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  She hadn’t any idea how she had developed this new “talent” but it happened just after she murdered the CypherGhost. Less than a month later, she decided the only people she could trust with this knowledge about her capabilities were William Wing and Betsy Brown, fellow hackers and friends. William had helped her learn about how to control it, and deal with its aftereffects. She had found that this chill would happen about a half hour after she used her hands to ignite anything. It wasn’t getting any worse, but the experience wasn’t any easier to tolerate

  She rubbed her shoulders as the waiter placed a tureen of hot and sour soup in front of her. She eyed the brown, steaming liquid with its shredded pork, bean curd, and wood ear slices, and sniffed its sesame aroma. She placed the napkin on her lap and picked up the soup spoon. After several mouthfuls, the heat from the soup transferred its spicy warmth into her body. She quickly consumed the entire tureen. Back to normal.

  As she recovered, she turned and saw that many of the restaurant’s other patrons were now watching her. The waiter approached, his look of concern etched on his face. “Are you okay?”

  Ann nodded. “Sometimes, my blood pressure crashes. It’s called a ‘vasovagal syncope.’”

  The waiter nodded as the look of concern disappeared off his face. He turned and disappeared.

  Ann thought about her situation. Would her attacker go to the police? No, he might even get himself arrested if he tried. Would he tell others what had happened? No, no one would believe him. What about the burns she’d inflicted on him? He’d surely need medical attention. She had already determined that the heat hitting him was in excess of six hundred degrees Fahrenheit. She winced, knowing how much pain she had caused him. Even though he’d attempted to rape her, she felt remorse for what his life would become.

  Where would he go? Stanford Hospital? It was the closest hospital with an emergency room. What lie would he tell them? She was sure it would be obvious. And that might open an investigation. Careful. Don’t do this again except in self-defense.

  The waiter returned with the mapo tofu. She plucked up a chili pepper with her chopsticks and chewed the fiery delight. I’ll have to figure out what to do if I ever am called out for this.

  * * *

  Laura was at the desk in the living room of their apartment when she heard the front door open. She looked up. “Ann, what are you up to?”

  “Just ate dinner out at Dynasty. Got my Asian fix.” Ann sat at her own desk. She pulled out her notebook and logged herself in. Then she sneaked a peek at Laura. Laura’s eyes were bloodshot and the skin around her eyes was pink.

  Laura sat still, not reading the open book in front of her. The look on her face was living proof she was preoccupied with something.

  Ann reached across the gulf separating the two desks and touched Laura’s arm. “What’s bothering you? If you don’t want to talk, I’ll leave it be. But if you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

  Laura’s lips quivered before she began to wail. Ann waited for several minutes until Laura was once again in control of herself. Laura looked like she’d been through hell. “I’ve never told anyone. Not sure I should ever tell another person. We aren’t even really friends.”

  “Yeah. As I said, if you’re not comfortable telling me, that’s okay. But it looks to me like you need to tell somebody what’s upsetting you.”

  Laura looked away. “My secret. I was very young. My father and mother argued constantly. Angry, violent with each other. She often hit him. When she did, he’d hit her back. Then, one day, I saw him cut her neck open with a knife. My mom fell to the ground. There was blood everywhere. There was also a strange man on the floor with his neck sliced open. I ran to my own room and bolted the door. The police, when they arrived, they found… they found my mom and the strange man both dead.”

  “That’s awful. What happened to your father?”

  “They arrested him. There was a trial. He was sentenced to death. He’s been on death row for fifteen years now.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “I went to live with my grandparents. My mom’s parents. They took care of me. I got an art scholarship to attend Stanford.”

  “You paint?”

  Laura nodded.

  “Can I see some of what you’ve done?”

  The paintings Laura showed Ann were nightmarish depictions of brutal crimes and battle scenes. None of the figures had a face. The colors were smears on the canvasses. Ann was mesmerized. “Wow. These look like they should be in museums.”

  Laura stared at the one she was holding. “These are what I see in my dreams when I try to sleep. Every night, another battle, another mugging, another killer. Every night without fail.”

  Something didn’t feel right about what Laura said. It sounded rehearsed. Ann realized she feared for Laura. But more than that, she feared Laura.

  Chapter 4

  906 Simpson Street, Sunnyvale, CA

  September 12, 6:02 a.m.

  Alan Skorkin found a parking space for his late model rental sedan six blocks from where he was to complete the first leg of his contract. After locking the car, he walked to within visual range of 679 Excelsior Drive and saw that it was totally residential. No stores for him to use as perch sites to develop profiles beyond what he’d already gathered off the internet while he was on the flight here. The two occupants were cofounders of a company named Redoit Write. Their company made an AI software product that could read software manuals in digital format and reword them to be understandable in seven languages. InTelQ had funded them from a seed round eight months ago until now, with their product having completed its first beta round. Skorkin had figured out the “why” to killing the cofounders: his government friend was a greedy man who wanted to take profits from their products as soon as possible now that his cofounders were no longer necessary for further development of their product.

  Death would be their exit strategy.

