A Question of Will (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 1)

by Alex Albrinck

  Oh no.

  The man had come into The Diner just a few days ago, ruggedly handsome, with his long brown hair pulled back. He’d been wearing a cloak like she’d commonly seen in old science fiction or fantasy movies, complete with an over-sized hood. The mystery of the man started with his name, a nickname which he said he’d been given by his boss. It was the name of a character from a well-known piece of literature. Something with a P. Pinocchio? No, that wasn’t it. Poseidon? No. Gena snapped her fingers. Porthos. That had been the man’s name.

  They’d chatted, and he’d told a story of a powerful amulet, likely to explode with disastrous consequences in only a few days. It had been buried decades ago, and his team of explorers had positively identified the underground location as being just inside the walls of the Estates. His search was for a TV show, he told her; they were filming a pilot for a new series about professional treasure hunters, and she’d be on TV telling them about the current community situated on the ground covering this dangerous amulet. They’d talked about the need to dig this trinket up to prevent a disaster, though Gena didn’t think the man truly believed that part of his research. He just wanted to dig the gem up because it would do wonders for the ratings of his fledgling program.

  The conversation had shifted to the residents of the community, and naturally to the Starks. He’d seemed surprised to hear that there was a Mrs. Stark, actually. As they’d departed, he’d thanked her for her help and let her know he’d be talking to the Starks in a couple of days.

  They had spoken two days ago. Which meant his “conversation” would have been...today.

  “He made it all up,” she whispered. “The treasure...they were just after Stark the whole time. They just wanted to get to him.”

  “Very good, Gena.”

  The hand was over her mouth before she could scream. It was him, the man in the cloak. She hadn’t heard him come in the door, hadn’t heard him at all until he’d spoken, as if he’d just appeared out of the air right behind her.

  “You may not know or believe this, Gena, but the man you and other humans revere, the man called Will Stark? He’s broken his word, violated oaths he has sworn, and put the lives of many immensely powerful people at risk. And for what? So he can teach a little kid how to hit a baseball? You see, Gena, Stark had to be eliminated, before he became even more bold and brazen. He might reveal just how talented we actually are. And we can’t have that.”

  The man she knew as Porthos was suddenly in front of her. Her hand went to her mouth in horror. He hadn’t actually moved. He’d simply vanished behind her and reappeared in front of her.

  “You killed Mark,” she whispered. “You killed Mrs. Stark. You killed their little boy. Whatever you’re doing or whoever you’re protecting, is it truly worth it?”

  “I personally killed none of them. The man responsible is missing in the chaos at the Stark house. I understand that he threatened to kill you if Mark didn’t cooperate. Mark tried to fight him to protect you and the others, foolish though that was. So there are things worth fighting for, and things worth dying for, aren’t there?”

  Gena’s eyes filled with tears. Mark had died fighting a killer, fighting to protect her and others. That was the man she loved.

  Porthos looked right at her. “And just as there are things worth dying for, there are things worth killing for.”

  The blade was in his hand and slashing at her before she could scream, and he was gone before she hit the floor, never to rise again.

  IX

  Trust

  Millard Howe had been waiting for the hordes to descend.

  When word got out that his client, the multi-billionaire Will Stark, had been killed in a fire at his home, and that his wife and son had died along with him, people made the expected polite noises of sadness and sorrow. A great humanitarian, they said. Impossible to replace in the business community. He was far too young. Terrible thing, the death of a child. The words were mere blather to Howe, because he knew what they really cared about.

  What, exactly, would happen to the Stark family’s vast wealth?

  Howe knew how the game was played. He knew that those speaking with the most reverence about Stark — and especially those who used the misdirection of speaking more about his wife or son — were hoping to get the public behind the idea of a sizable portion of the estate in the hands of their particular organization. Advocacy groups and charitable foundations ramped up advertising efforts, as if such work would get Will or Hope to call and make a donation from the grave, as if some type of popularity contest would decide where the money would end up.

  More practical types wondered what would be left to distribute. Many believed inheritance taxes would reduce the size of the estate to just exceptionally exorbitant, rather than the current mind-numbingly exorbitant. Others wondered about the fate of Stark’s companies. Would the hundreds of thousands of people working for Will Stark in some fashion find themselves without jobs, the companies collapsing into failure without his insightful leadership? Would taxes and estate claims force the sale of those companies, leaving them under new management, and again risking jobs as new owners looked to slash costs to recoup their investments? The stock market dropped notably the first two days after Will’s death was announced, as investors worried about these questions and the ripple effects that might follow.

  Gossip web sites had a field day, speculating that one or more long-lost Stark relatives would emerge and claim the entire estate by right of genetic inheritance. More serious thinkers derided such theories. Both Will and Hope were well-known to be orphaned long before they even met, and any more distant relations had died out as well.

  It all came down to the estate plan, and that meant eventually the media would find the Stark family’s estate lawyer, Millard Howe. The emails started arriving in Howe’s inbox less than thirty-six hours after news of the fire broke. Phone calls came shortly afterward. Howe found it impossible to get any work done that day, and even more impossible to leave his office and drive home through the throngs of reporters seeking answers.

