Qubit, page 35
“Are you okay?” asked Katya.
Lock’s hands were trembling. He shoved them into his pockets, hoping Katya hadn’t noticed. “Well, I wasn’t shot,” he replied.
Katya looked significantly at Ong Goh. “Triad?” she asked.
Ong Goh frowned. “Possible. He pretended to be a business man trying to book a party. When Vipul came down the stairs…” Ong Goh shrugged.
Katya nodded. She grabbed Lock’s arm and led him past Vipul’s bodyguard, who were crowding around Anand’s limp form. He saw Vipul in the middle, sitting cross-legged, cradling Anand’s body. He looked up at Lock, clear-eyed but somber.
“Was this you?” he asked.
Lock stopped. “What?”
Vipul looked significantly at Katya, standing next to him, before returning his gaze to Lock. “Did you tip them off?”
“No,” stammered Lock, fearful that the assassination attempt was going to jeopardize his daughter’s return.
Vipul didn’t say anything. Lock heard sirens approaching. He looked at Anand, still fearsome even in repose. “Is he…?”
Vipul looked down at Anand. “He’s dead.” He looked back up at Lock. “Tonight, then.”
Lock nodded, relief flooding his senses.
He felt Katya nudging him forward. “What’s happening tonight?” she whispered.
“Apparently,” said Lock, his mind scrambling to make sense of what he’d just witnessed, “Sophie’s coming home.”
Southbank, Singapore • Vipul's Apartment
Monday, May 14th
1:00 p.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Vipul tore into his apartment, ripped off his blood-soaked clothes, and rapidly downed two glasses of thirty-year-old scotch while standing naked in the middle of his living room. Three large men in suits, who had followed him in, waited near the front door for instructions. He opened the sliding-glass balcony door, gazing out at the sunlight harbor, letting a burst of warm, humid air rush over him. He stepped away from the door and relaxed his facial muscles, taking slow, deep breaths in through his nose. After a moment, he adjusted his posture, straightening his back, and opening up his hands.
His father had meditated every morning. Yoga is our most successful export, he’d tell Vipul. And it is our greatest weapon. His brother had never taken to it, but Vipul had heeded his father’s advice. He was discovering its value firsthand, particularly in combination with some excellent scotch.
Anil appeared by his side, carrying his oversized white robe. Vipul traded his scotch glass for the robe. His glass was promptly refilled as he donned the robe. He turned to face his men, taking the refreshed tumbler back from Anil without otherwise acknowledging his presence.
He began collecting his thoughts. The first order of business was to bring Detroit around. Get his broker network back. He felt like he’d made an impact at the bar. Upon briefly considering the possibility that Cairnes had somehow been involved in the ambush, he decided it didn’t make any sense. He’d just promised to return Detroit’s daughter to him. At the very least, he would have waited until after her return to try something.
But the young woman was a different story.
She was hardly a damsel in distress, either. She’d run straight into a firefight, gun drawn. To protect Detroit? Clearly, Cairnes was working with the SPF. Or perhaps the CIA. Maybe both. But what could they really offer him? Vipul could offer him his freedom, wealth—a real future. All the authorities could grant was maybe a bit less jail time.
Unless…was it possible he’d negotiated some kind of immunity? That seemed far-fetched. He was an accomplice to the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Besides, Vipul wasn’t going to throw away the opportunity to bilk the capitalist whores out of another few trillion bucks. He’d take one more shot at selling Detroit—after he returned his daughter to him. Maybe that would be enough to tip the scales in his favor. If not, he’d hit the kill switch before Detroit could do any damage.
The kill switch. Vipul had disregarded the whole idea when Mohit had explained it. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure Mohit had put it in place. It was a simple unencrypted email sent out to all the brokers with a passphrase that Vipul had chosen. In theory, each broker had been instructed to stop making any further investments once they got an email with the passphrase. His men would also call each broker to confirm—someone was sure to have missed the email—repeating the passphrase verbally.
