Jack turned to go. “Well, good luck. And don’t forget our deal: I don’t exist.”
“Monday . . .” Munir said softly, as if he hadn’t heard. Maybe he hadn’t.
“Munir . . . our deal?”
But Munir’s eyes looked out of focus and his thoughts seemed far away. “Monday . . .”
“What about Monday?”
“No one of consequence around until Monday. That makes me think that if I were going to try to bring down the Internet, I would do it on a Saturday or a Sunday.”
A thought hit Jack like a gut punch.
“What’ll a crash do to the airlines?”
“Short term?” Munir said without looking up. “Complete chaos for a while. Reservations, scheduling—all heavily Internet based. It might even affect air traffic control.”
Gia . . . Vicky . . .
“Oh, crap.”
“The FAA may have its own closed system, just like much of the military, but I don’t know for sure.”
“If you had to pick Saturday or Sunday, which would you pick?”
“Sunday, but I doubt it matters much.”
Gia and Vicky were due to fly back tomorrow . . . Sunday.
“I’ll let myself out,” Jack said. “I’ve got a couple of important calls to make myself.”
4
As soon as he hit the street, Jack speed dialed Gia. Cell phone technology had been in common use since the nineties and he’d been using it since the turn of the millennium, but he still marveled at the ability to reach Gia anywhere at any time. Didn’t matter if she was over on Sutton Square or in Ottumwa, Iowa—he dialed the same number and she answered.
As he listened to the rings, he wondered what to tell her. Get on an earlier flight? Cancel her flight and stay there?
The sound of her voice when she picked up and her obvious delight at hearing from him dissipated the enveloping chill. He wanted to jump right into the reason he’d called but forced himself to engage in some brief, obligatory small talk. Then . . .
“I think trouble may be coming.”
“What sort?”
“Big sort. An Internet crash.”
He knew this was a cell conversation and vulnerable as all hell to eavesdropping, but he was in too much of a rush for circumlocution.
“The whole Net? I didn’t think that could happen.”
“It can . . . and it will.”
A pause, then she said, “Is this another one of Abe’s theories?”
“You mean like the one he drove us all crazy with for years about how the economy was heading for a meltdown?”
“Um, yeah. Okay. Touché.”
Right. After the banking, brokerage, and stock market debacles, Abe had spent most of 2009 saying, I told you so. Not so much to Jack, who by necessity kept most of his net worth in gold, but he hadn’t let anyone else he knew forget that he should henceforth be addressed as Nostradamus.
“It’s not Abe. It’s the Order.”
Jack tried to keep Gia out of the loop as much as possible—and she was fine with that. He figured the less she knew, the better for her and Vicky. They were noncombatants and he didn’t want them mistaken for anything else.
But last year he’d had to tell her something about the Order to explain why Weezy had had to move in with him for a while.
“They told you?”
“No. They’re behind it.”
“I know you said they were global, but do they really have that kind of power?”
“You’ve been hearing about that Jihad virus?”
“Of course. It’s all over the news.”
“Right. Well, that’s theirs. And come to think of it, your home computer may be one of the few in the city that’s uninfected.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you haven’t been around to open any contaminated emails.”
“Lucky me.”
“But here’s the thing . . . I suspect—it’s more of a gut reaction than anything based on hard evidence—that today or tomorrow could be it. And that’s got me worried about your flight.”
Gia was silent for a while, then, “I see. If you’re right, that could cause major problems.”
He was glad he didn’t have to convince her of the consequences. She’d grasped them on her own right away.
“Question is: Should you risk it? I’d like you back here—for the usual selfish reasons, of course, but also because I want you where I can protect you.”
“Will we need protection?”
“Well, things could get a little . . . disorderly.”
Chaotic might be more like it. He didn’t want to get all Armageddonish about it, but with communications crippled, or simply hampered, police response times would be lengthened. That might encourage certain elements of the urban population—particularly those with a little seven-pointed figure tattooed on a hand—to get frisky and reckless.
“For how long?”
“Days, weeks. No one can say.”
If Munir didn’t know, Jack wasn’t going to guess.
“Do you think we’d be safer here?”
She was thinking about Vicky, he knew, and how Iowa might experience fewer repercussions if the Net went down. But it wasn’t like the Midwest was crime free. Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer had hung out there. Iowa wasn’t all that different from Kansas, and Kansas had produced Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. There had to be more of them, and if they learned no one was patrolling the hallways . . .
“Not necessarily. You could get an earlier flight—like switch to today and arrive before the virus starts doing its thing—”
“If it starts doing anything.”
“Right. Or you could stay there. I’m going to leave it up to you.”
Without hesitation, she said, “I’ll try for the earlier flight.”
“Miss me?”
“Terribly.”
“And your folks are on your nerves?”
She laughed. He missed that sound. “That too.” She lowered her voice. “Somehow, whenever I visit, I’m suddenly twelve again. I love them, but they make me crazy after a while.”
“That’s a parent’s job with grown children.”
His father had made him crazy, but he’d give an awful lot to have him back.
