Rich Man's War (8 page)

“Now, Edwin,” said Brekhov, his gaze shifting and his demeanor softening somewhat, “did you have more to share? We are all listening.”

To his credit, Garber took the interruption in stride. “The rest of the data I have to share is in my report, and I know the committee has more pressing business.”

“Nothing is more important than the situation with Archangel, Edwin,
and you are at the fore of one of our key points of concern. But in terms of timeliness, yes, we have other matters to attend.” Brekhov’s eyes flicked over to a couple of other executives—one of them Commodore Eldridge, the uniformed head of NorthStar’s Security Fleet. “We’ll pick up with those matters after lunch.”

Scattered conversations began as Brekhov and a couple of other executives left.
Other attendees, Sarah included, began gathering their things. Many would not be back after lunch. As exclusive and tightly-managed as attendance was for this meeting, the list of individuals involved in the security meeting would be smaller. Neither Sarah nor her boss had any business at that table.

Greg would be there, though, as would the quiet, unobtrusive program Sarah had loaded onto his holocom during their chat.

She wondered how anyone who did this sort of thing for a career could live in such a state of constant paranoia. It surely wasn’t what she’d have wanted to do with her life. By comparison, being one of NorthStar’s executives seemed like a relaxing job.

* * *

Six hours later, Sarah rode the elevator sixty-three floors to the suites at the top of the Fairhaven Hotel. She felt certain that everyone in a two mile radius could hear her hands vibrate and was simply too polite to say anything about it.

No one batted an eye at her in the lobby. No one rode the elevator with her. It was always like t
his. Perfectly calm, perfectly casual and perfectly nerve-wracking.

In the movies, meetings like this always happened in public, right under everyone’s nose. They happened in parks. In restaurants. On waterfronts. Something about the scenery seemed to say, “No one would dare shoot us out here.” In reality, she found, this sort of thing generally occurred in private.

Finding the correct room, Sarah glanced up one end of the hall and down the other—she couldn’t help herself—and then pressed the door chime. A moment later, the door opened. She walked inside.

It was a pleasant suite. Clean, comfortable, quiet. Nice artwork and furnishings. Probably a nice view, but for the closed blinds on the windows. Sarah could afford this on her own. Her boss would’ve considered these accommodations rough living.

“It’s good to see you, Sarah,” said the sole occupant of the suite. Vanessa extended her hand, smiling warmly. Her clothing was a touch more business casual than Sarah’s suit, but she wouldn’t look out of place at Sarah’s side. The outfit complimented Vanessa’s light brown skin and took advantage of her athletic build. Sarah wondered where Vanessa could be hiding her gun. Movies suggested that a spy like Vanessa could have a weapon hidden in the back of her collar, tucked under her long black hair. Then again, Sarah’s experience with Vanessa had her abandoning everything she’d ever heard before about spies.

Vanessa snapped her thoughts back toward conversation. “Any trouble getting here?”

“No. Not at all.” Sarah shook Vanessa’s hand, then took a seat at the small table.

“Are you nervous?”

Sarah blinked. “Do I look nervous?”

“No,” Vanessa said, still with a calm smile. “You cover it well.”

“I am, a little, actually, yes.”

“Tell anyone where you were going?”

“Nobody asked, so no.”

“Good. Then I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” She then fell silent. Sarah, too, fell silent, and the silence quickly became awkward. The door chime rang again. “That should be Raoul,” Vanessa said, rising to get the door.

“Raoul?” Sarah blinked again. “Who’s Raoul?”

“He’s your cover,” Vanessa grinned a bit mischievously. “Just let me handle this part.” Crossing the room, Vanessa checked the screen at the control panel and then opened the door to greet a tall
, unarguably handsome young man in a suit.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Raoul.”

“Yes, you are,” Vanessa agreed with a decidedly flirtatious tone. “Raoul, could you wait in the other room, please?”

