“Frank, give me the fucking name and let me get out of here. I've got PTA tonight.”
“Name's Zachary Taylor.”
Hannah stood to leave. “I don't know the name, but, like you said, someone does.”
“Thank you.”
She hesitated before turning away. Tentatively, she placed a hand on his shoulder. She didn't have to say it. The look in her eyes was enough. A cold shiver ran through Frank. Hannah was saying good-bye.
It didn't take long. Hannah knew everyone. And she understood the idiosyncrasies of the Company. Even outliers like EMPYRE couldn't hide from the bureaucratic masher that chewed through every aspect of the CIA. Behind all the cloak and dagger, all the tech and espionage, there was payroll, requisition reports, logs filed and lost to the data soup sloshing through the mainframe. In the end, the Company was government. If you knew where to hunt, nothing was truly off book.
Frank got the call a day later. It came from a public flow port, and had neither tag nor subject. Frank knew just who it was.
“Zachary Taylor is a ghost.”
“No shit,” Frank shot back.
“I got nothing on him. He's never been paid by the CIA.”
“Son of a bitch,” Frank muttered to himself. Then he heard a soft chuckle over the link.
“That's the bad news, isn't it?” Frank asked.
“Couldn't leave you empty handed. Zachary may have ghosted out, but his genes haven't.”
“Run that by me again,” Frank said.
“Taylor's corpse was matched after the accident. How he was ID'd.”
“That I know.”
“So I ran that code and found a match.”
“You found him?” Frank betrayed his shock.
“Not quite,” Hannah Beck replied.
25
REYKJAVÍK, ICELAND
“Un-fuckin'-believable,” Frank muttered to himself, staring at the sculpture. He didn't get it, a fact that made him the odd man out. The tour guide and the rest of the group seemed to think it was the next coming. Before Frank, slender, metallic arachnid limbs laced together to form a stylized Viking longship. Bug legs arced out like oars along the sides of a curved hull that rose to tridents on each end. The skeletal sculpture rose like a ghostly apparition from Faxaflói Bay.
“This, as I'm sure you are all aware, is The Sun Voyager, or Sólfar, by Jón Gunnar Árnason,” the tour guide said. “This creative triumph has been preserved through the years, as it marks both Iceland's past and its push to the future.” The tour guide continued his drivel while Frank's travel companions marveled at the thing.
Frank gazed at it in the dying light of a polar winter. It flickered over a circular base, skeleton white, both ominous and fragile.
After a hard day of travel, Savakis found himself mired in heavy night. Reykjavík lay low to the frozen earth. None of the buildings rose higher than a few stories. It was like no city Frank had seen. The moment he had set foot here, he was ready to bolt. The country was too perfect, too clean, and too goddamned quaint.
I'll bet they shit white here, he thought.
Frank turned from the sculpture and bent into the biting wind. He had entered Iceland on a tourist visa. Not many of those this time of year, but he wanted the flexibility that an official visit by an American intelligence officer wouldn't offer. With Iceland's hard restrictions on immigration, an attempt to shutter out the violence ripping across the globe, Frank had been forced to sign on to a government-chaperoned sightseeing tour.
A hand fell on his shoulder. “Sir, can I help you?” The guide had left his flock to catch up with Frank.
“Oh, no,” Frank said, steering his voice and appearance toward frailty. “Just getting chilled. Think I'll go back to the hotel and thaw out.”
The guide looked flummoxed, not sure what to do.
“Don't worry, I know the road back,” Frank said through a shiver—which didn't need forcing.
“Okay, sir. If you wouldn't mind, check in with the front desk—so I know you arrived safely.”
“Of course. Very kind of you,” Frank said, shuffling off.
Iceland's restrictions weren't quite draconian. He had just enough leash to do what was necessary. As Frank left the guide's sight, he straight-ened up, stretching out his gait. If he didn't check in, the guide would alert the authorities and that was a headache Frank didn't need. He didn't have much time.
Get the job done, and get the fuck out, he thought.
