Zero Sum Read online

  In the zero sum scenario, the free world had earned one point and the terrorists zero. Whatever was lost by Molyneux was gained by free people everywhere.

  After they had done their work, Dmitri had a chat with Cayson and Leland.

  Cayson couldn’t believe it was nearly Christmas.

  “The FSB wants to collect now,” Dmitri said.

  “So soon?” Cayson couldn’t believe it.

  “I told you they would collect.”

  “But we just finished the project yesterday.”

  Dmitri nodded. “Cayson is still recovering from the de-implant surgery. Leland, start packing.”

  Cayson was about to protest, but Dmitri had more to say to Leland.

  “The FSB will ensure your safety.”

  “How long is this project? What is this project?” Leland asked.

  “You cannot ask me those questions. You will find out when you reach Moscow.”

  “You’re going to leave me with strangers,” Leland said.

  Cayson stepped forward. “Like I said, I will go with you.”

  Dmitri looked at Leland, as if waiting for Leland to decide.

  “Your scars.” Leland pointed to Cayson’s head.

  “Will always be there.” With his thumb, he wiped a tear from Leland’s cheek.

  “I hate to break up this tender family moment, but no, Cayson, you can’t go with Leland,” Dmitri said.

  “Why not?” Cayson asked.

  “Because you and I are going to look for Kelvin Gallagher. Remember him?” Dmitri laughed.

  Kelvin. Kel. Old buddy.

  “And you know where to find him?” Cayson asked.

  “The MOSSAD knows.”

  “MOSSAD? What has he done now?” Cayson rolled his eyes. Then he turned to Leland. “I don’t want you to go alone though.”

  “Moscow knows who she is. They like her. They want her,” Dmitri said.

  “That doesn’t sound good.” Cayson widened his eyes.

  “Not to worry.” Dmitri waved his arms. “They only want to borrow her hacking skills.”

  “And what might that be for?”

  “They didn’t say,” Dmitri replied.

  Leland patted Cayson’s arm. “Don’t worry about me. They gave their word to Dmitri, right?”

  Dmitri nodded.

  “How long is this project?” Leland asked.

  “From a few weeks to a few months.”

  “Wait a minute. I’m going to miss Christmas with my parents?” Leland frowned. “Can we delay this until the first of the year?”

  “You agreed. Now the payment is due,” Dmitri said. “Our enemies are not taking holidays.”

  Leland sighed. “So the payment is due. Let’s get it over and done with.”

  Cayson opened his mouth to say something when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to find Raj wishing them a good morning.

  “Your tickets are booked,” Raj said to Dmitri and Leland. “Cayson and I have something to discuss.”

  “Right. Keep me posted.”

  Those turned out to be Dmitri’s last words of the year to Cayson.

  Or were they meant for Raj?

  Forty-One

  “I’ve sent my poor cousin to the wolves!”

  It would have bothered Cayson more had Dmitri and Raj not kept him busy with the sudden three-million-dollar new assignment that had resulted from the dismantling of MedusaNet.

  That VPN had proven that cyberterrorists had been smarter than VenomLabs, the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, and all other triple-letter entities now scrambling to clean up previously unknown security breaches.

  Ironically, all that panic spelled more work for Binary Systems.

  This new project involved building a security system around Moscow Mechanics.

  “An impenetrable one,” Raj, the half-owner of Moscow Mechanics, had said only the day before.

  “Impossible,” Cayson and Dmitri had replied in unison.

  “Twenty million dollars say it can be done,” the billionaire businessman from Bangalore insisted.

  That was the moment Cayson had discovered that Binary Systems was paid a third of the cost of the entire project. Cayson thought it wasn’t too bad.

  Still, he wondered if they could have negotiated for more.

  However, Raj had seemed to be more stubborn than Cayson had thought.

  And he was still stubborn now, a week into this project.

