by Andrew Watts
He raised his hand as if to strike her. She smiled back at him, a daring glint in her eye. He thought about hitting her but couldn’t bring himself to hit a girl. Even if she was an enemy. She was a woman, and he had been raised never to lay a finger on a woman.
He shoved her chair away in frustration and let out a snort.
“Are you frustrated?” Lena asked, a weird excitement in her voice.
Norman said nothing. Natesh continued to type.
“You should let go of your frustration. This situation will be resolved soon enough.”
Norman clenched his jaw. “How so?” he said.
“Soon my support will arrive. They will take all of you into custody. I will be released. That is what will happen.”
“That so?”
“Undoubtedly.”
Norman stepped over to speak into her ear. He kneeled down. His face was red and he was angry enough that he started doing things he wouldn’t have otherwise. Like pressing his weapon into her temple. He unholstered the gun and jammed it against her skull.
* * *
Lena closed her eyes and inhaled. A deep, pleasure-filled breath. “Don’t you just love moments like these?”
Natesh looked at them and said, “Norman, cool it.”
Norman said, “Tell me how many people there are on the other side of the island.”
Lena turned her head so that the barrel of the gun was pointed straight at her forehead. She caressed the tip of the gun with her lips. Norman’s face was red with fury.
Lena said, “More than enough, I assure you.”
“Will they send helicopters in this weather? Can the people on the other side of the island take boats here? How will they get here? Do they know that we have you? How much time do we have?”
Lena said, “Relax, Mr. Shepherd. Trust me, there is absolutely no way out for you or the other members of the Red Cell—”
“Stop calling it that. This never was a Red Cell. It was all a sham. A waste.”
“A sham maybe, but definitely not a waste. Trust me, the information will be put to good use.”
Norman was losing control of his emotions. He said, “You bitch. Is this noble to you? Do you think this is right? To kidnap people and attack a peaceful nation? I assume you’re Chinese, right? Why the hell would China want to attack us, anyway? Don’t you guys already own half our country and sell everything to us? What more do you want?”
Lena stared at him, the slightest of smiles on her mouth.
Natesh leaned over and said, “Calm down, Norman. I’m almost done.”
Norman took his eyes off Lena and looked up at Natesh. He yelled over to him, “How much longer?”
He heard a loud, rapid ripping sound.
Norman looked down at Lena. She had somehow torn apart the duct tape that had tied her forearms together.
Her hands grabbed at his gun and he tried to pull it away, but she was incredibly quick. They wrestled over the gun, Norman forcing its aim toward the ground. He tried to pull the trigger, hoping that would win him control, but she had jammed her finger behind it, blocking his pull.
With her free hand, she grabbed his shirt, twisted it around, and shifted all of her weight so that she and her chair fell to the ground, acting like a fulcrum and slamming Norman to the floor.
Natesh was on his feet now, mouth gaping, looking unsure of himself. He saw Norman on the ground, his eyes growing wider with the first hint of panic.
Lena’s legs were still taped together at her calves, but now she was on top of Norman, free from her chair, her knees balancing on his chest. One of her hands was still blocking the gun trigger. The other hand—the free hand—moved faster than anything Natesh had ever seen. It was the last thing Norman would ever see. Her fingers became weapons, gouging his eyes with lightning strikes of her long fingernails. Norman twisted away in crazed pain and let go of the gun, holding his now bloody eyes and screaming.
The gun clattered on the concrete floor, but Lena didn’t go for it.
She took both her hands and twisted Norman back so that he was facing straight up toward the ceiling. With one strike, she forced her fist into his Adam’s apple. She let out a guttural yelling noise as she hit him. Her fist was tight, and her knuckles struck like a hammer. The stone floor behind Norman meant that there was nowhere for the pressure to go but straight into his larynx and trachea. His bloody and scratched eyes shot open and his hands instinctively went to his throat as he tried to breathe.
As soon as his eyes opened, Lena attacked them once again. She simultaneously dug the pointer and middle fingers of each hand into the corresponding soft tissue of his eyes. The eye sockets caved in about an inch, and Lena squeezed and tore. Dark blood streamed down his face as Norman wailed.
Lena rolled off him and sat on the floor, next to the gun. Natesh stood, facing her.
Behind Lena, the far door in the room—the one that lead to her private quarters—opened. Natesh saw dozens of armed Chinese men in military gear looking into the room. Lena looked back at them. They could see the bloody mess on the floor but remained stationary. They appeared to be waiting for her command.
Lena looked back at Natesh. “I see you sent your distress message.”
Combs said, “A year ago. We met out in California. Near Edwards Air Force Base, where I worked. I was retiring. I didn’t want to get out of the Air Force, but they wouldn’t let me serve any longer. I didn’t get promoted. I was being forced out. Mandatory retirement, they said. Then my boss told me that they had an opening for a special assignment. It would give me another year in the Air Force. I was thrilled. A week later I met up with Lena and Natesh and they told me all about this job. Supposed to take about a year to eighteen months. They needed a lot of data. My boss helped me with that. We did IT security audits at all of the Air Force bases on the West Coast. So it was easy for us to get access. This operation was all highly classified. At the time, I thought Lena and Natesh were both private contractors, but they were pretty easy to work with. They didn’t tell me about Lena being CIA until just before we came to the island.”
