The Project

by I C Cosmos

“And we can count on her having some damning evidence. Remember Sardinia.”

  “That was a long time ago. We can spin it now.”

  “Let’s get rid of them and move on.”

  Andreas heard the urgency in the members’ voices. He sensed their hunger. Like a predator ready to pounce, they wanted their prey, and they wanted it now.

  The Consortium was an elite group united by their audacity to leverage any means to dominate the top. Its members were privileged, entitled, the shrewdest of the shrewd. They had used considerable amounts of money and political clout to get on the Consortium because they realized it wasn’t merely another Washington think tank.

  Attaining membership status was like living on the top of Mount Olympus, a place reserved for gods. And just like their Olympian counterparts, these modern-day deities had one main objective: to rule.

  They had devised the Project to abolish trade rules and geographical borders that hindered their commercial and political powers. Their efforts paid off. The Project moved along like a well-oiled machine. Except for the two grains of sand that could bring everything to a standstill. Helen and Nic.

  Andreas shrugged. It was time to move on, indeed. Nic and Helen were history.

  “OK. Let’s bring them back to Nice. We send her there on an assignment. Spread rumors that one of the usual culprits is planning a big attack on the area. And that she plays both sides. That should get his attention.”

  “And if he doesn’t bite?”

  “Bring her in, put her in a ‘protection program,’ working for us. And go on with our plans. One or two people can’t bring us down.” Andreas’s voice filled the library with strength and confidence.

  All private lamps came on, and the Consortium gave a standing ovation.

  “OK. OK.” Andreas signaled them to stop. “Let’s get moving.”

  Freed of the lingering frustrations, the Consortium came up with the master plan for Operation Nice II in record time. Members left the library one by one, preventing being seen together.

  As always, Andreas stayed behind, the last one to go. He refilled his large crystal glass, sat back in his chair, and reflected on the members’ explosive power hunger. These people were the crème de la crème, had everything. But it wasn’t enough.

  Amused, Andreas swirled the glass and inhaled the smooth, aromatic fumes while considering his options.

  Power. That’s what everyone was after. Even Helen. Her face on the lovely boat in Amsterdam flashed before his eyes. It hadn’t been her typical polite smile. Nor was it the genuine attention he found so refreshing and expected of her. No. Her face had spelled disapproval. She had ruined the boat ride for him.

  Why had he been so surprised? Disapproval ran in the family. Disapproval was all he got from his mother, and from his sister, Helen’s mother. Yet theirs were blatantly disdainful faces of women who couldn’t control him. Helen was different. Her disapproval was barely visible. And stemmed from power.

  Suddenly Andreas saw Helen in a completely different light. She wasn’t his little, easily manipulable niece anymore. She was a player to contend with. A player who convinced enough members of the Consortium that she was valuable if not indispensable. And they assumed that Nic was the villain who sabotaged Santini’s operations on the Azores and ordered Helen’s assassination on Elba.

  She would have fooled him too, if he didn’t know who had authorized Elba. And if he hadn’t obtained evidence that she had been behind the Azores fiasco. An amused chuckle escaped Andreas’s mouth. He swirled the exquisite cognac and took a sip, delighted.

  I made her. He had guided Helen’s career and transformed her into a warrior. For a brief moment Andreas wished he and Helen were on the same side. They could take on the world together. But Andreas didn’t believe in partnerships. And Helen didn’t believe in him. She’d never agree to execute his plan. Although he’d fooled her into producing the building blocks of his empire, thinking she was doing the right thing. Andreas smirked.

  He had held the hotheads back long enough, but Nic and Helen stood in his way. Andreas had no choice but to eliminate them. Excitement pulsed through his veins. Squaring off with genuine contenders made him feel alive. A rare thrill. There were too many fakers looking strong but weak through and through. They bored him. And they threw the dirtiest, costliest punches. Disgusting.

  Andreas raised his glass, pleased that Santini failed on Elba.

  For he’d be delighted to dispose of Helen himself.

  His way.

