Chapter 31 #2
I pulled into the road that led to the cabin, and sat there in the car outside it, gathering my nerves. I had to do this now, swiftly. Without overthinking it.
There was one single chance I could help Jed. It was extremely slim, and it depended on many completely unpredictable variables.
I pulled out the burner and found “Boss” in the address function. I wondered if that was supposed to be funny for him. Eeew. What a nasty little jerk-off he was.
I hit “call,” and waited. It buzzed five times before he picked up.
“Rachelle,” Boer said. “You were explicitly instructed not to bother me. By now you’ve seen what happens to people who don’t follow orders. Why are you calling?”
I tried to reply, but my throat was quivering too hard. I swallowed, tried again. What a cruel, self-important butthead. Bullying a bereaved woman whose husband he’d just murdered.
Boer made an impatient sound in his throat. “I have things to do Rachelle. If you have something to say, spit it out.”
“I’m not Rachelle,” I said.
A brief, startled pause. “Interesting,” Boer said. “Freya Masters, is it? Did you kill that useless bitch Rachelle? I hoped you’d be with Clearwater when he came to Grifo’s place. Cutting him into pieces won’t be nearly as much fun without you watching.”
“Don’t,” I said, involuntarily. “Don’t hurt him. Please.”
Boer waited, and laughed softly “Or…?” he taunted. “Or what? That’s not how this works, sweetheart. You have to offer me something I want.”
“SmokeScreen,” I said. “I can offer you that. If you let Jed go.”
“I’ll be damned. I wouldn’t have expected you to have any real intel. I thought you were just an empty-headed fucktoy. So? How shall we do this?”
“Let him go,” I said. “And I’ll open the algorithm for you.”
Boer clucked his tongue. “Oh, come on. Don’t insult my intelligence.”
“Will you let him go? If I do?” I let my voice quaver as much as it wanted to. It was important that he took me for an airhead.
“For SmokeScreen, yes. But I still don’t understand how this exchange could possibly take place. How could I secure it? I have to protect my interests.”
“Let him go and you’ll have me,” I blurted. “I’ll enter all the codes for you.”
Boer thought about that. “I have a better idea,” he said. “Logistically simpler. You just give me the codes right now, over the phone. And I will let him go.”
His oily condescension barely touched me. “I can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry, but the codes are incredibly complicated and long. I have to do it in person.”
“I’m sure I can manage it,” he said.
“No, really,” I improvised wildly. “I couldn’t tell you how to do it, I swear to God. It has to be done on the fly, once you begin, everything is extremely time sensitive. You get one thing wrong and you’re out.”
“Try me,” he said.
“But…but the program generates random patterns the user has to respond to in real time,” I said. “It would take months to coach you into being able to do it. Only my two brothers and I can do it.”
“Hmmm. I don’t believe you, Freya. That’s unfortunate for your friend Jed.”
“Oh, for God sake,” I said tartly. “Do you think I want to walk into your clutches? Trust me, I don’t have any choice except to come and do the job myself.”
Boer let me sweat while he covered the phone with his hand, conferring with someone else.
He came back on the line. “Let me tell you how this will work,” he said.
“Clearwater doesn’t know how to open the algorithm, so I have no reason not to start cutting him if I get bored and need entertainment.
You, on the other hand, claim to have what I need.
I know where you are right now, thanks to the location device in the burner phone I gave to Rachelle.
I see where you are, and if you are not there when my people arrive, I’ll take it out of Jed Clearwater. In flesh. Is that clear?”
Dread was heavy in my belly. I’d just burned my last bridge behind me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “I’ll wait for them.”
“And if you don’t come through with the code? Then it gets much worse for your fuck boy, and you get the front row seat. Close enough to catch the splatter.”
“I get that,” I told him
“Wait where you are,” he said. “Don’t talk to anyone.
I’ll call when it’s time to come out of the cabin.
When I call, you will come out with your hands raised above your head, and nothing in them but the phone.
Is that clear? Keep the phone on you until I call it.
Any funny stuff, Jed gets cut. Delays, Jed gets cut. Weapons, Jed gets cut.”
“Got it,” I repeated, robotically.
“I’ll be watching you, Freya. Every fucking second.”
The connection broke. I put the phone back into my pocket and got out of the car, forcing my numb legs to move.
Panic was stimulating, if you rode the crest of the wave.
My first move was to tear apart the Badass Bitch Bag.
I rifled through my little tricks, which seemed very lightweight and frivolous in the face of Boer and his threats.
I wished I had something bigger, more lethal.
But they were going to search me thoroughly.
The one thing I dared to take was the little transparent thumb ring. It braced a mechanism that had a tiny pop-out blade made out of resin that hid behind my fake fingernail. Everything else was too obvious, and would show up in a search.
