by Thomas Locke
They were seated at a scarred dining table. The restaurant chairs were cheap metal and vinyl. The windows overlooked the parking lot and the highway interchange. Charlie’s plate was chipped. But the food was excellent, and the place held a sense of anonymous security.
Trent pushed his plate to one side and began drawing designs on his paper mat. “Ever since the disease was proven to have mutated from cattle to humans, the CJD variant has become the most carefully studied molecule on earth. They discovered that this variant molecule possesses remarkable characteristics when electric or magnetic currents are applied. Which is why physicists began considering it as a base module for quantum computing. My goal was simple enough. We already know how the molecule becomes restructured. So why not repeat the process? Only this time, redesign the molecule so that it better suits our purposes.”
Charlie leaned against the side wall and cradled his recharged coffee mug. The warmth rose through his hands. He felt himself gradually becoming reanchored in the here and now. And yet he still felt Gabriella’s warmth and her strength, such that everything appeared rimmed by a special glow.
Elene asked Trent, “It never occurred to you that you might be introducing such a cataclysmic threat?”
“Not at all.” Trent sounded very firm. But the hand drawing designs on the tabletop shook ever so slightly.
Charlie sipped from his mug. The way Trent contained his anxiety suggested he would remain cool under fire. And Charlie was fairly certain their task was going to require a hike through Indian country. All he said was, “Explain.”
“Like I said, CJD has undergone intense scrutiny. There is only one way that the disease can be transmitted. The human must ingest the brain or spinal cord of an infected bovine carcass. In the lab, the molecule is locked within ultra-tight containers. In a quantum computing station, this includes supercooled conditions and, in many cases, further isolation through strong magnetic fields. No outside influence of any kind can be permitted to impact the molecule.”
Charlie said, “But you changed the molecule. And now the disease is airborne. And able to eat its way through any container.”
Trent continued to draw designs on the paper mat. “We need a bomb. A big one.”
Elene shook her head. “Won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Your work and the project I was assigned to are sealed inside a cube that defines bomb-proof. Setting off a device would only alert the opposition. They’d come swarming. We’d be overwhelmed.”
Charlie said, “There was this beast from Greek mythology. Chop off one of its heads, seven more grow back.”
“It was called the Lernaean Hydra,” Elene said. “Killing the beast was the second labor of Hercules. He used a harvesting sickle to sweep off the heads faster than they could grow back, and his nephew Iolaus used fire given to them by the goddess Athena to scorch the neck stumps after each decapitation.”
Both men were watching her now. Elene shrugged. “What can I say. I was a career analyst. I lived for research until I came up with the bright idea of joining their team. Now look at all the fun I’m having.”
Trent turned back to Charlie. “We can’t let them do this.”
“That’s right, we can’t. But we have to fight smart,” Charlie said. “All of the images we’re receiving carry multiple messages, if we’re willing to look beneath the surface. Finding a deeper significance doesn’t make the initial message a lie. It enriches it. Makes it resonate on a whole new level.”
They were both watching him now.
“Take the money you’re making from these algorithms.” Charlie related Elizabeth’s confrontation with her family, the five million dollars, the realtor, the trip she and Shane were now making.
Trent said, “I don’t follow you.”
“Listen to what I’m saying. Elizabeth didn’t ask about buying an island. She was after a place with sovereignty.”
“You mean, like a country?”
“Effectively a place that can make its own law, yes. These days, most such places are used as tax havens. But there is one other issue. One that might be of crucial importance.”
Elene was nodding now. “Extradition.”
“Right. Going after a criminal who lives in a different country requires a treaty. Otherwise the laws of one country don’t apply in the other, and a person cannot be brought back to stand trial.”
Trent frowned over the prospect. “So now we’re criminals.”
“Not yet,” Charlie replied. “But if things work out the way I expect them to, we soon will be.”
62
Reese did not have an office as such. Offices were intended for private meetings and status and paperwork. Reese despised all three. She wanted power, and she wanted to exercise it with a team she trusted. An office played no part in her personal remit. The room they had assigned to her was used by Jeff and his security detail. Jeff assumed it meant Reese considered his work to be vital and wanted to establish that publicly. She let him think what he wanted.
She met with two of her team members in the dining area of the building’s main gallery. She did not try to hide what she was doing. She had no intention of creating rivalry within her group.
Reese Clawson was after taking it to the next level.
“You don’t have to do this. You’re not getting any special perks. This is just a question. A what-if. If it resonates, fine. If it doesn’t, we go back to the status quo. Are we clear on this?”
Joss was seated at the head of the table. He faced the room and the entrances. Typical for a frontline warrior. “You sound like a general asking me to go out and get shot at.”
She liked that enough to smile. “You are one sharp guy.”
“Is that a yes?”
“There could be danger. But we won’t know unless we try.”
Consuela demanded, “Where are the others?”
“This project only needs two of you. If either of you doesn’t want to do this, I’ll go find someone else. Or try to. But I wanted to ask you first.”
“Why?”
