“Cute kids,” Speers said, pointing to the only photograph in the entire office. The picture, unframed and taped to the bottom of a monitor, showed Carver in an orange river raft with two cherub-like kids under his arms. “Whose are they?”
“My sister’s,” Carver smiled. They lived with Carver’s sister in Flagstaff, Arizona, about 80 miles from his parents’ cattle ranch in Joseph City.
After the Ulysses Coup, as the American media had taken to describing the mutiny that had nearly toppled the American government the previous year, Carver had spent two days recovering in Walter Reed Hospital. He had then attended the funeral of his late partner, Megan O’ Keefe, before heading out to Arizona for some much-needed rest.
He avoided all news and let his messages go unanswered for days at a time. As always, the first couple of days had been hard. His parents and extended family thought he was a contracting specialist for the State Department. He had to make his life in Washington seem like the most boring, milquetoast existence possible so they wouldn’t ask too many questions. And then there were the excuses. For all the weddings, anniversaries and birthdays he had missed while working abroad. He was so tired of being the bad son, the irresponsible uncle.
But he had gotten past that. He had been there for his father’s birthday for the first time in years. And he had taken his niece and nephew fishing on Lake Mary, and they had caught their limit of Northern Pike. It had been good to reconnect. Just being around his own blood had been good for the soul. They were so normal. So happy.
He had grown tired of Washington. With the exception of Speers, everyone he knew was either single, or wanted to be single so they could spend more time on their careers. Carver hated it, but knew he was just as guilty. He had never married. Never been engaged. The manner in which he had chosen to serve his country required keeping the people he loved at a distance.
Now he stood in the hallway outside his own office. “How are the twins?”
“Sweet when I’m home,” Speers said, “But all I hear about when I’m gone is how much they cry. How they won’t nap at the right times. How she can’t get anything done.”
“Maybe she just wants you home more.”
“We’re not here to talk about my personal life. Come in and close the door.”
Carver did so reluctantly. His office was about the size of a large walk-in closet.
Speers pulled a purple lollipop from his pocket and began unwrapping it. “You handled that briefing well today.”
“What do you want, Julian?”
“To give you a compliment.”
“You must want something. My target in Rome is missing, and you’re dishing out compliments. Doesn’t add up.”
Speers slid the lollipop between his cheek and gum. “You say you’re not good at case management, but you are.”
Carver frowned. “So you want me to take on a larger role. We both know I’m not wired to sit behind a desk. You promised me this was temporary.”
“And I meant it. Stop being so paranoid. I’m just stashing you here until the whole thing blows over.”
It didn’t feel temporary. By the time he had returned to Washington from Arizona, he’d found that Eva Hudson’s enemies were already hard at work trying to find ways to invalidate her line of succession to the presidency. They were demanding investigations into every aspect of the operation that had discovered and ultimately suppressed the mutiny. That in itself hadn’t been so shocking, until Carver found that he himself was the focus of a misguided witch hunt that threatened to blow the anonymity he had spent so many years cultivating.
“How much longer until I can get back into the field?”
“It’s up to you,” Speers said.
Carver looked up. He hadn’t heard that one before. “Up to me?”
Speers nodded. “You have to appear before the committee tomorrow.”
So that was it. The House Committee on Domestic Intelligence had been pressuring the president for months to make Carver testify. Then they had gone to Speers, who had bought him some time. Apparently there was very little sand left in the hourglass.
“The administration has,” Speers said, “for the most part, satisfied the committee’s appetite for bloodlust already. You’re the last person on their list. And you can make this go away for all of us. Just tell them is where Nico Gold is.”
They had been through all this before. The committee needed one person they could single out as a scapegoat. Nico Gold was one of world’s most gifted cybersecurity experts. He was also considered a convicted felon who, in Carver’s opinion, had earned a pardon for his good deeds.
“If it wasn’t for Nico,” Carver said, “there probably wouldn’t be any committee. There might not be any congress either, for that matter.”
