“Of course. I’m glad to help.”

“I’m very interested to hear more about ARES. We’ll look forward to a full briefing from you later. I am fascinated to hear about its capabilities. And to know more about these men that have created the program.”

David was surprised she knew about it. But if that was why Tom sent him, it made sense that she would.

He said, “ARES. Yeah. Well I don’t know if you would even call them men. The three of them were in their early twenties. Boys, I’d say.”

She shook her head. She said, “Remarkable. But I guess many of our strongest tech companies were started by exuberant youths. It takes a fiery intellect to really change the world. Like young Natesh there.”

She nodded toward Natesh, who was out of earshot across the room.

David said, “It sounds like we’ll need that brain power to help us, in light of the plot you’ve uncovered. Hopefully we can harness that power for the good guys.”

Lena said, “David, that’s why we brought you all here, to harness that intellectual power. And I promise you we’ll do exactly that.”

She nodded a farewell, turned, and walked out the door.

David watched her go and felt an uneasy voice in his head begin to whisper. It was the same voice that he felt when Tom was speaking to him on the plane. Lena and Tom had both said all of the right things.

But the whisper was still there. The whisper was what his father used to call it when David was a boy. His father’s sage advice never failed to keep David out of trouble: When the whisper tells you not to follow the pack, hear the whisper like a scream.

CHAPTER 3

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Natesh sat on his bed, his moist palms pressed against white cotton bed sheets. He was always the most nervous on the first day. That was when all those intelligent and accomplished eyes began to judge him. In the first 30 minutes, Natesh found, the vast majority of his spectators made their decision as to the worth of his service. So like any good salesman, he had to nail it on the up front. And he did it, time after time.

That was how he had made his millions. Not through his intellectual prowess. Smart people were a dime a dozen. Natesh made his millions by selling himself. He delivered both a high quality exhibition and intellectual output for his clients. But he had to give them a convincing show for their money.

He always got nervous, and today’s nervousness went beyond anything that he had felt before. He needed to keep calm. Just stick to the script. He must forget that the final product here wasn’t a product at all, but bloodshed. He tried to console himself with the fact that if he did his job well, there would be less of it.