Mariposa

  Soon, nobody would be getting away with anything, anywhere. She had to sniff in wonder. Brave new world—lousy old cliché.

  Just two booths down, scanners from a company called Rainbow Life Forensics guaranteed to analyze and predict the intent of strangers through their Kirlian Auras.

  Something old, something new, something weird.

  "Rebecca!"

  At the end of the leftmost aisle, Rebecca swiveled and saw Karl Oster leaning from a booth. "How's our favorite Rolodex expert?" he called. A big banner behind him proclaimed NCAP: National Council of Protection Agencies—an NGO trade group.

  She swung left and shook his hand.

  "Hey, Karl. Most of these youngsters don't even know what a Rolodex is." She pulled back her cuff to reveal the dattoo. "Want to mate?"

  Oster smirked, pulled up his sleeve, unbuttoned his cuff, and showed his own dattoo. They crossed arms.

  "Don't scratch it," he warned.

  "They do itch," Rebecca said. "Congrats."

  "Screw that," he said with a grin.

  Oster had been portrayed by Johnny Depp in a movie about Waylon Parks, the Karaoke Butcher. Parks had kidnapped twenty-one children in two states, burying them with a backhoe in old shipping containers. Each container had a battery backup unit that powered a small Karaoke machine that ran videos of Parks singing David Bowie songs. Gary Oldman, of course, had portrayed Parks.

  "It's bullshit," Oster said. "They should have made a movie about you."

  "Fat chance," Rebecca said.

  "What irritates the hell out of me is the way these bastards are portrayed by smart, charming actors. We know different. They're broken toys. When you finally catch 'em, they look dead inside."

  Karl and Rebecca had gone out for dinner a few times in Washington and stayed friends thereafter, exchanging calls now and then. Karl, a perennial bachelor, had never pushed. She almost wished he had.

  But now of course there was her captain. Odd that she was the one feeling fast and possessive.

  "Agents love their movies, Karl. Yours wasn't too bad. How's San Francisco?"

  "Office is trés chic," Oster said, the standing joke.

  Rebecca had appointments to keep. She waved and moved on.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Nathaniel lingered at the food court for half an hour, uncertain what to do next or where to go. He had run out of instructions, external or internal.

  He ordered a tuna sandwich and observed the people coming and going. Mostly reps or salespeople, a few politicians, a fair number of law enforcement officers in plain clothes—and of course security guards.

  Watching them all move and mingle was relaxing, like watching an ant farm.

  He slowly and meticulously played back Plover's words and actions during and after their dinner the night before. The memory was sharp. With some concentration, he could make it even sharper—until it pushed aside the real world.

  It wasn't exactly like living the events again; the replay assumed its own rearranged logic, edited by his brain into a better story, and some parts were already in the process of degradation . . . de-selected, de-rezzed . . .

  Interesting to actually watch that happening.

  Rebecca Rose had been apprehensive. He thought perhaps she recognized him, but not consciously. Had they met before? His work had absorbed all his attention, even when he was in Baltimore, undergoing Mariposa. He might not have noticed her.

  Work—and terror. Terror—and work. All he was, all he had. Back then, if he forgot something, it was likely to stay forgotten. Now . . .

  Everybody interested him to some degree. Faces were important. He truly was like a baby—a baby savant.

  He had read Rebecca Rose like a book. She had been in a hurry—and not just to get into the hall. She wanted to get away from extraneous thoughts and forces impinging on her life. To move toward pleasant things and away from unpleasant or worrisome things—like him.

  Pretty standard palm reader bullshit, so far.

  Nathaniel moved forward in memory-time and caught up with the food court, the conference, the amusing ant farm. This was good. This was exhilarating. The old Nathaniel Trace had not liked mysteries.

  Now, not having all the answers was like the beginning of an all-absorbing game, a combination of Philip Marlowe and poker. In due time, with patience—something he was trying hard to nurture—facts would come his way. But he could also put himself in the way of facts.

  (That patience thing was a work in progress, along with attention span, reining in bee vision, and not biting his hands.)

  This convention was turning into a freeway cloverleaf of discovery—a maze of onramps and exits. The longer he stayed, the more he might learn.

  He belched tuna sour—food still not agreeing with him—and pushed away the mostly uneaten sandwich. He walked toward the escalators, the high atrium, and the exit, at medium speed, not to attract attention.

  Stopped for water at a fountain.

  Things playing around in his head. Thoughts seemed to have their own shapes, and now he could see how they might fit together.

  Make a picture.

  Axel Price's plans involved disruption. Nathaniel had always wondered how it would happen, after the Turing group finished their international wire work. They weren't supposed to know the real purpose of that work, of course. But now it seemed obvious.

  He could bring it all up from his subconscious, where it had just fallen into its proper place.

  The vice president had put himself in the news. Plover had practically confirmed that Quinn was one of his patients. Plover was beholden to Axel Price.

  Something was going wrong with Mariposa.

  Because of that, and for other reasons, Price's plans might be in jeopardy. Something in which the vice president was going to play a major role.

  The Quiet Man seemed to think so.

  Tipping event.

