Chapter 119

 

 

Camino Island, Malta

 

Twenty-Four Hours Later

 

The dial-in video conference illuminated above when Alex pressed down the on button.

This would be quick.

Alex studied Vortigern whose reflection shone back at her from the mirror on the long wall of the yacht’s main receiving room. “I’ve worked for that agency and gave my all in that ops program and what did I get? Project Horizon is sophisticated and a threat to all operatives and it won’t surprise you to know who was behind it.”

Vortigern glared at her. “Shields. Doesn’t surprise me. What do you suggest?”

“We need to close Project Horizon. It’s because of it that I lost all sense of who I was. We don’t need to tell them that. They’ll know when it’s done.”

Alex dialed in two numbers, one in Maryland and one straight to the White House. The President and NSA Special Operation Head, Rodney Cook, glared at her over their individual screens.

Alex gave a him quick nod. “We are ready.”

Cook spoke first. “What is it that you want us to do? You hold the project hostage now. What is it you want?”

“Nash Shields.”

“Shields? What about him?” Cook said.

“Fire him.”

“Shields is our biggest asset, always has been, Alex. Besides, we don’t know where he is.”

Alex scowled and shot Vortigern a frown. “Shields is a bigger threat to you than you think. Hand him over and all of this goes away. The auction of your precious list stops or it goes to the highest bidder in less than twenty-four hours.”

“You’re not seriously suggesting we give you the best man this operation has ever seen. The answer is no.”

“Our offer is non-negotiable.”

The president leaned into frame. “Shields has served his country faithfully and remains our concern, not yours. How can the auction be worth his service to us? What is it you really want?”

A shot fired in the room where Cook was, causing him to leap from his chair. Three masked men shot into the room. The last man hauled Layna, his daughter, behind him, her hands bound and her eyes blindfolded.

Alex smirked. “Rodney Cook. Let me tell you once and for all who is in charge here. You think you run the country. Well I have news for you, you don’t. I’ve had my eyes on you since the day you dragged me from that MIT building and had me experimented on. What I ask is very little compared to what you took from me.”

The masked operative jabbed a pistol in Cook’s temple and threw Layna to the floor with a gun to her kneecap.

“My ask is simple compared to your current predicament,” Alex continued. “Give me everything you have on Nash Shields and every project or mission he’s ever worked on.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed in satisfaction as she saw a lump crawl down Cook’s throat, fear threatening to topple him over.

 

 

 

 

Comino Island Malta

 

Midday

 

Jack and Calla stood overlooking the bay on Comino island. At only a little over a mile wide and about a mile in length, it nestled between the two larger islands of Malta and Gozo. Sunlight beamed off Calla’s face.

“Jack,” Calla said. “I can’t reach Reiner.”

Jack raised his head out of the VR goggles. He’d set up a camouflaged virtual reality station and created a ghost link via a wireless satellite frequency and targeted the yacht stationed in the small dock.

Stan had told them the auctioneers would be transmitting the auction feed from this frequency. And he’d hacked it with some help from the London Cove.

“I’m sorry, Calla. He must be on another job. Chin up we have at least ten operatives with us from the military command office.”

Calla inspected the spot where her operatives were stationed, watching Alex’s yacht below.

Tiege joined them. “We’re ready to link in. We made it just in time. This button,” he said, slapping a device on the goggles, “will keep our signal off their radar. You ready?”

Jack nodded.

The virtually uninhabited island gave them little room to maneuver a stealthy sail by yacht. The Scorpion Tide, able to navigate waters four times faster than any yacht, had taken them several hours to steer from Calais down to the Mediterranean where Nicole had dropped it off with several operatives.

Calla nodded to Tiege, an operative she was getting to depend on more and more. “You sure this is the only way?”

Tiege nodded. “Jack, they will help infiltrate the VR signal by what we call a back door. You’ll go in and should be able to plant a lock screen encrypted ransomware on their system.”

Jack nodded. “Most ransomware hacks ask for a ransom to unlock the screen; will I need to do that?”

“We’ll only demand the list and all attachment to it,” Tiege said. “It’s time we hold something at ransom. If the malware loads, we’ll be in control and they’ll do anything to get their precious auction back.”

 

 

Thirty minutes later, Tiege tapped Jack on the shoulder. “It’s time?”

