Lystra Reid bought the stricken company and brought in the best security people around to ensure that a similar fate would never befall her. The result was a medical testing company, Directive Medical, which had never suffered a successful break-in, while—not so strangely—security problems plagued her competitors.
At the age of twenty-four, Reid controlled a third of the independent medical labs in North America, as well as significant portions of other markets around the world.
It was amazing what you could learn from data mining the health records of more than two hundred million people worldwide. You could, for example, learn that the wife of a brilliant medical researcher named Grey McLure had a rare cancer. And you could learn that this McLure fellow was suddenly in a desperate search for living cell samples. And with just a bit more work you could discover that he was also looking for a wide range of animal tissue samples for a very secret project of some sort.
Lystra hung up the phone, indifferent really to the current spreadsheet drama from her office. It didn’t matter. There was no future to worry about. She swallowed the last of the bourbon and stood up to stretch. The marina was nestled between Tiburon and the adjoining Belvedere Island. Unpretentious yet extremely expensive homes rose on a cute little hill to her left and up the longer, wooded slope of Belvedere to her right. Looking south through the forest of masts, she could see San Francisco. Fog was rolling out, revealing the city, all muted pastels and off-whites.
It was all in all a beautiful location, with sailboats and ferries and container ships passing by in review. A genteel, civilized, prosperous place.
And all of it about to come to a terrifying end.
It had been good to watch Janklow go mad; he had annoyed her on more than one occasion. She wanted to get a few tastes of the madness out here in the real world—before the final chapters, which would force her to hide out and watch it as well as she could via electronic means. The personal, real-world experiences would help her to enjoy the next step.
“All done?” the waiter asked, coming to clean her table.
“Soon,” she said.
EIGHT
The first thing Bug Man had asked was, “Where are we?”
Bug Man had flown on a private jet before. He wasn’t indifferent to it, but he wasn’t overly impressed, either. George had not told him where they were going but had retreated into a book, remaining sullen and uncommunicative.
Bug Man saw a city in the distance. It was all tan walls and terra-cotta roofs, a large blur extending far out in every direction, reaching beneath the jet with roads full of small cars.
“The former center of the Earth, once upon a time. The Eternal City,” George had said.
“Yeah, which is what?”
George sighed. “Your education is deplorable. The Eternal City is a reference to Rome.”
“Rome? That’s like, Italy, right?”
George managed not to roll his eyes, but only just. “Yes, Italy, Bug Man. Pizza, pasta, wine, priests, fashion, Rome. The Coliseum,” he added. “Gladiators and all of that.”
“I saw the movie,” Bug Man said. “Also, I played the game. Not a great game.”
“No?” The plane took a little lurch as a crosswind hit it. “What makes a good game?”
Bug Man had been much more sure of his ground on this topic. He didn’t know much about history, but he knew games. “A good game? That’s one where you can’t stop playing it, even when you’re asleep. Whatever you have to do that takes you away from the game, all you’re thinking about is getting back into it.”
“Hard?”
“It’s not about hard. Yeah, it has to be challenging. Can’t be so easy it’s over in five minutes, right? But it’s not just about hard; otherwise, you could play online chess or work a Rubik’s cube, man.”
He heard the grinding of the landing gear coming down.
“Why are we in Rome?” Not that he was complaining. He’d been locked away for several days in a safe house in the emptied-out Lake District before George had come to retrieve him. He’d been about to lose his mind looking at rain falling on green hills.
“We need a good twitcher. A nanobot twitcher.”
“Where’d you get nanobots? The people you work for don’t do nanobots, and I am not doing any biot bullshit. I saw what that did to Vincent.”
“Nanobots,” George reassured him. “We came across some, and a portable controller. Compliments of a former friend of yours.”
“Burnofsky?”
George laughed and didn’t answer. He rolled into the nearest seat and motioned Bug Man to buckle up.
