The Harbinger of Change

by Timothy Jon Reynolds

  Matt could still not understand the lack of traffic that he was counting on—other than the fact that he was cursed; there was always that . . .

  * * *

  Ken Beck and Kirk Rogers arrived at the scene not knowing what to expect. They had heard the initial reports: two dead agents, suspect vehicle recovered. But the suspect got away, possibly with an accomplice, who witnesses say murdered the first agent. All available personnel were in the field now, and the President was going to have to be briefed very soon on exactly what was in that vault. The Palo Alto Police were initially in charge, but soon they were put into supporting roles when the Federal Investigation Units showed up.

  Rogers commented, “This is unbelievable, Ken. It really is. Who the hell are they? China? The Russians?”

  Beck retorted, “This was certainly too brazen for a superpower, too overt, too much an act of war.”

  Rogers wanted to believe that. He wanted to believe that the Russians wouldn’t get their hands on what was in that vault. As of one hour ago, he was the only person outside of CIA personnel who knew what was inside. Rogers suspected that something was bringing the two of them together, a suspicion reinforced when Beck asked if he wanted to go visit Westinghouse with him.

  Even he was shocked to learn the extent of what was in the vault, and what the ramifications would be if America weren’t the one to build this electronic space net. The club possessing that information was a small one, and it looked like he had finally joined, which wasn’t a good thing at all.

  Kirk Rogers approached his agent in charge, “Did we talk to Security here yet?” he asked. “Do we have a video of the parking lot?” His questions were being shot to Jordan Satain, one of Lozida and Raley’s after hours drinking mates. “Sorry, Jordan, not trying to be insensitive. You okay?”

  “I’m okay, Boss. I’ll take time to process this all later. Right now, I just want to get that bitch.”

  “Okay, good. So what gives on Security?”

  “Well, this is a new store, so parking lot cameras weren’t going in until next week. The Store Manager says her Loss Prevention Manager was here and he was closing tonight. So maybe he’s at lunch.”

  Rogers looked at Satain and said, “Take me to the Store Manager.”

  A few minutes later they were in the Loss Prevention Office. There was a half-eaten Togo’s sandwich and a drink on the monitor station. The main camera was on the door that she probably would have used to exit. After some trial and error, they were able to play the DVR back and see what they were looking for.

  They watched the entire footage twice, and they both came to the same conclusion. When Nancy Chavez walked out that door, Lozida and Raley must have been waiting. Then Hurst must have come upon that situation, misunderstood it as a robbery, and somehow killed one or both of the agents. Hurst, then either left with her, or was taken by her against his will. Incredible!

  Rogers asked, “Was this guy possibly part of it?”

  Beck thought about that and replied, “Preliminarily, the evidence says no, he’s a victim. But with stakes as high as this, we can’t make absolutes about anything.” He had reached the part that he loathed. It was time to dial in his boss.

  Rogers was in his car talking to his boss. Ken Beck had just hung up with his. It was so unjust that in this world he chose to live in, a whole career could be derailed by one bad day or one bad decision, or hell, even one bad phone call. He just had such a phone call and he was sure Rogers was getting the same. He had never heard Bob Thompson so put out with him. Although Thompson would never show his cards to the point of losing composure, Rogers knew the man, and he knew that he was not happy with him. That much he gathered.

  Ken Beck vowed at that moment that he was going to kill that traitor bitch, if it was the last thing he ever did. He didn’t give a damn about any of the normal rules or what exonerating thing they found out about her in the process of hunting her. He was still going to kill her.

  Her defense would just be some lame lawyer jargon like, “She was coerced” or some legal shit like that anyway. Beck knew that she was not coerced and decided that he was going to serve as her judge, jury, and executioner. He would never believe that she was any kind of innocent. That murdering bitch was going to talk before he killed her. No one fucks with my Country or my career!

