Once the money had been moved, Garcia shifted his focus to the monitors that he used to keep tabs on his team. They had been on vacation since the last mission had ended in November, but he kept track of their whereabouts through a combination of facial recognition software, Papineau’s super-computer, and ubiquitous camera feeds. Garcia could pull footage from a variety of sources from cell phones to security systems. This gave him almost constant supervision of his targets, as long as they didn’t stray too far into the wilderness.
And for those times there were NSA satellites.
He knew Jack Cobb, the team’s leader, had entered the United Kingdom at London’s Heathrow airport, but once he had left the terminal, he had slipped off Garcia’s grid. Cobb wasn’t aware that Garcia was spying on him, but he was quite familiar with facial recognition software and was cagey about cameras all the time.
Papineau was also good at avoiding cameras, but in the Frenchman’s case he knew he was being followed — not only by Garcia but by his employer as well.
The other team members, Sarah Ellis and Josh McNutt, were far easier to catch on screen. Sarah had spent some of her money decorating a small apartment in San Francisco. And one in Dallas. And another one in Toronto. Garcia wasn’t sure why she had so many places, but he assumed it had something to do with her career as a world-class thief.
Or rather, a world-class ‘acquisitions specialist’.
Sarah hated when people called her a thief.
Meanwhile, McNutt had surprised everyone with his recent purchase. The former Marine sniper had spent half of his funds on a beachside bar in Key West, Florida. He lived on the second floor and mostly kept to himself, unless his biker buddies stopped by. Garcia had expected wild orgies with hookers and drugs and more hookers, but McNutt was laying low as Cobb had recommended. Today he was snoozing in a hammock near the shore.
A transaction on one of his monitors completed with a soft ping, and Garcia swiveled his chair around to see the money that he had looted from the son of the former Nigerian president, who had swindled billions from his government’s coffers. The former leader had died in office, but his son was living a cushy life in the south of France. Every month, Garcia lightened his fortune by a few million. No one in his family had yet to even notice.
A second ping confirmed the stolen funds had been sent to fifteen NGOs in Nigeria. Garcia smiled at the transactions, just as his cell phone started to ring. He glanced at the screen and saw it was Papineau calling. He leaned forward in his chair, muted the master volume on his system, and answered the phone.
‘Good afternoon, Jean-Marc. What can I do for you today?’
‘I have another job for the team. Can you please call them in for me?’
‘Right now?’
‘Yes, Hector, right now. It’s time to get back to work.’
‘Yes, sir. But just so you know, Sarah isn’t going to be happy.’
‘Why not?’
Garcia glanced at one of his monitors and grimaced. ‘Right now, she’s kind of busy.’
2
Sarah Ellis wiped a swath of mud from her face and flung it to the ground. In her left hand she held a plastic bucket filled with rocks. The rope handle was thick and rough. If not for the numbness in her hands and fingers, she would have felt the fibers digging into her flesh.
Just like the rope she used to climb in gym class.
Towering above her, a waterfall surged over a thirty-foot cliff. The clear mountain water splashed and sprayed in the air with a roar of white noise. It took her a moment to gather her senses. She wasn’t sure if she should admire its beauty or curse at it for being in her way.
She ended up doing both.
Although it was a perfect day for skiing, she hadn’t come to Vermont to enjoy the fresh powder. She was there to compete in the PEAK Winter Death Race, a form of hell that combined endurance racing, obstacle courses, and mental acuity exams. It was a competition designed to push contestants to their breaking points … and then dare them to keep going. The race was so grueling and the racers so determined that it was common for competitors to leave behind torn flesh — and even the occasional fingertip — and never break stride.
Snow covered most of the course, and the air temperature was hovering around forty degrees. Brisk, but not devastatingly cold. Despite the chill, Sarah wore only a tight-fitting black sports outfit that was now so encrusted in mud that her shapely figure had transformed into a bulbous blob of browns and grays, like a corpse buried in the woods.
She had already run several miles up and down the mountainside, stopping only to complete the challenges. It had begun with quartering logs with an ax before swimming to the bottom of a muck-filled pond to retrieve a bag of LEGO. Per instruction, she had carried the pouch to the next station where she had used the tiny bricks to construct a toy motorcycle while reciting the names of all fifty US states. Once she had completed that task, she had stacked a thousand pounds worth of sandbags into a ten-foot pyramid while shouting the list of states again — only this time in reverse alphabetical order.
The hardest parts for her weren’t the tasks themselves but the complete uncertainty about the length of the race or what drudgery might be lurking around the next corner. In her line of work, having a plan was crucial; failing to think ahead could get her captured or killed. But at PEAK, she never knew what to expect next. There was no way to train for this event. She just had to be in good enough shape to handle anything that they threw at her, no matter how long it lasted.
Thankfully, the next task was right up her alley.
She had to climb the waterfall.
In the summer when the stream was barely trickling, the rock face would have presented little difficulty for an expert climber like Sarah. But with the spring thaw in full effect, the wall was protected by a thick layer of bubbling whitewater that was so cold it was one step away from being ice. To make the task harder, she had to carry the bucket of rocks to the top without using her hands. For her, that meant placing the bucket behind her head and shoving the rope handle into her mouth.
A field marshal inspected her every move. ‘You know, you don’t have to do this. Just say the word, and I’ll give you a warm blanket, a thermos of hot chocolate, and a ride back to the lodge.’
‘Fuuuu youuuuu!’ she said through clenched teeth.
He laughed at the vulgarity and backed away.
Sarah stepped into the frigid pool at the foot of the falls and felt her legs go completely numb. As she trudged toward the falling water, her mind drifted far from Vermont. Mentally she was no longer in the icy froth but on a warm beach at the team compound in Fort Lauderdale.
During the past year, she had learned a lot about herself. She used to prefer to work alone, but now the isolation of it was less thrilling. After working with a team of highly skilled experts on a pair of high-stakes missions, she had discovered the value of teamwork. Not only had she come to recognize the talents of others but she saw how they could complement her own abilities. And this realization had slowly carried over into other aspects of her life.
Including the Death Race.
Two tasks back, she had convinced other contestants that the only way up a steep mudslide was to form a human chain. Many of the others had refused to accept that the obstacle required collaboration, but Sarah had figured it out immediately. After becoming a part of a ‘Barrel of Monkeys’ chain with five mud-coated competitors, she had succeeded in reaching the top.