Epitaphs (Echoes Book 2)

by Knite, Therin

  3) Dynara’s little secret. As difficult a time as my brain is having at the concept of true immortality, the implications fall perfectly into the dark, shadowed places of the mystery of Dynara. They fill so many gaps, so many inconsistencies. In her roles and her behavior. For example, I always wondered why the Chamberlain Corp. Board, why the EDPA brass, would allow someone as important, pivotal, world-changing as Dynara lead such dangerous field work.

  If she dies, no heir in sight, the global stock market will tumble, and the company will fall into a state of emergency. For six generations, the tech industry and the company that leads it have relied on a brilliant Chamberlain for its continued progress toward a “more advanced” future. It can’t run the risk of losing Dynara now, vicious visionary that she is, because there exists no one to replace her, but…

  If she can’t die, there is no risk.

  These are my thoughts as the team gathers at the window of Delacourt’s ICU room, and all of them have a salient impact on the moment. Dynara Chamberlain, alive and well—the only status she can apparently maintain—orders Chai to finish interrogating the mob man instead of me. And her disgusted glare at a stain on the wall next to my head informs me she thinks I’m a mostly worthless screw-up at this point in time. A toddler in need of training wheels.

  (It also tells me that she is going to break my nose in training again on Wednesday. And maybe something new, too, just to drive the point home.)

  (To be frank, I feel like I deserve it. I can’t believe I let Delacourt get the best of me.)

  Chai slips by Murrough, who’s brooding near the door, and enters the hospital room, sashaying up to the broker’s broken body. She sits her coffee cup on the nightstand next to his bed, seats herself in a chair, and tucks that wayward curl behind her ear.

  Delacourt is awake and aware, and he can see us watching through the window. Sweat already saturates his brow. But when Chai begins to speak, he visibly relaxes, lips part to release a deep, fearful breath stuck in his damaged chest.

  Their conversation lasts fourteen minutes and forty-five seconds, and then Chai grabs her cooling coffee, returns to the door, and steps across the threshold at the exact fifteen minute mark. The belligerent doctor huffs and puffs but can’t find a good reason to blow us all down, so she motions for us to turn around and move so she can march us, like a slave driver, from her precious ICU. Once we pass the AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY double doors, and the woman shoos us away with a final gesture, we regroup next to a soda machine to discuss Chai’s findings.

  “So, y’all want the good news first, the bad news first, or a combo run?”

  Dynara crosses her arms and leans against the wall. “Let’s go for the combo.”

  “Right, then.” Chai drains her coffee, some hyper-sugary slush. “First off, Delacourt clarified that he did not put the Baltimore and GM Poly kids into contact with one another prior to the heist setup, so we’re missing a link here. Either two of the kids from opposite groups were acquainted from the get-go and realized the other was working on the competition, too, or the two groups managed to come into contact through an unknown mechanism. So, bad news, friends—we still don’t have all the answers.” She points a finger at Lance, who’s been hovering in the background since we arrived at the hospital, typing away at his Ocom. “Secondly…”

  Lance takes his cue. “Secondly, we won’t be figuring out that mechanism through the GM Poly kids’ connections or through Stiegel’s. As soon as Adem mentioned the GM Poly team had contact with Baltimore, I started searching through their profiles, all their communications and pictures. I also put Frederick and a few other researchers on tracking their movements through financial records, to see if I could place the Poly students with Stiegel or any other Baltimore students. But, it looks like, in addition to vanishing off the face of the Earth, the kids went through and wiped out not only key bits of their profile histories, but Stiegel’s as well. Right after DuPont was murdered.”

  Murrough grunts. “Does that include their profile backups in the National Server Center?”

  “It does indeed.” Lance scratches his head. “These kids are damn good. I’ll give them that. Even I couldn’t have broken into the Center back when I was an undergrad. That takes a lot more knowledge and skill than the average student hacker has under his or her belt. Anderson and Castile weren’t joking when they claimed they picked the cream of the crop.”

  “And I’m assuming we’ve used up their wealth of knowledge, yeah?” Dynara says.

