Qubit, page 29
ψ
In the cab on the way to Katya’s apartment, Lock began to explain. “Have you ever heard of a company called Coherence Technologies?”
“No.”
“The Wave Nine?”
“No.”
“Quantum computing?”
Katya scrunched her face up. “I think so…”
Lock gave a brief lecture on the technology. “And then the NSA came in and put it all under lock and key.”
Katya arched an eyebrow. “Let me guess what happened next. You stole it.”
ψ
Lock found Katya’s apartment compact, tidy, and impersonal. Her desk and the accompanying chair were too small and there was a glare from the window. He stared at the compact laptop in front of him, his hands poised above the keyboard like a concert pianist about to begin performing. “Where’s your control key—oh, there it is.”
Katya was looking over his shoulder. “It’s supposed to have lots of good hacker stuff on it. We got a training class and everything, but I’ve never ended up using any of it.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got a bunch of cloud servers set up with everything I need already. As long as my credit card isn’t declined, we’re good. All I need is a terminal window…there we go.” Lock heard Katya laughing behind him. He turned to face her. “What?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just ironic that’s all. About the credit cards.”
Locked smiled. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”
30
* * *
Pioneer Wharf, Singapore
Saturday, May 12th
Midnight SGT (Singapore Time)
Organized crime is so inelegant, thought Vipul, his eyes roaming around the sweltering half-filled warehouse. In front of him were gathered his captains, some leaning on stacks of four-foot-high boxes, others against the far wall, still others simply standing with their arms folded. Everyone was sweating through their clothes. Vipul could sense their hostility. Anand hadn’t warned him it would be like this. Morale was low, and, adding insult to injury, he’d pulled them from their homes or their favorite watering holes and brought them out to the wharf in the middle of night.
He glanced over at Anand, who stood like a golem animated by some malevolent spirit, glaring at the men. Vipul chuckled to himself. If it weren’t for Anand, they’d jump him right here, just out of sheer paranoia. He reminded himself that while they had been out selling coke and underage hookers to fat, arrogant, second-rate executives, he’d been quietly robbing the world’s largest banks from behind his desk.
“Three-and-a-half months ago,” began Vipul, summoning his most imperious tone and silencing several mumbled conversations, “Li Mun murdered my brother.” My brother. He wanted to remind them of that.
He began to stroll in front of the men as if he were one of his Harvard professors beginning an economics lecture. “At that time, I asked you to be patient, to wait, to check your desire for revenge. I wanted to have the element of surprise on our side.” He paused to let them remember, reversing direction as he did so.
He stopped front and center and looked at the men. “The time has come for us to take our revenge.” He paused there, looking into the eyes of his audience, one man at a time. He began to lay out his plan, not giving them an opportunity to disagree or comment. He paced back and forth, gesturing passionately, his shirt slowly becoming soaked in sweat. Every captain had a job to do. He approached each in turn, putting a hand on their shoulders, shaking their hands, and declaring his faith in them to honor the memory of his brother.
Later, on the way back to his apartment, bathed in the soothing air conditioning of the SUV, he knew all talk of defection was past, at least for now. He knew, further, that the family’s earnings would magically return to their expected levels. He’d seen in it their eyes. They had merely wanted their leader back. And even more so, to know they were needed.
It was basic organizational behavior theory, straight out of the text books they’d made him read at Harvard. With perhaps a bit of acting mixed in. He smiled to himself as he gazed out through the tinted windows at a group of teenage girls playing soccer. In less than an hour, he’d transformed one threat into a weapon to wield against another. By tomorrow, Li Mun would be dead, and who would remain?
Just him, astride the world.
Naubatpur (Bihar, India)
Saturday, May 12th
4:00 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Dinsha woke up quickly, a skill he’d developed over two decades of on-the-job catnaps. Sure enough, Rao was asleep, binoculars in hand. He leaned over and took the binoculars and raised them to the window.
What sixth sense had alerted him? he wondered. Because there they were, loading up two SUVs, one of which had a large dent in the front fender and was pockmarked with bullet holes; the other looked to be brand new. A third car, a rusty compact, pulled up behind them. Two men approached the battle-scarred SUV. One man carried the scaffolding for the IV and the other carried a bundle in a white sheet over one shoulder.
That must be the girl, thought Dinsha. Another man circled around the new SUV and got into the passenger’s side. Perhaps that’s Abhishek.
The night was dark, what moonlight there might have been was obscured by a thick cloud cover. The SUVs drove away. The entire process had taken less than a minute.
“I’m awake, you know,” said Rao. “I was just taking a break.”
Dinsha said nothing, ducking his head and making his way back toward the front door of the apartment. As he reached it, he stood up to his full height and opened the door quietly.
“Hey!” protested Rao. “Where are you going?”
Dinsha turned back toward Rao, who had stood up. “Quiet!” he snapped in a harsh whisper. “And get away from the window.”
Rao followed him out of the apartment and back down to the car. “Don’t slam your door,” cautioned Dinsha before getting in.
