Chasing the White Lion by James Hannibal (best free e book reader .TXT) 📗

As if to drive her point home, Eddie raised his hands and shouted, “Eureka!”

He and Franklin stuffed the wires back in and secured the panel to the black circle. The air above it shimmered like the air above a hot stretch of desert road.

“What is it?” Finn left the couch to get a closer look.

“New holographic briefing display.” Eddie picked up a tablet computer and toyed with the screen. A 3D image of the earth and roving satellites appeared in the shimmering air.

The others gasped.

Eddie sniffled, either from his cold or raw emotion. “Better than Star Wars.”

Darcy clapped her hands. “That is my Eddie. He is incredible, yes?”

“Yeah. He’s amazing.” Franklin backed his wheelchair away from the table. “I guess my work here is done.”

Eddie took the screwdriver from his hand. “Okay. I admit, I couldn’t have done it without you.” He wiped his nose with his sleeve and offered a hand to shake.

“Ew, mano. No way. Keep your nasty virus-infested mitts to yourself. And while we’re on the subject, don’t bring that junk to work on Monday. I’ll tell the Directorate you’re out sick.” He said his goodbyes and made his way to the butler’s pantry, spinning the wheelchair for a final wink at Talia. “See ya, chica.” He held a pretend phone to his ear, mouthing Call me.

A carving knife embedded itself in the walnut an inch from his shoulder. Talia traced its path back to Conrad. The cook offered Franklin a congenial smile. “Drop that in the sink on your way out, will you? Good lad.”

Franklin wrenched the knife from the wall and drove away. “You people got issues.”

ONCE THE TECH OPS GURU WAS GONE, Mac folded his arms. “How’s that contraption work, Wee Man?”

Finn wiggled his fingers at the Scotsman. “It’s magic.”

“It’s science,” Eddie said, “the true heart of all magic. Ultrasonic vibrations disturb the air in a two-meter-diameter half-sphere. Nano-projectors build the image within the disturbance. This baby will help me show you what I’ve learned about Boyd’s network. The field is interactive.” As if he’d been using it as a prop the whole time, Eddie set the tablet on the table and rubbed his hands, pumping his eyebrows. With magician-like flare, he reached into the hologram field and expanded the globe until it burst into mist.

What remained was a busy city street. A hustler weaved cards in and out of each other on a folding stand. A delivery boy rode past on a bicycle, ringing his bell. A taxi honked. And glowing purple lines rose from each, joining into a network of data balloons.

“Welcome”—Eddie turned to face the team—“to the world’s first crowdsourced crime syndicate.”

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

WOLF MANOR

WOLF TRAP, VIRGINIA

TALIAWATCHED as Eddie’s briefing hit full steam, but she didn’t take part. She kept herself at a distance, curled up and silent on the couch. This was not her mission.

Boyd. Archangel. They were Tyler’s targets. Not hers. After the previous night’s phone call from Jordan, he’d pressed her to join the hunt. But Talia refused. “I told you. I’m not going down that road again. I’ll stay on the sidelines and let you and the team do your thing.”

“Your choice. But ‘on the sidelines’ means you stay in the house with Conrad until this is over. Are you good with that?”

She was, except for one small engagement. “I promised Jenni I wouldn’t cancel again.”

“Your baptism? Talia, God understands. He’ll wait.”

But Talia had put her foot down, letting a touch of growl seep into her tone. “I am going to be baptized tomorrow, Tyler. No rogue spy and no hovering, helicopter-parent, wannabe-guardian-angel thief is going to stop me.”

At the center of the great room, Eddie reached into his holographic briefing display and zoomed out to a view of Europe. The network of purple lines joined city to city. “You’ve all heard of GoFundMe and Kickstarter? Now meet their dark cousin.”

The geek walked before the image like a celebrity doing a TED talk. “The old business models are fading. Crowdfunding will pay for anything from a smart-bot startup to a high schooler’s dream vacation. With competition crowdsourcing, a software conglomerate can buy expensive code for the price of a hundred-dollar gift card. This is the future, and our friend Livingston Boyd is already there, acting anonymously by his nom de guerre, the White Lion.”

Tyler tapped a finger on his knee. “You’re saying Boyd is outsourcing crime?”

“Crowdsourcing. As in simultaneously engaging multiple, unrelated participants from diverse sources to achieve a cumulative or a singular result. He’s using crowdfunding as well. Members pay their own way plus pay him a percentage of their earnings. Boyd calls his syndicate the Jungle. It is global, anonymous, and brilliant.” Eddie snapped his fingers within the field and an organizational chart appeared. “He’s a big gamer—openly references online massive-multiplayer gaming strategies in his business talks—so it’s no surprise the Jungle’s members are called players. Each player has their own invite code used for back-alley and Dark-Web recruiting. New players start as field mice and work their way up.”

In the 3D organizational chart, animal names lit up as Eddie referenced each level. “Field mice, jackrabbits, hawks, cobras, and panthers—players level-up by increasing their take. A pickpocket might stay a field mouse forever. A dirty hedge-fund manager might be a panther within hours.”

“What’s the draw, eh?” Mac crossed the room to retrieve another pastry from Conrad’s cart. “What do his players get fer their troubles?”

“The lower echelons get crowdfunding opportunities and contact with higher-order criminals. In return, the higher echelons get a crowdsourcing reach previously undreamed of.”

Finn steepled his fingers to point at the chart. “And Boyd gets a percentage of every deal?”

“Not just Boyd. There are five top-tier animal positions. Each is an increasingly rare predatory species—Hyena, Snow Leopard, Clouded Leopard, Maltese Tiger, and White Lion.”

Tyler got up from his chair and joined Eddie at the display. “Taking Boyd and his Jungle down comes back to Eddie’s work on the network—that’s our source for