by Chris Jordan
“Great. Listen, Missy, I appreciate the tour, you and your husband have a fabulous house, even if we’re sort of hiding in it with the shades drawn, but I’m really not in the mood for House Beautiful, okay? Maybe later, but right now all I care about is how you can help me get my son back.”
“We’re doing all we can,” she protests, getting all sulky. “You heard Ruler Weems. This is a really difficult situation. Not to mention dangerous. Me and Eldon, we’re risking our lives to keep you safe.”
“Okay, you’re risking your life. You’re my angel. Where’s Noah? Where are they keeping him?”
“I don’t know. Someplace we can’t get to, that’s all I know. Probably the Pinnacle.”
“The Pinnacle?”
“Yeah, the Pinnacle is where Arthur lives. And Evangeline. It’s way up the mountain, sort of like built into the mountain, you know? Everybody says it’s fabulous and amazing, but I’ve never seen it. You can’t get to the Pinnacle unless you’re a Six. It’s supposed to be superfortified. Eldon says if the world ever blew up, like in a nuclear war, the Pinnacle would survive.”
“So he’s seen the Pinnacle?”
“No, but he knows people who have. Eldon knows everybody important.”
“Does that man who came to see us, Mr. Weems, does he live in the Pinnacle?”
“He used to, but not anymore. Not since Eva decided to take over.”
“Missy, listen to me. I’m going to assume you’re a good person, okay? And that your involvement in this is well-intentioned. But I want you to do me a favor. I want you to persuade Eldon to take me to the Pinnacle, okay?”
“I don’t think he can do that,” she says, reluctantly. “Ruler Weems might, but not Eldon.”
“When is he coming back, Ruler Weems?”
A shrug. “Dunno. In case you haven’t noticed, nobody tells me anything,” she adds, sounding petulant.
At that moment her husband appears on the grand stairway. He doesn’t seem at all pleased that Missy is conducting a house tour. “Upstairs, both of you.”
“But the place is all closed up from the outside,” Missy protests. “Why do we have to hide in the bedroom?”
“Because we want to stay alive,” he says. “Upstairs, now!”
10. Bad Little Gnome
In his private sanctuary deep inside security headquarters, Bagrat Kavashi finally finds time to think for himself. He hates to admit that a woman has the power to overwhelm his powers of concentration, but Evangeline is no ordinary female. She is, after all, the consort of the great leader, a transcendent genius, and has herself reached a level of oneness to which he can only aspire. At the same time he fears for her judgment, if not her sanity. Her lust is not restricted to the flesh, but extends to all the levers of power within her grasp. Money. Greed. Manipulation. Fear. These are, as he well knows, intoxicants that can overwhelm rational thought. So he takes it with a grain of salt when Eva the Diva rants about purification and purging of the Rulers. In his homeland, regular purges are a useful tool for maintaining power. Stand those you mistrust up against a wall and shoot them. Nothing could be simpler. But as the head of a small but increasingly influential U.S. security firm, Vash is keenly aware that even in a remote corner of Colorado, wholesale slaughter is bound to attract the kind of attention that could destroy the Ruler organization, as well as his own company. A missing person here or there-truly missing-is one thing, and a task he’s well equipped to handle, but making an entire faction disappear-scores of citizens, some of them very wealthy-that remains difficult, if not unthinkable. And yet he must find a way to satisfy Evangeline; his own power and wealth, his fate, is commingled with her own.
A problem to be solved-but what a problem!
Vash pours himself a drink of Georgian vodka from a bottle he keeps in a freezer. An American affectation-a true Georgian would drink vodka at any temperature below a full boil-that he’s grown accustomed to since he arrived on these welcoming shores. In truth, not so welcoming at first-the rival Chechens were already firmly established in Brighton Beach and had little respect for a country lad from Pshavi, Georgia. But with a little luck and a steady hand upon his straight razor, Vash established himself as a force to be reckoned with and soon part of an uneasy alliance between the most ruthless factions of the bratva, the brotherhood of criminals who had elbowed the American Mafia out of their own rackets. Vash’s specialty in Brighton Beach was protection and extortion, just as it had been in his home province. But in the good old U.S. of A., the ambitious young immigrant discovered the usefulness of computer surveillance. Before he broke into the life of, say, a prosperous Russian businessman, he first hacked into the man’s computers, establishing exactly what resources could be reasonably extracted, and what personal habits might make the target vulnerable. From computer hacking, Vash got into advanced surveillance techniques-hidden cameras, tracking devices, all the little toys of espionage-so that by the time he made his move he was eight or ten steps beyond whatever ham-fisted security the target mistakenly believed would keep him safe.
