I radioed JD over our encrypted comms and told him to come out. They clearly had advanced FLIR optics and had seen all of us from the air.
I shouted for Ethan and Casey to join me. Once we had all gathered at the edge of the clearing, the helicopter touched down. The rotor wash bent the high grass, sending a sharp, icy breeze across the meadow. The cargo door slid open, and two goons hopped out with automatic rifles shouldered. They scanned the area, looking for additional threats.
A gentleman in a long, dark trench coat exited a moment later. In his mid-50s, he had a square face, short brown hair that was slicked back, and narrow eyes. He wore a suit and a red tie underneath the trench coat. I recognized him immediately.
Another gentleman in his mid-20s followed him. This guy was bigger. Probably a personal bodyguard. They all had earpieces.
The pilot kept the rotors spinning. The goons kept their weapons aimed at us as Mr. Trenchcoat stepped into the meadow.
We moved toward him and stopped about 20 paces apart.
Mr. Trenchcoat smiled. Frank Macy was the CTO of Valterion and a regular fixture, giving interviews on financial news networks. "I'm so glad you made the right decision. It would break my heart if something happened to those kids.”
"You're a sick man," I said.
My insult bounced off him like it was nothing. "We all have our own unique way of looking at the world. Now, let's get down to business, shall we? Where's the data?"
I nodded to Ethan, and he pulled the thumb drive from his pocket.
The sight of it made Frank smile. He motioned to bring it to him.
Ethan handed me the drive, and I approached Macy. “How do you know there aren’t more copies? How do you know we haven’t disseminated this to every media outlet or put it on the internet?”
“As a general rule, I try to never underestimate the stupidity of the general public. But you’d have to be a fool to think you could do something like that and not suffer repercussions.”
“The more you try to contain this, the farther it will spread.”
Frank laughed again. He had a slight Southern flavor to his voice and the confidence of a man who knew he was untouchable. “You vastly underestimate our capabilities. You think I don’t know everything that was downloaded from our network? You think I don’t have AI crawlers searching the web for that data? You think I haven’t monitored all traffic from your devices? The kid may have that data backed up on a hard drive somewhere, but he hasn’t sent it to anyone over the web. The minute that data shows up anywhere, I’ll be on top of it.”
“You know what a deadman’s switch is,” I said.
He seemed mildly amused. Not the reaction I was going for. “Is this the part where you tell me you’ve made a copy and a colleague will disseminate this information far and wide?”
My eyes narrowed at him, wondering what was up his sleeve. “Something like that.”
“You mean this colleague? The pretty blonde?”
My heart sank as he pulled his phone from a pocket and showed me a video clip of Paris. She was in a dark space, bound at thewrists and ankles, with duct tape over her mouth. Tears streaked her mascara. A thug held a stainless steel 9mm to her head.
“I hate to be the one to tell you, but your deadman switch has been disabled, shall we say. There are a few things that you should be aware of. We will buy off, blackmail, or discredit anyone who stands against us. And if that doesn’t work, we will put them in the ground. Do you understand me?”
I gave a subtle nod.
“I have to hand it to these kids for being dumb enough to think they could make a difference.”
I wanted to smack the smug grin from his face.
“Do you know how easy it is to ruin someone’s reputation these days? A mere allegation of impropriety is usually enough. But it’s not hard to plant incriminating photos on cellphones and computers. Disgusting images of children that could land someone in a federal penitentiary for a long time. There’s no coming back from something like that.” His grin widened. “No. I’m not worried in the slightest. You’re a man with too much to lose. Easy to control. I don’t even have to kill you.”
I glared at him.
Frank held out his hand. “Now, give me the drive. Once I verify the data, we can go our separate ways.”
I handed him the data.
Frank handed it to his assistant, who plugged it into a laptop and scanned the drive.
After a moment, the assistant gave Frank a nod. Everything was in order. It was everything Ethan and Ivy had downloaded from the company servers.
