Stolen Thoughts

by Tim Tigner

  Skylar was waiting. Watching.

  She had been a few strokes ahead of him, as always, but hadn’t proceeded to the shower as was their normal routine. She clearly had something on her mind. That wasn’t surprising. Swims were great for contemplating.

  “What’s up?” he asked, meeting her eye.

  “I’m thinking it’s time to sail on.”

  “Okay,” Chase said, knowing where this was going but hoping to be proven wrong. “What island grabs your fancy?”

  “I don’t care. I just want our life to return to the way it was.”

  He needed no clarification and didn’t pretend otherwise. It was time to tackle the beast. “Before we met Chewie and Vicky?”

  Skylar nodded.

  Chase had prepared for this tightrope act. Frankly, he’d expected to be walking it earlier. Skylar was more patient than he would have been. He draped an arm around her shoulder. “If we’d met when I was still with the CIA, I wouldn’t have been able to share my work with you.”

  “Sure, I get that,” Skylar said, apprehension apparent in her voice as she followed his pivot to a tangential topic.

  “The secrecy wouldn’t indicate my lack of trust or a desire to share, just the presence of an overriding principle, and my adherence to an oath.”

  “Are you telling me you’re back in the game? That Vicky the psychic works for the CIA?”

  “I’m telling you this is an analogous situation, and I’m asking you to be patient with me. To have faith in me.”

  Skylar straightened her spine. “But you’re not going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I can’t tell you what’s going on.”

  “Of course you can, Chase. You just open your mouth and the words come out. Or are you saying that your promise to her means more than your oath to me?”

  Chase really wanted those glasses. “Skylar, nobody and nothing is more important to me than you. I’m asking you to believe that, to trust me, and to be patient.”

  “For how long?” she asked without budging.

  “I really don’t know. It’s very complicated. About a month. Maybe two.”

  “Two months? Chase, I’m worried what another week of this…this situation will do to us.”

  “I understand. I’ll see what I can do. Meanwhile, may I make a suggestion?”

  “Okay.”

  “How about a long soapy shower?”

  Skylar didn’t crack. She didn’t slump or grin. “I have a better idea.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, dreading the answer.

  Skylar turned toward the bathroom. “How about you plan on showering alone until this situation is resolved.”

  “That’s another option,” he told the waves.

  After his solo shower, Chase strolled over to the Vitamin Sea. The gaze he got from Chewie as he passed the main deck on the way up top made him feel like a paratrooper in hostile territory. Or maybe that was just his imagination.

  The big guy knew that Vicky could read minds, and he knew that she was afraid for her life. But he did not know about the lawyers, or Chase’s intent to help neutralize them. He was almost certainly focused on the fact that another man was spending a lot of time with the woman he wanted to make his wife.

  Nothing Chase could do about that. It wasn’t his call.

  He found Vicky reading something on her laptop, researching, no doubt.

  “We need to talk.”

  “We sure do,” Vicky said, spinning her screen in his direction. “Look at this headline.”

  Archibald Pascal hires Resseque Rogers Sackler & Slate to fight sexual assault charges.

  “Just think about that,” Vicky continued. “Imagine the power they have to pervert justice. For starters, they have full access to the prosecution’s playbook. That means no surprises, ever. On top of that, they know the plaintiffs’ stories better than their attorneys, including their exaggerations, insecurities, and doubts. They can catch every lie and omission. They also know what the judge is really thinking, every step of the way. And I don’t need to tell you what they can do to witnesses.”

  “No, you sure don’t.” Chase was interested in exploring the implications, but not until after he set things right with his wife. “Look, I just got an earful from Skylar. She’s not comfortable with our arrangement, and it’s hard to blame her.”

  Vicky’s face fell. “I don’t blame her one bit. I’d be uncomfortable, too.”

  “I can tell you with absolute certainty that she’d be an asset to our mission. While she didn’t have formal training, she does have operations experience.”

  “And a quick mind. I agree,” Vicky said. “But you understand that I can’t include Skylar without first including Chewie.”

  “I do. Fortunately, there’s an obvious solution.”

  35

  The Proposal

  CHEWIE WAS SURPRISED to see Chase leave the Vitamin Sea only minutes after arriving. Pleasantly surprised. Usually when he and Vicky got to talking, they were at it for a while.

  Of course, the same could be said of Chewie’s own discussions with Skylar. And when all four of them got together they could easily converse for hours. But that didn’t keep jealousy from rearing its ugly green head when Chase and Vicky were alone.

  He trusted Vicky. Chase and Skylar too for that matter. But Chewie had been losing out to guys like Chase his whole life. Better looking guys who were more athletic and socially skilled. Guys who might not have failed to protect their girl when she got mugged. So it stung.

  “You up for a walk on the beach?” Vicky asked, catching him by surprise.

  Truth be told he wasn’t. He’d cut his foot on some coral and was trying to keep off of it, but the look in her eyes when he whirled around prompted him to say, “Sure.”

