Grant looks at him for a long moment before answering.
“That’s a cute speech, ‘Epicurus.’ But let me tell you something: if I’d known about your fucked-up hobby, I would have put a trap door in your house, with spikes at the bottom of a hundred foot drop. Just for you. Not your victims, not your fruit-loop ‘works of Eternity’ – for YOU.” Grant whistles with a descending pitch, like a cartoon character falling off a cliff. Then – “Splat.” He pauses, then adds, “Motherfucker.”
Epicurus smiles tightly. “Fine. What a waste. At least my house will become more valuable after today… since there will never be another Grant Carlson design ever again.”
Epicurus raises his hand and flicks a finger. From off screen, a forklift drives up, loaded with foot-tall blocks of what appear to be shrink-wrapped stacks of hundred dollar bills.
“Jesus,” Mailin gasps.
“What?” I ask.
“Each one of those blocks? A million dollars. Cash.”
There’s twenty of them on the forklift.
JP whistles.
The mercenaries around Grant start grabbing the blocks and loading them into the plane.
“Twenty million? That’s all?” Grant says. “I’m insulted.”
“You’re a whore. You’re worth whore prices,” Epicurus sneers.
“Hey,” Grant says, feigning indignation. “I’m a BILLION dollar whore, bitch.”
Epicurus says something in French to the lead mercenary. His accent is prissy in its strained attempt to sound authentic.
JP translates. “‘It is all there… all twenty million… thank you for your help… once you refuel, I will need you to leave the property immediately.’ And the big asshole says, ‘Of course. It is a pleasure doing work with you.’”
I’m so angry that tears spring to my eyes. Psychopaths bargaining a man’s life away like it was a slab of meat. I want to kill them all. Or at least see them thrown in jail and rot there until they die.
Epicurus gestures again, and two bald, burly men in suits come over with a large hand truck, the type a delivery guy would use to wheel around a stack of packages. They hoist Grant to his feet, handcuff him to the metal frame, then start to wheel him away.
“Wait,” Epicurus says, and walks over to Grant. My stomach tightens.
“What, are you going to talk some more?” Grant asks. “Please don’t.”
“No,” Epicurus says, and fishes a roll of duck tape out of the trunk of the Rolls. “I’m going to make sure YOU can’t talk.”
He rips off a long piece, then wraps it several times around Grant’s head, covering his mouth.
“His mouth is almost as dangerous as his escape skills. Don’t turn your back on him,” Epicurus warns his men. Then he says to Grant, “I’m going to have soooo much fun with you. Ta ta for now.”
The suited thugs wheel Grant across the asphalt towards the main house, almost half a mile away. Meanwhile, Epicurus gets back in his Rolls Royce, and the unseen driver spirits him off as the mercenaries continue to load their blood money into the plane.
89
Our limo is roaring down the two-lane road to Tomales Bay. Epicurus’s penchant for monologuing has bought us some time – but not a lot.
I used that time wisely. The whole time we were watching the video feed, I was also hacking away in a separate window at the bottom of the computer screen.
I have a plan.
“How far away are we from Epicurus’s compound?” I ask.
“Hold on,” Mailin says, and pushes a button on a console. “Driver?”
“Yes sir,” comes the reply over an intercom.
“How long until we reach the address we gave you?”
“Uh… about ten minutes, sir.”
“Thanks,” Mailin says.
“Ten minutes,” I say to Duplass. “You need to call the FBI strike team now.”
Duplass still looks stricken. “No… we need to get a warrant… I can’t just go in there – ”
“You’ve seen everything you need to see to justify a raid!”
“That’s illegally obtained evidence,” Duplass says, shaking his head. “I need a warrant.”
“GRANT IS GOING TO DIE!”
“I need a warrant – ”
I’ve reached the end of my fucking rope. I consider the pistol in my backpack, but I’m going to need Duplass alive. And I don’t really want to go to prison for murder.
