by Jeff Altabef
“When was this taken? She looks so young.” Michelle is indeed beautiful, with freckles, red hair tied in pigtails, and a bright smile.
Connor takes the photo from me. “This snap was taken the day I left. She’s only twelve. She’s also an orphan, really like a little sister to me.”
Emotions whoosh through me like a sudden blast of heat. He’s not in love with a girl back home, at least not in the way I had feared. A smile starts in my toes and travels all the way to my face. “She looks special.” I try to hide the giddy feeling that threatens to overcome me from my voice.
“She is. She’s too good to be stuck in that pub. When this is all done, I’ll rescue her.” He shifts his weight to get up, and reaches for the book to reclaim it.
I swing it away from him. “Hold on a second.” I grab his shoulder and push him down. “Let’s see what you were reading.” The book opens to a bent page. “Yeats? Who’s that?”
Connor’s eyebrows arch upward. “You don’t know Yeats? What do they teach you in these shoddy American schools? He’s only the best English poet that’s ever lived. I’m buying you this book.” He stands and helps me up.
“I know all about Yeats.”
As we head to the escalators, he says, “Okay, what poems have you read?”
“Well... none, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like poetry.”
“Sure.” He smiles and starts to recite lines from Yeats’ poems in a booming voice as we drop down the escalator. “Think where man's glory most begins and ends; And say my glory was I had such friends....”
I give him a shove, but he won’t stop.
Other shoppers stare at us, but he still won’t stop.
He pays for the book and continues his orations all the way out of the store.
Connor and I arrive at the entrance to Swiss Bank two minutes after twelve.
Akari greets us with a smile, but Blake’s lips turn down and one of his eyebrows arches upward, which gives off the impression that he’s annoyed and confused at the same time. “Where’s the tie? We bought a perfectly good tie yesterday. What did you do with it?”
Connor yanks a new, yet wrinkled, navy tie from his suit pocket. “I have no idea how to fasten the bloody thing.”
“It’s silk. You’re not supposed to stuff it in your pocket like a used handkerchief.” Blake waves him over. “Give it to me.”
When Blake finishes, Connor straightens it and grins. “So, do I look like James Bond, or what?”
“Or what!” Akari and I say at the same time.
“Come on! Not one of the early geezers but the last guy, Daniel Craig.” He lifts his chin and sports a sly smile in his best Hollywood pose.
Akari bursts out laughing.
I shake my head. “Not even close.” If I squint my eyes, the comparison actually isn’t horrible, but he’ll never hear me tell him so.
“You guys are cruel!” He frowns playfully.
“Let’s go.” Blake hands me the flash drive, yanks Connor’s arm, and pulls him through the glass doors into the building.
I hesitate just inside the doors. I’ve never seen a more elaborate building. Even the casino back home would not compete with this one. Huge arched ceilings with carvings etched into stone overhang the main floor, expensive old-looking portraits hang on the walls, and marble floors squeak under our shoes.
We follow Blake as he strolls toward a black marble reception counter with golden block letters that spell Swiss Bank in the center. He moves easily, as if comfortable among all this excess.
Three women and one man sit behind the counter, waiting to greet clients. A beefy security guard stands on each side of the reception desk, with a metal detector and operator behind them. All this security looks like overkill, but I guess if you’re rich you want to know your money’s protected.
Blake leans against the counter and talks to a tastefully dressed middle-aged woman on the far left. “Blake Richards to see Darryl Formato. I have three other guests with me. He’s expecting us.”
The woman offers a totally phony smile, checks her computer and prints four passes. “Place these stickers on your chest and take the elevator to the fifth floor. Mr. Formato will meet you there.”
We stroll past the security guards, through the metal detectors and over to the elevators. When a bell rings, the brass doors open and a dozen harried people file out. When the crowd clears, we move inside and press the buttons for the fifth and sixth floors.
“We’re lucky it’s lunch time,” says Blake. “Most people will be leaving and the floors won’t be too full.”
The bell rings for the fifth floor and Connor grins. “Shouldn’t you two hold hands or something? I mean you’ve got to act like a couple.”
Blake actually looks at Akari with a hopeful shine in his eyes.
She swats Connor in the stomach. “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about us.” She steps off the elevator and they’re gone.
We pull the passes from our clothes and leave the elevator when it stops at the next floor. A glass door with a card reader blocks our way onto the floor.
“What now?” whispers Connor.
A group of three youngish men ambles toward us. They must have just shared a joke because all three are laughing. The slight bounce in their step likely means they’re headed to lunch.
“Follow me.” I saunter toward the glass door and time my arrival for a second after they reach it. Since they arrive at the door first, they unlock it from their side and hold it open for us. I smile and, just like that, we’re in the clear and on the investment-banking floor.
“Wow.” Connor whistles.
The floor is a vast cubicle farm, every inch crammed with people and computers. Flat screens drop down from the ceiling every twenty feet and blare the latest financial news. A long flat table centers the space where two-dozen people sit with headsets plugged into their ears. Each person has at least four computer screens streaming data at them. One guy has six.
