Talion Justice Read online

  This ignorance and ill-advised trust created just enough of a gap for someone to slip through. Someone who desired to control a direct pipeline into the minds of hundreds of millions of Americans. Some sociopathic megalomaniac.

  Someone like Prisha Veda Baari.

  Chapter Five

  August 18, 2016

  Hospital Patient Room

  Washington, DC

  I surveyed the cacophony around me. Daytime talk shows blared from nearby televisions, family visitors scurried around their loved ones, nurses came in and out to move or administer to patients.

  I’d been out of ICU for five days, and now I had too many roommates. I paid them little mind in the hope they would leave me alone. All did, except my closest neighbor, Maurice, a talkative black man in his mid-sixties who wouldn’t shut up. He appeared to be nice enough, though. A glass-half-full guy. Kept telling me his life story, over and over, and asking me a bunch of questions I didn’t want to answer. Maurice slept a lot, which was good. I usually just waited him out until he tired of my silence and fell asleep.

  Maurice was yammering on—to me or the television, I couldn’t be sure—when a nurse approached my bed. She was new; I hadn’t seen her before on the ward. An older woman with thin lips and a harsh look. She asked me if I could walk. I said yes. I had been out of bed yesterday for the first time and had shuffled down the hall, pushing a walker in front of me. She asked me if I could get up now and come with her. I nodded. Anything to get out of this bed and away from my new best friend Maurice.

  The nurse helped me swing my legs to the side of the bed and stand up. A few people turned to watch the show. In here I sometimes forgot what I looked like. They had scrubbed me up good, but I still bore the wild hair and long beard of a vagrant. Most looked at me like I was contagious. I took no offense.

  I shuffled down the hall with the new nurse at my side. We passed the nurses’ station and I nodded a greeting to the shift nurses, all of whom I had seen before. None held eye contact with me, instead pretending to be distracted with other business. I gave my new nurse a side glance. She was all eyes forward, one hand lightly braced against my lower back.

  New nurse rushed ahead of me. She held a hall door open and ushered me inside with a hand gesture. It took me a moment to shuffle through the doorway. I didn’t like what I saw.

  It was a small conference room. Jill Everett sat at a circular four-top table. Her eyes were puffy and red, and she teared up at the sight of me. Her hands were gripping a paper napkin, twisting and tearing at it. Jill had visited me in my room most days, sneaking me peanut M&Ms, my favorite contraband. We’d talked. She’d opened up and told me about her daughter and her divorce. I’d told her a little about my broken marriage, and my five years of wandering. We’d even laughed a few times. It felt good. She didn’t push help on me, or ask me any questions she didn’t want answered. Her visits had continued as my condition improved in my new room. I admit I looked forward to her visits. I liked Jill Everett.

  Seated next to Jill was a female Asian doctor. She was petite, almost gaunt, with dark eyes and close-cropped hair. She looked too young to be a doctor. The name badge on her bright white lab coat said Ng. I wondered if that was a first or a last name.

  “Please sit down, John,” Dr. Ng said. I glanced at Jill and smiled. She had kept our secret. My smile caused her to sob. With difficulty, I sat at the table. New nurse took the chair next to me.

  “My name is Dr. Ng,” the doctor began. “And this is Nurse Holman.” She pointed to new nurse.

  The bottom fell out of my stomach. Shit. I knew what this was all about.

  “Nurse Everett did nothing wrong,” I said in a firm voice. “I was the one who did it. You have no reason to fire her.”

  “What?” Ng and Holman exchanged looks. Holman smirked.

  “You have no right to punish her,” I said.

  Jill sobbed louder.

  Dr. Ng paused. “I’m afraid that’s not what this is about, John.” She shifted in her chair. It screeched against the tile floor, and then the room went silent. The clock ticked. It was like the one I remembered from Eastern Middle School. Big round face with a clunky second hand that shook when it ticked. I counted the ticks going by: one, two, three…

  “John,” Dr. Ng said, and cleared her throat. “Your blood work came back from the lab. And I’m afraid you have cancer.”