But even this ring could get me and Jed killed. Another life or death decision.
Yes, to the ring. I also pulled out one of the tooth tracers. It slipped over my back molar, so anyone with the frequency could follow me. If anyone looked in my mouth, it just looked like a crown. Biting down activated the signal.
And that was it. Those were the only things in my bag of tricks that had a hope in hell of getting past Boer’s security search.
On to the next hard conversation. I pulled up Ethan’s number, braced myself.
My brother answered instantly. “Jesus, Frey. You hung up on me!”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Bro. I’m in trouble. I’m on a really tight schedule. So listen up.”
“Frey, stop being a baby, and listen—”
“Boer’s coming for me here,” I said. “In just a few minutes.”
“What? So go! Run! Now!”
“I have to wait. I’m letting him take me. If I don’t, he starts to hurt Jed.”
“No, you are not!” Ethan yelled. “Big fucking shame about Jed, but too bad!”
“I just sent you data for the transmitter I put on my tooth,” I said.
“When I bite down, it sends a signal. Also, get in touch with the Drake brothers. They were coming to Portland to help Jed, and they were supposed to get here early this morning, so they’ll be the closest ones who can start following me. Have you got all that?”
“No fucking way! I can’t let you—”
“Now give me the code,” I said. “I have to be able to open the dummy version of SmokeScreen, and you need to be ready to dive through the hole I open up, right? And you’ll help me any way you can. Right? Isn’t that how it works?”
“Frey, no! That’s insane! I never meant to actually use it, and certainly not with you! Just get in your car and get the fuck out of there! Now! Please!”
“I’m sorry, Ethan. I love you. I really do. With all my heart.”
“Goddamnit, Frey. Don’t do this to me.” His voice cracked. “Don’t let him take you too. Don’t do this.”
My eyes were streaming. I snorted back tears in my nose. “Too late, big brother,” I said, as I saw the sweep of headlights flickering through the trees at the big loop of the driveway. “I can see their headlights. Tell me quick, or it’ll be too late.”
“You can’t!”
“This is happening, right now.” I schooled my voice to steely calm. “Either I go in there with the dummy code, or I go in there naked, nothing to bargain with, and no way to establish a connection with you. I think you know exactly how that would go.”
“Goddamnit, Frey.” His voice broke.
I swallowed down my tears. “They’re getting closer. Tell me quick.”
“Fuck!” he bellowed. “It’s mom’s favorite poem.
You know it. Robert Frost, Nature’s first green is gold.
Except it’s backward, and between each letter you can insert as many random numbers and symbols as you want, for as long as you want, if you need to play for time.
Just don’t put in more letters. Do you know the poem? ”
“Shane used to recite it to me at bedtime,” I said. “When I was little.”
“You know the address on the darkweb. Just go to it and start entering the last line of the poem, backward, into the dialog box. Each line of the poem will get you one layer deeper. There are eight lines. You have to fill eight dialogue boxes. Start with the last line of the poem. No spaces between the words. Careful of the punctuation. And it’s case sensitive. ”
The headlights were getting closer. “Do you mean the words are recited in backward order? Or the actual letters of the words?”
“The letters of the words,” he said. “Plus the punctuation. Start with the period following the last letter of the last word of the poem.”
“God, what a fucking nerd you are. I love you, big brother. Take care.”
“Freya, run! Please!”
“I’m sorry, Ethan. Call the Drakes. Have them follow me. Hurry.”
“Don’t do this to Holly.” His voice shook. “Don’t do this to me. Fuck, Frey!”
That hurt, like a knife in my guts. “Sorry. Too late now. I love you. I love Holly. Tell her. Keep telling her.”
“Frey—”
“Goodbye.” I cut him off, turned the phone off, looked around frantically, and shoved it through a ragged hole in the baseboard, just as Rachelle’s burner phone began to ring. I answered it. “Yes?”
“Take off your coat,” Boer said. “There are snipers covering the cabin from two directions. Walk out with your arms in the air, holding the phone. Turn so your back is to the car. Leave four yards between you and the vehicle. Understood?”
“Understood,” I said.
“Go now. I’m watching through a live stream, so do not fuck with me.”
I shrugged off my coat, as he had instructed, and stepped out the door into the blinding headlights. It was very cold with just the sweatshirt. I shivered violently.
I walked out to a few yards from the lights, arms up, and turned around, the phone in my hand. The car door opening made me jump. Gravel crunched under heavy boots.
“Don’t move, bitch.” A gravely, unfriendly voice. Not Boer’s.
I waited. The crunching got closer. I gasped as my hands were jerked behind me, plastic cuffs jerked tight. A bag went over my head, smothering me.
Pain exploded in my head. Then nothing.