The Blueprint (The Upgrade Book 1) (27 page)

“You haven’t actually answered my question,” Latham said.

“Okay,” Victor said, tilting his head to one side that made him look like a bird. “I’ll be as forthright with you as I can. It’s not me who’s trying to play the Organization, but your very employer. Surely, it doesn’t come to me as a surprise that the man of his stature and ambition won’t be happy as the second in command.”

“Are you saying,” started Latham.

“All I’m saying is this is not the time to challenge my authority,” said Victor fiercely, “and I won’t allow Alex to jeopardize years of work just because his ego is too fucking large. The coup has just failed. We’re hunted by the international off-the-books agency called the Unit, which has the authority to kill our members. I’d say it’s a wrong time to try to weaken the organization from within.”

“Why don’t you talk to him then?” asked Latham. “Why all this secrecy? Mr. Engel is a practical man, and if you appeal to his logic I’m sure he’ll listen.”

“Oh, I tried, Mr. Watkins. My father and I have done more for Mr. Engel and his father than anyone else. We helped them build their empire; we eliminated their enemies,
including
the man who founded the Unit. You ever heard of Andrew Hunt? No? No matter. Oh, I’ve tried plenty.”

“Maybe I could talk to him,” Latham said, feeling sheer terror start to settle in.

“Oh yes, you will,” said Victor, nodding to the giant and standing. “You’ll send him a message on my behalf.”

Massive hands grabbed Watkins and half dragged, half carried him toward 6
th
Avenue. Just now he noticed a limousine parked on the other side of the road.

“We’ll strip your flesh and shorten your limbs, which might take a few days,” said Victor, “then return you to Alex while you’re still breathing. Maybe that would penetrate that thick egotistical skull of his.”

As Latham struggled in the giant’s hands, all he could think of was Lily as she was walking away and waving her little hand.

When Chuck woke up it was still dark. It was just after six, which meant he slept for almost sixteen hours. He stayed immobile for a few moments, enjoying the silence. It was nice to be in bed and not worry about anything. Even for a short while.

The first thing he did after leaving Jesse Klein’s house was visit his safe deposit box in midtown. While it carried some risk of being seen, he didn’t think it was too dangerous. He didn’t think anybody knew about this account, and he also didn’t have any choice. Chuck needed to lay low, which meant he couldn’t use his credit cards, and the box had twelve thousand dollars in cash, another Chiappa Rhino revolver, and four boxes of ammo. Once he retrieved the box, Chuck bought a cheap tablet, checked into a motel in the grimy Alphabet City, ordered some pizza and beer, then went straight to bed.

It was time to get moving, though. He took a quick shower, grabbed his tablet, and headed out looking for the nearest coffee shop with an Internet connection. He found one just a block from the hotel, squeezed between a laundry place and a pawn shop. An old Asian lady took his money without saying a word, made him a cup of coffee and a bagel, and waved her hand in the direction of a few dirty tables in the back.

He sat in the farthest corner, positioning himself so whoever was in the little café couldn’t see the screen of his tablet. Chuck brought up the login screen of the police department and stared at it for a few seconds.

What now?
he mused to himself, weighing his options. Chuck couldn’t log in as himself, that was clear. First off, his access was probably suspended, and even if it wasn’t, it would immediately set off bells somewhere in the police department. Of course, he could use Ryan’s login information. It was against regulations, but most partners knew each other’s passwords. It was inevitable.

The problem with that approach was that it couldn’t work simultaneously from two locations. If he tried to log in at the same time as Ryan was logged in himself, the system would automatically lock both points of entry and notify the IT department of a possible breach.

Chuck took a sip of coffee and considered his options. Finally, he typed in Ryan’s badge number and a password. He stared at the screen for a few moments and hit “Enter.”

The screen blinked, and a second later he was looking at the homepage of the internal website. He needed to work quickly. Fumbling with the touchscreen keyboard, he typed
JASON HUNT
into the query system.

W
hat the hell,
he said out loud, looking at Jason’s mugshot,
conspiracy, insider trading, cyber terrorism.