  4—Proposals

  In the seventh grade, Pablo had a discovery of the mind when he found chess. Chess was an ancient game that had been played for centuries by many, yet only a few had ever reached its highest echelons. One could play the same opponent for a hundred years and never play the exact same game twice.

  It was just what Pablo needed—that and access to the Internet. His Principal, Mr. Garcia, was able to give him about two hours a day on the school’s office computer, once they had nothing else to teach him. It was a good salve.

  Pablo quickly found Yahoo Chess, and his streak was on. He soon reached a rating of over 2,000, which put him in elite company. That elite company, he would soon find out, was mostly people running chess programs against their Yahoo games. Pablo figured this out because on games where he was black and moved second, he dismantled people. But on games where he was white and moved first, they put up a much better fight.

  One night, after a hard fought battle, his opponent asked what program he was running and he said, “None.” This infuriated his opponent, who refused to let it die, insisting that “everyone here” was a cheater. That was when he figured out he had been beating some of the best chess programs in the world.

  Chess drew him in, and he became fascinated with how life often unfolds like a “well-played” game, with the unpredictable unfolding in the face of the predictable. At times a game appeared to be headed in one direction; where it ended up could be an entirely different place.

  Like now, for example. Here he sat in this office, waiting to hear what had happened to a plan that he said could not fail based on the facts. Oh sure, there were always variables, but the calculable facts had been very solid.

  Now he knew how James felt that day against him. One minute one is confident and in control. The next, one realizes that he has been sideswiped and is powerless to move.

  He looked out at the river; the very river his uncle was living on when he met his fate that day. That fate was the reason the ominous object was sitting in his corner. It would be a tool for revenge.

  He watched the river and drifted back into his uncle’s head, placing the facts together in chronological order. He had compiled the order from his many real-life expeditions into his uncle’s past behavior.

  * * *

  Life was good in Ecuador’s capital. Julio was enjoying the good life, even if he had to drink a pint of rum every night just to get to sleep. Even if he still awoke every night with the jungle man in his room, waiting, watching. He could see the man’s eyes just as they had looked the day he saw him sprawled out on the jungle floor; looking out of his jungle suit, staring blankly, never knowing what or who just killed him. Just like the jungle man’s first victim, Francisco: one second he was there and the next microsecond, he wasn’t. Living, then dead; fate decided with the snap of a finger. What gives men such power?

  According to the concubines, Julio would open the windows and listen to the river when he needed calming, which was every night. He had moved right on the Guaya River in Guayaquil, into the hacienda of his dreams. The house had six bedrooms, a billiard room, an indoor garden, and a maid’s quarters. Yet he employed no maid. The three women who lived there did clean, but they all slept in his bed, and cleaning wasn’t their specialty. It had the patio Julio always wanted, too, with a pool and hot tub. The pool actually fed right into the indoor garden, but one had to swim under a glass partition to make that happen.

  He had all the panocha he could ever want and enough rum, weed, and coca for a lifetime. He tried to stay away from the coca, though, it made him loco. So why was he not happy? Wasn’t this the life he had chosen? He had wanted to be as far from
that backwards-ass place as he could get from the time he was ten. So why was he yearning for something that he hated? Familia was the answer, of course, and he knew it.

  Then it hit him: the idea that would save his soul and maybe stop the nightmares. He had to make a plan. Then he would get to Otavalo and put something wonderful into motion, something that would benefit the whole world. He sat at his desk and began writing. There was much to do to save his soul.

  * * *

  The storage unit was in Stockton. Matt saw that it offered twenty-four hour service. He pulled up and punched in a code, and the next second, they were in. The unit was the largest in the complex, and once they arrived, Matt got out and unlocked the padlock with the combination she provided.

  He pulled open the roll-up door and couldn’t believe what he saw. Inside the unit was a luxury BMW sport utility vehicle. It was silver, with darkly tinted windows. It appeared to be brand new. There was also a workbench, a giant standing toolbox, and a steel locker cabinet, with four lockers and a mirror, as well as the common steel mesh bench seat in front. What the hell is all this?

