The Protectors

by Dowell, Trey

  Shit. He knows I’m impotent.

  “You should be grateful,” Tucker continued. “I would have had you shot the moment you stepped through the door if you still had your powers.”

  Didn’t matter if he knew. The arrogant prick had kept me alive—all I had to do was keep him talking until my power came back. Even with my abilities restored, escape was a long shot, but I’d take a one percent chance over a death sentence any day. It was just a question of how long I’d have to wait for my shot.

  “I assume the loss isn’t permanent,” Tucker said. “So I’ve taken measures to ensure cooperation, regardless of your status.”

  “Sounds scary. Is this the part where you threaten to kill me?”

  He leaned forward and flicked a switch on the back of the monitor. The screen blinked to life.

  “No, Mr. McAlister. This is the part where I threaten to kill her.”

  Son of a bitch.

  The screen showed Lyla handcuffed to a hospital gurney, blindfolded and gagged. An IV bag hung from a pole next to the gurney, with a line feeding down to her arm. Behind her, partially obscured, stood a nurse wearing a gas mask. Lyla was dressed like an office worker and had an ID badge clipped to her belt, emblazoned with the CIA seal.

  “We caught her twenty minutes before you and Mr. Mendoza showed up. Tried to infiltrate the building with an agent’s badge—sadly unaware that our facial recognition software doesn’t care if you wear a wig and contacts.” Tucker saw my fists clench, and his eyes widened. “You didn’t know she was here, did you?”

  “Wasn’t part of the plan.” The words clawed their way between clenched teeth.

  “I am so glad you mentioned ‘the plan.’ What exactly was it? Surely you didn’t wreak all this destruction just to get to me?”

  I barely listened. I was too focused on the monitor image. Any residual mental fog from the Taser vanished. When I finally turned to Tucker, my face must have scared him.

  “Stay calm, please,” he said. “Before you do anything rash, let me show you this . . .” He raised his right hand from beneath the table. Wedged in his fist was a white plastic cylinder. The device had a red button on top, kept depressed by the pressure of his thumb. A dead man’s switch.

  “I assume you know what this is?” he asked.

  “Yes. Easier to hold than a grenade.”

  “True, but no less effective. If I have reason to release this button, the valve of that IV opens. The bag’s contents are rather harsh. She would die. Poorly.”

  A bead of sweat ran down my temple. “I couldn’t drop you if I wanted. There’s no need for the switch.”

  “I’m sorry, did you think the switch was for my protection? It’s for your cooperation. Speaking of which, let’s talk more about the plan.”

  “Why? You’re going to kill us both anyway.”

  “Not true.”

  I sneered.

  Tucker only nodded. “Yes. You can walk out of here tonight. We’d keep Ms. Ravzi, obviously—a guest of the Agency—while you round up Mr. Mendoza for us. I’m surprised he escaped from the superconductor.” He sighed. “Such a waste of expensive equipment. Do you realize how hard it is to get two billion dollars’ worth of funding from this Congress?”

  “Do you honestly believe I’d deliver Diego to you?”

  “To prevent us from clipping Ms. Ravzi’s vocal cords and severing her optic nerves . . . why, yes. I believe you’d do almost anything.”

  The interrogation room was quickly turning into Niavaran Palace. Nervous energy made my hands shake so I hid them under the table. Bottom line: I needed my powers before I could try anything.

  Stall. Stall. Stall.

  “Fine. You wanna know the plan, I’ll tell you.”

  Tucker leaned back in his chair, resting the switch on his stomach. “Regale me,” he said. I hoped he was hydrated, because the last thing Lyla needed was for him to have an inadvertent hand cramp.

  “It was a demonstration,” I said. “To show what a fox can do when it decides not to run from the hounds. Diego and I tear apart one of the most secure facilities in the world, pull your ass out of hiding, and make an example out of it.”

  “Nice! I like it. What exactly would have happened to me?”

