Chapter 56

His eyes explode, blinking like he's glitching. "Wha—who killed him?"

Evading the topic, I say, "Worry about our current problem."

His shock recedes, looking everywhere at once. "Right, work for your crime boss boyfriend or catch a bullet to the brain."

My face sours. "He's not my —"

"Really?" he chirps, his eyes look up at the distant ceiling. "I ain't never seen a prisoner in a penthouse before. Because that's what you are, right? You're not staying here by choice."

The questions dents my composure. "How could you even ask me that?"

He struggles against his own anger. "Because the first time I laid eyes on you—worried that you're trapped or, worse—dead. And you casually stroll out of that big ass glass room, like you're gonna go fetch a bottle of Figi water or something."

I subdue my annoyance. "Cal, it's...complicated"

"Understatement of the century."

***

The guard dumps Calum's tattered and time-worn baggage on the floor.

He rotates and heads back to the elevator. I heave it up, gathering it in my arms as I make my way back upstairs. Once I'm at the top level, I enter the passage, passing my room to reach the study a few doors down. When I make it inside. I drop the dirty brown go-bag near the entrance with a heavy thud.

"Months traveling and all you have is one bag?"

"Only the essentials: my glasses, passport, wallet and whatever."

I walk closer. He's parked behind the desk with the data screen hooked into the computer with three monitors, all screens displaying advanced computer code, inputting various sets of instructions. Which looks like a wild mesh of typeset characters and numbers to me.

"So how—"

"I'm not going to answer any of your questions—" his fingers dash around the keyboard with expert ease, rarely needing to glance down, "—until you answer mine."

Irritation prods at me. "Like what?"

"You said Torin, originally kidnapped you, but now you're choosing to stay with him after Orian killed Gaza—"

"I didn't choose any of this —" reining in my volume, "—I robbed myself of that freedom when I stole from Gaza."

"Gaza is dead, as you said. Problem solved." His fingers hammer down aggressively. "Sounds like you're with the wrong brother."

The truth would make him suffocate on that remark.

"Believe it or not, Orian is a lot worse than him. Hence, he killed Gaza and massacred his entire compound, along with his family. Does that sound like the good guy to you?"

"The fuck you talking about?" He swivels around on the chair. "Choosing a lesser evil is still evil. Torin jammed a gun in my face—"

"Orian did the same to me—"

"—and threatened us both if I didn't help him."

I scoff dryly. "How do you think I'm still alive?"

He tilts forward, dropping his voice to a hushed tone. "Have you even tried escaping or are you becoming too accustomed to the high-life?"

Rage sears through me and all the tips of my fingers thud at both temples. "What's not sinking into your thick skull? Do you think I can escape either of them with no resources, no safe houses, no money, no elite security like they both have— armed ex-military soldiers. Escape how and where? There's no running from this, you know that."

He nods fervently. "Okay," he says with feverish fury. "When we help him, what's your grand fucking plan? Press up against him again going—*look at me, this isn't you*," he impersonates in a vexing high-pitched voice. "Is that supposed to save us?"

Kneading my fingers into my temples, frustrated tears welling in my eyes. I blink them away.

"Just...trust me." The words seep out with an exasperated sigh.

"Trust you...yeah," sarcasm leaking into his tone, "cause that's worked out so great for me."

I throw a finger at him. "I didn't ask you to look for me!"

He blasts to his feet. "No, I had to play Dora the fucking Explora and find you because you're my best friend, you dumb shit. What was I supposed to do, wait until I get the call that you're in the hospital again or in the morgue? Yeah, fuck that."

My hands wash my face. "I know —"

"No, you don't know. What you did was selfish, stupid, and reckless. Everyone told you to drop the Zenith case long time ago, but you never listened. You are all your mom has left. You ever thought what would happen to her if she lost you, too? It would break her—and it would destroy me."

I nod unsteadily, biting hard on my bottom lip. "I'm sorry." Barely audible.

