Falling Stars Page 5

  “Walk with me,” Vazov said, still in the saddle.

  Ivan and Vazov shared the same height and build. In other words, equal footing. Apparently that didn’t suit Little V at the moment. Ivan rose without responding.

  “Bring the drinks,” Vazov added, extending his left hand.

  Ivan grabbed both frosty mugs and they began walking toward the stables.

  The word “pony” conjures up the image of a diminutive horse breed, although in fact it references agility. Polo ponies average 15 hands in height, and weigh in at 1,000 pounds. Many are thoroughbreds and all are magnificent steeds.

  Ivan remained abreast of the chestnut pony’s shoulder, keeping his head too close for a mallet strike. He didn’t think Vazov meant him any harm, but risk aversion was in his nature.

  Vlad led them toward center field. Out of earshot, Ivan assumed. But it turned out to be more than that. Vazov came to a stop beside a neat line of polo balls. “We’re just a month out.”

  Don’t I know it, Ivan thought.

  He had borrowed $300 million to found and operate Silicon Hill. Yes, the legitimate drone business was finally making good money and several other product lines were coming into their own. However, like most startups, Silicon Hill had operated at a net loss for the first few years. With that in mind, Ivan and Vazov had structured the three-year loan to permit a single balloon payment at the end. To get those terms, Ivan had agreed to a twenty-five percent interest rate, and a few special provisions. Vazov would own Silicon Hill. One hundred percent. The company, all its assets, and the title of CEO. He controlled everything and kept all the glory. This was important to Vazov, as it made him look good to his father. It was favorable to Ivan as well, as it allowed him to remain in the shadows. A win-win.

  Ivan did all the work, of course. Vazov was no more involved in drone manufacturing than Queen Elizabeth was in military maneuvers. He had absolutely no interest in anything going on at Silicon Hill if it wasn’t public-relations related. And since everything that happened there was “confidential” and in “stealth-mode” he could easily dodge any technical question that ever came his way.

  Aside from the above, the contract Ivan signed with Vazov was relatively standard save one very special clause. A few powerful sentences. Section 7 gave Ivan the right to purchase Silicon Hill from Vazov for a single dollar. Just one. But only after satisfying the loan. In full and on time. The initial $300 million plus $300 million more in interest.

  Ivan’s buy-out option would be expiring soon, and he had yet to make a single payment. If he came up short, he’d lose the option to purchase Silicon Hill—and still owe Vazov the $600 million.

  If Ivan had hired lawyers, they’d have pressured him not to accept the draconian terms. Not to bet everything on an unpredictable timeline. But he’d worked without legal input, and was happy with the final agreement. In fact, the controversial term grew from Ivan’s own subtle suggestion, although he had no doubt that Vazov would consider it his own stroke of genius.

  Ivan looked up at his creditor. “A month from today, you’ll get your $600 million. Not a bad birthday present. The big 4-0 right? I hear the party is going to be legendary.”

  They’d inked the contract on Vazov’s thirty-seventh birthday. Vlad had been eager to make his mark on the world back then, and signing a $600 million deal fit the self-image he enjoyed. But Vazov didn’t appear to be feeling sentimental today. He ignored the segue into the personal spectrum. Holding his drink rock-steady in his left hand, he whipped the mallet around with his right, cracking the nearest ball loud enough to send birds flying from distant trees and launching the white sphere a hundred yards down field. “Where have you been?”

  “I had business in the States.”

  “You made me nervous, disappearing like that. Makes me wonder if you’re preparing to vanish for good.”

  “Why would I do that?” Ivan asked, knowing full well. “Silicon Hill is worth far more than I owe.”

  Vazov smiled with his mouth, but not his eyes. “Much to my delight. But that’s immaterial to our loan arrangement.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I’m inclined to keep you here until my party. I believe economists like to refer to the tactic as ‘avoiding capital flight.’ ” Another swing of the mallet. Another mighty crack.

