Luthecker (15 page)

For Brown, that task was just the first order of business. The second was to task the Coalition Properties West Intel Unit to start a file, which would include prep for Citywide lock down procedures if necessary. He had also re-tasked one of the Lacrosse Reconnaissance spy satellites he had at his disposal, one equipped with Synthetic Aperture Radar, a patented Coalition Technology design that allowed observation at night and through cloud cover, ordering the geosynchronous device to continually scan the entire area for the digitized images of Luthecker and his accomplices. In short, he had Luthecker in his sights, and even though he did not know his exact location at the moment, the young man couldn’t go anywhere without his knowledge. Brown had him on electronic lock down. His plan was not to capture the young man by force, but instead, pressure him to walk in on his own. If Luthecker was actually capable of what Brown and his psychiatric analysts had theorized, the young man could prove to be an enormous asset to the Coalition family. And because of this perceived value, the situation had to be carefully managed and as normalcy-biased as possible, so as to minimize the intangibles that were inevitable with any form of resistance.

He quickly sifted through the security file, and did a precursory glance over the initial target backgrounds from that evening. The first was a man by the name of Yaw Chinomso. Thirty-one years old. Parents emigrated from Ghana in the sixties. Settled in the Detroit inner city, father an assembly-line worker for the auto industry. Managed to retire with a decent middle-class pension before that industry fell apart. Yaw had several run-ins with the law as a teenager. Mostly petty crime related incidents, loitering and such, as well as resisting arrest. Most young black males in America encountered some form of police brutality or discrimination in their lifetime, and Yaw was no different. His experiences set in motion an all too common pattern of behavior that disenfranchised the young man from the system. He got out of the Detroit City wasteland and moved to Los Angeles at eighteen, where he worked on and off as a bouncer and construction worker, cash only employment, to this day. There were no known gang affiliations.

Pressure points for this target were minimal. He had only one brother, four years his senior, serving time for armed robbery. No records of visitation in the last three years. His father was a heavy smoker, and died from lung cancer three years ago. His mother, seventy-one years old, still lived in the family’s Detroit home. Maybe he could do something with the mother, Brown thought.

Next, he looked at photos of Camila Ramirez. No Social Security number. Brown smiled to himself. She was an illegal immigrant, and therefore an easy target. He could arrest her on the spot, hold her indefinitely, no Miranda’s, no rights, nothing. Enhanced interrogation techniques were an option in this case, with very little potential for blowback, he mused.

Next, Chris Aldrich. Twenty-five years old. Aldrich was a good-looking young man from a rather wealthy family out of South Carolina. The father was fairly active in the Conservative community, and had thinly veiled ties to local racist groups. “Lowell Aldrich” and his son’s relationship was strained to say the least- Chris had been jailed for assault when he was seventeen, after he sent his father to the hospital with a broken jaw. This kind of information was something Aldrich more than likely did not share with his “street friends.” A different kind of leverage here, Brown considered.

The first three files were easy enough to maximize. They were all low impact, sub-system individuals, easy enough to compromise to his advantage, depending on the nature of their relationship to Luthecker. However it was the final profile that captured Brown’s interest the most. He had no idea how this fourth individual fit into the equation.

The field agent who made initial contact, one Marcus Stern, claimed to have witnessed an exchange of information between this woman and Luthecker right before the agent did something unconscionably stupid, which was to attack the young man before he had fully assessed the situation.

This particular target, a twenty-five year old named Nicole Ellis, did not fit the pattern of the rest. Until very recently, she had been domiciled in an upscale district of Manhattan. She had been a very successful trader in crude oil futures, making considerable sums of money, before being on the wrong side of the attack that recently took place on a Saudi Oil refinery. It had bankrupted the firm she had worked for, Kittner-Kusch. Not surprisingly, this resulted in her termination, but in a mildly interesting twist, spending records seemed to imply company founder Michael Kittner and Ms. Ellis were involved.

Brown was much more concerned about what her connection to Luthecker was. What was the basis for their relationship? Desperation? Profit? What information had been exchanged? With Alex’ potential, was there some sort of collusion going on to game the markets? Was there an attempt to exact revenge on her former boss and lover in all this? These were the first things that came to Brown’s mind, and he had to know the specifics. Luthecker could potentially introduce a considerable amount of chaos into the carefully controlled market system, were he so inclined. And if that were the case, he had to be stopped. Brown decided that for the moment, she would be his primary target, although he certainly wouldn’t ignore the others.

Finding her was easy enough. Her brother had been seriously injured in a rather horrific car accident that same evening, less than an hour after initial contact, and his life hung in the balance. She currently sat holding vigil at her brother’s bedside at Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. He already had a team specializing in these matters on its way to observe her. And since Brown’s main office was also in New York, only a few blocks from the offices of Kittner-Kusch, he also decided he would pay Michael Kittner a little visit.

REGROUP

A
lex and his three colleagues lay crashed out nearly on top of one another on the floor of Master Winn’s single apartment. After Joey Nguyen picked them up and they cleared the area of town where Club Sutra was located, he ran parallels along side streets until he was sure they weren’t being followed. Once he was certain there was no tail, Nguyen dropped them off roughly a mile from Winn’s home, where they split up as a precaution, agreeing to meet at Winn’s, inform him about what had happened, and seek his council. When they all arrived at his apartment, it was nearly three a.m. Winn had listened to them intently, not showing any reaction to the events they shared that had happened earlier at the club, and had said that for the time being, their safest choice was to remain in his apartment. He suggested that they get some rest, and they would discuss their options, and the fate of the courier mission, in the morning.

Alex stirred, and propped himself on his elbow. When he realized where he was, he quickly sat up and got his bearings. He checked his watch. 6:14am. Less than three hours of sleep.

