Chapter 27: Untraceable; misery(rated T for adult themes);

Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...

Zuma Rock, north of Abuja, Nigeria, 2015

He had to stop and rest again; lungs burned and that sick feeling inside him wouldn't leave. Hours of walking in the heat; he'd made slow, painful progress – and at least now he was nearly there at Zuma Rock. All 700 meters of it; lifting stupendously straight up from the scrub brush at its base, commanding the entire view from the highway nearby.

It's nearly impossible to look away from it, as you travel north from Abuja, so imposing a structure it is.

At first, it appears unavoidable as you drive. And you're certain that the highway will deliver you right to the mouth of the monolith, squatting there like some menacing alien blob on the landscape. Three kilometers around, gently rounded on the top, with long vertical scrapes gouged in its sides, and that most peculiar oddity – a human face looking out; bright and white like chalk against the steel gray of rock. Large white eyes, a slash of a nose and mouth carved in its side by Nature, a-watch over traffic far below.

As soon as Olawale rested his own eyes on those of Zuma Rock, he'd kept himself pointed toward them and made his way in the heat - through scrub and trees, until he was there. Down at the base the ground was littered with tons of stone fallen from the surface. He could see a dark gray pile of broken slabs peeled away, jumbled together beneath Zuma's eyes. But around to the West side, two hundred meters distant, was Olawale's destination today.

In a deep gouge no different than the dozens marking its surface was a hidden entrance to a small cave inside. Handholds carved in the rock wall made a passage up; up like a stairway angling to a natural air pocket in the rock. It lay behind that human face outside, in a crack behind its right eye, where Olawale kept his secret lab.

As he slid inside the gouge in the rock, wiping away spider webs at the entrance, Olawale could see the wall of handholds beyond – daunting for him to climb today. In his current state, he wasn't sure he could make it up the steep course - but perhaps if he rested for a little while, his strength would return.

Olawale lowered himself down, gingerly, grimacing as his ribs complained. A rest here on a stone seat, out of the hot sun, would surely fortify him for the climb. And once he'd reached the lab, a gift waited for all that effort. Up there was a living space and his lab, full of hand-built technology. Beyond that, he even had a working kitchen, of sorts. His thoughts went to the near corner of the kitchen, where a giant blue-gray crock perched on stout wooden legs. Inside were tens of liters of purified water, kept cool by slow evaporation from the surface of the crock; no need for refrigeration. Olawale licked dry lips. Cool water was just what he needed right now, and just this climb away.

Years ago his father had brought him here, showed him the original lair where the elder would hide when things got too hot for him back in Abuja. Zuma Rock had a long history of sheltering tribesmen from those searching. Many legends told of hiding out in Zuma Rock until it was safe to leave. All along its base were openings where one could find some cave, some place of refuge.

And so it was that after his father was arrested and jailed, Olawale thought to return, here. Few knew there was a son of Olawale, and he preferred that it stay so. For long months Olawale, the son, sought his own kind of refuge here, making his plans, provisioning and enlarging the space to meet his needs. Here was where the transformation to cyber-ghost, the one that Greer had sought, actually took place - here inside these walls.

Olawale had built the lab above him inside Zuma Rock, tapping power from electric lines running nearby, slowly transporting equipment here over months in the dark of night. And even though this was one of the most photographed sites in his country, Zuma Rock was not a site where people flocked. As popular as it was, there were no services here, no souvenir shops, no yawning lots to park a car, or vantage points from which to snap its picture. Those who hiked in from the highway, not an easy feat, didn't stay long. And that suited Olawale just fine.

An occasional pair or small team might come to climb the rock face, but that had never bothered him. They looked like tiny ants on a hill, so vast was the size of Zuma Rock. And, who would guess that behind the right eye on Zuma's face, where the dark opening of a pupil lay, that's where Olawale's lab would sit. Unnoticed, perfectly positioned to observe the highway and distant capital, Abuja, sprawling before him. At more than 300 meters up, a thousand feet above the surrounding grounds, he had the best view possible of the entire south face, right from his lab. And inside – this is where he'd come to design and build technology - a system that would rival even Greer's Samaritan.

All his life, Olawale had been called a genius – and worse. He'd led a double life, hidden by his father to protect him from the world his father coveted. It was a world of wealth, power, prestige, bought with the gains from swindling those who didn't even know they were being taken. Olawale Senior was, in fact, a criminal. He'd assembled young men under the guise of a school meant to teach computer skills. But behind the faded sign outside, his school was a hub for cyber crime and cyber criminals. His father recruited and trained them - right there inside the walls of his school. And while Olawale Junior lived and schooled himself in London, his father lived a very different life here, in Abuja.