  So this means Jill’s not getting fired? My first thought was one of relief, that this nice woman, now a single mother with a young daughter to raise, would not lose her job because of me. The thought caused me to smile.

  “John, do you understand what I just said?” Dr. Ng asked, more frustration than compassion in her voice. “I just told you you have cancer.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I responded, a smile still curling the corners of my mouth. “I heard you. I’ve got cancer.”

  “You’ve got acute myelogenous leukemia, or AML,” Dr. Ng informed me. “It’s the most common acute leukemia in adults.”

  She asked me if I knew about leukemia. I said no. She explained that they still didn’t understand its exact causes, but that it was thought to occur when blood cells acquire mutations in their DNA. These mutations caused some cells to grow and divide more rapidly and to continue living when normal cells would die. Over time, these abnormal cells could crowd out healthy blood cells. In acute leukemia, the abnormal blood cells can’t carry out their normal functions and they multiply rapidly, so the disease worsens quickly.

  “You sure?” I asked.

  Dr. Ng and Holman both nodded.

  “How’d I get it?”

  Dr. Ng responded that she couldn’t say, that leukemia seemed to develop from a combination of genetic and environmental factors. A good lawyer answer to a medical question.

  “How long do I have?”

  Dr. Ng equivocated, said it depended on a variety of factors. She started to run those factors down but was interrupted by Holman.

  “AML has a survival rate of twenty-seven percent,” Holman announced.

  I received this news without any response.

  “That means you have a twenty-seven percent chance of still being alive in five years,” Holman said. “With treatment. And AML requires aggressive, timely treatment. Chemo and radiation.”

  Everett sniffed and rubbed her swollen eyes. “We can get you treatment, Fr—John. It’s gonna be okay. We’ll do everything we can.”

  Dr. Ng’s eyes widened at Everett’s outburst. Holman shot daggers at her. They all knew the policy for treating indigent patients—that all such patients, even the ones with cancer, would not receive treatment unless on the verge of death. I had just been told I had a twenty-seven percent chance of living, and that hardly put me on my deathbed. I was on my own to pay for my cancer treatment. They all knew that. Even Everett.

  Dr. Ng and Holman ran down my treatment options as if reading from a manual, and had me sign something I did not read. They feigned compassion, wished me luck, and left the room.

  Everett watched them go, then frowned and got to her feet. She walked around the table and sat next to me. We turned to face each other. She grabbed both my hands and squeezed tight.

  “That was a close one,” I said. “Thought they knew about the M&Ms.”

  “Frank!” Everett shouted, releasing my hands. “That’s not funny.” Her eyes again began to tear. “This is serious.”

  “I’m just glad it was me instead of you.”

  “You can beat this, Frank,” she said. “We can.”

  “Oh, this is ‘we’ now?”

  “Do you have anyone else?” Her eyes narrowed.

  I shook my head. She pressed for a name. I thought for a moment, but there was really only one person. Always had been. But I didn’t want to get her involved in this.

  “No,” I said. “No one.”

  Everett sat back in her chair, shoulders slumped.

  “You heard them, Jill. I’ve got no insurance. And no money.” I squeezed her han
d. “It’s okay. Don’t be upset. I’m not.”

  Everett rose to her feet again. “You can’t just give up, Frank. There’s gotta be a way. Don’t give up hope.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “Trust me.”

  I wished I had hope. Wished I trusted her. But I didn’t. In truth, I didn’t care enough to care.

  “Thank you for all you’ve done for me,” I said, looking into her bloodshot blue eyes.

  “What about the VA?” she asked. “I’ll contact them. They’d help.”

  “They won’t. Not the way I went out.”

  “Damn it. Then there’s gotta be someone, Frank. Anyone.”

