Cog Page 12

  Chris heaved a sigh and rubbed his forehead. “You think this will work?”

  “We don’t have much choice. Feel free to offer another idea, though.”

  Her suggestion was met with silence.

  “Plan A it is, then,” she said. “Pop the trunk. I’ll get the bag. You sync with the car for remote control.”

  Nicholle climbed out of the car, grabbed the bag, and slung it over her shoulders.

  As Tuma’s men were not landscapers, the bushes in front of the house were unkempt and large enough to hide both of them. They crouched, Nicholle toward the corner of the front steps, and waited. The bushes pressed against her, scratching through her sweater. Chris tapped up the command, rolled down the windows to the car, and turned the speakers all the way up on a horror movie. Stomach-churning screams pierced the quiet, along with loud banging, like someone breaking in a door.

  In the dark, Nicholle gave Chris a thumbs up. Muffled voices wafted from inside, then heavy footsteps. They bounded on the floor, stopped at the door. Door squeaks, then a bang as the screen door closed. Boots pounded the concrete steps. Neighbors’ voices yelled out windows.

  “Now,” Nicholle said. She and Chris grabbed the railing above and pulled themselves up, then scrambled over. A quick glance told Nicholle the guard was about to lason the dashboard. They ducked inside and Nicholle led Chris to the back of the house. She turned into a small bathroom and motioned Chris inside.

  Nicholle pressed one end of the towel rack and the toilet slid to one side, revealing a dark hole underneath. She crouched, then swung her legs inside and caught the ladder beneath.

  “There’s a ladder here on the back wall,” she said before climbing down. Chris followed her. When he reached the bottom, she twisted a knob on the wall at the bottom of the ladder and the light overhead disappeared as the toilet swung back. Complete darkness surrounded them, pressing in like curtains through an open window.

  “Is there a light?” Chris said in a low voice.

  “There is, but turning it on alerts the guard upstairs,” Nicholle said. “But don’t worry, I remember this tunnel. It goes on straight for about fifty yards, dips down, then curves to the right for another twenty, straightens, then inclines upward. Follow me and keep your right hand on the wall to help give you a sense of direction.”

  “Okay.”

  Nicholle led the way, stepping quickly along, unsure of whether the guard upstairs would suspect something and come to inspect. There were side tunnels they could duck into, but they were farther up the passageway. The air was surprisingly fresh and she guessed Tuma had installed a ventilation system. She had suggested it to him in case, for whatever reason, someone was stuck down there for a period of time. She’d also suggested some doomsday supplies for food, but she didn’t know if he’d taken her up on that one.

  The tunnel dipped, then curved, and they followed it. The faint scraping of ceramic against wood echoed in the tunnel and Nicholle’s heart quickened. She reached back along the wall for Chris’s hand and took it in hers as she hurried to get to the first side tunnel, trotting on tiptoe. Chris mimicked her moves as the sound of his hurrying lightened. Boots on wood sounded behind them, descending the ladder.

  Just up here. Please, please.

  The lights came on in the tunnel, illuminating the smooth dirt walls that led up to the silver ventilation piping that ran along the ceiling. The side passage lay about a yard ahead.

  “Hey!” the guard said. He could not see them, because Nicholle could not see him in the curve of the space. He probably wasn’t sure anyone was in the tunnel, she thought, else he would not have called out. If he knew they were there, however, he would start running after them, shooting.

  Nicholle turned into the side tunnel and pulled Chris along. She stopped and leaned against the wall, waiting. Chris stared at her, but she put her finger to her lips, gesturing for him to remain silent. The lights stayed on, which meant the guard was still in the tunnel. Nicholle’s heart pumped faster and she tried to quell her anxiety.

  She had learned a few self-defense moves from one of Tuma’s guards, Brock, a year ago when they were both working the docks one uneventful night. Nicholle struggled to recall what he taught her as she edged around Chris. She crouched low and motioned for Chris to do the same. His face contorted in a disbelieving look and he caught her by the shoulder to pull her back, but she shrugged him off and gestured for silence.

  The guard’s steps padded softly on the impacted dirt. Her breathing came in shallow sips as she strained not to make noise. His steps edged closer and she waited for the exact moment. The padding became louder.

  Now.

  The guard stopped and turned, holding a lason. Nicholle lunged. He fell backward, hitting his head on the wall opposite. The weapon discharged, shooting past her shoulder. She hoped Chris hadn’t been in the line of fire. Nicholle grabbed the man’s arm and struggled to keep the weapon pointed upward. A loud snap sounded.

  “Ahhhhhh!”

  The man hollered and his arm fell limp. Nicholle wrestled the gun out of his hand and rolled off of him. Chris stood on the man’s foot with his full weight, bouncing on the broken bone. As soon as Nicholle rolled off, he snatched the man by the shirt and delivered five blows to his head.

  The guard fell, unconscious, to the floor. Chris shook his right hand, fingers splayed, seemingly in pain. Nicholle wanted to remain on the floor and sleep away the nightmare that was her life, but she had too much responsibility to give up.

  “C’mon,” Chris said. He held out a hand. She reluctantly took hold and braced herself to standing.

