The Savior's Game (The Daniel Byrne Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Chercover

Julia smiled. “Social media feeds our conspiracy culture, and I think that’s been blown out of proportion. Look at it this way: With Tim Trinity and AIT, our concept of reality took a hit. People began asking the big questions again—questions of a metaphysical nature. For most, that means questions of a religious nature. The top three religions in the world—Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism—all predict an apocalyptic future for humanity, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that people raised in these belief systems who are now experiencing a mental health crisis would come to believe that Trinity and all the other anxiety factors are signs of the apocalypse. But Tim Trinity himself did not predict an apocalypse, and neither has any other confirmed AIT sufferer, as far as we know.”

  “Bullshit,” muttered a man’s voice from down the bar. Daniel ignored it.

  Julia was saying, “Just as nature abhors a vacuum, human nature abhors an information vacuum. In the absence of information, conspiracy theories thrive and spread on social media, driving the public closer to panic. It’s too late to keep AIT quiet, and continued secrecy doesn’t seem to be serving the public good.”

  Daniel felt a slight pang of guilt in his gut as she looked straight into the camera and added, “I’m optimistic that someone who knows more about AIT will be moved by the public protests to check their moral compass, and will see the need to come forward.”

  But Daniel had told Julia what he could, and guilt wasn’t productive. The non-disclosure agreement he’d signed upon joining the Fleur-de-Lis Foundation had been a symbolic gesture. If he passed the Foundation’s secrets to a journalist, they wouldn’t sue him, they’d just end him. One of the downsides of getting involved with the shadow world of billionaire power brokers and the secret games they play.

  “Complete load of bullshit.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Daniel turned from the television to the two men down the bar to his right. Slightly drunk business travelers, midwestern accents, one maybe twenty-eight, the other maybe forty, both wearing midrange suits, cheap haircuts, and expensive watches.

  The younger one said, “I mean, Julia Rothman, right? Probably a mouthpiece for the Illuminati, part of the cover-up. Shoveling disinformation so we don’t find out who’s really behind AIT.”

  The older one said, “She could be and not even know it, the way they control corporate lamestream media. Twitter’s the only real journalism left.”

  Daniel turned away from the idiots, took a deep breath, and let it out. The way the younger man had leaned into Julia’s surname made Daniel want to hit him, but getting arrested at JFK was not part of a winning survival strategy. He rattled the ice in his drink, held the cold glass against his temple to ease the headache now coming on.

  He tossed back the rest of his drink and signaled the bartender for the check, as the headache grew constant, like a weather headache.

  Like an AIT headache.

  Was that cinnamon he tasted in the background, peeking out from behind the amber rum? Or was he just imagining it, looking for it and fearing it at the same time? He couldn’t tell.

  Jesus.

  Being in an assassin’s crosshairs sucked donkey balls, to use Chess Girl’s expression, but at least it was a problem to be dealt with. Dealing with it while losing his mind, however, was proving a challenge.

  Before Drapeau arrived with his van of horrors, Daniel had been progressing, gaining some control of his AIT. Now he felt completely out of control, of everything. The memory of blinking out on Lexington Avenue arose in Daniel unbidden—the feeling of utter helplessness, as control slipped away—and for a moment, he felt untethered in space and time.

  Damn it.

  Daniel hadn’t had an AIT vision after passing out on the street. AIT visions were not like normal dreams, which are sometimes forgotten upon awakening only to surface in memory later. Every time Daniel had been hit with AIT while asleep, he’d awakened with the vision in the forefront of his mind.

  So Daniel had successfully resisted AIT, but at the cost of passing out in the street. And with an assassin on his tail, that represented no survival advantage.

  Before he’d lost consciousness, Dana Cameron’s voice had told him to cross over, which suggested that she could enter and exit the vision at will, presumably without passing out. Perhaps she could teach him how.

  She’d also warned him—not for the first time—of a devastated city with many dead. And this time, she’d spoken of it in the future tense. Was this coming event connected with Lucien Drapeau?

  Daniel had only had one drink at the airport bar but it felt like four, and this line of thinking was not helping to quell his growing sense of unreality.