“Dominique – could you do me a favor?” I ask.
She narrows her eyes. She still doesn’t like me much. It’s mutual.
“Quoi?” she asks.
I point to Duplass. “Could you knock his sorry ass out?”
Duplass looks shocked. “What?”
Dominique grins. “With pleasure,” she says, and suddenly WHAM!
Brutal right cross to Duplass’s face.
His Bluetooth earpiece goes flying, and he slumps into Mailin’s lap like a sack full of jelly.
Dominique looks pleased with her work as she flexes her fingers.
“What the FUCK?!” Mailin yelps.
“I’ve got a plan,” I tell him calmly.
“This is fucked UP, Eve!”
“Shhhh.” I push the button on the console. “Hey, driver – what’s your name?”
“Tony, ma’am. Uh… is everything okay back there?”
“It’s great, Tony. Couldn’t be better. But don’t call me ma’am.”
“Yes ma – okay.”
“So here’s what I need. There’s another address I need you to go to: 501 Crestview Road. Can you punch that into your GPS?”
“Got it.”
“How long till we get there?”
“Uh… two minutes, ma’am.”
“Great. There’ll be a gate when we get there – it’ll open up, just drive on through to the house.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, Tony,” I say, and release the button.
“What the fuck kind of a plan involves committing assault against an FBI agent?” Mailin asks angrily.
“Oh, come on, like you haven’t wanted to do it every day you’ve worked for him,” I mutter as I continue typing.
“That – that has nothing to do with anything,” Mailin splutters.
“Hold on for a second,” I say.
Our car is approaching a wrought-iron gate set in a massive brick wall around a property.
With a few clicks of a button on my laptop, a string of numbers fires – and the gate magically opens.
“What the fuck are you doing, Eve?” Mailin asks, his voice suddenly afraid.
“I told you, I’ve got a plan. Do you and Duplass carry handcuffs?”
90
There’s a pretty big McMansion inside the gated compound. Nobody’s home – which is what I discovered by hacking the house’s security network, and why I chose this house instead of all the others bordering Epicurus’s property. That’s crucial to my plan.
So is leaving Duplass and Mailin behind.
The limo is parked next to the McMansion. The car doors are open, the windows are down, and Mailin and Tony the driver are handcuffed to the metal door frames. The handcuff keys glitter tantalizingly in the grass about twenty feet out of reach. Duplass is slumped unconscious on the backseat, though he’s still chained to his car door, too.
“This is a FUCKED UP PLAN, Eve!” Mailin yells angrily.
We all ignore him as JP picks the lock on the McMansion’s front door. I’ve already deactivated the alarm, so there’s no chance a security company or the police are coming.
Once JP and Dominique are inside, I hold a cell phone out to Mailin. “Do it like I told you: call the FBI and get a strike team for Epicurus’s compound. We’re going in to save Grant. This way, you and Duplass don’t get in trouble about warrants, because you’re coming after somebody who assaulted a federal agent. Just do it like I told you. Easy peasy, Japanesey,” I say, and immediately feel a twinge of sadness.
‘Easy peasy’ was Grant’s l
ine.
IS Grant’s line. IS, I remind myself.
“I could help you,” Mailin protests. “I could help you hack his place while you go in – ”
“And go to prison for it.” I thrust the cell phone at him. “Look, I’m trying to protect you here.”
He’s angry. I’d be angry, too, if I were in his place. But I don’t want to see him thrown in jail, which is exactly what the FBI will do to him if he helps.
JP, Dominique’s, and my fate are all undecided at this point… but if we go down, I don’t want to drag down Mailin with us.
After a moment of angry hesitation, he finally grabs the cell phone and calls the Bureau.
