Sapphire Flames
Nobody understood how swarms worked or the exact nature of their implantation. Most people didn’t survive the procedure. Those who did gained an ability to process visual information and sometimes computer code at superhuman speeds. They burned bright and died fast. The normal life expectancy for a swarmer was about two years. That’s why the military offered them a truckload of money. It was essentially a delayed suicide.
Somehow Bug survived. When Nevada first met him, he was an obsessed, manic wreck. Rogan was able to steady him through a cocktail of carefully curated medication and a stable environment, and usually he could almost pass for a normal person.
Right now, there was nothing normal about him. His brown hair stuck out at odd angles. His rumpled T-shirt, decorated with pizza stains of various shapes and ages, hung on his slight frame. His movements were quick and jittery, the agitation rolling off him in spasmodic waves.
“How long have you been here?”
Bug glanced at the kitchen island. “Four days.”
“Did you have to count the pizza boxes?”
“Yes.”
He had been here since Rogan and Nevada left for New York before traveling on to Spain for the funeral.
“Why didn’t you stay on base?”
Rogan’s estate contained a fully functional compound, complete with a barracks, commissary, gym, and everything else a small army would need to stay sharp. He used to just run everything from his enormous house, but after getting married, he and Nevada wanted privacy.
“There’s nobody on base,” Bug said. “It’s the holidays. With the Major gone, there’s only a skeleton crew protecting the house. I got lonely. And your security sucks. I’ve been here for half a week and they didn’t notice. People deliver pizza to the door downstairs and nobody asked why.”
For a second, I didn’t know what I wanted more, to hug Bug or to scream in Abarca’s face.
“No more pizza,” I told him.
“What are you, the pizza police?”
“You’re going to come home with me and you’re going to have a normal dinner. With vegetables.”
“I have mushrooms and tomato sauce on pizza. Add the meat, bread, and cheese and you’ve got all the food groups.”
“Tomato is a berry, mushrooms are a fungus, and that isn’t cheese, it’s a cheese product. I don’t even know if it can be classified as dairy. You’re going to have a nice dinner, and you’re going to bring your laundry, and you’re going to take a long shower.”
Bug tried to sniff his armpit and jerked his head away. He looked at me. “There will be people there.”
“You know everybody, and everybody likes you. You and Bern are friends. The only new people are Runa and Ragnar, and they’re nice.”
Bug pondered it.
“You can play with my new dog.”
Bug looked at Shadow. Shadow wagged her tail.
“Is it too soon?” Bug asked.
It was clearly a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer. Bug’s old French bulldog mix, Napoleon, had died a year ago. Bug had rescued him off the street, and Napoleon enjoyed a spoiled, carefree life until time took its inevitable toll.
Bug dug in the desk drawer and fished out an ancient dog biscuit.
“How old is that thing?”
“It’s a Milk Bone. They’re like Twinkies, they don’t go bad.”
Shadow took the bone from his fingers and hid under the couch.
“I’ll come to dinner,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“What do you need?”
I brought him up to speed on Diatheke, Benedict, and the missing two million dollars.
“I need you to go back to Sunday on CCTV and see if you can spot Sigourney leaving Diatheke. Assuming Diatheke didn’t send a hit squad after her to steal the money back, I want to know what she did with it.”
Bug’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “What kind of name is Diatheke anyway?”
“It’s ancient Greek. According to biblical scholars it means a contract, specifically the last disposition of all earthly possessions after death, or a covenant.”
“So like a will?”
“Kind of. It can also mean a business agreement between two parties.”
“Umm. Their name means make your final arrangements, and Sigourney was a poison Prime, and she worked for them . . .”
I raised my hand. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m thinking it too, but I have no proof and I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.”
Bug shrugged and turned to his screens. I went to the kitchen, pulled up the sleeves of my sweatshirt, and attacked the mess on the island.
It took me twenty minutes to bring the kitchen to a state of cleanliness that didn’t send shivers of horror down my spine. I took out three bags of trash and filled the recycling bin halfway. How someone could exist on pizza and Mello Yello alone, I would never know. Once I cleaned up, I settled on the couch with my phone and Shadow.