It was like taking candy from babies. Big, murderous babies, some of whom had to be disappeared without a trace. Which meant leaving not so much as a filthy fingernail behind. He’d developed a special technique for such in his native land, and perfected it with the help of American technology. By then Vash had become educated in law enforcement. Although grand juries sometimes indicted criminals when there was no dead body to introduce into evidence, they were loath to do so. Missing persons had a habit of turning up on the other side of the earth, alive and well and drawing from their offshore accounts. And even if the victim really was deceased, the lack of physical proof could be exploited by clever defense attorneys to make it look like good old Boris was living the high life in Säo Paulo or Shanghai. Wink-wink to the jaded juries, who in New York tended to distrust the government almost as much as they did those under indictment.
All things being equal, no dead body means no prosecution. Exceptions are made if there was a witness to the crime, and the witness is willing to testify, but no one had ever been foolish enough to testify against Bagrat Kavashi. Not and survive. The last eyewitness who attempted to give testimony in the province of Pshavi ‘caused’ an explosion in the courthouse resulting in the death not only himself, but the entire team of prosecutors.
Vash-for a while thereafter known as “Boom-Boom”-survived the explosion by hiding behind the judge’s steel-plated desk, as planned. Unfortunately the judge, an engagingly corruptible fellow, did not make it. There wasn’t really room for two under the desk. Too bad, he’d rather liked the judge, but when a bomb is about to detonate, a man has to trust his instincts.
He sips at the vodka, savoring the ice-thickened alcohol. Back home the habit was to pound the stuff down, shot after shot, but Vash prefers to take it slow, maintaining control. In the old days he used to secretly dispose of his drinks while the others slammed and roared and eventually fell senseless to the floor. He’d be the only sober man in the room, indeed the only conscious man, and sometimes took advantage by strangling a rival or two.
Soothed by the warmth of the vodka, he activates a surveillance screen and begins to tap the keyboard, coaxing up images. Both live feeds and the recorded backup. Vash knows the programs inside and out. And while his private sanctuary does not have the flash of Eva’s multiscreened command center, he’s a professional while she is, at best, an enthusiastic amateur.
Ten minutes later he’s located Wendall Weems. The ugly little man is right where he should be, inside his multiroomed bunker, where he believes himself to be protected, if not invulnerable. So did Eva simply get it wrong-did she neglect to check all the rooms? Or does Ruler Weems have, as the Americans say, something up his sleeve?
Vash makes a few adjustments to the motion-detecting software, then begins to run the digital video back over the last twenty-four hours, searching for an anomaly. Which obediently pops up after a relatively short interval.
He sit
s back in his chair, puzzling it out. At exactly 1205 hours, the Bunker is completely empty. Not a creature is stirring, not even the mousy Mr. Weems. Vash scrolls it back another twenty seconds, and the motion-detecting software pops up, providing an image of Weems entering the bathroom adjacent to his bedroom.
His men had not bothered to plant a surveillance camera in the bathroom. Moisture from the showers tended to fog up or short out small cameras, and besides, no one wanted to see Weems on the potty. It was enough to document him entering and exiting. But exiting is the problem, because Weems never does. The next time his motion is detected almost four hours have passed and Weems is ambling down a hallway toward his library, looking preoccupied.
Convinced there must be something wrong with the software, Vash calls up the files for the device positioned outside the bathroom. As he recalls, it’s a model SDR35, a fully functional smoke detector equipped with a covert video camera, utilizing a Sony CCD image sensor. Simple, reliable, and effective. And true to form, there’s nothing wrong with the camera or the video feed. It faithfully records the closed door of the bathroom from the moment Weems enters until the present, and never does the ugly little man emerge, nor does anyone else enter. A bathroom that, according to the blueprints, has only the one door. And yet the next time Weems trips a motion detector, hours have passed and he’s in another part of the Bunker.