“You’ve gotten too emotional,” Speers said. “It’s enough to save your country. You can’t save everyone.”
“That’s your rationale for throwing a hero under a bus?”
“I disagree. One heroic act doesn’t change the fact that Nico Gold is a criminal.”
“It was actually a bunch of heroic acts that added up over a period of days.”
Speers shook his head and opened the office door. “Give it some thought, Blake. They’re not asking you to be the judge and jury. They just want to know where they can find him.”
He didn’t need to think about it. The committee could crucify him, for all he cared. There was no way he was selling out the greatest intelligence asset he had ever worked with. Besides, someday, they were going to need him.
Piazza del Popolo
Rome
Lars drove the motorcycle around the enormous piazza once, and then again, so that he could make sure he and Adrian Zhu had not been followed. At this time of night, only a handful of tourists were present, all of whom seemed to be photographing the 24-meter-high obelisk at the center of the square known as the Flaminio. Like most of the obelisks in Rome, the Flaminio had been taken from Egypt. After being brought to Italy in 10 B.C., the obelisk had stood at the Circus Maximus, where it witnessed countless chariot races before being moved to the Piazza del Popolo, where it had seen an equal number of public executions.
Although the sun had been down for nearly four hours, Lars kept the tinted visor of his helmet pulled all the way down, covering his entire face. The visor on Zhu’s helmet was painted black. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust him. They had spent years vetting him. But at least if he were captured, he would not, under the pain of torture, lead them to the Shepherd.
Spotting only the tourists and a few parked taxis hoping for a fare, Lars gunned the motor. The bioengineer gripped the seat frame for balance as the bike shot through the Porta del Popolo, an elaborate archway leading to Via Flaminia. He drove east for two and a half blocks, and then made a sharp left into the courtyard of an enormous villa that had originally belonged to a Venetian bishop. The mechanized iron gate closed behind them as Lars shut off the engine and dismounted the bike. He then led Zhu through the private courtyard to the immense double front doors, where two guards stood, brandishing TEK-9s like the one Lars had under his jacket.
Inside at last, Zhu was finally allowed to remove his helmet. “Bellissima,” he said, trying on one of the few Italian words he knew as he looked around the enormous foyer. The walls were painted crimson. Portraits of the Venetian bishop in various poses hung on opposing walls. An enormous Murano glass chandelier hung overhead.
The living area was hardly as pristine, resembling a war zone more than a historic villa. Enormous piles of earth and debris occupied most of the black-and-white checkerboard floor. Perhaps they had been tunneling, he thought. How else to explain this much dirt? It was a preposterous sight.
Now Lars led him up a creaky mahogany staircase. The entrances to the second and third floors had been sealed off with razor wire. On the fourth floor landing, a carpenter appeared to be engaged in some sort of construction project in the middle of the hallway. Several floorboards were pulled u
p and stacked in a row. Lars and Zhu stepped around him and proceeded to the end of the hall, where another pair of plain-clothed bodyguards stood.
“Is he awake?” Lars asked one of the guards.
“Very. He’s been expecting you.”
Lars opened the door, revealing a spacious study with dark wood paneling and a high ceiling. Another magnificent glass chandelier provided flattering overhead lighting. Several steamer trunks were lined up against the east wall.
An Alsatian sat vigilantly in the middle of the room. He wagged at the sight of Lars, but growled menacingly when Zhu stepped into the room.
“Off,” a wizened voice called from the far corner of the room. The Alsatian instantly curbed his aggression.
Sebastian Wolf — known to his flock as the Shepherd — stood at a workstation that was easily the most modern piece of furniture in the place. The old man wrote long, looping cursive in a large leather-bound book. He wore a dark suit with a white silk tie, and a white shirt with French cuffs and black marble cufflinks. Aside from his full head of perfectly groomed white hair, he looked far more youthful than Zhu had imagined. The skin of his face was somewhat smooth, but he had none of the grotesque signs of excessive plastic surgery. Nobody knew exactly how old the Shepherd was, but even if he didn’t look like an octogenarian, he had to be at least in his mid-80s, if not older.
