The Loop

by Wesley Cross

  “Why?”

  “He is convinced that they forced Flores’s hand. He’s asked me to draw up plans for the attack by Monday. You have to pull me out.”

  “Negative,” Contact responded again. “You’re authorized to proceed with the attack.”

  “It’s not only the technology he’s after,” Connelly typed. “He said he would give me a list of people he wants to be eliminated with the facility. I’m not doing this.”

  He took a sip of cold beer and sat on the couch for a few moments before refreshing the page.

  “You are to proceed with Engel’s plan,” the message said. “While collateral damage is unfortunate, we believe this will save lives in the long run.”

  “Those are innocent people we’re talking about,” he typed in response.

  “Yes. But the threat Engel’s organization poses to the world is far greater than anything we’ve seen before. Until we can effectively eliminate the conspiracy, we will need an uninterrupted flow of information, and you’re in the unique position to help us bring him and his cronies down.”

  “Why can’t we eliminate Engel?”

  “Because Engel, despite all his money and influence, is one head of the hydra. We need to gut it out, not play the game of whack-a-mole. You’re to stay in the organization and continue to follow Engel’s instructions until further notice. You must maintain your cover. This is an order.”

  Connelly wanted to smash something. Instead, he closed the laptop and gently laid it on the couch, finished his beer, and opened his phone. He scrolled through the list of contacts until he found the name he was looking for and dialed the number.

  “It must be shitty where you’re at if you’ve decided to call me, brother,” the man’s voice said. “What’s going on, pal?”

  “It’s nice to hear you, too, Doug.” Connelly couldn’t help but smile. “Nothing interesting I can tell you over the phone, but I need a favor.”

  “Of course, you do.” There was a snicker on the other side of the line. “What can I do?”

  “I might need an exit strategy,” Connelly said. “I’d like to set up a couple of properly outfitted safe houses, in case I need to bail on a dime.”

  “You need to get some cash from somewhere, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” There was that snicker again. “I might know just the place.”

  21

  Hong Kong

  “Thanks for the lift,” Mandy said as Helen put the car in gear and pulled out of the parking spot. “I should’ve done the inspection last week. I don’t know what I’ve been thinking.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Thick fog was sitting low on the ground, as if a cloud got lost and couldn’t find its way back to the sky. The beams of the car’s fog lights illuminated the wet gravel of the road and the lush greenery on each side.

  “It’s good timing, though,” Mandy said, chuckling. “Wouldn’t blame you if you thought I did it on purpose. I hate driving in the fog.”

  “Yeah, it’s not the best day to be behind the wheel.”

  They came to the end of the gravel road, and Helen craned her neck, checking on both sides for oncoming traffic.

  “What the hell are those?” Mandy pointed at the group of flashing red-and-blue lights quickly approaching the intersection. “Cops?”

  “They don’t look like cops,” Helen said as the column of six large black SUVs approached the intersection and then roared by them. “Black Arrow.”

  “The private military company? Probably heading for the prison complex. There’re only two places down this way—TLR and the prison, and my money’s on the prison.”

  “Probably,” Helen said and pulled onto the highway. The windshield wipers automatically engaged, sensing the moisture on top of the glass, but their efforts proved futile against the sticky fog.

  The black SUVs were parked right in front of the main entrance to the TLR building. A pair of men with automatic weapons stood guard outside of the front door, scanning the front yard.

  “It looks like I was wrong. Those are some unfriendly faces,” Mandy said, watching the guards as they drove by the entrance and headed for the parking lot. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions yet,” Helen said, pulling into the parking space. “Panicking isn’t going to help us. But let’s be careful.”

  “I’m not panicking,” Mandy said. “I’m actually angry.”

  “State your business,” one of the guards barked when the two women approached the building on foot.

  “I’d like you to do the same,” Mandy responded. “I’ve been working here for a long time, and it’s surely the first time I’ve seen your ugly face.”

  “You got some ID?” the other man asked.

  “I don’t know,” she challenged. “Do you?”

  “I’m not going to ask again,” the man said, pointing the stub nose of the weapon toward the woman. “Show your ID, or else remove yourself from the property immediately.”

  “Easy there,” came a voice from behind the guards and Tillerson walked out to the top of the steps. “They work here. Let them through.”

  The guard stepped aside, letting the two women pass.

  “Sorry about that,” Tillerson said as he held the door for them. “I’m sure they’ll learn who’s who in the next few days.”

  “What on earth is going on?” Helen said. “Who are these people?”

  “They are here to protect us,” the man said as they walked through the building. His pace was brisk, almost bordering on a run, and the two women struggled to keep up. “I don’t want to go into details, but there’s been a series of cyberattacks against the company, and there may have been a break-in.”

  “You don’t say. Anything stolen?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” he continued. “But given the sensitivity of our work, I don’t intend to take chances. Our donors started to get nervous.”

  “Donors?” Helen said before she could stop herself.

  “You know.” Tillerson made a vague gesture with his hand. “Shareholders. You guys, go. I need to make sure everybody’s on the same page.”

