by Adams, P R
“I feel stupid asking, but how’d you know I’d be here?”
Tymoshenko laughed. “You follow a predictable path.”
Rimes winced. I need to change it up more. “You said I found entertainment in strange things?”
“For some, entertainment is expensive, yes?” Tymoshenko said, throwing the rest of the crumbs on the ground for the ducks to work out. He stood, wiped his hands on his pants, and strolled casually toward Rimes. “If we are entertained by our career, we ask, how much power and influence can I accumulate? For others, it is family: we value our mate, our children, our parents. Or physical pleasures. Drugs to grant us dreams we hadn’t thought possible, skydiving, or climbing snowy peaks.”
Tymoshenko stood next to Rimes, overlooking the street. He laughed and raised an eyebrow knowingly. “Maybe even just a good screw, right?”
Rimes looked around, suddenly uncomfortable. “Are we being watched?” He scanned dark storefronts and the few parked cars. His skin crawled at a thought he couldn’t quite grasp.
“Of course we are,” Tymoshenko said. “Every minute of every day. All of us. Who can say when we have a private moment? Even a quick night of fun in a hotel room is part of the public domain. I’m not even sure privacy is possible anymore. I doubt it’s a very healthy thing for business, actually. We want to know the real person, not some machine they live in.”
Rimes met Tymoshenko’s eyes. “Watched by your people.”
“Your people, my people. You draw lines in the air and define words with them. Someone is watching us now. Whoever it is, we can have a copy of it if we want it. Your friends can too. It is easy to gain access to data if you know what to look for. Otherwise, it is a nanobyte of chocolate hiding in zettabytes of shit.”
Why is he telling me this? What does he want?
Rimes shivered. “I need to head back. We have to be someplace in an hour or so.”
“You really think Kwon will help you? He thinks he is free. None of us are free. We are all puppets.”
“What do you want, Anton?”
Tymoshenko winked. “What do any of us want? What do you want?”
Rimes looked at his shoes. They were Army-issued running shoes. If he wanted his own pair, he could buy better ones almost anywhere for fifty, maybe sixty dollars. There were people who had to live off that much money for a month. There were people who needed so much more than that to survive a day.
In many ways, he enjoyed his life. He hated being away from Molly, but he was providing for her and would be able to provide for his child. He was doing the right thing.
“I’m still thinking about it,” he said.
Tymoshenko looked back at the ducks, who were fighting over the last few crumbs. “I’m leaving now. This place is too big a strain on me, and there’s no use hanging around. I would have thought you would have asked me if I could eliminate Kwon by now.”
“Elimin—” Rimes looked around again. “You could do that? You know where he is?”
“Of course. There are no secrets anymore. Not really. You can hide something or someone for a short while, but not forever.”
Rimes rubbed his forehead. “We don’t want him dead.”
Tymoshenko laughed. “Yes, you do.”
“No. He’s a monster, but it’s … there’s more to it than simply killing him.”
“If you change your mind, you know how to reach me, yes? From the data film? The window is still open, but it won’t be forever.”
Rimes watched Tymoshenko walk to the stone stairs that led up the hill Rimes had just descended. The breeze sneaked inside his hooded jacket, forcing another shiver from him.
The morning only worsened. Metcalfe put Rimes through another inexplicable, almost psychotic series of veiled threats in the hotel lobby until Kleigshoen arrived. Kleigshoen was no better, bitterly complaining about every problem, real and imagined, from the moment they left the hotel to the moment Chae stepped out of the fifth floor stairwell at the police building.
It’s like being trapped in a sadistic maze with no escape.
The drive from the police station to the apartment building was uncomfortable. Chae was even more introspective and grumpy than the day before. At every stop, he looped through cycles of adjusting his tie and silently staring ahead.
Finally they reached Lee’s apartment building.
Traffic rolled past their parked SUV as Metcalfe and Chae discussed the deal’s particulars. Metcalfe had apparently bumped against the upper limit of his seemingly infinite cash reserve. All the while, Kleigshoen steamed beside Rimes, occasionally glaring at him from behind reflective sunglasses.
