Web of Lies

by Michael Cross

  Issuing a paper dossier provides the Tower with cover. After all, a dossier can be explained away a million different ways and never traced back to a single person. And discussing the details of an op via a secure line allows them to control the flow of information. As far as operational security goes, it’s solid. It’s a pain in the ass, but I get why they do it this way.

  I pull the computer across the table to me and open it up to engage the video chat program. With a sigh, I punch the button to connect the call and lean back in my chair. As I wait for the screen to resolve itself, I take a long swig.

  The encrypted line resolves, and the picture comes up, showing me the familiar silhouette of the High Priestess. I give her a mock salute with my bottle.

  “Glad to see you loosening up a bit,” she says.

  I shrug. “It’s easier to relax when your operatives aren’t skulking about.”

  “Skulking about?”

  I take another drink then set my bottle down. “Justice,” I tell her. “She’s—colorful.”

  Delta laughs softly. “She is. But she is also very good at what she does.”

  “And what does she do?”

  “Her job,” she replies. “Which is not your concern.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I didn’t expect to get a straight answer from Delta, but I figured it was worth a shot. Maybe it’s academic at this point, but I would like to learn the hierarchy of the Tower. I’d like to know exactly how high they go, how long their reach is, and who is at the top of their power structure. I’m a curious guy like that.

  “Speaking of jobs, I trust you have read the dossier,” she says—a statement, not a question.

  “I have,” I nod. “Interesting woman. Why do you want her dead?”

  “I don’t recall saying I wanted her dead,” she tells me.

  I stare at her silhouette on the screen for a moment. “This assignment’s not a green light?”

  “Not this time. This task is different,” she explains. “This requires a more—delicate touch if possible. Which means don’t kill her—or anybody. We do not want to tip our hand.”

  “A delicate touch?” I raise an eyebrow. “And here I thought I was nothing but a hammer for you people.”

  Her laughter is rich and smoky. “Oh you are,” she says. “But hammers can be used for different tasks.”

  “Usually not tasks that are delicate.”

  “Let’s just say I have faith in your versatility.”

  I take another swig from my bottle then lean forward, suddenly somewhat interested. An assignment that’s not a kill order isn’t what I expected.

  “So, what needs to happen to the Empress?” I ask.

  “Her credibility must be ruined. Her reputation destroyed,” Delta explains coldly.

  “Okay, and how am I going to do that?”

  “The thumb drive in the pack you received contains information that you must plant on the computer in her office,” she explains. “Plant the file somewhere discreet and not so obvious it will be noticed. Once you have confirmed the upload, we will handle it from there.”

  “Don’t you have hackers who can do this?” I ask.

  “Her computer is air-gapped,” Delta tells me. “It cannot be accessed from the outside.”

  “Smart woman.”

  “She’s very smart,” she replies. “But that will also be her undoing. Once the files are discovered, she will not be able to claim it was planted from the outside.”

  It’s a good trap, no question about it. And Delta is right about the pros and cons of air-gapping her computer. She’s secure as hell, but she won’t be able to talk her way out of whatever these files are I’m dumping on her. Clever. Maybe these people know what they’re doing after all.

  “Just so I’m clear, this is not a green light. The target is not to be harmed,” Delta tells me again. “If we are not able to achieve our objective, we want to keep her on the board so we can take another run at her again later.”

  “Yeah, got it the first time you told me,” I reply.

  “No need to be so surly,” she quips.

  “It’s my natural state of being.”

  “So I’m noticing,” she replies.

  “Tell me, what did Ms. Vogel do to end up on the Tower’s naughty list?”

  “You know better than to ask me that.”

  “And yet, here I am, asking anyway,” I say.

  She sighs a bit too dramatically. “Are we going to spar like this every time you are given an assignment?”

  “Yeah, probably,” I say. “I like going into an op with my eyes open. I don’t like secrets.”

  “And yet, you used to live your life as a spy.” Her tone is light. Teasing. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Fine. I’m a hypocrite.” I take a drink. “So tell me. Why her?”

  “Echo, I can’t—”

  “Look, you keep claiming you want me to trust you. As far as I’m concerned, trust is a two-way street,” I cut her off. “You want me to keep working for you, you’re going to have to start earning my trust.”

  She hesitates for a long moment as if deciding whether or not this is a hill worth dying on. Apparently, she doesn’t, because she begins to speak.

  “Fine,” she says, her voice crisp and curt. “She is bankrolling a Senate candidate who is a member of the Hellfire Club, and we cannot have that. They are dangerously close to obtaining a majority in the Senate. I need not tell you how dangerous that would be.”

  “That’s it? She’s somebody’s bankroll?” I ask. “You want to destroy her for that?”

  “Yes. Without her, the candidate’s campaign goes belly up, and he goes away,” she says. “And the Hellfire Club is denied control of the Senate.”

  “And you’re certain that this guy, this candidate is a member of the opposition? Why not just move against him directly?”

  “We cannot move directly against two Hellfire members in such quick succession without overplaying our hand,” she explains. Not much of an explanation. But it’s probably all I’m going to get out of that.