  “Of course.”

  He started walking away and then turned back. “It’s funny how it works. I was very much against CCTVs in here initially, because I was paranoid somebody could hack into them and use them against us. But I’m glad last week I was convinced to give them a shot.”

  “Last week?” Helen forced a smile as the muscles in her stomach tied into a knot.

  “Yeah.” He pointed to the ceiling. “You see those ventilation grilles? They’ve got cameras now. One of our stakeholders owns a video security company. Pretty amazing stuff. Came in on Sunday night and wired the whole thing before anyone showed up on Monday morning. The only drawback is that nobody sees anything in real time. Frankly, it’s my fault because I don’t want anyone to see what we do here. I’d rather review the tapes myself first.”

  “Smart,” Helen said.

  “All right, ladies.” He turned around and started walking. “I have to go now.”

  Helen waited until the man left and then turned to Mandy with a big smile on her face.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “You’re going to start smiling too,” Helen said, continuing pulling her cheek muscles into a maniacal grin. “I’m screwed, but you can’t go down with me. Wave to me in your cheery, happy way, and walk away.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. If you get busted too, nobody will be able to help me. For now, your reputation is beyond reproach. They’ll question you since you’ve been hanging out with me, but there’s no reason for them to suspect you at this point. Please keep it that way. I have my laptop with me, and I’ll keep the tracker open so you’ll know how to find me. If anybody asks—you’ll say that I acted weird, and told you I forgot something in my car. Now please wave your hand at me and go.”

  She watched her friend le
ave, then turned around on her heels and started walking toward the exit.

  “Forgot something at the campus.” She nodded to the guards standing outside. “Be right back.”

  She walked across the parking lot to her car, keeping her pace steady. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine to the small of her back, and she opened the door and got in behind the wheel. Then she slowly pulled out of her parking spot and maneuvered the vehicle from the company’s grounds to the intersection.

  She threw a quick glance in the rearview mirror at the guards. She was too far to tell if they were looking in her direction. If they did, they’d surely notice that she was turning toward the city rather than campus, but as much as she wanted to go back to her place and pick up more than the laptop, there was no time. As soon as Tillerson watched the tape, all hell would break loose. All she could hope for now was a bit of a head start.

  Helen merged into the traffic and accelerated to ten kilometers above the speed limit. She was itching to floor it, but getting pulled over by a local cop wasn’t going to help her to build some distance from the Black Arrow mercenaries.

  With one hand on the wheel, she opened her purse and checked for cash. Four hundred dollars. That was not going to be enough. She’d probably be able to use an ATM before they started tracking her, she thought, but first things first—she needed to get out of the remote location and get into the city. Once she was surrounded by nearly eight million people, she’d find a place to lay low and figure out her next step.

  She checked in the rearview mirror—nobody seemed to be pursuing her at the moment. As she glanced back to the front, there was a loud popping sound, and the vehicle swerved off course, making her grip the wheel to counteract the motion. She let off the gas, noting how the car tilted toward the right front wheel, and pulled over to the right shoulder of the road.

  Helen jumped out of the car and walked around the vehicle—the right front tire was flat, the rubber split nearly in half.

  “Great,” she said, giving the wheel a kick in frustration. She looked around, looking for ideas. The highway was empty, not a single car going to or from the city. She’d be a sitting duck when the Black Arrow boys came looking for her.

  Helen got back into the car and put it into drive. She put the emergency lights on and accelerated slowly, keeping the vehicle next to the shoulder. After a few hundred yards, she saw was she was looking for—a wide enough clearing in the jungle. She steered the car off the road and into the forest, trying to get it as deep as she could.

  She got lucky—after a dozen yards, the clearing veered left, and when the vehicle finally stuck in dense vegetation, refusing to go any farther, it was covered from view.

  She abandoned the car and walked to the highway. The city could be seen a few miles down the road, but with no cover, in broad daylight, it was too dangerous to walk. Whatever her final destination would be, she’d have to go back to the car and wait there for the night.

  As she started heading to the jungle, she threw a last glance at the city and stopped in her tracks—maybe there was a place that could give her a temporary refuge after all.

  It would be dangerous, she thought, and she might live to regret not surrendering herself to Tillerson, but now on foot, the list of her options had shrunk to almost zero.

  She started walking along the road and then broke into a run toward the structure two miles down the road. Right at the edge of the city, like an ugly giant melted candle, stood the New Kowloon building, the biggest slum city in the world.

  22

  New York

  “Good morning, sunshine.” Doug’s voice crackled over Connelly’s car speakers. “You coming?”

  “I’m in the car. Should be there in forty minutes or so if the traffic doesn’t get worse. Is there a code or a key I’ll need?”

  “Nope. I have a guy who’ll meet you there. He’ll know how you look.”

  “Thank you, brother,” Connelly said and disconnected the call.