At the sight of the old man, Zhu was suddenly overcome with emotion. And there will be a Shepherd who walks among you who has seen into the heart of the tyrants, because he was born among them and has lived among them. And his name will be Sebastian.
He dropped to one knee and bowed his head, sobbing. Wolf’s Alsatian, Magi, growled and bared his teeth. This time the Shepherd did not correct the animal.
“Mr. Zhu,” The Shepherd said as he put down his pen and smiled in a fatherly manner, “this is no way to rejoice after such a harrowing adventure.”
He walked to Zhu and reached out to help him up, but the bioengineer grasped the Shepherd’s left hand and kissed his ring. Wolf pulled back violently, his face suddenly red. Magi barked.
“Stand up!” he commanded. Zhu did so, disoriented as he was by the Shepherd’s rage. “I am not the pope. Quite the opposite. I am a tool, just as you are a tool.”
The bioengineer instinctively bowed his head again. “Sorry,” he said. “Forgive me.”
“You may ask God directly for that.” The Shepherd turned his gaze to Lars, who had been watching the episode with amusement. “Considering the security situation, I had the staff seal off the lower floors.”
“And we should redouble the guards,” Lars said.
“No. Now that Mr. Zhu has arrived, security must be shifted to protect his work.” The old man motioned to a round table and chairs. “Now then. Please sit.”
He walked around to the other side. Only now, as his joints creaked as he slowly sat down, did Zhu see signs of the Shepherd’s advanced age. Behind them, the double doors opened. A physician entered with a black case. The Shepherd motioned him inside.
“Hurry,” the old man said as the doctor removed the cufflink of his left sleeve and rolled up the French cuff, revealing a surprisingly muscular forearm. He swabbed a vein with alcohol. Then he opened the case, removed a small electronic device and pressed it to the old man’s flesh just above his wrist. It beeped briefly before the physician pulled it away and rebuttoned Wolf’s shirt.
Something as innocuous as insulin injections, Zhu wondered? Or something more radical meant to reverse aging, such as human growth hormones?
The carpenter’s hammering echoed loudly as the physician opened and closed the doors to leave.
“Termites?” Zhu inquired, recalling the man they had passed pulling up floorboards in the corridor.
“No,” the old man responded. “Nightingales.”
“A bird infestation?”
“No, Mr. Zhu. As you are no doubt intimately aware, our people are under attack. Many are dead, and I’m afraid there will be many more before we are on the other side of this. After realizing the lengths to which the enemy will go to preserve their stranglehold on power, I made a call to a friend in Japan and had him find the caretaker for Nijo Castle. Do you know it?”
“No sir. Can’t say that I do.”
“Oh, it’s a remarkable ancient fortress in Kyoto. During the Edo period, the floors were designed so that the nails in the floor would rub against clamps when people walked on it. To prevent against sneak attacks, you understand. It sounds remarkably like nightingale chirping. Hence the name, nightingale floors. An ancient but effective security measure.”
The doors opened again. Two servants entered bearing trays of food and drink. They set them upon the table and backed out of the room. Magi crawled under it, lying obediently at his master’s feet. The old man plucked a piece of meat from one of the trays, reached down, and fed the dog his reward.
The sight of the animal chewing made Zhu’s mouth water. The old man gestured at the covered platters on the desk. “I was unaware of your preferences,” he told his disciple, “so I had the kitchen make up suckling pig, and some rosemary lamb, and some pasta alla carbonara done in the traditional Roman style. I hope something will please you.”
Lars and Zhu ate heartily without speaking. The old man nibbled on nuts and sipped aqua con gas while his guests ate. When at last he saw Zhu’s pace slowing, he spoke.
“Now then, I know you will have many questions, but first I must ask a few of my own. Do you, Mr. Zhu, believe the conventional wisdom that we are to sit passively by through the ages and await the second coming of our savior?”