  There was a lot to love about living in the Caribbean, but Chewie’s absolute favorite part was the abundance of new beaches to explore. Beautiful beaches covered with colorful shells and crafty driftwood. Isolated beaches backed by exotic plants and coconut palms. Beaches where you could walk for hours on sand so soft and clean that your footprints looked like history’s first.

  Since taking up the yachting life and losing his usual modest land-based exercise routine, Chewie routinely used long, lone walks for self-reflection. He loved to crush mountains of sand between his toes while he whispered his worries and dreams to the waves. Both were churning away in his mind when Vicky finally started to speak.

  “I figured out who sent the assassin.”

  “What? Wow! Who? Wait, is that…” Chewie blurted before he could stop himself. Now he needed to finish. “Is that what you’ve been doing with Chase?”

  “No, but that’s related. Let me begin with the one question you didn’t ask: When? In general terms, I figured out who it had to be during our first days aboard the Vitamin Sea. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you worried. We had so much else going on. We’d just moved in together. We’d just left everything we’d known behind to try living a completely new lifestyle in a new place. It was great, but it was stressful.”

  “I remember,” Chewie said, desperate to get to the punch line.

  Vicky took both of his hands and said, “The most important thing then—as it is now—was making us work. I didn’t want to pile more stress atop that mountain, so I kept my deduction to myself.”

  “What deduction?”

  “I realized that the assassin was hired by another mind reader. Someone who cracked the bioengineering code before I did. Someone who recognized the need to keep that capability secret from the world.” Vicky released one hand then turned and continued walking.

  “Sometime later, after a lot of brainstorming and research, I figured out specifically who it was. There’s a law firm in New York City that never loses. The four partners charge astronomical fees, and all of them wear thick-framed glasses. It’s their trademark.”

  “Mind-reading lawyers,” Chewie mumbled to himself. “Sounds like the plot of a lost Sha
kespearian tragedy. When did you figure that out?”

  “A few weeks ago. That discovery was what prompted me to change my name.” Again she stopped and took his hands. “Will you forgive me for my secrecy? I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid of screwing things up while our situation was so fragile and new. We’ve got a good thing going, Quinten Bacca.”

  He kissed her, long and hard. “Yes, Victoria Pixler, we do. But I want to hear about Chase before I forgive you,” he said with a squeeze and a wink.

  “That’s the crazy part. When I ran into Chase, he was getting new identities for himself and Skylar because of the very same lawyers.”

  “No way!”

  Vicky went on to explain her first encounter with Chase at Salt & Battery. How it was less coincidental than it appeared. Then how, after investigating him for a week, she’d recruited Chase based on their mutual enemy and his experience with the CIA.

  “Chase was CIA?”

  “Ten years in operations. Much of it undercover.”

  “Wow! And Skylar?”

  “She really was a triathlete and firefighter.”

  Vicky continued expounding her fascinating story for miles, a full circuit of the small island. Chewie felt like a new man when they finally stepped back aboard the Vitamin Sea. One badly in need of a shower.

  “Do me a favor,” Vicky said as he peeled off his soaked shirt.

  “What’s that?”

  “Go get Skylar and Chase.”

  “Now?”

  “You can put on a clean shirt first.”

  He did as requested, without asking why.

  When he returned with the spy and his wife in tow, Chewie found that Vicky had thrown on a summer dress and brushed her hair. She’d also set out a bottle of champagne and four flutes. Apparently, she wanted to kick off their partnership in style.

  With all eyes on her, Vicky surprised everyone by dropping to one knee and making Chewie the happiest man alive.

  36

  Threats and Impediments

  San Jose, California

  GIVEN THAT their already packed schedules had become dangerously overloaded by recent events, the five partners of Resseque Rogers Sackler & Slate decided to use the flight to San Jose for their catch-up and strategizing meeting. They flew private, of course, on a Pascal plane. One which their bodyguards swept for bugs.

  That was a hypocritical act, they realized. Four mind-reading attorneys and their covert-operations partner worrying about eavesdropping. But then, as lawyers, their lives were so steeped in technicalities, contradictions, and injustices that the double standard barely registered.

  “Is anybody having second thoughts about accepting Pascal’s offer?” Colton asked. “About turning over our technology for his exclusive use in exchange for half of his billion-dollar venture?”

  Scarlett shook her head along with the others. The more she thought about abandoning the rat race, the more her job felt like a grind.

  Prior to Pascal’s offer, the thrill of the game and the excitement of the hunt had always exhilarated her. While practicing law had never been pure peaches and cream, the anticipation of victory had always propelled her through the bureaucratic maze in a predatory haze, like a shark smelling blood. Now, however, that same judicial dance struck her as pure drudgery. Even the knowledge that her bank balance was building at $40 a minute ceased to be stimulating. Why work at all when millions in mailbox money was on offer?

  “We need to add an exemption for personal use,” Rogers said. “I agree to stop wearing our horn-rims for professional purposes, but I want to wear them as a retiree.”

  “I want to be buried in them,” Sackler said.

  Scarlett agreed. She hated the idea of giving up her glasses. They protected her against everything from shifty salespeople to snooping reporters to investment scams. At least when meetings took place in person. Alas, none of them ever sat down with Bernie Madoff, the biggest bullshit artist of them all. “Let’s meet Pascal halfway.”

