BETA - Project Avatar, page 25
“Took us most of the day,” Holtz inserted. “I’m not sure we got much out of it, either.”
Bishop ignored him. “She has been staying at a little inn, up in the hills west of town. A string of cabins, tucked back a bit in the woods. She paid cash and didn’t show her passport when she checked in.”
“But it was definitely her,” Holtz said.
“We found a stolen car just a little way down the road,” Bishop continued. “Dealer plates. Probably stolen right off the lot. We’re not sure why she came back to the inn, but our guess is, she had a backup car stashed in the vicinity and drove back there to get it.”
“Okay. Now, there’s one part of your debriefing that I didn’t understand last night, and I still don’t get it. How did you track her to the meeting with this Ramsey if you didn’t even know where she was staying?”
“I arranged that,” Holtz said, cutting off Bishop’s reply. He gave a smug smile. “I had my contacts at Interpol get permission to divert feeds from the Swiss police camera network. Which, I might add, is an amazing thing—it must be the most extensive surveillance grid outside of Pyongyang. Anyway, using the clearance you gave us, I fed the data into the NSA mainframe computer at Fort Meade. We did complete facial structure analysis on every person who showed up on any camera in greater Geneva, in real time. For a couple of hours there, we must’ve been hogging up most of the computing power of the entire American intelligence community.”
The general showed a couple of teeth on one side of his mouth. “Yeah. Priority Alpha is a wonderful thing.”
“I could sure get used to it,” Holtz agreed. “Anyway, you see where this is going. Lockwood showed up on a police camera mounted in a suburban shopping plaza, and we mobilized immediately.”
“So you did it with the police camera network,” the general mused. “And then an hour later, you shot up one of their vehicles. No wonder Chief Bierhof was so pissed off.” He chuckled dryly and sucked the last of the Scotch from between his ice cubes. “Speaking of which, do you think the Geneva police know that you shot this Ramsey character? Because, if so, I’d better get on the phone in a few minutes and start smoothing Bierhof’s feathers.”
“No,” Bishop assured him. “We cleaned down the site before we left. Other than Lockwood, I don’t think there was another eyewitness. Even if there was, with no physical evidence it won’t make much difference.”
Holtz added, “I also had my Interpol man blank out the relevant twenty minutes of records from the police camera. The whole incident is wiped clean.”
“Nicely done,” the general said. “It was definitely a lucky break that this Ramsey fellow ended up with nothing worse than a punctured lung and a couple of broken ribs.” He glanced at Bishop, then grudgingly gave credit where it was due. “Good shooting, soldier.”
“Thank you, sir,” Bishop replied without emotion. “It was an easy shot. Clear line of sight, short range. I put the round through the third intercostal, on the right. That usually drops them but leaves them intact for interrogation.”
“Very professional,” the general said. He turned back to Holtz. “So I’m assuming that’s where we got the tip about Rio.”
“Correct,” Holtz confirmed. “While we were transporting Ramsey back here for questioning, I applied sufficient first aid to stop the bleeding and restore normal respiratory activity. Once it was clear that he was going to live, we lay him out on the floor, just over there, and I injected some stimulants into him to make sure I had his full attention. The rest was easy. The man turned out to be an extremely soft subject for interrogation.”
“Well, it’s about goddamn time we got a break,” the general said.
“We extracted the names of three possible contacts for Lockwood in Rio, and they’re interlinked,” Holtz added. “We’ll be tracking the most likely, a woman named Lygia Magela. We’ve also alerted the Brazilian Federal Police to watch arrival points.”
“I still say it was a mistake to turn Ramsey loose,” Bishop interrupted. “As you’ll recall, General, you approved Holtz’s request to send him to a civilian hospital for treatment. He’s completely out of our hands now.”