He leaned in, reading the brief description of the charges in Jason’s file, then clicked on the Evidence tab. It was empty. Chuck frowned and clicked on the Witness Accounts tab to find it empty as well.

It doesn’t smell right,
he thought, doing a quick search of known associates. He read a quick note of Jason’s wife passing. It surely seemed the guy had hit a treasure trove of bad luck.

Chuck continued to dig. The name of Maximilian Schlager kept coming up, and when Kowalsky ran his phone records there were dozens of calls between him and Jason.

They must be friends,
he thought, looking at the frequency and length of conversations between the two.

He reached for the corner of the page to log out of the system, but then decided to check Jason’s profile one more time. He re-read the brief description of the charges, then noticed that the tab titled “Misc” had a small number (1) on it, indicating that there was a file attached to it. Chuck clicked on the tab, opened the one-page attachment, and stared at the document for a few moments.

Shit,
he finally said, then he logged out.

•     •     •

“How much does Helen know?” Mike asked as he watched the security feed from Christopher Toro’s building.

“Pretty much everything.” Max shrugged. “Without her code we wouldn’t be able to pull it off, so I had to tell her. Alex had some black hats doing exactly what we were doing.”

“But they were caught by surprise,” said Mike.

“Yes,” Max said, “and there aren’t a lot of people as good as she is. So what’s the verdict with the building?”

“It’s an easy lock to pick,” Mike said, switching the view between the cameras. “I’m just trying to make sure there are no other surprises there, that’s all.”

A doorbell rang, its melodic tones echoing through the penthouse.

“Waiting for anyone?” Mike whispered, pulling out a gun.

“No,” Max whispered back and looked at his watch. “Helen shouldn’t be here for another couple of hours.”

“Ok, let’s go.” Mike started walking toward the door, trying not to make any noise. “Stand by the door where the hinges are and ask who this is, but do
not
look through the peephole, understand?”

“Sure.”

The doorbell rang again, longer this time. Connelly took a position by the kitchen, aiming his gun at the door.

“Who is it?” Max said, positioning himself in the corner.

“I’m looking for Mr. Schlager,” said the voice.

“You can open the door,” said Mike loudly, startling Max.

Detective Chuck Kowalsky was standing in the doorway, incredulously looking Mike up and down.

“I guess after everything I’ve seen, I shouldn’t be surprised,” he finally said. “May I come in?”

“Who is this guy?” said Max, still suspicious.

“I’m the guy who saved his ass,” said Chuck pointing at Mike, “and I’m also the guy who knows how to find Jason Hunt.”

“Ryan?” asked Mike.

“Dirty,” said Chuck with disgust, “so can I come in or what?”

“Sure,” said Max, as Mike nodded his approval.

“On second thought…” Chuck remained standing at the door. “It would be best if we shared stories on our way to get Jason. Can we drive?”

•     •     •

Mike listened to Chuck’s story in the back of Max’s car as they made their way uptown. He quietly cursed when Kowalsky got to the part where he’d found Jesse’s body.

“Jesse was a good guy,” he said. “It’s a shame.”

“So how are we getting Jason out?” said Max, “I’m still unclear on this. Is he still under arrest?”

“I don’t believe so,” Mike heard Chuck say. “I think they dropped the charges today, so for now he’s in the hospital. I don’t know the details, but sounds like he got into a fight when he was getting processed.”

“Why didn’t he contact Max?” said Connelly. “Let’s be careful here.”

“Agreed.”

They parked a block away from the clinic and walked the rest of the way. Max talked to the receptionist and got back to the party.

“He’s on the second floor, room 216,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Mike limped behind the group, trying to keep up as they walked up the stairs. The room was at the end of the wing, its windows facing the river.

They knocked on the door, but there was no answer, and Max opened the door and walked in. Kowalsky was next, and Mike entered the room last. The room had three beds, the two by the wall empty, and on the third bed, facing the window, laid a skinny one-armed man, a bloody bandage covering the stump where his right arm had been.

“She gave us the wrong room,” Mike heard Max say, “let’s go back.”

“I don’t think she did,” he said, grabbing Max’s arm and stopping him.

