by Blake Banner
She stepped back and opened the door onto a spacious, airy suite with, as promised, magnificent views of the beach and the wild north Atlantic. The was a slightly twee but very cozy living room with a dining table in what looked like very good mahogany, and some faded but excellent leather armchairs and sofa. There was a small kitchenette and there was a bedroom.
The brigadier was sitting in one of the armchairs and rose as we came in. I wondered vaguely if he and the colonel were sharing the bedroom, but dismissed the thought. He approached us with his right hand held out, and it struck me that he still looked youthful. Though he must be in his sixties, he moved like an athlete and his eyes and skin radiated health.
“Helen,” he was saying, “splendid to see you in one piece. Harry, grand to see you too. Won’t you sit? What can I get you?”
Diana drew breath but I cut across her. “Helen, aka Diana, will have a Bombay Sapphire with Schweppes and lime, not lemon. I will have a Macallan straight up.”
There was a moment’s awkward silence, then the brigadier turned to the colonel and said, “Jane, shall I do the honors…?”
She smiled blandly. “I’ll get the drinks. You get the conversation going, Alex.”
I took the other armchair, across from the brigadier, with a heavy coffee table between us. Diana sat on the sofa and the brigadier sat opposite me and crossed his long legs.
“I have to say,” I said loudly, “that this whole job has been one surprise after another, from beginning to end. Every step of the way an unexpected development.”
He didn’t answer. He just watched me, holding his own whisky in his hand, waiting to see what I was going to say and what I was going to do.
The colonel arrived with our drinks, set them down in front of us and settled on the sofa beside Diana. I looked at her for a moment, while she picked up her glass and returned my gaze.
“I have,” I said, “become an extremely rich man.”
The brigadier said, “Excellent! Congratulations! Spoils of war?”
I nodded. “I could retire several times over.”
“I hope you won’t.”
“I am thinking about it. I don’t like being kept in the dark, and I don’t like being used.”
The colonel surprised me by saying, “I can understand that.”
I scowled at her. “And yet…?”
“And yet we had practically nothing to go on. Diana—Helen—contacted a certain US department a few weeks ago and said that she was working for a corporation which she feared was involved in terrorism, but she also knew that they were developing a line of nano-technology which could end up causing significant damage to the Western world. That department put her in touch with us, but even though we spoke to her, she was very reluctant to open up to us. She said she was very scared, and understandably so.”
Diana interrupted. “I insisted I would not talk to anyone until we were seated around a table in the White House or the Pentagon. Which, I might add, we are not.”
She glanced at me and I snarled, “You are lucky to be sitting anywhere, sister.” I turned to the colonel. “And frankly, Colonel, considering the extreme nature of the risk factor involved, the paltry nature of the briefing I received was not unprofessional, it made unprofessional look slick. I have lost count of how many times both of us might have been killed, and at the very least four of the men who died on this mission did so unnecessarily. If I had had just a little more information about who I was dealing with, a lot of the deaths could have been avoided.”
The brigadier stepped up, as I knew he would. “Jane is not to blame for that, Harry, I am. I had to make a very difficult choice, and I am not sure I got it wrong. Neither Jane nor I knew how good the information was—the little that we had—and much of the information you say we did not give you, we did not have ourselves. We had no idea the CIA were interested. We had a vague notion Frank Mendez was involved somehow, but to what degree and in what way, we just didn’t know. We deduced, after much investigation, that we might be dealing with an early prototype nano-particle programmer, but I was—and still am—very skeptical.”
Diana was staring down at her hands in her lap. She spoke without looking at anyone.
“I am sorry, it is easy to criticize what I did in hindsight, but the fact is I had no choice at the time. I could not risk putting this kind of information into Omar and Mendez’s hands. They would have caught me and killed me within minutes. It was essential to keep you all in the dark until we had met in person, in a safe place. It seemed to me that DC would be that place.”
The brigadier gave a mild smile and said, “Harry has his own way of making a place safe. It is quite effective.”
Diana nodded and sighed. “Yes, I guess that is true.”
The brigadier continued. “I want you to understand, Harry, that we did what we had to do in view of the potential danger of the item we were dealing with, the very little information we had and the anonymity of our client.”
I shook my head. “You couldn’t have just come clean and told me what you had and what it might involve?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, we could have. But you very recently resigned, and we could not risk your taking one look at the mission and telling us to take a hike.”
I scowled at him. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”
He nodded again and glanced at Jane. “Yes, I do know that. But Jane disagreed and so did the top brass. So it had to be this way, because we lacked information we could give you. However,” he offered me a smile again, “I am glad to say that you performed exactly as I expected you to.”
I nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“Which leaves us with just one question.”
I held his eye and he held mine for a very long moment. Finally he asked, “Where is the NPP?”
I looked at the colonel. Her lack of expression told me nothing I didn’t already know. But when I shifted my gaze to Diana I saw real anxiety in her eyes.
