The imagery on the monitor showed two guards remaining on the patio and another two entering the condominium. Moments later, the satellite showed Cyrilla and her partner enter an SUV and drive south on Fifth Avenue.

  “I’ll have the satellite track that vehicle, but I need to show you something, Garrett,” Evelyn said.

  A picture of a young woman with black hair and brown eyes appeared on the monitor. She had teardrop tattoos coming out of both eyes and a small hoop in her nose. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, and I guessed from my travels that she might be Central American.

  “This is Ximena Alcaraz, the coder that Zebra team claims wrote the Phalanx Code. It’s her signature ‘X’ with crossed sabers. Oddly, she sent a distress signal in a dark web chat room my Sharpstone cyber team monitors. She is a longtime Phalanx employee, which with today’s younger generation is a relative term. She’s been there maybe two years, maximum.”

  I studied the photograph. I struggled to find the right adjective to capture what I was sensing from this frontal black-and-white shot taken from a security camera.

  “She looks … irritated,” I said. “Maybe not angry. Maybe not upset, but bothered. What does the distress signal mean?”

  “She’s in New York City as we speak. My Sharpstone reconnaissance team lost her trail somewhere around Columbus Circle when everything unraveled on the GW Bridge.”

  “What do you need her for? Torture her to finish breaking the code?”

  “Sometimes you can lack nuance, Garrett. But if we’re going to be blunt, I’d like to know why she wants to contact you.”

  “Contact me?”

  “She left a coded message on Tor, ‘the dark web’ as they call it, in a chat room that discusses the Phalanx and Optimus duel, saying she needed to speak with you, it seems.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Only you can find out,” she said. “I don’t think she’s violent, but the progress I’ve made on her coding is minimal. Misha and I keep winding up in blind alleys where we think we’ve broken through and suddenly we’re blocked. If we had Ximena on our team, we could use some finesse to stop Aurelius, instead of brute force.”

  “Maybe she realizes what she has set in motion with the kill lists and is having second thoughts. She looks about the same age as Emily Sedgewick. That can weigh on a young mind,” I said.

  “Or even an old one,” she replied.

  “Touché,” I said.

  “I love it when you speak French. Now, why don’t you use this number she left in Tor to contact Ximena, and I’ll tell Maximillian to have a security team for you to use as you see fit?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  But I had a different plan.

  19

  EVELYN GAVE ME THE number that Ximena had left in the dark web chat room as I finished my meal.

  I changed into more appropriate tactical clothing for nighttime surveillance, and then retrieved the pistol, night vision goggles, and a flashlight from the kit bag prepared for me. I tucked the OptiPhone in my pocket as I studied the wall behind the large monitor. There was a seam on one side but not the other, likely indicating a safe room or even an exit out of the condo, should she need it.

  When I had first met her in the Sahara Desert, I had no idea the extent to which Evelyn was connected globally nor did I comprehend the vast wealth she maintained. It made sense, though, when I thought about it. Her family had deciphered the Rosetta Stone, a pivotal contribution to world history. From that, it appeared that wealth had built generationally to the point that she had her own air fleet, security force, and intelligence apparatus. She had lent her skills to Mitch Drewson and Project Optimus in a philanthropic effort intended to help individuals square off against oppressive and controlling governments and corporations. Anyone who threatened the technofascist global security state being ossified by Phalanx would be a threat. Perhaps only Evelyn’s relationship with Blanc had saved her.

  The wall gave way to a dark, musty passage that led to another door, which was cool to the touch. I turned the knob and found a cement stairwell that spiraled down. I took the steps until I was at the bottom and pushed through a door with a spring-loaded bar handle. I nudged the door open and studied the dark alley. The entrance the Sharpstone team had used to ferry in their wounded was to my left about fifty meters away. The Lincoln SUV and Charger were still parked there, which told me that the entire crew was still occupied upstairs.

  To the right was a long dark alley that looked like it emptied to a parallel street to the north. I chose that direction. As I walked, I retrieved my cell phone and texted Ximena’s number.

