Zero Hour Shifting Power

by David Berko

  Howard knew the fate of Scorpion and ultimately the world rested in his clutches now. But alas he still wanted to see the carnage and use it as tinder for the fire burning in his heart. To him, Rome was burning and he would blame it on the Christians like Nero of old. There was no end he wouldn’t to go to in order to see the infidels suffer for this knife wound in Scorpion's upper echelon.

  --

  Beverly Hills, California

  Damion's mansion was a little palisade unto itself built into an outlook northwest of Beverly Hills. The views from his estate of the thousands of homes and businesses below were matchless. The market value for Damion's pad was among the highest in the exclusive neighborhood: north of eighty-nine mil. The stucco mansion had two wings with a postmodern bronze colossus sitting in the center of the cul- de-sac driveway. A fountain wrapped around the statue with little synchronized water jets shooting their flow upward until gravity forced the water to splash down into ribbon streams which flowed down the rivets and cracks of the convoluted art that anchored the whole splendor.

  All the LED's that lined the drive and at strategic points on the home illuminated the bewitching spectacle.

  When Christmas rolled around Damion was known to pull all the stops and decorate the place into a North Pole/Santa's workshop destination literally tens of thousands would travel to from all around the LA metroplex--just to see the light show.

  Christmas wouldn't come before Easter though. It was edging closer to that time of year on everyone's calendar and Damion's house didn't really show it. He wasn't a religious man at all. His parents were nominal Catholics and that just made him further disjointed with the idea of church. However, he couldn't ignore the one man in his life who persistently pushed a particularly Christian agenda on the billionaire. That man would be none other than the scientist who flew through the Californian skies to meet Damion on such short notice.

  --

  Chapter 16

  Tijuana, Mexico

  The markets bustled in the border town of Tijuana.

  Little children kicked a soccer ball in the streets, moms hung their laundry out on clothes lines to dry, and stray dogs roamed, looking for scraps for their next meal. The sun shone favorably on the city like it had most other days in the year. The Pacific Ocean and sandy beaches enticed gringos from the great state of California to share the shoreline with their Mexican compadres. All was well in paradise.

  In a shadier, outlying part of the city a little flat blended right in with the sprawl. Its unassuming bars across the windows and reinforced steel door weren't out of touch with the surrounding real estate. Break-ins were an issue so it paid to beef up the security.

  …

  Hassan Jabez turned the baloney over in the skillet and noticed he still hadn't received the text he had been waiting for. Some grease went airborne and stung his cheek. His face clouded with anger. Just then a little mutt came into the kitchen and dropped at his master's feet. Hassan muttered something incoherent, exuding indifference to the dog's needs in his tone.

  Another man's voice came from the other room, the only other room in the place. The TV could be heard with the faint noise of a futbol game on. Liga MX piped through the television set's speakers with the Tijuana club besting the other team by a score of 1-0.

  "It's over, Hassan," Asef Azizi said in excited Arabic with a Jordanian dialect to it.

  "Yeah?" the Sudanese man said, barely raising his voice enough to be heard. He didn't much care for futbol.

  "Our FC (futbol club) be the winners!" he slurred.

  "Score?"

  "One to zip," the still elated man couldn't blurt out fast enough.

  Hassan indolently padded to the door frame and leaned heavy on one side. "Hungry?"

  The other man grunted.

  Hassan shrugged and turned to head back in. He would eat the grub.

  A prepaid phone sat next to a fully-loaded glock which was next to a half empty beer can. Asef belched and used his hairy forearm to wipe the sticky substance from his full lips. His complexion was very dark and his hair black as pepper.

  Just as he was reaching for his bag of tortilla chips his phone vibrated, causing him to jerk and knock over the beer. The muscular man used the back of his hand to sweep the junk off the table like a skimmer cleaning surface gunk from a pool. The phone continued to vibrate. Asef got halfway off the beaten up burgundy fabric couch to see who would dare disturb his mood.

  He looked at the one inch readout and blinked in surprise. It was a job.

  Hassan meanwhile had sat himself down to the oh-so-cute kitchen nook not exactly built for a six foot six giant with a lean, strongman build.

  "I think you should see this!" Asef Azizi came into the room with his glock in one hand and phone in the other.

  A fork clinked to the table and the chair scraped against the wooden floor. "How many times must I tell you not to point that thing at me?!"

  The Jordanian didn't seem to hear him. Instead he shoved the device in the guy's face and stood there waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Hassan didn't appreciate the smelly germ-infested phone thrust at him. But the message was there on the screen as big as the nose on the now-leering, wide face of Azizi's.

  "There's only one thing to do."

  "Take the Beamer?" (They actually had one of those.)

  "No, you fool!" Hassan blared.

  "I'll get the gear."

  The Sudanese man seemed more pleased with that answer and therefore didn't offer any resistance this time. "Vamos!" he said with a flicker of a smile playing across his lips.

