The president gave a sullen nod. He was a year and a half into his presidency, and the glamour of the gizmos and geegaws had long since eroded, revealing a set of security protocols that were ponderous and annoying. Necessary, sure. But annoying. The Beast was a perfect example of what he considered overpreparedness. It was sealed against biochemical attacks and had a full medical kit in the trunk, including pints of blood in the president’s type—which he found deeply unnerving. It even had its own oxygen supply. And it was so heavily armored that it barely got eight miles to the gallon.
Now this. An autonomous driving system.
“I would have assumed,” he said acidly, “that someone was supposed to vet this system before we paid whatever we paid—probably fifty times what we should have—to have it installed?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” said Brierly. “The operating software package has been thoroughly tested by DARPA and some independent labs.”
“Then explain to me why and how this happened, Linden.”
Brierly had no answer to that.
No one did.
The president got wearily to his feet. Everyone else got to their feet as well. “I can’t do this anymore. I need some sleep. Alice, you kick whoever you need to kick, but by the time I wake up, I want to know why my car turned into a Transformer. Are we clear? No excuses, no buck passing. I want a clear and cogent answer. Capisce?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” she said.
The crowd began edging toward the door, with the president walking behind them, arms wide, like a shepherd driving his flock into a pen. When they were outside, he closed the door and turned and leaned back against it, blowing out his cheeks.
“Damn,” he said, sighing out the word so that it was stretched as thin as he was. After a moment, he pushed himself upright and had just hooked his fingers into the knot of his tie when someone knocked on the door.
Very hard, with great insistence.
“Jesus H.…”
He bellowed, “Come in, damn it.”
The door opened and two heads leaned in. Alice Houston and Linden Brierly.
“It’s too soon for good news,” grumped the president. “So, if it’s bad news, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Mr. President,” said Houston, pushing past Brierly to come in. She crossed to the TV, snatched up the remote, and clicked it on. “You have to see this.”
The screen filled immediately with a video already in progress.
Three hulking armed figures in dark clothes stood in a tight cluster around the nearly naked corpse of a man.
One of the men barked out a command in American English.
“Jam the signal!”
The president said, “What the hell is this?”
Chapter Thirteen
Brentwood Bay Resort and Spa
849 Verdier Avenue
Victoria, British Columbia
October 13, 8:16 A.M.
The oncologist had the kind of face that always seemed to be in pain. His expressions shifted from one version of a wince to another. Even his smiles looked pained, though he rarely smiled. It seemed to be a trick of a perverse god or one of life’s little ironies that the doctor’s name was Merriman.
Emerging from the big private suite’s master bedroom, he closed the door quietly and was ushered onto a balcony by the patient’s personal physician, Doctor Michael Pharos. It was an unseasonably warm morning, and the balcony faced the sun. A silent maid poured tea for Merriman and coffee for Pharos, then retreated inside and pulled the balcony doors shut. Birds sang in the trees, and the sunlight glittered on the countless wavelets on the waters of the Saanich Inlet. Down at the dock, a cluster of expensive boats rocked gently against their fenders.
“You can speak frankly, doctor,” said Pharos, getting right to it. He was a very direct man most of the time. Less so in the presence of his last remaining employer, the sick man in the master bedroom. “I suspect you’ll have few surprises for us.”
Merriman sipped his tea and nodded as he set the cup down. “The results from the needle biopsy bear out what we expected to find, I’m afraid. We found a malignant neoplastic growth and—”
“So, it’s bone cancer.”
Merriman nodded. “Yes.”
“Has it metastasized?”
The oncologist sighed. “Yes.”
“Ah,” said Pharos. He placed two cubes of raw sugar into his cup and stirred thoughtfully with a tiny silver spoon. “He has been in a great deal of pain. This explains it.”
“Sadly, yes. The invasion of bone by cancer is the most common source of cancer pain. Tumors in the marrow instigate a kind of vigorous immune response that enhances pain sensitivity. As the cancer continues to spread, the tumors compress, consume, infiltrate, or cut off blood supply to body tissues, which is what causes the pain.”
“Yes,” said Pharos. “I am aware of the process.”
They sat for a moment, letting it all sink in. Merriman finally sighed and shook his head.
“May I speak frankly, doctor to doctor?”
“Please do.”
“Patients and those who care about them so often rail against the unfairness of it all. They react as if humans were meant to last, forgetting that we are already outliving what evolution intended. Medical science is extending life beyond what is natural. As a result, we have new kinds of protracted illnesses and new degrees of suffering. Even as little as a hundred years ago, most people over seventy-five would have passed. Most of us simply do not have the tenacity, the constitution, or the will to live in the face of catastrophic injury or debilitating illness.”
Pharos nodded.
“And then we have cases like this one,” said Merriman, nodding toward the house, where the dying man slept. “Here is a man who received injuries that should have killed him. An explosion like that, with the accompanying forced amputations and comprehensive burns. The pain. The constant infections. The damage to organs, the progressive deterioration. And now the cancer?” He shook his head again. “Any of these things would have killed most people, and yet he not only holds on, he fights back with more…”
He fished for a word.
