“No great loss for the world,” Dryden said.
“The tower sites are shut down indefinitely,” Marsh said. “We don’t know the status of any of the company’s operatives, including the next-gen group—the children who were given the drug in utero. Presumably they’re all sequestered away somewhere. The people in charge won’t want to plug anyone into the towers again while Rachel’s still an existing threat.” Marsh glanced at the girl, then continued. “The three of you need to understand, this is only a setback for these people. Not the end of the road. Even if it were the end for this company, someone else would pick up the ball. The technology in play here is like drone aircraft; it’s never going back in the box. The kinds of powerful interests that want to see it developed—they always get their way, eventually. In this case, those people will always want Rachel out of the equation. The deal Gaul pretended to make with you—allowing Rachel’s genetic changes to be reversed—would probably have been impossible to implement, even if he’d honored it. Not that the treatment wouldn’t work, but someone would’ve had her killed before it was over.”
Harris said, “She needs to hide for the rest of her life. There’s no place she’d ever be safe in the open. Foreign countries with nonextradition policies—nothing like that would be good enough.”
Dryden didn’t bother nodding. All of those things were obvious. He imagined they were obvious to Rachel, too.
“For starters,” Marsh said, “my guess is they’ll relaunch the manhunt for the guy with the dirty bomb, who happens to look just like you, Mr. Dryden.”
“How can they do that?” Holly asked. “They went on TV and said the suspect was dead.”
Marsh shrugged. “They’ll say they got it wrong. The government screwing up—it’s not a hard thing to convince people of. And that’s only one of the means they’ll use to hunt you. In time they’ll whip up a reason to put your face on the news, Miss Ferrel. My point is that you three need to go deep under, if you want to stay alive. If you’re thinking of some little village in the Ivory Coast where you can help dig wells or teach English, you better pick some place where Western newspapers never show up. Some place where there’s no Peace Corps presence. No tourism. The three of you need to do more than get off the grid. You need to vanish off the earth. I’ll be honest: I’m not sure it’s possible.”
Dryden could almost hear the hinges creaking inside his mind. The scrape of claws scrabbling through.
Rachel took hold of his arm and shook her head. She knew. Of course she knew.
“You’re right,” Dryden said to Marsh. “But it won’t be the three of us vanishing. Just two.”
He saw Holly turn to him, at the edge of his vision. “What are you talking about?”
Dryden kept his eyes on Marsh. “You know some of these people, don’t you. The people at the tops of these companies, and the people in government who serve them.”
Marsh nodded. “I know a few.”
“You know other kinds of people in government, too,” Dryden said. “The kind who aren’t corrupted all the way. Who aren’t so cozy with these interests. You can’t be the only Boy Scout left.”
“Not quite.”
“Then here’s what’s going to happen,” Dryden said.
He spent two minutes laying out the idea. By the time he’d finished, Marsh’s expression had gone slack. For the longest time, the man only sat there, thinking.
At last Marsh said, “If I help you do that, it’ll be the end of my career.”
“It will be,” Dryden said.
“Even setting that aside, it’s a tall order.”
“You’re the secretary of Homeland Security,” Dryden said. “You answer to the president of the United States. Don’t tell me you can’t make the phone calls to get these people together in a room.”
“I can do it, one way or another. What I can’t do is ensure your safety, if you go through with this.”
“It’s not my safety I’m trying to ensure,” Dryden said. He nodded to Rachel and Holly. “It’s theirs.”
Marsh shrugged with his eyebrows. “Them, it would help. You … you could end up dead. Or detained at Guantanamo Bay. They’d probably make me sign the transfer forms. I’ve sent people there before.”
“So have I,” Dryden said, “but I don’t think I’ll be there when this is over. I don’t think I’ll be dead, either.”
Beside him, Rachel was holding it together, though it was a struggle. Then he felt her hand tighten on his arm—a reaction to what he would say next.