  Change the channel in your head. Now.

  Daniel dropped too much money on the bar and got out of there in a hurry. He stopped near his gate and rented time at an iPad kiosk, where he directed the browser to the news site of the Barbados Advocate, searching for normalcy.

  Top story: The prime minister was hosting a celebratory dinner, honoring the men’s and women’s West Indies cricket teams, both of which had recently become world champions. Nice.

  After reinventing himself in Barbados as Ian Shefras, Daniel had taken in a few cricket matches at Kensington Oval. Though he’d fought in Golden Gloves as a teen and still watched boxing on TV occasionally, his heart belonged to baseball. People who don’t like cricket often complain of the length and pace of the game, something baseball fans are used to hearing from those sad souls who have no baseball love in their hearts, so he thought he might enjoy cricket.

  He was wrong. He found the game unfathomable, couldn’t get into it. What he loved, and what he returned for, was the social scene at the Oval. The characters and costumes, the betting and banter, the music of Mac Fingall and his band.

  Despite coping with the voices and visions in his head, the nightmares and adrenaline rushes and lost sleep, Daniel had been optimistic in that life. The spy game behind him, focusing not on power plays and politics, but on the phenomenon he was experiencing.

  Focusing on the here and now, with hope for a future, maybe even a future with Kara.

  He had to get back to that.

  Had to.

  Daniel tapped on the iPad to bring up the next story.

  A large crane had toppled over on the building site of a new five-star resort, crushing two bungalows still under construction and ripping the front wall off a larger completed building. Seven workers had been taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital with moderate to serious injuries. The Minister of Labor had appeared before reporters to announce the launch of an accident investigation by Occupational Safety and Health.

  Daniel moved on to the next story. It brought a welcome smile.

  A coalition of Bajan church ladies had released a statement expressing disapproval of Rihanna’s latest antics and urging the government to allocate funds for promoting moral rectitude among the island’s youth. Meanwhile, the island’s youth were celebrating the news that Rihanna would be coming home for a concert to coincide with next year’s Crop Over festival.

  Maybe Daniel would see the show, if he made it to the next year alive and halfway sane.

  10

  Planters Inn—Savannah, Georgia

  Today is a good day to die. But I’ve decided to stay alive until tomorrow.

  Daniel ended his meditation with the phrase he’d learned in the Foundation’s dojo, as he had every morning since his training.

  He opened his eyes and stood from zazen, then went through his katas in the spacious hotel room, took a quick shower, and sat on the canopied bed, his laptop in front of him, a borrowed atlas serving as a lap desk.

  On the screen, a web page displayed text transcriptions of his voice-mails. He had a Digicel wireless account—a 246 number assigned to Ian Shefras, the Foundation-created identity Daniel had lived under in Barbados. He’d destroyed the phone before leaving the island, and the SIM card was now traveling the world on perpetual tour, tucked under the upholstery of seat 4C in
a Delta Airlines Boeing 777. But the number lived on, account paid, and the voice-mail still functioned. Accessing it was a manageable risk.

  Daniel was connected to the web through multiple levels of encryption and anonymizers. Even if Drapeau or his employer were watching, and even if they were willing to devote a shit-ton of computing power to the task, by the time the trail of electronic breadcrumbs pointed here, Daniel would be out of the country.

  Accessing the voice-mails themselves was an even taller order for a hypothetical intruder. If you had a facsimile of Daniel’s thumbprint and also got by the password, then you’d see an empty voice-mail box. The Foundation’s geeks had hacked Digicel and installed a software patch, making the account status constantly refresh as NRA—No Recent Activity. You’d have to then click through into an apparently empty mailbox to discover that emptiness can be an illusion.

  Daniel placed his thumb on the laptop’s pad, then typed his current password. This would be the last time he’d send a message from this account. He’d still be able to check for messages, but sending was the bigger risk. Once he got to Europe, he’d pick up pay-as-you-go phones to send messages, and burn them frequently.

