“Tattoos can be faked.”
“So can scars.”
“Yes, but yours isn’t.”
“Anything else you want to see while I’m up? I can stand on my hands and walk ten feet without falling.”
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.”
Ricky retook his seat. “So did I pass the test? Am I to be a card-carrying member of the Illuminati now? Or does my scar mean I’m next in line for the British crown?”
“You’re a funny man,” Miss Marsh said, not laughing.
“Well, that’s not news.”
Miss Marsh stared at him with either mild amusement or borderline disdain. “I have a piece of paper in my possession that I think will please you.”
“Do you? I like being pleased.” Wink number three. Nonresponse number three. “What do you got?”
“An order for your immediate release.”
He didn’t even attempt to hide his surprise. “Excuse me?”
“If you agree to our terms, you will leave with me this afternoon.”
“I agree,” he said quickly.
“You have no idea what you’re agreeing to.”
“I don’t care. Anything’s better than staying here for the next nine and a half years.”
“Under the agreement, you will have some independence, but you will not be entirely free.”
“Sounds great.”
“You will be working for us, likely to the end of your current sentence.”
“Employment, too? Who are you? My guardian angel?”
“If you are ever perceived as more of a problem than as an asset, you’ll be put back in a cell.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior.” He crossed his heart and held up three fingers in a scout salute.
“You don’t even know what we’ll be asking you to do.”
“All right, I’ll bite. What do you want me to do?”
“Hunt, Mr. Orbits.”
Ricky Orbits, the self-proclaimed best hunter in the world, said, “Where do I sign?”
19
KARAS EVONUS
ANANKE AND THE others left the conference room in silence, each still processing their first meeting with the Administrator. When they rounded the hallway corner, they found a metal wall blocking the way to their cells. On the left side, however, another of the barriers had been lifted.
As they turned down the new hallway, Dylan sniffed the air.
“What are you doing?” Rosario asked.
“Trying to see if I can smell the cheese. There’s always some at the end of the maze, isn’t there?”
No one laughed, not even him.
After a few more turns, they emerged into a large, rectangular room. A long cafeteria-style table with attached benches sat in the center, while at least half a dozen wide-screen TVs hung from ceiling mounts throughout the space. Ananke had a feeling it would be difficult to find a spot in the room where she wouldn’t be able to see at least one of the monitors.
Like the round room, this one was surrounded by doors, two instead of three on each of the four walls. A metal placard was affixed to the wall next to each door. The one closest to Ananke read: LIESEL KESSLER.
“Looks like we each have an assigned spot.” She looked at the German woman. “Liesel, right? This one’s yours.”
Ananke went in search of her own door, finding it on the wall directly across from Liesel’s. Before entering, she checked for any signs the door could be locked via remote control, but the only lock she found was a deadbolt that could only be engaged from the inside.
Before entering, she removed her shoes and placed one against the jamb, just in case the door did automatically shut.
This was no small cell, but rather an expansive suite. The living-room area was big enough to fit a dozen people comfortably, and beyond this was an equally large bedroom complete with king-size bed. There was even a spa tub in the en suite bathroom.
What drew her attention most was the thin black binder lying on the main-room coffee table. Beside it were a remote control and a piece of paper that contained instructions on how to access video and audio files through the wall-mounted television.
She started first with the binder, reading every word of the seventeen pages inside. As the Administrator had promised, they detailed how Noah Perkins, Marcus Denton, and Denton’s organization had worked together to frame Ananke for Fernando Alonzo’s murder. But as damning as the evidence was, it could have easily been a set of well-constructed forgeries filled with dreamed-up facts.
She picked up the remote and reviewed everything on the list, many several times. Though video and audio could also be fabricated, in her professional opinion everything she saw or heard was one hundred percent real.
She had no choice but to admit the Administrator had been right. Even if she’d captured Perkins and dropped him on Denton’s doorstep, her fate would have been served on a platter to the world as Alonzo’s assassin.
Returning to the common room, she found Rosario and Dylan sitting at the central table across from each other, lost in their own thoughts.
“Marked for death?” Dylan asked Ananke.
She nodded. “You?”
“Had to check my chest to make sure there wasn’t already an X painted on it.”
Ananke looked at Rosario, who nodded in confirmation that she was also a member of the should-be-dead gang.
“Any sign of Liesel?” Ananke asked.
“Not a peep,” Dylan said.
Ananke walked over to the German woman’s room. Liesel had also left a shoe against the jamb. Ananke tapped on the door. When she didn’t get a response, she pushed it open and looked inside.
Liesel was sitting on the couch, staring at a paused image on her TV screen. It appeared to be a police crime scene photo of a man splayed across a chair, a bullet hole in his forehead.
“May I come in?” Ananke asked.
Liesel didn’t move.