  Howe finally issued a press release, stating that the estate plan documents providing direction on the disbursement of the Stark estate had been stored in an ingenious fashion, so as to prevent any possibility of, or speculation about, tampering. Howe noted that he had urgent business to complete, but that he’d be traveling via plane three days later so as to retrieve the materials. Much to his surprise, the media left him alone. Apparently, watching an old lawyer work for three days prior to leaving for a trip to parts unknown wasn’t seen as exhilarating for the average television viewer.

  With media silence finally assured, Howe left his office early that afternoon so that he could leave on his journey as darkness began to fall. He’d be gone and back long before the three days were up, hopefully without being seen and without disclosing the secure hiding spot for the hidden documents. Howe crept out of his house in the early evening as darkness fell, glancing around to be certain he hadn’t been followed, and made his way to a rickety old shed. He threw open the doors, revealing a workshop-style garage, where he’d been restoring a vintage 1998 Ferrari convertible. No one had ever seen him drive it. The license plates were from a different state. Stark had given him the car as a tool to use in this exact occurrence: Will’s death coming after Hope and Josh both predeceased him. Will expected that such a scenario would be difficult for his attorney, and Will made sure people who worked for him had the fewest possible obstacles in achieving their goals. Thus, Millard Howe had a secret old automobile with a traveling bag and a map.

  His first instruction from Stark had been quite simple: should the scenario occur, he should open the trunk, use the old fashioned paper map to drive to the location indicated, and use the key — also in the trunk — to enter the building he found there. At that point he would be able to retrieve the materials from their storage location, and carry out the terms of the Stark family’s estate plan. He knew the specifics, of course
, having written the document himself with the guidance and direction of Will and Hope. The actual document would be needed to ensure that he could carry out the plans without being questioned as to his own involvement in the process, which would be quite extensive.

  Howe checked the map, avoiding the temptation to verify it using mapping software; no doubt some hacker out there was tapping any type of Internet activity or GPS searches from his home, just in case the crafty old lawyer decided to show his hand early. The map revealed a spot in West Virginia, roughly a four hour drive away. Naturally, he’d stored up gasoline over time — another suggestion from Will — so that he could make the trip to and from without needing to stop to pay for gasoline, refilling as needed with the fuel cans. After ensuring the thirty-year-old vehicle was topped off on all essential fluids and that tire pressure was optimal, Howe got in the car and drove, passing the domed city of Pleasanton and heading for the West Virginia border.

  Four hours later, Howe pulled up to a building which looked abandoned, miles from the nearest highway or paved road. The locale was thoroughly isolated, showing that Will Stark liked privacy and security even in death. The lawyer got out of the car after pocketing the key, and looked around. He was reminded of old Western movies featuring abandoned towns, fully expecting to see a tumbleweed or two roll past him.

  Instead, he heard a click and felt the muzzle of a gun at the back of this head. He hadn’t heard anyone approach.

  “State your name.” The voice was stern without being threatening, enabling Howe to respond rather than stumble.

  “Millard Howe.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “My client directed me to come here in the event of his death.”

  “Who is your client?”

  “Will Stark, and his wife, Hope, as well.”

  “Mr. Howe, what subject did Mr. and Mrs. Stark discuss first upon meeting each other?”

  Howe smiled. “Architecture. Specifically, they talked about the plans for the house he wanted to build in Ohio.”

  The gun was lowered. “Thank you for your patience, Mr. Howe. We have had our instructions to follow here as well, and that started with ensuring that nobody arrived here that we did not expect. Please, follow me.”

  He followed the man into the building, noting that the door had no lock and would withstand little more than a gentle breeze anyway. Did that mean the key was useless? The man, who had brown hair and eyes, appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties. As Howe expected, the inside of the building looked much like the outside: run-down. The man turned and smiled. “Best way to avoid too much suspicion is to make people think there’s nothing here worth hiding. Then they won’t look.” He walked to a wall, moved his hands over the surface as if trying to identify a specific location, then placed his palms on the wall. Howe heard a gentle tone, and the wall began sliding into the floor. Behind the wall was a door, which the man opened. He gestured for Howe to follow him inside, which the lawyer did with some reluctance. Howe was quite mindful of the fact that his host still possessed a gun. The fact that he was walking through a hidden doorway into a dark tunnel filled with some type of mist or fog was no less concerning than the weapon.

  The things I do for my clients. Even the dead ones...

  “What am I walking through?” he asked. “Is it mist, or fog? Have we somehow gone back outside?”

  The man chuckled. “No.” He didn’t elaborate.

  The tunnel was completely devoid of sound and light, and Howe was unable to see his host after several paces into the mist. Concerned he’d somehow walked into a trap of some kind, the lawyer wondered if he should turn around and head back. Then he realized that with no visual aid to guide him, he had no guarantee he wouldn’t spin himself in circles. With no reasonable alternative, he continued moving forward, his hands balled into fists, anticipating a possible attack.

