Chapter 19
NINETEEN
The clattering of dishware across the far end of the great hall caught Adam’s attention. He spun to see Winston pushing a dining cart into the room. Sure, he needed information from Steph, but they all needed to eat.
“Gentlemen.” Winston’s gaze found Steph. “And lady.”
“What the…,” Steph muttered under her breath.
“This is Winston.” Adam knew exactly what the old guy looked like. Black suit, white gloves, pristine white shirt, and shined shoes. His jacket even had a tail on it that was as authentic as his impeccable British accent.
“I’d have sworn his name was Alfred.”
“That would make me Batman.” Adam grinned at her. “But I don’t have nearly that much money.”
“Sure, that’s the only thing stopping you.” She wandered down the central aisle and stuck her hand out. “You’re Winston? I’m Stephanie-Jo.” He bowed over her hand rather than shaking it.
“Yes, ma’am. I am Winston.” He said it the British way, even. So it sounded like marm. Followed by, “Breakfast is served.”
Kai jumped out of his seat. “Finally. I’m starved. Smells amazing as usual, Winst.”
Their butler lifted a silver cover off a plate. “Sausage, egg, and cheese burrito with hashbrowns for you.” He handed over a second plate. “No hashbrowns, pico and sour cream for Mr. Firenz.”
Kai took the plates and rushed back to his seat, handing the second dish to Ash.
“Pancakes and blueberry sauce for Mr. Wylder.”
Adam walked the plate to Dan, who barely looked up from his computer but did say thanks.
“A ham omelet for Mr. Ibanez.”
Ice took the plate. “Thanks, Winston.” His phone rang, and he answered in Russian, taking the plate out the way the butler had come in. Tucking the phone between his cheek and shoulder and continuing to converse in Russian as he left with his breakfast.
Steph glanced at Adam, but he didn’t explain.
“One breakfast platter. Bacon, potatoes, four eggs over easy, extra cheese for Mr. Dubkowsky.”
Adam took the plate. “Thanks, Boss.”
Winston’s eyes twinkled. “And for the lady…” He removed the silver dome lid with a flourish. “Salmon eggs benedict with a side of mixed salad greens.”
Steph looked at the plate. “How did you know that?”
“It’s my job to know.” Winston slid a tray of mugs from a lower shelf on the cart.
“Come on,” Adam prompted. “Let’s sit down, and you can tell me about this woman.” He nudged her, and she got moving.
Winston set the stainless steel carafe on the conference table, along with a mug for everyone and a pitcher of milk, plus another of cream. He set the sugar in front of Kai.
“A butler. Really?” She watched Winston leave, settling in her chair.
“Long story. Eat first, then tell us about the woman, and then I’ll explain where Winston came from.”
She took a bite of salmon smothered with hollandaise. Paused. Looked at her plate.
Across at his desk, Kai said, “Right?”
She ate several more bites, he poured her some coffee, and he gave her a moment to eat while he checked his phone.
Couple of newsletter emails he would look at later, because he needed new running shoes.
A funny GIF from his brother-in-law. The verse of the day from the Bible app his sister had put on his phone.
Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.
He almost went into his settings and toggled off the notifications but didn’t. Adam stared at the words. He wouldn’t have said he was the guy to “fret” about stuff. Plenty of stuff to worry about, though. And it said, “don’t fret” rather than “try not to worry.”
Easier said than done if you asked him.
Nothing new from Noah since he’d sent the phone number for the CIA.
The Division Zero contact person hadn’t been anything like what Adam expected.
He jogged his knee up and down under the table, trying to convince himself that this assignment could be what he made it.
Not whatever was going to be forced on them by a guy he already didn’t like.
Steph lifted a brow. “Dubkowsky?”
Adam swallowed a bite of food and sipped his coffee. “That’s not one of the things we need to talk about.”
“Is it really your last name?”
Adam leaned in the chair and dug out his wallet, sliding a California driver’s license out. “Angus Dubkowsky.”
“That’s your alias?”
Kai snickered. “Or it’s his real name.”
Dan typed on his laptop and ate, without looking up.
“Sure.” Steph shook her head. “Pretty sure I’m the only one in this room going by my real name.”
Kai just grinned.
“How about you tell us that woman’s name?” Adam pointed with his fork to the LED wall and the woman’s picture.
“Tell me.” Steph looked at Kai and lifted her chin. “You took the drone to whatever that company was, and the guidance chip was missing?”
“That’s right.” Kai frowned.
