by Wesley Cross
She waved and a team of four technicians rolled in two tables stacked with a few devices—most of them unfamiliar to Engel—a large, curved monitor, and a thick bundle of color-coded cables hanging off the side the table next to him.
“Mark here,” the doctor nodded toward a burly man with thick, hairy hands, “will activate your main CPU and cranial implants.”
“Relax, sir,” the man said in a deep baritone. “Let me know if you feel any discomfort.”
“Okay.”
The man brought one of the thicker cables closer, lifted Engel’s head, and placed the cable at the base of his skull.
There was a mild vibration and then a prickling sensation, as if someone pressed a wiggling hedgehog to his skin.
“How is it feeling?”
“Weird,” Engel said, “and my neck feels hot.”
“That’s normal.” The man nodded, flipping a few switches. “Let me know if you see anything.”
“I see you—” started Engel and stopped, as his internal vision populated with a row of icons and symbols. “I got the interface up.”
“Fantastic,” the man said. An identical row appeared on the large monitor in front of the man. “Now, it’ll take some practice, so take it slow. Let’s start with the basics. I want you to concentrate on the big wheel in the middle. That’s your primary access point. Try to rotate it and see how it opens up different applications. Imagine yourself doing it. Think of it in terms of depth of view. When you look at something in the distance, the objects right next to you become blurry and vice versa.”
“Okay.” Engel tried to focus on the big wheel. At first, it was like trying to turn a crown on a watch while wearing thick skiing mittens. But after a few attempts the wheel responded faster, turning this way and that as he willed it to go in different directions.
“Good. Now let’s try something different. You see that symbol of a running man? This is where you will see some real magic happening. Activate it, but, and listen to me closely, do not move your limbs. It’ll be disorienting at first.”
“Okay.” Engel turned the wheel until the icon of a running man popped up. “I got it up now. How do I activate it?”
“Imagine it’s a physical button. Visualize yourself touching it with a finger.”
The hexagon with a symbol on it depressed, and then time slowed down to a crawl. Engel looked around the room in wonder, noting as people around him seemed to be frozen in place: their limbs without any motion, their eyes staring in the same direction. The effect lasted only for a few moments, and then he was surrounded by warm-blooded people instead of statues again.
“Fun, wasn’t it?” Mark said. “This thing is a dual-action shotgun. It floods your system with over two dozen stress hormones and also stimulates some part of your neural network. For obvious reasons, you’re not fully loaded yet, and it’s not a button you want to press too often, but I’m sure it could come in handy.”
“That was great,” Engel said. “What’s next?”
“Now,” the technician rubbed his palms together, “let’s do some fun stuff. Let’s activate your weapon augs.”
32
The rain hitting the windows of the luxurious cabin of the Mercedes-Benz EC145 Eurocopter completely hid the view of the lowlands below them. Michael Connelly and Helen Chen had landed in Santa Cruz de la Sierra an hour ago and were picked up by a small, plump man who escorted them to a helipad. Connelly was expecting to see more armed guards, but the man helped them load into the helicopter, and left them alone with the pilot.
“I wish you hadn’t come,” he said to Chen as they made their final approach to the landing site. “I still don’t understand how Max agreed to let you go.”
“I’ve never been to Bolivia.” She smiled. “And I’m very persuasive.”
“Right.”
“Looks like we are landing right next to the house.”
“Yeah.” Connelly peered through the windows. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started and he could see the landing site that was built into the clearing at the foot of a yellow cobblestone road. “This helipad is new, and so is the transport choice. Last time they brought me here on a coke-coated Cessna and we had to drive here from the landing strip. There was a bunch of guards with us, too.”
“Not this time,” Chen said. “You think it’s a good sign or a bad sign?”
Connelly shrugged, wondering the same thing. There was a chance Flores was going to shoot him at first sight before he even had a chance to explain why they were there.
The Eurocopter bounced softly as it touched down.
“Just a moment,” the pilot said in a perfect English. “Ernesto will pick you up.”
A four-passenger golf cart appeared on the road, heading toward the helipad. A single guard accompanied the driver, an older man with a balding head and full gray beard.
The guard strip-searched Connelly, loaded their bags onto the golf cart without saying a word, and a minute later they were going through the main gate and into the front yard of a massive Spanish Colonial with a red-tile roof. A few young men and women were lounging at the pool, seemingly unperturbed by the recent rain.
Ernesto made a loop around the multitiered fountain in the middle of the yard, drove past a fleet of collectible cars and parked in front of a silver 1996 Bentley Rapier.
“Is it?” Chen whispered, leaning close to his ear.
“Yep.”
“Way to make a point.”
“Michael Connelly.” Diego Flores appeared on the top of the stairs of the house. He looked older than Connelly remembered. Instead of a clean shave, Flores was sporting a trimmed goatee, and his short hair was streaked with gray. He walked down the steps to meet them. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”
“I didn’t expect to be back,” Connelly said, getting out of the cart and helping Chen out. “But, as they say, sometimes life is stranger than fiction.”
“And who is this lovely lady?”
