by Ward Larsen
“NSA,” he said.
“Naturally,” said a pleased Patel.
“So META is run by the government.”
“The government,” Patel spat. “Our government is nothing but a behemoth, a beast that feeds and grows, and becomes so large it cannot even see itself. META is but a lost grain of sand, a program canceled before the people who paid for it even realized what was in their grasp. As of today, the program is officially dead, along with nearly everyone who had knowledge of it.”
“So my abilities are going to shut down soon?”
Patel smiled broadly. “Quite the opposite,” he said, “and therein lies the elegance of what I’ve created. You must understand, the NSA processes fifty petabytes of information every day … fifty petabytes. That’s an amount of data few people can grasp, save for the armies of analysts who do the sorting. What I have given you and Delta is unique. Not only do you have a connection to NSA, you have the highest priority access for cyber, on par with only a handful of people. The president, the director of national intelligence. The heads of CIA and NSA. In recent years great efforts have been made to expedite high-level requests, to hack into servers and get near-instantaneous results. It’s called tailored access operations. I was granted permission to install META under the guise of a DOD experiment, to explore the feasibility of bringing such near real-time access to Special Forces operatives in the field—it would be the greatest advance in weaponry since gunpowder.”
“A weapon,” said DeBolt. “That’s how you envision META?”
“Not at all. That was how General Benefield saw it, and the reason I was granted access. On paper, the project has ended, and by all appearances it has. Even I no longer have the ability to manipulate the software—it is now air-gapped, completely out of my hands. But deep within the NSA’s tailored access architecture, inside the most capable servers on earth, the code I implanted endures in utter silence.”
“And on the outside?”
“You and Delta are the only benefactors.”
DeBolt looked obviously at Patel’s weapon. “So what’s the point of that?”
Patel sighed forlornly. “I never expected two successes from our first four trials. Honestly, I predicted that META’s next phase, which was another year away, would be the first chance for a subject to survive the surgery. I wish I could work with you, study your abilities. But it’s simply not possible. Given what you know … the risk is far too great.”
A metallic clatter sounded somewhere down a hallway, the noise reverberating under the high ceilings. Patel’s eyes never wavered.
DeBolt said, “So you’ll eliminate me—like all the others. But what about Delta? He’s a killer, a madman. Why choose him as the test subject for your perverse experiments?”
“For one good reason—he will always do as I say.”
DeBolt was baffled by Patel’s answer, yet he sensed an opening. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, then said, “Tell me about Delta. How could anyone control him?”
* * *
His patience finally paid off.
Delta watched the thinning crowd in the aisle. Another minute, two at the most, he could finish what he’d come to do. The woman was still there, alone now in the last row. She’d glanced over her shoulder a minute earlier, her eyes actually passing over him. But there had been no recognition. Like any good predator, Delta could tell when his prey had been alerted.
He began edging away from the alcove, closing in. His hands lifted out of the pockets of his overcoat.
Then the most peculiar thing happened.
* * *
Patel lowered the gun ever so slightly, but DeBolt was still too far away to cross the divide and wrestle it away. So he waited. He listened.
“Delta?” Patel said derisively. “He is my idiot savant. A thug born in a uniform who now takes his orders from me. Right now he has Miss Lund cornered not a hundred yards from where we stand.”
DeBolt shuddered inwardly. “Shannon … she’s here?”
“Of course. We brought her here, in very much the same way we brought you.”
DeBolt remembered the message as if it were still in his visual field:
META CHIEF PROGRAMMER, DR. ATIF PATEL
CURRENT LOCATION: VIENNA, AUSTRIA
“You manipulated what I saw.”
“Not me. META is embedded now, so I no longer have access. Delta took care of it—he does everything I tell him to do.”
“But why? What hold do you have over him?”
“You haven’t spoken to him, have you?”
“We’ve crossed paths twice, but they weren’t exactly social encounters. He did send me a message directly through META.”
Patel smiled with satisfaction. “Another success—intranetwork messaging. You see, Delta is no longer on speaking terms with anyone. He has lost his ability for speech—a complete mute.”
“Because of the META surgery? What was implanted in his head?”
“That’s what he believes. I’ve told him his loss is reversible, and that in time I can find a surgeon who will repair the damage. It gives him great hope.”
“But it’s not true.”
“Not at all. The implantation procedures were performed by Dr. Abel Badenhorst, a very capable surgeon—he also did your work. He assured me that Delta’s speech loss was entirely the result of the accident that brought him to us. It was an explosion, a combat injury that nearly killed him. The damage to his frontal lobe was significant, and it robbed him of his ability to communicate. It can never be repaired. ‘Complete verbal apraxia,’ I think was the term Badenhorst used. Yet Delta believes in me. He is amazed by what I’ve given him, and each day I teach him more about operating META to its full effect. He will do what I ask—my army of one, connected to the most capable, intrusive computer servers on earth.”
“Aren’t you worried he’ll learn that you’re lying to him?” DeBolt asked.
“How could he? I tell him I am coordinating with great surgeons, devising a plan to reverse the damage. But such things take time. A year, maybe two. At that point I won’t need him any longer.”
