What the fuck’s going on, Sophie? What the fuck are you involved in?
Two big questions.
There were smaller ones too, like how there was power here. Did that mean the world was coming back online?
Jake peered at his ex-girlfriend’s face for the first time in more than a decade, unable to shake her cryptic phone message. I’m not who you think I am. That was one thing, the other was the fact that she’d warned him. Warned him and apologized. She never apologized for anything. But that wasn’t what he was thinking about now. Now his mind was focused on the last warning she’d given him. You’re going to hear stuff about me. Bad stuff. She was involved, there was no doubt about that, but was she a victim or was she one of them?
The Sophie he knew wasn’t a victim, ever. But it had been a long time since he’d last seen her. There was a lot of living done between the pair of them. They weren’t the kids they had been. He couldn’t even remember the naïve idealist he’d been in more than abstract terms, combat zones had beaten that kid out of him. But he remembered her nature. She hadn’t been a terrorist; she’d been fiercely patriotic. He just couldn’t imagine her turning against her country.
I’m not who you think I am.
Then who are you? What do you do for them? Apart from blow up the London Stock Exchange, he thought bitterly.
Control. That’s what everything else had been about so far. Control. And if these people couldn’t control it, the next best thing was to destroy it, right?
Was that what had happened?
They’d tried to take London and failed so they’d left nothing behind.
New York, London, and Tokyo—that was the third one. Only three world stock exchanges, and one had been hacked and another blown up within the space of a day. The same day that the lights went out across the world.
Did that mean Tokyo was next? Was that what was happening?
Was the newsreader right and bin Laden’s prophecy was finally coming to pass? He tried to remember exactly what Sophie had said in her message, but all he could remember was an overall sense of: It’s bad, very bad, and about to get a whole lot worse. Which wasn’t far from the mark.
She’d obviously known about all this, there was no getting around that, and whether she’d blown up the London Stock Exchange or been framed for it, he needed to talk to her.
I’m not who you think I am.
Right, he thought, like you won’t be fighting them, trying to make things as difficult as possible. I don’t know you at all.
She was the key. She knew what was happening. More importantly, she knew why. He wanted answers. She had them.
What is it about the end of the world and women I’ve slept with?
“Mr. Carter?”
Jake stopped.
“Excuse me, Mr. Carter?”
He saw a group of men off to the side of the waiting lounge. They stood in the shadows cast by the curving wall. They were watching him. One of them nodded as he looked their way. He knew the man. He’d seen him before today, a couple of times, without realizing he’d seen him. He’d been on the train at Times Square, but he’d been wearing a cop uniform then.
Jake walked over to them. “You’ve got me at a disadvantage.” He stopped ten feet away: close enough to be heard without shouting, far enough to be well out of knife range. He didn’t recognize the other two men, and yet, he sort of did in a way that he couldn’t place, like he’d seen them before, in the background, but never really registered their presence.
All three wore business suits, dark slacks and dark button-downs and dark ties with long black trench coats over them. Men in black. Everything about the way they so desperately tried to blend in with the city screamed feds. All three looked slick, professional, but not exceptional, not memorable.
Then he remembered where he’d seen the second man: walking toward Wall Street. He’d led Jake straight into the New York Stock Exchange where this entire nightmare he was currently living began.
“That was you, wasn’t it? Down at the stock exchange this morning?” He knew he was right, even though the man neither confirmed nor denied the allegation.
Instead, the guy came back with a question of his own: “Are you planning to stop The Hidden?”
He had no idea what that meant.
“And in English?”
The questioner’s hair was touched with silver. He had a small, neat goatee that was streaked as well. There was a lapel pin on his coat, too small for Jake to make out the details, but it was silver and triangular, not gold, so it didn’t match the one in his pocket. So what was this? Some really exclusive turf war where people with more money than sense were fighting for control of his city?
You can hardly call it a war if only one of the factions is running around killing people.
