“Can you?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “They gave me a cane yesterday. Good a time as any to try it out. Think they’re gonna kick me outta here soon.”
Sarah helped me out of bed. Her touch felt good. We bid adieu to Maurice and I clomped out of my room, Sarah close at my side, one hand gripping my arm for support. Slow progress, but good to be up on my feet and moving. People flowed by us on either side of the hallway, like I was a freeway accident not yet cleared. They wore tight-lipped smiles and faces that said they would rather be somewhere else. Not me. I was next to Sarah. No place I’d rather be.
We went past the nurses’ station. Everett looked up and gave us a big smile and a wave. I nodded and Sarah said hello.
“She likes you, you know,” Sarah said.
“Jill?” I paused to consider it. “No. She doesn’t even know me. Just wants to save me, I think.”
Sarah shook my answer off. We walked to the end of the hall and stopped by the stairwell door.
“Look,” Sarah said, now facing me. I stood with my back to the wall. “Jill told me about your diagnosis.” She cleared her throat. “Your leukemia. She said you are refusing treatment. Is that true, Frank?”
I looked past Sarah, over her shoulder. She was a tall woman, only an inch shorter than me. I tried to ignore the question.
“Frank, you have to go into treatment. You know that, right?” Sarah asked, with more urgency in her voice.
“I don’t know, Sarah,” I said, running my left hand over my head while maintaining my tight grip on the cane with my right. “I just don’t see the point. I mean, the way things are.”
“You don’t deserve to die, Frank.”
“Deserve’s got nothing to do with this.”
“You did this to yourself!” Sarah shouted. “Not the cancer—I didn’t mean that. I meant your life. You.” She took a moment to collect herself, lowered her voice. “Why’d you do it, Frank? Why did you walk away?”
In the five years I was homeless on the streets, I often wondered what I would say to Sarah if this moment ever came. I had never found a good answer. I had none now.
“I don’t know, Sarah,” I began, and then the words just started to tumble out. “First the army thing, then the CIA fired me. I just felt so betrayed. And so angry. Then I found out Nicole was cheating on me. Looking back, I don’t blame her, really. I was no joy to be around then. I lost everything I cared about. You were with Victor. For the first time in my life, I gave up. On myself. On the people around me. I never knew I had a limit, but I found it. Or maybe it found me.”
I was breathless now. I gripped the cane and pressed my back tighter against the wall. Sarah’s eyes bored into me.
“I guess… I guess I felt like I’d walked to the end of the earth,” I said. My voice was barely a whisper now. “And instead of turning back I stepped off.”
Sarah gripped my arm. “You could’ve talked to me, Frank. We could’ve—”
“I know, Sarah. I know. Pride and shame are a toxic mix. Like bleach and ammonia. It’ll kill you.” I managed a weak smile.
“The Frank Luce I know is a fighter.” Sarah smiled back at me, her full smile. The one that melts my heart. “You can beat this thing, Frank. I know you can. You just have to want to.”
She was right. I had lost my faith. In everything and everyone. Myself most of all.
“I can’t afford this,” I said, changing tack. “I’m broke.”
“Don’t worry about the money. We’ll find you some resources and I’ll get the rest. I’ve got some rainy-day money put aside.”
My silence said all Sarah needed to hear. This was my rainy day, not hers. I would not take her money.
“Okay, Frank. I can see you won’t do this for yourself, so I’m gonna ask you to do this for me. If you care about me, if you ever loved me, you will get into treatment.” Sarah let go of my arm and took a half-step away from me. “If you don’t—I’ll never speak to you again. I’m not going to sit back and just watch you die on the street. I… can’t.”
There it was. We were five years apart, and already another separation loomed. This time at her hand. And this one would be final. I cared more for this woman than I did for myself. I had only been with her for minutes, but that was enough for me to decide.
“Okay,” I said.
Sarah came in for a quick hug. I held her for a beat longer before she pulled away. We started back down the hallway to my room.
