by David Archer
“Okay, so what are we doing today? If you’re planning to try to get information out of me, you might as well give it up now. A, I don’t know anything, and B, I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”
“Well, personally, I thought we might just begin with breakfast, if that’s all right with you.” He waved a hand, and people suddenly appeared holding a platter with several large steaks and a big pan of sunny side up eggs. They placed them on the table and hurried out of the room.
“Help yourself,” Michael said. He reached over with a fork and stabbed one of the bigger steaks, then used a spatula to scoop three of the eggs on his plate. Neil grinned and then did the same, except that he took two steaks and six eggs.
They chatted about simple things while they ate, such as what kind of video games Neil liked to play, what kind of movies he liked, and the conversation was simple and nonthreatening. He suspected that it would become more serious at some point, and that no matter how friendly he might seem, Michael was probably some sort of professional at getting whatever information he wanted. If that was the case, then it was just a matter of time before the friendliness disappeared.
When breakfast was over, Michael asked Neil if he would care for another game of chess, and he accepted. They went back to the library, and Neil wasn’t surprised to see the board already set up. He’d won the first of two games they played the night before, and the third had been a stalemate. Both of them were highly skilled at the game, and concentrating on it kept Neil from thinking about his predicament.
“You seem to be worried. Care to talk about it?” Michael asked.
“Well, I’d probably be pretty stupid if I wasn’t worried, right?” Neil asked. “I mean, I’m a prisoner, and my girlfriend is out there getting ready to turn our former employers into our worst enemies. Considering that I know what they do, I’m not really excited about being on their bad side.”
“You think they’ll come after you?”
“Wouldn’t you? If somebody who works for you suddenly comes back and tries to kill you, wouldn’t you want revenge?”
“I suppose I see your point,” Michael said. “Still, we will do everything possible to create new identities for you both, when this is over. I believe we can keep you from being discovered again.”
“Maybe you can,” Neil said, “but I’ve seen just how thorough these people can be. No one has ever been able to hide from them for long.”
“That may be true,” Michael said. “However, we are rather resourceful, ourselves. I don’t think they would be able to infiltrate our organization, and no one outside of our very top people would ever be allowed to know who or where you were. Keeping your identities secret shouldn’t be that big a problem.”
“I don’t know, you could be right. You do realize you’re about to lose that bishop, right?”
“Sometimes a player must sacrifice one of his pieces,” Michael said. He watched as Neil took the bishop and then calmly advanced a single pawn. “What looks like a loss can sometimes lead to a greater victory.”
“That’s true,” Neil said. “But then again, losing the bishop has exposed both your knight and your rook. I can take either of them now, but I think I’m going to leave them alone. Sometimes, it’s best to simply know where your enemies are and what their limitations might be, so that you can better plan your strategy.” He moved his queen’s knight to where it would block the rook if it moved.
“And this is also true. I fail to see, though, how sacrificing your knight is advancing any strategy.” He took the knight with the rook and smiled.
“It doesn’t,” Neil said, “but it did distract you.” He moved his queen, keeping a finger on top of it until he was satisfied, and then said, “Checkmate.”
Michael stared at the board. The queen was in position to attack his king directly, and Neil’s bishop was ready to attack if he made one move, or his rook was prepared in the event of the only other possible move. There was nowhere he could go, and no single piece could possibly block the queen’s attack. He looked over the nonexistent options for a few more seconds, then tipped over his king and surrendered.
“Very well played,” Michael said. “I actually did not see that coming.”
“That’s because you never played with my uncle Harley,” Neil said. “He loved that ploy, and got me with it a thousand different times.”
“He sounds like a good teacher. Is he still living?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Neil said. “When you go to work for E & E, you have to cut off all ties with family. Of course, my family probably didn’t mind all that much. I was always a pain in their asses.”
Michael was setting up the board again. “Oh? Why was that?”
“Lots of reasons. I grew too fast, for one thing. We didn’t have a lot of money, so keeping clothes on me turned out to be expensive. I hit six feet tall in the fifth grade, and then that led to more problems because I was too clumsy to play basketball. Everybody thought I would be a natural, but I couldn’t hit a basket to save my life.”
“Ah,” Michael said. “Let me guess, you became introverted. You’re very good at chess, and I enjoy watching your logic processes. I’m going to make a wager with you. I will bet you your choice of what to have for dinner tonight that you became a computer hacker. Am I right?”
Neil thought for a moment about what he should say, then nodded his head. There was no point in trying to keep it secret, because they already knew he was working for E & E. His height and clumsiness would never be valued by such an organization, so it was only logical that he would be useful in some other way.
“You nailed it,” he said. “I’m very good with computers, and can generally get into anything I want to know. Which, of course, is why you won’t let me near the Internet while I’m here, right?”
Michael chuckled. “We already knew better than that,” he said. “Mr. Newsom had come to the conclusion that you are a computer expert. I was simply looking for verification.”
“Whatever,” Neil said. “You take white this time.”
