by Tom Wheeler
Adam had a smug look on his face.
“It’s not the battery; it’s EVE’s actuator.” Jonah leaned forward on the desk with a serious look on his face.
“I don’t understand,” said Jack, sitting back in his chair, a bit flustered.
“I’m not talking about AI EVE. I mean Eva Cruise,” Jonah said.
“Who the hell is Eva Cruise?” Jack frowned as he put his right leg over his left, grabbed his ankle with his left hand, and pulled it up on his thigh. “EVE: Evolved Vehicle Eclosion. Champion. Who is Eva Cruise?”
“EVE Champion,” Jonah corrected as the misstep sent momentary electricity pulsing through his body. “I just heard an interview with Tom Cruise, who’s coming out with a new Top Gun. Bad joke.”
Eyes narrowing, then darting about, both Jack and Adam were obviously confused but apparently accepted his strange humor.
“My wife loves that man. What can I say?” said Jonah.
“As does mine,” said Adam, with a shake of his head.
“The information we fed into EVE’s AI caused problems with our manufacturing facility. I got a call last night from one of the techs to let me know,” Jonah said, moving the conversation along. “I checked EVE and noticed the same issue with her.”
“How is that possible? Mason fixed that weeks ago,” said Jack.
“Evidently not.”
“We’ll just wait until Mason returns. What’s the big deal?” asked Adam.
“I’m meeting with Xi Shangkun. China is ready to talk,” Jonah said with a gloating smile.
“They want us to manufacture NIO?” Adam asked, referring to China’s “smart car.”
“Yup.”
“How is that even possible?” asked Adam.
“One of the benefits of President Crumpler. He may have been corrupt as the day is long, but he got the trade deal done, which opened a door for us.”
“That’s the contradiction of the decade: China outsourcing manufacturing to the United States,” Adam said.
“Except we have the most state-of-the-art manufacturing facility on the planet,” said Jonah. “And that new virus is shutting down their manufacturing plants. They need us.”
Adam rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I thought you were supposed to be in New York.”
“What? You aren’t excited? Gentlemen, this is a major victory for us!”
“Releasing Akula to the public is a major victory,” said Adam, referring to Phoenix’s car. “I’ll believe the Chinese when they’ve written us a check.”
“Ye of little faith. Anyway, we are releasing Akula. To answer your question, the mayor rescheduled. Something about the Democrats’ probe,” Jonah replied, and Adam nodded.
“You think that’s a good idea?” asked Jack with a concerned look. “From news reports, the pin has been dislodged from the grenade. That man is bad news.”
“You mean the witch hunt? The damn Democrats probably caused Crumpler’s heart attack. We’ll keep the former mayor on our good side until we have to distance ourselves,” Jonah replied as Jack nodded. “Where’s Mason?” Jonah then asked, playing the game he had become proficient at. Deceit.
“NASA.”
“Get him back here as soon as possible,” Jonah instructed.
“I thought we gave him as much time as he needed.”
“We did. Time’s up.”
“What about EVE Champion? If we wait too long to introduce her to the world, someone else will steal our thunder,” said Adam.
“And steal the market,” Jack added.
“We’ve been over this, gentlemen. As long as our competitors continue to purchase our technology, we stay ahead of the market while keeping a finger on the pulse of those same competitors. At this point, nobody is close to EVE.”
“How can you be sure?” asked Adam.
“You think the Chinese, the country pouring billions into artificial intelligence, would ask us to manufacture their products for the first time in history if we weren’t leading the pack? Even with that virus?”
“Like I said, I’ll believe it when I see the check. But you’re right, sales of our biobattery are at record levels—”
“As are inquiries for our actuators,” interrupted Jonah. “All the more reason to have Mason fix this issue.”
“Why can’t EVE fix the actuator?”
“She can. But Mason needs to feed her the proper data stream. Remember, he wrote the code.”
“But . . .”