“Hello, this is Special Agent Mailin Walker,” he whispers into the cell. “I can’t talk loud, and I only have a second before my captives come back. Agent Duplass has been assaulted and knocked unconscious, our service pieces were stolen, and we’ve both been cuffed to a car at 501 Crestview Road in Marin County, near Tomales Bay. I need you to assemble a strike team from the San Francisco office and get them out here STAT. My captors are inside the house. They should be considered armed and dangerous. And look, this has to be done quietly – I have reason to believe that they have a mole inside both the FBI and the NSA, so I need you to do this UNDER the radar, understand? No alerting Washington OR the NSA. Our lives are depending on – no – NO – OH MY GOD!”
Mailin hangs up the call and gives me a look like, Well? Satisfied?
“That was a nice touch there at the end,” I say as I take the cell phone back. “You missed your calling. Should’ve gone to Hollywood.”
“Then I wouldn’t be here to help you,” Mailin says. “So LET me.”
“Thank you, Mailin… but you’ve done enough. I can’t let you get in any more trouble on my account.”
He sighs bitterly and shakes his head as I walk over to Tony, who looks bewildered and terrified.
“Well, Tony – has this been a crazy day, or what?” I say, trying to lighten the mood with a little wackiness.
Doesn’t help.
“Please don’t hurt me,” he begs.
Ouch.
“Tony, I’m not going to hurt you. In fact, all I need is a favor from you, and you’ll be able to retire from this job and never have to work again. Well… at least not for a few years, depending on how exorbitant your lifestyle is.”
Tony perks up. He’s suddenly very interested. “What do I have to do?”
“Basically I need you to talk to Agent Walker over here and get your story straight. Whatever he tells you to say, you say – even if it’s bending the truth a little – and you’ll get the pass code to an offshore bank account with $500,000 in it. Deal?”
Tony’s eyes go wide. He looks over at Mailin, who nods grudgingly.
“That’s all?” Tony asks.
“You’ve got to stick to the story, even if they threaten you, or else no half a mil. Understand?”
He nods.
“Think you can do that?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Alright.”
“Bribing a witness for half a million dollars? Seriously?” Mailin asks.
“You can have half a million, too,” I grin as I walk over to him. “Just say the word.”
“I’d rather help YOU.”
“Which is why I’m bribing the witness – so I can keep you out of jail, dumbass.”
Mailin shakes his head.
“Wish me luck,” I say. I’m trying to keep up a brave front, but I can’t lie – I’m terrified.
“Good luck,” Mailin says.
I nod, and head into the house to start the final round of the plan.
91
Inside the empty McMansion, we’re preparing for war.
I use the laptop to comb through thousands of Epicurus’s computer files. At the same time, I keep thumbnails of his security camera feeds onscreen, waiting for Grant to appear.
JP is using the McMansion family computer to access Epicurus’s security system through a backdoor I created specifically for him.
Dominique has spread out all our available resources on a table.
There are three cell phones – one each from Tony the driver, Mailin, and Duplass, not to mention Duplass’s Bluetooth earpiece.
There’s the contents from my backpack. The cash and credit cards are worthless, but there are several GPS trackers still left, plus some tubes of super glue.
As for guns, we have five: one semi-automatic pistol from Grant, plus four more from the FBI – two from Mailin and Duplass, and two from their fallen comrades. All in all, there are about 100 bullets. Hopefully that will be more than enough.
I stop hacking for a minute and stare at all the objects laid out on the table. They are pieces of a puzzle I have devised, but not yet put together.
I wonder if the puzzle will confound Epicurus.
It better, or we’re totally screwed.
I remember something Grant said to me back in Paris: you’re great at all the digital stuff – but when it comes to cloak and dagger shit and real world stuff… mm, not so much.
I wonder if Epicurus is the same… if he’s great with computer code and IP addresses, but if he has a blind spot for ‘real world stuff.’
“Are we ready to go?” Dominique calls out.
“Not yet,” I answer, and turn back to hacking.
“I’m ready,” she says petulantly.
“Hold your horses.”
Something about the phrase sounds familiar. I look over at Dominique, and she has the same glimmer of recognition in her eyes.
“Grant says that,” she murmurs quietly.
