Chapter 15

Silvia Thruwell was having a wonderful dream. It showed on her face as she slept in a sleeping bag under her table full of computer equipment. The humming of the computers’ fans had lulled her into a sound sleep after such a late night of pressured work from Killington.

He had wanted her to be able to shut down another racecar when they were getting ready to start the race for the day. But of the remaining nine racecars, all of the teams had strong firewalls in place to protect their cars’ technology. By the time she had conceded defeat, her neck and back had been sore and her fingers had actually hurt. It hadn’t taken long for her to fall asleep but in that short amount of time she had come up with a new plan for how to break into the remaining firewalls.

Killington came in early. He was fully dressed in another expensive Italian suit, his eyes bright with energy and anticipation.

Of the men that had been assigned to watch Silvia during the night as she slept, one had dozed off and the other was blinking heavily. Several cups of takeout coffee littered the floor around their chairs.

Killington approached the dozing guard and pushed him out of his chair. He woke angry shouting something incomprehensible and he went for his pistol. When he stood and saw Killington nearby, he quickly retreated. The other guard just laughed.

The noise brought Silvia around. She remained somber despite the laughter. When she sat up the sleeping bag fell away exposing her pink Hello Kitty pajamas. She crawled out from under the table and stretched long and hard. She still could feel the vestiges of cramps in her fingers and a lingering soreness in her neck. She didn’t want to think about how much worse they would be after spending another long day at a computer keyboard.

“Good morning.” Killington said. “We need to get an early start. What can my men get you for breakfast?”

Silvia wrinkled her nose as her gaze turned towards the guards. One of them already had a cigarette in his mouth. “Less smoke, a place to wash up, and a cup of coffee.”

An hour later Silvia walked back into the room that was now considered her workspace. She had guards that didn’t smoke, a tall cup of Dunkin Donuts’ coffee in her hands, and clean clothes on. Oddly this felt to her like going to work. Except that she had slept under her computer array the night before and she was sure that the guards were not just for her protection, they were also to keep her there until the job was done. What had she gotten herself into?

Killington followed her into the room a few minutes later. Silvia was already in the process of starting up all her equipment. She noticed that the air in the room changed when he came in close to stand by her. Even though he wore expensive suits, he still smelled like a mobster, a mixture of cologne, cigar smoke and alcohol. Another smell, stale sweat and blood, filled her nostrils. Silvia assured herself that it was psychosomatic. One could not actually smell like the blood of the men and women he had killed as he had risen within the ranks of the organization. Maybe it was her subconscious’ way of reminding her to be afraid of him despite his polished outward appearance.

“How long until you can shut down another car?” Killington asked, like it should be something that could be done without much effort.

“Of the nine cars that are still in the race, each has proven firewalls that I could not force myself into easily. So, unfortunately it will take as long as it takes. I have a lot of work ahead of me today.” Silvia said with a strong attitude.

“So if I threatened your life, would the work go any faster?” Killington asked with a smile.

“No,” Silvia said. “And you would be hard pressed to find anyone else who can do it better. This is the best equipment out there. If you want me to focus on a specific car first, instead of working them all at once, I’ll get more work done. I might get 2 done today. If you want better results, you may want to send out some more of your goons to burn a fuselage or two to disqualify them. It might be easier in the end. You have to understand that there will probably be some cars that have systems that I won’t be able to break into at all.”

“You have seven cars to work on, not nine, two of them are off limits, remember?” Killington began.

Silvia rounded on him. “You don’t get it do you? Breaking code is not like breaking into a bank by knocking down a wall or two. I have to learn a new language every time I hack into a competent engineer’s code. Once I get inside it’s easy. But to get seven codes broken, I have to relearn the language seven times. All I have to say is that you better have a contingency plan because I may not be able to learn all seven languages in two and a half days. I came into this to shut down Katrina and the MIT car, everything else is a bonus for you.”

Killington’s eyes moved almost spastically as he considered this new information.

