This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people or locations is unintentional. Click here to start at the beginning.

Chapter 5: Counting Coup

Ten years ago... after spring turkey season.

~

 

~

She closed the letter, folding it tightly into the book with all the others that would never be sent. The first of what she felt in her bones would be many. 

What to do with this rage locked up so tight?

She could touch it lightly, like tracing fingertips on a hot wood stove. But she could not express it - or the boys would doubt her sanity and leadership would be lost. Logic ticked over emotions, gears on a wheel. 

A raven voiced his commentary outside the window. The day had dawned as blue and clear as a glacial lake above treeline. Her mind wandered, drifting, shying away from the nauseating pain of the last few days. 

~

Tires on gravel. Her father was home. Cornbread in the oven, waiting for him. She did not have to get up or speak or pretend everything was okay. But the inexorable ticking of logic was back. Reality must be dealt with. 

How could she lead them? What could they do?

Exposing the truth did nothing. His death proved it. Civilized people moved on, wrapped in the comfort of normalcy and convenience - because “those people are not like me” was excuse enough to turn a blind eye.

Somewhere she had read of fools, guided by truth so pure only madness could frame it and pin it down into words.

No. 

She would not choose that path. 

Standing slowly, she moved to the window, embracing the small pains and fractured memories. Only a coward would hide. Testing her understanding of cowardice against herself, she slammed the window open and leaned out, over the second-story windowsill and into the sunlight. 

She breathed in the morning air and remembered.

Starlight and solitude. 

If time was a wheel, then civilization was a rut that trapped it on a road to chaos. 

In a moment it all crystallized and she knew what to do. 

“I will be ground into dust” her heart whispered. She answered it coldly “Good.”

~

Friendly conversation in the kitchen below, check. Dad fed and napping in front of his computer, check. Duty done. 

A bluebird flitted by, like a fragment of fractured sky. 

She started mapping a communications structure on paper, weighing carefully who would serve in each position in the network. They had called her their fairy godmother and opened their hearts and minds. Who was an addict? Who was starving? Who was sleeping on the street? Who was scamming money to support a grandmother? 

She turned them over in her mind carefully and fit their broken edges against each other, smoothing the network she would build like a jigsaw puzzle. 

She opened her laptop and dropped into Kali, maneuvering quickly through onion routers and into Discord. 

@Nick, @Z3r0, @Rabb!7 drop one.

@J3nn, @D4N, @Tim drop two.

@MrHH, @D34Dbunny, @MissChief drop three.

Everyone else listen up. Tonight we play a game. The name of the game is counting coup. Take nothing. Break nothing. Get in, leave your mark, and get out. 

Check the bulletin in Steamit for the target lists and rules. I have 20 Dogecoin prizes for the winning teams.

This is only the beginning. Welcome my friends to the Great Game of Freedom. 

Rules will be enforced. Your ghost is watching. 

Trust me.

She pulled up the list of companies where Nick Hawkins had left his mark. The infrastructure companies and private energy consortiums would be the most dangerous. She divided the list, and prepared for war. 

~ 

Nick stared out over the city, cold eyes focused on the water. The hum of the lines and the sting of salt as his boat raced on the edge of the wind and water - an enticing memory pulling his focus.

He turned back to the board room and leaned on the expanse of mahogany. 

“Ladies and gentlemen. We are faced with a critical decision. Okeanos is six months from launch. India is in chaos, Poland has demanded more money, and Montana is asking questions we cannot afford to answer. You have all neatly summarized the current status while still dodging the question. What are you willing to sacrifice for our great vision?”

He shifted his gaze from face to face, his grey eyes missing nothing. Fear. They were all afraid. 

“Liquidity.”

He dropped the word like an anchor. 

“Bob, line up the hedge funds. Tracy, start selling. Linus, get Dubai on the phone. It’s time.”

Shock greeted him. Then a wave of outraged questions. “The markets, can they stand it? What about the subprime defaults? What if someone sees?” 

He smiled at them and slowly they sputtered into silence. 

“Are we agreed?”

“Yes.” Bob’s face was pale but he licked his lips, flipping quickly through the blackmail files on his computer, deciding who would be first. Mr. Williams had such a pretty young wife. 

“Yes.” Tracy’s thin face was tightened into a cold mask, but Nick could read her arousal from across the conference table. The bitch loved a good sell off. 

“Yes.” Linus was difficult to read. Dealing with the Saudis and the Emirates for forty years had left him with a poker face most could not penetrate. Nick saw a flicker of hate, and his gut tightened in satisfaction. Linus was with him. The old man hated Arabs and manipulating them was closer to his heart than the little brown boys who walked into his hotel rooms in Dubai, and exited in ragged chunks of flesh. 

“Good hunting.”

He walked out of the sound proof doors. Scott was waiting.

“Got him. You were right.” 

“Let’s go welcome Sentri back home, shall we?”

“Never keep old friends waiting, Sir.”

~

To be continued...