by J D Lasica
His mind wandered to the nickname he had as a teen. The boy with no face. He had a real name, all but forgotten now. Maxim Volkov. Second son in a powerful family in Belarus. But anyone who had ever called him by the name Volkov was dead or gone. He had long ago assumed a new identity, Incognito. His name mattered less than his preordained mission.
Soon I’ll be known as the most important figure of the modern era. Strange how a mother’s flash of blind rage could alter not just one boy’s life but the trajectory of the world.
Volkov felt a giddy, exhilarating thrill begin to surge through his body. History might well mark today as the beginning of the Transition, paving the way for the Reset. Everything we knew about the power of nations was about to change.
“Chairman Incognito.” The soothing voice of his virtual assistant Liv came over the speakers lining his motorcycle helmet. “Lucid is ready for your weekly check-in.”
“Patch him through.”
He called up Lucid’s Eyecast on the high-tech screen on his visor. Volkov saw Lucid sitting in an executive suite aboard the luxury superyacht Seaduction. The vessel was on loan from the same member of the Compact who’d loaned them use of a submarine a year ago.
Virtual meetings with the man who ran his day-to-day operations put Volkov at a distinct advantage. On screen one, he watched a video livestream of Lucid and his surroundings. On screen two, he could also see what Lucid was looking at through his artificial eye. It was like being inside the man’s head. Lucid, on the other hand, saw only an avatar of Incognito.
“Good afternoon, Chairman. I’m en route to meet the first arriving guests.”
“Excellent news,” Volkov allowed.
Today marked the soft launch of their epic leap forward that promised to revolutionize augmented reality. To take it to a place no one had dared before. And to lure more visitors to Samana Cay.
“Indeed, Chairman. No last-minute hitches with Fantasy Live. I’ll keep you apprised. Unless you have any questions, only two items on our agenda. The Summit on Friday. And the Phase One rollout of our grand project.”
“Let’s start with the Summit. Do you have a recommendation?”
“I do. If I may speak freely.”
“Continue.” Volkov smiled as he watched this unfold on his visor’s screen. Volkov inside Lucid’s head watching Volkov’s avatar watching Lucid.
Almost godlike.
Lucid fidgeted and peered out the window as the ship churned through the tropical lagoon. “I think it may be to our advantage if you showed up to the Summit in person.”
The words brushed Volkov back like the cold Belarusian fall air pummeling his Titan sport jacket. He had not attended an in-person meeting since his youth. Not with anyone. A knot of tension laced through his neck and back muscles. Attend in person? Impossible!
“I’m thinking of our global strategy.” Lucid was speaking again, straining for the right words. “This is the first time members of the Compact have ever gathered in one place. From their perspective, it might seem … off-putting if they showed up in person and you, Chairman Incognito—the convener of the Compact, architect of the Seven Spheres—did not.”
Volkov usually went with his first gut reaction, and his gut told him this was out of the question. I’ve built a larger-than-life legend by remaining anonymous. My entire persona, my entire way of presenting myself to the world—why, it was built on my being incognito! Meeting others in the flesh would destroy the myth I’ve spent a lifetime perfecting. There was no setting in which he would press the flesh or agree to be seen and judged by his fellow billionaires in the Compact.
“My dear Lucid. You and I have met face to face only once. And yet we’ve worked out a mutually advantageous arrangement. We trust each other. Do we not?”
“Yes, but—”
“You and I manage to speak every day and communicate well with our virtual set-up, do we not?”
“This is different.”
“I disagree!” he bellowed. His Harley nearly side-swiped a turnip truck. He slowed down so he could focus on his video chat. “I will not subject myself to the judgments of ordinary men. Not when I’m the one executing the events that will reshape our planet.”
“Of course, Chairman.”
He dialed it back. Lucid was his chief operating officer and longtime top lieutenant—and a steadfastly loyal one. “I’m open to flying to the Summit. Let’s consider the cloaking safeguards we’ve been developing.”
“Very well, Chairman.”
He hunkered down closer to the snarling powertrain between his legs. As the head of a global multibillion-dollar enterprise, he spent most days indoors, so he relished his sprints on his sport bike—the machine was one part drag racer, one part fighter jet.
“Next item.”
“Good news from the Lab. After many months of setbacks, Bashir has perfected the delivery mechanism.”
“That’s been the key holdup, hasn’t it?”
“Indeed. The lab coats have been working around the clock to devise a biological agent with all the requisite properties. The clinical trials have now begun.”
“Superb news.”
“Chairman, our contractors are ready to go. We only await your signal for us to execute the plan.”
“We have been building toward this day for a long time, Lucid. Execute. Go forth and lay the groundwork. Our enemy will never know what hit them.”
“Very good, sir. There’s no doubt the new era is about to unfold.”
He saw on the screen that Lucid’s yacht was pulling into the marina near the airport.
“I need to attend to our new guests.” Lucid rose, ready to leave. “Anything else?”
“One final item. One unfinished piece of business that could jeopardize our plans.” He gunned the motor again, roaring to a dizzying speed on the open road before him.
“Kaden Baker. Bring her to me. Do not fail this time.”
