The Shadow File (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 4)

by A. C. Fuller

  And she had.

  Opening the Collude app, I saw her message immediately.

  Alex,

  You did it.

  Thanks for trusting me.

  Someday I'd like to hear the story of how you got that USB drive out of Cuba, and how you activated the attack. But first, you deserve to hear my story.

  I think you saw that I was shot, and you were smart to run when you did. My cousin Juan, along with three other innocent Cuban police officers, were murdered by Amand's men. But you saved Grandma Martinez.

  I was lucky. I was hit in the shoulder, probably because they wanted to keep me alive. I passed out, and, when I woke up, I found myself in a room in an old house, tied to a board.

  The bullet in my shoulder had been removed, my wound bandaged. For at least half a day, I came in and out of consciousness, hearing only the occasional creak of a door or far away voice. They were waiting for Amand to arrive.

  When I awoke, he was standing over me, smiling horribly. But even half-conscious, I could read the fear in his eyes.

  They injected me—cocaine or some other upper—and I became alert, on edge. They moved me to a large, cold room. More of a shed than a room. High ceilings, corrugated metal, and a large, wood-burning stove.

  Then, they asked questions and tortured me.

  I refused as long as I could, but, finally, I gave in.

  I convinced myself that it had been days since the shootout, that you and Greta were either dead, or already safely back in the U.S. I know now that it hadn't been days, but my mind had given up.

  I'm sorry.

  I told them about the USB drive, told them I could disarm the hack from Cuba if they could get me to a network. It was desperation, but I think they were equally desperate because they bandaged me, cloaked my head, and transported me to what must have been a government facility or CIA location.

  I fooled them for the first few hours. But then someone new showed up, someone who knew hacking. He figured out that I was only pretending to code and run programs, and told Amand. I thought they'd take me back to the shed.

  Then, all of a sudden, they left.

  Amand was first to go. When his phone rang, he walked out to take the call and didn't return. A few minutes later, the new guy's phone rang and he left. One by one, all the other guys crept out. Some of them whispered stuff to each other before they left, some just left quietly.

  After an hour or so, I crawled out of the room. Half my toes were gone—are gone. I couldn't walk, but I could crawl.

  And that's what I did. Out of a small brick building just twenty minutes drive from Guantanamo. Across a field. Under an abandoned entry gate and out into the road.

  I hitchhiked to safety, and nobody stopped me.

  That's the thing about private security companies: when they realize their paycheck is going to bounce, there's nothing keeping them there. Wipe their servers and they stop existing. And I did.

  You likely won't ever hear from me again, not unless I get too curious about how you managed to get that USB drive back to the U.S. But know that I'm safe in Cuba.

  Amand will go to prison, and I've destroyed what needed destroying. If I went too far…well, I paid with half of my toes. I will never fully recover.

  I'm quitting hacking. Maybe I'll grow tobacco.

  Goodbye, Alex.

  I.S.

  I read the message twice, then found Greta, who was still watching TV with Bird. She read the message as I read it again over her shoulder. Before she could say anything, I felt Mia's hand on my arm.

  "Sorry to bother you, Alex, but I thought you'd want to take the call on line one."

  "Who is it?" I asked

  She was pointing through my office window, out into the open office space at the wall-mounted TVs, all of which had Amand's face plastered across them. "Him," she said.

  42

  "So, I guess Amand is your real name," I said, sitting in my chair and putting my feet up on the desk. "I honestly didn't expect that."

  "Listen, Alex. You deserve to gloat. You beat me. You and Innerva beat me, but there's something we need to talk about."

  I almost hung up the phone but I decided to let the silence hang there. He was going down, and we both knew it. I'd never enjoyed silence more.

  "I need your help," he said finally. "You and Greta are two of the only people on earth who know that I wasn't behind the attack. Not counting Innerva, who, well…Some of the higher-ups at the companies she attacked know as well, but they're not going to correct the record. Innerva gave them a tidy story to tell about this whole thing, and they're going to let me hang for it. Alex, we go back…c'mon, help me out here."

  I said nothing.

  "Alex, I'm asking for your help. You might disagree with some of my methods, but you know I've done more good than harm. You know that, ultimately, we're on the same side."

  I said nothing.

  "Alex, please…people will believe you if you tell them I didn't do it. You're a journalist, dammit. I know you, I know that more than anything you want the truth to be told. All I'm asking you to do is tell the truth. You'd scoop the entire world on this, and it'd be the right thing to do, you know it would."

  His tone was growing increasingly desperate and, I have to admit, I was enjoying myself immensely. Innerva had set him up to take the fall, and, at the same time, ensured that Lance, Greta and I would never catch any of the blame.

  "Please, Alex," he continued. "Goddammit please. They're gonna let me take the fall for this and—"

  "I'm gonna cut you off there, Amand."

  He shut up, and I took another second to relish the silence. For a moment, I thought I might even explain in a calm, rational way why I wasn't going to help him.

  Instead, I stood up and pressed my mouth right into the phone. "You're going to die in prison you son of a bitch!"

