33
Near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
USA
JON SMITH EASED UP on the accelerator and gave in to his compulsion to confirm on his iPhone that he was still on the right road. He wasn’t sure why, though. The asphalt in front of him glowed dim yellow and a translucent ETA floated in his peripheral vision. One of the strange things about the Merge was that the more accustomed you got to it, the more it faded into the background. Sometimes it was easy to forget it was even there.
The mist was getting worse, hanging in the trees and threatening to condense into rain. The men he was on his way to meet were probably gleefully praying for a deluge—anything to increase the morning’s suffering.
Smith had been tagging along with a group of former and current special forces operatives on their weekend trail run for years now. The terrain was always brutal, the pace superhuman, and the competitiveness on the verge of psychotic.
Two and a half hours of misery that he’d hoped to avoid by retreating to Nevada, but now his return had been delayed by Klein’s green light. There were no excuses—no kids’ birthdays, sick parents, or flooded basements. Even injuries better be backed up with an ugly, emailed X-ray. If you were in town, you showed up.
He flipped off the radio and his thoughts immediately turned to Randi’s discovery and what the hell he was going to do about it.
Dresner was the obvious place to start, but access to the great man was extremely limited and U.S. leverage against him virtually non-existent.
Of course, there was Afghanistan, but that would probably turn out to be an even bigger dead end. The locals in question were all in the ground and the region wasn’t exactly known for its meticulous record keeping.
Maybe the mercs who had wiped out Kot’eh? Sure, he might be able to find them, but what were they going to say? In all likelihood they had no idea who’d hired them. As long as the price was right, they tended not to worry about those kinds of details.
That left the technology itself. While he was far from convinced that the Afghans’ reported odd behavior had anything to do with the Merge—or for that matter even existed—it was an intriguing theory. His team had been so focused on exploiting the Merge’s hundreds of obvious capabilities, they hadn’t had much time to investigate what they didn’t know about it.
How was it developed? The human brain was the most complicated thing in the known universe and notoriously difficult to model. Massive testing must have been done but no one thought about that any more than they thought about how their new phone was developed. Was it possible that Dresner had decided to test the military unit in a war zone? Again, doubtful, but not completely out of the question. If the man was anything, he was thorough.
And what about Christian Dresner? Smith had read everything the government and media had on him, which wasn’t much. Why would it be? Digging through the trash cans and hacked phones of supermodels and movies stars was a hell of a lot more interesting than putting a microscope on a sixty-odd-year-old recluse who went around trying to make the world a better place. While admittedly intimidating, Dresner slotted in on the sinister scale somewhere between a baby seal and ice cream.
Smith spotted a muddy side road with an old truck waiting to pull out and he checked his iPhone again, confirming that it wasn’t his turn despite the fact that the Merge was still painting his path yellow. The trailhead was another 5.4 miles.
Thoughts of Dresner were just reestablishing themselves in his mind when the truck darted out in front of him. Smith slammed on the brakes, but with the slick road and lack of traction control, the rear of the Triumph slid out and bounced off the larger vehicle’s front bumper with the heartrending sound of crumpling steel.
He tried to compensate, but what was left of his tires’ grip disappeared when he hit the muddy shoulder. A moment later the passenger door slammed into a tree and threw him into what was left of the console he’d spend hours building.
And then all he could hear was the light rain on the crumpled soft top. That is until his own voice drowned it out.
“Son of a bitch!”
He tried to open his door, but didn’t succeed until he rammed a shoulder angrily into it. Leaping out into the mud, he tried to squelch the fantasy of beating the driver of that truck to death with his own arm. Before he could completely eradicate the violent image, though, something moved in the woods about twenty meters to his right.
Smith was using the commercial version of the Merge, so there was no sophisticated outline enhancement, but it didn’t matter. He knew the barrel of an M16 when he saw one.
He made a move for the Sig Sauer stashed in the Triumph’s glove box, but then froze when a shout rose up behind him.
“Don’t!”
He held his arms out non-threateningly and turned back slowly. One gun had become three and all were held by men who appeared to know how to use them.
The sound of a motor became audible up the road and he watched a dark blue Yukon come to a stop next to what was left of his Triumph. The man who stepped out was probably around seventy, with gray, close-cropped hair and a thin but powerful body that would have taken iron discipline to maintain at that age. He moved with military precision and not the mercenary swagger that Smith had learned to immediately recognize. No, this man had served his country as a soldier—probably for his entire career. But what country?
“Colonel,” he said with an American accent that answered that particular question. “I’m a great admirer. We all owe you a debt for your work on the Hades virus. And of course, your involvement in Cassandra and Chambord’s computer.”
He’d listed the operations in a matter-of-fact tone, but they’d clearly been chosen for impact. While some of Smith’s role in Hades was in the public record, his involvement with the other two incidents was highly classified.
Smith examined the man as he approached—the intensity of his green eyes, the scar running along the weathered skin beneath his chin, the expression that gave nothing away.
“Walk with me, Colonel,” he said, passing by and heading into the trees. A quick glance around confirmed that the armed men were still there. And even if they hadn’t been, a physical confrontation with this man, as old as he was, wouldn’t be a trivial matter. Better to just play along for now.
“I’m sorry about your car,” he said, actually sounding sincere. “It’s a beautiful piece of American history.”
Smith thought again about the gun safely tucked into what was probably now an inoperable glove box and how, if he survived this, Randi would never let him live it down. How many times had she criticized him for not always bristling with weaponry?
Disconcertingly, the man also seemed to be able to read minds.
“I’d like to talk to you about Randi Russell.”
“I’m sorry,” Smith responded. “We haven’t been properly introduced.”
The man’s smile had the look of a rare event. “I have to admit I thought it was odd that you were the first person she came to. Your history with her sister and husband seems like it would make your relationship…complicated.”
“We’ve been to therapy,” Smith replied, his sarcasm somewhat tempered by the fact that he subconsciously wanted to end the phrase with sir. “Can I assume she’s getting a similar visit?”
“You cannot. It’s my understanding that she’s an unreasonable and unpleasant woman. Out of respect for both of you, I’m hoping to keep this civil.”
“And what exactly are we talking about here?”
The man didn’t reply immediately, instead continuing deeper into the woods. Despite his comment about civility, it was hard not to notice that they kept moving farther and farther from the road.
“We’re talking about the severed head Ms. Russell brought back from Afghanistan.”
Smith had been prepared to hear just about anything, but that hadn’t been on the long list in his head. Still, he managed to keep his expression passive.
“You have an incredible opportunity here, Colonel. The bomb sniffer you’re working on could make IEDs an unpleasant memory. The enhanced ability to separate enemy from civilian will give us a real chance to fight insurgencies without turning the locals against us. I’m even confident that you’ll get those directional microphones working eventually.”
Again, his words were meant less as a compliment and more to showcase his startling access to classified military information.
“I think you’re overestimating our advantage,” Smith said, probing. “If this thing was already in Afghanistan a month before it was released, I wonder how long until everyone has access to it.”
The man stopped and looked directly at him. “No one else has access to it, Colonel. Just do your job. You’re good at it.”
They stood there locked in a stare until, to Smith’s surprise, the man looked away and started back to the road. “This meeting was a courtesy, Colonel, but you don’t want to cross my path again. The next time it won’t go as well for you.”