But that was in the future. Right now the major was busy reviewing what had been done so far since she arrived, making sure everything was sorted out. It was no small matter to arrange the theft of an ambulance, but she was working on it. Money talked, even to the local organized-crime groups, and she thought she would shortly have all the necessary resources in place. She already had what little weaponry she needed — in this country there was never any problem with that, no matter what the government tried to do, or said it wanted to. Its own people, unable or unwilling to discriminate between their condition now and that of three hundred years ago, had it hamstrung there. In any case, it would not be firepower that would make the difference to this operation, but speed, surprise, and the amount of traffic between here and the Embassy. Two out of three of those elements, the major could control. They would be more than enough.
She folded up her pad and put it away in her sidepack, and sipped at her mineral water again. Things were now progressing nicely. Her source back home had informed her via coded message to her pager that the first “burst” signal had been sent — the microps were awake and accepting new programming, and would also relay directional information the next time the boy was in the Net. Now the clock was running. Within about twenty-four hours there would be a call for an ambulance…and she would be ready with its “crew” to take the poor sick boy someplace where he would be “properly” cared for.
Something bleeped softly behind the concierge’s desk, and he looked up. “Mrs. Lejeune?” he called. “Your car is here. It’s waiting out front.”
“Thank you,” the major said. She finished her mineral water, then walked out the front to where the rental car had just settled into the pickup pad.
She slid in behind the driver’s seat, lined up her implant with the car’s Net access, and let it confirm her identity and credit information — all very routine stuff, which (having been planted here long since by her own service) confirmed that she was Mrs. Alice Lejeune of Baton Rouge, owner of a small printing company. Anyone at Avis whose eye happened to fall on her rental details would think she was probably up here on business, just as the people at the hotel had.
She knew exactly where she was going, for she had memorized the maps before ever passing her own country’s borders. Now the major took the stick and drove along sedately for some miles, idly noting the seenery. This whole area had become relentlessly suburban over the years, affluent, smug. Well, there was at least one family here who would have its smugness ruffled somewhat in the next twenty-four or thirty-six hours.
She hung a right out of the main north-south artery, letting the car drive on auto for the moment while she activated the small video camera she had brought with her, using it to look around and take careful note of what cars were parked in this area. One of her assistants would be making another pass later, in another locally registered car, to compare those images with these. She was fairly sure that Professor Green would have called for some kind of external surveillance by now. But over the next twelve hours the major and the operatives who had been onsite until now would get a complete record of which vehicles were the same, which ones changed…which were registered to genuine locals, and which belonged to people trying not to look like they were keeping an eye on the Greens’ house.
The major looked down as the car turned right and proceeded along the small quiet suburban street…and there it was. A longish house, looking as if it had been built in stages. A front door with steps leading down to the standard suburban front walk through the standard suburban lawn. A back door leading out into a large fenced garden with a child’s play set. A garage, not connected to the house, and a driveway out in front of it, with the family car sitting on it at the moment. Lights on in several rooms, and — as she pulled down her “sunglasses” and looked through them — one, two, three, four, five, six blurred heat-shapes in the dining room, with other shapes over to one side; the oven, the refrigerator, the microwave.
Family dinner. How charming.
In her mind she made note of the entrance and exit routes — distances, obstacles — and smiled slightly. Shortly the Greens’ suburban bliss would receive a wake-up call. Well, they would have brought it on themselves. And Professor Green in particular would be taught a sharp lesson in not interfering in other countries’ affairs. At the national level there was no hope that any notice would be taken…but at the personal level, she imagined there would. The message would be plain enough—This could have been your children. Back off, become wiser…or next time, it might be.
The car continued on by. The major sat back, looking at the last dregs of the broad sullen sunset, and smiling slightly at the prospect of action. Tomorrow, about this time, or a little later.
Poor little Laurent…I’m sure you’ve had a nice holiday. But it’s time to go home.
The evening tapered off into one of those informal we’re-all-here-at-once, isn’t-it-amazing family evenings which were Maj’s favorite kind, rather than the more structured “family nights” which her father insisted on once a week, usually on Thursdays unless something more important got in the way. Dinner was spectacular, and the family breathed garlic happily at one another all evening — no one moved from around the table for a long time, everyone seeming content to just sit around talking about life, the news, the various levels of school the family had to deal with, and so on. Laurent was plainly enjoying himself, but to Maj’s surprise, he was the first one to excuse himself and get up. “I think the jet lag is coming to get me, finally,” he said.
Maj’s father looked at him with some concern. “Do you feel all right? You look a little pale, actually.”
“Just a headache,” Laurent said.
“Poor dear. Maj, show him where the asprothingies are,” her mother said.
“Sure, come on….” She took him down to the bathroom, thumbprinted the medicine cabinet open, and rummaged around for the dissolvable aspirin that one of her father’s colleagues in England sent them once every few months. “This stuff is great…it has no taste at all. Two in water every four hours.” She reached up for a glass and half filled it with water, dropped the tablets in.
“Thanks,” Laurent said.
She looked at him thoughtfully. It wasn’t just the bathroom light — he really did look pale. “I wonder if you might have picked up a flu bug or something on the way in,” she said. “All those people in the airport, after all…a new country, lots of new strains of germs…”
“I don’t know,” Laurent said. “But I’m tired, all of a sudden. I wasn’t tired before, not like this.”
“Huh. Well, look, why not turn in early?”
“‘Turn in—’”
“Sorry…idiom. ‘Go to bed.’”
“I might,” he said, and sagged against the doorsill a little, watching the tablets fizz themselves away.
“Did this just hit you?” Maj said.
“Yes. Or maybe not. I felt — shivery — while I was…when I was inside Cluster Rangers. It wasn’t anything, I didn’t pay any attention to it.” He shrugged now. “You are probably right…it is probably just the flu.”
“I don’t know,” Maj said. “I’ve been online often enough when I was sick, and that’s just where you don’t feel it — the interface cuts your ‘normal’ bodily reactions out of the loop. You might have noticed,” Maj added with some amusement, “the first time you’d been there for a couple of hours and then found out real suddenly that you needed to visit the bathroom….”