Holtz shot Bishop a disgusted look, then turned his eyes back to the general. “I hear this kind of thing all the time,” he commented. “Amateurs in psy ops always seem to think they’ve got to leave a trail of dead witnesses everywhere they go. A textbook example of unnecessary risk.” He smiled coldly. “Sir, after I talked with Ramsey, I can guarantee you he’ll never speak to anyone about what he’s seen. He’ll spend the rest of his life struggling to forget that he ever laid eyes on us.”
The general looked at Holtz and cocked a bushy eyebrow. “Somehow, Holtz, I’m inclined to believe you.” He handed his empty glass to Oliver, who was standing behind the couch now, just behind his right shoulder. “So that leaves our hands clean, even if they’re still empty. The timing may work out pretty well, too.” The general glanced at the heavy, worn gold watch strapped to his hairy wrist.
“When do we leave for Brazil, sir?” Bishop asked.
“The old bird will be fueled and serviced in another half hour or so, and we should be cleared for takeoff at a moment’s notice. I suppose we ought to start gathering our essential personnel and material right now. What’s the flight time to Brazil?”
From behind him, Oliver said: “Eight hours twenty. For an estimated arrival around nineteen hundred hours local time.”
The general nodded. “Excellent. With a little bit of luck, we may be in Rio before Lockwood is.”
“If she’s not already there,” Holtz said darkly.
“You’re a pessimist, Holtz,” the general grumbled, though not without sympathy. “If this damned computer program of yours is really what’s keeping that woman ahead of our team, then it’s not doing it by much. You know, if we only wanted her dead, she would have been, days ago.”
Holtz didn’t reply.
Oliver leaned down, behind the general’s shoulder. In a barely perceptible murmur, he said: “There is a certain chance that this situation is no longer contained, sir.”
“You think I don’t know that?” the general groused, making no effort to lower his voice.
“Sir,” Oliver persisted, speaking even more quietly, “would you like me to contact Whylom at this point?”
The general opened his mouth to respond, then snapped it shut. One gnarled old hand drifted up to touch his head, as if trying to tamp down a headache that was ballooning out of control. He seemed to shrink a bit into his seat, withdrawing from the room to mull over his options in greater peace.
At length, his spine straightened again, and he whispered to Oliver, whose ear was still just three inches from his mouth: “That’s premature at this point.”
“Yes sir.”
“We’ll deal with that soon enough. In good time.”
“Yes sir.”
“And listen. Major?”
“Sir?”
“Do not talk about Whylom.”
“Yes sir.” Oliver straightened up again. His face betrayed nothing to the room, though certainly everyone present was struggling to read it.
The general rolled to his feet, wincing at the creaking in his old knees. He looked around the room, and everyone straightened up a bit.
He said, “I know all of us are thinking the same thing: that it’s time to set up a sniper crossfire and get this damned mission over with. This woman is a nuisance and an embarrassment, and she’s slippery as hell. Well, I have to admit, I’m inclined to see matters that way myself. But I want you to remember that eliminating Lockwood is not our primary objective in this mission. Our primary objective is to detain her for a thorough interrogation, impound her electronics, and ensure that any classified software in her possession is safely accounted for. Simply terminating the subject is a compromise solution. And this unit does not have a history of compromise solutions.”
The statement drew enthusiastic hooting and grunting from everyone but Holtz and Oliver.
The general frowned and nodded, pleased to see that morale was still strong. “Your orders remain the same,” he said. “I want Lockwood in twenty-four hours, dead or alive, but with a strong preference for the latter. Now, grab your gear, gentlemen. We’ve got a plane to catch.”
Holtz stepped over to Giacomo and leaned in close to his ear. “Has it called in yet?” he asked quietly, for the third time in as many hours. Giacomo shook his head, and Holtz swore under his breath.
“I’ve tried initiating contact, but she’s blocking communications,” he explained. “I have a communication package waiting for the avatar with instructions to turn on her smartphone’s tracking system as soon as it makes contact.”
“Well done, Major. In the meantime, I’m planning to take charge of the seize operation from Bishop. Maybe I’ll just shoot the son of a bitch. We’ve got to be in control when the avatar finally makes contact.”