  “Castile and Anderson’s?” Chai tosses her cup into a trashcan. “I’d wager so, Dy. They’ve got more than a few fingers in the events surrounding DuPont’s murder, and I figure there’s still a bit they’re hiding, but there’s nothing in their profiles or their histories or their behavior—that I can read—to indicate they’re any sort of masterminds in this mess.”

  I lick my lips and dare to speak. “Where are they now?”

  Chai glances my direction, fighting off another of those awful smirks. “House arrest. Lang, too. Just to make sure they stay put and don’t meddle in our affairs until we unravel all these shenanigans.”

  Dynara taps her foot against the floor and picks at the dried blood on her neck. “What else did Delacourt tell you?”

  “Ah.” Chai sighs. “I thought to ask whether or not the Baltimore kids came to him for help after Stiegel’s murder, and he claims they didn’t.”

  “Do you believe him?” Dynara flicks the red flecks from her fingertips.

  “I do, and I don’t. I think he was telling the truth when he said the actual Baltimore kids didn’t contact him, but I got the sense he was lying by omission. I think someone came to him. It might’ve been the Baltimore group’s sponsors, whose names Delacourt also gave me. But while I was in the room, I sent a message to Frederick, asking him to track those sponsors down—of course, they’re off the grid, too. And they’re much better at hiding than Castile and Anderson, that’s for sure. Haven’t been sighted by anyone since DuPont’s death went down. A dead end, I think.”

  “Humph.” Murrough rolls his shoulders against the side of the soda machine. “Haven’t heard any good news yet, Chai.”

  Chai’s smirk suddenly springs free, and the flash of white teeth looks downright demonic underneath the harsh fluorescent light. “Oh, yes. How could I forget? Best part of my whole conversation with our lovely mob friend. You know how he got the Poly kids to steal those paintings for a far-too-cheap payoff, yeah? To fund their project?”

  Dynara’s eyebrow rises. “Go on.”

  “Well, as it turns out, Delacourt deliberately underpaid them, knowing they were so damn desperate, for a reason.”

  The image of the auction house beneath Regan’s Vegans flits through my mind again, all those old world paintings lined up to be sold to the highest bidder—And have they now? Been lost forever? Or was Dynara paying more attention than I originally gave her credit for?—and Chai’s revelation slips yet another key piece into place for the puzzle of this case.

  “He underpaid them so they would come back to him for more funding,” I say. “There’s going to be a second heist.”

  Chai’s smile seems to break the confines of her face. “Yep. And guess when it’s going down?”

  Lance looks up from his Ocom screen, lips parting in a rush of excitement. “No way. Tomorrow night?”

  “Museum of 20th Century Art. Eleven o’clock.” Chai nudges Murrough with her elbow. “What do you say, big guy? You up for a real raid?”

  Murrough forms something that resembles a grin, but it also resembles a wriggling worm cut in half, so I can’t be sure he actually shows a positive emotion. “When am I not?”

  “Twenty-four hours. That’s enough time to prep a full-out assault force, a surveillance team, and a target area clear zone. Perfect.” Dynara spins around and gestures for us to follow her. “And, while we’re at it, why don’t we call in the IBI for another joint mission? This time, through proper channels, starting at the di
rector level. Seeing as the case Briggs foisted on Adem last night has coincidentally become relevant to our own investigation.” She throws me one of those looks over her shoulder, and I swear I feel my skin withering away under the acid.

  Of course she knows. Because when doesn’t she?

  “Adem, why don’t you make yourself useful and fill Briggs in on the DuPont-Stiegel connection? Preferably not in the form of a covert cemetery meeting.” She stops in front of the elevator and hits the down button. “That is within your range of pathetically limited abilities, yes?”

  “Well, I can’t be a hundred percent sure, Commissioner.” I roll back on my heels and raise my arms to half mast, a Who knows? Not me gesture sure to tick my new boss off. “My social ineptitude has, on occasion, been called legendary, by people who really ought to know.”

  Lance stifles a laugh, and then hides his face behind his Ocom when Dynara glares at him. The elevator doors roll open, and she aims one of her lethal fingers at my face before she steps inside. “Let’s be clear, Adem. You fuck up like you did with DuPont again, I’m grounding your ass right back into those useless academic classes for the duration of your orientation period.

