What am I missing?
Colette continues to drive us toward the committee headquarters. Sam wires more off-grid tech into the car. Even Mia seems ready, pointing her dart gun at the windows and practicing a steady aim.
But my mind whirs. Jovana was recruited almost two years ago. Had to be, since she was set up in that slave bunker by the time I met her. Sutherland, or someone close to him, had to have falsified her information on the network.
After we blew up the sex slave operation, I didn’t think I’d see her again, but she showed up two days later, picked up by a Phase Three. She was blubbering about the “hero who had bought her.”
I took her in.
She behaved so believably, broken by her training, no longer saucy and spirited. That was the personality they had forced on her, she said.
In jail, thinking this over, I knew they had reviewed recordings of our interactions and decided that she had taken the wrong tack with me. So they came up with a new approach. I had no illusions by then that she had ever cared about me, or that the relationship we forged from her alleged “recovery” was real.
I just wanted revenge.
I had no idea how big this was. What a small role Jovana was actually playing in the overarching plot.
But why now? What is going on at HQ that Sutherland needs to stage this sort of grand-scale takeover?
“All right,” Sam says, interrupting my thoughts. “Here’s the overall layout of the facility.” He brings up a map on the screen. “The committee members all have assigned entrances. Nobody comes in the same way.” He points at yellow boxes. “Sutherland’s offices are here.” He jabs at a green section.
“The so-called War Room is over in this area.” It lights up red. “Six floors underground. Two entrances. Both will have scanners. None of us with kill orders are going to be eligible to pass through.” Sam glances back at us.
“So you’re relying on me to get in?” Mia asks.
“Not sure that even you can make it,” Sam says. “But at least the security won’t snuff you as soon as you hit the first scan.”
“They have that sort of system?” Colette asks.
“Hell yeah,” Sam says. “Darts on every entrance.”
“We should carry antidotes with us,” Colette says.
“Yes,” Sam says. “Although they may have their own cocktail.”
“Great,” she mutters. “Two darts in a day.”
Sam hands me one of his pass keys, the type I used on the Missouri silo and the civilian car. “These have been very useful,” I tell him.
“It isn’t going to work anywhere important, but it will help you move around the building,” he says. “Just don’t expect it to stop any scanners or darts.”
I nod. I tuck the clear strip into a pocket. “I’ve verified that the weapon sweeps don’t catch it.”
Sam nods. “Good.”
Both he and Colette look up as the HQ building looms ahead. It’s a nondescript office building for a financial services company. But only thelobby and a few fake offices continue the ruse. The upper floors are all administrative, development, and tech offices. Below is where all the real action is. Steel and concrete bunkers with the mother lode of security.
Nobody gets out of there if the system itself doesn’t want it. It’s nominally monitored by humans, but the heart of the algorithm is determined by risk assessment and the information network that runs the U.S. syndicate.
And this computer system isn’t going to care for us one bit.
“So do we just park out front?” Colette asks.
“Blend in with civilian traffic,” Sam says.
We drive along the street and turn a corner to continue circling the building. “There’s a hotel,” I tell Colette. “Park in their garage. When we get out of this, we can meet back up here or get back together in two days in our usual spot.”
“What’s the usual spot?” Mia asks.
