Reciprosity Read online

  2

  The Case belonged to Jonathan Novak, founder of NovaTech, designer of Looking Glass, and owner of this house in Lugano. He’s dead now. Long story short. He was shot in his mansion in San Francisco last December. His wife, Kate Novak—Ray Mattock’s client—fled to Paris with The Case. She was being set up for murdering her husband. I entered the picture, rescued her, and along the way, learned about Looking Glass, and met Virna. She was a hacker turned lead researcher for a local technology firm operated by the Family. With her help, we learned that the The Case was the key to accessing Jonathan Novak’s back door into the project’s surveilance files. The files The Endowment, via the DOD, planned to use to blackmail the shakers and movers of the world. The files Virna and I—diverted.

  I smiled at the bossman holding The Case. “So, I guess you’re, like, the tenth man on the Endowment organization chart? I killed the first nine so you can’t be higher than number ten.”

  He ignored my remark, which I felt was quite funny under the circumstances, and placed The Case on the floor. Then he pulled an automatic weapon from his holster. He didn’t point it, just held it casually by his side. Nice rejoinder.

  “Jake,” he said to the goon still holding the sandwich, “get them some cloths from upstairs. And get rid of that stupid sandwich.” He turned to the second goon who apparently had no name. “Cut the woman’s ties and escort her to a bathroom. I’m sure she needs to pee after fourteen hours.”

  Fourteen hours! What about me? I need to pee too. Really.

  Two minutes later, both men returned. Jake dumped the cloths in a pile on the floor. No-name pushed Virna toward the pile and ordered her to pick something. She grabbed some jeans, a sweater and some sneakers that looked like they probably belonged to Kate Novak. Virna winked at me as she dressed. Not sure what the signal was, but I’m certain it had nothing to do with sex. Then the bossman ordered her back to her chair.

  “Okay, Mr. Smartmouth, you’re next. If you try anything, Jake will put a bullet in Miss. Pieralisi’s kneecap.”

  No-Name cut my ties and pushed me toward the same bathroom. He stood in the doorway while I relieved myself. Then I washed my hands in the sink, just like mother ordered. My body blocked No-Name’s view of the mirror, where a faint message was scrawled quickly in the lingering fog of Virna’s breath.

  Alice walls exit

  Smart girl. I dried my hands and wiped the towel over the mirror. No-Name thought I was being overly concerned with cleanliness. He shoved me back to the others where I struggled the remaining cloths over my large frame. Sweat-pants and a 49er’s hoodie. I’m a pretty big guy. Six-four in heels. Two-twenty on a good day. And mostly muscle if I hold in my gut. So you can imagine how I look wearing sweats intended for a skinny six-footer. The sneakers were never going to fit so I remained barefoot.

  The bossman was getting restless. “Let’s go. You know the way down to the wine cellar. And don’t try being a hero. The cemeteries are filled with them.

  Not sure how to take that so I asked, “Was I right about you being number ten?” I knew exactly how to take it after he slammed the butt of his automatic against my right temple. That brought back the headache which reminded me, “Just curious. How did you knock us out? I know how you got in because Ray never locks up.”

  To my surprise, he obliged me as we descended the stairs. “Targeted ultrasonics. A weapon Mr. Novak was developing for the DOD. He called it SANDMAN. It can knock out everyone in a pre-determined area, up to a square-mile. No permanent damage as long as it’s dialed to a lower setting. Lingering headaches and nausea seem to be the most common side effects. People usually remain unconscious between two to five hours. Just depends on the individual and how far we crank it up. The higher the level the deadlier. They injected you and the girl with a sleep sedative. Net result, you were out for fourteen hours, give or take.”

  He stopped when we arrived in the cellar. Four tall racks of wine stood on either side of a long aisle. At the end was a wall of glass and darkness beyond—maybe even escape. My heart sank when I saw two additional goons studying the keypad that would open the glass barrier. Virna and I had been through all this before. We had to use that knowledge to our advantage. Thus her note on the mirror: Alice wall exit.