“Why not?”
“Because I will have transferred META to its new owner.”
“New owner?”
“Of course. I’ve known from the outset that META’s prospects in the U.S. were limited. The surgery is extensive, revising multiple lobes of a subject’s brain to permit both visual and aural signals, not to mention subvocalization—that’s the ability to transfer your thoughts to the screen in your right eye. It involves circuitry in your head, and a biologically sourced power supply. All very invasive, and entailing considerable risk.”
“Alpha and Charlie are proof of that.”
“There, you see? Moral outrage. Most Americans would shudder at the concept, call it human experimentation. Fortunately, I ran across General Benefield, a man with the right connections, and whose ambition outweighed his sense of ethics. He procured the window I needed into NSA. Mind you, it could never be permanent. Five years, perhaps ten, and someone will uncover my architecture and remove it. It doesn’t matter. Years ago, as I formulated the concept, I sent inquiries to colleagues in a select group of nations, asking if their governments might have an interest in pursuing such work. The NSA’s networks would no longer be at my disposal, but Russia and China have parallel, if somewhat less effective agencies. Their responses were enthusiastic to say the least. And now I have Delta to prove the concept—my living, breathing, technology demonstrator.”
“Russia and China? You’re going to sell this madness to the highest bidder?”
“Certainly. Delta—and by some accident, you—are merely the beginning. You are the beta-test versions, as we might say at Cal. In two, perhaps three years, I’ll have a veritable army of operatives like you in development elsewhere.”
DeBolt held steady. As Patel talked, he let his eyes wander across the entrances of the great hall. He had to keep the man talking. “So this is all about m
oney. You would sell out your country? Perform experiments on others like you did on me? On Delta?”
“Your patriotism falls hollow on me, Bravo. I was born in the United States, but what does that mean for a man whose skin is as dark as mine? My parents came from India, and worked day and night to give me an education. I played by all the rules, worked and studied hard, but I still heard the whispers behind my back, heard so-called friends laughing at me. America might be my homeland, but I have always felt like an outcast … so if it is harmed by my work, I will suffer no remorse.”
“An outcast? Just like Delta will be for the rest of his life? The difference, I suppose, is that he doesn’t know it.” DeBolt then very deliberately repeated his earlier words. “He will learn that you’re lying to him.”
Patel was silent for a moment. His gaze went taut as he analyzed what DeBolt had just said. How he had said it.
Both men heard a door burst open somewhere in the great hall.
61
Lund could breathe again. The big man behind her had abruptly turned and left.
Had he been waiting for Patel’s speech like the rest? She had noticed him a few minutes ago when she’d turned around. Even half hidden behind a wall he was hard to miss—broad chested in a full-length coat, his face and head obscured by a hat tilted low. Was it the man from the station? She’d caught only a glimpse of him then, little more than a meaty face behind an outstretched gun. There was also the grainy picture Jim Kalata had sent, the one that had mysteriously been wiped from her phone.
Was it him, or am I only seeing ghosts?
She’d been worried enough to keep watching the man—on the column in front of her seat was a polished steel chair rail, and in its reflection she’d watched him closely. It was imprecise, like surveillance using a funhouse mirror, but if the man moved she would know it. And move he had.
She’d watched him shoulder away from the alcove and step slightly closer. Lund had no weapon, but she knew there was an exit at the other end of the room. She was seconds from bolting when the man had gone still. He didn’t move for nearly a minute, then rushed away in a flurry of coattails and felt. He was surprisingly quick for a big man, and left the room with a purpose. She’d caught but one direct glimpse as he disappeared out the door, the back of his coat and hat, an amorphous dark mass turning left into the outer hallway.
That had been two minutes ago.
Lund got up slowly, no longer concerned about the appearance of Dr. Patel. She went to the entrance, leaned carefully out into the corridor, and looked left.
She saw no sign of the man in the overcoat.
* * *
DeBolt and Patel spotted him at the same time.
Delta.
The two remained a few paces apart along the high balustrade, a grand seating box from which emperors and queens had watched the Riding School’s stallions parade through routines.
Delta had emerged from a side entrance, and he was coming at them now. Slowly and deliberately, like a machine building steam. He took an angle that stranded them, penning Patel and DeBolt between two ornate walls and the gilded balcony railing. Effectively blocking the only way out. Delta came to a stop, and for the first time DeBolt saw expressiveness in the killer’s face. But what was it? Pain? Anger? Whatever the source, it was hateful and murderous … and fixed very clearly on Patel.
“What is wrong?” Patel asked. He looked at DeBolt. “What have you done?”
“You should know,” said DeBolt. “You gave me the ability to transmit audio in real time. How does it work? The cochlear implant you mentioned? I actually researched that. It’s essentially a microphone, and using META I can upload sounds for analysis—words to be translated or voiceprinted. A very useful function.”
Patel’s gaze switched back to Delta.
“He heard everything you said,” DeBolt assured him. “He deserves to know the truth.”
Delta took a step toward Patel.
“No! It’s not like that at all! I can repair your speech … if anyone can, it’s me! I promise you, I will never stop working until you are made whole.”