Jack nodded and Tiege logged onto the system by breaching the defenses of the virtual reality environment. It had taken him and Tiege all night to exploit the systems’ weaknesses the VR network using Stan’s Blackhorse log in.

“We’ll telecast your character into the VR environment, by modeling complex task-performance behaviors based on your communication with Nash in the last auction,” Tiege said. “It will play with your senses and we’ll only have ten minutes max before they are on to us.”

Calla set a hand on Jack’s arm. “By then we’ll either plant the ransomware or make the biggest bid of our lives.”

Jack slid the goggles on and Tiege connected the link to the yacht several feet below the cliff where they’d set up station.

“I won’t let you down, Cal.” Jack said.

“I know,” she said.

He took control of the gaming handles and soon his eyes adjusted as Tiege set the accompanying headset over his eyes and ears.

“You’ll be able to hear Tiege and I,” Calla said, “but only if the VR environment doesn’t suck your senses dry.” She pecked him on the cheek. “Be careful, Jack.”

He was in.

 

Once the link was up, Jack found himself in a thirties Chicago music club. A music lounge. Music blasted from a band below the stage where a chorus of flapper girls finished a Charleston number. He took inventory of himself. He was dressed in the unique bold style of the thirties, a topcoat covering half the width of his chest, lapels extending down to a second set of a four-button double-breasted closure.

A smile stretched on his face as he immersed into his environs and what looked like a freaking good time. For a second he forgot why he was there until a voice in his headset brought him back to his mission.

“We’ll begin the auction at ten million dollars and then go on as we get closer to the value of the items on offer,” a digital voice announced.

A flapper girl was on the stage with a silver unidirectional cardioid microphone that she caressed between her fingers. “Only people branded with the tattoo of St. John’s cross will be allowed to participate.”

Jack checked his ankle where the tattoo would be.

Damn good animation, if I say so myself!

 

 

 

 

Tiege had left no detail unattended to in the virtual environment. Jack examined his ankle where a digital tattoo much like Calla’s flashed at him.

He glanced round the digital bar where the party amusement had died. Twelve individuals remained. A man with a huge resemblance to Stan also took his place beside him and set a Thompson 1928 sub-machine gun on his lap. The man reminded him of Nash in many ways. The two men were bark off the same tree.

Jack had been in many virtual environments, but this was different. From a central interface, auctioneers had created an interactive and immersive experience for users leaving no detail unattended, including smell and touch.

An experience that brought him very close to stepping back into an era where the environment imitated everything from the pretentious, watering hole, a hidden room and mostly run by 1930s gangsters, a magnet for movie stars, celebrities, the wealthy and showgirls. A prohibition allure.

A beautiful image of a flapper girl with a short skirt and bobbed hair climbed to the music platform. He had to stay alert or he would lose his senses in here.

She made an announcement from the stage. “What we bring, Knights of the Net, is something that brought glory to the history of this place that we honor. Just like the knights swore to protect their shores, we will protect the shores of technology. A place that prides itself in once being the homeland of the Knights of St. John.”

Jack watched the twelve now seated at club tables. Most had linked in remotely. What a way to run an auction, in a virtual reality environment. He had to admit, it was damn realistic and bloody genius. The Blackhorse group could bid, gamble and have a bloody good time, all anonymously. Each had a companion and a Charleston hopping flapper girl.

His only job was to communicate to Tiege and Calla on where the breach was. What the room looked like, where the control of the auction took place, the sequences used to run it and then upload his ransomware.

The most valuable item he’d be bidding for or ransoming meant everything. He owed it to Nash. How many times had they covered each other’s backs in the field, joked about everything from ludicrous government perceptions to discussing the important people in their lives. He’d lost much and wasn’t taking this lightly.

Jack couldn’t make out who the participants were. It was done intentionally. The world’s biggest global auction of classified technologies, all in a virtual environment. Damn he had to hurry as the environment began playing with his senses.

Snap out! You’re on a cliff on a Maltese island.

A diverse group of twelve billionaires from across the globe all morphed into a horde of gangsters and flapper girls. Some were young and some older. Some looked like they were barely out of school.

A screen appeared behind the woman on stage. “A starting bid has been entered at 10 million Euros.”

Who was bidding? And for what? Was is just a random bid? If he could get to the quantum chip that controlled the auction, then it would stop. His eyes wandered to the door, past cocktails hosts carrying orders of drinks and, for a second, he swore he could smell the alcohol and cigarettes. He recognized a girl at the end of the room. Calla in a cocktail dress calling him to follow her. Was it real? Was she real? She damn well looked real.

