Page 48 of Factory Thief

“Then what happens to Jack?” I look from him to the Buyer, but it’s as if I don’t exist any longer. They debate the matter among themselves.

“Look, everyone,” Andrew says. “I like Jack. He’s a good kid, and his heart was in the right place, but well…maybe this particular asset is just too costly to acquire.”

“Excuse me?” I blurt. One dark glare from the Buyer silences me. I force myself to sit down, clasping my hands into fists. I can’t do Jack any good if I get thrown out of the meeting before it even starts.

“I hate to agree with anything that comes out of Andrew’s mouth,” Sally Blackmore says. Andrew flips her the bird, and she chuckles. I wonder if they have a history. It’s not impossible. She looks older, but I can see at one time she must have been stunning. “But he’s right. As much as Jack has skills useful to our organization, they’re not so useful we can risk out-and-out war with Livingston’s empire.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. It sounds like they just want to wash their hands of Jack. Fortunately, a most unexpected ally provides salvation. The Buyer.

“The simple fact of the matter is our organization thrives on one simple tenet. Expand the network.” The Buyer steeples his hands together and considers each person at the table in turn. “It’s our founding principle that when one person leaves, another is granted a Favor to take their place. When someone pays their debt, we have to line up their replacement, or we will soon dwindle into nothingness. We are an organization built upon Favors. We’re helping Jack clear his name, and he will owe us a Favor as a result.”

The table breaks down in, if not an argument, a spirited debate. I can’t believe my ears as they literally do a cost benefit analysis with a man’s life at stake. I’m outraged. If there’s even a chance this meeting is going to happen, then we need to be there.

Should I waste my time with these clowns, or just go by myself?

Oh, hell. I’ll take one last shot at convincing them.

“If it’s true, then we’re wasting time,” I say at last. “Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?”

The Buyer turns to me and nods. “Well said. The motion is thus carried. Prepare a team to rescue the asset known as Jack.”

In short order, we’re speeding along in a van onto the Golden Gate Bridge. I peer through a pair of binoculars as the men around me check their weapons and equipment.

My mouth gapes open. Jack stands there, held at gunpoint by menacing men flanking that scumbag CEO Livingston. It’s like Mother all over again. Someone I care about, someone I love, is about to die.

And I’m helpless to do anything about it.

My hands clench into fists.

Not this time.

This time, I’m not a helpless child.

This time, I’m going to take action.

JACK

“What the hell is this?”

I glance from the churning waters of the Bay far below to Livingston. His hazel eyes narrow to slits. He stares up the pedestrian walkway spanning the bridge.

I look that way as well. Livingston’s private goon squad anxiously clutch the air near their hidden weapons. Another group approaches us, led by a sandy-haired man in a fashionable gray overcoat. He seems familiar, but, once I lay eyes on the woman striding beside him, I forget everything but her.

It’s Victoria. She came for me. I never thought to see her again, and here she comes with the cavalry. Our eyes meet and I can see relief flood her gaze.

Now that the initial shock of seeing Victoria again has worn off, I return my attention to the sandy-haired man. I remember when I saw him last…right before my arrest. He’d been hanging outside of my apartment building when the cops took me to jail. I’d seen him in the courtroom during my trial as well. I always figured he had been a reporter or something.

Obviously, I was wrong. He works for the Factory. I’m not sure what to think about that. He’s here to help me—or is he? Maybe my celebration is a bit premature. I could be faced with the proverbial frying-pan-into-the-fire type of situation here.

Is Victoria just trying to fulfill her obligation and turn me over to the Factory? Am I just a job to her, a favor to be returned? I know she was relieved to see me, but that could have been relief that her own hide would be spared.

Maybe she’d just been pretending to like me until she got the data from the clinical trials. That’s a grim possibility which stabs an icicle through my heart.

The thing is, they don’t have the data, do they? The last time I saw the flash drive it disappeared into Livingston’s Armani blazer. I’m not sure what the hell is going on at the moment. Why is the Factory involved in this matter at all? What do they even want with me, or Livingston and Xtera, for that matter?

“That’s close enough,” Livingston growls as Victoria’s group gets within a dozen feet of us. He pushes the barrel of his pistol into my temple hard enough to bruise. His men brandish pistols. Andrew’s men number half that of Livingston’s bodyguards, but they’re better armed. They produce small combat rifles from under their coats, giving Livingston’s men pause despite their numerical advantage.

“Brian Livingston, I presume?” The Factory man smiles broadly. He’s the only one besides myself and Victoria not brandishing a weapon. “Funny, I thought you’d be taller.”

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