Influx

by Daniel Suarez

  She put the cup and saucer down. “Well, pardon me, Mike, but I like a bit less authoritarianism in my democracy. The BTC wasn’t put in charge of policing the world.”

  “Who’s to stop them?”

  “They might have advanced technology, but if we bring CIA, DOD, NSA, and DHS together—focus our collective efforts—we should be able to bring them to heel.”

  The NSA and CIA guys exchanged looks.

  “Good luck with that.”

  The NSA guy shook his head. “You’re forgetting that they provide a good deal of valuable intelligence to the three-letter crowd. Rumor is that they’ve made some serious advances in quantum computing and communications. Maybe even human-level AIs.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  CIA spoke grimly. “You’re not going to sneak up on them. They’ve compromised ECHELON, SWICS—just about everything. They’re in your network, too. Count on it. They’re reading your emails, Kaye.”

  The NSA man shrugged. “They seem to be able to break any code. That’s probably why they always seem to know about what’s going on and where. We need to keep them on our side.”

  “How would you even know if they are? I’ve heard that the BTC has splintered into overseas factions now.”

  “Look, you’re stirring up a shit storm.”

  Monahan frowned. “We need to find where they moved their operations, and we need to act.”

  The NSA guy just stared. “Knowing their base of operations isn’t going to help you.”

  “Of course it is. We could start monitoring their activities, just like they monitor ours. We could set up an air gap network they don’t know about. Another SAP.”

  “This is how it starts . . .”

  The NSA man sighed. “Knowing where they are didn’t help us.”

  “You know where they’re headquartered?”

  “Yeah. I’ll tell you: Their headquarters is in the middle of downtown Detroit. A forty-story building from the ’60s that’s so bland you barely see it.”

  “In Detroit?”

  “You wanna hide the world’s most advanced technology center where no one will find it—where else do you put it? But let me save you some headaches: They don’t communicate in the electromagnetic spectrum, or fiber, or any other technology known to us. We’ve had receivers focused on that building for decades. Nothing. So we tried to cut in. Did seismic work and found that their building goes sixty stories underground—that we know of.”

  “Sixty stories?”

  “That’s not all. Our whole team disappeared right after we scanned it. That same day the spy satellite we were focusing on them went AWOL. And then all the data we had on them disappeared from our network, too. Replaced by photos of our children asleep in bed—taken from inside our homes.”

  “We need to figure out some way to rein them in.”

  “Risky. You won’t find it in any reports, but this has been tried before. Talk to some retired directors. When it comes to the BTC, you’re not just playing with fire; you’re playing with plutonium, Kaye.”

  The CIA guy nodded. “Our science people estimate they have a fifty- to sixty-year technological edge. And it’s accelerating. But hey, look at the bright side: They’ve been smoothing out the bumps for more than fifty years now. And it doesn’t look like they’ll allow a nuclear war to take place—and don’t even ask why I know that because I can’t tell you. Suffice it to say that they’re keeping an eye on the long-term picture—do you want that job? Because I know I don’t. I’ve got my hands full just putting out fires.”

  “No one should have so much power.”

  “They already know what you’re up to.” He pointed at McAllen. “You sent Bill up there, and they gave you their answer.”

  At that they all turned to McAllen.

  Monahan drummed her fingers on the table. “Well, Bill, you’re the only one who’s seen this Graham Hedrick person. What’s your read on him?”

  McAllen stroked his chin. “I wouldn’t say I saw him, but I saw an image of him.”

  “All right then, what’s your read on that?”

  “He was full of himself. Didn’t seem the least bit concerned about what we did or did not do.”

  “What do you think will happen if we let them be?”

  McAllen took a deep breath. “I think their technological lead will grow, and they’ll be in a position to dictate the course of human events for generations to come. And I think that’s not okay. Not okay at all.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Rendezvous

  The Twins gave Davis the creeps. That’s what she’d taken to calling the nearly identical tall, blond, muscle-bound men with thick necks who supervised her on the special task force. They were, in fact, the only members of the task force she’d seen thus far. One was named Todd, the other Jason. In their mid- to late twenties, they nonetheless wielded authority as if they’d been born to it. As if those around them were truly their inferiors—like some FBI version of the Winklevoss twins. And she had never heard of twins working together in the FBI. These guys were clearly jacked in with Washington because they seemed to operate without having to clear things with anyone. Neither did they have budgetary problems. And they’d requisitioned her from the middle of preparations for a major public trial without so much as a peep from her bosses.

  She and the Twins were sitting in a suite of windowless offices in Columbia University’s International Affairs Building at the corner of Amsterdam and 118th Street—a ten-story concrete building that seemed to have been modeled on a steam radiator. It was located on the far side of the Morningside campus from where she was supposed to meet Grady. They’d kept a very low profile for the past two days.

  As Davis sat, bored, the Twins both talked on cell phones with unseen elements of the task force, finalizing details. Apparently they had people out there somewhere who were ready to back her up on a moment’s notice. Still, the asymmetry in information was alarming. They hadn’t told her a goddamn thing since she’d arrived.

