She spent a couple of hours assembling an Iridium mosaic of snapshots of the place since the 11th. There were no pictures of the black limousine, which was not too surprising, since the monastery had a large garage and there were never any vehicles parked outside.
Then she saw the army truck and bus appear, and watched them reappear as blue church vehicles, and leave.
It would take a long time, and a lot of luck, to trace them through the Interstate system. Fortunately, the powder blue was an unusual color. But before she settled into that mind-numbing chore, she decided to go check the monastery for clues.
She put on her business suit over the weapons and assembled the ID package and pocket litter that identified her as an FBI agent from Washington. She wouldn't get past a retinal scan at a police station, but she didn't foresee going into any police station alive.
Again, no response from the doorbell. It took her only a couple of seconds to pick the lock, but it was dead-bolted. She took out the pistol and blew the deadbolt off, and the door swung open.
She hurried in with the gun drawn and shouted "F.B.I.!" at the dusty waiting room. She went into the main corridor and started a hasty search, hoping to get through and out before the police arrived. She figured, accurately, that it was possible the folks at St. Bart's didn't have a burglar alarm because they didn't want any police showing up suddenly, but she didn't want to count on that.
The rooms off the corridor were disappointing-two meeting rooms and individual dormitory rooms or cells.
The atrium stopped her, though, with the towering trees and active brook. A trash container had six empty Dom Perignon bottles. Off the atrium, a large circular conference room built around a huge hologram plate. She found the controls and turned it on to the peaceful woodland scene.
At first she didn't recognize the electronic modules at each seat-and then it dawned on her that this was a place where two dozen sinners could jack together!
She'd never heard of anything like that outside of the military. Maybe that was the military connection, though: a top-secret soldierboy experiment. The office of Force Management and Personnel might indeed be behind it.
That made her hesitant about proceeding. Blaisdell was her spiritual superior as well as her cell leader, and she would normally follow his orders without question. But it seemed increasingly obvious that there could be aspects to this he was unaware of. She would go back to the hotel and try to set up a secure line to him.
She turned off the hologram and tried to return to the atrium. The door was locked.
The room spoke up: "Your presence here is illegal. Is there any way you would care to explain it?" The voice was Mendez's; he was viewing her from Guadalajara.
"I'm Agent Audrey Simone from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We have reason to believe – "
"Do you have a warrant to search this establishment?"
"It's on file with the local authorities."
"You forgot to bring a copy when you broke in, though."
"I don't have to explain myself to you. Show yourself. Open this door."
"No, I think you'd better tell me the name of your supervisor and the location of your branch. Once I verify that you are who you say you are, we can discuss your lack of a warrant."
With her left hand she pulled out her wallet and turned in a circle, displaying the badge. "Things will go a lot easier for you if – " She was interrupted by the invisible man's laugh.
"Put the fake badge away and shoot your way out. The police should have arrived by now; you can explain about your warrant to them."
She had to shoot off both hinges as well as the three bolts on this door. She ran across the brook and found that the door out of the atrium was now similarly secured. She reloaded, automatically counting the number of remaining air cartridges, and tried to open this one with three shots. It took her four more.
I WAS WATCHING HER on the screen from behind Mendez. She was finally able to push the door down with her shoulder. He pushed two buttons and switched to the corridor camera. She went pounding down the corridor in a dead run, the pistol held out in front of her with both hands.
"Does that look like an FBI agent going out to reason with the local cops?"
"Maybe you should have actually called them."
He shook his head. "Unnecessary bloodshed. You didn't recognize her?"
"Afraid not." Mendez had called me when she shot down the front door, on the off chance that I might recognize her from Portobello.
Before she went out the front door, she slipped the pistol into a belly holster, and buttoned just the top button of her suit, so it was like a cape, concealing without restraining. Then she walked casually out the door.
"Pretty smooth," I said. "She might not be official. She could have been hired by anyone."
"Or she could be a Hammer of God nutcase. They had Blaze tracked as far as the train station in Omaha." He switched to an outside camera.
"Ingram had a lot of government authority, as well as being a nut. I guess she might, too."
"I was sure the government lost her in Omaha. If anyone had followed the limo, St. Bart's would have had company long before now."
She stepped out and looked around, her face revealing nothing, and started up the sidewalk toward town like a tourist on a morning constitutional, neither slow nor hurried. The camera had a wide-angle lens; she dwindled away pretty fast.
"So should we check the hotels and try to find out who she is?" I asked.
"Maybe not. Even if we got a name, it might not do us any good. And we don't want anyone to make a connection between St. Bart's and Guadalajara."
I gestured at the screen. "No one can track that signal to here?"
"Not the pictures. It's an Iridium service. I decrypt them passively from anywhere in the world." He turned off the screen. "You going to the unveiling?" Today was the day Jefferson and Ingram were to have finished the humanization process.
"Blaze wondered whether I ought to. My feelings about Ingram are still pretty Neanderthal."
"I can't imagine. He only tried to murder your woman and then you as well."
"Not to mention insulting my manhood and attempting to destroy the universe. But I'm due in the Clinic this afternoon anyhow, to get my memory fucked with. Might as well see Wonder Boy in action."
"Give me a report. I'm going to stay by the screen for the next day or two, in case 'Agent Simone' tries another visit."
Of course I wouldn't be able to give him a report, because the encounter with Ingram was related to all the stuff I was having erased, or at least so I assumed-I wouldn't be able to remember his assault on Amelia without recalling what she had done to attract his attention. "Good luck. You might check with Marty-his general might have some way to access FBI personnel records."
"Good idea." He stood up. "Cup of coffee?" "No, thanks. Spend the rest of the morning with Blaze. We don't know who I'm going to be tomorrow."
"Frightening prospect. But Marty swears it's totally reversible."
"That's true." But Marty was going ahead with the plan even though it meant the risk of a billion or more dying or losing their sanity. Maybe my losing or keeping my memories didn't rank too high on his list of priorities.
THE WOMAN WHO CALLED herself Audrey Simone, whose cell name was Gavrila, would never go back to the monastery. She had learned enough there.
It took her more than a day to put together a mosaic of Iridium pictures of the two blue vehicles making their way from North Dakota to Guadalajara. By God's grace the last picture was perfect timing: the truck had disappeared and the bus was signaling for a left turn into an underground parking garage. She used a grid to find the address and was not surprised when it turned out to be a clinic for installing jacks. That Godless practice was at the heart of everything, obviously.