Chapter 6
PALM BEACH
W hat was a face after all? Most people imagined faces as endless iterations of a few facial features. Eyes, nose, mouth, chin. Expressions: happiness, sadness, rage, curiosity. Everything that made us human could be summed up in the face.
But that wasn’t what faces were at all. Faces were sets of data points. About 80 of them, in fact. Nose width, eye socket depth, length of the jawline, distance between the eyes. All data points. Algorhythms making up faceprints like the data points of fingertips made up fingerprints.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
Frederick found Anne Lowell twice by small mistakes she’d made but then Jorge’s goons were morons and let her slip through their fingers. What did he care?. He’d been quite happy to stay on retainer, no skin off his nose. But now he had five hundred thousand incentives to find the woman and deliver her.
Just not to Jorge.
Anne Lowell was adrift somewhere in a country of 360 million faces. 360 million sets of data. A number crunching problem.
Time to bring out the big guns.
Faces were data and all he needed was a big enough bot array to crunch the data, because somewhere Anne Lowell’s face was on film. There were an estimated 70 million surveillance cameras in America, not counting the cams and drones operated by the NSA, the CIA and the Pentagon. Unless she was dead or in a hole in the ground, someone somewhere had filmed her, and recently.
She was a set of data in someone’s computer and all he needed was enough crunching power to find her.
There was an app for that. An idea simmering in his head for a while, a secret weapon for when serious amounts of computer power might be needed. He’d put the idea away for a rainy day and now that rainy day was here. Frank Sinatra singing ‘Here’s That Rainy Day’ provided a nice soundtrack as he worked his way into QUANTUM.
QUANTUM was a shadow network with a vast hidden infrastructure of secret servers and routers used by government alphabet soup agencies, the NSA in the forefront. But the infrastructure was huge and had required years and thousands of man-hours to build and Frederick knew one of the coders, known as the Whiz, a talented young man with an unfortunate taste for drugs and debauchery. The Whiz had been responsible for building a small corner of QUANTUM, much like a mason who erects a minor wall in the construction of a palace. QUANTUM had undergone a vast expansion and required work from many talented coders just like the Whiz.
For the price of several months’ worth of highs, courtesy of stolen goods from Jorge’s deliveries, Frederick managed to buy himself a backdoor into QUANTUM. It was a small secret little hatch in a forgotten corner of the vast structure that, however, led into the palatial rooms, leaving behind no sign of intruders. QUANTUM had a built-in redundancy factor so that the theft of bandwidth, even vast quantities, never showed up in the system.
Getting in required delicacy and time. But Frederick had time and he had a very deft touch. By midnight, he was in and set to work. He had plenty of photographs of Anne from when she was a young girl and college student. Her mother had been a cold bitch and actually preferred the photographs to the person. So Frederick was able to scan over 200 photographs into his facial recognition system, starting from age 10. He also had almost five hours of video from her graduation ceremony and several birthdays. The system used a 3D model where bone was more important than soft tissue. Weight gain or weight loss made no difference to the system.
The program then measured the underlying bone structure on a microwave scale and created a template. It was dawn by the time a 3D scan of Anne Lowell’s face appeared on his monitor.
Frederick had a penthouse with a beach view in North Palm Beach and sunrises were glorious over the ocean. But…he’d had his eye on a small mansion two miles north that would suit him very well. He had considerable savings. The extra 500K would allow him to buy it with money left over and…he could even start thinking of retiring. He’d do it gradually, of course. No rush. Definitely winnow out the total scumbag clients like Jorge who made him physically recoil.
Yes, keep some smart clients, clients he didn’t have to do face-to-face meetings with. Do his thing quietly, anonymously, the money flowing into the Caymans…oh yeah.
By mid-morning, his AI could make Anne Lowell’s template smile, frown and laugh. So, a sprinkling of fairy dust, a little soupcon of algorythms and he could set his construct free. His finger hovered over the ‘enter’ key. He was about to unleash the greatest concentration of virtual firepower in the world onto the search for one young woman, who had done no one any harm.
But, such was the way of the world.
He pressed enter and waited.
His computer didn’t hum, of course. But Frederick imagined humming going on somewhere underground, in refrigerated banks of servers somewhere in Virginia.. Working for him, about to earn him a lot of money.
A blank monitor is boring. Frederick went out for lunch at Les Deux Renards, a charming French restaurant known for the chef’s light hand. He allowed himself a glass of Pinot noir because, well, he wasn’t the one combing the internet, was h. e? QUANTUM was. A quick visit to his gym, a lovely massage and home by five, in time for a Pimm’s on the terrace. The red and yellow-streaked clouds above the horizon were slowly turning purple when a soft ping sounded behind him.