Sarah leaned into me. “You really need to talk to Nicole, tell her about this.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Did she tell you she has a five-year-old son?”
Chapter Nine
August 19, 2016
White House; Oval Office
Washington, DC
Prisha Baari stood to the left of President Morris Udell in the Oval Office. Not her first visit, of course, and she would ensure it would not be her last. Prisha smiled her best “big white teeth” smile and tittered convivially at everything Udell said that was remotely funny or clever. Powerful men often thought themselves clever, and Prisha would not disabuse Udell of this notion.
Prisha wore the clear glass frames and hair clip Ahmad had provided her last night. She momentarily turned her back to Udell, pretending to admire the wall art as the president and her boss, Robert Johnson, shared a laugh. Got it. She couldn’t wait to toss her hair clip at Ahmad and tell him to never again question her talents. She spun back around and surveyed the Oval Office with Ahmad’s spy glasses.
“Prisha?” Johnson said. “The president is ready for our briefing.”
Udell smiled and gestured towards the sofa opposite his, by the fireplace. Prisha sat first, and Johnson seated himself next to her. The president then took his seat, and his chief of staff sat down to his left. Those formalities finished, Prisha discreetly examined Udell and his CoS. The two men were cut from different cloth. Mo Udell was a fleshy, gregarious man, with a balding pate and a bulbous nose. A career politician and populist president. His CoS, in contrast, was a retired three-star Marine Corps general, a stocky hammer of a man who ran the White House staff with ruthless efficiency. He was completely out of his depth as a civilian on Capitol Hill, however. The Beltway was a different kind of battlefield.
Johnson started speaking in the colloquial style that Prisha abhorred. She glanced over at the fireplace to her right. A portrait of George Washington hung over the mantel. She pictured herself in the portrait, wearing staid Burberry, or perhaps the hot red Chanel outfit she favored.
Johnson finished his introduction, then nodded to Prisha. She held the silence for a beat, felt the anticipation grow as the president and his CoS waited for her to begin. It was a little trick she had learned doing musical theater in college.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Prisha said, flashing her big, toothy smile. “Thank you for having me back to the White House, sir. It is always a pleasure to see you.”
Udell nodded. Prisha noticed with satisfaction that his eyes flickered over her body, pausing on her chest long enough to give Prisha a hot flash. She had taken off her blazer as soon as she arrived in the Oval, and had intentionally worn a tight button-back blouse that clung to her Beverly Hills breasts. Unlike her boss, she now had the president’s attention. She intended to keep it.
Prisha began her brief with a quick background of ODYSSEUS. She summarized the project technology, the lack of cooperation they were getting from the private sector, and how the CIA was stealing everything they could not beg, borrow, or buy. Prisha spoke of the history of the project, how it had been conceived as a last-chance, failsafe tactic to prevent large-scale domestic civil unrest should the president decide America was on the precipice of revolution or anarchy.
All this the president and Johnson already knew. What neither man knew, however, was Prisha’s secret plan for ODYSSEUS. She would continue to push the project as she always had, spending huge piles of taxpayer money to get ODYSSEUS to an operational footin
g as quickly as possible. In this, her interest and that of the United States government aligned. The best lies, she knew, were the ones that most closely tracked the truth.
Prisha’s plan differed from that of the CIA in only two areas: she would drill her own steganographic audio messages into the brains of the American population, and she would do this secretly, at a time of her choosing. She had already established a small team to accomplish her plan, a dark offsite team that had no connection to the CIA or the United States government. Sound experts like Ahmad and his team, her head of security Henrik Karlsson and his team, and a team of world-class virtual hackers to breach the big three (Apple, Google, Microsoft) and all other music and video streaming services.
When the time was right, Prisha would simply command Ahmad to create her audio messages, and the hackers would bury them in audio files on the servers of their targets. Music streaming services like Apple Music or Spotify pull from a database of the same fifty million songs. Billions of YouTube videos are watched every single day. And after Prisha gave the go signal, fully one-third of the people on Earth would cheerfully believe whatever message Prisha planted in their brain. She would own the world before anyone figured it out. And then, of course, it would be too late. Prisha knew a thing or two about power: how to seduce it, capture it—and wield it.