“I’ll call you and let you know if I’m able to reschedule and when we’re due in.”
“Do that. And hurry. I don’t know how much time we have.”
He hung up and wished he’d never let them go.
5
Veilleur opened the door at Jack’s knock.
“Jack. You made good time. I didn’t expect you quite so soon.” He glanced back into his apartment. “Perhaps we should talk in the Lady’s quarters.”
Jack glanced over his shoulder and saw three strangers in the front room. A tall guy with a grayish ponytail, a sixtyish woman, and a thin, fidgety guy who had cop written all over him.
He stepped back, saying, “Those the ones who drove you back from Saint Ann’s?”
“The men, yes. The woman just arrived. I’ll meet you downstairs in a minute.”
Jack took the two flights down and knocked on the Lady’s door.
“Mister Veilleur will be down in a minute,” he said as he entered. “I’ve got reason to believe—”
“That the assault will begin soon.”
That stopped him. “How did you know?”
She looked tired. How could that be? She never slept.
“Certain . . .” She waved her hand. “I’m not sure how to express it. If I fix my attention I can sense a gathering of possibilities and probabilities.”
That rang a bell from the past.
“Like that time back home when I was a kid and you told Weird Walt to stop drinking because he might be needed.”
She nodded. “Exactly.” She sighed. “Poor Walter. He carried that burden as best he could. He’s dead, you know.”
“Yeah. Read the obit last summer. Shame. Sweet guy.” As much as he felt sorry fo
r Walt Erskine, the Jihad virus was a more immediate concern. “But these gathering possibilities and probabilities you mentioned . . . do they point to this weekend?”
“I wish I could say more than ‘soon.’ ”
“So do I,” Jack muttered, thinking of Gia and Vicky.
Veilleur entered then.
“Sorry for the delay. Magda is asleep so I have a little free time.” He looked at Jack. “What did you want to tell me?”
“The computer guy I told you about—he says the Jihad virus is going to use some of the code stolen from him to overload the Internet with video. Enough to bring it down.”
Veilleur, his expression grim, glanced at the Lady, then back to Jack. “And they can succeed?”
“He seems pretty damn sure.”
“And there’s nothing we can do?”
“He’s going to alert the military and the committees and groups and whatever in charge of the Internet, but doubts he’ll get far because it’s the weekend. And because of that, he thinks the weekend is the best time to trigger the virus.”
Veilleur’s eyebrows lifted. “You think it might be this weekend?”
“If you were the One, would you want to wait any longer than you had to?”
“Knowing that I would most likely get only one shot at this, I would want to maximize my chances of success. I would want to wait until the virus has spread as far as it can, until this botnet you speak of has reached maximum penetration.”
That made sense, but . . .
“Doesn’t this go against what you said about his impatience?”
Veilleur rubbed his beard. “It does, doesn’t it. But there might be another reason he’ll give it a little more time.”
“Such as?”
“Remember how I told you that he never forgets a slight, never lets go of a grudge? Well, that’s what ‘Mister Osala’ has been up to during his trips to the South: petty revenge.”
“For what?”
He waved a hand. “Much too complicated to go into. But that long-haired man upstairs is involved. I’ve decided to head back to North Carolina with him to see if I can help him stymie the One.”
Something about that sounded a warning note.
“You think that’s wise? What if he sees you?”
“I’ll stay well out of sight.”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
Veilleur stepped closer and put a big hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“How frustrated are you that you can’t strike back at the One?”
“You know all about that.”
“Exactly. Imagine how I feel. I battled him for millennia. I frustrated his every move and finally trapped him and locked him away for what should have been forever.” His eyes flashed. “Damn Nazis.” He shook his head. “But now I’m enfeebled and mortal and I keep telling myself I’m out of the fight, that it’s somebody else’s worry.”
Jack nodded. “So you’ve said. Most recently on the way to Saint Ann’s. You’ve been pretty convincing.”
“Well, I mean it when I say it, but inaction grinds at me.” He balled his other hand into a meaty fist as his lips retreated into a snarl. “I long to lash out at him, crush him, strip his hide, grind his bones to dust.”
Jack watched and listened, amazed. Here was a side of Veilleur he’d never seen. Here was the hidden warrior . . . Glaeken.
And just as quickly it faded.
“Alas, I cannot. So I must take my little victories wherever I can find them. And I believe just such an opportunity has presented itself. It’s not pure ego. It has a practical purpose. If he can be frustrated and delayed in his revenge plot, perhaps that will give the computer specialists enough time to come up with a cure for this Jihad virus. And then a small victory will become a major victory, and we’ll have bought more time.”
More time for what? Jack thought. More sitting around and waiting for Rasalom’s next move?
But he didn’t voice it. They’d been over this ground before.
“Think it’s worth the risk?”
Veilleur nodded. “I do. I’m going to arrange for round-the-clock nursing for Magda, but would you mind checking in once in a while?”
“Not at all.”
“Good. The four of us will travel separately—the two men together, and Mrs. Treece with me.”