  “At least we’ve got a weapon,” he said.

  Nicholle nodded as she snapped on the safety and tucked it in the back of her pants.

  “Let’s get going,” she said.

  They walked swiftly down the tunnel. The other end of it had a ladder similar to the first one. Nicholle twisted the knob on the wall and switched off the lights.

  “There’s no guard on this end. It opens into a supply closet, behind a shelving unit,” she said. Chris nodded and climbed up. Nicholle followed, then shut the opening behind her.

  “The Fadi warehouse is…” She strained to remember. “Two warehouses over. Take your shirt out of your pants and put on one of these tool belts.”

  She hauled the belts off the shelf and handed one to Chris.

  “I’m not exactly dressed for industrial cleaning,” he said.

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s dark and we’re only going over two warehouses. Should be pretty much deserted. This time of night, most of the activity is over by the port cranes.”

  They fastened their belts and threw on brimmed caps that had the port logo on the front. Chris took hold of a supply cart and pushed it through the door Nicholle held open.

  “We should talk loudly and laugh, not look around suspiciously,” Nicholle said.

  “Good idea.” He raised his voice. “So I was in this bar, right, and this chick comes up to me and says, ‘Wanna get outta here? Go someplace quiet where we can talk?’ Well, I’m a little drunk, so I’m not thinking straight, so I say, ‘Sure.’ So we leave out the back, only when I walk out the door, two guys club me over the head. The next thing I remember, a dog licking my face, my wallet’s gone, my wedding ring is gone, and even my belt is gone. So I gotta call my wife to come get me and explain how I got jumped, only all she can ask is what I’m doing in the alley in the first place.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Nicholle said. “So what’d you tell her?” They had gone out the door and were halfway across the first warehouse. Two people smoking cigarettes looked their way, but went back to their conversation.

  “I said I had just stopped by the club for a few drinks after work, to unwind, you know?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Unwind. Everybody needs to unwind.” />
  “That’s what I told her,” Chris said. “Only she says she’s tired of my wandering ways and wants a trial separation.”

  “What? Over a drink?” Nicholle said. They edged toward the second warehouse and Nicholle opened the door as Chris pushed the cart through. The warehouse was vast, the length of a football field. Paned windows lined the perimeter of the building. Black frame rafters checkerboarded the ceiling. Containers stacked in precise rows of ten high, ten wide stood in the middle of the floor. No one was around, at least not yet.

  “So’d you go through with it?” she said.

  “One week into it. It’s rough, you know?”

  Nicholle put her hand on the cart and led him to an alcove that held an elevator. She pushed the down button.

  “Offices are in the basement,” she said in a low voice. “What room was the meeting in?”

  “A3,” he said.

  The elevator doors opened and Nicholle and Chris went inside. Black metal shined to a mirror finish edged in silver enveloped them. Neither spoke on the ride down. When the door opened, Nicholle motioned to her right. Chris followed.

  Beige carpeting lined the hallway, and original art hung on the wall. Nicholle gasped.

  “Look. A Yebedor oil. I’ve never seen this one before.”

  “We don’t have time to sightsee.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said. Annoyance crept into her voice. It had been a harrowing past few days and the tension was catching up to her.

  She headed down the hall and checked the offices. Behind the first three doors were Spartan rooms, containing little more than a desk and chair. She opened the door to the fourth office and was struck by the sight of bright marigold walls. A heavy cherry wood desk sat in front of the far end. A backlit glass insert lined the wall next to the desk, displaying imported water and Moribel cognac. A sofa and loveseat framed a small coffee table and a crystal dish of what looked like licorice rested on the desktop.

  “Bingo,” Nicholle said.

  She left the room and waved Chris into the office next to Wills’.

  “Let’s hide in the closet the next door over,” she said.

  They sat in the closet in Room A2 and squeezed the cart in front of them. If someone opened the closet, they would not be immediately visible.

  “What now? How do we spy on Wills from the next office over?” Chris said.

  “This place should have hidden cameras. Can you access them?”

  “If it’s wi, it’s mine.”

  “That so?”

  “You know it.”

  Nicholle sat in thought as Chris scanned. The memo didn’t specify the purpose of the meeting. She wondered what game Wills was playing.

  “Got it,” Chris said. “There are hidden cameras in each of these rooms. I can link to the cameras in Wills’ office and feed the image to my node. So spiral in.” He worked quickly, looking like the Morse code operator on board the Titanic. “Okay. I’ve established the link. The feed should be coming in as soon as someone enters the office. The camera’s activated by motion.”

  “By motion? Then what about the one in here?” Nicholle said.

  “I’ve disabled the one in here and deleted the feed since just before we arrived.”

  “So now we wait.”

  “Now we wait,” Chris said. He paused, regarding her with a curious stare.

  “What?” she said.

  “You know, there were rumors a year or so ago. I chose to ignore them…”

  “But you wondered if they were true,” she said. Nicholle expected for the news to get out and, in fact, was surprised it hadn’t been blared across the news landscape. She guessed her father had something to do with it.