“Don’t be coy, Mr. Carter.”
“I’m not being coy. I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“You aren’t a very convincing liar. All I want to know is, are you trying to stop them or are you helping them? Think carefully about your answer. It’s the most important question anyone has asked you in your life. Believe me.”
The threat was implicit.
He took the gold pin from his pocket and held it in his clenched fist. “I’ve never heard of any Hidden people, apart from the mole men.” His gaze drifted off toward the tracks. Probably not the best time to make a joke. “But assuming you mean these guys,” he opened his hand to reveal the pin, “then yeah, I’m gonna stop them. Me and my army of one.”
His questioner nodded, as did his companions behind him. “Good.” He smiled. It wasn’t any kind of smile Jake was comfortable being on the receiving end of. “That was the correct answer. Unfortunately, you are wasting time running around chasing shadows. The fight isn’t out here, no matter how it might appear. If you want to influence the outcome of this fight you need to get dirty, and that means slaying the dragon in its den.” There was a trash can up against the wall behind the men, just a standard city-issue bin. The man glanced over his shoulder and nodded. The third member of the trio reached into his jacket and pulled something out that Jake couldn’t quite see. It was small and bright; he placed it atop the can.
“How much have you managed to piece together for yourself?” the watcher from the stock exchange slaying asked him.
Jake figured he had nothing to lose. “Some. It’s all about money, it’s not terrorism, whatever people are being led to think. It’s about money and power.”
“Leverage,” the man agreed. “Control. With the right quantities of both you can convince people to do whatever you want, including slowly poisoning themselves. If I were to tell you that every day people willingly ingest a poison that was refused FDA approval thirty years ago, because it was proven to cause memory loss, seizures, vision loss, and cancer, to exacerbate and mimic the symptoms of conditions such as Alzheimer’s and depression while the poisoning affects the dopamine system of the brain causing addiction, what would you say?” It was a rhetorical question, the guy didn’t give him a chance to answer. “You’d tell me to get the hell out of here, I’m sure. We are talking about a deadly neurotoxic drug masquerading as an additive that interacts poorly with all antidepressants, L-DOPA, Coumadin, hormones, insulin, cardiac medications, and the like, and yet it’s in circulation because of the kind of influence we are up against. The day of President Reagan’s inauguration, his very first act in power was to ensure that this poison found a way through the safeguards of the FDA, appointing a new director to replace the original one who had stood in its way, and when the five-man committee looked like they were still going to refuse to rubber stamp the poison as fit for human consumption, he added a sixth man to put the vote into deadlock, allowing his hand-picked director to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of poisoning the world for profit. The man who did that was then rewarded with a fat contract with the public relations firm who represented Monsanto, who are currently poisoning our food supply with genetic modifiers
. But that’s not the takeaway here, the takeaway is how far up the chain their influence goes, Mr. Carter. They were able to apply pressure on POTUS and get him to directly interfere with the process, overlooking the scuttled grand jury investigation of the company with a vested interest in the getting the poison into food, to overcome the recommendations of the Bressler Report, to ignore the PBOI’s recommendations and pretend this toxin did not chronically sicken and kill thousands of lab animals.”
Jake didn’t know what to say.
“How’s that Diet Coke looking to you now, Mr. Carter?” the man asked, nodding toward a kid tipping up a plastic bottle and downing the last of the black liquid inside.
“If you can force POTUS’s hand, you have real power. These people have real power—beyond lobbyists and interest groups. They have the power to create political movements and get the very people they’re subjugating to do their dirty work. Look at the Tea Party, a supposed grassroots movement of passionate, well-meaning people who think they are fighting elite power, fighting for the change they were promised by Obama that they are so sure he failed to deliver. But it’s not grassroots. There is no mass mobilization, it’s all about the money behind it, and the irony that they are being stirred into action by the very interests they believe they are confronting. That so-called movement was established and guided with the help of money from billionaires and big business. They lavish money on advocacy groups that are instrumental in turning politicians away from environmental laws, social spending, taxing the rich, and distributing wealth. The only freedom they want is for corporations to trample the poor into the dirt while they profit. If there’s a way to do this without getting your own hands dirty, leaving no trace you’ve been there even in this digital age, then that is the perfect storm . . . So now you know.”
