"After I faked my death and left, Karma surprised me and left too," Keith continued.
Karma stared at her father. This was unbelievable.
All of this because she didn't love Fletcher and didn't want to run the family? She understood her father had built his business from nothing, but she had dreams of her own.
"I told you what I wanted. You didn't listen." She heard gunfire a long way off. Everyone eyed the door. Footsteps could be heard. She waited. Silence finally settled over them again.
"Yes, I didn't listen." Keith gave Karma a half-smile. "Instead of working with Fletcher and taking over, you vanished. By the time I got back from my fake death, no one could find you. I also found out when I returned that Fletcher wanted to force you to marry him. I knew he had designs on The Seemyah, but I didn't know to what extent he'd go to control the family." Keith paused. "Fletcher knew no one would be loyal to him without you at his side. He was angry when you left. He swore to destroy The Seemyah if he couldn't run it."
"I'm going to check the hall." Rea opened the door again. "Gears, hurry up. Eric stays here with Keith. And Karma, you gotta wrap up this conversation."
"Fine." She took the radio from Rea. As Rea stepped out, she turned the volume to low. She was so angry that the idea they were trapped in this room didn't even matter to her right now.
"So, where did you go?" It was hard to imagine her dad just sitting around a pool on the Equator.
"I came here. This was the one place I knew no one would look for me. I'd also heard that Mr. MacBain had been put on a hit list. There was someone who wanted the head of the water bases dead, and Gears, what's the word… vulnerable. I came to check it out."
That wasn't the answer Karma expected.
"What?" Both Gears and she spoke in unison. Gears stopped working, and looked at Keith.
"I was waiting for word from my men." Keith shrugged. "They were looking for you, Kar."
"If you're here to kill Rea, then you're not doing a very good job," Gears commented wryly.
Rea poked his head back in. "Are you done yet, Gears?"
Gears jumped. He spun back to the panel.
"I won't let you kill Rea." Karma swallowed hard. She'd never gone head-to-head with her dad over a job before. The idea of pointing a gun at his head didn't sit well with her.
Everyone stared at her. Rea stepped back inside. He frowned at all of them.
"I'm not trying to kill Rea, even though I could. I was… what's the word… we'll just use babysit. I was babysitting him." Just a hint of a smile appeared on Keith's face.
"Could you use a different term than babysit?" Rea looked up at the ceiling.
"Why were you babysitting Rea? I know you wouldn't do it out of the goodness of your heart." Karma didn't believe her father was looking after Rea. Her father was a lot of things, both good and bad, but benevolent wasn't one.
"Let me finish explaining. I was babysitting Rea—"
"Pick a new term," Rea opened the door again. "Or maybe you could talk about this later."
Her father ignored him. "Because when I talked to The Seemyah they told me that Fletcher had agreed to take a job killing him. The men refused the hit. Without Karma by his side, he was on his own. He left."
"You wanted to stop Fletcher?" She crossed to the door and looked out as well. The hall was still empty.
Rea shook his head at them. He listened to the radio for a moment. When he realized the volume was on low, he turned it back up. He barked out commands to Brice on the other end. She heard a few more shots. It was still distant.
"Fletcher had agreed that The Seemyah would kill two men. One was the head of the water bases, Rea, the man I babysit—never mind. The other was the man that the Canadian Prime Minister had chosen to be the next president of the C.T.O.N.A."
"Me," Eric said from where he was next to Gears. "I came here thinking I'd be safe, and the head of the organization trying to kill me has been with me this whole time."
So that's what Fletcher was talking about. Fletcher had taken one job, Rea, and then taken another, Eric. Karma thought the money must've been fantastic. Either that or he thought the kill was going to be easy.
"After the men explained, I looked into the big question of who was Eric Bennett." Her father inclined his head toward Bennett. "Through my sources, I learned Canada is having a problem far north near the old Alaska area. In some of the small underground communities, there is an outbreak of some type of illness. It's something no one has ever heard of. They say the sickness is carried in the snow. When the snow melts, the virus becomes airborne, and people breathe it in. After they breathe it in, they die."
"They nicknamed the virus 'Snow Flu,'" Eric said as he fidgeted with the collar of his shirt.
"You knew about this?" Karma was shocked. This kind of thing should be all over the news. Why was no one told about this?
Rea attached the radio to his belt. He then glared at Eric. "You came for my help, but you didn't tell me this?"
"The Prime Minister wants to close the border between the old U.S. and Canada to make sure the illness stays in one place. The virus can be passed along, and he doesn't want it to spread. The United Nations wants to make sure Snow Flu doesn't reach the Equator until they have a vaccination. Everyone is working on a cure as fast as they can, but nothing has been figured out. Canada was told by all the other nations to get a president for the C.T.O.N.A. and close the borders. The UN wants someone everyone can look up to as the new president. No one is to know about Snow Flu because they don't want people to panic. The Equator is about as crazy as it can be. Add people panicking, and it will be complete chaos." Eric spoke like he was finally confessing a scary topic that had been hanging over his head.
"Why did they choose you, Eric?" Gears asked, pausing from the wires again. Everyone turned to look at him. "Not that I don't think you are presidential material."
"Work on the panel, Gears." Rea pointed at the wires. "We can talk about this later. We need to move."
"I also want to know why they chose Eric." Karma wasn't going to let everyone leave here until she knew everything that was going on.
"They asked me because of who I know, mostly." Eric took the flashlight from Gears and held it up to the panel. "The Prime Minister thought I'd network and keep things moving forward. I knew the man who held the water bases in the palm of his hand." Eric nodded his head at Rea. "I could meet the brilliant scientist who cleans water." He then tipped his head to Gears. "I knew the harvesters because of my dad. While Canada solved the health problems, they wanted someone who'd keep the progress. I do know a lot of people, but I didn't know if I should take the job. I asked for time. I came here to talk to you, Rea. I hoped you'd give me advice. I'd need the water bases behind me. If I choose to do this, I'd need a group to keep order. You were the only person I could think of that had a team."
"This doesn't answer the question of who wants Rea and Eric dead and Gears alone on the water bases," Karma said.