How can anyone pay attention to six screens at the same time?
The floor reminds me of the casino back home, with the same electricity and buzz from all the different conversations that blend together. A siren blares from the far end of the floor with swirling lights. A banker raises both hands in triumph, shouts something I can’t make out, and hits a button that makes the lights stop.
“We have to find Smyth’s office before we trigger the fire alarm.” I nod toward the exterior offices that ring the floor. “Blake said he’s a hotshot, which probably means a corner office.”
We can’t just stand by the elevators and gawk, so we start out toward the right.
A pleasant looking young guy with a fleshy face, wire rimmed glasses, and eager brown eyes walks toward us. He’s definitely spotted us and slows to a halt as we approach.
“Hi, I don’t think we’ve been introduced. My name’s Michael Weber. I’m in Structured Products.” When he mentions the name of the group he works for, he lifts his chin and smirks in a self-important way.
I nod my head seriously, as if I’m impressed. “I’m Juliet Stone and this is--”
Connor thickens his accent. “Daniel Craig. We’re interns from the London office, just flew over the pond today. Be a good chap and point out Peter Smyth’s office, will you?”
I fight hard not to roll my eyes.
Michael smirks. I’m not sure he has fully bought Connor’s act, but he seems like a nice guy who doesn’t want to stir up any trouble. “Smyth works in Investment Banking. They’re on the other side of the wall.” He points toward the far end of the floor and a glass wall that separates those cubicles from everyone else. “You’ll need an ID to get through. Compliance worries we might overhear secret client information.”
He uses air quotes when he says secret, which totally annoys me.
“No problem,” says Connor. “You wouldn’t happen to know the whereabouts of a pub around here that might play the football matches? Chelsea has a big match—”
I stomp down on his foot, but it’s too late.
“Who do you work for in London, again?” he asks, but before we need to make up a name, his phone buzzes and his eyes squint. “Sorry, got to go. Polen’s looking for me. I’m sure you’ve heard about his temper.” He hustles away, taking short brisk steps, glancing at his phone as he walks while muttering to himself.
“Laying it on a little think, don’t you think, Connor?”
He beams a bright smile. “I told you I could pass for Daniel Craig.”
“Right.” This time I roll my eyes.
We head toward the investment banking area. Storage rooms, vending machines, and bathrooms are on our left, and a fire alarm hangs near the glass wall. No one pays any attention to us. We won’t get a better chance, so....
I pull the red lever down. Sirens go off immediately and the lights flicker. A collective moan erupts from those around us, and a voice from a loudspeaker tells everyone to evacuate the floor.
I drag Connor inside an empty women’s restroom not more than ten feet away, and we sneak inside a stall, the two of us pressed close together. His face inches from mine, his breath tickles my cheeks, and his eyes are so close they seem to reach inside me.
“If you wanted to be alone with me you just had to ask,” he jokes.
The trance is broken, so I punch him in the stomach. “Be serious.”
“Why is everyone hitting me?”
I count off thirty seconds in my head and crack the door open. The floor is deserted, so we hustle to the glass door that leads into the investment banking offices. It’s locked. We don’t have an ID, so I shove with my enhanced strength and the metal latch snaps.
We race toward the larger of the two corner offices. The brass plate identifies it as Peter Smyth’s office.
Connor is first through the door. A computer screen sits on top of a clean oak desk with the tower on the floor underneath. He takes the flash drive from me and starts the computer. When he plugs it in, the words “Cloning in Process” appear and start to blink in red.
“How long do you think we have before someone shows up?” He turns his head to glance out of the office.
I see two guards strolling toward the door I just broke, and pull Connor down to the floor behind the desk. “Not long. Two guards are coming our way.”
“So much for having a few minutes.” He peeks over the edge of the desk. “The cloning is almost complete, but those two goons are closing in on us.”
“We need to get out of here fast,” I say, still crouched on the floor. “They have radios on them. If they report us, the floor will be flooded with cops and security.”
My heart rate picks up, and when the computer pings I almost jump up. With the cloning finished, Connor disconnects the flash drive, and I shut off the computer.
We don’t want them to know we were here. If we run for it, we’ll probably get out before they grab us, but they’ll know we snuck onto the floor and word would get back to Gagarin. That would be a disaster. We’ll be back where we started and lose the element of surprise altogether.
“Follow me. We’ll crawl out.”
Connor grabs my blouse. “One wrong turn and we’ll be face to boot with one of the security guys. I don’t fancy that. Believe me, we don’t want to be on hands and knees if we run into one of those beefy blokes.”
“Just follow me.” I crawl from the office and use my mind to scan the floor for others.
They appear like beacons. Three security guards patrol the floor now—one on the other side of the building and two with us in the glass-enclosed restricted area.
I navigate us among the cubicles, zig-zagging down aisles and turning into different rows, always a step ahead of the guards. We stop with our backs pressed against a cubicle wall, stuck one row away from the door while a guard stands only twenty feet away.
He smells like cigarettes and pepperoni. He’s standing in place, and we’re running out of time.
