by LS Hawker
Why not? They were her team members. But he was probably afraid the listening devices would pick up this bit of info, and then they could better prepare for Dan’s arrival.
He opened the door to the office building. “Have a nice day, ma’am,” he said in a normal tone of voice. Then walked away.
As soon as he did, Jade wished she’d asked him about Gilby. She and the guys needed to go down to the storeroom hall together to find the prisoner, but how would they do that without attracting the attention of Big Brother?
The first order of business, however, was to finish going through the data, and she needed all her powers of concentration to do that.
She sat at her desk, set the photo of Olivia next to her monitor, and got to work, optimism ballooning inside her.
The guys straggled in, but Jade was focused and took little notice. She wanted this done before Dan got here.
If he was really coming.
The fake command prompt popped up.
Didn’t want to say anything until I was sure, but I found the surveillance program in the system. I took a screenshot of the hallway outside the lab, the hallway where Gilby is, and inside the elevator. I’ve also recorded thirty minutes of us sitting at our desks working. I’ll program both to display when we go to see the prisoner. We’ll have thirty minutes to talk to him and get back here.
This day kept getting better and better. Elias was a genius. But . . .
Jade typed and sent a response.
But surely they saw/heard your interaction with Gilby, right?
Elias’s reply popped up.
They’d have confronted me about it if they’d caught it, don’t you suppose? I dropped a handful of change on the floor so I’d have plenty of time to crawl around and gather it all up. They must not pay too much attention to what happens in the halls.
That made sense, but she couldn’t help feeling trepidation.
Another screen popped up that took her breath away. She stared at it. Was it possible? Yes, it was.
She had to restrain herself from whooping, from jumping up and doing a fist pump. Instead, she typed her reply and sent it.
Elias gasped loudly behind her. Message received.
“What?” Berko said.
Elias rose from his chair and charged to Jade’s workstation, leaning in over her. Berko joined them. Jade watched their faces as they read her words.
IT WORKS.
Berko dropped his book and Elias squeezed her shoulders so hard she yelped.
“Sorry,” he said.
Jade pointed out Elias’s and her exchange about the surveillance system to Berko. He straightened, pushed up his glasses, and stared at Elias, who grinned at him.
“I think I’m having a panic attack,” he whispered. “Are you sure?”
She nodded and typed.
Simulation’s done. It prevented all seventy stations from going down. ALL seventy. But act casual. They’re watching. Now, Elias, do your magic, and then let’s go see this Gilby character.
The guys went back to their workstations and Jade sat anxiously staring at her monitor, waiting for the go signal from Elias.
Jade looked at her phone. It was two forty-five. The sounds of Elias’s clacking keys intensified her jitters as she waited and hoped.
“Let’s go,” Elias said.
Jade and Berko rose from their chairs and followed Elias out the lab door.
All three of them stood a little straighter as they rode down the elevator, and Jade was jumpy with nerves, relief, and excitement all at once. Berko looked better than he had since all the drama began.
Jade and Berko followed Elias down the dim hall. He stopped in front of a door and tapped softly on it. “Mr. Gilby,” he whispered.
No answer.
“Maybe he’s asleep,” Berko said.
“Mr. Gilby?” Jade said in hushed tones. “It’s Jade.”
Still no answer.
Elias lifted his keycard to the electronic lock and the light turned green.
And suddenly, Jade was terrified at what they’d find inside. Because if they had shot Gilby’s companion, then . . .
The door clicked open and swung inward. Jade groped the wall inside until she found a light switch and flipped it.
The room was empty.
Elias walked inside and examined the walls, the floor, the corners, as if there were some secret passage or false wall that might be hiding Gilby.
There was a sink, a toilet, and cot with a thin mattress on it, but no Gilby.
“Are you sure it was this room?” Berko whispered.
Elias didn’t say anything for a moment. “No,” Elias said.
“But it was this hall,” Jade said.
Elias gave her a stung look. “Yes.”
“Maybe we should check the other rooms to be sure,” Jade said.
“There’s no need for that,” came Martin’s voice from the doorway.
Jade jumped, and all three of them turned around to see Martin accompanied by an armed guard, whose name badge said Hobart.
“Where is he?” Elias said.
“I told you we would be turning him over to the authorities,” Martin said, “and we did, early this morning.”
Jade watched Elias try to decide whether he should say what Gilby had told him, but before he could make up his mind, Martin said, “What works?”
Chapter Eighteen
Jade gulped, caught. She’d left the command prompt window open on her monitor. Martin must have popped into the lab.
Both her coworkers’ faces were slack with surprise and dismay.
Jade straightened, rose to her full height, and said, “Clementine. It’s ready. The simulation is done. It works. So you can let these two go, and I can go over the specifics with you or—”
“Not necessary,” Martin said. “We just need you to remove the lock on it.”
“Before I do,” Jade said. “We’d like you to tell us who we are actually working for. And we want our money deposited in our accounts. And we want assurances you’re not going to . . .”
She gulped again.
“We’re from the government,” Martin said, a twinkle in his eye. “And we’re here to help.” He herded them out of the room as Hobart turned off the light and closed the door behind them.
