Page 36 of The Vigilante's Lover
One holds out his hand. “Knife, please,” he says.
I hand it over. He drops it into a steel box. Again he holds out his hand.
“Holster and Blackphone, please.”
I pull the phone out and pass it to him, making sure to press the secure lock button as I do. The phone gives a subtle vibration as confirmation. I expected they would take it, but I still lament the loss. Like Sam said, an untraceable blackout phone is a rare bird. I had hoped he had been able to rig a cloaking system, but obviously not.
“Holster,” he repeats.
I reach inside my sleeve and snap it off.
“The ear mike, too,” he says.
That stings a little. The small filament would have been useful even without the Blackphone. I carefully extract the mike from my ear and give it to him.
“Watch,” he adds.
The watch disappears into the box.
The man in the suit steps forward. “That everything?” he asks the guards.
One of them nods. “All that we saw on the scanners,” he says.
They missed the skeleton key, thankfully. It’s ultra thin, and Sam must not have handed that particular tech over to the syndicate yet. I’m grateful to be one step ahead.
The suited man motions down a hallway. “Mr. De Luca, if you would be so kind as to come this way.” He leads us down the corridor. One of the guards follows.
“So, why does a fugitive like yourself waltz up to our front door?” he asks.
“Testing your defenses, perhaps?” I ask.
“I assure you, Mr. De Luca, your approach was noted long before you arrived.”
How much of that statement is true? I wonder. The data screens clearly showed they lost track of me after my escape from Ridley. Do they know the car is mine? Or is this man simply trying to throw me off guard?
I give him a grunt of acknowledgment. “So who are you, then?”
“Alan Carter, head of this syndicate.”
“A contemporary of mine, then,” I say, keeping my voice pleasant. “Can’t say I ever made the trip out here before.”
“Indeed.” Carter’s tone is haughty, tinged with suspicion. “It’s been my experience that those on the coasts only talk to us when they want something.”
“My needs are quite simple, I assure you.”
He stops and studies my face for a moment. I give him a small yet warm smile.
“Are they now.” It’s a statement, not a question. His eyes are cold.
Carter moves on, and the guard gives me a firm push to keep moving, as if I’m a common criminal. This does not bode well for how quickly I might be cleared of my charges.
We walk the hall in silence until we reach an actual silo that oncehoused a nuclear missile. A few vintage posters are framed and hang on the wall. “Ready to launch at a moment’s notice!” reads one, sporting a rocket with a smiling face. Another shows a soldier holding a missile and says, “Defend our freedom from the Reds!”
I’ve been in similar silos in the old Soviet Union. It’s amusing to see almost identical posters there, pointing to America as the bad guys.
Now the silo holds multiple floors with a central open atrium. On each floor are desks and glass screens displaying a dizzying array of information. I spot one collection of screens all tuned to different news broadcasts from the national outlets. Pop-ups appear frequently, pointing out locations and threat analyses of the information. Additional information scrolls along the bottom.
This is the nerve center, where the syndicate collates all the information coming in the countless feeds, sifting through it and parceling it out for later analysis. What I wouldn’t give for a few minutes at one of the terminals to try to locate Klaus. Sam and Colette found nothing on their own, but they were limited by the necessity of avoiding any association with me. There would be so much more information here.
