Smerch’s drooping face started to grow red, and malice narrowed his eyes.
“This is big,” he said. “Bigger than any of us here. Including you, McRae. We don’t have time to go on wild goose chases. Certainly not if the Air Force is already on one. Couldn’t you read between the lines in what they told us? They’re leaving us out in the ass-biting cold to save the world by ourselves, probably so they can make whatever preparations they can to try to save themselves, not us.” He scoffed. “Do you honestly think, in your little pea-brain, that we have the luxury of taking any tack we like on this one? Huh?”
Scarlet was nearly speechless. How could he be this obtuse?
“But, sir, our lack of the luxury of time and resources is exactly why we should go after Red Bird first. We have too little to go on to find this girl directly. We’d just be spinning our wheels. Red Bird is bound to be a much wider target to hit. There’s bound to be a paper trail of some kind. People to interrogate. Facilities to find and inspect. A money-trail to follow. That’ll give us what we need to find out who this girl is, where she went, what she might be after. Sir, I mean this in the most professional and respectful way possible: It’s our best shot. You’ve got to allow us that chance.”
He held his hand over his mouth, looking like he was trying to control himself. His hand slipped, and he was about to interrupt, but Scarlet spoke over him, “All I need is your trust that I’ve got this.” She looked around the room at her colleagues. “That we’ve got this. Together. We’ve got the experience and the determination to sniff out Red Bird. From there, Red Bird leads us to the girl. We can do this. We’ve got this.”
Smerch’s jowls shook. Any control he had been able to maintain over himself was now gone. “You’re officially off the case, McRae!” he shouted. “And you’ve got some apeshit PTSD anyway, so what in God’s good hell makes you think you’re so valuable to this investigation? Get your sorry, broken ass out of here—now!”
He pointed vehemently toward the door.
Scarlet was about to object, but he cut her off. “Go!”
“Yes, sir.” Quietly, and retaining as much of her self-respect as she could, she put her hands into the pockets of her coat and left the room. There was no dignity in acting like a petulant child.
Meanwhile, the other agents stood frozen, in various states of shock.
Smerch glowered at Rodrigo but addressed Rick. “Mr. Watanabe, you will be primary on this investigation until Mr. Eastman arrives tomorrow morning. At that time, you will relinquish full control of this investigation to him. Is that clear?”
Scarlet’s heels clicked against the cold floor of the hallway as she walked its length, her path illuminated by the numb, clinical lights from above.
From the end of the hallway, she could hear Smerch clap his hands together twice and say, “Chop-chop, people. Let’s find this girl!”
She turned her collar up and continued pacing down the hallway, never breaking her stride.
You can take me off the case, Illias Smerch, but you can’t stop me from finding her. So help me, I’m getting to the bottom of this—the girl, Red Bird, and Mac Stone. All of it.
With or without the Bureau’s cooperation.
Chapter Three
Respect for the truth is the foundation of any universally acceptable morality. Because so few humans are capable of finding, accepting, and living from the truth, it must be concluded that humankind lacks a necessary foundation for living morally. Would not the world be better without the immoral?
—Hannah
The wind whipped around Scarlet in the night as she maneuvered through the city’s crowded streets. Cars hummed and honked. Shouting billboards projected their flickering holograms onto unflinching passersby. Trains rumbled overhead, held up by railed bridges that appeared entirely too flimsy to support them. She shrugged her shoulders up to bring her coat closer around her head, as much for warmth as to muffle the ceaseless assault on her senses.
The subway tunnel. Time to pay a visit to The Worm.
She disappeared into a subway node, down several flights of concrete stairs tagged with lengthy treatises of graffiti.
The next subway train arrived: a long tube of shaking, rattling steel, slightly rusty in several places along its exterior, but it was not without its charm: It was one of the newer ones.
She got on and sat at the very back of the train so that she could easily keep an eye on both entrances to her car. The still-warm seat felt slippery and slightly sticky beneath her coat.
Headcount: 7. All strangers.
No bulges in anyone’s waistline or pants to indicate a concealed firearm. No hip shifts, gun adjustments, or gun checks observed.
No one shifty or nervous, and no one here who came in after I did.
Satisfied that she was not in any immediate danger, she turned her attention to her inner-phone, but a sliver of her awareness still monitored the entrances and the inside of the car for potential hostiles.
She called Kat, waited watchfully as the phone rang.
Kat’s smiling face soon appeared in Scarlet’s awareness.
“Hey, girl!” Kat said, beaming. “What’s up?”
“Hey, Kat.” Scarlet smiled back using her inner-awareness. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to take care of Jamison. There’s this big investigation going on. Can’t talk about it over the phone. I don’t know how long I’ll be away. Will you watch him for me until I get back?”
“You pay me, but we also friends,” Kat said in her broken English. She was in the AFE illegally, and, technically, Scarlet should have booked her, but when she found out that Kat was a political dissident from China, and would face only torture and execution in her home country, Scarlet’s hand stayed any arrest or deportation.
It’s against the law to let her stay, but it’d be an even worse breach of the law to send her back. Not just a refusal of talent and drive, but also the consignment of a human being to murder.