  I smiled for the first time since waking up. “You would have died. Poorly.”

  Tucker banged his free hand on the metal table. “Bravo! You see, this is why I enjoy our conversations so much. You are a genuine delight.”

  “I thought I was a shortsighted moron.”

  He waved at me like I’d said something distasteful. “Don’t take it so personally. Can’t you be both?”

  I looked at my cuffs. “Apparently. Regardless, after we disposed of you, Lyla wanted to get on with the real work. Changing the world.”

  “Ah, yes. The idealist sold you on her idea of a brighter tomorrow.”

  “Not really. We’d discussed it back in the day, and I agreed with her then. There was an article we read, about world defense expenditures. Lyla thought we could use the money . . . well, I guess better is the right term.”

  “I’d say 1.5 trillion buys a lot of baby bottles, right?” Tucker said. He knew the number off the top of his head.

  I cranked my sarcasm meter to eleven. “Yep. Feed the hungry, educate the poor, cure disease. Stupid idealism.”

  “Misguided. Noble, but still . . . misguided. How did she intend to accomplish such a wide-ranging goal?”

  “Embrace government leaders, get them to divert defense money into a global fund,” I said.

  “Which leaders?”

  “All of them.”

  Tucker chuffed and shook his head. “Every leader. Every country. Did she understand how many people that would take? How long to accomplish?”

  “She did North Korea in an hour. Iran took two days.”

  “Autocratic states with concentrated power. Try doing that to Germany, or the United Kingdom. Or here.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as though hearing the scope of Lyla’s plan gave him a headache. “Impossible. I should let both of you go just to see how long you survive chasing that pipe dream.”

  I held up the cuffs on the off chance he’d cut me loose.

  Tucker said, “Sorry. Remember, unpredictability is bad. Can’t have it.”

  “Yeah, well, scary thing is I agree with you. It wouldn’t have worked. I tried to tell her . . .” I watched her on the monitor. So powerful, helpless, wonderful, infuriating. I didn’t care about punishing Tucker anymore; I just wanted Lyla off that gurney.

  A wave of nausea jumped on me. I almost hurled right on the table.

  Tucker saw my color change. “Are you okay?”

  Something isn’t right, I thought.

  “I . . . yeah, just need a sec.”

  Tucker brought the switch closer to his body.

  What the hell?

  “Careful, Mr. McAlister.” He assumed my powers were returning, so he reminded me about the price of using them. “Don’t force me to let go.”

  Then it just happened. Almost impossible to explain. Like when you’ve had water in your ear for so long, you get used to it. You think you’re normal. Two hours go by, the water drains, your ear clears . . . and it’s like you’re hearing sound for the first time. Everything crystal clear. Glorious.

  From his post by the door Reyes took a hesitant step in my direction.

  I raised my cuffed hands in surrender. “Sorry, just had the urge to vomit.”

  If Tucker did relax, it wasn’t by much. I also noticed I wasn’t the only one sweating. I kept talking because silence seemed to make Tucker and Reyes very jumpy.

  “Y’know, Lyla’s new powers are amazing. What she can do, how she affects people . . . she’s evolved way beyond her original limits. Crazy thing, though: she was in bad shape when I found her.”
r />   Tucker’s eyes narrowed. “I remember. You said it was sleep deprivation.”

  He’s playing along, trying to figure out what just happened.

  “Yep. Sleeping pills, sedatives, she even tried knocking herself unconscious once. None of it worked.”

  “She was immune?”

  “No, no. Those things would put her out like anybody else. Thing was, she wouldn’t dream. It’s not being unconscious that makes you well rested . . . it’s the REM sleep.”

  “Fascinating. I’ll be sure to log that in her file.”

  “The point is, my power fixed that. Kept her conscious mind down long enough to fall into natural sleep. No drug helped, meditation was useless. Even sleep clinics failed. I was literally the only person on earth who could have helped her. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  “Perhaps.” Tucker faked interest well.

