Outlaw, page 17
Is he actually going along with this shit?
‘Oh, lucky me,’ said the pale woman, fanning herself with her hand. ‘Is there a team cheer I have to learn, or something?’
Lucy wanted to yell at the Brit, to criticise his decision, but she bit down on the impulse. She forced herself to see the bigger picture, the tactical advantages.
Still, Lucy couldn’t quite keep silent about it, and leaned close to Grace.
‘You know how it is, right? I mean, I don’t actually have to make the threat out loud.’ She held up the loaded Sig Sauer. ‘It’s implicit.’
Leaning against the classroom’s peeling wallpaper, Grace spread her hands and her expression became the picture of innocence.
‘If I double-cross you, I’m dead. Yeah, I hear that a lot.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘And when it’s over—’
‘You help us finish this,’ Marc interrupted, ‘and at the end you walk away and never show your face – any face – again.’
‘I can live with that.’ Grace looked back to Lucy. ‘How ’bout you, honey?’
Lucy turned away, and found Delancort watching her.
‘Did you bring anything with you when you left Rubicon?’ she asked.
‘Some material from the company database,’ he admitted. ‘Some resources.’
Kara perked up. ‘Such as?’
Off a nod from Solomon, Delancort searched his pockets, finding a flash drive. He handed it across to Kara.
‘You may find that of use. I uploaded files pertaining to transfers of cash and equipment that Glovkonin had ordered.’ Lucy shared a look with Marc at the mention of the word ‘equipment’. ‘He has been using Rubicon subsidiaries for something,’ continued Delancort. ‘I do not know what. But it was being done with an eye towards concealment, and that alone is reason enough to look into it.’
‘Agreed,’ said Kara, turning the flash drive over in her fingers. She actually licked her lips at the prospect of what might be on it.
‘Mr Harun.’ Solomon indicated the man with the motion of his cane. ‘You said your mission failed. Perhaps you would enlighten us as to your current circumstances.’
Lucy noticed how Benjamin looked to Marc for permission before he continued, and that subtle signal made her realise how much things had changed over the past few months.
The Frenchman outlined the situation that had brought the Rubicon survivors to Sochi – their intelligence gathering, the blown surveillance operation in Paris and the data from Malte’s contact in Hong Kong.
Marc picked up the thread from there, leading right back to the moment at hand and the failure to recover the data from Da Silvio’s encrypted book.
Throughout their explanations, Solomon remained silent, taking it in.
‘This complicates matters,’ he said, when Marc was done. ‘Glovkonin and the Combine will have been alerted by your presence in Paris. Even if you were able to prevent yourselves from being identified tonight, they may suspect the two events are connected. I know Giovanni Da Silvio – he is egotistical, but he is not a fool. He will have security doubled throughout the hotel. You will not be able to make a covert approach to the device a second time.’
‘Yeah.’ Lucy frowned. ‘That’s for damn sure. We need another option.’
‘It’s staring you in the face.’ Grace lit another cigarette and took a long draw on it. ‘I always thought that black turtleneck and swinging on wires bullshit is trying too hard. You want access to that device? You need to social engineer it.’
‘You mean con our way to it?’ Benjamin gave her a sideways look.
‘That’s exactly what I mean.’ Grace nodded in Marc’s direction. ‘He thinks too much like a techie. He looks for a hardware solution to every problem.’ She chuckled. ‘People are always the weakest link – if you know what buttons to push.’
‘If we can’t get to the book while it is charging . . .’ Kara stared at the decrepit ceiling, thinking out loud. ‘And we can’t get to it while it’s out and about . . . Then we have to access it while it is in transition between those modes.’
‘In the middle of crowded rooms and parties, and wherever the Italian likes hanging out.’ Lucy’s reply was withering. ‘All while not being made by the Combine’s thugs. How’s that gonna work?’
‘You’ve done undercover.’ Grace shot her a look. ‘Hell, I heard that you don’t even suck at it. So you know how it works – you walk in through the front door and play the role.’
