Rise: Luthecker, #2

by Keith Domingue

  Nikki pulled hard on the restroom door again, yanking it back and forth with all of her strength, desperately trying to rip it open. The big wooden slab shook in the frame but didn’t move, and she let out a scream of frustration. Nikki was sure he had slipped into the club unnoticed, and she could not have been more wrong. Not only had she been spotted, she had been trapped, locked in the women’s restroom with no way of escaping.

  She stepped away from the door, backed against the sink, and leaned on it. Her legs began to shake, and exhaustion hit her quick and hard. The pain in her ankles had gotten so severe that she could barely stand, and she fought off tears as the futility of her situation set in. I came so close, she thought. She had let Alex down. She heard the sound of the dead bolt being pulled back, and she forced herself to stand. She would not surrender without a fight. Nikki flexed her hands and cracked her neck. Whoever walked through that door first, at the very least, she was going to make them pay.

  Nikki limped to the entrance side of the door, moved against the wall, and waited. She noted that the door was being pushed open by a slender woman’s arm, and that it was the external arm to her position, putting the wrist, elbow, and the muscle and tendons connecting the joints between the woman and Nikki.

  When the door was halfway open, Nikki snatched the woman’s right arm with her left, pulled her into the bathroom, and spun her around. She pulled the woman close and wrapped her right arm around the woman’s neck. She had the woman in a headlock in less than three seconds and positioned her between herself and the restroom entrance. Nikki waited. When Nikki saw who walked through the door next, all the air left her lungs, and she let the woman go. She put her hands to her face and dropped to her knees.

  “Nikki!” Chris screamed as he rushed farther inside the woman’s restroom. He picked her up, wrapped his arms around her, and kept her from collapsing. She buried her face on his shoulder.

  “How did you find me…?” she said before she started to cry.”

  “You should’a known we were gonna come looking for you.”

  She looked up from Chris’ shoulder and saw Yaw standing behind him, a big smile on his face.

  “I take it that this is your friend,” Masha said to Yaw, rubbing her neck, none too happy about the headlock.

  “Yes it is. And we owe you.”

  One of the women who stood guard at the door entered, a panicked look on her face. She said a quick phrase in Russian to Masha. Masha turned to Chris, a grave look on her face.

  “Semyon’s men are in the club.”

  Everyone looked at Masha, unsure what to do next.

  “This way. Quickly.”Masha stepped out of the restroom.

  “I got her,” Chris said to Yaw as he put an arm around Nikki’s waist, and she an arm around his neck. “Go.”

  Yaw walked behind Masha and two paces ahead of Chris and Nikki, making sure to keep an eye on both. He noticed that Masha’s friends looked at her with fear in their eyes, some turning away or taking a step back. Masha and her little group of reconnaissance vixens had worked from a well-rehearsed playbook, and Yaw sensed that Masha was now breaking the play, and the rest of the girls were scrambling, unsure of what was going on and fearing the potential consequences. The tall brunette who had kissed Yaw on the cheek only moments earlier approached Masha, the look on her face clearly confused and wary, but Masha ignored her and kept moving.

  Yaw glanced back at Chris and Nikki. He saw that Nikki could barely walk, and that Chris, with his arm around her waist, was nearly carrying her, but they were not losing pace. He looked over to the dance floor and noticed a disruption in the rhythm of the club goers’ movements as men with rifles slowly pushed their way through. Yaw slowed and used his body to screen Chris and Nikki as they moved past the dance floor. He looked ahead and saw that Masha was standing at the bar and talking to the bartender, a tall, slender man with horn-rimmed glasses and side-parted, glossy-brown hair. Yaw watched as Masha pointed directly at him, Chris, and Nikki. The bartender pushed his glasses back up on nose before looking at each of them. Masha put her hand on the bartender’s arm, a strategic move that changed the bartender’s body language in an instant, without him being aware of it. Masha motioned to Yaw with a barely-perceptible nod for the three of them to head to a black door with a small portcullis window located next to the bar. She kissed the bartender on the cheek before pushing through the double-hinged door. Yaw let Chris and Nikki go first, and the three of them followed Masha through the door.

