Scorpion Strike

by John Gilstrap

  He looked away from her, and down at his shoes, as he said, “Mostly, I’m a fanboy.”

  Venice coughed out a laugh. “A what?” This was not at all what she was expecting.

  “Come on, are you kidding me? You’re FreakFace666, for crying out loud. There wouldn’t be any Gloomity without you. Though I was a little freaked when I found out you’re a girl. A woman, I mean.”

  This guy was acting like a high schooler with a crush. If it wasn’t so scary, it would have been charming. “So, what did I do wrong?”

  He cocked his head. He didn’t get the question.

  “How did you find me?”

  “After you and I disconnected, you made a phone call and used some of the same phraseology I gave you. And I have access to limitless NSA resources. I guess you could say I misappropriated some taxpayer dollars.”

  In retrospect, she realized that she should have expected that. “So, are you here on official business?”

  “Oh, hell no. I took a day off.”

  “To come and do what?”

  “To meet you. Well, okay, that’s not true. At least it wasn’t at first. I wanted to get even somehow. You’d scared the shit out of me, and I wanted to do at least as much to you.”

  “You just spoke in the past tense,” Venice said.

  “Yeah, I did. After I blow off the initial layer of steam, I’m not a very vindictive guy. You caught me being stupid once, and I paid the price. It’s not your fault that I was stupid.”

  Venice gave him a long look. “Is that the polite way of saying that it’s my fault that you’re here?”

  He giggled. No, really. He giggled. “A gentleman would never say such a thing.”

  She had to laugh, too.

  “So, as I was driving out here—what a pretty drive, by the way. And a gorgeous little town. Anyway, as I was driving out here, it hit me that I was going to actually meet FreakFace666. I’ve admired your work for, like, forever.”

  Venice pulled up short. “Wait a minute,” she said. “When I touched you this morning, I wasn’t FreakFace666.”

  “No, you were BadThings.”

  “So, how—”

  “You didn’t see the SMS I sent you, then?”

  Venice answered with a scowl.

  “I was so freaked out by being outed by BadThings and I reached out to FreakFace666 for advice. Then, after I intercepted your phone call, I traced things down and I saw that the Hacker King—excuse me, the Hacker Queen—had a lot in common with BadThings.”

  Venice brought her hand to her forehead as reality hit her. “Oh, crap,” she said. “You didn’t know for sure that we were the same person until I just now confirmed it for you.”

  When Derek smiled, his whole face lit up. “Weren’t you the one who posted that social hacking is nothing more than one big poker game?”

  She felt her ears get hot. “Well, damn,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Derek said. “It’s a good feeling when you know you’ve bested the best.”

  Venice closed her eyes and shook her head. She’d been an idiot.

  “Take it easy on yourself,” Derek said. “Sooner or later, hubris takes all of us down.”

  “Have you told the rest of Gloomity who I am?” She could have danced around the question, but decided to shoot for the heart.

  Derek looked hurt. “I wouldn’t do that. I don’t think that you’ve grappled with the fact that I’m not here to hurt you. In fact, I’m here to help you.”

  “By telling me how my colleagues are in deeper trouble than we understand.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, tell me.”

  “Agree to have dinner with me first,” Derek said.

  Without thinking, Venice reached out and grabbed the fabric of his sleeve. “Wait. What?”

  “I want to take you to dinner.”

  “A date?”

  He deflated a little. “You can call it whatever you like. But I want to spend time with you.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “But I know about you.”

  Another warning bell.

  “Oh, shit, I’m sounding creepy. I don’t mean to, but when you’ve got skills like mine, you know how to learn about people. Are you going to tell me that you don’t do the same thing?”

  She really wished she could. The fact of the matter was that she’d unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) sabotaged a boatload of relationships over the years by digging into pasts and discovering stuff she wished she didn’t know. “What do you know about me?”

  “I’ll tell you over dinner,” he said.

  “That can’t happen,” Venice said. “Certainly not tonight. I have work to do.”

  “Because Jonathan and Gail are in trouble on the Crystal Sands Resort.”

  Data point: Derek didn’t know all that he thought he did. No nicknames, no code names. As she ran through the telephone conversations she’d had with Jonathan today, she was certain that no real names had been mentioned. That meant that while Derek knew that calls had been made, he didn’t know what had been discussed.

  “That’s exactly right,” Venice said.

  Derek’s eyes narrowed. “I missed something,” he said. “I see it in your face.”

  “The essentials are there,” Venice said. “The essentials are spot-on. But I cannot possibly meet you for dinner tonight.”

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  “We’ll see how this all works out.” She sensed him digging an emotional trench for himself and she launched a peace offering. “But later this week, I promise.”

  Derek’s whole being brightened. “You promise promise?”

  Again, back in high school. “Yes.”

  “Okay, then,” Derek said. “Good. That’s very, very good.”

  They strolled up the long hill, past the perpendicular walkway that led to Saint Katherine’s Catholic Church, and soon they would be at the walkway to Resurrection House. Venice couldn’t articulate why, but she didn’t want them to get that close to her home. And her mother. And her son.

  “You said that my coworkers are in jeopardy.”