Raoul glanced at Sarah, then back to Vanessa and nodded. “Of course,” he said as if there was nothing at all odd about this. He
walked to the bedroom and shut the door behind him.

“What’s
that about?” Sarah asked.

“I thought you might have been nervous at your meeting. You came to an upscale hotel instead of going home. I wanted to provide some plausible explanation in case anyone is watching you.”

Sarah’s head turned toward the closed bedroom door, then back toward Vanessa. “That man’s a prostitute.”

“Mm-hmm,” Vanessa nodded. “
Licensed, certified and worth every bit of his fee, or so I’m reliably told. I haven’t tried him out myself.”

“You want people to think I’m having a fling with a prostitute.”

“I want people to think you aren’t doing anything odd at all,” Vanessa corrected. “But if they do think you’re acting suspiciously, I’d prefer it be over something harmless. No one who’d keep tabs on you would think a fling with a prostitute is something to cover up—but
you
would, and those people would know that about you.”

Sarah wanted to be mad. As she considered her retort, though, she realized that Vanessa was absolutely right. She’d have laughed it off if she had discovered any of her friends or co-workers hired a prostitute. She wouldn’t have thought it virtuous behavior, but as personal scandals went, it was pretty mild. Sarah didn’t exactly have anyone to cheat on.

“That guy looks young enough to be my son.”

“Mm-hmm,” came Vanessa’s teasing nod. “Maybe he is. It’s just embarrassing enough to keep secret, but not a security concern.”

Sarah looked toward the door again. “So he’s just going to sit in there?”

“If that’s what’s asked of him, yes. He’ll
stay until we’re finished, and then I’ll leave. And then he’ll wait around until after you’ve left. You should let him know when you go, of course. But if you just want him to sit in there, he’ll do exactly that. It happens. He won’t tell a soul about sitting in that room alone for an hour… or about whatever else you might ask of him. He’s a professional, and he’ll be paid regardless.

“Like I said,” Vanessa continued, “I wanted to provide a plausible explanation for your nerves and your whereabouts. That’s why he’s here. What you do with him when I’m gone is entirely up to you. I
won’t judge.”

Sarah put a hand on her face and
laughed. “This is beyond surreal.”

“Should we get down to it, then?”

At that, Sarah took a deep breath. “Yes. We should. There’s a lot to tell you.”

“Did you try the ghost program?”

“Yes. I loaded it onto the holocom of the executive personal assistant to Jon Weir, Chief Administrative Officer. I opened up another exchange with him to extract everything after the security meeting broke up. I only tried it the once, like you said.”

“That’s outstanding, Sarah,” said Vanessa, not bothering to hide her interest or her appreciation. “One target is all we need. Trying for more would only lead to more chances of exposure. I felt torn about asking you to try this at all. Taking risks is supposed to be my job, not yours. At any rate, you’re here, and you pulled it off. Let’s do the transfer.” She produced a small device from one pocket. It looked more like a fat pen or marker than a piece of jewelry or any more elegant style of holocom, but Sarah knew it had considerably more functions than the average personal computer. “How did the meeting go? They discussed the primary debt payment issue?”

“Oh, yes. They discussed that.” Sarah pulled off her earring holocom and placed it on the table. She activated it with a swipe of her finger, then brushed her hands over the holographic screen to key in her security codes. “Debt collection, PR campaigning, education plans and more. Even the usual stuff that gets covered in these meetings like stock performance and new product roll-outs were oriented toward the Archangel issue. They talked a bit about Hashem, too, but every time it came up they tabled it until later in the day, so I didn’t hear much about that.”

Vanessa set up her holocom for the file transfer and put it next to Sarah’s. “Just call up the files and let them play through. This will run optic scans so there won’t be any record of a file transfer or duplication. Run it on fast forward. I’ll still catch everything.”

