Hostile Attractions

by Raleigh Davis

  To explain the size of what Elliot’s trying to grapple with, we have to go back to the beginning, back when the CIA was first founded. They were meant to only spy on people outside the country—any operations within the country were strictly forbidden. At least, that’s how the story goes.

  Now we bring in the NSA. They’re signals intelligence, monitoring enemy transmissions, cracking encryption codes, things like that. They’re not supposed to collect or listen in on American citizens without a warrant. At least, that’s how the story goes.

  My boss, Arne Fuchs, has developed the technology to allow someone to grab almost every single electronic transmission in the United States—every phone call, text message, email, direct message, all of it—and the machine-learning algorithms to go through all those masses of messages, looking for anything that the CIA or the NSA would want to see.

  Selling that program to a government agency would make billions for Corvus. But it’s not the money Fuchs wants: it’s the information. All those messages would have to get processed through Corvus servers, and Fuchs put in a back door so that he could get a look as that information passed through.

  Certain people within the CIA and the NSA loved the program—code-named OmniView—so much that they didn’t care that it was illegal. The prospect of all that intelligence was simply too enticing. And of course the CIA didn’t want the NSA to have it and vice versa. Never mind that they’re supposed to be working together to keep Americans safe from foreign threats; holding tight to their own patch of power is much more important to those factions.

  So they’re fighting within their respective agencies to acquire and use OmniView and with anyone outside their agency to make sure only they get the wonderful toys they want so badly.

  I don’t need to explain all the legal implications of that to Elliot. He knows OmniView is completely illegal and that if I blow the whistle and expose it, I’ll go to jail. Probably for a very, very long time.

  My best bet is to release the information to a news source as anonymously as I can, then flee the country and spend the rest of my life in hiding. It’s not a great plan—Fuchs is going to know it was me, and he’ll be sure to pass that on to the government—but my own safety was probably always forfeit. It’s the information that matters. I just have to stay alive long enough to get it to the right people.

  “So you believe me now?” I ask quietly.

  He doesn’t say yes, but he also doesn’t say no. “This is so fucked.”

  I agree. “Are you going to turn me in?”

  His jaw works. He’s angry again. “This all could be faked.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  He turns his head as if searching for a reason. He exhales slow and hard when he can’t find one. “I won’t turn you in.”

  But he won’t say if he believes me or not. I suppose I should be happy just for this.

  “Will you tell anyone?” I ask.

  He glances up at me over his shoulder, his dark eyes searing.

  “You’re a lawyer,” I say quickly. “Is everything we say protected by attorney-client privilege?”

  His expression is sardonic. “You’re not my client.” Implied is the notion that no amount of money would ever persuade him to work for me.

  “I can’t take this to just anyone,” I say quietly. “If Fuchs finds me… or the NSA or the CIA…”

  He nods grimly. “Yes, I can see your dilemma. Don’t worry, I’m not going to throw you out. Not yet.” He lifts his hands, gestures at the laptop. “I have no idea where to begin with this.”

  I have some ideas. First I need to get ahold of my old friends, tell them I’m finally out. Maybe make some copies of the drive and put them in safe places should anything happen to me.

  Next, I’m going to contact some people I know in the media. Most of the reporters I know work for fringe websites, the kind nobody takes seriously, even though they’re the only ones speaking the truth about the surveillance state. They can help me contact others in the media and make sure this gets spread far and wide. That’s the only hope to stop it.

  Problem is, once Fuchs discovers my real name—and he will, given enough time—he’ll track down anyone I’ve ever even had coffee with and interrogate them. The people from my old life could easily lead Fuchs right to me.

  Fuchs has a noose around my neck. I only have a certain amount of time before he starts to tighten it, and I’ve got to release this data before then.

  After… Well, I can’t think about after.

  “I told you,” I say. “I need to contact some people. And then I can leave.”

  “Like who?”

  “I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t know them anyway.”

  “Right. And they can’t be googled?”

