Elite 2: The Wrong Side of Revolution (14 page)

“We have to stop them,” the ghost continued as though it did not hear Daniel’s question. “We can’t trust anyone.”

“Stop
who?
” Daniel pleaded. “Can’t trust
who?
”

Silently, Norma stepped forward and gently ran her hand across Daniel’s cheek. He closed his eyes and took a long breath, chills running down his spine. It all felt so
real.

The figure of Norma then leaned in and gently pressed her lips to Daniel’s. After two heartbeats she withdrew, looked Daniel in the eyes and said firmly, “WAKE UP.”

Daniel gasped as he shot upright in his bed. The three men in the room jumped, startled by his sudden awakening.

Daniel’s eyes opened wide as he began gulping in breaths of air. He looked around the small room, completely disoriented.

Someone jumped to his side and pressed a hand to his chest.

“Calm down Danny boy,” they said in a deep, grumbly voice. “You’re okay now.”

Daniel dropped his head back down onto the bed and turned to see the face of Mr. Blank by his side. Gradually, his brain began to orient itself. He was back on the medical level of the Elite complex. In the room with him were Blank, Richfield and Horchoff.

“What the hell happened?” Daniel asked, still catching his breath. “Where is Eva?”

He was unsure of why his first conscious thoughts had led him to the well-being of the FBI agent he had met less than an hour before, but they had.

“Agent Stone is fine,” Richfield answered from the other side of the room. He stood up from the door he was leaning against and moved closer to Daniel. He was wearing a black polo and grey khakis. “She was given the same sedative as you were, though she only inhaled the airborne version while you were given an injection directly into the blood stream. She probably came to about the time her backup arrived at the safe house.”

Daniel stared at the ceiling, trying to recall the last seconds before being knocked unconscious.

“Jitters,” he said in a smug tone.

“Yes,” Richfield chuckled, “you have Jitters to blame for that.”

Daniel placed his palms on his forehead and closed his eyes. He took one last deep breath before sitting upright. He was still wearing the same grey suit he had put on that morning, though the jacket was now missing.

“How long was I out?” he asked to no one in particular.

“About four hours,” Richfield replied.

“Four hours?” Daniel said, considering all the things that could have already happened in that amount of time.

As Daniel sat and contemplated, trying to get his head on straight, Richfield began with what seemed like a prepared speech. “There are some things I never told you about Gordon Demérs,” he admitted to Daniel.

“Like why he would want me dead?” Daniel retorted instantly. Apparently his quick wit had already returned.

“It’s nothing against you personally,” Richfield explained. “He was acting out against me, through you.”

Daniel looked silently up from the floor, making clear his preemptive displeasure with what Richfield was about to tell him.

“Gordon Demérs is not a good man, and he is threatened by all of those whom he cannot control,” Richfield continued. “He knows that you are my best agent, and he knows what you are capable of. That’s why he framed you for Benze’s murder. He’s threatened by you and what you can do and wants to eliminate the threat.”

Daniel straightened his posture and used his palm to rub his eye socket. He wasn’t sure he believed what he was hearing. In just over a day he went from believing that Demérs wanted Daniel by his side protecting him, to wanting him dead. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

“If Demérs is such a bad guy then why the hell are you…we…protecting him?”

“Keep your enemies closer, Kid,” Blank said from beside the bed.

“So are you going to tell me just who I’ve been hanging with the past few days?” Daniel retorted. “Who is Gordon Demérs really and why is he so bad? Is it drugs?”

Richfield gave a one-breathed laugh. “If only.”

“Then what? Why did he kill Benze and why is he after us?” Daniel demanded answers.

Richfield paused for a moment, similar to the way the FBI agent had back at the safe house. He was determining just how much to reveal.

“My life is being threatened here, I deserve to know!” Daniel barked.

Silence filled the room. Horchoff seemed content to remain out of the conversation.

“I knew him, Danny,” Blank finally spoke up.

Daniel turned to his mentor.

Blank returned the gaze with one eye that peered out from under the shadow of his hat. Solemnly, he continued. “I knew him when he was just starting out—right outta college. In fact, I’m the one who made him who he is now.”

Daniel’s heart stopped, and tears inexplicably began to well up in his eyes. It was the first time he had seen Mr. Blank appear so…vulnerable. He could clearly see that it physically hurt the man to reveal such a dark secret to someone he felt a genuine affection for.

Blank swallowed and continued his story.

“I used to be big into the Chicago Stock Exchange. In fact, I was one of the best. It was a fast-paced life style with no room for slowing down. Along with it also came a lot of unavoidable interaction with shady figures—everyone desperate to worship at the feet of the almighty dollar. Very few can truly tackle the market in a big way and come out unscathed.”

Blank paused to remove his hat and wipe his brow before placing it back on his head. Daniel was still wrapping his head around the idea that Blank had a life before Elite.

“Demérs came to the city right out of college looking to make some quick scores on the market and really make a name for himself. I didn’t hear about him until the following October, when some of my associates started talking about this new kid on the block who had a knack for moving cash around and watching his pile grow. They said he was ruthless and willing to do anything it took to get ahead. A few weeks later I made a point of running into him and all of the rumors were right—the guy was determined to be the best.

“I honestly felt sorry for the kid. Grinding your way to the top of the market was a good way to die young, especially in this town. So I decided to take him under my wing and asked him to be a junior partner at my investment firm. A lot of folks said I was crazy—said he was too ripe—but as you can attest, I know potential when I see it.