  “Diego had a weird theory. Said that we needed each other, like a lock needs a key. We could evolve, sure, but we wouldn’t become what we were meant to be without each other. He thought what I did for Lyla proved it. He said I’d ‘unlocked her real power.’ ”

  “What did you think?” Tucker wasn’t faking anymore.

  “At first, I thought it was bullshit. I’m not big on the metaphysical stuff.”

  “You said ‘at first.’ What about now?”

  “I think he was onto something.”

  Tucker made sure the switch was still in plain view. “Let me guess: you believe Mr. Mendoza was your key.”

  “Well, yeah. Except he didn’t unlock anything.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Don’t be. Reyes did it for him.”

  And just like that, Reyes dropped to the floor and ripped the pants of another perfectly good suit.

  CHAPTER 51

  Tucker bolted upright and his chair clattered against the cement floor. He backed against the two-way mirror, thrusting the switch forward with a ramrod-straight arm.

  “Don’t!” he yelled. He half turned to the window. “Get in here and disable McAlister!”

  I remained seated, hands on the desk. “Easy . . . just sit down and relax.” I kept my voice as calm and reassuring as possible. “I’m not going to do anything to you. You’ve got Lyla’s life in your hands. Let’s talk for a minute.”

  He didn’t move. “Send security in here, now!”

  “They’re not coming.”

  Tucker paused, analyzing the situation. Didn’t take him long to realize; regardless of whatever poker hand my powers gave me, he still held the ace in his right fist. With a portion of his confidence returned, Tucker repositioned the chair and sat down.

  “So what’s your plan?” he said. “Kill me, rescue the girl? Because you can’t do both. More personnel, the military . . . they’re on the way. Even if you dropped everyone in the bunker but me, more are coming.”

  “Excellent. Let’s wait for them together. I have more to tell you anyway.”

  “If I were you, I’d speed it along,” he said. Brave words, but the oil slick of nervous sweat on his forehead betrayed Tucker’s indignant tone.

  I motioned to Reyes’s unconscious body. “Look, I’m as surprised as you are. Small shocks of electricity always screwed me up. I figured a bigger one would ruin me. Turns out fifty thousand volts from the big guy’s Taser did exactly what Blaster was supposed to. It fixed me.”

  “I didn’t realize you were broken.”

  “Me neither. But I was. The mind reading was barely useful. The pain I had to endure just to take a peek at somebody’s thoughts was unbearable. Then Reyes lights me up like a pinball machine, and zap! No more pain.”

  Tucker’s face went pale.

  “Yep. And don’t bother with that ridiculous internal singing. No pain means I have more than enough focus to get beneath it. I already know the army units out of Fort Meade won’t be here for another half hour.”

  His color rushed back and he brandished the switch in my face. “You will stand down, or Ms. Ravzi will die. Last chance.”

  “Tucker, do you have any idea how hard it is to hide something from a mind reader? It’s crazy difficult. Even crazier is how fast someone can change their mind.”

  He looked confused. Understandable.

  “Lemme explain. See, when you bolted away from the table, I had a whole scene planned. Great drama, some catchphrases. First, I was gonna threaten your family. What are their names? Ah, perfect. Your wife, Chloe, and ten-year-old son, Sam. I was going to tell you to imagine it wasn’t Lyla’s life you were holding in your fist right now . . . it was their lives. I was going to be all mustache-twirling evil and tell you if Lyla died, I’d kill you, then Chloe and Sam. It’s all bullshit, of course, but I figured it’d be enough to get you to hand me the switch.”

  “I wouldn’t have believed you. You’d never kill innocent people.”

  “Good call. But see, it doesn’t matter. I scrapped the whole plan when you thought about the switch.”

  Tucker wiped his forehead with his free hand. “What are you talking about?”

  “The switch. You thought about how when you let go, a signal notifies the nurse to open the valve. It’s not automatic. Letting go doesn’t kill Lyla. The nurse does.”

  “So? Why does that matter?”