To get back in business, he’d need to schedule face-to-face meetings to “reboot” the network with new keys. He’d also need to find a team to replace Lock and Mohit—perhaps Lock’s assistant, Rajender, would do? He dreaded the idea of starting over with a new team and traveling all over the hemisphere again to distribute new keys.
Sameer was still waiting for instructions. Vipul remembered ordering him to kill Paresh, one of his peers, months before. Likely, Sameer was toying with the idea of doing the same to Vipul, right then and there.
Keep your enemies close… “Sameer,” commanded Vipul without looking up. “You’re my deputy, taking Anand’s place. Right now, what I need you to do is arrange for the return of a girl we’ve been keeping under wraps back in Bihar.”
Vipul recalled Anand’s warnings. He hadn’t wanted Vipul to go to Tally Bar. In fact, he hadn’t wanted him to leave his apartment. Vipul had ignored him—Anand was full of warnings, and he’d get nothing done if he listened to every one of them. But this time, he’d been right, and Anand had paid for Vipul’s overconfidence with his life.
Vipul looked up and saw that Sameer was paying close attention. He resents me, decided Vipul, but he’s going to put that aside because he just got promoted. “We can use the small dock to make the exchange. But it’s important it be done discretely. No police.”
“Will you be there?” asked Sameer.
Vipul found himself distracted by the scar that ran across Sameer’s face. Anand was probably smarter and certainly commanded more respect, but Sameer…there was a toughness about him that even Anand had lacked. Sameer would do quite well in his stead, Vipul decided. “Yes. I…well, maybe not. I guess that’s not really necessary. Good thinking, Sameer. Okay. So…” Vipul paused. “Make sure we have a heavy guard posted here at the apartment. Street, door, hallway, the whole works. And make sure the Malaccan safe house is ready, in case Detroit really does plan to flip.”
“Detroit?” asked Sameer.
Vipul cocked an eyebrow at his new field general. “There’s a lot to catch you up on, Sameer. Maybe you should sit down.”
35
* * *
Jahanabad (Bihar, India) • Rathod Compound
Monday, May 14th
Noon IST (India Standard Time)
The old crone was back, this time with a wheelchair. She hauled Sophie out of bed and into the chair and then wheeled her down the hall into a communal shower. She stood her up again, removed her matted hospital gown, and pushed her into a stall. Sophie could barely feel the lukewarm water on her skin and in her hair, nor the old woman’s hands scrubbing her down as though she were a dirty floor.
Sophie couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here in this new place that looked more like a prison but felt less like one. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten the cast on her ankle or why her insides hurt so much. She hadn’t even noticed the bandages on her face until the old woman had removed them.
She stood naked, leaning against the wall, while the woman toweled her dry. She dressed Sophie in an orange sari and then sat her back in the wheelchair and wheeled her to her hospital room. Sophie struggled to keep her head from tilting while the woman spent a great deal of time drawing something on her face.
Finally, she was wheeled back out of the room and down a hallway to an elevator. She felt herself falling asleep, relieved to wake again from her nightmare, but was quickly yanked back into it, finding herself in a room filled with white light. She blinked until it was bearable and realized it was merely sunlight, filtering in through large windows. The crone was having a conversation with a well-groomed young man.
The man stepped forward and leaned down until Sophie could smell onions. He kept jabbering, and Sophie noticed that his teeth were crooked in all kinds of ways. The man finally leaned back and then the woman was drawing on her again. Sophie wanted to sleep, but the woman was holding up her head by gripping her chin and it hurt.
Soon she was in the backseat of some kind of vehicle with men on either side of her, drowning her senses with the smell of aftershave. She remembered being in the backseat of a car, unlocking it, opening the door…she raised her hand to her face, but that made one of the men in the front seat angry. He spoke harshly, and the man next to her grabbed her arm. She began to feel perhaps she could slip out of the nightmare again, but something kept bringing her back into it. Gradually, she realized it was pain. Everything was beginning to hurt. Her face, her ankle, her groin, and places within her that she couldn’t clearly identify.