  “I can’t close $600 million worth of contracts from an armchair. I’ve got them lined up like dominoes, $10 and $20 million orders, but toppling them will still take finesse and personal assurances. I need freedom to travel.”

  “You have a team for that. Michael is quite capable. Meanwhile, I can provide you with everything you need to conduct your affairs, whatever they may be, remotely.”

  Vazov had no knowledge of Raven or The Claw or Ivan’s plans. He had the intellectual curiosity of a turnip. He’d bet on Ivan because Ivan had been legendary as The Ghost, much the same way conventional venture capitalists would flock to blindly invest in anything run by Elon Musk.

  “Is there another way I could put your mind at ease, Vlad? A show of good faith?”

  Vazov finished off his Panaché and used his forearm to wipe his mouth. “The only show I’m interested in is the money.”

  How predictable. “How much money?”

  “You’ve got thirty days to pay. Thirty days, $600 million, that’s $20 million a day if I’m not mistaken. You can have those contract payments sent straight to my account. Easy as tipping dominoes, right?”

  “You want me to repay you $20 million a day?”

  “Beginning tomorrow.”

  Ivan camouflaged an irrepressible smile by downing the rest of his beer and standing to leave. “Beginning tomorrow,” he repeated. “Straight to your account.”

  14

  Four Questions

  New York, New York

  WEARING A BLACK SUIT AND TIE, Achilles waited patiently for Jo to arrive from Paris at JFK International Airport. Air France had a flight from Charles de Gaulle landing at 4:05 pm, and he was virtually certain she would be on it. By setting a tight operating window, he’d limited her options.

  The midtown Manhattan Mexican restaurant rendezvous was a ruse. A bit of misdirection. All part of Achilles’ plan to beat Ivan at his own game. If Ivan had orchestrated or uncovered their meeting, he’d be disappointed.

  Meanwhile, international arrivals was the perfect place for an interception. It provided an ideal observation point while funneling everybody through a single door into a room full of people watching and waiting. Dressed like a limo driver, complete with black sunglasses, a concealing cap, and a sign that read “J. le Carré,” Achilles was invisible in plain sight.

  He had acquired the uniform from a similarly-sized driver he’d hired for the day. Part of a package deal. While Achilles did the grunt work, the driver was waiting in his car, wearing Achilles’ clothes and watching Netflix on his phone.

  Speaking of phones, Achilles checked his own. Air France Flight 006 was right on time.

  Josephine Monfort was a slim five-foot-seven with sharp features and eyes that looked like coal on fire, but it was her stride that caught his attention as she exited customs amidst the other “carry-on only” passengers. She normally walked like a swimmer exiting a pool, with blood pumping and muscles primed and brisk moves designed to fight the chill. But today she was limping with both legs, as though she’d ridden a horse from Paris rather than a plane. The lack of a roller bag also differentiated Jo. She just carried a satchel over her shoulder, traveling light, like a good soldier.

  Achilles fell in beside another exiting passenger as if meeting him and followed Jo out onto the street, confirming along the way that he was the only person covertly in tow. Like half the travelers, she headed straight for the long snaking line to the taxi stand.

  The world is full of scams and deals, tricks and shortcuts run by wily entrepreneurs. Among the ones perfected if not invented in New York City is the opportunity to skip the taxi line and go straight to a l
imo. Achilles blended right in as he closed on Jo. “No need to stand in line.”

  Jo whipped her head around with a smile already in her eyes. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Likewise. Follow me.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Jo let out a long exhale as she slid into the restaurant booth across from Achilles, relieved that it was safe to stop moving and start talking.

  After surprising her at the JFK taxi stand, Achilles had his driver drop them at the Warwick Hotel—in Philadelphia. They’d gone in its front door, out its back, and walked a few blocks south to a bustling boutique hotel off Rittenhouse Square. Alone at last in a quiet corner booth, both were eager to get busy.

  Achilles dove right in. “Tell me about the drone.”

