With that feeble promise, Monk led the others away.
At the exit, Mara glanced back to her, her expression apologetic. She looked ready to say something more, but Monk herded her out.
Carly listened as their footsteps faded into the darkness.
A low rumble shook the room. The crack in the roof widened, spilling sand and dust. Fearing a cave-in, she helped shift Jason farther back, then settled next to him.
She continued to eye the crack. “What do we do now?”
“Just pray.”
She glanced over to him. He was staring at the exit, not the roof.
“Pray that Monk knows what the hell he’s doing.”
4:55 A.M.
“You didn’t kill us,” Kowalski said. “I’ll give you that much.”
Gray sat on a concrete pier jutting into the Seine. They were soaked, shivering, both in handcuffs.
But we’re alive.
No thanks to the French military.
He glared over to a clutch of armed soldiers gathered around a pair of urban assault vehicles.
After being ambushed by the attack helicopter and cutting his own engines, Gray had utilized a unique feature of rotor-winged aircraft, called autorotation. With his chopper dropping like a rock, the rush of air continued to spin the powerless blades, slowing their descent to a stomach-churning fifty feet per second. At the very last moment, Gray had flared the chopper’s nose up, braking against the airstream and skidding into the Seine.
He and Kowalski then evacuated the flooded helicopter and swam for shore, only to be met by an armed escort. He had tried his best to explain the situation, but his efforts fell on deaf ears.
Or maybe my French is not as good as I think it is.
Finally, two soldiers stalked over. The one in the lead—a lieutenant, from the stripes on his uniform—came forward with a satellite phone. The other circled behind Gray and unlocked his cuffs.
“Je suis désolé, Commandant Pierce,” the lieutenant said in apology. “It’s been a confusing night.”
Gray stared across the breadth of Paris in the distance. Fires still burned but not as many. Even from here, he could see massive jets of water fighting the blazes that remained.
Freed, Gray rubbed his wrists. Considering what Paris had suffered, he could hardly complain.
The lieutenant held out his phone. “You have an urgent call. From the States.”
“Merci.” He took the phone, knowing who’d be on the other end of the line. “Director Crowe?”
“Gray, I heard what happened. So I’ll be brief. Father Bailey contacted me about a lead on the Crucible in northern Spain. I need you to join him immediately. This is far from over.”
No doubt.
Gray twisted around to stare across the dark Seine. He pictured the trail of smoke wafting behind the enemy aircraft as it had fled away.
“But that’s not all,” Painter said.
The director’s final words made no sense.
Gray hung up and held the phone long after the connection ended.
Kowalski hauled to his feet, glaring at the soldier who retreated rapidly with his set of cuffs. He noted Gray still seated. “What’s wrong?”
Still numb, Gray repeated Painter’s last words, having difficulty even saying them. “Monk . . . betrayed us.”
Fifth
Dust to Dust
28
December 26, 2:55 P.M. CET
Madrid, Spain
From the hotel room window, Monk stared out across the snow-swept rooftops of central Madrid. In the distance, the twin spires of a huge cathedral jutted into the cold blue sky. Though he wasn’t Catholic, he prayed for Harriet, for Seichan and her baby.
This is all for you.
He clutched a palm over his watch. He had cut it close. Valya’s deadline expired in two hours. He had already lost half a day getting to Madrid. After exiting the catacombs in Paris, he had commandeered a car and fled to the outlying suburbs that still had power. From there, he traveled six hours south to the city of Toulouse, where he connected to a TGV high-speed train, which rocketed the last leg to Madrid at 200 miles per hour.
He had arrived here ninety minutes ago, texted Valya of his arrival on a burner phone, and now awaited instructions on where to meet in order to hand over what he had stolen.
What is taking that bitch so long?
He looked again at the time, remembering the threat. He pictured Harriet, her wishbone-thin wrist on a chopping block. He had suffered a similar fate many years ago, losing his hand. He would not allow Harriet to face that same horror. He would do anything to keep that from happening, even if it meant dancing with the devil.
