Cosega Sphere (The Cosega Sequence Book 4) (5 page)

Harmer paid off the surgeon, a doctor, two nurses, three orderlies, and a security guard. Each was given thousands of dollars to do what they all might have done for free; protect the little girl so she might see again. Harmer had explained that Cira’s parents were whistle-blowers, similar to Edward Snowden —it was true enough— and that they had to flee, but because their daughter could not be moved, the CIA, NSA, or US military would take custody of the girl. Harmer told them the urgency of the overzealous US authorities meant that Cira would most likely be moved before it was safe.

“It’s too great a risk,” Harmer explained. “This precious six-year-old little girl shouldn’t have to be made blind because her parents got into trouble.”

After receiving a substantial pile of cash, the surgeon reluctantly agreed to the scheme and officially discharged Cira. All data would now show her no longer at the hospital. Then a nurse and an orderly carefully and slowly moved Cira’s bed from the ICU. Her new quarters, a small private room, would be quickly remodeled.

The heart of Harmer’s elaborate plan got underway when a rushed delivery of construction materials arrived from a nearby home center. A contractor, related to one of the nurses, slapped up a false wall and then mounted white shelving boards. The construction was completed in a miraculously short time. Harmer stood back and stared at the former entrance to Cira’s room, which now led to a small storage closet.

If they’re looking closely they might notice, but if we’re lucky, they’ll miss us,
she thought.

A nurse and the orderlies swiftly stocked the new storage closet with medical supplies. Cira’s room would now only be accessible from a twenty-by-forty-two-inch concealed door cut into the new sheetrock. The secret entrance was located at the far end of the closet, hidden by a rack of hanging uniforms. Harmer had rearranged the garments three times.

“This is a lot of trouble for nothing,” one of Harmer’s paid-off-nurses said. “When the agents find out the girl has been discharged, why would they still bother to look for her?”

“Oh, they’ll look.”

“But it’s a big hospital. Will they search every room?”

“Every room and every closet,” Harmer said, worrying as she checked the appearance of the storage closet again. As a final defense, Harmer would be in the room with Cira, and planned to take hostage the first agent who found his way into the secret hiding place. At least that way she could force a standoff that could buy Cira more time until help might reach them.

Once she was convinced nothing more could be done, Harmer, a nurse, and an orderly moved into Cira’s room. The other paid-off-nurse and two extra orderlies were on stand-by. The paid-off-security guard would be Harmer’s eyes and ears throughout the rest of the hospital.

Harmer reported the scheme to her boss across a scrambled line.

“It’s a weak and dangerous plan,” Booker said, sipping on a green tea, acai, and seaweed smoothie.

“There’s no alternative. Cira can’t be moved,” Harmer replied in a strained voice.

Booker, frustrated, could not think of another option. He admired Harmer for her dedication to him and to the mission, for her loyalty to Gaines and Asher, and for putting herself in such jeopardy, but he knew her efforts were mostly, if not entirely, for Cira. Harmer loved the child.

“Any of those orderlies or nurses could crack as soon as the big guns show up,” Booker warned.

“I know,” Harmer said tensely. “Again, no choice.”

Booker checked the time. It wouldn’t be long now. “I’ll have people ready and waiting to get you and the girl out as soon as you say.”

“Let’s hope it gets to that,” Harmer agreed, knowing they would have to survive hidden in the hospital for at least a week before any kind of evacuation could be attempted. Harmer had made up her mind that it would be safer for Cira to risk capture than trying to move her too soon. If the worst happened, she’d have to count on someone in the chain of command taking pity on the child and allowing her to remain in the hospital until her eyes healed properly. “If not, maybe they’ll let her stay here.”

“Not likely. They cannot risk the other patients,” Booker replied. “The NSA knows there are at least half a dozen groups that would attack the building in an effort to capture Gale and Rip’s daughter, and most of them wouldn’t give a damn if she’s blind or not. They want the Eysen, and would gamble that Rip would trade anything to get his daughter back.”

“I know.”

