by Nick Thacker
Vasquez nodded again, as if understanding.
There is much you do not understand, Vazquez. There is much you cannot understand.
SARA, ever present in the room, disconnected the call and checked in with her boss. “I am preparing a transcript now,” she said. “Would you like for me to alert Antarctica about the additional security team?”
Francis leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed as he waited for the pill to take affect. He shook his head. “No, we must keep communications to a minimum, and there is no reason to alert them. The new security team will be traveling with their own equipment and supplies, and there is plenty of room in the facility for additional guests.”
SARA, reading the body language and nonverbal communication cues of her boss, did not audibly confirm the order. She simply disengaged her software link with the room, drifted back into the silent vortex of the innards of the faraway server room she was housed in, and began to work.
CHAPTER Two
“Ben, this is getting ridiculous,” Juliette Richardson said. She turned and stared at the large man standing next to her.
“Jules, stop taking your eyes off the target.” Harvey Bennett held her gaze, but he winked just before she turned away again to stare downrange. He watched her gently rest her index finger on the trigger, then looked behind him.
The man standing behind both of them nodded once, not diverting his sunglasses-covered eyes from the lane at the outdoor shooting range. “Remember, don’t anticipate the trigger pull. When you’re ready to shoot, surprise yourself.”
Julie stood ramrod-straight, the only sign she wasn’t a statue the slight up and down motion of her shoulders as she breathed in and out. Ben waited, doing a poor job himself of trying not to anticipate the gunshot. He jumped when she fired the Sig Sauer.
The three of them all squinted, trying to see where her shot had landed. It was a relatively small distance, the target Julie was aiming for only halfway between her and the back mound of the range. Still, it was a tough distance for a mere handgun, and Julie had hit the target almost dead-center.
“Well,” Ben said. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Reggie, you’re a fine teacher.”
“That mean you’re going to listen to me without question from now on?”
Ben just smiled at the large black man. “So you’re able to get a feel for our posture by standing back behind us like that?”
Reggie lowered his sunglasses to the tip of his nose and looked out at Ben and Julie, scrunching up his face at the same time. “Sure, yeah, that’s why I’m standing back here.”
Ben looked from Julie to Reggie, then back again. He turned and faced Reggie. “I like you, but don’t make me knock you on your ass.”
Reggie threw his head back in a fit of laughter, his characteristic huge grin turning into a similarly huge chuckle. Julie had reached the end of her magazine and started disassembling the weapon and cleaning it, just like Reggie had trained them.
Ben walked up to Reggie and pretended to throw a punch. At the last moment he stopped his arm, opened his hand, and gently tapped Reggie on the side of his face with his palm.
“If that’s how you’re going to hit, it seems like we need to have some hand-to-hand combat training as well,” Reggie said. “Come here, man. Let’s talk.” He raised his voice so Julie could hear as well. “Head on over here to the table when you’re done, Jules.”
Julie nodded, her back still to the men. Ben followed Reggie to the picnic table a few paces away and sat down.
“Listen, Ben.”
Ben felt the change in the man’s voice immediately. Reggie’s eyes shifted, somehow becoming more intense. He had placed his sunglasses on the table in front of him, and his hands were now fiddling with an unspent round he had removed from a clip on the edge of the table.
Julie joined them at the table just as Reggie began talking.
“I didn’t come here just to visit,” Reggie said. “Your chili is awesome, and I’m glad we could get together, of course, but there’s something else.”
Ben glanced over to Julie, who raised her eyebrows.
“You guys already figured there was something going on, huh?” Reggie asked.
Ben and Julie nodded. “It’s not like a trip from Brazil to Alaska is a just a ‘weekend getaway’ thing,” Julie said. “We’re glad you came, but we had a hunch you were going to tell us something.”
Ben jumped in. “Did you find them?”
Reggie shook his head. “No, unfortunately. They pretty much went radio silent after the Amazon incident, which any of us could have predicted. Most of the leads Joshua was following dried up or became dead ends, and he still can’t get ahold of his father.”