“Why? Why, if they’ve already got this kind of power, why would they risk everything by moving now? By doing this?”
“Much wants more, Mr. Carter, and ever it was thus. There is no loyalty, there is only the bottom line, and here we are talking in the billions, the greatest robbery ever known to man, unseen, unremarked on, but quite remarkable.”
“That can’t be enough. It just can’t . . . People are dying out here. It’s the end of the world as we know it and they’re looking to make a fast buck? I’m not buying it. Not when they already have the kind of influence it takes to bend a president to their will. It’s just . . . these are real people we’re talking about, not just numbers on a balance sheet.”
“It matters not. You are thinking like . . . well, like part of society. A man on the inside. These people are on the outside. Think of the world as a snow globe. No matter how much you shake it up, the flakes always fall. The chaos can be pretty for a while, but in the end you are always left with order. The chaos will return the next time someone shakes the globe, but eventually life will return to what it was. A certain type of people exploit the chaos so they have more control during the order.”
“Okay, I get that, but it doesn’t explain how they could know about the polar shift, what was going to happen, and prepare to exploit it like this.”
“On the contrary, it absolutely explains it. Everything is for sale, even when you are facing an extinction event.”
With that, the three of them simply turned and walked away without another word, which in the grand scheme of things was profoundly creepy. Jake’s mind was reeling. He realized he’d have been happier if it had been terrorists. He knew how to fight al-Qaeda. How did you go toe-to-toe with the 1 Percent? Because that was what he was being asked to do, wasn’t he? You couldn’t fight that kind of power. It just wasn’t possible.
He missed yesterday when things had been simple and all he’d been worried about was pulling a double shift.
He watched them go.
There was no point in running after them. He’d entered a world of poison pills secreted in porcelain teeth. They wouldn’t give up any answers they weren’t absolutely prepared to. The only thing he could do was see what little gift they’d left him on top of the trash can.
It was a business card.
Jake picked it up. It was made of good thick card stock, smooth rather than rough, and a gleaming, pristine white. One side was blank, although Jake detected irregularities in the surface as his finger ran over it. Some kind of textured embossing? He held it to the light. There was no indication of any hidden message within. On the other side was an address handwritten in pen. It was up near 91st Street, on the West Side of Manhattan.
He had no idea how the fuck he was supposed to slay a dragon, but he was pretty sure he’d just been handed the address to its den.
And he knew their name now—even if it sounded like something you’d more likely call a super-villain than a sect trying to bring down civilization—which was more than he’d known an hour ago.
He couldn’t decide if he was more screwed because he was going face-to-face with the dragon or because he was the bait.
Chapter thirty-one
“MIND IF I JOIN YOU?”
Sophie pocketed her phone. She had no idea if the call would make a difference. A lot depended on Jake Carter. She was banking on him being the same guy he’d been back then in the once-upon-a-time part of the fairy tale. Because the Jake she knew would make a difference.
She started to push back her chair to stand when she realized there was a woman looking expectantly at the empty chair across from her. She blocked Sophie’s path to the door.
“No need, it’s all yours, I’m done,” Sophie replied, then saw the small circular gold pin on the woman’s expensively tailored lapel. The symbol was unmistakable, hiding who she was—what she was a part of—in plain sight.
That pin changed everything.
Sophie scanned the room, trying to locate her backup. There was no way one of the top brass would come out alone. Sophie couldn’t see anyone, which was so much worse than knowing exactly where the crosshairs were pointing at her from.