Michael turned the board and advanced a pawn by two spaces. Neil countered with a pawn on the same line.
SEVENTEEN
Noah had taken out his phone as soon as he had finished speaking with Jenny, and called headquarters.
“Brigadoon Investments, how may I direct your call?”
“Allison Peterson, please, Noah Wolf calling.”
The hold music lasted only a few seconds. “Camelot, report.”
“We have a situation,” Noah said. “Jenny has been identified, and they are using Neil against her. While they had her alone, Neil has been abducted and taken somewhere else. They’ve informed Jenny that he will be returned only after she completes the assignment they have given her, which is to kill you. After that, they want her to work for them exclusively.”
“Damn! These people are better than we gave them credit for. How in the world did they twig to this?”
“Jenny was taken to meet Alexandra Hofmeyr, who seems to have connections with the Mossad. She knew that Victoria was killed, so she got a photo of Jenny and started running it through facial recognition systems. They found a matching photo of Jenny as Cinderella from a mission in Sweden last year. The only identification they had for that photo was the name Cinderella, but it was apparently known that Cinderella works for E & E. They took Neil to use as leverage because they want the hit on you within four days, and they want proof of death. She said they’ll accept video, but it has to show that there’s no possible way you could have survived. By that, they mean they want video showing your body afterward, with non-survivable wounds.”
“Any idea where they’re holding Neil?” Allison asked.
“No. Wherever it is, he probably won’t get access to Wi-Fi, so he won’t be able to tell us anything. I’m afraid our best bet at getting him back is to help Jenny complete the mission. We’ve got to be able to give them video that will satisfy them that you are dead.”
Allison
was quiet for a moment. “Wally’s people can probably come up with a way to do that,” she said, “but we’ve only got four days. I don’t know that we can create anything in that timeframe. Noah, I know she’s in love with Neil; would she actually go along with this to get him back?”
Noah didn’t even hesitate. “I’m certain she would,” he said. “She sounded frantic when I heard from her, and was basically begging me to find a solution. I’ve instructed our pilots to get us in the air as soon as possible, and we’re coming straight back to Neverland. She’ll be back in the U.S. tomorrow, and will be able to get in touch with me through the subcom units. We need to have some sort of game plan in the works by then. If she can get through this, then she can go into deep cover with them until she identifies them all. At that point, she can call the rest of us in to take them out.”
“And if we can’t come up with a game plan?” Allison asked. “I’ll tell you the truth, I’m not in any hurry to give up living. The problem is that we’re talking about Jenny Lance, and I don’t know that we can stop her if she really wanted to get to me.”
“If it comes to that,” Noah said calmly, “she’ll have to go through me.”
“Then get your ass back here,” Allison said. “I’ll alert Wally about this, and maybe he can have some suggestions by the time you arrive.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Noah said, but the line was already dead. The pilots were already starting the engines and prepping the plane for takeoff, so Noah settled back in his seat.
Sarah reached over and took his hand. “How did she take it?”
“It shook her up,” Noah said. “The big problem is that Jenny might try to complete the mission if that’s what it takes to get Neil back. I can’t let her do that.”
Sarah looked at him sadly. “I know,” he said. “I just can’t imagine the two of you going up against each other. Noah, she’s every bit as dangerous as you are.”
“I know that,” he said. “She’s been trained with every weapon that I have, and her scores were just as good as mine. My only advantage is going to be that I’ll have some of the others to work with me. She’ll be all alone, if she goes down that path. I’m hoping it won’t come to that, because I’m counting on Wally come up with a solution that will stand up to any test they want to use.”
“Come on, man,” Marco said. “Hollywood makes people get dead every day. You know how many times I’ve seen somebody get their head chopped off? It’s all in the computers.”
“Yes, but a good analysis of that kind of video footage would discover evidence of the computer-generated imagery. That would get Neil killed for certain, and probably Jenny, as well.”
“Well, chill. You know Wally, he’ll come up with something. He’s got more brains working in that building of his than all the special-effects studios in Hollywood could ever hope for.”
“And that,” Noah said, “is what I’m counting on.”
EIGHTEEN
A whole day I’ve been here, Neil thought as he sat in his room after lunch. How much longer before they decide to start trying to question me? I mean, a group like this wouldn’t pass up the chance to question even a former E & E agent, would they? He looked out the window that looked over the grounds, and noticed the guard standing a dozen feet away. There was always a guard there, no matter what time of day or night he looked out; there was always at least one guard on duty on each side of the house.
He sat in the chair that faced the TV, then used the remote to turn it on. He had tried watching the news channels at first, but there was nothing going on that told him anything about what might be happening with Jenny. He caught a bit about the “assassination” of Whitcomb in London a few days before, and managed not to grin, just in case they were watching him from hidden camera.
Boredom caught up with him, and he got up to start exploring his room. Besides the bed, dresser, chair and table, there was only a closet. Neil opened it, and then concluded that somebody hadn’t done his job very well. Surely, any room that was going to be used to house a prisoner should be carefully inspected and cleaned, right?
