Qubit, page 21
One of the men in sunglasses pointed at her, and everyone turned around and looked at her for a moment before resuming their discussion. The conversation abruptly stopped and the two men came toward her.
“No, no, no…” she whimpered, limping back into her room. Before she’d taken a second step, she felt her arms being gripped, and she was being pulled backward toward the entrance of the house. She could hear herself crying.
“Sophie Cavelle-Cairnes,” a voice said. She looked up and saw Arbind looking at her. “Sophie Cavelle-Cairnes,” he said again. “That’s your name, right?”
“Yes,” said Sophie, through tears.
“Sophie Cavelle-Cairnes,” she heard him saying again as she was dragged out into the street. The last thing she saw before she was thrown into the car and the hood placed over her head was Arbind, framed in the doorway, repeating her name.
Southbank, Singapore • Vipul's Apartment
Monday, May 7th
8:00 p.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Vipul sat in his home theater, his black leather-upholstered recliner fully extended, one arm dangling over the armrest, holding a glass of scotch with his fingertips. There were four such recliners, arranged in a neat row with an L-shaped sectional behind them, but Vipul was the only one in the room. On the screen, Steve McQueen was telling Robert Vaughn that life as a gunslinger wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. “Home, none. Wife, none. Kids…none. Prospects, zero.” He’d thought about having some girls over, but he needed to stay focused. The movie was just to take his mind off things while he waited for the Chairman of the Federal reserve to realize he had a new boss.
His cell rang, and for a moment Vipul irrationally felt embarrassed for not turning it off before the movie started—the movie theater had been one of his favorite escapes at Harvard. It was Anand’s ring, a series of ominous beeps. He sat up awkwardly in the recliner, looking around in the darkness for the remote. Finally, he found it on the floor and, after pausing the movie, answered the phone.
“Is it ready?”
“No, but that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Oh?” Vipul tried to sit on the edge of the still fully extended recliner and then decided just to stand up, squinting his left eye as the light of the projector illuminated the side of his face.
“The Fed is giving in to your demands,” Anand informed him. “You’ve won.”
Vipul was torn between wanting to yell for joy and being unable to make a sound, as though a large air bubble was blocking his lungs. “Well…we don’t know for sure yet. It could be a honey pot. What…did they provide any specific information?”
“Yes. Something about the Turkish lira. I’ve sent you the email.”
“Via the SCS?” asked Vipul, referring to the communication system that Mohit had built.
“Yes. Of course. I don’t think they would try anything at this point. Wall Street’s in a panic as it is.”
“They’re going to open the markets?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll play it safe anyway. I’ll put this out to a few dozen brokers, and we’ll see how it goes.”
“Whatever you say.”
Vipul wished that, just for a moment, Anand could appreciate what he’d accomplished. He felt—
“About Detroit,” said Anand abruptly.
“Yes?”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Well, of course not.”
“No, I mean, I really don’t trust him.”
“I’m not sure what you—”
“Do we still need him?”
“Yes. What if our friend Michael Ryan is playing games with us? I’d rather just keep him around for a while. Just in case.”
“We should watch him very closely then.”
“Sure. Put somebody on him.”
“That’s…difficult at this point.”
Vipul stared up at the movie screen where Robert Vaughn was staring past him. Enemies, zero, he was just about to say. Why couldn’t Anand just let him enjoy the moment? “Why is it difficult?”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. You just haven’t had time. But my sources tell me that Sameer is forming his own organization. Anil as well.”
“What?”
“You can’t be that surprised.”
Vipul stalked irritably to the door of the theater, out of the way of the projector. “I am that surprised.”
“I told you the men were getting frustrated. And then you had Sameer kill Paresh. Which scared them for a while, but now…”
“Ah, it’s fine,” concluded Vipul, waving his hand as though a bee were buzzing his face. “You’re right. I’m not surprised. I bought some time, just not enough of it. Except…wait. Aren’t they going to come for me?”
“I don’t think it’s come to that—yet. But, at the same time, nobody’s going to concede any manpower to you. If you ask for it, you’ll force their hands.”
“I just want one guy to watch Detroit. You’re telling me I don’t have one guy?”
“It’s not that. You have your bodyguard. And Kirin’s men.”
“Kirin’s loyal?”
“Of course. But they’re still in Detroit. And there will be others, I’m just not sure who yet. It’s a delicate situation.”
“Well…fuck.”
“What I was going to suggest is that we fly Kirin’s boys back. No one has to know. We can put them on Detroit. Keep it quiet.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Separately we can talk about the others. Whenever you’re ready. You still have a bit of time before anybody commits themselves.”
“How much time?”
“Well, it’s really up to you. Our earnings will just stop coming in. This week was already a bit light, but I suspect it will get much lighter next week. At which point, you can’t really pretend anymore not to have noticed.”
“I haven’t actually noticed. Because we made more last week than probably all our combined earnings ever. What they bring me is a rounding error at this point.”
“Our cash position is actually a bit low.”
