by David Stone
“No time now. I need to talk to someone named Nikki Turrin. The girl who found the video on YouTube. Do you know where she is?”
“Why her?”
“Micah, just tell me where she is.”
“Far as I know, she’s at Fort Meade.”
“No. She booked off at the end of the day. The Duty Desk says she’s off until eight in the morning. She’s not answering her cell. I reached a woman named Alice Chandler. She works in the office of the AD of RA—”
“What’s that?”
“Micah, you’re beginning to wear on me. He’s Nikki Turrin’s boss. Retired Marine officer. Alice Chandler was evasive. I got the impression that Nikki Turrin and her boss have started up one of those office romances and Chandler’s covering. I think she knows where they are, but she won’t—”
“Try Langley. Cather knows him.”
“Okay. You hang on—”
“I will.”
Fyke was at his side.
“What is it?”
“It’s Mandy. She’s been watching the commodities market. She thinks there’s something happening.”
“The American commodities market?”
“Yes.”
“Crikey. That was fast.”
“What do you mean?”
“We know Gospic, you and me, as well as anybody. He’s no fooking fanatic. This stunt, he did it for the money. That’s all he cares about. What happens if this poison he’s come up with, what happens if it really does go all the way down to the Mississippi, Mikey? And the word gets out?”
“The Illinois and the Mississippi water half the farmland in the Midwest. If a panic started—”
Mandy was back on the line.
“Micah?”
“Yes. Here.”
“I got her. She was thinking the same thing.”
“Which is what?”
“Why the video? Why put it out in the first place?”
“No idea. Gospic’s a sick—”
“Maybe. But he’s not stupid. We’ve seen a lot of proxy buyers on line. Out of Odessa, Russia, all over Eastern Europe. They’re locking down bids all up and down the U.S. commodities market. If it crashes, these buyers will make—God—billions—”
“Only if there’s a panic.”
“Of course there’ll be a panic, Micah. When word gets—”
“That’s my point. Have you got Nikki Turrin on the other line?”
“Yes—hold on.”
“Hello . . . Mr. Dalton?”
“Nikki. Is your boss there?”
A brief hesitation.
“Yes. He’s right . . . right here.”
“I need to talk to him.”
Muffled words, then a deep vibrato voice.
“Dalton, this is Hank Brocius. I’m the AD of RA. What’s up?”
“Sir, can the NSA monitor a whole sector of the grid? Everything going in or out?”
“Depends on the grid.”
“This would be Eastern Europe, the entire Adriatic seaboard.”
“Yeah, we could. We have that area pretty well covered.”
“If I could give you a list of specific grids—particular locations and websites and commo nets—could you lock them down? Nothing gets in or out. Their world goes dark.”
“How big a region are you talking about?”
“Maybe a city. Like Odessa. Kotor. The entire region.”
“That’s almost an act of war. That would need a presidential order.”
“How long would that take?”
“God. Maybe two hours. Maybe less.”
“It has to be done now. Right now.”
“I don’t have the authority—”
“I know. But do you have the power?”
“Yes. I mean, it could be done. The SURGE program could do—”
“Will you do it?”
“It’ll mean my job. Maybe prison. I’m gonna have to know why.”
Dalton told him.
44
Kotor, Montenegro
Branco Gospic, a heavy-bodied, slope-shouldered bull of a man, with cold gray eyes and a bald skull distorted into a chestnut shape by a near-miss mortar round, was sitting stiffly upright—his bullet-pocked belly would tolerate no other position—on an iron bench on the pillared balcony of his villa overlooking the Montenegrin coastal village of Kotor. The night was coming on, a cold, bleak night, with snow on the peaks and the cutting Bora winds ruffling the waters of the sound. Rain was misting the air. The lights of Kotor were on far below his balcony, and long rollers, driven by the Bora, were crashing into the breakwater that, in the summer, would be full of pretty girls and tourists. Tonight it was empty, as was the large old mansion behind him.
He had sent Poppa away. The old man was failing, and the recent troubles—the loss of much of their fortune, and the growing coldness between Gospic’s people and the Montenegrin officials who were his usual allies—had brought Poppa low. He had sunk into a confused state, and spent much of his time in a wooden chair, wrapped in a blanket, and staring out into the fjord, singing scraps of old songs from his youth.
So, Gospic sent him to Odessa, to stay with Larissa, while Gospic rebuilt his empire, which had been effectively dismantled by that . . . cop, Brancati. Gospic was winding it up here in Kotor. The place had become inhospitable. He had a lot of money still, freighted away in Geneva and with the Jews in New York. He had been forced to break his promise to spend Christmas in Savannah with Larissa. It was not safe for either of them in America. The stock market crash that he had expected to take place after the delivery of the poisoned soy milk to Chicago had not taken place. Although he had used his resources in the cyberworld to spread stories about the poisoning of the American heartland, the panic had not taken hold. And the Americans were saying . . . nothing. There had been no public response, no official denials.
It was as if the event had never happened.
It puzzled Gospic, and he would have to do something more—
“Mr. Gospic?”
He turned around, saw his old housekeeper standing there, her winter coat on, her bag in her hand.
“Yes, Irya.”
“I’m leaving now. Will you be all right?”
“Certainly. You go along.”