That is until one night, when Olawale received a coded message from his father.

He'd been targeted again by local and federal police. But this time it looked like he wasn't going to escape. This was a final message to tell him the truth, to let him know what had really happened if the two never saw each other again. Olawale scoured the news for any announcement, any word of his father's fate. But there was nothing. He'd disappeared inside the legal system there; he'd become a non-person, a ghost. Olawale's father warned him not to return, not to look for him, not to risk his anonymity. He'd made his choices, he'd said, and payment had come due.

Olawale did return. Two years after the disappearance - to this Rock. And after he'd put his plans to paper, after he'd built his lab, he began to plan a way for his father to re-emerge, as perhaps a kinder and gentler version of himself, wiser from the rigors of repaying his debt. He would indeed return, and would work this time to train young men as he should have done the first time.

Slowly, Olawale made his appearance, the son in the guise of the father. He convinced those who turned away at first. He showed them how things would be different this time, how much it would mean to give these young men a real future, rather than to loll on street-corners, unemployed, with no other prospects.

Olawale got grudging permission to re-open the school. And after that, he'd settled in to live his double life - in full view, teaching by day, and returning as often as he could to Zuma Rock, where he pursued his research.

In University he had studied engineering and computer science, narrowing his focus in grad school to cyber-security, global intelligence systems. England was one of the two original signatories to Five Eyes, after all. Five Eyes – the post World War II agreement between the U.S. and England. They'd agreed to intercept and share military intelligence between their two countries, for their mutual security throughout the world. Olawale had made this ground-breaking program, quietly in existence after all these years, his research focus for his doctorate. And during his research, with growing access to those inside the Five Eyes program, Olawale was quickly recruited to take a position there - just as his father had gone missing.

For two years after his father had disappeared he worked quietly and diligently there. He amassed a wealth of knowledge of international cyber-security and intelligence-sharing systems around the globe. And then one day – one night, actually – he was sitting at his computer, alone in the giant room with the giant blue photo of the world - flattened across one full wall in front of him.

A blip occurred on his screen, something he'd never seen before. He didn't know what to make of it. And as he chased it, it kept bounding away from him, as though it knew he was there. He wouldn't give up and he'd chased it for hours, through the night, until it vanished just as dawn approached.

That was the night he'd discovered Samaritan.

Perhaps he should have left that tiny blip alone. It had changed his life, again. Uprooted him again. Pushed him to return here and do all the things he'd done since then. And now that Greer and his female companion were dead, more from Samaritan would come looking. Samaritan's plan to find him, recruit him, kidnap him, own him – whatever it took to bend him to its service, was about to play out. He would have to go dark if he wanted to hide from Samaritan's global gaze.

Olawale wiped his face with his sleeve, and stood. The lab wasn't getting any closer. Time to move. He reached up, cautiously, and placed his fingers in one of the carved handholds, and the toes of one shoe deep into another, about knee-high off the floor. He pushed off with his legs, and felt the muscles grab where the ribs pained him. Ugly business, this. Painful, ugly business. But there was no other way. Slowly, he made his way up the rock staircase, hand over hand, through the crack in the rock above his head.

The first thing he did when he'd popped through the end of the last few meters was to lay on the floor. This was the part of the lab he liked to call the airlock, from an old science fiction movie he'd seen as a kid. He laid there in that small ante-room separated from the rest of the space by a wall with a round window in it; until he could crawl his way to the kitchen. That image of cool water was calling. He put his face under the spigot of the water-crock and opened it up.

Cool water splashed over his face and neck, and then into his mouth, parched from the long walk and hard climb. He drank it in, the excess dribbling down off his face onto his shirt. It clung to his thin frame; and through the white cotton shirt, Olawale could see the outline of his ribs. He rested there under the spigot until he was ready to stand again. The water had helped. He did his best to minimize the strain on those ribs as he turned and pushed off with the opposite leg to lift himself. It was a bit less painful that way.

Once he was up, he opened all the buttons on the front of his shirt, and the ones on the cuffs, too. Then he slowly rolled the white shirt down off his shoulders and down his back. Every time he moved his shoulders the ribs lit up on that one side. For now he'd leave on his white undershirt below. His shoes he'd left back in the airlock. So now, he walked in bare feet over the cool stone floor to a room where he kept a cot and a few crates for holding clothing and some odds 'n' ends.

Olawale pulled his cell phone from a pants pocket and held it in his palm.

It was time to disappear again.

He clicked through his protocol: disabling GPS, disabling location services, and wifi. Then he turned the phone over and opened the back, exposing the battery. He hesitated for only a moment, and then pulled it.

Olawale was now shut down, effectively untraceable. He thought.

