by Eden Sharp
‘And I don’t. But I wish you well Agent McGlynn. I hope you have a speedy recovery.’
‘How’s Lau,’ I asked.
‘In custody where he should be,’ Douglas said.
I hung up. Only Louisiana-style iced tea was going to improve how I felt now.
A day and a half of the Chinese liniment was doing the trick. I was still sore as hell and walking with a limp but I was walking. Nearly everyone coming in and out of the dojo were regulars and if any more threats were to be carried out, I had back up of my own. I’d promised Jeff I’d do some paperwork but I couldn’t focus on anything, I was too tightly wound. Knox kept me company in the office and cheered me up with his awful jokes. They sounded like he’d bought them wholesale from Kelly.
We watched Mike and Jeff finish up a class and then we were locked up for the day. Jeff sorted out the takings and we talked about dinner.
My cell rang. Paul. I realized I hadn’t called in and still needed to tell him about the code to neutralize the malware. Maybe Charlie had told him himself. I hit the green button.
‘Angela?’
‘Yeah.’
I heard him breathe in. ‘There’s no easy way to say this. Charles Lau was murdered by an inmate in custody a couple of hours ago.’
In a preternatural moment of extreme clarity I knew exactly what I had to do but then my chest went tight and I couldn’t breathe. I put the phone down on the desk, walked out of the office, through the dojo and out into the evening air. I stood gulping snatches of breath feeling cold despite standing in the remnants of the sun. I needed to be far, far away from here and took off running.
A block and a half later I saw a taxi and waved him down. He glanced back at me through the rear view and asked me if I was okay. I felt sick and weak and my leg hurt like hell. I was shaking and riding around my home city with no place of my own to go. I told him to head toward the Civic Center and had him drop me near the Marie.
I didn’t bother with a room. I headed for the top floor where I’d previously stayed and took the final flight of stairs to the roof. The door was unlocked. I yanked it back and stepped through not bothering to shut it behind me.
Outside the sun was starting to dip over the city. I walked over to the edge stepped up a foot and a half onto the ledge and looked down. It was only four story’s high. It was enough if you wanted to kill yourself and I thought back to what it had felt like when they had been trying to start my heart after drowning in Japan. I hadn’t known what they were doing at the time but had been aware of a feeling of peace, of people around me, holding my hand, supporting me.
I limped along the ledge, my right leg weak, staring into the abyss. I’d always liked being up high, looking down on the world below. It was why I’d bought an apartment six hundred feet above the ground. I stood with my eyes closed, feeling the breeze pick up.
‘Please get down,’ a voice behind me said.
Knox’s voice.
I must have been there for a while but it seemed like no time had passed at all. ‘I’m not going to jump,’ I said.
‘Then why get up?’
‘To make myself feel alive.’ I knew he, of all people, would know exactly what I was talking about.
‘I’m sorry about Charlie,’ he said. ‘You left your cell behind. Harding told me.’
I’d known he would, just like I’d known Knox would figure out where to find me now I needed them both as allies.
I stepped down and headed back across the roof to the door.
‘Where are you going?’ Knox asked.
‘First, I’m going to help my friend Chrissie,’ I said. ‘Then I’m going to see a man named Tomas Guzek.’
Knox’s car was a little way down the street. I started in its general direction and then he caught up and helped me the rest of the way.
I gave him Lunnun’s address and on the way over I texted it to Ollie and told her where to wait nearby in a non-descript car that would be hard to tail.
46
Lunnun was only a slight detour on my itinerary.
I had Knox pull up around the back, a little way from the alley and told him to wait while I spoke to Chrissie’s pimp. Only a few weeks before and I’d been worried about the Nismo’s tires on broken glass.
I got a break in that Lunnun was hanging around out the back of the building. He wasn’t hard to spot. He was white, with dark eyes, thick eyebrows, a thin mustache and long bleached straggly hair growing out of dark roots. There was some kind of symbol tattooed on his neck. I guessed he was dealing which worked for me. It was dumb to be doing it so near to your place of residence but then he wasn’t high on intellect.
I reiterated that Knox should stay where he was. He could see me more or less and watch the whole conversation so he had nothing to worry about and I didn’t want him close enough to spook Lunnun.
Nothing good was likely to come from lone females walking down sketchy alleys to cross paths with dismal men. Lunnun’s eyes telegraphed malice aforethought. Predetermined malice was a requirement in some jurisdictions as an element of some crimes, and a unique element for first-degree or aggravated murder in a few. I hoped it wouldn’t get that far.
I slowed my pace, signaling uncertainty. No point in barreling up with the air of the confident. I let him see my limp, showing weakness. Better to keep him feeling alpha. Less chance of him anticipating threat.
He sauntered over, chest leading, a semblance of a smile slashed across an unremarkable jaw.
I spoke nonsense quietly. One, to tie up some of his brainpower in trying to make sense of the words I’d used and two, to make him crane in to hear.
‘What the fuck you say?’ he asked.
