All the Company Men: Marcus Grimshaw #2 (The Secret State)

by C. J. Steinberg

  Jack mulled it over and sighed. He rubbed his face and leaned back in the chair, defeated.

  “Maybe, though,” Marcus said as his brain worked out the details of an idea that had come to him.

  “What are you thinking,” Jack asked.

  “Maybe if we know where he will be before he gets there, maybe we could stage something. Maybe we could do it, without doing it.”

  Jack’s curiosity was peaked. “Go on,” he said.

  Marcus sped up his pacing around the room. “You know all the terrorist organizations, right? Well, you might reach out to some of them and give them the time and location of a presidential appearance. The security will be tight, but not that much. Candidates are protected by local authorities, not by the Secret Service. So it’s an opportunity, a chance for us to get what we want and still observe from the sidelines, watch carefully how the situation develops further. In case we are wrong about the extent of the president’s importance, then we can carry on taking out the trash until Daniel is stopped.”

  “It can actually be done, you think,” Jack said. A realization suddenly washed over him. “Yeah,” he smiled. “It might could be possible to do it. I would just have to find a way to sell it to them.”

  “Sell to whom? Terrorists? They are terrorists, J.J. They want to destroy and seed panic. And we are giving them a president on a silver platter.”

  “Come on, Markie, you’re smarter than that,” Jack said. “Every government is deeply involved in terrorist organizations. The attacks that do happen are most often than not orchestrated carefully, to minimize the victims. We know which governments of this world finance the terrorists, and it is well-documented which countries are close to said organizations. So, yeah, the word will get back to the Company. Trust me. I, personally, have facilitated a vast number of these meet-and-greets. You know yourself that what looks like an accident rarely is one. You know that everything is connected and that no one can be trusted. You know that, Markie.”

  Marcus took a deep breath, fully aware that Jack was right. He remained determined, though. “Can you do it, or not?”

  “Now I know what you were feeling when I pitched you the idea in the first place.”

  “This is the only way that makes sense.”

  “But I will betray my country.”

  “I know,” Marcus said dryly. “That’s what hurts the most.” He was a Louisiana boy who had given the majority of his life to his country, believing that his service was for the greater good. Then he got deeper and deeper into the game, realizing more and more with every new level he reached that he was not serving his country, but the ruling class. “We will have to sell out America to save America. That is our choice. It is either let Daniel take the world, or destroy it—or whatever the hell his plan is—or try this.”

  Jack turned toward Chang. “Seven years ago, you save me from my government. Triads took me in and teach me many things, teach me to survive, to be strong. Then government want to kill me. I have a debt. I follow you into hell and back,” Chang said. Jack nodded. Marcus nodded.

  When suddenly they heard a voice from one of the bedrooms. “That is a stupid plan, boys,” Evelyn said, stepping out of the shadow.

  TEN

  T he articles about the gala and the new president-elect were flooding the internet, written by some of the world’s most respected journalists. His speech ”inspired true America patriotism” and it didn’t leave anyone “faint-hearted.” Daniel was painted as a true modern-day hero, a man who is not afraid to show his emotions and share his beliefs with the entire world.

  “Who was once a private billionaire, basking in his wealth and success, has, as he puts it, grown tired of being in the background and watching his country in constant disarray. He had begun his journey toward healing a broken America by building charities and organizations that will help combat climate change, move the space expeditions forward, and counter the suffering of millions Americans who were on the receiving end of the pandemic.

  “To hear him speak was more than cathartic as his words moved the soul and heart of every man and woman present in the gala last evening. Daniel Clarkson is not another billionaire; Daniel Clarkson is a man set on reverting America back to its old glory, of fixing the problems that have been ailing our great country for decades. He believes that with the new administration, a new dawn will be ushered forward and America will be healed.”

  The Time piece on Daniel went further on, glorifying him, painting him as the savior of the world, driving Arthur into anger. That article was merely one of the dozens that he had read about the gala that evening. Inserts of his speeches were selected carefully to paint the most flattering image; nonetheless, Arthur could feel the warped philosophy and Daniel’s true intentions in those speeches. His good work was supposed to give everyone the ability to read between the lines of Daniel’s propaganda.

  Now, though, that was difficult. What else was there to do but to watch from a distance, to observe, to let into his emotions—nothing. If he wrote a piece that would go against Daniel or the Morris administration, then he will appear as a fool, a muppet, a man desperate for attention. Months before, he needed to be piercing with his opinions and articles, with his beliefs and his stances, but he could no longer do that as he was building a reputation for himself, a name, perhaps even a brand. To go against Daniel when the public adores him so was a sort-of career suicide because he would lose the respect of the many and become the favored reporter of a niche audience he dreaded—the conspiracy theorists, and he was not that.

  His anger and his feeling of inferiority and powerlessness were growing, mutating, warping his mind. He wanted to create the perfect article for dismantling the good image of Daniel in the eyes of the public. No, he thought, you can’t do that. Not now.