  I reached forward and twisted the monitor around so he could see the nurse, unconscious on the floor behind the gurney.

  “She’s sleepy.”

  “Whaa . . . that’s not possible! She’s in the training center at the far end of the complex. They’re almost half a mile away.”

  I tapped a finger to my temple. “Surprise. My range is a little bigger now. It’s just you and me, buddy. The rest of the George Bush Center for Intelligence is down for the count.”

  “Impossible.” He shook his head repeatedly, staring at the useless switch.

  I pushed my chair back and stood. Reyes had the handcuff key in his pocket, so I used it and tossed the cuffs on the table. Tucker was numb . . . shutting down. Instead of leaving, I sat down across from him.

  “You said something earlier . . . that Lyla was noble, but misguided. I actually agree with you. Like I said, I tried to tell her. I said embracing every government on earth was unrealistic—and too despotic. Finally she got sick of me shooting holes in her plan and told me to come up with a better one. So I did. Would you like to hear it?”

  Tucker looked at me but he’d lost the will to talk. Too much concern about the end of his life.

  “Lyla had it backward. Governments don’t control money. Money controls governments. We don’t need to embrace twenty thousand politicians in over three hundred countries. We need to embrace the people who control them. The rich.”

  “What?” Tucker came out of his stupor with a half-interested scowl.

  “In fact, I should thank you. The CIA’s way of doing business: keeping the status quo, supporting the rich and powerful, trading on influence around the world . . . it’s done a fabulous job of centralizing wealth. Did you know the one thousand richest people on earth are worth more than six trillion dollars? Hell, the top ten have over five hundred billion! Plus they’re not as hard to reach as politicians. Most of them don’t even have bodyguards. And I’m guessing all the Scrooge McDucks like to hang out together, so I bet each one has contact information for another six or seven fellow billionaires. Lyla could cover that whole thousand in less than a year.”

  Tucker groaned, “Why are you bothering to tell me this?”

  I smiled. “I’m not telling you. I’m telling the people who are gonna watch these videos.” I pointed at the cameras, still blinking away. “This is the real reason we fought our way in . . . the message I’m here to deliver.

  “With Lyla’s help, the billionaires are going to become astonishingly generous. Even the assholes. In fact, especially the assholes. By thi
s time next year, we’ll be sitting on top of the largest venture capital fund ever created. And if you think that’s cool, think about this: that fund will also be the biggest political lobby in the history of the world. Politicians will need our help and our money to get elected. And when they do, I guarantee you our new friends in government will start chipping away at those defense budgets and start putting money toward projects that actually help people.”

  I got up and walked to one of the cameras and pointed it directly at my face.

  “And here’s the best part. The simple part. Once we have the money, we’re going to tell people about it. Everyone. All seven billion of ’em.

  “The hungry. The uneducated. The poor. Middle class. Artists. Scientists. Liberals, conservatives . . . hell, anybody who’ll listen, and I’m pretty sure when you have a couple trillion socked away, it’s easy to find people who’ll listen.

  “Once people hear about the money, you know what we’re gonna do? We’re going to start giving it away. Spend it on any project that doesn’t involve ‘defense.’ Anything altruistic, any plan to benefit others, any idea that pushes the envelope. To set an example, we’ve got a couple that’ll get the ball rolling.

  “Lyla thinks if we build a few universities, train a couple thousand doctors, and give ’em a few million bucks apiece for new research, we can cure cancer. Me? Well, I bet if we throw a trillion dollars at it, we can speed up the timeline and have fusion power in a decade. Think about that—clean, safe energy worldwide. And what the hell, let’s make it free, too.

  “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. People all over the world will have ideas . . . dreams . . . and we’ll give them the resources to chase those dreams down. I want to see what our civilization is capable of when you stop the constant scramble for power and start investing in shit that doesn’t blow up. More than ninety-nine percent of the world wants the opportunity . . . and we’re gonna give it to them. That’s all.