And she’s got enough of the language and enough ambition to be a productive member of society here, besides.
Kat was into dance. It wasn’t ballet, but erotic dance. Her chosen profession wasn’t the greatest use of her talents, Scarlet had to admit, but it paid Kat’s bills, and it enabled Kat to afford a few classes every once in a while at a local law school. In Kat’s worldview, the laws were, for better or worse, the only way to freedom, both for herself and for her new country. She wanted that freedom.
She’ll just have to stay in the Empire.
“Thanks, Kat.”
“No need to thank!”
“But I am anyway.” Scarlet smiled. “How is Jamie?”
“He got in fight today at school. May not want to talk with. But I put him on phone for you.”
“I see. Go ahead.”
Through the inner-phone, Kat began sending the data from her visual cortex to Scarlet.
In the visual feed from Kat, Scarlet saw Jamison playing an augmented reality game, a fighter-pilot sim. Great jets filled the living room of Scarlet’s apartment, swooping to and fro, in and out, roaring their engines and shooting their machine guns. Jamison was jumping up and down in excitement and joy, despite being in the process of losing quite badly to his computer opponent.
Kat called him over and explained that his mom was on the phone. Jamison, still jumping, clicked off the game and ran to Kat.
“Hehwoh,” Jamison said, looking into Kat’s eyes. He did not have an inner-phone installed, so he could not speak with his mother directly. Kat would relay his mother’s words to him.
“Your mom say hi, Jamie!”
“Hi, Mama!” Jamison waved in front of Kat so his mother could see it.
“Mom say she working and return as soon as can. Mom say also to be good boy and no fight at school.”
“Ok.” A pause. Then, tentatively, “Mama… are you… mad at… me?” His head was slightly bowed; he did not look directly into Kat’s eyes as he asked his question.
Kat smiled fo
r Scarlet. “No. Mom not mad at. But mom say no fight at school anymore.”
“Ok, Mama. But…”
Kat waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, she asked him if there was anything else he wanted to say.
He shuffled his feet, then said quietly, “I wanna… ask. Am I… good boy… Mama? A boy… you want?”
Kat’s smile melted away. It was replaced by a look of concern. “Yes, you good boy.”
“Then why… why Mama spend… so much time… away from… home? Away from… me?” He looked sad, but in his eyes, there was no condemnation or judgement of any kind, only a dull, aching hurt.
At his words, Scarlet’s heart broke. Her eyes closed involuntarily. This was far from the first time she had had to be absent from her son’s life. All those days added up to weeks—no, months—of time spent away from him. It was not hard to see how a child such as he could interpret her absence as a lack of concern or care for him.
“Mom say she love you very much,” Kat said to him. “Mom say she always love you, no matter what.”
She kissed his forehead on Scarlet’s behalf, but the kiss contained a great deal of her own affection as well.
Jamison, however, did not appear much comforted or consoled. “Mama… will you… be home soon?”
There was no immediate answer. After a short pause, Kat was able to say, “Your mom say she try to be, Jamie. She say she try real hard be home.”
Just then, however, Scarlet’s hyper-vigilance noticed two suspicious men enter her subway car, one from each entrance, almost simultaneously.
They’re not even trying to be subtle.
The thought flickered through her awareness that if her PTSD had helped her notice when some threat appeared, maybe it wasn’t a disease.
Maybe it helps me stay alive. And if it does, then…
She closed her eyes for a brief moment to accept a harsh reality.
Because her PTSD would help keep Jamison’s mother breathing a little while longer in this dangerous world, she decided it was worth keeping. At that instant, she abandoned any intent to cure herself of it.
I will be it. It will be me. This disease and I will walk our infernal path together, all the way to the gates of hell.
With a hasty goodbye to Jamison, she wiped away a tear and ended the call.
Eyes still glistening, she glared with contempt at the two men, whose backs were presently turned to her.
Her hands trembled.
They should never have come.
Chapter Four
Back at the PIR Units’ command center, Rick Watanabe stood at the back of the room, intently watching the main monitor at the front.
This was his first assignment as primary on anything, and the weight of it pressed on him.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
Sure, Smerch had made it clear to him that Eastman would relieve him in the morning, but the intervening hours felt like they would stretch on for weeks.
By no indication of word or deed did he reveal his apprehension, however. His face remained neutral, impassive, and he spoke little. He thought back to his training at the NSB’s Basic School for new recruits.
Decentralized command. Let them do most of the heavy lifting. Trust that they can do it. You coordinate, give guidance where needed, specify general goals, but give them enough slack to do their own thing in their own way. Let them find their own, creative, adaptive ways to reach the goal.
Trust.
“I’ve got a lead on a plate!” Tombling called out. “Somebody was transporting suspicious cargo on a bogus transport vehicle near Quincy two weeks ago.” His sleek, British accent tended to imbue his words with a gravity and authority that was pleasing to hear, especially for those who sought certainty or assurance. “Running the plate now!” His fingers flew over his keyboard in a controlled flurry.
“Found eight reports of missing children who match the girl’s description,” called out Jamal Berry, one of Stockton’s teammates. “All were filed within the last month within a 150-mile radius of Quincy. Someone wanna get an AI search going on other missing children who match her description? Ones farther out? I’m tied down right now looking into these.”