  Jo brushed the menus aside, pulled a sketchpad from her satchel and slid it to the center of the table. She had augmented it in the hours since first putting pencil to pad in her kitchen, and was now quite proud of the result. It showed both bottom-up and profile views.

  Achilles leaned forward and studied her work with interest. “You sure about the size? Six feet square for the body?”

  “It came at me from over my rooftop. It had been perched there, engines off, waiting for me like a hawk over a rabbit hole. I was able to use the roof tiles as ruler marks to take its measure. After the fact, of course.”

  Achilles read her labels. “Six cameras, four propellers, two tasers, a digital display and one winch.”

  “I think there’s probably a seventh camera, watching the sky above, but I couldn’t see it. In fact, I only saw two of the side cameras, but I extrapolated.”

  “Makes sense. A fixed one on each of the six sides, giving the landscape, and an omnidirectional one with zoom on the bottom. The virtual windshield. Pretty sophisticated. But then I guess it would have to be.”

  Jo nodded.

  “What was displayed on the screen?”

  “Nothing. It was black.”

  “How does the snare work? I assume that’s what the rope is?”

  “It’s not a rope. It’s metallic.”

  “A cable?”

  “More like a mechanical snake. It struck and wrapped around my waist before I knew what was happening.” She flipped the page to expose another drawing. “I think it’s sections of aluminum tube strung together with wires and gears. And I’m not using the term snake lightly. The thing moves like it’s alive.”

  “Some precision machining,” Achilles speculated. “Like a series of handcuff ratchets connected and controlled by cables.”

  “That’s my impression.”

  “How did you get away?”

  Jo told him the whole story, beginning with her pre-jog stretch, ending with the paperboy, and including both taser shots with all the terror in between. The look in Achilles’ eyes made her heart swell with pride.

  “I think it’s safe to say that virtually anybody but you would have been captured. I don’t know if I could have held on through all that.” As she watched, his eyes turned more serious. “If it is Ivan, and at this point I have no doubt, then it’s also safe to say that he’s busy fixing the drone’s shortcomings.”

  “How could he do that?”

  “I bet he’ll swap the taser for a tranquilizer gun. I expect that he’s also rewriting the rules of engagement to attack only when there’s nothing nearby to grab as an anchor.”

  “You’re talking as though the attack on me was a prototype test.”

  “Obviously he didn’t choose you at random, so there was more to it than that. But yes, I think that’s one reason. All sophisticated new weapon systems have to be tested on someone. Ivan knows you’re tough and resourceful. A valid test. And he has a score to settle.” Achilles flashed his eyebrows. “Two birds, one drone.”

  The comic relief didn’t halt the sinking feeling spreading through her stomach. “So you think there will be more attacks.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  “But who? Where? Why?”

  Achilles spent a moment tracing his finger over her drawing, as if it were a relic with a tale to tell. “I’m more interested in How.”

  Jo didn’t follow. “The drone is the how.”

  “Not his how, our how. How are we going to find Ivan? Nobody ever has.”

  15

  Drone Defense

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  THE DAUNTING NATURE of the task before them put a momentary damper on their conversation, so Achilles and Jo ordered dinner. He indulged in the house special cheesesteak, and ended up struggling to keep his chin free of cheese. She maintained discipline with a Cobb salad, picking at the ingredients one by one, rather than mixing them all together.

  Once both had blunted their appetites, Jo brought the conversation back to business. “How did Ivan kill Rider? The news only reported that he was shot at a rooftop restaurant in San Francisco.”

  Achilles gave the salt shaker a spin. “You’re going to love this.”

  “What?”

  He met her eye. “Ivan used a drone.”

  “No!” Jo slapped the table.

  “Not a big one, like the monster that attacked you. A smaller version, like the ones kids use with cameras. Except Ivan’s was armed with a Glock 19 rather than an iPhone.”

  “So while the drone was shooting Rider, you escaped over the railing? I’m surprised the drone didn’t follow you down.”