Ananke gave it a couple of seconds, then stepped into the room and joined Liesel on the couch. Tears glistened at the edges of the woman’s eyes.
“Your boss?” Ananke asked, glancing at the screen.
“He was my responsibility.”
“I’m sure you did everything you could.”
Liesel turned to her, her expression blank. “If I had done everything I could, he would be alive and I would be the one dead.”
“Your shoulder wound…you took a bullet for him, didn’t you?”
Liesel self-consciously touched a spot along her collar. “It went through me before it hit him. If it hadn’t, maybe it would have missed him.”
“And maybe it wouldn’t have. You tried to save him.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s dead. I didn’t do my job.”
“Blaming yourself isn’t going to solve anything. He wouldn’t want you doing that, would he?”
Liesel shot Ananke an angry look before turning back to the television without a word.
Ananke tried to get her talking again, but it was apparent Liesel was done. Ananke returned to the others.
“Still can’t believe those bastards were going to kill me,” Dylan said after she sat down. “Couriers are supposed to be protected. That’s how the system works. No one’s supposed to mess with us.”
“Couriers die all the time,” Ananke said.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’m still alive.”
“You wouldn’t have been if these people hadn’t stepped in and saved you.”
He had no response to that.
“So what do you do?” Ananke asked Rosario.
“What I do is none of your business.”
“If we want to get out of here, we’ll have to work together. Which means what each of us does is all of our business.”
“What?” Dylan asked. “We’re going to break out?”
“If that’s what we need to do.”
With a glance at the ceiling, Rosario said, “You do realize this place has to be b
ugged.”
“I don’t care. They may have helped us out of some difficult situations, but that makes me feel thankful, not beholden. I want them to know that I’m not staying here any longer than necessary.” She turned her face toward the ceiling, and in a loud voice said, “In case you didn’t hear me, I’m not staying!”
A grin brushed the edge of Rosario’s mouth. “I am an obtainer.”
The Administrator’s voice suddenly boomed from an overhead speaker. “Ananke, would you please join me in the conference room?”
“Alone?” she asked, not sure he would answer.
“If you don’t mind.”
She shared a look with the others and then rose. “Well, that answers the can-they-hear-us-or-not question.” She stood. “If I don’t come back, you can split the things.”
“You do not want us to come with you?” Rosario whispered, her lips barely moving.
“I have a feeling if we all showed up, they might not let any of us in. Alone, there’s the chance I can learn something that can help us.”
“Is it us now?” Dylan asked.
Rosario was the one who answered. “For now.”
__________
WITHIN SECONDS OF Ananke taking her seat at the conference table, the Administrator appeared on the video wall.
“Thank you for joining me,” he said.
“Did I have a choice?” she said.
“We are not your enemies. No one dragged you here, nor would they have.”
“Eh, excuse me. But isn’t that exactly what you did? I don’t remember walking in through the door.”
“Our intent has only been to help you.”
“You’re saying you’re my friend, then, is that it? I hate to ruin your day, but I have an ironclad rule about not making friends with people who use me.”
“We haven’t used you.”
“Not yet, but you did say something about doing a job for you.”
“I did, but I didn’t say we’d force you to do that, either. We would like to hire you.”
Ananke laughed. “Let me guess. And our payment is you having saved our lives.”
“Again, incorrect. Saving your lives is not something we did for payment. As for the job, you will each be paid twice your normal rate. In advance. Anyone who chooses not to participate is free to leave.”
“Into a world where you’ve already informed those looking for us where we’ll be.”
He looked caught off guard and even a bit hurt. “That would be cruel. We would never do that under any circumstances. If any of you chose not to participate, I would urge that person to remain here until his or her particular situation has been dealt with. And before you even ask, staying would not be mandatory. Our commitment to clearing all of your names will continue no matter what any of you decide.”
“Sounds way too good to be true.”
“I’m sure it does. But that doesn’t change the fact that what I’ve told you is exactly what’s going to happen. But I appreciate you are all cautious by nature. It’s what makes you good at what you do. My words are just talk. Our actions are what will prove to you that we have not been lying.”
Ananke leaned forward. “Who are you people?”
“Who we are doesn’t matter.”
“No, it does. A lot.”
“Why? It has no bearing on the job we hope you will agree to do for us. And I know for a fact you have personally taken on many projects for which you knew little to nothing about your clients.”
“That may be true, but none of those clients took me hostage first.”
“You reviewed the information we left in your room. We did not take you hostage. We saved your life.”
Like he’d said, there was no way for her to know if he was telling the truth or not. The only thing that was clear to her was that trouble awaited her if she attempted to return to her normal life anytime soon.
“Perhaps you should tell me about this job.”
__________
“WE NEED TO talk,” Ananke said, standing in Liesel’s doorway. “Can you come out and join us?”
When Ananke had returned, she found everyone exactly where she had left them. Rosario and Dylan had wanted to know what happened, but they all needed to be together for this.