  Raj Subramaniam remained by Cayson’s side, unmoving and unyielding to Cayson’s request for room to breathe.

  “Are you babysitting me?” Cayson asked.

  “I’m babysitting my money.” Raj’s eyes didn’t leave Cayson’s, as if he were waiting for the latter to blink first.

  Or waiting to see if Cayson had any visible side effects.

  Cayson closed his eyes.

  He couldn’t feel Icarus anymore.

  Once upon a time, he had felt something foreign in his head—like crawling roaches.

  Now it was radio silence.

  Icarus was upstairs in the cybernetics laboratory, being systematically reverse engineered.

  And replicated.

  Raj, Dmitri, and their DARPA and NSA counterparts were determined to reclaim Icarus and the next generation bots it could spawn.

  Cayson wasn’t sure what to think of that, though no one had asked for his opinion. If they had, he would have been ambivalent about what to do with Icarus.

  Should they have destroyed Icarus? If they had, Molyneux’s successor would only spawn new implants. Icarus would then become the prototype that bit the dust. Nobody would care.

  Who was Cayson, a common hacker, to question the master hacker himself?

  Dmitri should know what he was doing.

  Cayson felt better. At least a little bit.

  After all, Dmitri had always kept Cayson’s best interest in mind. He had made another decision that pleased Cayson. He had accompanied Leland to Moscow himself to follow Kelvin’s trail—which was probably cold by now.

  Bottomline: he could trust Dmitri, but not the FSB team that Leland had been sent to join. Code-named Wolves, they had sometimes played on both sides of the fence.

  Had they really been with the FBI and INTERPOL against the terrorist Molyneux? Did anyone know for sure?

  Just because they had helped INTERPOL apprehend Molyneux didn’t mean they were best buddies with the FBI now.

  Friends for now didn’t always translate into friends for life.

  So.

  The Wolves.

  Yikes. Indeed, I’ve thrown my cousin to the wolves!

  Cayson felt a nudge on his shoulder. Then a light pinch.

  “Wake up!”

  Raj’s voice cut through Cayson’s mental fog and rattled his brain.

  Pinch!

  “Owww!” Cayson rubbed his arm. “Did you just pinch me?”

  He turned and found himself staring at a robot arm.

  Raj retracted the arm, its fingers still in the act of pinching the air.

  “On a scale of zero to ten, how much did you feel the pinches?” Raj asked.

  “Pinches? I was pinched more than once?” Cayson checked the red spot on his arm. “I want an addendum to my contract. Thou shalt not set any of your cyborg or robot body parts on me or any of my employees.”

  “Ask your lawyer to talk to my lawyer,” Raj said.

  “Fine.”

  “Good. That will keep you busy for a few weeks.”

  “What?”

  “A few weeks of legal wrangling will take your mind off Leland.” Raj smiled. “She’s smart. Special. She should come work for me.”

  “Or you could pay Binary Systems for her to subcontract for you.”

  Raj chuckled. “Maybe you should pay me instead.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Leland is fine, and that’s what you want.”

  “Fine? Of course she’s fine.” Cayson prayed silently. “Dmitri is with her.”

  “And my people.�
� Raj put the robot arm on a nearby cart.

  “Your people?” All sorts of possibilities lined up in Cayson’s mind.

  “My security team.”

  “Like what kind of security team?” Cayson was curious on the off chance that Raj’s security team might include—

  Nah. Stella is busy at the NCIJTF. She’s far away from Moscow.

  “Shadows.” And that seemed to be all Raj wanted to tell Cayson. “You can thank me later when she comes home safely.”

  “And you care because…”

  “You and Leland are the core of Binary Systems. If I can’t hire Leland directly, how about I buy your company? Name your price. And Kelvin can stay—if he doesn’t end up serving time.”

  Cayson only focused on the last part of what Raj said.

  Kelvin could serve time.

  Why?

  Has he committed a crime?

  What crime?