8
Brooklyn
Kaden left the gun range and headed to the B Collective workspace. Her friends had left her apartment and gone back to work, and they all were expecting her to take a few days off. But she’d rather put her grief into action.
She did client work for a few hours and then talked Nico into hitting the kickboxing ring at the gym down the street. She had things to work out, and there was nothing like a few bracing rounds to get the blood flowing and focus the mind.
Nico was nearly her equal in the ring now. He sent her sprawling with a wicked side kick to her left rib cage.
She sprung to her feet and came at him. “Again,” she said.
She assumed a street defense stance. They traded blows. She needed to hit something. She pictured Nico as a stand-in for the thug who attacked her and shot Gabriel.
For the past two months, Gabriel was the reason the light was returning to her eyes. She’d grown up in a dysfunctional household. She’d learned only a few weeks ago that she was adopted, and her fake parents had raised her for a paycheck while spying on her for years.
Gabriel had nudged her closer to a normal life where people laughed and loved and didn’t have ulterior motives. She’d been almost ready to start her life again. Now? Normal was on hold.
During the hour, she got in two knockdowns, Nico three. Then they showered and returned to their workspace. Nico, Annika, and Sayeed spent the afternoon helping her try to turn up anything on Dražen Savić or whatever outfit he might work for. They were careful to cover their tracks while searching, but they couldn’t find a trace of him.
Near the end of the afternoon, a text message pinged her phone: “20:00. 40.656104, -74.007181, 120 z. Leave the AI.” She understood. No signature, but she’d figured the gun range mystery man would be in touch.
She finished some busywork, grabbed a yogurt from the fridge, then brought up the map on her phone since she wouldn’t be bringing her Eyewear. The coordinates showed an office building in a trendy tech startup section of town.
She’d leave her AI
, but she brought her Beretta in case this guy was connected to Bear Man.
At eight o’clock Kaden stood in front of a rehabbed office building along the waterfront in Brooklyn’s Industry City neighborhood. She entered the main doors and checked in at the security desk. The tower was an older low-rise, so no metal scanner. The guard didn’t look up, absorbed in his Danielle Steel novel. She spotted the glass elevators. She figured the z in her text referred to the third coordinate in a three-dimensional space. So she eyeballed the height of the lobby and each floor, entered the elevator, and pushed floor nine.
As she rode up, she looked out at all the shiny new tech toys and colorful, expensive office furniture in the startup offices on each floor. She got off at the ninth floor. Her phone showed an elevation of 120 feet.
She stepped across a large barren room, its wooden floor choked with dust and debris. Ramshackle blinds streaked with spider webs blotted out the setting sun. She must have messed up. This can’t be right. She drew her Beretta, just in case.
She heard movement toward a back room and headed that way. “Hello? Anybody here?”
No reply. She saw a light coming from under the far door so she entered.
The room was bare of any human touches … unless you counted misery and despair. A stale odor hung in the air. Rows of empty desks. Papers strewn on the floor. Two oversize wall hangings with smashed glass panes told of some unhappy departing tenants.
Three figures roughly her age glanced up from their keyboards before resuming their work. Kaden returned the gun to her shoulder holster beneath her fleece jacket. She must have been imagining things because she thought she glimpsed Annika disappearing into the kitchenette.
At the far side of the room, a man stood with his back to her, peering at a large digital screen. At the sound of stilled keyboards, he spun, saw her, and advanced down the center of the room. Gun Range Man.
“I’d like you to meet the crew. Carlos, Tosh, Annika, meet Kaden.”
Carlos and Tosh looked up again and gave a quick nod. Annika emerged from the kitchen, juice drink in hand, and came up to her with a serious expression. She wrapped herself around Kaden and squeezed tight.
“I’m so sorry. I couldn’t tell you about any of my government work.”
“How … how long?”
“Since July.”
She’d noticed Annika had been spending less time at B Collective. But doing spy work for the government? Jesus!
Gun Range Man approached through this health inspector’s nightmare of an office space. “Well?”
Kaden’s eyes swept the rest of the room. “This is it? This is your big-time global crime fighting headquarters?”
“You were expecting the Situation Room?” Tosh shot out without looking up.
Gun Range Man frowned. “We don’t need frills. We run lean and we move around a lot.”
“I was expecting a bigger team.”
“We have assets in the field.”
Now she was even more dubious. After a lifetime of secrets and lies and hidden agendas, did she really want to join a spy outfit?
“No more games,” she demanded. “You seem to know a lot about me. What’s your name?”
“That’s not important.”
Still stonewalling!
“Oh, Bo, just tell her your freaking name,” Annika chided.
“It’s Bo.” He flashed a sideways smile.
“All right, Bo,” Kaden said. “Just to be upfront, I’m not gonna join your team. But I’ll hear you out.”
“Fair enough.” He started across the room. “We brought in the big screen tonight to show you what we’re up against.”
She and Annika followed and leaned against a desk ten feet from the large monitor mounted on the wall. Carlos and Tosh looked up to watch Bo’s presentation, too.
Bo swiped with his right palm and the screen filled with a 3D animated globe that slowly rotated. The outlines of nations and cities appeared. Riyadh, Belgrade, Belarus, Moscow, Chechnya all were glowing bright red.