“Call it a gut reaction. I think you’re right for the task.”
Which was both true and not true. Reese had originally planned on pairing Eli with Joss. But the youngest member of her transit team had remained isolated and frightened since Elene’s disappearance. As though having someone show him the exit had left him severely rattled.
When she had gone looking for Eli about this mission, Reese found him standing in the clinic’s hallway, staring at the empty bed. The formerly comatose patient had been moved to a private room on the ground floor. He was being kept away from the others and under heavy sedation, because every time he came fully awake, he freaked in an extremely noisy fashion. Eli had glanced over at her approach, then gone back to staring through the glass, studying the empty bed as though sizing it up for himself. Reese had left the clinic without speaking, filled with a burning urge to hunt down Elene Belote and stake her to the earth.
She kept her voice level as she said, “I’m looking for two people who can move in total harmony.”
“I like that part,” Joss said.
Consuela huffed. “Dream on.”
Reese said, “We face an outside threat from a team in Switzerland. We don’t know how far they’ve taken this. And to be honest, we don’t care. The threat is enough.”
Joss said to Consuela, “Here we go.”
“I want to know if it’s possible for my team to take them out.” Reese stopped. And waited. She found herself fighting against a sudden attack of nerves. Whether it was because she was crazy to ask, or because she was finally drawing near to her goal, or because she feared a flat turndown, she could not say.
Joss said, “So we’re basically your sniper-spotter team.”
Consuela said, “We’re what?”
“Simple combat structure. One goes on the attack. The other reads the terrain, checks the wind and elevation and everything else that impacts the strike, and wa
tches for incoming fire.”
“I’m hearing,” Consuela said. “But I’m not tracking.”
Reese said, “Joss is absolutely correct. I’m asking if you two would go out as a team.”
Joss said, “Excuse me for asking. But it seems kind of weird, going on the hunt when we don’t have firepower. Not to mention any way to carry it if we did.”
“We don’t know that.”
Joss smiled. It was a warrior’s grin. A drawing back of every facial muscle, exposing the raw power of a man who knew the business of death. “You been giving this some thought.”
“Your first time out, you scope the terrain. You go in and you look around. You do not initiate contact. And you see if there is any way to make an attack. You ask this. Or I will ask it for you. You’ve seen how shaping the question often supplies an answer.”
“Like it’s already there before we ask.” Joss nodded. “I can dig it.”
Reese resisted the urge to gouge her fingernails into the table. “Does that mean you’re in?”
Joss looked across the table. “What do you say, babe?”
“First of all, ese, I’m not anybody’s babe.”
He just grinned harder. “Always did like my food spicy.”
Consuela flipped her hair at him. And gave Reese such a cold eye, she was certain Consuela was going to turn her down flat.
Instead, Consuela demanded, “I don’t like this business of him doing all the sniper stuff and me just hanging back watching.”
Joss laughed out loud.
“You think this is funny?”
“What I think,” Joss said, “is we oughtta go with the lady, take this deal to the next level.”
Reese was already rising from her chair. “Let’s give this a shot.”
Reese personally helped Karla ready Joss and Consuela for transit. She asked her aide to go call Jeff and Kevin and ask them to come observe a new type of transit. Reese then clicked off the mike connecting them to the lounge. She wanted to send Joss and Consuela off with an intimacy that she hoped would hold them to the course, keep them steady enough to do the job and get home. After she had repeated the instructions they had already gone through upstairs, she said, “The most important goal of all is the same now as every time. Come home.”
“Roger that.” Joss looked at Consuela. “I hope you’re listening, sister.”
“Five by five.” She glanced over. “Did I say that right?”
He reached over, offering her a fist. “Just like the pro you are.”
She did the fist-on-fist thing. “My man.”
“I wish.”
This time she smiled as she said, “You never give it a rest, do you.”
“Always ready, always armed,” Joss said.
“Yeah. Like you think you could handle this.”
“You better believe it.”
“Huh. Like I haven’t heard that line. A billion times, maybe more.”
“Only this time it’s for real.”
Reese watched the banter and knew they were using the words to knit together, get ready, amp up. She also knew she was being excluded. This was them on the front line, her seated up there in the glass box, watching from a safe distance. And there was nothing she could do about it.
Finally Joss turned to her and said, “How come you don’t go hunting yourself?”
Reese tasted the air with the tip of her tongue. “I want to. But I can’t.”
“No offense.”
“None taken.”
“It’s just, you don’t strike me as an officer who’s comfortable hanging back in the Green Zone while her troops are out taking fire.”
“I’m not.” She noticed faces appearing in the glass overhead. Reese reached over and switched off the monitor linking them to the Departures Lounge. “I want to go. I want it so bad it hurts. The people you’re going after stole something from me.”
Consuela said, “This crew in Switzerland? What did they take?”
“My confidence. And a whole lot more.” Reese considered the lovely young woman. “Maybe, just maybe, if you are successful, I’ll be able to take back what I lost. And then transit with you.”