Frank worked his way through the hibernating streets. It looked as if winter had sapped the city's lifeblood. He pushed through, reaching the base of Hallgrímskirkja. The tallest building on the entire island, the church arched up from a thick base to a needle-sharp point. Its hexagonal columns hinted at cooling lava. The small house he was seeking hunkered beneath the chapel's black shadow, only slightly denser than the twilight blanketing the city.
While travel was restricted, Iceland had an open code policy. Since the twentieth, every newborn's DNA had been coded. The genes of each and every man, woman, and child on the island nation were open to public consumption. That information had become grist for research around the world. It also led Frank to Zachary Taylor's son.
Hannah had run Taylor's genetic code for a possible trace. She'd found a match in the Icelandic database. Taylor had a child. And while the data-base didn't link genomes to names, it hadn't been hard for Hannah to do so. There was no record of Company payouts to Taylor, but Beck had found irregularities in his family's income.
The CIA hadn't paid them, but someone had.
Frank padded up to the house, placing his palm to the door. The low chirp signaling an unknown visitor at the door reverberated through the black air. Frank was struck by the odd consistencies that had spread over the world. Even here, in Iceland, far from the docks, that soft ring was the same as the one at his own door. Slowly, differences were melting into a sea of consumerism and comfort. Wouldn't be long before it all looked the same. If Frank had any say in the matter, it would all look American.
He palmed the door lock again. Inside, the house pulled from hibernation and roused itself. With the low drone of a vid wall going live, voices splintered the chill. Frank stamped his feet, trying to keep the blood flowing. He hated the cold—hated being bundled up and restricted by heavy clothing. He had been tempted to pick up a new bioware suit, but that kind of tech was too expensive for his low-budget tourist cover. Plus, few Icelanders wore them. They seemed to crave the cold.
A whole country of masochists, Frank thought.
He hit the door a third time. It shifted from translucent up to transparent. Before him, through the wall of plexi, stood a young boy. Tall, thin for his age. Striking, dark eyes and a ridgeline nose.
“Halló?” the boy said.
“English?” Frank responded.
A hand slipped from the shadows and wrapped around the boy's shoulder, drawing its owner into the light. A striking beauty, blond hair and glacier-blue eyes, she was Iceland personified. Her features fused with those of the land around her, one running into the next, inseparable. The quiet depth in that face betrayed a fissure, like the crevasses creasing Iceland's glaciers. For a moment, Frank didn't want to open that wound further. For a moment, he couldn't bear the thought.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked, her voice soft but penetrating, cool wind over ice.
Frank shook himself free of her aura. “I'd like to ask you a couple questions.”
The woman brushed away his request. “I'm sorry, we—”
Frank cut her off before she could black the door. “Var, it's important.”
“You know my name,” she said, a trickle of surprise running though her chilled speech.
“It concerns this young man,” Frank said.
Her blue eyes locked on Frank's.
The boy noticed her reaction. “I'm the man of the house,” he said. “You can talk to me.” The pride in his voice was impossible to miss. The woman patted him on the shoulder and
smiled.
Frank stooped to look the boy in the eye. “Of course you are.” Then he looked up to the woman. “It's about Zachary Taylor.”
At the name, the woman's smile faded. She turned to the boy. “Arles, go to your room.”
The boy began to protest, then saw the look in his mother's eyes. He turned and shuffled up the stairs. About to leave Frank's sight line, he turned and glared. Frank felt the threat loud and clear. Don't hurt my mother. Frank nodded to him.
“My kinda kid,” he said.
“I'll make coffee,” Var said, releasing the security system.
Var glided into the milk-white living area, placing a tray before Frank.
“This isn't necessary,” Frank said. “Really.” In spite of himself, Frank had an irresistible urge to still the flurry of emotions in her blue eyes.
He caught Arles's face peeking around the stairwell. When he turned, the boy shot back, hiding in the shadows. Var saw as well.
“Like I said, my kinda kid.”
“Thank you, Mister . . . ?” She stopped—waiting for an introduction.
Frank preferred to keep her on the defensive. “He looks like his father.”