Once inside, he reached back into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone, careful to angle the display toward the floor. The device turned on and began to glow and flicker as Dinsha’s fingers manipulated it. His hand came to rest and he waited, staring intently at the display.
“What are you doing?” asked Rao after a few moments.
“Finding out whether our friend Abhishek ever noticed the LoJack I dropped into his jacket pocket when we embraced.”
After a few seconds longer, Dinsha turned off the phone and replaced it in his jacket. He leaned back and closed his eyes.
“Well?” asked Rao, his eyes widening.
“He did not,” said Dinsha, without opening his eyes.
“He did not…you mean, he still has the LoJack on him?”
“Yes.”
“Are we…aren’t we going to follow him?”
“Eventually.”
Rao sat in the darkness for a moment. “Why not now?”
Dinsha opened his eyes, frowning. “Have you ever heard of a trailer?”
Rao’s eyes shifted back and forth. “Like in soccer?”
“I suppose it’s like that. Except we’re not playing soccer. Ask me later. I’m going to get some sleep. You should too. That may be all the sleep we get for a while.”
“Okay…I mean, okay, so they have the LoJack. But what if—”
“Shut up,” growled Dinsha.
Jurong East, Singapore • Katya's Apartment
Saturday, May 12th
5:00 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Katya awoke and stumbled sleepily out into her kitchen. She saw her laptop but no Lock, so she wandered out into the living room and checked the couch. No Lock there either. Then she saw a note next to the laptop.
Borrowed some money. Took a cab home. See you tonight at the bar.
She stared at the laptop, which seemed to have a dozen windows open, each containing text scrolling past, some in little bursts, others in a dizzying flood. Next to it, she saw her wallet, which she must have left out when she went to bed. She smiled to herself. That was even more ridiculous than Lock worrying about his credit card balance.
Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore
Saturday, May 12th
5:30 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Lock tiptoed into his hotel room. It was still dark out. With any luck, he could grab a couple of hours of sleep before heading into the—
“Got lucky, eh?” asked a sleepy voice.
Lock turned and saw Sanjay looking up, his eyelids still heavy, a leering smile on his face.
“Yeah, something like that.” Lock gave him a wink and then lay down on the bed.
“Was she a hot number?” asked Sanjay.
“A hot num—who talks like that? Just go back to sleep.” Lock closed his eyes.
“All right. Way to go, Lock.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll try not to wake you up until we have to go.”
“That’d be great.”
“You should take a shower, though, man.”
“All right.”
“You smell like sex.”
Lock smiled in the darkness.
“Must have been pretty nasty.”
“All right already. Go back to sleep.”
Chinese Garden, Singapore
Saturday, May 12th
5:30 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
“Let’s start from the beginning,” said Quartan, irritably.
Katya took a deep breath and focus on the tranquility of the lake. Where were the turtles when she needed them?
Quartan continued. “Lock steals the quantum computing technology. He then use it to steal thousands of passwords for online brokerage accounts. He uses those passwords to manipulate the New York stock markets. Meanwhile, Vipul emails the G8 bankers, predicting the losses, and threatening to crash the markets entirely if his demands aren’t met.”
“Correct,” said Katya.
“And Cairnes admits to all this?”
“Yes. He’s very cooperative.”
Quartan paused and seemed to gaze off into the horizon. Katya began stretching her calfs. Finally, Quartan spoke. “Do you have any concrete evidence? Or just his version of the story?”
Katya took another deep breath, trying to contain her own frustration. In less than a week, she not only had turned Lock into a source, but they were now working together to sabotage Vipul. Yet that wasn’t enough for Haruo. “Like I said, he’s trying to hack into Vipul’s email account. At which point, we’d have his emails as evidence.”
“But we don’t actually know what’s in them? You’re just hoping for something.”
Katya gripped the railing. “Yes. That’s all I’m doing — hoping.”
“You’re taking this too personally.” Quartan stroked his chin with two fingers. “You say Cairnes is cooperative?”
“Yes.”
“Cooperative enough to, perhaps, stall if we stop feeding Vipul information?”
“Not if it would endanger his daughter. Any word on that?”
“Nothing new.”
“Well, then, there are going to be limits to Lock’s cooperation.”
“Can Cairnes help facilitate a meeting?”
“With Vipul? To set him up? He’s never even met him.”
“I see. Vipul is big believer in the separation of church and state, I see.”
“Yes.”
“Savvy, I guess. Oh, that reminds me. We’ve got a special op approved. I don’t think the higher-ups like the idea of forking over ten mil to the Triad. So we’re going to do the job in-house. We’re on schedule for Monday. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Okay.”
“But don’t let up. We’d still prefer to have hard evidence.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sentosa Cove, Singapore
Saturday, May 12th
6:45 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Li Mun settled into the spacious back seat of his customized SUV. He thought back to the day when a man of his station in life would have simply taken a limo. His advisor, a thin, agitated little man named Kang, sat across from him, facing backwards. His daughter sat next to him. Li Mun thought her dress was too short, although she insisted that, by today’s standards, it was, if anything, too long.
