun is in the wind.”
“And we know that Spryte wasn’t the only rich prick in Combine because their operation has gone into overdrive since he died.”
“Assassinated,” Scott said.
“Okay. Yeah.” He unfolded one leg and hung it over the edge of the bed. “So, you have to go back to Europe?”
Scott nodded.
Storc stared at him for a moment, organizing the perspective breakup in his head. “Have you talked to anyone else about this yet?”
“No. You and Jo would be the central components of each team so I wanted to get you both on board before I went to Nick and John.”
“What about the SEALs?”
“As long as the reasons are presented as security and practicality, Marsh will be on board…the rest will do what he says. Military chain of command.”
Storc nodded then chewed the corner of his lip for a second. “So, John on one team and Nick on the other?”
Scott shook his head. “I need John. So, it’ll be Nick on one team and Mark Gaines on the other.”
A wave of discomfort flitted across Storc’s chest—he didn’t like Mark. More accurately, he didn’t like the way Mark looked at Jo. “Mark is gone.”
“Mark already secured Alisha Gordon and has been waiting for updates…he’s good to go.”
He felt a flush rise to his cheek. “I’ll take Mark then.” The words ached in his throat, but it was better than the alternative—there was no way he would leave Jo alone on a team with Dreamy McSpiesAlot.
Scott nodded. “Okay. Mark can go with you.”
Storc relaxed a tick and looked at the computers again. “Do we need to set up new data centers for the extra processing?”
“Yes. But you can do it along the way. I’ll need to sit down with you and Jo to show you how to choose safe houses and plan fall-back locations.”
“Why can’t you just give us a list?”
“Because I don’t want any group knowing where the other groups are…self-sustaining, fully independent splinter cells are what we need. Only the cloud and our Craigslist COMS to stay connected.”
“I’ll have to come up with a better way to use Craigslist,” Storc said, tilting his head down and thinking about writing a new script to encrypt messages.
“I was thinking we could use a compiler with a rotating—”
“I’ve got it,” Storc said. “I’ve been doing this a while now.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry.”
Storc stared at him a moment longer. “How’s your head?”
Scott smiled thinly. “I get headaches…and I have to watch out for headbutts. But other than that, it’s almost like the bullet ain’t there.”
Storc didn’t believe him. It would be just like Scott to lie about his own pain so that others wouldn’t let worry interfere with their jobs. He nodded. “Don’t walk near any big magnets.”
“I’ll keep an open mind about it.”
They stared at each other for a second then they both laughed. “You’ll set off the metal detector at the airport,” Storc said, snorting through his joke.
“True, but on the bright side, I get an extra three miles of broadcast range on my cell phone now,” Scott replied, still laughing.
Storc fell over, gasping at his own joke. “Better cover it in the shower or you’ll rust!”
They laughed a few moments longer then Scott looked at Storc with a crooked grin. “You da man.”
Storc chuckled once more. “No…you.”
**
WOLF left the room and his smile vanished as if it were never there. Slipping into Scott’s personality, even for short interactions like the one with Storc and Jo, drained him mentally. The waste of energy used to maintain a smile irked him. Why can’t people just do what’s in their own best interest without needing to feel stroked into place?
He had gone in with one goal in mind; getting Storc to agree to the split up. With a supportive Storc on board, Jo would come around. Nick and John would be easier to convince; they’d be thrilled at the idea of Scott being separated from his money man—predictable. And aside from the strategic factor, John would most likely have suggested the same move if he thought his opinion counted anymore. Temple was sly and experienced and surely knew having the entire operation under one roof was a tactical mistake.
No one need know the real reason Wolf wanted the teams split up.
Logically, Wolf understood the importance of relationships. But were it not for Scott’s existing personality preprogrammed for social engagement, Wolf would be little more than a reptile in a hen house—so out of place with cold calculation, the hens would flee, terrified. Wolf needed his hens happy and on plan—his plan.
“He doesn’t know you don’t understand,” came Jo’s voice from behind him.
The smile slipped back to Wolf’s face as he turned. “Back to this?”
She stared, shaking her head with pitiless eyes. Her pale skin and dark eyes made her look like a goth doll in the dim hall light. “You’ve known him longer than anyone else in this pathetic circus, and he doesn’t have a clue what you are.”
“Careful, Jo. You’re right…I have known him longer than anyone else.”
Wolf could see she’d been crying as she stepped closer, letting the lamp illuminate her more completely.
“I know him, too,” she whispered after looking over her shoulder at the door. “Not as well as you, maybe, but enough to know he’s clinging to nothing but your word on everything.”