“Just get him back here,” were Jonah’s final words as he placed the newspaper back in his bag and headed to his car. He knew he had cut the discussion short, but the more he talked, the more chance he had to slip up, which reminded him of his previous discussion with Troy, who he was certain had slipped. Jonah recollected Troy’s exact words: “It was always the objective of my . . . the Americans, to get it back.” That didn’t make any sense unless this fellow was not an American. But all indications were that he was a government employee of some sort, which meant he was an American. How else could he be at the State of the Union address? No, Troy had slipped up, big-time.
Jonah’s train of thought continued. What might I mean if I said, “It was always the objective of my . . .”? It was always the objective of my company to get it back? But that would imply Troy works for Airbus, since Airbus created the Euro. It was always the objective of my wife to get it back? What government official has a powerful wife? That was Jonah’s last thought before his phone buzzed. It was his contact in New York. Jonah would consider Troy’s identity again later.
21
Final Payment
Ahmadi’s house
Tehran, Iran
Rihanna reached into the backseat, grabbed the piece of paper from the pocket of her pants, and dialed the 10-digit number on her phone. It rang one time before the explosion sounded in the distance, taking out the transformer and all the electricity to nearby houses, including Supreme Leader Ahmadi’s security system.
She began winding her way through the streets called koocheh to the complex a block from Ahmadi’s house. She parked, then waited, doing a 360-degree scan around her car to ensure nobody was watching. She donned a full-face thermal mask and a pouch, secured the tools she needed for the job, threw on her backpack, and carefully opened her door and stepped out, closing it so softly it made only a small click. She jogged in the darkness to the first of many townhomes all linked together.
As she squirmed up the adobe bricks made in the same traditional Persian style as the walls she’d lived among for years and climbed as a child, she chuckled quietly, remembering how frustrated her mother had been that she enjoyed scaling walls instead of playing with dolls like her friends did. Of course, it wasn’t funny; Rihanna knew that. She supposed she only chuckled as a way of coping with the trauma. The reason she had wanted to get out of the house was to avoid Uncle Kaito, whose roaming hands made Rihanna’s skin crawl. She had tried to tell her mother once, but her mother had told her to keep quiet, as if it was a game all girls had to play. Perhaps it was, but Rihanna wasn’t playing. She remembered that he was dead—her only consolation.
As she made her way to the rooftop, she saw the Iranian flag posted atop Ahmadi’s roof four houses down. She quickly trotted to the house next to his, then made the small hop toward the flag. She lowered a black rope to the second-floor window. Wincing slightly, she endeavored to ignore the pain in her ribs as she gripped the rope, lowering herself down.
The house was built over 120 years ago, and, while it had been enhanced, an old house never had the electronic sophistication of newly built homes—not in Iran, anyway. And since this wasn’t the palace, she was safe. Nobody even knew about the riches the supreme leader kept in his secret residence. She wouldn’t have known, either, had Ahmadi not shared the information with her during one of h
is drinking escapades while she was on a security detail for him. Not that Ahmadi drank, of course, since his religion prohibited consumption of the forbidden fruit. More hypocrisy.
Rihanna stood on the ledge of Ahmadi’s upper window and yanked off the brown metal bars that she knew were broken, setting them gently on the ledge. She then pulled a small device from the pouch around her waist, attached the suction holder to the middle of the glass pane, and moved the circular glass cutter around several times. Carefully removing the piece of glass and reaching through the window, she released the latch. Raising the window, she grabbed the metal cage and hopped through, landing on the old red Persian rug lying in the middle of the room. She scanned the outside area again, leaving her rope dangling inside while she set the glass on the floor.
She carefully walked through the double doors of the bedroom, pulled out her small flashlight, and watched her own feet cross the hall to Ahmadi’s bedroom. She put the flashlight in her mouth, grabbed the mattress with both hands, and quietly pushed it upright and off the bed. Moving quickly, she knelt at the safe embedded in the floor that she estimated was built in the early 1900s, her flashlight now sitting on the floor and zeroed in on the dial. A slight smile came to her face. She inhaled. Before she could exhale, she heard a noise.