Queens, New York, January, 2015

Maybe it was the sound of water dripping. Dripping, minute after lonely minute, in cold, cruel darkness. At first, it made her angry, only too happy to entertain the price she would extract from those who had brought her here like this. But, as time went on, and no one came, her anger turned to another, one more worthy of her wrath.

She remembered those nights, those long lonely nights that followed long empty days. When Sameen had gone along with Reese, overseas. There'd been no time to fix things. She'd gone away and left her alone, to stew in her own pot of self-pity. And what a large helping she'd ladled for herself. Night after empty, lonely night, she'd cruised the bar, searching – looking for someone who could fill the hole Sameen had left there in her heart. It didn't have to end that way.

But something had to give. That thing Sameen had started with Marco – what was Sameen thinking? Was she thinking she'd ride off, leave everything – and everyone – behind?

For too long she'd been left alone, and Root just had to know.

That's why it hurt so much, more than just the smack in the face from Sameen - in the shower that night.

That's why the bitterness was so strong.

That bitter taste in her mouth. Sauced with the taste of blood from the gash inside her cheek, where Sameen had struck her. It hadn't had to end this way.

When Root saw Sameen getting up from the couch, she knew where she was headed. To the shower, to get ready for Him. She couldn't let it happen tonight. She had to stop her from going. She could take care of Sameen herself - here - in the safe-house tonight.

Root could hear Sameen in the hallway, then opening the bathroom door. In a little while, Root could hear water running in the shower. She'd hurried down the hall, her heart pounding in her chest. Root could see the steam curling from the top of the glass, and sinking down, swirling in the cooler air outside the shower. She'd pulled off her shirt, and the jeans, and the rest. Root stepped forward into the mist. A moment later:

"Root." Sameen was looking at her through the glass.

"What are you doing?"

Root didn't answer; she kept moving. Then she stood for an instant at the shower door.

"Root."

She opened it, and hot mist rolled out around her at the door. She stepped in.

Sameen didn't back away. She held her ground. Looking in her eyes.

"Root. This isn't going to work." Her face was blank. No emotion there, in Sameen's eyes.

"I know who you are, Sameen. I know what you need." Root's eyes were pleading.

So tender, so vulnerable in this moment. She reached out for Sameen in the mist, pulling her toward her in the spray. Sameen's face was blank. No emotion in her eyes.

Root leaned forward. This was everything she'd wanted. Closer. Closer. Now, that first touch. The sweetness of that first touch. Her lips were so close. Then touching. Touching. For a second, Root thought she could feel her responding, pressing in against her. But then, her hands came up and shoved her back against the glass.

"Root. Don't." The spray from the shower fell on her hair, the glossy mane inviting Root's touch. This couldn't be what she meant. She was playing. Sameen foreplay. Well, Root could be rough, too. She sprang forward, throwing Sameen back to the glass, too. And then, Root was on her, sinking her teeth into Sameen's lower lip.

They struggled in the shower, Root holding her back against the glass, kissing her, for just that one second. And then the shove, sending her reeling – back against the wall; hard against the handles behind her. It knocked the wind from her.

"Get off me!" Sameen's face had turned to rage now.

Root snapped. Her fist came up, swinging around to Sameen's face.

The block with her left arm caught Root's punch before it landed. And the forward force of her block threw Root backwards. The pop in the cheek from Sameen's other hand – open palm – threw her head back against the tile.

Root was stunned. And hurting.

She reached up with the back of her hand to her left cheek. She could already taste the blood in her mouth from the cut inside, where the cheek had exploded into the point of a tooth, like a starburst.

She couldn't look at her. She didn't want to see what was in Sameen's eyes right now.

Root pushed the door open, stepped out on the mat and reached for a towel. In the mist, she stepped quickly from the bathroom, down the hall, and into her room. She didn't see what happened next.

In the bathroom, the shower spray died, and the drips from the shower head above her finally stopped. Her skin was wet, and the colder air from the hallway and the bathroom started to cool her skin, goose flesh forming. Shaw turned, finally, and stepped from the empty shower, out onto the mat, where Root's wet footprints were – cold on the bottom of her feet. She reached for a towel and in the foggy mirror, watched her image slowly form. She barely recognized herself.

Reese was right. Before he left, he'd told her. This strain between the two of them had to get handled. Fight it out, or fix it somehow, he'd told her.

Interesting words. Shaw could confidently say she hadn't fixed it.

And shortly after, Sameen was gone, flying off to Italy with Reese. It hadn't had to end that way. So much misery since then, Root thought to herself.

There was a sound then. Root could hear something. Footsteps in the hall. Her heart pumped a little stronger, a little faster. Closer, closer the footsteps came.