Epilogue
Prince George’s County, Maryland
USA
JON SMITH EASED THROUGH the gate of the Anacostia Yacht Club, enjoying the illusion of calm. Tiny snowflakes drifted through the empty branches of trees, the car he was driving was rented, not stolen, and Randi was sitting quietly in the passenger seat trying not to rip out the stitches he’d put in her back.
They came over a small rise and he leaned a little closer to the windshield, examining the car parked in front of Fred Klein’s office: a 1968 Triumph.
He pulled up and stepped out, barely noticing the icy wind penetrating his jacket. It was stunning—a professional restoration that had virtually nothing in common with the hack job he’d done on the one Whitfield wrecked. Reluctant to touch the flawless paint and gleaming chrome, he crouched and looked through the side window at an equally stunning interior. A set of keys dangled from the ignition.
“Fred wanted to show his appreciation,” Randi said, coming up behind him. “He asked me what you would want and I figured this was it.”
“He asked me the same thing about you,” Smith said, going around to the front and admiring the reflection of the clouds in the hood.
“And what did you say?”
“Deuce Brennan.”
A cruel smile spread across her lips. “You know me so well.”
* * *
YOU DON’T LOOK TOO MUCH the worse for wear considering the incredible disaster you’ve created,” Maggie said as they entered the office.
The comment hit Smith harder than was intended. He hadn’t slept much since Granada and didn’t expect to anytime soon. The toll of the plan he’d come up with had been terrible. And casualty estimates just kept climbing.
Klein appeared in the doorway. “I’m glad you’re here. Come in.”
He helped Randi with her chair before slipping behind his desk and lighting a pipe. Quiet fans started automatically, pulling the smoke into vents before it could drift out to the firmly anti-tobacco Maggie Templeton.
“So you’re both all right?”
“Nothing permanent,” Smith said. “The car’s phenomenal, Fred. Thank you.”
He gave a barely perceptible nod.
“How are you doing?” Randi said. “Damage control can’t be easy on this.”
“No, it’s pretty much a catastrophe on every level.”
“How many?” Smith asked.
“I don’t think the number’s importa—”
“How many, Fred?”
He frowned and took another pull on his pipe. Reports about what had happened were dominating virtually every news outlet on the planet but solid numbers were hard to come by.
“We’ve gone a little north of three thousand worldwide. Mostly people with preexisting heart conditions. You can’t blame yourself for that, Jon. Without you, it would have been a hell of a lot worse.”
It felt like a rationalization. Three thousand people were dead including nine members of Congress, four foreign leaders, and countless financial people. Ironically, the world’s soldiers hadn’t suffered too badly due to their higher-than-average level of fitness.
“Have you figured out how you’re going to handle this thing?” Randi said.
Klein let out a long breath. “It’s complicated. Dresner Industries has recalled all the Merges and is headed for bankruptcy. We’ll support the buybacks and use LayerCake to find any units still out there. The goal is to account for every one but that’s probably unrealistic. As far as a public story goes, we’re still trying to come up with something credible enough to convince people that this was an accident. Fortunately, the media seem content to fan the hysteria and don’t seem to be looking into the common thread connecting all the people who were killed. In the end, I think we’ll be able to make it go away. But it isn’t going to be easy.”
“And the technology goes away, too,” Randi said, not bothering to hide her pleasure at the thought. “Permanently.”
Klein didn’t respond, deferring to Smith who had been put in charge of a highly classified task force studying that very question.
“The hardware is easy to replicate and while the public can’t access LayerCake anymore, its core is still running in Spain. The key to the technology, though, is Dresner’s algorithm—basically a Rosetta stone that translates machine code into the language of the mind. Without that, we can’t make any of it work.”
“Can you get to that algorithm?” Randi said.
“I don’t think so. It all comes back to the same catch-22: In order to access Dresner’s operating system, we need to know how Merge communicates with the brain—”
“And in order to figure out how the Merge communicates with the brain, you need access to Dresner’s operating system,” Randi said, finishing his thought.
“Exactly. It’d probably be easier to just reinvent the technology than to crack his encryption. So we’re focusing on that—talking to the people involved in development, going through records. But it’s going to take decades. And that’s only if we can figure out how to get the North Koreans to cooperate.”
“Which so far doesn’t seem likely,” Klein said.
Smith couldn’t shake a deep sense of disappointment despite everything that had happened. “It was such an incredible technology. And if Dresner’d had another fifty years, he might have actually done it. He might have perfected humanity.”
Klein dragged thoughtfully on his pipe. “The perfection of our species…It’s an endless historical theme, isn’t it? Eugenics, communism, fascism, genocide, and now this. Maybe we’re not supposed to be perfect.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Randi said. “What the hell would I do with my life if everyone spent their mornings dreaming up new ways to help their fellow man?” She winced in pain as she adjusted her position in the chair. “And speaking of what I’m going to do with my life, there’s the matter of my reward for all wonderful work I did on this.”
Klein reached into his drawer and slid a thin manila envelope across the desk. “According to our sources, Brennan was recently seen in a small coastal town in Chile.”
“Chile,” she said, that disturbing smile playing at her lips again. “I could use a little sun.”
About the Authors
ROBERT LUDLUM was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series—The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum—among others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001. To learn more, visit www.Robert-Ludlum.com.
KYLE MILLS is a New York Times bestselling author of over ten novels including Rising Phoenix and Lords of Corruption. He lives with his wife in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where they spend their off-hours skiing, rock climbing, and mountain biking. Visit him at www.kylemills.com.