Acknowledging that immediately brought him a renewal of his purpose. There were only enemies surrounding him now—the men of the Combine’s committee, Solomon’s Rubicon, and everyone else who stood in his way—only enemies to be destroyed or resources to be used. It made everything so much easier to understand.
Glovkonin smiled as he plucked tiny diamonds of broken glass from where they had caught on his jacket, lingering again on the purity of his pain.
* * *
It was midday by the time they sailed the Bastion League ship to the rendezvous coordinates off the southern coast of Calabria, in the Gulf of Squillace.
Waiting for them was the Aphrodite, a modern catamaran cruiser. She belonged to Emigrant Aid, a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to assisting refugees braving the dangerous crossing from North Africa. The group also happened to list Ekko Solomon as one of their foremost charitable donors. There were a few raised eyebrows from the Aphrodite’s crew as they caught sight of the League-sponsored vessel approaching. Before today, the pro- and anti-refugee groups had crossed paths with each other, and not on good terms. The right-wing collective were accused of actively sabotaging the work of Emigrant Aid and other similarly inclined NGOs, and so no tears were shed when the men and women on the catamaran learned of the fate of the other ship’s crew.
Lucy thought that the sailors’ “code of the sea” might have overridden the Aphrodite crew’s antipathy for the Bastion League—but as it turned out, not so much. The transfer of the refugees happened quickly, and she felt a weight lift off her as she stepped on to the other ship. She’d been carrying it since the moment she found herself on the beach at Derna on the Libyan coast, wading out into the shallows toward that wallowing fishing boat among dozens of terrified men, women and children. These people would get a chance to live, instead of having that denied to them like so many others.
Looking back to the other ship, she saw Marc there, supervising a couple of the men as they methodically dumped the League crew’s guns overboard. Everything else that could be useful—paperwork, ship’s books and GPS logs, laptop computers—had been quietly gathered and carried over to the Aphrodite as well. In a few days, Interpol’s human trafficking unit would receive a weighty package of actionable intelligence. The League ship itself would be left at anchor to be recovered at a later date.
“Hello,” said Fatima.
The girl had a habit of sneaking up on her. Lucy knew black ops specialists who were less stealthy than the young girl, and she threw her a grin.
“You took off your hijab,” Fatima added, touching her own.
“Yeah,” admitted Lucy. “It’s not really who I am.”
“Aya isn’t your real name. You’re an American.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“It’s all right.” Fatima considered the thought. “You and your friend had to pretend to be other people so you could help us. Like in the movies.”
Lucy chuckled. “Yeah, like in the movies.”
Fatima’s expression clouded, and it looked wrong on the face of one so young.
“I am very scared,” she admitted. “My brother is too, but boys always pretend to be tough, so he won’t say it.”
“They’re dumb that way,” Lucy noted. “Listen, you don’t have to be frightened.” She gestured around. “There are doctors on board here. People who will take care of you and find you a place to stay.”
Fatima looked off toward the Calabrian coastline in the distance.
“In … Italy?” She sounded out the name like it was alien to her.
“The people who run this ship work with governments in lots of different places,” Lucy explained. “Italy, Germany, Belgium, France … They’ve agreed to take in anyone seeking asylum. I gotta tell you, it won’t be easy. A lot of folks don’t understand the reasons why you fled your home, and some won’t welcome you. But others will, and if you and Remi want the chance to start a new life somewhere else, you can have it.”
“I can work hard and study,” said Fatima, with a determined nod, “and so will Remi.”
Lucy smiled and patted her on the shoulder.
“Then you’ll be okay.”
She caught sight of a familiar face as one of the Aphrodite’s crew came jogging up along the deck toward her. A young Turkish man in his early twenties, he had wavy black hair and serious eyes that were undercut by his wide smile.
“Hey, let me introduce you to someone I trust,” she told Fatima. “He’ll look after you two.”
“It’s good to see you, miss,” said the young man. “It’s been a while!”
“You look well, Halil,” she replied. “How are you doing?”
He unconsciously patted his belly, where Lucy knew he sported a wicked surgical scar.
“I am well. I like this job a lot.”
“That’s great,” she said, and she meant every word.
Seeing Halil like this—strong and smiling, doing something positive with his life—made Lucy feel like the risk and the danger was worth it.
A few years ago, Lucy and Marc had found Halil in a highway diner outside of Boston, with a time bomb surgically implanted in his stomach cavity. Orphaned and forced to become a terrorist suicide weapon, he had come within seconds of dying in a destructive firestorm. Together they saved his life, and ultimately it had been a vital clue Halil gave up that stopped an even worse attack from unfolding in America’s capital. Being part of something so shocking could easily have broken a person with a weaker spirit, but Halil had rebuilt his life. With the help of Rubicon, he had found a way to make a positive difference in the world.
Halil beamed at Fatima and offered his hand.
“Hello to you. Welcome aboard the Aphrodite. Do you know that name?” Fatima shook her head and he went on. “Oh, let me tell you about her. She was a goddess, you see…”
The young man led the girl away, talking animatedly about Greek mythology, making shapes in the air with his hands.