“Hal min ‘ahad hna?” came a voice, and the old planks of the stairs began rapidly creaking one after another in her direction.
Rihanna’s heart leapt, and her adrenaline surged. In an instant she grabbed the flashlight and turned it off.
Someone was in the house.
22
Not Alone
Instinctively, Rihanna reset the flashlight to a disorienting strobe, jumped from the bedroom into the hall while switching the light on, and then leapt down the entire flight of stairs with her right leg extended as the torch blasted the darkness with rapid bursts of light.
A high-pitched scream followed as three shots rang out from the arm of the dark silhouette. Rihanna felt a sting in her left shoulder and dropped the flashlight, her foot connecting with a body, sending them both sailing down the flight of stairs. Rihanna’s head smashed against the wall as she fell, but without causing her to lose her balance. She grabbed the rail as a shot of pain ran up her arm, but still she marshaled enough strength to break her fall. As she peered into the darkness, the strobe created enough light for Rihanna to watch the other woman’s head crash onto the Persian carpet. The gun discharged, followed by the breaking of glass, as the strobe continued.
Rihanna groaned, lifting her leg to kick the woman in the head—her hands in fists, her lungs panting, her mind racing, her body shaking. Then she stopped, grabbed the flashlight, and turned the strobe to normal light, shining it on the woman. She found her face. Instead of seeing her as an obstacle to her plans, as she normally would, she saw an innocent 40-something-year-old woman trying to make a living at the wrong place at the wrong time. Rihanna placed two fingers on the woman’s carotid artery. Finding a pulse brought her comfort—another change from the old girl who hadn’t cared whether someone lived or died.
Rihanna moved the light around the room to get her bearings. For a fraction of a second, the room began to spin, forcing her to plant her right hand on the floor or fall from the dizziness. “What the heck?” she murmured, concerned, since that had never happened before, not when she hadn’t hit her head hard on something. She touched her head with her hand. Blood.
“Oh, Emmanuel,” she said, knowing she had a bullet in her shoulder and now a crack in her head. For a moment she ignored her injuries, grabbed two zip ties from her leg pocket, and put one around the woman’s ankles and another around her wrists, as her own arm dampened with blood. She grimaced while looking out the window to see if anyone had reacted to the shots. She assumed the worst and calculated her time, although she didn’t see any movement.
“Chikushō,” she uttered in Japanese, knowing she had just made a dangerous error by not knowing someone was inside the house. She ran back up the stairs into Ahmadi’s bedroom, pressing her arm against her body and opening and closing her eyes hard as another bout of dizziness swept over her. She grabbed the sheet from the bed, tore it apart, and wrapped a piece around her upper arm, then held one end in her mouth and pulled the other tight with her free hand, grimacing with pain now coming from the bullet hole and her ribs. She squealed slightly as she stuffed more of the sheet into her mask, which was tight enough to put pressure on her head wound, slowing the bleeding.
Two minutes after the encounter with the woman, Rihanna was kneeling over the safe, her flashlight focused once again. She closed and opened her eyes hard as she read the worn silver combination dial. Using lock manipulation, and withstanding the pain, she put her ear snug against the mechanism and slowly clicked the dial one click at a time, waiting for the device to subtly give her the combination. A minute or so later, she opened the safe door, only to discover there was a second door.
She looked at her watch—it’d been five minutes.
“Crap!” she exclaimed, putting the flashlight in her mouth as another wave of dizziness hit her, causing her to drop the flashlight and plant her hand. She took several deep breaths and then began the process for the second door. She finally opened it. Her flashlight’s beam exposed her treasure in US dollars. She tossed a plethora of bundles of $100 bills into a pillowcase from the bed, added a few stacks of 20s, then noticed a file labeled “CEDRA.” She wasn’t certain what it meant, but placed it in her pillowcase anyway. Then she saw a small velvet bag, which she grabbed and opened quickly. In it were dozens of diamonds. Her heart raced as she stuck it into her improvised sack, stuffed it into her backpack, and slung it over her shoulder, knowing she had just struck gold. She closed the safe doors, putting everything back together so nobody would even know anything was missing—at least from a safe nobody knew existed. She headed toward the window. Sirens now rang out in stereo, the screeching of brakes letting her know the Iranian cavalry had arrived.