  After a few minutes, Howe emerged out of the mist into a small room, light and sound returning with sudden abruptness. He blinked, acclimating to the light, and made note of his surroundings. Though minimal in square footage, the room was clearly of modern construction. A square table large enough to seat three people per side was the primary piece of furniture. The walls included numerous television screens. Tablet-style computers were available near each seat at the table. It looked to be a modern office conference room, though there was no sign of any type of projection device or speaker phone for outside calls.

  Curious. And still quite concerning.

  Howe looked the man who’d guided him to this room. “I was told in my instructions that I’d be able to retrieve a copy of Mr. and Mrs. Stark’s estate plan, including their last will and testament, once I arrived. May I have it, please?”

  “I don’t have it.”

  Howe’s face paled. “Then why was I ordered to drive here?”

  “I don’t have it. I didn’t say you couldn’t retrieve it.” He handed Howe a piece of paper.

  When the Starks and Howe had sat down to draft up their plans, they were deeply concerned about theft and modification. Though kidnappings for ransom were the most common forms of attack, forgeries of wills were gaining in popularity. Thieves would use an apparent robbery to hide their true purpose, which involved locating, altering, and replacing original copies of wills with alternates in which they’d be awarded with financial payoffs. The forgeries became sophisticated enough that several actually managed to succeed. The Starks wanted Howe to keep a copy of the final document, which was stored in a wall safe in his office. Potential thieves didn’t need to know that the wall safe in his office was actually in his home office. The Starks kept a copy in their own home. A third copy would be kept in a secured location, which Howe wouldn’t learn about until after he actually needed it, the location stored on the map in the restored car. The intent was to retrieve all three copies, compare them, and ensure that there were no discrepancies. In this fashion, there could be no question as to whether the working copies were valid and true to the Starks’ actual wishes.

  Howe read the paper and noted the instructions. He was to send emails with specific subject headings from specific accounts of his: personal, business, and a special account he used solely to communicate with the Starks. He was to order the data he received in reply in a specific order, namely, in order of importance of the sending emails he used. He was to then decipher the text using the key.

  Howe frowned. He sent the emails to the rather obscure addresses. He received two responses from each: one a message containing random jumbles of letters, and a second letting him know that the accounts had been locked and could never be accessed again. That meant he could never get his copies of the emails again if something happened to the originals.

  He thought about the Starks, and where their priorities in life would be, and it was quite clear what the couple would consider the highest and lowest levels of importance. They considered one’s family to be the first priority, and always considered themselves last. Howe used a word processing program to paste the text of the emails together, first the one in his personal mailbox, then the one in his work address, and finally the one in his private email address used only with the Starks.

  Decipher the text using the key. Howe frowned. Typically, a key of this type meant a string of characters used to decode an encrypted message, but he didn’t have anything like that. Or did he? Howe removed the key from the trunk of the car and studied it more closely. He noted a random string of characters etched into the key, and smiled. Very clever. He brought up an Internet site that could encode and decode text using an encryption key. He pasted the encrypted message into the website and entered the key...and there was the official document.

  He glanced at the brown-haired man. “Excuse me, sir. What is your name?”

  “My name is Adam.”

  “Adam...what?”

  “Just Adam, sir.”

  “Oh.” Odd. “Adam, is there a means by which I can print out copies of this bit of text?”
>
  Adam nodded, and showed the lawyer how to connect to a printer he hadn’t previously noticed. Howe printed off several copies, in the event the original printout was damaged. While waiting, he turned back to Adam. “So, what is your connection to the Starks?”

  “I manage the data center used to secure and store sensitive data.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “Some of the data processed by the Starks’ companies is unusually sensitive, in particular those dealing with health and medical billing analysis. The company publishes sanitized and synthesized information — how many bone fractures occurred in Chicago in May, which zip codes show the most treatments for drug addiction, the actual number of hours spent performing an appendectomy across the country. That’s the type of information that’s useful in setting market prices, and letting different providers compete on cost, letting consumers shop around, and so on.”

  “OK, makes sense.”

  “To get that type of data, however, we need the raw, actual data. The data that says that Joe Smith, living at a specific address, with a specific birthday, had a very specific medical procedure performed at a specific location, by a certain specialist. That data cannot be seen by the public at large.”

  “Why not?”

  “The most obvious answer is that there are privacy concerns in having others know your medical history. Think of it this way, Mr. Howe. Could you think of certain medical prescriptions other attorneys might be interested in learning that you took? Something they might use to suggest to prospective clients — indirectly, of course — that you might not be the best choice for them?”

  Howe thought about that. “I see your point.”

  “That level of raw data is too raw for general use, even by our corporation. If the stakes were high enough, one of our analysts could be bribed to run reports seeking lists of medical procedures performed or prescriptions written for everyone who happened to have exactly the same characteristics that you have. A fishing expedition, if you will. They would be able to figure out that private information, or at least have a high degree of certainty that it applied to you. We store that very raw data in a top secret location, and use exceptionally robust security controls to make sure that only our systems can query that data, and even then the data must be of a certain level of generality. The servers here have been taught to recognize searches that are clearly trying to find data about a single individual. Those queries are denied unless specific protocols and procedures are followed that makes it clear that there is some appropriate use.”