  In an attempt to calm down, Arthur pushed his chair back and paced across the living room, back and forth, then found himself passing through the hallway, past the painting he saw as a fight between light and darkness. Usually that painting calmed him, but now it threw gasoline onto the fire. Entering his kitchen, he turned on the cooking pot and waited, leaning against the counter, thinking, wondering, writing the article in his head. He was now a professional who worked on fact, not fiction and ideas, so the article would have to be good, even perfect, to attack Daniel.

  The cooking pot turned itself off and Arthur poured the water over his coffee, listening to that satisfying sizzle of hot water mixing with coffee. He slowly walked back the same way he came, blowing away the heat from his coffee, and plopped into his chair. He placed the coffee to his right and held his fingers over the keyboard in preparation.

  The words poured out of him onto the screen in a sort-of trance, him unaware as to what he was writing and what his fingers were doing, lost in the world of his mind. Words created sentences, sentences created paragraphs until, ultimately, he created the article he wanted. He was proud of himself. Arthur moved the cursor to click Publish and illuminate the world.

  But his finger wouldn’t click.

  The information made known inside the article would have revealed too much about his masterplan, show that he had access to information he was not supposed to have. Inside of him, the battle of two giants began as they crossed swords, trying to wrestle one another into submission. One believed that he should click and watch the world burn, and the other believed that remaining objective was the way to go. Arthur knew that the pure giant was in the right in every sense and that the probable consequences of publishing would be severe. Yet he couldn’t choose.

  He picked up his burner phone and selected Jack’s number. It was given to him in case of an emergency, to be used only once. He needed guidance, he wanted help to make his decision and side with the right giant to determine his future, to determine the future of his career and the world. Too much was at stake to make a silly mistake. Daniel has wind in his sails because of the public love for him, Arthur reasoned. Yet if I sit idly by, then he will surely win. What
to do? Sometimes what we all need is to be guided by someone else, to be told what to do because the situation appears to be without a way out, making us feel stuck and weak.

  Arthur leapt from his chair and circled the couch to get to the balcony. The panorama of London was basking in the morning sun, the city waking up, a new dawn being ushered. But it isn’t new. It is more of the same. The UK was drowning in restrictions, the people trapped in their homes, their movement limited and obstructed, their futures bleaker by the hour. Businesses were collapsing, families were falling apart, the suicide rate going up. How could he stay positive in spite of all that? These people needed help. They needed to be saved, suffering only for the benefit of a few powerful men who had created the situation in the first place. They—the men and women of prestige and power—didn’t care about vaccines or about masks; their lives were good, they were safe. Meanwhile, everyone else was in pain, psychological and physical. The people no longer cared about Covid-19 and its desire to kill them; it’s nature and if it gets you, then it gets you. The deadly disease was nothing in comparison to all the suicides and to all the death and poverty still to come once the whole pandemic reaches its natural conclusion. Why did they put all these restrictions into place? Don’t they see that at this point, almost a year into it, they were taking more lives than saving?

  Arthur’s chest was tight. He felt like he had power—real power—to fight the untouchables, to stop the one-percent from doing whatever they wanted to do as it had been the case for so long. He was listened to, his opinion had the power of toppling one of the grandest conspiracies in the world. Yet Daniel was still one of the most powerful men in the whole world, and Arthur just another individual, a member of the populace.

  He toyed with the phone in his hand. His conscience mind was set on making the call, but in the deeper level, he could feel that the darker giant had fallen to his knees. That he was stopped permanently was unlikely. For now, at least, that pesky demonized part of Arthur was tamed.

  He turned off the phone and closed the balcony door behind him. He hand’t noticed the coldness of November until he was embraced by the warmth of his spacious apartment. He put the burner phone in the drawer on top of another two he was given by Jack. He took his iPhone from the desk and went into the back room. He flicked the switch and the light shone on the board, revealing the connections between George Morrow and all the other horsemen in Daniel’s entourage. No one was innocent and everyone was implicated. He had spent weeks dissecting the documents Jack had delivered on the drive that faithful evening. He had not informed anyone that he had decrypted the drive and sifted through the documents to see the whole picture. If he had gone through with his article, written purely out of frustration, then he would have destroyed what he had uncovered; he would have rendered the real truth false.

  He sighed in pain again and rubbed his temples. Arthur was a man of action, not one of patience, yet the latter was required to win and liberate the world of the shackles that Covid had imposed on them. Governments had always enjoyed doing this to their people, seeing them only as subjects, not humans, not equals in the gift of life. The Company loves it even more than the governments, Arthur concluded.

  His eyes strayed from the conspiracy to the chess board in the corner of the room. Arthur had loved chess ever since he was a kid, playing with his dad in the living room, reveling in the victories his father allowed him. As the years went by, he became much better at it. Nowadays, his game has evolved from the strategic game on a board to that of the real-life game between black and white, good and evil. As sort-of a mental exercise, the chess board reflected all the real-life events and moves. The black pieces were all across the board, the strategy developing to crush Arthur and anyone else who dared oppose the dark side.