  “Yes, I did,” Derek replied. He pulled to a halt and turned to face Venice full-on. “Look, I recognize that you own me, okay? You know about me and Gloomity, and you know that by doing what I have done, I have committed felonies that could end my life. Certainly, life as I know it. I’ll be honest with you. I wouldn’t do well in prison.”

  “I’m not sure any of us would,” Venice said.

  “So, what I know—what you want to know—is just another lock on my prison door. If I tell you, it’ll be for all the right reasons, so that the people you care about won’t get themselves in trouble that they can’t get themselves out of.”

  “Okay,” Venice said.

  “So, you won’t rat me out?”

  Venice crossed her heart and held her hand up, hoping that there were no witnesses. “I’ll pinky swear if you want me to.”

  Derek looked at her for a long moment, then shoved his hands into his pockets and started up the hill again.

  “Derek, listen to me,” Venice said. “I’m knee-deep in something very important here. I don’t have time to play games.”

  “Are your friends there on the island to steal munitions?” He asked the question quickly, as if it had been burdening him.

  Venice recoiled from the thought. “What? No! Good heavens, no.”

  “Why, then? Why was it so important for you to know what goes on there?”

  It was time to be careful. Derek knew too much as it was, but the genie wasn’t yet entirely out of the bottle. “I can’t tell you that,” she said. “But I swear to you that we’re the good guys.”

  “Why was it important for you to know about the storage magazines on the island?” He continued to stroll as he talked, mostly addressing the ground in front of his feet.

  “I can’t tell you that, either.” As she heard her own words, she realized how evasive and suspiciou
s she sounded. “You, above all others, should know about secrets. How important it is to keep them.”

  Derek stopped and turned to face her. “Do you understand the risk I’m taking by being here? I’m risking a lifetime in prison.”

  “And that’s a choice you made,” Venice said. She moderated her tone to be calm, entirely reasonable. “You clearly thought that you could trust me with your secrets. I don’t know that I can do the same. Not yet. We just met. And what’s at risk for me goes far beyond jail time. Lives are at stake. Many lives.”

  “You’re not a government contractor,” Derek said. “You’re a private investigation firm. I’ve done the research, trust me. That’s all you do, at least officially. How can a private investigation take you to a Costa Rican island off the coast of Mexico?”

  She waited for him to connect the dots for himself.

  Derek’s eyes grew wide. “It’s a resort,” he said. “Your friends were vacationing there, weren’t they? And something bad happened.” He started walking again, this time looking at the sky as the pieces fell into place. “I’m guessing some kind of attack.”

  Venice followed at a distance, admiring his intensity.

  “It had to be an attack,” he declared. At this point, he was engaging entirely with himself. “What else could be so urgent? But how did Security Solutions get the call? Why not the local . . .”

  He spun on his own axis and pointed his finger at Venice. “Got it. Your friends are involved in some kind of a fight, and they can’t get any help because Costa Rica doesn’t have any troops or cops to send.” He looked to the sky again, and then back at her. “Your friends figured out that it must have something to do with the old Soviet storage facilities.” He grinned. “Am I right?”

  Venice grinned, too. There was a whole lot to like about this guy. “I can’t tell you,” she said.

  “Of course you can’t.” Derek laughed. “Damn, that felt good.”

  “But if you were right, what is the bad news that you have to share?”

  “Let’s go walking back to your office.”

  “I can’t let you into my office.”

  “That’s okay,” Derek said. “But you have some serious warning to do. There’s a shipment of weapons coming to the island tonight. That’s what I thought your buddies were hunting for, but now I think it’s what their enemies are hunting for.”

  “What kind of weapons are they?” Venice asked.

  “Agent VX,” Derek said. “You probably know it as nerve agent.”

  Venice’s chill returned. “No, I know it as Agent VX,” she said. “That stuff’s been outlawed for years.”

  “Yes, it has,” Derek said. “All that means is that our government—and about a dozen others—have been working very hard to hide it.”

  “Where’s the shipment coming from?”

  “That’s the tricky part,” Derek said. “The cool thing about the Crystal Sands as a weapons depot is that everybody gets plausible deniability for what they do.”

  “You’re being obtuse,” Venice said. “Where is it coming from?”

  “I actually don’t know the specific port of origin, but I do know that the shipping company is a cutout for the Central Intelligence Agency.”

  It was Venice’s turn to stop short. “Our Central Intelligence Agency? Why?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” Derek hedged, “but there’s been a lot of chatter in official Washington over the past couple of weeks. President Darmond has decided that the time has come to level the playing field for the Ukrainian rebels.”

  Venice couldn’t believe the words she’d just heard. “We’re going to use nerve gas against the Russians?”

  Derek looked back at the ground. “We’re not going to gas anyone,” he said. “That decision will be up to the Ukrainians.”

  CHAPTER 21

  ONE OF THE GUARDS HAD THOUGHT TO BRING ALONG GAMES FOR THE children to play. Erin Talley thought that was a good idea, but there simply weren’t enough games to go around. She also questioned the sanity of pitting underage strangers against each other in competitive games like Monopoly and Risk. Thanks in part, she thought, to the general discomfort of the surroundings, tempers had begun to fray, and the children had begun to act out. A lot.