Rimes sneaked a look at her, trying to see through the lenses. He saw only his own frustrated face—and behind it, a black SUV.
The vehicle was across the street, its rear to theirs. He risked a quick glance and caught a reflection in its side-view mirror of a dark-haired man wearing sunglasses and a dark, corporate-style suit.
“SUV,” Rimes said. “Eight o’clock.”
Kleigshoen’s glare didn’t change, but she slowly tilted her head to glance past Rimes and out the window. “Inspector Chae, any idea whose SUV that is? Looks like we’re not the only ones interested in Lee.”
Chae and Metcalfe broke off their argument and sneaked a look at the vehicle. “LoDu.”
“LoDu?” Rimes didn’t doubt Chae, but there was no obvious reason for LoDu’s interest.
“They still consider him valuable,” Chae said. “They keep an eye on him to be sure he is safe.”
“Safe? Safe from what?” Metcalfe asked, leaning to get a better look at the vehicle.
“Himself.” Chae checked the traffic, then stepped out of the SUV. “They are family.” He slammed the door, nodded at the LoDu vehicle, and headed for the building entry.
Metcalfe shook his head, and they all followed Chae. Rimes glanced back at the SUV before entering the building.
“Family,” Rimes muttered. He thought about Molly and the bottle of wine and felt a flash of guilt that worsened when he thought of his brothers still deployed while he was living in posh hotels.
The interior was every bit as dark and grimy as it had been the day before, but somehow, the darkness felt more compressed, more menacing, and the air more foul. They picked their way up the stairs, sliding on rotting things that ruptured beneath their feet in the shadows and released fetid sighs.
Chae knocked at Lee’s door and stepped back. Rimes waited for what he assumed was Lee’s ritual of scanning his visitors and readying his weaponry. He looked the doorframe over and remembered Lee’s high-level security measures—the iron bar, the bolt locks, the heavy door. The doorframe and walls would need to be sturdy, too—to provide significant time for escape or defense should someone attempt to force entry. Lee would have worked out an escape plan before moving into the apartment.
Rimes looked down the corridor. The closest two doors had little plaques Lee’s door lacked, that glinted in the dim light. “What apartment number is this?”
Chae smiled, barely perceptible in the darkness. “731.”
The door opened suddenly, revealing a strung out, sweat-soaked Lee standing in dim light. Lee’s eyes flitted left and right. He hissed, “Inside, quickly.”
Lee slammed the door behind them, dropped the bar, and slammed home the largest of the bolts. He shook visibly.
“We have guests.” He jerked his head toward the wall.
“We saw their vehicle,” Metcalfe said.
“Vehicle?” Lee dropped into his chair and powered up his terminals with a wave. “The SUV? That’s only LoDu. Our guests are T-Corp. They’ve blocked my access to the Grid. They came in this morning and settled into 729.”
Rimes tried to connect to the Grid. “He’s right. No signal.”
“How many?” Rimes asked.
“Five.”
Chae’s hand ran up and down the length of his tie. Metcalfe paced, looking ready to kick the walls. Only Kleigshoen seemed relatively c
alm, behind her black glasses.
“What are they here for?” Metcalfe snarled.
Lee steepled his fingers together, smiling through them. “They would have acted by now if they were here for me. They’re here for you. More specifically, they’re probably here for the data you’ve purchased.”
“They want Kwon.” Rimes said. The idea made sense, assuming Metcalfe’s theory was correct and the Singapore and Sundarbans operations were related.
Lee’s hands shook slightly. “You’re getting your money’s worth with the data, that’s for sure.”
He’s really on edge.
Metcalfe handed a cash card to Lee, who exchanged it for a palm-sized disk.
“I want to see the data before I leave,” Metcalfe said.
Lee pointed at his terminal and moved aside for Metcalfe to seat himself. Metcalfe gave the filthy chair a look of revulsion, then settled in. After several seconds of acquainting himself with the system, he loaded the media and spread it across several of the screens. Chae, Kleigshoen, and Rimes stepped forward to watch him navigate randomly through the data stream.