  Plover was in danger, trying to hide and not being smart about it. He was a scientist, not a spy. Who would have the strongest reason to want the doctor silenced?

  Who would be powerful enough to cause concern for the Quiet Man?

  Jerry Lee is torturing animals. Bork . . .

  You might all become killers. Get in the news.

  Like the vice president.

  And then you'd spill the beans. You know you've been thinking about it.

  This tickled Nathaniel. He laughed, then covered his mouth like a Japanese girl. His skin flushed—all but the scar.

  The Turing Seven had become untrustworthy—Price was upset with them as well. All might come unraveled, so Price was angry. Pieces well-shaped, fitting nicely so far. Obvious.

  Plover said that Price always had two reasons for doing anything. That was the secret of his success. Here, gathered in the convention center, were two and possibly even three reasons. Another tipping event—this one deliberate and planned. Something big, anonymous—destabilizing.

  Dress rehearsal.

  Prep for the grand finale.

  Visions bright and scary flashed in his visual centers, like a waking dream. A whiff of burned metal flitted through his olfactory circuits. Something primal told him to get the hell out of this place. The call in the restaurant had upset the doctor. Perhaps someone had died. Someone he knew and loved and had tried to protect.

  His wife.

  Nathaniel had warned Rebecca Rose—but why? What was he anticipating?

  Once outside the convention center, he considered hiring a taxi, but decided instead to study the nearby construction. He assumed the happiest of attitudes. He felt relaxed and at ease, unlike the day before.

  Everything was delightfully potential.

  You need to keep a sense of proportion, the wise old voice told him. What is it you really see—what do you need to see—what is it you want to see?

  "I'm just waiting for something to happen," he said.

  Passersby didn't look at him funny. He might be talking on a phone . . . but he wasn't. He was a c
ertifiable crazy person.

  "Something interesting is coming," he told himself. "Something dangerous."

  You can't know that. But how much are you willing to risk by staying here, where it seems to be most dangerous?

  "I'll stand over there, then."

  Nathaniel crossed three parking lots and stood on Flower Street, where he turned to watch the passing cars, goggle at the buildings, lift squinted eyes to the sapphire sky. He liked making his long coat swirl. Grinning, he felt the scar on his cheek tug. Just walking in the sunshine felt great.

  His face warmed everywhere but the scar.

  He couldn't get Rebecca Rose out of his thoughts. He did not want her out of his thoughts. She was a fascinating part of the puzzle—the next piece to fall into place.

  The whole area along Flower Street had undergone a kind of renaissance after years of major down time. A huge new Sofitel was just opening. Workers were pulling away tape and plastic riprap and moving equipment to make way for guests. Too expensive for most of the people at the convention center. That meant the hotel was relatively safe. He should stay here for a while. The hotel lobby looked interesting.

  There was a huge crystal chandelier suspended above a beautiful travertine marble floor. Inside, Nathaniel looked up at the chandelier, giggling. A bellman and the concierge behind her desk watched him. Nathaniel dropped his shoulders.

  His sense of time slowed. Safe.

  The next thing that happened was intense.

  The crystal chandelier jumped and sang with a thousand brilliant high notes. He felt it, saw it—

  The puzzle came alive.

  "That's an explosion," he whispered.

  Glass was breaking and falling everywhere—behind him, a shower of prisms pinged and exploded against the marble floor. Eruptions of diamond pebbles water-falled out of the tall front windows, exposing the interior to a shockwave of warm air.

  He was visualizing a distant explosion in clinical detail—analyzing the frequencies of the vibrations, the directions in which the walls of the hotel would move—periodicity, amplitude, the layout of the building and the surrounding streets, the way taller buildings would absorb the shock.

  As he walked out of the hotel, the walls still seemed to shake. Staying on his feet as the ground heaved was easy enough—like dancing to a syncopated, swaying tune.

  The convention center puffed huge white and gray clouds.

  Enough.

  He thwacked himself on the temple with the palm of his hand.

  Nathaniel stood trembling outside, away from the Sofitel lobby, across the street and back in sunshine. The hotel's windows were intact, the chandelier—visible through the windows—still suspended above the marble floor.

  He let out a half frightened, entirely delighted whistle. This was utterly cool. The cloverleaf of discovery had just changed in a most intriguing way. The whole world had become his chess board. He could see millions of moves in advance . . . keyed in, of course, to the kings and queens, the power players.

  His head hurt so bad his entire body was throbbing. But he felt no sense of danger, only a deep conviction that he was not wrong.

  His metabolism had become that of a humming bird. Time for a sugary drink.

  Time to return to the convention center.

  Chapter Twenty

  Walking through the exhibit hall, Rebecca felt like Alice down the high-tech rabbit hole. The moral equivalent of Hitler under the old lady's bed had become huge business since 9/11 and 10/4.

  COPES cut right through the body politic and revealed a cross-section of American nightmares. The long aisles were lined with pipe-and-curtain booths promoting aids to justice and anodynes to fear, from the specific and timely to the shapeless and eternal, all put together with businesslike style and just enough color.