“Yes sir,” Giacomo agreed, and they headed off in separate directions.
Chapter 25
It took Dee only a few minutes to get packed. She’d been in Reykjavik barely twelve hours and had spent half that time asleep. She quietly toted her carry-on bag over to the loft door next to the kitchenette and set it down just beside the doorsill, then leaned her shoulder bag against it.
She looked around the room, trying to think of anything she might have missed. Though it was ten p.m. and the sun had long since set over the North Atlantic, the sky was still quite light. The pallid twilight would stick around all night, from the looks of it, and a plump waxing moon dangled above the horizon as well. All the lights were off in the loft, and yet the whole room was suffused with a silver-gray glow.
Dee had one thing left to do. She looked over at John, snoring on the long sofa. She had seen him slip her new identity papers into the inner breast pocket of his tweed jacket, which he was still wearing as he slept. She wiped her moist palms on her thighs and tiptoed toward the couch.
She stood over him for a good minute or so, trying to work up the nerve to filch the documents from his pocket. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was pretending to be asleep. It seemed impossible that she could just reach inside his suit coat, take what she needed, and walk away.
Leaning over the coffee table, she took a moment to check the melted ice in his glass. She had given him the potion an hour ago, and he appeared to have drunk every drop. Knowing that he had hardly slept in the past two days, she had ground up three of her sleeping pills with the back of a spoon on a saucer, then dissolved the powder with a bit of water in an empty glass salt shaker. When cocktail hour rolled around, he had poured himself a well-deserved splash of single-malt Scotch. A momentary distraction and she had dumped the concoction into his drink.
So by this point, she could probably play a bugle in his ear and he wouldn’t stir.
She slipped her hand under his lapel and took out her new passport and credit card while he slept on, peacefully oblivious. She tiptoed away to the window, feeling guilty.
It occurred to her that she didn’t even know what name he had assigned to her. She opened the Canadian passport and inspected the front page. There she was, a rather chilly-looking blue-eyed blonde with a peculiar purse-lipped, wide-eyed expression, with the name Melody Moody.
“What?” she whispered aloud, furiously. She glared over toward the couch. What kind of stupid name was Melody Moody? She was tempted to dump ice water on him and demand an explanation.
Of course, it was too late to raise any objections now. She went to the door, knelt down, and began tucking the precious documents into her shoulder bag. Then she hesitated, the new credit card still in her hand.
“Beta,” she whispered.
“Yes, Karen?” Beta said in her ear.
She hesitated. “No, I’ve changed my name again. It’s . . . well, it’s Melody Moody.” She choked a bit on the name, but dutifully spelled it out.
“Okay, Melody.”
“What time did you tell the taxi to be here?”
“The taxi is now en route,” Beta replied.
“You’re still holding that seat on the flight to Rio?”
“The seat is still available.”
“Good,” she whispered. “I’m ready to make the booking under my new name.” She gave Beta her new credit card number.
“One moment, please,” Beta told her. Then, “I have booked your seat, and your electronic tourist visa for Brazil. The documents will be available for you at Keflavik Airport.”
Dee tucked the credit card away in her shoulder bag and moved to the window to look down at the street. She hoped the taxi wouldn’t honk when it arrived, not because it was likely to wake John but because she hoped to spare her nerves. She could already feel, right through the window, that it was getting chilly outside. Picking up the alpaca jacket John had bought for her in Lyon, she pulled it on.
“Would you like me to run through a pre-travel checklist?” Beta asked her.
“No,” Dee whispered. Then again, why not? “Okay,” she said. “Go ahead.”
“Valid passport?”
“Check.”
“Clothing and disguise essentials?”
“Check.”
“Toiletries and medications?”
“Check.”
“Semiautomatic handgun?”
She shook her head ruefully. “Beta,” she whispered, “I pretty much never carry a gun around. You’re going to have to get used to it.”
