Protocol 7 at-1 Page 19

  “Speak.”

  “We are making progress, and I anticipate that within a couple of weeks I will have answers,” Blackburn said, noticing his own voice tremble, as it echoed through the room.

  “And the asset you spoke of?” asked the Voice.

  “We are very close to making him confess,” replied Blackburn.

  “And if he does not?” asked the Voice.

  “He must. He is our only asset, and the only one that knows what’s going on.”

  “For your benefit, he must confess sooner rather than later. For we have no time.”

  “Understood,” said Blackburn.

  A minute later he was blindfolded and escorted out of the chamber. He knew that his life was in danger, and the next time there would not be another chance.

  SANTIAGO, CHILE

  Via Casa Hotel

  It was just past four a.m. when the old-fashioned phone in Simon’s hotel room rang-a long, burring, ugly tone. It didn’t wake him up; he hadn’t been able to sleep at all since he had set foot in Santiago hours before.

  He put a hand out to answer it-an automatic gesture, a standard response to stimulus-and then he stopped himself.

  Who could be calling him at this time of night? The only people who knew where he was would use the secure phones if they needed to talk to him, not an open line. And even then, they knew better than to call. Anyone could be listening.

  His hand was hovering over the handset when it rang a second time. He peered at the tiny screen on the phone, with its crude approximation of caller ID. It told him the call was local-coming from somewhere within Santiago, which made even less sense.

  Will answering this jeopardize the mission? he asked himself. If it is someone on the team, for whatever reason, not answering the phone might…

  It rang a third time. Seconds before it cut off he thought, What the hell, picked up the handset and put it to his ear.

  The voice at the other end did not wait for him to speak. “Simon,” it said in a calm and strong tone.

  The voice was familiar. But so much had happened recently, so many changes had taken place that he couldn’t quite place it from a single word on a bad connection.

  “Who is this?” Simon asked.

  “What do you mean, who is this?!” said the voice on the other end, sounding amused and offended at the same time. “I can’t believe you don’t recognize my voice! Come along: it’s four in the morning, I’m tired and easy to annoy, and you could have at least chosen a more reputable location.”

  It’s him, he realized. Simon’s jaw actually dropped open in amazement. “Max?” he said. “Is that you? How did you…” but he stopped himself. It’s still an open line, he thought. Be careful.

  “So, are we going to look at that cafe or what?” Max said easily, as if they were continuing a conversation they’d begun just minutes before. “I have a lot of other projects to design and I just flew in.”

  Simon smiled to himself. Clever bastard, he thought. “Sure,” he said, trying to match the casual tone. “Do you want to meet downstairs at nine a.m.? I’ve got the plans, but the owner said the lease has to be signed, so you better impress him.”

  “No problem,” Max replied. “But let’s make it eight forty-five. See you in the morning.” He hung up before Simon could utter another word.

  Suddenly the ancient handset was heavy as a stone in his hand. He plopped it back in the cradle and slumped back on the bed, excited but utterly confused. He took a deep breath and straightened up. Finally, he thought. Finally.

  Minutes later, he composed himself and started to pack his belongings. Max was an unexpected surprise, and a great one, but he still had business to conduct-another appointment to make and keep.

  He stopped long enough to pull out the slip of paper he had found with his fake passport and other identification. It took only a moment to key the numbers into his secure phone-no reason to leave a record on the hotel’s number. As he dialed he wondered who, exactly, had put that note in his packet to begin with, and why it was so important.

  The phone at the other end never really rang. A beat after he finished keying in the sequence, a soft and slightly accented female voice spoke to him.

  “Nastasia.”

  Simon was speechless for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and said, as steadily as he could manage, “I think we need to meet.”

  The answer came immediately and without hesitation. “Three thirty at the Longo Cafe.” Then the phone cut off abruptly.

  Simon was left holding the dead instrument in his hand, almost overwhelmed with apprehension and futility. Something didn’t seem right here, he knew, but what choice did he have-did any of them have? They needed all the help they could get and someone-someone friendly, it seemed-was trying to put them together.

  He sat on the edge of the bed with his eyes closed, going through the entire operation…and oddly enough, he felt a rising wave of confidence. Max was with them now. They had slipped UNED’s surveillance net and traveled halfway round the world, apparently undetected. And now with Max he could see the journey unfold with greater clarity.

  * * *

  Simon tried to nap one more time and gave it up for good an hour later. He showered, changed clothes, packed a second time as slowly as he could, and still arrived in the lobby half an hour before Max was scheduled to arrive. He paced the well-worn carpet for a few minutes, then decided to get a cup of coffee at a cafe he remembered passing, right across the street. Sooner or later, he told himself, the lack of sleep is going to hit you, and you’re going to need that caffeine.

  A skeptical bell boy twice his age nodded at him as he pushed through the revolving glass door to the sidewalk, and he flinched as the chill of the outside air nipped at his cheeks, as if to remind him that Antarctica was far closer than it had ever been before.

