Transient - Complete Book One (Episodes 1 - 4) (Transient Serial) Page 21

  He guided her to the sofa still kissing her, and he eased her down into the cushions. She took his weight, his strength, and with her hands she grabbed the tail of his shirt and pulled it free of his waistband. She ran her hands over his skin at the small of his back as his kisses pressed her lips harder, and their breathing became heavier…

  A knock at the door. “Room service.”

  He pulled back a little.

  “Don’t answer it.”Rae brought him down for another kiss.

  The knock came again. He groaned, then stood up.

  “Hold that thought,”he said, and went to the door.

  She sat up, thinking a drink right now might be a good idea.

  No need to rush. We’ve got all night.

  Drew opened the door.

  Three men stood in the hallway. Rae couldn’t see them clearly, but it looked like a hotel manager and two policemen.

  The manager said,“Drew Archer?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  The policemen pushed past the hotel manager, stepped into the room, and each grabbed Drew by one arm.

  One of the cops said,“Drew Archer, you are under arrest.”

  “For what?”

  The other cop snapped cuffs on his wrists.“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

  Shocked, Rae stood up from the sofa, and backed away to the window.

  The other officer began searching the room.

  The one holding Drew continued,“You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. If you decide to answer my questions without an attorney, you have the right to stop answering at any time in order to consult an attorney. Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you - do you agree to answer my questions without an attorney present?”

  “Do you have a warrant?”Drew asked.

  “No.”

  “Then this is an illegal search.”

  “You’re in a hotel room, Mister Archer. We have the consent of the hotel manager. Do you wish to answer my questions now, or answer them later in at the station?”

  “I have nothing to hide. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  The other cop approached Rae.“Are you Rae Lennox?”

  “Yes,”she said.

  “You’re under arrest as well.”He unclipped the cuffs from his belt, grabbed her left wrist firmly, and cuffed her hands in front of her. The hard cold metal pinched her skin, and hurt.“You have the same rights under the law as Mister Archer. Did you hear and understand those rights, or would you like me to repeat them?”

  “I know my rights,”she said, trying to keep her voice even, though inwardly she was terrified.

  As Drew was escorted out of the room, he glanced back at her.“Don’t say anything, Rae. Don’t say a word.”

  She nodded, frightened.“I won’t.”

  “Time to go, Miss.”

  The cop held her arm tight, and moved her to the door.

  From farther down the hall, Drew was calling back to her, repeating,“Don’t say a word.”

  Chapter 22

  They rode together in the back of the patrol wagon, Rae and Drew both handcuffed. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, and his were cuffed behind him, which made it impossible for them to hold hands. Rae moved her knee against his to let him know she was with him, and it would be okay, even though she was worried stiff.

  We knew this might happen.

  The Tetrad had talked about the possibility of getting arrested, but Rae had thought it unlikely, and they had never rehearsed what do to. Which was fine, because the police told them exactly what to do, and didn’t seem particularly angry. They were just doing their job and letting the kids know who was boss.

  The back seat of the squad car smelled like alcohol and body odor. There had been other arrestees in this car earlier in the day - it smelled like maybe homeless men or drunkards or bar brawlers. Whoever they were they smelled like sweaty men, odors unmasked by perfume or cologne. Oily, dirty smells, with a hint of flatulence.

  No one spoke in the car, except for the policeman in the shotgun seat, who replied to dispatch a few times through the radio. The police radio was on and they could hear the dispatcher calling out to the patrols. Rae listened to hear if Benny, Halldor, or Danielle had been arrested too, but their names were never mentioned.

  They arrived at the station about ten minutes later, and were escorted up the steps and into the receiving area, where they were fingerprinted and photographed. They emptied their pockets, and their belongings were stored in little boxes. A female officer patted Rae down and a male officer did the same to Drew. They walked through a metal detector and were taken to a small room to be questioned.

  The room was bare except for a table and two chairs. One wall had mirrored glass, which was no doubt a window from the other side. Rae checked herself in the reflection. She looked reasonably calm, but a little baggy under the eyes. The light from above was harsh, and did her no favors, but mostly she just looked tired, and felt it.

  Let this be over soon. I want to sleep in a bed tonight.

  She wondered what would have happened–with Drew - if the cops hadn’t arrived when they did. How far would things have gone; would she have been sleeping in his bed? That didn’t seem important in the scheme of things now. Any bed would do as long as it had a pillow and a blanket she could use to shut out the world.

  The door opened. A woman entered, escorted by two officers. The officers were not the ones who had arrested Rae and Drew, but seemed to be there as bodyguards. The woman wore a business suit with a badge hanging from a chord.

  “I’ll get another chair,”one of the cops said.

  “I can stand,”the woman replied.“This won’t take long.”

  But the man was already out the door, and returned quickly with a folding chair. The woman sat across from Rae and Drew.

  “My name is Wendy,”the woman said. Her name tag called her Det. Wendy Squire.“Normally, we would interview the two of you separately, try to get you to tell us something about the other, compare stories, look for discrepancies, and all of that.”

  “But…”finished Drew, his tone hostile.

  “But there’s nothing normal about your case.”