  --

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  A black SUV went with the stop and go flow of traffic through the famous Las Vegas Strip. Multi-million dollar hotels glinted under the scorching sun on a hot Nevada day. It was unseasonably hot for April--ninety degrees. Humidity was negligible though so patrons still walked the streets and didn't hole up in shelters to avoid the outdoor oven that baked people alive and served up heat stroke to those who couln't find shelter.

  Behind the tinted bullet proof windows of the SUV four men sat in silence. The passengers in the back appeared less taken up in quiet meditation like their counterparts in the front: Instead, they strained their necks to get a good look at the passing attractions out the windows.

  "You can go to Caesar's Palace after the job is done," the driver spoke to either man in the back who might have been listening.

  The sarcasm registered with the man who sat behind the driver. But he didn't show any sign or desire of getting even, much less settling the score with an intense killer stare into the rear-view mirror where he undoubtedly would be noticed.

  In a fluty tone the other man in the back met the challenge with, "The two of us will work the slots like there's no tomorrow," he laughed while elbowing his nonplussed partner he sat next to in the ribs. "Am I not right, Allen?"

  "You're about to be dead," Allen responded through clenched teeth, rubbing his aching side at the same time.

  "I'm really glad we all work so well together," the Canadian they called Monty said from the front passenger seat. "Lunch, anybody?"

  The driver suddenly veered off Flamingo St. into a McDonald's drive thru. Along the way the tires ran up against the curb giving the four in the SUV a most unpleasant jolt.

  "Couldn't you have dropped me off someplace with fine- dining? Somehow American cheese slices with a thin cut of once-frozen beef on wonder buns with mayonnaise doesn't qualify," Rodney complained. He looked at Allen for backup but the other man didn't seem to care that much about the cuisine.

  "This is the food for our kind of types, gentlemen," Henry the driver staunchly defended. "I expect each of you to stomach as many quarter pounders you're man enough to handle. Do I make myself clear?"

  Monty sucked in his breath and held it. He turned a little pale before he exhaled. He wasn't a junkie. Fast food killed him. "Ah, what the heck. It can't be that bad," he lied. "'Sides, we have three and a half h
ours to be on the road...we gotta get something on our stomachs."

  --

  Beverly Hills, California

  A few men exited the guard shack on the grounds of Westover Estate.

  "Radio check," one said to the others after they had fanned out and took up sentry positions in their usual areas of coverage.

  The others clicked their two-ways a few times to signal message received.

  "10-4," former Navy Seal James Heldgen spoke into his mic. "Stay frosty out their fellas. Don't let me down."

  "Roger that," both of them took turns saying.

  …

  Up in the house Damion expected his guest at any moment. He didn't have to answer the door, he would have his assistant Charles earn his keep that way. Nevertheless, he remained close to the action in a public space in the mansion--the gourmet kitchen.

  It wasn't often he hung out in his own kitchen. Black tie events and two hour wait restaurants saw more of him. His cameo appearance came with his most expensive pajamas, a black Burberry robe and Kelvin Klein striped bottoms.

  Damion's face looked a little worn and worried. In his hand he cradled a tall shot glass of sparkling vodka in it. He twirled the drink making the rocks inside clink against the sides. A lump formed in his throat. Just then a bright light came through his vista windows causing him to squint. Damion put down the glass on the nearest surface and tied his robe to the side in a tight knot.

  "Let him in," Damion ordered Charles who readily complied with a yes sir.

  After some time had passed the great doors to the parlor opened with a groan. The night's breeze swept off the floor and lost itself in the vastness of the home.

  Charles genuflected with a slight bow and warmly welcomed the highly credentialed, distinguished guest into Damion’s residence. It wasn’t often these visits took place.

  "My boss has been waiting--come, this way, sir."

  "Certainly," Christophe nodded. He observed everything around him hadn't changed much from his last appearance. "Same great place," he said quietly to himself.

  Charles dutifully led Damion's guest into the light of the big kitchen.

  Damion came out of the shadows and hurried over to grab his colleague's outstretched hand.

  Before he could even pay his respects Christophe straightened up like a rod, his hand increasingly getting farther away from Damion's. "You look terrible," the Frenchman said with full authenticity.

  Damion stopped and threw his head back to laugh. "Drink?" he asked while holding his own glass under the light of one of the recessed LED fixtures.

  Without warning Christophe unexpectedly snatched the billionaire's drink and let the momentum of the sudden motion carry it out of both men's hands and into the other room with a crash. That seemed to sober Damion up ever so slightly. He blinked and stared open-mouthed at his mentor and friend.

  "You had an emergency?" Christophe coolly reminded the man.

  "You--you're good!" Damion said with the same delirious laugh that had never really gone anywhere from a moment before. "Where are my manners though?" he said aloud with an ounce of conviction.

  Christophe had wondered the same thing but was pleased to hear Damion say it for him. Meanwhile the doctor the whole time had been pensively looking around at the place. Looking for cameras--artificial intelligence. "Tell me more about Iris." He was referring to Damion's virtual assistant that kept tabs on the building's security, utilities, Damion's schedule...his girlfriends that would come and go.

