He glanced a second time at the girl on the bicycle. Could that be it? Did Delta have transportation? Possibly, but that wouldn’t work alone.
How are you tracking me?
Delta was the lion chasing a gazelle, slower on foot but wearing his prey down, technology taking the place of a companion pride. DeBolt didn’t think his position was being linked in real time — he was increasingly convinced it only transmitted when necessary to support certain applications. If not that, then what?
Then a recent memory flashed, partial and disjointed: 98 Mill Street in Calais, Maine. A tiny red light. Staring up at himself and waving. He remembered the train station in Cologne, studying his surroundings while he’d sipped an espresso.
What had worked in Maine hadn’t in Holland.
So let’s try Austria.
DeBolt searched outside and saw them right away. One was mounted on a pole, another wedged under the eave of a T-shirt shop. Closed-circuit cameras.
He immediately went to work: CCTV near present position.
STAND BY FOR AVAILABLE FEEDS.
DeBolt stood waiting, still breathing in ragged gasps. Everyone was watching him. A map lit in his visual field. According to the scale, it covered a one-hundred-meter radius. He saw twelve, perhaps fourteen cameras, most on established roads and pathways, a few inside buildings. There was a color code — red, yellow, and green. The colors meant nothing to him, but seemed intuitive enough. He highlighted the nearest green, and the reply took fifteen seconds. The video came streaming in, but certainly with a short delay, just as with the monitor he’d annexed at the embezzler’s front door in Maine. Like the college girl’s laptop he’d invaded earlier tonight.
Yet for all intents and purposes, he was looking at a live video feed.
He saw the front of the restaurant he was standing in. It was called Schweizerhaus. He saw the crowds inside, but felt no urge to zoom in and wave. DeBolt knew it was accurate. He switched to other cameras, got feeds from nearby pathways, including the courtyard behind Schweizerhaus where Delta had been minutes earlier. None gave him what he wanted.
Where are you?
The fourth feed, with a red symbol, was inoperative. The nearest yellow camera got the result:
STAND BY ENCRYPTION BREAK
ESTIMATED WAIT 15–90 MINUTES
Not an option. He shifted to another feed, and when it came through he stood transfixed. On a tree-lined path he saw a large man atop a motorcycle. It was a medium-sized bike, but beneath Delta it looked like something from a circus act. DeBolt watched him dismount, then followed along as he walked the motorcycle toward a bush and left it there. Delta stood waiting in a deep shadow.
DeBolt referenced the map. The spot was perhaps two hundred yards away — the direction in which he’d been running. The most obvious path of escape.
A hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder. DeBolt turned with a start, his arm cocking back for a punch.
The bartender, who’d clearly seen such moves before, leaned away.
“You are okay?” asked the Austrian.
DeBolt stood down. “Yeah, sorry. I’m on edge after…” He didn’t know how to complete the thought. Didn’t know how to raise an instantaneous lie.
“The police, they are coming. You wait here for them.”
DeBolt sensed another shift in atmosphere. Most of the clientele were watching him now. He’d been wholly absorbed by the images in his head, and DeBolt wondered how he must appear to others when engaged in his private exchanges with META. Did he look disconnected from his surroundings, a cell phone stare without the external device? Did he appear simply distracted, or more like a madman hearing voices?
He said, “I’ll wait outside.” It was the most convenient answer for everyone.
He went through the front door, passed beyond the welcoming awning. The rain had eased, but only slightly, and he kept his head angled downward. The vision remained in his eye, a camera feeding its constant view. He saw Delta standing in the open, much as he was — not scanning the sidewalk for his target, but holding fast with a thousand-yard stare. DeBolt turned toward the nearest camera, the one mounted on the closed T-shirt shop. He stood and looked right at it, steady and unblinking. On the screen in his eye Delta straightened ever so slightly. Then he quarter-turned to his right and did the same in response — he stared straight at the camera DeBolt was using to watch him.
And there they stood. A surreal impasse in the rain, transmitted across miles of wire and routers and sky, opposing images fixed in coarse shades of gray. Two hundred meters apart, each man knew exactly where the other was. Each could track any movement. A High Noon standoff, twenty-first-century version. DeBolt stood tall and straight, but it was a false ease. He had broken Delta’s advantage, but for how long? Could the man disable his feed? Could he ruin the camera network, or even spoof looped images while he repositioned? DeBolt thought not.
I’m learning, he thought. Then more purposefully: Delta … I’m catching up with you.
On his screen he saw the man suddenly cock his blocklike head. DeBolt’s eyes narrowed, and he tensed slightly as Delta began to move. He watched cautiously as the killer walked toward his motorcycle. Watched him swing a leg over the seat and kick it to life. DeBolt was poised, ready to move. But then he saw Delta turn away and ride east, leaving the Schweizerhaus and the Prater behind.
DeBolt referenced the map and stepped through four different cameras, tracking the assassin until he disappeared in a tree-lined dead zone. He was at least a mile gone, headed away, when DeBolt finally lost track of him. So there was an internal network, he thought. Delta had gotten his message, but not replied. Did that imply there were risks in using it? Would such an application give up his position? Another facet of META left to explore.
Sirens rose in the distance, and DeBolt looked over his shoulder. Someone in the bar was pointing at him and talking. He imagined what was being said. That one there. He rushed in shouting for the police. Next he was staring at the walls. Claims someone is following him.
DeBolt began walking, and on his network map of CCTV cameras he identified a gap in coverage running through a nearby woodland. How easy … once you knew how it all worked. He ducked into the trees and disappeared. Newly confident. Newly empowered. For a week now he had been hunted. He’d been shot and assaulted, constantly running for his life. But now he sensed a divergence to that narrative. He was getting stronger, more capable.
As he trod through the woods, pushing aside wet branches and slogging through puddles, DeBolt very deliberately reiterated his earlier thought: Yes, Delta … I’m gaining on you.
55
Lund spent the night in a homeless shelter three blocks north of the Imperial Palace. With no money, no identity, and wanting to keep a low profile, she played the part of a marooned American tourist who’d been parted from her passport, baggage, and friends — all true in the strictest sense.
She was taken in without question, Austrians being a forgiving lot, and given a place in a church-run dormitory. For the price of a desperate smile she got a roof over her head, a smelly cot, and in the morning two surplus sausages with hot cereal, all capped by a spontaneous blessing from a roaming Catholic priest. She took it all in the spirit in which it was provided, which was to say, with gracious humility.
She was told by a shelter worker, a college-aged girl with flaxen hair, that during the recent flood of immigration many such houses had been established. The girl also mentioned that Lund was the only passer-through she’d ever met who had arrived from the West. Syrians, Pakistanis, Ethiopians, Afghanis — they were the dominant lot, with an atmosphere of compassion prevailing, and Lund learned that any smile was quickly returned.