I go back to my computer search with a heavy heart – but not for long. Within seconds, I’ve hit the mother lode: a folder of digital receipts from political campaigns.
Name every major politician you can think of, from gubernatorial offices all the way up to the very highest levels of the federal government, and there’s a good chance their name would be on that list.
Governors, senators, congressmen… even a former president. Not to mention a gaggle of presidential candidates from every election cycle over the last two decades.
What’s really interesting is they’re from both parties. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are exempt.
And the amounts? Maximum contributions allowed by law to individual candidates, but that’s chicken feed compared to the hundreds of millions donated to Super PACs.
Epicurus must have some very good friends in high places.
This information would be disastrous if it leaked. Once Epicurus is exposed, this would be the equivalent of the press finding out a politician’s campaign manager is a neo-Nazi pedophile.
So I immediately save everything to a special server in the cloud – sort of my rainy day ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ fund. If I need to twist some arms down the road to get me and Grant free of the FBI, this is what I’m going to use.
Except… Epicurus needs to be exposed to the general public in order for the political connections to do me any good.
How do I do that? I need proof he’s a psychopathic killer, and there isn’t any. Or none that I’ve found.
While I ponder that conundrum, I check the surveillance feeds again, and my stomach turns.
A whole new batch of cameras have been turned on. They are different angles on the same thing: Epicurus standing in a room with tile floors and walls completely covered in plastic, Dexter-style, presumably so clean-up is easier.
The main item in the room is a bed-like platform with arm, ankle, chest, and head restraints. It has a mechanical base with a control panel; my guess is that the bed can be made to raise, lower, and tilt at any angle, like a souped-up dentist’s chair.
Speaking of dentists, Epicurus looks like a particularly hellish one. Dressed in a white lab coat, he hums absentmindedly as he checks a gleaming metal table laid out with dozens of implements.
Some are medical: dentist’s drills, scalpels, clamps, needles.
&nb
sp; Some are industrial: a car battery with jumper cables, pliers, hammers, a blowtorch.
Some might best be described as medieval instruments of torture.
And some… some are custom creations straight out of a madman’s nightmares.
“Jesus,” I whisper.
Dominique looks at the monitor and turns white. “Are we ready to go?” she asks urgently.
“Almost,” I promise her, and go back to the computer screen.
Something strikes me as weird.
Epicurus is a big fan of surveillance systems, for obvious reasons. He used them devastatingly against me and Grant in New York and Paris, by hacking into traffic cameras and the security cameras of banks and department stores.
You would think a guy who knows just how much Big Brother is watching us would be hesitant about having so many cameras in his own home. But no – there’s almost 80 in the house alone. He must be supremely overconfident, absolutely sure that no one will ever be able to hack into his system to spy on him. False modesty aside, I’m one of the best hackers in the world, and I doubt I could have done it, even over a span of weeks. The only reason I’m looking at these video feeds is because Epicurus is tied in deep with the NSA, and Mailin has a coworker with a friend in the NSA.
Here’s the metaphor: Epicurus lives in a digital fortress, but because he does so much business with the NSA, he shares an underground tunnel with their digital fortress. Because NOBODY would ever hack the NSA, Epicurus believes that tunnel is secure. And because he believes that, all he has on his end of the tunnel is a flimsy door and a couple of deadbolts.
Well, I’m a digital cat burglar, the way Grant’s one in the real world. And deadbolts are nothing to a cat burglar. I might not have been able to break into the fortress, but sneak me into that tunnel and it’s game over, baby.
But there’s something else weird. Of the 80 cameras in his house, there are twelve in this room alone – two in every corner and a handful overhead, all arranged in a variety of shots from close-ups to wide angles. It’s like he’s a Hollywood director, trying to film from every conceivable direction so he can cut it together and make… a movie…
The Billionaire's Redemption (The Billionaire's Kiss, Book Five): (A Billionaire Alpha Romance) Page 24