  One of the Twins hung up. She could never tell them apart. Even when they reclarified their names, it quickly devolved into a game of “two-card monte” the moment they moved. She cleared her throat and looked at her watch. “So it’s seven thirty now. It’ll take me fifteen minutes to walk there; I need to be briefed.”

  Todd—or Jason—looked confused but then nodded. “Right. Agent Davis, we really just need you to go to the meet. You know the route to the Mathematics Library. You’ve seen the floor plan, and you’ve seen the photographs of the table you’re to sit at.”

  “Yes, but I was told he was a dangerous suspect.”

  Todd nodded. “Okay.” He shrugged. “Then be careful.”

  “I don’t know where my backup is. We haven’t gone over radio protocols, emergency signals—”

  “Not necessary.”

  She threw up her hands in exasperation. “I’d like a little reciprocity. I convinced this Grady guy to come here for a meeting. Now maybe you can tell me how the hell it is he’s still alive, and what that means to the very high-profile criminal prosecution I’m part of. I mean, I charged Richard Cotton with Grady’s murder, and now I’m going to meet Grady. Do you see why I might need to know what’s going on?”

  He gave her a blank look. “No.”

  “Toss me a bone, Todd. Or Jason.”

  “The only thing you need to know is that this is a matter of national security.”

  “I’ve been chasing Cotton for years. I need to know how he’s connected to Grady—how he’s really connected to him.”

  “It might interest you to know that the SAIC of the Newark office has recommended you for promotion. We can make sure you get transferred to Denver. Is that where Tracy is? Your girlfriend?”

  She was taken aback. “How do you know I want to be transferred to Denver? How do you know about Tra
cy?”

  He just stared at her. “Just do your job. Help us capture Mr. Grady without incident, and you’ll be well thought of in high places. And that’s how the world works. Are we clear, Agent Davis?”

  She just stared.

  “We have the math library wired. And we’ll have eyes on you at all times. Armed agents will be seconds away.”

  “But no one undercover in the library itself?”

  He shook his head. “Not necessary.”

  Another glance at her watch.

  “You probably won’t even meet him. We have spotters for blocks in every direction. The moment he appears, we’ll grab him.”

  Davis tried to think of any last questions. “And how do I know when it’s over?”

  “We’ll call your cell. Then we put you on a plane back to Chicago. You get promoted. And after the trial you get transferred to Denver, to live out your alternative American Dream.” He stared at her expectantly.

  She nodded absently.

  “Nice working with you.”

  • • •

  Davis had expected the Columbia University Mathematics Building to have an actual name. A name other than Mathematics Building. But apparently mathematicians weren’t as poetic as all that. Or no one had ponied up the dough for naming rights, and since it was one of the oldest buildings on campus—having been built in the 1890s—it was unlikely anyone would now.

  The building was a stately neoclassical four-story redbrick structure accented with granite. Davis had been able to discover that the Mathematics Library was a specialized collection—not part of the main campus library. It was also one of the few libraries on campus without ID check-in. This seemed relevant. Why Grady had chosen this place among all places to meet had preoccupied her and Falwell for quite some time, and this was a likely cause.

  While it was true Grady hadn’t attended Columbia, his business partner in Chirality Labs, Bertrand Alcot, had been head of the Columbia physics department for decades—his office not a hundred yards to the north in Pupin Hall. Grady no doubt spent time here on an unofficial basis—he was arrested for trespassing at one point. The charges were dropped, and that was probably due to the friendly intervention of Professor Alcot.

  Davis would have done more research, but the Twins didn’t seem to want her thinking any more than necessary.

  She glanced at her watch as she approached the building’s main entrance. Seven fifty-four. A few minutes early. She took a few moments to read an oxidized bronze plaque on the side of the building and was surprised to learn that this had been the site of the Battle of Harlem Heights in 1776. A valiant loss for George Washington. She wondered if other countries commemorated their losses.

  Edified, Davis entered and headed up the stairs and to the left. The math library was a modest utilitarian space, a long narrow room with desks and study tables running along a wall punctuated by tall, shaded windows that had a good view down onto Broadway. The stacks were toward the back and around the corner, dimly lit, narrow, and crammed, no doubt, with esoteric math tomes. A few computer workstations stood against the back wall, also unoccupied.

  The little library didn’t look popular, and early on a Tuesday morning, even less so. It was deserted. Davis could see the desk Grady had mentioned—across from a large gray metal breaker box. The table, like all the others, was unoccupied, and so she sat. A glance to the right and she realized anyone in buildings across the street would be able to see that she’d sat down. There were hundreds of windows across Broadway from which she’d be visible.

  Now what?

  She looked at her watch. Eight A.M. on the dot. How would he contact her? Would he contact her? Davis gazed around the library but didn’t see anyone—although she could hear a couple of older women (presumably staff) talking around the corner. She had to hand it to the Twins; there was no one within sight of her. She actually did feel like she’d come alone.

  Perhaps the task force had already grabbed Grady. How long would it take them to tell her if they had? Given the Twins’ attitude toward subordinates, she guessed quite a while. So she started gazing out the window—making sure her face was visible to anyone watching out there. She shifted restlessly in her chair.