As well he should. “Jo, I know this has been hard for you. I know you aren’t as emotionless as you let on.” He sat on the table with the lamp, bringing her face more in line with his own—an intentional emotional manipulation. “I don’t think you even realized how feeling you could be.”
Her eyes welled up, and fresh tears began to streak down her face. “Don’t use your Asperger’s brain beam on me,” she said, wiping them away. “I know you wear emotions like a costume…slipping in and out of them when they suit you.”
“You were on the beach.”
She blinked rapidly a few times, a subtle indication she was attempting to recall the information Wolf mentioned—this really wasn’t a fair fight.
“Yes,” she said in a quieter voice. “I was there.”
“If I am, as you say, emotionless. If I slip them on to fill a need, then what do you suppose was my motivation in running, unarmed and wounded, toward those assassins.”
She seemed to think about that for a second, but Wolf wasn’t about to let the crack in the door slam shut again.
“I lost everyone,” he said. “Everyone I ever loved; everyone I eve
r cared about, except for you and Storc…especially Storc.” He stood to rise above her eye level again, the timing calculated to the split second. “It’s true…I might have a compartmentalized way of dealing with my emotions, but it’s highly unlikely I’d have survived as long as I have without that compartmentalization.”
“You don’t get to—”
“And with that detached objectivity, I can plainly see that if we, you and he, all stay under the same roof, then some night, sooner rather than later, we will wake up to a house full of Jaggers slitting our throats.”
Her eyes opened wide, unprepared for the turn in the conversation.
“And since I’m the only fucking person in this ‘pathetic circus’ that would have any chance of surviving such a night at the edge of those blades, I’d be the only one left to regret it. I’d be the one left alone, reflecting on what I could have possibly done to save the last two people I loved, and the last fifteen I had any bond with whatsoever.”
She wiped a fresh tear away, her expression conveying confused shock.
“Now, please,” he continued in a softer tone. “I know this is hard. But you are smart, logical, and practical. Are we safer together, or in smaller groups doing the same things we’re doing now to mask our locations?”
She stared at him as his words sunk in. “You’re right,” she said finally. “I hate you, but you’re right.”
“You may hate me,” Wolf said with a warm and gentle smile. “But I love you and that big bird in there. And even if I can’t lay my eyes on you both every day, I want you to be around when this shit show is finally over.”
Abruptly, she leaned forward and hugged him.
He responded slowly, calculating the timing of his returned embrace. “Go in there and convince him to get some sleep,” he said after a moment. “If you can do that, you’ll be doing more for him than Bonbon or I ever could.”
She nodded her head on his chest then pulled away, leaving a wet spot on his shirt. She rubbed it then looked up. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head and smiled. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You love him…we both do.”
She nodded then turned back to their room.
After she had closed the door, the smile left Wolf’s face again. “Fucking exhausting,” he muttered as he walked downstairs.
**
9:45 a.m. on Monday, April 25th—Prince-Underthall Building, Washington, DC
MARTIN CALDWELL GOUGHIN—M.C. to those who knew him—walked confidently toward the Prince-Underthall executive suite on the thirty-fifth floor. Being one of the big four accounting firms the corridor gleamed, polished to mirrored perfection so that any who entered the halls felt as though they were in the very heart of precision management and power. It rarely failed to impress.
In fact, half of the high-rise was occupied by the firm, and all floors that entertained clients and visitors displayed the same high-level of gilt and refinement. Not so for the worker bee floors—they were vast cube farms, filled with frenetic, dynamic, neurotic workers, scrambling for a toehold on their oft dreamed of climb to the top.
But as the click of M.C.’s immaculately polished Oxfords echoed from the shining floors, he remained unimpressed. He was rarely impressed with anything designed to apply aesthetic pressure to his emotions. In fact, the only things that visually stimulated M.C. were patterns in numbers and the occasional visit from a certain leather-clad, high-end escort to his northwest DC condo—and only then once she began pulling her assortment of whips, clamps, and restraints from her travel bag to send him into pain-filled ecstasy.
The managing partner’s receptionist looked up as M.C. entered the glass-walled outer office. “Mister Coady is in a meeting,” she said as he walked past her. “You’ll have to wait.”
M.C. ignored her and proceeded through the door.
“Hey! He’s in a meeting!”
M.C. went in, followed by the receptionist. “I’m sorry, Mister Coady. I tried to—”
“It’s okay, Lindy,” Coady said, placing his hand over his phone. “I’ll take care of it.”
The receptionist backed out, closing the door behind her, and Coady removed his hand from the receiver. “I’ll have to call you back.”
M.C. stood rigid in front of Coady’s desk, a smug grin on his face. “I need travel authorization for a team of auditors and forensic accountants.”
