She leaned anxiously forward, running digital scans, reading the data, homing in untilhellip;The screen went blank. All the photos were gone. She froze a moment in utter shock, then pushed her chair back and stared terrified at the wall of screens. All were blank. Nothing was coming through. If the North Koreans wanted to mount a nuclear attack against America, nothing would stop them.
Washington, D.C.
The mood in the offices and all along the corridors of the West Wing was of quiet jubilation, a rare Thanksgiving in May. In the Oval Office itself, President Castilla had allowed himself a smile, unusual these past few harrowing days, as he shared the same measured exultation with his room full of advisers.
“I don’t know exactly how you did it, sir.” National Security Adviser Emily Powell-Hill beamed. “But you really pulled it off.”
“We
pulled it off, Emily.” The president stood up and walked from around his desk to sit on the sofa beside her, a casual act of fellowship he seldom indulged in. He felt lighter today, as if a crippling load had been lifted from his shoulders. He peered through his glasses, favoring everyone with his warm smile, gratified to see the relief on their faces as well. Still, this was no cause for real celebration. Good people had died in that missile attack against the Algerian villa.
He continued, “It was everyone here, plus the intelligence services. We owe a great deal to those selfless heroes who work in the lap of the enemy without any public recognition.”
“From what Captain Lainson of the Saratoga told me,” Admiral Stevens Brose said, nodding to the DCIthe Director of Central Intelligence, “it was CIA operatives who finally got those bastards and destroyed that damned DNA computer.”
The DCI nodded modestly. “It was primarily Agent Russell. One of my best people. She did her job.”
“Yes,” the president agreed, “there’s no doubt the CIA and others, who must remain nameless, saved our baconthis time.” His expression grew solemn as he gazed around at his Joint Chiefs, the NSA, the head of the NRO, the DCI, and his chief of staff. “Now we must prepare for the future. The molecular computer is no longer theoretical, people, and a quantum computer will be next. It’s inevitable. Who knows what else science will develop to threaten our defenses, and to help humanity, I might add? We have to start right now, learning how to deal with all of them.”
“As I understand it, Mr. President,” Emily Powell-Hill pointed out, “Dr. Chambord, his computer, and all his research were lost in the attack. My information tells me no one else is close to duplicating his feat. So we have some leeway.”
“Perhaps we do, Emily,” the president acknowledged. “Still, my best sources in the scientific community tell me that once a breakthrough like this has been made, the pace of development by everyone else is accelerated.” He contemplated them, and his voice was forceful as he continued. “In any case, we must build foolproof defenses against a DNA computer and all other potential scientific developments that could become threats to our security.”
There was a general silence in the Oval Office as they solemnly considered the task ahead and their own responsibilities. The quiet was shattered by the sharp ringing of the telephone on the president’s desk. Sam Castilla hesitated, staring across the room at the phone that would ring only if the matter were of great importance.
He put his big hands on his knees, stood up, walked over, and picked up the receiver. “Yes?”
It was Fred Klein. “We need to meet, Mr. President.”
“Now?”
“Yessir. Now.”
Paris, France
In the exclusive private hospital for patients undergoing plastic surgery, Randi, Marty, and Peter had gathered in Marty’s spacious room. The muted noises of traffic from outside seemed particularly loud as the painful conversation paused, and tears streamed down Marty’s cheeks.
Jon was dead. The news ripped at his heart. He had loved Jon as only two friends of such dissimilar talents and interests could love each other, bound by the elusive quality of mutual respect and seasoned by the years.
For Marty, the loss was so large as to be inexpressible. Jon had always been there. He could not imagine living in a world that had no Jon.
Randi sat down beside the bed and took his hand. With her other hand, she wiped the tears from her own cheeks. Across the room, Peter stood against the door, stone-faced, only his slightly reddened skin betraying his grief.
“He was doing his job,” Randi told Marty gently. “A job he wanted to do. You can’t ask for more than that.”
“Hehellip;he was a real hero,” Marty stammered. His face quivered as he struggled to find the right words. Emotions were difficult for him to express, a language he did not fully have. “Did I ever tell you how much I admired Bertrand Russell? I’m very careful about my heroes. But Russell was extraordinary. I’ll never forget the first time I read his Principles of Mathematics. I think I was ten, and it really startled me. Oh, my. The implications. It opened everything to me! That was when he took math out of the realm of abstract philosophy and gave it a precise framework.”
Peter and Randi exchanged a look. Neither knew what he was talking about.
Marty was nodding to himself, his tears splashing helplessly out onto the bedclothes. “It had so many ideas that were exciting to think about. Of course, Martin Luther King, Jr., William Faulkner, and Mickey Mantle were pretty heroic, too.” His gaze roamed the room as if looking for a safe place to alight. “But Jon was always my biggest hero. Absolutely, positively biggest. Since we were little. But I never told him. He could do everything I couldn’t, and I could do everything he couldn’t. And he liked that. So did I. How often can anyone find that? Losing him is like losing my legs or my arms, only worse.” He gulped. “I’m going tohellip;miss him so much.”
Randi squeezed his hand. “We all are, Mart. I was so sure he’d get out in time. He was sure. But . . .” Her chest contracted, and she fought back a sob. She bowed her head, her heart aching. She had failed, and Jon was dead. She cried softly.
Peter said gruffly, “He knew what he was doing. We all know the risk. Someone has to do it so the businessmen and housewives and shop girls and bloody playboys and millionaires can sleep in peace in their own beds.”
Randi heard the bitterness in the old MI6 agent’s voice. It was his way of expressing his loss. Where he stood he was alone, as in reality he always was, the wounds on his cheek, left arm, and left hand half-healed and unbandaged, livid in his repressed rage at the death of his friend.
“I wanted to help this time, too,” Marty said in that slow, halting voice that resulted from his medication.
“He knew, lad,” Peter told him.
A sad silence filled the room. The traffic noises rose in volume again. Somewhere far off, an ambulance siren screamed.
Finally Peter said in gross understatement, “Things don’t always work out the way we want.”
The telephone beside Marty’s bed rang, and all three stared at it. Peter picked it up. “Howell here. I told you never tohellip;what? Yes. When? You’re sure? All right. Yes, I’m on it.”
He set the receiver into its cradle and turned to his friends, his face a grim mask as if he had seen a vision of horror. “Top secret. Straight from Downing Street. Someone has taken control of all the U.S. military satellites in space and locked the Pentagon and NASA out. Can you think of any way they could’ve done that without a DNA computer?”
Randi blinked. She grabbed tissues from the box beside Marty’s bed and blew her nose. “They got the computer out of the villa? No, they couldn’t have. What the hell does it mean?”
“Damned if I know, except that the danger isn’t over. We have to start finding them all over again.”
Randi shook her head. “They couldn’t have gotten the prototype out. There was nowhere near enough time for that. But . . .” She stared at Peter. “Maybe Chambord somehow survived? That’s the only thing that makes sense. And if Chambordhellip;”
Marty sat straight up in the bed, his distraught face quivering with hope. “Jon may be alive, too!”
“Hold on, both of you. That doesn’t necessarily follow. The Crescent Shield would’ve done everything to get Chambord away safely. But they wouldn’t have given a ragman’s damn about Jon or Ms. Chambord. In fact, you heard automatic fire, Randi. Who else could it have been aimed at? You said in your report that Jon had to have died either in a firefight or when the missile hit. The bloody bastards were cheering. Victorious. Nothing changes that.”