  He stood in the shade of a cypress tree, sure the shadows shielded him from view. He could see activity within the house through its windows. He heard the sound of a conversation, two voices, one male, one female. Lucky me. He waited for the inevitable. Soon, one or both would leave for work, and he could complete the research he needed to do within their empty house. If both left, he could set the house to look like a probable robbery-homicide had gone wrong and wait inside for them both to return. If only one leaves, I can murder the other occupant and set up the other as the murderer. Either way, they’ll no longer have a claim on the startup my client funded. And, I read the docs on their standard funding agreement at one of my previous side-jobs. Too bad they agreed to not let any heirs have claims on their stock.

  Soon, one of the occupants left the house and entered the auto parked curbside.

  She looked to be in her mid-thirties, brunette and trim. He recognized her from the photo his client had included within the link. Then the garage door opened. The man who exited on a bicycle wore a helmet, obscuring his face. He rode off as the door closed automatically. Skorkin checked his watch and noted how long they’d been together,

  Skorkin walked down the street looking like he belonged there. He took the paved walkway around the house to its backyard. Time to work.

  * * *

  Robert Randall had driven his car far away from his office, all the way to Baltimore. It was time to call Frank Lucessi, and he’d need to do that on a pay phone. So few remained, but he knew of one near the Baltimore Orioles baseball stadium. The phone was right outside the main exit, in plain sight, and the street was busy with passersby. But, he thought, it’ll have to do.

  He’d committed Lucessi’s phone number to memory, along with a script, to make this fast and easy. Randall dialed Lucessi’s number in Paraguay and paid for the first three minutes with pocket change. Lots of pocket change.

  “Frank Lucessi here.”

  “Mr. Lucessi, I’m interested in being one of your customers. I have a business proposition I think you’ll
like.”

  “Not interested.” The line went dead.

  Randall cursed. I need a new cutout to replace the guy I had killed last week. The idiot found out too much about what I’m doing and wanted a cut. He repeated his process. This time when he heard Lucessi answer, he said, “Don’t hang up again unless you want me as your most powerful enemy.”

  He heard Lucessi laugh. “Then you’re a jackass. But, okay, I’ll play along. I’ll give you thirty seconds.”

  Randall smiled. “I want you to act as a venture capitalist to several startup companies. I’ll give you what we want you to send to them in funding, dollar for dollar. The minimum for any of our investments is a half a million, USD. If you can sign a deal with them on our behalf, you’ll need to attend board meeting with the cofounders for maybe a year. Then you’ll receive your share of the proceeds, equal to what you gave them. If they become successful, you get to do another for us, and soon you get to do two at a time. In two years, that’s at least three million for you, and it would take maybe a total of twenty days across each year. I know you don’t like to travel to the United States, but you can demand they travel to wherever you want the board meetings to take place. Interested?”

  “I can travel to the United States if you make it easy for me to go there without being arrested. Do that and double the money and you have a deal.”

  Randall smiled so hard he felt like he was glowing. “Okay. I’ll send what you need to your office. Sign the papers and return them to me in the enclosed envelope.” Of course, the names on the agreement would not be his.

  He terminated the call. The money would be recoverable when Lucessi died of mysterious causes in two years. Easy for him to arrange.

  * * *

  Alan Skorkin had completed the setup for his termination of the first two names on the contract. First, he took note of the locations of the four security cams mounted around the house’s exterior. He approached them from an angle that would not let them capture his image. He disabled each with a can of blue spray paint.

  Once within the house, he found several more cams and did the same with those. But he couldn’t find the disk storage device they transmitted to. Probably offsite. Crap!

  He sat on the couch in their living room, watching their 65-inch high-end television set. CNN was reporting on the latest news, a story about America’s dumbest presidential candidate, who was threatening a kinetic war with China. The idiot mentioned his friendly relations with Russia. The man couldn’t see that Russia wanted China weak, and no matter who won the war, Russia would then be stronger than their southern neighbor, and China would be ripe for invasion. America would soften them up. He shook his head and smothered a laugh. He heard the garage door open and turned off the television set. He rose and walked to the doorway, a loaded syringe in his right hand.

  The doorknob clicked as it unlocked, and then twisted, and the door opened. Skorkin waited as the door swung open, hiding him behind it. A twenty-something man entered alone and closed the door.

  “Who the fuck are you? What are you doing here?”

  Skorkin smiled. “I’m the locksmith. Your door was open and one of your neighbors called me to fix the lock. I’ll need you to pay me for my work.”

  The young man frowned, trying to understand the situation.

  Skorkin didn’t wait. He reached out and pulled the man closer. Before the young man could react, Skorkin plunged the syringe into his neck and injected its contents. He counted off the seconds as his target’s hands reached for the spot where the syringe had just been. Skorkin reached “eight” and the man’s knees buckled. Skorkin caught his target and dragged the now-unconscious man to the living-room couch.