  “We go through the storage room and down the hall to a service entrance that will lead us into the alley. From there, I can get us free from the city. Come,” Masha said as she led everyone through a narrow corridor that went through a gauntlet of large, stainless-steel refrigerators, stacked beer kegs, and rows and rows of boxes filled with liquor. They reached a service door, a thick metal barrier with a large ratchet handle. Masha cranked the handle down before bumping her shoulder against the door to push it open. She passed through first and the other three stepped into a long dimly-lit hallway with sweating concrete walls and an array of corroding copper pipes that ran along the ceiling. The music of the bar began to fade as they made their way down the narrow concrete pass, the sounds of the club replaced by the echo of Masha’s heels clicking on the concrete at a rapid pace. They walked for what seemed like several minutes before they saw a long set of metal steps ahead, which were revealed one at a time as they got closer. Soon they stood at the base of the stairs and saw a door at the top. Masha took a brief look back at her new friends before hustling up the steps. She reached the door at the top, turned the knob, and pushed through. Yaw was close behind her, choosing to wait for Chris and Nikki to catch up. The three of them stepped through the door together. The cool night breeze brushed them immediately as they entered the refuse-cluttered alley next to the bar.

  Yaw took two steps forward and froze in his tracks.

  “Do not move,” Semyon said to Yaw. He kept the barrel of his AK-47 on Yaw as he looked at Chris then at Nikki. He smiled when he saw Nikki.

  Yaw counted what he was up against. There were three others with Semyon, two aiming rifles at Chris and Nikki, the third holding Masha from behind by the arms. Masha thrashed a moment, swearing at Semyon before he abruptly backhanded her.

  Semyon turned back to Yaw. “I told you she would cost.” He cracked Yaw across the jaw with the butt of his rifle.

  Yaw staggered back, but did not go down.

  One of the Russian soldiers whispered something to the other three, and they all laughed.

  Yaw, Chris, and Nikki heard it an instant before they saw it, and what they heard was the hollow crack of wood on bone.

  Winn hit the first soldier in the back of the head so hard with his Kali stick that it nearly knocked the stick from his hand.

  The man dropped to his knees.

  Winn used the recoil of the stick to add momentum to the already lightning-fast speed of his counter spin, cracking the second soldier in the temple and shutting the man’s lights less than a second later.

  Yaw didn’t hesitate with his reaction. He was in motion before the first man hit his knees, using Semyon’s microsecond of confused hesitation to grab the barrel of the Russian soldier’s rifle and move it away.

  Semyon instinctively pull the trigger.

  Yaw was prepared, and his actions didn’t slow when a burst of bullets strafed the alley. He drove an elbow onto Semyon’s forehead, hard enough to crack bone.

  Semyon staggered and crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

  The fourth man, who held Masha, quickly pushed her aside, only to catch a front kick in the groin from Chris, the strong strike lifted the man off his feet. Chris followed the kick with a head butt to the bridge of the Russian’s nose—timed with the soldier’s forward-pitching body. The man was out cold before he hit the ground.

  In less than three seconds Semyon and his three soldiers were unmoving on the alley floor.

  “Ninja turtles,” Mas
ha said.

  They looked at her.

  “I see that show. When I was a kid. You three look just like that now,” she said, as she straightened out her dress and wiped a trace of blood from the corner of her mouth.

  Chris looked at Masha and shook his head.

  “Who is he? Another friend?” Masha asked, nodding at Winn.

  “You could say that,” Chris said.

  “More are coming. We have to go,” Winn explained, as he tossed Chris and Yaw a set of Kali sticks.

  Winn looked at Nikki. She kept one arm against the building to keep from falling.

  “Are you okay?” Winn asked.

  Nikki pushed herself off the building.