  Where r u?

  She responded immediately.

  Who is this?

  You’re looking for me.

  General?

  Y

  Meet in the small park across from Lincoln Center.

  Kk

  I tucked the phone, turned left onto Columbus, and hustled several blocks until I saw a P.J. Clarke’s restaurant across from the brightly lit Lincoln Center, which was teeming with people attending an event. Perhaps it was Evelyn’s Le Prophète? There was a small green space in a triangle that separated Columbus and Broadway where I saw Ximena for the first time. She was pacing, looking at the ground, unaware of her surroundings, and not the least bit concerned about her security. I assumed she wanted to meet in this relatively public spot because she didn’t want to be alone with a Special Forces general in the darkened and expansive recesses of Central Park, which would have been a far more secure place to have a conversation. Then again, perhaps Phalanx was watching her from multiple angles and wanted her to be secure.

  But if she weren’t rogue from Phalanx, why would she be talking to me?

  As I approached, I scanned in every direction and did not notice anything that would indicate this was a baited ambush. Cars came and went through stoplights. People huddled in overcoats against the February winds that funneled down the Hudson Valley and accelerated through the canyons of high-rises.

  I walked on the Lincoln Center side of the triangle, which put me behind Ximena. Looping around P.J. Clarke’s and turning back north at a Duane Reade drugstore, I approached her from south to north, having thoroughly cased the area.

  Approaching her, I said, “Ximena?”

  She looked up, startled. I kept my eyes trained on her hands, which were still stuffed in her pockets.

  “General?”

  “Call me Garrett,” I said.

  Her eyes were wide. She was scared. Nervous. The teardrop tattoos made her look mournful. She had black hair and brown eyes. Her lips were full, and she possessed a youthful beauty despite her obvious deep concern. When the wind blew her hair, a small eagle tattoo was visible as if it was flying up the back of her neck. Her nose ring was a small pewter loop in her left nostril.

  “Okay … Garrett.”

  “Why are you meeting with me? You work for Blanc,” I said.

  “The full stack developer community is very small, Garrett. I had several friends killed in the Grass Valley massacre. I’m scared. I accessed the Project Optimus files to find out why they would have been killed and didn’t like what I saw,” she said.

  “Optimus files? But the killing is being done by Phalanx,” I said.

  She was distracted, looking nervously over her shoulder and snapped her head back to look at me. “What?” she said.

  “Let’s walk. It’s cold and walking will keep us warm,” I said. But what I was really thinking is that it was harder for a sniper to hit a moving target.

  “It’s not safe,” she said.

  “All the more reason to walk. Loop your arm through mine and stay close.”

  She removed her right hand from her coat pocket and slid it between my left elbow and torso. She was not wearing gloves, which I assumed explained why she had her hands stuffed in her pockets. We crossed Broadway toward Lincoln Center and began walking north toward West Sixty-sixth Street.

  “I found a package that I must give you,” she said. “But I’m confused by what you just said.”

  “A package?” I asked, and immediately thought of Smyth telling me Coop’s dead lawyer had left a package for me and then Calles giving me a small flash drive. “You’re holding nothing.”

  She lifted a triangular pendant at the end of simple chain necklace and said, “Not that kind of package. It’s blockchain based. I’m told you have the other half?”

  “That?” I said, pointing at the necklace. “We’ve got Blanc’s Phalanx assassin squads everywhere rounding up defectors, and you’ve got a necklace you want to give me?”

  She stopped walking and looked at me.

  “That’s not true about the assassin squads. What are you talking about?”

  “What are you talking about? Blanc and his Phalanx squads have been rounding up all of Mitch Drewson’s Project Optimus. They killed your friends in Grass Valley. I assumed you had the plan because you wrote the Phalanx Code.”

  She stared at me with a bewildered look on her face. She pushed her hair behind her ears, the eagle’s beak showing below her right lobe. Her eyes looked away, fixating internally. A piece of logic fell into place, and something made sense to her. She nodded.