“Is that…?” Marc appeared at Lucy’s shoulder, and she nodded. “Wow. He’s doing all right for himself.”
“Remember this moment, right here,” she told him, prodding the Brit in the shoulder with a long finger. “Next time you ask yourself why we do what we do.”
“Speaking of which…” He jerked his thumb at the Aphrodite’s upper deck. “I reckon we’re needed.”
“Are you kidding me…?”
Lucy trailed off as she saw a light-skinned man leaning over the rail above them. He studied her from behind a pair of dark glasses and a blue watch cap, then nodded wordlessly toward the upper cabin and vanished inside.
“Malte’s here? That does not bode well.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Marc, blowing out a breath. “If he’s here, it’s trouble. I mean, you know how much he hates coming out in the sun…”
“Five’ll get you ten,” she said, grabbing the nearest ladder, “someone, somewhere has pushed the panic button.”
* * *
Malte Riis was waiting for them in a narrow cabin, working at a ruggedized plastic transport case packed with electronic gear and a collapsible satellite antenna. The taciturn Nordic was another member of Rubicon’s Special Conditions Division, a former member of the Finnish security services before he was recruited as a vehicle specialist for the team.
Marc had known him since he first crossed paths with Rubicon—although saying he knew him was a bit of a reach. The Finn didn’t talk much, saying what he needed to through a look or a gesture with as few words as possible. At the start, Marc had felt that the other man had little time for him, but now he understood that reticent manner was how Malte treated everybody. Having both gone in harm’s way several times since then, there was a mutual respect between the two of them.
Maybe one day he’ll get blind drunk and we won’t be able to shut him up, he thought.
For now, though, Malte gave Marc and Lucy another terse nod, and reached into the case for something
.
Marc saw comms gear in the box and what looked like the guts of a hi-spec image processing unit, before Malte tossed something to him: a pair of video glasses, stripped-down lightweight versions of the rig one might find in a commercial virtual reality gaming kit.
The Finn passed a second set to Lucy and she eyed them warily.
“What’s this?”
“Encrypted video conference,” said Malte, taking a third pair of the glasses for himself. “Sit. It can be disorienting.”
“What’s up?” she added.
“You’ll see,” said Malte.
The appeal of trying out some new tech was all Marc needed to slip the rig on, and he blinked as a digital overlay faded in across the Aphrodite’s cabin. Motion sensors mounted in the glasses communicated with the control module in the case, mapping the movement of Marc’s head so that the projected images he saw moved seamlessly with his point of view.
The walls of the cabin vanished as first a wireframe model of a much larger room overwrote the virtual space, and then that mesh accreted layers of detail that grew quickly from blocks of basic color to something photorealistic. The words CONNECTION CONFIRMED and ENCRYPTION ACTIVE materialized in the air in front of his face and floated there for a moment, before dissolving away.
He decided to take Malte’s advice and sit down, fumbling into a chair. Through the glasses, he saw a room he recognized, one of the secured conference spaces in Rubicon’s Monaco headquarters. Glancing to the right, he saw two plain digital avatars seated nearby, basic geometric human-shapes like the symbols you might see on the doors of a public bathroom. Still images of Malte’s and Lucy’s faces floated in front of the avatars, pictures taken from their security passes.
To the left, the real-time video feed allowed Marc to look out of the solarized glass windows of the Rubicon tower on Avenue de Grande Bretagne, over the rooftops of the business district and down to the bay and Port Hercule.
“Cool,” he noted.
“So glad you approve.”
At the far end of the conference room’s ash-colored table, Ekko Solomon’s ubiquitous executive assistant Henri Delancort looked up from a display screen built into the wood surface. He peered in their direction with dismay, adjusting his rimless spectacles.
“Forgive me if I do not look you in the eye, but from my end of this the three of you are represented by a set of spherical cameras. I am having a conversation with an abstract art installation.”
The rail-thin French-Canadian’s default setting was more arch and clipped than usual. Marc disliked the perfectly calculated, stiff and prickly attitude that Delancort displayed, and he tried to have as little do to with the man as possible. But Delancort’s role as Solomon’s right hand meant he seldom had the opportunity to avoid dealing with him.
“So?” said Lucy, putting all their questions into a single syllable.
Delancort launched into an explanation without pause.
“I’ll begin by disappointing you. Your involvement in the current operation has been canceled, with immediate effect. Clean-up will be handled by local assets. There will be no stand-down as previously indicated. Malte has already been briefed on transit provisions. Once the Aphrodite docks, you will transfer to the closest airport and proceed under separate snap covers to your destination.”
“Okay…” Marc took in the rapid-fire briefing with a blink. Through his feet he felt the rumble and pitch of the Aphrodite as the catamaran got under way, and the disconnect with the image in front of him made him slightly dizzy. “You know we’re both worn out, right? Weeks of undercover does that to you.”
“I am certain you will rise to the challenge,” said the Québécois assistant, rolling smoothly over Marc’s protest before it could gather momentum. “These are the details of a dilemma that has come to our attention. A highly valuable company asset, a scientist working in Singapore at a Rubicon subdivision called MaxaBio, went missing from her home less than twenty-four hours ago. Her location is currently unknown, as is that of her husband and stepson.”