  “They can, which is the problem.” I cross my arms, mirroring his combative stance. “I’m not telling you their names. That’s nonnegotiable.”

  He doesn’t smile, but he does look amused. “And you’ve got the leverage to demand anything.” Meaning that of course I don’t.

  I may not have leverage, but I’m stubborn. Minerva doesn’t bend for anyone, no matter how desperate she is.

  “No.” I keep still and steady, staring straight into his eyes. “That’s not happening.”

  We stare each other down for several heartbeats. The air between us grows heavy, almost sluggish in my lungs. I can see the slight imperfections in him—nose tip a bit too sharp, the dent in his chin a touch too deep, his mouth turned down and the lines around it saying that’s how he always holds it.

  He breaks it off first, and I feel a hint of triumph. I might not have leverage, but I can still beat him in a staring contest.

  “Why don’t you start from beginning?” He gestures to the bench seat across from him.

  I simply stand there for a moment. The beginning of what? When I became an activist? When I started at Corvus? Or when I decided it was finally time to get out of there?

  I sit down, carefully rearranging my clothes—his clothes. I don’t want to expose any more of my body than necessary. As I adjust my legs, my knee brushes his and sends shivers through me. I tuck my legs as close to my body as I can, trying to make myself small.

  His mouth twists with pained amusement when he sees what I’m doing. “Don’t worry, I won’t touch you.” His tone says he’d rather cut off his hand than do that.

  I wish I could say the feeling was mutual, but it’s not.

  “Which part of the beginning?” I ask. I’m not going to tell him everything. He’s wily enough to track down my friends if I give too much away.

  He spreads his hands to encompass the computer and the hard drive. “How did we end up here? All this time we thought you were Fuchs’s lapdog. His happy little lieutenant. It turns out you were fooling us all along.”

  I suppose I can start a few months ago, when Fuchs began to suspect there was a double agent in his operation. Someone—me—leaked some information to Finn Braden, who’s a partner at Bastard Capital like Elliot. It was a risk, and I knew Fuchs would start sniffing around if I did it, but innocent people were going to jail. I couldn’t take it anymore.

  Funny, the things that will finally push a person over the edge. I’d done a lot worse things for Fuchs, things that should have made me throw up just to think about, but I hadn’t even blinked. Minerva wouldn’t have blinked, so I didn’t.

  “I couldn’t take it anymore.” I say it as plain and simple as it was. At least for that particular act of sabotage.

  He snorts. “Corvus put spyware on everyone’s phones, without their knowledge. Weren’t you involved in that?”

  “I wrote the terms for the social media apps that let us do that.” I don’t blink as I say it.

  “Fuchs was also secretly running that gossip blog, the one that was trying to break up my brother’s marriage. I’m sure you were intimately involved in that too.”

  “I told him to buy the site,” I say. “And I suggested planting those stories about yo
ur brother’s infidelity.”

  He looks away, his mouth tightening. But only for a moment, and then he’s pinned me with those dark blue eyes again. “And the panopticon? That whole system Corvus came up with to put whoever they wanted in jail? Like mentally ill homeless men? What’d you do for that one?”

  If he thinks listing my crimes is going to break me, he’s very mistaken. I do this every night, remind myself of all the terrible, inhumane shit I’ve unleashed on this world. It’s the only way I can keep in touch with who I was before, the woman buried deep beneath Minerva.

  Elliot’s prosecutor role-play is lost on me. I’m the ultimate actress, the ultimate liar.

  “I negotiated with the police department, set up liaisons with the prosecutor’s office, even mapped out where all the cameras should be.” My tone is as cold and smooth as ice. Not even a hint of dark shame in the crystal of it.

  He leans back, his mouth cracking open. “Jesus, you just admitted to it all. Like you’re proud of it.”

  Not quite, but I don’t deny it. I did what I had to, and I don’t have to explain myself to him. I’m not going to beg for his approval.

  “I’m not denying any of it. It’s public record.”