Bug Man didn’t exactly miss Burnofsky. The old man was an unreliable, unpredictable, sometimes cruel degenerate. But he and Bug Man had played a great game. The greatest game Bug Man would probably ever play.
God, that was a depressing thought. Was it all downhill from here? He supposed that would depend on just what George here had in mind.
“What do you want me for?” Bug Man asked, but the question was lost in the impact of tires on tarmac. The jet rolled down the taxiway to a waiting car.
Bug Man walked down the steps to the tarmac—it was warmer out than it should have been for this time of year. Was Rome always warm? He had no idea. The sun was setting, and all he could see were featureless hangars and repair sheds. In the distance was a Fiat sign, and beyond that a billboard for what looked like a juice drink.
“I don’t speak Italian,” he said.
“You won’t need to,” George said. “Get in the car.”
Bug Man did not like that, the bossy tone. He needed to draw a line right here and now, before he was driven off to wherever. “Tell me what we’re doing here, dude.” When George looked evasive, Bug Man held up one hand, cutting him off. “No, man, now. Right here, right now. Enough playing around.”
George nodded, as if expecting this. As if he’d have preferred to do it somewhere else, but okay, if his impatient young friend insisted.
“The Pope,” George said.
“The Pope? The freaking Holy Father? The Pope? What about the Pope?”
“You know he’s in Rome?” The question was obviously insulting, spoken as it was with more than a trace of condescension.
“What’s with the Pope?”
George dropped the snarky look and got serious. “You are wanted by MI5. A word from them and every other intelligence and police agency on Earth will be looking for you. And of course, the Armstrong Twins want you dead.” He stepped closer, put his face right up close to Bug Man’s face, close enough that Bug Man could have told you the man’s toothpaste brand. “But forget all of that, because we have a fellow named Caligula. A charming name, I’m sure you’ll agree. He already knows your name. A single text from Lear to Caligula and your death is assured.” He held up an index finger. “I don’t mean that you will likely be killed. I mean that you will without the slightest doubt be killed. Caligula has never failed. Never.”
Bug Man swallowed. He knew the name. He knew the reputation. And he did not like the fact that Caligula knew what he was about.
“As to what you are to do, Anthony ‘Bug Man’ Elder, you are to retrieve a sample. A few cells. That is all. And then you will be free to go. We won’t protect you, but neither will we harm you. And you’ll be paid. A hundred thousand pounds.”
“Cells?” Bug Man asked with a dry mouth.
“Cells. A tissue sample. From the Pope. And it must be done quickly.”
“The Pope. Tissue samples.” Bug Man let this sink in. George waited, expectant, curious to see whether Bug Man would put it all together.
“Jesus,” Bug Man said. He let loose a short, sharp bark of a laugh. “Jesus bloody Christ on a cross.”
George got a dreamy look on his face. “See, Anthony, control is so much easier when you don’t require the victim to carry out complex actions. Reduce it to the binary and it’s all more efficient and effective.”
Bug Man nodded, seeing it—and fearing it. “You
don’t even need Caligula anymore. You just need a tissue sample.”
George threw back his head and laughed, showing teeth that had had many encounters with dentists. “I quite like you, Anthony. I’d have done this later, not here on the tarmac, but you’re such a clever boy.” He pulled a small plastic bag from the inner pocket of his jacket. From it he withdrew a vial and a Q-tip. “I’ll just swab the inner cheek, if you don’t mind.”
Bug Man did mind. He pulled away.
“Oh, it’s far too late for that, Anthony. You’re in. Like it or not. You haven’t a friend in the world, and so many people want you dead. Turn and run and I’ll let you go, but Caligula will get to you if the Armstrongs don’t find you first. Now open wide.”
Bug Man opened his mouth. George swabbed his inner cheek with the Q-tip and sealed it in the vial.
“We won’t create the biots unless you make it necessary. You have Lear’s word on that.”
“Lear’s word,” Bug Man said bitterly.
