The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (beach read .TXT) 📕

set up the untraceable chat in a remote corner of the electronic ether years ago, when Jupiter disappeared from his old life and name. The Director created the room to bait him, keep tabs on him. Jupiter knew this. But such portals worked in both directions.

A chime sounded from the remote server.

CALIX SAYS DIFFERENT. HE CLAIMS HE’S STILL LOYAL—SAYS HE’S BEEN FRAMED.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF LOYALTY? YOU DEMAND IT FROM YOUR SUBJECTS, BUT SHOW NONE. CALIX IS LEARNING THAT NOW, PERHAPS MORE THAN ANY WHO CAME BEFORE HIM BESIDES ME. HE’LL ABANDON YOU. WHEN I’M FINISHED, THEY’LL ALL ABANDON YOU.

The cursor blinked, unused for several minutes. Jupiter snorted and shut the server down.

Terrance climbed the gently curving staircase from the visitor lot to the main manor of Jupiter Global’s executive retreat. Soft blue lighting gave the rose marble steps a lavender hue. He had no fear of approaching his boss in the predawn hours. Jupiter wanted Dr. Kidan’s updates on Patient C Prime the moment they became available.

He found his boss on the back lawn, wandering barefoot in his Zoysia grass—not unusual. Terrance knew better than to walk on the grass himself without invitation. He waited for Jupiter to look his way and waved his tablet. “Sir, I have news.”

Returning to the porch through the grass with his silver kurta pajamas lit by the moon and stars, Jupiter seemed more deity than man. And why not? It took a demigod to plot so perfectly the journey to this moment.

Jupiter had watched Wuhan and other labs across the globe following the first SARS outbreak and invested heavily in the key industries affecting the outcome. And in 2005, he moved his headquarters and production power to Spain, taking full advantage of an economic future no one else saw. Spain’s 2008 collapse emptied cities and flooded the streets with stranded workers. To Jupiter, it brought real estate, prime port positions, and a near-unlimited supply of desperate test subjects. What foresight. What intensity of vision.

“Good morning, Terrance. You have news?”

“It’s C Prime, sir. He’s on the verge.”

Jupiter took a seat at his patio table with his back to Terrance, raising the holographic screen from the glass surface with a gesture. “Give me details.”

“The patient evacuated his bladder twice during the night, and the collection system flagged a high white blood cell count. After cross-referencing the result with the evening’s round of blood tests, Dr. Kidan believes he’ll go symptomatic later this morning.”

Jupiter had called up the patient’s results on his display. He studied a three-dimensional blood image from an electron microscope. “Time?”

“Eight fifteen local. Give or take ten minutes. Also, there’s been a report from Rotterdam. The Princess.”

“I saw.” Jupiter swiped a finger through his display, sliding a text communication and security video from the ship into view. “I read the report an hour ago while working on something else. Our friend Calix has been busy.”

“The Dutch police think he’s dead.”

“Not likely.”

Terrance poised a stylus to take notes. “Our reaction?”

“Locate Calix.” Jupiter brought up a map of Northern Europe and isolated the section around Rotterdam. “He’s desperate to communicate with his master—to defend the honor we’ve stolen from him. Our people are watching the web for certain markers. Have them focus on traffic in this area.” Plucking the map from the hologram, he flicked it over his shoulder through cyberspace to Terrance’s tablet. “Once you have him, put Duval on his trail again.”

“Consider it done.” The stylus paused. Terrance watched his boss over the tablet’s edge. “So, may I confirm an appointment for you to meet Dr. Kidan in the observation room?”

Jupiter raised his bare feet from the pavement and let his chair spin to face Terrance. “How confident are we in this result?”

“Dr. Kidan’s confidence is high.” Terrance made sure to emphasize the distinction. If this went wrong, as it had before, he wanted none of the blame. He’d seen what had happened to Dr. Kidan’s predecessor.

His boss offered him a reassuring smile, as if reading his thoughts. “Do you trust me, Terrance?”

“Implicitly, sir.”

“Then don’t fear me. I didn’t rescue you from New York three years before the pandemic only to kill you for someone else’s mistakes. What did I say when I found you, running hustles in Central Park?”

“A scourge was coming.”

“You believed me, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your faith bore you out. Do you still believe?”

Terrance nodded.

“Good.” Jupiter returned to his display to call up a picture of his parents. The photo matched the one hanging inside the house—a wealthy Greek American and his wife, obviously pregnant, standing in a sea of Hong Kong protestors. Jupiter didn’t have to say a word about it. Terrance knew the story.

The street hustles Terrance’s crew ran in New York, from shell games to melon drops, were all about creating the illusion of randomness and chaos while exerting perfect control. Terrance’s ambition and skill in managing that crew—a form of chaos themselves—caught Jupiter’s attention and earned him his position. But Jupiter, driven by the loss of his parents, had learned to manipulate chaos itself.

Jupiter’s parents, passionate activists, survived Hong Kong’s violent 1967 labor riots, and stayed on for the peaceful marches of 1968. They returned to America late in his mother’s pregnancy, only to become two of the first victims of an outbreak that claimed more than a million lives. The marches had been a breeding ground for the Hong Kong flu. Jupiter’s mother died in premature childbirth. His father passed hours later.

“Bombs and bullets.” Jupiter’s gaze remained fixed on the photo. “Policemen with batons. Screaming families. Yet only fifty-one died in total. The chaos became peace, and from that peace—like a butterfly—flew a virus that killed a million.”

“Chaos.” Terrance spoke the word like a Greek chorus. He knew his lines in this recitation.

“Chaos. The lament of my grandparents. ‘No one could have guessed,’ they said. ‘No one can control it.’ So, I vowed to prove them wrong. I watched. I learned. I studied the equations. And when I came of age, I