"You've been here before, I take it?" he asked the general.
"Been here when this was just a hole in the ground and a bunch of blueprints, and a couple of times since." He punched at the elevator buttons with a stubby finger. "What's the damn thing waiting for?"
"Authorization." Tanabe ran his fingers over the array of buttons, a smooth, practiced movement like someone reading braille. "Down," he said. The elevator door closed and the car dropped noiselessly.
The young Japanese-American man's further attempts at sociability were ignored. When the elevator door opened again, Tanabe gestured to the deeply carpeted room and its deeply cushioned furniture. "Mister Wells asks that you go in and wait. He'll be with you in a moment. May I bring you anything?"
"No. Is he going to be long?"
"I very much doubt it."
"Then you might as well get on your horse."
Tanabe shrugged gracefully and smiled. "Up." The door closed.
General Yacoubian had lit a cigar, and was squinting with outraged suspicion at a piece of modern art—multicolored electrosensitive gases housed in a clear plastic shell made from a death-cast of an accident victim—when the door behind the desk hissed open.
"Those aren't very good for you, you know."
Yacoubian turned his look of disapproval from the sculpture to the speaker, a slender, white-haired man with a lined face. The newcomer wore a rumpled antique sweater and slacks. "Jesus Samuel Christ," the general said, "are you going to start that stop-smoking shit all over again? What the hell do you know about it?"
"I must know something," Wells said mildly. "After all, I'm a hundred and eleven years old next month." He smiled. "Actually, it makes me tired just considering it. I think I'll sit down."
"Don't get comfortable. We need to talk."
Wells raised an eyebrow. "So talk."
"Not here. No offense, but there are certain things I don't want to talk about within a half-mile of any kind of listening or recording devices, and the only place that's got more of them per square inch than this gear-farm of yours is the Washington embassy of whatever Third World Country we're deciding to blow the shit out of this week."
Wells smiled, but it was a little chilly, "Are you saying that you don't think I can talk securely in my own office? Do you really think anybody could penetrate Telemorphix? I've got gear that even the government can only dream about. Or are you trying to say that you don't trust me, Daniel?"
"I'm saying I don't trust anybody with this—you, me, or anyone who might ever work for us. I don't trust TMX and I don't trust the U.S. Government, the Air Force, or the Emporia, Kansas, chapter of the Boy Scouts of America. Got it? Don't take it too personally." He took the cigar from his mouth and regarded the wet, chewed end with distracted annoyance, then replaced it and sucked until the other end was glowing red. Wells frowned at the cloud of thick smoke generated but said nothing. "Now, here's my suggestion. We can be in Portland in half an hour. I don't trust a conversation on my plane either, if that makes you feel any better, so we'll talk about the weather until we're back on the ground. You pick the part of town, I'll pick a restaurant in it. That way, we know neither of us is running a setup."
Wells frowned. "Daniel, this is . . . very surprising. Are you sure all this is necessary?"
Yacoubian grimaced. He removed his cigar, then ground it out in an Art Deco ashtray that was being used for its original purpose for the first time in at least half a century. His host's flinch did not go unnoticed. "No, Bob, I flew all the way here just because I thought you weren't getting enough protein in your diet. Damn it, man, I'm telling you, we need to talk. Bring along a couple of your security boys. We'll send 'em in with mine to make sure wherever we pick is clean."
"We're just going to sit there? With . . . with the customers?"
The general laughed. "Jesus, that scares you, huh? No, we'll clear 'em out. We can pay the owners enough to make it worth their while. I'm not worried about publicity, although we can throw a little scare into them about that as well. I just want a couple of hours when I don't have to worry about who might be listening."
Wells still hesitated. "Daniel, I haven't been out to dinner in I don't know how long. I haven't been off this property since I went to Washington for that Medal of Freedom thing, and that was almost five years ago."
"Then it will do you good. You own about half the world, man—don't you ever want to see any of it?"
