61
Frederick, Maryland
USA
JON SMITH PULLED THE CHEESECAKE he’d bought from its box and limped into his living room with it and a newly opened bottle of whiskey. The new sofa was a bit of a monument to form over function, but exhaustion had a way of making just about anything comfortable.
He took a large bite from the edge of the cake, feeling it settle uncomfortably on top of half the Taco Bell menu. He’d dropped more than ten pounds in the last two weeks—weight his already spare body couldn’t afford to do without.
The slap of bare feet became audible and he lay back in the cushions, closing his eyes and listening to Randi drop into the chair across from him.
“Nice place,” she said, pouring herself a drink. “Looks like a picture from a catalog.”
“And the cabin doesn’t?”
“Yeah, but not a Kmart catalog.”
There was no denying that the place she stayed in was a lot nicer and had the added benefit of being nearly as well armed as a Ticonderoga-class cruiser. Too bad it was full of workmen trying to get the smell of gas out.
“You gonna eat that pie, Jon?”
“Help yourself.”
She gnawed noisily on it for a few moments before speaking through a full mouth. “So what now?”
It was a question he’d known was coming. In some ways Randi Russell was a complete loose cannon, but in others she was infinitely predictable.
“Back to work for the both of us.”
The silence that ensued seemed a little angry and he kept his eyes closed, avoiding confirming that impression. What did she have to complain about? She’d go back to Afghanistan or Yemen or Iraq and lose herself in her life again. He had no such luxury.
Tomorrow, he would go back to integrating the Merge into the U.S. military, not entirely sure of its full capabilities, its security, or the purpose of the mysterious Division D. And worse, he’d know how the technology was developed. It was strange how his life had come to be built around the motto “The end justifies the means”—a philosophy he didn’t really subscribe to.
Maybe it was time to leave this life behind. There were a number of universities after him, including one in Cape Town that had all kinds of interesting possibilities. Let someone else save the world.
His phone started ringing and he ignored it, knowing it would be Marty for the fifth time that hour. Right now, the idea of talking to the manic computer wizard was about as appealing as a brick to the side of the head.
“Who keeps calling?” Randi asked.
“A guy I play racquetball with.”
She tried to sip calmly at her drink but started fidgeting noticeably. “So you’re just going back to work?”
“After I shake off the hangover I’m working on, yes. I’m going back to my life. We both are.”
“Your life passing out Merges to our soldiers.”
“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe that Antarctica post is still available. Who would have ever thought that it would sound attractive? Or maybe a leave of absence. A real one this time. I have a friend setting up an expedition to Borneo to look for a new butterfly species. He needs a team doctor.”
“Butterflies?” she said. “That’s an interesting mental picture.”
Another silence stretched out between them.
“This is bullshit,” Randi said finally.
“Here we go.”
“Fred’s getting played and you know it. By Whitfield, by Dresner, by the president…”
“Trust me, Randi. Fred Klein doesn’t get played. He knows what’s happening. He just doesn’t feel he can do anything about it.”
“So we’re going to let our military—and the rest of the world—get completely reliant on a technology that was secretly developed using human test subjects. What could possibly go wrong?”
“We’re done, Randi. We have direct orders to walk away.”
“Orders from Fred.”
“Yes.”
“Covert-One doesn’t exist, Jon. And orders from an organization that doesn’t exist aren’t binding.”
This just wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. His phone rang again and he reached for it, hoping for a diversion. But it was just Marty for the sixth time.
“Man,” Randi said. “Your friend must really like racquetball.”
“Nuts for it.”
A moment later a different ringtone sounded, this time from the kitchen. Randi’s.
Her eyebrows rose a bit and she crossed the room to answer it. Smith only half listened to her side of the conversation, already knowing what would be said.
“Really? You’ve been trying to get in touch with him all night?”
She sat down again and switched to speaker.
“Over and over!” Marty Zellerbach said. “His phone is on and has signal and I know he’s there because the last three times, he declined the call.”
She glared at him.
“Jon?” Zellerbach said. “Are you there? Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Because I’m tired, Marty. I’m dead tired.”
“But there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“What is it?” Randi said.