Beta was silent for several seconds, as if considering the wisdom of this. “A small semiautomatic pistol,” it told her formally, as if reading from a brochure, “is a traveler’s single most useful piece of equipment, with the possible exceptions of antibiotics, prophylactics, and morphine.”
“Well, that may be, but I don’t like guns. Do you understand? I don’t own a gun, and I don’t want to own one. Besides, I’m a civilian, so I can’t just carry a gun onto an airplane. I’d be arrested.”
There was another brief silence, which she took as a tacit and vaguely snooty sign of disapproval. “I understand,” Beta eventually said. “I am now adjusting your profile to indicate that you are chronically lacking basic weaponry.”
The taxi pulled up outside: a small blue and white Volvo. To Dee’s chagrin, the driver sounded his horn in a good, long bleat. She looked over at John, and he was snoring away on the couch without so much as a break in rhythm.
She gathered her bags and quietly opened the door, then looked back for a long moment. I must be crazy. For about the hundredth time this afternoon, she asked herself if she really should be doing this. While her feelings were still hurt at being some sort of chore negotiated between Abe and John, she had to admit that, whatever his faults, John was awfully sweet. Moreover, whatever other agenda he might have, he genuinely seemed to want to help her.
Standing in the draft of the open doorway and feeling the icy evening air waft in from the darkened stairs, she knew there was something else, too. She didn’t want to be all alone out there again. She went through her justification, as she had dozens of times already.
Her questions about XCorp were not something she could just call someone about—she had to go to Rio and confront someone in a position of authority—face to face.
John would say it’s too dangerous. He would try to stop me—or offer to go himself.
Taking a deep breath, she slipped out the door, and ran lightly down the stairs and out into the street.
The red-cheeked driver was friendly and eager to practice his excellent English on a native speaker, but she kept her replies curt and grumpy, hoping to dampen his enthusiasm. Every word she might say to a passing stranger was one more thing that someone might remember if questioned about her later.
They rolled down through the little city, heading for the coastal highway. Along the old streets, Reykjavik’s big pastel houses glowed by night in shades of gray, their walls punctuated with small, winterized windows. So many tall birches and rowans loomed up over the streets and yards that the city might have been built into the recesses of an ancient forest. The sidewalks were nearly empty now, as the spring night dipped toward freezing.
The edge of the city thinned away quickly, and with it the trees. The cab turned onto the long, well-maintained highway near the stony seashore and sped along through a haunted, luminous landscape of shin-high tundra.
I’ll bet that every tree in the nation of Iceland is found back there inside the city limits of Reykjavik, Dee thought as they made their way into the countryside. Through the window she could see endless miles of tufted grass, puffy mosses, and lichens, dotted here and there with a few hardy wildflowers shimmering under the moonlight. Beyond that, farther inland, was a long ridge of volcanic peaks, scalloped and honed to sharp edges by eons of glacial action. Their low tops were crusted solidly in ice and snow, making a ragged white boundary between the darkness of the sky above and of the tundra below.
With no trees to intervene, the lights of Keflavik Airport were visible across the bay from many miles away.
When Dee got out at the passenger loading curb, she joined a thin trickle of late-night passengers heading for the check-in counters, on their way to board red-eye flights. Despite the cold, Dee didn’t go inside immediately. As soon as her cab drove off, she wandered casually away from the main doors, dragging her carry-on bag behind her, until she came to an empty and dimly lit patch of sidewalk near the end of the terminal. Almost no one was loitering anywhere outside in the cold night air.
She said, “Beta. Call Abe’s alert number.”
“Yes, Melody.”
She heard the call go through, then two rings, then the sound of the call being automatically answered and disconnected at the other end. Now she just had to wait.
After a couple of minutes of bouncing up and down on her toes and trying not to draw attention to herself by looking as cold as she felt, she heard Beta’s voice again.
“You have an incoming call from an unidentifiable number.”
Dee smiled to herself with relief. “Yes, I’ll take that,” she told Beta, while digging her smartphone out of her shoulder bag.