  There was a new voice-mail from Kara. He hadn’t yet responded to her previous message, left three days ago, when she had suggested they get together for a weekend and catch up. He’d planned to reply the next morning and invite her to visit in a couple of weeks, but Lucien Drapeau scuttled that plan when he showed up in the middle of the night.

  Kara’s voice-mails showed on the screen as coming from a phone belonging to Maya Seth.

  Because Kara Singh was officially dead.

  Conrad Winter had, on behalf of the Council for World Peace, sunk a blade between her ribs. She’d flatlined, almost died, but not quite. In order to keep her invisible to the Council, the Foundation pulled some strings, simultaneously killing an American doctor named Kara Singh and creating a Canadian doctor named Maya Seth. This, shortly after Daniel Byrne had disappeared amid the chaos of a plague outbreak in South Carolina . . . and Ian Shefras first appeared in Barbados.

  Life gets complicated.

  Daniel and Kara had recently become lovers, and it felt strange to suddenly call each other by new names, so they’d fallen into the routine of calling each other “you” and themselves “me.” Placeholders, perhaps, until they decided if they were going to have a future together. Or maybe that’s who they were now—you and me. In which case, they definitely had a future.

  Daniel stopped reading the voice-mail transcript after the first sentence. He needed to hear her voice.

  He turned up the laptop’s volume and clicked on the icon to play the audio file.

  “Hey, you,” she said, “it’s me.” Not angry, but her accent lacking its usual NorCal vibe. Stressed, but trying for warmth. “I know the whole world seems upside down to you right now. Bloody thing kept me in hell for six years—believe me, I understand better than anyone. But please don’t duck my calls. This is important, I need to talk to you . . . face-to-face.” She blew out a breath. “Don’t panic, I’m not in danger or anything. But we need to meet. Soon, please. Okay, call me. Miss you. Bye.”

  Damn.

  Daniel hadn’t been ducking Kara’s calls, but he had been slow-playing her, because the meditation sessions were working and he knew he was on the cusp of gaining some control over the visions. He’d decided to commit to the breakthrough, and seeing her again would be both celebration and reward for the many hours sitting zazen.

  And now he couldn’t see her at all. She wasn’t in danger, and he wasn’t about to risk that. But Hey, babe, can’t see you right now ’cause there’s an assassin on my tail. Once I’m done with him, wanna go steady? seemed a sub-optimal approach.

  Daniel clicked to activate the laptop’s built-in microphone.

  “Hey, you,” he said. “It’s me. Glad you’re okay and I can’t wait to see you, but—” Too casual, asshole. She’s upset and you need to respect that.

  Daniel had been the one pushing for a relationship, while Kara had insisted on some time to “recombobulate” after the sudden disappearance of the voices in her head, a near-fatal stabbing (which wouldn’t have happened if Daniel hadn’t brought her into his world—something he thought about only a dozen times a day), and then having to remake herself with a new identity (also courtesy of her involvement with Daniel).

  She’d come to visit him in Barbados before heading off on a volunteer gig for Doctors Without Borders. But on her first night there, Daniel was hit with AIT for the first time. Kara postponed her volunteer trip, stayed a month longer than she’d planned. Although Daniel’s AIT hit harder than hers had, she’d been through it, so she stayed and talked him through the early stages, until he got his feet under him.

  But then she left, and he didn’t try to convince her to stay. She needed to figure out who she was going to be now that Kara Singh was dead, and he needed to focus on understanding his condition. She promised to visit again after her volunteer trip, and they would see where their nascent entanglement might lead.

  And now she quite reasonably thought he was ducking her calls, which likely wouldn’t increase his odds in the romance department.

  Daniel clicked to erase the message and start over. “Hey, you. Look, you’re right, we need to meet, but it’s gonna have to wait, maybe . . . a week, or—”

  Or what? A month?

  He erased this one as well. Before he could hit Record again, his laptop speakers pinged and the transcript of a new voice-mail appeared on the screen.

  This one was from Pat Wahlquist. The brief exchange above it began with the question Daniel had asked from his New York hotel room:

  —Taking visitors? Need a little of your time.