“You are not in a position to argue, Anthony. You are lost and despised and scheduled for destruction. And now, you are BZRK.” He grinned and made an ironic power salute with his fist. “Death or madness, kid. Death or madness.”
The Starhotels Michelangelo didn’t look like much from the outside; in fact, it looked like any number of the wearily functional, ’60s-era buildings that deface Rome. Inside it was moderately posh, and Bug Man was hustled into a large suite with a balcony.
The balcony had a very nice view of the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica. (And a red-trimmed Total gas station in the other direction.) The walls of Vatican City were just four hundred feet away.
There was also a nice little restaurant serving—unsurprisingly—Italian food. The TV featured the BBC and CNN International as well as other non-Italian fare, and there was WiFi, but it was a bit slow.
From here Bug Man could easily manage nanobots within Vatican City. But what he needed was a pathway. X to Y to Z to the Pope. And then back out with a dozen or so cells.
“Don’t leave this room,” George instructed. “Except for lunch, which you will take downstairs in the restaurant. That’s when the maids will come in and clean the room. They have to come in, or it will set off alarm bells down at the desk. Normal. Everything normal.”
“I can’t sit in here twenty-four/seven,” Bug Man argued.
“You can and you will,” George said flatly. “Order all the in-room movies you like. But don’t draw attention to yourself. Italian police may not be geniuses, but let’s not give them a chance. Right?”
That was a depressing reminder. When would he be free to walk out in the world without being afraid? Maybe never. But never was a long time, and Bug Man was an optimist.
“So what’s my path?”
“Path?”
“How do I get from here to there?”
George sat down in the easy chair. Bug Man stood looking out through the balcony’s sliding glass door.
“We have access to the wafers used for the Pope’s communion.”
Bug Man snorted. “Are you nuts?”
“Is it a religious objection, because—?”
“It’s an objection over the fact that the mouth is not a point of entry unless you want to end up riding an infallible papal turd out the far end.”
George shrugged dismissively. “Surely there’s some way to—”
“Have you ever seen a mouth down at the nano level? It’s about as big as a valley, and it’s full of massive boulders chomping, plus a tongue and spit and wind. Maybe you can grab onto a tooth and get safely up under the gums, but I’m not trying it.”
“All right, there’s a second way. We have access to a person who has an audience with the Pope on Tuesday. It’s traditional to kiss the papal ring. Does that work for you?”
“I’m still sitting out there on a lip hoping this dude doesn’t get nervous and lick them.”
“It’s a woman, and she’s not the nervous type.”
“A woman? Who?”
“Her name is Lystra Reid. Owns some clinical testing company or other. Directive Medical? Rich American.” He didn’t seem to approve of rich Americans. “She owns medical labs and such. A lot of them. And she’s made some big contributions to an African mission the Pope is fond of.”
“Is she one of your people?”
“No. But her maid has debts, and we have money. So we can get the maid to place the biot … sorry, nanobots in this case … on Ms. Reid. You then merely have to be on her fingertips when she takes the Pope’s hand, or on her lips when she kisses the ring. Then it’s grab a sample and find your way out.”
A loud guffaw erupted from Bug Man. He turned to look at George, feeling that he had the better of him for the first time. “You don’t know much, do you? What do you think? My nanobots walk back here to the hotel? It’s only a few hundred yards, maybe, but that’s a hell of a long walk when you’re two hundred microns long. A nanobot can’t even see objects at much distance. The optics are calibrated for work down in the meat, so I wouldn’t know where it was and where to make it go, even if we had a month or so to walk it back here.”
“We’ll find a way,” George said, and yawned.
“Oh, will we …”
It was meant to be sarcastic dismissal, but George didn’t take it that way. He clapped his hands once as if drawing the scene to a close. And in fact, he did draw the scene to a close, by leaving behind a baffled, worried—but also excited—Bug Man.
Plath and Keats arrived at the alleyway door of the McLure building after much skullduggery that made them both feel like spies. They were reasonably sure they hadn’t been followed.
