She pushed her sunglasses onto her headscarf and continued to search, staring at the ground as she traced ever-larger concentric circles through the scattered buildings. Occasionally, she’d stumble upon the long-strided tracks of a running Afghan headed toward the edge of the village, and she followed each one to an end that quickly began to feel inevitable: a body with a single, nicely centered round between the shoulder blades.
The light continued to flatten and obscure details that the wind would probably make permanent work of overnight. She was about to give up when she found one last set of footprints coming out of a corral full of blackened livestock. They were awkward at first, suggesting that their author had run crouched, using the panicked animals as cover. After about fifty meters, the stride lengthened and turned east toward boulder-strewn mountains glowing red in the distance.
Three pursuing tracks soon converged, but their configuration was calculated and their pace unhurried. This wasn’t a chase initiated in the heat of battle. No, they’d found the track just as she had and were now hunting the escapee like an animal.
Randi looked back at the rising moon. She knew from experience that it would provide plenty of light to track the men and that, in all likelihood, the one person who had the answers she was looking for wouldn’t live to see morning. If he wasn’t dead already.
Of course, setting out on a nighttime chase meant leaving the chopper. The very thought conjured another surge of adrenaline and the mental image of returning to find it stripped and up on blocks.
“Bad idea,” she said, pulling out her sat phone and dialing a number from memory.
A powerful encryption routine delayed the connection for a moment but then Fred Klein’s familiar voice came on.
“Did you find anything?”
“Your suspicious mercenary activity. Everyone here is dead.”
“So those villagers wipe out Sarabat under suspicious circumstances and then they themselves are wiped out by an unknown mercenary group.”
“Seems to me that someone helped them take out Sarabat and now they’re covering their tracks. The question is why? Who would care this much about a couple of little villages in the middle of nowhere?”
10
Jon Smith moved deliberately down the hallway, knowing he was being watched from multiple angles. It had been decorated with tasteful rugs and vases full of fresh flowers, but it would take more than the scent of gardenias to make it feel like anything other than what it was: a deadly shooting gallery designed to deal with anyone who might want to penetrate to the inner offices uninvited.
A former special forces operative appeared at the far end and Smith put a hand up — partially in greeting and partially to prove that it was empty. A brief nod was all he got before the man once again faded into the meticulously polished woodwork.
The Covert-One that had been authorized by the president after the Hades virus disaster was in many ways gone now. At first, it hadn’t been anything more than a precarious and diffuse organization based entirely on trust — the president’s in his lifelong friend Fred Klein, and Klein’s in his loose collection of gifted operators around the world.
As it had proved its effectiveness, though, it had grown. Now C1 had a place to call home and even a modest budget — one quietly siphoned from other government agencies without the knowledge of the American people or Congress.
Its very existence was incredibly dangerous for everyone involved — particularly President Sam Adams Castilla. In truth, Smith had initially suspected that cold feet would prevail and the organization would quickly disappear. Unfortunately, the world was becoming increasingly dangerous, politics increasingly bizarre, and the established intel agencies increasingly bloated. The need for a small, nimble organization that could be deployed on a moment’s notice grew with every war, rogue nuclear program, and terrorist attack.
Smith entered an outer office dominated by a modular desk topped with five massive monitors. All he could see of the inestimable Maggie Templeton was a wisp of graying blond hair over the top of the one in the center.
He was about to say something when her hand rose and a finger pointed toward an open door in the back wall. He took the hint and headed toward it, tossing his jacket on a sofa that looked like it had never been sat on. Best not to talk to her when she was concentrating.
“So what’s going on, Fred?”
Klein stood from behind his far less elaborate desk and took Smith’s hand in a firm grip before indicating toward a chair across from him. In a way, he seemed frozen in time — the receding hairline had stabilized years ago and his eyes never lost their intensity behind wire-rimmed glasses. And while Smith couldn’t prove it, he was fairly certain the man was wearing the same suit as the first time they’d met.
“How was the presentation?”
“The what?”
“Las Vegas. The unveiling of the Merge.”
So there was the answer to the compelling question of how a purposely obscure army microbiologist had gotten an invitation to a function packed with tech industry billionaires and reporters. Between his relationship with the president and his history at the NSA and CIA, Klein could get just about anything done. He rarely exercised that ability, though, tending to err on the side of not risking exposure unless it was extremely important. Sending a man to graze on imported shrimp at the Las Vegas Convention Center didn’t seem to qualify.
“I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it,” Smith said.
“So you were impressed? The president wanted the opinion of someone he trusts.”
Smith assumed that he meant in regard to the military or intel-gathering potential of the technology, but wasn’t entirely sure.
“The claims he made seemed pretty far-fetched, to be honest. But based on the reaction so far, it looks like he’s hit a home run with the hardware and LayerCake has a lot of potential — both good and bad. Right now there are only a handful of apps but once independent developers get hold of it, functionality is going to explode.”
“So you haven’t tried it yourself?”
Smith shook his head. “I haven’t been able to get within a block and a half of the DC store. I thought the lines would die down but according to the news, people are starting to camp out overnight.”
“Ah, right. Because it’s going to save the world.”
“That might be an overstatement.”
Klein reached for a pipe, turning it over in his hands before lighting it. “I have to admit that I’m skeptical. It seems like a smartphone with a more convenient interface. That is, if you define ‘convenience’ as letting someone drill into your skull.”
Smith grinned. “You’re not really the demographic he’s going for, Fred. The truth is that people have been happily using the implants with his hearing system for years. And while I’m with you that it’s not going to save the world, the Merge — and maybe even more so LayerCake — is going to change it pretty deeply.”
“I’m a little old to need a nanny, Jon. And if I did, I’m not sure I’d pick Dresner.” The smoke rolled from Klein’s mouth before being whisked away by the sophisticated ventilation system. Maggie had no tolerance for secondhand smoke.
“There’s no doubt that there are a lot of issues that need to be worked out but there’s no way to ignore LayerCake’s potential. Think about those speed limit signs that tell you how fast you’re going. That kind of immediate feedback has been incredibly successful in changing people’s behavior. Now consider a hypothetical app that uses brain wave analysis to tell you when you’ve had too much to drink and puts a little icon in your peripheral vision. That’s a powerful piece of data. And then expand that — create an environment where you know that the things you do will bear immediately on the way people see you. That’d make you think twice about your behavior, wouldn’t it?”