  —Not home. Come to Savannah and rent wheels. ETA?

  —Tomorrow.

  The new message read:

  —Out past the Crab Shack. Paradise Marina, slip fifteen. Miss Trixie. Come aboard. I’ll be along shortly.

  Daniel closed the browser window. Kara deserved a thoughtful response, and he didn’t want to risk blowing his chances by shining her on with something glib. He’d figure out what to say later.

  Soon.

  11

  Paradise Marina proved a quiet place not far off Highway 80, near the saltwater wetlands between the mainland and Tybee Island. Two dozen boats filled the marina. Motor yachts, ocean-going sailboats, a few houseboats—none of them small, ranging perhaps between fifty and eighty feet in length.

  As he walked along the jetty, Daniel could hear several WaveRunners buzzing like giant mechanical water insects in the far distance.

  Docked in slip fifteen was a steel-hulled trawler with a canvas awning covering the aft deck, Miss Trixie painted on the stern. Daniel climbed aboard and stepped into the shade of the canvas awning. A Coleman cooler sat on the deck. Next to the cooler, a teak chair with green-and-white-striped cushions, just like the furniture on his balcony in the vision.

  Weird.

  Daniel put down his bag and sat in the chair, flipped the cooler’s lid. Five stubby brown bottles of Red Stripe lager winked at him from their icy bath. He couldn’t help but smile. Why the hell shouldn’t the universe have a sense of humor? He rescued one of the bottles, grabbed the church key tied by a string to the cooler’s handle, pried off the cap, and drank.

  As promised, Pat was not aboard. He’d be out scouting, watching Daniel’s arrival, making sure he hadn’t grown a tail.

  Daniel scanned the fully occupied marina. A mélange of live-aboard crafts owned by people with money, people who probably carried much of that money in cash. A place where it was impolite to inquire about your neighbor’s background or livelihood.

  If you were okay with that, it looked like a pretty nice place to drop anchor for a while. But it didn’t look like the kind of place that would suit Pat’s particular needs.

  Pat normally lived in a brick ranch house at the end of a thin finger of land deep in the Louisiana bayou,
south of Dulac. His entire property was booby-trapped. At the flip of a switch, the security system took over and the place had umpteen ways to kill you. Daniel had seen it in action, firsthand.

  He had time to finish half his beer before the buzzing of a WaveRunner grew louder and Pat arrived by water, pulling alongside the slip and cutting the engine. Pat stepped onto the dock and lashed the machine securely to a cleat. He wore cutoff jean shorts and a gray hoodie emblazoned with LSU in big purple letters.

  Daniel stood as Pat leapt aboard. “Did I come alone?”

  Pat said, “Appears so.” He pulled a snub-nosed revolver from the front pocket of his hoodie and put it on the table.

  “Paradise must have a hell of a Neighborhood Watch.”

  Pat broke into a leather-faced smile, deep crow’s feet framing his eyes. A couple years shy of forty, still in Navy SEAL shape, but he wore the face of a man a decade older. He said, “Good to see you not full of holes, brother,” and gave Daniel a tight hug.

  “Good to be not full of holes.”

  Pat gestured to the scenery. “Not bad, huh?” A loud crunching sound came from his right shoulder as he moved it around in a slow circle. “Doc says I gotta get it rebuilt . . . third goddamn time in ten years.”

  Daniel looked across the marina, to the thin line of palmettos standing like impotent sentries between the shore and the road. “Isn’t this a little . . . vulnerable? What happened to constructive paranoia?”

  “Was finding it less than constructive,” Pat drawled, “so I gave up weed, except for my birthday. And New Year’s . . . and Saint Patrick’s Day, Mardi Gras, Peter Tosh’s birthday, and the day Major General Smedley Butler died. Oh, and—”

  Daniel held up a hand. “I get it.”

  “Anyway, I think we’re rapidly approaching a time when mobility will be tactically superior to battlements.” Pat nodded at the helm, through the cabin windows. “Miss Trixie’s a blue-water beauty with solar panels up top and all the tech gear. She’ll save my life one of these days.”