  That’s when he felt the gun in his back. She took him in and had him pull zip-ties off a shelf on the workbench. Within seconds, he was bound and secured to the bench seat leg, which he noticed was bolted to the floor. So there goes the plan of picking this up and knocking her out with the whole bench seat. She quickly swapped cars, taking the BMW out to the street, and parking his Mustang in the shed. When she came back, she went to work immediately.

  First, she brought out a radio and got the local news, and she was all over it. For the next thirty minutes she assessed the news. Meanwhile, she altered her looks to the point that even Matt began having a hard time recognizing her. She expertly tucked and clipped her beautiful straight black hair into a crop. Right before his eyes, with one placement of the wig, she was now a blonde. Some eye contacts, and she now had green eyes.

  She changed out of the stolen clothes she had obtained from Stor, and got into an outfit from one of the lockers. She was even more amazing in underwear. Then she got into her clothes. It was a pantsuit. As she bent over to get into it, she made a stripper-like wiggle move that transfixed Matt in a way he did not expect. He was fully attracted to his abductor. It was an attraction that went beyond fear, not a healthy thing for a man tied to a bench.

  The other thing was her smell. What the hell was up with that intoxicating smell? I really need to get my head screwed on straight. What the hell is wrong with me? Suddenly he focused on the news, as it was covering their story. “The employees at Conceptual were killed prior to the incident at the Stanford Mall. Police are reporting that the two incidents are definitely related. Police are still looking for Stor employee Matt Hurst, who may have been abducted from the scene by Chavez and possible unknown accomplices. His vehicle is currently the point of an intense manhunt, as Chavez is considered armed and extremely dangerous. Anyone with information on Matt Hurst’s black 2005 Mustang, with a white racing stripe down the middle, license number . . .” Matt had heard enough. The jig was up here, as this girl was not getting away. Then he looked at the blonde girl with glasses who was approaching him and he barely recognized her. She had a rag in her hand. Matt resisted, but it was no use, as she covered his face and his world went black.

  * * *

  The comm light came on, and Homeland Security Director Stan LaRue was live with the President. President Lawrence Caulfield was a patient and gentle man, even though his stature would indicate otherwise. He and Lincoln were now recorded as the two tallest Presidents to date. They would be linked in many other ways too, from geography to demeanor. He had won the election because the good people of Kentucky were sick of Wall Street types and others who would change the structure of capitalism if allowed to do so.

  He was a good-old-boy Senator from Kentucky, who had kept his nose clean because he was a good man, not because he thought that one day he might be vetted for the Presidency. He had been raised right, and had also turned out right by nature. Those two don’t always go together, much to the chagrin of many a diligent parent.

  Lawrence had worked as a Public Defender, and afterward, in private practice he would take on any case pro bono; all anyone had to do was ask. Whatever he had in this life was good enough, and he didn’t need more. His college sweetheart and their three kids were all he really needed. That, and some food on the table. He was really that simple.

  Thus, special interest folks had little to do with him, and he made few friends on Capitol Hill. Billed as a Democrat, he rarely considered himself partisan, and was often heard saying, “If a person sticks to partisanship to a fault, then they’ve turned a blind eye to the bigger picture.” That bigger picture was what they were supposed to be doing here. They had been hired to see the job got done to the best of their abilities, for the American people, not themselves. Consequently, he was occasionally known to vote outside the party lines if someone else had a good idea, not a popular habit amongst his peers.

  The people of Kentucky sure loved him though, mostly because they knew what they had. Word had spread that this man cared, and this man had honor and more than anything, this man loved Kentucky and America. So waste disposal projects were sent away, even though they would have created jobs, because who wants to be known as the guy who allowed toxic dumping? And the list went on of projects that had been rejected by him because they “were not in the best interest of the State.” That was not to say Lawrence hadn’t been creating jobs, because he had been able to turn stimulus money into a growing Green Economy for his state. Kentucky had become the current leader in solar panel manufacturing in the U.S.