“Just get to work,” he said as he stormed out of the room.

~~~

Appleton and Mitchell were hard at work at their computer stations but neither looked better than half dead. The list that Appleton had pulled from the National Reserve conduit had turned out to be so large that they had ended up printing the massive document, all 843 pages, so that they could search independently. They had to search for each name on their list on the one printed from the National Reserve. Then each company listed on the Reserve’s list needed to be researched as a precautionary measure, to ensure that each name was a real person or company, each with a real presence in the world.

Of the many tasks with which they had been entrusted, finding the money trail stood tall on their list. They had to search accounts in countries where the United States had zero control, and shell companies where transactions could be hidden in plain sight.

Most corporate money moved through wire transfers, rarely as cash. For the mob, usually it was cash. Not that mob businesses didn’t use modern electronic transfers at all, but for many services rendered, cold hard cash still made the world move. Appleton was certain that if Killington had been hired to shut down race teams, then paper money would have changed hands.

When Appleton finished researching the names on each sheet of paper he crumpled it up and tossed toward a trash bin. Many other balls of paper littered the floor around the bin. Based on the amount of paper on the floor, it was evident that neither he nor Mitchell would be trying out for the company basketball team anytime soon. He had searched for names that cross-referenced to the list of names that Jenkins had provided, searched every bank in the country for other wire transfers, and cross checked them all to companies that operated in Cayman Islands or Moldova, countries known to do business with billionaires who wanted to hide something.

Unfortunately both he and Mitchell had barely made a dent on the list. He picked up the next page, number twenty six.

“I think we need to write a program to do the searching while we get some rest. The first phase will take the longest, so we might as well sleep through it.” Appleton’s words startled Mitchell, who had been deep in concentration on his own page of names.

“I know the brain power, between the two of us, is probably equivalent to a whole office at the NSA,” Mitchell started, “But we do not have their computer hardware.”

Appleton got up and found the bag that he had brought with him. He unzipped it and pulled out a tall CD stack. “That may be true, but we can use this instead. It’s my software to make server farms do the compiling.”

Mitchell raised a tired eyebrow. “You’re going to hack into the NSA?”

“It’s funny that you mentioned the NSA.” Appleton said as he took the CD stack to the terminal he was working at. “I was hired by them to write this software so they could use it to spy on internet companies. When they got caught spying, policies changed in a hurry. Money used to pay for this software came out of their mainstream budget and I was nothing more than a subcontractor. So I got fired and they made me take all the code I wrote so they wouldn’t get caught for another indiscretion against ‘innocent’ corporations.”

Mitchell’s second eyebrow rose to match the other. “So, exactly what does this software do?”

“Once I install it we can log into Yahoo, for instance, and upload a small program, kind of like a worm, then a subroutine will establish itself to create a work order. That will partition off a certain amount of space in the server farm to do a job for us. I’ll upload a couple more of these CD’s of information that will essentially tell their computers to do a detailed search for whatever I want. I will tell their computers to pull this list again and write specifics in the search parameters to do what we spent all night doing. We’ll go to sleep and in a couple of hours we’ll find the information already completed and waiting for us to use.”

Mitchell became excited. “Brilliant! They won’t know what we did?”

“No, because it’ll look like someone in their own company asked for the job ticket. And there’s no constant connection to us so it can’t be traced back. All the information will be emailed back to us as a zip file when the job is done. We’ll set up an email address to muddy our trail and we can pick it up at the internet café down the street in the morning. I can even give a command to erase all record of what we did once the email is sent.”

Mitchell, full of renewed excitement, went and grabbed another energy drink. “You want one?”

Appleton looked back to him, “Thank you, but no. You should really consider a different way to get caffeine and start drinking something a little healthier.”

~~~

The next morning the parking lot of the Fort Dodge, Iowa Super 8 Motel was even more like a circus. Last night there had been nine teams of mechanics working on their racecars, preparing them for the next leg of the race. Now there were three times as many people in the parking lot. Cameramen walked around capturing all of the activity, filming the last vestiges of work being performed by mechanics, orders being given by foremen with varying degrees of grease-stained faces, investors poking around to get inside information from their drivers and foremen, and reporters from obscure internet companies recording soundbites for their shows, not all of them in English.

Agents from automotive and tech companies circulated the lot handing out their business cards, stickers, and other promotional items that advertised their brands. Off in a wooded corner of the lot an array of television screens had been positioned so that everyone could see what was being shown on the private internet broadcast. Representatives from the group that was running the internet show were also mingling in the crowd attempting to grow their viewership by handing out a free day’s membership if they signed up to view the race in its entirety.

Grant Phyindress walked around the site with an entourage of other investors showing off how important he was.

Richard stepped out of his motel room. Not only was the bright light of the day blinding him, all of the activity on the lot accosted the rest of his senses. He walked through the mêlée of overactive, caffeine fueled sharks towards the MIT car.

