Jian raised one eyebrow. “Enough for a tidy down payment on a house nearby in France after Anjali and I are married in a few months, but not enough to start calling you by your given name.”
After Tristan drank his tea and listened to the seagulls shriek and the waves lap at the side of his yacht, he descended into his computer office and opened a secure video chat software for an appointment.
The call opened, and a mature woman with brilliant silver streaking her dark hair that draped in loose curls around her face answered. “Hello, Tristan.”
Her husky voice seemed kind, almost maternal, though a bit nasal from her New Yorker accent. A few laugh lines gathered at the corners of her eyes when she smiled at him.
Tristan drew his face into a similar smile. “Hello, Dr. Bell.”
She inclined her head almost affectionately. “Before we start, I have a quick update on your Butorin situation. The last few problematic members of that bratva have been eliminated. At this point, their leadership is scattered to various prisons around the world or eliminated. We absorbed anyone with interesting skills and adequate assurances into our organization. They won’t be a problem to you or Ms. Frost anymore.”
That, at least, was a relief. “Thank you, Dr. Bell.”
Somewhere in his head, the wordsDr. Bellhad the same ring as sayingGodfather.
“Your information made it easier to mop up that competition, so it benefited both of us. Tell me about your progress this week.”
Tristan slid his notes into view on another screen. The brevity of these meetings was one of the reasons why Colleen hadn’t caught him yet. “I am continuing to refine the new computer program that produced the Butorin information for us, Anti-Anonymity. With the next iteration, we will be able to not only follow persons of interest but tag anyone they associate with and gain information on them, too. There will be an algorithm in place to determine the likelihood of whether these people are members of an organization that we are concerned with or mere casual contacts. For instance, let’s say a person frequents a particular coffee shop and prefers a certain barista to make their coffee. With a few contacts, the barista will be tagged. However, if the barista doesn’t associate with anyone else of interest to us for a pre-determined amount of time, they will be dropped from the algorithm to a very low level of surveillance unless something changes. That should reduce the noise in the next iteration of the program.”
“Excellent.”
“In addition, the Brainiac serpent has been released and is arbitraging the futures market for your organization. It is both returning the difference to your bank accounts and creating false trails to account for those funds of yours with less than legal origins.”
Mary Varvara Bell smiled at him, pressing her full lips together. “Oh, that’s so nice, Tristan. I’m so glad you decided to come on board with us. You’re a valuable member of White Holdings, Inc.”
Tristan’s grieving heart pulled at the muscles of his chest like it had turned to lead. “It’s an honor to work with you, Dr. Bell.”
64
Plot Twist
Mary Varvara Bell tapped her mouse to close out the call with Tristan King. “That went well, don’t you think?”
Dr. Bell’s New York office was decorated with calculating decor, the white of snow and the glass of ice. Slashes of cold steel and the occasional lump of black leather, as dark as a frigid night, accented the wintry office that was staged to be a long walk from the door, past a conversation grouping, beyond bookshelves, to finally reach the desk where Mary Varvara Bell would have been staring at you during your entire march to stand before her.
Logan Bell glanced down at his aunt from where he stood beside her desk. “I told you Tristan King was the hacker you needed. I’m sure his programs will do great things for White Holdings, Inc.”
Dr. Mary Varvara Bell had the typical Bell family features that Logan had also inherited, thick dark hair and pale eyes, skin as frosty as snow in Siberia, and the haughty demeanor of those descended from nobility and trying to climb right back up to the top of the social heap.
She said, “White Holdings has exceeded our expectations with this venture. We obtained the primary objective, recruiting Tristan King to produce future projects for us in a mere two months, not three. Your notes about Tristan were invaluable in recruiting him.”
“I’m pleased to be of use.”
“And we also acquired both the Brainiac computer virus and the CurieCoin mint to legitimize our dark money, which will make our operation run so much more smoothly now that we can utilize our reserves. It’s like two bonus prizes.”
“It would seem so.”
His aunt smiled at him. “And who is next on our acquisition list?”
Logan didn’t smile back. “Micah Shine.”
65
Shine
Micah
Micah Shine had been traveling again.