The man on the bed moved and slowly turned around. Blood-shot eyes looked at the three men from the gaunt face.

“Hey, Max,” the man said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“What’d I miss?” asked Jason, awkwardly maneuvering the fork with his left hand. He and Max stayed in the kitchen after everyone else retired for the night.

“Well, besides the coup and global conspiracies?” Max tried to sound light, but it wasn’t working.

“How’s the firm?”

“In dire straits,” He saw Max making an effort not to look at his stump. “At this rate we’ll be bankrupt in less than two months. Guardian has been taking away our contracts one by one.”

“How?”

“They just undercut our prices, and I mean by a large margin. I’m certain they’re losing money on what they take from us, but they’re so cash rich, they don’t care. They just want to suffocate us. The losses they incur in the process don’t even move the meter for their bottom line.”

“I was afraid he might do something like that.” Jason finally gave up on the fork and picked up a glass of scotch. At least holding glasses wasn’t too difficult.

“What should we do?”

“Complete reorg,” he said. “I’ve had some time to think since I landed in the hospital, so I have a plan. First, we need to take the company private.”

“Private, why?”

“Less transparency,” said Jason. “No reporting requirements would mean no one will know how much cash we have on hand, what contracts we sign, nothing like that. We can’t compete with a behemoth like Guardian if they can count every penny in our pockets.”

“I like it,” said Max. “What else?”

“None of it matters if we’re not making any money,” Jason said. “I’m not too crazy about this, but I’ll have to try to pull some of my dad’s connections to see if they can help us secure some DOD work.”

He swirled the brown liquid in his glass and downed it in one shot. The warmth from the drink was numbing the dull pain in his shoulder. It felt good.

“There’s nothing wrong in reaching out to people in your dad’s network. I’m glad.” Max hesitated for a moment. “I’m glad they dropped the charges. I felt. I feel responsible for what happened to you.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Jason looked at his friend and smiled a tired smile. “I got myself into this mess, but the more I think about it, Rachel would approve.”

“The hack?”

“Not just the hack, the whole thing.” He made a sweeping gesture with his glass. “I never believed in what she was working on. But after what I’ve seen at Asclepius and everything that happened, I think I was a fool.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, these technologies that she was working on are the future. Augmentation is the next logical step in our evolution.”

“It’s hard to argue with what you’re saying,” said Max smiling, “considering that there are actual cyborgs. I mean, shit, there are
actual cyborgs.
”

“And this is just the first crude step,” said Jason. “Like everything else, this technology will get better, cheaper, and smaller.”

“You mean like a brick-sized cellphone?”

“Exactly. She could see it,” he said. “She could see from the beginning, and that just tells you how much smarter she was than I. But there’s something else that I can see now. This technological leap is different from everything we’ve had so far. The last two decades have created an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots. This technological revolution will create gods. The rest will become servants and slaves.”

“That sounds a bit extreme,” Max said. “Luddites thought the Industrial Revolution was going to take away the jobs. It did take away some, but it created so much more. And that was the case every time technology made a breakthrough.

“Yes,” he said, nodding in agreement. “Farmer’s kids became engineers, and engineer’s kids became programmers, and so on.”

“So what makes you think this time around it’s different?”

“It is and it isn’t,” Jason said. “What’s similar is that despite creating more jobs than it was taking away new technologies were widening the gap between the rich and the poor.”

“But society pushed back,” Max protested. “When inequality becomes too great, you get unions, antitrust laws. and so on.”

“Once again true. But the gap was growing anyway. The company owners, the CEOs who used to make ten times the money their workers made, started to make one hundred times the money. And then a thousand times. Greater and greater amounts of wealth were being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.”

“Alright,” said Max, pouring them another round of scotch, “but as long as you create wealth, it has to go around. The wealthy spend more money than the poor. Those yachts they buy, and jets and other toys redistributes their wealth.”

“They only spend more in absolute terms,” Jason said, accepting the drink. “Those expensive toys only go that far. The majority of their wealth is passive investments that make them even wealthier without adding anything to the society as a whole.”