Ben felt a pang of regret, the remembrance of his own father coming to the forefront of his mind as he thought about his new friend, Joshua Jefferson, and his struggle to get in contact with his father. Both men worked for a company Ben had been tracking for six months, and his search had taken him and Julie to the Amazon rainforest — where it had nearly ended in disaster.
They had barely escaped with their lives, after a harrowing journey into a remote section of one of the world’s deadliest geographic areas. The secrets they’d discovered and the knowledge they gleaned from the trip were substantial, but the entire reason Ben had gone along had ended up a failure. The whole point of the risky journey was to bring to light the organization behind the deadly attacks at Yellowstone National Park less than a year earlier, and it had been a bust.
He felt no closer to learning who was behind it all, and he knew the trail was growing colder with every passing day.
“So what did you come all this way to tell us?” Ben asked.
Reggie sighed, then looked around. The range was mostly empty, save for a few employees and a couple at the far end. He looked back at Ben and Julie, still messing with the sunglasses. “Do you remember Dr. Archibald Quinones?” he asked.
Ben frowned, surprised. “Of course we do. How could we forget?” Archie Quinones had trekked with them through the jungle, his knowledge of the area’s history and anthropology, as well as his go-getter attitude, a huge morale booster.
“Right, yeah,” Reggie said. “Well, do you remember his reaction when it was all over?”
Julie jumped in. “He seemed… reserved, I guess. Like he was still taking it all in.”
“And I’m sure he was. We all were.”
Ben thought for a moment, then added. “He seemed like he was thinking about… Wait — the inheritance!”
Reggie smiled. “Exactly. He mentioned ‘an inheritance’ he had. I don’t know much more than that, but he isn’t prone to exaggeration, so I would imagine it’s sizable. And he mentioned helping Amanda Meron fund her research.”
Dr. Meron’s company had made significant strides in neurological research before and after the incident a few months ago, and when Draconis Industries had come into the picture it had nearly derailed the research altogether. Instead, Dr. Meron was able to take her research and findings elsewhere and — thanks to the money provided by Archibald Quinones — start over.
“I’m surprised she jumped back into things after…” Julie let the sentence die on the tip of her tongue, obviously not needing to finish it.
“It took a little coaxing to get her back in the game,” Reggie said. “And besides, half the money he gave her was spent on security and encryption for their cloud-based data sharing systems. Whatever that means.”
Ben chuckled, then waited for Reggie to look him in the eye once again. “Seriously, Reggie, what’s up? If it’s got something to do with Archie’s money and Amanda’s research…”
Reggie nodded, then finished the sentence for him. “…Then it has to have something to do with Draconis Industries.”
Ben waited, and noticed Julie was sitting up a little straighter on the bench.
“It does. It’s the last lead we have, but it’s a good one. I mentioned that we haven’t found them yet, and that most of Jo
shua’s leads have dried up, but not all of them. Something came up last week I think you should hear about.”
CHAPTER three
Even without knowing exactly what Reggie was talking about, Ben was trying to put his thoughts in order. He had been chasing this company for half a year, but everything he’d done had ended in failure. Every time he showed up to search for the organization, people ended up dead. He had nearly given up altogether, but — surprisingly enough — Julie had kept him focused on the goal.
After Brazil, she had urged him to file an official report with the Central Intelligence Agency. She had worked in the government sector for some time, helping the Centers for Disease Control establish their Biological Threat Resistance team, then navigate the fallout after the Yellowstone situation ended poorly for the BTR group. She had taken a job at Ben’s park in Alaska doing IT support, but continued to help the CDC and other US organizations on a contract basis.
As she liked to say, when she wasn’t being asked to be the public face of American crisis mitigation, she was doing actual work helping the US government discover the next possible threat to American citizens.
