Qubit, page 20
“Please, Michael, let us not be so formal. We are all friends here.”
“Certainly, Horst,” said Ryan, forcing a smile. “As I said, I do appreciate your insight. But…if we allow our markets to crash, how long before this information gets out anyway? We are now getting multiple reports from a—” Ryan hesitated, as though he were making an embarrassing admission, “—a dozen online brokerages that thousands of their customers’ brokerage accounts were hacked.” He was exaggerating, but it seemed warranted, considering his fatigue level and the stakes.
Ryan shook his head and put his hands out in a gesture of helplessness. “I don’t believe we can contain this kind of thing. Word will get out. So, rather than this event being seen as an isolated and inexplicable crisis, it will be merely the first step in a crisis of confidence.”
Ryan was attempting to redefine the problem in theoretical terms, hoping that would appeal to the economist in Kögler. It had nothing to do with politics, he was saying, it’s a question of the market transmitting signals. They weren’t capitulating to the demands of a greenmailer, they were dampening those signals, which, in principle, was no different than raising interest rates or increasing the money supply, things they did routinely.
Winslow Tyneby jumped in, thank Keynes. They’d reached an understanding prior to the meeting, but Tyneby wasn’t always reliable. “I don’t see that it makes much difference, Horst, under which particular circumstances the less civilized among our little global village become acquainted with our Babbage-esque folly, our delusions of technological grandeur. What is more to the point, is how much this foray into the land of bits and bytes and unknowable consequences is going to cost, as it were.”
“You’re making an elementary mistake,” lectured Kögler. “Measurement bias. The value of the information we’d be providing is incalculable. That value will be extracted indirectly through the markets, but it will be extracted, nonetheless. Just because it will be difficult to see or measure doesn’t mean it does not exist.”
“Yes,” agreed Ryan, before any of Kögler’s bloc of supporters could sidetrack the discussion. “That’s exactly my point. The real cost is proportional to the flow of information to the market. It’s really an argument based on information economics.”
“I’m familiar with the theory,” huffed Kögler. “But I see no concrete way to prove such a thesis. And all other things being equal, appeasement is intrinsically undesirable. It’s a signal, if you will, that I don’t want to send. We can either signal the markets, honest citizens with a right to know if their money is safe, or criminals.”
“May I remind you,” snapped Yukihiro Ko, “that the collapse of the American markets does not affect the United States alone. London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and—dare I say—Frankfurt, will all be affected. The losses on the American exchanges alone are already approaching not a few billion, but a trillion dollars. We’ll see that across the board if we don’t do something about it.”
Ryan leaned back slightly in his chair. At least he’d succeeded in moving the discussion away from the political implications for the White House. That was a start.
“So then do something about it,” spat Viktor Vitaly. “Catch the greenmailer.”
“That’s a great point,” said Ryan, continuing his agree-and-spin strategy. “And I’m confident we’ll do just that,” he continued, trying to sound confident. “Given time. And that’s just the thing. Do we really believe the markets are all that vulnerable? What if this is an anomaly? Do we really want to scare everyone into hoarding gold or real estate?”
“Or vodka?” added Vitaly, and everyone laughed harder than the joke warranted.
Chinese Garden, Singapore
Monday, May 7th
5:45 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
“Good morning, Katya,” said Haruo without breaking his gaze from the lake.
“Good morning, Haruo,” said Katya, leaning on the railing of the bridge alongside him.
“Nice photo you took.”
“Oh?”
“Did you get my email?”
“I woke up a bit late. I haven’t checked it this morning.”
“Ah. Well…”
“Did you ID him?”
“Yes, actually. Or someone did. Turns out, he was on the Fibbies short list.”
“Ah.”
“He has a record. Computer fraud, no less. Did four years. And…”
“Yes?”
“His daughter was kidnapped. A few days before the greenmailing started. By two men that might well be described as Indian. He disappeared right after they put him under surveillance.”
Katya turned around and braced herself on the railing with her elbows. “Surveillance. Wait. So he was a suspect in the greenmailing case?”
Haruo looked at her and arched an eyebrow. “Is. Yes. That’s what I said.”
“Oh. I thought you meant—never mind.”
“Is he…looking at you in those pictures?”
Katya bit one of her knuckles. “Yes,” she admitted. “I’m afraid so. I had the camera in my broach.”
“So, he saw you.”
“Yes.”
“Anand didn’t seem to notice you.”
“I’m not sure.”
“He never looked at the camera.”
“True…”
“Maybe you can turn Mr. Cairnes.”
“Cairnes?”
“Lochan Cairnes.”
Katya was silent. She turned back toward the lake, her eyes flickering.
“We don’t have time to set someone new up,” continued Haruo.
Was Haruo saying what she thought he was saying? Was Vipul now a confirmed suspect in the greenmailing case? It made sense—two suspects under surveillance for entirely different reasons, by entirely different entities, had turned out to be collaborating. Not only that, but the new suspect fit into the picture they were forming. Vipul was a finance guy. The new guy—Cairnes—had been busted for computer fraud, which presumably meant that he had some expertise in computer systems. Like the ones that had apparently been hacked as a part of the greenmailing campaign.
