“We’re protected,” Luca said. “I had him and Jackson down a dose of MTW before they went out.”
“Thank God for that. How did you ever convince them to take it?”
“I told them they had no choice, that it was a direct order from the Old Man himself.”
“Lucky they believed you. Still…MTW is still pretty new. Not much field experience with it. Better pray it worked. Because if it didn’t…”
Lister didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t have to. If the MTW had failed, Palmer would have spilled everything by now.
The MTWdid work, Luca thought. Ithad to.
“But even if it works perfectly,” Lister went on, “you’re not off the hook for muffing another operation. And neither am I.”
“We didn’t muff athing !” Luca said as a cold lump formed in his belly. “The Idaho hotshots blew it.”
“The people upstairs don’t see it that way. They’re out four skilled operatives in two months with nothing to show for it. And they keep asking me, ‘Where’s the pregnant sim? All our resources at your disposal, a five-million-dollar reward for information leading to her, and what have you come up with?’ Do you hear what they’re saying, Luca? It used to be, ‘When’s Portero coming up with something?’ Now it’s, ‘When areyou coming up with something?’ Me. Like we’re Siamese twins.”
Luca thought he heard a tremor in Lister’s voice. He’d never known Darryl Lister to be scared. When they’d been pinned down by Taliban mortars outside Gardez, he’d been the picture of cool. But now…
“Shit. I’m sorry, man.”
“Hey, we’re not dead yet. We’ve gotten out of tighter places. But they want results by the end of the year.”
The end of the year—two weeks!
Luca said, “What about the plate number Snyder spotted on that van last night?”
“Nothing. He must have got it wrong. The number’s not in use. Tell Snyder he needs glasses.”
Luca didn’t think so. More likely the plates were phony, and Palmer and Jackson had been in that van along with Cadman, Sullivan, and who knew who else.
“All right then,” Luca said. “What’s the status of Cadman and Sullivan now? Do we keep after them?”
“The decision’s been made to back off for the time being. They’ll be on guard now and—”
“Obviously they werealready on guard.”
“Yes, well, be that as it may, they’ll be on full alert now, and we can’t risk losing any more men. The legal people can put the stall on any discovery motions Sullivan files; we’ll find out who’s behind them later. Right now concentrate on finding that sim.”
“It’s possible she’s dead,” Luca said, hoping it was true. “That cold snap after she escaped was pretty mean. She could have crawled into a pipe somewhere and froze to death.”
“Then find her body. Since that fool Eckert started blathering about her being pregnant and the baby’s father being human, SimGen stock price has slid six points. Most people think he’s crazy, but he’s making a lot of investors nervous. And that makes everyone upstairs nervous. You know what SimGen stock means.”
Luca nodded. It meant independence for SIRG. No strings, no brakes.
“We’ve got to find her, Luca. I don’t have to tell you what will happen if Eckert or Cadman and Sullivan get to her first.”
Luca closed his eyes. That would finish SimGen, finish SIRG, and leave him running for his life.
“They won’t.”
And to make sure they wouldn’t, he had to nail Ellis Sinclair as their informant and serve up his head on a silver platter.
7
MANHATTAN
Patrick checked the cars on Henry Street outside his office building before stepping out. All looked empty, no plumes of idling exhaust. After the other night, he was spooked, and not ashamed to admit it. You weren’t paranoid when they really were out to get you.
He stepped out onto the sidewalk and cried out as he collided with someone. He jumped back, ready to run back inside, when he noticed it was an older woman. He grabbed her arm to keep her from falling.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t looking.”
“Did I frighten you, Mr. Sullivan?” she said.
He looked at her face. Uh-oh. Alice Fredericks. The Mother of All Sims.
“Hello, Miss Fredericks. Nice to see you again. No, you didn’t frighten me. I just didn’t expect anyone there.” He made a show of glancing at his watch. “I’m just heading off to a meeting and—”
“You didn’t call me, Mr. Sullivan.” Her look was reproachful. “You said you would and I’ve been waiting every day but you haven’t called.”
“I told you,” he said, backing away, “I’ll call when my schedule lightens up. It’s just that there’s been so much going on.”
No lie there.
“You’re not afraid, are you?”
Maybe he should tell her he was very afraid, that he was terrified. Then she’d look for someone else. But he couldn’t make himself say it.
“Not of space aliens.” True enough. Too many other truly frightening things going on in his life right now to worry about space aliens. “Not a bit.”
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll be waiting.”
He turned and hurried toward Catherine Street to find a taxi.
After a ride during which Patrick spent more time looking out the rear window than the front, the cabby dropped him off at Penn Station. He wandered around Seventh Avenue, going in and out of stores to make sure he wasn’t being followed, then headed further west.
Finally he arrived at Zero’s garage just behind a middle-aged woman. Despite the parka-like hood cinched tight around her head against the cold, he recognized her.
“Dr. Cannon,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Patrick Sullivan. I don’t know if you remember me, but I was—”
“You were helping at the Beacon Ridge atrocity,” she said with a smile as she pushed back her hood. He noticed that her long graying mane had been shorn to an almost boyish length. “Yes, of course I remember. And call me Betsy, please.”
The door opened and Romy was there, smiling. “A two-fer! Come in, Betsy. So good of you to come.”
“No problem. It’s easier for me to come to Zero than him to come to me.”
“And you cut your hair. I love it!”
Patrick stepped inside and closed the door behind him, remembering Zero’s hurried phone conversation with Dr. Cannon last night. She was on staff at Nassau County Community Hospital and, following her instructions to Zero, Patrick and Romy had driven David Palmer out to the hospital and left him in the parking lot for her to “find.”
Now, as the three of them trooped toward the rear of the garage, Kek suddenly came bounding down the ladder from his domain in the loft and charged them. Patrick tensed, waiting for Zero or Romy to call him off, but they said nothing. Then Betsy Cannon opened her arms and embraced the beast.
“How is my friend Kek doing?” she said.
Kek signed something to her and Betsy laughed. They had a brief conversation—Betsy speaking, Kek signing, then Kek scrambled back up the ladder to his observation post.
“You nursed him back to health, I’m told,” Patrick said as Kek vanished into the ceiling.
“Not really. Zero did most of the nursing. I tried to save his frostbitten fingers but was only eighty-percent successful. As an OB-GYN I have surgical training, but—”
“OB?” Patrick glanced past her at Zero who nodded. “Then if we find this pregnant sim—?”
“You’ll bring her to me, of course. I’ve lots of experience delivering sims.”
“You have?”
“Certainly. I spent six years as medical director of SimGen’s natal center. When it finally seeped through to me that I was delivering a race of slaves into the world, I quit. And not long after that I received a call from Zero.”