  The man would remain unconscious for at least an hour. Skorkin entered their garage and found a full set of tools he could use. Not that he needed them. But, they had made it so convenient for him. He smiled, took what he thought he might like to use, and returned to the living room where he set to work on the man’s slumbering body. The injected solution was mostly a customized form of fentanyl, one that was difficult to detect in autopsy. He used the plastic tablecloth he’d brought with him to keep blood splatter from staining his expensive business suit. He pulled the trigger of the .22-caliber pistol he’d bought on the street in East Palo Alto earlier. The round entered the man’s head just below his ear and didn’t exit. He left the man’s corpse on the floor at the point where the kitchen and living room joined without any hallway.

  When his other target returned, he would complete his work on both of them.

  * * *

  Ann woke from a vivid nightmare. It was dark in their room and it took her several seconds to adjust to consciousness. She always kept a pad and a pen by her bedside. She jotted down her thoughts: Laura’s paintings could be taken from real events in her conscious life. In her paintings, Laura committed horrific acts. Maybe she killed her mother and let her father go to prison to keep her from being sent away?

  She shook herself. Why am I thinking the worst of her? She closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. But the thoughts remained playing out in her head and nothing she tried quieted her mind.

  * * *

  Skorkin heard footsteps approach on the walkway to the house. He tiptoed to the door and waited behind the bulk of it where it would hide him as it opened. When it closed with the home’s other occupant inside, Skorkin covered the woman’s face with a rag doused in ether.

  Time to finish up. He sat her down at the couch adjacent to the dead man’s corpse on the floor between the kitchen and the living room.

  He pulled the photo sent by his client and identified her as his second target. After binding her hands and feet with duct tape and tying a gag across her mouth, he placed smelling salts under her nose to wake her.

  She gagged.

  “You’re probably wondering who I am and why this is happening. So, as a kindness, before I kill you, I’ll answer these.” He always did this, to reduce the guilt he felt. If he explained before he murdered, he’d found it made him feel better.

  She struggled against the duct tape.

  “I’m good at my job. Don’t bother. Pay attention.” He grabbed her chin and slapped her face. “That’s better. You two had a startup funded by my client. You should have done better research on whose money you took. They fund about twenty startups a year, and the money isn’t sourced from private investors as they led you to believe. No, it’s government funds. They look for startups whose products can be weaponized in some way. Like yours. When something with real potential comes along—like yours—they do what they need to keep the public from investing in the tech. An IPO would put you in public scrutiny. Your imminent deaths will cause a minor struggle for those you’ve named in your last will and testaments, but my guess is either you didn’t closely read the investment docs or you didn’t understand them. With your deaths, the government will end up with total ownership of your work.” He shook his head. “Sorry for you.”

  The woman was now furiously shaking her head.

  “Again, I’m sorry. But I have to kill you now. I’ll give you a few minutes to make your peace. I promise your death will be relatively painless. And everyone dies, sooner or later. Your time is now.” He sat next to her looking at his watch. Then, he smiled at her. “Okay then.” He took the knife and plunged it into her neck. He waited until her pulse had vanished.

  He carefully placed the knife into the dead man’s hand. As he stood up, the dead bodies stared back at him. He took a deep breath to keep their ghosts from causing him to regret what he’d done for money.

  He had placed the plastic tablecloth he’d brought with him between him and each victim when he killed them. Now he washed the tablecloth in their kitchen sink along with his plastic gloves, then scrubbed the kitchen down with bleach and water. After packing his tools, Alan Skorkin sneaked out the back door and made his way back to his car. It would be a rather short drive to Mountain View for his appointment with the others he’d been
assigned to terminate. He sighed happily, knowing he’d given his latest victim time to digest the reasons for his visit.

  * * *

  Frederico Santos drove his late-model Subaru past the entrance to Chapultepec Park into the Zona Rosa. He looked into the rear-view mirror and smiled when he was sure he wasn’t followed. His visage stared back. Nearing his thirtieth birthday, he still looked like he was barely twelve. His dark curly hair held its form. Good. Mr. Lucessi likes me to not look like a hood.

  Lucessi would be meeting him outside one of the upscale bodegas in twelve minutes. The man had told him he was dissatisfied with how Santos was handling the drug distribution operation and he might only have one chance to explain what had caused the problems.

  The man was always prompt and complained if Santos was late. The idea was to make their meeting look casual and as brief as possible. Santos suspected there might be Federales trailing either or both of them. He parked the car illegally half a block away and trotted down the street to the alleyway fronting the bodega. Lucessi wasn’t waiting. Santos scanned his wristwatch and frowned. The message had stated “3 p.m.” He stood still and tried to decide what to do. Look casual, he thought. But then he saw them. Two of them, staring right at him. He turned to walk away and saw the other two coming at him from the other side. He was sure Lucessi hadn’t sent them, but they didn’t look like Federales either.

  No. These were either here to take him or kill him. He had a handgun in his pocket, but one of them was smiling and shaking his head. He tried to draw the handgun anyway, but the shot from one of the ones behind him was the last sound he ever heard.

  * * *

  Robert Randall ended the call from his Mexican “consultant.” So, Frederico Santos is not working for Lucessi anymore. He’s being buried. He chuckled. It was time to call Lucessi again.