Var fell into a temperfoam bucket chair like an ice block shearing into the ocean. She crossed her legs and tucked her arms under her, losing her cold removal in the chair's comfort. Her eyes swam, blue refracting with budding tears.
“I wondered how long it would take,” she said. “Before you all came calling.”
“I'm calling.”
“You knew him?”
Frank didn't answer.
Var forged on. “You're a blogger, aren't you? Please—don't run this story. Arles doesn't need to know that his father was a butcher. This is a small city—a small country. We'd be hounded.”
“I'm not a blogger, Var.”
Deflected from her concerns, she locked back on Frank. “You did know him, didn't you?”
“I do know him. Zachary Taylor is alive.”
Var's eyes swam, the cut deepening within her. Frank saw pain. He didn't see surprise. “But you know that, don't you?”
“I—”
“I saw him two nights ago. He tried to kill me.”
“No,” The word ran flat—an attempt to negate the man before her.
“He didn't die in that hovercraft, Var.”
She turned from him and stared into the thickening night. “I wish he had.”
Frank pulled a roll screen from his coat pocket and flopped it onto the table between them. Touching the screen, he kicked it to life and ran through the terrorist actions linked to EMPYRE. People wracked by the pathogen. Explosions. Assassinations.
Frank sat back, letting the horrors play out on Var's coffee table. “You and me both,” he said.
She watched the screen, unable to pull away. Her words tumbled out. “He was just a fling, you know. Just a boy I knew—but I can't believe he'd do this—any of it.” Memories flooded Var. What was and could have been, it all flowed into the present, accented by the carnage playing out before her. “He was good to me. Loved me, maybe . . .” She trailed off.
“What happened?”
“He lost himself over there. He stopped linking with me, going deeper and deeper into the fight. He reupped without telling me. And then—”
“The school bus,” Frank prompted.
“He's not a bad man. At least he wasn't.”
“I need to understand, Var.”
“He wanted so badly to fix it all, to pull it back together. He was so passionate. I didn't want him to go. But there was no stopping him.” She looked up at Frank. “I can't help you understand him. I know what he was. What he is—”
“That's a mystery to both of us.”
She sipped her coffee. “I see some of him in Arles. The boy has passion. He's strong. He gets in fights. And he's fragile. He doesn't sleep the night.”
“You've seen him,” Frank said. “Taylor.”
“No. I came home after the pregnancy. I stopped waiting for him long ago.”
Frank took the vid roll from the table, pocketing it. “The money, Var.”
“Who are you?” The woman's hard gaze melted under her fear.
“Doesn't matter,” Frank said.
“I didn't think it was him. You have to believe that.”
“Doesn't matter what I believe. Let me tell you what I'll do. I'm going to bring the media right to your door. war criminal has love child will be splashed across every blog. Should play well. Nice and juicy.”
Var slumped further. “Please.”
“Where are you getting the money?” Frank pressed.
“It's sent to me. Started a year ago.”
“Bullshit. I'd have tracked a transfer.”
“No. It's actually sent to me.”
“You get hard cash? Like, in the mail?”
“I know. It's ridiculous. Who uses mail anymore? But I started getting packages. Each one held a toy—for Arles I guess. I threw the first one away. When the second came, I accidentally broke it—trying to figure out who it was from. It was filled with bond chips.”
“So you cashed them and told no one?”
“Listen, I have bills. I want the best for my son.”
“Well, I hope you still do—'cause you're both in a world of hurt right now.”
“I don't know anything else,” she said, descending into reluctant sobs. “That's the truth. I didn't let Arles have any of the toys. I threw them all away—burnt everything.”
“Pardon me, but that sounds guilty as hell.”
Her eyes welled, but she said nothing.
“All right. We play it the hard way. Tomorrow, you'll be knee-deep in bloggers.”
She just shook her head, wisps of blond hair falling like ash over her eyes, sticking to her face through the tears.
Frank stood, frustration mixing with guilt. He'd traveled here for nothing. This woman knew jack—absolutely useless. Just the same, maybe he could draw Taylor out by harassing the man's family. Long shot—but what the hell else did he have to do? Dirty tricks.