  The way Daniel’s bishops were developing, Arthur could sense his own king falling eventually. He needed to fight back. Ellen Morris and Patrick Don were moving up in the world, the White House in their grasp. The President was already elected, if not in practice then in theory, so it was only a matter of time before Arthur and the people are played out of the game.

  To fight fire with fire was not a good strategy in Arthur’s mind. That would only lure him deeper into Daniel’s game and into his control, all but guaranteeing defeat. So he moved only his left bishop in preparation for a defensive maneuver. Jack and Marcus must be doing something to fight the man who wants the world. He didn’t know exactly what they were doing, but he was certain that he could count on his bishops.

  What he needed, though, was an opportunity for an offensive move. His brain was working double-time in an attempt to figure out a way, a strategy, perhaps only a tactic, that will deliver Daniel a hard blow. He watched the board in front of him, assessing his next move, shunning away most of the strategies that came to him. He realized that he can only count on one piece. If he could attack with the queen and stop Daniel’s current strategy, then perhaps his bishops could put Daniel in a precarious position of desperation, in hopes of forcing an unwise move. But how does he do that? His phone ran and his mechanically answered it.

  “Yes, this is Arthur. Go.

  “Sir, you will not believe what I discovered,” Joanna on the other end said.

  “Tell me.”

  “I was following target number two, as we agreed. I got a tip that he will be having a meeting in a certain place during the day.”

  “Mhm.”

  “And the target met with an unidentified individual who handed him a thick file. Then he left.”

  “Okay.”

  “And this person went away without saying a word.”

  “Do you know what it’s about?”

  “My contact says it is very, very important. The target scheduled it an hour before the meeting and went to pick it up immediately. He says that the target was very suspicious about the whole thing, paranoid even. With that said, I think we’re onto something great.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I have photos,” she said. “And this man—and I just realized that, is the director of a certain agency that has insight into every bloody thing.”

  Arthur went to the board and at the photo of Patrick Don, staring it dead in the eyes. “Damn. Are you certain of this,” he asked.

  “Very much so.”

  “Joanna, this is huge,” Arthur said. “Send me the photos manually, and be careful.”

  “On their way, Sir.”

  “Joanna, stay safe. I need you. The world needs you.” Arthur said and hung up the phone.

  He could not believe what he had just heard from the other line. That discovery was perhaps a true game-changer in his quest and it came from a credible source, a source he could trust and rely upon.

  When Joanna approached him two months before with a great desire to be an investigative reporter, Arthur hesitated. He assumed—and he felt guilty for it later—that she was just a conspiracy nut who wanted to play journalist or maybe a spy sent by the Company. She proved him wrong several times, and now she gave him the gambit he needed.

  The queen on the board can move as many spaces as it wants to move, and in any direction whatsoever; Arthur couldn’t do that alone. He had to assume that he was watched constantly, observed and assessed by the powers that be, even if he disregarded the heavy lockdown in the UK. He realized that the only way he can make an impact on the world was by being everywhere at all times, which he alone could never accomplish.

  Joanna had passed every single test he had given her; she was loyal, fearless, and smart. Above all, she was idealistic and angry at the world, so Arthur was sure that he could trust her and rely upon her because he knew from the get-go that she could not be bought. Plus, he paid her well.

  And now she had returned the favor.

  He had no idea if the meeting had anything to do with the government, the Company, with any of the other conspiracies these men engaged in, but it was something that will obstruct them, something that will give start to the end of their e
fforts because the strategy was simple.

  Staring at the board, seeing the options laid out, Arthur smiled. He realized that his mind was working fast but not weighing on him as it used to; he was calm and in control again.

  He circled the chess board and moved the black rook four spaces forward in representation of his fortification among the public as a good man. “Well played, Mr. Clarkson,” Arthur said. He circled the board. “But you are not as insulated as you think.” He gently moved the queen to his left, cross movement, and placed it right next to the bishop. “We’re coming for you.”

  ELEVEN

  T he men had leapt to their feet immediately, their guns drawn and aimed at Evelyn’s head. Her slim and small hands were above her head, a sly smile dancing on her face as if to taunt them into shooting her.

  “Please, boys, you want to hear what I have to say.” Evelyn was still smiling, holding an unlocked phone in her hand. “First, you want your friend Didier back. Second, I have the satellite focused on this location and if you shoot me, then you will all be blown up.”

  “Where is Didier,” Jack asked, visibly shaking.

  “Is he alive,” Chang added.

  Marcus’ mind was rushing, his thoughts in a sort of vacuum that he had experienced before only when he was an active agent with a task ahead of him. That task now was to see Evelyn dead. Every punch Joe had thrown at him, every cut he had made on Marcus’ body, and all the psychological games Joe had played with him became vivid in his mind. It was like the String Theory, where he was in another dimension, living in what once was, experiencing the fear and trauma all over again. In a bid to defend itself, his brain was telling him to eliminate Evelyn, knowing that she was the source of that pain.