  Bossman stopped ten feet short of the barrier. He pointed his weapon at the back of Virna’s head. “Open it, Luke.” He motioned for the two men who had failed to break the code aside.

  I could see the faint imprints where bullets had bounced off the glass when Virna and I were safely on the other side last December. We were making faces and mooning the previous set of goons who were blasting away at us. We didn’t actually moon them. But I did kill most of them. I stepped forward and punched in the code. “Try ALICE. Two, five, four, two, three,” Virna had suggested back then.

  The glass wall parted at the center and receded into the stone walls at either end. Sixteen feet of glass simply vanished.

  At the left end of the office a portrait of Walt Disney graced the wall above a broad cherry wood credenza. At the right end of the office a series of eight original illustrations by John Tenniel hung on the stone wall. The famous nineteenth-century illustrator was the principal political cartoonist for Britain’s Punch magazine. He was also the artist who best illustrated Lewis Carroll’s books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

  Bossman asked, “How does it work? Where are the servers?”

  What servers? I didn’t say that out loud. I turned slowly to face him and Virna. I needed to see both of their faces for the next part. “They’re behind the paneled wall.”

  How it worked was our ace in the hole—I hoped. As Virna and I discovered in her lab back in December, The Case has a potentially nasty surprise.

  I volunteered, “Virna is the one who figured out how to open The Case. Ain’t that right, honey?”

  “Honey! Codardo! You show him how it works!”

  Boy, she’s a great actor. I could kiss her.

  I followed up with, “You know I don’t know how to set it up on that aluminum desk, baby.”

  “Don’t baby me, you big allocco! My mother told me to stay at arms length from strangers.”

  “Yea! Well, at least I didn’t duck for cover when those goons started shooting, sweetheart.”

  “Sweetheart, if I’d had a gun I would’ve shot you, and then them. In that order.”

  The bossman had heard enough and he said so. “Enough! I can’t believe you two are actually getting married. Both of you into the office with me.” Then to his four goons, “Stay here with weapons trained on these two. If they try anything, you have my permission to shoot them. Him first.”

  Always wanted to be first.

  He escorted us toward the desk. “Set it up!” He handed the case to Virna and she smartly walked to the backside of the desk so she was facing the wine cellar and the four goons pointing guns at her. She placed The Case on the desktop and took one pace backwards.

  Now it was my turn. “Hey, honey, Let me open it!

  I moved quickly to her side of the desk, my body language and tone expressing urgency and drawing everyone’s attention. I stretched out my hand toward The Case lid.

  “Stop!” shouted the bossman. “You think I’m stupid, or something?”

  Well, yea. Now I do.

  He quickly moved to our side of the desk. “Stand aside,” he barked. “I’ll open it. What do I do?”

  I was now standing on his left and Virna on his right. Perfect.

  Virna obliged. “Place your right hand on the lid so your finger-tips touch those five dimples. Then place your left palm on the desktop. You may feel a slight tingle.” The bossman looked nervous and glanced at Virna.

  My turn again. I shuffled forward. “Here, let me do it, sissy.”

  His gun was instantly in my face. “Back off!” Then he realized he couldn’t do it without holstering his weapon. “Jake, come in here. Over there to Mr. Cassine’s left. Shoot him if someth
ing happens.”

  This made the angles a little more difficult, but hey, this is what separates the dead from the living.

  Bossman holstered his weapon, a Glock Gen 5. I quickly glanced at Jake’s weapon. Same Glock. Fuck, these guys could be FBI. The Gen 5 was their standard issue. Plus, they all spoke perfect yankee.

  Bossman had Virna repeat her instructions. Backward instructions. He placed his right hand on the lid, fingers splayed to align with the dimples. I tensed my body and gave Virna a get-ready wink. His left palm touched the surface of the desk. His body recoiled as the electrical current passed through his body to the case circuitry, throwing a switch and unlocking the case.

  His knee-jerk reaction to the mild 9 volt current was what we were counting on. I wrapped my left arm around his throat, and pulled his Glock with my right, while spinning his body around to face Jake. The goon’s first round struck his boss in the left shoulder. My first shot drilled Jake in his left eye. He screamed as he went down clutching his face. His body convulsed for a moment then became still. It was odd. He should have died instantly.