Yaw and Camila were laying next to him, huddled close to one another, while Chris lay on his side and perpendicular to them, his face to the wall.

“You’re awake.’ He heard Winn speak, barely above a whisper. Alex sat up and looked over to his instructor, sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, watching over them. He also noticed that Winn had already packed his few belongings. This would be his last night here as well.

“Wake the others. We have to speak.”

• • •

“We need to know. It’s only fair. I mean, they’re going to be after us now too.” Chris Aldrich spoke, putting voice to what they were all thinking, as the small group sat in a tightly clustered semi-circle on the floor of Master Winn’s apartment. They all looked at Alex, whose head was down, his eyes aimed at the floor.

“I should have never gone out last night.” He answered, slowly shaking his head, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Shut the front door.” Camila spoke, loud enough to make the others jump. “Whether you like it or not Alex, we’re family.” She continued.

They all looked at her. Despite her independent personality, Camila had a strong maternal instinct. She tended to default to the welfare of the others over her own, and when she decided she had something to say, she had the floor. Not afraid to be direct, she never used profanity, ever, no matter how emotional her state was. It simply wasn’t lady like. Instead, she chose colorful but inoffensive substitutes plugged into the same linguistic rhythm as their more profane counterparts. She never failed to get her point across.

“Have you killed somebody? Robbed a bank? Fruited the wrong girl? Why are they after you? What’ve you been hiding from us all this time?” She asked, although instinctively she already knew that Alex wasn’t capable of any of those things.

Alex looked over his friends.

“We got your back, Doctor Alex.” Yaw finally added.

Alex looked over at Master Winn, who sat at the head of the circle. Winn said nothing, but only looked at Alex and then to the others, wanting the group to sort this out amongst themselves.

Alex looked over his loose band of friends. He had never discussed his perceptive abilities with anyone, had never trusted anyone in his past enough, but he owed these people. They had risked their lives to save him, and Chris was right- now the Black Hats would be after them as well.

He didn’t know how to begin. He would do his best to explain it to them, and in his mind if they collectively deemed him a threat to their welfare and decided to kick him out of the group, he would accept their judgment.

They all looked at him for an answer.

“The black hats are after me because of what I can do.”

They waited for more.

“I can see what happens in people’s lives, before they actually happen.” He continued.

No one said a word.

Camila was the first to speak.

“What the fruit are you talking about?”

Alex took a deep breath, and looked at each of them, before explaining.

“Most people behave in very predictable patterns. Everyone knows that. It’s just- I can see those patterns from the beginning. In extreme detail. Enough detail, to know how it all ends for someone.”

They all looked at one another before responding. Chris spoke first.

“Are you saying you’re psychic or something?” He asked.

“God no. It’s not…”

Alex stopped. He took a moment for patience, trying to think of the right way to explain it to them without losing them.

“Look- The whole Universe is made up of patterns.” He continued.

“Thousands of trillions of them, most too subtle to detect, but many are very visible, to everyone. The Ocean tides follow the lunar cycle. A pattern. The planting of crops follows the seasons. A pattern. Animals migrate on a regular schedule. A pattern. Music, language, science, the cycle of life, all of it, it follows a pattern. Everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Everything. To each individual thing, its own pattern. And all of the patterns combined form what I call “the momentum”. The direction of the universe. The momentum itself is too chaotic and complex to see, but if you can solve for the individual patterns, you can construct the fate of the thing or person you are watching, from it. And I can do that, with people.”

He looked at his friends, and saw nothing but blank stares in return.

“Here’s another way to look at it. How do you do something that’s never been done before? Say…”

He paused as he tried to think of an example.

“Say sending a man to the moon. When you’ve never even been to space. How do you do it? You see it in your mind first. Then you study the patterns of how the Universe behaves, physics and math and whatever, and you build tools that take advantage of that behavior. And that creates the future.”

“Those are the laws of nature. People are different.” Yaw challenged.

“People are part of nature.”

“They have free will.” Yaw countered.

“Not as much as they think they do. They usually surrender it early on, their decision-making skills influenced by a very small bandwidth of experiences in their lives. And they rarely move beyond that. Look, it’s not that hard. It’s just a matter of…” He trailed off, wary once again of scaring them off.

“A matter of what?” Camila prompted.

“Paying attention. To everything. Not missing a single thing.” Alex answered.

Chris, Yaw, and Camila looked at one another, not sure what to make of Alex’ explanation. Yaw spoke next.

“So what’s my story then, Doctor Alex? What’s my future got in store? Enough with the mumbo-jumbo. I sucked in math. Just call it brother. If you can really do what you say can, when you look at me, what do you see?” He asked.

Alex hesitated.

“I don’t…”

“Hey, I asked for it. Lay it on me.” Yaw cut him off.

Alex looked straight at Yaw.

“You have an older brother. By four years. He’s in prison.” Alex said to him, never breaking eye contact.

Yaw’s jaw dropped. He never shared that with anyone, not even Camila.

“How…?”

“Because for Christ’s sake, you act like a younger brother, who doesn’t want to follow in his older brother’s footsteps. It’s all over everything you do. The way you walk, your choice of words, your choice of clothes, your need to prove yourself, over and over again, your amplified sense of honor and the lines you and I both know you won’t cross, and that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I see.” Alex blurted out, like it should be obvious, the frustration in his voice growing.

He had Yaw stunned, and he didn’t let up.

“But that’s not what matters. What matters is you knew he would end up there, didn’t you? You
saw
it, growing up. It was only a matter of time, but you
knew
it. In other words, you saw his fate. And you didn’t like it one bit. It broke your father’s heart. In your mind, it wasn’t just the cigarettes that killed him, was it?”

Yaw was suddenly on his feet, an emotional wound torn back open, his eyes hard locked on Alex.