“I’m on it,” said Jim Hoosebeck, from Fowler’s team. Of all the PIR agents, he was the most mathematically gifted; certainly, he had the mind for it. His long, stringy hair fell to either side of his bearded face. He tossed his messy hair back with a flick of his head and began coding a quick program to find more leads. “A quasi-Bernoulli neural net to find our girl is in the pipeline, folks. Multi-layered neural-network goodness is upon ye. Fear not, for your coding mage, Sir Windlock Manhammer, has arrived.”
“What?” someone asked.
“It means—it means—forget it. I’m finding her. That’s what it means,” Hoosebeck answered. His eyes darted back and forth across his monitor as his fingers clacked madly at his keyboard.
“Yeah. A mage. Work your glittery fucking magic for us, Sir Windmanner Storyhammer, or whatever the hell your name was,” said Mike Rolcott, a tough New Yorker who was also from Fowler’s team. They were good friends, and they often took digs at each other. Rolcott, too, was busy with his own lines of investigation.
It was not long before Smerch gestured for Rick to follow him. Before he left the command center, though, Rick directed three other agents to start checking the intel the Bureau had on hostile foreign states, especially Russia, China, and Egypt, as it concerned the present case. “If they’ve got their fingers in this pie, we need to know about it.”
“On it!”
Beth, meanwhile, stood in a corner of the room, her arms crossed over her chest, her head down. She hadn’t spoken all night.
Once inside his office, Smerch collapsed into his soft, leather chair and crossed his feet up on his desk. He covered his face with one hand and sighed heavily. He looked exhausted. No part of the surface of his desk was visible; all of it was littered with letters, files, and folders. A reading lamp was kept on, and a small regiment of grey file cabinets stood at uneasy attention against one wall of the room.
“Sir…?” Rick asked.
Smerch held up the palm from his other hand to stop Rick from speaking further.
This act must be convincing, Smerch reminded himself. Let him stew in the silence of my office for a little while longer. He heads this investigation for now, but he must know, subconsciously, at a deep level that he is unaware of, that he is on unsure footing in all that concerns this case.
“Sir, may I sit?”
Smerch sighed and gave a grudging nod, motioning with a flick of a tired hand to a seat in front of his desk.
Rick sat for a few moments longer before Smerch let the hand fall languidly from his eyes. He blinked, appearing to be putting together his thoughts in the same way one might upon waking from a long, memorable dream.
“Watanabe, may I ask you a question?”
“Sure. Go ahead, boss.”
“McRae was your direct superior, and she wanted to investigate Project Red Bird rather than the girl.”
“Yes, sir, that’s correct.”
“What do you think about that?”
Rick’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Not immediately, anyway.
“I think she must have had her reasons. I don’t know if it matters at this point. What’s done is done. I would have loved to work with her on this investigation—more than I have, I mean. But if she’s off the team, I’ll just have to do my best without her. Is that harsh?”
Smerch smiled thinly. “No. Not harsh. What I mean to ask is whether you, too, think we should have gone after Red Bird instead of the girl.”
“Pardon me?”
Smerch carefully removed his feet from his desk and leaned slowly, deliberately forward, toward Rick, so that he could speak in more of a whisper. “Put plainly, Agent, what I want to know is whether or not you’re really, truly playing ball with us—or just going through the motions. I don’t want this
operation sabotaged or sandbagged on the account of… misplaced loyalty.” He scowled as those last words left his wrinkled lips.
Rick began to look worried. “Boss, I can assure you—”
Smerch slammed a balled fist down on his desk. “I assure myself!”
Rick fell into stunned silence for a moment. He thought about how he could best protect Beth, and about his promise to her, then continued, “Sir, what I mean is that you have my good-faith efforts on this case. I’m doing my best. I know I’m not anywhere near as experienced as Agent McRae, either with managing people or with conducting investigations, but I’m fully on board with going after the girl. Red Bird is interesting, but it’s not our mission here.” After the briefest of pauses, he added, for good measure, “That’s for someone else to take care of, sir, not us.”
At these words, Smerch leaned back in his chair and studied Rick. Smerch knew that Scarlet’s psychological profile accurately predicted her behavior most of the time, and this was one of those high-stakes investigations that his instincts, as well as Scarlet’s profile, had warned him about. She could not easily unplug from what was going on. That, he knew. She’d turn up somewhere along the investigation, in some way, no doubt about it. Almost certainly in some obstructive or meddling capacity. She had her own sense of justice, and the Bureau was never entirely successful in drumming it out of her.
Why couldn’t she just follow orders and do what she’s told? Smerch fumed inwardly. The world is too big and too important for us to be gallivanting around with our own, personal sense of right and wrong. We must do—we must all do—what is necessary, above all else.
After a few more moments of wordless scrutiny, Smerch quietly, ever-so delicately asked his subordinate, in the way he might if addressing a small child, “And if Ms. McRae tries to interfere in this investigation, dear Agent, my good little soldier, will you be against her?”
The Nightfall Billionaire: Serial Installment #2 (Scarlet McRae) Page 2