But ODYSSEUS was not operational just yet. Prisha needed more money and time. That’s where Udell came in. She leaned forward slightly in her seat and went in for the kill.
“So, despite all the success we’ve had, ODYSSEUS will need an additional one hundred million in the upcoming fiscal year,” Prisha said. She had learned to be bold with her demands, never equivocate or explain. These men were sharks and responded to the scent of blood in the water.
“In addition to the three billion? A budget enhancement?” Udell asked.
“Yes, sir,” Prisha responded.
Udell squinted and sat back in the sofa. Prisha mirrored his movements like a tango partner, leaning forward just a touch more to better display her breasts. The dance had begun.
“How much longer?” Udell asked.
Johnson stirred on the sofa next to Prisha. She heard him take a breath to respond and beat him to it.
“ODYSSEUS will be fully operational in two to three years, sir. At current funding levels and with the enhancement.”
“I don’t know,” Udell said, rubbing his chin. He glanced at his CoS, who was shaking his head vigorously. “I know this project comes out of covert funds, which gives us more time, but I can’t keep throwing money at this thing and getting no results.”
Prisha jumped in and started to tick off some of the most recent ODYSSEUS successes, repackaging what she had already said, until Udell waved her off.
“I can’t wait three years. I’ll be too deep into my second term.”
Aha. There it was. The lever she needed. Old Mo Udell was planning to use ODYSSEUS for his own political ends. She had him now.
“I agree, sir,” Johnson chimed in. “Three years is unacceptable.”
Prick, she thought, keeping her thousand-watt smile firmly in place. The buttons on Johnson’s suit coat strained against his fat stomach as he repositioned himself on the sofa. Prisha’s side of the sofa bucked like an earthquake tremor. The bastard sold me out. Prisha had long suspected Johnson would break at the first sign of presidential disfavor.
“How about eighteen months, sir?” Prisha countered. “Would that work for you?”
“Can you guarantee delivery?”
“With an additional two hundred million, I can have ODYSSEUS operational in eighteen months. Yes, sir.”
It was an easy bet to wager. Prisha secretly knew ODYSSEUS would be operational in less than a year. Ahmad had committed to six months, max. Even if he was off by a bit, they would be ready next year.
“I like this one,” Udell said with a grin, jerking a thumb at Prisha. “Okay, little lady. You got your two hundred million. You better give me my project.”
Little lady? Prisha gritted her teeth. Mo Udell would live to eat those words. She would personally serve them to him. Prisha put on her big smile again and thanked him. His eyes wandered over her body once more. She gave Udell a knowing look, which he returned.
“Hey, Bob,” Udell said, rising from the sofa. Prisha noted with satisfaction the inchoate erection beginning to tent the crotch of his dark suit pants. “Why don’t you head into the conference room. Tell the others I’ll be there in a minute for the PDB.” He smiled at Prisha. “I’m going to give this little lady a tour of the Oval.”
Johnson looked at Prisha and set his jaw. His eyes bored into her. She smirked, shrugged her shoulders. Johnson flushed red. He turned back to the president.
“Yes, sir,” was all Johnson could say. He stomped out of the office. Udell’s CoS followed.
Udell came around the sofa and stood close to Prisha, close enough for their shoulders to rub.
Udell gestured for Prisha to go first. “Shall we?” he asked.
Yes, we shall.