  “This might be a game, but you are not a player. Not yet. And until I deem you ready to step off the sidelines, you will do what I say, and you will do it well. Or I will put you on the bench for good. Clear?”

  Lance and Chai and Murrough pointedly cast their eyes anywhere but my direction, and a miserable warmth spreads up my neck and through my cheeks. Chastised in public, surrounded by colleagues, who will no doubt ridicule me about my perceived inadequacy for weeks on end. Apparently EDPA and the IBI are more similar than I thought.

  I press my teeth together so hard my jaw throbs. “Clear.”

  “Good. Now get in the goddamn elevator.”

  * * *

  The IBI arrives an hour south of midnight with thirty-odd agents and a bucketful of grievances. Not about their Ocoms ringing off their nightstands half an hour before their well-earned bout of sleep. Not about the necessity of bundling up for the cold and heading to HQ, then stuffing themselves in SUVs and driving some more to the EDPA building. Not about the fact yet another of their major cases has unraveled to reveal a dream crime at its core, costing them primary jurisdiction.

  No, they don’t grumble about any of those things. In fact, the grievances aren’t technically theirs at all. Briggs delivers every last complaint to Dynara in the EDPA foxhole with the explicit mention that it comes straight from the mouth of the Director Board.

  A group not amused with EDPA’s antics and Briggs’ recent involvement in them.

  A group that Dynara has, once again, intentionally stoked the ire of.

  A group that needs to pull their collective heads from their collective asses and come to accept that their decades of federal law enforcement dominance are no more.

  (A need for acceptance I suspect Dynara is dragging them toward, kicking and screaming, inch by inch, as she circumvents their authority again and again by pulling stunts like this—forcing them into joint taskforce operations to solve the crimes they have in common.)

  (A need I suspect Dynara intends to resolve quickly and quietly and painfully, on their part, because she is aware, after my “secret” cemetery meeting, that the Board is unfairly punishing Briggs and friends for a role in the Brennian case she approved.)

  Regardless of the political subtleties and subterfuge behind the taskforce formation, however, they arrive at eleven o’clock sharp. Exactly twenty-four hours before the second heist of the century. The double doors to the foxhole retract with a whoosh, and the group files in two at a time, Briggs at the font, Weiss at his side. The blond sniper’s head near Briggs’ shoulder swivels left to right as he analyzes the room of the IBI’s greatest rival.

  Behind the Commander duo are Homicide agents (including Gloria Shay, oh joy), SWAT men and women, already in uniform, despite the day-long countdown to our raid, managers and senior officers who usually sit in the IBI’s Main Deck, controlling the world’s largest (official) law enforcement network, spanning continents, and, finally, at the rear, a sleepy-looking Cyber Sec trio. Jin is among them.

  Dressed in his faded field uniform, he shuffles into the room, taking in the sights and searching for any designated area where he is supposed to go to work. I know for a fact Briggs brought him in primarily because Dynara gave him Level Six clearance, thanks to the Brennian fiasco. I also know that Briggs, aware of Jin’s current issues, could and would have chosen someone more mentally and physically fit for this job—if I wasn’t guaranteed to be in on it, too.

  Jin spins a three-sixty on the pads of his boots to search the crowds for familiar faces, and after two vain minutes, he spots me moping in my shadowy corner. He waves and then jogs over, expression pensive. We haven’t spoken since he was piss-ass drunk the night before. And all day, for the first time since we met, I believe, not a single text or call has passed between us. That’s Jericho, for you, always driving wedges between the most sensitive places.

  He slows to a stop before me, cheeks already that delightful shade of humiliated purple, and runs a hand through his hair. “Hey…”

  “Hey, yourself.” After what happened with Delacourt, I’m not in the mood to bring up the darker side of my relationship with Jin again, so I brush off the worry in his eyes and say, “Hope you didn’t leave me dinner in the oven again. It’ll have spoiled by the time I get home.”

  A wave of relief washes through his face, and his shoulders sag. Off the argument hook for now. “Nah. I spent half the day sleeping off my brutal hangover and the other half slicing up vegetables for the holiday party.”