“She took it.”
Ash snorted. Kai shook his head and said, “No way.”
“Did you see a woman at all when you were in that village?”
Adam saw on Ash’s face that they had. “What happened?”
Ash didn’t like it. “A woman and two kids. We helped them get from their home to a vehicle, and they left.”
“It was her.” Steph sat back in her chair.
The guys didn’t agree. Even Dan looked up from his laptop, his jaw set. Ice came back in, carrying his phone and an empty plate. They filled him in, and he slumped into his seat. “No way. How’d she even know we were there?”
Steph just shrugged.
“How can you be sure it was her?” Adam could tell she was certain, but was it only what she wanted him to see? He liked to think he could read people. But it wasn’t a foolproof science.
“She took your guidance system. Doesn’t matter if she knew you were there or not.”
Kai said, “She must’ve been there before us anyway. Chasing the drone, one step ahead.”
“You’ve met her before?” Adam watched her features tighten.
“What I know is from personal experience, yes.”
“But it’s classified?” Adam figured they could argue about who had higher clearance later. “Who is she?”
Steph set her fork on her empty plate and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “If I still had access, I’d be able to pull CIA files and show you what I know. But it’ll all have been revoked. Like access to my funds and any property I have that the CIA secured for me.”
“But you have money and a place to go outside of what they provide, right?”
“It’s complicated.” She grasped the small vial, a cylinder, hanging from her necklace.
“We can help you,” Adam said. “If you need help. I figure we can work together on this, share information. When it’s done, we could work something out?”
“If she has a name, I don’t know what it is. Most people in the intelligence community call her Vesper.”
Ice typed on his computer, and the LED wall displayed the search results for the name “Vesper”—including news articles on a bus bombing in Silicon Valley a few years ago.
“She’s part of an anti-tech group. True believers fighting a holy war type of thing, like ecoterrorists, but they believe that AI will destroy the world. That the more we hand over our decision making to a computer, the worse it will get. That we’ll eventually realize we’re being controlled.”
Adam said, “A few years ago there was a group that tried to destroy fiber optic cable in the ocean, with this massive explosion.”
“That was their group,” Steph said. “Any indication the drone you guys were tasked with retrieving was connected to artificial intelligence?”
“Maybe in that guidance system she took.” Adam remembered something Johannsen had said to them. “The system at the server farm learned from us. The point of it was to see what we did so it could understand humans better.”
He explained about the job they’d done in Argentina, and how they’d met this Vesper.
“There’s no way she followed us here, right?” Steph glanced around.
“If Marina was at her computer, we’d know for sure,” Ice said. “But other than that, no. I’d say there’s no way she followed us. We have security protocols, and safeguards, and the skies are clear.”
“Ice, she said to you that she was after a book?”
Adam glanced at Steph. “That means something to you?”
“I need my CIA files.” She lifted her mug, looked inside, then set it back down. “There’s a rumor—”
“In the intelligence community?” Kai saluted with his coffee cup.
“You have your world, and I have mine.” She almost sounded sad.
Adam shot him a look, and Kai turned back to his plate. “What’s the rumor?”
She shifted in her chair to look at him. “That there’s some kind of manifesto floating around about a global network. That’s probably what she was talking about.”
Yeah, there was definitely more to that. But she didn’t elaborate.
“Huh.” Dan sat back in his chair. “Got a sec, Nix?”
Adam nodded.
“Johannsen is totally off the grid,” Dan said. “Hasn’t shown up to work, hasn’t used his credit cards. His phone isn’t pinging off any cell towers. He’s completely disappeared, and he’s not responding on any of the channels we’ve used to talk to him.”
Ash glanced at Adam.
Steph caught it but didn’t say anything.
Adam needed more coffee. “Where’s Jay? Can he reroute and go check it out?”
Dan nodded. “I’ll hit him up. See where he is. We could use some boots on the ground. Johannsen might’ve been kidnapped.”
Steph muttered, “That seems to be happening a lot lately.”
“How are you doing?” Adam took a bite, watching her reaction.
“Does it matter? If someone you know is missing, we could go check it out. Especially if it’s related.” She straightened the silverware on her plate. “She probably took him, like she took Doctor Warrington.” She looked like she was about to say more but caught herself.
Information about a Dr. Sebastian Warrington popped up on the screen, courtesy of Ice.
“I was looking for him when I was taken,” she said.
