The Protectors (29 page)

CHAPTER 51

T
ucker bolted upright and his chair clattered against the cement floor. He backed against the two-way mirror, thrusting the switch forward with a ramrod-straight arm.

“Don’t!” he yelled. He half turned to the window. “Get in here and disable McAlister!”

I remained seated, hands on the desk. “Easy . . . just sit down and relax.” I kept my voice as calm and reassuring as possible. “I’m not going to do anything to you. You’ve got Lyla’s life in your hands. Let’s talk for a minute.”

He didn’t move. “Send security in here, now!”

“They’re not coming.”

Tucker paused, analyzing the situation. Didn’t take him long to realize; regardless of whatever poker hand my powers gave me, he still held the ace in his right fist. With a portion of his confidence returned, Tucker repositioned the chair and sat down.

“So what’s your plan?” he said. “Kill me, rescue the girl? Because you can’t do both. More personnel, the military . . . they’re on the way. Even if you dropped everyone in the bunker but me, more are coming.”

“Excellent. Let’s wait for them together. I have more to tell you anyway.”

“If I were you, I’d speed it along,” he said. Brave words, but the oil slick of nervous sweat on his forehead betrayed Tucker’s indignant tone.

I motioned to Reyes’s unconscious body. “Look, I’m as surprised as you are. Small shocks of electricity always screwed me up. I figured a
bigger one would ruin me. Turns out fifty thousand volts from the big guy’s Taser did exactly what Blaster was supposed to. It fixed me.”

“I didn’t realize you were broken.”

“Me neither. But I was. The mind reading was barely useful. The pain I had to endure just to take a peek at somebody’s thoughts was unbearable. Then Reyes lights me up like a pinball machine, and zap! No more pain.”

Tucker’s face went pale.

“Yep. And don’t bother with that ridiculous internal singing. No pain means I have more than enough focus to get beneath it. I already know the army units out of Fort Meade won’t be here for another half hour.”

His color rushed back and he brandished the switch in my face. “You will stand down, or Ms. Ravzi will die. Last chance.”

“Tucker, do you have any idea how hard it is to hide something from a mind reader? It’s crazy difficult. Even crazier is how fast someone can
change
their mind.”

He looked confused. Understandable.

“Lemme explain. See, when you bolted away from the table, I had a whole scene planned. Great drama, some catchphrases. First, I was gonna threaten your family. What are their names? Ah, perfect. Your wife, Chloe, and ten-year-old son, Sam. I was going to tell you to imagine it wasn’t Lyla’s life you were holding in your fist right now . . . it was their lives. I was going to be all mustache-twirling evil and tell you if Lyla died, I’d kill you, then Chloe and Sam. It’s all bullshit, of course, but I figured it’d be enough to get you to hand me the switch.”

“I wouldn’t have believed you. You’d never kill innocent people.”

“Good call. But see, it doesn’t matter. I scrapped the whole plan when you thought about the switch.”

Tucker wiped his forehead with his free hand. “What are you talking about?”

“The switch. You thought about how when you let go, a signal notifies the nurse to open the valve. It’s not automatic. Letting go doesn’t kill Lyla. The nurse does.”

“So? Why does that matter?”

I reached forward and twisted the monitor around so he could see the nurse, unconscious on the floor behind the gurney.

“She’s sleepy.”

“Whaa . . . that’s not possible! She’s in the training center at the far end of the complex. They’re almost half a mile away.”

I tapped a finger to my temple. “Surprise. My range is a little bigger now. It’s just you and me, buddy. The rest of the George Bush Center for Intelligence is down for the count.”

“Impossible.” He shook his head repeatedly, staring at the useless switch.

I pushed my chair back and stood. Reyes had the handcuff key in his pocket, so I used it and tossed the cuffs on the table. Tucker was numb . . . shutting down. Instead of leaving, I sat down across from him.

“You said something earlier . . . that Lyla was noble, but misguided. I actually agree with you. Like I said, I tried to tell her. I said embracing every government on earth was unrealistic—and too despotic. Finally she got sick of me shooting holes in her plan and told me to come up with a better one. So I did. Would you like to hear it?”

Tucker looked at me but he’d lost the will to talk. Too much concern about the end of his life.

“Lyla had it backward. Governments don’t control money. Money controls governments. We don’t need to embrace twenty thousand politicians in over three hundred countries. We need to embrace the people who control
them.
The rich.”

“What?” Tucker came out of his stupor with a half-interested scowl.