He took some consolation in the fact that Penny was safe. His deal with Valya had at least secured the release of one of his daughters. Still, it had been an agonizing choice. He had to trust that Seichan would keep Harriet safe until he could secure both their releases.
However, their fate was not only dependent on Monk.
He turned his back on the window and crossed over to where Mara worked with her equipment, making sure everything was undamaged after their rushed flight from Paris. To facilitate this inspection, Monk had secured a hotel room in a low-rent corner of Madrid. The room reeked of cigarette smoke. The beige coverlet on the single bed was clean but threadbare. In the neighboring bathroom, the sink leaked, the ping of its dripping faucet already grating on his nerves.
This was a necessary stop.
Valya had texted that her acquisition team would be coming with a computer expert, someone to verify that Mara’s Xénese device was authentic and contained a working version of her program. He imagined her people were gathering the proper diagnostic equipment and setting up shop somewhere in the city.
Mara’s device could not fail to pass muster.
“How’s Eve?” Monk asked.
“She appears fine,” Mara answered glumly.
On the screen, the AI’s avatar moved through her garden, looking none the worse for wear, though even to Monk she seemed agitated. It reminded him of a lion pacing a cage, a wild beast who had long ago given up any hope of escaping and expressed that frustration with every step.
Back in Paris, Eve had briefly glimpsed what lay outside her world before being sent into a senescent state. She had slumbered away the hours it took to get here, her systems idling in low-power mode, fueled by a battery backup system built into her hardware.
Clearly Eve’s sleep hadn’t made her any calmer.
On the screen, the avatar folded her fingers into a fist. Monk found himself doing the same, unconsciously sympathizing with her plight.
We’re all just puppets.
Even Mara.
On the journey here, Monk had not needed to threaten with his weapon to keep her at his side. As long as he kept firm hold on her Xénese device, she came along willingly. Where it went, she intended to follow. He had even fallen asleep briefly on an empty upper deck of the high-speed train, taking a catnap alongside her. He took the aisle seat, trapping her against the window, with the device’s case under his feet. He also kept his ears tuned for any peep out of her, leaning on his years with the Green Berets, where one learned to power nap with one ear piqued for any threat.
While en route, he had also explained to her why he had betrayed his teammates, why he needed her creation. He had shown her pictures of Harriet, which was as painful for him as it was informative to her. He had told her what Valya had threatened, which brought tears to his eyes.
His account had somewhat mollified her, even drawing a word or two of sympathy, but it was a far cry from cooperation. She still disagreed with him handing over her program to another hostile party. In fact, his story of Valya’s callousness only seemed to make Mara more determined to keep Eve out of the woman’s hands.
As soon as they had settled here at the hotel, Mara hastily set about on some plan. She powered her Xénese device up, hooked it to her laptop, and daisy-chained it to the remaining hard drives secured in the titanium valise.
At first, he had feared she might attempt to damage her creation, to sabotage it before it could be given away. But when he confronted her, she vehemently denied it, looking at him with disgust. She explained why she would never do that.
Someone else out there has another device, one housing a corrupted version of Eve. If it’s unleashed again—or worse, if it escapes—Eve may be our only hope.
Apparently, this was Mara’s original objective in creating Eve, a friendly AI. Though he doubted Mara ever expected her creation to be challenged from the outset—let alone be faced with its own evil doppelganger.
He stepped to the side of the hotel desk. Needing a distraction, he bent down and examined several labels on the hard drives: BIOBANK, KANTIANISM/ETHICS, WORLD HISTORY, SEMIOTICS. One was simply labeled WIKIPEDIA, which was fairly self-explanatory.
“You’re continuing Eve’s education,” he said as he straightened.
“As much as I can in the time we have. Luckily she’s learning a thousandfold faster than the first time.” She waved at the screen. “She barely registers each upload into her system, but simply incorporates it immediately.”