by J D Lasica
Yes, Waterhouse was well aware of the arrangement. But he wasn’t up to speed on the specific provisions he had agreed to all those years ago. In his desperation to keep his company alive, he had signed an agreement that set out performance guarantees with some aggressive balloon provisions that were coming due … around … now.
The realization dawned: This is why Petrov came today. Not for an update about Birthrights Unlimited or his investment stake, not to congratulate me for hitting the ten-year marker, but for …
“For the past six months, you have not lived up to your obligations under our agreement.” Petrov brought his fingers together, as if to consider what to do about this state of affairs.
“I assure you,” Waterhouse sputtered, “we’re making every effort to comply.”
Oh, Christ! Waterhouse now realized how he’d gotten himself in such a vise. Being a bit desperate at the outset when he negotiated their agreement … add a touch of personal hubris to the mix … not riding his underlings hard enough. Double Christ!
He had been so preoccupied with overseas expansion, the upcoming grave team operations, the new discoveries in the Lab, the rollout of the hologram at the client retreats, the mind-boggling genetic profile mapping taking place right here in this section of the campus, the countless thankless tasks that fall to a company CEO—yes! All the challenges that confront the pioneer of a movement! All the thankless duties that befall the Father of the New Epoch!— that a year ago he had delegated Petrov’s fulfillment requirements to Chi Jiang, his man in China, and Conrad, his security chief.
His instructions were clear: Get it done, whatever it takes. Was it his fault that their status reports had been piling up—sight unseen—in his in-box?
“I’m sure there are good reasons for the delays. Give me nine months to sort things—”
“Stop!” Petrov’s voice rang off the nearby buildings. He held up his right hand and shook his head. Fifty yards away, two office workers at the Data Operations entrance glanced back to see what the commotion was about.
Petrov lowered his voice. “You have ten days.”
Waterhouse felt a silvery panic lodge in his chest. “Ten days? I don’t see how— ”
“Ten days to hit all your numbers. Or we collect.” He opened the top of his blazer to reveal the bulge of a handgun.
The horror began to sink in. Waterhouse stood there as Petrov spun around, signaled to his driver, hopped into the back of the SUV, and sped off into the morning light that now seemed far more harsh and fragile.
Ten days? Impossible!
3
Brooklyn, New York, August 10
K aden stepped into the kickboxing ring with Nico. It was the one place where she could escape the wounds and assaults that had followed her since childhood. The one place where a blow to the head or a stiff kick to the torso connected her body to something pure: a pheromone cocktail of adrenaline, sweat, and sweet, jolting pain. The blows she absorbed were the one thing she could count on and control. Pain was a gift.
“It’s not about the strike ,” Kaden said as she moved to her left, ready to deliver another blow to Nico’s rib cage. She was instructing him in the art of distance control. “It’s about what happens between the strikes.”
“You mean like this?” Nico, warmed up, deflected her blow and surprised her with a powerful roundhouse kick that sent her sprawling to the canvas. Nice!
For months Kaden had been teaching the ropes to Nico—like her, super-buff and agile but, unlike her, a guy, gay, and African American. Mixing it up with a guy like Nico sent the signal to other potential sparring partners that she welcomed all comers, no matter how big and tough.
Twice a week, during a midday break from their jobs at B Collective in Brooklyn, they hit the kickboxing gym down the street. They both worked as data analytics specialists—okay, to be frank about it, they were glorified white hat hackers. That is, when Kaden wasn’t pulling Nico into one of her crazy-ass covert ops on the side.
While her fellow code jockeys at B Collective were content spending fifteen hours a day at their keyboards or in their Eyewear, that wasn’t enough for her. She needed a physical release. It was a habit she’d held onto since her first self-defense class at age sixteen.
“Had enough, Double Threat?” She and Nico were rare birds in that they could dazzle you with their mad hacking skills one minute and kickbox the hell out of you the next.
