by Michael Todd
Thirdly… Well, he really, really liked her. Having to deal with her on a daily basis while she worked to bring Pegasus into the modern world would be a pleasure.
“Was that anything important, Mr. Stafford?” she asked, and her long, delicate fingers toyed with the edge of the glass of scotch Charles had poured for her. Her accent was exotic but lacked any of the defining characteristics that would have allowed him to pinpoint anything in particular. For the duration of any particular phrase, she could sound vaguely French, British, Italian, or even American.
“Nothing particularly important,” he replied with a smile and dropped into his seat with a grunt. “A little personal business that needed to be decided before the morning. I apologize for the interruption.”
“Worry not, Mr. Stafford.” She tilted her head graciously. “I think it was an opportune interruption. You told me what you wanted me to hear, and I was given time to digest your words—and numbers, I should add.”
“Of course.” He chuckled. “And please, call me Charles.”
“Charles, certainly,” she murmured and let the name roll over her tongue with a hint of an Oxford accent. “I was given time to think on your offer, and I believe I have an answer for you.”
“Please, there’s no need for pressure,” he replied and shook his head cautiously. “We still have issues that need to be resolved—a vacuum to create before any offers can be seriously considered on either side of the conversation.”
“Naturally,” she replied equably. “Former Colonel James Anderson and Dr. Courtney Monroe still have a firm grip on Pegasus, which makes it difficult to initiate any kind of transition. Of course, we were given time to inspect the histories of the two, and we were surprised to find that Dr. Monroe is actually a founding member of the Zoo company named Heavy Metal, yes?”
Charles nodded and leaned forward expectantly. “Yes…a small startup that specializes in retrieving items of value. They are profitable but small. I don’t see how it’s relevant to our negotiations here today, though.”
“Well, your ignorance would be permitted if various members of Pegasus hadn’t thoroughly underestimated this small startup at various times,” she replied, and a hint of steel entered her voice. “Those whom I represent have actually done business with them in the past, and from the words of those who interacted with them, I think you can discern our answer—never bet against Heavy Metal.”
He opened his mouth to reply but she raised her hand, rose smoothly from her seat, and adjusted her pantsuit more comfortably on her trim frame.
“I apologize for wasting your time, Mr. Stafford, but your own ineptitude in dealing with Anderson and Monroe has only reinforced our lack of faith in your ability to bring us anything of worth from Pegasus. Your own position is in peril. How on earth can you believe that you can help us?”
With her words still ringing in his ears, she smiled and bowed her head gently in deference before she turned and walked toward the door, apparently in the mood to show herself out.
Frustration writhed and clawed into his chest when he realized he could do nothing but watch her leave. A couple of men in suits waited for her and one of them opened the door for her to step out before they followed her to the car.
Charles set his glass on the table with a trembling hand since he felt an overwhelming need to throw it across the room. It was crystal and expensive, and while he knew he could eat the costs, the vivid memory of a shattered Ming vase lurked as a temporary deterrent to his need to vent his rage.
“Fuck.” He scowled at the tempting glass and clasped his hands tightly together. He really did need to throw something.
Chapter Eighteen
“What makes you think these guys will let us in?” Savage asked. Anderson looked decidedly better than he had the day before. While he’d turned down the suggestion to find one of the hotels on the Strip to rest and let Savage handle the lion’s share of the work, they’d still found a nice hotel off the beaten track where they could take separate rooms, clean up, shower, and prepare for the adventures of the next day.
Of course, they couldn’t avoid having Anja in their ears any longer either, so that morning definitely marked a resumption of their normal routines. They readied themselves quickly after a hurried breakfast. The operative donned his suit’jacket to hide the new and improved pistol he would carry from this point forward.
“Well, they are working for a shell corp that was part of Pegasus until less than a month ago,” the ex-colonel said. “Besides, if they still have a man inside Pegasus they answer to, I have to hope they simply assume we’re in the same boat and let us in.”
“Building this on your hopes and dreams, huh?” he asked with a grin. He’d been designated bodyguard and driver for the duration of the visit, which meant he should be allowed to enter the facility with a weapon. He really was happy about that. Walking into a potentially hostile environment without a weapon would have sucked.
“Yep,” Anderson replied with a nod. “You gotta have some faith, man. You have to believe.”
“And what happens when you break out into a song and dance about how you have a dream and the performance doesn’t convince the security personnel to let us in?” He glided off the highway and down the narrow road that led toward the facility they were inspecting.
“Come on, everyone believes in the magic of hopes and dreams, right?” The other man leaned forward with a mocking look in his eyes. “But yeah, no. If they don’t let us in, we’ll leave them with a stern reprimand and a reminder of how we’ll make their lives hell and careers short. And then, once we’ve left their ears ringing, we’ll break in after hours.”
“Ah, foolproof plan B.” Personally, he would have preferred to simply break in as the plan A, but he could see why Anderson needed to at least pretend to play things by the book. He needed to clearly show that he’d tried a legitimate option before the more clandestine—and probably more satisfying—alternative
“What, did you have any better ideas?” Anderson didn’t particularly like being relegated to the back seat, but nobody would believe a boss who had a chauffeur but still rode shotgun.