“It’s in London.”
Pink anger suffused the colonel’s face. The brigadier raised an eyebrow.
“Care to enlarge?”
“Not really.”
He looked upset. “Harry, you have earned my trust several times over. I think we have earned yours.”
I nodded. “Sure, and I am going to trust you to the same extent that you trusted me when you sent me on this job. I’ll give you precisely the amount of information I think you need.”
The colonel erupted. “What is this, tit for tat? Are we in the nursery now? How old are we?”
I gave my head a small shake. “No, see, Colonel, you are still operating under a misapprehension which you have not been able to shake since day one. And I am going to cure you of that misapprehension today, once and for all.” I sat forward and pointed at her. “You think that I work for you. You still have that US Army mentality that you are the boss and you call the shots, and that this grunt is going to do whatever you tell him to do. That was wrong on day one, and it is even more wrong today.”
I gave her a moment to assimilate that. Her face had gone from pink to crimson and the brigadier was making a minute examination of his whisky. Before she could answer I went on.
“That’s how it’s not. Now let me tell you how it is. I am a private contractor. You may not have noticed, but you don’t pay my social security taxes. That means I don’t work for you, I work with you. What is more, the way it works, you tell me what the job is, and I decide how it is going to be done, and then I execute it. To do that I need all—all—the available information. Because without it my life is at risk. So let’s understand that from this moment forward, I get full and unlimited access to all the information available to you and the brigadier before I undertake a job.”
I saw her draw breath and deliberately turned to the brigadier.
“Do we agree, Brigadier?”
“It is what I have advocated from the start. You have my full support.” He turned to the colonel. “I don’t think you hav
e much choice but to agree, Jane.”
“Can we discuss this in private, please, Alex?”
He thought for a full second and then shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, Jane. There is too much at stake and we are too short of time. I’ll raise the issue upstairs in due course, but it has to be this way.”
She was glaring at him and I was aware that her chest was rising and falling hard and she was fighting to control it. I also caught Diana observing me. When I met her gaze she gave me a small smile.
The brigadier turned to me.
“Granted that we agree, will you share with us what you have done with the device? I don’t need to tell you how dangerous that device is.”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you where it is, but first I want to know what you plan to do with it, and with the technology behind it.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Destroy it. The device and the technology must be destroyed.”
Diana’s head flicked around and she stared at him.
“You can’t. That technology could save thousands of lives. Millions of lives! It could completely eradicate disease from the planet, and hunger. It could eliminate poverty and secure our energy needs indefinitely! You have no idea what that technology is capable of creating. This device is just the beginning. Once it is fully developed…,” she paused, shaking her head, overwhelmed by the rush of thoughts in her own head, “in ten, twenty years, there is no limit to what we can achieve with this technology!”
The brigadier was nodding. “And that is why it has to be destroyed. Helen, do you know of a single human being, just one, who would be capable of wielding that kind of power without becoming corrupted?”
“We can legislate, set up committees…”
He smiled, like a kind uncle. “Even with the very limited power we have now in the West, corruption is rife. Democracy is a very fragile, tender shoot in our world still, and humans are very, very weak creatures. How long do you think it would be before special federal departments were created to administer it? How long before special licenses were granted to members of the Bohemian Club, how long before the Bilderberg Group were deciding the fate of nano-technology? In fact,” he turned and gave me a very deliberate look, “they already are, as you well know.”
I had understood him fine and I nodded to let him know.
“I sent it to an attorney in London, and had him post it by first class Royal Mail to the last place on Earth anyone would ever think to look for it.”
“Where?”
“My address in New York.”
The colonel stood and left the room. I knew she was going to dispatch a team to my house to wait for the parcel. Diana watched her leave and knew she was going to do that too. The brigadier was talking again.
“We intercepted Masih and Kouri, the secretary and the accountant.”
“Where did you find them?”
“Malaga airport. They were on their way to DC.”
They never made it to the Feds, then.”
His smile was what you’d call thin. “They don’t know that.”
Diana spoke suddenly. “Who the hell are you?”
The brigadier turned his thin smile on her and spoke with dead eyes. “Your worst nightmare, or your best friend, depending on where you stand.” He turned back to me. “They have spoken very fully and very frankly. And I am afraid it is very bad news. Very bad news for you, both, and for us.”
I scowled. “Bad news why?”
“Because they had another lab.” He turned to Diana. “Everything you corrupted and destroyed in the lab in Malaga, was backed up automatically in the lab they had in Azahara, by the internal network.”
“Jesus…” It wasn’t an exclamation, it was more like a sigh.
I said, “What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer straight away. He held my eye for a count of three.
“It means,” he said, “you have to go back, and take Diana with you.”
Nineteen
“No.”
He nodded, confirming that was what he’d expected me to say.
“Obviously, we don’t take civilians on military operations. However, the circumstances are somewhat peculiar, not to say unique, Harry.”