  PART 3

  Bobby

  Amsterdam, the Netherlands

  June

  “Number three, please.” Helen ordered her sandwich and stepped aside, melancholy tickling her eyes. This was her last day in Amsterdam before leaving for her new assignment in Nice. Maybe her last lunch in Amsterdam. Ever.

  She pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin, regaining her composure. The fact was, she couldn’t trust anyone or anything. Her life had become a whirlwind of manipulation, deception, corruption. And good intentions, she chuckled bitterly.

  Her eyes slid over the customers in the shop and moved outside to the Haarlemmerdijk, a lively shopping street. Suddenly she felt as if a curtain had gone up. Instead of automatically scanning for potential assassins, she was watching normal people going about their normal business.

  People talking, smiling, gesticulating, carrying shopping bags, rushing somewhere. People absorbed in their lives, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world. Helen’s heart swelled with a longing to be one of them. Stroll through Amsterdam on her lunch break, gossip about coworkers while scrolling through text messages as if nothing else existed.

  Overwhelmed by the yearning for a quietly anonymous life, Helen collected her sandwich and slowly walked to Westerpark, peeking into boutiques, cherishing every second as if it were her last.

  She found a bench under a majestic old tree and sat down to eat her sandwich. Runners and bikers passed by, kids played in the grass, and Helen’s mind kept churning out seductive images of a normal life. Kids, family, friends, teaching at a small college… Heaven. A dream.

  And that’s all it was. A dream. Because deep down she knew it wasn’t in the stars for her. She had to stick with the Project to the end, whatever it meant. Helen bit her lip. So why was she wasting time on fantasizing about a quaint college town and kids?

  Because that’s what you do it for…

  True. She signed up on the Project to prevent terrorism so that people could live their lives in peace. And maybe one day she would too…

  She stood up, ready to get going. She chose to walk back to her condo along the Prinsengracht canal. The longer way but her favorite.

  Going slower than usual, Helen thought about her upcoming assignment. The Consortium didn’t tell her much about it. Only that she had to be in Nice. Helen’s mind slipped to Nic.

  Was he still in Paris? Hiding from them? What did he know about TP? What scared him so much when he saw her?

  Helen had spent a good part of the six-hour drive from Paris mulling over nagging questions she had no answers for. She aligned the fragments of evidence this way and that, unable to piece them together. Too many unknowns.

  Stick with the facts, Helen reminded herself, picking up where she had left off last night when the Nice assignment popped up and took all her attention. The fear carved in Nic’s face was one of the facts. Indisputable. Nic’s scared eyes burned in Helen’s mind like fire.

  He couldn’t have possibly feared her. If anything, it was the other way around. Being the principle designer of the Project, Nic could easily enter the system unnoticed and sabotage what she was doing.

  Yet seeing her scared the living daylights out of him. Why? Because you could bring them to him! Helen gasped. Nic’s fear wasn’t about cyberspace. Her very presence was a physical danger to him. She had escaped her watchdogs in Paris, but Nic couldn’t have known that. He had probably assumed she was followed 24/7. Helen winced. Nic must have though
t she brought them right to him. Aargh…

  That was the last thing Helen wanted to do. There was no doubt in her mind that the Consortium was after Nic. His knowledge and stealthiness could reduce their operations to rubble.

  I could do the same, Helen realized. Perhaps not as effectively as Nic, but she could slow them down and collect enough evidence to report them.

  Report to whom? If her worst-case scenario were true and the Consortium was running TP with the president’s blessing, no one in the government could be trusted. Helen shivered.

  The Consortium had unlimited power.

  Except for Nic and her. They were the Consortium’s Achilles’ heel.

  Helen stopped and turned abruptly. A guy fifty feet behind her bent down to tie his shoe. Predictable. This was the gist of it—with the exception of Paris, they knew where she was. But Nic likely eluded them. And Nic on the loose was a fatal danger to the Consortium.

  They had to get Nic out of hiding before he could cause any damage to them. Knowing the Consortium, they would ruthlessly use anything they had at their disposal to get to him. Including me.

