“Certain. I picked Altschuler up myself, as we discussed. I had the team take him a few hundred miles into the desert and leave him. I didn’t retrieve him until they were long out of sight. So there is still no way this attack can be traced to us, even if they’re later caught. I used tried and true methods to ensure I wasn’t being followed, from space or the ground, and then I assumed I was being followed anyway, and used additional countermeasures. Then I ran Altschuler through the ringer. No hidden bugs. No tracking technology of any kind.”
“Good work,” said Victor.
“While I was doing this, the men completed reinforcing the room he’s now in. Mary can now electrify the walls if this ever becomes necessary,” he added, referring to the PDA that controlled the lodge. “She’s been programmed to alarm and give our guest enough voltage to drive him unconscious if she were to see him attempt to break out.”
Victor nodded. “Is he awake?”
“Yes. Just five minutes ago.”
“Mary,” said Victor to his PDA, “display video of our guest.”
In seconds the scrawny genius appeared on the monitor. Both men studied him carefully.
“Given your enhancements to the room, why the need to strap him to a chair?” asked Victor.
“If he awoke with full freedom of movement, I thought he might try to escape, since I wouldn’t have had the chance yet to explain why this was impossible. I didn’t want him to try it and get hit with electricity. It’s non-lethal, but I’d prefer not to take any risk with his mind until we’ve had the chance to milk it.”
Victor raised his eyebrows and nodded his approval. “Smart,” he said simply.
“Do you want to interrogate him now?”
“Not yet. Let him stew for a few more hours. To allow ample time for his imagination to torture him about what might be going on, and what might happen to him. An unknown threat lurking in the shadows can wear a man down faster than a known one.”
“Given the success of phase one, can I assume phase two is a go for tonight?”
“Yes,” said Victor. They had decided to be paranoid to the very end, so even though phase one had been everything it was promised to be, they still wouldn’t be drawn in as participants to phase two. They would use the same men who had carried out the raid on Altschuler’s home. “But tell the men involved we’ve decided to pay them double for their excellent work so far.”
Under-promise and over-deliver. Reward loyalty and good work. Enhance loyalty and customer satisfaction by being surprisingly easy to work with and generous, rather than surprisingly stingy. These were the principles that had gotten him to where he was. His success, and his life, depended on being liked and trusted by all his employees and customers, even if they mistrusted and despised each other.
“And offer them three times the going rate for a successful completion of the op tonight,” added Victor. He paused. “But before you do, let’s review our plan one last time. Just to be sure we haven’t missed anything.”
Alvarez smiled. “You can never be too careful,” he said.
33
Altschuler’s agile mind had run through dozens of possibilities, had imagined endless nightmare scenarios. He had no idea which one of these, if any, were the truth, but they were all bad.
Was Heather okay? Had they captured her as well? Two bodyguards protected her when she left the residence, but compared to the security around him this was nothing. If she had been killed, he didn’t know what he would do. His entire world would collapse.
Finally, after a few hours of escalating muscle soreness from being pinned to a chair for too long, agonized thoughts, and an agonized bladder as well, two men came into the room. Both had short black hair and features that made him think they were Hispanic.
“Dr. Altschuler,” said the first man, nodding. He was slightly shorter than his colleague and projected an aura of total command. “Welcome. Can I call you Alex?”
The man’s voice was elegant and pleasing to the ear, and his English smooth and almost perfect, with just the slightest hint of an accent. He appeared calm and unthreatening, although Altschuler was well aware that this could change in a hurry.
Altschuler decided he wasn’t in the best position to dictate what he was called. “Alex is fine,” he replied.
“Good. I’m Victor, and this is my associate Eduardo.”
Altschuler nodded at the two men. “Forgive me for not shaking your hand,” he said, moving his right arm a few inches before the plastic restraint refused to give additional ground.
Victor cut him loose, escorted him to a bathroom, and then gave him a bottle of cold water. Five minutes later he was seated in a more comfortable chair in another part of an elegant home that appeared to have been originally built as a hotel of some kind, with his two captors facing him. They made sure he knew what he was up against if he tried to escape and then Victor began. “You’re probably wondering what you’re doing here?” he said.
“Yes. And also how you could have captured me in the first place. I would have bet my life you couldn’t have done what you did.”
Victor smiled graciously. “Thank you for the compliment, Alex. But I’m glad you didn’t bet your life. We need you alive and well.”
“How did you do it?”
“I’m very, very good,” replied Victor slowly, and while his partner was alert, taking everything in, it was becoming clear Eduardo would remain a silent observer throughout. “But let me tell you why you are here. We want the precise positioning coordinates in the brain for your four implants. We know you’ve either memorized them, or can call them up from the cloud. Under our close supervision, of course.”
Altschuler’s face wrinkled up in confusion. This made no sense. These coordinates were useless without actually having the implants. And when the implants were available, the coordinates would be known by a large number of physicians involved in the clinical trials. They’d be practically in the public domain, and Victor could obtain them with ease.