Impossible, on the face of it, but nevertheless true. Clearly something is truly amiss. Ruler Weems has been a bad little gnome. He has secret passageways that don’t show up on the blueprints. But where do they lead? Where was he for the missing three hours? Somewhere within the Bunker, maybe perusing some until-now-unknown collection of illegal porn? That would be delicious, and might even be useful. But what worries Vash, what furrows his handsome brow, is the possibility that Wendall Weems has a way to leave his Bunker without being seen, and thus the ability to confer with his supporters without being monitored by BK Security.
Bad little gnome.
11. His Master’s Voice
Much as he’d like to hang around the Hive and socialize, Shane skips lunch and hurries back to his domicile unit, intent on checking in with Maggie Drew.
Housekeeping has made a visit, leaving fresh towels on the rack. No sign that any prints have been lifted-fingerprint powder is messy stuff-but he’s assuming his water glass has been bagged as part of the security routine, because if he’d been in charge, that’s what he’d do. Just as he assumes they’ve copied the files off his laptop, strictly as a precaution. In fact, he hopes so, as it will confirm that Ron Gouda is just another ambitious contractor looking to get ahead. More numbers to crunch for the Ruler database, and no indication-not yet-that his impersonation has been detected.
With cell phones not functioning, Shane has no choice but to use the landline thoughtfully provided by his hosts. In full confidence that will he be recorded, if not actually monitored, he punches in the agreed-upon number, which begins with the area code for Dayton, Ohio.
“RG Paving, how may I direct your call?”
“You’re talking to the big cheese, honey babe.”
“Mr. Gouda! How are you, sir? Is the skiing good?”
“Ha! Nobody believes me when I tell ’em this ain’t a skiing vacation. Like nobody seems to believe old Ronnie’s interested in improving his mind. Why is that? Never mind. Thing is, I only got a short interval before I got to get back. But I really need to cross a few t’s on the bid for the I-75 grade-and-pave. Hate to lose that one just because I didn’t give it the hairy eyeball one last time. Can you send the PDF to my e-mail? Thanks a mil, honey babe.”
He disconnects, opens the laptop, and waits for the link to activate on the encrypted messenger software. His old pal Charley Newman calls it ‘Instant Messenger For Spooks,’ which pretty much sums it up, but you don’t have to be a spy to want your personal e-mails to remain private, and that goes triple for federal employees. It does mean that Maggie will have to use her personal computer, not the office terminal, but that’s probably for the best, too. Her message pops up on the screen.
Honey babe?
That’s what the big cheese calls his Gal Friday.
So, how goes it, Mr. Cheese?
Weird but interesting. Very slick operation. Security level extremely high, verging on paranoid. Cells don’t work. My guess is, all communication filtered through security. Plus, I think I was drugged last night.
WHAT?
Can’t be sure, but other guests report falling deeply asleep at exactly the same time. Possible airborne sedative. Fentanyl or something equally effective.
FENTANYL HIGHLY DANGEROUS!!!
Anything on our friend Missy?
ACKNOWLEDGE FENTANYL DANGEROUS!!!
Okay, acknowledge. Don’t worry, I won’t be in my room tonight when they pump the stuff in, if that’s what they’re doing. Now what about the mysterious Missy? Any luck?
Yes, indeed! Mysterious M. identified as Melissa G. Barlow, spouse of Eldon Donald Barlow, gameware designer. A Level Five member and a big-time contributor to Ruler coffers, associated with the Weems faction. Eldon owns many, many toys, including a Gulfstream G-450.
You are my sunshine! Address?
Sorry. Barlow residence not specified as to street address, just listed as ‘ski lodge, Conklin.’
That’ll get me started. Anything else?
Leave while you can. RIGHT NOW.
Soon, honey babe, soon.
