STAR FALL PEOPLE Chapter 37

Sofia: San Francisco

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The prisoners had been silent on the drive back to Phanes. Sofia was wedged between Becker and Carlos in the middle tier of the Land Rover’s seating, their labored wheezes like a metronome. Mike sat behind them and would slap their heads if they fidgeted. Up front, Nadia’s incessant smoking filled her nostrils and the air with acridity.

When they arrived at the corporate park, Nadia pulled up beside the Toyota they had trailed. Mike scrambled over Sofia’s shoulder like an eel, his sneaker catching her chin as he wormed into the front passenger seat. Then he and Nadia gave the prisoners backward-looking grins before exiting.

The two white men from the Toyota took over.

“This is what we’re going to do, Becker,” said Handlebar, pointing a very large pistol. “You want your daughter’s brains to stay inside that skull of hers, we go in and round up your scientists. I need them all where I can seem them. You, yeah, you, Speedy Gonzalez, I’m talking to you. Speako English? You try playing hero, beano, go ahead, see where that gets you—and her.”

Carlos nodded. It was the only thing he could do with the rubber gag still strapped around his mouth.

As they marched towards the lobby entrance, Sofia dared glance over her shoulder and caught Sley’s eye. It was just the slimmest of moments, but he communicated a calm defiance. She remembered what she had seen him do to those commandos. Her father was going to get them out of this. Sofia believed it. There was nothing else to believe in.

It must have been pushing four in the morning, but many lights blazed from within. Becker’s team had been working round the clock. Half the parking spaces were occupied, and Carlos’s security team had come in to run a nightshift. Fat Beard removed the strap from around Carlos’s head, and Sofia desperately wanted to be freed next. Fat Beard was armed with an assault rifle, two pistols and a knife. He pushed the tip of the rifle against Carlos’s cheek. “Becker’s going to make a list of all the people in there. You’re going to find them and bring them. You’ve got five minutes before I start working on the girl.”

“This is a large complex,” Carlos said. “It takes fifteen minutes to get from one wing to another.”

Handlebar said, “But ain’t you Speedy Gonzalez?” He grabbed her and the gun pressed against her temple like a hellish shiatsu. Sofia inhaled through the nose, trying to steady herself. Sley.

“I need to key in the password,” Carlos said, voice steady.

She could see the silhouettes of people. Carlos’s team. They would have seen the men with guns, the gags. They would have already alerted the police.

Fat Beard took out his knife and cut Carlos’s zip ties. “First you gonna get them to turn off any alarms. You call the cops back, tell them it was a mistake, everything’s fine. Then you disable all cameras, sensors, everything that can identify people.”

They followed Carlos into the building. She saw Carlos with his hands behind his head as Handlebar forced two of his security people to kneel. Fat Beard pushed her into the lobby atrium and down onto the floor. The ceiling’s digital imagery portrayed an Egyptian menagerie—camels and horseback riders riding across the desert before pyramids and the Sphinx. During the day the atrium was busy, but at this hour, the only people here would be at their stations or in their labs, crunching data or running experiments. The coffee kiosks were abandoned, the meeting pods empty. The ceiling’s lightshow was going to waste.

Handlebar dug a phone out of his pocket. Its glow bathed him in blue as he scrolled and then showed it to Becker. “This your crew?”

Becker squinted at it and grunted a protest.

“Let’s hear it,” Handlebar said, and Fat Beard removed Becker’s gag.

“I don’t know if they’re all here. It’s late, they have families.”

“Whoever ain’t here gets a phone call,” Handlebar said. “But only on this phone. Every other mobile phone in this building must be confiscated and powered off. Speedy, go find these people.”

Carlos said, “If you give me my phone, I can message them.”

“What I say about no phones?” Handlebar aimed his big pistol at two of Carlos’s security people. Their hands were bound behind their backs and they were on their knees, the man defiant, the woman scared.

“Don’t,” Carlos said.