  “What is the case? What are you charging us with?”

  “Nothing,”said Wendy.“Though there are lots of things we could charge you with. Demonstrating without a permit, trespassing on private property, driving while intoxicated. Any one of those might stick.”

  “You’ve talked to my father,”Drew said, his voice hard. It wasn’t a question.

  “I have,”Wendy confirmed.“It took a while to get through to the governor’s mansion, but once it was explained that we had his son in custody, he agreed to speak with us.”

  The governor’s son?

  Rae stared at him. There was a lot she didn’t know about Drew Archer but she hadn’t seen that one coming. She had sensed his confidence, his arrogance even, but thought it was just a by-product of attaining a successful corporate career so young. But he was the son of privilege, of wealth, of status.

  Governor Archer’s kid. Apollo–Archer.

  She knew the governor had a family, but Rae hadn’t paid much attention to state politics. She was too young to vote and her government class at school focused more on the U.S. Constitution and national politics, or the United Nations and world events. State and local government was glossed over and hardly even mentioned on the midterms and finals.

  Tom Archer had won re-election last year as California governor, his second term, in part because he had the backing of OBK. That was one of his signal victories in his first term. OBK had talked of moving their headquarters out of the state for tax reasons, but the governor had worked with the legislation to change some of the tax laws in favor of OBK and other multinationals, creating a more tolerant business environment and it was said, saving jobs that might have gon
e elsewhere. But the loss in tax revenues had hurt the school systems and other interests, so Archer remained a controversial politician. But the backing of OBK, with all their money and influence, was enough to defeat a weak challenger.

  The governor’s wife was a former actress, best known for being the glamor girl on a popular daytime game show, a word game where she moved letters around on a big white chessboard, all while looking perky and cute in some tight dress and matching heels. She’d quit the game show when Archer got elected. She looked no older than thirty, and was at least twenty years younger than her political husband. Katie, her name was. Katie Archer.

  She’s can’t be Drew’s mom.

  But Katie was the governor’s second wife, she recalled now. He had children by his first wife. Three or four kids, maybe. Rae couldn’t remember and didn’t have a picture of them in her head. The ex-wife had never been part of the governor’s race, and hadn’t been mentioned much by the opposition party. Apollo–Drew–then was the product of a broken home. With a very famous father.

  And he’s rebelling against authority.

  It was all starting to make sense now. His father had probably helped get him into Berkeley as a young kid, and Drew was eager to leave home. He must have helped Drew land the job at OBK too, but Drew couldn’t handle the patriarchy there, the corporate authority, and probably associated the company with his father. He hated his father, so he hated OBK.

  For Drew, this fight against OBK was very personal.

  What have I gotten myself into?

  “If you’re not going to charge us,”Drew said,“then what are we doing here?”

  “Talking.”

  “Are we free to go?”

  “Not yet,”Wendy said.“By law I can hold you for forty-eight hours without charge.”

  “What do you want?”he. asked.

  “To find out what youwant.”

  “An end to OBK. An end to the cryptograph.”

  “That’s not going to happen,”Wendy said.“And it’s certainly not in my power to grant either of those things.”

  “You’re holding us here,”Drew said,“at the behest of OBK.”

  “They’ve filed a complaint against you, yes. You have a permit to demonstrate in the park, but you’ve been camping out on the steps of OBK headquarters. They’ve not had you removed from their property which is their right.”

  “Why not?”

  “Bad publicity, presumably. As long as the media ignored you, it did them no harm to let you and your friends prance about the steps with your chants and your signs.”

  “What makes you think I had any part of that?”Drew asked.

  “Because you are not just the son of the governor. You’re also the hacker known as Apollo.”

  He sat quiet, staring directly at the interrogator as if she’d said the clouds in the sky were made of marshmallows.

  “We didn’t know that until today,”she said.“Until you reached out to Rae. We were waiting for you to make a mistake. You made it and we brought you in.”

  “I’d like to speak with my lawyer,”Drew said.

  “No need for that,”Wendy said.“I’m authorized to release you now.”

  “On what condition?”

  “If you set foot on OBK property again, you will be arrested for trespassing.”

  “Should I interpret that as a warning from OBK?”

  “Interpret it however you wish,”Wendy said.

  “Rae still has a permit to protest in the park.”

  “She does, and no one will interfere with that.”

  Drew nodded.“Then we’d like to go back to the hotel, if you don’t mind.”

  Wendy pushed her chair back from the table and stood.“These two officers will escort you back.”

  The offers led Drew and Rae back to the front desk, where they retrieved their wallets, phones, and other personal items. Outside in the parking lot, they were led to an unmarked SUV. A plainclothes driver was waiting with the engine running. Drew and Rae sat in the middle row behind the driver. The two police officers sat in the far back row behind them.

  No one spoke as the SUV pulled onto the freeway.

  Rae didn’t know the San Francisco freeway system, but noticed that Drew was eyeing the freeway signs with growing concern.

  “Where are you taking us?”he asked.