So she’d found an eager ear in the CIA, who had so far been unable to dig up anything useful on the organization that called themselves ‘Draconis Industries.’ The group was organized into subsidiaries, including pharmaceutical companies, medical and technology research firms, and a plethora of other for-profit corporations in differing industries. Their common tie was in name only: most of the smaller organizations used some form of the word ‘dragon,’ in different languages, in their name. Drache Global, Drage Medisinsk, and Dragonstone were all companies they had researched. Each had turned up clean, the trail to the top of the parent organization littered with paper trails, fake bank accounts, and legal loopholes that made nailing down the actual leaders impossible.
Ben had reluctantly agreed, and the meeting was arranged. He had worn a cheap suit, picked out by Julie, but he’d refused to wear a tie. The man he met with was casual, wearing jeans and a tucked-in long-sleeve shirt, and asked a few questions about their trip to Brazil. Ben had answered everything honestly — albeit succinctly — and then left less than an hour later.
At home, Julie interrogated him all over again, and he had just shrugged when she’d asked if he thought the CIA would be able to help with the investigation.
In his opinion, the government was about as useless as a kidney stone. He loved the irony of working for a national park, as if he was living inside his own twisted joke.
Reggie was staring back at Ben from across the table. The sound of helicopter rotors in the distance suddenly reached Ben’s ears, helping him focus again on the man sitting with him and Julie.
“Guys, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
The helicopter wash grew in volume, and both Ben and Julie looked up to see a Bell helicopter traveling low, heading toward them.
Ben raised his voice to counteract the noise. “Reggie, you’re being very vague. If you expect me to get on a plane and travel God-knows-where to meet some—“
Reggie held up a hand, and his smile grew even larger. “Good news, Ben! It’s not a plane — at least not for this leg. See?”
Ben followed Reggie’s finger as the helicopter slowly circled the gun range, descending.
Julie’s mouth fell open.
Ben’s mouth closed, clenched tight. He forced words through the small gap between his lips. “Reggie, I hate flying. It doesn’t matter what kind of aircraft it is.”
Reggie feigned looking hurt. “Ben, I arranged this trip according to your exact specifications.”
Ben rolled his eyes as the helicopter found a decent landing pad a few hundred feet from the range’s main building. They all watched as the chopper set down on the grass, disturbed dirt flying up and swirling around the aircraft.
“Listen, both of you,” Reggie continued. “I’m sorry for the short notice, but I didn’t want to ruin our time together. I know we had dinner plans in town, but you’re going to be very happy with the accommodations and food where we’re going.”
Julie squinted, and Ben watched her expression, feeling the same way. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic.
“You need to meet this man. He’s insisted you both come down.”
Reggie stood up from the table, and Ben found himself following along, against his better judgement. Julie grabbed Ben’s hand and stood up as well, and all three began walking toward the chopper.
“Reggie, where are we going?” Julie asked. “Your place in Brazil again?” Reggie had saved their lives in Brazil by hiding them out on his land, which included a shooting range, a survival camp, and his home. More accurately a concrete bunker he called his home. They’d narrowly dodged an attack by sneaking into the jungle behind his property, but the explosions and shells had done a number on his buildings and land.
“No, I’m still trying to sell that. Been somewhat of a nomad for the past few months. The range was fun, but didn’t bring much in. I can teach survival and self-defense almost anywhere, so after the attack I thought it’d be easier to sell it as-is than deal with trying to convince the insurance company I didn’t have a war there. I got a nice settlement out of it all, so I took it and didn’t press them for more. Actually, I’m thinking about moving back to the States. Somewhere cold would be a nice change of pace.” He winked at Ben.
“Yeah, you should build a fancy cabin next to ours,” Ben said. “But like ten miles away, or it defeats the purpose.”
They all laughed, then Julie reverted the conversation back to the topic at hand. “Seriously, where are we going?”
Reggie grinned, and shrugged. “Ultimately? I have absolutely no idea. But this first phase — to meet Mr. E, we’re going to Colorado.”