Brooke’s eyes were wide. “Wait, you’re saying that you, Lena, and Natesh were accessing government computers on the West Coast for the past twelve months?”
“Yeah, why?”
“How long have you been planning to come to the island like this?”
“The whole time. We didn’t find out the exact location of course until just a few weeks ago. Everything moved quicker once the Chinese got hold of ARES. But we knew we were going somewhere. They said that they needed me to check our base cybersecurity and to be the Administrative Officer here.”
“Haven’t you been listening or talking to anyone while you’ve been here? No one else has been working with her for more than a few weeks. The ARES codes were just found in the satellites a few weeks ago. And the operation that killed our CIA operative in Shanghai took place over the past few weeks. The whole premise for us being on this island is that Lena and members of our government found out about a Chinese invasion plan over the past few weeks. So if you and Natesh have been working with her for the past twelve months on plans to come here, that directly contradicts what we’ve been told about just recently finding out about the Chinese invasion.”
Combs looked confused. Brooke realized that he was not guilty of treason. He was just guilty of being an idiot. Perhaps that is why he was chosen.
Tess yelled down from the top level of the classroom, near the window, “Brooke, Natesh is on his way back. He’s by himself, and he’s running.”
11
Force always attracts men of low morality —Albert Einstein
Two years earlier, San Francisco
Natesh drove his Tesla Model S up to the entrance of one of San Francisco’s most exclusive restaurants. He flipped the keys to the valet and strolled through the large rotating glass door. A petite Chinese woman in a business suit was waiting for him next to the hostess.
The Chinese woman said,
“Right this way, Mr. Chaudry.”
He followed her up the stairs to the second level of the open-floor restaurant. The smells of fresh bread and spiced meat filled his nostrils. The woman led him to a table next to the railing that overlooked the diners below. The downstairs dining area was packed. The bar was standing room only. Up top, though, every table had been cleared. Natesh saw a manager shooing away a busboy who tried to clean a nearby table. They escorted him to the only table that had place settings and he sat alone. The Chinese woman stood ten feet away, waiting.
Natesh looked at her and said, “I’m sorry, miss, but do you know when he’ll be here?”
She held up a finger and touched her ear with her other hand. She was listening to an earpiece. A clear one like Secret Service agents wore when they protected the president.
Natesh looked at the entrance of the restaurant and saw a half-dozen men in black suits enter and spread out. Several of them were holding a hand to their ears as well. Security.
The second floor was a good twenty feet above the ground floor of the restaurant. It was wide open, with colorful glass decorations hanging down from the immensely high ceiling. A jazz band played, though it wasn’t too loud up there on the second floor. The bar was buzzing, and waiters and waitresses flew through the crowd while balancing food and drinks. It was busy. And yet, when the man who had to be Mr. Cheng Jinshan entered the room, he immediately looked up at the exact spot where Natesh was sitting.
It took Jinshan a moment to get up to the second-floor table. He was an older gentleman, but looked very fit. Jinshan had hard eyes, sharp cheekbones, and thick wrinkles on his forehead. His suit looked very expensive, as did his shoes. An entourage followed him up the stairs, but they dispersed as soon as Jinshan reached the table. Natesh rose as he arrived, and they shook hands. Jinshan spoke in thickly accented English. “I am happy that we were able to meet. Your reputation precedes you. You have done excellent work with your company, Natesh. You should be very proud.”
Natesh was used to wining and dining the clients he worked with. It was part of the job. But usually he arranged everything and was able to do his homework on who he was meeting ahead of time. He knew a little about Jinshan, but other than his wealth and business success, it was hard to find details in such a short amount of time. There was surprisingly little about his personal affairs on the Internet. This meeting had been popped on him only a few hours ago by one of Jinshan’s subordinates. Mr. Jinshan is in town on business. He wants to meet you. We will call in a few hours with a time and place. Be ready. There was no choice in the matter. When your client was one of the three most powerful men in Asia, you dropped everything.
“Thank you, Mr. Jinshan,” he said.
“Please excuse my direct line of inquiry. But my advisors keep me on a tight schedule. So I will get right to it, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m all yours, Mr. Jinshan. How can I be of service?”
Jinshan offered a polite smile. “Where do you see yourself in the next five years? What is your vision for your company and yourself?”
No chitchat. He gets right to the point. Natesh gave him his normal elevator speech. He told him about wanting to transform the consulting and product innovation world. Big companies had the means. Natesh and his crew had the ability. Natesh had hired some of the best innovators in the world and wanted to help create and disrupt industries.
“Create and disrupt, you say—two very different words. But often people in your line of work use them together, don’t they?”
Natesh said, “Yes, I suppose they do.”