Harmer thought of the odds. The NSA and CIA were formidable opponents, but Booker had contacts and plants within their high walls. However, the Foundation was the greatest enemy. They, too, had people planted throughout the US government like a cancer, and although Booker was the wealthiest person in the world, he was also not very popular among the world’s elite. The next one hundred and nine richest people on Earth were part of the Foundation, and about seventy percent of the three hundred billionaires below them were also either direct members, or affiliated in some way with the Foundation. They had enough combined money and network to oppose Booker.

The fight had been building for years. Booker and the Foundation had opposing visions for the future. Because of the Sphere, Gale and Rip were caught in the middle, and now their daughter had become the latest pawn and youngest victim.

The problem,
Harmer thought,
is that both Booker and the Foundation think they can save the world while believing the other is going to destroy it. They can’t both be right.

At that moment, Harmer didn’t care about the power struggles of the rich. Her only concern was saving Cira’s eyesight. “We never should have let them come to Fiji.”

“They insisted,” Booker sighed. “Gale was tired of the isolation and wanted Cira raised in a more normal setting.”

“I remember, but you could have said no.”

“They knew the risks.”

Harmer looked down at the sweet little girl, bandaged and sedated. She reached for her tiny hand and held it. “How is Gale?”

“So far, so good,” Booker replied. “But the pilot just sent a distress signal, so I’m holding my breath.”

Wattington and his twenty-one fellow moles were part of the greatest infiltration of US intelligence in history. The men and women, all working on behalf of the Foundation, had lived and acted as perfect NSA and CIA employees for seven years. The Foundation had dozens of other operatives in the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and various military intelligence agencies. There were also hundreds more in other US governmental agencies. More of their private spies worked around the globe. The Foundation had been using their cash to conduct a slow, deliberate, and complete
coup d’état
of every country in the world.

The NSA had the lead on the Eysen-Sphere matter, and the CIA had the closest ties to the Hidden Information and Technology Exchange. In fact, historically, the CIA had sent more “inventory” to HITE than any other agency.

Stellard and his bosses had been clear; they would rather risk all out war than see HITE get the Sphere, and Wattington had been inside the CIA long enough to know with certainty that the world had evolved into a more dangerous place. Gone were the days of a simple country versus country war. Terrorists weren’t even the real threat. Their strikes were used by the elites to manipulate the masses. It was all a dangerous game. Corporations had private armies, their own espionage networks, and money had corrupted every government. If money couldn’t buy someone, manipulation would be applied.

Whereas the NSA was the main eavesdropper, the CIA was the meddler, starter of wars, toppler of regimes, pusher of drugs, spreader of epidemics, maker of “kings,” and general confusers of truth. The Foundation used its contacts to muddy things so that the only clear path belonged to them. 

“Like crooks learn to be criminals in jail, spies learn to be conspirators in the CIA,” Stellard liked to say when he was planning for the future. But on this day the future was in doubt, and all his time was spent trying to control the past.

It began to look like he was going to get a break. Wattington had, through an incredibly intricate and perilous series of moves, managed to delay General Gunnison and the SEALs. At least for the time being, his maneuvers would go undetected. Stellard tried to shake off the inner cold that even his extra-thick long johns couldn’t protect him from.

That piece of good news only got Stellard and the Foundation halfway to where they needed to be, namely Fiji, and specifically in the same room or vehicle with Gaines and Asher. During the two hours since the most wanted dead people since Jimmy Hoffa had been discovered alive, the Foundation had been attempting the impossible. However, the Foundation was controlled by some of the wealthiest people on Earth, therefore, doing the impossible was almost always possible.

“We have someone on the ground. They’ll be at the hospital in minutes,” Stellard explained to Taz over an encrypted text as soon as word came from Wattington.

“How? Who?” Taz said, slipping a golden ring of a snake consuming itself on and off his finger. The nervous habit surfaced whenever he multitasked. At the same time, he communicated with Stellard, he scanned recent satellite images of Fiji, checked locations of several Foundation units, and reviewed data on Booker’s secret army.

