The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1)

by Cole Reid

  Kevin was most equipped to handle a shattered conversation brought on by an awkward pause. He had been a promising baseball player in high school and attended Baylor University on a baseball scholarship in the early 60s, majoring in history. His love of history wasn’t a love of history. He loved the stories, the sequence, the situations and the stand offs. Most of all, he loved how it all came together to force decision. What he loved was the dominion of minds.

  “How did Mason Keig attach to Filartiga?” asked Kevin.

  “We brought him in as a foreign consultant for business development at Petbol,” said Gael, “After the PDV worker’s strike, Victor Fuetes went to his dad who was still Board Chair at PDV and they called a meeting with Chavez—Victor was at the meeting. That’s when both Victor and his dad pitched the idea of creating a second state-owned oil company. After the workers’ strike, Chavez had only considered firing PDV staff and replacing them with employees that were loyal to him—which he did. It took both father and son to convince Chavez that he should divide the state monopoly into two companies to avoid supply disruptions from happening again. We needed Chavez to suffer the embarrassment of Venezuela’s first supply default happening on his watch; otherwise he never would’ve agreed to set up Petbol. We used a consortium of South American banks to help finance the creation of Petbol and Chavez agreed to let the bank loans be guaranteed by and interest in the company. That gave our banks a 30% stake in Petbol and Chavez’s government owned the other 70%. With a 30% interest, we had access to the same information and facilities as the Venezuelan government and could hire certain key people. So we reassigned Mason Keig to Petbol in ‘05, undercover as an Argentine data analyst.”

  “So you recruited Keig to help you setup Petbol?” asked Kevin. Gael put one finger over his mouth as if he were about to disclose a secret. He slowly slid his hand away.

  “He came to us,” said Gael.

  “He came to you?” asked Ren. Gael nodded.

  “We took him because we needed someone who knew the ropes and could stay on top of his emotions,” said Gael, “And Keig’s résumé was good.”

  “Why did he choose Filartiga?” asked Bob.

  “I don’t know but Filartiga fit his skill set and he really didn’t have much choice,” said Gael.

  “Why not?” asked Ren. Georgia tilted her head slightly. No one noticed.

  “Keig was a fallen angel,” said Kevin, “You didn’t know about that?”

  “No,” said Ren.

  “He was actually your contemporary as a project manager,” said Kevin.

  “I know,” said Ren, “He was quite good from what I heard.”

  “Did you ever meet him?” asked Kevin.

  “I did at a situation briefing but that was ten years ago,” said Ren.

  “What was your impression of him?” asked Gael.

  “He was very professional,” said Ren with a pause, “Very detailed—perfectly shaven no patches anywhere. His hair was neat, tie tied in a perfect bowler knot and such.”

  “You stumbled upon his secret to success,” said Kevin, “Attention to detail.”

  “So you’ve heard of him and you’ve met him?” asked Bob.

  “Yeah,” answered Ren.

  “At what point did you stop hearing about him?” asked Bob.

  “How would I know that?” asked Ren. Bob pursed his lips and the sides of his mouth angled up revealing multiple wrinkles.

  “Why don’t you ask Officer Standing if she could help out?” said Bob.

  • • •

  Georgia knew the subject of Caprice would come up so she spent an hour in her office anticipating questions and arming herself with answers. A woman who built her career by stemming the tide of her emotions suddenly felt emotional about the topic that stemmed the tide of her career.

  “Standing knows Mason Keig better than anyone here,” said Bob.

  “I haven’t been this guilty as charged for a long while,” Georgia came clean, “We worked together for a few years on an advanced idea.”

  “So advanced that millions were siphoned to support the idea,” said Bob.

  “Why speak in terms of millions, Bob?” said Georgia, “You’ll make it sound like we were installing kitchen sets. We had a half-billion allocated once all tallies were taken.”

  Philip let out a sharp whistle. Kevin made a noise that sounded like God and pushed back from the table.

  “Well now,” said Ren with a half-smile.

  Gael stared at Georgia with a look of obvious disapproval. Edward raised his right eyebrow and looked almost as if staring into a mirror.

  “You can’t mention that kind of money and stay silent,” said Bob, “You owe us grown folks some details.”

  “A man who will admit to the world he lives in should be rewarded,” said Georgia.