Then came the jet. She remembered being on one before, long ago. Or was that a dream? A scared-looking woman with small eyes and skin sagging from her neck gave her a drink, and one of the men helped her drink it and take a pill. They were always giving her pills. But this time, she was grateful. Almost before she had finished her drink, she could feel the pain seeping out of her and into some other world. Her ears popped, and she remembered that being significant. She was going up…or down. She couldn’t quite remember which.
She was on the beach again. Only she was alone. No one was there. Her mom and Dennis were gone, the beach blankets and the cooler gone with them. Krista was gone. She scanned the beach for her father, but he was nowhere to be found. Even the sun was gone—she could see only dark clouds above her. And the water was gray and opaque. She didn’t feel safe, she had to get to shore. She waded for a while, but she never got any closer. The water was getting colder. She began to shiver and cry. She knew she had to get to shore, but she couldn’t seem to make any progress. She tried to think. Was it the current that was holding her?
She felt something grabbing her, lifting her up, dragging her…she opened her eyes and found she was being carried down a stairway. There was another black car waiting below. The sky was a dusky pink with great, foamy blue and purple clouds. She was loaded into the car and again nestled between the two men and their suffocating aftershave. She wanted to wake up, but now she was afraid to go back to the gray water and the current that she couldn’t escape.
“Sleepy,” she mumbled for no reason at all, and was surprised to hear the sound of her own voice.
It was dark by the time she was carried onto a boat, and the pain was coming back. She was set down inside a hot, stuffy cabin in the darkness. She lay down and curled up into a ball, groaning slightly at the surprising ways her body ached, before she began to dream again.
She was sitting at the kitchen table in the old apartment. It was raining outside. Her mother was there. She was so young! And her hair was so long! Sophie began to realize she wasn’t dreaming, she was remembering. Why this moment? She knew what must happen now, and she could feel her throat tighten and an abyss open up beneath her, leaving her suspended there, in her kitchen on that dreary afternoon. She could hear her mother explaining, but she didn’t have to listen to the words. She knew every one of them. That Daddy was going to be gone for a long time. She knew that she would begin to cry and that her mother would hold her, and that for the rest of her life she would feel sick whenever it rained quietly like that…
The boat came to a stop, the motor died, and everything seemed deathly quiet, with only the sound of water sloshing against the sides and the sound of men speaking quietly. She felt arms beneath her, and she was lifted again and carried. She was crying, and not just in her dream, and not because her father was going away, but because the pain had come back. They gave her another pill but nothing to drink, and she swallowed it gratefully even though her mouth was dry. She could feel the pill slowly moving down her throat. Someone wiped her face with a rag and then she was picked up and carried again.
Then she was standing on solid ground, surrounded by men in jackets with guns. A warm breeze blew through her hair. She heard the boat motor start up again and then slowly fade away. She felt herself swaying, and an arm reached out to steady her. She saw a man in blue jeans and a white T-shirt coming toward her. He looked like her father, except…something was wrong. He was calling out and staring at her, and she realized he was crying and saying her name over and over again.
She fell into his arms somehow and closed her eyes, and she couldn’t tell anymore what was the nightmare and what was real.
Pioneer Wharf, Singapore
Tuesday, May 15th
2:00 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Lock carried Sophie through a light rain to Katya’s waiting Honda. Katya got out and opened the rear door, and he eased his way cautiously into the car. He slid down into the seat, holding onto his daughter as though he were still supporting her weight. The strain of carrying her and getting into the car had focused him, but now he felt like someone had punched him in the throat. Katya closed the rear door and climbed into driver’s seat.
Lock felt the car accelerating and allowed himself to lean backwards into the seat. He was afraid to look at his daughter again. As long as he held her, he could feel her breathing and know she was alive. But he didn’t want to see the garish makeup that couldn’t hide the gashes in her forehead and cheek, the heavy-lidded, soulless look in her eyes, the drool running down her chin from her open mouth and cracked lips.