Somebody had failed to pay attention to the closet. Laying on the floor was an antique telephone, the old kind with the hand crank on the side and a separate earpiece on a very long cord. He sat on the floor and looked it over, and realized quickly that the screws were mostly loose. It took him only a matter of seconds to take the thing apart, and he began to think about what he could do with all of those pieces.
Removing the earpiece was easy, complete with the cord. Taking the mouthpiece apart was a little more difficult, until he managed to break off a small piece of metal to use for a screwdriver. That allowed him to get the small, antiquated microphone out of the mouthpiece, and then he started on the handcranked generator.
Twenty minutes later, he had constructed a makeshift listening device. By connecting the five foot long cord on the earpiece to the microphone, then splicing in the generator near the earpiece end, he had a simple gadget that could drop down through the open vents between his room and the room beneath, to let him listen in on whatever took place in there. The room below his was one that he was not allowed to enter, but he’d seen Michael going there more than once. It seemed to be a place where he could have some privacy, and Neil suspected that knowing what went on in there might tell him a lot.
With some careful twisting of the wires, he managed to feed the little microphone down through the vent. There were baffles in the vents that would muffle sound, preventing him from hearing anything from the room below, but patience and stubbornness got the microphone past them. Then all he had to do was crank the little generator to send power through the wires, and any sound in the room below would be carried to the earpiece.
The vent was behind his chair, out of view of the doorway. He used his juryrigged bug for a few moments at a time, but it was more than an hour before he caught the sound of the door opening and closing. He sat on the floor and cranked, listening more as a way to combat the boredom of imprisonment than out of any real hope of gaining intelligence.
Suddenly, he heard the beeping of a cell phone’s keys being depressed. He cranked slowly and quietly, and grinned as he enjoyed the mischief of spying on Michael unawares.
“It’s Michael,” he heard. “Any word from the girl yet? Well, she still has some time. Yes, I’m keeping him entertained, mostly by playing chess with him. He’s actually quite a good player, it’s a pity we won’t be keeping him around. No, as soon as she has eliminated the E & E director, you can have her meet up with you on the pretext of bringing her to pick up her boyfriend, then take her out. She will have served her purpose, and we would never be able to really trust her after forcing her to kill her own boss. No, I’ll take care of the boyfriend personally. The more he beats me at chess, the more welcome that moment is going to be.”
The call seemed to be over, and Michael left the room a few seconds later. Neil retrieved the microphone and hid his little gadget under his bed, then sat in the chair again to think about what he had heard.
Michael had been working hard to convince him that he was only an underling, there to make sure Neil was safe and comfortable until Jenny got back. What he had just heard, however, sounded more like a man accustomed to giving orders. Could it be that Michael himself was one of the top people of the PRA? The more Neil thought about it, the more convinced he became.
Of course, that meant that his own life was worth nothing to these people. They were planning to kill Jenny, and him, as soon as Jenny completed the mission they had forced her to take. It really wasn’t that big a surprise, but hearing it confirmed was still a bit of a shock. Neil hoped fervently that she had gotten in touch with Noah, and that they had come up with a plan to locate and rescue him. It was the only hope he had, though he planned to put up one hell of a fight if it came down to his only chance of survival.
The afternoon wore on, and there was a knock on the door a couple hours later. Neil turned off the TV as he got up and w
ent to open the door. Michael stood there, his friendly grin still frozen onto his face.
“Are you ready for supper?” he asked, and Neil grinned back as he followed him down to the dining room, where he was surprised to see a more Brazilian-style meal waiting for them. There were some sort of meat pies, like turnovers with spicy beef for filling, and they smelled quite good.
“I thought you might like to try something of a more local fare,” Michael said. “These are called empanadas, and I think you’ll find them delicious.”
“I’ll eat anything that doesn’t eat me first,” Neil replied. “Is all this stuff as good as it looks?”
Michael laughed, and Neil looked at him to see if he was being the butt of the joke. “I promise you, you’ll enjoy it all. It’s good stuff.”
Neil chuckled at that, and stuffed one of the pies into his mouth. He took his time chewing it up and enjoying it, then dug into beans and rice on his plate.
“Oh, yeah, it’s good,” he said, nodding his head. “And I mean really, really good, this stuff is delicious.”
Michael nodded but said nothing. Neil figured the guy was trying to win his trust, trying to put him at ease, so that anything they might want to know would be shared more easily. Unfortunately, he had absolutely no intention of giving up any information. He wasn’t so unrealistic as to believe he could stand up to torture, but until the torture began, he wasn’t about to talk.
Neil didn’t exactly think of himself as any kind of a patriot, but he was definitely loyal to his friends. He would willingly die before betraying them, even if it meant having to kill himself to achieve it. E & E had given him a new chance at life, when his old one was about to become much, much worse than it had already been, and then Jenny had come along and given him a reason to live. Between those factors and the friendship he felt for Noah, Sarah and Marco, Neil had everything he thought he could need, and wasn’t willing to risk losing any of it.