“Not a chance,” she said. Nico’s the best. Since they’d met at Lost Camp four years ago, they’d become the closest of friends. Nico was the only one in the world she could share her secrets with. Secrets that went to the core of who she was.
Kaden jumped up into her stance and was considering a push kick when a ringtone sounded from her jacket.
“Hold on, I’ve been expecting this.” She held up her gloves and stepped out of the ring to check her smartphone. Just as she thought. The text gave the time and coordinates: “14:30. 40.7213° N, 73.9499° W.”
An hour from now. Plenty of time.
Kaden showed up alone, as she always did for these meetings. She was surprised Contact had been in touch again so soon. Usually the assignments were spaced months apart. The St. Peter’s operation had taken place just five days ago, including the strange debrief, where they plucked one of her hairs by the root. She asked, but they wouldn’t say. Probably to test her for drugs or something. But she was clean.
She found the coordinates, right in the middle of McCarren Park, and sat down on a bench beneath a Callery pear tree, blooming with clusters of tiny snow-white flowers. A petal dropped onto the shoulder of her black Semper Femina T-shirt, and she flicked it off. The appointed time came and went. That’s odd. Contact never arrives late.
Far down the paved pathway, two figures approached on bicycles. A middle-aged couple. As they drew closer, Kaden thought it must be a mirage. Her pulse quickened as their faces became clearer. This can’t be. She hadn’t seen her parents since the day she graduated high school. Soon after, they moved to Berlin and then off to somewhere else. They’d lost contact with her—which was fine by her.
What the living hell! What are they doing here?
In the next few moments, which must have been seconds but seemed like hours, all of those years came crashing down on her. All the misery, the tears, the pain, the damage. She had put those things in the back of a drawer long ago, afraid to look. But now the drawer was being pulled open.
Paul and Alison Baker wheeled up and braked right in front of her.
They looked older, of course, but still as severe as ever, Dad with his impatient eyes, furrowed brows, and big-shouldered military posture, Mom with her pale, angular cheekbones and nervous manner.
“Kadey.” Her mother’s nickname for her. “It’s good to see you.”
She shot them a glare as frigid as she could summon. “Why are you here?”
Her father got off his bike and put down the kickstand. “Sorry to ambush you. It was the only way. ”
This was making zero sense. I’m supposed to meet with Contact here, not with my parents.
Alison Baker took two steps toward the park bench to join her daughter. But Kaden flinched, and she backtracked. “Dear, you asked once about why you didn’t look like either of us. Do you remember?”
She kept her silence, bewildered by the scene unfolding before her.
Her father peeled off his biking gloves. “We have to be careful in how we say this.” He paused, as if trying to recall the lines they agreed on.
“We haven’t been entirely forthcoming in the past,” her mother broke in. A long silence, then: “Kadey, you were adopted.”
That jolted her. What did that mean? Adopted how? From where?
“And you’re telling me now ?”
Her mother bowed her head a little. “There was never a good time during those … those difficult years. And then you were gone.”
Her father looked off into the distance, refusing to meet her eyes. “Your birth mother d
ied when you were three,” Paul Baker reported in a monotone. “She was single and had a wild streak and never knew who the father was.”
“Paul, that’s not helping,” his wife said.
Kaden was trying to take this all in. Those long-ago hazy memories of a different mom, a different home—those weren’t just dreams?
She stood up, feeling off balance. “That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
Paul Baker nodded and lit a cigarette. Looks like he never quit that disgusting habit. “We were hired to play a role. It’s over. Time to move on.”
“Role? What role? ”
“She deserves to know.” Alison Baker moved a step toward her husband.
Paul Baker pulled on his cigarette. “We were hired to play the role of your parents.” He said this with matter-of-fact detachment, as if reciting an amusing anecdote in a magazine. “Our contract was just terminated, and your mother thought we owed you the truth.”
He hopped onto his bicycle and kicked up the kickstand. “I knew this was a bad idea.” He jerked his head to signal to his wife, Time to go.
