by Tom Clancy
He checked the Garmin once more. Good. A short walk followed by a not-so-short swim, and then the real challenge would begin.
BEHIND the boarded-up farmhouse Fisher found a dry creek bed that meandered down through the hills toward the reservoir. In the wan glow of his night-vision goggles the landscape looked alien, the slopes around him barren, save for the occasional tree rising in silhouette against the sky. After thirty minutes of walking, he heard the lapping of water ahead, and soon the creek bed fanned out into a V-shaped alluvial plain. Directly ahead lay the mouth of a finger inlet.
Fisher stopped and checked his OPSAT. Lucchesi’s laboratory, shown on the map screen as a pulsing red square, lay a quarter mile to his south over a series of dunes. His route, however, would be indirect.
He walked down to the water’s edge and took a moment to check his belt and harness, his SC holster and SC-20 sling, and his gear pouches, then waded out until the water reached his chest. He kicked off the bottom and set out in a steady sidestroke.
He’d estimated the mouth of the inlet at eight hundred yards. So ten minutes after setting out, the sand-and-rock walls of the inlet disappeared and he found himself in the reservoir proper. On his hip, he felt the OPSAT give three short vibrations, signaling the first waypoint.
He stopped swimming, lifted his digital compass to his face, and rotated in the water until the blue numerals read BEARING 237. He found a landmark—the lights of a house or cabin—on the headland a half mile away and started swimming toward it.
The second leg was short, not quite eight hundred feet, which he covered in three minutes. The OPSAT buzzed on his hip and he stopped for a compass check, this time rotating himself on a bearing of 121. Lucchesi’s lab lay deep within this next inlet, around four S-shaped curves. As the crow flies it was a mile; in the water it would be almost twice that.
FISHER’S sidestroke ate up the distance at a slow but steady and energy-conserving 2.5 miles per hour, or 220 feet a minute. Around him the erosion-slashed hills rose steeply from the water, and as the inlet narrowed, first to a half mile, then a quarter, then a hundred yards, the cliffs seemed to grow higher, until he felt as though he were swimming among half-sunken skyscrapers. Finally, after forty-five minutes, his OPSAT buzzed again, this time two quick signals followed by two long ones. He stopped swimming and let himself float, still, for a moment as he caught his breath.
He lifted the compass to his face to double-check his mark and made a slight adjustment until the numerals read BEARING 087. He unslung the SC-20, brought it up to his shoulder, and peered through the scope, zooming and adjusting until he spotted, two hundred yards ahead, the upper corner of Lucchesi’s cube peeking out from behind a curved cliff face. Illuminated by the moon and set against the dark sky, the corner was startlingly white. Fisher saw no lights, either outside or in. He slung his rifle and continued on.
He stopped again at a hundred yards and could now see most of the cube sitting atop its hill. Still no lights. Fisher zoomed in with the SC-20’s scope, looking for indications of security—paths worn into the ground around the laboratory, protrusions on the walls or along the roofline that might indicate security cameras or sensors. . . . He saw none of these. An EM/IR scan once he got closer might reveal something, but from here the laboratory looked abandoned.
Could it be? Fisher wondered. Could Lucchesi have closed the laboratory without anyone knowing? By all accounts, the man virtually lived here, only occasionally leaving for brief, mysterious stints; similarly, his handpicked staff of eight scientists lived on-site in two-week shifts: four on, four off. Here again was a by-product of hurried mission preparation. Had he the time, he would have known by now the comings and goings of staff, visitors, and repair and maintenance personnel; he would have studied security procedures, lighting schedules, the frequency with which doors opened and closed. . . . Spilled milk, Fisher thought. You came to a mission with what you had, not what you wish you had. Adaptability, not technology, was a Splinter Cell’s bread and butter. The latter could fail you, the former rarely.
