Paradise Hacked (First Circle Club Book 2) (12 page)

"Watch this, sir," the leader said.

He played back a video recording which showed four people getting out of a car. Knox recognized three from the photographs taken in the coffee shop. The fourth was a tall, athletic, African-American woman.

Knox clenched his right fist triumphantly. "Yes!"

"We're tracking them, sir," the console operator said.

"Get all the operatives in Chinatown involved. I want eyeballs on targets, not just cameras. While we're at it, scramble the signals intelligence squad and put up some drones. Blanket coverage of the whole neighborhood. Let's throw everything we got at this."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Virgil walked up to Li and Li's Electronics Boutique. Even though it was getting late in the day, the store would be open for another few hours. The Li's did their best business after the sun went down. The father sold phones and accessories, while the daughter made fake identification for Chinese immigrants.

Virgil entered the door and heard a cheerful chime.

Mr. Li was standing behind the cash register. He had a white shirt with silk loops for buttonholes. A natural smile made the corners of his eyes wrinkle. He watched Virgil with a hint of wariness in his brown eyes.

"Hello," Virgil said in a friendly tone.

"I haven't seen you in a couple of days," Mr. Li said. "Usually, you spend so much time with my daughter, it's like I have an extra son."

"I've been working."

"Oh? Haven't caught that time-travelling terrorist yet?"

"We're still chasing him. That's what I was doing yesterday and today. But we just picked up a gamma radiation signature reading on our tricorders. I'm hopeful it will turn into a fruitful lead. The good news is we don't think he built that atomic bomb yet, so Chicago is still safe, for now."

Mr. Li's face showed no reaction. He just stared at Virgil calmly.

"Do you think I'm lying?" Virgil said.

"I know you are. That story was ridiculous when I first heard it. I don't know why I believed it for so long."

"Listen," Virgil said, "you're a fine man, a true gentleman. I hate lying to you, but I'm not in a position where I can disclose the truth. I'm under orders. All I can tell you is I'm not a criminal. My work is entirely legitimate."

"Does Mei know the truth?" Mr. Li said.

Virgil hesitated. "Yes, but please don't ask her. She could get into a lot of trouble."

"With you?"

"With my management."

Mr. Li crossed his arms and sighed. "You've turned my daughter against me."

"No. She still loves you, and I feel nothing but respect for you. Please don't see this situation as adversarial."

"In my experience, secret things are dangerous things. Is Mei in any danger?"

"Not to my knowledge," Virgil said, but then he remembered her concerns yesterday. "And I promise I will keep her safe."

"Until you stop loving her. I was a young man once. I know how these things go. One day, another pretty face will turn your head, and my daughter will be yesterday's fortune cookie."

Virgil wasn't actually young at all. Mr. Li had a valid concern though. Virgil might have to return to Limbo someday.

"I will do the best I can."

Mr. Li frowned. "Go and see your darling girlfriend." He waved dismissively. "I can't stop you."

Virgil felt bad, but there was nothing else to say. He went to the back room and entered Mei's secret workshop.

She turned from her computer and looked at him. "You're finally back. I was getting worried."

"I know I should've called, but I was preoccupied. You could've called me."

"I tracked your location. You were all over the state."

"We were visiting secret passages to Heaven," Virgil said.

"What are those?"

He realized Mei had missed all the recent developments, and he wasn't sure how much he could tell her. Mortals weren't supposed to know about the passages. Mei already had an unhealthy amount of forbidden knowledge in her head.

"Never mind," he said. "The trip was a bust anyway. I just dropped by to say hi and maybe take you out to dinner."

"I don't like eating with you. You don't eat. You just stare at me while I chew. It's weird."

"I can't eat, but watching you helps me remember what it was like."

"It's still weird," she said.

"Then how about a walk?"

"Isn't it cold and dark? Not the best time for a romantic stroll."

Virgil realized she had a point. The dark was only a small nuisance to him, and he couldn't care less about the cold, but she was sensitive to both.

"Will you give me a kiss at least?" he said.