“For the moment. That’s really all we need them for—short-term cash flow.”
Vipul interpreted Anand’s silence as skepticism.
“All right, Anand,” Vipul allowed. “Let me think about it. But definitely bring back Kirin’s guys and put them on Detroit.”
“I will.”
“And I’ll take a look at the email from my buddy Ryan and see if we can’t make some real money.”
Singapore Financial District • The (New) Lab
Monday, May 7th
8:00 p.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
When Raj and Sanjay returned to the lab, they looked pale despite their brown skin. “Guys, I’m sorry—” began Lock.
“We are to blame,” said Raj. “We should have known better. We left you alone here.”
“Well, there was nothing…” Lock’s voice trailed off. “Anyway. Whatever. Fuck them.”
“What can we do?” asked Raj. Lock could see he and Sanjay just wanted to get the quantum computer working again. After his own confrontation with Anand, Lock couldn’t have agreed more.
Lock turned toward the burnished aluminum rectangle, placing his hands on his hips and letting his mind go to work. “I think if we breadboard this we can just create an adapter, using higher-farad capacitors,” explained Lock. “It’ll look ugly, but it will work.”
“So we need breadboards.”
“Basically, yes. And the capacitors.”
“Right. Where can we get breadboards and capacitors at this hour?”
“Please, what’s a breadboard?” asked Sanjay.
ψ
When Anand arrived, they had everything ready, except they still needed the adapters to deal with the voltage of Singapore’s electrical system. Sanjay had even managed to mount the large monitor on the wall, which presently displayed rows of red and yellow dots. All the tests were failing. But once they had the adapters built, they could rerun them, and with any luck, all the red and yellow would go green. Lock prepared himself to explain the situation.
“We no longer need to have the machine operational for the market opening,” announced Anand brusquely. He looked at the monitor on the wall, the laptops, and the large silver-colored cube that was the quantum computer itself. “Is it working?”
“Almost,” said Lock. He’d learned to keep things simple with Anand. “We have to go get some parts. But then it will work.”
“I will get them as soon as the electronics store opens tomorrow,” offered Sanjay.
“Fortunately,” resumed Anand, “as it turns out, we do not need it working just now. You may return to your hotel. However, you should return first thing in the morning, get the parts you need, and get it working.” With that, Anand wheeled around and left the office.
“I guess they are closing the markets again?” asked Lock, breaking the confused silence Anand had left in his wake.
“Let me see,” said Sanjay, who quickly brought up CNN’s Web site on the large monitor. With a few clicks, they were watching the financial news segment, albeit without sound.
“They’re saying the markets are open,” said Raj, reading the ticker.
Lock’s eyes narrowed. “Well that’s strange. What are these guys up to, then?”
“I think it’s best not to ask those kinds of questions,” said Raj.
“You’re probably right,” said Lock, who looked as though he’d fallen into a trance.
“I concur,” chirped Sanjay. “Mr. Cairnes, shall I call us a taxi?”
Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore
Monday, May 7th
8:45 p.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Lock, Raj, and Sanjay filed into the hotel elevator. Lock was trying to recall which floor his room was on when a woman’s voice called out. “Hold the door, please.”
Sanjay hit the door-open button on the elevator panel to ensure it didn’t close. An attractive woman in business attire appeared in the doorway, her curly black hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“Thank you,” she said as she joined the three men. She smiled at Sanjay with what seemed to Lock to be undue enthusiasm.
“Eight, please,” Lock requested, and Sanjay hit the button. Lock had seen the woman the day before when Anand had come to pick him up. They’d nearly bumped into each other. He guessed that she was staying at the hotel. He surreptitiously sized her up as the doors closed, his eyes lingering involuntarily. She looked over at him and smiled nervously. Locked quickly looked up at the floor number displayed above the doors.
“This is us,” said Sanjay, after the elevator stopped on the fourth floor. “Good night, Mr. Cairnes.”
Raj echoed his farewell and the pair exited the elevator. As the elevator began to rise, Lock noticed that eight was the only remaining stop.
“We’re both on eight,” said the woman.
“Yes,” said Lock, stealing another glance. She seemed to find something amusing about the coincidence. The door opened, and Lock put out his hand in an after you gesture. She got out of the elevator and began walking confidently down the hall. Lock stepped out after her and took a moment to remember where his room was. He was in the opposite direction. He watched the woman walking down the hallway for a moment and then turned and began walking toward his room.
He’d just unlocked his room with his keycard when he noticed the woman approaching him.
“Went the wrong way,” she huffed as she passed him. She had that same half-nervous, half-mischievous smile.
Lock smiled, in spite of himself, and went into his room. In any other circumstances, he knew he’d have said something, maybe even asked her for a drink. There was something very appealing about her, although he wasn’t quite sure what. She was pretty, but it was more than that. It was her entire demeanor, the way she spoke, with a distinct yet subtle accent.