  “Get me…” Nikki began as she hobbled forward, “to a fucking computer.”

  31

  Weapons of War

  “Right this way, sir. Apologies, but if we knew you were coming, we’d have been better prepared to give you a full and proper demonstration,” the short overweight man in the white lab coat said to James Howe.

  The sound of the two men’s footsteps echoed in unison on the polished linoleum as they walked at a rapid pace down the long and empty hallway.

  “Apologies are not necessary, Dr. Boal. I understand the circumstances. I don’t wish to disturb your team at work, but I wanted to check on your progress personally.”

  “The two working prototypes have both passed phase-three tests.”

  “Congratulations. I look forward to the seeing the SR-73 in action.”

  At the end of the fluorescent-lit corridor lay a large set of dull-grey double doors. David Boal pulled a photo ID badge from around his neck as he and Howe approached these doors, sliding the thin plastic card through a reader slot located just to the right of the entrance. A green light on the reader lit, a buzz echoed off the walls, and Boal pushed through the doors, Coalition Properties CEO James Howe in tow. As the two men entered the enormous design hangar, Boal turned to Howe, painted on a smile, and spoke with the well-rehearsed enthusiasm of a salesman.

  “With a proud tradition of leading-edge avionics spanning over seventy-five years, allow me to present to you Coalition Defense Systems’ latest design, the fastest suborbital scramjet in history, the new SR-73 Black Bird.”

  Boal stood at the railing that loomed over the enormous hangar floor space three stories below. He waved his hand out over the expanse for Howe, in grand fashion like a show model.

  Howe walked past Boal and stepped up to the railing. He looked down at the aircraft that sat diagonally on the polished and spotless concrete below. Like a queen bee being attended to by its drones, Howe watched as the long black, aerodynamically-perfect SR-73 and its associated technology was being assembled and systems tested by over twenty workers. Howe noted that the aircraft and its equipment took up nearly the entire three thousand square foot facility floor.

  With the smooth outer coating of the aircraft offset by random open service panels—that hinted at an impossibly complicated array of circuitry and design underneath—the roughly one hundred foot long SR-73 was nearly the same dimensions of its legendary predecessor, the SR-71 Black Bird. A sleek, computer-perfected marvel of a plane, the “Son of Black Bird” as it was nicknamed, looked more rocket than aircraft. The long elliptical design of the fuselage was complimented with short, sloped back wings and two enormous turbine engines on either side of the fuselage that were larger in diameter than the width of the aircraft itself.

  Howe couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride as he watched the technicians and scientists, who worked on the SR-73, treating it as if it were a patient in intensive care, all of them moving with seemingly choreographed precision as they assembled the most advanced sub orbital flying machine Coalition Properties, and therefore the world, had ever made.

  “It’s capable of Mach six point three, tested and sustained for thirty-three minutes,” Boal boasted. “Over twice as fast as its predecessor.”

  “Weapons capability?” Howe asked.

  “Yes, sir. At north of Mach six, no missile boosters are necessary, thus lightening the payload and therefore allowing for nuclear capability.”

  “Stealth?”

  “Thermal protection needs prohibit. But radar absorbing material is unnecessary, sir.”

  Howe looked at Boal.

  “Simply put, sir, it’s too damn fast. There is no time to react. With its speed and tracking systems there is no target that can evade it, no anti-aircraft arrangements that can touch it. From a dead stop it can reach anywhere on the globe in under sixty minutes, sir. The enemy literally can’t see it coming.”

  Howe nodded with approval. “Manned or unmanned?”

  “Final design will be manned-optional. We still need pilot suit specs for G-load. Current tests are unmanned.”

  “And you have two functional prototypes?”

  “Yes, sir. One here and one in test at our airfield in Arizona.”

  “And you can take off and land on a standard airstrip?”

  “As designed. She can circle the globe and be home for dinner with the enemy none the wiser.”

  “I want one armed and ready for use in twelve hours.”

