“Okay, okay! Geez, it’s not a big deal. What I could get, I sent to Gustav but I was having some trouble sending all of it. Not sending, really. The signals are different between commercial and military and I couldn’t separate them.”
“Why?” asked Hayes. “Why were you sending it?”
“Why? It was his way of being able to track CEO’s of major corporations, military leaders, politicians and bend them to his will. What he really wanted was to clear the skies for drugs and money to go in and out of the country.” They all stared at him, wondering why he was so nonchalant about it all.
“Oh, and to bring the drug lords and other nasty criminals into the country to mingle with regular folks.”
“You idiot!” mumbled Sebastian. “You’re allowing drugs, laundered money, drug lords, pedophiles, traffickers, and murderers into your country.”
“Well, when you say it like that it sounds bad,” he frowned. “I was just getting paid for a job.”
“It’s not a job, Reginald,” said Victoria.
“Hey, who are you and how do you know my name?” he asked insistently.
“My name isn’t important,” said Victoria. “But you need to know that you’re no longer the smartest man in the room trying to fool everyone.”
“Okay,” he smirked. “Then who is?”
“Me,” she said confidently. “Your fiber-optics were impressive but you failed to realize the direction of the threading impacted the way in which information came in and how it could be sent. Because you were randomly bringing information into the system, it was scattered and had a hard time connecting with other relevant information.
“Because of that, and many, many other reasons, the data you were sending out was literally creating a clog in the whole thing. Like too much toilet paper in a toilet.”
He stared at Victoria, running through the dynamics of what she’d said and how she would know all of it. Hayes kissed the top of her head and smiled.
“Why did you try to kidnap April Lewis?” asked Hayes.
“How did you know about that?”
“You really are exhausting,” said JB. “Why kidnap the girl? Her grandfather was dead and out of the way. What did you need her for?”
“Wait. You said the grandfatherwasdead. Is he undead?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Victoria. “Why? What did April have that you needed?”
“The suitcase,” he said shrugging as best he could within the bindings. “The suitcase that belonged to Jerry had some critical data on it. Data that could change the course of the world.”
“What fucking data?” asked Hayes.
“I-I don’t know if I can say?”
“Dude, you better damn well speak up or I’m going to bury you inside this shack,” said Sebastian.
“The, the jets that support the presidential plane are the most difficult to track but they were recently at an airshow. I was able to home in on their signal. Once I had that, I would be able to interfere with the computer systems on the jets, bringing them down and leaving…”
“… the president totally vulnerable,” whispered Victoria. “You would kill the president for this man?”
“Do you have any idea how much money our country would have if we allow this to come into our nation? We’ll be millionaires! All of us!”
“For someone supposedly so brilliant, you’re an absolute eedjit,” said Sebastian. “If we allow those men and women into this country we will have absolute chaos and anarchy. Our children will no longer be safe, our wives, no one.”
“Not even your little sister,” said Victoria softly. “Pamela. That’s her name, right? Nine-years-old. An oops baby by your parents. She’s smart like her brother, very precocious and very, very pretty. What do you suppose Gustav and his buddies would do with a girl like that?”
“Shut up! Shut up! They wouldn’t touch her. They promised me they wouldn’t touch her!”
“So, they know about her and have used her to keep you in line, doing whatever they ask?” said Victoria. She stepped closer staring down at the now very frightened young man. “They will come for her, Reginald. If you help us, we’ll go get your sister and protect her and your parents.”
He shook his head back and forth, tears filling his eyes as he realized what a fool he’d been. He accepted the job for the money, hoping to help his parents give Pamela everything she needed to thrive. Instead, he’d accepted money from the very people that would ensure her demise.