  43

  Smedley was waiting at the door as usual, and I'd never been happier to hear his paws on the door. Greta stepped in first as I held the door, and I followed.

  Smedley ran around in a crazed frenzy for a few seconds, then calmed down and stopped at my side as I put down our bags. The great thing about dogs is that they're sensitive. He could tell something was off, and was toning down his energy enough to accommodate the fact that we were exhausted. Of course, he didn't know what we'd been through, but I believe he knew we'd been through something.

  Instead of standing on his hind legs and trying to climb up my body, as he usually did, he nestled his head against my leg. I reached down and pet the top of his head as Greta kicked off her shoes and fell onto the couch.

  "I don't think I've ever been happier to be home," she said.

  I sat at the end of the couch and pulled her feet onto my lap as Smedley curled up on the floor next to my feet. "As the Internet likes to say, 'Same.'"

  "Can we not talk about the Internet ever again?"

  I was too worn out to argue. "Sure. Deal."

  "I'm not one of those anti-technology people, you know that. I love my phone as much as the next person, but do you ever think that we're headed for a catastrophe? Like we're in way over our heads, and things are changing too fast for anyone to keep up?"

  "Sometimes," I said. "But other times I think that that's what people must have felt during the industrial revolution, or when TV was invented. Remember Camila?"

  Camila was an old friend from New York City. A media studies professor who had moved back to Iowa to take care of her mom, then stayed.

  "Of course I do," Greta said. "Have you heard from her lately?"

  "Not for years, but I know she has a new book out. It's called something like, 'AI Love,' as in Artificial Intelligence Love. We published a review of it on our media blog. It's about the oncoming age of artificial intelligence and how humans are going to have to adjust our views of our superiority once AI becomes way smarter than us."

  Greta lay her head back on the arm of the couch and stared at the ceiling. "If I know Camila, that's n
ot all it's about."

  "No, she also writes about how, instead of the fact of AI making humans less important, it actually makes us more important. Because, in her view, we will still have things AI never will."

  "Like emotions, instincts, and love?"

  "Yeah, the idea is that we can train machines, and AI will be able to train itself, to mimic the response to emotions, to love, but it won't be able to actually feel them subjectively in the way that humans do. They'll be able to do things we can't, but we'll be able to do things they can't."

  "Right, I buy that, but why are you bringing this up?"

  There was something I'd been thinking about since our first night in Havana, since Greta had told me that I was okay the way I was. I know it sounds corny, but even though I'd heard that a million times, seen it on a million memes, Greta saying it in Havana was the only time I'd believed it. The only time I'd felt it.

  Feeling I was okay from her had changed something in me, something that had been moving in me quietly over the last few days, even as the world fell apart around me, then came back together. "I think we should try to have a baby," I said.

  Greta pressed her feet into my leg as a way of acknowledging what I'd said without speaking. I looked over, and her eyes were on the ceiling.

  "Greta, you heard me, right?"

  I don't know why I asked that. I could tell from the way she stared at the ceiling that she'd heard me, and that she was thinking or feeling things I couldn't know. Things I'd never know.

  As much as I wish I could fully understand her, I hadn't carried our baby in my body for nine months, then lost it. I felt the loss, sure. But mostly I covered it up, ran from it, worked so hard I didn't have time to think about it.

  But Greta had lived with it in a different way. A way I knew was there, but knew I could never fully empathize with.

  "Yeah, I heard," she said at last. "What made you think of that just now? The AI talk?"

  "I was thinking about how important kids will be. But mostly I was thinking about how I want to be a dad."

  "You didn't feel that first time around, did you?"

  "I…"

  "It's not your fault. I know you tried to want it. I'm not blaming you. But you weren't ready. Neither was I, maybe. And, in any case, it didn't happen."

  She closed her eyes and sighed. She was fighting back tears, as she did every time we talked about the daughter we'd lost. Then she said something that surprised me. "You don't think I'm too old?"

  "You're in better shape than any forty-two year old woman I know."

  "That's got nothing to do with it. I looked it up. Odds are lower, risks are higher, and my yoga mat doesn't change that."

  "I know, but—"

  "Plus, you have a habit of getting into danger."

  "This last one wasn't my fault, it was—"

  She pressed her foot into my chest to get me to shut up. It was another one of those times when I wanted to talk and she wanted to feel.

  After a long silence, she said, "There are upsides to being older, though."

  I opened my mouth, but thought better of it. So I looked down at Smedley, who sensed movement and looked up at me before laying his head back on his paws.

  "We're better at things now," she continued. "More stable. I'd like to think that we've been through the rough patches of our relationship. I'd like to think we're wiser."

  "I'd like to think so, too," I offered.

  But Greta seemed to be talking to herself more than to me.

  "We have enough money now that I could work part-time for a while. You could work from home some, too. We do have the spare bedroom, so…"

  The sun was setting and the sky held an orangish glow that seemed to soften everything in the apartment. Everything in the apartment felt realer than ever before, like all my senses were on high alert, but not out of fear or worry.

  I reached down and touched Smedley's head and he pressed his face into my hands.