He frowned and put the woman out of his mind. He needed a plan to find Sophie and get her home, especially if, as it seemed, they were no longer making the market. What would happen once he was no longer of use to them? Again, the logic was unyielding: the simplest thing to do would be to simply kill Sophie. He was running out of time.
He fell backward onto the bed and kicked his shoes off. Getting the quantum computer up and running had consumed his attention for the past day and a half, effectively taking his mind off the fact that he was he a fugitive working in a foreign country for criminals who’d kidnapped his daughter. The reality of it had started ebbing back into his consciousness on the cab ride over. Now, alone in his hotel room, it began to overcome him.
He needed to sleep. That much he knew. He couldn’t keep going like this. Not if he was going to be any use to anyone. He sat up and eyed the minibar. They probably had those little bottles of Jack Daniels. He just needed one or two, at most, to help him go to sleep.
He was about to get up when he heard a knock at the door. After a pause, he decided it was probably Raj or Sanjay. He walked to the door and opened it.
He was surprised to see the woman from the elevator. “Turn down service, sir,” she said, almost before he’d recognized her. She handed him a piece of paper and then shook her head and mouthed the word “no.”
Lock was utterly confused. “No, thanks?”
The woman gave him the A-okay sign and winked, then walked away in the general direction of the elevators. Lock let the door close and then stood there for a moment with his mouth open.
“What the…” he mumbled as he raised the paper to eye level.
It was folded up. He unfolded it and discovered that it contained a handwritten note on hotel stationary. He walked toward his bed to get better light and read it.
Mr. Lochan Cairnes,
My name is Katya Brittain. I believe we can help each other. Please meet me as soon as you can at the Starbucks down the street from the hotel. It is safe to talk there.
The hand holding the note dropped to his side. He walked over to the window and stared down at the glowing cyan of the swimming pools below. I believe we can help each other. What the hell did that mean? Was she hitting on him? That wasn’t it—she’d addressed him by name. Was she with Anand? That didn’t make sense either. He thought back to his sudden extraction to Singapore. Someone had been following him, according to Kirin. No one had said who, exactly, but Lock presumed it must have been the police. Was this woman a cop?
Scratching his head, he walked over to the minibar, grabbed a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels, and drank it in one long gulp. He chucked the bottle into the wastebasket in the corner and stared down at the note without reading it. If she was a cop, he might be putting Sophie in danger by meeting with her. On the other hand, what kind of cop passes you a note while pretending to be—Lock suddenly realized she must have been worried the room was bugged.
The woman—what had she said her name was? He scanned the note. Katya, that was it—Katya had said she could help him. And he was running out of time to come up with a plan to rescue Sophie. Lock put the note in his pocket and strode decisively to the door of his room. If there was a chance that Katya could help him save his daughter, it was worth taking a risk to find out.
24
* * *
Orchard Road, Singapore • Starbucks
Monday, May 7th
9:00 p.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Katya sat alone at a table by the wall and smiled at Lochan Cairnes when he walked in the door. He was wide-eyed and disoriented, even after he’d spotted her. He sat down across from her as though he thought someone might pull his chair out from under him. Then he held up the note.
Katya leaned back, holding up her to-go cup. “You know, the coffee drinks at the Starbucks here are much better than the ones back in the States. You ought to give them a chance.”
“I shouldn’t even be here.”
Katya regarded him silently for a moment. This one isn’t much for banter, she thought. He was not a professional criminal either. He was acting like a civilian. Which meant step one was to reassure him, let him know he was in good hands.
“No one followed you in. The outdoor tables obscure the view from the street. And I swept the place earlier for transmitters. The worst that anyone can say is that you walked into a Starbucks. Which, for an American, would seem to be a pretty typical thing to do, right? So just take it easy. This isn’t my first rodeo.”
Cairnes licked his lips. Katya knew he was making the first small leap in trusting her. Finally, he looked at her intently and held up the note again. “What do you mean, you can help me?”
“Help each other. You can help me stop the world’s most ambitious greenmailing campaign, and I can help you end up not dead. Which I personally think works out well for you.”
He sat back and stared at the wall, then gave her a sidelong glance. “Who are you?”
“Katya. I work for the CIA.”
His eyelids closed slowly, fluttered, and opened again. “The CIA,” he repeated.
She needed to keep the initiative. “Why did Vipul take your daughter?”
His eyes focused into a glare. “Who? What do you know about my daughter?”
“Just that she was abducted on April 27. What’s that…about ten days ago now?”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No. I don’t. But maybe I can find out.”
She watched him rub his hands together, pressing them to his lips. She’d seen this before. He was trying to decide what to do. It was best to help it along, so she decided to bluff a little. The trick was to start with the known and then progress to speculation, without going too far as to be unbelievable.
“Look, we already know you work for Vipul Rathod. We already know you hacked into thousands of brokerage accounts. We know—” She paused. Something was wrong. She’d already overplayed her hand somehow. She cocked her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. No, that wasn’t it. “You don’t even know who Vipul Rathod is, do you?”