“So I hire him in and in just the first quarter Demérs is there my investment in him pays off and he rakes in more money than the entire firm was able to make in the previous year. Soon he and I are out on the town every night, talking with other players and mingling with the big wigs and just living every bachelor’s dream life.”

This brought Blank’s story to a dramatic pause, and Daniel knew that given their current circumstance the story could only take a downhill turn from here.

“Even
I
got lost in all the glitter for a while, and I took my eye off the ball—forgot the whole reason I had brought Demérs on in the first place,” Blank said glumly.

“You wanted to make money, didn’t you?” Daniel asked. “You did that.”

“I wanted to
protect
him,” Blank contested. “Yeah, making money was part of it, but the reason I wanted him with me was so that I could keep him away from the corrupt minds who I knew would use their money and status to poison Demérs’. He was going to make money either way, but at least with me I could keep him safe. Or sane for that matter!”

Blank brought his hand up to rub his eyes. It appeared that Demérs had been the one great failure in his life, and he took it to heart.

“There is a group of people,” Richfield started, jumping in to give Blank a break from telling his story, “they believe that the one-percenters should control this country. They are monarchists, and believe that their wealth and status prove that they are the superior and that all other classes should serve them.”

Daniel scrunched his face upon hearing this. “They’re insane,” he commented.

“Some would say so, yes,” Richfield agreed.

“I tried to stop ‘im,” Blank chimed in, now seated in the chair next to the bed, staring at the floor. “I tried telling him that they were looneys—that he couldn’t listen to their garbage. But they filled his mind with delusions of power and control—the guy couldn’t resist. They had been who he considered his friends—people he trusted—and they sucked him right in.”

Daniel reached over and placed a hand on Blank’s shoulder. “You can’t blame yourself,” he assured him. “Any man who hears ideas like that and doesn’t go running the other way was lost from the start.”

Blank reached up and patted Daniel’s hand, grateful for the words but not willing to unburden himself just yet.

“So what does this all have to do with us? Something that goes back to you CIA days?” Daniel inquired.

“Actually, no,” Richfield responded. “A few years ago, Demérs stumbled upon something that if he had capitalized on, would have made him the leader of this underground revolution—something they haven’t had in a long time. Having radical ideas and monetary power is one thing, but when it comes down to it, the wealthy are far too outnumbered to have any real chance of taking over. They call it the ‘one percent’ for a reason. And besides that, only a small fraction of the upper class actually agrees with their ideals.”

“So what is it that Demérs stumbled upon?” Daniel asked.

“A scientist,” Blank stated, glaring over to Dr. Horchoff. “And his groundbreaking research.”

Daniel turned around to face Horchoff, who seemed to be wishing for powers of invisibility at the moment.

“I was desperate for investors,” he explained. “No universities or governments would give me a grant and I had burned through my personal savings. I was so close to making a breakthrough, but I needed resources. I decided to sell the project to anyone who would buy. I didn’t care about
owning
my research, I just wanted to see it come to fruition.”

Richfield resumed the story from there. “Demérs heard about the doctor and what he was trying to achieve and saw an opportunity. He figured that if he could create even a small army of human beings with those kinds of capabilities, it would finally give his band of elitist maniacs the opportunity to declare war on the U.S. government and unleash a violent revolution from within.”

Daniel was sure that he felt his jaw quite literally hit the floor.

“You have got to be shitting me,” he proclaimed. “Gordon Demérs wants to
take over the country?
”

“But I stopped him,” Blank interrupted. “I found out what he was planning and I took it to Mister Richfield here. I had heard about Richfield from some of the other guys in the business, and I knew that he was ex-CIA and that he would not only be interested in something like this, but that he would keep it out of the hands of guys like Gordon Demérs.”

Daniel looked back to Richfield, still not believing what he was hearing could be true. It was like a story out of a comic book. This sort of thing didn’t happen in real life.

Richfield continued, “When I found out what Demérs was planning I went immediately to Horchoff and offered him every resource he could ever ask for along with total control over the project. Having worked for government intelligence I had a lot of connections that Gordon Demérs doesn’t that proved invaluable in bringing it all together.”

Richfield then turned to look at Blank. “And I asked that Mister Blank chose the right candidate.”

“And here I am,” Daniel said, completing the circle.

“And here you are,” Richfield repeated.

Daniel nodded as he filled in the rest of the blanks. Demérs wanted Daniel dead because he represented the biggest threat to achieving his goal of leading a group of Richie Rich psychopaths on the road to world domination. Even if Demérs did somehow find a way to put an army together, Daniel’s existence had proven that Richfield was already one step ahead of him.

Leaving Benze’s men to kill Daniel for him would have served to keep Demérs’ hands clean.

Then Daniel remembered what he saw in the room upstairs at Benze’s house. There was a person hooked up to all of those machines.

He almost said something, but then remembered his dream conversation with Norma just before he regained consciousness. She had told him not to trust anyone—that they weren’t safe. It was only a dream, but something told him to keep the information to himself.

There was still one matter of unfinished business however.

“So the FBI…” Daniel said, probing for more information.

“Harvell and his men must have been on the scent of whatever Demérs had gotten into. It was just dumb luck that they were able to pick you up,” Richfield responded.

“Harvell?” Daniel asked.

“The director of the task force your Agent Stone is a part of,” Richfield explained. “I know him from way back—he’s a very good agent. He’s been after the group threatening to overthrow the government for a while now. If he had an agent outside Benze’s house he must know that Demérs is planning something soon.