  “And you’re certain he is?”

  There’s a moment of hesitation before she speaks, but it’s incredibly telling. “We are fairly certain, yes. They have kept him very well insulated,” she replies. “But our intel is good.”

  “You aren’t certain,” I say. “And you want to destroy this woman based on what’s little more than an educated guess?”

  “That is your task, Echo,” she says, her voice cold.

  “That’s a really slippery slope,” I continue. “If you’re going to be targeting people you guys are only ‘pretty sure’ is part of the opposition—”

  “Regardless,” she cuts me off, her tone positively icy, “those are your orders. And I need not remind you what’s at stake for you personally.”

  “And yet you did anyway,” I grumble.

  I stare at her silhouette, filled with anger. That they want me to destroy everything she’s built, simply because she’s funding a candidate they think is part of the opposition defies belief. Yeah, he may be part of the Hellfire Club, but does Vogel even know that? Is she part of their cabal? It’s entirely possible she’s ignorant to the maneuverings happening behind the scenes. Perhaps she doesn’t even know about the Hellfire Club at all. Losing everything she’s built seems a pretty harsh penalty for her possible ignorance.

  I drain the last of my bottle and slam it down on the table, ready for this conversation to be done. I’ve got better things to do with my evening.

  “Is there anything else?” I ask.

  “Actually there is,” she says. “It seems the name Alec Marsh came up in connection with a missing persons’ case.”

  “That right?”

  “In Auburn, Maine, actually,” she presses. “The same town where Judge Blankenship—”

  “Yeah, I remember where he was from,” I snap. “What’s your point?”

  “Does the name Thomas Elkins ring any bells?”
<
br />   I shake my head. “Not a one. Sorry.”

  She lets out a loud sigh. “As I’ve told you before, the Tower’s strength—”

  “Is anonymity, I know. You’ve told me that before too,” I say. “You don’t need to keep repeating yourself. I’m not an idiot.”

  “That is up for debate at the moment,” she fires back. “The Sheriff is looking for Alec Marsh. He seems to believe Mr. Marsh had something to do with Thomas Elkins’ disappearance.”

  “Interesting,” I muse. “But yeah, doesn’t ring a bell. Sorry.”

  Even though I can only see her silhouette, I can practically see her bristling. Delta gives me some small amount of leeway, but I know I shouldn’t push her too hard. If I become too much of a liability, there is always the possibility that she could choose to take me off the board. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore things like what happened in Maine either. I’m not gonna let some piece of shit scum like Tommy Elkins off easy after beating his girlfriend and endangering his child.

  “Echo, I understand your sentiment. I do,” she says, her tone slightly more conciliatory. “But there are far bigger things in motion right now. We cannot afford to let our sentiments, no matter how right they are, interfere with our mission.”

  I sigh and lean back in my chair again. I know she has a point. I know that sometimes you have to sacrifice the one for the good of the many. It’s pragmatic. It sucks, but it makes sense. It’s just a cold calculation that really bothers me.

  “I may work for you,” I growl. “But you don’t own me, Delta. Neither does the Tower. Don’t ever think that you do.”

  She pauses for a long moment. I can practically feel the irritation and disapproval radiating through the screen.

  “Stay focused, Echo,” she finally says. “And please, I urge you to exercise good judgment and the utmost discretion.”

  The screen goes blank.

  I stick my head in the fridge, only to find that I’m out of beer.

  “Damn,” I grumble.

  I pack my things up and head out to the car. I need more beer and something to eat—and to start figuring out how to go about breaking into Eleanor Vogel’s ivory tower and get to her air-gapped computer without killing anybody.

  Yeah, sounds easy as pie.

  Chapter Nine

  I sit at a table at a small outdoor cafe across the plaza from Vogel Tower. I take a bite of my pizza and nod in satisfaction. It’s almost like I’m tasting it again for the very first time. I don’t know if I loved Chicago style pizza in my other life, but I’m hooked on it now. It’s like crack.

  I watch the comings and goings at Vogel, get a feel for the security staff there—at least the ones who are sitting on the front door and at the reception desk. I’m sure there are plenty of guards on the other floors as well as other security countermeasures that I can’t see. Which means that I’m going to have to get inside the tower to see what’s what in there.

  In some ways, I wish this was a simple greenlight op. I don’t necessarily love the idea of killing people, but it’s a hell of a lot simpler. You get in, hit the target, and get out. You’re done. Simple as that. Something like this requires a whole lot more recon and careful planning. And no matter how well you organize, there is bound to be something unexpected that happens that will screw up your entire day.

  I’m still troubled by Vogel’s tenuous connection to the Hellfire Club. It bothers me that they’re simply guessing about this candidate’s membership in this cabal. Is their intel right? Maybe. But it could just as easily be wrong. And I don’t like the idea of destroying two lives on a maybe.

  The sound of Delta’s voice floats through my mind. Her dire warning about what’s at stake for me reverberates through my brain. It’s then I realize that for all my moral posturing, I’ll never say no to the job, no matter how fucked up I think it is. I realize that my desire for answers about me and about my life currently outweighs my concern about people I don’t know—people who could very well be bad guys.