He followed her to a backstage dressing room.

A sharp blow clobbered his jaw.

That was real.

 

 

 

 

Jack stripped the goggles from his face. His eyes locked into blinding sunlight against a blue sky. He rolled to the right, nursing his bruised head, then shot to his feet as voices behind alerted him.

He stripped the gaming equipment from his wrists. A massive fist impacted against his temple, sending him sprawling. This time he tasted blood on his lip.

Calla slashed out with two quick left kicks at an attacker. The man went down grunting. She landed another blow and dazed her second attacker.

Jack, now fully aware of his environs, understood. Lascar and three of his men lunged for Calla and pinned her to the ground. Two others went for Tiege, stripping off all communication to Alex’s yacht, and their back-up on Scorpion Tide.

Lascar drew his gun and a whoosh of deadly fire landed at Jack’s feet. “Stay where you are.”

Lascar stood above him, forbearing and stretched for the gun in his holster. His eyes then bore into Calla’s face. “Three for the price of one. Care to lose another one of your boys today?”

Calla’s eyes were covered by loose locks as her hair untangled in the struggle. This time Lascar’s insanity took over as he cocked his gun and aimed.

 

 

 

 

A shot reverberated. Calla only had seconds to watch the force of the blow throw Lascar back in a violent toss as it met his bulletproof suit.

Calla tried to move her head to see who’d fired.

A second shot exploded throwing all three attackers off her.

“Who…?”

A third shot.

This time the men fell off Tiege. Yellow fire flashed from the cliff line.

Calla jumped to her feet and a man—suited, and clearly in control of the situation—aimed a sniper gun at her opponents. The visor on his face made him hard to recognize. But she’d clearly heard two firing positions. Each time an attacker or Lascar made a move a bullet chipped the hard ground around them.

She shaded her eyes from the bright sunlight. The man approached in desert combat attire and her heart hammered. Calla took a step backward. The crunch of gravel under his boots overrode the cadence of the dry wind over the cliff. When he was only a few feet away, he pulled off his mask, reached for her shaking body and his kiss destroyed her will to resist.

Her instinct was to challenge him, but she knew that look, that purposeful grip and that stubborn will. She pulled back and felt a calm in the quiet aftermath.

Nash!

His clean manly scent stirred her senses. “Nash?”

She fought a sudden urge to weep and tears choked her until she was unable to speak. Astounded by his face in front of her she stood immobile.

He lowered his voice in an intimate whisper. “Shush…”

“Is it really you?”

He nodded a handsome smirk growing on his face. “Can’t get rid of me so easily.”

She expelled a long breath. “God … how is this possible?”

“It is.”

Her moment was short lived when his eyes rose above her hair in attention. He flipped her behind him and released a bullet as Lascar surged toward him.

Nash pushed Calla to the ground.

A roundhouse kick crashed in his chest. Nash bounced back. Ruthless fists and kicks from years of combat training landed on Lascar, sending the men in a bear hug struggle over the cliff and into the waters of Mediterranean tides.

 

 

 

 

Calla raced to the edge of the cliff. Nash and Lascar struggled in the tide below.

“Let’s go.”

Calla looked up, now aware who the second sniper was who’d popped shots with Nash as he surfaced from behind a low bush.

Reiner stripped his outer jacket and dove over the cliff. Calla followed suit. The waters swallowed them at impact. When her head surfaced, she saw Lascar swim for a set of Jet skis parked by a vacation hire spot.

Nash surged for him as Lascar climbed onto the Kawasaki speed machine.

He released the parking cord and threw a cowboy hoop around Nash. Lascar dragged Nash for several meters before his Jet Ski accelerated for deeper waters.

“This way,” Reiner said leading Calla to the second pair of Jet Skis.

Soon they roared into a chase behind Lascar’s machine. Calla cranked the engine at full throttle behind Nash’s struggling body. At this rate Nash would soon be swallowing gallons of salt water. The Jet Ski hit a wave and tossed her machine several feet in the air. Calla landed with a bounce at Lascar’s tail and neared Nash’s dragging frame.

Lascar’s engine died. Nash struggled out of the tailing rope and leaped on the wave cruiser that put the two men in a struggle for the controls. Nash sent a thundering blow into Lascar’s middle. Both struggled with imbalance.