“Determination?” suggested Pharos.
But Merriman shook his head. “Many people are determined to live. I’m not even sure he wants to. He knows that he has no real future, no chance of recovery. And no quality of life if he somehow were to go into remission.”
“Then what, doctor?”
Merriman turned and gazed toward the closed door. “I believe that the driving force, the sustaining force, in our patient is not determination or pride, not a lust for life or anything like that. No … If I were to put a label on it, I would say that he is driven by rage.”
“Rage.” Pharos echoed the word, not quite making it a question.
“Or something very like it. At the risk of sounding melodramatic,” said Merriman, “from the things he says, from the passion in his voice at times, it seems as if he has given himself over to a very specific kind of rage.”
“And what kind is that?”
Merriman’s eyes shifted away from the closed door and locked on Pharos’s.
“Malice, doctor,” he said.
Pharos smiled very thinly. And he nodded.
Merriman cleared his throat and sipped from his cup, avoiding his colleague’s eyes, embarrassed by his own observations.
Pharos waved it away. “What is his prognosis? How long does he have, and how long will he be lucid?”
“Ah,” said Merriman, setting down his cup. “First, please understand that this diagnosis is severe. He has G4 bone cancer. It’s fully metastasized. He’s far beyond the point where we could explore surgical options such as additional amputations. Nor do I think he’s a candidate for radiation and chemotherapy. The cancer is so widespread that all the trauma of chemo could accomplish is to hasten the end. It is extremely unlikely that even the most radical measures could do more than cause him additional discomfort.”
“Give me a timetable.”
“A few months? Four, possibly six. Or it could be weeks.”
“I see. What about the issue of lucidity?” asked Pharos. “This is something very important to him. He has many business holdings as well as private monies, and he wants very much to be able to make important decisions before he is too far gone. To protect his family and employees, you understand.”
“I certainly understand, and that kind of thinking is commendable. However, lucidity varies. The patient is a very strong-willed man. Remarkably so. And highly intelligent. But, tell me … has he been tested for dementia? Or Alzheimer’s?”
“He has.”
“And—?”
“He has been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Early stages, of course.”
Merriman looked aghast. “How on earth did he contract that?”
Pharos gave him another thin smile. “A dangerous career side-effect.”
“I don’t understand. Was he in the medical field? Did he work with the brains of other infected—?”
“He was in pharmaceutical research. Prion diseases were part of that research, and apparently there was an accident or protocol error that he was unaware of. In any case, we can add that to the list of things he has had to deal with.”
“Does he know?”
“About the prion disease?” Pharos pursed his lips. “We thought it prudent not to burden him with too many things. He is already quite … distraught.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” said Merriman hastily. “But Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. God. I can understand your need to resolve the financial and business matters. That disease is very aggressive. It progresses so rapidly.”
“It does. So, between the effects of that,” said Pharos, “and the loss of physical and mental acuity from the bone cancer, we need to decide how long he has before his decision-making capabilities are no longer reliable.”
“But … they are probably being affected now. During my examination this morning, he referred to me by several different names. And he asked if President Bush had invaded Baghdad yet. He’s clearly disconnected with current events.”
Pharos sipped his coffee and studied Merriman over the rim of his delicate porcelain cup. Michael Pharos was a Greek national who had lived all over the world. And although he was very cultured and highly educated, he was also very large and had a face that looked like it had been cut from rough stone. Big hands with callused knuckles. Not a surgeon’s hands. A precisely trimmed beard, through which the pale shadows of old scars meandered like small rivers in a black forest.
“Which other names, exactly?” he said, showing a lot of very white teeth.
“Pardon?”
“You said he called you by other names. I’m curious as to which names he pulled out of his memory.”
Merriman shrugged. “Does it matter? They were just names. They probably don’t even connect with his current life. They could be names he heard on television. Or names of old friends from school.”
“Which,” said Pharos slowly, “names?”
Merriman sat back in his chair, clearly unnerved. He fumbled for a moment, waffling his way through some pointless nonsense. Stalling while he tried to make sense of Pharos’s question, and while trying to remember the names.
“I don’t see how it’s important, but … if you really think it’s relevant.”
“Indulge me.”
“He called me by your name once or twice.”
“He calls the nurse and the pool boy by my name. It’s currently the one he’s most familiar with and therefore irrelevant. What were the other names?”
“Um … well, one was an Arab name of some kind. I only caught part of it. Mohammed bin Awad. Something like that.”
“I see. And the others?”
“Hugo and—what was the other? It wasn’t really a name. Oh, yes—he called me Toys. Is that strange?”
Doctor Pharos turned away to pour himself more coffee. He watched the boats for a long moment. He mouthed those two names.
Hugo.
Toys.