They were ushered into a private elevator and whisked to the twentieth floor. It was a bit of an old-home week for Plath, not all of it good. She’d been in and out of this building since childhood, but her last visit had begun with Anya creating Plath’s biots and ended in a massacre between McLure security men, AFGC hired hands, and Caligula. Needless to say, Caligula had come out on top.
Mr. Stern met them in his office then led them down a guarded hallway to an unmarked door.
“So, how are you adjusting to being back in New York?” he asked them both.
“I liked the island better,” Keats said.
“I can imagine. Well, let me show you what we have.” Stern slid a keycard and opened the unmarked door. Inside was just a room with half a dozen workstations, each focused on a large monitor. The ambient light came from the monitors, the keypads with keys outlined in light, and softly glowing touch screens.
It had the feeling of a room that had just been emptied of people. Plath touched a coffee cup and felt that it was still warm. Stern had emptied everyone from the room for greater privacy.
He sat down and Plath and Keats pulled up chairs.
Stern tapped a few keys, then switched to a touch screen.
“You asked me for what we have on the Tulip, and specifically whether there’s a data center,” he said as the image of that strange building appeared. “This is the Tulip. This is a photo, obviously, taken from across the street. And this”—he swiped the screen—“is the heat signature using infrared.”
The skyscraper was now a sort of layer cake of red, purple, and blue—mostly red.
“Of course we had to wait until the building was in shadow so we didn’t just pick up reflected sunlight,” Stern explained. “We took three readings, three different days, and this is the composite heat signature. This—”another swipe—“is the same building but shot from the north. And this is from the east. We don’t have a westerly view, but we have a high degree of confidence that these heat signatures are persistent and not just one-time things.”
“Okay,” Plath said, making a puzzled face at Keats, who was looking intently.
“There’s a lot of variation by floor,” Keats said.
“Oh, obviously,” Plath said, with just a little sarcasm.
“But it’s all centrally air conditioned, yes?”
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“It is. Normally,” Stern said with unmistakable pride. “But we turned off the AC. We risked using our back door into their computer network and reset the thermostat overnight. It takes a while for the system to catch up when it’s turned back on, and in the meantime we could get a picture of what’s being done and where.”
“Can you show the temperature readouts?” Keats asked.
Stern winked at Plath. “This one’s smart.” He tapped a few keys, and numbers popped up beside each floor. “You get a clearer picture off this data.”
“One floor is far hotter.” Keats used his finger to count the floors. The eighteenth, yes? Something is giving off a lot of heat.”
“Servers, we believe,” Stern said. “They have their own emergency climate control, but it’s not enough to disguise the heat signature when the overall air-conditioning system is down.”
“So, the eighteenth floor is where they have their main computers. Their own personal cloud,” Plath said.
“That seems likely,” Stern said.
“Okay, how do we get to it and destroy it?”
There it was again in Plath’s head, that crystalline memory of the World Trade Center falling. It seemed almost sensuous. Had she just become used to it? Had she seen that imagery so often that it had lost its potential to shock and had now become almost balletic?
Stern sighed. He pulled up a different diagram of the building. “Those are the elevator shafts. If you see those thicker areas there, that indicates an elevator stop, a door. If you look even closer, you’ll notice there are none for the eighteenth floor. And I’ll spare you the suspense and just tell you that the stairs, the emergency access, also doesn’t open onto eighteen. There is a single stairwell connecting eighteen to seventeen. And there’s a stumpy freight elevator that goes only from seventeen to eighteen, and nowhere else. Floor seventeen, in case you were wondering, is where AFGC security lives.”
“Oh,” Keats said.
“Indeed. There are never fewer than ten security—TFDs as we call them: Tourists from Denver, since that’s the look they put on—on that floor at any time. Another two dozen or so patrol the building or watch the entrances. They are all armed. They are mostly very well trained, many are former special forces or commandos. U.S. Marines, ex-Delta Force, Royal Marines, SAS, ex-Mossad … dangerous people.”