It was then that Calla spotted the wrist control of Lascar’s suit as it floated by the abandoned machine. It must have fallen off. Her eyes lit up and she dove for the control.

She surfaced above water and caught Lascar mid-dunk.

“Hey!”

Raged eyes turned to her.

“Not really a fair fight,” she said, and pressed down the button on his suit device.

Lascar’s eyes pinned her with alarm as the suit tossed Lascar several feet in the air and splashed him in a nose plunge. Nash hurled himself toward Calla’s abandoned Jet Ski, climbed aboard and pulled her from the water. She gripped his middle.

“All that muscle in this little wrist control,” she said, circling the gadget in her fingers.

Lascar swam to the surface and gasped for air, as Reiner’s Jet Ski approached.

Nash’s lips stretched into a grin. “Hey, Reiner. What do we do with this bionic boy?”

Reiner smirked, lifting Lascar onto his Jet Ski and strapping him down. “Leave this one with me.”

 

 

 

 

 

“I thought I’d lost you,” she said.

Nash raised his eyes toward the island, where a gigantic yacht was docked. “It’s not over yet, beautiful.”

Jack joined them on a sky-blue Yamaha Waverunner slowing by their machine. “We may need better camouflage,” he said.

“How long can you hold your breath?” Nash asked.

 

 

Thirty minutes later the trio navigated waters several feet from Alex’s expedition yacht, a long-range explorer vessel, built for unspoiled cruising destinations. It shimmered expensively in the harbor with masts 300 feet high.

They thrust deeper, their diving suits affording them oxygen as they dove under at ten feet before progressing to the edge of the yacht. Once at a safe distance, they pulled off their oxygen masks and fins.

With their heads above water, Jack fidgeted for his waterproof phone. “I still have the ransomware codes. If we can get to the control room, we can stop the auction. To think we’ve been chasing a moving target this whole time. A yacht.”

No movement was detectable when they leaped onto the main deck. Calla motioned to move forward and they crossed an exceptionally elegant pool and jacuzzi, sheltered gazebos and a cocktail bar. The deck boasted a staggering eight decks and its keel incorporated a single slab of curved glass.

Movement below diverted their attention and they dove behind the bar for cover.

 

 

 

 

Calla raised her head and gave the all clear nod.

They maneuvered the length of the yacht past exquisitely designed bedrooms and a private dining room.

“We should split up,” Nash said. “Jack, what was on your terminal timer when Lascar threw you out of the auction?”

“Couldn’t tell. I’m guessing was an hour or so,” Jack said.

Calla checked the time on her e-watch. “Which leaves us less than ten minutes before it wraps up. We need to move.”

“Here,” Jack said, reaching round to his small backpack. “These may still be good.” He shook water out of a set of earpieces. If you wear these in-ear, we can stay in contact via Bluetooth on your e-watches.”

They nodded.

Nash took the stairs above deck. Jack stayed on the main deck and Calla took the bottom stairs.

She passed a seating area, then a guest room, before she set foot into a large master bedroom at the nose of the yacht. Calla studied the bright room from the immaculate bed, to the floor length windows, as a sea life viewing pod beneath her feet and a high-tech digital control system next to a writing desk. She hurried to the desk and set her hand on the control system, which was operated using a touch-sensitive sheet of black glass.

Behind it a row of data centers and optic wires churned out information in the form of flashing lights of all colors. She placed a finger on her earpiece. “Jack, Nash. I’m in the master bedroom, I think I found the control center. Looks like there’s also a data center of some sort. The one from Utah. It’s inside the unit. This is the last pod.”

Nash came online. “Sounds like they’re delivering it instantly. I’ll be right down. Jack, stay on deck and watch. I doubt they are far.”

“Calla what do you see on those wires?” Jack said.

“A jumbled mess of data.”

“We’ll have to disconnect the unit from the net. Cut the wires if you can but careful you don’t set off a short circuit as I’ll need to redirect the energy on that unit. Once we disconnect it, I can go in and ransom whatever we recover if we’re not too late,” Jack said.

“Am on my way,” Nash said.

Calla glanced around the room and then at the wires. She felt faint and if she cut the wrong wires, she’d lose the list altogether.