“In fact, I should thank you. The CIA’s way of doing business: keeping the status quo, supporting the rich and powerful, trading on influence around the world . . . it’s done a fabulous job of centralizing wealth. Did you know the one thousand richest people on earth are worth more than six
trillion
dollars? Hell, the top ten have over five hundred billion! Plus they’re not as hard to reach as politicians. Most of them don’t even have bodyguards. And I’m guessing all the Scrooge McDucks like to hang out together, so I bet each one has contact information for another six or seven fellow billionaires. Lyla could cover
that whole thousand in less than a year.”

Tucker groaned, “Why are you bothering to tell me this?”

I smiled. “I’m not telling you. I’m telling the people who are gonna watch these videos.” I pointed at the cameras, still blinking away. “This is the real reason we fought our way in . . . the message I’m here to deliver.

“With Lyla’s help, the billionaires are going to become astonishingly generous. Even the assholes. In fact,
especially
the assholes. By this time next year, we’ll be sitting on top of the largest venture capital fund ever created. And if you think that’s cool, think about this: that fund will also be the biggest political lobby in the history of the world. Politicians will need our help and our money to get elected. And when they do, I guarantee you our new friends in government will start chipping away at those defense budgets and start putting money toward projects that actually help people.”

I got up and walked to one of the cameras and pointed it directly at my face.

“And here’s the best part. The
simple
part. Once we have the money, we’re going to
tell
people about it. Everyone. All seven billion of ’em.

“The hungry. The uneducated. The poor. Middle class. Artists. Scientists. Liberals, conservatives . . . hell, anybody who’ll listen, and I’m pretty sure when you have a couple trillion socked away, it’s easy to find people who’ll listen.

“Once people hear about the money, you know what we’re gonna do? We’re going to start giving it away. Spend it on any project that doesn’t involve ‘defense.’ Anything altruistic, any plan to benefit others, any idea that pushes the envelope. To set an example, we’ve got a couple that’ll get the ball rolling.

“Lyla thinks if we build a few universities, train a couple thousand doctors, and give ’em a few million bucks apiece for new research, we can cure cancer. Me? Well, I bet if we throw a trillion dollars at it, we can speed up the timeline and have fusion power in a decade. Think about that—clean, safe energy worldwide. And what the hell, let’s make it free, too.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg. People all over the world will have
ideas . . . dreams . . . and we’ll give them the resources to chase those dreams down. I want to see what our civilization is capable of when you stop the constant scramble for power and start investing in shit that doesn’t blow up. More than ninety-nine percent of the world wants the opportunity . . . and we’re gonna give it to them. That’s all.

“We’re not taking over. We won’t replace anyone in power. And it’s not like we can keep it up forever . . . but I figure ten years is a good start. Ten years and trillions of dollars to change the world. And the
people
get to decide how to do it.”

Tucker spoke up behind me. “What if some of these governments you hate so much decide your pacifist nirvana isn’t in their best interests? There’s a reason we need armies, McAlister. There’s a
reason
the world needs men like me.” He sounded more desperate than ever.

I made sure the camera saw my grin.

“Then Lyla, Diego, and I do our job,” I said. “Haven’t you heard? We’re the Protectors.”

When I walked back to Tucker, his head was on the table; the guy still thought I was gonna kill him.

“Relax. I don’t want you dead. Not anymore,” I said. He lifted a newly hopeful face. “Tucker, I want you to see that different world. How else can I prove you wrong?”

He took a deep breath. “Ten years is a long time. I think you’ll be surprised at what happens.”

“Don’t worry. For you, the decade will be over in a blink.”

“What?” His eyes bugged out.

I patted one of his shaking hands. “Sorry. Consider it an extended nap, or an ‘asshole tax’ for trying to murder us.” Tucker averted his eyes like a dog expecting a smack.

A savage part of me wanted to keep him cringing for hours, but the practical part remembered the inbound troops. I pulled back to conversational distance and relaxed. “Time to wrap things up. But before I go, I want to know one last thing because I can’t resist. What’s the deepest, darkest secret the Agency’s got?”

His openmouthed gape still focused on the thought of being in a coma for ten years, but his mind heard the question loud and clear. I
expected the answer to who killed JFK, but I hoped for aliens at Area 51. What I got was better than either.

Holy. Shit.

Made me clap my hands in excitement.

“Well, we’re all done here. See you in ten years.”

I raised my hand like the old days.

“Nighty-night, douchebag.”

EPILOGUE

C
ome on! Just a little bit farther.”

I pulled Lyla behind me by the hand. The blindfold was getting on her nerves.

