It's been a looo-h-oong time and I'm sorry for the delay. Thanks for hanging in there with me and thanks for coming back to the story.
Thank you Chi Guy for your review. It really gave me a boost and made me smile. Sincere great big thank you to everyone who submitted a review, or alerted the story. It really means a lot when you take the time to say what you think of it. I really do appreciate it and it makes it that much easier to write knowing that someone's looking forward to what happens next.
I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 22
Alec took the darkened stairs two at a time.
The sweat traced his face and arms and back as he climbed, and his panicked heartbeat hammered in his chest.
He barged onto the second story landing of the old London apartment building, and sprinted down the hallway toward his hideaway.
He stopped at the door and passed his magnetic card over the hidden access pane, taking an uneasy breath as the lock gave. Something inside of him knew she wouldn't be on the other side…but he was acting solely on faith and hope.
"PARKER!" he called loudly as he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him.
He called her name a second time and looked around the quiet, undisturbed room.
It had been over an hour since his last communication with her. He couldn't sit in the alley any longer. He knew she wasn't coming back.
Dammit.
He cursed and hurried over to the computer.
He accessed the locator beacons inside the comms but neither Parker nor Nate was online. They were in the wind and Alec was at a loss as to where in the bustling city they could be hiding.
He ground his teeth in frustration and lumbered over to the window.
He couldn't believe it was happening again. He had them all in his reach. How was it that he was alone, again? How did it all become so complicated so fast?
His mind replayed the events of the past few days and the almost unbelievable coincidences that brought each member of the team back into his life. There were too many happenstances, too many near-misses. It was as though the entire thing had been orchestrated.
But by whom, and to what end?
Alec could have kicked himself for not being more watchful, more cautious, more suspicious. If Nate had ever taught him anything it was to keep it simple. It was the cardinal rule that had always served them well in the past. He should have seen the convolution and the potential threat. Everything that happened had been planned- he could feel it. He was being lead almost from the very beginning of this entire thing. Every meeting, every conversation, every path of reasoning was calculated by a master manipulator and although he hated where his mind was taking him, only one thing made sense:
Parker had to be a part of it.
He could see no other way for it all to have unfolded the way it had without her involvement.
He felt sick.
She was a different person and somehow he still managed to fall for her all over again.
The only thing that saved his sanity was the realization that Parker was indeed a different person and she was being manipulated by someone else- he was certain of it.
She needed his help as much as Nate, Sophie, and Elliot did.
Sudden inspiration struck and Alec didn't question it. He returned to his computer and inexplicably accessed the file that listed recent activity on his network. He scanned the list until one search grabbed his attention. It was the one thing on the list that he had no recollection of.
"Domino," he repeated the word to himself and reanimated the search.
The thin, bright neon green lights of the map's grid lit up his face and he stared at the small dot near the center of the screen in disbelief.
He realized instantly what it was. In hacker circles it was a myth and in criminal circles it was shrouded in smoke and mirrors. But if the biographic data he was reading was correct, Domino was very real… and, from the little he knew, very dangerous. No one outside of the few scientists that worked on the machine knew all of its capabilities but the rumors ranged anywhere from universal credit card mimic to the mother of all weapons of mass destruction.
He didn't know what to believe but one thing was certain, Domino didn't belong in dangerous hands. Its reach was far and it could very easily be a global threat.
Alec's heavy sigh echoed in the empty room.
"What the hell is going on?" he asked himself. Something urged him to follow his intuition and cross reference Domino with Moreau's company holdings. He was skeptical that it would yield anything though. Sonia was nothing if not carful.
But the instantaneous ping he received offered him the slightest hope that maybe his luck was changing.
Sonia was careful…but the people she worked with were not.
It was mentioned only once and very obscurely in an email that Sonia received from Nicaro Caesar but it was there in black and white and the pieces slowly began to fall into place:
Domino is primed, all we need is the key. Sinclaire has been getting anxious.
I've tried to assure him that his victory is secured but we need to move quickly.
Caesar
Alec couldn't think of what to do next. This was bigger than anything he would ever have imagined. Sonia was securing the US Presidency and somehow this super machine was involved. Absolutely no good could come even if only a half of his suspicions were to come true. He had to stop her but then he also had to find and rescue his friends. He wouldn't lose them again.
Alec sat back in his chair, frozen into inactivity by the weight of the daunting task ahead of him. He felt that anywhere he turned something was bound to slip through the cracks. The question remained: Which could he risk leaving to chance- the fate of the world or the lives of the people who'd become his family?
He took a breath and stilled his racing thoughts.
"Begin at the beginning," he repeated Nana's mantra.
One thing nagged at him though, he still couldn't figure out how the team fit into Sonia's plan and why they were targeted in the first place. There didn't seem to be any connection between them and the machine and rationally he knew that she could have hired any group to help her secure the presidential bid. There had to be something he was missing and until he made the connection she'd stay one step ahead of them and make their lives exceedingly difficult. He knew he had to make a preemptive strike and go after Sonia himself. It was settled.
Once he'd made up his mind, any doubts he had were pushed to the fringes by determination and a fair bit of adrenaline.
"Code orange- Nathan Ford," he called into the air and the computer began to whir, acting on his command.
He looked into the computer's camera and spoke, "Nate, Sonia is going after Domino. I don't know if that rings any bells but it's bad news. And if she gets it she'll be a whole hell of a lot more trouble than she is now. Everything I know is under the file called Moreau…oh and one more thing, Elliot is alive. I saw him leaving the hotel tonight. I'm sure he's got some connection to all of this somehow but I don't know what. I couldn't catch up to him and I have no idea where he is now…."
He muttered under his breath, "…I really hope you get this," and he ended the recording.
Alec typed in a few keys and closed the program, locking it so that no one by Nate would be able to access it.
He stood and looked around the room once more. He made his way to the door and an ominous feeling settled over his resolve. He closed his eyes and rolled his head back willing the anxiety away before he opened the door and wrote a code on the door only Nate would understand.
Then he pulled the door closed quietly behind him and walked down the hallway. The ominous tide he was trying desperately to keep at bay growing more turbulent with each heavy step.