  She felt something hit her in the mouth then. It was a piece of cloth, a gag. It was being pulled from behind, and her head jerked back. The cloth entered her mouth and made it hard to breath. Her lower lip was cut open by her teeth, and she tasted blood. As the gag was tied tight behind her, the cloth caught in her hair and pulled some of her hair out as the knot tightened at the nape of her neck.

  The SUV accelerated.

  Rae turned to Drew and saw he was being gagged too, by the officer sitting behind him. The guy now had a black bag in his hands. He put the bag over Drew’s head.

  Another black bag went over Rae’s, and her world went dark.

  Then a large hand pressed something to her face. It smelled medicinal, like an anaesthetic. She felt herself drifting, as if falling asleep. The muscles in her face and arms and hands relaxed.

  This isn’t an arrest, she realised. This is a kidnapping.

  Chapter 23

  The cell, Rae called it.

  It was bigger than a prison cell, but smaller than a hotel room. It had three double bunk-beds and a bathroom. There was a TV screen on one wall and a barred window looked down into the street below. They were on the sixth or seventh floor, above a park. The window was tinted glass. They could see out, but no one outside could see in. The glass was also shatterproof. Drew had slammed the hard plastic desk chair into the window glass, to no effect. The door was locked, and with no access to hinges. It was probably guarded on the other side, but possibly not. Sometimes they heard footsteps in the hall outside, so presumably people in the hall could hear them in the room unless they whispered, which they did.

  There was one bathroom for them to share, and it had a door that closed but didn’t lock. The bathroom had a sink and a small shower with a curtain.

  On the first day, it had been only Rae and Drew in there. Drew had woken first from the drugs. She woke perhaps an hour later.

  “Where are we?”

  His expression was hard, deflated.“I don’t know. OBK headquarters, maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ll tell us when they want to.”

  On the second day, Halldor, Danielle and Benny were brought in. They were too drugged and asleep, pushed in on wheelchairs by orderlies and lifted into their bunks.

  “You can’t keep us here,”Rae protested.

  Three of the orderlies said nothing, one merely laughed and another replied,“National security,”before closing and locking the door.

  “It’s the catch-all indictment,”Drew explained afterwards.“In the interests of national security, they can do with us whatever they damn well please.”

  “But your father is the governor.”

  “My father doesn’t want to talk to me. He doesn’t want to be bothered. As long as I stay silent, he’ll be happy. His campaign won’t be affected. That’s all that matters. I really doubt he knows anything about this.”

  “What would he do if he did know?”

  “Like all politicians,”Drew said bitterly,“my father is a coward. If he knew, he’d pretend he didn’t.”

  A maid came once per week, when they were allowed to walk around an enclosed courtyard, under the supervision of armed guards. It was impossible to say where they were but it did indeed seem like they were still in San Francisco but in a quieter part of OBK headquarters.

  Twice a day they were brought meals, and once in the morning a guard came to collect their dirty clothes and bring them clean ones. The clothes were all the same. Loose black sweatpants and light blue t-shirt. Underwear and sandals.

  On the third day, Drew was taken from the room and was not returned for more than a week.

  R
ae, Halldor, Danielle and Benny passed the time with board games. Benny and Danielle were both good at chess, and spent hours pushing pawns and pieces across the checkered board. Halldor and Rae played a variety of card games. When the orderlies brought them food, she asked for books to read, but none ever came.

  Drew returned on the eight day. They hadn’t hurt him but had kept him in isolation, occasionally peppering him with questions.

  “The news is out,”he said.

  “What news?”Danielle asked.

  “The world knows we’re in trouble.”

  “How?”

  Drew smiled.“Because I told them.”

  “You got a message out?”Benny asked. He seemed sceptical.“Why did they allow that?”

  “They didn’t,”Drew said.“I had a fail-safe file on my hard drive.”

  “Where? And how does it work?”

  “At a secure location. I log in every day. I set it up so that if I didn’t log in for three days in a row, a message would be automatically delivered online.”

  “What kind of message?”

  “A pre-recorded video announcing who I was, and that I had been captured, most likely by OBK. I also said that if the Tetrad were missing, they had probably been captured as well.”

  “That doesn’t mean anyone will believe you.”Halldor said.

  “They don’t have to believe me. They just have to wonder if it’s true. The news media must have confirmed by now that we are all missing, which adds some credence to my claims. Thanks to the public protests at headquarters, no one will think our disappearances are a coincidence. The news media must also be hounding OBK about our whereabouts.

  “OBK will deny all knowledge,”Benny said.

  “Of course they will, but the idea is out there now and gaining ground.”

  “It’s like a chess game,”Danielle pondered smiling,“and you just launched a pawn storm.”

  “A bigger attack than that. Along with the video message, I released all my files about OBK.”

  “What’s in the files?”Rae asked.

  “A lot. The info took years to accumulate, and will takes weeks and months for the media to sift through it all. I detailed the inner workings of the cryptograph system, how it worked, how OBK have their tentacles wrapped around the world, how they control and manipulate all the major governments. I released thousands of internal OBK emails. And a lot of them express doubts and concerns about the cryptograph. Things people inside the lab know, but that they’ve never expressed in public. The junk science, the cover-ups.”