  One day, as he was leaving the Hill to go home for winter recess, Lawrence had been approached by a man with a purpose. The man was representing a conglomerate that wanted to talk to him. The man had just started his spiel when Lawrence put his hand up.

  “If you know anything about me at all, you will stop right now. I have no interest in hearing your special interest jargon, and I have no interest in entertaining you another second, Sirrah.”

  As he said this, he brought himself to his full height and used his authoritative, intimidating voice.

  Yes, the man being browbeaten had thought, he will do quite nicely.

  Lawrence Caulfield had looked at the man he would later think of as a mentor, and had asked him, “Why are you smiling?”

  The rest was history. He had found a group of people like himself (more like they had found him)—patriots through and through. Together they would make history.

  Now he was facing the first crisis of his Presidency.

  He addressed his Homeland Security Director. “What’s the word, Stan?”

  LaRue cleared his throat. “As you know, the incident in California today was more than just a high-tech robbery. It was most likely an act of aggression from a foreign country.”

  “That’s sobering,” President Caulfield responded.

  “The worst is yet to come, I’m afraid. It looks like we lost Dr. Daniel Cooper of Conceptual Labs in the process of this crime. The other stinger is this: what was stolen out of that safe could not only set the EMP Net Project back for years, it could also be used against us at a later date.”

  “I see,” was the reply. “Continue.”

  “Well, as you know, Haberman was working on our EMP net, and he was also working on cold fusion lasers. Remember Nevada? He was also the foremost mind in the field of power sources for drones. His work with new battery concepts was as good as it gets. All his data was in that safe.”

  “So potentially, what they stole could be a serious national threat is what you’re saying.”

  It was a rhetorical question. Stan waited a long time for the President to speak. “What about the kidnap victim, Matt Hurst?”

  “Okay, here’s the thing. It looks like it could be a legit abduction, but we did find a thread. They both go to the same gym, which is the ‘24 Hour Fitness’ in Mountain View. Logs sho
w they were there at the same times on multiple occasions over the past year.

  “That’s a pretty big thread, Stan, and too much of a coincidence for my liking. Matter of fact, based on my instincts, there are no coincidences in these types of situations. No, we’ll sort it out later, but for now, they’re both wanted fugitives.”

  * * *

  Vera brought the BMW back and parked it outside the shed. She had already done her inventory, which included her new identification, money, and, of course, her weapon. But what about this hombre? The plan was never to kidnap anyone. She could let him be, and eventually someone would find him, but most likely he would die in here, as this place was hot.

  So what to do? She couldn’t trust to take him, as he seemed too capable, especially the way he had handled the guy on the ground and had taken care of her problem in the parking lot. No, he was too dangerous to take.

  She found his badge, so she knew that he was the Store Detective, and that he had planned to arrest her for shoplifting. His identification read “Matthew Hurst.” She found his California Driver’s License in his wallet, which had his address and some personal info, but it would have been nice to have his phone. Alas, that was not an option, because she had thrown his phone out over the bridge. Pablo had taught her about cell phone relay towers.

  She decided that she would bind him frontward in the back of the SUV. She planned to head out to her destination and call Pablo from one of her disposable phones. There were three phones in the shed, and she was going to burn one to call Pablo. He’ll know what to do, and if it’s kill this pendejo and dump his ass in the woods, then that’s what I’ll do. Too bad though, he’s not too bad-looking, she thought. He looked like one of the 49ers she’d seen on posters everywhere, with his mane of chestnut hair parted down the middle. She broke off her little sexual fantasy and loaded him into the backseat.

  Even though she was in shape, she had to use her wits and leverage to get him into the SUV without killing her back. They then started out toward Sacramento.