She turned her attention to the woman in front of her. She was tall, almost six feet, giving her a real reach advantage if it came down to an old-fashioned fistfight. Her deportment was good, straight back, well balanced. She had the quiet confidence of someone who knew they could handle themselves if things turned nasty. Her hands were empty, but her jacket had large pockets that could have hidden an arsenal. Her eyes were so dark there was no distinction between pupil and iris, just deep black wells. They were cold, careful, cautious, and completely unconcerned.
They were the eyes of a killer.
“Xbalanque,” she said, putting two and two together. They’d lost faith with Cabrakan after the stock exchange debacle. She was looking at the cavalry.
“Sit down, please. Let’s try to be civil about this, we’re both women of the world.” The woman inclined her head toward the seat Sophie had just vacated. “This doesn’t have to get ugly. I’ve heard so much about you, Sophie. You’re something of a legend from where I’m standing. I hope you’ll do me the honor of breaking bread before we end this?”
Sophie didn’t have a lot of choice. With no idea where the assassin’s backup was, the odds of her making it out of the coffee shop alive diminished rapidly. She could turn it into a combat zone, create enough confusion to disappear, but the tables were too close together, and in the last couple of minutes too many people had clustered around the screen watching the news bulletin. There was no easy way out of the front door.
Of course, she could always pull a Han Solo and shoot first. It seriously crossed her mind. Her pistol was in her coat’s front pocket. She wouldn’t try to draw it, just shoot through the lining. It would save a couple of seconds, but if Xbalanque was as good as her reputation, those couple of seconds might just make all the difference.
She nodded, trying to appear gracious, and sat.
Xbalanque joined her at the table, and to the rest of the world they looked like old friends catching up.
Sophie felt like she was looking in a mirror—not one
that reflected the outside appearance, one that went beyond looks and reflected the inner you. Mannerisms, training, instinct, and the deeper, darker parts of her soul. This woman was her ten years ago. Fiercely loyal to The Hidden, just as she’d been, eager to prove herself to her paymasters, just as Sophie had been, willing to do anything to advance herself within the cause, exactly as Sophie had been right up until she hadn’t been. No doubt Xbalanque had her own line. Would she lose her soul and cross it?
“So,” Sophie said after a few seconds of silence had stretched between them, “we’re sitting, there’s no bread. Tell me, all bullshit aside, what are you hoping to get out of this?”
“I’m here to offer you an olive branch, Sophie. I’ve been asked to bring you back into the fold. I’d like to make that happen. I really would, but my orders were ambiguous.”
“Of course they were. It’s called plausible deniability. You’ll get used to it.”
The assassin’s lips curled into a hungry smile. “No one said you needed to be breathing when I brought you home.”
“I should be flattered, I suppose.”
“I would be.”
“You know what they’re doing, don’t you? They must have told you,” she tried reason, testing just how much of the woman’s soul was intact. She had to. She needed to give the girl a chance to do the right thing. “You know how many people it’ll hurt. You know the kind of suffering we’re talking here. It’s inhuman. We can’t let that happen—we can’t just sit by and watch this city, every city, burn while they adjust it.”
“You’ve mistaken me for someone who gives a shit . . . This isn’t my problem,” the other woman replied. “I’ve got a job to do.”
“No. If you’re the new me, you’re better than that. I am. I have a brain. I know how to think. I know when something is fundamentally evil.”
“You’re broken. That’s why I’m here.”
Sophie shook her head, doing her best to keep her voice level. “This is blind obedience you’re offering them, the callous disregard for anything and everything, it’s got a name. It’s not a pretty name. There’s nothing noble about it. It’s nihilism. The love of nothing and the desire to return to that nothing. Do you recognize that? Do you think you can absolve yourself of any guilt by saying you’re following orders? If you do genuinely believe that, let me be the first to disabuse you of that notion, you know, being as how I was you before you were. You make a conscious decision every time you accept a job. You make a conscious decision every time you pull the trigger.”
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