“Got her,” Bug said finally.
I walked over to stand by him. On the central screen, Sigourney Etterson stood frozen in the process of walking into Diatheke, Ltd. The image was slightly out of focus, but I’d know that red hair anywhere. Judging by the angle, the footage was recorded from across the street.
“Apartment building?”
“Yeah. It’s under construction and the construction crews always have good surveillance. Helps to cut down on material theft. 10:00 a.m. on the dot.” Bug pressed a key and the grainy picture sped up. “She walks in and seventeen minutes later, she’s out.”
On the screen Sigourney emerged into the street, pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her.
“What’s in the bag?!” Bug screamed dramatically.
“Probably the money.”
“I was quoting a movie.”
“You were misquoting a movie.” The movie referenced a box.
“Whatever.”
Sigourney walked to the parking lot and loaded the suitcase into a blue BMW SUV. She climbed into the driver’s seat and drove offscreen.
The eight monitors around the central screen ignited, showing the images of Sigourney’s SUV from various angles and cameras.
“X6 M,” Bug said. “A hundred K, before modifications. Clearly, whatever she did for them paid well.”
“Where is she going?”
“You’ll see.”
The video sped up, changing on the screens as different cameras tracked the SUV through the streets. Finally, it came to a stop before a metal gate. Beyond the gate stretched a long rectangular building with bright yellow doors.
“CubeSmart Self Storage,” Bug said. “They’re all over Houston.”
The view switched, showing a shot of Sigourney’s vehicle from the driver’s side. She rolled down the window, punched a code into the box by the gate, the gate swung open, and she drove in.
“She rented the unit in advance,” I thought out loud.
“Yep. She leaves six minutes later. I can’t see it, but I assume the bag is no longer in the car.”
“Thank you. You’re a wizard.”
Bug turned to me, his eyes shining. “But wait. There’s more.”
The video feed turned blurry as the images flew by.
“Wait for it . . .”
“How can you possibly keep track of anything at that speed?”
“Magic. There it is.”
He pressed a key and the recording slowed to normal speed. A white Jeep Renegade pulled up to the gate. The driver’s-side window slid down and Alessandro’s shockingly handsome face came into view.
“Son of a bitch!” I leaned closer to the screen.
“I know, right? This must be his blend-in-with-the-locals car. I guess his Italian wheels were too flashy. How can that ass clown look so good on a damn surveillance camera? The guy flew in from Sydney, eighteen hours in the air, drove straight from the airport here, and he looks like a million bucks. Two million to be precise.”
“When did he get in?”
“Monday at 8:42 a.m.”
Sigourney was already dead then. A weight dropped off me. It wasn’t that I suspected Alessandro murdered her, but I hadn’t been able to discount that possibility until now.
Bug turned to me. “I have been chasing that shit monkey all over the fucking city. He destroyed three of my drones. He mocked me.”
The top right screen showed a view from above, clearly from a drone. The screen shuddered, the view plunged to the ground, and rose again as someone picked up the fallen drone. Alessandro appeared in the camera, grinned, gave us a thumbs-up, and the screen went black.
“Do you see what I’ve had to put up with? But now, I have redeemed myself. And there is still more.”
Bug dramatically paused.
“Tell me before I explode from anticipation.”
Bug reached over and held his finger above the keyboard. The finger descended in slow motion.
I would strangle him. I swear, the court would understand.
“Bug!”
The finger kept dropping. Bug finally touched the keyboard. The image of the white Jeep Renegade filled the monitor, the nine screens presenting a single picture, like a mosaic.
The street by the Jeep looked eerily familiar.
Oh my God. “Is that our oak?”
“Yes, it is. He’s parked it here, under the carport across from this building, every night since Monday. I checked the feed from your cameras while you waited. He swapped the plates with the cleaning crew truck, and your idiot toy soldiers have been letting him in because the license number is on their approved list. Yesterday he brought them coffee.” Bug opened his eyes as wide as he could. “The calls are coming from inside the house, Catalina!”