Many people tried to stop him to ask questions or to offer their brand by pressing things into his hands. He raised his arms over his head and pushed through the crowd, the slippery nature of his racing uniform lubricating his path. When he arrived at their car, he squeezed himself through the driver’s side window and turned away to avoid speaking to anyone.

The race was set to start in about thirty minutes. Before he put on his seatbelt he noticed Katrina talking with Dillon discretely. Frodes stood not too far behind then, giving last minute instructions to members of the team. It occurred to Richard that Dr. Jenkins must be a really good professor to have garnered such support from these students. All of them were committed to the project as a whole. Their team was the largest by far of all of the teams who had traveled to work on the racecars. No one ever second guessed Jenkins’ orders or voiced opinions against the path they had followed.

Richard looked at the car in which he sat in a slightly different light. He gazed at the dashboard as though it had been replaced the previous night. All of it looked new.

Katrina had constantly spoken about how special this car was, how it might save the environment, how technologically advanced it was compared to everything else out there. He had tried to ignore her boasts of the car’s attributes and had never attempted to understand the science involved. Now, however, he had started to understand that some of what she had said was true.

The last leg of the race was all desert terrain, and not just for the last hour either. The heat could kill them, never mind all of the other sensitive equipment in the car. The greatest test of the race was not about having to drive in the desert, but driving in the heat of the desert. Would their car survive that kind of punishment? Would their special computer equipment melt? He knew that where they were going it would be at least 110 degrees outside. Any car would be punished to the extreme in that kind of environment.

Other aspects of the race filled Richard’s head. Maybe he was focusing on the desert as a way to forget his father’s traitorous behavior. Did his father really want him dead? Had he been that horrible of a son? They had never seen eye to eye, sure, but to kill him? It was a lot to absorb.

Part of him wanted to walk away, not out of fear at the prospect of death. No. He wanted to run and confront his father and make him explain why he would act this way. He wasn’t going to change who he was at this point in his life just to gain his father’s acceptance. But he still wanted to know why.

The race was about to begin. Katrina left Dillon and headed for the car. She felt relieved that Richard had made it to the driver’s seat. Deep down she hadn’t been sure that he would show up. The problems that he had to contend with could drive a person to do crazy things.

“Hey. I’m glad you’re ready to race today.” Katrina said after she slipped in through the passenger window.

A weak smile broke over his sad countenance. “I’m glad you stayed with me last night. It was a lot to ask for, I know, considering how I treated you at the beginning.”

“I still haven’t forgiven you for that yet.” Katrina interjected with an intriguing smile. She placed a hand on his leg.

“This is probably the first time I was close to a girl without…” Richard caught himself before finishing the sentence. “Talking to you last night helped me a lot.”

“You’re a good man Richard Bertrand. If your father can’t see that, then he doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

Richard smiled again, accepting her kind comment.

Dillon came up from behind Katrina and stuck his head inside her window to say one last thing. He noticed Katrina’s hand on Richard’s leg. The smile he had arrived with evaporated. He blinked a few times as if trying to un-see what was in front of him. Katrina turned to see what he wanted but he had already turned to walk away. Katrina watched him go and shook her head in confusion.

“Okay, down to business.” Katrina said. “Last night, the team made the final adjustments for the rest of the race. The biggest one is that we have new tires and rims. They can never go flat. They give a stiffer ride than the pneumatic version, so the suspension system was adjusted. Hopefully we won’t have stiff backs by the end of the day. They did another computer update, but we probably won’t really notice the differences in the operation. The ramps have a new clip so they can’t fall out. Apparently one of the other cars lost a ramp on the highway so Frodes modified the design a bit just in case. I hope we can actually get it unlatched when we need to use it. Knowing him, he welded it in place. He has a tendency towards overkill sometimes. Other than that it’s all us now. Oh, I almost forgot. We now have a large cache of tools. Any repairs from now on will be done by you and me.”

Richard actually laughed despite his depression. “I won’t be able to fix anything, I don’t know how.”

“But I do, and you have more muscle than I do, so we’ll be fixing things together, buddy.”

Jenkins didn’t go to meet Richard and Katrina before beginning of the race day. Instead he spent his time on the phone with Marcus. He let Frodes perform all the functions of their entrants’ preparations. It was the last time they would be able to be at the starting gate together and since he had done such a great job of running things, it was fitting that he should get the last word today.

