Cumulus (20 page)

A tiny spark of hope flashed in his mind. Even if he was forced to scrap the Ghost Program, he still had enough leverage over Huian to continue to bend her to his will. It would be ugly but it could work. The blog post showed only his absence, not Graham himself. If he could keep his true identity, his face, from coming out, then he still had a chance. Obscurity was his most valuable asset. He could jettison the rest, and his plans might still survive.

But the post had also mentioned pictures. Pictures that had already been distributed across the Bay Area. What did those pictures actually show? He needed to find out.

Graham gripped the edge of the desk and pushed himself to his feet. Blood poured down his arm and dripped off his fingers. He stumbled out into the living room. Wrenching the French doors open, he lurched onto the balcony. The article had said they were
everywhere
. He scanned the view with maniacal intensity. For a second, nothing appeared to be out of place and he almost sighed with relief.

Then a far off movement caught his eye. Something dropped from the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. It was a rolled up piece of textile, its top corners secured to the metal trusses. The fabric unfurled into the size and shape of a football field as it fell from the deck. The wind whipped at the bottom corners, but they were weighted to keep it from flapping around like a flag. It took a moment for Graham to resolve the image printed on the fabric. Then he dropped to his knees. He grasped the bars of the railing, slippery in his bloody grip. The universe spun around him like a horrific kaleidoscope.

His own face stared back at him. The photographer had captured him just as he was glancing over his shoulder to check out the ass of that passing jogger. Tearing his gaze away from the bridge, Graham sought out the various billboards around downtown San Francisco that he could see from his balcony. Normally, they displayed ads promising Green Zone real estate, Fleet convenience, and Lancer opportunities. But they had all changed overnight. Sara’s gruesome corpse lay on her couch. Graham hustled away from her house. The street vendor served him coffee. He stood on the West Oakland BART platform waiting for the next train. He entered the café in Berkeley and exited wearing different clothes. He stepped out through the door of Corvel’s office.

This couldn’t be happening. He had abandoned his career at the Agency to seek his fortune at Cumulus. It had taken years of preparation and diligent execution. He was just now beginning to reap the fruits of that labor. These pictures jeopardized everything.
Everything
. His face was plastered around the entire city. His crime was exposed. His cover was blown. His dreams turned to ash from one second to the next. This couldn’t be happening.

Someone was responsible for this. Someone took those pictures. Someone followed him and accidentally circumvented the Ghost Program by using a fucking antique camera. They were excising the heart of the most sophisticated intelligence operation in history with a relic from the twentieth century. The blog post had described a friend of Sara’s who discovered her body.
I’m going to demand a signed copy of one of those photos. I have a feeling I might be the first to ask for your autograph, but I won’t be the last.
Henok had said that. He had been talking to whoever did this. They had published the article together.

Graham squeezed the slick bars and scrambled to his feet. Lilly Miyamoto. The voice-recognition program had identified her. He tripped as he dashed back through the living room and fell hard, grunting in pain as he landed on his injured arm. Motherfucker. He stood again and stalked the last few meters to his office.

Lilly Miyamoto. Time to see exactly who the fuck she thought she was. He brought up her full Cumulus profile and froze as her face materialized on his screen. He knew her. He fucking knew this bitch.
I apologize if this is a little forward. But I think you’ve got a killer sense of style.
The hot girl with Japanese features he had seen under the bougainvillea bushes after leaving Corvel’s office. He had boarded a Fleet when it pulled up at the curb behind her, riding away and imagining how it might feel to get his hands under her clothes. Holy shit. That’s where she had been photographing him from. She had been following him all morning, shooting the pictures that predicated his downfall.

He scanned through her profile, searching for clues that might tell him who had hired her. It had to be the Agency. Fuck, no. Maybe the Chinese had found out how he’d pulled the wool over their eyes. It could be Mossad or even BIN seeking some kind of vengeance for the Pulau Wei hit. But her profile was clean. Parents killed in a car crash, both Japanese expat engineers living in San Diego. Lilly had moved to Oakland to seek her fortune as a photographer and eked out a living shooting vintage photos of Greenie weddings. She lived in a studio apartment in the West Oakland Slums. Friends with Sara Levine, took care of her truck for her. Grocery and restaurant receipts showed a ramen obsession. No arrests. No known affiliations with foreign governments or private security firms. So perhaps she was working for some new player that Graham hadn’t yet encountered. Someone who understood enough about cybersecurity to fabricate this clean Lilly identity for his agent to use. Someone like Graham. They must have realized how he had conquered Cumulus, and wanted to move against him while they still could.

He pulled the geolocation on Lilly’s phone. With one roll of film, she had wrecked his ambitions beyond repair. Revenge was poor compensation. But he would take what he could get.

33

“MA’AM?”

Huian rolled over and tried to rub the sleep from her eyes.

“Ma’am?” The voice came through the speakers.

“Tom? What time is it?”

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry to wake you,” said Tom. “It’s
6
a.m.”

Alright, so she had slept for two and a half hours. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and rolled her head around to work out the kinks in her neck.

“Ma’am, I wouldn’t have disturbed you but Martín Sanchez is here to see you.”

“You mean here in person?”

“He’s standing right here in front of me.”

What on earth was Martín Sanchez doing here at six in the morning? They had never even met in person before. What could he possibly want that couldn’t wait until a normal hour? Well, at least this would be a welcome respite from the thorny issue of managing the protest. She could do with something simple like a business negotiation. Maybe Martín’s board had pressured him into accepting her acquisition offer. If so, that was a coup for Cumulus. It established yet another cog in her architecture of the future. It would give them access to an entirely new class of data, and make Cumulus integral to the operations of the energy industry. She could leverage that to get the concessions and operating licenses they’d been fighting for in the Gulf for so long.