  “What do you know about Kelvin?” Cayson asked.

  “I know all about everyone who has ever worked for Binary Systems or Yottaflops or that other company you tried to start back when you were in college. Not all good things, but nobody is perfect.”

  “What for? Why do you need to know about us?”

  “Need? More like for contingency reasons. We have clearances you don’t even realize exist.”

  “I don’t like all this shadow play.” Cayson waved his arms about. “Shadow government stuff.”

  “Stella misses you,” Raj said.

  Whoa. “Where did that come from?”

  “I told you we have privileges.”

  “And you mentioned Stella because…” Cayson felt slightly uncomfortable. This man knew a lot about the people Cayson cared about. Or did he really know?

  What if Raj had simply made up the information?

  In a virtual world, how could Cayson know which was real news and which was fake news?

  “Your well-being matters to me,” Raj explained. “Healthy hackers mean healthy business.”

  “So that’s the bottom line.” Cayson stared at the floor.

  “The only bottom line,” Raj said quietly.

  Too quietly.

  Forty-Two

  Stella Evans could identify that Hermès eau de toilette anywhere, even though the last time she had smelled that was a few years ago in Project Pericarp, when she had worked in close proximity with Cayson Yang.

  However, at two thousand feet above sea level, it had to be a coincidence.

  Besides, when they had been together—survived together—eight months ago in Georgia, Cayson had not worn any cologne or fragrance. All he had splashed on himself was an overdose of fear and fright.

  Ah, wherever he is, I wish him well.

  Stella folded her arms as she remained on the bare rock overlooking a crowd of people lining up to take turns to walk out onto the granite ledge.

  Trolltunga.

  A troll’s tongue.

  She closed her eyes, remembering that day eight months ago when she had found Cayson Yang standing over there—at the end of the world—and looking down into the throat of darkness.

  Never again.

  Cayson and his hackers at Binary Systems were safe now.

  Had it been eight months?

  I miss him.

  The eau de toilette lingered in Stella’s nose. Funny how it was mixed with the smell of sweat.

  The noonday air was cool up in these mountains. March had dragged into April all around Stella as diminishing patches of snow still clung to the ground.

  She’d have to hike down in just a minute if she wanted to make it to the rental vehicle she had parked in the village of Skjeggedal. Then she would have to drive to Tyssedal, where her former colleagues had paid for her hotel as a farewell gift.

  Farewell.

  Saying farewell to her colleagues was one thing, but how could she say farewell to Cayson?

  She closed her eyes and willed away a tear.

  When she opened her eyes again, she couldn’t believe who was sitting next to her. They were inches apart.

  “You again.” It was funny how her mind and mouth battled each other.

  Her mind said, I miss you.

  Her mouth said, “I quit. I’m retired.”

  “No, you’re not retired. You’re too young.” Cayson Yang stretched his legs.

  “I’m in my thirties.”

  “So am I. I’m older than you by nine-and-a-half months, and I’m still working.”

  Stella stared at him for the longest time. “You do look great. No more headaches?”

  “None.”

  “How’s Icarus?”

  Cayson lifted his left wrist. “Icarus, say hello.”

  “Hello.” The synthetic voice out of the watch had no emotion.

  “I guess he’s out of your head.” Stella laughed. “Did you hike up all the way or take a chopper?”

  Cayson frowned. “What? You think I’m not fit enough to hike up this mountain?”

  “You don’t look exhausted. I was.”

  “Well, I took frequent breaks.”

  “And still made it up here at noon.”

  Cayson shrugged. “I had a mission.”

  A mission. So had she the day she and Kessler had rescued Cayson from himself.

  Back in September.

  That had seemed so long ago only because the last few months of work had been intense for her team.

  Stella could not tell anyone outside the NCIJTF about what she and Jake Kessler had been doing between November and March. Well, there hadn’t been much to tell except that they had rounded up all the other lesser moles except one.