It didn’t prove anything, of course. But surely Cairnes’s arrival had pushed them both considerably higher on the list of suspects. Katya could even imagine that, given the nature of intelligence work, which was almost always somewhat speculative in the early stages, that Cairnes and the Rathod family were now at the top of that list.
In typical Agency fashion, Katya’s transfer request had been accepted Friday despite the fact that Haruo had canceled the request until they dropped Vipul as a suspect. She’d been happy to continue her surveillance. But even after the arrival of the American the possibility that Vipul was somehow connected to a major Agency investigation seemed increasingly remote. She’d even begun considering the case as a sort of extended good-bye to the only life she’d ever known as an adult. Now, within the space of a thirty-second exchange with Haruo, everything had been turned upside down. Instead of a long good-bye, this had become the case that could make—or break—her career.
“…terminate them both,” Haruo was saying.
Terminate? Katya pursed her lips. But that would require—
“Think about how you might accomplish that.”
Katya tensed. If Haruo was suggesting that she, Katya, carry out termination orders, that meant that not only was Vipul now a prime suspect, but there was some urgency about the case. Typically, a special operations team—personnel with extensive military training and experience—would be brought in for something like that, with Katya advising.
Katya realized that she’d stopped listening. Haruo was still talking. “I’m sorry, sir. Can you repeat that last sentence?”
“I said, in the meantime, try to turn him.”
Katya exhaled. “Yes, sir.” She began reviewing in her mind what Haruo had told her, from the beginning. “Did you say Cairnes’s daughter was kidnapped?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Do we know anything about the daughter?”
“You mean her whereabouts?”
“Right.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll look into it.”
“I assume I have everything we have on him.”
“In your email, right.”
“Very well, then.”
“See you tomorrow, Katya.” Haruo straightened as if to leave, but paused. “Oh, one more thing…”
“Yes?”
“You need to work fast. Much faster than usual.”
“I understand.”
“A week is too long.”
“A week?”
“Yes.”
“You want me to turn him in a week?”
“Katya,” said Quartan, turning toward her and leaning on one elbow. “You’ve seen what’s happened to the stock markets these past few days. Imagine if this were to go on for another week. Let alone another month.”
Katya faced Quartan and held his gaze.
Haruo seemed to hesitate for a moment, then straightened himself up. Katya mirrored him. “Now, off the record…”
“Yes?”
“You know how these things go. It all comes down to politics at some point. Terrorists blow up a building, some two-bit tyrant starts executing dissidents, that’s one thing. But you take on the bankers? Wall Street? Paternoster Square? That’s something else entirely.”
Katya nodded.
“So they’re turning up the heat very high on this. As high as I’ve ever seen it. Which means…”
Katya waited patiently for Haruo to finish. His mind seemed to have wandered.
“You’ve got a week,” he resumed. “If that. After that, we need to have termination options ready. On the ground. You can’t count on special ops.”
Katya swallowed hard. “Okay.”
“Tomorrow, then?” asked Haruo, standing up.
“Yes, sir.”
Katya turned back to the lake as Haruo walked away. She listened to the call of a nearby crane and stared out at the water, studying the rain clouds reflected on its surface. She thought of those round blue eyes looking right at her. And she wondered if she might have to kill Lochan Cairnes.
Naubatpur (Bihar, India)
Monday, May 7th
9:00 a.m. IST (India Standard Time)
Arbind sat down at the kitchen table and let the warmth of the sunlight that streamed in through the open window soak into his skin. He took a sip of chai that his aunt had prepared for him and stretched his legs. His aunt was a stolid and practical woman who was always bustling. In the mornings, when it was still cool enough to have fires lit, it was all pots and ovens and luxuriously thrilling scents.
“How is the girl?” he asked in Hindi.
“She is sleeping,” she replied, pulling some freshly baked aloo paratha from an oven.
The girl had been ill most of the day. But by dinnertime, she was hungry and very much in the right place. His aunt plied her with dahl and samosas until she grew sleepy, and she hadn’t stirred since. She’d taken his spot in the sewing room so she could sleep undisturbed, and he’d put out a bedroll in the main room with his nephews.
The front door opened and his uncle appeared, and for the second consecutive morning, his sleepy disposition had been supplanted with alarm. “Arbind, dear nephew, I am hearing some very bad things about this girl.”
Arbind smiled faintly. The village gossip had apparently already started. The men were worse than the women. “She is cursed?”
“Yes,” said his uncle, sitting down across from him and leaning forward on his elbows. “One of these damned gangs is looking for her.”
Arbind remembered the girl saying she’d been kidnapped. “They can look all day.”
“Yes, but they know she’s here.”
Arbind winced. “How?”
“I told my friends. Yesterday.”
Arbind realized that he’d never mentioned to his uncle that the girl had been kidnapped. That conversation had taken place entirely in English, a language his uncle didn’t speak. “Surely, they won’t say anything to the gangs.”