“What is there to talk about?” Liesel said without looking over.
“Our future.”
“I have no future.”
“I get it. It’s been a rough week for you.” Ananke waved her hand back toward the main room. “It’s been a rough week for all of us. But we have some choices to make. And you need to be a part of that discussion whether you want to be or not. So get off your ass and let’s go.”
Without waiting for a response, Ananke turned and walked over to her own room. As the Administrator promised, a file containing the photographs and other information pertaining to the job was waiting for her on her coffee table.
When she headed back out, Liesel had joined the others, though she was standing behind the bench, not sitting on it.
Ananke climbed in next to Rosario, set the file on the table, and then as succinctly as possible, laid out the choices the Administrator had presented.
“I will stay here,” Liesel said. She turned toward her room.
“Wait,” Ananke said. “You haven’t heard everything.”
“I have heard enough.”
“No. You haven’t.”
For a moment Ananke thought Liesel would walk off anyway, but then the woman swiveled back around.
“Let me see if I have this right,” Dylan said. “This job Mr. Administrator is talking about, he’s going to pay us for it. Double our going rate. And he’s going to clear our names so we can go home again.”
“That’s what he said.”
Rosario frowned. “Sounds too—”
“Good to be true? Exactly what I told him.”
“So you don’t believe him?”
“I don’t have enough information to determine what I believe.”
Rosario considered this for a moment. “I am not staying here a minute longer than I have to. I will tell him I want to leave. If he does not let me go, then we will know he is lying.”
“Or he lets you leave and shoots you in the back on your way out and we don’t know one way or the other,” Dylan said. “And, you know, you’d be dead.”
“Better dead than a prisoner.”
“That seems an awfully permanent solution.”
Before Rosario could respond, Ananke said, “You might want to hear the details of the job before you go making any decisions.”
“I do not care what the job is,” Rosario said. “I do not work with kidnappers.”
“Never?” Dylan asked. “Are you sure? I know my clients can get their hands pretty dirty sometimes.”
“Kidnappers who kidnap me. How’s that?” she asked, glaring at him.
“Well, that is a fine point, I’ll give you that. But me? I can’t deny I’m curious. Double fee sounds pretty good right now.”
Ananke opened the file and removed a picture of a passenger van. “Two days ago, a vehicle just like this one left a lodge near Yosemite National Park in California, carrying six students and three chaperones returning from an educational retreat. They never arrived home.” She set another printout on the table. “This is a copy of a text sent to the families waiting at the pickup point for their kids.”
The message read:
NO PRESS. NO POLICE.
NO FEDS. NOTHING.
SILENCE OR DEATH.
WE WILL CONTACT AGAIN.
“The messages were accompanied by these.” She set six photographs next to the text message. In each was a different child, bound and gagged but easily recognizable. Four were female and two were male. “The only ones who know about this are the students’ families and a few select others that now includes us.”
“Jesus,” Dylan said. “And the ransom?”
“It hasn’t come yet.”
“How much do six
kids go for these days?”
“These three”—Ananke touched the appropriate pictures—“come from extremely wealthy families. We’re talking Silicon Valley kind of money.”
“What about the other three students?” Rosario asked.
“The retreat was part of a program to expose kids from different socioeconomic groups to one another,” Ananke replied. “The other three are from working-class families.”
Rosario looked troubled. “If the kidnappers need to send a message, these will be the kids sacrificed.”
“Very likely.”
“What is known about the kidnappers?” Liesel asked.
“Nothing. Our job would be to ID them, locate them, and bring the kids home alive.” Ananke paused. “The question we each need to answer is whether to take the job or choose one of the other options.”
The room fell silent.
“What’s your answer?” Rosario finally asked.
Ananke had been contemplating that since she left the conference room.
The Administrator had presented her with enough information for her to believe the story about the missing kids was true, but there was more to this whole saving-Ananke-and-the-others-and-hiring-them thing than he was sharing.
Still, the kids were in real danger.
Her life in the last several years had been full of death. Since she couldn’t return to it at the moment, it might be nice to do a little saving.
“I’m in,” she said.
Rosario appeared surprised by the answer, and fell back into a dark silence.
“Hell, it beats hiding out for God knows how long staring at the walls,” Dylan said. “I’m in, too.”
“These children,” Liesel said. “You are convinced they are in trouble?”
“As much as I can be. The thing is, if we find out we’ve been lied to, we can always walk away.”
Liesel nodded to herself. “Yes, we can. Then I will help, too.”
All eyes turned to Rosario. “All right,” she said after a moment.
Ananke walked over to the wall near the room’s main entrance and pressed the button she found there. “Assuming you weren’t lying and haven’t been listening in, we’ll take the job.”
“That’s excellent news. Thank you all.”
The Excoms Page 10