  Men in dark suits and women in gray or pastel suits casually conversed with retailers and cops about public protection, crime and detection, less-than-lethal takedown, and the tools they all needed to buy that elusive sense of security from, and justice for, all the bad guys.

  Some tools could be lethal by happenstance, of course. A mock-up cutaway of an armored Ford Crown Victoria revealed dark layers of "C-ERA," electromagnetic reactive armor packed with carbon fiber nanotubes—good protection for you, inside, not so good for the crowds around you, sprayed with pulverized shrapnel. A sign over the somber gray vehicle proclaimed: "This is one ERA you'll ratify!"

  "Har," Rebecca said softly.

  By and large, male cops were still chauvinists—and probably always would be. Gather male and female law enforcement together—especially the young—and a few of the males always felt it necessary to challenge the females as to credentials, fitness, their place in the cruel masculine world—which was properly staying home and making babies. With their willing assistance, of course.

  The captain had exhibited none of that. That could mean he was simply more experienced with women.

  Stop it. Enjoy the moment.

  D&P—Detection and Protection—systems abounded for radiation and bio-attacks of any kind, personal or large-scale. D&P came in the form of networked phones, bracelets, even radio-alerted chips under the skin.

  Be the first on your block to get the hell away from your block . . . when the bad guys spray it with nerve gas or anthrax.

  Rebecca made a face and let out a small puff of breath. She lingered for a few seconds at the FreezeCrime forensics display, a ring in the middle of two aisles, revealing all the latest in sealing and preserving crime scenes: room-size cooling units and rail-mounted bots designed to pick up samples without leaving "cop residue." The bar was being raised on crime scenes. She had often wondered why human techs were allowed to stomp and shed their way through those delicate, information-rich landscapes. And if human investigators had to be there—a case could still be made for that—there were plastic suits designed to protect cops from contamination, and protect the evidence from the dusty, hairy, sweaty presence of cops.

  The food square at the back of the hall was fenced by black ropes and guarded by another phalanx of security, perhaps the most impressive and vigilant. Their job was to wave off conventioneers without food privileges: press, day-trippers, salespeople.

  She wove through clusters of diners grazing off the buffet—chatting, balancing glasses and plastic plates—then proceeded to the end of the C aisle, where she was scheduled to be a star speaker. Her future boss, Stan Philips, stood under a simple black banner with a company logo printed in silver-gray: BLUE EYES EXECUTIVE SERVICES.

  A little platform had been set up to one side of the booth. Within sight of the food. Terrific. She would be competing with steam tables and salad bars.

  Stan was with a tall fellow in a dark gray suit. This made Stan look shorter than his five feet eight inches. The tall fellow had thick brown hair; Stan's hair was sallow and wispy. The tall fellow's voice deep and hard to make out over the noise in the hall. Stan, as usual, was mostly listening. Stan seldom expressed his opinions unless pressed. That was one reason he liked Rebecca and she got along with him. She was taciturn but not silent. Stan was often too quiet, and that confused their clients, who seemed to think they were paying for words, not results.

  Stan introduced Rebecca to the tall fellow. He was some official or another from some agency or another and he was here at the show hoping to find better employment.

  "I'm interested in art security," the man said. "I hear you guys are pretty good at protection and provenance. I did undergrad work in art history at Long Beach State."

  Rebecca shut off her ears and locked in her smile. Nodding to the conversational beats, she turned her sharp green eyes to a small group gathered in front of the lectern. Four guys in suits. Small groups made her more nervous than large ones.

  She wished she were somewhere else—maybe over by the steam table, picking through the General Tso's chicken, pepper beef and broccoli, green onion pancakes and mu shu sauce. Or sitting in the audience across the exhibit floor,
listening to Captain Periglas's presentation.

  She sucked in her breath, wanting simply to be with her captain, with her prospective daughter, to be far, far away—in a small house, mortgage paid off, easy to clean, a simple garden.

  Maybe the young male agents were right about women after all. It was a lovely vision.

  Stan handed the tall man a card and suggested he join the her audience. "Rebecca's got a great take on high-tech security," he said. "Worth hearing."

  Rebecca clutched her hands in front of her, waiting for the clock to tick over. In the corner of her eye, she noticed a knot of activity around the no-host bar on the northern side of the catering square. Three young men and two women in black-and-white uniforms were talking and pointing to something behind the bar.

  One young man knelt out of sight and then stood, frowning and holding out his hand.

  She tried to read his lips.

  He might have been saying, It's cold.

  She tuned into the louder voice of the female bar tender. "It's just Coke. Maybe it's fizzing."

  They seemed more puzzled than worried. But a long line of customers was getting impatient.

  Something was not right.

  She turned from the tall man, muttered something to Stan, and pushed under the rope to walk toward the bar. One of the security guards arrived three steps ahead of her: short, middle-aged, Hispanic, with a round face and smart black eyes that probably missed nothing.

  "Is there a problem?" he asked.

  Rebecca stood back respectfully.

  "Something weird with our syrup canisters," the male bartender said.

  "It's just Coke!" the female bartender insisted.

  "It's cycling hot and cold," the male said. "I've never seen it do that." His voice squeaked, and somehow that made it real.