Delancort tapped at the screen in front of him and images appeared in the virtual space, floating untethered before them. Marc saw a plain East Asian woman in her mid-forties in a lab coat, caught in another unflattering security pass photo that made her look pinched and unhappy. The name DOCTOR SUSAN LAM was displayed underneath.
Marc caught the sound of Lucy taking a sharp breath and instinctively turned in her direction, but all he saw was her blank virtual avatar.
More images slipped over the first one, like cards laid atop one another. Husband and son, in an altogether more human shot showing the pair of them having fun on a beach.
“We suspect all three were forcibly abducted,” continued Delancort.
“Why?” said Malte.
“Evidence on site fits the profile,” said Delancort, then added: “A complete picture is still forming.”
Marc studied the pictures, committing them to memory. The shots changed to an image of a black and white colonial-style home surrounded by lush vegetation, then the steely exterior of the MaxaBio building in some modern industrial park.
“What does she do at that place, then?” he asked.
“They’re trying to cure cancer.” Delancort’s reply was flat, as if the answer was obvious. “Developing programmable virus systems. Feel free to look it up on your way there.”
“To Singapore,” Marc noted. “That’s … what? Sixteen hours and change?”
“You wanted time to rest,” said Delancort. “Silber has already been sent out with Kader from cyber-ops to get a head start.”
Ari Silber was the handsome ex-Israeli air force officer who served as the SCD’s operational pilot. Where Malte handled anything with wheels, Ari dealt with the team’s fixed-wing flying needs. Typically, his duties kept him close to Ekko Solomon, captaining the billionaire’s private Airbus A350, so the fact he had been cut loose for this new situation only underlined its seriousness. As for Assim Kader, the British-educated Saudi’s hacking skills were good, if not better, than Marc’s.
“Assim is a smart lad, so why do you need us there?” Marc’s irritation flared at Delancort’s tone. “Look, I get this might be serious for Rubicon’s shareholders if it goes public that some scientist dropped off the grid, and the company stocks tank—but this kind of thing isn’t what we deal with. This sounds like a job for Rubicon’s regular security bods to handle, yeah? I mean, we are the Special Conditions Division. What’s so special about these conditions?”
“This is not as clear-cut as corporate espionage, or some errant wife running off for an affair,” said the French-Canadian. “We suspect it is more than a criminal matter.” He took a breath. “You are correct that this is a security issue, one of the highest urgency that must be kept compartmentalized.”
Marc had the sense those words were being directed at someone other than him.
“So again,” he said, becoming aware that the conference room’s door was sliding open, “why send us? Doesn’t Rubicon have assets out there already, closer to the problem?”
“We do,” said Ekko Solomon, as he came into the room, looking out of the simulation at them. “But I want the people I trust the most to deal with this.”
Marc unconsciously straightened in his chair now that the boss was in the room, even if the room was hundreds of miles away. Solomon had that kind of effect on people; one of the world’s richest men, the imposing African had a quiet sort of intensity, projecting a cool confidence that could effortlessly hold the attention of everyone around him. But his normally refined manner seemed rough around the edges today, as if forces were acting on him that Marc couldn’t see.
He was uncharacteristically terse.
“Look into the situation, quietly. I know you are capable. Do not underestimate the seriousness of this.”
“Yes, sir,” said Lucy, as if the comment had been directed solely at her.
Solomon nodded, and Marc felt like the man was staring out
of the virtual conference room and right into his eyes.
“Be careful,” he said, and then the image faded, back into the wireframe, then nothing.
FOUR
Delancort watched the red lights on the front of the cameras wink out one after another, and he let out a low sigh.
“It never rains but it pours,” he began, rising to his feet.
“My people know their jobs.” Solomon stood in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest. “That is why I chose them.”
A jibe about the suitability of certain members of the Special Conditions Division rose instantly in the French-Canadian’s thoughts, but he silenced the urge to say it out loud. Still, Solomon knew his assistant well enough to intuit the unspoken words, silently waiting for his reply.
Delancort decided to take a different tack.
“Sir, the other matter, the meeting with the board of directors…” He nodded across the office, in the direction of one of the other conference rooms, where the glass walls of the space had been set to a frosted “privacy” mode. “Shall we proceed?”
Solomon frowned. “Their timing is inopportune. The situation developing in Singapore requires my full attention.”
“With respect, sir, we have delayed them long enough. They will not tolerate another deferral … and rightly so.”
“Indeed,” said Solomon. “As tempting as it would be to retreat to my private quarters and tell the board I am indisposed…” He shook his head, dismissing the notion. “No. I have never run from a fight in my life.”
He was already walking away, and Delancort had to rush to catch up, grabbing his digital tablet, jogging after the other man’s long-legged strides.
He followed Solomon across the open-plan floor to the main conference room and schooled his expression as the doors opened to admit them. The six people waiting inside—three other senior members of Rubicon Group’s board of directors and their personal equivalents of Delancort—all stood as a gesture of respect to the company’s chief executive officer.
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