Grant Phyindress was back at the starting line with his bullhorn. Frodes couldn’t help but notice that he had a different scantily dressed girl with him than he had the previous day. Barely dressed beautiful women were somehow synonymous with racing. It didn’t matter what kind of race was going on, there was always a line of women ready to be photographed in a bikini with the cars or their drivers. Since this race was supposed to be invisible to most of the public, Frodes wondered where these women came from.

Frodes stood next to Richard’s door and gave the driving team some last minute suggestions about the coming day. He pushed away several cameramen who had been circling the racecars before he gave his final instructions. “Katrina, remember to start up the weapon now before the race begins, we want to see a nice corridor out of the parking lot, just like yesterday.”

Katrina had already forgotten and immediately got to work on the procedure for power up.

“Now, since we can’t help you after today, you’ll have to rely on your wits and your own observations. We patched all the holes in the skin and tuned up the car, but if something bad happens and you need to some kind of service that the two of you can’t handle,” Frodes leaned in closer, “I have a list of companies that will help you out with everything except the computer related stuff. The list is on a pad of paper in the dash.”

A cameraman had snuck his way closer and had positioned himself just behind Frodes as he had spoken. Richard cleared his throat. Frodes turned and chased the camera back twenty feet or so. He ran back quickly when he saw Phyindress prepare to speak into his bullhorn.

“Katrina, the wireless connection is shut off permanently. Jenkins says it’s not wise to use it going forward.”

“Wireless connection?” Katrina laughed. “It was only used for the GPS. I know because I helped set it up.”

Frodes frowned. “Regardless, I was instructed to remove the connection, and I was told to tell you.”

Richard spoke. “So how will we know where to go?”

Phyindress’ bullhorn keyed up. “Welcome to day three. Only nine contestants are prepared to drive today. Numbers are dwindling people, numbers are dwindling.”

Frodes timed his last statement to Phyindress’ break in his speech. “You have a paper map in the dash.”

Katrina took a second to express her view of this unexpected development by raising both of her hands in disgust midway through the weapon’s boot up sequence. The arm came to life in that instant. Katrina’s head gear, which had been fitted on moments earlier, caused the arm to point in the direction of her line of sight. Since she was facing Frodes, the arm rose into the air and rotated towards Frodes’ head in a menacing fashion.

Frodes put his hands in the air and backed away from the vehicle. All eyes and cameras snapped to where he stood, hands raised, recording the weapon that had been turned on him.

The television screens quickly changed to a view of the arm snapping to attention and bearing the weapon’s head towards the MIT’s crew chief while he backed off with his arms in the air.

Katrina couldn’t see the weapon coming to life and had turned away to finish her duties. They finished preparing as Phyindress directed his latest bimbo to drop the green flag.

Since they had come in last again the night before, their car sat at the end of the line of the cars waiting to start. Ahead, the dune buggy style car sat revving its engine. Apparently stopping to puncture tires had put them a little behind as well. A low, sleek, sporty car sat ahead of them and several that were more similarly styled to their own car filled the gaps towards the front. Some were angled in such a way that Richard couldn’t make out who they were and honestly he didn’t much care at this point.

The front of the line could only be seen on the big projection screen in the corner of the lot. Richard revved the almost silent electric motor. Assuredly, he was the only one to truly feel the power under his foot.

Katrina turned her head back and forth watching all of the other cars before them. The weapon’s arm on the roof mimicked her moves. It made them look like a tank whose turret was ready to fire on any one who got in its way.

The green flag finally dropped. The blond bimbo waved it like it was the greatest moment of her life.

The first two cars bolted out of the lot, one of which was the split car. Every other car moved to the side and allowed the MIT car uninhibited access to the parking lot exit, clearly intimidated. No one wanted to be near that weapon.