  Then she heard a voice from close by.

  “Agent Davis. I’m glad you came.”

  She snapped a look forward and back but didn’t see anyone around her.

  “Down here. The vent near the floor.”

  Davis looked down beneath the table, where a Victorian cast-iron grate pierced the wall near the baseboard. She leaned down. “Mr. Grady?”

  “Yes.”

  She was impressed. “Apparently you know this building well. Is that why you called the meeting here—you didn’t trust me?”

  “It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s the BTC. They probably know by now that I’ve contacted you, and they’re probably watching.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “How would this BTC know? I haven’t told anyone about you.”

  “You ran lab tests. I think they probably have eyes on anything touching the Cotton case.”

  “How?”

  “Never mind how. I need you to listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Has anything strange happened since Chicago? Has anyone contacted you?”

  That gave her pause. In a moment she shook her head. “No.”

  “Good, but we still need to be careful.”

  “Okay.” She looked around. “Where are you? How do I get to you?”

  “We’ll have to assume they’re watching. So once you start—move fast. But listen carefully first: There’s an emergency stairwell door just to your left, next to the breaker box. Do you see it?”

  She saw a white metal door with a square fire-rated window in it across the room. “Yes.”

  “Go through that door. It’ll set off an alarm. Ignore it. Follow the stairs to the basement. Then go right. At the end of the hall you’ll see a huge steel door with rivets in it—something from a bygone era. It has a red sign on it that says, ‘No Unauthorized Access.’”

  “Okay.”

  “I left it unlocked for you. Go through it, and I’ll meet you on the other side. Move quickly, Agent Davis. Go now.”

  Despite herself Davis was starting to think that some one-on-one time with Grady away from the Twins’ task force was tempting. As crazy as Grady sounded, he was clearly important to folks in Washington, and she needed to know what his real connection was to Cotton. Maybe somebody was taking crazy people and using them to cover up something. But then there was always the chance that this was an ambush arranged by the Winnowers . . .

  “Before I do that, I have one question, Mr. Grady . . .”

  • • •

  Controller Mu-Tau manned a holographic surveillance system in the tactical operations center at the BTC Detroit office. Before him was a holographic projection of the entire Columbia University Mathematics Library, with a miniature Denise Davis leaning forward at a study desk, as though inside a living dollhouse. Invisible audio-video nanoparticles had been sprayed into a network across the walls and ceiling of the room days before, giving him the ability to view every inch of the place in a live feed at submillimeter detail. He had a series of sound equalizers showing dozens of audio sources coming in from every vector.

  He spun the image around and spoke through his q-link to the harvester team he was supporting. “Alpha, be advised; Davis is speaking with someone.”

  A voice came over the q-link, the metadata for the transmission automatically identifying the speaker—it was Eta-Kappa. “TOC, there’s no one else in the room.”

  Mu zoomed in to make Davis grow life-size in front of him. There was still perfect clarity. He spun the image around and saw that she was definitely talking to someone. He brought up the volume.

  “Where are you planning o
n going?”

  “Look, now is not the time to have this conversation. Just do what I asked.”

  Mu shook his head and spoke into his q-link. “Negative, Alpha, I’m telling you she’s already talking with him.” An alert appeared on his screen. “AI just gave a positive match on Grady’s voice. The target subject is in contact.”

  “TOC, we’re scanning every radio frequency. There are a couple of cell phones in the room, a Wi-Fi a few doors down, but no transmissions, encrypted or otherwise.”

  Mu flipped the image to infrared and saw only Davis’s heat source. Then he flipped it to ultraviolet. No one hiding with diffraction gear. “I don’t see any invisible objects, but I’m telling you, he’s talking with her. He’s right there. He’s got some advanced tech we don’t know about.”

  Mu turned to another holographic display showing a 3D real-time video map of the campus outside the Mathematics Building in miniature, with the locations of all the nearby BTC agents, marked with blue dots, as well as civilians moving about. Eta was tagged in an office on the top floor of the Mathematics Building, along with half a dozen other operators. There were no gaps in the perimeter.

  “I’m telling you, he’s there. Jam all wireless communications in a quarter-mile radius, and cordon off the building. Teams Alpha, Charlie, and Echo, move in. Clear every room and maintain a perimeter. No one goes in or out. Nox everyone you come in contact with, and secure both Davis and Grady when you find them. Do you copy?”

  “Echo copies, TOC.”

  “Alpha copies.”

  “Charlie copies.”

  “Execute, execute, execute.”

  As the blue dots converged on the library, Mu looked to the surveillance hologram. Agent Davis sprang up from the desk and ran to the stairwell door. “Be advised, Davis is leaving the library at speed”—he flipped to the building’s own (much poorer quality) security cameras—“moving down stairwell two.”

  “Copy that, TOC.”

  • • •

  As Davis sprinted down the uneven stone steps, she winced against the piercing emergency door alarms. She kept going down—two floors into the basement. A glance up told her there were cameras, but she ignored them.