  “When you called and I told you that Ivan had tried to kill me too, I was speaking shorthand. Actually I think he wanted me to get away. The drone dropped the gun to frame me.” Achilles raised his eyebrows and waited for Jo to connect the dots.

  “So you would be the focus of the FBI investigation,” she said with an appreciative nod. “Ivan shielded himself and neutralized you with one blow.”

  “Exactly. He had the drone shoot from shoulder height at the spot where I’d been standing.”

  “So when Rider’s bodyguards arrived, they found nobody but Rider. And who but you could go over the edge of a tall building and live to tell about it. They’ll say you’re the only person who could have done it. And they’ll be right. And wrong. Because it wasn’t a person at all.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty screwed on that one. I ran a Google search to see if there was precedent for a ‘drone did it’ defense, but didn’t find anything. That idea is not going to leap into anybody’s mind.”

  Jo didn’t offer a contradictory statement, but rather asked, “How did Ivan get you both there?”

  Achilles gave her a you-don’t-want-to-know look. “I got a call from Rider asking me to meet him there. And I presume Rider got a call from me asking him to meet me there.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “At the meeting, Rider only said four words to me before he was shot. He said, ‘This better be important.’ ”

  Jo chewed on that while she worked a piece of grilled chicken. “When you say you got a call from Rider, do you mean he called personally?”

  “It sure sounded like him.”

  “And you think Rider got a similar call from you? Person to person? A call you didn’t make?”

  “I do.”

  Another bite of chicken followed by a chunk of blue cheese. She wagged her clean fork. “You’ve concluded that Ivan has a voice-replicating device. A device clever enough to fool you and the Director of the CIA?”

  Achilles nodded. “That and more. I’ve been thinking about it. Knowing Ivan’s crafty and meticulous nature, I bet he also has the ability to feed fake caller ID numbers into the system.”

  She swallowed some avocado. “By providing a familiar and fitting number, he’d slip right past people’s usual defenses.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jo set down her silverware as her expression turned grim. “The possibilities for mischief and damage are endless—if he really can convincingly impersonate anyone on the telephone. And I’d say fooling the Director of the CIA is pretty much a … what do you say … an acid test.”

  “You’re right.�
��

  “Sweet mother. We’re not going to be able to believe anything we hear on the phone until we’ve caught him.”

  Achilles nodded.

  “That’s why you asked me about the Kawasaki when we spoke. I thought you were worried someone had a gun to my head.”

  “Right again.”

  “What do you think he’s going to use the call-spoofing device for?”

  Achilles gave the salt shaker another spin. “There’s no way to guess. But it’s going to involve drones, and we can be certain it will be groundbreaking, devious and designed to make him more money than Croesus.”

  16

  Ripping

  San Francisco, California

  RIP ZONDER RESISTED the urge to work through the night, knowing he’d be a complete wreck in the morning if he did. As a result, he had an eight-hour recharge under his belt when Director Brix entered his new office. Unfortunately, he had little else.

  “What do you have for me?”

  Rip pulled a single sheet of paper from an uncomfortably thin file. “The ballistics are conclusive. The Glock found on the roof was the gun that killed Director Rider.”

  “Was there ever really a question about that?”

  “The CIA guy, Oscar Pincus, suggested that Achilles might have been framed using a long gun fired from a surrounding building.”

  “Did he offer any evidence to support that theory?”

  “He pointed out that a seasoned operative like Achilles would never leave his weapon behind.”

  “And yet he did. Any theories?”

  “Either Achilles dropped it by mistake, or he didn’t want to carry it while climbing, or he thought that by wiping his prints off it he’d create reasonable doubt. Hell, maybe he just wanted to mess with the investigation. A clever and effective plan, obviously.”

  Brix pressed on, covering the remaining bases. “You’re certain that no one else could have been on the roof? No one could have hidden in the kitchen or disappeared down the stairwell into a hotel room?”