Ah. Found. Excellent.
Frederick took his glass of Pimm’s with him as he sauntered over to his work station. He had six monitors, top of the line, with incredibly sharp images. Spread over the monitors were thumbnail photographs, in chronological order. He took in the visual data at a glance, noticing that Anne had cycled through platinum white hair, auburn and, on the right hand monitor, chestnut. She was a dark blonde naturally. He shook his head. She’d spent a lot of money at the hairdresser’s for nothing. His algorhythms didn’t even look at hair color. Not even part of the data set.
The thumbnails to the left showed where she’d been. He’d study them for patterns but he wanted to know where she was right now .
And there she was, on the far right monitor, in a Twitter feed dated yesterday.
He went to the Facebook page of one Monica Shaw, sometime actress/artist, full time caterer. She’d Instagrammed photos of an art show held in—Frederick leaned forward, squinting at the coordinates which the program instantly geolocated for him. He rocked back on his heels.
The art show was held in the Bachman Gallery in the center of Portland, Oregon.
Portland huh? Maybe not such a bad place to come to ground, all things considered. Small but large enough to hide in. Multi-cultural so nobody stood out. A percentage of the population newcomers so one woman arriving sparked no interest.
Monica Shaw carried drinks and manned the buffet table while surreptitiously taking shots with her cell phone. She was interested in a famous harpist and singer, Allegra Kowalski. She was excited at the presence of event art organizer Phillip Barton. Manga artist Wu was there and she sneaked in a selfie with him.
The caterer had no interest at all in the actual works on the walls, or the organizer of the show, decorator Suzanne Huntington. On another monitor, Frederick checked the website of Suzanne Huntington who, it turned out, was seriously talented. The Gallery section showed ninety offices and homes she’d decorated.
When he bought his mansion, he just might hire her, she was that good.
And…there she was. Anne Lowell, or whatever she was calling herself nowadays. Brunette.
Not good enough, sweetheart , he thought. Anne had never noticed the caterer taking shots from her cellphone. She was never in direct line of sight, but many of the shots were very clear nonetheless.
She was still very pretty. Being a brunette suited her, with her ice blue eyes and pale skin. She’d lost some weight, too. Maybe a little too much. Being on the run could do that to a girl.
The program isolated her face inside a red box. In all, there were ten shots of the evening where she appeared. In five of them she was holding the arm of a big bruiser. Not tall but immensely broad. Shaved head, dark complexion, grim expression. A rough-looking guy.
They looked odd together, a Beauty and the Beast kind of couple. The man was wearing a tux but it didn’t look right on him. Yet in two of the shots, Anne was looking up at his dark, ugly face and smiling.
The man was stiff, unsmiling. He didn’t look like a guy who’d unexpectedly scored a beauty. Could he be a bodyguard? Could she afford one?
But no. Bodyguards stood back from their primaries, scouting the terrain. This guy looked as paranoid as a bodyguard, in each shot he was examining a different part of the room, but he was definitely escorting Anne. In one shot, one huge dark hand covered hers in the crook of his elbow. Bodyguards didn’t do that.
Interesting.
Hmm. So she had some muscle behind her. Well, brains trumped muscle, always.
Frederick kept a number of identities on file. They were fully fleshed out, with websites and active FB pages. There were over three trillion websites in the world. His passed unnoticed.
He scrolled through his files like a connoisseur choosing the perfect bottle of wine from a well-stocked cellar. Ah, there was a good one. He tapped on the screen and a very distinguished head shot of himself came up. He remembered when he’d had the portrait photo taken. He’d made sure to get a $200 haircut, had had lunch at a 5 star restaurant and had been to the spa. He looked ruddy, self satisfied, pampered and very rich.
Paul Andrews. Investment broker. The web site was a little vague as to exactly what he brokered and what he invested in, but he’d modeled it on the sites of other investment gurus, so it didn’t stand out.
Well, Paul Andrews was about to relocate to Portland, Oregon to set up a west coast subsidiary and he was going to need lavish new headquarters and he knew just the person he’d hire to do the interior decorating.
He tapped another screen and an inset of his pilot popped up. “Sir?”
“Get the plane ready. I’d like to leave for Portland, Oregon early tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was snowing heavily by the time Jacko got onto one of the main roads, blending smoothly into the traffic. No one noticed his SUV and that was exactly as it should be. He’d even smeared some muddy snow on his tags. No one was going to get to Lauren through him.