“Come with me,” Martin said. “I want to show you something.”
Jade traded glances with Elias and Berko, who was trembling. Elias walked stiffly, with his military bearing.
They walked down the hall toward the elevator behind Martin, who whistled tunelessly between his teeth. Hobart brought up the rear. On the ride up two floors, Martin kept his eyes on the ascending numbers, and Jade wondered what he wanted to show them.
They walked down a hall Jade hadn’t been in before. She didn’t like being followed by a man with a rifle, and she glanced around at Hobart, who stared impassively straight ahead. Martin led them into a small, dark room with a large window. Light flooded a room beyond the window, and once her eyes adjusted, she saw two men seated in chairs facing the window, and another standing beside them.
With a shock, Jade recognized both seated men. It was Dan and Connor the guard. And both their faces were bloody messes. Their arms were tied behind them.
Before she could react to this, another guard, a very large man, wound up and punched Dan in the jaw.
His head snapped back and a low moan escaped him.
“Dan!” Jade screamed. “No!”
She turned to Martin and grabbed his arm. “What’s going on? Why are you doing this?”
The guard punched Connor in the stomach, causing him to double over as much as he could with his hands behind him. He sagged to the left.
The guard went back to Dan and punched him in the mouth, making blood fly.
Berko gagged and put his hands over his own mouth.
“Stop him,” Jade said to Martin. “Stop this.”
“We need that password, Jade,” he said. “Do you want to be responsi
ble for the fall of the free world? You can stop it, Jade. Give me the password.”
“You’re not from the government,” Elias said. “The government does not beat people up.”
“Tell that to the guys detained at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo,” Martin said. “This is SOP for hostiles.”
This was patently untrue. Jade now saw Martin was a loose cannon. “But Dan isn’t a hostile,” Jade said. “I am!”
“We need you,” Martin said. “We only need Colonel Stevenson to motivate you.”
The guard picked up some implement from a table, moved behind Dan and stooped over, wrenching at something.
Dan began to scream.
“Stop!” Jade said. “Stop it!” She began to cry, seeing the agony on Dan’s face as the guard must be pulling out her mentor’s fingernails.
“What is wrong with you?” Elias said. “This is insane! Can we sit down and talk about this? We can come to some sort of agreement that you—”
“Give me the password,” Martin said to Jade. “Give your country the password.”
“My country does not torture citizens!” Jade screamed.
Dan’s head lolled on his shoulders, his chest rising and falling quickly in gasped breaths, maybe with broken ribs, and he gazed through blackened, swelling eyes at the window.
“Sacrifices must be made, Jade. But Colonel Stevenson doesn’t have to be one of them. You can stop it right now if you give me the password.”
“There’s no threat from the Chinese,” Elias said. “Harry Gilby told us—”
“Gilby,” Martin spat. “Of course he’d say that. What he really means is that letting the Chinese take over is not a threat. That it’s a good thing.”
Berko wept openly, and Elias’s red eyes watered, his face a shade of red Jade had never seen on a face before.
“This is not right,” Elias said. “This is not right.” Then he turned to Jade. “But do not give them the password. No matter what happens in there. Don’t give it to them.”
Berko stared at him, his mouth open, and Jade said, “We can’t let them do this, Elias.”
“We can’t let them have the password. They’re not the NSA. I don’t know who they are, but they are not on our side. The Chinese are not going to attack.”
Nothing made any sense. Jade tried to code what she was seeing, what she was hearing, what she was feeling, but her brain was a jumble of inflamed neurons that couldn’t put together a cogent thought.
Who was right, and who was wrong? What was real? Who were these people?
“What should I do, Berko? What should I do?”
The guard got behind Dan again, presumably to pull out his remaining fingernails.
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
“You will not give the password,” Elias said.
Dan howled in pain, the sound echoing into the deepest part of Jade’s mind, the same howl her sister would give when she felt most disconnected from the world, her existential torment equal to Dan’s physical suffering.
“Sure, it’s not your friend, your mentor being tortured in there,” Jade shouted. “What if it was your mom?”
“I’d still say no,” Elias said.
“That’s a lie,” Jade said.
“Jade,” Martin said. “Gilby has been in contact with the Chinese, and they are ready to attack. They’re not going to wait until the eleventh.”
“Don’t listen to him, Jade. He’s the one who’s lying.”
“That’s right, Jade, listen to the hit-and-run murderer instead of your instincts. Your instincts are right. The Chinese will attack, and your program can stop them. You said so yourself.”
Jade was frozen with indecision.
“All right,” Martin said. “You know we can run a password decryption program. It’ll just take longer. And if I have to do that, then we’re going to kill Colonel Stevenson.”
Jade inhaled so hard she choked. “No,” she said.
“If I tap on that window—see the gun on the table?—Lieutenant Hobart will pick it up, aim it at Connor’s heart, and pull the trigger. And then he’ll shoot Colonel Stevenson. So it’s up to you who lives . . . and who dies. Your choice.”
“Colonel Stevenson is an airman,” Jade said. “He fought for this country in Iraq. He has a Purple Heart.”