“Well, yes, but they mostly involved having a larger team,” Savage said with a nod. “There’s one plan that involved poison gas. Oh, I really like the one I need satellites for.”
“If you need those, I could get you access,” Anja piped up suddenly.
Savage was, thankfully, trained well enough to avoid the frantic swerve that would have careened the car into the light poles that were the only signs of civilization for miles. He scowled when his boss chuckled at the way he’d jerked his head to the left. The hacker had been out of his ear for a while and it wasn’t hearing her voice again that was the problem. The way she simply popped up out of nowhere like a Russian, female Jiminy Cricket was enough to make even the most hardened soldier react.
“Have I told you how much I’ve missed hearing your voice, Anja?” he asked, his scrutiny focused on the gated and fenced-off facility that grew a little clearer in the distance.
“Yes, but you could always tell me a little more often.” She sounded way too upbeat for someone across the planet. It had to be nighttime in the Sahara…well, they couldn’t call it a desert anymore, right?
“I’ll make sure to let you know periodically throughout the day.” He shook his head. Anderson watched him through the rearview mirror, his eyes narrowed as if he tried to make something out.
He didn’t particularly feel like engaging the man at the moment. He was friendly with Anja, and with the things they’d been through together, he might even say that they were friends. She’d certainly hauled him out of more than a few scrapes and even saved his life. He owed her.
It wasn’t the most complicated of relationships and only business-related on his end. For her, it was nothing but a strict business relationship. She knew more about his history than even he remembered, being able to dig through any record that had been digitized over the past five or
six decades.
They pulled in closer to the research building and a pair of armed guards who stood outside. The vehicle rolled forward and Savage pulled to a stop just outside the gate. The security officers moved toward the driver’s side, but Savage opened the window beside Anderson instead and gestured them away from him. It was best that they didn’t get too close a look at him and instead, focused on the official face of Pegasus.
“Good afternoon.” The ex-colonel shifted to look out of the window at the two sub-machine gun toting men who looked more than a little confused by their arrival. “I was sent here for an inspection to make sure all the new implementations are going smoothly.”
“We weren’t told about any such inspection,” the apparent leader of the two said and shook of his head firmly. “I don’t think I can let you into the facility without some prior warning, sir.”
Anderson allowed a mildly disapproving expression to settle over his features and pulled his ID card from his wallet. He handed it to the man. “I am the current CEO of Pegasus. I honestly couldn’t give a shit about whether or not you were warned about my arrival. What I do care about is the fact that I’ve spent five hours on a plane to get my official ass here to run this inspection.”
The guard opened his mouth as if to protest, but the sight of the winged horse on his ID said that the name was familiar and apparently carried a good deal of weight. He backed away quickly, grumbled something to his comrade, and made a gesture that immediately resulted in the gate being opened quickly. Savage took a moment to register that they might be driving into a trap before he eased down on the gas pedal and guided the black car into the facility. They followed the path that brought them under the building and into a small parking garage.
He stepped out first and smoothly pulled a pair of Ray Bans from his coat pocket and put them on. Yes, he knew wearing sunglasses indoors was a douche move, but he also knew he would be judged on his appearances now more than ever. He needed to look the part, and bodyguards always wore sunglasses. Fashion statement or otherwise, he’d read or heard once that it had something to do with not letting anyone see where your eyes were turned. He wasn’t sure how that was supposed to trump impaired vision indoors, but hey, who was he to argue with appearances?
He took a moment to scrutinize the garage before he spoke into an imaginary mic on his wrist. “All clear. Let’s move.”
“Are you having fun?” Anja asked.
“You bet your ass I am,” he whispered under his breath as he pulled the door open for Anderson to step out.
“I’d appreciate it if you took this a little more seriously,” the former colonel growled. The man drew himself tall in the way most people expected high-level military officers to do. He maintained the attitude and walked with long strides while he held his body unflinchingly rigid. While he had no hat to tuck under his arm, he walked as if he did and headed unhesitatingly toward the elevators in the far left of the garage.
The doors parted as they arrived there to reveal a couple of lean, tired-looking men in lab coats who seemed surprised to see them. Obviously, this was not the greeting party that would be assembling hastily behind scenes. Common sense said that the deeper they got into the facility before that party found them, the better their chances were of actually finding something relevant.
The researchers vacated the elevator quickly, and Savage and Anderson stepped in behind them. The operative made a quick search of the interior before the doors closed to ensure that there were no cameras.
“So, if we do find anything we could identify as belonging to Pegasus,” he asked, “firstly, how would we even know what it is? And secondly, how would we actually get it out of the building?”
“Oh, yeah. Anja fitted me with one of those recording contact lenses in addition to working her magic with the other comms piggy-backing or whatever she usually does.” Anderson tapped his right temple. “It feeds into the same comm lines as our earpieces and delivers her live video of what we see. She has a…what was it again?”