Data of every sort—video, audio, simple documents, captured messages—played out for several minutes. Metcalfe moved through it all with amazing speed that left everyone but Lee blinking.
Even so, Rimes heard enough message snippets and recorded meetings to answer the question of who the genies were working for.
He watched Kleigshoen. Surprise played across her features behind her glasses.
Metcalfe ran through a few more files before removing the disk and stuffing it inside his wallet. He rubbed his face for a moment, then stood. “This presents a problem.”
“They were operating independently?” Kleigshoen’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “How? They knew about T-Corp’s plans to re-enter the compound. They had equipment LoDu couldn’t afford to lose. LoDu had to have known.”
“I can’t help you any further,” Lee said, standing. “I’ve given you all you need.” He looked at Rimes. “You just need to spend some time working with it. It will come to you, eventually.”
Lee waved at the screen. “Go to sleep, Little One.” The console displays blanked, and the system powered off.
Chae gave Lee a slight bow. They walked together to the door, where Lee whispered something to Chae. Lee then placed something in Chae’s hand.
“It’s time to go,” Chae said nervously.
Lee gripped a deadbolt. “You will no doubt find what you are looking for, but I’m afraid you won’t find anything to change what you’ve already surmised. LoDu is safe in this matter. They won’t try to stop you from leaving with this data. They’ve had no risk in this all along. That isn’t their way. They’re opportunists, stealing technology and improving upon it. They follow protocols and tradition, even when tradition no longer means anything. But in the end, they’re pragmatic. They realized the information would become public one way or another. So they simply position themselves to take advantage of that. T-Corp … is much more possessive.”
Lee slid back the bolt. The rest of the bolts followed, and the bar rose. The door swung wide.
“Thank you,” Metcalfe said.
“Go.”
They ran.
The door closed behind them with a metallic bang.
A few steps beyond Lee’s door, Chae dropped whatever Lee had given him with a thud. The door of 729 slammed against the apartment wall behind them, drowning out the sound of their running feet. They were on the stairs when Chae’s flash-bang grenade detonated, its echoes filling the corridor. The T-Corp agents shouted in surprise.
“Run,” Chae shouted, as if anyone needed encouragement.
They reached Chae’s SUV and climbed in. In his haste, Rimes roughly shoved Kleigshoen into the back seat. He suddenly realized he was still holding her. Her hands held his hands in place. In a moment that seemed to stretch an eternity, she looked into his eyes and squeezed his hands against her.
Rimes pulled away.
Chae started the motor just as their pursuers burst through the front door, hands reaching inside their jackets. Chae accelerated away from the sidewalk, cutting in front of a battered mini-car. Rimes watched as the pursuers—clearly T-Corp men—sprinted after them, only to stop as the LoDu SUV pulled onto the sidewalk in front of them, cutting them off. Chae turned hard right onto the next street, and in the distance, the T-Corp agents slapped the hood of the LoDu SUV in apparent anger.
21
6 March 2164. Seoul, Korea.
* * *
Rimes woke from a fitful sleep. He’d dreamed of Kleigshoen. She was in his head, manipulating him, controlling his thoughts, sleeping and waking. He felt powerless and weak.
He checked the time on his earpiece. It read 0237. He rubbed his eyes and sighed.
He’d been sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep well. He considered trying to go back to sleep but knew better.
He sat up in bed, suddenly grappling with the terrible weight of loneliness.
Molly, I miss you.
Rinsing his face with cold water freed him from sleep’s final clutches. And Kleigshoen’s.
Without a second thought, he started the coffee machine and pulled on a pair of shorts. As he settled at the desk, it hit him how easily he was being lulled into Bureau life. The hotel room, using the coffee machine and its expensive imported coffee without the least concern over the expense, even his frustrating meetings with Tymoshenko. None of it was in Rimes’s nature, yet he was finding that nature surprisingly fluid once challenged. He wondered if he could escape the attraction when the time came to say goodbye.
