For Mayhem or Madness
14
Betrayal
I HAD A LOT OF THINKING to do. I’m a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. I seldom drink anything. The one glass of bourbon made my head muzzy. The one thing I vowed not to do was get out Terry’s laptop. I needed to have a good idea of what I would do before I even touched it. And that involved a lot of soul-searching.
It’s easy to judge other people and tell them what they should do. If you have this power, you should use it for good. Rid the world of danger, free unjustly imprisoned people, destroy totalitarian governments, eliminate online predators, stop phishing sites, stop interference in other countries’ elections… There’s all this stuff you should do. But where do you draw the line?
Terry drew the line at destroying the world’s nuclear weapon access by leaving the balance of the three major super-powers and taking nuclear weapons away from everyone else. Why? How good was his judgment that none of them dared talk about the loss of their codes? How sure was he that Israel and Iran wouldn’t just assume the other had stolen from them and start an all-out conventional war? Pakistan and India? They’d been on the brink of nuclear war for years. Would the loss calm the tempers or increase the tensions in Northern India?
And if that was not the ultimate that Terry could do, what was so heavy a burden that he wanted someone else to bear it? Did I even want to know?
What was certain was that I didn’t want the power to be in someone else’s hands. Not even my government’s. Maybe especially not my government’s hands. If I kept the device and started using his program, I would need to disappear as completely as he had. I wasn’t sure I could do that. Eventually, I took a shower to cool off and went to bed.
I felt the bed shift and opened my eyes as Char pressed herself to me. She put her head on my chest and cried.
“He’s gone,” she whimpered. I held her close. I’d known him for only a few days and I was sorry to see him go. Char had been his personal nurse for months. She was devastated. I tried to soothe her, comfort her. But what can one do in times of such grief? I just held her.
Eventually, her kisses told me she had her own way she wanted to be comforted. We never spoke. We just moved together and found the comfort we were seeking in each other’s body. When we were exhausted, we slept, still holding each other. I slept a deep and dreamless sleep.
It was light out when I woke. I stretched, already knowing there was no one in bed with me. The beds in the little bungalows really aren’t made for two people. I vaguely remembered a kiss before she slipped away. I used the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and pulled on lightweight slacks and a polo shirt. Then I made my way to the main house for a cup of coffee. A few of the people from the cabana the day before were eating fruit and David’s latest fresh bread. I stayed there listening to the inane chatter and sipping coffee until everyone had left. I figured Char would be there shortly but by nine she still hadn’t showed up.
I left the main house and headed out to her bungalow to see that she was okay. David and a local woman were hauling out sheets and taking in cleaning supplies.
“Char?” I called gently into the bungalow. David came out to meet me.
“She took off early this morning. About six. I was just putting the bread in the oven. She stopped and said goodbye. She had an early flight to Bangkok,” he said. Damn. Another woman into and out of my life in too short a time. I wished she’d said goodbye to me. But maybe that’s what last night was all about. I just nodded and headed back to my Bungalow. I still needed to decide how I was going to handle Terry’s legacy.
I sat at the little table in the bungalow and pulled my laptop toward me. When it shifted, I saw it sat on a large envelope. It had my name on the front. My real name. Apparently, Char had not left without a word. I opened the envelope and poured the contents onto the table. A passport, birth certificate, and death certificate were accompanied by a hand written note.
Dag,
I’m sorry I can’t stay to offer a proper goodbye. He’s gone and that means I need to leave, too. When I was at the hospital last night, I collected the death certificate. His birth certificate and passport are also here. That should be all you need to shut down the investigation and put the world at rest again.
He knew he wasn’t going to live but he also knew he wasn’t the right person to make the big decision of how to use his weapon now that it existed. He understood that he was not God, though he had nearly accepted that title.
Dag, you aren’t God either. Though he respected your ethics and ability, he couldn’t possibly have known enough about you to entrust you with his power. I barely know you myself, and we have slept together. You shouldn’t have that power. I hope you will forgive me. I need to leave now.
Char
I sighed and picked up the documents. They were all for yet another identity. I’d known him as Terry Whiteman. The documents were for Gregory Wright. It would be difficult for me to present these to Mrs. Whiteman and tell her he was dead. I’d let Jordan figure that one out. Or not. Perhaps I should take the computer and just slip away like Char did.
Take the computer?
I quickly looked under the bed and the rumpled blanket where I’d concealed the laptop. It was gone.
I’d been had.
I’d just posted a note to Jordan from my office connection. It only said, “The cat is dead. Whereabouts of its toys is unknown.” I closed my connection as two men barged into my bungalow. One swiftly grabbed my computer and checked the drive.
“This isn’t it. Where’s the hacker’s computer?” one of the men demanded, shoving me down on my bed. I couldn’t quite identify his accent. European, I guessed, but I couldn’t tell where.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “Who are you and what’s your interest?”