“Surely they will. No one wants any trouble.”
“Who can blame them?” his aunt chimed in, dropping a samosa into a pot of sizzling oil.
“You remember what happened last time you were here,” added his uncle earnestly.
Arbind rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Yes, I remember.” The gangs in Bihar were known for their extremely violent nature. And the local gangs were among the worst. Two years earlier, during his last visit, one of them had drawn and quartered an entire family. “And the police won’t help?”
“Yes, of course they’ll help.”
“Well, then, we go to the police.”
“No, I mean they’ll help the gangs look for the girl.”
“We must go to them and hand her over,” said his aunt matter-of-factly, dropping another samosa into the oil.
“We cannot do that,” objected Arbind.
“We must,” said his uncle. “Otherwise they will come here and kill us and take her anyway.”
Arbind shook his head in frustration. He realized that was actually a possibility. “Can we take her somewhere?”
“No, no, nephew, we cannot! They will know to come here. Someone will surely tell them she was here. And when they come here, and the girl is not here, they will be very angry.”
Arbind couldn’t risk the lives of his family just to save the girl. “Can you ask your friends not to say anything?”
His uncle shook his head. “No. They are too afraid. If not for themselves, for their families.”
“Fuck. But if nobody says anything…”
“Someone will, nephew. Someone always does.”
“Maybe they won’t come.”
“Of course they will come. We must go to them now to make sure they understand we don’t want any trouble.”
“We can tell them that we did not know they were looking for her.”
“But we do know!”
“Uncle, it is one thing if they come here. But we cannot go to them. You know what they will do to her. Maybe they won’t come.”
“They will come.”
23
* * *
Singapore Financial District • The (New) Lab
Monday, May 7th
6:00 p.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Anand arrived at the new lab at six sharp. The markets in America were opening in three hours. What he found alarmed him.
Detroit was in a darkened office asleep. There was no sign of his assistants. Anand turned on the lights.
“Detroit,” he called out to wake him up. The man was weak and pale and had no pride. “Are we ready? The markets open in two hours.” He found it useful to always make things sound worse than they really were. It focused people.
Detroit sat up, blinking his eyes. “Uh, no, not really. We had a few problems.”
Anand did not care that the troublesome American was sleeping in the lab. But he was sleeping when there was still work to be done. “What problems? And where are your assistants?”
Detroit began to talk in a language Anand did not understand. There was talk about magnets and—was the word “capacitors”?—and calibration and “cad” drawings and something called—had he said “breadboards”?—which apparently had been left back in America. “Never mind, all that,” said Anand finally. “When are you going to be ready?”
Detroit began babbling again—yes, he did say “breadboard”—and Anand fought the impulse to punch Detroit in his womanly mouth. “I am concerned that you do not understand English. When? As in a date and time, you see? When are you—” he pointed at Detroit, “—going to be ready? Meaning that this device—” he pointed at the large, aluminum rectangle near the wall, “—will be working properly.”
Anand could see Detroit’s jaw working as though he was going to say something, but quickly thought better of it. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Perhaps another twenty-four hours.”
“Perhaps?” spat Anand. “And why aren’t your assistants here?”
“I sent them home,” said Detroit.
Anand balled his fists. Once Detroit had served his purpose, Anand was going to personally snap his scrawny neck. “You do not have that authority,” said Anand. “And if the system is not ready, why would you do that?”
“There was nothing they could do here. They were tired. I am tired.”
He stepped forward and slapped Detroit across the face. He fell back, cringing and cowering like the little baby he was. Anand grabbed him by the throat and drove him backward into one of the flimsy office walls. He was disappointed not to have cracked the plaster with the man’s head.
“Kirin has spoiled you. Perhaps you’d like another video chat with your daughter. You can watch while we take out her eyes, one at a time. Or maybe we’ll just slice up her pretty face. Would you like that, Detroit? Is that what you want? Are you that sick and twisted? Because it seems like that is what you want. Is that what you want?”
“No,” sputtered Detroit, slobbering slightly.
Anand let him loose and walked toward the lobby area. He turned back to face Detroit, who was crumpled on the ground, coughing and holding his throat. “Get your breadboards or your capacit-whatevers that you need, and get this machine running. Every day you don’t have it running, we’ll remove one of your little girl’s fingers. That seems reasonable. One per day.” Anand turned again to leave. “Oh, and one more thing,” he said over his shoulder, softening his tone with mock politeness. “You have a very beautiful daughter.”
Naubatpur (Bihar, India)
Monday, May 7th
5:00 p.m. IST (India Standard Time)
Sophie understood what was happening even though she did not understand a word anyone had said. Two men stood at the door. One of them looked more like a boy, really. They wore sunglasses and white T-shirts and jeans and work boots. Automatic rifles were slung carelessly over their shoulders. The older and larger one had a knife in his belt.
They were here for her. She’d limped out of her room when she heard the yelling. Arbind and his aunt and uncle stood in a semicircle around the two men. Three children stood behind them, the tallest one holding an infant, who was squalling.