“Give me five minutes,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Huian washed her face, brushed her teeth, and pulled on a fresh set of clothes. Yes. Whatever it was Martín was here for, it was better than overthinking a politically fraught demonstration. She mentally reviewed the terms, economics, and other details of the Tectonix acquisition. She would probably be able to reduce the offer price now that Martín was presumably coming to the table with a mandate from his directors. If they were already committed to selling the company and had forced Martín’s hand, then she didn’t need to double their original offer price to get the better of his pride. He had already turned that deal down and forfeited the terms. A fresh page was a fresh page.

She stepped out into her office. The gray fingers of dawn were just starting to creep past the eastern horizon. She picked up the worn basketball from the desk and spun it on a fingertip, making constant adjustments to keep it balanced and in motion. Executing against a long-term vision was a delicate thing. It required the right mix of patience and audacity. She worked hard to get the best information possible, but had to make major decisions in the face of paralyzing uncertainty. Try as she might, it wasn’t something she could delegate.

“Send him in,” she said.

The door opened, and Martín Sanchez stepped through. He had on a sharp formal suit and burgundy tie. She returned the basketball to the desk and stepped forward to greet him. Up close, he looked like shit. Bags sagged under his eyes. Lines creased his face. His palm was sweaty when they shook hands. A muscle in his cheek twitched. The board must have really put him through the ringer this time.

“I will give you what you want,” he said. “I have board approval to negotiate the acquisition.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Huian. This was going to be easier than she had anticipated. She would need to remember not to have Martín manage any buy-side deals once he was one of her operating executives. By playing his cards this quickly, he was ceding his negotiating position. Regardless, this was incredible news. After a few days of nothing but putting out fires, it was a blessing to have something going right. “I meant it when I invited you to become a part of the Cumulus family. I think you’ll find a good home for Tectonix here. We’d be thrilled to have your team on board, and of course, I would depend on you to continue to lead and inspire them. Come, sit.” She waved him to a chair. “Let’s work out the logistics and get the ball rolling.”

An ugly look flashed across his face, and he raised both hands. “No, I’m good standing,” he said. “And you can dispense with the fluffy horseshit. I could have had my lawyers relay this information and define the terms. But I came here in person to let you know that I used to respect you. We never met, but I watched you lead Cumulus’s meteoric rise. It was inspiring. It was one of the reasons I decided to start Tectonix in the first place.”

His expression turned into a snarl. “But now I know the truth,” he said. “You’re not a builder, you’re a bully. Cumulus isn’t a company, it’s a cartel. A syndicate you hold together through intimidation and blackmail. You want to tear apart my company and my family at the same time? Okay, you win. I’m not the kind of person who’s willing to throw his own daughter to the dogs. So take my company, ravage my life’s work. But don’t you dare pretend you’re playing nice while you’re doing it. And don’t send errand boys to manipulate me. That’s the lowest kind of deceit. If you’re going to fuck me over, do it in person.”

His entire body trembled as he took in a ragged breath. The basketball rolled off the desk and dribbled to a stop in the corner.

Huian’s expression was slack. For a moment, she couldn’t do more than just stare at him. Then she found her voice.

“What on earth are you talking about?” she said.

Martín’s eyes narrowed. He spat and Huian looked down in disbelief to see the glob of saliva dripping off her shoe.

He squared his shoulders, turned, and exited the way he had come.

Huian stared after him, too stunned to react.

“Ma’am?” Tom poked his head around the door jamb, concerned.

“Get Graham on the line,” she said, trying to pull herself together. As head of her intelligence service, he better know what the fuck this was about. “Now.”

“But, ma’am—”

“Out of my way, boy.” Karl shouldered past Tom and into her office. His face looked as if it had been carved from solid granite. He looked at Huian.

“The shooting’s started,” he said.

34

LILLY SUPPRESSED A YAWN.
She had spent the entire night out with Frederick in the truck, delivering printed signs, billboard supplies, and flyers. The stranger’s face was now everywhere around the Bay Area. It was plastered on empty walls, posted on telephone poles, illustrated on T-shirts, and hanging from the Bay Bridge on a massive banner. The URL for Henok’s story was highlighted on each print. Despite the gravity of the situation, she couldn’t help but feel exhilarated. She was contributing to something important. Her art mattered. It was how she could help seek justice for Sara. But now that she was sitting beside Henok at his desk in the warehouse, she could barely keep her eyes open.“Ma’am?” The voice came through the speakers.

Henok glanced over at her. “You need to get some sleep,” he said.

“No,” she said. “There’s too much—” She yawned against her will. “There’s too much to do.”

“It’s settled,” said Henok. “You’re going home to rest for a few hours. There is literally nothing either of us can do right now. We just published the post, and it will take another day before the printers catch up with the demand for more photos, assuming we even need more.”

He grabbed her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll order you a Fleet. You can get some shut-eye and then come back around midday.”

“But—”

“Seriously,” he said, rounding on her with a fierce look. “You need a nap.” Then his expression softened. “Oh, I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to be alone at your apartment at a time like this. With what happened to Sara and all. I’ll go talk to Frederick and find you a place to lie down.”

“No, it’s not that,” she said. The emotional aftermath of her friend’s death was tinged with more anger than fear. It was easier to fill the void of Sara’s absence with action than grief. “There’s just so much happening right now. So many things I can help with.”