  We were standing in front of the brightly lit courtyard of Lincoln Center. Her puffy winter coat was open, showing a lanyard with credentials hung around her neck beneath the necklace. She held up her hands and separated them to add emphasis to her words. With her left hand, she lifted the triangular necklace and pinched it between her thumb and forefinger. She looked in both directions before speaking.

  “I didn’t write that code. Somebody copied my signature X. It was done by a team of people in Wyoming,” she said.

  I thought of Drewson’s mysterious Zebra team. They had provided Misha and Evelyn with everything. The video. The Phalanx Code. The intelligence about the Chinese in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and North Dakota. What was happening?

  “We should get moving,” I said. It was never a good idea to remain stationary for too long.

  She lifted the necklace to my eye level. She wanted me to notice it, so I did. The pendant bulged in the middle, as if it carried something. Maybe Phalanx members had to carry cyanide pills. She placed her right hand on my arm to stop me and reiterate her point, while holding up her left hand showing me the pendant.

  “You have the other half, correct?”

  Then it hit me. The triangular device Calles had given me. As I reached into my boot and fumbled with the small package, she said, “And you’re wrong about Drewson and Blanc. It’s the other way around.”

  When I lifted the cellophane-wrapped device that Calles had given me, she snatched it quickly from my hand and detached half of her necklace. She snapped the device Calles had provided me into the half of her necklace, creating a new rhombus. A slight buzz emanated and she nodded, as if satisfied that something worked. When married together, the two pieces resembled the Ranger insignia’s rhombus shape.

  “Here. This has everything you need to know.”

  “This?”

  “Yes. When your grandfather created Phalanx, he was way ahead of his time—”

  The wash of the bullet whipped past me before I heard the unmistakable sound of a silenced weapon firing from close range. Ximena slumped into my arms, blood draining from her temple and onto my coat. To others, she most likely appeared to be a daughter hugging her father, but it was clear she died instantly as she fell into my arms. A black jacket flashed in my periphery about a hundred meters away. The shooter.

  “Ximena!” I said, holding her. She was unresponsive, so I cradled her and began moving swiftly just to avoid a second sniper shot, but none came. I called 911 using her cell phone and laid her on a bench near the West Sixty-sixth Street subway entrance. No one stopped. No one offered to help. No one seemed to care that this young lady had just been murdered, if they knew at all.

  I felt for a pulse, but there was none. Her wide brown eyes were open, staring at me, telling me something. I clasped the necklace and the credentials, snatching them from her neck and pocketing them. I closed her eyes, the teardrop tattoos weeping down her cheeks. As I heard the ambulance arriving, a young man dressed in a hoodie and jeans and smelling of weed came up to me and said, “Dude, is she okay?”

  “This ambulance is for her. Can you make sure she gets on it?” I asked.

  “Whoa, dude.”

  “Thanks, man,” I said. I put a one-hundred-dollar bill in his palm, which seemed to ease his concerns as the ambulance braked in front of us. I joined the flow of the crowd, saying a silent prayer for Ximena’s soul.

  As I began to walk back toward the Dakota, I made an on-the-spot decision to confront Blanc tonight, without hesitation. But first, I took a left on West Sixty-sixth Street and walked through the lobby of the Phillips Club, an upscale fractional or timeshare that ebbed and flowed with traffic. I walked in like I owned the place and passed the busy front desk. The doorman even held the door for me. I patted my pockets as if I was looking for my room key and, once past the front desk, hooked a left at the hallway that led to a library with a bank of three computers with monitors. I twisted open the rhombus shaped pendant and found a flash drive, which I plugged into the tower and played with the mouse until the external drive icon showed. I clicked on that and opened a file that oddly was not encrypted.

  Ximena had included a diagram of Blanc’s condominium with arrows pointing at an access point. I printed that out, folded the piece of paper, and put it in my pocket.

  I clicked on a second link, labeled PHALANX DOCS.

