by T. K. Harris
Michael closed the chatroom and opened another, sending a single invitation.
<µβ> whatz up?
Michael noted the change in response from his last conversation with µβ and realized this was yet another member of µβ stepping in. He wondered again, how many there were.
<µβ> figurz. just a matter of time
<µβ> already looking into it
<µβ> just sit tight. we'll be in contact. keep monitoring
<µβ> @@ stupid fag
Laughing, Michael logged out. He didn't know what µβ was up to but he figured gr@yg@nd01f was in good hands.
Speaking of which, he thought. Pushing his long hair off his face, Mike reached over and pulled up his favorite porn site.
Time for that date, he thought, as anticipation coursed through his sixteen-year-old body.
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Chapter Thirty-Two
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yes, sir. We checked and double checked."
Commander Lee looked at the report, then back at the two detectives. Of the seven disappearances the night that Thomas Moore, Frank Borne and Wayne Bevels had disappeared, there had been one other that looked as if it might be connected.
He wasn't going to beat himself, or his men, up about not finding this earlier. There was just no way that they could have determined that these disappearances had been in any way connected until first Ben, and then Sally Borne, had come forward. They were still questioning the other disappearances to see if there were any more connections but, so far, nothing had come up.
"Course it doesn't mean that the FBI has anything to do with this. Just that the kid seems to be at the center of it," Lee said.
"Actually, sir, they may be right."
The commander gave him a questioning look.
"Several months ago I remember hearing one of the presidential hopefuls, Mitchell Gillespie, talking about taking a stand against hackers. He seemed pretty serious and I heard rumors on the chat lines about something going on."
"Chat lines?"
The detective nodded. "Yes, sir. Chat lines, chatrooms, or boards are where a lot of people online can go and meet people, including hackers. In fact, there are lines specifically set up just for hacker and hacker wannabes."
When Lee continued to look at him without saying anything, he followed with, "I’ve been going to school, training to be a data forensics specialist so I can take on cyber cases. Part of that is understanding how cyber criminals think, act, etc and where they hang out."
Lee tried to absorb half of what the young detective had just said. When more questions came instead, questions he probably wouldn’t understand half the answers to, he asked, "Anything else?"
"No, sir."
"Then get the senator on the phone and find out if he knows anything about our three, now possibly four, missing persons. Let me know what you find out."
He reached for the phone, "I'll let Mr. Moore and Mrs. Borne know, and see if they know anything about this fourth person before I update the chief."
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Ken Moore was reaching for the phone to try and call Alex again when it rang.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Moore?"
"Yes."
"This is Commander Lee. We confirmed the connection with your son to one other disappearance the night he went missing."
"Who?"
"Uday Najim. Ring a bell?"
"No. But then I hadn't even known about these kids my son was playing soccer with until Ben, and then Mrs. Borne's visit. What did the FBI say?"
"We haven't reached out to them yet. That's our next step. But the FBI angle is gaining legitimacy." He told him what his detective had mentioned about Gillespie.
"I’ve heard that name. When will you know more?"
"That is a good question. The FBI is never one to reveal information readily."
Ken could hear the resignation in the man's voice, as if he had dealt with them before.
"But I have some resources that might be able to help expedite things. We will let you know the minute we are able to confirm the information."
"Thank you."
The minute after telling his wife the news, Ken called his brother at work, thinking Alex may have gone in on a Sunday. When he didn't answer, he called Alex's cell again. When Ken still didn't receive an answer, he left another message for Alex to contact him immediately, wondering what his brother could be up to that kept him from calling back. But, knowing that his brother had his own way of doing things, Ken decided that if he couldn't reach Alex by tomorrow, he'd go looking for him.
The next call he made was to his P.I. to update him on the latest. The P.I. let Ken know that he was hoping a few possible leads on potential witnesses to Tommy’s disappearance might hold some promise. These leads had come in with the launching of the commercials. Ken heard the man’s edge of hope and knew it was filled with probably more hope than it deserved. But he knew the investigator had been putting in long hours with nothing to show for it and was trying to make up for his lack of results. So far, he had not come up with anything they had not already found between circumstance, chance, or the police. And the investigator had to realize his days were numbered.
After hanging up, Ken turned to look around his house. Running his hands over his tired face he thought about what he could do now and grimaced when he realized there was only one thing left. At least until tomorrow. And it was something he had grown to hate. He waited.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Yuri rolled his eyes at the never ending argument.
Not for the first time, Yuri wondered why he couldn’t have been an only child. Stabbing at the key board he typed, ‘What. Is. It?’
His computer chimed and Yuri accepted the file transfer.
&n
bsp; Yuri opened the file and began skimming over the doctor's most recent entries. This could pose a problem, he thought.
The thought of his fat, balding, cross dressing, transgender freak of a brother up close and personal with anyone made Yuri shudder.
Not for the first time Yuri sent up a silent thanks that, where the family's plans were concerned, they had all agreed to keep Gregor as far from the real details as possible.
Without waiting for a response, Yuri signed off and stood up from behind his massive desk. Wondering what he should do about the doctor, he began pacing the hall of the castle that his family currently occupied in northern Italy. Although, if someone were to ask him, he would have said that calling it a ‘castle’ or ‘castello’ was a bit of an overstatement.
The doctor had been an issue since Gillespie’s first introduction of her. But the initial hiccup in Yuri’s plans had been easily dealt with due to the years of training he had acquired in the fine art of strategic planning. His family had taught him to not only expect, but anticipate, any issues that might arise in any plan he created. And how to deal with them. He had simply learned to treat everything like a chess match. His family had mastered the art of strategic planning so well that the leading families had been reaching out to his for over three centuries to bring to fruition the goals they wanted to achieve.