  “What world am I living in?” asked Bob. Georgia swung fifteen degrees in her chair doing a slight panorama of the room. Her right hand made an L-shape to hold her face.

  “You admit you’re in the panhandling business, same as all of us,” said Georgia.

  “When did I admit that?” asked Bob.

  “Right now,” said Georgia, “You want to know how to source a half-billion for a project.”

  Bob, squarely cornered, asked, “Ok, how do I source a half-billion for my project?”

  “You write a poem,” said Georgia, “Or you read one.” Everyone began to feel like a fish on a hook.

  “Standing, can you cut the crap please?” asked Kevin. Gael gave Georgia a look that didn’t need to be repeated.

  “The poem for us was Gregory Paul’s The Gaze of Caprice,” said Georgia.

  “What?” asked Bob.

  “The idea behind the project was to construct a net that couldn’t be broken,” said Georgia, “In the poem by Paul, a fisherman’s net breaks and all his fish escape. The poem says even though any one fish escaped, that fish didn’t escape the gaze of caprice—meaning the fish could get caught all over again. The fish escaping wasn’t luck or fate, just caprice. And you can’t escape caprice—that’s what I named the project.”

  “Project Caprice,” said Bob, “What net did you construct?” Georgia held out her right hand with her thumb comfortably folded in and four digits pointed up.

  “You built four nets,” said Bob.

  “No,” said Georgia, “We built one net but four is the number I want you to remember.” Georgia treated the Room like a classroom. When she wanted to send a grown man back to third grade she gave instructions.

  “Why four?” asked Bob.

  “Because that’s how many satellites we put in orbit to construct Caprice,” said Georgia.

  “What were the four satellites for?” asked Ren.

  “The satellites were tag readers for radio frequency ID chips,” Georgia paused. “We live in three dimensional space. So we wanted at least one satellite for each point in space. Imagine a tennis ball flying through the air. If you put an RFID tag on that ball you have to have all three points of reference at all times to track it.”

  “Why couldn’t you just have one satellite read all three points?” asked Bob.

  “You’re not talking about just data you’re talking about space,” said Georgia, “If you want the dimensions of a box, with one ruler you’d measure the length and write it down, the height and write it down, the width and write that down. That’ll take you about twenty seconds. But what if the box is shrinking and growing randomly, constantly. And you want the size at any given time or at every given time. No matter how fast you sling your ruler, there’s no way you can get the three measurements you need before the box changes again. Each satellite is a ruler and we track these tags as they move on airplanes, subways, elevators and cars. Anything. Always. Anywhere. Multiple satellites make it work much more efficiently.”

  “And the fourth satellite? A back up?” asked Edward.

  “Yes. Go back to measuring the box. You, Gael and Kevin are constantly measuring each end of the b
ox and calling out measurements to me. I write every measurement down. You three don’t bother to record anything; you just measure. Say Gael has a heart attack and he’s measuring the length,” said Georgia looking at Gael, “Based on the past few measurements from Gael, I know the length is shrinking, so I can pick up a ruler, compensate and start measuring.”

  “So the fourth satellite records the data collected from the other three and stores it, so it can go up if another goes down,” said Edward.

  “Yes. It automatically picks up where the downed satellite left off, so we never lose track of the chips,” said Georgia.

  “So Caprice was a constellation of four satellites in orbit?” asked Ren.

  “Yes,” said Georgia.

  “Designated for reading RFID tags,” said Ren.

  “Yes,” said Georgia.

  “That puts you at about 300 million, how many and how much were these tags?” asked Ren

  “A dozen tags at seven million per,” said Georgia.

  The Room didn’t go silent; there was still noise. It was the noise minds make when downloading large files—the sound of stretching, exhaling and knuckles cracking. The magnitude of Caprice lived a life of its own. Until now, Gael felt like Filartiga was a Royal Flush. He still felt the flush but a bit less royal. Filartiga left the footprint of a sophisticated operative, but it was old-fashioned. Gael always emphasized quality intelligence with concern for a budget. Filartiga was designed to let the Venezuelan government do most of the heavy-lifting and big-spending. Caprice—on the other hand—was about spending huge amounts to build castles in the sky.

  “What does a seven million dollar RFID tag even look like?” asked Bob.

