Control: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 38)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Sienna?” A woman's voice cut in on the other end, edged and serious. I recognized it, but couldn't place it with a name until she told me. “This is the vice president.”

  “VP Barbour,” I said, taking another breath. “I need to talk to President Gondry immediately.”

  “He's in a full Cabinet meeting,” she said. “Is there something I can help you with? Is it about the China investigation? Or Bilson?”

  I froze. The fact that she hadn't mentioned the FBI being on my ass offered two possibilities: one, Chalke was keeping this close to the vest and I'd be perfectly safe to come to the White House right now.

  The second was that she was snookering me, trying to keep me on the line because they hadn't figured out my phone was untraceable yet. Which was likely, because its maker had told me that the premise behind it was simply dragging the tracers along on a merry, endless chase as it forever switched the nodes the call was being routed through.

  “No, it's about Director Chalke,” I said. “I've uncovered evidence that she's a member of the Network, and that she's behind the assassination attempts on the president. She's just tried to have me arrested.”

  There was a long pause. “Are you all right?”

  “I'm fine,” I said, “and so are all the agents that tried to help her, though they might have a few broken legs or busted asses, or something. The important thing is this – I need to talk to the president immediately.”

  “Sure, absolutely,” she said. “Like I told you, he's in a meeting, but you can – you know, come on in. We'll get things sorted out when you get here.”

  That was telling, I thought. She wouldn't get him out of the meeting but wanted me to come there, into the kill perimeter of the White House? “I can't come in right now,” I said. “There are about five leads I need to follow up on right now.” Lies. But hell if I was going to just walk into a sniper trap and surrender my brains to the four winds. “Can you just put him on the phone?”

  “No, not right this second,” she said, and I could hear the strain in her voice. “Why can't you just come in for a few minutes? Let us know what's going on, brief us, and–”

  I hung up on her. There was no point arguing; she'd set her position, and it was that I wasn't going to get to talk to the president.

  “Shit,” I whispered in the quiet alley, mind racing.

  So...what now?

  I took a deep breath and looked both ways. Nobody was at either mouth of the alley, other than normal traffic passing by. Certainly no one was taking interest of me. There were sirens in the distance, but they seemed to be heading away from me, not toward me.

  Out of clues.

  Nowhere to go.

  No sign of Harry.

  “Clearly,” I said with great sarcasm, “this is one of those problems I'm just expected to deal with on my own.” I lifted the phone, and pressed zero, then the talk button. “Fortunately...I'm equipped to do just that.”

  “Operator,” came a cheerful voice on the other end of the line.

  “Cut the shit,” I said.

  “Why I never,” the “operator” said, sounding almost faux hurt. “Do you always talk to operators that way – what am I saying, of course you do. Why would you spare the feelings of the little people who get in your way, even for a second?”

  “You're only little in physical form,” I said, because it was true. She was a damned titan, mentally. “I trust you know why I'm calling?”

  “Of course,” she answered, back to cheerful. “It's time. And I'm ready for you – and in town. Sending you the address now. Drop on by – I trust that facial recognition block you've got running will keep any uninvited guests from joining us, but still, do check your mirrors to make sure you're not followed.”

  The phone buzzed, giving me an address. “Will do. See you soon – Cassidy.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED

  Mountain View, California

  (Sort of)

  Six Months Ago

  “So this is what the infamous dreamwalk feels like,” Cassidy Ellis said, big eyes looking around at my little constructed fantasy with plain delight. I'd gone all out for her, really done the place up right. No mere couches and seats over a black background, like with my brother when I was feeling lazy about imagining.

  No, here I'd completed a full-scale vision of a downtown street.

  In Syria.

  Complete with honking horns and goats and the occasional RPG rocket shooting past.

  Acrid smoke filled the air, like something chemical was burning. The sun was hot, and the fires burning a block or so over in my vision generated heat that felt real, in spite of it being a dream.

  “This is what I like about you, Cassidy,” I said, staring at the pale specimen before me, dressed in a silken nightie, skin slightly damp. I'd probably caught her in her sensory deprivation chamber, and the nightie was just a construction of her mind to keep things from getting undignified. “You pick up on the details of stuff really quick.”

  Another fake RPG exploded in the background, showering us with dirt. She winced slightly as it fluttered down on her, speckling her hair. She spit the dirt out of her mouth, then gave me a questioning look. She had to be wondering why I'd brought her here.

  Or maybe she'd already guessed. She was clever like that, after all.

  “You're wondering if I'm calm because I know this isn't real,” Cassidy said, almost smiling – not quite, though, “or if I'm calm because I think you're about to ask me for a favor.”

  “Maybe I know which it is,” I said. “Because neither is why I brought you here.”

  She raised her eyebrow just slightly. “Oh? Do tell.” She took a couple steps and put her hand on a building wall, running her fingers over the texture, testing it. “I'm enjoying it either way. Feels so real.” She smirked at me.

  “It feels even more so when I reach out and touch you,” I said, stepping over a piece of a car that had been left here by an explosion so I could stand next to her.

  “This have anything to do with your current case?” Cassidy asked, turning to look at me coolly. “The one with this...Grendel?”