Though he was concentrated on the road ahead—the snow was so heavy it challenged even his driving skills—he could see her perfectly well in his peripheral vision. She was sitting quietly, gloved hands in her lap, staring straight ahead. All he could see was her profile, steady and composed, but she was very pale.
It pained her to leave her little house and he understood completely. One night there and even he felt at home in it. She’d worked on it and she loved it and a scumbag drug dealer was chasing her away. He tightened his hands on the wheel, wishing they were around the fucker’s throat.
Well, he had a plan. He was good at strategizing and he was good at operational implementation and as soon as humanly possible Lauren would be free and someone would be dead or in jail. They way he felt, preferably dead.
Lauren suddenly sat up straight and looked around. “Shouldn’t we have taken Kearney? Don’t you live in Roseway?”
“Yeah. We’ll get there but first we have to stop by the office. I have some stuff to settle there. Then we'll get you set up at my place.” He slanted a look at her. “My place isn’t nice like yours.”
She looked at him, luscious mouth upturned in a small smile. “I’ll bet you have one of those mega plasma 5K billion inch TV screens.”
“Bingo.”
“And a huge sound system.”
Badass sound system, yeah. “Bingo again. And an enormous bed.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Damn! He could kick himself in the ass. It made it sound like the price of his protection was sex.
Though…yeah. It wasn’t the price, of course. He’d offer his protection for nothing because just the thought of someone hurting her made him a little crazy. So, not the price, no sir. He was protecting her because he couldn’t do otherwise.
But man, if more of that sex he had last night was available, he wouldn’t say no.
His dick stirred at the thought, the thought of sliding back into her warm silkiness. Right… now. God, he had to grip the wheel hard and concentrate on driving because blood was rushing to his dick, which never listened to reason. Because now was not the time.
Maybe later? He had to shift in his seat because his dick was getting stiffer by the second.
Lauren had turned a bright shade of red.
What a fuckhead he was. “Forget I said that. Way outta line. Sorry.”
She reached out and put her small hand on his. Even through her glove it seemed to burn. “Don’t apologize, Jacko.” She frowned, peering at a street sign as he signaled a turn. The sign was barely visible in the swirling snow. “Isn’t this—” she looked at him. “Isn’t this the street where Suzanne’s office is?”
“Yeah.” Jacko reached for his cell, put in the ear bud, punched in a number.
“Yo.” Metal, pulling office duty. Metal wasn’t built for offices, just like he wasn’t, but they loved their jobs and if it required ass in chair once in a while, they could handle it.
“Coming in with package. Switch off vidcams.”
“Got it.”
Jacko relaxed slightly. Metal was a soldier and didn’t ask dumb questions. He knew Jacko wouldn’t make a request like that without a very good reason. And that very good reason was sitting next to him, pale, frightened, but composed.
And frigging gorgeous.
He nearly sighed as he rounded the corner and pushed the button to open the back gates. He was on a mission now and when he was operational, he was all business. Like most SpecOps soldiers, he could narrow his focus like a laser beam. The op. It was always about the op. Everything else was secondary.
Except now, for the very first time in his life, his attention was divided. Keeping Lauren safe was the op, but Lauren herself was distracting him. The idea of someone hurting her messed with something deep inside him, made him less…efficient. Scared him. Which scared him because Jacko didn’t do fear. No, sir. And yet here he was, sweating lightly, making sure the vidcams of his company were off because—though Midnight’s cybersecurity was ace, you never knew.
Metal was waiting in the yard, impassive as ever, though Jacko knew he was curious. No one asked for the security at Alpha International to be turned off, ever.
Jacko drove in and killed the engine, listening to the ticking as the motor cooled. He was absolutely 100% convinced that what he was about to do was right. But it hurt, just the same.
Do the hard thing . A Navy SEAL motto that had never let him down.
“Jacko?” Lauren turned her face to him, pale and troubled. Her skin glowed in the dim light. “Why are we here? I need—I need to stay away from Suzanne. I don’t want anything about my situation to touch her.”
“We’re not here for Suzanne,” he answered, getting out and going to the passenger side. He opened the door and held his hand out to her. She stepped down, pointing her right foot like a ballerina until she touched the ground. She looked like a fairy princess in the snow, light flake falling on her dark hair. She stood for a moment, hand in his, looking up at him and he saw…complete trust.
She was putting her life in his hands.