  “About the size of two grains of rice laying together end-to-end,” said Georgia, “Slightly blue in color like a bottle of water.”

  “Does it light up?” joked Philip.

  “If it did, you wouldn’t see it,” said Georgia.

  “How do you implant it?” asked Edward.

  “Suck it off a piece of film with a syringe. Screw a 5-inch needle-head onto the syringe. Pass that entire needle through the tear duct of the right eye and inject the chip into the temporal lobe,” said Georgia motioning as if saluting from the middle of her forehead.

  “Then you can track the guy where ever,” said Edward.

  “How do you keep it charged?” asked Ren, “Cuz if the chip dies the guy you just tagged is off-grid. That defeats the purpose.”

  “You’ve all seen those watches they sell with no battery,” said Georgia, “Well those watches work because they have a cell that converts kinetic energy into electrical energy. The cell in the chip was similar but its conversion ratio was 100,000 times what you would find in a wrist watch.” Gael sat silent.

  “The chip’s casing was a folded silicon wafer with bio-interface, energy-harvesting filaments woven inside,” said Georgia

  “What does that mean to someone born before 1950?” asked Kevin.

  “It means we didn’t want the chip to interfere with normal brain function,” said Georgia, “So instead of charging by using electrical signals in the brain, the chip charges by converting neural oscillations into electricity.”

  “Neural oscillations?” said Kevin, “Brainwaves.”

  “Brain cells have parts that move,” said Georgia, “The casing of the chip collects and converts that movement.”

  “How do you keep the converted electricity from the ambient?” asked Bob.

  “The inner lining of the casing was covered with sapphire,” said Georgia.

  “Why sapphire?” asked Bob.

  “It’s the least conductive material available,” said Georgia without looking at anyone.

  “The sapphire pieces are spaced perfectly to allow very tiny conduits to carry the converted electricity through the sapphire to the core that sends the radio frequency back up to Caprice,” said Georgia.

  “That sounds like it would cost seven million,” said Ren.

  “We got a bit more bang for our own buck,” said Georgia.

  “Really?” said Ren.

  “We did,” said Georgia.

  “So what are we missing?” asked Kevin.

  Georgia smiled, “The chips had other functions.”

  “Ok,” said Ren, “What functions?”

  “I said we wanted our net unbreakable,” said Georgia, “So our net was able to eliminate threats. We didn’t want anyone trying to break it. The satellites could track the chips for sure but they could also turn the chips on their operators.”

  “How?” Gael was first to ask the obvious question.

  “We could send a signal to make the chips reverse function and turn the electricity back into kinetic energy causing the chip to send a vibrating pulse,” said Georgia.

  “Ouch. What would that do to you, to have that thing vibrating in your head?” asked

  Bob.

  “It would all depend on how long,” said Georgia, “You would definitely have seizures, if it went on long enough it could leave you in a coma.”

  “Damn,” said Philip.

  “We called it a yellow card,” said Georgia, “Like the penalty in soccer.”

  “A yellow card,” Bob smiled—so did Kevin, Ren and Philip. Edward smiled after the others. Gael didn’t.

  “That was Mason’s suggestion,” said Georgia, “He was a soccer player. It served as a distinction between that function and the other one.”

  “What other function?” asked Bob.

  “The chips could use the kinetic energy to vibrate but they didn’t have to. We could make the chips pulse detonate—what we called a red card,” Georgia paused for effect.

  “Detonate the chip inside the guy’s head,” said Ren, “That would pretty much…”

  “Kill him,” said Georgia interrupting, “That’s why the term red card, because it would take him out of the game.”

  “Did the agents who were implanted know about all three functions,” said Kevin, “Or did they just know they were being tracked?”

  “They had to know,” said Georgia.

  “So they wouldn’t try anything,” said Kevin. Georgia looked at Kevin with a straight face.

  “Wouldn’t want that,” she said.

  “What happened with Mason Keig and Caprice?” asked Ren.

  “Keig wasn’t involved with Caprice activities in the beginning,” said Georgia, “His major function was as project manager of the candidate selection program for the chips themselves.”

  “That was a separate project?” asked Kevin.

  “It was,” said Georgia, “In order to keep cost down, we ran Caprice and Khora simultaneously. We started scouting host subjects for the chips before the chips were even finished.”