“We ask the questions. You have death certificate and passport. Where is the computer?”
“They were here when I woke up,” I said. “The computer wasn’t.”
“We can make you tell us,” the second goon said.
“Can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
“What’s going on here?” Two more men pushed into the little bungalow. It was crowded with just me.
“Get lost. We are taking this man with us.”
“You’re accosting an American citizen. You will take him nowhere.”
Jordan must have gotten to his contacts quickly. That or they already knew where I was. I couldn’t tell.
“Who are you to tell us what we can do?”
“United States Secret Service. I think it’s time for you to leave.”
For a few moments, I thought there would be a scuffle, but the foreign agents finally backed away when a Thai policeman showed up and pushed his way into the bungalow. I pulled my legs up onto the bed so I wouldn’t get stepped on in the crush. The policeman pushed all four agents out of the bungalow and heated words were spoken among them, most of which were not intelligible. The foreigners left and the two Americans had a hushed conversation with the policeman. I could see through the partially open door of the bungalow a wad of cash being handed over.
I was being bought and sold.
The policeman came back in the room, shoving the bills into his pocket.
“Your visa has been cancelled. You have twenty-four hours to leave the country.” I just nodded at him. I wondered what the going price for me was in Thailand. He left and the two Americans came back in.
“You are more trouble than you’re worth,” one said. “You had us running to Seoul and all over. Are those the documents on the hacker?”
“Yeah. They were delivered to me early this morning by his private nurse. Then she disappeared.” I wasn’t going to give Char up to them. If they wanted to track her down, I bet they’d find her in a country where they couldn’t catch her.
“But you don’t have the computer he was using?”
“Nope.”
“Make your arrangements and get ready to leave. Your holiday is over.”
“You’re arresting me?”
“We have a strict hands-off order. Whoever you are, you have powerful people covering for you.”
They watched as I searched for flights and made my ticketing arrangements.
“Tomorrow morning at nine,” I said. “Here to Bangkok and then to Singapore. From there to Sweden. I left my mother there.”
“We’re staying near,” one of the men said. “You’re an American asset and we’re instructed to see that you get safely home.” He pulled at his tie and jacket. It had to be close to a hundred degrees out and a hundred percent humidity. I wasn’t that comfortable either and all I had on was a T-shirt and pair of shorts.
“Stay where you want,” I said. “I’m going swimming.”
I grabbed my trunks and stripped, letting that action drive the two agents outside. I was thoroughly fed up with this whole project. I’d had the power to change the world in my hands and it had been stolen from me.
The pool was warm, but it was a damn sight better than not being in the pool. I don’t swim, but I floated lazily on a couple of foam noodles. Combined with the natural buoyancy of the saline pool, I felt light and carefree. I just looked up into the cloudy sky as a few raindrops hailed the afternoon storm.
It was that time of the day when other residents of the Enchanted Village were coming out of their bungalows and heading to the pool. The rains here weren’t accompanied by a lot of thunder and lightning. The air was just too saturated with moisture to hold it up.
I noticed no one really worked hard enough to call their time in the pool exercise. A beach ball sailed through the air and when it came toward me, I batted it toward the others. There was some laughter and it was difficult not to join in. I could stand on the bottom of the pool anywhere, so as long as I stayed upright, I could join in. The laughter never reached my soul, though. Hurt and disappointment and sadness fought for prominence in my mind. I wondered idly if I could reach the point of proficiency in my hacking that I could do what Terry had done. But if I could, would I know what to do with his god-like ability to erase a person or all the nuclear launch codes in seven different countries at the same time. That was some ballsy maneuvering. I didn’t think I had it in me.
Well, it wasn’t my problem any longer.
“Ouch! What’s that?” one of the girls yelled. I looked over to see her pulling her bikini back into place as she stared into the water. Two or three others started working their way toward her in the center of the pool.
“Crimey! Somebody drowned his computer,” a guy from Australia said. He ducked beneath the water and brought up the laptop. I could tell from twenty feet away it was Terry’s.
“It won’t be worth much now. Too bad. That’s a powerful little computer.”
If they only knew how powerful. I looked around for the American agents but didn’t see them anywhere. I decided to keep my hands off. If Terry had been honest with me, he’d treated the SSD drive with a compound that was activated by water. He’d said it took 30 seconds. By my estimates, it had been submerged for at least ten hours. That should be enough to kill it.
“Might as well toss it in the waste bin,” another visitor said. “It’s obvious the bloke who owned it didn’t want it anymore.” There was general agreement and one of them took responsibility and carried it out of the pool to the resort’s trash bin.
I was relieved. Char must have known about the solution. She’d decided I wasn’t capable of handling the responsibility of ruling the world. I had to thank her.
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