Rihanna put her right hand on the rope and tried to pull herself up using her left arm, which wasn’t strong enough. She couldn’t climb up the rope because of the bullet lodged inside, as well as the pain from her ribs. A drop of blood from her head hit her hand. She said a quick prayer, put aside the pain, and whipped the rope several times before watching it fall toward the ground. She quickly reeled it in around her elbow and hand, then ran back inside as several bangs could be heard at the front door.
23
The Chase
“Alshurtat, taftah!” screamed a male voice, identifying the police and demanding someone open the door. Rihanna knew they were now surrounding the house and wouldn’t wait for an answer at the door. She fled up the stairs three at a time and climbed out the window onto the ledge.
She remembered the painting of the ninja warrior at the restaurant where she’d had dinner hours ago—the dragonfly representing power, agility, and victory. The door crashed open as screaming voices sent her slithering up the side of the house, wincing at the excruciating pain now hampering her agility. But she didn’t stop. What was normally effortless was now torturous. Six police cars pulled up with sirens screaming, giving her the incentive to climb faster, tears flowing from her eyes from the pain. Keep climbing or you’re dead, Rihanna; you’ve done this before, she told herself with iron determination. She was now weeping out loud as another spell of dizziness hit her. But she didn’t stop climbing, her fingers clenching every crack she could find.
“Hunak!” screamed a policeman, pointing at her as others came running. She looked over the ledge. “‘Atlaq alnaar,” yelled another of the police as bullets started chipping the bricks under her feet. One landed to her right. Police in Iran shot to kill for stealing.
“Emmanuel, I’m sorry, but please, I need Your help,” she said as her arm miraculously reached the top of the house. She pulled herself to the rooftop, then ran toward the back of t
he house, leapt across the first two buildings, glanced at the men expecting her to jump, and disappeared through an opening in the roof of the house closest to the road.
Police vehicles continued to pour into the area. She fell onto the floor of the house and ran through the attic as a woman began screaming. Rihanna was immediately face-to-face with the occupant of the home, who now stretched her arms over the three small children she was protecting from harm. Their wide eyes expressed the terror they felt. Tears ran down Rihanna’s face.
“‘Ana asafun. ln ‘awdhik,” she said, telling them she was sorry and wouldn’t hurt them, before running from bedroom to bedroom until she found clothes in a closet that she could slip over her black garments. She ripped off her mask, threw the bloodied sheet on the floor, slipped on a pair of pants and a dark-colored chador, and moved toward the front entrance, holding her backpack in her right hand. She opened the door, ready to run to her car, but was met by a police officer.
“La tataharak!” he barked, ordering Rihanna to stop. She quickly dropped her backpack out of sight.
“Madha yahduth hna? ‘Iinaa ‘aeish hna?” she queried, asking the men what was going on, and telling them she lived there—her eyes widened. “I heard the shooting! My children! Are they in danger?” she screamed in Farsi as a drop of blood hit her hand.
“Stay inside!” the man directed, stretching his neck inside the door and looking around. Rihanna quickly covered the blood with her other hand. The man hesitated, looking Rihanna squarely in the eyes. Just as she was about to reach for the man’s head, he backed out. The mother stood with her children without speaking. The officers rushed to another house.
“I’m sorry. I meant no harm,” Rihanna said in Farsi to the terrified woman while grabbing her backpack. She unzipped it, reached inside, and tossed a stack of $20 bills on the floor, along with several $100s. “It’s untraceable. Before you consider turning it in to authorities, think of your children,” were her last words before donning the backpack. She snuck out the back door and into her car, punching the accelerator, just outside the perimeter of the police vehicles that had swarmed the area.