Fisher kept swimming, angling toward the far cliff until he rounded the bend and the laboratory came into full view. Now, too, he could see the water-cooling system: four silver conduits, each three feet in diameter, rising forty feet from the surface before turning forty-five degrees and plunging into the earth beneath the facility. Fisher zoomed in on the water at the base of the conduits and saw a slowly swirling vortex. First sign of life, he thought. If work wasn’t going on inside, there would be no need for cooling water. There was only one way to be sure. He donned the Trident goggles and scanned the cube, the feed-water system, and the cliff, and saw nothing. Not so much as a blip on the EM scan, and on the infrared the laboratory showed as a dark block. The building’s white exterior, combined with whatever insulation the architects had chosen, had made the structure all but thermally invisible.
Goggles still on and set to night vision, Fisher started toward the conduits in a slow breaststroke, and with each passing foot his sense of déjà vu increased until finally the cause popped out of his subconscious: another mission, another place. The Burj al Arab hotel in Dubai. Another set of water intakes, Fisher thought. Of course, the Burj al Arab’s conduits had been monstrous, driven by battleship-sized screws. Then again, he’d known what to expect there; here, he knew nothing.
Less thinking, more doing, he commanded himself.
When he was twenty feet from the conduits, he felt the first tug of current, gentle at first, then more insistent as it drew him into a counterclockwise spin. He made one revolution of the conduits, then two. On the third he reached out and touched the closest conduit and was rewarded by an immediate slowing. He reached up with his opposite arm and snagged one of the brackets that joined the conduits. His body came to a halt and he hung still for a moment, feeling the undertow on his legs. Through the corrugated walls came the rhythmic thrumming of the pumps. The tempo seemed muted, as though the system was operating at nominal power. He pressed his ear to the metal. The rising water sounded hollow and spasmodic.
He extended his right leg, straining, until his toes found the lip of the conduit’s mouth. There was no protective grating in place. Bad for unwary fish but good for him. From here on it was pure guesswork. If the pumps were strong enough to lift him, he would end up pulped on a propeller or pinned against a filter grate until the power was either decreased, which would drop him back down the conduit, or increased, which would drown him.
Fisher took a deep breath, released the bracket, and knifed beneath the surface. He immediately curled himself into a ball, waited until he felt himself slip into the mouth of the conduit, then straightened and spread his arms above his head. His right hand touched something hard, a protrusion—a ladder rung. Maintenance ladder. He latched onto it, twisted his torso, and slapped his left hand onto the rung. Water rushed past his body in fits and starts; over the whoosh he could hear the pumps straining to clear the obstruction. He chinned himself up, found the next rung, and climbed until his feet found purchase. He pressed himself against the wall. The pump smoothed out and returned to normal.
He started climbing.
IN the cascade both his night vision and headlamp were useless, so he relied on his sense of touch, taking the rungs carefully and slowly until he felt the conduit turn inward on its forty-five-degree angle. Now on a near-horizontal plane, the water flowed along the bottom, occupying half the conduit’s volume. Fisher crawled forward, arms braced against the rungs as the river rushed past his legs.
He reached a left-hand juncture. He followed it, and after another four or five feet came to a manhole-sized butterfly valve. He pressed his hand to the valve and felt nothing. He pressed his ear against it. Nothing. He turned around, rolled onto his back, and pressed his feet against the valve, slowly increasing the pressure until it flipped open. He flipped himself around again and wriggled headfirst through the opening. Another five feet brought him to the neighboring conduit. There, no water was
flowing. He flipped on his headlamp, turned right, and kept crawling. After forty or fifty feet his headlamp picked out a short, vertical ladder leading to a hatch. Knees braced against the ladder’s uprights and one arm curled around a rung, he snaked the head of the flexicam through one of the hatch’s airholes. The fish-eye lens revealed pipes, stanchions, a concrete floor. . . . It was the pump room. Fisher retrieved the flexicam, then gently lifted the hatch and climbed through.
26
THOUGH much of his view was obscured my machinery, piping, lighted control panels, and stanchions, it appeared that the room ran the length and breadth of the laboratory above; the banks of gray metal storage cabinets along the walls told him it also served as a storage area. Aside from sporadic blinking lights from the control panels, the space was dark. The only sound came from the throbbing of the pumps.