  The pieces fell in place. The assignment in Nice was about trapping Nic. And getting rid of both of them. Helen stared at the water of the Prinsengracht canal, shaking.

  Don’t panic, and collect more facts, she ordered herself. She had started already, but regular searches didn’t take her very far. Information about the Consortium and DEI LLC seemed unavailable for the public eye. Helen took a deep breath. It was one thing to hack into a stolen software that was illegally sending spam from her computer and another thing to hack into a government agency.

  Breaking the law wasn’t Helen’s preferred way to go. But her chances of survival without staying ahead of the Consortium were dim. She considered contacting a couple of friends from Georgetown but decided against it, not wanting to involve them in anything even remotely illegal.

  The phone number that was carved into her memory since her tall friend passed it on at the Noordermarkt kept flashing in her mind, but she rejected it too. Was he really a friend?

  There must be a way out. Helen’s mind raced like a wild horse, searching for solutions in all directions. The sun shimmered on the water, sending hundreds of sparks across the canal. The rogues. Hm… Helen rolled her lips in. That’s it!

  The rogues were her way out. She had tagged hundreds of their units, could track them and control them. She could use them anonymously to find out what the Consortium and DEI were all about. No one could connect her with those units.

  Helen sighed. She was straying from the straight and narrow. But the straight and narrow didn’t apply since she had seen Nic’s headshot on the ferry to Civitavecchia. When they presented him as the bomber.

  Blaming Nic for what they’ve done.

  Nice, France

  The next day

  Helen entered the business center at the Nice airport, a light, airy place filled with tropical flowers and colorful modern art. She introduced herself to a perfectly made-up brunette standing behind the reception desk.

  “Oui, madame.” The sweet smile engraved on the woman’s heart-shaped face widened as she reached under the counter and handed Helen a large envelope.

  “Merci beaucoup.” Helen returned the receptionist’s smile, her mind already focusing on the tasks ahead of her. She walked out of the business center and scanned her devices. Nothing. Nonetheless, Helen was certain that she was closely watched. She strolled to a restroom and found an empty stall, thankful she did not have to wait in a line. She opened the envelope and gasped.

  A three-carat diamond engagement ring sparkled from the depths of the envelope. She did not have to inspect it closely to know that it was the copy of the ring Nic had given her, which she had “returned” to Andreas in place of the original. Rivulets of sweat dripped down Helen’s back.

  “Do you like the ring, Mrs. Martin?” Nic lifted her fingers to his lips, his eyes awaiting Helen’s response. “I selected it myself.”

  Helen shook off the memory and concentrated on the contents of the envelope. A Swiss passport in the name of Hélène Martin, born in Geneva, Helen’s real date of birth. A hotel reservation, car papers, a driver’s license, credit cards. A destructor kit. Car keys. A parking card with the slot number neatly penciled in. A wedding ring with her and Nic’s names engraved on the inner side. A smaller envelope with a wad of euro bills.

  Helen slid the rings on. A shiver ran up her spine. She leaned against the door of the stall, closed her eyes, inhaled, counted to four, and let the air slowly leave her lungs. Focus on one step at a time. Nothing else exists, just this one step.

  Helen took another deep breath and swiftly replaced all documents in her wallet with the new ones. She checked that nothing in the name she used to get to Nice remained in her bag and put the old documents, credit cards, and the destructor kit into the envelope provided by the headquarters. She carefully resealed the envelope and pressed it with her thumbs until she felt the “air” bubbles pop. Satisfied, she quickly disposed of the envelope. The chemicals released from the bubbles would combine with the destructor kit and annihilate her old identity in a matter of seconds. Without a trace.

  Helen touched the diamond ring and straightened up. She was Hélène Martin now.

  For the second time in her life.

  She found the car, the same Mercedes model she and Nic had driven to Sardinia. Although Helen doubted they would attempt to kill her now, she methodically scanned the car before getting in. Still, she felt beads of sweat forming on her forehead as she turned on the engine. She reached the Negresco without incident, not surprised that they had booked the same suite for her as last year.

