by J D Lasica
“Amelia, on speaker,” Kaden directed.
A moment later, Amelia’s voice broke into the Housemartins and came tumbling out of the speakers. Kaden had already clued in the crew about her personal AI, so nobody freaked out.
“Hi everyone, Amelia here. I took a cue from Kaden and had a peek in the Southampton police precinct’s active crimes database. They have a digital portrait of one culprit. Sending it to your phones.”
Their phones pinged with the new message. Kaden examined the enhanced image of Bear Man captured from her smart contacts. She’d spent minutes trying to revive Gabriel’s lifeless body while the two assailants slipped away.
“So far no suspects identified,” Amelia reported. “They think the perp used an alias at the party and he’s a ghost. Am I getting these terms right, Kaden? Such a long way from my reality.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Do you think this could be related to the Disappearance?” Annika asked the question that must have crossed everyone’s mind. That quieted the room.
“It’s been almost six months since they were taken,” Nico pointed out.
Everyone had a theory about the Disappearance. The exact number was in dispute, but hundreds of girls disappeared off the streets of America, all between the ages of sixteen to nineteen, all on the same day. Most simply vanished. Heavily armed operatives took others.
“Kaden is four years older than the oldest girl taken, but otherwise she fits the profile.” Annika looked somber. “Maybe there’s another wave of abductions coming.”
The room went quiet again, the music gone. But for Kaden, a distant thunder rang in her ears. The sound of the gunshot that killed Gabriel.
“Why do you think they did this, Kaden?” Nico asked. “Why tear apart your apartment? Why try to abduct you?”
She had no idea what they were after. Was it for something she had? Something she knew? Something she’d done? And why didn’t Bear Man just shoot her instead of Gabriel? Gabriel didn’t deserve this.
“I don’t know. But we’re not leaving it to the police to find out.”
They began to speculate again but didn’t come to a consensus on the next steps they should take.
Kaden’s phone pinged with a new text. Amelia again? She picked it up and peered at the message on screen.
“Meet me in 20 minutes at the address below. Come alone. No AI. I know who killed your friend.”
5
Samana Cay
Alex Wyatt closed his eyes as the Embraer E-Jet pilot announced, “We have begun our initial descent into Samana Cay International.” This was one secretive little island, and he was determined to blow the lid off the place.
The government of the Bahamas had surprised the world a few years ago by selling this small, uninhabited island to a secretive business consortium. The price tag ran into the billions—more than 300 times the sales price of the Louisiana Purchase for property 50,000 times smaller, as one wag put it.
The idea was controversial at first, but the Bahamas already rented out entire islands to major cruise lines. In the end, the decision to peel off and sell one outlying island out of 700 in the commonwealth proved popular when it put more than half a year’s salary into the pockets of every Bahamian citizen.
As soon as the paperwork was finalized, the acquirers declared the island to be the world’s newest independent nation: the Free Republic of Samana Cay.
The island’s theme parks, shops, and markets had been open for the past year, but today marked the “soft launch” of the island’s most audacious venture, Fantasy Live. Trouble was, the press and public were not invited. Only high rollers lured by what some were calling a real-life Fantasy Island.
The wheels of the private charter jet touched down on the island’s short runway. Alex switched off airplane mode and called his editor.
“Just touched down,” he reported. He was half-sure they’d stop him at Customs and send him packing when they learned his real identity.
“Good.” Alice Wong’s voice came through crystal clear on the encrypted line. “Let me know if you make it through security.”
“Will do.”
“You probably haven’t heard yet. About the incident with your friend Kaden last night.”
“No, what about Kaden?”
“There was a shooting.”
He bolted upright. “Is she all right?”
“Yeah. We’re still trying to piece it together.”
“Let me know when you find out anything.”
“Will do. And be careful, Alex. I mean, Andrew Bayless.” His new alias.
“I will. Talk soon.” He disconnected the call and tried to reach Kaden. No answer. He sent her a text.
He wasn’t sure his investigative project would get the green light from the powers that be at Axom, the online news site in Miami where he was a senior correspondent. But he was the golden boy of the staff now. There was even talk of a possible Pulitzer after his video dispatches exposed the wrongdoing at Birthrights Unlimited in Dallas, thanks in no small part to Kaden Baker.
After Dallas, he figured he’d go for another home run. So he crafted a forty-page memo proposing an undercover assignment—a first-person series looking at the new Fantasy Live Resort. Until now, it was a story for the business press and the tabloids, with salacious rumors about millionaire guests soon being able to play out their wildest fantasies. A playground for the ultra-rich.
“You have a crumb.” The woman seated in the leather seat next to him reached out with a silk handkerchief and flicked it off the lapel of his $900 light blue leisure suit. A suit triple the cost of the priciest outfit in his closet at home.
“Thank you.” Alex had been been wondering about her. “You going to Fantasy Live, by any chance?”
“I think we all are.”
“I couldn’t help but notice that men outnumber women on this flight about five to one.”
“Fantasies come in all genders. Mr. ….?”
Alex nearly blurted out his real name but caught himself. “Andrew Bayless.”