“Yes,” Martin said. “And he’s serving his country right now by helping persuade you to do what’s right.”
Jade sobbed, crying so hard she couldn’t get her breath, dizzy, in danger of falling over.
Martin leaned forward and tapped on the glass.
Chapter Nineteen
The guard picked up the pistol and aimed at Connor’s heart, and before Jade could say anything, he pulled the trigger.
“No!” Jade screamed.
Connor and his chair pitched over, a fine red mist hanging where he’d sat milliseconds ago.
“The password, Jade,” Martin said.
As if she were inside a nightmare, she couldn’t move or speak. She opened her mouth but all that emerged was a thin stream of saliva since she could no longer swallow.
“Jade,” Martin said.
The image of Olivia hanging from the fence wafted before her imagination, how time stood still, the way it did now.
She was aware Elias and Berko both chattered away beside her, but she was inside a bubble of cement.
Martin tapped on the glass a second time.
The lieutenant then aimed the pistol at Dan’s chest and shot him, and blood poured out, darkening his shirt. He slumped forward.
Jade fell to her knees and the room went dark.
When she came to she was staring at the ceiling and Berko was throwing up in the corner. Elias had his hands around Martin’s neck and Hobart pulled out a sidearm and aimed it at Elias’s head.
“Stop!” Jade screamed and struggled to her feet, throwing herself in between Elias and Hobart, the gun now aimed at her head, and she didn’t care.
She could not watch another one of her friends die. Not one more.
Elias let go of Martin. Everything stopped.
“Put the gun away,” Jade said to Hobart with a calm she didn’t feel. “Put it away.”
Behind her she heard Berko grunt.
She turned. Martin held a gun against Berko’s head.
“Who else will have to die before you do the right thing, Jade? Give me the password, or Berko dies too.”
“Okay! Okay!” Jade said. “You can have it! It’s right here, I’ve got it right here, just please don’t kill Berko! Please!”
The lieutenant let go of Berko and he crumpled to the floor, landing in his own vomit.
“Let’s go to the lab. I want you to type it in yourself, Jade.”
Rage simmered up in Jade’s gut. “You son of a bitch. You are going to burn in hell for this.”
“Let’s go.”
Martin herded them out the door, that bastard Hobart following them.
Jade noticed Berko and Elias were keeping their distance, as if a toxic cloud surrounded her.
In a way, it did.
“What have you done?” Elias’s whispered words drifted toward her.
She turned on him. “They would have killed Berko, Elias!”
“A lot more people are going to die instead when the power goes out. People in hospitals who need life support. Elderly people. Babies. You know they are. And you could have prevented that.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if they’d aimed the gun at you,” Berko said.
“I did have a gun pointed at me, ” Elias said, “and I'm saying it.”
“Elias,” Martin said. “Just so you know. We would have shot Berko, and then you, and we have people stationed near the Veverkas’ house, ready to execute her whole family if necessary.”
Of course they did. Jade imagined Clementine in her blue nightie and fox ears, trying to understand why there were men with guns in her house, why they wanted to hurt her and her mom and dad, and how she would die in confusion and
pain.
Elias wouldn’t even look at Jade. He was done with her.
She didn’t blame him.
They rode the elevator down to the lab, and Berko shook violently, clutching his stomach. “I need to use the restroom,” he said.
“You can wait,” Martin said.
“No, I really can’t,” he said. “I’m going to throw up again.”
“Will you let the man go to the bathroom?” Elias said. “Send your merc with him, but for the love of God, let him go!”
Martin turned to Hobart and nodded. When the elevator doors opened, Berko stumbled out toward the men’s room, and Hobart followed, his rifle pointed at the floor.
Jade opened the lab door and Martin and Elias followed her in. She sat at her workstation, logged in, and navigated to the back door. She sat staring at the password box, the blinking cursor, and typed in the password.
She hoped and prayed the Chinese actually planned to attack. That she had done the right thing, but a feeling of doom enveloped her. Because if there was no Chinese attack, what were these people planning to do with Clementine?
She stood and let Martin have her chair, and the screen lit up his smiling face. He bowed his head as if in prayer, then got up and patted Jade on the arm. She wanted to kick the crap out of him. The place on her arm where he touched her felt poisoned.
“You’re a good girl, Jade,” he said. “I knew we could count on you.”
Elias faced him and looked him in the eye. “You’re not part of the government,” he said. “Are you?”
“No,” Martin said. “But we soon will be.”
“You shot Olivia.”
“An accident,” Martin said, his hands up. “That was not supposed to happen.”
“And there’s no Chinese threat, is there?”
“No, but they certainly have been helpful with funding. They paid for all this. What they don’t realize is we’re going to use this program against them. The Russians too.”
“You’re communists. Or socialists. Or whatever you people are calling yourselves these days.”
“Some of us are, yes, but this is a truly bipartisan effort. Our country has been slipping for decades. It’s a disgrace, but what could anyone do? The government itself is so huge it employs one-tenth of the population, and that’s not counting the private-sector jobs that depend on government contracts. This was not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