  “Not all of it,” he counters. “So after all this… evil shit, you just decide, ‘Hey, I’ve realized I’m a blight on humanity! Time to quit this job.’”

  I shouldn’t let it, but that jab about being a blight on humanity hurts. A lot.

  He leans in close, points his long forefinger at me. “Or, more likely, you’ve been selling information to other companies, realized you were about to get caught, and decided to try to save your skin here. Make yourself look like some kind of noble whistle-blower.”

  It’s a lovely story except for one thing. “Then why would I give all that information to Finn Braden for free?”

  He drops his finger, a nasty smile crossing his mouth. “So you admit you were the leak?”

  I take a deep breath and resist the urge to slam my hand on the table. “That’s what I said from the moment I walked in. You didn’t get me on anything.”

  “But if I keep pushing, I will.” The naked resentment in his voice turns my stomach.

  I’ve given him everything I have—at least, everything on the hard drive—but he still hates me. Despises me. Which I should have guessed that he wouldn’t magically forgive me. None of this was going to be easy.

  “Go ahead and try me.” It feels good to challenge him. He might be my only hope here, but he’s still an arrogant ass.

  He gathers himself up, bristling for a fight, and my pulse surges. I bristle myself, ready to leap at him. With arguments, not physically, of course.

  Then he sits back, his intensity fading. “It’s two in the morning. You need to sleep.”

  I want to protest, if only to push back against him, but he’s right. I’m fading and fast.

  I rise from the bench and he does too, in some parody of chivalry. “I’ll take the couch,” I say. “If you have any blankets…?”

  He shakes his head like I’m just too funny. “Nope. You’re in my bed.”

  I freeze. But I’m also wicked hot suddenly, heat blooming under my skin. Every inch of it.

  “I won’t be in there with you,” he says. The expression on his face makes me want to punch him. “I’ll take the couch.”

  “No, really—”

  “That way you can’t sneak out without my knowing.”

  I shut my mouth hard enough to have my jaws clacking. Right. Because I’m a sneak and a villain and I can’t be trusted.

  I’ve brought this all on myself, but it still hurts.

  Chapter 5

  “You have got to be fucking with me.” My brother Logan is in my kitchen, a mug of coffee in his hand and a stunned expression on his face. “She’s upstairs? Right now?”

  I nod, trying to signal with my closed mouth that he needs to keep it down. He’s going to wake up Minerva, and I don’t want that to happen. Yet.

  “Is that the hard drive?” Logan reaches for it. “Holy shit, I can’t believe it.”

  I grab his hand. “I can’t let you look at it,” I say apologetically.

  Logan doesn’t care about my apology, only about the prize so close at hand. “You’re kidding. You’re really not going to let me look at it?”

  I shake my head. “It’s… technically it is still hers.”

  “But you looked at it.”

  I blackmailed her into it though, which feels… dirty right now. I had to do it of course, to make sure she was telling the truth, but reminding myself of that doesn’t help.

  “I did, but you’ll just have to take my word that it’s explosive. She really is in deep shit.”

  Logan scoffs. “If she is—which I don’t believe—it’s her own damn fault. This is Minerva, remember? She doesn’t need any help from us. She definitely doesn’t need protecting.”

  “Honey.” Callie lays a soft hand on his arm. “I’m sure Elliot has his reasons.” But her expression says she doesn’t understand either.

  I’m not sure I do myself.

  “I just can’t see her having a change of heart,” Logan says. “Or even possessing a heart. And I can’t see you falling for it.”

  I shift, my feet scraping over the bare floor. I’m near the doorway, where Minerva came in last night, cold and dripping. I told Logan how she looked, but without seeing it for himself, he doesn’t believe me. He didn’t see the fear in her eyes, how… undone she was. He’s only ever seen Minerva pulled together, so tight she’s unbreakable. He can’t imagine what I saw.