Merriman cleared his throat. “The, um, patient is very likely hallucinating. He is also probably in great fear. Is he a religious man?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Toward the end, as I was finishing up, he kept staring past me into a corner of the room and smiling. When I asked him what he was smiling about, he said that he was happy that his friend had come to visit. I turned to look, but the only thing in that corner of the room was an overstuffed chair. But the patient kept smiling and nodding as if in conversation with someone, even though there clearly was no one there. Every once in a while, he’d say a name. You know, a clerical one.”
“What name?” said Pharos, putting a bit of edge into his voice. “What exactly did he say?”
Merriman took a breath. “Every once in a while, after a few seconds of appearing to listen and nod, he would say, ‘Thank you, Father Nicodemus.’”
Pharos jerked upright and spilled hot coffee onto his thigh.
“God, Doctor Pharos,” said Merriman, half rising in alarm, “are you all right? Your leg…”
Pharos came to his senses and hastily brushed at his thigh. The dark coffee steamed as it spread in a big brown stain on Pharos’s white duck trousers.
“How clumsy of me. I’ll need to clean this up.” Pharos stood. “Please excuse me, doctor. I believe you can show yourself the way out.”
With that, he whirled and pushed through the balcony doors.
Doctor Merriman set his teacup down, stood, looked around as if the empty balcony could somehow explain what just happened, then picked up his case and left the suite.
His car was brought by the valet, and then he drove toward his office in Black Creek.
Doctor Merriman did not arrive at his office.
His car was later found in the parking lot of the Old Farm Bed and Breakfast on Cowichan Bay Road, near the Theik Indian Reserve. The vehicle was locked, and the interior had been wiped clean with bleach. Doctor Merriman’s body was found many months later in a shallow grave farther south at Dougan Lake. He had been shot twice in the back of the head with a .22 pistol. No evidence was ever found, no suspects named.
The strangest part of the case, however, were the footprints found all around the shallow grave and again in the soft dirt near the abandoned car. At first they were dismissed as dog tracks, and there are a lot of dogs in Canada. One of the camping guides from the Est-patrolas Indian Reserve near Dougan said that they were not dog prints, nor were they coyote. It wasn’t until casts of the prints were shown to an exotic-animals expert at the Greater Vancouver Zoo that the identity of the animal was determined. The prints belonged to Canis aureus. The golden jackal.
The case remains open and unsolved.
Chapter Fourteen
Over the Caribbean Sea
October 13, 11:48 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
We were on a Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, cruising at twenty-eight thousand feet. In Chile, we’d switched from the Black Hawk to the plane and had left the resort far behind us. Now the Panama Canal was fading behind us as we headed northeast for the long haul to the Hangar in Brooklyn, where Aunt Sallie’s team would be waiting for our payload.
Waiting for a corpse.
While we flew, Top, Bunny, Sam, and I sat in a pressurized conference cabin in the rear of the plane and watched the fallout on TV.
The video footage had gotten out and gone viral.
The clip was forty-seven seconds long. It showed three big men in unmarked black military uniforms, face masks and goggles, all of them armed, standing over the nearly naked corpse. The marks of beating and torture were clear, even in the low-light video footage. The clip included me yelling “Jam the signal!”
However, the drone’s camera either stopped taping before it obtained a close-up of bin Laden’s face, or whoever controlled the drone deliberately ended the broadcast at that point.
“I don’t get
it,” said Bunny. “They had it. No way they didn’t get his face.”
“They got it,” agreed Top, “but they don’t want to show it.”
“How’s that make sense?” asked Sam. “This is the biggest news story since … shit, since they killed bin Laden the first time. Maybe bigger. This is political currency. This could bring down the presidency and maybe put the last two presidents on the hot seat. There’s so much damage they could do with this.”
“So why aren’t they doing it?” said Bunny, nodding. “Why are they holding back?”
I shook my head. “Been trying to work that one out since it happened.”
I tried getting Mr. Church on the line, but he was having what I imagined was a very unpleasant phone call with the president.
So, instead, I got Bug on the line for an update on the public reaction. When his face popped up in a window on our conference room TV screen, he looked like he’d just had a lime-juice enema.
“That bad?” asked Top.
“Worse,” said Bug. “We hit a wall trying to trace the drone. Was there really no way you could have not blown it to tiny little pieces?”
“Seemed like a good thing to do at the time,” I suggested.
“Yeah, okay, but from the pieces you recovered, we got exactly nothing. No serial numbers, no recoverable software, nothing. Maybe when the CPU is delivered here I’ll be able to do something with it…” He trailed off to suggest that short of performing actual magic on it, the odds of his getting anything of use were somewhere between slim and none.
Sam Imura gestured at the screen with his coffee cup. “What about the video itself? Can we get anywhere with that? Does it tell us anything?”
“Not much,” Bug admitted. “The postings were sent from the drone to the net via hacked links to communications satellites. There was no other address or identifying server attached to the feed. Like I said, by destroying the machine, we actually slammed the door in our own faces. The drone uploaded a Trojan horse to each satellite, and that allowed the drone’s owner to force the video into the broadcast stream. That made it pop up on everything from YouTube to the morning farm report in East Workboots, Idaho. Everyone’s talking about this.”