To an outsider—like the nervous young waitress who had arrived at work to discover she would only have two customers that night, and now stood peering out at them from the relative security of the kitchen door—the men at the table seemed to be of a similar age, old enough to be looking forward to their first grandchildren. Very few ordinary grandfathers, though, had their table and chairs sterilized by a security team, or their food prepared under the watchful eyes of a half-dozen bodyguards.
The general was, in fact, a young-looking seventy, small and solid-bodied, skin darkened to coffee-with-cream from his years in the Middle East. He had been a wrestler at the Air Force Academy and still moved with a compact swagger.
The taller man was also very tan, although his skin color came from melanin alteration, a shield against the aging effect of ultraviolet light. By his erect posture and firm flesh, the waitress—who was disappointed that she didn't recognize either one of such an obviously important pair of customers—guessed him to be the younger of the two. It was an understandable misjudgment. Only the slow brittleness of his movements and the yellow tint to the whites of his eyes gave any hint of the scores of operations and the painful daily regimen which kept him alive and allowed that life to resemble something like normality.
"I'm glad we did this." Wells sipped his wine carefully, then set the glass down and dabbed his lips, every motion performed with meticulous deliberation. He seemed made of delicate crystal, like a creature from a fairy tale. "It's good to be . . . somewhere else."
"Yeah, and if our guys are doing their jobs, we can have a safer conversation here than we could have even in that hardened Twilight of the Gods bunker under your office. And the food was okay, too. You just can't get salmon like that on the East Coast—actually, there probably isn't any such article as East Coast salmon any more, since that infestation thing." Yacoubian pushed his plate of fine bones aside and unwrapped a cigar. "I'll get to the point. I don't trust the Old Man any more."
Wells' smile was thin and ghostly. "Careful with that word 'old.' "
"Don't waste time. You know who I mean, and you know what I mean."
The owner of the world's most powerful technology company stared at his dinner companion for a moment, then turned as the waitress approached. His vague, distracted expression suddenly changed to something altogether colder. The young woman, who had finally worked up her courage to leave the kitchen doorway and come clear the plates, saw the took on Wells' face and froze a few feet from the table.
The general heard her startled intake of breath and looked up. "We'll let you know if we want you. Go sit in the kitchen or something. Get lost."
The waitress scurried away.
"It's no secret you don't like him," said Wells. "It's no secret I don't like him either, although I feel a certain grudging respect for what he's done. But, as I said, none of that's a secret. So why all this running around?"
"Because something's gone wrong. You're right, I don't like him, and frankly all that pissy Egyptian stuff gets under my skin. But if everything was going as planned, I wouldn't give a shit."
"What are you talking about, Daniel?" Wells had grown rigid. His strange eyes, bright blue set in old ivory, seemed even more intense in his expressionless face. "What's gone wrong?"
"The one who got away—'the subject,' as our Fearless Leader calls him. I've been having some of my own people run a few simulations—don't worry, I haven't given them any kind of specifics, just some very broad parameters. And they keep coming back with the same results. Namely that it couldn't happen by
accident."
"There is no such thing as accident. That's what science is all about—I've explained that to you enough times, Daniel. There are only patterns we don't yet recognize."
Yacoubian crumpled his napkin. "Don't you goddamn patronize me, Wells. I'm telling you that it wasn't an accident, and I don't want a lecture. My information says that someone must have helped it to happen."
"Someone else in the . . . in the group? The Old Man himself? But why? And how, Daniel? They'd have to come in and do it right under my nose."
"Now do you see why I didn't want to talk in your office?"