  Virna was already under the desk as I spun bossman around as a shield against his remaining three goons who had opened fire. One round grazed my exposed bicep and landed in bossman’s other shoulder. I returned fire, hoping to keep them from rushing the office. It worked. They all dove behind wine racks.

  I cradled my captive down to the floor behind the desk and shouted, “Hold your fire or I’ll put a round through your bossman’s groin.” Virna made a face at me and whispered, “groin!”

  I smiled back as I returned the favor and clocked bossman on his right temple with the butt of the Glock. He went out like a light. Then Virna reminded me that The Case was now open and Alice had been talking for some time.

  I missed the part where she says “Good evening Thomas. I see we are in Switzerland. Local time...” is whatever. “It has been...” who knows how much, “time since our last session. Should I initiate your standard interface?”

  I looked at Virna. She nudged me with an elbow. I answered, “Yes.” It seemed the safest response. I just prayed the thing didn’t recognize that I still wasn’t her master.

  “Very well, Thomas. May I ask what all the noise was? It sounded a lot like small arms fire. Should I notify the authorities? I’m having difficulty matching your voiceprint again.”

  Jesus. “Yes, I have that same blasted cold I had last time. Nice of you to notice.”

  “I require confirmation. What is my name? You have ten seconds.”

  “Alice,” I replied.

  “Who created me?” asked Alice.

  Virna glared at me and mouthed the correct answer.

  “I created you, Alice.” I knew that.

  “Thank you Thomas. Standard voice interface initiated.”

  Between the two of us, Virna and I made one really smart person.

  I said. “Alice, please secure the doors now.”

  I was peeking over the desktop, keeping an eye on the three men hiding behind the racks, when I heard the reassuring hiss and clunk as the glass panels slid together.

  Virna and I stood and waved at the goons as they stepped out of cover. They all had puzzled looks on their faces. However, no-name, who had not been down here with his two buddies trying to get the glass wall to open, had no clue that it was bullet proof. In fact it was designed to withstand heavy arms fire and small explosions—as we learned last December. No-name pointed his Glock and fired four rounds directly at me. His angle was such, that before his buddies could stop him, one round ricocheted off the glass and drilled one of his buddies in the leg.

  “C'est la vie, say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell—just how stupid some people are.” I thought that was quite witty.

  So did Virna. She wrapped an arm through mine and kissed me on the cheek. “So, what now, old folk? Once again we’re stuck in here with Alice and no way out accept through those knuckleheads. Last time I offered to make out on that sofa. Whatd’ya say, sailor?”

  “Always sex with you.” Thank you God. “Is there anywhere you wouldn’t have sex?

  “What can I say. I’m Italian. Sex is how we relax, and I’m really tense right now. Feel.” She lifted my left hand to her breast and I winced. “Oh Dio! You’re wounded! Sit down on the couch and let me see to it.”

  I smiled. “See. Sex. You wouldn’t stop ‘till you got me on this couch.”

  “Shut up and stay still.” Then she gave me a big, wet, tongue swab, pushed me down on the couch and climbed on top.”

  “Is this how you treat all you’r patients, Dr. Pieralisi?”

  Me and little Luke were all prepared to ignore the men standing beyond the glass wall like peeping toms, when Alice broke the mood.

  “Thomas, may I shut down while you have sex?”

  Virna and I broke out laughing and little Luke went back to bed. “Open the data center first, Alice.” We watched as the cherry wood paneled wall behind the desk slide open to reveal racks of data servers.

  After my wound was covered by a dozen Band-aides Virna found in a desk drawer, I said, “What about the secret exit through the data center? We didn’t have to use that last time, if you recall.”

  “What about them?” asked Virna, lifting her chin toward the two goons tending their wounded comrade. “And then there’s their boss. He was stirring when I got the Band-aids.”

  “Christ! I forgot all about him.”