They shook hands. “Evelyn Gladstone.” She was mid-forties or so and wore a tropics-ready sundress and a Panama hat above curls of ginger hair. “I’m teasing you, Andrew. I’m sure you’re well aware women have fantasies, too.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He made a mental note to ask about her experience by week’s end so they could compare how their fantasy storylines played out.
“What do you do, Andrew?”
“I run a machine learning startup in Silicon Valley. And yes, it’s as boring as it sounds. You?” He didn’t want to invite too many questions about Andrew Bayless’s work.
“Got you beat. Commodities. And what brings a handsome young man like yourself to a fantasy theme park?”
“I’m here to check out the technology.”
“That’s a good one.” She smiled and gathered her things to deplane.
The jet finished taxiing. The pilot turned off the seatbelt sign. Alex collected his carry-on and stood to grab his suitcase. He’d packed light—partly because Axom’s budget for this project only went so far when it came to his sartorial tastes. Fortunately, most startup founders weren’t exactly fashion mavens.
Alex counted himself lucky that Axom’s owner was one of the good billionaires, willing to fund public interest journalism and willing to let his team use some old-fashioned muckraking methods to uncover the truth about this weird little flyspeck of an island close to company headquarters in Miami.
Besides the deep pockets of Axom’s owner, the last thing he needed to pull this off was to create a new identity. Kaden agreed to help. She and her colleagues got behind the plan, fabricated a Real ID for him, and created an elaborate backstory. It included a corporate website, social media accounts, fake online news coverage, medical records—the whole shebang. She also scrubbed hundreds of photos of him as Alex Wyatt from his social media accounts.
Alex followed Evelyn Gladstone down th
e jet’s metal stairs onto the tarmac’s red carpet and into the mild morning heat. He counted fifty-two passengers on their flight. At twenty-nine, he was undoubtedly the youngest.
They approached the small terminal and Evelyn gestured toward the sleek sign above the main doorway: “Welcome to Samana Cay, Land of Unlimited Fantasies.”
Alex smiled and nodded. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”
Ten small lines formed, with guards reviewing each guest’s passport or Real ID. The lines moved quickly. After all, the Fantasy Live people conducted extensive background checks before any guests boarded their flight. Evelyn scooted into a faster-moving line at the far end.
When he made it to the front of his queue, he noticed a bright red line on the ground that ran the length of the terminal. Small metal stands held signs reading, “No conformity past this line.”
Alex stepped forward to the guard’s desk. He began to sweat under his jacket, nervous about whether he’d make it through.
Unlike the usual Customs station, where bored agents ushered through nonstop throngs of tourists, this seemed to be a more high-tech approach. The guard passed his suitcase through a magnetic imaging scanner. Then he looked at Alex, examined his ID, and asked him to step in front of a camera to have his photo taken.
Alex peeked around the monitor and saw that his photo was being compared to the image on his Real ID.
“Facial recognition?” Alex asked.
“Latest and greatest,” the guard said. He compared Alex’s face to the face on his screen one final time, then handed him back his ID. “Have a nice stay.”
Steps beyond the guard’s desk, an attractive, dark-haired woman fixed him with a steady gaze. She wore a stylish tropical print knit halter dress and strappy taupe-colored sandals. She stepped forward, gave a broad smile, and extended her hand.
“Mr. Andrew Bayless? Welcome to Samana Cay. My name is Rachel Torres. I’ll be your personal ambassador during your stay.”
Alex Wyatt smiled. He was in.
6
Brooklyn
Kaden stared at her phone and recognized the address in the text message. It was her favorite shooting range in the Woodhaven section of Brooklyn.
How did they know I hang out there? They’ve been following me.
She told Nico, Annika, and Sayeed she needed to leave for an hour to run down a lead. Her friends volunteered to stay and help clean up the mess in her apartment. She took her Beretta M9, but she removed her smart contacts, so no Amelia.
She grabbed a ride share to the range, showed her range card, and booked an hour slot. Her Twilight SVLK-14S sniper rifle was still in the possession of the Dallas police, so she picked out a long-range rifle to rent.
She slipped the magazine into her pouch and headed to the farthest lane. Only two other shooters were on the range; it looked like a father teaching his teenage son how to shoot. She set up, mounted her semi-auto rifle on a rest, and began with a few test rounds to set the zero on her scope. She used the adjustment knobs to recalibrate. This scope was a little fussy.
The door opened and a lone figure entered the range. He looked to be in his mid-forties with handsome, chiseled features, dark brown hair flared with gray, and a fit physique. He looked haggard, though. Not getting enough sleep. He wore a casual shirt and slacks and carried a blue blazer, which he folded neatly over the railing behind them.
He set up in the lane next to her, loading what Kaden recognized as a Ruger Mark IV rimfire pistol. The firearm was designed with a seamless barrel suppressor, with the silencer built in. Pretty wicked, but out of her price range—and illegal in New York state. Maybe he was from out of state. Or maybe he didn’t care.