“The house is all closed down. Everyone has gone.”
She looked out across the bay, at the tall black peaks and the troubled water of the fjord, at the lights of the town, pale and watery in the rain.
“Will we come back here, Mr. Gospic?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where will we go?”
“For now, you go to Odessa, to be with Larissa and Poppa.”
“Will you come?”
“In a while. I have some things to do.”
She hesitated and then turned away.
“Good-bye, Mr. Gospic.”
“Good-bye, Irya.”
She was gone. Gospic waited a while, watching the night take hold of the fjord. Then he got up and walked over to the edge of the balcony, looking down over the city. It had been a good place.
But there were other—
“Long fall, isn’t it?”
Gospic turned around. There was a man standing in the darkened entrance to the mansion, a hard-faced man in a long navy blue overcoat, his hands by his side, his long blond hair whipping in the wind off the harbor. Gospic reached for the pistol he kept in his jacket pocket, and felt a hard blow, like a punch, in his belly. It knocked the wind out of him, his legs went rubbery, and he sat down hard on the bench. The stainless Colt he had been reaching for slipped out and clattered on the stones at his feet. He looked across the balcony at the man in the long blue coat.
“You’re Dalton,” he said, through pale lips, and fighting the weakness that was rising up from his legs. The man walked over, looked down at him. He was holding a Beretta pistol in his right hand.
“Yes,” he said. “She lived, you know.”
“Who?”
“The Italian w
oman. Cora Vasari.”
Gospic nodded. His eyelids were heavy.
“I heard. Everything went wrong when I went after her.”
“It went wrong before that.”
“Maybe. It should not have. There should have been a panic.”
“I know. The NSA picked out your buys. You shorted the commodities market worldwide. You stood to make billions in the panic.”
“Yes. But there was no panic.”
“No. It was the video. You shouldn’t have done that. It made no sense, unless there was no mutated bacteria at all. All you needed was the fear.”
“How did you know . . . ?”
Dalton made a gesture, taking in the night sky.
“The hills have eyes, Branco. In Muggia people watched. Men came every week to respray the decking. Why?”
Gospic shook his head. His belly was on fire but the rest of him was very cold. He made no sign. He would not give the man the satisfaction.
“To keep the vibrio alive,” said Dalton. “Every week, you had the deck sprayed with fresh bacteria. Otherwise, it would have died. That was why the vibrio was still active when the NSA got there. You put out the video knowing that the Americans would pick it up and investigate. When it comes to national security, we overreact. We do too much. One man runs through a security gate and the entire airport gets shut down for twelve hours. One accident in Long Beach and the economy slows for a month. How did you kill the people in the pool? It wasn’t the vibrio.”
Gospic stared up at the man, smiled a bloody smile.
“We have our secrets, we Serbs. Someday you will get your answer.”
Gospic closed his eyes. Opened them again.
The man was still there.
“Are you going to wait until I die?”
“No,” said Dalton, lifting the weapon. “I have better things to do.”
45
The Subito, Santorini, the Aegean Sea
Lujac came out onto the fantail with the drinks and found Marcus lying back on the lounge chair, smoking the colored cigarettes that Kiki had taken a fancy to after his long and memorable sojourn in the South China Sea. Marcus was beautiful, slender as a fencing foil, tanned, but with pale blue eyes in a rough Slavic face. His mouth had a hard turn to it that Kiki found very attractive. He was getting tired of the lazy, languid Greek boys who were always drifting around the Aegean Sea. They were like gazelles and gazelles bored him. He now found that he preferred the crocodiles.
Marcus was definitely a crocodile.
Marcus also liked it rough. Actually, Marcus made Kiki a little nervous, which, lately, was a feeling Kiki had become addicted to. Micah Dalton had eluded him—or he had eluded Dalton—and the money thing had come to nothing. But Kiki Lujac was still very rich, and he was still the Lovely and Talented. He gave Marcus his mojito, sipped at his.
The lights of Santorini Harbor were all around them, like a necklace of golden beads, and the air was warm, full of the scent of retsina and olives and salt water. Soft music was playing in a cantina, the sound of a tango drifting across the water. Marcus finished his drink and set it down.
“Kiki, let’s go inside.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Before you get drunk again.”
Kiki stretched himself, turning like a cat, sighed. He had the patience for another game. Soon Marcus would be sound asleep, and Kiki would have all night to do whatever he wanted to do with this wonderful young crocodile, because he had drugged the boy’s last mojito with Rufinol.
“Okay,” he said, draining his mojito. “Youth must be served. What do you want to do?”
“I want to tie you down.”
“Really. With what?”
“Your scarf.”
It was Italian silk, indigo, very long.
“I had a scarf like that once,” said Marcus.
“Did you,” said Kiki. “How nice. Come inside.”
They want inside. Soon, Kiki was wonderfully bound—throat, wrists, and ankles—in the indigo silk scarf. Kiki was naked, helpless, deliciously in the crocodile’s power, and very ready. Marcus stood beside the bed, weaving slightly, feeling a little dizzy, looking down at him.
“I had a scarf like that once. But I gave it away.”
“Really,” said Kiki, with a teasing flirtatious smile. “To a lover?”
“No,” said Marcus. “To my sister. Her name was Saskia.”