Sarah did as directed, watching images and spreadsheets fly across her screen. She didn’t have a visual recording, but she had crystal clear audio along with copies of each file shared at the meeting. In the morning, she would compile a condensed version for Garber’s easy reference. Before that, she would erase everything taken from Greg’s unwitting file transfer.

“You don’t seem nervous anymore,” Vanessa observed, though her eyes watched the file
icons flash by. On a second screen, the automated transcript of the meeting as recorded by Greg’s holocom scrolled along.

“I don’t? How do I seem?”

“Angry.”

Sarah didn’t think she seemed angry at all. Vanessa was good. “It’s in the files I
grabbed on my own. It’s about the Test this year, and things Edwin has said that I’ve had to look up. The whole thing is rigged, Vanessa. the Test has a sub-routine that measures how students perform and adjusts the questions as it plays through to double-up wherever a student is weak. It’s not disclosed in any of the public documents or the contracts.”

“Mm-
hm,” Vanessa nodded. Her eyes didn’t come off of the flashing screens.

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“We’ve suspected that for a long time. A lot of people have.”

“Well, now you have proof.”

Again, Vanessa just nodded. “That’s a major coup, Sarah,” she said, still not meeting her eyes. “I’m listening to you. This is a big deal. I’m just looking for something that may be time-sensitive. But I hear you.”

“Tell me that doesn’t make you mad,” Sarah dared her quietly.

“It does,” conceded Vanessa.

The spy didn’t seem mad. She didn’t seem anything. Yet Sarah was
sure she detected sympathy. “They think they’re so much smarter than everyone else,” Sarah said.

“How long have you worked at this level?” Vanessa asked with a wry grin
.

“Twenty-two years, after forty years working my way up. I used to consider myself lucky, you know. School debts covered. University paid off. Longevity treatments. Healthy, happy kids. NorthStar provided all of that… and then I read the files and find things like this. I wish to God I could just leave.”

Vanessa glanced up at her. “Why don’t you?”

“They’d never let me go. You know that. They’d ruin me in a heartbeat.”

The spy slowly shook her head. “The minute you want to go, say so. You’ve done more than anyone could’ve asked for already. If you want to disappear, you just let us know and we’ll get you out. Your kids, too. I guarantee you we can place you with a good employer and your kids in good universities. We may not find a match for your salary, but you’d be comfortable and safe. You’ve done more than enough for that.”

Sarah snorted. “Are you going to be one of my references? You could tell people all about how faithfully I served my previous employer.”

Vanessa paused the transfer. “Sarah, do you know what they look for when they recruit people like me?” She let the question hang for a moment. “They want someone healthy and smart and quick on her feet. All that. But what they really look for is integrity.
Honesty
. They train us up to lie, cheat and steal and worse, and so the first thing they look for is trustworthiness.

“In eighteen years, Sarah, how many times has someone like me tried to recruit you?”

“Seven.”

“Seven. You turned in every one of them. But not me. Why?”

“Because you didn’t offer me money or sex or any other bullshit.”

Vanessa slowly nodded. “I offered you a chance to do the right thing. A
nd you’ve done it. Over and over.”

Her eyes turned back to the holocoms, where she resumed the file reproducti
on. “As soon as this is done,” Vanessa murmured, “we scour your holocom of everything you recorded. There’ll be even less to trace on it than there is on your friend’s.”

“…I’m not sure I can call him my friend after all this.”

At that, Vanessa merely offered a sympathetic glance. She had nothing comforting to say. Her attention turned back to the flashing files, and finally her sense of urgency got the better of her. She touched the holographic display of her own holocom and said, “Search for words in proximity: Hashem and Archangel or Hashemite and Archangel.”

The display shifted through the transcript to highlight the specified words. Sarah couldn’t read it from where she stood, as the text was all backwards to her, but she watched Vanessa’s eyes move. “Expand to related document displays,” Vanessa instructed. More screens appeared in thin air, showing lists, a star chart with travel times, pictures of people and a couple of well-annotated city maps.