Wells shook his head slowly. "That's circular reasoning, Daniel. An accident is still the most likely possibility. Even if your SitMap boys say it's ninety-nine-point-ninety-nine in favor of outside intervention—and I'm only assuming they've got the right figures for the sake of argument—that's still a one in ten thousand chance that it's a fluke. Nobody on my end doubts it was an accident, and it's my engineers who have to troubleshoot the thing. I have a much easier time believing we hit the jackpot on those odds, which aren't really that long, than believing someone from outside got into the Grail Project." Another chilly smile. "Or 'Ra,' as our Fearless Leader is pleased to call it. Pour me a little more wine, will you? Is it Chilean?"
Yacoubian filled the taller man's glass. "Haven't been out of your goddamn bunker for years and now you're going to get drunk on me. A century-old teenager."
"Hundred and eleven, Daniel. Nearly." His hand stopped, the glass halfway to his mouth. He set the glass down.
"Damn it, Bob, this is crucial! You know how much time and energy we've all put into this! You know the risks we've taken—that we're taking even as we speak!"
"I do, Daniel." Wells' smile appeared fixed now, like something carved onto the face of a wooden dummy.
"Then start taking me seriously. I know you don't think much of the military—nobody in your generation did, from what I gather—but if you think someone gets to where I am without having something on the ball. . . ."
"I have a lot of respect for you, Daniel."
"Then why the hell are you staring at me with that stupid grin on your face when I'm trying to get you to talk about something important?"
The taller man's mouth straightened into a thin line. "Because I'm thinking, Daniel. Now shut up for a few minutes."
The now-thoroughly-terrified waitress had been allowed to clear the plates. As she put down coffee for both men and a snifter of cognac for the general, Wells reached up and gently clasped her arm. She jumped and gave a little squeak of surprise.
"If you were lost somewhere, and you didn't know how you'd gotten there and you didn't recognize the place, what would you do?"
She stared at him, eyes wide. "I . . . beg your pardon, sir?"
"You heard me. What would you do?"
"If I was . . . lost, sir?"
"And it was an unfamiliar place, and you didn't know how you'd wound up there. Maybe you even had amnesia and didn't remember where you came from."
Irritated, Yacoubian started to say something, but Wells flicked a glance at him. The general made a face and dug in his pocket for his cigar case.
"I'm not sure." The young woman tried to straighten up, but Wells had her arm held tightly. He was stronger than his careful movements suggested. "I suppose I'd . . . wait somewhere. Stay in one place so that someone could find me. Like they teach you in Girl Guides."
"I see." Wells nodded. "You have a bit of an accent, my dear. Where are you from?"
"Scotland, sir,"
"That's nice. You must have come over after the Breakdown, right? But tell me, what if you were in a land full of strangers and didn't know if anyone would ever come to look for you? What would you do then?"
The girl was beginning to panic. She put her other hand on the table for support and took a deep breath. "I would . . . I would try to find a road, try to find people who'd traveled a lot. And I'd ask people about places that were nearby until I recognized a name. Then, I suppose I'd just stay on the road and try to get to the place that sounded familiar."
Wells pursed his lips. "Hmmm. Very good. You're a very sensible girl."
"Sir?" Her tone was questioning. She tried again a little louder. "Sir?"
He wore that half-smile again. It took him a few moments to respond. "Yes?"
"You're hurting my arm, sir."
He let her go. She moved rapidly toward the kitchen without looking back.
"What the hell was that all about?"
"Just seeing how people think. Ordinary people." Wells lifted his coffee and carefully sipped. "If it were possible to penetrate the Grail Project and free this particular subject—and I'm not saying it is, Daniel—then who could do it?"
The general bit down, making the glowing tip of his cigar rise dangerously near to the tip of his nose. "Not too damn many, obviously. One of your competitors?"
Wells bared his perfect teeth in a different sort of smile. "I don't think so."
"Well, what else is left? UNComm? One of the big metros or states?"
"Or someone from the Brotherhood, as we already mentioned. A possibility, because they would have an advantage." Wells nodded, considering. "They know what to look for. No one else even knows that such a thing exists."
"So you're taking this seriously."