  “Halfway?” Sackler asked.

  “Let’s concede to being buried without them,” she said with a wink.

  “All right,” Colton said. “If there’s nothing else in the second-thoughts category, let’s move on to negotiation strategy. Who’s figured out what Pascal has planned?”

  “I keep getting stuck on the keeping-it-secret part,” Scarlett said. “Who makes more than a top New York City lawyer? On a regular basis I mean.”

  “It can’t be routine work, at least not in the predictable, day-to-day sense that we enjoy,” Rogers said. “It’s got to be deal related and likely commission based.”

  Colton nodded. “Like investment banking. I agree. Potentates and oil well owners aside, the only professions that earn more than top lawyers are those that make their money taking small percentages off the massive amounts of money moving through their fingers.”

  “Insurance companies have all the cash,” Sackler said. “And don’t forget everyone who’s getting fat off government contracts.”

  “Among those options, where would mind reading give one the ability to virtually vanquish the competition?” Scarlett asked.

  “Lending and insurance operations would be greatly advantaged by knowing the intentions of their clients. Cutting fraud and default rates would have a huge impact on profitability,” Sackler said.

  “Yes, but that would require giving all their agents our glasses, and reverting to face-to-face operations. That can’t be it.”

  “All right,” Colton said. “We’ve been pondering this for days and have little more to show for it than general speculation. I move that we hire the best investigator out there to locate and surveil Pascal’s secret research operations.”

  “What about a hacker?” Rogers suggested, turning to Trent.

  “If we weren’t talking about Archibald Pascal, that would be worth a try. But the nature of his business ensures that he’s constantly fending off digital incursions. I have no doubt that his electronic security will be better than his physical security. So let’s aim for the weakest link. Even though I’m sure it will be forged from hardened steel.”

  “Who’s the best at that stuff?” Scarlett asked.

  They routinely used investigators as a part of their law practice. Both employees and independent contractors. Trent managed them all, and personally performed the lion’s share of the most important work, given that he had horn-rims.

  “For overseas industrial espionage in the tech field?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you thinking Asia, Europe, Eastern Europe, or Oceania?”

  “Could be anywhere he can keep things quiet,” Colton said. “Could be South or Central America. Even Africa or the Middle East.”

  “Well, then we’re going to need more than one investigator. Ideally, we want one guy per country, or even one in every major city.”

  “We can’t create so much noise that Pascal hears the banging. We don’t want him walking away out of spite. Billionaires can afford to be irrational.”

  Trent shrugged. “One per region then.”

  “No more than half a dozen,” Colton said.

  “All right,” Trent agreed, calculating on the fly. “One each for Central and South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, China, India, and Australia.

  “You know good guys for all those?”

  “I know four. For the other two regions, I know who to ask.”

  “Good. I think that covers the negotiation. Let’s discuss threats and impediments.” Colton turned Scarlett’s way. As the female member of the criminal defense team, she was the obvious choice for lead counsel in a sexual assault defense. “How strong is the case against Pascal?”

  Scarlett turned from the window, where a jet streaking past in the opposite direction had caught her eye. “The strength comes from the number of women and their caliber. The three on record are all well regarded within the industry, but none were friends. There are incriminating emails, but others that could be considere
d exculpatory. Fortunately, Pascal is not into instant messaging, so the impulse missives that have crucified others don’t exist. He is prone to the occasional bout of anger, however, so there will be some unfortunate witness testimony.”

  “But there’s no smoking gun?” Rogers asked.

  “None that’s been presented. But we don’t know who the fourth potential witness is, and we can’t be sure of anything before we depose all of them. But barring any surprises, I predict that we’ll have this won by the end of jury selection.”

  People and thus jurors tended to fall into three camps when it came to sexual assault. Those who believed that women were asking for it, those who believed that men were predatory, and those who didn’t lean either direction. While everyone claimed to be in the third group, only about forty percent actually were. Stack the jury with people who thought makeup and push-up bras were the equivalent of sexual advances—a trivial task for an accomplished mind reader—and you were virtually home free.

  “I’ll look forward to learning the results of your depositions but won’t be losing any sleep over it.” Colton turned back to Trent. “What is keeping me up at night is the fact that as far as we know, Cassandra is still breathing.”

  “I believe I’ve identified the perfect guy to cure her of that condition,” Trent said with a smile. “Fredo Blanco used to track down traitors for the Sinaloa cartel.”

  “If he was good, why did they let him go?”

  “Word is, El Chapo gave him permission to retire as a reward for a particularly rough job a few years back.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “I think so. We’ll know for sure a few hours from now. I’ve scheduled us an interview with him early tomorrow morning at a hotel in San Jose.”

  37

  The White Elf

  FREDO BLANCO was pleased and surprised by the face to face meeting request. His clients usually hid on the Dark Web behind encrypted software. He preferred the additional information provided by in-person meetings, and he didn’t mind traveling for them. Not when the price of an interview was $50,000.