She stopped and took a deep breath. Her eyes then fell on the dresser where an old, brown folder lay. She found the words:

 

 

BOSTON JUVENILE COURT

MEDICAL RECORDS FOR TWINS

 

Riti Löwenfeldt

Raine Löwenfeldt

 

 

Calla set a finger over the folder and drew it open. She scanned the first few pages of information about the girls mentioned.

They were in foster care for many years, names had been changed, they had special abilities, they were physicists. A few pages mentioned they were moved from institution to institution. In the annex, Calla read a handwritten note with a name she’d memorized.

 

Fay Jasso

 

It was a more recent scribble under a collection of clippings with several notes about Jasso. But what drew her attention were the last words on the page.

 

Social worker Fay Jasso’s conclusions

on my medical report

 

Her eyes moved back to the table where she caught sight of a DNA capsule container. What was this? Could it be the genes? The door slammed open and Calla found herself face to face with Riti Löwenfeldt, the older twin, now going by the name Alex Sisley.

She set her hand on the launcher Jack had slipped into her hands at the London Cove.

She prepped the electrically charged projectile ready for Alex’s gun.

 

 

 

 

“Sit down!”

Alex’s voice was commanding. Behind her Haven marched into the room wearing a white body suit. Even at this close angle there was no visible evidence that these two were twins.

But then Calla had not read the whole file. If they’d changed their names, what else had they changed?

“I don’t think you value your life or those of your friends,” Haven said.

Haven’s gun was now at her temple. Calla glared at the data center churning away. She observed a small ticking clock out of the corner of her eye. Only ten seconds left in the auction. Calla made a motion to move.

“Uh uh … stay put until that counter’s done. Something tells me I should’ve done more damage to you when we last met on these islands.”

A lump crawled to Calla’s throat when the counter blinked zero.

“Sold!” Alex roared. “Now that’s what I call a sale.”

She moved toward the machine and checked an adjoined laptop. “Talon will be happy. Whatever he had on that list, which I gather is the same thing you desperately didn’t want sold has just raked in fifteen billion dollars. Now that’s what I call sold with interest. I only budgeted twelve.”

An involuntary tear dropped on Calla’s lap.

Her genes had been sold.

They were too late.

Alex tapped some keys on the tablet by the table and commenced a data transfer from the churning center. “Let’s see, all I need are fifteen seconds and I can say goodbye to that blasted list that has held me hostage for the good part of three years.”

Haven’s gun mined deeper. “There’s a lot to be said for people Like Mason Laskfell. They just don’t seem to go away. The auction was his pet project for us when he bought our freedom from the U.S. government.”

Calla, use your brain. Use everything that you’ve got to stop this. She’s just sold your child! Calla tried to concentrate with the noise and activity around her. Her heart was racing. The future, her future had just been auctioned. She held her breath.

“Walk away before you make a mistake,” Calla said.

“I’ll do no such thing,” said Alex.

Calla let her hand go quickly to the weapon. Built with accuracy, it could decide whether it would incapacitate a person or whether it would terminate them, craftily manufactured in the operatives’ lab by Jack.

Calla curled a fist around the launcher. She drew it.

Haven’s gun mined deeper.

For the first time in her life, Calla knew she would feel nothing if she launched the weapon’s venom.

 

 

 

 

The launcher, a hand-held imitation of a bow and arrow with ammunition missiles built to incapacitate, remained aimed at Alex. Calla reached for Haven’s elbow, throwing her against the wall.

She crinkled in a heap.

Calla fired her launcher at the desk. The movement was sudden and the data machine exploded.

Nothing. The clock continued its countdown.

Alex’s hate-hardened fist lunged for her. She missed and her hand smashed into the corner of the bed.

Calla released another charge from the launcher and blasted the tablet completely, she then set her fury on the DNA capsule container she’d seen by the tablet. Anything that was a threat to her. The counter continued.

She discharged the full ammunition of her weapon at the machine and capsule. Still the counter continued. What was happening? How was this thing controlled?

Alex rose from her unconscious state and angled her head Calla’s direction with a triumphant glint in her eye. It was then that the desk unit drew in more energy and finished its mission. The machine flashed the words:

 

Transfer Complete

 

“Too late, Cress. I knew a museum curator couldn’t handle serious field work. Unless of course she was on a dig. This is no dig. The list is sold and the money delivered. Total profit twenty-five billion.” She grinned. “Sorry. I didn’t offer a refund or exchange policy.”