  “I started doing pakz and skeemz about two years ago, and I hit the street about a year back. My addiction had gotten out of hand. I made mistakes. My gallery went downhill. Hell, everything went downhill. To keep up my addiction, I had to…well, compromise myself. Had to run pakz, rack skeemz, sex up pakz suppliers, just to get froze on skeemz. Skeemz cost, but they’re safer, being programs and all. But even froze, I rose in the ranks, so to speak. Became an associate, a gofe, working for the Tets.”

  “The Tets? Isn’t that one of those secret societies or some choo like that?”

  “Yeah, well, they ain’t that secret. Mostly greedy businessmen looking for a quick profit, spouting some semblance of a higher purpose. They use local talent to run the day-to-day. But they’re safer than the street gangs, and a lot richer. Although some of the gang and Tet gofes move in the same circles.”

  “And they run pakz?”

  “Pakz, women, weapons, skeemz on the lower level. Lobbying, bribes, and corporate theft on the upper. The Shantou/Bank of Nigeria conglomerate’s got them running scared, so from last I heard, they were looking to expand.”

  “How’d you get out?”

  “I made the mistake of calling my brother for money. He gave me an ultimatum. I took it.”

  They fell into silence. Nicholle wondered what Chris thought of her now…if he would have agreed to go with her if he had known. She couldn’t worry about it now, she thought. That was water under the bridge; she couldn’t change the past.

  They did not have to wait long before someone showed up. A brown-skinned man appeared in life-like miniature holoform between her and Chris. Wills. He shrugged off his trenchcoat, hung it on the back of the door, and took out a fryer from the desk drawer. He began tapping up commands.

  “Looks like he’s accessing the admin functions of something. Maybe the DNA server? Setting controls. And he’s out,” Chris said.

  Wills took off the fryer and placed it back in the drawer. After a few moments, there was a chime at the magfield door.

  “Come in,” Wills said.

  The field went transparent and a woman stepped through. Her hairline began halfway down her forehead. A harsh line of blush ran from her cheeks to her ears.

  “Leesia. Good to see you.” He kissed her cheek.

  “William. And you. I must admit, I was surprised to hear from you. The news says you embezzled from the company trough and left town. You naughty boy.” She held up a finger and waggled it at him.

  “Don’t tell me you believe what you hear in the news. I had a scheduled meeting in Fiji and am just getting back. But more on that when the others get here. Please, sit down. Drink?”

  “Yes, white wine, thanks,” Leesia said.

  “Coming up.” The wall parted behind his desk, revealing a large bar. As he prepared the drink, the magfield chimed again.

  “Must be the others. Come in,” he said. He handed Leesia her drink. The magfield faded. Two men strode inside. One had cheekbones sculpted from marble, inset over dark hollows. Hawkish eyes drew a bead on all surveyed. The other man possessed an understated confidence, evident in his swagger.

  “Nwanko, Tawd. Glad you could make it. Have a seat and let’s see. Scotch on the rocks and a Guinness?” Wills asked.

  “William playing the host? This must be important. I have a feeling we’re about to get our asses handed to us,” Nwanko said.

  Tawd chuckled. “So what’s the bad news?” He sat on the loveseat next to Leesia, grinning.

  “Lovely as always, Leesia,” he said.

  “Flatterer.”

  “Just one more guest and we can get down to business,” Wills said. He delivered the drinks and sat on the edge of his desk, observing the others making small talk.

  Nicholle knew that look. It meant he was sizing someone up, just before a fight, whether mental, verbal, or physical. Something was about to go down, and she was sure the others wouldn’t like it, but there wasn’t a thing they could do about it.

  Wills hopped down from his desk at the sound of the chime with a self-satisfied smile. When
the magfield faded, another woman stepped inside. Tall, with a gap-toothed smile and a trusting face.

  “Darai! Welcome,” Wills said. They kissed in greeting.

  She took up a seat on the couch next to Nwanko.

  “Sherry, right?” Wills asked.

  “Yes, you remembered.”

  “Of course.” The other guests greeted her as if they had been bosom buddies.

  “All right, now we can cut to the chase. Why are we all here?” Nwanko said.

  “Patience, my friend.” Wills resumed his seat on the edge of the desk.

  “First of all, I’d like to thank you for coming tonight. I know all of you are busy, but I think this business opportunity is one you can’t afford to pass up.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re selling insurance,” Leesia said. Good-natured laughter followed. Wills maintained a tight-lipped smile.

  “Actually, in a way, I am. Do you know what happened when cars were first invented? Automobile manufacturers were competing directly with horse-and-buggies. That is, until the gas engine car was improved upon, forcing the carriage makers out of business. Many of them tried to get financing to get into the car trade, but they couldn’t. And so, we see how technology can change the landscape of the business world.

  “Today, we’re at the dawn of a new age. And I’m here to say, that the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

  Nicholle rolled her eyes. Wills was a blowhard, through and through, which was rare for a scientist, but perfect for a businessman.

  “Cut the bull and tell us about this so-called opportunity,” Tawd said.

  “Very well. I assembled a team of scientists to accomplish a task for me and they have almost succeeded.”

  “Succeeded at what?” Darai said.