  He stopped on the sidewalk and took in the frozen morning, pausing for a moment to get his bearings, then trotted through a gap in the early morning traffic to enter the small coffee shop. Just one espresso, he promised himself, and I’ll be ready to meet Max.

  The shop was warm and pleasantly claustrophobic, smelling of good coffee and busy people. There was a long line just inside the door, and he had to press forward a bit to let the door close behind him. As he waited, he noticed a pair of scientists huddled at one of the cafe’s many tiny tables, speaking in hushed, excited German, gesturing over a wrinkled paper map. Something to do with an exploration, Simon could tell; he knew that much German, but not much more. It wasn’t surprising, really: Santiago was the closest modern city to the now forbidden continent, and many of the researchers, soldiers, and businesspeople who had been exiled because of the quarantine had come here to wait, and plot, and be first in line to return.

  When he reached the counter he asked for a double espresso and a small panini. As they prepared his order, he noticed the front page of a discarded newspaper lying on the polished wood. His first thought was, look at that, an actual paper newspaper. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen one. His second thought concerned the image on the front page: a murky shot of a ship, half-submerged in a choppy sea.

  The text was in Spanish, and Simon was embarrassed to admit that his Spanish was even worse than his German. While he waited for his order, he reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out his wallet, and removed the card-shaped reading lens-standard equipment for international travelers. It took only a moment to pass the translucent card over the printed material; an instant later an AI with the gentle voice of a British female whispered the translation in his ear: “UNED gun ship sinks freighter off Valparaiso,” it said.

  Simon’s heart raced at the translation. Could it be the Munro? All his plans would be for nothing if some overeager UNED unit got trigger-happy. But the voice in his ear continued to read, and he quickly learned that the sunken ship was named Orchid Dawn that sailed under United Korean registry. It was chartered to a private energy exploration firm and was going the oppo
site direction of the Munro when it was identified as the victim of a pirate hijacking. In short, it had nothing to do with them. Simon felt a wave of relief as he pocketed the lens and received his espresso.

  He looked for a place to sit for a minute or two and spotted one small table with a single occupant, a man hiding behind another old-fashioned newspaper, this one fully opened like the wings of a giant, ink-stained bird. There were two other empty chairs at the table. Simon wound his way through the crowd, pulled out a chair and sat down. The other man, still hidden, continued to read and nurse his cup of coffee.

  Simon sipped his espresso, enjoyed the first bitter bolt of caffeine, and then glanced at the wall clock. Eight twenty-five, it read.

  Shit, he told himself, I can’t be late. He started to push back his chair, and the voice of the other man at the table stopped him.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  Simon stopped short. He swallowed. Then he said, “Max. You bastard.”

  He reached up and pulled down the top edge of the paper. It lowered obligingly, revealing his best friend and his familiar smirk.

  Simon grinned. “You know how I hate being followed,” he said.

  Max let the paper drop the rest of the way and made a production of folding it into smaller and smaller sections. “Now tell me what this is all about, you lunatic, and how I fit into your mad plan.”

  “You know what’s going on, Max.”

  He made a “thinking” face. “I know about the quarantine, of course. I know some ships are sinking here and there, and I know this beautiful city has lousy weather and that you have a room in one of its shittiest hotels, but beyond that? Clueless.”

  Simon sighed and nodded, not believing a word of it. Max was a top-level operative, a man five times farther up the ladder of international intelligence than Jonathan Weiss had ever climbed. His special forces military background gave him an even deeper knowledge. But he would play along. He would start at the beginning.

  “You remember Hayden?”

  “You mean the weird hermit-guy in the robotics department? Yeah, I remember him. I remember Oliver loved him, and that you were fascinated with his work when we were kids. What the hell is he up to now?”

  Simon paused for a moment. “We’re hijacking his amphibious submersible,” Simon told him. “The one he’s been working on for years.” He couldn’t help himself; he looked over his shoulder, back at the counter to make sure no one was listening. He knew he couldn’t make himself look more suspicious if he’d tried.

  Max moved closer. “What the hell are you talking about? Simon, that guy has been building freaky stuff since we were kids; don’t tell me he actually finished one.”

  Simon nodded. “For UNED, no less. We have access to one that we hijacked and will use it to go find Oliver in Antarctica.”

  “-and I’m supposed to pilot it, is that it? I’m the driver?”

  Simon just stared at him. Then he smiled.

  “You’re smiling you bastard?” Max said. “Why can’t the weirdo himself pilot his strange creation?”

  Simon gave him a sarcastic look. “You know better than I do that this thing isn’t going to be guided by AIs connected to GPS, and god knows what other navigation nets. And those are the only types of vehicles that Hayden knows how to drive.”

  “The ones that practically drive themselves.”

  “Right.”

  “Okay so I’ve got a job, a hired skipper.” Max grunted rolling his eyes. Then he slapped the table and said, “That’s fantastic. I’m getting another coffee.” He levered himself out of his chair, shaking his head in exasperation, and walked toward the counter.