“Helen Chen,” she said, shaking the man’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You fixed the car,” Connelly said.
“Oh yes.” Flores walked to the Bentley and traced the outline of the wings on the hood ornament. “I had to. They say a Bentley is the nearest a car can become to having wings.”
“I’m not as sophisticated as you are when it comes to cars,” Connelly said. “But I’ve heard a good story lately about a car that raced a train. The 1930 Blue Train Bentley.”
“Did you now?” For the first time, Diego Flores produced a genuine smile. “I was hoping what I read in the papers was related to your visit. But I don’t want to be rude. Come on in. I’ll have Ernesto show you the rooms and then the help will serve you dinner.”
“Just one room, please.” Chen leaned on Connelly, startling him. “You wouldn’t want to stay away too far from your girl, right, darling?”
“Of course not.” He placed a peck on her cheek. “One room is all we need.”
“As you wish.” Flores waved them in. “Rest, eat, and we’ll talk business in the morning.”
They followed Ernesto up the stairs to the second-floor guest bedroom, where the man left their bags and hurried away. Connelly looked around the airy room with arched windows that opened onto a balcony and facing the front yard.
“And this is the same room,” he said. “Flores doesn’t let grudges go easily, it seems.”
They took turns taking a shower and were unpacking their luggage when there was a light knocking on the door. Connelly signaled to Chen to get behind him and positioned himself next to the doorframe.
“Come on in,” he said loudly.
The door slowly opened, and he yanked it back, moving in for a strike when he saw a frightened face of a teenage boy.
“Your dinner, señor,” the kid said, pointing at a rolling tray with a few plates covered with silver cloches and a pitcher with a drink.
“This is Chicha de pina,” the boy said, pointing
at the pitcher. “It’s very refreshing. There’s also a peanut soup and Pique Macho.”
“Gracias,” Chen said, coming to the door.
“And this one,” the boy opened another tray, “is cunape. A bread made of cheese. Delicious.”
“That’s kind of you, thanks.”
The boy bowed and hurriedly retreated into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
“Scared the kid half to death,” she said.
“Last time people showed up in this room ostensibly bearing gifts, they were trying to stab me,” Connelly said. “Forgive me for being wary of local hospitality.”
“It smells delicious,” Chen said. “Let’s eat.”
As they sat in wicker chairs around a small round table, enjoying the host’s meal, Connelly felt Helen’s foot striking his shin. He looked up at her from the bowl.
“My bag,” she whispered. “Pull a tablet from there and put it under the blanket. Don’t make it obvious.”
He glanced in the window’s direction and dropped a fork on the floor.
“There’s good news and bad news,” she said as he made a show of picking up the fork while simultaneously stuffing Chen’s tablet under the covers behind him.
“Okay.”
“The good news is there’re no bugs in the room.”
“And the bad?”
“There’s no access to the net from anywhere in the suite except this room. Some kind of dampening system. And we are being watched from the room in the guesthouse across the yard.”
Connelly put his elbow on the table and rested his cheek on the fist. He moved his head around as if stretching his neck. The room across the yard was dark, the drapes drawn, but one corner of the curtain was askew, and when he risked another glance again, he could see a glint of the lens.
“Good observation skills,” he said.
“Excellent food,” she said, moving the chair away from the table. “Are you finished?”
“Sure.”
“Here’s what we are going to do. Go sit at the edge of the bed and move the covers.”
He did as he was told and watched as she got up, took a last sip of Chicha de pina and then stretched. Then, she turned to him and pulled her blouse over her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t look away,” she said as he tried to turn his head. “Undress, lean back, smile, and look at me. Put the pillows on the window side. That way, they will block most of the view when we lie down.”
He did, his heart suddenly pumping at one hundred beats per second, as she removed her shorts and the bra, leaving her in a black thong.
She walked to him, placed her hands on his shoulders and leaned in for a kiss.
“They are watching,” she whispered. “I don’t think Diego Flores likes to be lied to.”
They locked lips and he let his hands move down her back and cup her buttocks as she climbed on top of him. Then, she pushed him down on the bed, drew the blanket over their bodies, and slid under.
Connelly held his breath as he felt her climb down his body, her soft breasts brushing against his stomach and then resting on his thigh. He stayed still, his mind racing in search of something to think of. Anything that would distract him from reality.
He thought about a trip he took with his uncle and two of his cousins when he was thirteen. They rented a cabin by the river and went ice fishing in the morning, but the weather had been warm for a few days and when he tried to drill the hole, the ice gave. Connelly fell through, almost bringing all of them under, but his uncle was fast. He splayed himself on the ice, sprint-crawled to the edge of the hole and grabbed him by the jacket before Connelly got pulled under. He spent less than a minute in the freezing water, but he could still remember the bone-chilling cold. He could use some of it now.
“I’m done,” Chen whispered a few minutes later, coming out from under the covers, her forehead damp with perspiration. “I’m on his server and installed a back door access. We shouldn’t try to use it here; his systems are too sophisticated. But I can exploit it once we are back in the States.”