‘Blending with those well-heeled types in the motorsport crowd isn’t just a matter of attitude,’ countered Marc. ‘We need an “in”, we don’t have one, and we don’t have the money to buy one at short notice.’
Delancort cleared his throat. ‘That is not strictly true.’
‘Oh?’ Lucy turned towards him. ‘Just how much cash did you embezzle from Rubicon before you split?’
‘Not as much as you would think,’ he replied. ‘But that is not what I meant. The “in” Mr Dane requires is present. One of the groups sponsoring a powerboat in Da Silvio’s race is the Horizon Integral Corporation, and you will recall Rubicon has . . . I mean, it had a pre-existing relationship with that company.’
Delancort’s words were a polite way of saying that Rubicon and the SCD had briefly brought Horizon Integral to the brink of ruin. While tracking the renegade hackers known as Ghost5, the team’s investigations had uncovered industrial sabotage inside HI. Had that been revealed, it would have cratered the billion-dollar software company’s share price overnight.
Deals were made to cover up those facts – something that, years later, still left a bad taste in Lucy’s mouth – and the leads they had uncovered ultimately allowed the Rubicon operatives to stop Ghost5 from provoking a war in Korea.
Kara’s hands clattered over her laptop keyboard as she checked into Delancort’s comments.
‘He’s right. Horizon Integral have a boat and driver in the Veloce Cup Championship, a woman named Shayla McGrath . . .’ She made a face. ‘She’s dreamy.’
The hacker turned her computer around so they could see the screenshot of a sleek, forest-green speedboat emblazoned with the HI logo. In the foreground, a striking young woman in her twenties with a fighter pilot attitude sat astride the racer’s prow. Next to McGrath, holding a flute of champagne and taking a selfie with a gold-plated iPhone, was someone whom Lucy immediately recognised.
‘I know her. That’s Sunny Wehmeyer. Daughter of Martin Wehmeyer, Horizon’s CEO. Met her at a party in Sydney. We bonded.’
‘Yes . . .’ Solomon gave a nod. ‘A rather capricious young lady, if I recall correctly.’
Kara returned to her data-mining. ‘Well, according to this, she’s actually working with the HI racing team in a management capacity. She’s here, in Sochi.’
‘Huh.’ A slow smile crossed Lucy’s face. ‘Sister’s trying to make something of herself.’
‘There’s your angle,’ said Grace, exhaling a thin wisp of cigarette smoke. ‘You just need to exploit her.’
Despite her antipathy towards the other woman, Lucy had to admit Grace was correct. She could already see the beginnings of an approach, a way to charm Sunny into getting them access to the racing circus of parties and social gatherings.
‘Let’s be clear about the stakes,’ said Marc, shifting off his chair. He stretched, stiff and fatigued like they all were after the night’s work. ‘We need to spin up an alternative plan to get close enough to the book while the thing is in transition. Connect to it, download the contents and get out unscathed. All that in plain sight.’ He let out a breath. ‘It’s not going to be like picking some joker’s pocket.’
‘Get some rest first.’ Lucy’s words were directed at Marc, but they counted for everyone. ‘We need to be sharp for this. No more screw-ups.’
*
The group broke up, finding their way to the bivouacs, but Marc was wound too tight to drop onto a camp bed and fall asleep.
His body wanted to spark out and crash, but his brain was gunning like a V8 engine, still trying to assimilate the revelation that Ekko Solomon was alive.
In the dawn light, he walked the perimeter of the derelict school’s playground, failing to bleed off the nervous energy. If he stopped moving, he was afraid the tension would smother him.
‘You cannot sleep.’ The rich timbre of Solomon’s voice drifted over the ruined yard.
‘Something like that,’ Marc admitted, turning towards him.
Solomon came closer, leaning on the cane, studying Marc closely. Then he smiled widely, a rare thing to see from a man so usually reserved.
‘I always knew you had it in you.’
‘What?’
‘Leadership.’
Marc’s lip quirked up in a crooked smirk. ‘The only thing in me right now is a tankful of bloody tired.’