Richard saw that the dune buggy style car was among those that had pulled over. His eyes met the other driver’s eyes as they went by and many unsaid things about the intentional tire punctures of the previous day passed between them, disdain being the least offensive emotion that was expressed.

~~~

Silvia had watched the internet broadcast and the circus that had developed as the cars had prepared to begin the day. Her mood went from being afraid of Killington and his men to wanting to scream out in frustration at what she had witnessed at the green flag. Silvia got up from her seat in a surge of uncontrollable fury. She walked over to where the men sat drinking coffee and discussing their previous night’s conquests. She grabbed one of the unoccupied chairs at the small table. The men stopped talking and watched her with questioning looks.

With both hands on the chair, her bitter resentment of Katrina flooded into her body. Silvia grabbed tightly and raised the chair over her head. With her long face filled with malicious anger, she turned and slammed it down over the table.

The men were startled and tried to rise out of their seats to get out of the way. It was the last thing they had expected from the small girl. It had been so unexpected that one of the men fell out of his seat backwards trying to escape. The other had managed his extraction well enough but then had landed on his knees after he had tripped over the table’s leg. He quickly rebounded and fumbled to extract his pistol out of its holster. He pointed it at Silvia as he watched her slam the chair on the table over and over until it exploded into shards of wood. She picked up another chair and started anew.

Not a whole minute had passed before Silvia had destroyed two chairs and the small, cheaply made wooden table. They had been reduced to nothing more than firewood and only then had she collapsed to her knees. Both men had their pistols drawn, an automatic reaction more than anything else, but they also had fear etched in their faces. They had no idea what to do in this situation. Their instructions had not covered this type of scenario.

At that point Silvia had depleted her most of her energy and was breathing very hard. Outwardly, her anger appeared to have been diminished with the destruction of the furniture but inside it had barely made a dent.

When Killington ran in with several more of his men, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“What the hell is going on?” Killington shouted.

One of the men spoke. “Boss, she… she went crazy and destroyed the table and stuff. I thought we would have to shoot her to protect ourselves.”

Killington thought a moment before he acted. He walked up to Silvia and placed a large hand on her shirt, bunching it together and using it to haul her to her feet. He dragged her back to the work station and threw her into her seat. Her small stature didn’t present much challenge for Killington and she looked more like a rag doll than a human being as she flopped into her chair.

Killington walked back to the two men who still had their pistols drawn. He took a gun away from one of the men. “You were worried about that pint sized girl hurting you?”

The man looked worried and shook his head. He had been afraid of Silvia a moment ago but was now much more afraid of his boss.

Killington could see the fear and fired the gun. The man fell to his knees before tipping over onto his face. The sound of the shot echoed in the large expanse of the building, reverberating in everyone’s ears.

Killington turned to the other men around him. “Are there any other men here afraid of a little girl with a temper tantrum? You know, because when I put you on guard duty, I don’t want any of you feel the need to cower in a corner somewhere the next time she acts out.”

All the men shook their heads to emphasize their answers as they stated vehemently “No.”

“Good, now get back to work, all of you.” All the men ran away except the one who had been in the room when the temper tantrum had occurred. He stared at his partner, now dead on the floor.

Killington walked back to Silvia who sat in her chair crying. He placed his arms on his hips as if he were the parent and Silvia the child. “Oh don’t cry for that dumb ass, there are plenty more where he came from. You know,” he said, “I’ve lost more men on this job because of you, and I was the one who shot each of them. I’m getting tired of making examples out of these losers. So, what’s up with you, why the tantrum?”

Silvia pointed to the dedicated screen that showed the internet broadcast of the race. She pressed a few buttons to rerun the last twenty minutes. When she arrived at the starting point she scrolled through the images to show Killington why she had become so angry.

On the screen, the MIT car sat at the end of the line of racecars waiting to exit the parking lot. A scantily clad blond woman with big breasts began to wave a green flag. The first two cars in the line raced out immediately and disappeared. The remaining vehicles all pulled to the side and allowed the last vehicle, the MIT car, to move ahead of them. On its roof the mechanical arm of the weapon swung ominously, threatening everyone around them.

Silvia became enraged again. She hammered her fists on the workstation’s surface. Like bubbling acid in her stomach, her fury came in waves. Each and every time it happened she pounded the table before her. The tall monitors all rocked back and forth under her abuse.

Killington watched warily, not afraid of what she would do, but a little worried about the time it would take to replace the equipment if it fell. Time wasn’t on his side at the moment. “Alright, I think I know where you need to start this morning. I want you to hack into their car and shut it down.”

Nodding, Silvia agreed.

~~~

In North Platte, Nebraska, under a blue sky, Richard sipped some of his orange Gatorade. Today had been the easiest day of the race so far. Many hours passed and it had been simple and enjoyable driving. It had rained several hours ago but it had been a fast moving storm and no one would have known that they had ever been under rain clouds judging by the color of the sky now.

Katrina was stuffing her face with French fries from the local McDonald’s.

“I think that since there are so few of us now that there will be little contact until we get to the end,” she said.

As though her words had been a summons the split racecar suddenly flew past them.

Katrina stopped chewing to comment, “We have nothing to worry about. There is one more required night’s stay. Let them come in first today, it won’t matter.”