"Sure," she said. "I can do that."

Mei stood and came over to him. They kissed on the lips politely at first. He caressed her back, and she responded by pressing her body against his. She finally warmed up a little and kissed with real passion. Even though he didn't have a heart like a normal man, or even hormones, excitement made him feel alive again. He wanted the kiss to last forever.

They separated.

Virgil contemplated their relationship for a moment. It definitely ran hot and cold. Some days she couldn't get enough of him, but on other days, she feared the monster he truly was. He couldn't blame her. His demonic body was always looking for an excuse to create carnage and mayhem. Virgil had to fight to maintain control.

"I'll get back to work now," he said.

Mei smiled. "Good luck."

"Thanks. And you stay safe."

He left the workshop.

He trotted across Chinatown towards the basement headquarters of the First Circle Club. He arrived at the alley after a couple of minutes. Lightbulbs in rusty fixtures created pools of illumination, but most of the alley was dark.

He spotted a flash of movement at the far end. He watched patiently for a little while but didn't see anything else.
Probably a cat,
he thought.

Virgil resumed walking behind a row of restaurants. Bags of garbage in dumpsters were dripping fluids, but it was too cold for flies. He carefully avoided the puddles and soon reached the concrete staircase behind Red Palace Antiques. He jogged down to the door below.

"It's open!" Alfred called out.

Virgil pushed open the door and walked into the basement. His teammates were sitting on the comfortable furniture.

"Ready to talk about a plan?" he said.

"I'm still on break," Lisa said as she played with her phone.

He frowned at her.

"Just relax for a little while," Alfred said.

Virgil wasn't in the habit of relaxing but decided to give it a try. He grabbed yesterday's newspaper off the coffee table, sat on a leather chair, and read.

* * *

Colonel Knox was staring at an image on a surveillance monitor. It showed the windows of a basement at the bottom of a concrete staircase. Light streamed from the windows, but the oblique angle prevented him from seeing through them.

He spoke into a microphone. "Can you get closer?"

A man whispered in reply, and the sound came through a speaker. "We might be seen, sir. Are you sure you want us to risk it?" It was Captain Kyle, the officer in charge of the operation in Chinatown.

Knox gritted his teeth. "No. Better safe than sorry. Maintain your distance. Anything else to report?"

"We're detecting radio signals coming from the basement. They seem like ordinary cell phone signals."

"The targets have cell phones?" Knox raised his eyebrows. "That's convenient. Make sure you track those signals."

"Yes, sir," Kyle said. "The signals intelligence squad is engaged. We're launching the drones now, and they have night-vision cameras."

Knox checked his watch. "Great. Time for me to go. The next experiment will begin soon. Don't make an aggressive move until I come back."

"Yes, sir."

He jogged out of the surveillance control room. He went down two flights of stairs and arrived at the physics lab in the basement. Dr. Harlow and his assistants were working on a spacesuit propped up on a stand.

Knox approached the suit. Shaped steel-alloy plates provided strong protection from head to toe, and Kevlar was behind the steel. The design reminded him of medieval armor. Translucent gold foil covered the bubble helmet. A backpack contained an air supply and cooling system.

"Looks heavy," Knox said.

"Ninety-eight pounds, sir," Harlow replied. "Good thing the test subject doesn't have to run a marathon in it."

"Will it protect him?"

"It's air-tight, bulletproof, and radiation hardened. Not sure what else we can do."

Knox checked his watch again. "It's almost time to go. Start packing up."

"We're just putting the final touches on the telemetry." Harlow pointed at a gadget on the back of the helmet.

"How much longer?"

"Twenty minutes." Harlow moved away from his assistants and lowered his voice to a whisper. "How is the alien hunt going, sir?"

"Four of them are in a basement underneath an antique store in Chinatown," Knox said.

"Strange." Harlow furrowed his brow.

"I have operatives posted all over that neighborhood, but hopefully nothing will happen until after we're done with the experiment. Hurry up."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

"Break time is over," Virgil declared. "Back to work. I want to hear fresh ideas."