‘That is how it works,’ said Solomon, with wry amusement. ‘You can feel it, yes? A giant has his hand around your chest, and he squeezes. Each time you take a risk, or send the people you trust into danger, his grip tightens a little more.’ He shook his head. ‘And after a while, you forget what it is to live without that pressure.’
‘You want the job back?’
Solomon chuckled. ‘You cannot trade it. The burden can only be accepted.’ He winced as he moved awkwardly.
‘You all right?’
Marc moved to offer him a hand, but Solomon waved him away. Accustomed to seeing the other man as vital and imposing, it was hard to admit that the urbane African was as human as the rest of them.
‘It will be a long time before I consider myself whole again. If I ever can.’ Solomon shifted his weight on the cane. ‘I am alive. And if we are alive, we can fight, and if we can fight—’
‘We can win,’ Marc finished for him. He paused, turning thoughts over in his mind. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re okay. I’m even glad to see Delancort, sort of. But bringing Grace, that’s a lot of trouble right there.’
‘Forgive me,’ Solomon admitted, ‘but what other choice was there? Left to her own devices, she would gravitate back to Glovkonin. If he did not kill her, he would use her against us. So, we must keep our friends close but our enemies closer.’
‘I’m already regretting it.’
‘As am I,’ said Solomon. ‘But we play the hand we are dealt, Mr Dane.’
‘Yeah. Well, we’re all in now.’ Marc rubbed his chin. ‘Between you and me? I’m amazed we’ve lasted this long on the run. On the off chance we actually take down the Combine, I don’t know what comes next.’
‘I have some ideas.’
Marc didn’t doubt that for one moment. Even after Lau Fa Weng – the former Chinese State Security agent who had been Solomon’s partner in the formation of Rubicon – had suborned the corporation from within and set this whole sorry situation running, Solomon had refused to go quietly. For now, Rubicon and the Special Conditions Division might be in ruins, but if anyone could conjure something anew from the wreckage, it was him.
But there was a lot of work to be done before that could happen.
With that in mind, Marc pushed away the fatigue crowding the edges of his thoughts and concentrated on the other man.
‘Tell me about the deal you made with Saito.’
‘He has been the Combine’s attack dog for years. More than anyone, Saito knows what they are capable of. He has done many dark deeds in their name.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question,’ said Marc, pulling his shirt tight against the cool air. ‘If anything, it underlines why he’s dangerous.’
‘True,’ Solomon agreed. ‘I am alive because of his reluctance to serve the Combine’s whims. Saito has, I believe, reached the limits of the leash they have about his neck.’ Solomon touched a hand to his own throat.
‘He wants out?’
‘In a way.’ Solomon glanced up at the lightening sky. ‘His price is not his freedom, but that of his daughter. The Combine hold her life over him – if he believes she is safe, he will give us everything.’
Marc folded his arms. He remembered Saito’s face when the man told him how he had stabbed Lucy in the belly and left her to die, all so he could minimise the potential threat she represented. The assassin had said it so calmly, as if making a mathematical calculation of life against life. By Saito’s reasoning, a trained Tier One operative like Lucy Keyes was capable and likely to survive such a wound, but the injury would keep her out of action while he completed his mission.
Lucy had survived, of course. Saito had turned out to be right. And in fact, his underestimation of the sniper’s tenacity had earned the assassin a stabbing of his own.
‘I know you have your code,’ Marc began. ‘I’ve always admired your principles, tried my best to emulate them. But Saito is our enemy. We owe him nothing.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Solomon. ‘But his daughter is innocent. She is exactly what I created Rubicon for – to be the strength for those who are weak. The shield for those who go unprotected.’ He leaned forward and placed a hand on Marc’s arm. ‘If we ignore our principles, how are we any better than Glovkonin and his venal friends?’
Marc pulled back, Solomon’s words warring with other, more vehement instincts.
‘Our enemies use our code against us.’
‘Yes.’ Solomon nodded again. ‘But that is not a reason to abandon it, not even for a moment! With the first compromise, we become lost. So we hold true, no matter what we face.’ He smiled, and then set off back towards the derelict building. ‘I know you understand that, Mr Dane, even if it is difficult. That is why I trust you with my people.’