  The guards seemed uncomfortable with their mission here. It was almost as if they were afraid of the kids, instead of the other way around. They knew how to bark orders and demand quiet, but they seemed unnerved when it came to the task of actually taming the noise. She had no doubt that they were willing to shoot if it came to that, but with any measure short of that, they seemed sort of clueless.

  Erin decided the one who called himself Mike was the one in charge, at least for this shift. The guards had turned over at least once—and maybe another time, since she did fall asleep for a while. Mike seemed to be the one everyone listened to. He was also the only one with a real name. Unless parents actually named their kids Whiskey or Tango.

  Erin arose from a game of rummy, which she’d lost interest in ten minutes ago, and decided to brave an approach. Mike’s posture stiffened as she approached, so she was careful to show a smile.

  “Please go sit back down,” he said. His accent was the same as the others, but thicker.

  “I need to speak with you, please,” Erin said.

  “Sit.”

  “No, sir. Not until we can talk.”

  The soldier looked to be in his late twenties, though Erin was not the best judge of grown-ups’ ages. Her words clearly surprised him, and she tried not to laugh. She intended to keep their conversation private, but when she got inside three feet of him, his hand moved to the grip of his rifle and she stopped.

  “I don’t want to make you nervous,” she said. “I want to talk about the children. You need to let them outside to play. They need to run around. Either that, or you’ve got to get some movies to show or something.”

  “That is not possible,” Mike said. “Now go sit down.”

  “That’s just the thing,” Erin pressed. “I’m tired of sitting. We’re all tired of sitting. It’s not as if we’re going to run away. There’s no place to go even if we wanted to. You can see as well as I can that this isn’t working. Maybe we could even go to the pool.”

  “Absolutely not. No pool.”

  That answer came with such emphasis that she didn’t push. The pool was out. “Then what about some fresh air?”

  “No,” Mike said. “I am not authorized to let you outside.”

  She pointed to the microphone Velcro’d to the front of his vest. “You’ve got a radio. And we need food and drinks.”

  “You had breakfast.”

  “We had dry cereal and water. That’s not breakfast. It’s almost noon, and everyone is hungry.”

  “The world is full of hungry people,” Mike said.

  Erin saw a dangerous opening, and she decided without thinking to go for it. “Not in this world,” she said. “Look around. I don’t know what our parents paid to bring us all here, but it was a lot. These kids are rich, Mr. Mike. They’ve never spent a single hungry day in their whole lives. And they’re not used to being told what they cannot do. If you keep treating them like adult prisoners, it’s going to come to the point where you have to actually use that rifle. Is that really what you want to do?”

  “I will do my duty,” Mike said.

  “I’m just saying that it doesn’t have to come to that,” Erin pressed.

  “You have made your point,” Mike said. “Now, please go sit.”

  Erin wanted to press more, but the vibe coming from Mike had changed with that last comment. He was getting pushed into a corner where he didn’t want to go. She’d seen teachers get to those corners before—a lot of times—and she understood that it was time to back away.

  She had no interest in returning to the rummy game, so she wandered toward the living room. “I’m hungry, Erin,” said Isaac, the eleven-year-old who’d come to her at dawn.

  “I know,” she said. “
I told them. Try not to think about it.”

  “I have to think about it,” Isaac said. “There’s nothing else to do.”

  Erin moved on, scanning the rest. Nicholas was still asleep, or pretending to be, curled up in a corner near the door. What a lazy son of a bitch. And to think she’d thought he was hot when she saw him at the pool. What was the sense of having muscles if you were going to spend all the time hiding?

  The sound of a droning man’s voice drew her attention back into the hallway. Mike was talking to someone on his radio. When he made eye contact with her, he turned so she couldn’t see his face.

  Maybe she’d gotten through, after all.

  Forty-five minutes later, the front door opened—the one that led to the road, not the slider that led to the beach—and a crew of three soldiers brought in plates of sandwiches and cases of sodas. In a second wave, they brought a stack of books and DVDs. Erin recognized them from the so-called TeenTreat, which was appended to the Plantation House, on the opposite end from the English Bar.

  She smiled as the food was piled up and winced when she saw the kids all rushing.

  Mike yelled, “Take your time, everyone! Take your turn!”

  No one listened.

  It was Erin’s turn. “Hey!” she shouted, and everybody jumped. “Indoor manners, everybody. I know we’re all hungry, but the soldiers won’t let us get hungry again, will you, Mike?”

  He deferred to a man Erin hadn’t seen before.

  “That’s right,” the man said. “We’ve fixed the system.”

  Erin didn’t know what that meant, but she continued speaking at an elevated tone. “Please take your turn and take one sandwich at a time. If you want another, you can come back for it when you’re done with the first. Those of you who are twelve or older should help with the smaller ones. Come on, everyone. Let’s make our parents proud.”

  Her words did the trick, at least for the time being. She stood close, ushering them through the procedure of getting food. “Take a plate first,” she instructed. “Put your sandwich on the plate, and then grab a can of soda. If you need help, look to one of the others. Remember, you older ones, make sure the little folks are taken care of.”