Aftershocks Read online

  “If predicting the stock market was your second-rate work,” Georges said, “what have you got behind the curtain?”

  Sulenski grinned and pushed back his chair. “Come on,” he said.

  Chapter 6

  The room was spacious, but sparsely furnished. Tables and chairs were scattered seemingly at random, loaded with laptops and papers. There were server racks against one wall and a large flat screen monitor on another.

  “It’s not exactly mission control,” said Josh. “But welcome to the skunkworks.”

  He closed the door behind them. “Over here’s what I want to show you.”

  Josh sat at a desk and gestured for Georges to take the chair beside him. He tapped a few keys on a wireless keyboard and nodded toward the wall monitor.

  The screen woke up to an aerial tracking shot of shipping containers. Acres of them stacked high on an enormous cement plain with spaces marked and numbered in yellow paint. Georges saw traffic control arrows on the pavement and huge cranes in the background. The camera was mounted on a drone, he realized after a moment.

  The shot closed in until it picked up a figure running fast beside a row of containers. He was tall and lithe, wearing black pants studded with pockets and a gray knit shirt. A small pack was strapped between his shoulders by a leather harness.

  “Where is this?” Georges asked. “Who is he?”

  “His name’s John Crane,” said Josh. “He works for me. Sometimes. Sort of. This was shot at the Port of Oakland a little over a week ago. This is kind of special really, having real-time contact and being able to record footage. Usually he’s halfway around the world somewhere, out of touch for days.”

  Crane turned and ran down a narrower space between two rows of containers as the drone kept pace. He crossed an access road and hurdled a metal railing without breaking stride.

  A voice — Sulenski’s? — crackled over a radio channel. “Two more rows, then right. You’re clear to the intersection.”

  “We’re tracking a group of angel investors who’ve been laundering money for Asian organized crime groups,” said Josh. “Chinese mostly, but others from Vietnam, Thailand, all over. They pour money into risky tech startups, turn it into stock, which then gets used to collateralize loans that are reinvested into new startups, on and on. Eventually, it becomes untraceable. Only problem is getting the money back out. Government’s pretty good at tracking accounts and wire transfers these days.”

  On the screen, Crane stopped at a corner then took off to his right.

  “I don’t understand,” said Georges. “How does that relate to this?”

  “If you can’t move your laundered money electronically, you just have to move it physically. Bulk cash smuggling. It’s huge. More than three billion dollars a year, and that’s just to Mexico. I’m not sure this operation’s even on the radar yet. But we’ve been trying to disrupt the VC group, and we got a line on a shipment back to their customers in Shanghai. So we thought we’d interfere.”

  On screen, Crane altered course to avoid being seen by an approaching forklift driver. He veered down another passage, then turned back toward his original course. Finally, he approached a container sitting alone on a numbered pad.

  “Okay, watch,” said Josh. “Here’s where things start to go wrong.”

  Crane checked the code numbers on the container, verified it was the one he was looking for. Then he took something from his pocket and leaned over the door latches.

  “This thing’s not working,” he said after a moment. “This isn’t the standard mechanism.”

  “Hang on, coming in,” the radio voice replied, and the drone descended. Crane stepped aside as the camera zoomed in on the device that secured the container’s heavy locking rods. It had a ruggedized display with keypad and what Georges took to be a signal indicator.

  “It’s communicating with something,” said the voice on the radio. Georges was certain now that it was Josh.

  Crane turned and checked his surroundings. “So there are watchdogs nearby,” he said. “In case someone tries to do just what we’re doing. Eyes on the perimeter please.”

  The drone climbed back up for a wider view. Crane studied the device for a few more seconds, then announced, “I got no way around this. Can we pull back and work on something?”

  “No time. It’s scheduled to lift out in a little over three hours.”

  Georges heard Crane sigh. Then, “Okay, guess I’m going through it.”

  He pulled something from a pouch on his leg. A moment later, the camera picked up a bright flash. It was a portable cutting torch, Georges realized. He watched as Crane cut through the security bands and then burned through the steel locking rods. He was trespassing at the port, and he was breaking into a shipping container. What had Josh gotten him into? Georges remembered his mother’s words: “Is he legitimate?”

  “That’s problem one,” Josh was saying. “We didn’t have the right equipment. We’ve just been buying whatever we need off the shelf. Sometimes that’s fine, but sometimes we need more. We need our own workshop and people who can improvise special gadgets.”

  On the screen, Crane turned off his torch and jerked the locking rods free.

  “What’s he going to do?” Georges asked Josh. “You said there’s money in there. Is he stealing it?”

  Josh grinned. “That was my first thought. It’s untraceable, right? I was going to take it downtown and spread it around to folks who need it. But, you know, it’s a whole shipping container full of money. It’s not like he was going to carry it out of there. The main thing was making sure it didn’t get back to Shanghai, so we decided to destroy it. There are two phosphorus grenades in John’s pack. But it’s a moot point,” Josh added with a gesture toward the screen. “We’re about to run into problem two.”