  Damion hiccupped. An intelligent look occupied his eyes for the first time the two had been together that night. "Let's go downstairs. There's a lot to go over."

  "Tres bien, monsieur," Christophe said approvingly.

  Damion only smiled to himself at his friend's French tongue. He had never told Christophe this before, but he secretly liked it when the man slipped back into his first language.

  "Are you afraid of the dark, Gerard?"

  --

  Dreamland, Nevada

  The Purple Zone of Scorpion central command was still on high alert. The interior of the tower glowed red to the strobe of emergency lights with sirens for the background music. Personnel scurried around the organized chaos with their tempered emotions under control. In the cacophony of it all Heather managed to make a phone call and slip out of the madness into a private antechamber to carry out some business.

  "Desmond was the mole," read her text from none other than Howard himself. Her heart fluttered wildly. She blinked several times and read it again out of shock and amazement. There were pictures of the deceased Tommy lying in a pool of his own blood with the killer's body mangled on top of the deceased former director-general of Scorpion.

  It was too much to take in. Heather bit her upper lip until it hurt. The walls were closing in. She immediately feared for her job and possibly even her life. Howard had trusted her to be the one to run the operation of bringing the distinguished programmer (Desmond) to Dreamland to take an assignment.

  It hurt that she had erred so bad in judgment. What, how...why? Her brain ached from all the unanswered questions and angst from the fallout.

  Right then the phone fell out of her hand as she crumpled to the floor, unconscious. A tranq dart decommissioned her to await her sentence until after the drug wore off.

  --

  Chapter 17

  Honolulu, Hawaii

  The flag of the Free Republic of North America (FRN) flapped in the wind. It had three golden stars in an arc over a bear with a red background. It was unmistakable the design behind it borrowed heavily from California's state flag.

  Although only Alaska and Hawaii were among its coalition states, a third star was stitched into the flag anyway in anticipation of Texas becoming FRN's newest member in the fight for freedom in the post-American world of 2041. The level of pride and patriotism were very well symbolized in the waving flag of the fledgling republic.

  …

  The cyber security division of the FRN protected the government against incoming threats to its firewall all while launching corollary attacks of their own against Scorpion and her allies. It was a big show, a big stage. Only the elite technicians and talent of the republic were called upon to serve with distinction.

  The newly-constructed Washington building down the street from the Capitol served as the cyber security's edifice where it all went down. In iceberg fashion the building only showed a small part of its mass above ground--the rest went many stories into the subterranean earth. Below the surface a phalanx of government employees equipped with state of the art technologies waged the republic's wars through the cyber world dimension.

  The impact this division made in the intelligence war could not be calculated. Each day new incursions into enemy cyberspace brought back a treasure trove of information to be used as actionable intelligence by field operatives from its big brother intelligence agency known as Sentinel.

  Big brother took out the real targets.

  The capital district of FRN in Honolulu in just two years had transformed itself into the beating heart of the resistance. Government contractors and intelligence agencies dotted the landscape in and around the capital. Very much like the Baltimore, Maryland location of the old America's vast bureaucracy (NSA...), the new republic had its own web of clandestine agencies hiding in plain sight all over Honolulu.

  …

  After a credible intercept was decrypted (most recently) detailing a threat to the president's life, the department of defense of the FRN remained in a state of emergency.

  Dev-ops teams from the parent division of cyber security, Central Cyber Corps (CCC), worked 'round the clock to deploy software to provide the government's devices and modes of communication with rotating scramblers and jamming technology.

  It was of the utmost importance that Director of CCC, Donald Holiday, stay several chess moves ahead of the republic's enemies. Fail, screw up, commit an oversight, and the FRN would be more vulnerable to the already overwhelming odds it fa
ced.

  Picture a dainty dandelion facing the blustery forces of nature in the spring season: these winds of change could come blowing the FRN’s way too if the circumstances were ripe for it. Breaches in Toporvsky's administration would whisk away the republic like little dandelion seeds taken by the wind.

  --

  Dreamland, Nevada

  A nameless man in a silver suit who appeared to know the place strolled through the first floor lobby of Scorpion's central command. He must've had sufficient clearance to be there. No one could even make the lobby without it.

  However now there was the Desmond conspiracy to contend with and how that might reshape security forever at Dreamland....As if it wasn't high caliber enough already.

  The layout of the place didn't surprise him in the least. It's as if he had walked it many times. He waltzed by the receptionist behind her glass desk and array of monitors. She peered around one of the screens, rubbernecking it, trying to catch a better look at the stranger. He noticed and winked back. That positively startled her and put the poor woman on high alert.

  "Hey, you!" the words cascaded out with an urgency that halted the man's quickened pace.

  "Do I, know you...?" the stranger said with his features twisted in confusion.

  The lady opened her little mouth but no words would come out. She blushed and slowly ducked behind the computers again so as to become invisible.