Shortly, his arms encompass me in a warm, soul-quenching embrace.

"No, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to yell, princess. I was just out of my mind, you had me worried as hell. I couldn't even cope with the thought you were already dead. But what was I thinking? You still have eight more lives."

I try to pull away to look at him, but he refuses to me go. "And I'm gonna spend all of them with you. After this, I'm done."

He leans forward. My forehead catches his and a goofy grin flourishes on his face.

"You pinky promise?"

I stick up my pinkie. He locks his with mine.

"I swear."

He straightens up and nods sombrely. "But first, we actually have to make it out alive."

***

He didn't even need a week. Five days passed, and Calum already has the first piece of new information.

"What I have is... big. And it's only a couple of pages."

Calum ushers us toward his station with frenzy, twitching with hysteria. He ploughs both hands through his dishevelled hair and plops down on the chair, rolling it to the side to grant us an unimpeded view of the screens.

"After I photographed each page and uploaded them, I used a frequency count and found certain symbols kept appearing in sequence."

Torin crosses his arms, cords of muscles flexed.

"It's a transposition cipher, isolating every second character like a Scytale."

Torin and I share blank looks.

"I don't how know else to dumb it down for you guys." He pauses to focus his thoughts. He perks up with a lightbulb expression. "Think of a 1970s Rubik's cube. Instead of the classic square shape, it's a horizontal cylinder. And instead of having to match the colours, you create words by rotating it around the text. Without a computer, it would take years to decode."

"Can you get to... whatever your point is?"

He points to the screen at the computerized text of my hand-written. His finger tapping the symbol. "That's Greek. Particularly used in the Greco-Persian wars, specifically the battle of Marathon. A legendary conquest. But what you need to make note of is the tactical considerations."

He turns his back on us momentarily to pull up another window. "Joseph Kony; waged a guerrilla war against Uganda in 1987 and has since expanded its reach to Congo, South Sudan. And Khalifa Haftar and Charles Taylor. These three fine gentlemen are the world's worst warlords, guilty of committing mass genocides. What they all have in common... connection to the CIA."

"Of course they do. I know about Taylor. They tried thwarting his insurrection for years. And eventually succeeded."

Calum frees a snappy guffaw. "That's what they wanted the world to believe. But who do you think financed their campaigns against their governments? The west. Libya has a developed upstream oil and gas industry. Profitable crude oil productions and hydrocarbon exploration activities in their territories. Which the US had a hand in. Until the emerging power established new policies that would kick out American companies. In order to secure US interests, they stoked Haftar's resistance, encouraging his coup to dismantle the current government. When he succeeded, the UN intervened, and he was detained."

I release whooshing breath. "You're saying that US intelligence secretly aided a warlord? Of course... Haftar was just the perfect scapegoat."

He flicks a finger at the screen. "And Haftar's militia used long-range assault tactics. At close quarters, they thinned the Libyan army through their centre and extended their flanks to envelop enemy lines. The same symbols used at Marathon...were found speckled through Haftar's military report, which was seized after his capture. The CIA literally labelled the operation; Marathon."

I gawk at him. "You hacked the CIA?"

"No... not directly. A black hat hacker I know did and breached their firewall with an encrypted injection attack, injecting a harmless malware so their systems wouldn't pick it up. He was obstructed. I managed to bypass through a tiny back-door. And I was able to download the data on everything they had on operation; Marathon, to obtain evidence to confirm everything. I don't know if it was some symbolic notion towards history repeating itself, as to the reason why the Persians attacked the Athenians. Same level of greed that would make someone use a warlord just to protect their own investments."

Torin coasts closer, visibly impressed. "So you have access to the CIA's system?"

"No—yes. But if I poke around any more, they'll be alerted of the breach."

"And the classified files you have on this are redacted?"

Calum bobs his head. "Who knows what happens if the truth ever got out..."

Apprehension flares within me. "...Or what they would do to prevent that."