I looked around nervously, appearing spooked but away from Knox’s direction, so a genesis of paranoia would kick in and spoke similar words again. Randomly patterned and of looser meaning. Words such as cousin, and heard, drama. Things he might be able to shape variously and attach meaning to while possibly relating them to himself. I repeated them in the same low tone.
He had no choice but to lean in presenting me with the vulnerable regions of his head: the eyes, temple, nose, ears, jaw, and neck. The latter gave me several targets. Damage to his throat area, not being covered by natural protection, would cause his trachea to swell, closing his airway. Restricting blood flow to his brain via trauma to his carotid sinus would cause loss of consciousness, temporary or otherwise. Excessive damage to the cervical vertebrae on the back of the neck, the nervous system’s link to the brain, would cause pain, paralysis, or death. His momma clearly hadn’t taught him that the best form of defense was not to let anyone get close enough to do you harm.
I used the pretext of looking nervously behind me again at nowhere in particular to mask the movement of limbs gaining momentum as my body swung back around and I raked my forearm along his jugular to interrupt blood flow and disorient him for a moment. From there it was easy enough to unbalance him, sweep out his feet and land a few kicks to his temple while he lay prone.
I talked myself down to show restraint and went through his pockets. Made a double score. I made bank by relieving him of a mighty wad of that day’s take. I also disarmed him from the presumably unregistered pistol he was carrying which I was counting on for my next play.
I hustled around the corner away from Knox and melted away to where I knew Ollie would be waiting. We sat tight for less than a minute before Knox drove straight past us combing the surrounding streets. With him still in sight but with enough distance, I pulled out and followed him leaving a gap. After a while, he pulled over and took out his phone. I knew just who he was calling and why.
I watched from a little way down the street. I could almost predict the conversation, McGlynn has lost her mind. She beat up some lowlife, took his gun and now she’s taken off. Before that she was talking about going to see some guy called Tomas Guzek. Of Paul telling Knox to make sure I kept my head.
It was the clearest it had been for a long time. I too
k out a piece of paper from my pocket and called Cole. I told him I controlled the files via a botnet, told him who I’d be with and told him to come get me.
Knox took off like he was on a mission and Ollie and I followed him to Presidio Heights. I thanked her and sent her home then texted Cole a further message.
On a well-kept street, I watched Knox lean on the buzzer of some tall, golden-colored brick building. He did some talking and then he was let in. I couldn’t be sure which one he’d pressed but I selected one at random and told them I was a courier. There was a buzz and then I heard the lock click back into its housing. I pushed through inside and closed it as quietly as I could behind me.
I could hear Knox on the stairwell above me. I had no idea which apartment Guzek lived in and wondered if Paul would have provided that level of detail.
I risked revealing myself by peering out beyond the handrail and looking up. Knox’s hand was poised against a door on the floor above but he stopped short of ringing the bell. Instead he went for higher ground. I heard his footfalls come to a stop halfway up the next flight. Far away enough to keep out of sight, close enough to see Guzek’s door. Smart. But not smart enough. Not close enough to get to me before I got in.
I knew Guzek would have access to his email on his phone. I remembered the name of a restaurant down the street we’d passed just as we arrived. I opened up my cell’s browser and logged into an email account I could spoof from. I typed in an address using his name and the Hudson protocol.
Mickey Mouse
To: [email protected]
Subject: URGENT re Charles Lau and friends
So you fucked up. You only get one more chance to finish the job. Be at Santorini’s in the next five minutes or all immunity will be revoked.
I didn’t know what email address Cole used or how he communicated with Guzek. I doubted he’d use Hudson’s. But I did know that the chances were high that Guzek would know they’d had Charlie killed and if so he’d be rattled. I also knew for certain very few people on earth outside of the CIA knew about his immunity deal. In any case, all I needed him to do was open his door and less than a minute later he did.
I powered across the landing in record time, beat him back inside his door and front kicked him far away from me into a heap on the floor. All before Knox could stop me. I heard him come in behind me but I was a good distance into the long and swanky hallway. I took a step forward and my leg throbbed from the effort I’d put into the kick. I limped forward another step closer toward my target.
‘You won’t reach me in time Knox,’ I said.
‘Don’t do it McGlynn,’ he said.
Guzek was back on his feet.
‘Oh let me have some fun Knox. He’s a big tough guy but I can still beat him.’
The man who’d killed my car, tried to kill me and engineered Charlie’s downfall seemed to have regained some composure but he was still the type who would always underestimate a woman.
‘You can’t do anything to me. I have complete immunity. I’m also a master in eight different fighting styles, you only practice karate no?’ he said. ‘And you seem to be injured.’
‘Karate and Krav Maga actually,’ I said.
‘Mm, not really a-’
I pulled out Lunnun’s gun. ‘Game over,’ I said and squeezed the trigger. Tomas Guzek crashed to the floor like a tree cut for lumber.
He looked up at me with absolute shock, turning pale while clutching at his leg. I’d one enough damage that he wouldn’t be getting to his feet or going anywhere.