If the morning session was impressive, based on the sheer persuasive charisma of Arthur Conklin, the afternoon session is, for Shane, more than a little strange. This time they’re seated in regular auditorium seats, not the individualized cubicles, and yet they’ve been instructed to don the same wireless headphones from the earlier session.
Despite the oddity of wearing individual headphones while in a group-what’s next, 3-D glasses?-the session at first seems straightforward, and very old school. The instructor, a trim, slightly nerdy fellow equipped with a headset, uses a pointer and a series of charts as he explains each of the Ten Reasons to Rule Yourself, taken from the first chapter of the founder’s famous book. It all feels eerily reminiscent of the Bible classes Shane attended as a child, which he supposes makes sense, since The Rule of One is, for this group, a kind of scripture guiding them along the one true path to self-improvement.
“Rule One,” the instructor intones. “‘There is only the one of you.’ Okay, so what does it really mean? Your first reaction may be to think the answer is obvious, that we are all individuals, unique to ourselves. But as with everything Arthur Conklin writes, there’s more to it than that. Much, much more. What he’s referring to is-and you’ll find this in the glossary-a concept known as the singularity of mind. It is the idea, fundamental to The Rule of One, that you are your mind. Does that sound obvious? It’s not. It bears repeating-you are your mind. You are not your heart. You are not your soul. You are not a bag of skin filled with bones and organs. You, the distinctness of you, exists entirely within the electrical field generated by the human brain. So before we can take a step along the path laid out by Arthur Conklin, we must first accept that there is a difference between the mind and the brain. The brain is just another organ, albeit a rather amazing one, containing billions of distinct cells, each cell linked to billions of other cells by synaptic connections. For purposes of this lesson, try thinking of the brain as a radio set and the mind as the electrical field that comes into existence when the radio is turned on. We accept that the mind cannot exist without the brain, just as blood cannot circulate without the heart. But the mind is not the brain, just as blood is not the heart.”
Listening to the warm, strangely familiar voice in his headphones, Shane experiences an unsettling disconnect. Word for word it sounds like a typical self-improvement narrative-unlocking the power of the human mind to overcome life obstacles-but the nerdy, earnest dude on stage just doesn’t seem to fit the powerfully persuasive voice.
And then he realizes why the
voice doesn’t fit. He slips off the headphones and confirms his suspicion: the speaker has a thin, reedy voice with a slight lisp, whereas the voice in the headphones belongs to none other than Arthur Conklin himself.
So how is it possible that Nerdy Dude is so perfectly limning what must be a recording? Right down to the timing, the pauses, the rhetorical flourishes? It can’t be a variation on lip-synching, the execution is too perfect for that. The only explanation Shane can come up with is some sort of software that runs the speaker’s voice through an Arthur Conklin filter.
Shane is put in mind of that nostalgic magazine ad, with a dog listening to an old phonograph recording of His Master’s Voice. The Rulers had taken it several steps further, by finding a way to make the institute lecturers speak in their master’s voice.
Bizarre, but actually very effective-why mess with success? If Conklin himself is no longer available, keep his image alive in updated videos, let his voice be replicated and repeated, endlessly and intimately, through the mouths of his acolytes.
Plus, and Shane knows a thing or two about programming, it must be really cool software. Now that he understands the mechanism that drew him in, he loses interest in the content-a lot of lofty-sounding stuff about using the hidden powers of the mind to find the One True Voice that will lead, essentially, to the pot of gold at the end of your personal rainbow. He tunes it all out and concentrates on the problem at hand: finding the power couple who snatched Haley Corbin from the airport.
Shane’s gut tells him Haley is alive, and that she’s somewhere nearby. Locating her begins with locating Mr. and Mrs. Barlow, whose ski lodge must be among those that overlook the campus. There are hundreds of condos and lodges, so he can’t simply go door-to-door, not without triggering a reaction from BK Security. He has to find another way. If he had weeks or months he might pull off a direct infiltration, posing as a Ruler wannabe with big pockets, or maybe by infiltrating the security force. But he doesn’t have weeks or months. From what he’s seen of BK Security, they’ll twig to him sooner rather than later, possibly before the three-day seminar concludes. He has to make a move in the next few hours, before all the doors slam shut.