The bioengineer swallowed a mouthful of pork and, with some gristle protruding from his front teeth, said, “No, your…” Zhu almost said ‘your Holiness,’ but stopped himself. “No sir.”
“Oh, and why is that?”
“I have read the Living Scriptures. I searched my heart and believe they are true.”
The Shepherd grew impatient. “Use your own words! Speak from your heart!”
“Why else,” Zhu tried again, “would God give us the smarts to invent space travel, or split the atom? Not to kill each other! We’re supposed to use our brains and our technology to know all about Him, and truly become one with Him.”
The old man smiled. “Spoken like a true believer. And what responsibility do you take for this belief?”
“I take full responsibility. I’m ready to apply the scientific knowledge God has granted me to fulfill our destiny.”
“The old man stood. Zhu found the Shepherd’s mannerisms, and even his voice, completely mesmerizing. “Humanity has been led in the wrong direction. We must be the ones to reveal the great lies and wake humanity from its daydream of spiritual passiveness.”
Zhu watched as the old man took the spumante in his hands and filled Lars’ and Zhu’s goblets, and then his own. He raised his glass in a toast.
“Tomorrow you will see that we have acquired all that you asked for. Tonight, let us pray that the martyrs in Washington and London who have passed may now be one with God’s great unconditional love.”
Blake Carver Residence
Washington D.C.
Carver woke with the feeling that something wasn’t right. He reached for his phone. Sure enough, it was 4 a.m. An hour earlier than his usual wakeup time. Since he’d been on assignment out in McLean, he’d gotten up every day at 5 a.m. for a run. Except for Thursdays, which was when the ODNI fencing club met in the gym. Although none of the analysts had managed to beat him yet, he enjoyed the challenge of keeping them scoreless.
He never thought his exile from fieldwork would last this long, and he had to be disciplined to stay in shape. There was so much sitting around. So much waiting for things to happen.
Carver had spent most of the night in McLean with Arunus Roth, monitoring intelligence channels, Italian police radio scanners and the GPS for any sign of Adrian Zhu. He had finally gone home at 1 a.m. to grab a little sleep. He’d been dreaming about Zhu,
he remembered. Carver’s mind tended to gnaw on problems while he slept, and he found that he often rose with a number of possible solutions.
Not this time. He was still mystified. Had Zhu really been kidnapped? If so, by whom? Or did he run? But that made even less sense. He was not a prisoner in China. He did not have to defect. After all, he had gone to China to escape ethics questions that were uniquely American.
In five hours, he would have to appear before the committee. He cursed, pulled the covers back, and got to his feet.
It was too early to go for a run. Too early to eat. But not too early to hydrate. Carver walked into the kitchen of the one-bedroom duplex and drew a warm glass of water from his water ionizer. He had no doubt that one day the machine’s health benefits would be outed as a sham, but until science proved it wrong, he was going to chug this stuff.
Then, as was his daily custom, he grated about a teaspoon of ginger root directly into the water, and drank it. His mother’s recipe for healthy digestion still did a body good.
Then he took the potted pipe organ cactus that rested in the kitchen window — the only living thing in Carver’s one-bedroom condo — and dribbled some tap water into the soil.
On his sister’s insistence, he’d brought Marty — he had named the cactus after the country music star Marty Robbins, one of his father’s favorites — back from Arizona on his last trip. Marty reminded him of home. And best of all, he could neglect Marty for weeks on end without killing him.
Carver decided to see if there was anything of interest on the video from Adrian Zhu’s Sapienza University lecture, which he still had not seen in its entirety. He went to his living room, switched on his computer, and began watching the opening segment. Petro Parisi, the head of Sapienza University’s Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Studies, stepped onstage holding a microphone. The 63-year-old professor, who wore a slim-cut gray suit complete with a pocket square, made a show of giving Zhu’s hipster outfit a long look.
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