The coffee machine emitted a quiet beep, drawing him out of his thoughts and back to the Kwon problem. They had looked at the terabytes of data from Lee, but none of it had seemed of any real use in figuring out where Kwon was and what he was doing. Rimes inhaled the coffee’s comforting aroma before tapping a container of sweetener into the paper courtesy cup and swirling the dark fluid.
Sipping, he settled back at the desk and opened a private workspace inside the earpiece and began recording. The earpiece’s cameras captured his hand movements, translating them into navigation commands for the virtual interface it projected before his eyes. His fingers selected then expanded a box. He transferred Kwon’s vital data—birthdate, birthplace, siblings, father, education—to the box. He followed the box with a circle filled with disconnected but supporting data: the murder case, the mission history, the connection to the genies at the T-Corp facility. He had a starting place.
Something about the genies at the T-Corp facility made Rimes pause. He wondered if LoDu might have manipulated or even fabricated the security records connecting the genies killed at T-Corp 72 and Kwon.
They could have, easily. But why? He’s from the same batch as 730. The connection is there. It’s real.
But LoDu had as much to lose if they appeared incompetent and irresponsible as they did if they were caught sanctioning the operation. They were in a no-win situation, so there was no value fabricating or altering the records. He discarded the line of thinking.
Rimes created another circle to hold locations—birthplace, training facility, residences, operations, last seen. He examined the locations overlaid atop a global representation of Earth. He rotated the globe and pushed in for details, focusing on Asia.
Aside from some time in orbital training, Kwon had spent most of his life throughout the continent. Twenty-six missions, some with nothing more than travel dates and expenses to document their existence. Three in Korea, four in Japan, three in Malaysia, two in the Philippines, four in Vietnam, one in India, two in Pakistan, one in Bangladesh, one in Sri Lanka, five in China, and one in Singapore. No pattern jumped out.
Rimes opened another circle and populated it with the mission data—dates, costs, nature, and connections to the genies killed at the T-Corp facility. He opened a separate feed to tap into the Grid for crimes or stories of interest around the times provided. Finally, he ran a
series of sorts and comparisons based on simple raw and derived data points.
An error message appeared—a glitch that elicited a quiet growl and another trip to the coffee machine.
Eyes squinting, Rimes re-examined the mission data. Somehow, one of the mission dates had caused an error. He breathed in the coffee’s rich aroma, took another sip, then repeated the process. This time, he watched for the error.
He caught it while sorting on mission counts. He manually counted the provided mission data and compared it to the LoDu summary. Twenty-six missions had been logged by LoDu, but there were twenty-seven missions in the data.
He had his anomaly.
He stared at the data for several seconds before it finally hit him. A comparison of the mission dates to other critical dates was the key. He ran the comparison.
The results came back instantly: 6 June 2107. Kwon had been in a prison cell at that time thanks to Chae. The record indicated he’d been on one of his China missions. The inconsistency piqued Rimes’s interest. He opened the questionable China mission file.
According to the LoDu file, Kwon had been sent to Pingfang District to eliminate an EEC operative. Rimes wasn’t familiar with Pingfang; he downloaded all the available data on LoDu operations there. He wasn’t surprised to find LoDu had nothing significant in the area, and certainly nothing an EEC spy would have an interest in. An icy chill ran down his spine.
A false mission, or a false arrest? The arrest seemed real enough. Chae’s fear of Kwon certainly seemed authentic. Could LoDu even pull off such a scam? Of course they could, but why fake it?
The EEC operative seemed the next logical point to focus on. Rimes pulled up the mission photos. He selected the first one. It quickly resolved: Anton Tymoshenko, wearing the same gray jacket from their meeting at the horrible coffee shop a few days earlier.
That answers it: Fake mission.
Tymoshenko was just pulling his hood over his head. The look of nausea and disgust on his face was unmistakable. It was definitely taken from outside the coffee shop, but some of the image had been modified. Since he hadn’t been eliminated by Kwon in Pingfang District, the fake mission had meaning of some sort.
