“You’ve become greedy in your old age, Otto.”
The German bowed. “I learned at the feet of a great master of the art.”
Cyrus laughed until he choked and then laughed some more once he’d coughed up the unchewed piece of broccoli. Otto turned on the TV, adjusted the channel to a split screen of BBC World News and CNN, with a continuous crawl at the bottom of stock prices on the technologies and biotech markets. He tidied the pillows around Cyrus, straightened the flowers in the twenty-seven vases scattered around the room, and made sure to check that the bedside pistol was unloaded. No sense taking chances.
Chapter Four
The White House
Saturday, August 28, 8:07 A.M.
Time Remaining on Extinction Clock: 99 hours, 53 minutes
“Mr. Vice President,” said the aide, “all teams have reported in. Everyone’s in position.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, sir, and the teams assigned to solo pickups have already moved in; the main teams are at the gates of each facility. I issued the go order.”
William Collins, Vice President and Acting President of the United States, nodded and sat back in his chair. He used his palms-the callused steelworker’s hands so often remarked upon in his press-to vigorously rub his face until his cheeks glowed. He let out a sharp sigh and clapped his hands together. The aide flinched.
“How soon before we know anything?”
“The Agents In Charge will call in on an individual basis once they’ve secured their objectives. Every situation is different and I’ve impressed upon them the need for delicacy, the need to get this done right rather than fast.”
The Vice President shot him a hard look. “Fast is pretty goddamned essential, don’t you think?”
The aide was immediately conciliatory. “Of course, sir, but it has to be done right. To the letter of the law.”
“Yeah, yeah… okay. Keep me apprised.” He sat back in his chair and waited until the aide left; then the Vice President turned to the other man in the room, an old crocodile in a five-thousand-dollar suit. The man’s face was fat, wrinkled, and flushed with hypertension, but his expression was calm, his eyes calculating and amused.
“Christ, this had better work, J.P.,” muttered the Vice President.
Jonas Paul Sunderland, the senior senator for Texas and one of the most vocal advocates of biotech development, smiled. “It’ll work, Bill. Don’t get your nuts in a knot.” He rattled the ice in his Scotch and took a pull. “We have good people well placed.”
“I have a lot at stake here, J.P.”
Sunderland gave him a bland smile. “We all do. But even if this tanks, you’ll come out looking like Joe Patriot and I won’t even be in the picture. This is well planned and you have the law on your side… which is nice. We’re actually the good guys here.”
“On paper,” Collins said.
“Sure, on paper, but that paper is the Constitution, so calm down. If you look stressed you’ll look guilty.”
The Vice President shook his head. “You don’t really appreciate this President, J.P. You think he’s a green kid with his head up his ass, but he’s a lot sharper than you think.”
Sunderland did not speak the string of racial invectives that rose to his lips. He said, “You think too highly of him.”
“Maybe. If I do it’s because he has Church behind him. Or… maybe Church really is controlling him. Either way it brings Church into the picture. We’re directly attacking him and the President.”
J.P. Sunderland shrugged as if Church and his influence was a non-issue, though in truth he knew Church-and his potential-with greater scope and clarity than the Vice President could ever hope to possess. Sunderland finished his Scotch, hauled himself out of his chair, and waddled to the side table to pour a refill, heavy on the Scotch with a nominal spritz of soda. Then he made a fresh drink for the Vice President. The order in which these things were done was not lost on Collins.
“God, I just want this over with.” The Vice President jerked the glass out of Sunderland’s hand, sloshing some on his desk blotter. He scowled as he threw half of it back too fast and coughed. Sunderland looked amused as he tottered back to his chair and sank down with a sigh. Collins glared into his drink. “And I want that fucking computer.”
“We all want something, Bill. You want to get your office back to the level of power it had during Cheney’s time, and I want what I want.”
And what I want, Sunderland thought, is to take that computer system out of the equation.
MindReader was the key for both of them. For Collins, acquiring it was less important than silencing it. Sunderland saw it as a short path to a veritable license to print money. His current business partners, the Jakoby Twins-those brilliant albino freaks-could use MindReader to filch even the most heavily encrypted research records from every other genetics lab in the world. The Twins had sidestepped most of the normal limitations most geneticists faced-an insufficient annotation of the genome-by stealing bits and pieces of annotation from different sources. As a result they were already miles beyond anyone else, but they’d hit a wall with what their current computer-Pangaea-could steal. The Jakobys were willing to pay absurd amounts of money to possess MindReader, but as he sipped his Scotch Sunderland toyed with the idea of only leasing it to them. Why give away the cow?
That way he could also lease use of the system to their father, Cyrus Jakoby. Sunderland greatly admired the elder Jakoby and shared many of Cyrus’s political, ethnic, and societal views. MindReader could push Cyrus’s plans ahead by an order of magnitude. And Cyrus would pay for that advantage, no doubt about it.
His other concern was his own brother, Harold, who was close with the Jakoby Twins and often went hunting with them or their friends. Harold was never the sharpest knife in the drawer, and if MindReader was ever aimed in the direction of the Jakobys then it would find Harold-and that would lead right back to J.P. and the bills he wanted passed. Harold was really the only traceable link, even though he wasn’t really a player himself. But more than one good scheme had been sunk by the presence of an idiot relative.
He shared none of this with Collins. Sunderland believed in the “need to know” philosophy, and if Collins knew, he’d either chicken out or want a huge cut.
Sunderland sipped his Scotch and watched the Vice President fret.
The things in which they both shared interest were the four biotech bills moving through Congress. At the moment there was absolutely nothing that could connect the bills with Collins’s personal interests or Sunderland’s private holdings. MindReader, if aimed in that direction, might change that. Any clear connection that came to light would ruin Collins, trash his political career, and make him a pariah in the business world. It was the lever Sunderland had used to convince Collins to take this action. If the bills were stopped because of some taint of insider knowledge or personal interest, then money would spill all over the place. Without approval of the bills a lot of research would have to go offshore, and that could be costly and time-consuming. Domestic licensing and approval for research led to faster patents, and that got drugs, cell lines, and procedures to market much more quickly.
Sunderland sipped his drink and hoisted a comforting and comradely smile on his face for the benefit of the Vice President.
“This had better work,” the Vice President said again.
Sunderland said nothing.
They sat in their leather chairs, separated by a big desk and an ocean of personal differences, and they sipped their Scotch, and they waited for the phone to ring.