  The bellman opened the door, and Helen walked into the opulent room. The terrace door was slightly ajar, letting in a light breeze. Alarmed, Helen scanned the suite and made sure no one was in it before stepping out on the terrace.

  The magnificent view brought back the sense of purpose she had felt when she stood here with Nic. How different everything felt then… Now she was thankful for the “silly” survival lessons Nic had put her through here.

  A doorbell interrupted her pondering.

  She checked her devices, but nothing suspicious showed up. The doorbell rang again. Helen slowly opened the door and suppressed a gasp.

  A thin, pimply young bellman looking more like a boy than a man stood behind the door, holding a large fruit basket. Helen could swear it was the same guy who had brought her the Mediterranean fish stew on Elba.

  “A present for you, madam.” His smirk sent chills through Helen.

  “Thank you. Please put it on the table,” Helen said in as friendly a manner as she could muster, and was rewarded with another smirk.

  The bellboy brushed past Helen and put the basket next to a vase filled with roses, nearly knocking it over. He rearranged the table and looked triumphantly at her. She handed him a bill, not letting him out of her sight. He walked out and slammed the door behind him.

  Her heart pounding, Helen inspected the basket without touching anything, hoping it would not explode in her face. A card tucked in between dark red strawberries read “Welcome to Nice.” No signature.

  One step at a time. Helen took a deep breath, counted to four, and let the air slowly leave her lungs.

  She was ready to do anything it took to achieve her objectives.

  Monte Carlo, Monaco

  Frank watched Bobby working the room with irresistible charm. He greeted, hugged, smiled, raised his glass, complimented, flirted.

  A well-preserved, slightly overweight matron grabbed Bobby’s hand and got up on her toes to whisper something into his ear. Contessa Graziani. Frank smirked. A wife of a wealthy industrialist from Turin. Her title was fake—Frank knew that for a fact—but no one challenged it, for crossing the “Contessa” had real consequences. Her reputation for being shrewd and perpetually dissatisfied with everyone and everything preceded her. But she seemed content in Bobby’s company
.

  Bobby bent down to her and listened intently. A younger woman in a see-through lilac creation suspended from her shoulder joined them, and the Contessa introduced Bobby to her. “Lilac” tilted her head, and the diamonds dripping from her earlobes flashed like dozens of miniature lighthouses. She touched Bobby’s arm and asked him something.

  Frank stood too far to hear them but could safely guess how the conversation would go.

  “Bobby Bullock? As in the brother of?”

  “No, no…not a brother of Sandra,” Bobby would say playfully, loving the comparison. And then he’d rave about TP and making the world a safer place. Turning wealthy partygoers into true believers who’d spread the gospel and tip their friends about this marvelous new investment. And urge them to get in quickly because Bobby’s company was going to take off like a rocket.

  Sooner rather than later, Frank thought. He didn’t hope for anything more than Bobby’s operation turning profits and the Project completed and closed. Frank no longer yearned for the Project becoming his legacy. He wanted it out of the way and buried.

  Frank’s face hardened, bitterness spreading through his veins. The unfairness. He had called in more favors than he could remember to give Nic a chance to launch the Project. And what does Nic do? Quits and leaves Frank teetering on the verge of a disaster. Frank shrugged.

  Bobby skillfully extracted himself from the Contessa and her companion and moved on to another “money source” who’d inevitably fall for Bobby’s stories hook, line, and sinker. Just like Bobby fell for the Consortium’s stories.

  Frank snorted, recalling how flattered Bobby had been when they approached him. How hungry to close the deal. How hard he worked to make it happen, not realizing that he had been selected more for his shortcomings than for his achievements.

  Which was another headache Frank had to deal with. Under the guise of protecting Bobby and the top-security programs he was managing, the Consortium ordered Bobby surveilled 24/7. Frank knew better. The Consortium wanted a dossier of Bobby’s indiscretions.