Jinshan said, “Natesh, I have a question for you, and I want you to answer me truthfully. I’ve read your file. I saw some things in there that intrigued me. My question is…do you have a strong loyalty to the United States?”
Natesh opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He’d expected a business proposal. An opportunity for his consulting firm to work with one of Jinshan’s companies, perhaps. This question was completely unexpected.
He said, “You were born in India and lived there until you were ten. You are an American citizen. Your father still lives in India. But not your mother…”
Natesh felt a flash of concern. Why would this man be looking up things about Natesh’s parents? “I’m not sure how that is relevant,” he said.
“It is.”
“Well, I’m not fully comfortable—”
Jinshan looked over his shoulder at the small Chinese woman who had greeted Natesh earlier. She stood out of earshot but hurried over when he caught her eye.
“Please bring us a bottle of wine. And let the chef know we’re ready to begin our dinner.” She nodded and scurried away.
He turned back to Natesh and said, “Relax, Natesh. I don’t care what your parents did a long time ago in Kashmir. All I care about is that you have the frame of mind that I am looking for. And that you are not your parents.”
Natesh said, “My parents were…very political…”
“And are you?”
“No.”
“Then what does motivate you? What do you believe in?”
Natesh laughed nervously. This man was digging quick and deep. He said, “I believe in myself. And I believe in the power of reason.”
Jinshan said, “And what motivates you? Why do you work so hard in life? What do you long to do? To create? To become?”
His mind raced. “I’m only twenty-seven. I think I have a lot of time—”
“Don’t tell me that. I don’t believe that you haven’t thought about this. Men like us don’t go through life aimlessly. We conquer. Now—what is your goal?”
He was off-balance. He said, “I…I guess I have always wanted to be one of these titans of technology. Every day we create new ideas for companies and they use our ideas to create more value for themselves. I would like to sift through these ideas as we create them, and find the one or two that are really big. Then I would like to form my own large technology company and build it up. I would like to form it into one of these titanic firms that shapes the world.”
“So you want power?”
“Yes.”
“You want to create and control how the world works?”
“Yes. If we’re being honest. Which it seems we are.”
“You are. I haven’t said a word.”
Natesh flushed. “Well, your reputation stands true. I have heard that your interviews were more like interrogations.”
Jinshan laughed. “I don’t interview.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”
He shook his head. “No. Interviews are a waste. I decided to give you the job before we met. I’ve already done my research. Now I need to convince you that my job and my objectives are worthy of your dedication.”
“And what does that have to do with my loyalty to America?”
Jinshan said, “Are you loyal to America?”
The two paused their conversation as the wine came. A second waitress placed a plate of artisan breads and cheeses in between their plates.
Natesh arrived at the conclusion that this man didn’t care whether he was loyal to the US and might even look at it as a negative. If he was honest with himself, Natesh really didn’t harbor many patriotic feelings about the US. It was just a matter of whether his answer would hurt or help his future relationship with this client.
“No. I am not especially loyal to America. It’s just a set of lines over land and laws over men. Both of which will change over time,” Natesh said.
Jinshan said, “Natesh, what if I told you that those lines and laws were about to change very soon? What if I was to tell you that the world was going to change drastically in the next few years? And what if I offered you a major part in shaping and controlling how that happens?”
Natesh wasn’t sure what to make of this man. He saw the look of fierce intelligence behind his eyes. He said, “I think what I do would depend on the details, Mr. Jinshan. The first thing I always ask when e
ncountering a new problem is: what are my options?”
Jinshan’s face filled with wrinkles as he truly smiled for the first time that evening. “I’m glad you asked. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Natesh looked down onto the sprawling restaurant scene below. Bright incandescent bulbs lit up the bar. Waitresses in elegant yet revealing black dresses maneuvered through the tables to bring high-priced fare to some of San Francisco’s elite.
He took a sip of wine and said, “I’m happy to hear what you have to say.”
Jinshan studied him. “Tell me the answer to this question: Let’s say that you built corporations and began to take on the world…much like you are already doing. When would it be enough?”
Natesh considered that. He’d asked himself versions of that question a hundred times before.
He said, “It would never be enough.”
Jinshan pointed his finger at him and grinned. He said, “This is why interviews are a waste for me. I always research my investments heavily before I make a decision – especially my investments in human capital. I knew that I was right in my decision to choose you before we even spoke.”
“Thank you.”
“Natesh, a hunger for life is never something that you should be ashamed of. People will call it greed. But greed doesn’t fully capture the reason for the statement you made…”
Natesh’s gut reaction was to say that he wasn’t greedy. It was the natural response to such an accusation. But he could tell by Jinshan’s tone of voice that this was not meant to be a negative charge.
Jinshan said, “Ambition gets us closer. That word gets closer to what really drives many of the men and women who prop up this world. But why do they have ambition? You have to keep peeling back the layers to see that it’s all about two things: control and fear. People want to be in control. They want to be in control because they fear what happens when they aren’t.”
Natesh smeared some Brie on a slice of a baguette and listened while he chewed.