He challenged Alfred, Sara, and Lisa with his stare. Virgil's power to cause fear and shame didn't work on them, but he hoped they got the message anyway.

"I keep coming back to the same old idea," Sara said. "Let's call the number for the O.E.A.P. and leave another message. We'll challenge the military to come after us."

"You're asking for trouble," Virgil said, "and you don't even know how to fight."

"I can aim a gun."

"I've seen you shoot. It's embarrassing. Alfred has some Kung Fu skills, but I wouldn't trust him with a firearm either. Lisa and I are the only real warriors here. It will be the two of us against God knows how many Special Forces operatives. And what's the objective? Are you suggesting we kidnap and interrogate some of them? That could get very nasty."

"Alfred can use his voice to induce cooperation," Sara said.

"That doesn't always work. It didn't in the coffee shop. Special Forces guys are trained to resist interrogation. Getting answers out of them could take a long time and involve a lot of pain."

She worked her jaw. "You have a better idea?"

Virgil rubbed his temples, but it didn't help him think. He had counted on Mei to provide the next lead. The team was hobbled without her.

"OK," he said finally, "you can make your call, but let's think this through. We need to meet them in a favorable location. Not Chinatown. Too many civilians around here."

"But it can't look suspicious," Lisa added.

Virgil decided to check the weapons while he considered the problem. He walked over to a line of three green footlockers against a wall. He unlocked the first by dialing a combination lock, and he pulled open the lid.

Chunks of black foam held a number of guns, spanning a range of calibers. The collection included a Walther P22Q, a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, a Remington 1911 R1 Commander, and a Desert Eagle.

Virgil grabbed the Desert Eagle and checked the action. It felt stiff. He took a gun cleaning kit from a shelf, sat at a table, and began to work on the gun.

"There is a quarry on the south side," Lisa said. "It's been abandoned for a long time. We could meet there."

"I don't like the idea of being trapped in a big hole," Virgil said. "We need a location that provides natural ways for us to escape."

"What about a lake? If the meeting goes badly, we can escape underwater. We don't need to breathe. We can stay on the bottom all day if necessary. Water stops bullets, too."

Virgil knew she was right about the protective properties of water. Even a bullet fired from a sniper rifle would only travel a few feet before slowing to a harmless speed.

"The Chicago River," he said. "It's dirty, dark, and cold. We'll be invisible once we're in the water. We don't have body heat, so even thermal cameras won't work."

Lisa nodded. "We'll meet the military on one of the bridges."

"Sounds like we have a basic plan," Sara said. "I'll make the call."

* * *

"Play the recording again," Colonel Knox said. He pressed his phone against his ear and listened carefully.

"This is Detective Sara Blandish again," a woman said. "The Illinois State Police Department still wants answers. The last meeting was unsatisfactory. We know the Office of Experimental Aero-Physics is a cover for a secret military operation. We also know the dead man was Corporal Scott Hartmann. If you want to find out what else we know, call me."

"Thank you," Knox said to an operator back at headquarters. "That's all for now." He hung up his phone.

He settled back in his seat. He was riding in the back of a Humvee with Major Weber. The car was travelling to the site where tonight's experiment would be performed.

"The aliens are taunting us," Knox said. "They think they can draw us into a trap."

"Then it's a good thing we already have them surrounded, sir," Weber said.

Knox nodded. "We'll deal with it later. We have to focus on the experiment."

He looked out the window. The car was driving through the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. The district covered tens of thousands of acres and was the largest of its kind in the United States. As the car passed through the thickly wooded forest, it was easy to forget how close to Chicago he was. He saw no signs of civilization except for the dirt road. There was nothing but nature in all directions.

The car came to a stop with a high squeal from its brakes. Knox zipped up his coat and stepped out. The chilly air turned his breath into fog.

Four other Humvees and two transport trucks were already parked on the side of the narrow road. The advance team had arrived an hour ahead of time to setup the equipment. Lights on stands illuminated the center of a nearby clearing where the experiment would take place. He walked in that direction.

* * *