“What I’m about to show you doesn’t leave this room—not that anyone would believe you. Agreed?”
“Sure.”
“Agreed?”
“Yeah!”
“We’re in a war, Kaden. Not the stuff of history books with great armies and naval and air power. It’s a war of disinformation. A stealth war with unseen forces gathering strength. The players are not our usual enemies on the world stage. The enemy consists of oligarchs and oil barons, billionaire cartels and syndicates that control vast wealth and influence. We now live in an age when a single billionaire in the shadows wields more power than a hundred nation states.”
She crossed her arms and nodded. She was no conspiracy theorist, but she had no doubt forces behind the scenes were shaping world events.
“We don’t know all the players or what they’re after. What we do know is their track record. Money laundering, human trafficking, child pornography, black market arms dealing, murder of political opponents. They use dark money to exert deep influence on the levers of power in the U.S. and the West. But the threat has escalated.”
“Escalated how?” she asked.
Bo swiped right. The slide filled with images of nuclear facilities, power grids, reservoirs, and other potential targets.
“They’ve infiltrated the top ranks of western governments. They’re turning off the eyes and ears of our intelligence services. The black hats in the Justice Department I mentioned? That’s only part of the story. NSA, CIA, nearly every national security agency has been compromised in some way.”
She’d heard rumors in the online forums. But she never imagined things were this bad. “What in hell can we do about it?”
Bo’s face grew darker. “Two weeks ago, a high-value asset crossed the border in Belarus and asked for political asylum at the U.S. embassy in Lithuania. The walk-in provided actionable intelligence about one event in particular. The Disappearance.”
Kaden nodded. She felt sorry for those girls and the families. But it didn’t affect her.
Bo swiped. The screen filled with disturbing images of women being rescued from sex slave rings and human trafficking cartels.
“We need your help, Kaden. In finding these girls, bringing them home.”
Bo stopped swiping and turned to gauge Kaden’s reaction.
“Why isn’t the CIA or FBI doing something about this?” Kaden asked.
“In the past, that would be happening. But the world has changed. The U.S. shuttering foreign embassies. Intelligence agencies truncating overseas sources to save a few dollars. Allies refusing to swap sensitive intelligence with the their U.S. counterparts. The security agencies are flying half blind while focusing on the president’s priorities. Following up on every lead about the Disappearance is not their top priority.”
This was a lot to take in. Much as she wanted to see Bo and his team kick the asses of these Mafia types, she had a hard time seeing herself upend her life and join the front lines. Sending Dražen Savić to an early grave was her priority.
“So instead of sending in CIA Special Operations, saving the free world falls to a ragtag band of geeks and off-book intelligence agents?” Kaden rose from the desk and scanned everyone’s faces. “Is that about right?”
Tosh and Carlos looked at each other.
“Yeah,” Tosh said.
“She kind of nailed it,” Carlos added.
Bo glared at them, then turned to her. “We’ve been fighting dark forces for a long time, in the background, with no thought of being thanked. But there’s a storm gathering and we need all hands on deck. Someone’s got to go find these girls. Kaden, are you with us?”
She looked him in the eye, this man named Bo with his sharpshooter skills and his team of diehard tech warriors and his stirring call to save democracy and rescue those missing girls.
“That was a pretty speech. But look, you have me pegged wrong. I’m after the guys who came after me and killed Gabriel.”
&nb
sp; She turned without looking at Annika or the others. She couldn’t take their judgment right now. She padded out of the room and across the barren wasteland of the next room. She reached the elevator and pressed the down button when she heard footsteps behind her.
Bo said, “You’re making a mistake. We had a deal.”
“I never agreed. I said I’d hear you out.”
“And you’re dead set on not joining us?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
The elevator door opened. Bo stretched his arm out to block her from getting on.
“You’re stubborn as hell. Just like your father,” he said.
That startled her. “You didn’t know my father.”
“I barely remember that man, it was such a long time ago. But yeah. I knew him.”
He looked back into the other room to make sure no one was within earshot. Then he turned back to her.
“Kid, I’m your dad.”
9
Samana Cay
A bracing sea breeze billowed Alex Wyatt’s golden hair as he steered the 282-foot luxury yacht Seaduction from the airfield marina toward the island’s main harbor of Samana Village. About half the passengers from the flight were on board, including this odd duck Lucid who seemed to be running the show.
“You sure this is okay?” he yelled above the engine’s growl. “First time driving a boat.”
“Don’t get deflated, Andrew, but she’s a smartship.” Rachel Torres offered him a plastic cup filled with rum punch. “You couldn’t crash her even if you wanted to.”
“Well, in that case.” Alex took the drink from her hand and polished it off. The ship was all but running on its own, following the satellite-guided itinerary on the panel in front of him. The controls showed nearby vessels’ size, speed, and course. All clear ahead.
“Is Rachel your real name?” He’d need to know for his story.
“It’s my real name on Samana Cay.”
Well, that was a great dodge, he thought. He was still trying to get a read on her. “You from around here?” He guessed Spain or Mexico by her accent.