  I held my silence, tried to wait her out. But Jill Everett was tough. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her scrubs and dug in. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  Damn. Why couldn’t I just die alone? That’s how I’d pictured it. At least after I walked out of my life and hit the streets. I never imagined this obstinate, beautiful creature standing between me and my maker. Part of me wanted to tell her to piss off, to mind her own business. Tell her I was beyond saving, that she shouldn’t bother. I would just leave this hospital and go back to the streets, and let the cancer have its way with me. Part of me wanted to say all that to her. But the best part of me, that tiny part hiding in the shadows, spoke up for the first time in five years and said no. This was not about hope or trust, for I possessed neither at that point. I simply could not bear to bruise the beautiful heart of Jill Everett. Sometimes the biggest decisions turn on the simplest of things.

  “Sarah Reyes,” I said. A rush of air escaped my lungs.

  I’d thought her name a million times in the past five years, but not once uttered it aloud. In my mind, she was still Sarah Phillips, the girl I lost my heart to in high school, not Sarah Reyes, wife of DC cop Victor Reyes.

  “Call Sarah Reyes.”

  Everett pulled a small pad of paper and pen from her scrubs, ready to take dictation. I didn’t even have to search my memory for the telephone number. I carried it around with me always, just in case. I gave her the number.

  “Call her. Tell her I’m ready to talk.”

  Chapter Six

  August 18, 2016

  Parkview Market

  Petworth, NW WDC

  Prisha Baari brought her Lexus around for a second time. It was close to midnight and the street was quiet this Thursday night. Minimal foot traffic, just a few people wandering back to their cars from the bars on nearby Upshur Street. Parkview Market was dark, except for a light in the window above the bodega. It was the boy’s room—Yazid. Prisha shook her head. That kid was always up. She wondered if he ever slept. She was a nighthawk herself; only needed five hours of sleep a night. The sleep deprivation had no effect on her.

  Prisha parked on the street and walked the two blocks to the market. This section of Petworth was mixed commercial and residential and not well lit. Prisha walked with purpose, a pistol in her purse. She did not fear what might lurk in the shadows of these streets. She was a regular visitor and now knew this neighborhood as well as her own.

  Parkview Market was far from any park, one of its many deceptions. It occupied the bottom floor of a beige two-story brick building that sat at the intersection of two busy streets. It was plastered with mismatched signage, like Post-it notes: Lotto tickets! Cigarettes! ATM/Internet! EBT! The Parkview signage itself had been hand painted, most likely in the 1970s, judging by its outdated font and faded condition. The proprietors, Yazid’s parents, were villagers placed here by Prisha’s Saudi Arabian benefactors. To the neighborhood, they were a quiet Muslim family running a family business. To Prisha they were watchdogs. Their instructions were to never leave the building unwatched, and to ignore whatever occurred in the locked basement at night. They knew better than to ask any questions. Curiosity killed the cat.

  Prisha crossed the street and approached the front door. Above it and to the left was Yazid’s lit window. An external air conditioning unit hung from it, dripping water to the sidewalk below. Antiquated satellite dishes crawled like spiders up the side of the building. Prisha passed an overflowing curbside trash can and stepped to the door. She glanced about, then inserted her key and silently opened the door. The bodega was dark and cramped, with narrow aisles of incongruous goods shelved with no apparent thought: produce next to cough medicine; beer across from bubble gum. Prisha was a regular visitor. She navigated the maze and found the basement door in the back without difficulty.

  The door was hidden in the storage area of the bodega, among boxes of food and merchandise. This area was off limits to customers. A wayward customer would have to walk around the front counter to get to it, which was highly unlikely because Yazid’s father was always standing there. The basement door itself was made of heavy blast-proof steel, camouflaged to look like a freezer. It was monitored by surveillance cameras 24/7. Prisha punched in the numeric door combination, waited for the metallic click, then turned the heavy knob, heaved the door open and walked down the creaky wooden steps. The basement had retained its damp, musty feel, despite all the remodeling they had done.

  Prisha turned at the bottom of the stairs and saw her lead tech, Khabir Ahmad, standing at his bench in the low light. Ahmad was tall and rail thin, a twitchy man. A two-pack-a-day smoker with no fashion sense beyond khakis and white buttoned shirts, always tucked in and secured with the same worn black leather belt.