He barks into the radio, “Better send up the police. There’s no fire and I don’t like how the door’s broken. Something smells fishy.”
We’re bound to get caught. My hands turn clammy and my stomach feels like I’m plummeting down a roller coaster.
Connor whispers, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” He sneaks a look over the desk. A second later, files flop from a filling cabinet on the other side of the floor.
“What the heck?” says the security guard as he jogs in that direction.
Connor smiles. “After you, my lady.”
We race through the door and down the staircase.
By the time we reach the main floor, the “All Clear” signal has been given, and we have to swim through a stream of bankers who are trying to get back to work.
Akari and Blake wait for us outside.
“Did you clone the computer?” asks Blake.
“Of course we did,” says Connor. “Piece of cake for James Bond.”
I groan and shove him in the back. “Let’s hope there’s some useful information on the flash drive, because we need a break.”
Blake pockets the drive. “We’ll find something.”
Akari smirks. “I know... everyone leaves a digital footprint.”
“Right.” Blake smiles.
I’m not so sure.
Technology isn’t always good. Yes, it‘s often great. Almost every conceivable piece of information is literally one or two clicks away—the latest in movies, music, trends, books. Oppressed people around the world use social media to stage revolutions and gain freedom. Yet like everything else, technology has a dark side.
Blake is right about digital footprints.
Everything posted online, every transaction, every search and link and photograph and stupid site we visit is recorded somewhere and can be traced back to us. Buy a book at two in the morning and someone, somewhere knows about it. Search for the latest diets and magically Google will flood your other search requests with all things diet. Privacy doesn’t exist anymore because we rely too much on technology. We don’t even think about it. We just assume there are no secrets, that there’s no place to hide, no way to stay anonymous.
I doubt the Prime Elector will have the same relationship with technology as we do. He’s probably accustomed to technology way more advanced than ours, and not interested in the stuff we have to offer. He’ll only be concerned about his plan to take over the planet and enslave us for his own purposes. He’ll be smart and careful.
Still, it’s easy to mess up, and Smyth could be his weak link.
“The good news is our Peter Smyth is a very organized person.” Blake taps on his laptop and the screen in the dining room jumps to life. “He has folders for everything.”
Connor points to the top of the screen. “Check out that one. It’s labeled Stellar, which seems like as good a place as any to start.”
“Sure,” says Blake as he rummages through the folder.
It doesn’t take long. We only find a few memos about accounts, and wiring instructions, but no address.
“Try emails. Yes, yes, people write the dandiest things in emails.” Stuart tugs his beard and flickers his eyes around the room.
When he greeted us at the Inn upon our return, he looked disheveled, his shirt wrinkled and his gaze haunted.
We all deal with stress differently, but it’s weird that he looks as if he’s about to unravel.
Different file folders appear in Smyth’s email account. One is marked Gagarin.
Blake clicks on the most recent email, which came only two hours ago. “Bingo.”
The message is short:
Meet me at the Boathouse in Central Park midnight tonight. We need to discuss phase two of the Launch Project. Come alone. G.
“The meeting must be planned for tonight,” says Blake.
“I thought Smyth was traveling in Europe,” I say.
“He must be on his way back,” says Stuart. “This is good news. Time is not on our side. Yes, extremely good news.”
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nbsp; Silence covers us, thick and syrupy. It sticks to my skin and seeps beyond, toward my lungs. It replaces the air and steals away my breath. I taste acid in my throat and feel like I’ve been on a long trip to someplace unpleasant, turned the corner, and found my destination suddenly in front of me.
Can I complete the journey?
If we go to the Boathouse we’ll have to murder Gagarin. We can’t have any doubts. Doubts will only get us killed.
“What’s the Launch Project?” asks Akari.
Blake shrugs. “Could be a new investment strategy.”
“Or it could be connected to that drug they want to put into the City’s water supply,” I say.
Connor says, “It doesn’t matter, either way. To finish this thing, we’ll have to surprise him at the Boathouse.” He sounds confident and sure of himself. “We should go early and stake the place out. That way we can be sure he’s alone.”
“No, no, that’s not a good idea. We can’t give him the opportunity to sense our presence. We will lose the chance of surprise. Surprise is essential. No, a better plan is to arrive a few minutes after midnight and then rush him. It’s the only way.” Stuart glances at us. “It is the only way we can defeat him.”
“We? You’re coming with us?” I thought for sure he’d make up some excuse why he couldn’t be part of the mission—something weird about being an Ugly or how he detests violence or how he needs to catch-up on his reading. He doesn’t strike me as a brave person.
Maybe this explains why he’s so agitated. Now, his life is at risk.
His eyebrows arch upward. “Yes, yes, certainly I will be with you. This is the final test. Just me and you four, I should think.”
“What about Sydney and Troy?” asks Akari.
Everyone looks at me. This is my decision, the moment I’ve dreaded for so long. I can’t be weak.
I lock eyes with Connor. “They can’t come with us. We are the Chosen. This isn’t for them.”
He nods.