With just his head jutting from the hatch, he scanned the room, pausing first on the most likely spots for sensors and cameras before checking the rest. He spotted twelve cameras—one in each corner and two spaced along each wall. All were fixed and, judging from the Tridents’ EM, nonoperational.
Curiouser and curiouser, Fisher thought. Privately run or not, this facility dealt with arguably the most sophisticated technology of the twenty-first century, and yet he’d seen not a single active security measure. If Lucchesi was calling the shots, why would he decline to protect his life’s work? The special operator’s part of Fisher’s brain whispered trap, but he discounted it. An ambush, to what end? And why wait until he’d penetrated the facility?
Fisher climbed out of the hatch, closed it behind him, and moved among the pipes and stanchions until he reached a steel door set into the wall. A quick check with the flexicam revealed an alcove and a set of stairs leading upward. He could see a wall-mounted camera on the next landing—it, too, was dead. He opened the door, crossed the alcove, and started up the steps until he reached what he assumed was the first floor landing. Here the door was made of reinforced steel, with shielded hinges and a biometric keypad lock. Fisher was reaching for his OPSAT when he stopped and, on impulse, pressed down on the door handle. It clicked open. He eased the handle back to its original position. He checked the jamb. There wasn’t enough space for the flexicam. He gave the door an EM/ IR scan. Nothing. He pressed his ear to the door. Silence.
Too much good news, Fisher thought, and drew his SC pistol.
He pressed himself against the wall on the door’s knob side, eased the door open an inch, and braced it with his foot. He raised the SC to chest height, aimed the muzzle at the gap. He waited. Ten seconds. Thirty. A full minute.
No ambush, no shots, no rushing of armed security personnel through the door.
The hell with it.
Fisher swung the door open, peeked around the corner, and found himself staring into a dark, cavernous space.
HE flipped on his night vision and looked around. The lab was in fact six stories tall but contained no floors, at least not in the traditional sense, but rather concentric, spiraling catwalks connected by narrow gantries. The slit windows cast stripes of pale light over the walls and catwalks and floors, leaving Fisher with the sensation that he’d stepped into a giant colander.
Hulking pieces of equipment dominated the floor, some of them tall and narrow, rising thirty and forty feet; others squat and featureless save a few control panels and LED displays. Clear acrylic tubes crisscrossed the space, entering and exiting the machinery at odd angles. Nothing looked familiar to Fisher, but he was unsurprised. The manufacture of molecule-sized devices would of course require specialized equipment and procedures.
After performing his now token NV/EM/IR scans, and once again coming up with nothing, he began moving through the space until, finally, he found a raised platform of white Lexan tiles in the northeast corner. Measuring roughly thirty feet square, the platform was surrounded on three sides by railing, while the wall side was dominated by a row of computer workstations. In the center was a rectangular chrome-and-glass conference table. Fisher was about move to ahead when his subconscious spoke up again: Complacency. He stopped, backed into the shadows beside one of the machines, and flipped on the night vision.
A lone figure was sitting in a chair before one of the workstations. The broad shoulders and height told Fisher it was a man. He sat hunched over, elbows resting on his knees, face cupped in his hands. SC raised and extended, Fisher crept ahead to the platform steps, then stopped.
“Don’t move,” Fisher whispered. “I’m pointing a gun at you.”
The man obeyed, save for a slight lifting of his head so he could see who was talking.
“Who are you?” the man said in Italian.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“I am Terzo Lucchesi,” he muttered halfheartedly.
“You don’t sound sure.”
“He sent you to kill me. So kill me.”
“No one sent me to kill you.”
Lucchesi sat up in his chair. Light from one of the slit windows reflected off wire-rimmed glasses. “You’re American.” Lucchesi switched to English. “Why did he send an American? Were you cheaper?”
“Raise your hands above your head,” Fisher ordered. None of this felt right.