He swallowed. That trust was sacred. Nothing was going to happen to her, he’d stake his life on that, and he was. But before he could dedicate himself to her completely, the next step was necessary. Hard, but then nothing in his life had ever been easy. And he’d never had a prize like Lauren to fight for before.
Metal materialized by his side.
“Midnight in?” Jacko asked.
Metal nodded. “Waiting for you.”
Yeah. He imagined that. The request to kill security would have been routed up to Midnight, one of their bosses.
“The Senior, too,” Metal added.
Douglas Kowalski, known to everyone but his wife as the Senior. He’d been one of the most effective senior chiefs in the history of Navy SEALs. And, like Midnight, he was a terrific boss.
For just a second, Jacko allowed himself a pang at the thought of leaving. Tiny, just for a second. But then he looked at Lauren, patiently waiting for him, trusting him, and the pang was gone. This was what he had to do.
Embrace the suck. A good rule in the military and in life. He was just going to put his arms around the suck and hug tight. Not the first time it had happened.
He put a hand to her back and they made their way in the swirling snow to the back entrance of Alpha Security International. It was the business entrance, where people doing actual work came and went. The fancy front office was for show and for clients.
Alpha Security International shared a building with Suzanne’s interior design company, which explained how it was that Alpha Security could be as sober and serious a business there was, while lodged in the most elegant surroundings he’d ever been in.
Alpha Security’s employees were mostly former SEALs with the odd leatherneck tolerated. They were rough and tough men, used to hardship and Spartan surroundings, but they all enjoyed the space Suzanne had created for him.
Goodbye to that, too.
Jacko ushered Lauren over the threshold. As they walked down the corridor, she looked up at him. “It’ll be okay,” he assured her.
She gave a small smile and nodded.
They walked into the lobby of Alpha Security and the secretary, Alison, waved them through. “He’s waiting for you, Jacko,” she said.
Yeah.
Lauren was looking around and he realized she’d seen Suzanne’s offices but not ASI’s. She touched his arm. “We’re here for a reason?”
He nodded.
Her voice was low, quiet. “I don’t want Suzanne—or, God!—Isabel involved in any way in my troubles. Or Allegra. Or Claire. Promise me that.”
“I promise she’ll be safe. Allegra and Claire, too.” He could make that promise. Midnight would see the world burn before he let anything hurt his wife or daughter. Ditto for the Senior. Bud had already taken a bullet for Claire.
Midnight was waiting behind his desk when they walked in. His eyes widened slightly when he saw Lauren. For Midnight, that was a sign of huge surprise. He rose to his feet.
“Lauren?” Midnight looked from Lauren to Jacko. “Are you looking for Suzanne? Because she’s out with a client.”
“She’s not looking for Suzanne,” Jacko said after he settled Lauren in one of Midnight’s comfortable client chairs. He himself stood, because what he had to say was going to be quick. And painful. The faster it got done the faster he could move on to the next stage. “She’s here because I have something to say.”
Midnight sat back down, leaned back a little in his chair. “Shoot.”
“I quit.”
Lauren took in a shocked breath, but Midnight simply narrowed his eyes. SEALs didn’t do surprise.
“Request denied,” Midnight said and that surprised him. He’d worked himself up to this and now…it wasn’t going to happen? “At ease, sit down and explain yourself.”
Jacko dropped into the chair.
Lauren jumped up at Jacko’s words. Oh my God! Jacko was resigning? Over her?
The one thing she knew about him was that he loved his job. She couldn’t allow this.
“Mr. Huntington?—”
“John,” Suzanne’s husband said. He’d said it to her many times but he was so formidable she found it hard to call him by his first name. She nodded, forced herself to use his first name.
“John. This is insane. I can’t let Jacko lose his job over my problems.”
“No one’s losing his job, Lauren. Least of all Jacko. He’s too valuable to the company. So why don’t you sit back down and tell me what this is about. Is it related to the fact that you left the party last night when someone took a photograph of you?”
John’s eyes were dark, but not as dark as Jacko’s. There was a gunmetal sheen there that reflected light. But they were as observant as Jacko’s.
She shot a glance at Jacko sitting next to her. He was stiff, impassive, the only sign of emotion his jaw muscles jumping. He looked at her and his message was clear. Your call.
Okay. She took in a deep breath. “Someone very bad is after me, John. He’s killed two people trying to get to me. He will stop at nothing. I’ve been on the run for two years and sooner or later I’m going to make a mistake and he’ll get me. Last night—” she swallowed hard. “Last night might have been one of those mistakes. This morning I tried to get out of town and go…somewhere. But Jacko stopped me.”