But the doctor’s current plans were not something he had expected, or anticipated, given her background. And in them he saw a problem he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with. He only knew that his plans, the beginnings of which were laid far in his past, were nearing fruition and he could not afford to allow anything – or anyone – to push them forward too soon.
But, even as he paced, Yuri was not overly worried. Not yet, anyway. He would figure something out because it was expected of him and of his family. And, because he always had. This issue would be no different. Even if the solution meant he had to remove the doctor permanently from the chess board, a decision he would find unfortunate given the many times she had unknowingly helped the families, he knew he would find a way to deal with her.
Yuri paused in his pacing to stand in front of one of the three large hearths that helped to warm the hall in the winter. Looking up, he gazed at the centuries old tapestry depicting his family's crest, a lion standing over a bloodied unicorn. Once, it had hung in the halls of one of the greatest castles ever built in Italy, at a time when his family had been held in high regard and feared both near, and in countries far, far away from his family's home.
They had come from a long line of people whose power and prestige had begun with royal lineage from Russia. That power had followed them to Italy during the twelfth century as his family joined in the crusades that led to the enviable increase of their already considerable wealth. During this auspicious time, instead of the glorified status of Protectors – mere servants – his family had actually led the other families. For nearly two centuries. That is until they had been betrayed.
Accused of heresy, witchcraft and a myriad of offenses, the Church had arrested all that did not have time to flee, torturing them into confessions of offenses most heinous and seizing all of their land and money. Then, to add insult to injury, the Church had granted the rights to the castle and surrounding lands to the very family that had betrayed them. Five centuries later that family still owned and occupied his family's home, completely oblivious to how they had even obtained it.
But not a single member of his family had ever forgotten. Every child born, no matter how far flung the branch, had been raised with knowledge of the treachery and given the edict that it was their obligation to ensure that the family that betrayed them would one day be trampled beneath their clawed feet, the same as the unicorn in their family crest.
Staring at the tapestry now, Yuri knew that they were finally close. Soon, not only would they have their revenge, but the others would once again look to his family to lead the way. For this, not only would Yuri be rewarded, he would become a family legend, heralded as the man who finally claimed back the family's honor. It was time for a tangled web, five centuries in the making, to unravel. And no one was going to get in his way.
Chapter Thirty-Four
"Mr. Gillespie?"
He looked up from his phone to the nurse calling his name.
"You can go see your mother now." Her voice was soft as she said this, offering him a smile that showed both her respect and an open invitation to something else.
He was careful to give her a friendly but distant smile. It was easy, given that he was here to visit his mother who had always been distant and difficult, even before her health had started deteriorating.
A moment of disappointment flickered in the nurse's eyes before she turned to walk back to her station. He smiled to himself. He had never had trouble attracting women, except for his wife who had made him chase her for over a year before consenting to be his. The familiar pang of her loss hit him briefly as he began walking to his mother's suite.
They had helped her to sit up in bed, styled her hair and even put on her makeup at what, he was sure, had been her insistence. He could not recall a time, except immediately following her heart surgery, that she had looked anything less than impeccable. Rose Marie Kennedy Gillespie’s golden rule was that it did not matter how you felt, it only mattered how you looked and acted.
She gave him a thin smile as he walked over to her bed. The cancer had taken her ability to walk several months ago. He took the thin, blue-veined hand she raised and kissed it softly.
"Mitchell. So good of you to take time away from your campaigning to come visit your mother."
Ignoring the slight sarcasm in her voice, he nodded, "Anything for you, Mother."
She coughed slightly as he released her hand. "Everything but what is best for the family you mean?"
He kept his sigh to himself. The argument was inevitable. "Mother, I do want what is best for the family. And this country. And I intend to do whatever it takes to make sure I serve as one of the most results producing presidents this country has ever seen, once I am elected."
"Once you're elected." She pursed her thin lips. "Your cousin, Charles, may decide to race against you, you know?"
"Mother, you know he has no chance against me."
She made another coughing sound. "At least he supports the Cabal’s agenda."
He cringed at her use of the word ‘Cabal’. Had she been fully herself she never would have said the word in public. Or even out loud. The ‘Cabal’ was the understood, unspoken, term for all of the families who supported an agenda he could not agree with. He hated the Cabal and everything the group of ruling families stood for. His jaw clenched and he stepped away from his mother's bed, walking toward the large bay window that looked out onto a well-groomed lawn and small lake.
"And Charles would never walk away from his duty."
Charles, the runt who had had the privilege of being raised at the heart
of the family, while he had been shipped away to his grandfather, a man who had all but had his name erased from the family tree. Not that it mattered. His grandfather had taught him much, and despite the fact that Charles had tried, it was he – Mitchell Gillespie - on the campaign trail for the presidency. Just like his family had been planning, at least until they realized he didn't share their beliefs. Not completely.
While he believed in a strong family, he also believed in a strong country. And it was the wealthy who were responsible for keeping it strong and doing whatever it took to help America continue to grow in wealth and power. His family, however, had no such beliefs in supporting this country. Their desire, supported by many of the powerful families around the world, had a more centric and self-serving view. Charles, of course, was on board with the family's views.
The kiss ass.
Grudgingly, he had to admit his cousin had both charm and wit, not to mention the family's full support, should he run for the presidency. But Charles did not stand a chance against him. And the family knew it. Say what they may, it was not Charles who had been groomed for this from the day he was born. His grandfather had despised Charles and the rest of the family and had done everything he could to ensure Mitchell took the place he deserved. And now it was happening.