  On the screen, Crane pulled the huge double doors open. He stopped and was still for several seconds, standing outside the container with his arms holding the doors apart.

  “Uh, guys,” he said at last, “this is not a hundred and twenty million dollars in small bills.”

  “What do you mean, John?” Josh’s voice asked over the radio.

  “You need to see this.”

  The drone dove until the camera could see over Crane’s shoulder into the container. The interior of the container wasn’t the rusting steel and stacked bundles Georges had expected. It was bright white plastic with flush lighting panels and rounded corners. It looked like a spaceship, Georges thought. It looked sterile.

  In the center sat a raised platform of what appeared to be heavy foam blocks wrapped in plastic. Georges could just make out where they latched into the floor…

  There was a person strapped to it.

  “What the hell?” Josh’s voice said on the radio.

  Crane stepped inside. “He’s alive,” he said. “There’s a heart monitor here, respiration, oxygen saturation. He’s on IV drips.”

  As Crane moved, Georges noticed tanks fastened to the rear wall, and tubes connected to the platform.

  “They’re shipping a person?” Josh’s voice said. “On a container ship?” The drone inched slowly forward.

  “Asian male,” Crane said, leaning over the foam barriers. “Maybe thirty-five. About five foot eight, one seventy-five.” He ducked down. “Come in and get some pictures. See if you can ID him.”

  The camera zoomed in on the man’s face. Georges was struck by how helpless he was, lying in a foam and plastic cocoon inside a container lost among thousands just like it. When the camera pulled back, Crane was detaching one of the foam barriers from the floor. He threw it aside to reveal a wheeled gurney, also latched to the floor.

  Crane stood up. “How long since the alarm tripped?”

  “Thirty-eight seconds.”

  “I can’t get him out of here,” said Crane. “I don’t even know if it’s safe to remove these drips.”

  “Get out, John!” Josh’s voice said on the radio. “This is pear-shaped.”

 
; “No,” said Crane. “Get the drone back up. Call 911. Give them this lot number and tell them you’ve got multiple RTS 3 trauma injuries. That should get a response.”

  Georges heard Josh’s voice telling someone, “Do it,” as the drone edged back out of the container and flew up into the afternoon sun. The camera caught a crew cab pickup speeding down the access road.

  “John, you need to get out.”

  “Keep me informed on that ambulance.”

  As the truck braked to a stop outside, the container doors swung nearly shut, hiding Crane inside. Four men climbed out. They wore uniforms and carried nightsticks on their belts and pistols in their hands. They fanned out around the broken doors, moving in slowly.

  Then everything erupted into a whirlwind of motion. Georges couldn’t follow every move from above. The door flew open, and he heard the crack of gunshots, saw Crane roll and sweep a guard’s legs from under him. As another moved in, Crane locked his arm somehow and spun him. Crane flipped the man onto the pavement and did something that seemed likely to break his arm. Then he pulled the man’s nightstick from his belt and used it to disarm another.

  The details didn’t matter. Georges stared enraptured at the screen. He watched Crane standing between the four attackers and the helpless man in the container, a storm of energy and action. He did things Georges knew he could never do, but in his mind, Georges saw machetes flashing in the sun, and he saw himself transformed into someone powerful and strong.

  When it was over, all four men were on the ground, and Crane stood over them. He looked up at the drone. “Ambulance?”

  “Just cleared the main gates. Less than a minute.”

  “Get the drone out of here.”

  As the camera pulled away from the scene, Crane ran in the opposite direction.

  The video ended and Georges sat in silence for a long moment. “What happened?” he said at last. “To the man in the container?”

  “EMTs got him out and transported him to Highland Hospital,” said Josh. “An hour later, he was checked out, supposedly transferring to a private hospital in Marin County. But that hospital doesn’t exist. He just disappeared. We still don’t know who he is, why someone put him in a shipping container bound for Shanghai, who took him out of Highland, anything.”

  Josh got up and made his way around the scattered furniture to a dorm refrigerator in the corner. “Water?”

  Georges nodded absently. He was still struck by what he’d seen. He remembered Officer Makoun’s words. “If you’d been there, your mother would still be in that room. And you’d be in the room next door.” He couldn’t argue with that. But if this John Crane had been there…

  A water bottle came sailing at him. Georges snatched it out of the air as Josh returned with his own.

  “So now you know what I’m doing behind the curtain,” Josh said. “And I need help. That was a debacle I don’t want to repeat. I need people who can improvise solutions to weird technical problems. But more than that, I need people who can help sort out what’s going on out there. Because we’re groping in the dark. We got away with it this time, but sooner or later that’s going to end badly.”

  He looked at Georges expectantly. “So you can have an easy job writing actuarial software, or you can be part of the team I’m putting together behind the curtain. What do you say? Can you help me?”

  Georges remembered officer Makoun once more. “If you want to help your mother, do something smart.”

  Georges gestured to the screen. “Him,” he said. “John Crane. I want to help that man.”

  Josh shook his head and sighed. “Yeah, he’s okay, too.”

  As Josh’s Mercedes drove him home, Georges imagined his parents’ reaction to his new software development job. That would be the official job description anyway. He didn’t think his parents would approve of what he would really be doing.