  Boal froze in his tracks. He was unsure if he had heard right.“Excuse me, sir?”

  “Pick the best of the two working prototypes.”

  “But, sir, that’s not possible. The aircraft is nowhere near ready for active duty.”

  “You just told me that it has been tested.”

  “It has, but…”

  “Then get one ready.”

  “ I would have to notify the Defense Department of any…”

  “This is not active duty; this is just another test. Word of this test is to be kept between you, myself, and the aircraft control team alone. Non-disclosure agreements will be required. This is a product issue and therefore corporate concern; it does not require notification of the Defense Department.”

  “But what do I tell the control team?”

  “Nothing yet. You may or may not get the call. Just be ready. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Thank you, Dr. Boal.” Howe felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. “If you’ll excuse me, Doctor, I have to take this. Thank you so much for your time and presentation. I will be in contact. Be sure your team is ready.”

  Boal stood there, stunned, as Howe made his way through the double doors and into the hallway before answering his phone.

  “This is Howe.”

  “James; I’m glad I reached you,” Collin Smith answered. “Where are you?”

  “Overseeing company interests.”

  “The board of directors has scheduled an emergency meeting.”

  Howe stopped in his tracks.“You son of a bitch.”

  “It’s scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. We are going to discuss removing you as chairman and CEO. Technically, I’m not supposed to be telling you this.”

  Howe felt his face get hot with anger. The old man was making a play. “And yet you are.”

  “I felt it prudent.”

  “Cut to the chase—what do you want?”

  Howe heard Collins take a deep breath on the other side of the phone. “The chairmanship.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I’m trying to save your career, James. I know it doesn’t look that way, but the board is none too happy with your recent adventures. They’re a conservative lot. And releasing a convicted criminal to chase down an asset, well, it seems high risk and way out of proportion.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, he’s only a criminal when he works against our interests, just like fucking Saddam. If we don’t partner with him and take over the underground economy, someone else will. Admit it, this is about your pet project, Alex Luthecker.”

  “Actually it’s not. After our last conversation, I thought about what’s truly important to me. And that’s my legacy.”

  Howe’s face went white with anger. “You want in on my deal.”

  “I
’ll delay the board vote, seventy-two to oust you from your chairmanship, if you agree to step down when you finish your dealings with Lucas Parks.”

  “In other words, if I succeed in making a deal with Parks, you want all the credit. However, if I fail, you push me out, take over.”

  “If you fail, you will have bigger concerns, like jail. And your friend ends up just like Saddam.”

  “And if I don’t fail, Coalition becomes the world’s first corporate superpower, under your watch, so you take all of the credit.”

  “I’m just looking out for the best interests of Coalition Properties in case things go sideways for you. Now do we have a deal?”

  Howe was beside himself with fury. The old man had him. He knew he had little in the way of choice. “Deal. And what about your precious asset Alex Luthecker? I thought he was your idea of the future.”

  “I’m seventy-nine years old, James. I just don’t have the time or the energy for that fight. A fight that, in the long run, I believe you will lose. You have seventy-two hours.” Collin Smith hung up before Howe could respond.

  Howe swore at himself. Collin Smith will pay, he thought. When he finished his dealings with Lucas Parks, Howe would make Collin Smith disappear and use that to serve as a warning to Turner and the rest of the board. Now he just had to make sure Parks did his part.

  32

  Deep Web, Dark Web

  I’m done, I’m going to burn this thing,” Nikki said, as she held out her hand.

  “What are you talking about?” Masha asked as she quickly pulled back her laptop, holding it close to her chest. “What is she talking about?” Masha asked again, this time looking at everyone in the room. Her eyes settled on Chris.

  “I think it means…” Chris looked at Nikki. “What does it mean?”

  “It means when this is over, it gets stripped and goes in the garbage can,” Nikki answered as she crossed her legs and checked the bandage. There was little in the way of blood. Winn had bandaged and wrapped both of her ankles, along with her right knee, tight as a drum.