“Lucky that Val and I still have our CIA covers.”
“Yeah,” Eric said. “Lucky. What do you know about her murder?”
“Nothing, man. The room was clean.”
“Except for the body.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s unacceptable,” Eric said. “If she was murdered, there must be more to it—”
“And you want us to poke around,” Deion said. “I was afraid you were going to say that. So, you expect me to work things out with the NBD and find out who killed Reinemann. Anything else, your majesty?”
“I know it’s not glamorous,” Eric said, “but we’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Deion grumbled.
Eric nodded at Clark. “That will be all, Sergeant.”
Clark stood, saluted, and then exited to the War Room.
Eric waited for the door to slam shut, then asked, “How’s John?”
Deion hesitated. “He’s good.”
Eric chose his words carefully. “Any indication that he—”
“No,” Deion said, then continued reluctantly, “other than mentioning being tired.”
“Everyone’s been tired since Nashville.”
“I think you should pull him from the field.”
“Concern?” Eric asked. “That’s a change.”
“Even with what he did, he doesn’t deserve—”
“There’s nothing we can do for him,” Eric said. “Elliot says the cancer is too advanced.”
Deion grunted. “All the resources we got, and we can’t do anything?”
“It’s the price for playing God.”
“That’s it, then?”
Eric nodded. “John stays in the field.”
Deion shrugged. “You’re the boss.”
Eric ended the call, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling tiles, wishing for the thousandth time he could tell Deion that John remembered his past.
But, even though he had taken leadership of the OTM from Fulton Smith, there were still certain lines he preferred not to cross. The news that he’d let John operate as an OTM foot soldier with his memories intact was the type of thing that might pull the Old Man out of retirement.
Plus, the Old Man’s daughter, Nancy, was a valuable member of the OTM. And a trained assassin.
And a psychopath.
They had recently had coffee on their first tentative date, but when he looked into her eyes, he was terrified. There was something animalistic about the way she looked at him. She was the kind of woman who took what she wanted, and she definitely wanted him.
It almost made the matter of Karen Reinemann’s dead body appear trivial.
Fulton Smith didn’t bother to wait for his best friend to finish speaking. “I know it’s risky, Hob, but Vasilii is working on changing their minds.”
Barnwell’s office stood in stark contrast to the rest of the gray concrete of the underground base. Barnwell’s wife, Victoria, had given him an Oriental rug, and the soft reds and browns covered the gray concrete floor, providing a sense of warmth.
A picture of Victoria sat next to Barnwell’s computer. Sometimes, when Smith was tired, he felt a stab of jealousy. Victoria had long, flowing black hair that wasn’t yet gray, and Hob appeared to be in his late fifties.
Smith’s own face was a mass of wrinkles, and his skin was starting to resemble shoe leather.
Shoe leather with age spots.
Hobert Barnwell sighed. “We’ve been over this. You really think they’re going to change their mind? Alexandra did the unthinkable.”
“I have to find her. Nancy needs her mother.”
“Alexandra wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you,” Hobert said, “let alone have a child. Besides, Vasilii is the one that sent her to spy on you. Why would the old bear help now?”
“He’s realized how unfair it is to keep Nancy from her mother.”
Barnwell grunted. “You can’t possibly believe that.”
“What difference does it make? I think he’s willing to help.”
“I’m worried about you, Fulton. The device isn’t working the way we expected—”
“I’m fine,” Smith insisted. “I feel like I did when I was a young man.”
Barnwell blinked, then rummaged around in his desk and removed two plastic cups. “Let’s have a drink.”
“Why does every problem require a drink?”
Barnwell poured two fingers of Glenlivet into the first cup and eyed him coolly. “Did you really think you could implant a stimulator in your brain and not suffer side effects?”
He slammed his fist against Barnwell’s desk. “I’m the director!”
“You were the director,” Barnwell said gently. “Eric is the director now. You resigned.”
Smith’s mouth opened, but he hesitated. “Why must you make everything so difficult?”
“I’m not saying this as your friend.” Barnwell took a drink from the cup. “I’m saying this as your doctor. You’re not well. You’re slipping. Forgetting things. Making… questionable decisions.”
Smith slumped back in his chair. Is it true? Am I losing my… reasoning? Barnwell watched him intensely. Finally, Smith said, “I don’t feel like I’m losing my mind, Hob.”
“Have you had another episode?”
“Not since… the last time. It was only a few minutes. It was trivial.”
“An hour of temporary agnosia isn’t trivial.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“You couldn’t identify your phone, Fulton. I found you sitting there, pointing at it.”
“It passed.”
“That time. What if it happens again? What if it doesn’t pass? The device in your head is experimental, and the medicine you’re on is nearing toxic levels. I don’t know what’s going to happen. No one does.”
Fulton took a deep breath. “If I hadn’t risked it, I’d be a drooling idiot by now.”
“You don’t know that.”
Smith laughed bitterly. “I was… losing myself. The drugs weren’t enough. The implant bought me enough time to—”
“To what? Reunite Nancy with her mother?”
“And to pass the directorship to Eric.”
Barnwell tossed back the last of his scotch, then took the cup he had poured for Smith and downed it as well. “So far, you’ve only managed one of those.”
Smith smiled. “I guess we better get busy on the rest.”
Huang Lei wished for a window behind his wall of monitors so that he might enjoy the skyline.
He imagined the US Steel building to the north, the tallest building in Pittsburgh, but not its most distinctive. That honor went to PPG Place a few blocks to the northeast, a shimmering tower of glass capped by high-tech gothic-looking spires.
But he had no window. Just gray, featureless concrete.
The room was large, at least, with a rack of servers, but his desk was utilitarian, unlike the magnificent Koa desk he had abandoned in Hawaii.
He sighed. His fortunes had shifted earlier than expected, but now he knew why his plans had gone awry. He knew why his friend, Liu Kong, had died in vain.
The United States government had a shadowy organization with unbelievably deep resources. They had intercepted his nuclear bomb destined for New York City and detonated it over the Sea of Aden.
Even more impressive, the same organization had somehow managed to contain the viral outbreak after Liu Kong had sacrificed himself to infect those trapped in his production facility outside of Nashville.
Huang Lei had spent the past six months sifting through a mountain of data. Finally, he had the most likely suspect.
Nathan Elliot.
He had finally found a picture of Elliot on social media. In the grainy black-and-white photo scanned from an old Pomona High School yearbook, Elliott was a big-boned African-American teenager, lauded for his achievements in the scholastic bowl and the chess club. But, after high school, no more pictures of Nathan Elliot existed. No telephone number. No record of employment.