  “The one that killed me, you mean?” It was my turn to look at her coolly. “I know you know.”

  She shrugged. “I heard a rumor, but it would be impolite to have just spit that out at you.”

  “Where'd you hear the rumor?”

  Another shrug. “Around. In my reading. Somewhere. Who can keep track?”

  “Really?” I kept my voice level, applied a smile. “Because I think you heard it straight from my murderer.”

  Her eyelids fluttered just a little more than they needed to. “Why...would you say that?”

  “Because this Grendel has a brain behind it,” I said, “a big brain, Cassidy, who's directing him to steal very specific things. Things I don't think he has any particular use for.” I leaned closer. “But you do.”

  “What use would I have for...Silicon Valley...silliness?” she asked, and all that arrogance she'd displayed moments before was gone, all gone, pissed away like a bum in San Fran shooting into the gutter.

  “Don't know,” I said, “and don't care. I do wanna make a deal with you, though.”

  Cassidy froze. “You're an FBI agent. I'm not–”

  “Get real, Cassidy,” I said. “We're in a dreamwalk. There is no wire, no ability to record. This is a deal between us, you and me, not the damned FBI, which is a job I never asked for nor wanted. I'm as much a prisoner in this as you were in the Cube, okay? I want out. But I need help.” I let a very slight smile peek out. “And it looks to me like your Grendel? He's going to die, probably at my hand.”

  She was very still for a moment. “That does seem likely. Going by past experience, and given you've hurt him now.”

  “Yeah, you're riding the losing horse,” I said. “But here's what I've got – you help me, I keep your name out of this...and you get whatever you wanted from him. No questions asked.”

  She looked at me susp
iciously. “You must really hate whoever your boss is at the FBI if you're willing to turn a blind eye to me setting this thing in motion.”

  I looked her right in the eye. “Did you tell that thing to kill me?”

  She shook her head vociferously. “No. I told him to avoid the hell out of you, and especially to avoid pissing you off. But he's...burned by his previous employers. Hates them. Wants revenge, you know the type.” She rolled her eyes. “I...need what he has to offer, though. Brawn and whatnot. To get me things I couldn't get on my own.”

  “What for?”

  She smiled. “Not going to be part of the deal, sorry. Components, as they are right now. Algorithms and programming I don't want to do the hard work of figuring out on my own. Nothing that has any direct bearing on you.”

  I stared her down. “You're going to do something lawbreaking with them, though, right?”

  She didn't look me in the eye. At all. “Not going to try to, but if I do, I promise I'll keep your name out of it.”

  I sighed. “Fine. This is the deal – you provide me material support, and I'll make sure you end up with what you want when this is all said and done.”

  Her eyebrows inclined slightly. “Deal – provided you're asking me for something I can actually do for you.”

  “Oh, it's all well within your power,” I said.

  “Then we're agreed,” she said, smiling, “now – what do you need from me?”

  I told her.

  She just stared at me for a long moment, eyes a little wide. “Well...okay, then. And also...” She lowered her head, shaking it all the way, “...Shit.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE

  Now

  Cassidy had set up in a warehouse just outside of DC, up across the Maryland boundary. It wasn't a bad place, and was in an old industrial district, surrounded on all sides by similar warehouses.

  She was sitting at her multi-screen computer console, the one she seemed to have fabricated and installed in every hideout I'd ever seen her in, and her eyes scanned the screens as I waited just over her shoulder for her to...log off, or zone back into reality, or whatever. It was certainly better than trying to talk to her through her sensory deprivation tank, which was over in the corner, open wide, faint aroma of salt wafting around the room.

  “Sooooooo,” Cassidy said to me, not turning around, “looks like you hit a bit of a wall in your quest to take down your current archfiends in the Network.” She spun to face me, the high-speed clicking of the keyboard keys fading now that she'd taken her hands off. They still sort of echoed in my head, though, such was the ubiquitousness of them when in her presence.

  “I did,” I said. “You see anything about it on the news?”

  “Just Flashforce so far,” Cassidy said. “Which kinda tells you where your chief problem in the press lies, no?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “it's Dave Kory, their CEO/Publisher/Chief Wanker. He's part of the Network.”

  She chuckled. “What a name. 'The Network.' I mean, adding 'The' to it gives it a very supervillainy, beyond-arrogant sort of feel to it. That's kind of a tactical mistake.”

  “Pretty sure that arrogance is a feature, not a bug, when it comes to these guys.”

  Cassidy nodded slowly. “I could see that. I met Chapman, once, when I was in the Harmon White House. Arrogant sums him up pretty well.”

  “Tell me about it,” I muttered, sighing.

  “So...you want to tell me what happened?” Cassidy set her hands in her lap, crossing one skinny leg over the other.

  I eyed her suspiciously. “You're not really the 'girl talk' type, Cassidy. What's up with this...this...” I waved a hand at her vaguely. “...Whatever this is?”

  She shrugged her thin shoulders expansively. “You paid for a service, I'm just trying to play the part I've been cast as. Tech guru-slash-confidant-slash...I don't know what else you had in mind.”