“Goddamn it, M.C.… You can’t just walk in here whenever the hell you want.”
M.C. lowered his head in mock contrition and nodded, but kept the smug grin.
“The authorization process begins with the travel department…why are you coming to me?”
M.C. stepped closer and laid a single sheet of paper in front of the managing partner. It described an emergency account transfer dealing with billions of dollars, euros, and yen.
Coady shook his head. “Where?”
“Panama.”
“Why Panama?”
M.C. stepped closer and sat on the edge of Coady’s desk. “Because I can do things in Panama that I can’t do here.”
Coady looked up, stress knitting his brow as he motioned for M.C. to get off his desk. “US Banks?”
M.C. smiled and shook his head. “Of course not. That would draw State Department attention.”
“You best have your 105s in order… We can’t be left vulnerable to prosecution just because—”
“William,” M.C. said, holding his hand up. “You don’t have to worry yourself about protocols. Everything is being handled above board.”
Coady stared at him for a moment longer, a question forming on his face that he couldn’t quite seem to express. It was better if questions weren’t asked—better for everyone.
“If they weren’t our largest client, I’d have fired you years ago,” Coady said, writing an order on a scrap of paper. “You are insufferably smug and too quick to flout company policy and federal regulation.”
“Well,” M.C. said, smiling smugly once more. “It’s nice to know one’s price.”
“I didn’t say that’s what you were worth to me.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean me… I meant the price at which your conscience was purchased.”
Coady’s face turned red and he stood, his palms flat on his desk. He stared at M.C., trembling with anger. M.C. smiled calmly.
Rising through the corporate world, M.C. had discovered long ago that in his love of punishment, his confident, unrepentant, taunting of “alpha males” revealed that most weren’t in fact very alpha at all. Rather, they were beta males who had learned all the outward traits of alphas but were ill-equipped to deal with true confidence from an adversary—it had made his rise in the firm that much more pleasurable.
M.C. had left in his wake the shattered egos of countless betas pretending to be alphas, much like that of William Coady’s. Eventually, Coady’s true nature would betray him, knocking one more limp, semi-alpha off the top, and letting M.C., along with all those below him, claw their way up one more rung on the ladder. Nothing reveals a poser faster than someone who is truly fearless.
A wink from M.C. proved more than Coady could handle. He snatched the paper from his desk and handed it to M.C., crumpling the edge in his fist. “Go. And don’t come into my office unannounced again.”
“Of course,” M.C. replied with a slight bow. “Thank you, William.”
“And stop calling me William!” Coady yelled at his back as he walked away.
M.C. chuckled as he left, leaving the door open behind him. He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed as his steps echoed down the hallway.
“Special Groups Management. Jim Garfield speaking,” came the reply.
“Jim. We have our travel orders. Pack a bag and pull nine people from the pool to come with us to Panama.”
“Any idea when we’ll be back?”
M.C. clenched his jaw. “Do you have someplace special to be?”
“No…not at all. But if I’m pulling people from the pool, they’ll need t
o know.”
“We’ll be there until we’re finished,” M.C. said, snidely. “However long it takes to sift through a hundred billion dollars in empty accounts and find out where every cent has gone.”
“No problem. I’ll get right on it.”
“I’ll meet you at the airport around four,” he said as he stepped on the elevator. “I have something I need to do first.”
“I’ll see you there.”
M.C. ended the call and then immediately dialed another number. It rang four times before a woman answered. “Well, hello little piggy,” she said.
A shiver passed down his spine. “Mistress.”
“I suppose you’re calling to change our schedule again… You know that will cost you a pound of flesh.”
His eyes closed reflexively and sucked in his breath, titillated. “I know, Mistress. I have to go out of town for several days, and I was hoping I’d be able to see you before I left…to hold me over.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I’m on my way to my condo now,” he whispered, already aroused in anticipation.
“No. You really aren’t worth altering my schedule.”
“Three thousand.”
She sighed and after a short pause, “Five. And don’t insult me again.”
“Five. Of course,” he replied, his heart racing.
“I’ll see you in an hour.”
“Thank you, Mistress. I don’t ha—” The call ended abruptly.
He smiled and tucked his phone into his pocket. His foot tapped impatiently as the elevator stopped six floors too soon. When the doors slid open, a young woman stepped in and pushed the lobby button despite it already being lit.
She smiled shyly and nodded at M.C. as the doors slid closed. “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” he said stiffly, then after she turned away he whispered. “I’m a bad little piggy.”
She turned back to him with a confused glare. “Pardon?”
The doors opened just then, and he walked out without replying. He could barely contain himself as he rushed to the street and hailed a cab.
**
12:25 p.m. — The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia