Control: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 38)

by Robert J. Crane

  KORY: Same. You thinking what I'm thinking? Because I'm thinking 'traitor.'

  FLANAGAN: Agree. This looks bad.

  BYRD: lol whut

  Chapman slipped out of the Escapade app, booting up his laptop out of sleep mode. With a simple macro, he activated the trace protocol to track every single Network member via their Socialite apps. The results came back instantly.

  Chalke was in her office in DC, Kory in his in Brooklyn. Johannsen and Bilson's phones were off – and excluded from access at this point. That left Flanagan and Byrd...

  Flanagan's phone was...in DC? And Byrd's was in the NNC building, also in DC.

  “Hmm,” Chapman said, staring suspiciously at Flanagan's location. He pulled it up on his screen, hit the map feature and...

  Oh. It was in the vicinity of Flanagan's law firm's DC offices. That reassured him. This was hardly an exact science, after all, but it suggested that everyone was where they were supposed to be, and that their phones were, too. So how did Nealon find out...?

  CHAPMAN: I think maybe this blowback is coming from the Smoke guy. He might be watching some of us – or our agents.

  KORY: That makes sense. I mean, he disappeared after the Lincoln Memorial thing.

  CHALKE: That does make sense. But I have a bigger issue to raise – Nealon.

  KORY: Talk about an evergreen thing to say in here lol.

  CHAPMAN: What about her? Other than the obvious.

  Chalke took a moment to answer, and when she did, what she said filled his already wavering stomach with even more cold dread.

  CHALKE: If Hilton is right, Nealon just shot your guy at a distance of close to a mile. I've seen her shooting scores, we've talked about this – she shouldn't have been able to make that shot. But she did.

  BYRD: ok shes great so what we know this

  CHALKE: No. We did *not* know this. And in fact, our thinking about a certain matter was very much based on not knowing this.

  KORY: Ohmigod.

  And Chapman nodded, because he was already there.

  CHAPMAN: You mean Bilson.

  CHALKE: Yes. If she could make this shot, it puts her in the very rare air of snipers worldwide. Which means...

  They all got it, Chapman thought. Even that muttonhead Byrd. But just in case...

  CHAPMAN: It means she could have killed Bilson after all.

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

  Sienna

  “And you're sure?” I asked, my cell phone up to my ear. “About the timing on that?”

  The sun was glaring down at me from overhead, and I was lying flat in my little trench. The sound of a car was coming ever closer, the SUV that we'd taken out here rumbling, slowly, across the fields, Hilton taking care not to bust an axle on the deceptively uneven ground. I was sweating, phone against the side of my head, sweat pooling in the small of my back like a tiny pond as I waited, listening to both my conversation and the approaching vehicle.

  “Absolutely certain,” came the voice from the other end of the line.

  “Thanks,” I said, and hung up.

  I waited in the trench, staring up at the sky, as the sound of the SUV got closer and closer. It was a steady, low growl of the engine as it drew nearer to me. When it had gotten about thirty feet away, Hilton put it in park and killed the engine.

  By then, I'd already gotten to my feet and hustled to cover behind it, narrowing the distance between us at top speed. I was behind it in a second or two, no gunshot ringing out, no rifle crack to herald someone else taking a shot at me.

  Just quiet, as the engine died, and then the mechanical noise of the driver's door starting to open.

  “Hey,” Hilton said as she got out, doing a double take as she realized I was there, ducked down just behind her door. “What–”

  I grabbed her right hand with my left, jerking her around and disarming her in one move. Her pistol flew out of her hand and I jammed mine against her skull as I slammed her against the hood. Then I (gently-ish) kicked her knees out and forced her to the ground in the shadow of the SUV, my Glock to her skull the entire time.

  We sat there like that for a long, shocked silence as I searched her for other weapons. Poor rookie, she had none.

  When I snapped the cuffs on her, she came out of it.

  “What...what are you doing?” she asked, shaky but not convincing.

  “You're under arrest,” I said.

  “Wh – why?” she asked, again, not convincing.

  “Because you were about to gun me down, I suspect.”

  When she found her composure, she said, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “Geez,” I muttered, “someone wasn't in drama troupe when they were in school. Your acting is poor even compared to a fifth grade production of Death of a Salesman.”

  Hilton paused, was totally still for a moment. “I don't think Death of a Salesman is appropriate for fifth graders.”

  “Whatever, you get the point,” I said. “You suck at acting, Hilton. You set this trap for me, walked me out here, then sat back there and did both jack and shit while I was under sniper fire.”

  “That's – that's not true!” Hilton said, and this time she put a little fire in her denial. “I called for backup!”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “after the shooting finished. I checked with dispatch and got the time for your call. You were a little late.”

  I couldn't entirely see her face, but could see her jaw move as she worked through possible explanations. “That's...I didn't...”

  “Damned right you didn't,” I said. I could hear a lone siren in the distance. Local PD was on the way, and not too far now. “You were so sure about having me dead to rights with that sniper that you didn't consider what you'd do if I survived. And the problem with that thinking is...I'm pretty damned good at surviving, Hilton. You'd think after a year of working with me, you'd know that.”

  “I...I didn't do anything,” Hilton said, sniffling.

  “Correct. You did nothing while I was under fire. Suspicious, no?”

  “That's not what I meant!”

  “Hang on.” I lifted my phone, dialed a number from memory, and when an accented voice answered on the other end, I said, “Drop the balloon.”

  “Understood,” came the sharply accented reply. And they hung up.

  “What...what are you doing?” she asked, voice shaking.

  “Moving to the next phase,” I said, standing up.

  She was flat on her face, nose in the dirt, but she turned her head to speak to me. “No – no, wait! Please!” I just stood there, watching her. She squirmed to try and look at me. “Please – please, Sienna, don't–”

  I chuckled, looking down at her frantic motions. “What do you think is going to happen here, Hilton?”

  She paused, lying squarely in the middle of the dirt, whorls of it disrupted into non-smoothed patterns around her legs and elbows from her squirming. “You...you're going to do what you always do when you think someone's crossed you.” Her voice cracked, and then dropped to a whisper. “You're going to...kill me.”

  I laughed, grabbing her by the cuffs and lifting her to her feet. “I'm not going to kill you, Hilton.” I leaned in to her ear as the first cop car appeared at the entrance to the driveway, breaking out of the cover of the trees. “I'm going to do something so much worse.”

  “What...what's that?” she asked, voice wavering.

  “Kerry Hilton,” I said, turning stiffly formal, “you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law...but you're going to talk.”

  She wobbled on unsteady legs as I opened the door of the SUV. “I...I'm not. There's nothing to talk about. I didn't do anything wrong.”

  “Still a terrible actor, I see,” I said, smiling as I ducked her head to keep from ramming it into the top of the car. I left the door open, because I wanted the local cops to see her, to witness that I was arresting her, because I was going to talk to them abou
t it – all of it. It wasn't like the FBI could be trusted with this, after all. Their director had just been part of a plot to try and kill me. “But you will talk.” Any joy leached from my face in full view of hers, and she trembled as she saw my expression. “Whether you want to or not, you're going to tell me everything I want to know.”

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

  Chapman

  This was a moment well suited to despair, Chapman thought, which was why he knew immediately he couldn't cave to that urge.

  To find out, after all this time, that Sienna Nealon had truly been hunting them all along? Not just him, not just one of them, but maybe all of them?

  His mind reeled at the prospect.

  KORY: What did she know? When did she know it?

  CHALKE: Hell, what does she know NOW?

  No point in lying or deflecting. In fact, it was a good time to dive right into it. A true, dead reckoning of where they actually stood was the only hope they had to plot a course forward and survive this with their goals intact.

  CHAPMAN: She knows about me, for certain. She hinted it in her not so subtle way when we met yesterday. And clearly she knows about Johannsen. And at least our current intent.

  BYRD: god rest his soul

  CHALKE: But what do we do about it? My brain is fried. This is just too much.

  Chapman nodded. Of course it was. Here they were, in the crosshairs of the most dangerous physical predator on the planet. Like a shark, but more powerful. That was what metas were, wasn't it? Strength, command of the physical world.

  But humans had long dominated the physical world, becoming the apex predator through technology and thought, and Jaime Chapman had both to spare.

  He dashed off a quick note to Devin re: the facial recognition, then pinged one of his assistants to ready the plane. He was doing things as quickly as he was thinking of them, and sent another note to the sketchiest person in Silicon Valley that was of his acquaintance. It was a long shot, but he wanted to try something different as well. Then he turned his attention back to the conversation in progress.

  CHAPMAN: Seems to me we have two basic options: surrender or fight. We can either fold now, give up in a small way (walk away from the Network, our plans, pretend none of this ever happened and wait to be rolled up by law enforcement) OR

  Now it was his turn for a dramatic pause. Because these idiots practically demanded it. If he was to adopt the pose of a general, it would be better to have soldiers at his command that were better than these morons, but they were what he had at hand.

  CHAPMAN: We fight. With every damned thing at our disposal.

  That stated, he sat back, waiting to see what they had to say.

  BYRD: lol im just wondering how we fight THAT u know

  CHAPMAN: Simple – with everything we have.

  Another dramatic pause. Chapman cracked his knuckles. His pauses were shorter than theirs, because he couldn't afford to waste too many precious seconds of thought dicking around. They were too valuable.

  CHAPMAN: Byrd, Kory, you can still command a sizable amount of media influence between the two of you. If you go on the attack against Nealon, break the story of her assassinating Bilson, being the fox in the henhouse, assigned to investigate the murder she committed, it'll start the ball rolling.

  KORY: Whoa, whoa. Look, we floated a sort of trial balloon, half-ass attacking her reputation after the Socialite incident where that guy in the mask made that idiot post. It didn't stick.

  Why did he have to tell these people their jobs?

  CHAPMAN: Because you dropped it quickly and let the story die. You can keep a story in the headlines for months, yes?

  BYRD: lol I cud talk abt a story 4ever if i want

  CHAPMAN: Then that's what you do. Get out there, bang the drum, run the sheep in this particular direction – which is toward the idea Sienna Nealon did this murder.

  KORY: Did she, though? I mean, we have surveillance on her. I get that she's *capable* of it now, has the skill set or whatever, but...how do we not have eyes on her doing it?

  Chapman paused, pulling up his records. No, they definitely did not have anything like that. No facial recognition pings from her leaving the apartment during that time, her phone didn't move...

  He frowned. Her phone didn't move? It hadn't moved when she went after the Chinese freighter, either, so that was hardly a reliable indicator at this stage of the game.

  But that was hardly their only card. If she had killed Bilson, they should have gotten something from the facial recognition web they'd set up around her apartment. They fully controlled the surveillance cameras for blocks around, including some specifically pointed at the front door. If she'd come out, they'd have at least gotten a ping to Devin's team letting them know an unidentified person was leaving the building. They'd have manually reviewed the video using gait analysis and gotten her that way.

  Which means she either didn't leave the building during that time...or she found a way to hide doing so.

  Hm. A problem for later. Now he pinged Chase, sending a message to her phone inquiring about whether Phinneus's guests had ever checked in with her. They were going to be necessary, it appeared, now that he was down four members of his security team.

  BYRD: lol like innocence matters lets burn the witch

  KORY: Lol. Good point, Chris. Yeah, okay, I mean we can start some smoke around her and all, but that can't be all, because we tried that for years and as you see, she's still out there.

  CHAPMAN: Absolutely. Phase 2 – Flanagan, you bring the full force of civil law against her.

  FLANAGAN: By which you mean...?

  CHAPMAN: I don't really care. Bury her in stupid, frivolous lawsuits. Slap her with a maternity suit claiming child abandonment. Line up an army of people with personal injury claims against her and sue the shit out of her. Anything to add traction to the story narrative Byrd and Kory are shaping: Sienna Nealon is the worst, dangerous, and deadly to all of us.

  CHALKE: I think I see where you're going with this.

  CHAPMAN: So you know what you have to do?

  CHALKE: I know what I *can* do. And it's a lot.

  CHAPMAN: Good. Get on it, then?

  CHALKE: Already am. Forgive my lack of attention to the convo. I'm issuing orders as we speak.

  Devin pinged back as Chapman was pondering Chalke's course of action. There was a file attached, and he opened it immediately.

  Oh, shit.

  CHAPMAN: Might have something here.

  He typed that with one hand into his phone while he stared at the computer screen, shifting uncomfortably in his hotel chair. Another ping came up from his assistant – the plane would be ready to leave within the hour. He nodded, sent acknowledgment, then went back to the photos Devin had sent.

  BYRD: just keep us all in suspense forever lol thats fine

  He stared at the photo one last time, reading the report along with it so he could summarize adequately, then went to it.

  CHAPMAN: The guy who runs the facial recognition team that watches the web around Nealon got a hit when I told them to broaden their search to include the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday. They found a man there who – and I'm pretty sure this blows away coincidence for the most part – he was on the street during the scene at Nealon's office when the diary was stolen.

  CHALKE: Description? I can run him through our databases.

  CHAPMAN: I'll forward you the photos in a sec. Dark hair, looks Latino. Most distinct characteristic, though – he happens to be in a wheelchair.

  KORY: So what does that mean? That wheelchair guy is somehow connected to the Smoke guy?

  CHALKE: Maybe he's part of the plan? But that begs the question – what is the plan?

  CHAPMAN: Seems to me the smoke guy is bent on exposing us. Maybe that's the plan. In which case, maybe Nealon is working *with* him?

  BYRD: lol she got thrown down hard with him u think she wud take that kind of beating for fun?

  CHALKE: She did get pr
etty roughed up by that thing. Twice.

  Chapman shook his head. They weren't thinking.

  CHAPMAN: Consider this: Sienna Nealon takes beatings like that so often she could probably get slapped around during sex and consider it vanilla. What's another beating to her? Think about it – the lone physical copy of the journal vanishes just before Chalke can deal with it. That's material evidence against us, just gone. And the timing? Perfect. If she was working against us – and she is – that was an incredible move, and brilliantly timed. I say it's her. This smoke fellow is not just smoke – he's mirrors, also. Totally in cahoots with her, and we've witnessed two staged fights, both of which advanced her agenda while we thought she was suffering a stinging defeat.

  CHALKE: Ohmigod. I think he's right.

  KORY: Yeah. It does cut that way, doesn't it? She loses the journal in the first fight, and Johannsen gets outed and has a heart attack after the second?

  CHAPMAN: Was it a heart attack, though? Really? Are we sure?

  KORY: I mean, people witnessed it in the newsroom. There was no one near him but his secretary of like thirty years, and the dude was clearly under some stress from being outed so...I think so? I mean, I'm not sure I *know* anything right now, but since nobody saw a meta come up and shock his heart into stopping and he was complaining about his chest hurting as he keeled over...I think so? Unless there's a heart attack meta?

  CHAPMAN: I'll look into it. But more important right now – Sienna Nealon is a rattlesnake. You get in the ring with her, you get bitten. We all need to strike from out of sight. We all need to BE out of sight.

  CHALKE: That's tough for me. I'm pretty high profile. And I just thought of something – those photos about our conversations. You think that's how she knew about Johannsen? Because I'm betting she lied to me, that she definitely saw them.

  KORY: I think I'm going to take a vacation somewhere. Like...now.

  CHALKE: You should. Get out of town, work remotely, where she can't find you.

  CHAPMAN: Yes. She can't hit what she can't see. She mistakes her powers for actual power to manipulate the world. But violence can't be currency, not in the modern world. Get out of sight, and we'll strike her in our way, from our domains, which is our position of strength, not hers. Speaking of...Chalke?