Klein scowled. “Dresner believes there’s a perfect angel in every one of us just dying to get out. I can tell you that isn’t my experience.”
“I admit it’s a little naive. But you could dedicate your life to worse things than trying to make the world a better place. I mean, it’s hard to overestimate his contributions, Fred. His work on the way the brain controls the immune system is on its way to wiping out autoimmune diseases. And his new class of antibiotics is making resistance an unpleasant piece of history instead of the looming disaster I guarantee you it was. Then there’s his impact on the hearing-impaired, the hundreds of millions of dollars he’s pumped into education, the—”
Klein put up a hand, silencing him. “Fine. I’ll concede he’s on the short list for the Nobel Prize for Medicine and if his apps can actually get our political and financial systems working again, I’ll give him the Peace Prize too. But in the meantime, I’m going to stay cynical and ask just what it is we really know about the man.”
“Personally? Not much,” Smith admitted. “From what I’ve read, his parents survived a concentration camp and ended up in East Germany. He grew up there and escaped when he was in his twenties.”
“That’s the public story.”
“There’s a private story?”
Klein nodded and took a drag on his pipe. “His father was a physicist and his mother was a medical doctor. Both were extremely talented and were put to good use by the Soviets, but then fell out of favor for some reason and ended up in prison. It appears that they were captured trying to escape to the West. Christian, who was six at the time, got sent to an orphanage. Then, a few years later, his own talents were recognized and he was given the opportunity to earn PhDs in biology and neuroscience, which he did by the time he was eighteen. When he got out he went to work for the communists, but we’ve never been able to determine in what capacity — bioweapons would be a good guess. After a few years, he and a young psychologist named Gerhard Eichmann managed to jump the wall and Dresner went to work for a Munich company that did pharmaceutical research. He proved too unstable, though, and was fired after less than a year. That was 1973. A year later, he’d put together enough private capital to finance a start-up and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“Okay,” Smith said. “But I still don’t understand your interest in all this and how I fit in. You didn’t call me to air Steve Jobs’s dirty laundry when the iPad came out.”
“The iPad doesn’t link directly to people’s brains and it doesn’t constantly gather information to create its own universe of good and evil. If this thing is as indispensable as everyone says, half the industrialized world is going to be hooked up to it within a few years. That gives a man we don’t know much about a hell of a lot of power.”
“Dresner isn’t twenty-four anymore, Fred. Was he unstable at the time? Why wouldn’t he be? It sounds like his parents were probably executed and by all reports, those East German orphanages weren’t all sunshine and candy canes.”
Klein just sat there and pulled on his pipe.
“Come on, Fred. You didn’t call me in here to tell me about Christian Dresner’s spotty work history. There’s more, isn’t there?”
“A bit.”
“You have me on the edge of my seat. How did the Merge get on Covert-One’s radar?”
“In fact, it’s not. You’re here today as a soldier.”
Smith’s brow furrowed. “Okay. You’ve got my attention.”
“Dresner’s created a military version of the Merge and he’s cooked up some scheme to give the U.S. exclusive rights to it.”
Smith couldn’t hide his surprise. “A military version? Dresner’s never gotten within a mile of creating something that could be used as a weapon. And what does ‘exclusive’ mean?”
“All I know is that his people contacted the Pentagon and want a meeting. It’s really not all that surprising. If Dresner believes that politics and the financial industry are destroying the world and need his supervision, he sure as hell thinks the military does.”
“So you figure there are going to be strings attached.”
“My guess is that he’s somehow angling to try and fix us,” Klein responded. “To give us something that will eventually lead us not to fight.”
“I’ll buy that. And, frankly, if he can pull it off I’ll buy him a beer.”
“The president doesn’t disagree, but he wants to make sure that we understand what we’re getting into and that the Merge is used in a way that suits our purposes. Not just Dresner’s.”
“So I still don’t understand my role in all this.”
“General Montel Pedersen is meeting with the CEO of Dresner Industries this afternoon and you’re going to tag along. You have the combination of scientific and operational backgrounds to understand the technology and Sam trusts your judgment.”
Smith winced. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Fred. Emerging technologies are Pedersen’s sphere of influence and he and I aren’t fans of one another.”
“Really?” Klein said, though it was unlikely this was something he was unaware of. “Why not?”
“Speaking just between us, he’s a megalomaniacal half-wit who has a huge say in what cutting-edge technologies get adopted by the military but can barely turn on a computer. On the other hand, he thinks I’m an arrogant jackass who doesn’t know his place.”
“I won’t take sides,” Klein said with a barely perceptible smile. “You’ll be going as his aide.”
“Seriously Fred, I could name three or four really talented people who’d do a great job on this. I don’t think the president understands how much this guy despises me.”
When Klein spoke again, there was an obvious dismissal in his tone. “Oh, he understands perfectly. He just doesn’t care.”
11
The complex had the feel of a meticulously whitewashed prison from the outside, but once through the gate everything changed. Buildings were widely spaced and partially hidden by landscaping designed to accent the graceful modern architecture. Cars were few and far between, with open-air trolleys ferrying young, casually dressed people through the immaculate, but vaguely Stepford, environment.
It was impossible not to wonder what was going on behind the mirrored windows. Was it a cure for cancer? A sentient machine? Plans for a manned flight to Mars? Or was this just the home of DI’s accounting and human resources divisions.
The company had always been incredibly diffuse — facilities like this were spread throughout the world, splitting the work into the bite-sized chunks that their founder preferred. Good science tended to be about the free exchange of ideas and constant peer review. But Dresner’s philosophy on development — and so many other things — went against the conventional wisdom. He preferred to break his technical problems down into their most fundamental components and then have them worked on separately by the best people he could find. His job — his genius — was understanding what those basic components were and how to put them together at the end.
Smith got a scowl from a group of people power-walking along a well-tended trail and suddenly regretted not renting a Prius. Who knew that his little Triumph would feel like a diesel-belching semi truck inside the Eden that Dresner had created?
He pretended not to see them and accelerated a bit, following the directions he’d been given to the visitor parking lot. It was hidden behind a stand of pines and the only other car was a generic black sedan with a man in an impeccable army uniform standing next to it.