Katya was saying something to him as blurry lights zoomed past. Lock bounced and leaned in the back seat, trying to absorb the motion of the car. They stopped and the engine died. Lock looked around, startled. They’d already arrived at Katya’s apartment building. Katya got out and opened the rear door and Lock, still carrying Sophie’s wraith-like figure, carefully got out of the car. Katya closed the door behind him and then hurried ahead to get the door to the building.
Back up in the apartment, Lock carefully lay Sophie down on the sofa, while Katya placed a pillow beneath her head. Lock found himself on his knees, whether from the strain of carrying his daughter or from weathering the emotional tsunami he was experiencing, he wasn’t sure. He forced himself to look again at Sophie, at her face.
What had they done to her? What had he done to her?
Katya was speaking again. “…a friend who can check her in under her name. Tomorrow, the Agency can arrange for her transportation back to the States. Lock? Are you hearing me?”
Lock heard himself speak in monotone. “I need to wash her face.”
Katya snapped her fingers. “Lock! Focus. She doesn’t need to wake up and see you having a nervous breakdown.”
He leaned backward, bumping into the coffee table without noticing it, and placed his arms behind him to prop himself up. “You’re right,” he whispered hoarsely. He climbed up into the desk chair. “I need to wash her face.”
Katya spoke slowly and loudly. “Lock? Are you listening to me?”
Lock looked up in the darkness. “Please. A bowl of warm water.”
Katya sighed. He watched as she walked crisply into the kitchen and began running water from the tap. She’d been trying to tell him something. “The hospital,” he remembered.
“Yes. The hospital. We have to take Sophie to the hospital. I don’t want to register her under her own name though, in case Vipul changes his mind.”
“Okay.”
“So I have a friend who will help us. Ong Goh’s wife, actually. She’ll check Sophie into the hospital as her visiting niece. She’s on her way now.”
“Okay.”
“I am going to arrange for her to be taken back to the States, provided the hospital says it’s okay to release her. We’ll make sure she gets the best treatment.”
“I just have to…” Lock looked up, his eyes pleading.
Katya placed the bowl under the tap and walked into the bathroom, returning with a hand towel, then placed them both on the floor in front of Lock.
Lock slid forward out of his chair and back onto his knees. He soaked the towel, wringing it to rid it of the excess water, and leaned over his daughter. Katya brushed the damp hair from Sophie’s face, who moaned softly in the darkness. Lock pressed the wet towel to her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. He wanted to wipe away the makeup, but he was afraid to touch the scars.
ψ
Ong Goh’s wife, Misha, came by Katya’s apartment, wearing a big blue raincoat, and Lock carried Sophie down to her waiting BMW. He held her in the back seat on the way to the hospital, with Katya following in her Honda.
At the hospital’s emergency entrance, Misha retrieved a pair of orderlies and a gurney. The orderlies helped Lock settle his daughter onto the gurney while Misha explained the situation. He followed them as they wheeled her into the hospital, through a pair of double doors, and then someone was yelling and grabbing hold of him, pulling him backwards.
And Sophie was gone again.
Lock swallowed a chestful of tears. Misha was talking to someone behind a big round counter. Katya was there and she led him back down the hallway, back through the double doors, and out into the parking lot, to her car.
As they drove, Lock thought to call Karen, but he couldn’t remember her phone number. The satphone had a Web browser and he occupied himself with the task of bringing up his address book so he could look it up. He dialed and heard himself saying that Sophie was alive and would be home soon. He didn’t say she was well. The woman on the other end broke down and cried and Lock gripped the armrest in the car door until his hand cramped. When he heard a man’s voice trying to thank him, he hung up the phone.
The car had stopped again. They were back at Katya’s apartment. How long had they been sitting there? Why had they left the hospital? “Turn around,” he said. “We need to go back to the hospital.”