Kaden tried to steady herself. She was feeling a little disoriented. “What are you saying?”
Alison Baker slid onto her bike and wheeled up to her. “Kadey,” she said softly. “Sorry about … everything that happened to you. It wasn’t always our call.”
Paul Baker began to wheel away and called out, “We’ve said too much.”
Kaden went up to this woman, Alison Baker, searching for answers in the face she once thought she knew.
Alison reached into her pocket, angling her body to shield it from her husband’s line of sight. She pulled out a small envelope and tucked it into the front pocket of Kaden’s jeans. Then she pulled out a small object, placed it into Kaden’s hand, and closed her palm around it.
“This is from your mother before she died.” She smiled with a wrenching sadness.
Then she sped off to catch up with her husband.
Kaden stood there, unable to move. She watched her parents—correction: the people hired to play her parents —disappear down the pathway and behind a stone fountain.
She opened her hand and saw it. A small USB flash drive.
4
Nesper Island, Caribbean, August 10
V alerie Ramirez held onto her sunhat and let out a yelp as the speedboat skipped over the shimmering waters en route to Nesper Island. She inhaled the bracing salt air and tasted the spray on her lips. Black-and-gray seabirds resembling tiny pterodactyls glided overhead.
While the Caribbean setting was nice—with a crazy price tag that cost roughly three years of her teacher’s salary—she honestly just wanted to get down to the business of having a baby.
She had carefully followed the instructions that accompanied her private invitation to the retreat, first flying to Antigua, then taking this floating phallic symbol for a revved-up, thirty-minute trip to the island. Or maybe thirty seconds, the way this fool was throttling the engine.
Valerie wiped the sea spray from her sunglasses and gazed down the length of the open-deck powerboat. Four couples of different ages, genders, and nationalities lined the perimeter of the boat, along with an overweight, red-bearded guy who sat by himself .
Right across from her was a young couple who might be on their honeymoon. She remembered her own honeymoon with sadness now, after the accident. She was thirty-nine and far past the age when thigh groping and nonstop smooches were the order of the day.
She leaned over to the young couple and smiled. “Excuse me. Where are you from?”
“Cambridgeshire, in England. You?”
“Miami.”
“We’re going to have a baby!” the young woman chirped with her green designer shades and freckled complexion.
“Congratulations. You’re not even showing yet,” Valerie shouted over the roar of the engine, and wondered if that was too presumptuous.
“Oh, we’re not pregnant,” the woman chortled. “That’s why we’re going to the island!” She shot her partner a glance, as if the idea of having a baby the old-fashioned way was the silliest thing she’d ever heard.
Valerie smiled to hide her embarrassment. Ah, got it. These were fellow invitees to the great techno-fertility ritual put on by Birthrights Unlimited. After signing that twenty-page nondisclosure agreement, it was better if she didn’t ask too many questions.
She kept quiet for the remainder of the ride, watching as the velvety sea gave way to a lagoon streaked with aquamarine and turquoise. At last they reached a cove with can’t-believe-it’s-this-crystal-clear waters and colorful tropical fish. Along the banks, powdery white sand stretched up to a veil of lush green trees and fern-covered cliffs. She let out a gasp as a large sea turtle with a honey-colored shell glided just beneath their boat.
Valerie stepped off the craft onto a wooden jetty where a waiter clad in a white uniform offered her a flute of Dom Perignon while holding out a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries. Sure, why not? Not exactly standard breakfast fare back at the New Hope School in Miami .
A tall man who looked to be in his thirties approached her. He had red-rimmed spectacles, a rugged jaw, and neat, dark hair braided in a man bun. “Valerie Ramirez?”
“Yes.”
“Welcome to the Birthrights Unlimited Island Retreat! My name is Lance Harrison, and I’m pleased to be your personal concierge for the weekend.”
“Very nice to meet you.” This was a surprise to her. She expected to be on her own the entire time, hitting up the event organizers with all the questions and reservations she had.