  “Why come last night then?” I argue. “With only a hard drive, soaked to the skin?” I refuse to linger in my thoughts about her skin. “If she wanted to sell this data, she could have done it easily from the comfort of her own place, not walked through a rainstorm to me.”

  “Assuming she has a home and doesn’t plug into the wall in Fuchs’s office at night.” Logan shakes his head. “You’re only arguing about this because that’s what you do for a living. You argue. You don’t believe her any more than we do. But fine, you want to argue, we’ll argue. First point, why now? Fuchs has been doing terrible shit forever. What’s changed for her?”

  I don’t have a good answer to that one.

  “Sometimes people just… break,” Callie says. “There’s no one thing. They just decide they’ve had enough.”

  Logan’s face is stark with painful memories. Callie left him a while back, fed up with how their marriage was falling apart. She just left, without a word, breaking his heart in the process.

  That’s hard for me to forget and even harder for me to forgive. Seeing Logan in those months… it still haunts me. They might be reconciled now and happier than ever, but that period of their relationship can never be erased.

  “What happened…,” he says in a rough voice. “Our separation was partly her fault. She was spying on you, that’s why she swooped in when she thought we were divorcing. Like a vulture come to pick over a carcass.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. I was hoping just Logan would come over this morning, without Callie. She and Minerva have a history, and while Callie and I don’t quite get along, I don’t want to rub her nose in Minerva’s presence.

  “I know.” Callie’s holding back tears. “But we’re okay now.”

  I sigh. “I know all that. I remember each and every awful, shitty thing she did. But she’s here now, and I need to do something about it.”

  “And that’s why you called us, to help kick her out.” Logan’s chin juts forward. “Although you should have called some priests to perform an exorcism. First, though, we should go through her drive.”

  “Look, I asked you over to help me figure out what to do with her,” I say. “Not go through her hard drive. It’s off the table, and that’s final.”

  “Okay. Well, here’s my advice: get rid of her. Don’t listen to any more of her lies; don’t look at whatever fake shit is on that drive. Nothing that c
omes out of her mouth is real.” Logan’s grip on the mug tightens. “After what she did to Callie…”

  His wife’s hand on his arm clenches, her mouth going white.

  “It’s okay,” Callie says quietly. “I’m not afraid of her.”

  Logan takes her hand, kisses her knuckles. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Because Elliot’s going to show her the door.”

  My jaw goes rigid. Logan is the oldest, and sometimes he seems to forget I’m not a little kid anymore. That I don’t need to be told what to do.

  I pick up the drive. “What’s on here is explosive. And no, I won’t show it to you since I don’t have permission. If we do the same shit they do, doesn’t that make us as bad as they are?”

  “Aren’t lawyers supposed to be amoral bloodsuckers?” Logan asks wryly.

  “I think I missed that day in class.” I didn’t, since I had perfect attendance in law school, but I know what he means. I can bend the law to my will in a million different ways, not all of them… well, moral, I guess. But I’ve never been unethical, and it’s not my fault ethics and morals aren’t the same thing.

  The question is, Is showing them the drive a violation of my ethics or my morals? And what do I owe to someone who deserves only the sharp side of justice?

  “She wants to contact some people from here,” I say. “She wouldn’t say who. But then she guarantees she’ll be gone.”

  “To sell this data to someone?” Logan sneers at the drive. “How do you even know it’s real? Let me look, help you decide.”

  Callie sinks down into one of the chairs in the living room, the canal glittering behind her through the windows. The rain is gone, although the sky remains gray, and the streets are littered with everything the wind picked up and dropped. Still, it’s a pretty scene.

  “Maybe we should leave aside the question of whether or not it’s real,” she says. She puts a hand on her rounded belly, almost unconsciously. “What would she have to gain by selling this information? Fuchs could still have her prosecuted.”

  A chill runs over me because the people she’s supposedly on the run from would do much worse than that. “It’s beyond that,” I say. “If it is real, we’re—she’s dealing with much bigger forces than a prosecutor’s office.”