  He merged the town car onto I-278 West toward Verrazzano Bridge and settled into the flow. Connelly rolled the windows down, letting the air in. It had been a hot week, with the temps pushing the mercury into the nineties. But overnight a heavy rain covered the five boroughs for a few hours and washed the heat away, leaving the air cool and damp. The breeze, occasionally sweeping in from the East River, was cold enough to make one consider putting on a jacket. It was almost as if somebody had flipped the switch from summer to fall, instantly swapping one season for the next.

  As he got closer to the bridge, the GPS had tried to steer him to the car-only lower level of the massive double-decker suspension bridge connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island, but he ignored it. He didn’t mind sharing the lane with trucks as long as he could get the view. Sofia once told him that when the bridge cutting across the Narrows was built, the towers were so tall, that the engineers had to take the curvature of the Earth into account.

  He didn’t know if that was true, but every time he drove on the upper deck hovering over two hundred feet above the water, he enjoyed the spectacular vistas. Today, the thick fog was partially hiding Manhattan on his right, but the sky was clear on the left side of the bridge, opening up in a vast expanse of water with the Far Rockaway’s shores visible in the distance. A tail of a large cruise ship was seen steaming through the Lower New York Bay on its way to the Atlantic Ocean.

  After he cleared the bridge, Connelly took the exit toward Narrows Road North and a few minutes later pulled into a parking lot of a long, low warehouse next to the Saw Mill Creek Marsh. The building was painted in a dull uniform white and featured a weather-beaten sign WEstore above the only window of what seemed to be the office.

  Connelly killed the engine and stepped out of the car when he saw the door to the office open and a familiar figure step outside into the cool breeze.

  “Holy shit,” he said out loud as he watched Doug cover the distance to the car in long, purposeful strides.

  “Yeah,” the man said, grinning, and ignoring Connelly’s outstretched hand, scooped him into a bear hug. “I thought I’d surprise you.”

  “You look good,” Connelly observed as he tried to realign his spine after the vise-like grip of Doug’s hands. “I didn’t know you were out.”

  “Thanks, man. I can’t complain. Even got a little fat.” Doug patted his stomach, purposely sticking it out.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m serious. Maybe not fat, but I’ve certainly gained a few pounds. But come. Let’s go inside. I’m sure there’s a lot to discuss.”

  Doug led him across the parking lot and into the building. He nodded to the guard behind a small desk and continued on inside the long hallway with identical garage-like doors on each side with a four-digit number painted at the bottom.

  “How long have you been out?” Connelly asked as they walked.

  “Let’s see.” Doug took a moment. “A little over a year, I guess? It’s hard to keep track.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You know.” Doug shrugged. “Rovinsky told us you were digging deep. I didn’t want to take chances. You never know who’s listening in. Sometimes one stupid phone call can ruin a months-long operation.”

  “It’s true. What have you been up to?”

  “Took some time off, initially.” Doug spread his arms wide. “You get tired chasing bad guys, you know? I needed a bit of a break. Then cobbled together some cash and opened a private shop. Nothing fancy. Keeping tabs on some check-cashing places and one large supermarket in a bad neighborhood. Nothing to write home about, but it pays the bills. Once in a while, Rovinsky asks me to run a small errand for him, so I do that, too.”

  “That’s great, man.”

  “Here it is.” Doug stopped in front of one of the gates with the number 2479. He glanced back and forth, making sure nobody was approaching from either side, and unlocked a heavy padlock at the bottom.

  Loud metal clanging filled the hallway as Doug rolled the
gate high enough for them to step into the storage unit. Then he turned on the light and pulled the door back down. Two five-foot-tall cubes covered by tarps were set on wooden pallets in the middle of the room. Doug placed his hands on one and pushed himself up, taking a seat, and then gestured to Connelly at the other cube.

  “Do you think Rovinsky would approve?” Connelly asked without moving.

  “He did,” Doug said and patted the tarp. “It’s for the cause.”

  “All right then.” Connelly climbed on top of the second pallet and sat there, facing his old teammate. “I’m glad you checked with him. This isn’t kosher what I’m asking.”

  “This money isn’t kosher either.” Doug chuckled. “And it’s not like you want to buy a Ferrari. This is what it was meant for anyway.”

  “What did he say? Is there hope he’s putting things in motion again? For God’s sake, it’s been a long time.”

  “Not that I’m aware of. And I ask that question every time I see him, so I’m sure he’s sick of hearing it by now. But he says it’s not feasible at the moment. And the new POTUS doesn’t give two shits about the agenda. But what’s going on with you? It sounded like your position is getting a little too warm.”

  “Yeah.” Connelly ran his hand over the tarp, his fingers gliding over small bumps under the surface where one stack of paper bills ended and another began. The material was cool and smooth to the touch. “I’ve had some decent success getting the info for the guys at ISCD, but my handler’s getting more ambitious by the week.”

  “You think you might bite more than you can chew?”

  “Perhaps. But this is a risky business, so I’m not here to complain about the risk. What bothers me is how far we’re willing to go. Some days I end up questioning myself if I’m still one of the good guys.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Collateral damage,” Connelly spat, as if saying something dirty. “Engel is tasking me with a hit on a facility. Not a military installation, mind you. An R&D shop.”