“Anything else?” said Altschuler cautiously.
Victor spread his hands as though he were the most reasonable man in the world. “That’s all,” he said.
“But how does this information help you? Without the implants themselves, positioning information is useless. And implants won’t be available for at least another year or so,” he lied.
Altschuler tried not to show his nerves. The ten thousand sets that had recently been completed at the pilot manufacturing facility were top secret. But so were the security codes to his home. So maybe they knew of the clinical batch, although the factory and implants were even better protected than he had been.
“Yes, we are well aware your implants are unavailable,” said Victor. “We are following news about your company very closely. But let’s just say we have our own technology. Our own hardware.”
Altschuler fought off the urge to sigh in relief. They didn’t know about the pilot factory. And there was no way implants lacking Theia’s hardware or algorithms could work. Not without the data Kelvin Gray had generated by butchering dozens of innocents and the algorithms that Altschuler had developed.
“So if I tell you the positioning coordinates, you’ll let me go?”
Victor spread his hands magnanimously once again. “Yes. It’s as simple as that. If you do this for me, we’ll remain friends. I’ll hook you up to a polygraph, of course. If you give me accurate coordinates, this is over. If you decide to lie, I’m afraid our friendship will end, and it won’t go well for you, your family, or your fiancée.”
“What have you done with Heather?” demanded Altschuler as a geyser of panic exploded within him.
“Relax,” said Victor. “We don’t have her. We purposely planned the raid for when she was out. Again, so we could make this as friendly as possible. But I assure you, if you cross me, it won’t matter that she isn’t currently in our possession. I trust we understand each other.”
“Don’t worry,” said Altschuler. “I’ll tel
l you what you want to know.” He hesitated. “But I’m having trouble believing you would just let me go. After all, I’ve seen your faces, and you’ve given me your names.”
Victor shook his head in amusement. “Thanks for reminding me of the risk of letting you go,” he said. “Do you want me to kill you?”
“Your intelligence and competence comes through in your every word, your every expression. So I know I couldn’t possibly remind you of anything you haven’t already thought of.”
Victor studied him with interest. “It’s safe to let you go,” he said, “because your government, and others, already know my name, and already have an artist’s sketch of my face. But for facial recognition programs, they would need a photograph. With all due modesty, I’m quite famous in certain circles. And they’ve been hunting me for years.”
Altschuler stared into his eyes, looking for deceit, but found none.
But nothing about this made sense. Had they really accomplished the miraculous feat of capturing him just for positioning coordinates? For information he would have gladly given them with very little provocation.
And it seemed as though the only way they could have succeeded was if he was betrayed by someone in his inner circle. But anyone in his inner circle would know he would put up very little fight to protect this particular information, and that they wouldn’t need to go to this trouble. This realization almost came as a relief, since he couldn’t bring himself to believe any of his friends would have betrayed him.
But there was still the matter of the dampening field. If they knew he had active implants, a betrayal by one of his friends was the only answer. But he couldn’t just ask Victor why the Internet was down, because they had stripped him of all electronics, so how could he even know this? But then he hit on a solution. “I think I remember the coordinates exactly,” he said, “but it might be best to look them up on the Web. Just to be sure.”
Victor frowned. “I’m afraid we’re in an Internet dead zone,” he said. “So if you really think this is important, we’d have to change locations.”
Altschuler considered this response. Could it be true? It seemed unlikely. Unless they were at the bottom of the ocean or inside a mountain, Internet coverage was awfully comprehensive these days. But a dead zone was much easier to believe than a betrayal.
“On second thought,” said Altschuler. “This won’t be necessary. I’m sure I remember them.” He paused and forced a slight smile. “Bring on the polygraph,” he added.
34
Heather gave Mike Campbell a warm hug as he entered the house she shared with Alex Altschuler, and tears began streaming down her face. Campbell was acutely aware that he wasn’t supposed to have a relationship with her, and that the two bodyguards who had been in the room with her must be scratching their heads at this greeting, but he wasn’t about to pull away.
“I am so sorry,” he whispered in her ear before separating.
“Gentlemen,” he said, facing Heather’s two bodyguards. “Please patrol outside. The security system has been sanitized and reset, so I’ll take responsibility for Ms. Zambrana’s safety inside the mansion.”
The colonel had made it to Fresno in excellent time. The previous guards, who had been rendered unconscious, had been taken to a nearby hospital and were just beginning to regain their senses.
Heather wiped away tears and offered the colonel a bottle of water, which he gladly accepted, and they sat across from each other on two couches in her palatial family room.
“Thank you so much for coming,” she said. “Has there been any news? I’ve called the general, but I wasn’t able to reach him.”
“I haven’t gotten any updates since I left the East Coast. But I’m sure if he learned anything important, we would be the first to know.”
“Alex is alive, right?” she said, her voice breaking. “I mean, why spare everyone else and just, you know . . . not spare him?”
“Anything is possible,” said Campbell, “but I can’t imagine he’s not. Like you said, they seemed to want to spare life. He’s brilliant, famous, and a billionaire. If you can capture someone like this, why kill him? He’s too valuable alive.”