  Max, at six-foot-two, was broad-shouldered and thin-waisted, built like an athlete with a chiseled face. Behind the tough exterior, Simon knew, was a fiercely dedicated friend and a cold-blooded, efficient soldier. Now at thirty-seven, he had spent most of his life in the British Special Forces. He’d spent the last few years as a “freelancer,” doing the things that even Black Ops professionals couldn’t get official permission to do. No one but Max himself knew the whole story-not UNED, not the CIA, and certainly not Simon. All he knew for certain was that his friend was resourceful, fearless, and-above all-loyal.

  Max turned from the register, coffee in hand, and sat down with a sigh. He put the cup on the table in front of him, turned his chair 180 degrees and sat on it backwards.

  “You know, you should have let me know about this before I flew all the way out here.

  Never mind how I found you, I could have turned you down in two minutes’ time.”

  “Max, I need your help. Only you can cut off the some of the AIs and pilot the vessel blind.”

  Max shook his head as he leaned forward and took a sip of his black espresso. “A ten-year-old can speak to a robot.”

  “It’s more than that. Far more.” Simon paused for a moment contemplating the best delivery. “Listen Max, this thing is like no other submersible, it takes several super AIs to coordinate all the functions. But if we’re running all of them at the same time, we don’t have a chance of slipping beneath UNED’s radar. So we need to shut some AIs down if we have any chance of succeeding-and no one I know has more experience with these types of vessels than you.”

  Max sighed at him, clearly frustrated. “Simon, I do have some experience with AI-assisted vehicles like this. I can get them to cooperate. But your biggest problem is RAI, and you know it. If anybody finds out what you’re doing, they can take control of an AI just long enough to hurt you-and hurt you badly.”

  “I know that.”

  “You know that. But despite knowing it, you want me to steer a strange experiment of Hayden’s into one of the most hostile environments on the planet?”

  Simon had to force himself to keep his voice low. “Look, we’ve taken care of the RAI problem already. We can shield from that. We can cut them off from the satellites and from each other.”

  Max pretended to be surprised. “Oh! Oh, well then! Great! Now all I have to do is steer the ship and simulate the actions of half a dozen of Hayden’s experimental brains at the same time! Sure, I can be the world’s greatest pilot and fill in for four or five super computers at the same time. Why was I worried?”

  Simon pushed his empty cup of coffee to one side and said, “You’re not the only one that’s going to be there. We’ve got a whole team.”

  Max huffed, even more frustrated. “Now you’re talking,” he said. “A bunch of college nerds from Oxford is going to save the day.” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, thoroughly exhausted at even contemplating the project. “Why do I get myself into these things?” he sighed.

  “Max, you can’t just do it yourself. There is no way you-anyone-could understand the complexity of this vessel alone. This thing has features that are beyond the comprehension of one pilot.” Simon did not want to elaborate on the specifics at this point; he knew time was too short. They would soon meet at Port Williams, as was the plan, and there, Max would see for himself.

  “I understand what you’re saying. But I’m also not about to babysit a bunch of college boys on a lark, through unknown terrain in temperatures of eighty below, let alone do it secretly, inside the most intensive quarantine in human history. If we get caught, Simon-even after the fact, even years later-you can kiss your comfy little life in Oxford goodbye forever. Forever.”

  They sat and stared at each other for a long moment. Max was the first to look away. He stared into the dregs of his espresso and said, “So tell me, what do you know about what really happened to Oliver?”

  Simon caught himself for a split second looking at the Max’s wool overcoat, remembering the thread interrogation that Andrew had told him about. Wonder if he knows someone could have heard the whole conversation, he thought to himself as he looked directly at Max.

  Head tilted with a sarcastic grin Max said, “Relax.”

  Bastard, Simon thought, I’m always one-upped on this kind o
f shit with Max. Then he took a deep breath and told him everything-everything from Jonathan’s first arrival, to his meetings with Hayden, to the chess journal and its deciphering. From the attempted hijacking to Hayden’s paralysis, from Samantha’s kidnapping and chemical interrogation to Jonathan’s murder and the disposal of his body. From their flight to Malta and their intended interception of the Munro.

  To his credit, Max sat silently and listened during the entire recitation. He simply could not believe a word of what he was hearing.

  Simon knew that deep down inside Max wished that he had been there for all of it.

  Almost an hour after he began, Simon drained the last of his third espresso, now stone cold and gritty, and said, “And here we are. That’s everything until now.”

  “You’re kidding me?”

  “No,” Simon answered with absolute sincerity. “I’m not kidding you.”

  Max covered his eyes, squeezed his temples between thumb and forefinger, and said, “Well then. I guess we’d better get started.”

  He stood up and brushed the last of the pastry crumbs from his coat. “Let’s go get packed,” he said. “We have a ship to catch.”

  As they walked toward the door Simon stopped and turned to Max for a brief second. “By the way, how the fuck did you know I was here?” he asked, realizing that if they had managed to go under the radar, how could his best friend have found him.

  Max anticipated the question before it was asked. “Don’t ask questions, and I won’t tell you lies,” he said with a wink.