“We’ve been walking for ten minutes. May I please take this off ? I can feel things sticking to me,” she said.

“It’s prairie grass. Nothing is sticking to your clothes, you big baby.”

“I love a surprise as much as the next person, but this is ridiculous. We’ve been on a plane for an hour, a car for another two, and now you’re walking me across a . . . prairie? Please, I’ve had my eyes covered all day!”

Which meant she couldn’t see my smirk. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Of the two of us, I’m not the one with trust issues. I have to beg you not to put me to sleep every time you leave the house.”

“You have a habit of getting into trouble when I’m not around. I can cite references.”

She chuckled. “Still, honesty and trust are the foundation of any solid relationship.”

“I went to a strip club with Diego last week and told fifteen different women I was gay. How’s that trust card working out for ya?”

When I looked back, she was grinning. “Point taken.”

“We’re here.” I removed the blindfold.

Golden afternoon sunlight made her face glow. Her lips parted in a surprised gasp and she pirouetted to take in our surroundings. We stood on a gentle slope covered in three-foot-tall yellow grass. The
grasses extended for miles in every direction, a breeze blowing them into undulating swells. For the first time, I finally understood the “amber waves of grain” lyrics. In the far west, we could see the foothills that eventually grow into the Rocky Mountains. The sky was perfect blue, unblemished by a single cloud.

“This is Colorado?” Her voice was soft, almost reverent. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s the part hardly anyone ever sees. We’re close to the Kansas border.”

She took my hand, then looked at me with concern. “You’re shaking. Are you all right?”

I bobbed up and down a few times, bleeding off nervous energy. “Yeah, I’m just excited. Took me a couple of weeks to find out exactly where to go, and now we’re
here
!”

Down the rise and across a half mile of waving terrain was the only visible dwelling. A squat concrete block of a building, no bigger than an RV, lurked in the middle of acres of grass. There wasn’t even a road leading to the structure; only an imposing perimeter fence, ten feet high with loops of barbed wire atop.

“What is that?” Lyla asked.

“It’s the entrance to an underground missile silo. An old one, taken out of service by the CIA almost five years ago.”

She frowned. “What a dreadful thing to install in such a serene place.”

“Yep. Goes almost two hundred feet down. Dug out back in the 1970s.”

“Enough history, what is my surprise?” Patience is not a goddess’s strong suit.

“Remember when I told you I read Tucker’s mind at the end?”

“Of course. You saved my life.”

“Well, the part I didn’t tell you was that I asked him what the CIA’s biggest secret was, right before I put him into a coma.”

She thrust her palms in front of her, questioning. “And?!”

“This is it.” I took her gesticulating hands in mine. “We have a chance to make things right. To start over.”

“I know we do, silly. We’re already making headway on the plan.”

I smiled. “That’s about the world. This is different. This is about us. Our past. Do you trust me?”

Lyla leaned in and we kissed. I heard wind rustle through deep grass and felt the warmth of her lips against mine. A perfect day.

As we drew apart, her eyelids fluttered. “Bring it on,” she whispered.

I turned back to the silo, reached out . . .

—

Two hundred feet below the Colorado prairie, on a gurney, beneath a respirator and a feeding tube—Carsten Walker’s eyes popped open.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First off, I want to thank
you
—the reader—for making it this far, and bothering to read the boring endnotes that always mention tons of people, none of whom you know or care about. Nevertheless, while reading and writing are solitary pursuits, creating a novel from scratch is rarely a one-man/woman job, so here come the gracious thank-yous. I owe a debt of gratitude to my writing group, Writers Under the Arch—for critiquing me as I read this story to them, one chapter at a time, during our weekly meetings. And to Matt Pallamary, the talented author/editor who was the first professional to see any part of this book. He read the first chapter, stared at me over the top of his reading glasses, and said the one sentence that gave me the confidence I needed to see the novel through to the end: “Dude . . . you’re a good writer.” To Margaret Bail, my agent, whose calm and reserved nature was tested when her client called to say, “Yeah, uh, those edits you wanted? I had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery. Gonna be a couple of months.” And to Jon Cox, my editor, who took a chance on a complete unknown, and helped turn a good book into a great one. And my parents and family who encouraged me and
believed,
even when I didn’t. And my friends—Brian, Tawn, Anjanette, Dan, Rick—you’re the best. And finally, to the wonderful woman who insists I achieve that rarest form of success—fortune, limited fame, and absolutely no groupies—I love you, Steph, no matter how crazy you sound.