Suddenly the sounds of sirens filled their ears and three police cars flew past them. They wondered if it was one of the other racecars that the police were hurrying toward, but were not really concerned. The rest of the day felt quiet and easy.

~~~

Furious key tapping filled the room where Silvia sat in front of her computer array. The armed guards didn’t play cards as their former compatriots had. They watched their prisoner intently, but they had no idea what she was actually up to. They owned computers at home and could check their email and do some banking, maybe search some explicit web sites when they were bored, but what this girl was doing was way over their heads.

Silvia was working off of two separate keyboards and three screens. Code streamed down the screen so fast that the men couldn’t be sure if she was actually typing all of the code they were seeing or if she was just hitting the down arrow key hard enough to break it. She swore loudly every couple of seconds, threw anything that wasn’t nailed down, and pounded the table under her equipment so erratically that the sound could have been mistaken for a woodpecker with a nail gun for a head.

When Silvia shouted out that she required more coffee, the two men just looked at each other. They were half exasperated but also afraid that she might attack whoever brought it to her. To them her crazed activities were evidence of a serious mental imbalance. From the guards’ perspective they felt that at any minute she could turn over the table of equipment or just jump out of the window the thirty feet to the ground. And if anything happened, Killington would blame them and shoot them both in the end.

After her third shout for coffee the men grimaced and brought their hands up to play a game of rock, paper, scissors. The loser was to be the one to have to deal with the lunatic girl. The dark haired man moaned loudly when his choice of paper could be cut by the younger man who had his fingers displayed as scissors. He got up and forcibly kicked his chair before walking away.

~~~

Kalby Mitchell blinked awake, hearing someone clapping. Appleton was standing and applauding at something on his computer screen.

“What did I miss?” he asked blearily.

“The results just came in. I know who is paying off Killington to sabotage the race! And he is not even connected to the investors!

Mitchell rubbed his eyes. “How do you know he’s not connected?”

“I checked the list three times and he didn’t show up. We can report our findings to Jenkins and get some real sleep.” Appleton said, as he too began to rub his eyes.

Mitchell got up and crossed the room to look at the information. Did you consider that this trail you found is just a setup to hide the real billionaire?”

Appleton’s mouth fell open. “But...”

“That never happens? Yeah, right. Why don’t you get some shut-eye and I’ll research this guy you found.” Mitchell said.

Appleton walked away, his eyes shifting back and forth considering the possible implications of what he may have missed.

~~~

Silvia had received her last cup of coffee more than an hour ago. Adding to her erratic behavior of angry outbursts and throwing things at the guards, she got up and kicked her chair around the floor until her foot hurt and she collapsed to the floor and began to cry.

Killington came in, disturbed that this girl was upsetting his plans for the day. The guards left the room, not taking any chances. He walked up to Silvia and knelt next to her. He ran the warm barrel of his pistol down her cheek.

“My job is to eliminate cars from this race. You are my tool to get that done. If you can’t do the job, my next bullet will be for you. I’m tired of your temper tantrums. Now get to work.”

Silvia held her breath as she looked into Killington’s eyes. He smiled broadly. She dramatically turned away and Killington left the room. When the door closed on the far end of the room and she was sure she was alone, she got up quickly and ran to the computer station. She might only be alone for one minute. She had to hurry.

Silvia turned towards the door, listened for a second and then went to work. She took the video camera off the top of the computer and stuffed it under some old food wrappers then she turned towards the keyboard. After a few keystrokes, the video that she had been taking popped up on the screen. She dragged her cursor over the horizontal scroll bar. In doing so, stills from the video could be seen through the progression of the movie.

She stopped at the point when she began to destroy a chair and the guards got up and drew their weapons at her. She didn’t want the segment where she antagonized them into some kind of action to show. She deleted the entire first half of the video to edit out her own irrational behavior. All she wanted to show was the guards pointing their weapons at her until Killington showed up, his actions, and the part where he had threatened her life.

Silvia worked as fast as she could. She saved it under the name of “Help me.” and closed all the video software. As expected, the guards returned to their chairs. She turned her gaze upon them and noticed that their weapons were not in their holsters. They lay on the laps waiting to be used.

A large man chewing a cigar said, “I have a bullet with your name on it. If you twitch the wrong way, I’m going to shoot you where you’re sitting.” Then he laughed.

Tapping away, Silvia sent the video to the FBI in an email that included her location. This time she was the one laughing, quietly, but laughing none the less. 5�� J�~����

Next Chapter: Chapter 16