Chapter 104
Sun City, The Palace of the Lost City Hotel
South Africa
Day 15
Monday, July 21, 6:53 p.m.
Calla stepped outside to an elevated, open-air sun deck terrace, giving her a direct view of the African plains and the lavish opulence of The Palace of the Lost City, a hotel of casual elegance. She understood why they called this Africa’s “kingdom of pleasure” soaking in the lush botanical gardens in the distance crisscrossed with hiking trails. Her gaze darted across the hotel’s undulating tropical gardens surrounded by cascading waterways and she took stock of a faint view of wildlife in its natural habitat.
A cool breeze touched her bare arms. Though July, Sun City was on a higher altitude and the evening was brisk. She pulled a woolen shawl over her shoulders, and strolled back into the suite.
The resort, had stood on the southwestern part of South Africa since the seventies and prided itself in its accessible location to the large metropolitan areas of Pretoria and Johannesburg.
They’d flown into Johannesburg a few hours earlier and rented Hummers to cross the two-hundred kilometers from the airport to Sun City.
Calla checked her phone. For the last several hours she’d received consistent text messages with symbols, like the prime minister’s message, a sound reminder that both her and Nash had chosen not to acknowledge the ransom hack, not until they knew more.
Was this the right decision? Calla didn’t know. But it was the decision she and Nash would stand by.
She answered an incoming call. It was Jack.
“We’ve just detected a signal by following Salib’s phone activity. The auction will be under the pool area on the ground floor.”
Calla checked the hotel blueprint on her phone. “There’s no pool on the blueprint.”
Nash’s nod gave her encouragement to continue as he entered the room.
At sunset, they headed down to the lower floors where they followed a stream of hotel guests. The corridor behind the lobby ended at a staff door.
“This must be it,” Nash said.
They crouched behind two posts. Pulled out of ISTF labs, Jack tugged at a body suit. ISTF had championed two core technologies. One made soldiers invisible, disguised to an enemy’s infrared and motion sensors and the other was facial adaptation technology, fondly known as the mask. They’d decided against the mask.
Calla zipped her own operative suit made of thread-like, bulletproof material and signaled Tiege with a nod.
Tiege was the operative she could relate to the most and had asked him to come along with a small team for back up. He’d been in Africa when she walked into her first Cove. Tiege wore a short crew cut and seemed to be from the Far East, possibly Korea. He was a scientist and an engineer and had perfected her combat suit in London. It was a smooth, pearl-toned body suit, matched with a white bulletproof headband belted around her forehead.
“All right, this will keep you out of sight for as long as you need it,” Tiege said. Press the wrist valve for the greatest effect. I’ll stand watch when you go down.”
“Okay. Ready?” she said, turning to Jack and Nash.
They nodded and headed to the lower floor beneath the swimming pool. The halls were quiet and cordoned off, as if under refurbishment. They vaulted over the barriers and came to a second quiet hall. A lone, beefy security guard stood by a steel entrance. Calla leaned back against the wall. “I’ll go in first. You’ll find the bidding terminals and act like you belong,” she told Jack and Nash. “Bid high to buy me time.”
Jack hesitated. “How are we bidding?”
“We’ll use a dummy account,” Nash said.
This time Jack stood submissively before her. “Calla, whose money are we bidding with?”
“My father’s.”
The guard turned in their direction confusion masking his face at the bare corridors. Nash’s flat hand came down with a swift clout on the guard’s neck. He toppled to the floor unconscious and his room access device fell out of his hand. Nash retrieved it up and pressed the access button. The steel door drew open and they shut it behind them.
Calla became invisible to them by turning on the cloaking technology feature and they ventured to the back of the room.
Darkness met them in a space filled with close to fifty individuals around a long table. Each wore virtual vision goggles. No one spoke as each concentrated on what looked like nothingness, their hands around the controls that allowed manipulation of the virtual world. Nash took an empty seat at the back, together with Jack. They each reached for a set of goggles from a back table and focused on the drugged strangers. Anyone here could be a real member of the Group and some were recruits.
“Please submit your private bid on the terminal and validate it by pressing your palms on the DNA reading terminal,” she heard a voice command the bidders.
The men set palms ready to manipulate the environment. Calla could read the terminal and communicate with Nash via a wire Tiege had created.
The voice continued.
“If your bid is outbid, the person with the lowest value will be eliminated and has to leave the room. Then you will be given one chance to bid again anonymously on the Vault at a later date. Only the highest bidder in the room will be permitted back. And so it will continue until the last bid is submitted.”
Jack tapped in a figure in dollars.
Calla, still invisible, moved to the front, her eyes watching for irregular movement.
They could be spoken to, but could they communicate to the auctioneer? They were invisible physically but very present on the black net. Anonymous, yet as the men manned their terminals using false bidding credentials Stan had provided from two former MI6 officials, it was only a matter of time before they would be onto them and thrown out of the system.
The bids were turned in and one by one, low bidders left the room until only Jack and Nash were left along with three other masked individuals their eyes behind virtual reality goggles.
Calla failed to recognize any of them. She inched around the room and sent the men the information via an earpiece as she managed to catch glimpses of competitive bids. Calla only prayed they had enough money.
Seven months ago she’d discovered a trust fund set up by her father; more millions than she needed. The more money she used of the fund, the more money appeared. Six minutes later, the men had collectively bid one-and-a-half billion dollars.
The digital voice came on the speaker again.
“Ladies and gentlemen. It’s now time for you to enter your final bids.”
The man closest to Calla entered a bid of six billion Euros. Calla glanced at their remaining competitors. What were they bidding for?
She sent a message to Nash via her communicator.
I think we can do eight billion Euros to be on the safe side.
Nash communicated to Jack.
Enter nine billion Euros. I’ll do eight billion Euros.
The men entered their bids.
They were matched. Possibly the balding man in the front with a set of similar goggles. Nash entered the final bid and soon he was matched with one other bid.
Ten billion Euros. Where the heck would they get that? Outbid, he set his goggles down and shut down his terminal.
He then messaged Jack’s ear piece.
Go for twelve billion Euros.
Nash rose and proceeded to the back of the room. Like, Calla, he waited.
The voice resurfaced.
“Gentleman, there are only three of you left. Only the winning bid will be told what it is they are bidding for and have the opportunity to bid for our most prestigious offer.”
Calla hovered over the remaining man and woman. Each bid was higher than the last, which meant each auction was offering something more valuable than the last. At which point would they sell her child’s genes? This or the next?
In this last round, only one person could go through. The Blackhorse members didn’t know the risk they took by exposing their accounts to Alex. At some point, just like the prime minister, no bidder was going to be safe. Most likely every one of them would be targeted or eliminated by the hacker’s assassins or God knows what.
Calla’s vision penetrated the last contender’s screens. Unknowingly, they entered the same bid.
Her brain kicked in gear calculating.
She messaged Jack.
Don’t enter a bid!