"Of course I'm taking it seriously." Wells lifted his spoon from the coffee and watched it drip. "I was already concerned about it, but talking about percentages made me realize that it's a bad gamble to ignore it any longer." He dipped the spoon again, this time letting the coffee pool on the tablecloth. "I never understood why the Old Man wanted this . . . modification, and it sure as hell made me and TMX look bad when the guy fell off the radar. I've been letting the Old Man handle it so far, but I think you're right—we need to be a little more proactive."
"Now you're talking. Do you think this South American deal has anything to do with it? He got awful interested all of a sudden in having our old friend taken out of the picture. Bully's been retired from the Brotherhood for almost five years—why now?"
"I don't know. Obviously, we'll have a close look when he brings back the specifications for the job. But right now I'm more interested in finding out where the hole in my fence is . . . if there is one."
Yacoubian finished his cognac and licked his lips. "I didn't bring along that whole security squad just to clear a restaurant, y'know. I thought I might leave a few of them with you to help out. Two of these guys worked at Pine Gap, and another one's right out of Krittapong's industrial espionage finishing school—he knows all the latest tricks."
Wells lifted an eyebrow. "He just walked out of Krittapong USA to come work for you? At military pay?"
"Nah. We recruited him before he ever went to work there." The general laughed as he ran his finger around the rim of the snifter. "So you're going to concentrate on finding out how someone got into the Project and sprang the old man's guinea pig?"
"If someone got in—I'm not conceding it happened yet. Good God, think of what it could mean if someone has. But yes, that will be one of my lines of inquiry. I can also think of something else we need to do."
"Yeah? What's that?"
"Now who's had too much to drink? Surely if you weren't getting a little fuzzy, a top-flight military mind like yours would see it immediately, Daniel."
"I'll ignore that. Talk to me."
Wells folded his curiously unwrinkled hands on the tabletop. "We have reason to believe that a breach of security may have occurred, yes? And since my organization has ultimate responsibility for the safety of the Grail Project, I must not grant immunity from suspicion to anyone—not even to the Brotherhood. Not even to the Old Man himself. Am I right?"
"You're right. So?"
"So I think that it's up to me, now—with your help, of course, since Telemorphix has always had a very warm relationship with government—to see if I can locate not just the security breach, but the runaway himself. Inside the syst
em. And if in locating the fugitive we also find out what it is that made him so special to the Old Man, and that knowledge proves to be harmful to our esteemed colleague's interests . . . well, that would be an unavoidable shame, wouldn't it, Daniel?"
"I love the way you think, Bob. You just get better and better."
"Thank you, Daniel."
The general rose. "Why don't we hop back? Those boys out there are itching to get to work on this."
The tall man stood, too, more slowly. "Thanks for the meal. I don't think I've had such a nice evening for a long while."
General Yacoubian swiped his card across the window on the counter, then waved cheerfully to the waitress, who stared out from the doorway like a cornered animal. The general turned and took Wells by the arm.
"It's always good to get together with old friends."
And the wolf ran and ran, trying to escape from the burning hot stones, but the woodsman had sewn them firmly into his belly. He ran to the river to drink, and swallowed the river water until the stones inside him finally grew cold, but they were too heavy, and their weight pulled him down beneath the water where he drowned.
"Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother embraced in joy, then they thanked the woodsman for his good deed. And they all lived happily ever after. Excuse me. . . ." Mister Sellars coughed and reached out with his trembling hand for the water glass. Christabel handed it to him.
"But that's not how it goes in my Storybook Sunglasses." She felt slightly upset. Stories were not supposed to have more than one ending. "In the real story the wolf is sorry and promises he won't ever do it again."
Mister Sellars took a drink of water. "Well, things change, stories change. In the original version, I believe, even Red Riding Hood and her grandmother did not survive, let alone the wicked wolf."
"What's a 'norishinal virgin'?"
He showed her his crooked smile. "The very beginnings of a story. Or the true thing that someone weaves a story around."