“Sugar was the sweet solution,” Stellard texted back. Turns out that sugar was Fiji’s most important export, as well as a major employer in the island nation. As luck would have it, a Foundation member had acquired the formerly state-owned sugar mill monopoly a few years earlier, during a privatizing period forced by World Bank debt restructuring. This gave Stellard what he needed—contacts and influence in Fiji. It was rough and dirty, but they now had local police on the Foundation “payroll,” ready to do his bidding.

Stellard conveyed the plan to Taz, and was optimistic that not only would they be first on the scene, but they might even be able to track Gaines and Asher. When they hit the hospital, local police would also converge on the girl’s school, where they expected to learn the address where the fugitives had been residing. Police had orders to empty the place and hold the evidence for Taz.

Stellard stayed connected as Taz contacted the locals and assumed command. After some back and forth, he was able to direct things from the plane. His Eysen-INU could accommodate as many calls as needed, and would mute automatically as he alternated between conversations.

The officers assigned to the school reported that the little girl’s name was Cira Bradley, and that they had an address. At the hospital the news wasn’t so good. The girl had been discharged, but they were interviewing her doctor.

“Search the building,” Taz ordered. “Talk to anyone who might have had contact with her parents. How long ago was she released?”

“Sir, we’re working on it,” an officer shot back in accented English. “Trying to unseal medical records isn’t standard procedure here. Especially in a pediatric situation.”

Taz thought of the stakes, knowing that for the forces that were heading to Fiji, unsealing medical records would be like opening a candy wrapper. Fiji was about to be invaded. If Gaines wasn’t found, the sovereign nation would essentially be occupied. But the country consisted of more than three hundred islands. Gaines could be anywhere.

“Damn it, where did they go!?” he yelled in the open line.

“Easy, Taz,” Stellard said as the other lines muted. “These locals are our only chance to beat the others.”

“They’re gone! No one will find anything,” Taz said. “Don’t you see? If they didn’t know we were coming, they would never have risked moving a six-year-old girl fresh out of eye surgery!”

“Yes. Of course Booker Lipton would have had a well practiced evacuation plan in place, but as wealthy and powerful as he is, the man is still constrained by the laws of time and physics. They could only be so far. They haven’t had much time since the surgery. Gaines could be two blocks away holed up in some cheap motel right now.”

“Then we need access to the current satellite feeds. We’ve got to trace them out of here before the NSA does.”

“Wattington is working on that.”

“I’m sure he is, but we need it
now
.”

“Sir, we’re in the residence,” an officer said in a thick accent from one of the other lines.

“Is it occupied?” Taz asked, already knowing the answer.

“Not presently,” the officer responded. “Small place. We haven’t sorted through every shadow, but there don’t appear to be many hiding places.”

“Can you get me visuals?”

“One of the men is working on it, but we don’t have the full crew yet. We rushed here in the chopper, you know.”

Taz did know. They were busy trying to get every chopper they could find into the air to search for these ghosts. “How do they do it?” he asked Stellard. “You’ve read the files. From the time they took the artifact from that cliff in Virginia, half the world was after them, and yet there were almost no confirmed sightings. And Dixon Barbeau, the one man who actually
did
capture Gaines, we now know was in on their escape.”

“They got lucky,” Stellard said.

“No one is that lucky . . . no one.”

“We’ve got some people going to have a chat with Barbeau now,” Stellard replied. “He’s no longer with the Bureau, but still seems to be involved in investigation work. We’re not sure who’s paying him, but it might still be a government agency, or . . . Booker Lipton.”

“Why am I not surprised? Damn it, I wish I were on the ground.” Taz twisted the gold ring on his middle finger, a Mayan scull, and turned his attention back to the former residence of Gaines and Asher, now also known as Rick and Terry Bradley.

Images began streaming from his Eysen-INU. He could see a cup of tea on the kitchen table, still half full, a plate of nori rolls beside it. “They left in a hurry, obviously to get to the hospital. They didn’t take the time to sterilize the place,” Taz said out loud, though he was mostly talking to himself. “We may find something helpful here.”