“Great,” he said, finally finding his breath.
“I’m sorry,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but I don’t want to give Flores yet another reason to kill us.”
“It’s fine,” Connelly said, trying to keep his voice level. “I know how to keep a cover. We should get some sleep. A big day tomorrow.”
“Yes,” she said, putting her arm around him and closing her eyes. “We should.”
Connelly watched her drifting asleep as he stayed immobile, afraid to wake her up. He sighed and stared at the ceiling fan. It was going to be a long night.
33
“Thirty-five percent is a hell of a haircut,” Schlager said, as the helicopter took off from the JFK private jet terminal and started the climb, heading across Jamaica Bay. They had chartered the flight back to the US under a shell corporation, and the helicopter was registered under the same company and bore the markings of a nonexistent agricultural consortium.
Connelly shrugged. The trip to Bolivia was a success. Despite the obvious lack of love after the last encounter, Diego Flores softened once he learned the reason for their visit. A gift, a mint-condition dark-green 1930 Bentley, that was delivered to the Prince of Cocaine after their meeting sealed the deal. Flores would launder the giant cash pile that had been sitting in storage in Staten Island for a hefty fee of three hundred million dollars and funnel the rest to Orion through his European bank intermediaries. The irony of where a large part of the money would end up didn’t escape Connelly. In the end, he and his squad mates had risked it all to take the cash from the drug lords in Afghanistan, only to give it to a drug lord in Bolivia a few years later.
“We wouldn’t be able to clean it fast enough to make it useful,” Chen said. “I think a thirty-five percent fee is not a terrible deal. I don’t like one bit that we had to hand so much money to Flores, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
Connelly glanced at her and turned back to the window. The helicopter was flying over the farm lands. Neat squares and rectangles ran up to the forest line, which then continued as far as the eye could see. Soon, they’d be back at the base, and life would go on and suddenly he wished he could have stayed in Bolivia.
They hadn’t discussed Chen’s cover story before the trip, and in hindsight it was a mistake. Operationally, posing as his girlfriend made sense. Had something gone wrong, staying in separate rooms would’ve been a tremendous disadvantage. And yet, the cover and the need to play the part threw him off-balance. He hadn’t been with anyone since Sofia, not in a serious sense, anyway. There were occasional one-night stands, and a few short-lived flings, but every time, he broke it off at the first hint of commitment.
Helen Chen was different. Until the night in Bolivia, he hadn’t even looked at her that way. She was beautiful and whip smart, but after all she was Schlager’s girl, and Connelly had never been interested in anyone already in a relationship. And yet, when the Bolivian sun had colored the tulle on the arched windows of their room in the lightest shade of pink of the morning, he was still wide awake. It had been warm at night and Helen pushed away the covers in her sleep despite his best efforts to keep them on top of her. She slept without a care, her arms spread wide, her chest rising and falling gently with each breath, her bronze skin glistening with sweat.
She was all business as soon as they were out of the prying eyes of Flores’s entourage and he played the part as well, but now, occasionally glancing at her silhouette against the bright window, Connelly wondered if the trip was a corporate success but a personal failure. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. Not now. Rovinsky had intercepted a report that Engel was about to move the ballots from the stronghold in New York to the location in Virginia, as Connelly had predicted. That meant they only had a few days to prep an assault on the convoy.
It was going to have to be flawless. Once the bal
lots were moved, they’d never see the light of day again and come Inauguration Day, their fate would be sealed.
The shadow of the helicopter crossed a river and then they were coming into a camouflaged clearing with blinking lights of the helipad. They touched down and moments later they were heading toward the entrance into the silo complex.
“See you later, Mike,” Chen said, giving him a smile as she disappeared down the hatch, Schlager carrying her bags in one hand, his other holding her hand for balance. “Thanks for everything.”
“You did good,” he said. “I’ll see you at the meeting. I’ll see you later, Max.”
Connelly watched them go and then headed for his tiny unit at the top of Silo 2.
He had just enough time to splash some water on his face, shave, and grab a quick bite when it was time to be back at the control center, doubling as Jason Hunt’s quarters. The man himself was already there, talking to somebody on the communication implant. By the time he finished the call, Schlager and Chen joined him at the table as well.
“Good to see you,” Hunt said as he disconnected the line. “I hear the trip went without a hitch.”
“More or less.” Connelly shrugged. He thought he caught a shadow of a smile on Chen’s lips. “Flores is still no friend of ours, but he’ll do what he promised. And what’s even more important is that Helen installed a back door onto the cartel’s servers. Hopefully, when we no longer need them, we can right some wrongs.”
“Hopefully,” Hunt said. “I know it must’ve been hard to agree to hand over the money to a drug lord, but we need to stay afloat. And it sounds like your plan is working, Mike. Engel is about to move the ballots, and even sooner than we’d thought. It’ll happen in three days. They’ll be leaving the current facility at four in the morning on Monday, which means they’ll reach the bridge sometime before six o’clock. Knowing Engel, he’ll have some flashing lights clearing the traffic in front of the convoy. They’ll be traveling fast.”