  “How many candidates?” asked Ren.

  “Twelve to match the first order of chips,” said Georgia.

  “I guess thirteen would have been unlucky,” said Kevin.

  “And fourteen too expensive,” said Georgia.

  “What was this program that Keig was operating?” asked Ren.

  “Khora,” said Georgia, “It had a wide operating base. They went everywhere. The idea was to find men who had a particular background—rough background—the kind that required a lot of adaptability and survival skills. We wanted the types who were comfortable with violence. They scouted for former child soldiers in the Central African Republic, Uganda and such places but they found them mainly drug addicts or having mental problems that made them unstable. So Khora began widening the search. They scouted mercenaries, cartel hitmen, Foreign Legion, military defectors, whoever fit their criteria. They literally ran the table.”

  “I don’t understand how you would get those types to come aboard,” said Edward.

  “However,” said Georgia, “Some were brought on for steady work, others needed a new life because they’d tapped out the old one. Some were wanted by governments. Some they had to gain leverage on—threats, blackmail, intimidation. You know what we do to get what w
e want.”

  “What was Keig’s function as supervisor?” asked Kevin.

  “He kept the whole thing on track,” said Georgia, “He researched leads from contacts, if leads had potential he would send recruiters. He kept track of the budget; strategized recruitment efforts. His attention to detail was very handy. The Khora project needed him like he needed it. He loved multiple moving parts and Khora had a lot of those.”

  “Keig was scorned after Caprice fell apart,” said Gael, “So my question is, if Keig wasn’t even on the Caprice project where did or maybe I should say how did Keig intersect Caprice?”

  “There was a three year period where Keig conducted a series of highly successful covert projects,” said Georgia, “On each of those projects he ran one agent and one agent only—Reagan Lee.”

  “Who is Reagan Lee?” asked Bob.

  “He was Keig’s own pick for the Khora project—a Chinese gangster,” said Georgia, “He was a former Triad enforcer in Hong Kong—a half-breed. His Chinese mother was raped by a man of unknown origin but Lee’s skin was brownish. His nose was broad and he had wavy hair. The consensus was that his father must have been of African descent. It gave him a particularly nasty character because he had never been accepted in Chinese society. It’s probably true that he was bullied from a young age because of how he looked, which made him that much more aggressive. My opinion was that he was too aggressive—too unstable, he even attacked Keig during a first sit down.”

  “How did you get a guy like that to even sit down?” asked Kevin.

  “He was arrested by the Hong Kong Police Force on suspicion of murdering a detective in their gang unit,” said Georgia, “He fought off ten swat team members before they finally knocked him out.”

  “Damn!” said Bob.

  “Ten cops! All at once?” Philip felt comfortable with an anemic question.

  “All at once,” said Georgia.

  “If the Hong Kong Police Force thought that Lee killed one of theirs, why would they let Keig have him?” asked Kevin.

  “Because Keig played both sides,” said Georgia, “Keig had hacked into the Hong Kong police network and had people monitoring the closed circuit cameras inside every police station, even when they were supposed to be turned off. Keig went over much of the recorded footage himself. One of those cameras—supposed to be off—recorded a conversation between Deni Tam and Winslow Mak, the detective Lee was thought to have killed. Deni Tam was the capo that Lee answered to in that branch of the Triad network. Lee was also Tam’s personal bodyguard. The patriarch of their branch was Martin Ma Woo, a retired Kowloon smuggler. The video recorded a conversation between Tam and Mak discussing a plan to assassinate Woo. That assassination resulted in Tam becoming the de facto patriarch of the Moon Dragons Triad branch. In the video, Detective Mak agreed not to seriously investigate the murder of Woo in exchange for Tam giving Mak evidence on the other branches leading to major arrests. Tam cut a deal to have the Hong Kong cops wipe his competition away. Keig gave a copy of the video to a separate group, kind of mafia information brokers. They contacted Lee and his hit squad with information to trade. They showed Lee the video, in exchange for what we don’t know. After seeing the video, Lee and his hit squad killed Tam and Mak in retaliation for Woo’s murder. After Lee was taken into custody, Keig showed the video to the Hong Kong Police Force. They were already knee-deep in allegations of corruption from the local press, so Keig traded Lee in exchange for keeping the video dark.”