‘We’re done here,’ I said to Knox. ‘We need to leave.’
‘I’ll bleed out,’ Guzek said. His veneer of bravado gone. ‘Please. Give me my phone.’
‘No need,’ I said. ‘Cole will be along in a minute. I told him you’d switched sides. That the FBI had talked you into testifying.’
Guzek’s already paling face turned a shade whiter. ‘He’ll kill me,’ he said.
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Not my problem,’ I said. ‘Never get involved with the Company.’
I tossed the gun just inside Guzek’s front door, closed it behind me and peeled off the gloves I’d been wearing. Cole was a professional. He’d make use of the tools at hand, be in and out and be gone. It would be Lunnun who took the fall. His would be the only prints the cops found on the weapon at the scene.
I walked back with Knox to his car.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘For what? You did what you needed to but stayed smart.’
‘I don’t like to be beaten.’
‘I get it.’
‘And I do trust you.’
‘I appreciate that.’
We reached his car and he opened the door for me.
‘Will you drive me to the airport?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I need to go away for a little while. Carry on with the skip traces until I get back?
Knox leaned on the door frame staring off into space for a moment before looking back at me. ‘All right,’ he said.
On the way to the airport I called Paul Harding.
I told him all about the malware and Charlie’s script and that I’d be able to get the code to him. But he already knew. Charlie must have called it in before…
‘Look after this?’ I said and took out my SIG.
Knox pointed at the glove box.
‘You need to swing by the Randall to collect a bag?’ he asked.
‘No. I’ll buy some beach clothes when I get somewhere and I’ve got my passport on me.’
I took out the large roll of bills I’d taken off Lunnun and a letter, handed it to Knox.
‘Give this to Lucy for me and tell her it will pay for more rehab for Chrissie or tell her to donate it to outreach if Chrissie won’t go.’
I closed my eyes and watched the freeway lights sweep over my lids and recalled the contents of the letter over and over in my head. I had written it so many different ways never quite finding adequate words, just ones people say when there’s no good alternative:
I hold on to a hope that someday you will be ready to accept help. That you will realize that you can make yourself a life from which you don’t feel the need to escape and that you are so, so worthy of love.
I will do everything in my power to make sure you receive what you need so that the beautiful person I once knew, who saved me from being broken, can also be fixed.
47
Aidan Cole
Cole was thankful for having somewhere to be every day even if it amounted to a cramped corner in the basement of an anonymous office building. He wasn’t one for decor anyway and more importantly he was now running his own team of four. It comprised of one very experienced guy who he suspected was there to keep an eye on things and report back to the main players if necessary, two with a reasonable amount of time under their belts and long enough to accept they were small compartmentalized units of a greater unquantifiable sum, plus one expendable rookie.
He’d positioned himself behind the four men currently working the angles so he could see what they were covering on their screens and any developing alerts as they happened in real time, all without them being able to see his own.
He could have asked for a separate office looking out over his domain, but wanted a buffer between developments that might need moderating and also didn’t want to appear to be a dick, all the while still remaining among and part of them. His main focus was on the corkboard however, displaying the photographs of the brunette and her associates.
‘I want everything on her. Every place she’s visited, places she’s visited more than once, and why. Any patterns you find. I want to know about the bot Lau controlled and who else he might have told about accessing it apart from those associates we already know about.’
With the sheer amount of machines enslaved by the bot and with no way of disrupting all of its servers, it was a time bomb with a serious payload, a capa
bility of distributing ninety billion emails containing links to ultra-sensitive data.
At one time, the information in the files could have been passed off as wild conspiracy theories but in this climate any journalist digging a little deeper would scent the way ahead led to a Pulitzer prize. At the very least it would be an embarrassment to the administration and cause a seismic shift as politicians tried to color themselves evangelical. Solving this problem was his holy grail. Failure was not a future.
The intel on the pair of them had been hard to crack and all of it was still not forthcoming but Lau was now out of the picture and McGlynn would break, eventually. He would see to that.
All four screens in front of his team went black simultaneously and then text appeared, too small to read from where he was positioned. A phone started to ring.
‘Someone get that for me?’ Cole said.
He moved back to check his own machine. On it, the usual graphic user interface, standardized across the agency, had also changed like the rest.
The guy with the hotline to the top held out the phone. ‘Reardon,’ he said.
Cole stared at the text on his computer screen.
You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write ‘Fuck you’ right under your nose. AV1
Article in the San Francisco Chronicle
The Infinite 9 is a movement not a group. An internet-based super-consciousness that, like birds flocking together, has a common purpose. Its membership is in a constant state of flux; as some leave more join, while others peel off in new directions.
i9 is at a minimum thought-provoking, hiding behind anonymity while highlighting the importance of privacy in an era when governments track our every move online. The group uses the surveillance designed to oppress us and turns it back against our oppressors. There is a problem with the veracity of our news, along with impartiality, which is difficult when news corporations are owned and financed by a few.