“Warrington works for a subsidiary that has government contracts. I don’t totally understand the intricacies of what he does, but it equates to AI talking to other AI and how they communicate without one absorbing the other or one finding dominance.
It all has to happen on this dedicated server that’s like a meeting space for programs like that. ”
“Says here that Warrington hasn’t been seen in weeks.” Ice scanned the screen of his laptop. “But his wife and kids are fine at home. No press conferences or calls for him to be returned, though.” He frowned.
Adam told Dan, “Contact Marina. Find out if what we downloaded from the server farm had anything like that on it. The program has to be tied to a physical server, and if it is, that could give us a location to go check out.”
Dan nodded. “Jay is rerouting from Frankfurt to check out Johannsen’s apartment.”
“If this Johannsen is missing, and Vesper is involved, then he’s in serious danger.” Steph paused. “Warrington has probably been buried somewhere no one will ever find him.”
“I’m not going to believe that’s what happened to Johannsen until I’ve exhausted all the other options.” Adam needed her to know that.
“He’s your contact at Earthnet?”
Adam nodded. “That’s right.”
She wandered over to the LED wall to look closer at the articles about Vesper, and the ones to the left of the screen about Warrington.
Adam let her have a moment to herself. Ash glanced at him, a question on his face. Adam shook his head because the answer was no and he didn’t want to talk openly about it. “What about the rocket launch? What do we know about that?”
Kai said, “Apart from the fact it was so awesome it nearly killed us?” He snorted.
“Nothing official in the media online about a launch in that area, so Earthnet is keeping it pretty quiet. Only some local footage of people who were surprised to find their windows suddenly shaking. But that was a couple of miles away.”
“Any idea what was special about the drone?” Adam took his coffee to look over Kai’s shoulder.
At the desk perpendicular to Kai’s, Ash studied the screen of his laptop. “Without looking at it, we can’t know, but the design wasn’t like anything I’ve seen before. There’s nothing like it online. It was compact. Streamlined.”
“It traveled pretty far.”
Ash nodded. “Maybe it has greater range, and a more powerful engine. That would be worth a lot if someone figured out how it works, getting the motor in such a small space. I’d be interested to know what it runs on.”
“It was solar, bro.”
Adam patted Kai’s shoulder. “You saw that?”
“Panels on the top. Greater range. Maybe it will run for hours, or days.”
“You could send it anywhere.” Adam sipped his drink.
Ash tapped the corner of his desk.
Adam looked at him, and Ash tipped his head toward where Steph stood at the screen. He mouthed, Talk to her and, She just lost everything.
As if Adam didn’t know that?
Technically, she hadn’t “died”—but being burned as a spy wasn’t so different than being captured, held for months. Tortured. Having his life threatened and finally finding rescue. Being offered a way out.
Adam wasn’t going to be her savior. But he figured he could help.
He wandered to where she stood. “Up for a field trip? I’d like to see if we can find Johannsen.”
Even if Jay could find evidence of what happened, and a conclusion could be drawn as to his fate, Adam’s oath meant he still had to do whatever he could to find the guy.
Steph tapped the screen on the corner of the woman’s image. “If she’s involved, he’s in real danger.”
“You think she might be gunning for Earthnet, trying to stop what they’re doing?”
She turned to him. “What are they doing?”
“I wish I knew.”
She flushed. “Maybe you should find out.”
“That wasn’t the job, but since they stiffed us on the final payment, I guess we could find out now.” He glanced over his shoulder at Ice.
“I’ll call Marina.”
“Thanks,” Adam said. “You wanna stay here and get some rest while we do this?”
“I do!” Ash called across the room.
Adam waved the guy away with a hand but didn’t take his attention from Steph. “Your feet probably still hurt.”
She shook her head. “If this is all connected to why I was burned, I want to be there to figure out what’s going on.”
“And if we have to go up against this Vesper?”
Determination flashed in her expression.
“You’ve got a bone to pick with her?”
“You could say that.” She put one hand on her hip. “But first, I seem to recall you promised to explain how it is that you guys have a genuine British butler in your French castle.”
Adam grinned, scratching his jaw. “I did promise that, didn’t I?”
“So spill.”
He’d rather find out how far she would go to get him to talk. That could be interesting. “Winston sent his résumé.”
“You advertised for a butler?”
“Nope. We told no one we…acquired the castle. Three days after we moved in, he contacted us and offered his services.”
“Someone knows you own this place.”
“He convinced us that only he knows.” Adam shrugged. “And he makes the best pad Thai you’ve ever tasted.”