  There were multiple images of boxes with bowtie wrappers around them; the packages, I presumed. I scanned the titles, most were technical or commercial, relating to agreements, employees, and facilities. But near the bottom was one that was labeled GSI LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT/PC.

  GSI? Garrett Sinclair I, I presumed. And PC for Phalanx Code?

  As I was clicking on the package indicator to begin reading, two security men came into the lobby and moved to the front of the line. They were dressed in blue uniforms with yellow patches, but it was obvious to me that these were Phalanx operatives based upon their build and the weapons they were carrying.

  I printed the file, ejected the flash drive and zipped it into a sleeve in my boot, then powered down the screen. Hustling through the back door of the lobby, I jogged past the washing machines and dryers, and emptied into the street. Sprinting along West Sixty-seventh Street, I crossed Broadway, dodging traffic, found Columbus, and then leaped over the low retaining wall separating Central Park from the sidewalk. Tumbling through a series of shrubs and down a hill, I righted myself and set out on a northeast azimuth toward Blanc’s condo.

  I avoided the major roads and trails as night fell on the park. A disheveled man began to approach and then avoided me as I likely appeared menacing with my pistol, knife, and night vision goggles. I carried the full interpretation of the Phalanx Code in my pocket, not that I’d had time to make sense of it yet. Why Ximena had provided it to me, I could only guess. Perhaps, as Evelyn had posited, she was driven by guilt about the killings by the Phalanx squads. I reached the Metropolitan Museum, angled behind it and along the Onassis Reservoir, where I found a covered and concealed location adjacent to Blanc’s building.

  I was surrounded by granite rocks jutting from the ground like fangs and towering oak trees. I lifted the goggles to my eyes and studied the terrain. The elevation of the building prevented me from seeing Blanc’s penthouse condo or its rooftop garden, but I studied the security around the structure. There was a doorman and inside the lobby were two Phalanx guards dressed similarly to those who had appeared at the Phillips Club. Looking at the map that Ximena had produced for me, the entry to Blanc’s building was through the rear exit of a men’s clothing store on East Eighty-second Street.

  I then took a moment to read through what I had printed, but it was mostly coded gibberish, so I burned the papers using a lighter. As I was building a plan in my mind to follow the path found on Ximena’s flash drive, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a Wyoming number. I had texted Mahegan my new contact information.

  “Sinclair,” I said.

  “Boss, it’s Jake,” Mahegan said. “You’re whispering.”

  “I’m conducting recon of Blanc’s place. Everything okay?”

  “Actually … I’m getting a weird vibe here,” Mahegan said.

  “Weird how?”

  “Drewson made some big announcement that we were all to gather in another facility for a team meeting. We had to get on the hyperloop with the whole crew. Joe, Randy, Matt, Misha, Amanda, Brad, Reagan, Blair, and the others. Even that prison guard, Calles, is here and came with us. She’s turned out to be useful. Zoey and Syl are with Zach and Riley in Dallas. They were getting ready to leave to come here, but I told them to squat hold there for a bit.”

  The term “squat hold” was airborne parlance for “stop what you’re doing.”

  “What was the announcement?”

  A spider of fear began crawling up my spine.

  “That’s just it,” Mahegan said. “Drewson is almost an hour late and we’re in this hyperloop pod waiting to go somewhere.”

  “Get out of there. Take everyone and just get outside and go to Jackson or get Jeremy to get one of Drewson’s airplanes.”

  “We can’t open the pod. It’s locked,” Mahegan said.

  20

  THE PEOPLE I LOVED the most in the world were all together in one place deep inside a billionaire’s mine shaft because they had followed the clarion call to help save the world from technofascism at the hands of billionaire Aurelius Blanc.

  My only assumption could be that Blanc’s men had infiltrated the Wyoming compound and seized control, maybe through deepfake videos or technology that could remotely unlock and lock Drewson’s compound, control his hyperloop systems, and operate his video. But why hadn’t Drewson or Evelyn contacted me with distress signals? My entire world was inside that mine shaft.

  And what should I make of Ximena’s comment regarding me being wrong about Blanc and Drewson?