  Jin’s hands are steady as rocks when he’s cooking, usually, but they’ve been known to slip on occasion when he’s had a few too many. “Didn’t cut yourself, did you?” I ask.

  He almost lies to me, but he clamps his mouth shut before the No emerges and rethinks his decision. “Only twice.” His left hand unfolds to display two cuts, scabbed over, on his thumb. “And they aren’t deep.”

  “Good to know you didn’t completely maim yourself over celery.”

  “It was lettuce.”

  “Beside the point.” I glance over his shoulder at the coalescing work groups on the foxhole floor. Lance has brought the other two Cyber Sec agents into his coordinator circle, but he’s busy giving them a rudimentary rundown of EDPA’s systems, which Jin doesn’t need (because I gave him that rundown, without permission from EDPA, several weeks ago). Briggs, Weiss, Dynara, and Murrough have retreated to the main task room for an executive overview of the Stiegel and DuPont murders and our impending raid. Everyone else is talking amongst themselves, the IBI agents subtly trying to extract trade secrets from the EDPA crew.

  I pat Jin’s shoulder and nod my head toward the door. “You hungry? Thirsty? The cafeteria’s down the hall. Open twenty-four hours. I haven’t had a snack since midday, so I’m about to drop. You in?”

  Jin cocks his head to the side, then throws a curious glance over his shoulder. “Something up? You look a little blue.”

  Perceptive tonight, are we?

  “I fucked up an interrogation and got shot in the dick.”

  Jin’s eyes widen to saucer-circumference and drop to my crotch. “Is it…still intact?”

  “I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t.”

  “Did it…hurt?”

  “I wouldn’t be standing here if it hadn’t. Because I would have caught my suspect before he escaped from my custody and had to be chased down by my very irritated boss.” My shoulders press harder against the wall, like my body wants to sink right into the darkness, invisible. “I’m out of favor at the moment. Dynara gets this sour look on her face every time she senses my presence, as if I smell like rotten fish mixed with raw sewage.”

  “Yikes.” Jin cringes. “Did you miss the gun on him?”

  “Yep. Couple of guards frisked him, and I was too hyped up on the moment to think t
o do it again. A novice mistake.”

  “That’s rough, man. Come on.” Jin takes my sleeve and tugs me toward the door. “What was so crazy about the moment that it distracted you, of all people?”

  We pass through the still-open doors and into the wide EDPA hallway teeming with agents from all walks of agency life as they prep for the active night shift. May brushes by us, face buried in her Ocom screen; she barks orders through to a member of her strike team who’s staking out the raid location with the rest of the preliminary survey crew. Donovan meets us at a corner, and he gives me a sad smile, Jin a courteous nod, when he makes the turn toward the elevators that will whisk him to the main infirmary again. To visit Wallis.

  I take the lead on the way to the cafeteria, Jin trailing a step or two behind me, and I can feel the anticipation of juicy gossip rolling off his flushed skin. “Get this,” I say. “Dynara took me to meet the Snake.”

  For a second, recognition evades him, but then his eyes light up like a Christmas tree. “The Snake? The Crimson Snake? You met her? For real?”

  “Sure did.” I nudge him in the direction of the swinging doors to the cafeteria. “And no, I didn’t ask for her autograph.”

  “Aw. Missed opportunity.”

  “Only to you, buddy.” I kick one of the doors out of my way and reveal the sprawling cafeteria beyond, the smell of hot, delicious food wafting through the air. There are a few lone wolves seated here and there, munching on snacks or reading books or checking the news, but the dinner rush has cooled off by this time, all agents now on shift. “I got so caught up in the goddamn mob world whirling around me in vibrant 3D, prostitutes and gamblers and illegal auctions and all sorts of crap, that I let myself run with the moment instead of backing the hell away, like I should have. In other words, I’m an idiot. I deserve the ridicule.”

  “Hey, nobody’s perfect.” Jin scans the food court circling the main seating area. His attention sticks to the Mediterranean options. “And you, I’m afraid to say, are somebody, despite your attempts to vanish into the wall back there.”