  “Didn't need you just for your tech guru-ness,” I said. “In case you didn't catch it, ArcheGrey is running interference for me on facial recognition.”

  Cassidy cocked her head, smiling slightly. “I noticed. Made me curious – how many other people did you approach for help in this little endeavor of yours? Because to my thinking...it's been pretty long-planned. I mean, you came to me...what? Six months ago? So you've been sitting on this for a while.”

  I nodded lightly. “Yeah.”

  She stared at me, eyes peering into mine, then she spun back to her computer. “Wanna see something? I mean, it's something I'm 80-20 that you already know, but...here, take a look.” She finished tapping the keyboard, and a video sprung up on the main monitor.

  It was an office, surveillance footage from a laptop whose owner clearly hadn't bothered covering his camera with a strip of tape for privacy. Dumb. He was staring at the screen, his broad face wild-eyed, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead.

  “That is Morris Johannsen,” Cassidy said, “editor of the Washington Free Press. And this is during your little soiree at the reflecting pool with that smokey villain. Right after it called him out as part of your supervillain social club.”

  Johannsen stood, shouting at someone in the background. I averted my eyes, listening to his ire rising as his assistant announced a delivery he had to sign for.

  “This is the really good part,” Cassidy said, sounding like she was ready to cook some popcorn and make a night of this.

  There was background noise. More shouting. I ignored it. Then a different sound, more...pathetic.

  “Ooh, he's clutching his chest. Looks like a heart attack from complete overwhelm!” Cassidy said. “But...”

  I looked up, already pretty sure I knew what was coming.

  “Let's take a quick look at that delivery man,” Cassidy purred with glee, “because gosh – the timing on that is suspicious.”

  A tap of the keys, and the camera angle shifted to a bullpen, where, sure enough, a man in a delivery company uniform, shorts, a short-sleeved dress shirt, and a ball cap with corporate logo waited with a bunch of boxes. He looked to be in his sixties or older, but was standing stiff and straight, brim of his cap casting just a little bit of a shadow to cover his eyes.

  “Why, that fellow looks awfully familiar,” Cassidy said, making a show of turning around and putting a finger up to her lips. “And can I just say – oh, how the mighty have fallen?”

  I sighed. “Fine. You figured it out. What do you want – a prize?”

  Cassidy grinned, a ghoulish look on her. “Seriously, though, because I gotta ask – was that conversation super awkward when you enlisted his help? Because I'm imagining it and – it's just delicious. I mean, really...how much wrangling did it take to get your Great-Grandpa Hades to go to New York and kill a guy for you?”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWO

  The Villages

  Outside Orlando, Florida

  Two Weeks Ago

  “The ratio of men to women is...favorable,” Hades said. “They are older birds, certainly, but they have their charms, you see. And–”

  “And they're the closest thing you'll find to dating someone your age on the planet unless you go interspecies with a Galapagos turtle or something,” I said, staring down my great-grandfather, trying to cut him off in the middle of explaining his dating prospects to me. I mean, I'd asked the polite question of how he was getting along and he'd gone, almost immediately, to this. “I mean, you're living your very own 55+ Shades of Hades down here, huh?”

  He chuckled wryly. “Very clever. But I expect you have embraced age gaps in your dating life as well.”

  “Yeah, my boyfriend was born in the fifties, so there's not a centennial between us,” I said.

  Hades shrugged expansively. “You asked what was going on, this is it. Social activities. Some golf. And...”

  I closed my eyes, which didn't really do much in a dreamwalk. “And working hard at making the already appallingly high number of seniors engaging in sexual activity even higher. Yuck.”

  He
got a twinkle in his eyes. “They didn't call me Vlad the Impaler for purely murderous reasons, I will say–”

  I slapped him on the shoulder and he blanched, because when I meant to cause pain in a dreamwalk, there was pain. Still, Hades had suffered in his lifetime, and I didn't go hard on him, so he drew up short with but a stinging grimace. “I didn't summon you into my dreams to talk about – any of this, you old pervert.” I took a breath, composed myself. “I need a favor. One you are uniquely suited to delivering.”

  He raised an eyebrow, then spread his hands out to either side. “I suppose I owe you for sparing my life, so...if it is within my power, I will help you, great-granddaughter. Though I am surprised that you would request my assistance, since, now stripped of my command of Revelen, I have but one skill at disposal, really.”

  I stared at him unflinchingly. “That's the skill I need.”

  “Truly?” He looked pleased, which was a real bummer to me. “You need someone to...die?”

  “Yes. Quietly. Or at least...untraceably.”

  He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “But of course, Death...I am at your disposal.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You don't need to call me that, but...great.”

  “Where do I go and who am I expected to kill on your behalf?”

  “His name is Morris Johannsen,” I said, “and he's the editor of the Washington Free Press. And part of a group of scumbags who's been trying to run my life for...well, years.”

  Hades raised an eyebrow. “A poor idea, I say from experience. I assume by the name of his company, he is in Washington?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “I cannot travel outside the state of Florida, as I think you know...and I need to be close now for my powers to work. Should I leave my assigned boundaries, Persephone will be...displeased. In the worst possible way.”