“I’ve fed the images of the pieces of tech that were stolen into a recognition matrix on the servers here.” The hacker sounded excited like she’d had too much coffee. “When they detect something that is within the Pegasus patent, it’ll let me know, and I’ll let you know.”
“Well, it saves us actually bringing an expert on these missions,” the operative commented as the doors opened and released them into the lobby. “That way, you can send as much muscle as you want and leave the weaker links back home, right?”
“Well, you are bringing a specialist with you,” she noted.
“What I mean is that on recon missions like these, the people needed for intelligence are usually the weakest link in the security, right?” He faced his boss to make it seem like he was talking to the colonel instead of only to himself. “This way, the weakest link is removed, and all you have is heavy hitters. You know, they really should do that in the Zoo. I saw that they send these ‘specialists’ on their missions in there when they could have them overseeing it from a comfy chair back on the base instead.”
“Yeah, I wonder why they never thought of that before.” The Russian now sounded sarcastic. “Oh, maybe it’s because the Zoo doesn’t allow enough signal through comm lines for a live audio or video feed. Come on, give these guys some credit.”
“Noted,” he conceded when a couple of men in white coats rushed toward them, followed by a handful of security personnel.
“Hello there, Mr. Anderson,” said one of the researchers, a taller, gaunt man with a hawkish look on his face. “We weren’t told you were coming, otherwise we would have been more prepared to welcome you.”
Anderson assumed the colonel look again and Savage faded quickly into the background, barely noticed by the welcoming party. “I actually prefer it this way. I don’t need to see you prepared for a corporate inspection. I need to see this place as it runs on a day to day basis. As such, I don’t think we’ll need any supervision as we look through your facility.”
“All unauthorized personnel on site need to be accompanied at all times,” one of the security men said and folded his arms in front of his chest. “No exceptions.”
“Fair enough.” He stepped forward until he was eye to eye with the man who had spoken and boldly stared a challenge. “How about we run through your weapons testing areas first? First up, we’ll check to make sure all the Mark 15 armor suit research branches are on schedule.”
“Of course, Mr. Anderson.” Hawkish twisted on his heel and guided their small group down the hall.
They turned toward the east wing of the building and proceeded in silence before a couple of men stepped out of another elevator midway down a hall. Savage recognized one of them as one of the security guards who had met them at the gate. The other was a severe-looking corporate type in an expensive suit and tie and a pair of tortoiseshell glasses.
“I’m sorry,” the suited man all but shouted and pushed in front of the group to force them to stop. “I’m sorry, but these two gentlemen aren’t authorized to see any of the secure wings of this facility, and they have failed to file the inspection forms issued by the great state of Nevada. I’m afraid that I have to ask you to leave immediately, or I will contact the State Police.”
Savage suppressed a smirk. Bodyguards had only one resting face—stoic indifference—but whatever stupidity had prompted this idiot to open his mouth had left him with a definite desire to laugh. Did he really think the corporate twaddle and bullshit bluster would work on them?
Anderson turned around to face the man with studied slowness and fixed him with a look that was both measured and dismissive. The bluster faded instantly as the executive took an instinctive step back before he seemed to convince himself that he was in the right and stood his ground.
“You know who I work for, yes?” Anderson asked. He’d evidently decided to give the idiot enough rope to hang himself over the whole state inspection twaddle. “You know, of course, that I’ll con
tact your superiors to advise them that you obstructed this inspection.”
“I know that…ahem, I know my superiors would be happy that I demanded to see proper protocol followed by those who claim to be here to inspect the building.” His bold response was somewhat quashed by the fact that he looked like he was a loud noise away from flight when Anderson again turned on what his bodyguard decided he would call his authority face.
“Very well.” The ex-colonel regarded his opponent coldly for a long moment before he finally drew a deep breath and appeared to calm. The glint in his eye, however, clearly indicated trouble to anyone who knew him. “I had hoped to do this without any of the red tape and establish a real reflection of how this facility worked without any previous warning. However, if you need me to jump through hoops, I’ll jump through hoops. I’ll need your name, of course.”
Savage frowned. He’d really expected his boss to call the man’s bluff but decided to run with it for now. The executive faked a smile. “I’ll give it to you on your way out. Please, follow me.”
Anderson nodded, and the four stepped into the nearest open elevator that would take them down to the garage.
“I preferred not to have to have this conversation where the other drones could see,” their adversary said when the four of them were alone. “We hope to maintain good relations with Pegasus in the future, but our arrangement with your company is such that it preserves our autonomy in critical areas of our operations. I would have assumed that, as CEO, you would know this.”
He paused for a moment as if awaiting a response but when the other man simply stared at him with an inscrutable expression, he pressed on. “We are under very specific instructions not to let you or any of your associates into any of our facilities. You are welcome to discuss that at a corporate level if you are so inclined. However, if you are seen on or near any of our properties again, we will have to involve the law.”
The ex-colonel laughed, his expression colored with a suggestion of derision. “If you intended to call the cops, you would have done so already.” He took a small step closer and into the man’s personal space. The security guard stepped in to try to separate them, but Savage moved fluidly and shoved him back into the wall. A rough twist directed his hand away from his weapon.