“What possibilities?”
“I’ll tell you, but it’s better if you start. Really.”
He considered. “Why do I continue to feel that you’re interrogating me?”
Kira didn’t respond.
“I received an e-mail from someone I consider a mentor,” said Jake. “The most patriotic, heroic man I’ve ever known. A man of Islamic heritage who has spent years deep undercover, infiltrating the highest levels of Hezbollah.”
“Born in America?”
“Yes, but able to speak unaccented Arabic. Anyway, the message had a large file attached that detailed everything about you. Your history. How you were hunted because of your involvement in a bioterror plot. Your IQ cocktail. How David Desh was sent to stop you. Your longevity treatment, along with proof that it was a hoax. Everything.”
“Any mention of my brother, Alan?”
“Only that you had burned him alive. Again, you were later cleared of this, but my mentor knew otherwise.” He paused. “In addition, there was unimpeachable evidence of you meeting with terrorist leaders—that’s how he knew about you—working on WMD, both nuclear and biological. And also of your involvement in major terrorist attacks around the world.”
“And where did he say he got this evidence? Did he claim all of this activity was somehow tied up with Hezbollah?”
“I don’t know. He’s in very, very deep. I can’t contact him. He only risked contacting me once before. With information that was instrumental in stopping a plan to sabotage the San Onofre nuclear reactor in Orange County—which would have turned Southern California into Chernobyl. The fact that he risked another communication shows how important of a threat he thinks you are.”
“But if you never followed up with him, how can you be sure he sent you the message?”
“It was him. The e-mail and IP address matched up. He referenced history that only he would know about.”
Kira considered. She had no reason to doubt Jake that the evidence against her was airtight, and had been vetted repeatedly for authenticity. So what did this mean? Either she really was an evil terrorist set out to destroy the world, or . . . or all of this had been set up by someone with access to her therapy. It was the only way this could have been handled so flawlessly. But none of the gellcaps she had produced had been involved. She was certain of that.
Which meant that somewhere out there, there was someone who could make active gellcaps. Putnam had blackmailed a molecular biologist, a man they later learned was named Eric Frey. Kira’s brother had stolen a number of gellcaps from her, and he had fed some of these to this blackmailed biologist, pushing him to recreate her work. When Putnam and her brother were killed, this Frey had been close to succeeding. But without access to several more doses of Kira’s therapy, he was sure to fail.
But maybe not. Maybe he had been playing a double game as well. Maybe he had made more progress than he had let on. He may have been in league with Putnam to cross her brother. If so, this Eric Frey could well have access to the video footage she had just seen.
And if there were others, unknown to her, who could amplify their intelligence, they could have easily managed to fabricate airtight evidence against her. And could have hacked into the right computers to get the IP address and background information necessary to convince Jake the evidence had come from a trusted friend, conveniently deep undercover so this couldn’t be checked further. It all fit together perfectly.
And then another piece of the puzzle suddenly slid into place.
“Colonel, there’s something you’re not telling me,” she said. “When you read your friend’s message, you should have thought he had gone off the deep end. You should have never believed in IQ enhancement. It’s too fantastic. I know how improbable it is, and I developed it. Even with my genetic engineering abilities and study of autistic savants, it’s astonishing that nature allows for it.”
“My friend saved my life more than once. I trust him implicitly. If he’s convinced of the power of your therapy, that’s good enough for me.”
She shook her head. “I think you’re lying. Even if you believed in enhancement, you’d still never be able to imagine the transcendent capabilities of an enhanced mind. No way. But your actions suggest you can imagine it. I’ve seen your paranoia in action when you’re dealing with me. You’ve been ridiculously careful. Too careful.”
“What’s your point?”
“Your friend didn’t just send you an e-mail. He sent you a small package as well, didn’t he?”
Jake gazed at her and sighed. “Very perceptive. I have to remember you’re one of the few people in this world who are off-the-charts brilliant, even without any artificial help.”
“So you admit it?”
He nodded. “Yes. You’re right, of course. He sent me a package. With a single gellcap inside. He said the only way I could truly understand the threat, truly understand what I was up against, was to try it myself. If it had been anyone else I wouldn’t have done it. But it was him. And the evidence was compelling.”
“Only one?”
“Only one.”
“So you learned firsthand just how amplified your intelligence becomes, and the spectacular capabilities that come with it.” She paused in thought. “And the sociopathic tendencies must have hit you hard. Very hard. That’s why you’re so overzealous when it comes to the threat you think we pose.”
A faraway look came to Jake’s eyes. “That’s right. The information I was sent detailed the side effects—the changes in personality. I thought I was prepared for it, but not by a long shot. I became ruthless. Savage. I had access to a computer and the Internet, and in that single hour, I doctored files, removed funds, and destroyed the careers and finances of two rivals of mine. Friendly rivals. I’m not a computer expert, and to this day I have no idea how I did it.” He made no attempt to hide his self loathing. “I tried to undo the damage later, but got nowhere. I’ve been helping get them back on their feet anonymously, but they’ll never be where they were.”
“Does anyone know you were behind it?”
“No. I would have admitted it, but I couldn’t recall how I had done it. And I couldn’t even find evidence against myself. A confession would have raised too many questions I couldn’t answer. I tried to undo the damage, but I couldn’t.”
“Now it all makes sense. Why you have so much respect for what my therapy can do. And why you believe I’m more dangerous than the devil. You’ve experienced the awesome power of an enhanced mind, and know this can turn even a saint into a tyrant. And you’ve been given evidence that I was a psychopath even before any therapy. So killing me, stopping me, became your crusade, your obsession.”
He nodded. “I’m the only one outside of Icarus who knows how truly dangerous you can be. How truly creative and brilliant you become. Einstein and Edison times a hundred.”
“You’re being played, Colonel,” said Kira evenly. “I’m not saying my therapy isn’t dangerous in the wrong hands. Or even in the right hands if not enough precautions are taken. But the e-mail you received wasn’t sent by your friend.”
“And what do you base that on?”
“Did your friend tell you where he got the gellcap he sent?”
Jake shook his head no.
“Well he didn’t get it from me. I know where every last one of them has gone. So whoever sent this message has their own source. Which means they have gellcaps for themselves. How hard do you think it would be for an enhanced mind to hack your buddy’s IP address and history to fool you into thinking the message was from him? No matter how deeply buried it was. How hard would it be for an amplified intelligence to fabricate evidence to frame me? Evidence that could pass your every test for authenticity.”