  “Prisha,” Ahmad said in greeting, without looking up from the private computer server he was working on. Ahmad was still uncomfortable working for a woman. Prisha knew she intimidated him, and used this to her advantage. Their relationship was awkward, but professional. All business. Prisha respected Ahmad’s skills—he was brilliant with computers and signals and electronic intelligence—but did not fully trust him. He was from Pakistan, not Saudi. He had been recruited for ODYSSEUS by her benefactors, not her. And he was a hardcore fanatical Muslim. Prisha didn’t trust anyone whose motivations she could not understand.

  “Khabir,” Prisha responded. “How are we doing?”

  Ahmad turned to face her. “Good. Our work continues.”

  Prisha handed Ahmad the thumb drive. He dropped his eyes as their hands met. He nodded and placed the drive near one of numerous servers stacked side by side on his bench. Cords and power strips cluttered the space. Ahmad had hidden their electrical signature with the power company, but the sight of all this blinking and whirring equipment reminded Prisha how reliant she was on Ahmad’s expertise. She did not like this vulnerability but was confident in her ability to keep Ahmad in line. He had come to ODYSSEUS early and was as committed to it as she was.

  Regardless, ODYSSEUS was Prisha’s project. And everyone knew it. She had worked on it full-time for nine years. As deputy director, she was the face to it. It was the only thing that kept her at the Agency—and in the United States, come to that. She would have preferred Switzerland or France, but since that day in the CIA cafeteria, she knew ODYSSEUS was her destiny.

  It hadn’t come to Prisha all at once, at least not the details. The details took years of painstaking research and development, billions of dollars, and adept bureaucratic maneuvering. What Prisha saw was the potential of ODYSSEUS. What it could be, how it could be used. Big picture stuff. Prisha thought and worked at altitude; she had staff and minions to handle the details.

  At altitude, ODYSSEUS worked by hacking both the power and vulnerability of the human brain.

  The human brain is remarkably modest in appearance, a spongy three-pound mass about the size of two fists put together. But it’s the most complex thing in the known universe. It holds as much information in its memory as exists on the entire Internet, about two hundred exabytes. And it is a marvel of efficiency, using just enough energy to run a dim lightbulb. A computer with the same memory and processing power would require a dedicated nuclear power station.

  The human brain is also utterly practical, without sentimentality of any kind. The five senses take in data, which is ultimat
ely converted to electrical impulses that are carried to the brain via our nervous system. The brain interprets these electrical impulses, then tells you what to make of them. Everything we know about the world is provided to us by our brain. The brain views the world as just a stream of electrical impulses, and creates your reality from these impulses. In a very true sense, we all live out our lives in our heads.

  But the brain can also be fooled. Through the power of suggestion, it is possible to implant false memories in about one-third of the population, which accounts for hypnosis and similar mind tricks. The trick lies in co-opting one of the five senses into collecting false data, converting it to electronic impulses (for your senses are agnostic conduits) and shooting these signals right into the brain. At a biological level, the brain does not question the validity of the signals it receives; it merely processes them.

  Which one of the five senses to hack? How about hearing?

  Hearing occurs in a series of complex steps that change sound waves into electrical signals. Our auditory nerve then carries these signals to the brain. But considering that the sound waves impacting our eardrums are actually silent, the biggest part of hearing isn’t the sound wave itself, but the brain making sense of it. So what is heard is not what is—but what the brain says it is.

  Prisha was no scientist but had several assigned to ODYSSEUS. They were the ones working out the details of all this. She only had to understand enough of the science to ask the right questions, the ones that would keep her scientists honest. What Prisha did understand, however, was steganography, and how it could be used to get inside people’s heads.

  Steganography is simply hiding information by embedding messages within other, seemingly harmless messages. It dates back to ancient Greece, where men of intrigue would tattoo a shaved messenger’s head, let his hair grow back, then shave it again when the messenger arrived at his contact point. Whereas cryptography and encryption protect the contents of a message alone, steganography conceals not only a message’s content, but the fact that a secret message is even being sent. The advantage of steganography is that the secret message does not attract attention to itself as an object of scrutiny. Encrypted messages, in contrast, no matter how unbreakable they are, still arouse interest and suspicion when discovered.