Chapter Ten
August 25, 2016
Pike Towers Apartments
Columbia Heights West, Arlington, VA
I jerked the wheel of the gray Ford Focus back around onto Columbia Pike and stomped on the accelerator. The four-cylinder engine groaned; the compact responded glacially. The light behind me had just changed, and a glance in my rearview mirror told me traffic was gaining on me fast. My hands gripped the wheel harder. I hadn’t driven a car in five years and was not acclimated to the speed at which my fellow motorists traveled. Cars flowed around me. A large SUV blared its horn at it passed. I moved into the right-hand lane and tried to concentrate on the street signs. I almost missed it again. I jammed on my brakes and slapped my directional on. This didn’t stop the elongated blaring of the horn of the guy behind me, or the stare-down he gave me as he passed on my left, close enough for our side mirrors to touch. I took the hard right turn with too much speed and drifted into the oncoming lane of traffic. More horns and anger. I pulled over to the side of the road and put the car in park. I wiped my forehead dry with the back of my hand, felt an ant trail of sweat march down my spine. Deep breaths failed to slow my racing heart.
I had been back in the world for only one week, discharged from the hospital the day after Sarah’s visit. I had intended to go back to the streets, but Sarah would have none of that. I had protested to no avail, finally accepting her charity for the loving gesture it was. We compromised. The deal we’d struck put me in a hotplate studio in a rough neighborhood, instead of the more expensive option Sarah had proposed. It had also put me in this compact rental car en route to see her baby sister, and my ex-wife, Nicole. I had grown used to being invisible as a homeless man in America. This immersion back into society was a shock to my system; I was like a diver who had surfaced too fast and was now doubled over with the bends.
I checked the address on the scrap piece of paper in my lap. Looked at the number on the duplex across the street. Nicole’s apartment was just a few doors down. The dashboard clock informed me I had five minutes before our meeting. I was sweating, my stomach doing gymnastics. I cranked the AC to high and rolled down the window for some fresh air. I still carried the look of a homeless man, my attempt to cut my own hair and beard notwithstanding. I didn’t want to smell like one, too. I knew Nicole would not be as forgiving as Sarah had been.
Nicole was four years younger than Sarah, but age was not all that separated them. Nicole was built for speed. Shorter and thicker than her older sister, with curves in all the right places. She had grown up a princess, fully aware of her beauty from an early age—unlike Sarah. Nicole had found makeup and boys before her older sister had. She had been the leader of the popular girls in junior high and had held this crown through high school graduation. I’d first met Nicole when I began dating Sarah. She was in seventh grade then and already stunning. Nicole was just discovering her powers then. She’d flirted with me, something both Sarah
and I had found rather cute at the time. To Nicole, it was training, getting in her reps and honing her skills. By the time she entered high school, she was unstoppable. That was the year Sarah broke up with me.
I graduated West Point and fought the war on terrorism. Nicole graduated Montgomery Blair High School with a C-plus average and fought off frat boys at Florida State, the only college to which she’d applied. It took her five years to eke out a communications degree. She half-heartedly tried to put her degree to work, but mostly bartended at a campus hotspot.
Nicole partied her paychecks away, and by age twenty-three was back in Maryland on her parents’ couch. She’d continued her Florida life in Silver Spring, bartending part time and partying full time. She paid her parents no room or board, and ate and drank mostly free thanks to the phalanx of suitors who pursued her with ardor. At this time, I was fighting in Afghanistan, brave enough for my country to put the Medal of Honor around my neck.
Nicole and I had our first date, courtesy of Sarah, less than six months after I had resigned from the army. At that time, we hadn’t seen each other in over ten years. We had both grown but not changed much. We both wanted a little of what the other had, what we ourselves lacked. It was a bad match. We never really stood a chance.
The dashboard clock said it was time. I blew out a breath. My hand trembled as I shifted the car into gear.
I parked behind the apartment complex, in the back of the shaded parking lot near a full dumpster, its lid tied open with a rusted chain. The building was an eight-story structure, with walls of stained faux-brick and vinyl siding. Each floor was identical, which caused the windows to stack straight up the wall as if to impose some order on the place. The cramped balconies were filled with old bicycles, storage boxes, and plastic lawn furniture. Loud music and the smells of early dinner wafted from sliding patio doors.
Nicole was always late, a trait that had vexed me during our brief marriage. Right now, though, I took full advantage of the few extra minutes and gathered myself.
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