“Then why hasn’t he contacted me yet?” she whispered.
Campbell sighed. “He’s probably still unconscious. Or the people who took him know about his implants.”
“That’s not possible.”
“The people we’re up against seem to know a lot of things they couldn’t know.”
“How could this have happened?” demanded Heather, raging against an unfair cosmos. “You know Alex. He is a great man. But more than that, he is a good man. You’ve heard Nick sing his praises. And no one knows his true mind better, or has had more opportunity to compare it to the average.”
“I know, Heather. I know. But Alex is out there. We can’t be sure, but I can feel it.”
“But you’re not expecting any ransom calls, are you?”
“No. I don’t think this is a kidnapping for ransom. It smells different. But I spoke with Drew Russell, our computer genius, on the way here, and he’s programmed your PDA to record all incoming calls. And also, if your PDA doesn’t recognize an incoming caller, it will divert the call to me and the general, no matter where we are, in case it’s the kidnapper.”
Heather nodded. “I’m surprised the general hasn’t called me,” she said. “I know he’s busy searching for Alex, but it isn’t like him not to contact me at all.”
“I think he was worried you wouldn’t want to see or hear from him after what happened.”
“Why would he think that?” said Heather in confusion.
“Well, he was in charge of security.”
“And it was incredible. Not his fault if someone planned an even better attack. I know how much he cares about Alex and me, and I would never hold him responsible.”
Campbell gritted his teeth. “Well, about that. The way this op was handled, it pretty much points to him. Their knowledge of the security was just too complete and too perfect. He and I spoke about it, and he’s well aware of how it looks.”
Heather shook her head. “But it’s a frame, right? It has to be.”
“I agree it has to be. The problem is that no one could know enough about the security here to frame him.”
Heather looked uncertain. “Come on, Colonel. We’re talking about the general here.”
“I know. I’ve worked with him for over a decade. He’s been a friend and mentor. The man I know would never betray Alex. He thinks the world of him, like you said. And of you. But just for full disclosure, he is facing a court martial soon. And it’s going very badly. The noose is tightening around his neck, and he’s probably looking at jail time. This after he’s devoted his entire life to service to this country. He’s sacrificed his marriage and private life to a large degree. And he’s been a hero. And this is the thanks he gets.”
“This is truly horrible. He deserves far better. But what could this possibly have to do with Alex?”
“It’s a stretch. And I don’t believe it. But everything points to him, so it makes sense to at least consider that it might be true, as much as we’d rather not.”
Campbell lowered his eyes. “It isn’t just that the walls have been closing in, it’s that mental illness runs in his family. Paranoid Schizophrenia, which has a genetic component. That’s one of the reasons he chose psychology and ended up in PsyOps. To better understand the workings of the human mind and human behavior. Maybe to better understand himself, if he were to someday inherit this condition.”
“So you think he might have lost his mind?”
“It’s the only way he could be behind this. A lot of people really are out to get him. So maybe this triggered the paranoid condition. If so, there is no telling what he might do. If you’re having delusions or hearing voices in your head, or if you think the people you love are out to get you, anything is possible. I gave this a lot of thought on the way here.”
“Have you seen an
y signs? Has he been acting irrationally?”
“Not at all. He’s taken the pressure better than anyone I know could have. He’s never become emotional or angry. Just the opposite. He was calm and rational when I spoke with him earlier today, just after Alex was abducted.”
“So it’s possible, but unlikely.”
“Yes. But even the delusional can fool you. And I wanted you to at least be aware of this possibility.”
“First Nick and Megan, and now Alex. How is this happening?”
“Something very big is going on here,” said Campbell. “Somebody has an end game. We just can’t see it yet.” He paused and decided to change the subject. “Are you okay spending the night here? Or would you prefer a safe house?”
“I’d prefer to stay here. If you think the security has been restored.”
“I do,” said Campbell. “But along with a new team manning the premises, I’d like to stay in the guest room next to yours. Just so you have a friend nearby.”
She stared into his eyes gratefully. “Thanks, Colonel.”
He was about to respond when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen. “It’s Girdler’s commanding officer,” he told her, obviously surprised.
“Campbell here,” he said into the phone.
“Mike, It’s Nelson Sobol. Have you seen or spoken with Justin?” he asked with urgency in his voice.
“Not recently.”
“Are you alone and secure?”
Campbell glanced at Heather and put a finger to his lips, motioning her to remain silent. She was part of his inner circle and the man she loved had just been kidnapped. She deserved to be in the loop.
“Yes. Hold on,” he said. “I’m going to throw you up on a bigger screen.”
Campbell instructed his phone to send the call to the closest monitor and seconds later Sobol’s face loomed large above him. And the man could not have looked any grimmer.
“Where are you?” asked Sobol.
“I’m in Alex Altschuler’s family room. His fiancée and her bodyguards are outside on the grounds, and this is a secure line.”
BrainWeb Page 21