“I don’t really want to say on an open line. It’s about that stuff you wanted me to look into. You know. With the thing?”
“Forget it,” Smith said. “Job’s over. Bill me.”
“I don’t want to bill you, Jon. I want to talk to you.”
“Email me the invoice, Marty. Put what you’ve got to say in the comment section. Or better yet, don’t.”
“But this is important,” he whined. “Forget payment. It’s free.”
He reached over to disconnect the call but Randi snatched the phone off the coffee table. “I’d love to meet with you, Marty. When and where?”
* * *
MAJOR JAMES WHITFIELD sat in his dark office listening to the voice of Martin Zellerbach.
“My place, Randi. Now. Yesterday. A year ago. Just get here.”
“I’m on my way.”
“What about Jon?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
The connection went dead and Whitfield leaned back in his chair. With Klein involved, it had been too dangerous to contact his friends at the NSA to get bugs on Smith’s and Russell’s phones. Fortunately, he also had people at AT&T who had been able to feed the unencrypted calls in real time.
He reached for his keyboard and brought up the now-archaic Google homepage, searching on the name “Martin Zellerbach.” LayerCake would undoubtedly have better-organized information, but it was impossible to know if Dresner was watching.
Wikipedia had a picture of a muscular, shirtless Zellerbach that looked suspiciously like it was taken from the cover of a romance novel. The text gave detailed accounts of his role in the defeat of the Nazi Germany, his improbably acrobatic sexual escapades with the entire cast of America’s Next Top Model, and his defeat of Chuck Norris in a bare-knuckles tournament. The fight was accompanied by a surprisingly convincing video and seemed to have taken place in the bar from Star Wars.
Impressively, every other link he clicked on corroborated those events.
Convinced he was getting nowhere, Whitfield dialed his organization’s tech guru and waited impatiently for him to pick up.
“Yes sir. What can I do for you?”
“I need you to get me some reliable information on a Martin Joseph Zellerbach. I ran an Internet search and came up with junk.”
“Marty Zellerbach? I don’t need to do a search, sir.”
“You know him?”
“Not personally. But I know of him. Everybody does.”
“Well, I’m not everybody. What have you got?”
“Marty’s a hacker—maybe the hacker. Reclusive and pretty crazy, though. From an online perspective, not a man to be screwed with. The last guy who crossed him has spent the last five years living off the grid in Indonesia because it’s the only place he can get any peace.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Whitfield said, severing the connection. A tech expert. Not exactly a surprise.
He looked at Jon Smith’s military record sitting on his desk but didn’t reach for it. There was no need. He was an honorable soldier who could normally be counted on to follow orders. The problem was Russell. And now an unstable hacker with a massive and entirely fabricated online presence.
It was clear that the control he thought he’d regained was nothing more than an illusion. If the situation continued on its current trajectory, it could end up beyond even Castilla’s power to rein in.
What had Zellerbach found? And more important, had he released information about his discovery to the Internet? Because once that door was opened, there was no shutting it again.
Whitfield let out a long, angry breath. He’d actually started to believe that he’d be able to get out of this without the blood of two American patriots on his hands.
A card with Castilla’s direct number was on his desk, but he pushed it aside. This wasn’t a situation that could be solved by political hand wringing and Fred Klein could be counted on to do everything in his considerable power to protect his people. The time had come to put an end to this.
Whitfield dialed another number. This one was picked up on the first ring.
“Sir?”
“I need a team.”
“Target?”
“Three. Jon Smith and Randi Russell. The third is a computer tech named Martin Zellerbach.”
“Yes sir.”
There was a worrying, but understandable, excitement in the man’s voice. Payback for what had happened to his comrades.
“I’ll be directing the operation personally.”
“Sir?”
The NSA had taken the position that the Merge’s encryption was uncrackable, but he couldn’t help wondering if Zellerbach had found a way in. Dresner’s control over his technology was an ongoing problem that Whitfield would be very pleased to resolve.
“You heard me. And Zellerbach is to be taken alive for questioning.”
“What about Smith and Russell?”
He let out another long breath, this one quiet enough not to be picked up by the microphone. “They’re to be eliminated.”