“Rebirth.”
A computer on the other side of the microphone analyzed the voiceprint and found it belonged to an authorized individual. The door’s lock clicked, and Jonah pushed it open, jumped through, and closed it behind him.
He exhaled. He had some degree of safety now, since common areas were monitored much more closely than the individual offices. Office security was left up to each individual Senator’s alarm system of preference.
He walked past the receptionist’s desk. He needed a computer with access to everything Lina Derius knew, and there was only one computer that fit that category. He walked directly to her office. A keycode supplied by Morten got him in.
He retrieved another item from a large side pocket, a small power generator. He plugged Senator Derius’ equipment into it, so that no one monitoring power usage would see anything unusual.
He activated the computer and put Morten’s passwords to work. Not surprisingly, there were a few areas, such as the Senator’s personal journal, that Morten’s codes could not crack. Still, he had access to a majority of the data kept by the Senator. It would be enough.
He knew vaguely what he wanted, but couldn’t know exactly what form it would be in, or where it would be kept, and he didn’t have the luxury of conducting a global search through the massive files the Senator kept on her drive, or transferring them all to his own files. He had to operate on instinct. It was like walking through the woods, guessing which trees were innocent and which protected an enemy trooper with a flamethrower.
The clock ticked. By four-thirty, Jonah had transferred exactly one file that proved little more than Senator Derius’ political leanings. At five, someone arrived to empty the trash. Jonah turned off the computer screen, grabbed his power supply, hid under the desk, and watched the feet of the custodian while imagining the headlines he’d see the next day if the custodian heard him breathe.
By five after five, he was searching through files again.
The clock kept moving. He wanted to be out by six, to disappear before the building got any more populated, but this was his only shot at this. If he left with nothing, he’d end up walking into tomorrow’s election with nothing.
Six o’clock came. Sunrise was about two hours away, but even here, buried deep in the Senate building, Jonah could feel the change. The city was starting to wake up, and a significant percentage of its citizens were going to make their way here fairly rapidly.
At best he had an hour. He pushed himself, flying through records, scanning through tens of thousands of words, looking for one of the key words he needed to see. It started to come. Pieces of the puzzle broke through the fog, and he grabbed a few more files.
At six-thirty he realized it was too big. He couldn’t get to the bottom of what was happening just in this one opportunity. But he’d get enough. He might not know the final destination when he left, but he would have a hell of a lot of road signs.
At six forty-five he had had enough. He shut down the computer, unplugged it from his generator, and wiped down the keyboard, chair and the plug ends. He’d been careful to make sure those were the only things he’d touched.
Six-fifty. Ten minutes to spare. He walked out of the Senator’s office, shut and secured the door, wiped her key-pad, and strode to the main entrance to the suite.
A voice ahead of him spoke. “Rebirth.” The lock clicked. The door slid open.
Jonah darted left, into a small supply closet. It was small, had a few shelves secured to the walls, and no door. Anyone in the reception area wouldn’t see him, but if they ventured down the hallway, he had no place to hide.
He listened. A single set of footsteps padded around the reception area. A few switches clicked. The first staffer of the day was in, getting the office ready. He or she was alone, but wouldn’t be for long.
Jonah’s mind raced, trying to anticipate the staffer’s routine. He’d walked through the office quickly on his way in, but the layout of it was imprinted on his mind as a three-dimensional model that he pushed and probed, searching for a way to leave unseen.
Then it came to him. Windows.
He knew the staffer was going to walk right past him in a matter of minutes. If the staffer looked to his right, Jonah was finished. If he just looked where he was going—watching the window ahead of him—Jonah had a chance.
The staffer sorted some things on his desk, whistled a brief tune, then, true to Jonah’s expectation, started walking down the hallway. At the end of it, next to the door to the Senator’s office, was a tightly shuttered window—with manual controls, of all things. Soon it would be letting in the first traces of daylight.
The staffer’s footsteps padded closer. Jonah stood by the door closest to the suite’s exit, partially, but not completely, concealed by the lip of the closet’s doorway.
He saw the staffer, a young man with a sharp nose and pointed chin. The man whistled again. He looked to his left. His head turned.
And he was past. He might be looking to his right now, but he was past the closet.
Jonah slipped to the doorway, carefully poking his head out, watching the staffer as he walked up to the metal shutters over the window.
As soon as his hands touched the shutter, Jonah moved. His feet touched the carpet as lightly as wind on grass, far quieter than the shutter’s clatter. He was at the exit in a flash, then willed himself to slow down, pulling it open gently and quietly. Immediately he was lightning again, disappearing through the door.
The door clicked quietly shut as the staffer finished opening the metal shutters.
Jonah stood in the still-empty hallway, wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead, and willed the red to drain from his face. His training served him well, and in a few seconds he walked down the hallway as the model of decorum. He took one set of stairs down to the twenty-first floor, and a second set to the seventeenth. Then he took the elevator.
He walked to the main entrance of the building. The guards sitting wearily behind their desk nodded as he passed. He nodded. And left.
49
Hotel Duquesne, Geneva
Terra, Prefecture X
19 December 3134
After he rolled the trash can containing Jonah toward the Senate Building and escaped the guards, Gareth had considered doubling back and keeping an eye on the place, waiting for Jonah to emerge. There was no telling, though, how long Jonah would be, the night was cold and Gareth didn’t want to risk being seen by the guards. Jonah had told him to go back to the hotel, so he did.
There was no possible way he could sleep, but he had little to do until Jonah came out. He spent most of his time wondering when he should set his lunch appointment.
Would a call first thing in the morning seem too urgent, like he was pouncing on the phone? If he waited too long, would he lose a chance to make an appointment?
In the end, he decided to call first thing. The appearance of urgency would bolster his credibility.
He waited until seven, then called the Senator at home. Unsurprisingly, the Senator was more than happy to make an appointment with a Paladin on the eve of the election.
Levin walked into his room right after he finished the call.
“Take a look at this,” he said.
The Senator had agreed to meet Gareth at the hotel after Gareth insisted, saying he needed to repay the Senator for all the hospitality he had shown over the years.
“Repay?” the Senator had said. “My boy, you don’t have to repay gifts.”
“I know,” Gareth had responded. “And I never could fully pay back your generosity. But I’d like to do at least this. Please.”