  3

  Ten minutes later we had the bossman propped up against the desk, hands and ankles bound by zip-ties he so thoughtfully supplied. He was alert and staring at the two wounds in his shoulders. We had removed his nylon shirt and kevlar vest to tend them with old coffee grounds and water from a water cooler we discovered in the data center. The wounds weren’t life threatening, perhaps deflections from his kevlar vest.

  We rifled his pockets and came away with a passport, a wallet, a ball-point pen, which I left in the top pocket, an FBI ID, a cell phone and a satellite phone. Our genial host was Senior Special Agent Scott Glenn—no relationship to the actor. Thirty-three, married with four kids. DC resident. He had no accent, so he was probably a transplant from California. The phones were both powered off.

  Next, we checked dead Jake. Special Agent Jake Samson, deceased. Same belongings, same phones, no family.

  I didn’t have pockets so Virna crammed what she could into her jeans pockets. I picked up Senior Special Agent Scott Glenn’s vest and handed it to her. She put it on and crammed the rest of the gear into the field pockets. She left his ball-point pen in the top pocket. His holster, all of their holsters, were Velcro’ed to their nylon pants. So I stuffed both weapons into my already tight waistband.

  Then I slapped bossman in the face, twice. Okay, maybe three times. This focussed his attention away from his wounds to my steely eyes, which he promptly spat in. He obviously watched action movies like I do. I wiped my face and dug a thumb into his left shoulder wound.

  This had the response I expected. He screamed like a baby. “Okay! Okay! Sorry about the spitting. Not very professional.”

  “Speaking of profession, FBI Senior Special Agent Scott Glenn. When the fuck did the FBI start kidnapping private citizens and dragging them half-way around the world?”

  He turned his head to watch Virna re-pack his wound. “Orders. Written, signed orders.”

  “What orders? I searched you and didn’t find any orders. You hiding them up your ass?”

  He winced when Virna pressed a little too enthusiastically. “In my back-pack—upstairs.”

  Why is life so complicated. “Wait a second! Are you telling me you’re carrying signed orders around with you on an illegal assignment—plus family photos, ID, and home address—knowing full well you might be compromised, or perish the thought, captured by your own captives?”

  No answer. Too many possibilities. Was he stalling for time until the calvary arrived? Nope—they would’ve been here already. Was he lying, in the ho
pe that I would make a fool attempt to retrieve those orders by opening the glass barrier, and getting shot by his buddies? Nope again—he knows I could use him as a bargaining chip, or a human shield against his buddies. Was he really that stupid? I didn’t think he was stupid. Then the light went on. I was the stupid one!

  I woke up Alice.

  “Yes, Thomas?”

  “Is this room protected from all outgoing cellular or satellite signals?”

  “Yes, Thomas. Outgoing and incoming. You always communicate through me via our secure satellite network. Would you like to place a call?”

  “Not at the moment, Alice, but please stand by.” I tilted my head back and took a deep breath. What I saw turned my blood to ice. “Alice, is Looking Glass still operational?”

  “No, Thomas.”

  Virna followed my gaze, looked up, and then at me with shock. I nodded.

  “Alice, are you receiving any signals?”

  “Yes, Thomas. Two signals.”

  “Show me.”

  “Passphrase please.”

  I looked at Virna and shrugged. She thought for a moment and glanced around the room. We both figured it had to be different from the other phrases, Alice in Wonderland and I created you, Alice. I started to ask Alice to give me a clue but Virna whispered in my ear. It sounded reasonable so I repeated it.

  “Through the looking glass.”

  “Thank you, Thomas.”

  Virna and I stood and gazed down at Alice’s display. My peripheral vision noted the two agents outside the barrier taking notice of our sudden appearance from behind the desk.

  The first signal Alice played was that of three women vacuuming, dusting and polishing a room. I immediately recognized the room. It was the private sitting room on the second floor of the Executive Residence—known as The White House. The view was looking down from above the fireplace. The only other occupant was a Secret Service agent monitoring the cleaning staff. As we watched, one of the ladies walked toward us and started to spray window cleaner in our faces.