As they spoke, she saw that the other guests on the boat had already found their own concierges: the young we’re-having-a-baby! couple … a gay couple, two sweet-faced men in their twenties holding hands … two silver-haired businesswomen in matching tropics-friendly designer outfits … a couple, maybe from India, doing sign language with their concierge, who knew how to sign back… and the red-haired bearded guy with a sour expression.
Harrison picked up her small suitcase and started up the long pathway to the villa where she’d be staying. “This is as good a time as any to remind you of the no-electronic-devices rule for the weekend.”
She did remember. “I left my smartphone at home,” she reported. Just as well, no cell service on the island anyway.
They climbed the tropical hillside. For a few steps she closed her eyes and inhaled the aromatic scents of lilies, orchids, and plumeria. Halfway up, they paused to look over the canopy of lush green vegetation cloaking the billowy hills. Across the green and blue bay, a flock of pink flamingos skipped across the waters. Green and red macaws squawked in the treetops, and Valerie pointed out a lemur moving from branch to branch.
They reached the crest of the hill, entered a clearing, and stood before the Great House, a two-story dark wooden structure hugging the hillside. Harrison led her through the main entrance into the Reception Room, with a thirty-foot ceiling, chaise lounges with rainforest patterns, and an inside whirlpool and small wading pool set against the backyard doorway.
Harrison inspected his tablet. “I see that … you won the lottery?” He scrunched up his face at the implausibility of this. Or perhaps at the idea of anyone buying lottery tickets.
“Bought a ticket every time I shopped at the local 7-Eleven. One day I got lucky.”
“Our records show you’re still working. At a school for disabled and special needs students.”
“Specially gifted children,” she corrected, trying to be more playful than politically correct.
After her winning ticket scored her a lump sum distribution in the mid-six figures after taxes, her fellow teachers expected her to quit on the spot. Truth be told, the idea crossed her mind. But she loved her students so much—watching them climb out of their shells, conquer their social fears, explore their artistic and musical talents, laugh and cry with her—that she decided she wouldn’t leave her job or buy a bigger house or a new car or a fancy new
wardrobe. No. She would try to fill the yawning gap in her life. She would try to heal the hole in her heart.
Harrison returned to his tablet. “You’re thirty-nine. Unattached.”
“Divorced, with boyfriend,” she confessed. “He couldn’t make it.” Alex was working on a big investigative piece, otherwise he’d be here. He’s been super supportive about her desire to have a kid.
“No children. … Oh!” Harrison bit his lip as he scanned the rest of her bio. He glanced up at her and cleared his throat. “First things first. Did you bring the materials on your checklist?”
She opened her handbag, and Harrison led her to a makeshift reception table in a corner of the room. A young African American woman with long, pretty box braids was stationed there. Valerie fished out the pouch containing the items she’d brought from home: a tuft of dark hair … a green plastic sippy cup … and Charlie, a small white toy lamb. All from nine years ago. Though it could have been yesterday.
She handed the pouch to the assistant, who thanked her and disappeared down a long hallway before returning minutes later.
As Harrison and Valerie chatted, she noticed the other women from her boat ride line up at the reception table. One by one the assistant swabbed the inside cheek of each woman, deposited the swab in a clear plastic envelope, and affixed a sticker from a binder on the table.
Harrison gestured toward a table in the center of the Reception Room. “Help yourself to some refreshments.” He headed toward the guest rooms with her carry-on.
She grabbed a prawn hors d’oeurve offered by a waiter. The Reception Room was filling up with guests who looked quite dapper in their casual island wear, as the invitation instructed.
This elite group wasn’t her crowd, but she’d try to fit in. For this part of the trip she was wearing a simple white cotton tee and tan chino shorts, and she hoped her trim and sporty form made up for the fact that her outfit was from Target. She began to read a printout of the agenda for the weekend when a voice caught her from behind.