Jack had a sudden inkling . . .
“This Mrs. Treece wouldn’t happen to be the One’s mother?”
He smiled. “Very good. Yes, she wants to come along and . . .” He shrugged. “She might prove useful. We’re scheduling flights now. Leaving as soon as possible.”
Didn’t seem like he had a chance of changing Veilleur’s mind, so . . .
“Need a ride to the airport?”
“Thanks, no. The men have a car.”
“How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“The longer, the better, wouldn’t you say?” He smiled and rubbed his hands together. “I’m really looking forward to this.”
After he left, Jack turned to the Lady.
“He seems pretty energized. I guess that’s good. What do you think? Any gathering possibilities and probabilities about this trip of his?”
She shrugged. “I wish I could say. As I’ve told you, there are times I can sense what the One is doing—because he is human—and others when I cannot—because he is something other than human as well. As a result, the possibilities and probabilities do not gather about him as with others.”
“So you think this trip is okay?”
Her expression and voice remained flat. “No, I do not.”
“Neither do I, damn it. Think we can talk him out of it?”
She shook her head. “Remember what he told you yesterday about the One?”
“You mean about how he’s still human?”
“Yes. With all the foibles of a human, driven to certain actions by that human nature.”
“Yeah. So?”
“He may not have realized it at the time, but he was talking about himself as well.”
6
Eddie said, “Well, anything’s better than that garage, I guess.”
Jack joined him at the window in the rear of the apartment that revealed other windows looking out onto a brick-walled air shaft.
“Nice view.”
“Hey,” Weezy said from behind them. “It’s the best I could do on such short notice. Craigslist wasn’t exactly crammed with furnished, immediate-occupancy sublets. And I think it’s not bad.”
Jack agreed. Not bad at all. A third-floor walk-up in the West Village. Small, yes, but comfortable looking. The owner was connected to NYU in some way and off to Europe for a year.
“No one’s complaining,” Eddie said, turning to face her. “It’s just . . .”
He looked worn and haggard. Well, who wouldn’t after spending two days living in a van parked in a drafty garage? But it went deeper than that. He looked lost.
Jack said, “You miss your stuff.”
He nodded, swallowing hard. “I miss my life.” He looked at Jack. “Think I’ll ever get it back?”
As far as Jack could see, the odds were stacked high against that.
Maybe if Veilleur delayed Rasalom long enough for an anti-Jihad program to be developed and released, Drexler would be demoted or sacked or might even be eliminated—Valez was proof that the Order wasn’t shy about deep-sixing members who didn’t live up to expectations. If that happened, the pressure on Eddie would lessen.
If, on the other hand, Veilleur failed and the Lady vanished, well, his old life would be the least of Eddie’s worries.
But Jack looked around and understood how he felt. He couldn’t rob him of all hope.
“Yeah, it’s possible. But until it is, you’ve got to stay away from there. Count on them watching the place twenty-four/seven.”
“Yes, Eddie,” Weezy said, stepping closer to him. “If—”
He leaned back. “Don’t get too close. I need a shower something awful.”
/>
“You’ve got a stall shower here and I bought you a change of clothes.”
Jack said, “Listen, Eddie. If the virus works, or even only partially works, there’s going to be one pissed-off world out there, and the Order doesn’t want anyone—especially one of its own members—pointing a finger at it. They’ll do anything to silence you.”
Eddie nodded. “Okay, okay. I’m not stupid.” Then he raised his hands. “All right, maybe I am for mentioning the virus to the wrong person. But I’ve learned my lesson about underestimating the Order.”
“You’ve got to put distance between you and your money too,” Weezy added.
“But the rent—”
“I’ve got that covered.”
“I’ve got cash—”
“Which will set off all sorts of alarms if you try to use it to pay rent. We can straighten all that out later. Meanwhile I’ll show you how to use ATMs without being tracked.”
“Where’d you learn that?” He raised a hand as he glanced at Jack. “Never mind.”
Jack’s phone rang then. He checked the ID in the window.
“Hey, Gia. How’d you do?”
“I got us on the 3:45 out of Des Moines.”
“Great.”
At least he hoped it was great. And hoped Veilleur was right about Rasalom waiting until the botnet was maxed.
“That’s the good news.”
“Uh-oh. What’s the bad?”
“A long layover in Chicago. We won’t get in till eleven.”
Jack did the math: Subtracting an hour for the time-zone change, that meant more than six hours in transit. Lots of time for things to go wrong.
“Not sure I like that. Nothing earlier?”
“Not a thing. Believe me, I tried. Something wrong?”
“Maybe you should stay.”
“No, Jack. I already switched the flights and we’re coming back. It’s in my head now—both of our heads: We want to be home.”
“And I want you home, but—”
“We’re coming. Flight three-forty-six, American. You’ll pick us up?”
He could see he wasn’t going to talk her out of it. “Of course.”
They chatted a bit longer, then ended the call. He snapped the phone closed with a gnawing foreboding.
Veilleur, he thought, you’d damn well better delay that virus. At least until tomorrow.