And when he was alone, Marc stood there in the chilly morning air, weighing up the consequences.
*
The elevator doors opened at the Marine Luxe’s penthouse level, and Glovkonin stepped out, his swift pace a function of his annoyance. He was barely out into the sky lobby when a pair of black-jacketed ALEPH security men moved to intercept him.
‘Step back.’ One of them held up a hand. ‘No admittance. They should not have let you up here.’
Glovkonin’s own personal security detail moved to take on the ALEPH men, and he had to shake his head in order to stop Misha and Gregor from doing anything violent.
‘Do you know who I am?’ the oligarch snapped. ‘No. Don’t answer that. Clearly you do not. It doesn’t matter. Get out of my way.’
The two ALEPH guards exchanged looks, and then glanced at Glovkonin’s men. The Moscow-based PMC that employed the security operatives wasn’t known for hiring fools, and they silently made the smarter choice to back down.
Across the room, a pair of locals in the dark blue windcheaters of Sochi’s regional police department shared a whispered comment and a snigger at the expense of the ALEPH men. Glovkonin heard the sneers and turned his ire on them as well.
‘These two idiots,’ he went on, giving orders in sharp, hard snarls. ‘I want you and them out of here. Do it now!’
One of the police officers, a junior sergeant, started to complain, but then Gregor swaggered his way, opening his jacket to reveal the gun holstered at his hip. Like the ALEPH operatives, the two cops swiftly decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and retreated.
Glovkonin stormed into the penthouse apartments and found the object of his ire – the Italian in conversation with his assistant Willa, while the hotel manager hovered nervously around other officers from the Sochi force, as they surveyed the rooms for clues.
‘We need to talk,’ he said briskly.
‘This is a crime scene,’ said Da Silvio’s assistant, her Germanic tones clipped and hectoring. ‘You cannot simply barge in here.’
‘I will not repeat myself,’ Glovkonin told her.
At length, the Italian rolled his eyes and waved the woman away.
‘Willa, perhaps you can take these gentlemen outside for a moment?’
The woman obeyed, sparing Glovkonin a sour look, and she ushered out the policemen and the manager while ignoring their complaints.
The Russian ordered his men to wait at the door, and when they were alone, the Italian sighed at the theatre of it all.
‘Must you be so dramatic?’
A nerve jumped in Glovkonin’s jaw and he stamped down on the impulse to slap Da Silvio across his perfectly tanned face.
‘Must you be so cavalier?’
He stepped closer, narrowing the distance between them. He saw that the Italian lacked some of his usual polish, doubtless having been awakened by the screech of the hotel’s alarms and unable to spend time primping himself like a woman, as he usually did.
For his part, Glovkonin was as presentable as one could be after being dragged from his bed by a panicked Andre. He had rejected Da Silvio’s offer of a suite at the Marine Luxe in favour of taking one nearby at the Zhemchuzhina, but now he regretted the decision. Had he been here, his men could have reacted to the intrusion as it happened, perhaps even captured the malefactors before they could escape.
The Italian raised his hands. ‘I know what you are going to say, Pytor. But trust me, you worry too much.’ He gave a shrug. ‘This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. The staff here have experience dealing with issues better kept quiet. Sochi can be a crazy town.’
Da Silvio’s studied, dismissive tone made Glovkonin’s blood boil.
‘Do you not understand the seriousness of this . . . this invasion?’
‘Of course I do.’ He actually chuckled. ‘I was asleep in the room next door while these criminals robbed me!’
Glovkonin glared at him. ‘Are you so foolish to believe that is actually what took place here? A robbery?’
Downstairs, Glovkonin had left Andre working his way through the hotel’s security records, but he had already determined the basic details of what had happened. Da Silvio’s penthouse had been broken into, the Marine Luxe’s security compromised, and gunplay had unfolded. There were no signs of bodies, of course – the hotel staff were hard at work minimising any disruption. Like Da Silvio, they wanted nothing to interfere with the frictionless idyll manufactured for their indolent clientele.