  They had failed to extract the Chamblee Mole embedded deep within the FBI.

  In the process, Jake had been injured and his cover blown. Someone else had taken over the investigation.

  New team, new members.

  Stella could only pray that the new team had integrity and wouldn’t turn out to be corrupted or in collusion with the Chamblee Mole.

  Ah, another problem for another day.

  After Jake Kessler had taken a sick leave, Stella handed in her resignation, and returned to Atlanta to find Cayson Yang unavailable. He was working with Raj at VenomLabs, while Dmitri and Leland had gone overseas to hunt for Kelvin Gallagher, the missing system administrator—after the FBI had given up on the cold trail.

  Then a month ago, Stella had received a cryptic call from Dmitri. Apparently, he had returned from Moscow, leaving Leland there. And he had news about the Chamblee Mole.

  It seemed that Dmitri had information on just about anything and everything that Stella had been involved in.

  How on earth had Dmitri known about the code name?

  Still, a lead is a lead is a lead.

  It had turned out that, with Mirabella by his side, Dmitri had returned to work at what used to be Moscow Mechanics. Dmitri and his business partner, Raj Subramaniam, had bought VenomLabs and merged all their cybernetics operations together in a new laboratory complex in metro Atlanta.

  Somehow, in the course of overhauling their security systems, they had come across incriminating evidences related to the FBI mole.

  Within weeks, Stella and Kessler had tracked down and captured the Chamblee Mole, a low-level new agent, clueless about what it meant to be an American citizen, and swearing allegiance to the wrong country.

  Whatever.

  It was no longer Stella’s problem.

  Her new problem, as things turned out, was sitting right here next to her.

  Forty-Three

  “Why are you here?” Stella asked.

  “To offer you a job,” Cayson said.

  “You could’ve texted me. Save you ten or eleven hours.”

  Cayson ignored her retort. “Don’t you know that you shouldn’t be hiking alone?”

  “Alone is what I need to be right now.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence passed between them through the nippy April air. It was partially cloudy, and Stella coul
d not see the rest of the mountain ranges.

  “Come work with me?” Cayson asked.

  With me.

  Not for me.

  “Doing what?” Stella asked.

  “Security.”

  “I’m done with that type of thing.” Stella smiled. “I’m going to take up something benign, like gardening.”

  Truly, Stella didn’t know why she had said that. Working with Cayson could have its perks.

  And downfalls.

  It would be awkward if they went out—

  What am I saying?

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think about my career, and maybe I don’t need all that stress.”

  “Is that why you quit the bureau?”

  Stella had her reasons, but she wasn’t ready to share.

  “I’m creating a security department at Binary Systems,” Cayson said.

  Stella almost told him to stop, but then something popped into her head. “You decided not to sell to Raj?”

  “And be his VP? No. I prefer to be my own boss. Leland agrees with me, and so that’s the way it goes. We’ll subcontract for Raj.”

  Stella nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “The good news is that VenomLabs has outsourced their computer security to my company. We’re getting super busy.”

  “Good for you and your cousin.”

  “Leland is still out there, looking for Kelvin. I’ve got other employees at Binary Systems who will work with me until she returns.”

  “How many employees do you have now?” Actually, Stella had wanted to word her question another way, but then it would be too much for Cayson to bear. How many employees do you have left?

  “We lost three, as you know, and I will need to hire some new people.” Cayson’s voice was low, as if he had gone over this in his mind many times. “Kelvin and Leland are out of commission. I have five or six subcontractors I’m trying to turn into full-time salaried employees.”

  “More benefits for them.”

  “They don’t see it that way. They value their freedom more than healthcare,” Cayson explained. “I wish Leland were back last month, to be honest. I can’t do this without her.”

  “I’m assuming you consider Leland to be a better hacker than you are.”

  “No comparison. I think Raj is offering her a job, which I doubt she’ll take.”

  “Ah, so owning your own business runs in the family.”