“‘Mr. E?’” Ben asked. “Who is this, some sort of comic book superhero wannabe?”
Reggie snorted a quick laugh. “That might actually be easier to swallow. But no, I believe it’s just the first letter of his name. He doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, and he’s more of a paranoid freak than I am.”
And that’s saying something, Ben thought.
“So,” Julie asked. “Where does this ‘Mr. E’ want to meet us in Colorado?”
Reggie stopped short, taking Ben by surprise. He turned to face them, still a hundred feet from the waiting helicopter.
“Glad you asked,” he said. “Have you ever been to The Broadmoor?”
CHAPTER four
Julie felt like a schoolgirl on her prom night, hanging on to the arm of the man she loved. She had plastered a massive grin on her face, and — even though she knew she looked ridiculous — she refused to tone it down.
She and Ben were dressed up, Ben in khakis and a silky Oxford shirt, and her in a gorgeous maroon fall dress she’d purchased from the Broadmoor gift shop after they’d landed at Colorado Springs International Airport. Ben had complained the entire time he was getting ready, but he’d stopped mid-sentence when she’d stepped out of the massive hotel bathroom wearing the backless dress, no shoes, and the earrings she’d sent him the link for that he’d purchased for her birthday.
Julie hadn’t considered that they might have to get dressed twice, but when they’d finally made it out to the bridge connecting the two sides of the lake on the hotel grounds, she was absolutely giddy.
“Ben, this place is amazing.”
Ben just shrugged, but she stopped and looked up at him until he burst out laughing.
“Yeah, it’s all right, I guess,” he said.
They walked across the bridge and stopped at one of the benches along the railing. She took out her phone from the clutch she was carrying — which happened to perfectly match the dress — and snapped a few selfies.
The Broadmoor was bathed in the gentle glow of thousands of lightbulbs, strung up in trees, and the period piece streetlights dotting the walkways around the grounds. Couples and families quietly strode about, heading to or from dinner or one
of the numerous bars and entertainment venues the resort offered.
After the best Italian cuisine Julie had ever had — Prosciutto flown in daily from Parma, Italy, among many other chef’s specialties — in the restaurant on the west side of the lake, they were supposed to meet up with Reggie in one of the ballrooms in the classic East Wing. Julie knew Ben wanted to make Reggie wait so they could go back to the room and ‘change clothes’ once more, but Julie was dead-set on making the appointment.
The banquet hall matched the elaborate old world decor of the rest of the campus, and it was difficult for Julie to focus on the attendees in the room when they entered. High archways split the room into smaller sections, and each arch was lit by hand-decorated sconces that cast a gentle, even yellow on the ornate trim and crown molding. The picturesque archways pulled her eyes upward to the ceiling, another carefully crafted design feature of the room. Small recessed can lights provided to the rest of the room what the evening moonlight streaming in from one wall could not. Behind a massive wall of glass, an indoor water fountain just outside the room in the main lobby provided the backdrop to a gorgeous scene.
“Jules,” Ben said, calling for her attention. She snapped back to the moment and realized that everyone in the room was staring at her.
Reggie was there, smiling of course, seated alongside Joshua Jefferson, the man who had chased them through the Amazon until he’d been betrayed by his own men, his company, and — perhaps — his own father. Joshua sat straight up in the chair, his arms resting on the table, looking stoic. His dusty brown hair and boyish face hid a hardness that Julie had experienced firsthand, as well as a cunning that had saved their lives more than once.
Across from Joshua, standing next to where Reggie was sitting, was the largest woman Julia had ever seen. Julie thought she would have looked more at home standing in the Amazon rainforest. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and it nearly gave Julie a headache just looking at it. Her eyes were the same color as her dark-brown hair, and they had the slightest hint of age lines curling downward next to them. She wore a lighthearted, airy expression that almost perfectly opposed Joshua’s, but her arms — thick and beefy with muscle — were crossed in front of her chest.