With a fatalistic shrug, Lucchesi raised his hands. “Are you a good shot? Please tell me you’re a good shot.”
“For the last time, I didn’t come here to kill you. Ask me about it one more time and I’ll start rethinking my plan.”
“I don’t understand, then. Who are you? Why are you here?”
“Let’s get some lights on,” Fisher said, taking a little of the edge from his voice. “Anything goes wrong, I’ll shoot you in the kneecap.”
“All right,” Lucchesi said hesitantly, and reached his hand toward one of the monitors.
“Wait.” Fisher mounted the platform steps and sidestepped around Lucchesi until his back was facing the wall and he could see the rest of the facility. He knelt down, making himself a smaller target. He flexed his rear foot, readying himself to spin should targets present themselves. “Go ahead. Carefully.”
Lucchesi tapped a series of buttons on the keyboard and, above, a series of halogen pendant lights glowed to life, illuminating the platform like a stage; then slowly more lights came on throughout the space until it was bright as daylight.
Lucchesi took in Fisher’s tac-suit, Trident goggles, face half covered in his balaclava, and tilted his head to one side as though he’d just seen a dodo bird. “My, you must have been expensive.”
Fisher sighed and lifted the SC, taking aim on Lucchesi’s forehead. The Italian raised his hands and nodded apologetically. “Sorry, sorry . . .”
“What’s going on here?” Fisher asked. “Why are you shut down? Where is everyone?”
“In order,” Lucchesi replied, “absolutely nothing is going on, we are shut down because we are broke, and everyone has gone home.”
“Explain.”
“My funding has been revoked.”
“The military?”
“My father.”
“Say again?”
“My father decided—and I quote—‘you’ve wasted enough time on your invisible robots and bugs.’ That was just his excuse, though.”
“Who’s your father?”
“You have heard of Graziani Motors, yes?”
Fisher nodded. Since the early 1950s Graziani Motors had specialized in custom-made sports cars. Special-order Graziani coupes began at eight hundred thousand dollars. At the age of seventeen Calvino Graziani started the company in his garage in what was then the village of Sassari; now seventy-four, Graziani remained at the company’s helm. Conservative estimates put his net worth at 14.2 billion.
Before Fisher could ask the next obvious question, Lucchesi said, “When my parents divorced, I was a teenager. I took my mother’s maiden name in protest.”
Fisher was running on instinct now, having decided against simply demanding the Ajax code from Lucchesi. Perhaps
it was the vulnerability Fisher saw in the man, or genuine sympathy, or both, but his gut told him there might be a better way of skinning this cat.
“You said something about your father’s excuse. . . .”
Lucchesi gave another shrug. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He studied Fisher for a moment. “I think you Americans call this the ‘bartender effect.’ You know, you tell your secrets to a complete stranger who happens to be serving you drinks. Or holding a gun on you.”
Fisher lowered the SC to a forty-five degree angle but kept it pointed in Lucchesi’s general direction.
“I should have expected that my father wasn’t helping me out of the goodness of his heart,” Lucchesi said. “He has none of that. He gave me just enough money to build this place, hire the best people, and make some progress before springing his trap. I was to start making nanotech-based weapons for his new start-up company. Father wanted to become an arms dealer, you see. Evidently, fourteen billion dollars isn’t enough.”
“So you refused.”
Lucchesi shrugged. “We argued. I tried to stall, I tried to compromise, and then a couple of days ago he pulled the plug, as you say. I came back from Milan and found this.” He swept his hand across the expanse of the laboratory. “Everything shut down. My staff gone. Every scrap of data removed from the mainframe. They pulled every hard drive, took every CD and USB flash drive.”
“Why didn’t you just go along—give him something so you could keep working on your own projects?” Fisher thought he knew the answer to this question, but he wanted Lucchesi to verbalize it so the man’s moral compass snapped back into focus.
“I got into the nanotech field to help people. To help the world. I inherited that weakness from my mother—if you listen to my father, that is. A soft bleeding heart with his head in the clouds.”