He made for the door, opened it and pushed into the wall of night. The cold hit like a ton of bricks. He stutter-stepped, knocking into something behind him.
Frank wheeled to find Arles staring up at him. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, he didn't shiver or even seem to notice the cold.
“You want him, don't you?” the boy asked.
Frank looked into the boy's eyes, deciding to play it straight. “He's done bad things. Hurt people. He'll do it again.”
Arles nodded. “Mom didn't think I knew. But I saw the packages. The toys. I knew.”
“Of course. You're the man of the house.”
Arles didn't see the humor in the comment. “You're going to hurt us, aren't you? You're going to hurt Mom?”
“Yes.”
The boy nodded again.
“What makes you different from him?”
Frank's eyes hardened at the question. He stooped to look the boy straight in the eye. “I'm the good guy.”
The boy held his gaze, then looked back into his house at his mother, still hunkered in the chair, immobile. Finally, he pulled a scrap of plaz wrap from his back pocket. It was worn, handled. Maybe the boy had slept with it under his pillow.
“She thought I didn't know,” he said. Then he turned and ran back into the house, slamming the door behind him.
Frank looked at the scrap. It held a stamp and—much more important—a postmark.
Through his scope, the image of a boy closing the door on an overstuffed man wavered, then held firm. Zachary Taylor pulled away from the sight, shaking off the vertigo. That's what he had decided to attribute the feeling to.
A sense of déjà vu washed over him. The image, flicking through the sight's optic enhancement, tracked that which he'd had only hours ago. Then, in a quiet burb outside Langley, Virginia, Taylor had sighted in on another young boy, skating over the perfect blacktop of a perfect street in a perfect neighbo
rhood.
A woman had walked from the house, calling the boy in for dinner. Taylor sat perched in an unoccupied house down the street. He watched the woman as she watched her child. Another woman wrapped herself around his target. Together they called to the boy, who pretended not to hear. Taylor locked in, homing in on the arcana of assassination. Wind direction, trajectory, projectile speed.
He worked through slow breaths. In. Out. In. Out. Hold—and a slow exhale. Firing was an afterthought. In his mind, she was already dead. He savored the snap instant after trigger pull and before the hit—when his will hung poised in the air.
Impact. No more painful than a fly's landing.
The projectile, designed to be mistaken for an insect, shed its outer layer under the woman's swat. The remaining nanothin device burrowed into the woman's carotid artery. She didn't feel it. She couldn't. Even as she hollered to her boy and leaned into the woman behind her, death began its slow progress.
The device ascended up through the carotid canal and into the woman's brain. It lodged in the anterior communicating artery. From there, it took only seconds.
Once lodged, the needle point ballooned, rupturing the artery. The aneurysm was massive—devastating. Blood flooded her brain. The woman's face went slack. She crumpled onto the doormat, sputtering, vomiting. The convulsions began.
Taylor turned his sight, watching the boy kick around on his board, alarmed by his mother's scream. He scrambled up the porch steps, sliding down beside the woman. She tried to speak. Opening her mouth—yellow-green froth foamed out.
Hannah Beck was dead.
Now, Taylor shivered into the chill, wiping away the memory. This was a different time, a different place—and a different boy. Through the Reyk-javík night, Taylor watched this other boy walk to his mother, fold his arms around her angular form. They leaned into each other. Through his mic, he heard the boy telling his mother it would be okay. The man was gone. He wouldn't be back.
It seemed fitting that the first time Zachary Taylor laid eyes on his son, it was looking down the barrel of a gun.
He swiveled the gun around, finding Frank Savakis. From Taylor's vantage atop the chapel, Reykjavík spread out before him. House on house flowing into the bay. He homed in on the CIA man, watched him place the plaz scrap in his pocket. The man now had the one piece of Taylor that had gotten through to his son. Zachary's finger curled around the trigger. Firing would be so easy. The need pulsed through him, sending a pang through the shoulder wound the man in his sights had caused. Just a little pressure. All it would take.
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