Maybe Vipul was right. Times had changed.
He felt the vehicle pull out of his driveway, part of what would be a small rolling armada by the time they reached Allanbrooke, heading towards the bridge. He opened his newspaper and scanned the headlines, more out of habit than interest. He’d taken a beating in the stock market lately. All on investments his accountants had told him were safe. What was wrong with this world? Google has a bad quarter and the stock of a bank in China plummets? Vipul, on the other hand, was buying drilling contractors so that he could extort bigger contracts from cash-rich state oil companies. Why hadn’t his accountants thought of something like that? The more he thought about it, the more a partnership with a young up-and-comer like Vipul made sense. He was not the sort of man Li Mun would have considered in the past. He was too effete, too precocious, too ambitious. But he was also at home in this new world.
ψ
The screeching sound came first. The unholy groan of twisting and shearing sheet metal followed. Li Mun looked up from his paper, instinctively bracing himself. What he saw through the front window seemed dreamlike, impossible. One SUV was coming sideways directly at them. Behind it was a jack-knifing eighteen-wheeler. The view shifted forty-five degrees to Li Mun’s right before the view was erased entirely by the shattering of glass and the fact that Li Mun was turned upside down and slammed against something hard. Everything was a spinning mass of limbs and tiny shards of glass, a gale of screeching and thumping, an overdose of sinking fear and shocking pain.
And then, the most frightening thing of all: silence.
Li Mun tried to oriented himself. Up was sideways and the sideways was up. He tried to stand but something seemed to knock him down. Something was in his eyes and he tried to push it away, but it was soft and wet and warm and relentless. He looked down at his hands to see what it was. Blood. His own. Slowly, gradually, his body seemed to be heating up, but he could see no fire. He heard a cascade of high-pitched staccato sounds and saw something moving. His daughter. She crawled to him. Her nose was bleeding and she seemed to be holding one arm with the other. “Daddy?”
An arhythmic symphony of snare drums and the sound of puncturing metal compressed the air around them. His daughter fell into his body with a screech, his mind catching fire with understanding at the same time. He pushed her aside and slid towards the back of the car. The rear window seemed to have shattered — there were shards of glass everywhere — but also remained intact somehow. Bullet-proof glass, he realized — it wasn’t glass, but plastic covered in glass. The plastic was still in place. So perhaps they were safe in the car. Police and ambulances would be here soon and his attackers would flee.
Li Mun began to reconstruct the attack so he could formulate a defense. They’d been ambushed crossing the bridge. The truck had cut off the way forward and thrown his phalanx of SUVs into disarray. Then the attackers had come up from behind with automatic rifles. He could see them coming. He flattened himself against the side of the car and reached back to make sure his daughter did the same. He saw Kang emerge from the front seat. Before Li Mun could say anything — he wasn’t certain he could say anything — Kang was torn apart by bullets. Li Mun stared at the window and the row of tiny holes. Another row appeared and then another. Li Mun was mystified. He’d watched the tests of the glass himself.
He felt the bullets, one lodging in his chest and one in his left leg. His daughter was pressed up against what had been the roof of the SUV, behind him, making herself small. Li Mun’s bulk and her own wits had protected her and Li Mun was glad. He was probably dying, but maybe she would live. If only he’d been able to find her a husband.
They were kicking in what was left of the window now. From the outside, the SUVs all looked identical. They were probably doing this to all of them. He reached over to put his arm around his daughter, but she had moved. She was crawling to the other side of the SUV, what would have been the floor if they’d been right side up. She was completely exposed to gunfire from outside. He called her name just as she seemed to roll back towards him, pointing at the window. He heard several rapid explosions.
She had a gun — she was firing back!
Where had she got the gun from? He didn’t even carry a gun. It looked like a nice one, too, one of those automatics. She’d fired a half-dozen rounds in a heartbeat-and-a-half and she’d killed the man who’d kicked in the window. The snare drums started again, but she was using the back of the seat for cover. Li Mun didn’t think was advisable — surely, bullets could penetrate the back of the seat? — but it was all happening too fast for him to say anything. She returned fire again, though, so, apparently, she hadn’t been hit.
He heard the sirens. She was trying to buy time. He knew by now he was dying. He could feel it happening. His nervous system had shut down, leaving him only with a vague sensation of cold. His vision was becoming blurry. He was surprised to find that dying didn’t bother him. He was more interested in watching his daughter. She was his little girl, for him to protect and look after, to find a husband for, so she could raise a family away from all the blood and grit and ugliness of the world. And here she was … she thought she was going to save his life. It was beautiful and sad and …
Li Mun closed his eyes. His felt a crowding in his mind, a thousand memories forming into a line to be reconsidered, reevaluated, reclassified. Except there wasn’t going to be time. He would never know his daughter, not this woman who’d just stared death in the face and then shot at it. As Li Mun’s last breath emerged from his lungs and rose up into his throat, his mind was radiantly clear, filled only with one thought.