Consuela turned to the man stretched out beside her. “Time we go straighten these people out.”
63
Charlie found what he was searching for five miles inland from the university. These neighborhoods formed a poor borderland that supplied cleaners and yardmen and hourly shop workers to the airport and industrial parks and university. The house had been built cheaply in the fifties and poorly maintained ever since. It was divided down the middle. One side had a “For Rent” sign planted in the front yard. The other section belonged to an elderly woman with shockingly orange hair.
When she appeared, Charlie pointed at the second rental sign taped to the neighboring screen door. “Is your place still vacant?”
The woman studied him through the screen, then said, “Step away from my door.”
When he did so, she squinted at the car parked in her drive. “They gonna stay here with you?”
“They are. Yes.”
“I don’t run no rooms-by-the-hour place.”
“I understand.” Charlie motioned at the car. Elene and Trent opened their doors and walked over. Charlie said, “We’re looking for somewhere quiet.”
The woman was a stick figure who wore her skin like a dress made for someone three times her size. The screen mesh and the house’s shadows made it difficult to determine her age. Charlie figured her for about two hundred and six. She paused long enough to light a long cigarette with a fist-sized lighter in a knitted cover. “There gonna be just the three of you?”
“We may have a few others join us. Just visiting. They won’t stay long.”
The woman had Charlie fit the money through her mail slot. She counted it twice. “Rent’s due at the first of each month. I ain’t got time for slackers. If you’re a day overdue, you’re out.”
Charlie thanked her, then lowered his hand to the mail slot so she could drop him the keys.
He unlocked the front door, stepped inside, and surveyed the water-stained wallpaper, the flyblown window, the scarred floorboards, the weak lighting from the living room ceiling’s single bulb. The sofa’s burn marks were only partly covered by a fake Navajo blanket. He declared, “This place is perfect.”
Elene moved swiftly through the place, opening windows. Trent grabbed a broom and began sweeping the dusty floors. Charlie walked back outside and down the front steps, surveying the terrain. A passing pickup truck slowed, and two sweat-streaked Latinos studied him. Charlie met their gaze until Elene opened the screen door behind him and said, “Coffee’s ready.”
Charlie walked up the front steps and accepted the mug. “Are you clear on what needs doing?”
“I follow the instructions on the iPod. I transit.”
“Ascend.”
Elene nodded once, a terse acceptance of more than just the word. “I ascend. I ask if there is a means for us to safely enter the building. I return.”
“Any danger, any fear, any concern of any kind, you stop and you return. Safety is number one. Remember that.”
She gave another tight nod. “Will you stay there in the room with me?”
“Right through it all,” Charlie said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
64
When Reese returned upstairs to the control room, she found that Kevin and Jeff had joined them. Eli had apparently followed them over from the clinic. Eli carried himself like a scared teenage runaway, slipping from one shadow to another, aware that any gaze cast his way could carry danger. Wanting to see, and wanting to escape notice. Reese sighed and turned to the controls. She could murder that Elene.
Reese did not risk speaking to Karla until she was certain the rage was fully suppressed. “Ready?”
“Monitors up and running. Transit tape ready to go on your word.”
Reese keyed the mike. “Okay, here we go.”
; She ran through the instructions one more time. She saw Consuela say something under her breath, and Joss huff a laugh. She checked her sharp rebuke. That flirtatious attitude might just be the thing that would bring them back. She simply continued through the instructions and finished with, “We’re beginning the count now.”
Ten minutes later, it was over. Reese did not move, did not even release the microphone button, until she saw them both open their eyes.
Karla whispered, “They’re back.”
Reese knew Kevin and Jeff had moved up behind her chair. She could see their reflection in the glass. Eli remained in the rear corner.
She shifted in her chair, took a breath, and realized her muscles had locked. She tried to hide the wince as she worked her neck. But Kevin noticed anyway. “You okay?”
“Just tense.”
“I believe it.”
Jeff, however, was ebullient. “This could be some serious voodoo.”
“If it works,” Kevin added. “You were actually expecting them to go out and find weapons?”
“Maybe.” Reese pushed herself upright. “I have to talk to them.”
Downstairs, she held back while Karla disengaged the monitor cables. Joss and Consuela both exuded the same mixture of determined calm and suppressed tension they had shown before transiting. When Karla coiled the cables and stepped back, Reese clicked on the mike so they could hear in the other room, then said, “Joss first.”
“It was just like you instructed. I went in. Scoped the place out. And when you said find a weapon, it was there.”
She resisted the urge to turn and look up through the window. “Describe.”
“Hard to say. Like a ball of fire. Or smoke. But it wasn’t a bomb. Like, it was, but not . . .”
Reese gripped her arms around her middle. Reining in her impatience. “Take your time.”
“It was more like a feeling. All these bad things wound up tight together.” Joss looked at her, uncertain. “Tell the truth, it was like I had made it myself.”
Reese nodded. As though she understood.
“Rage and a lot of other stuff. All bundled up tight. Waiting for me to toss it out. Then, boom.”