  "Alex, do we still have that bottle of sake in the cupboard? The one my cousin sent?"

  "Yeah."

  In one deft motion, she swiveled her feet off my lap and rolled onto my lap. She kissed me on the lips, long and slow, pressing her face into mine and we both let our eyes lock softly.

  Then she stood up, took my hand, and pulled me toward the kitchen. "Then let's have a glass and make a baby."

  —End—

  Dear Reader,

  Flip forward for a free preview of my new series.

  Series List: The Alex Vane Media Thrillers

  The Cutline

  (An Alex Vane Novella)—Available free, and only though my website

  The Anonymous Source

  (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 1)

  The Inverted Pyramid

  (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 2)

  The Mockingbird Drive

  (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 3)

  The Shadow File

  (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 4)

  ***

  Or get books 1-3 together in the boxed set

  The Alex Vane Media Thrillers: 1-3

  Author Notes, October 2017

  Thanks for reading!

  More than any book I've written, The Shadow File was a collaboration. I created this story with my brother, Noah Brand, in a bar in Portland. Joined by my wife Amanda, we expanded it in a coffee shop near Seattle, then fine-tuned it over G-Chat and Google Docs.

  Though I do the bulk of the writing, many of the cleverest lines come from Noah. Without him as a writing partner, this book wouldn't exist.

  I also owe thanks to Amy Qualls, Noah's wife and my sister-in-law, who shared hundreds of photos of their recent trip to Cuba. This book wouldn't have been possible without that trip, and without their eagerness to share it with me.

  As always, my wife Amanda deserves something more than thanks. She supports my writing tirelessly and enthusiastically and, in addition to helping create the outline of this story, her keen editorial eye passed over every word. Though the relationship between Alex and Greta isn't based on ours, I've included some of Amanda's best qualities in Greta, and I love her as much as Alex loves Greta.

  I also want to thank my dad, Robert W. Fuller, whose last-minute reading of this book improved it beyond measure.

  In addition, I'd like to thank Victoria Cooper, who designed the cover for this book, Melissa Panio-Peterson, who helps me in countless ways, and all my friends and readers on my Street Team and ARC Team.

  As eager as I am to begin work on the fifth Alex Vane book, I'm now hard at work on another project, one I love just as much.

  It's called Ameritocracy.

  It's a series of books about a woman named Mia Rhodes—the same Mia Rhodes who keeps The Barker running in The Mockingbird Drive and The Shadow File. In the Ameritocracy series, Mia is striking out on her own with a big idea to transform American democracy at the crossroads of politics, media, and technology.

  Early readers are calling Ameritocracy a combination of political thriller, social satire, and the personal journey of an idealist in a less-than-ideal world. I think of it as West Wing meets American Idol, and you can flip the page to find out why.

  The first book is out now, and I’ve included a few sample chapters. Just flip the page a few times.

  As always, thanks for all the support,

  A.C. Fuller

  Introducing my new series: AMERITOCRACY

  What if someone harnessed the power of the internet to destroy the two-party system?

  After a lifetime of political disillusionment, Mia Rhodes created an alternative to the two-party system: Ameritocracy. Part American Idol, part Iowa Caucus, her online political competition promises to find the most popular independent candidate in America and give them a genuine shot to win the presidency in 2020.

  Anyone can run. The American people vote online. And the winner receives instant fame and a campaign warchest to battle the Democrats and Republicans in 2020.

  But he
r project flounders until Mia catches the eye of eccentric tech billionaire Peter Colton. With Peter's money and Mia's media savvy, Ameritocracy moves rapidly from punchline to possibility.

  But as the site grows, Mia's life threatens to spin out of control. And as the stakes rise crisis by crisis, Mia must learn that ending politics as we know it means saying goodbye to the Mia Rhodes she has always known.

  Discover the new series early readers are calling: "The West Wing meets Survivor" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for the social media age."

  Grab the Book Here or Flip the page for a free preview.

  Free Preview: OPEN PRIMARY (Ameritocracy, Book 1)

  1

  July, 2019

  The first thing I ever did in life was swing the 1988 election. The simple fact of my existence—combined with my father's hypocrisy—destroyed any chance the Democrats had that year.

  Maybe that explains why I avoided politics for the first couple decades of my life. Or maybe it was because I can't stand liars, and even the most virtuous politicians are liars from time to time. But I can't avoid politics anymore, and I don't want to.

  Things have gone too far.

  That's why I'm at Colton Industries in Santa Clarissa, California, just fifteen minutes from Stanford University. I'm sitting in the steel and marble lobby of Building 7, as team after team of Project X presenters stream out of the hall of doom. The hall where dreams go to die. The hall where I'll be spending the most important fifteen minutes of my life.

  I should be refining my closing pitch and double-checking my spreadsheets, but I'm nervous, so I distract myself by peering at the cute guy at the reception counter. He greeted me when I arrived, handed me a bottle of Colton Brand artesian spring water, and asked me to take a seat. For the last twenty minutes, I've been sitting in a leather armchair, watching his high-top fade peek out over the top of his iMac.