The door opened and the colonel came in. She stopped a moment with her hand on the door, looked from me to the brigadier and closed the door. “You’ve told him,” she said, stating it as a fact.
“And I said, ‘No.’”
“Of course you did. You wouldn’t be Harry Bauer if you’d said yes.”
I gestured at Diana with my open hand. “You just had me risk my life and kill over a dozen men to bring her out of danger, and now you want me to take her right back into the lion’s den? And you think I’m wrong to say no? You want me to go I’ll go, but I am not taking Diana. Period.”
The brigadier stood. “Diana, Helen, and I have a great deal to talk about, as do you and Jane.” He reached out his hand to Diana. She took it and he helped her to her feet. “Let’s take a little walk and explain to me how we can offer medical science a modified version of your research, and leave these two to squabble. They fight continually,” he said, as he guided her to the door. “But I suspect they are secretly friends.”
Just before they stepped out Diana caught my eye and I saw panic there. The door closed and the colonel took the brigadier’s chair. I spoke first.
“Well, my secret friend, I won’t do it.”
She leaned her elbows on her knees and rested her chin on her folded hands. I was suddenly aware, not for the first time, how attractive she was behind her abrasive nature. “I guess that all depends on what ‘it’ is.”
“Are we going to start talking in philosophical riddles now?”
I saw a flash of bitter sarcasm in her eyes. But she closed them, took a deep breath and said, “I am not going to let you provoke me, Harry. I mean you are stating that you won’t do ‘it,’ but you don’t know what ‘it’ is yet. You should hear what we have to say before you answer, ‘no.’”
I shook my head. “I have already heard enough. You want me to take Diana back there. I won’t do that.”
“Here name is not Diana. It’s Helen, Helen Carmel, from San Francisco.”
“Carmel? I thought she was… Never mind. I got used to calling her Diana.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s not the only thing you got used to?” I shrugged. “I don’t need to explain myself to you, Colonel.” I gave my head a small shake. “It’s no secret you don’t like me, and I know you don’t want me on the team because you disapprove of…,” I paused, shook my head, “just about everything you could possibly disapprove of in me. But that does not give you the right to pass judgment on how I conduct my private life.”
“Having sexual intercourse with a client…”
“She was your client, not mine. I was doing you a favor. I am an assassin, not a damned nursemaid. And I won’t forget that in doing you that favor I almost got killed several times over. You’re welcome.”
She wouldn’t meet my eye. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Harry. Sincerely. The situation was unique, and you were the only man we could think of for the job.”
“We? Or the brigadier?”
“We.” She took another deep breath. “You seem determined to humiliate me, Harry. Well, if that is what it takes, so be it. Yes, I admire you as an operative. Yes, I believe you are among the best, if not the best. And I was at one with the brigadier in that you were the man for this job, precisely because we had no idea of the ramifications, who was involved or who we were dealing with. Nobody adapts and responds as fast or as…energetically as you do.”
There was a brief silence. I said, “Good lord, now I think I am embarrassed.”
“None of that takes away from the fact that I think you are an insufferable bore, an arrogant misogynist and you belong in the Stone Age.”
“That’s better. I am more at home with that.”
We both pretended not to smile and she went on.
>
“The fact is, and I am speaking not as an employer or a superior officer, I am speaking as a human being who believes in our ancient liberties and in the essential freedom of the human soul, I don’t honestly think you have a choice, Harry. This has to be done. That lab has to be destroyed, along with all—all—record of the research.”
“So far I agree with you.”
She gave a small laugh, got up and walked to the tall window overlooking the bay. She stood there a while with her hands on her hips, creasing up the jacket of her dark blue suit. When she spoke, she was still facing the glass.
“So far you agree with me, but you don’t fully understand me.”
“What are you talking about, Colonel?”
“Nano-technology is in its infancy. Nobody knows how far it can go, but theoretically it is an unlimited source of power.” She turned to face me. “Potentially you can basically create things out of thin air. We are nowhere close to that yet, because nobody has yet developed an effective, efficient way to program quantum particles.”
“Until now.”
She nodded and walked back, covering half the distance between us.
“If that is what Helen Carmel has done, then as a species, as a civilization, a culture, a society…we are fucked. Royally fucked.”
“Oh.”
“We are not equipped, Harry. There is no social infrastructure, we have no cultural touchstones, no historical references. There is nobody in the world who can guide us or advise us and tell us how to deal with something like this. As a civilization we are simply not ready.”
I sat looking at the palms of my hands for a while. She approached closer and sat on the edge of the sofa with our knees touching.
“I know you understand that the lab has to be destroyed, and all the research, but do you see that it is essential for her to go with you?” I nodded. “She’s not a lot to look at, but she happens to be the world’s leading authority on nano-technology. She has an IQ which is right up there with Einstein, Niels Bohr and Stephen Hawking. And this is her research. She is the only person alive who can tell you what you need to destroy.”