He put on his eye and ear protection and aimed at the target. Pup-pup-pup, three quick shots. He reeled in the target. All three shots were within three inches of the bullseye.
He removed his ear covering and spoke in a low voice without looking at her. “I’ll get to your questions. Listen first. What I’m about to tell you will sound … out there. That’s good. You need your B.S. detector turned up to eleven.”
He set up a new paper target and sent it out.
“For eighteen years I was a field operative for an off-book field division of a government agency you’ve never heard of.”
“Try me.”
“It’s too early for that.”
She studied his face, trying to decide whether this guy was legit, a master hoax artist, or maybe flat-out crazy. He glanced at her and picked up on her furrowed brow.
He scowled in return, retrieved his phone from his folded jacket on the railing, and held up a photo. “This the man who shot your friend?”
She recognized the face of the attacker. Bear Man. A sharp pain shot through her heart and her body gave an involuntary shudder.
“That’s him. He gave his name as Wojcik.”
“He won’t turn up in any local police database. His real name is Dražen Savić. He’s a mid-level operative for a transnational cabal we’ve been tracking for over a year. It’s basically a shadowy confederation of billionaire thugs.”
That photo jolted her into a different mindset. This guy was the real deal.
“How’d you ID him in less than a day?”
“We’re a small outfit but we can access almost anything.” He aimed his Ruger with the stance of a professional marksman. “The real question is, what did they want with you?”
Kaden was about to ask him the same question. What would they want with me? Sounded like he agreed with her hunch that they were after her and Gabriel was an unintended casualty.
“No idea.”
“You must have something they want. Could be something you don’t know you have.”
He fired off five rounds. He reeled in his target and she saw he’d laid down a tight grouping around the bullseye.
“Could it have to do with the digital stash you stole from Randolph Blackburn?”
That rocked her. “How do you know about my grandfather? And the files we hacked?”
“Blackburn has been on our radar for a very long time. We think he washes some of this group’s dirty money.” He paused, as if unsure whether to say more. “We find out things. Sometimes we act. Sometimes we let it play out.”
“How do I fit into any of this?” She fired her Beretta at her target.
He sent out a new bullseye and fired four more rounds. “You’re in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice, Kaden. You killed a very powerful man when you rescued those girls in Dallas.”
She lowered her weapon, paying close attention to what this guy was telling her. She was still waiting to hear whether the D.A. would bring charges against her for the Dallas shooting.
“Local authorities decided not to bring charges,” he said. “But someone bumped your case up to the feds. They can gin up charges if they want, trust me.”
“Why would they?”
“Because you shot a man who was very useful to this shadowy group. We don’t know much about them, but we know they have their hooks into members of Congress and the current administration.”
“Even the Justice Department?”
He looked at the father and son practicing and saw they were still out of earshot. His eyes traced the top and rear of the gallery, maybe looking for listening devices.
“The vast majority of federal prosecutors follow the law, old school style. But this administration placed some political appointees in key positions at Justice.”
“So I’m in trouble?”
“You’ve made enemies. It could go either way. If we move fast, a plea deal should fly with the faction I’m working with.”
A plea deal? Last night I was getting an award for rescuing those women.
“The basics are this: You plead guilty in a closed federal court hearing to transporting a firearm across state lines for an unlawful purpose.”
“But it wasn’t unlawful.”
“Forget the law. I’m trying to save you from a trial. Possible priso
n time. The plea and sentence will be sealed. Nobody will ever know it’s on your record. You’ll serve no time.”
“What’s the catch?”
“In return, you work for me. Not on payroll. You’ll be an off-the-books, off-the-grid contractor. A ghost. We need someone with your skill set. We’ll make it look like you’ve lost your job to fend off the black hats at Justice.”
“Why me? What do you want with me?”
“We saw how you carried out your covert ops. How you brought down that entire criminal enterprise in Dallas. We’ve been impressed by both your hacking and field work—a rare combination.”
So far it didn’t sound too appealing. Cop a plea. Quit her job.
“Work for you … doing what?”
“Intelligence gathering, mostly. Depends on the day.”
“And if I say no?”
“You’ll be fighting a war on two fronts. One front against a hard-ass segment of the Justice Department hell-bent on getting you behind bars. A second front against a shadow organization with global reach. Trust me, Dražen Savić is not the last operative they’ll send for you.”
She needed more than this. “What’s your name?”
“I should go.”
He turned, unloaded his weapon, grabbed his jacket, and hurried out the door.
Leaving her with a million more questions.
7
Minsk, Belarus, present day
According to legend, no living person had ever seen his face. No photograph of him was known to exist. Rumors flew that he’d been in a terrible accident as a young man. Even in his own companies, people speculated whether he was man or myth.
He gunned the engine of his Harley-Davidson FXDR 114 and took the sweeping curve onto the M5 highway at double the speed limit as he left the city limits of Minsk. He watched the digital dashboard as he kicked up his bike to the maximum speed, 160 mph. Truckers gave him a salute—half were thumbs ups, half were middle fingers—as the brass-balls rider in the black-onyx visor and helmet flamed past each obstacle in his way.