Transparency by Charles Royce (children's books read aloud txt) 📕

me. I just had an idea, an opportunity I saw when no one else did. I didn’t know how to make it a reality.”

“I heard this already. Your interview with Tracy Heiss—”

“I hired people to do it for me. The best in their fields. People tried to take advantage of me along the way. Usually I could see it. But these investors? These CAAD people? They were different. We want to help, they said. You should be smart with your acquisitions, they said. Before I knew it, I’d lost control. I was in over my head. I mean, way in. I preach transparency, but I lost trust. Trust in my employees, trust in my family, trust in myself. Without trust, what is there?”

Agent Pillsbury stands up, slams her hands on the desk. “Did you instigate Project Fallback!”

West turns around. “No! Of course not. I wouldn’t still be here if I did.”

“What about your limo driver who killed my agent? Who is he, and what is he doing here in the building?”

“What?”

C h a p t e r   6 5

TRACY’S EYES BEGIN to water as she watches the simulation of the building crumbling to the ground. “What the hell?”

Josh watches Agent Pillsbury on another monitor. She looks toward the camera and points to her headset. He hears her through his earpiece.

“Everyone, heads up,” Agent Pillsbury says. “West is cooperating, but he won’t divulge the identity of the hooded man on Sublevel One. He says Fallback has not been initiated, repeat, not been initiated. He has no idea why the hooded man is here. But keep on guard, do not let him near that box.”

Josh walks to Tracy. “West couldn’t follow through with it. Pillsbury just confirmed everything is okay, but this hooded man could be a huge problem.”

Josh follows the man throughout Sublevel One. The thermal imaging shows a gun with a silencer inside the hooded man’s jacket. The facial recognition is mapping what it can, glitching, searching. The identity notation next to the man reads “UNKNOWN.” The man is close to finding his way to the center room. The two federal agents are standing beside the box, guns drawn.

“What kind of sick mind would come up with something like this? And why?” Tracy wipes her eyes, still looking at a freeze frame of the building exploding.

“I think it has something to do with the vice president. We think the weird contraption was created by CAAD, the foreign investors associated with West, the same people who sent this man in a hoodie to attack me last night. They had a plan to kill Roger Maddox tonight, and somehow use me to get to him, distract him. I don’t know. We think the box hooked to the gas lines is their backup plan.”

“Jesus. Maddox is safe though, right? With Pamela?”

“ArchEngine, show me Pamela Gunter,” Josh says. The roof-deck feed appears on one of the center monitors. Pamela is standing with the former vice president and his wife, along with the two bodyguards, their clothes flapping in the breeze. He zooms in on Pamela. She has her arms folded, her teeth are chattering. “She looks harmless. I don’t think Pamela knows much. I heard West talking with her on the phone, she’s just supposed to keep Maddox in the building.”

“So the building would take him out in the explosion?” Tracy asks.

“Exactly.” Josh zooms out. “They look cold. Are they trapped up there?”

“Yes, the door to the roof deck won’t open. Pamela asked me to send someone up. I sent Shawn.”

“ArchEngine, unlock the door to the roof deck,” Josh says.

“We tried that already,” DonDon says. “We even tried a manual override. It’s unlocked. It must’ve gotten pounded by the wind.”

“Hey, Tracy, what’s wrong with the vice president’s wife?” Josh zooms in on Mrs. Maddox. She’s holding her knee. “Tracy. Did you hear me?”

Josh looks at Tracy.

Tracy points to another monitor, one with the federal agents guarding the box.

“The hooded man,” Tracy says.

They both watch the FBI men circling the black box on Sublevel One. A hooded man is entering the room behind the stairwell, pointing a gun.

“Good God!” Josh presses his ear. “Watch out! Man with a gun! Three o’clock!”

Josh watches the FBI agent turn to the right while pulling out his gun. The agent fires, hits the hooded man in the arm, just as the second agent falls to the ground with a thud. The other agent ducks behind a large metal pillar. The sound of bullets pinging against the pole bombard the control room.

Josh turns to the two security guards inside the control room. “Get down there and help them!”

“Got it,” says one of the security guards. He grabs two guns from a cabinet. “Let’s go.”

The security guards leave.

“Aren’t there gas lines down there?” Tracy asks, eyes widening.

“Holy shit,” Josh says. Before he can say anything to the agents, he hears a familiar voice in his ear.

“Hold your fire,” Agent Pillsbury says. “Gas lines everywhere down there, people.”

Josh watches the agent put down his gun.

The hooded man points and shoots. The agent goes down.

“No!” Josh screams into his headset. “No, no, no, no.”

“What’s happening, Josh?” Agent Pillsbury’s voice is quivering.

“Agent down, agent down,” he says.

As the hooded man walks toward the box, the wounded agent slowly raises his gun.

Pow, pow!

The hooded man jolts backward. He falls to the ground. He scrambles toward the stairs. He boosts himself up on the stair rail. He limps up the steps.

The agent drops his gun, collapses onto the ground.

“Sir, are you okay?” Josh watches the agent breathe heavily. He sees the security guards on another monitor, forcing their way into the elevator bank. He speaks into his headset again. “Don’t worry, sir. Help is on the way. Can you make it to the elevator?”

No answer.

“Sir?”

No answer.

“Sir?”

On the monitor, red notations appear next to the agents’ bodies. “DECEASED.”

Josh looks at Tracy.

Tracy is following something on the monitors. “Look!”

They both watch the hooded man emerge from the stairs and into the lobby, holding his arm. Even