  Vogel and this other guy are rich. And rich people have a tendency to bounce back from anything—even a shredded reputation. I don’t have that luxury. I know it’s selfish as hell, and I’ll probably pay the price in whatever afterlife I have, but that’s where I’m at right now. Consequences and eternal damnation be damned. I want to know who I am.

  “It is what it is,” I mutter and take another bite.

  After finishing up my dinner, I leave the plaza and walk the streets around the Vogel building, mapping the layout in my head. I pull my watch cap down lower and tuck my hands into the pockets of my jacket. The clouds overhead are thick, and it’s starting to drizzle.

  I turn a corner and see a large group of people gathered on the street in front of one of the police district headquarters. There are several dozen people clustered together, all of them holding candles, and as I approach the crowd, I see a woman standing on the steps of the district, her voice amplified by the bullhorn echoing around the street.

  “...it’s been more than a week since my baby girl was killed, and these police ain’t done nothin’ about it!” she shouts.

  The crowd erupts in jeers and angry words. I can see a few cops standing in the doorway of the building. They’re tense and have their hands near the butts of their weapons as if they’re bracing for trouble. On the upper floors of the station, I see faces pressed to the windows, passively watching the gathering below. I can’t help but think they could help defuse the situation if somebody would come out and talk to these people. At the very least, the woman who lost her daughter deserves that.

  I move closer to the crowd, hanging around the fringes and watch everything unfolding. There is a tall, bald black man in an expensive looking three-piece suit standing beside her, his hand on her shoulder as if for support. The bald man takes the bullhorn from the woman and leans close to her as she buries her face in her hands and begins to sob. He whispers a few words into her ear and seems to be comforting her.

  On an easel beside the woman is a picture of a little girl. Her daughter, no doubt. She’s got skin the color of caramel and wide, dark eyes. The smile on her face is wide and innocent, completely unaware of the horrors of the world around her. She’s wearing a pink dress and has pink bows in her hair.

  Looking at the girl’s face, knowing she’s dead, sends a needle of pain through my heart. Images of the dark-haired boy in the photo that led me to St. Mary’s, supposedly my son, flashes through my mind, intensifying the pain I’m feeling for the loss of such a young, innocent life. I push it all away though and turn away.

  I can’t afford to get distracted by anything right now. I’ve been warned that my side jobs are a problem for the Tower. I take a few steps away from the crowd and feel a wave of guilt, dark and crushing, pressing down on me. It’s suffocating. I turn back as the bald man starts to speak.

  “Neither the Chicago Police Department, Superintendent of Police William Meyer, or Mayor Dennis Wilfork are willing to do anything but turn a blind eye to this senseless tragedy. They obviously don’t think a dead little black girl is worth the resources to find her killers,” the man says, his voice deep and commanding. “Therefore, we have no choice but to take matters into our own hands. We demand justice, and apparently, the only way we’re going to get it is on our own!”

  The crowd roars, hurling angry words at the police. The man takes a beat to give the crowd a chance to vent—and to let the police hiding in the station behind him a chance to hear it. When the crowd dies down, the man raises the bullhorn to his mouth again.

  “In light of that, the family is offering a reward of fifty thousand dollars for information leading to the capture and conviction of the animals that took Sherise’s life,” the man declares.

  I grimace and shake my head. Offering up a reward—especially one that large—is only going to make the situation more difficult. The family will spend more time chasing bad tips than they will actually tracking down the girl’s killer. I understand th
e impulse to do what they’re doing. But it’s going to muddy the waters, making justice for that sweet little girl all the more elusive.

  “Oh shit,” I grumble.

  A dozen cops in full riot gear march out of a side door on the building, clubs in hand, plexiglass shields up and at the ready, making a situation that’s already tense and emotionally charged even worse. The crowd reacts as a crowd in a full angry lather typically reacts—hurling rocks, bottles, and whatever they can find at the oncoming phalanx of armed men.

  I glance up at the man and woman on the steps—they’re watching in horror as the crowd engages the police. The riot is on immediately. Not stopping to think, I dash around the edges of the mob and dart up the steps. The man and woman look startled as I appear in front of them as if out of thin air, their eyes wide and mouths hanging open in shock.

  I cut a glance back at the doors to the station and see more cops gearing up, seconds away from joining the madness in the street. It’s going to be a free for all, and a lot of people are going to end up getting hurt. I turn back to the two of them.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I tell them. “Come with me. I’ll protect you.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Thank you for gettin’ us out of there,” the woman says. “That got real bad, real fast.”

  “It did,” I nod. “And you’re welcome.”

  After getting away from the melee at the police station, I led them to a small bar a couple of blocks away. We’re sitting in a booth near the back, the two of them sitting together on the other side of the table, staring at me like I’ve sprouted a second head or something. I have my back against the wall and can see the entire bar, including the front door from where I am.

  “Are you two okay?” I ask.

  The woman nods. “A little shaken, but okay. Thank you for asking.”