  Myria Group’s HR department was already looking for a new apartment for them, somewhere out of their rundown neighborhood. There would be a signing bonus to get them moved in. There would be room for Romy if he could find her and talk her into coming home. There would be therapy for his mother. There would be everything they needed to start putting their lives back together.

  Georges saw his parents peering nervously from behind the living room curtains as the car pulled up. They’d suffered, and there was nothing he could do to change that. But now he could help keep it from happening again. John Crane would be his champion, and Georges would arm him for battle with ingenuity and skill. Josh had no idea of the things Georges could do.

  Once he had compared his life to the swing of his pendulums. They swung up, but only so far before gravity dragged them back down to the bottom again. But they didn’t stay at the bottom either. It was time to swing back up again.

  Part II

  Sneakernet

  Chapter 7

  Iceland, 25 km outside Reykjavik

  According to the map, this place had been a farm once. Not a particularly fertile one from the look of it. It lay tucked between a steep hill to the south and the rocky flanks of the Esja volcanic mountains to the north. The land was rocky and rough, swept by cold winds. It offered little to anyone trying to work it. The former owners might have planted some grain, but their main source of food and income would have been sheep. It would have been a hard life.

  When the Allies came during the Second World War and built a huge, modern airbase outside the tiny fishing village of Reykjavik, many rural families had abandoned their farms and moved to the new boom town for steady work. John Crane imagined these particular farmers would have been among the first to leave.

  Crane lay prone on the hillside. He had carefully made his way to one of the few patches of brush that offered some cover. There were no trees in sight, just thick grasses and the occasional stand of shrubs like these. If he stood up, they’d barely reach above his knees; he’d be readily visible to the guards below.

  He swept the slope with a pair of Leica binoculars. The old farmstead had been replaced by an ultra-modern building of stone, steel, and dark glass. It was a black, flat-roofed circle in the middle of carefully maintained grounds, surrounded by a larger circle of chain link fence. Two armed guards manned the gate that commanded the only approach road. There was nothing else along the road. Nobody ever wandered out here to disturb the guards. They had to be bored out of their minds. Crane hoped that made them less observant because this was a terrible place to try to sneak into.

  Not only was there no cover, but it was June in Iceland. The sun hung near the horizon to his left, a sullen red ball floating just above the sea. Technically, it would set sometime before midnight, but even then, there would be only a murky twilight. It would never get truly dark. Crane saw no point in waiting.

  He had repeatedly timed the security cameras in their arcs. He knew just where he had to be and how long he could be there. He put the binoculars away and prepared his wire cutters. Then he leapt to his feet and sprinted down the hill.

  Crane was a figure in black tactical gear with a small pack, running down a hillside in plain view. Any moment he expected to hear alarm sirens, but he made it to the fence. He fell to the ground and quickly snipped through the bottom links until he could slide through. Then he folded the chain links back in place and dashed to a metal access door at the rear of the building. There were two cameras along the roof that swept the grounds. But if he made the wall before they converged on him, he’d be safely out of their field of view. He slammed into the wall and pressed his back against the stone, looking frantically for approaching guards. Nothing.

  Crane breathed slowly, forcing his heart rate down. He had a few minutes until one of the workers came out for a smoke. Crane didn’t know what the man did, but it happened on a precise schedule. Every night at the same time, the door opened, and the same man leaned against the back wall long enough to finish a cigarette before going back inside.

  At least that was the pattern he’d spotted over several
nights of watching the compound. Last night, the night Crane meant to make his move, that pattern had been broken. Someone had shown up unannounced, and there had been what Crane took for a security drill. He’d had no choice but to back off.

  The coincidence bothered him. Crane wasn’t a big believer in coincidence. But they’d given no sign that they suspected he was out there. So far tonight, things seemed to be back to normal.

  Crane heard the latch click and rose to a crouch. The door opened and a figure stepped through. Crane grabbed the man’s shirt in both hands and hauled him out. Before the door could close behind him, Crane kneed him in the gut. The man wasn’t a guard; he’d obviously never been trained to fight. He’d barely registered that something was wrong before Crane put him down.

  Crane pulled the man’s access card off his belt and swiped it across the reader. The door beeped and Crane opened it. He slid inside and quietly closed the door behind him. So far, so good.

  Chapter 8

  The Ionian Sea, Six Weeks Earlier

  The two-seater Dornier flying boat picked John Crane up at the pier in Vola, on the northern Greek coast. The plane sliced through the impossibly blue water and then leapt into an equally blue sky. It was a short flight. Soon the plane descended toward a small island, one of dozens dotting the sea here. This one was perhaps half a dozen acres of green slopes and chalky white cliffs. There was a single building with a long terrace built into the cliff face. They touched down on the water, and the pilot pulled up to a wooden dock.

  Josh Sulenski waited at the end of the dock. He wore shorts, boat shoes, and a gray t-shirt that said, “Keep Calm and Activate Bankai.” Crane had no idea what that meant, and he’d learned not to ask.