Delta kept coming, and soon the three men formed a perfect triangle. All at once, Patel seemed to remember the gun in his hand. Synapses connected, and signals were sent through his unaltered brain. He lifted the gun until it was level on the assassin’s chest. “Stop!”
Delta kept coming.
Patel fired, the sound of the shot thundering through the great hall.
DeBolt saw a tiny explosion on Delta’s chest, smoke and a confetti-like burst of fabric. The killer only moved faster. Patel got off three more rounds, all striking Delta in the torso, before the two men met chest to chest. Delta wrapped his massive arms around Patel and began to squeeze. The engineer flapped his arms and legs as he was lifted completely off the ground. He gave a visceral scream, desperation echoing through the hall, and then all the air seemed to go out of him. His mouth remained wide in agony, but no further sounds came. DeBolt heard a terrible crackling sound, like a dozen tiny balloons popping, and Patel seemed to fold in half, his head bending back toward his heels.
The assassin’s face was red with rage, his mouth open in a soundless scream as he lifted the lifeless engineer over his head and threw him over the rail. Patel’s body thumped onto the dirt floor three floors below, his spine creased at an impossible angle.
DeBolt quickly spotted the gun on the floor nearby. With one step, it was directly at his feet, yet he made no attempt to bend down and retrieve it. Strangely, Delta didn’t try to intercept him. Instead, he moved back to where he’d been moments ago—a position to block any escape. With the gun at his feet, DeBolt kept his eyes on Delta. Patel had struck the killer with multiple rounds—DeBolt had seen the bullets strike home—yet he appeared uninjured. But he wasn’t invulnerable.
Body armor, thought DeBolt. It was the only explanation. If DeBolt took a shot, he would have to aim for the head. But that wasn’t what he wanted. He ignored the weapon and tried to read Delta. Whatever frenzy had possessed him was gone, and DeBolt was again looking at an expressionless mask. “There’s no need for us to be against each other,” he said. “Patel was the enemy. You and I … we didn’t ask for any of this.”
He waited. Delta didn’t respond. No nod, no shoulder shrug. No transmission through META.
“We both served our country,” said DeBolt. “We’re on the same side.”
The big man looked at him thoughtfully, as if weighing what DeBolt was saying.
“You and I are casualties of META—none of this was for our benefit. I only want it to end, and I think you do too. No one else on earth can appreciate what you’ve been through—not like I do. I understand!”
Finally, Delta opened his mouth, and without making a sound he mouthed three words DeBolt could easily read: No, you don’t.
DeBolt saw the big man tense, saw his body lower slightly, like a massive cat ready to lunge. DeBolt looked down at the weapon, and when he did his spirits sank. The gun’s slide had locked back. Which meant it was empty.
62
Delta came at him fast.
Without a weapon, DeBolt knew he had little chance against the assassin in close quarters combat. He took the only way out. With one great stride back, he vaulted over the rail behind him.
Delta’s hand swiped at his shoulder as DeBolt launched into the air. He dropped twenty feet, his arms outstretched for balance as he tried to set for a landing: legs together, knees bent, ready to roll onto a hip. Thankfully the dirt was soft, but he hit hard and his right knee buckled in a bad way.
The pain was excruciating, and DeBolt instinctively grabbed his leg. He looked up and saw Delta leaning over the rail. For a moment he thought the killer might follow, but then he seemed to realize DeBolt was injured. He disappeared, his heavy boots stomping across marble.
With Patel’s body right next to him, DeBolt rolled away and tried to get to his feet. His first attempt failed as a bolt of pain shot through his leg. Th
e sound of Delta’s footsteps thundering down a staircase made him try again. He managed to stand, and at a glance saw only one exit from the dirt riding floor. DeBolt hobbled toward it and fell shoulder-first into what looked like a barn door.
He burst out into daylight.
* * *
Lund was cautious as she canvassed the halls of the Hofburg Vienna, increasingly convinced that she was right—the man who’d been standing behind her in the conference room was the killer. The assassin she’d seen for an instant at the Bundespolizei station. Could he really be responsible for Boston as well? Kodiak? Her cautionary detective’s instincts told her it was improbable that one man could have managed it all. Almost as improbable as human minds networking with computers.
Strangely she wasn’t fearful. He had left hurriedly, and Lund could think of only one reason for him to do so—a more important target had arisen. Trey? she wondered. Or perhaps Dr. Patel?
She moved more quickly down a long hallway, and rounded the castle chapel. She went through doors that led nowhere, and apologized to two Hofburg employees when she interrupted a meeting in an office. Her pace quickened as her conviction hardened. Trey, Patel, the killer. They were all here, somewhere.
Lund was nearly on a dead run when she entered the National Library. Thinking this had to be wrong, she backtracked. That was when the first crack rang down the hall. Lund froze, immediately recognizing the sound as gunfire. After a pause, a volley of three more rounds came in quick succession. She spun a circle at the intersection of four hallways as the report of the shots bounded amid walls and arched ceilings. Which direction had it come from? Finding the source inside these cavernous halls was like trying to trace a lone spark in a burst of fireworks.