Starfire Page 13

  “Director,” he said, “may I ask you an uncomfortable question?”

  “Yes, if I may do the same.”

  He nodded. “Very well. Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance while I was below decks?”

  “Why would I do such a thing?”

  “I can think of many reasons.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I did close the doors.” She looked uncomfortable even as she said this.

  “Yes, but you could have flooded the lower chambers. You could have sealed doors amidships where I couldn’t reach. But you didn’t do that. I’m asking why?”

  “Maybe I didn’t think of it.”

  He laughed.

  “All right then,” she said. “I did consider it. But I can’t drive this sub alone, Lev.”

  He stared at her, then nodded. “That I believe. Self-preservation overcame your anger.”

  She seemed irritated. “One would think you’d be happier.”

  “Yes, I’m happy to be alive. I’m also happy to continue my mission. I will see it through to its conclusion.”

  She turned away and drank a cup of cooling coffee. Lev did the same. He’d changed his wet clothes by this time. The boat was full of unclaimed clothing. But he could still feel the burn of the ice in his bones.

  Drowning down there in ice water, trapped within the belly of this dying sub—that would have been a bad way to die.

  Chapter 19

  Lawrence Livermore Labs, California

  Evening

  They’d taken care to hide the helipad in a grove of oak trees. Cut into the side of a hill carpeted in black-barked oak trees and yellow foxtails, the small landing circle was only visible from the air. A short series of cut-stone steps led up to it.

  Sandeep and Secretary Clayworth stood on the helipad, seeing off Dr. Linscott and Detective Perez. It had taken a few phone calls to convince the Santa Cruz police department that their best detective was actually quitting and moving on, but they’d come to an understanding in time.

  Sandeep eyed Clayworth as she waved at the couple in the helicopter. She looked like a mother well-wishing a daughter on an exciting trip. There was no guilt in her face—none at all. What had they called that behavior back in college? Could it be that Clayworth was a sociopath?

  Up in the rising helicopter, Dr. Linscott waved back at them. Her eyes were wide, and she was smiling. To Sandeep, she looked like a kid on a carnival ride, regardless of how many technical degrees she might have.

  He felt a pang to watch these two go. They weren’t like any of the others. Usually, he’d been able to gather and guide his targets to their destination without violent incidents. But Linscott, Perez and he—they’d all been nearly killed. They’d connected because of this, he knew. He felt an urge to protect them in return.

  When the helicopter had risen beyond the trees and turned away toward the east, Sandeep was able to speak to the woman who stood next to him.

  “I wish to lodge a formal complaint, Madam Secretary.”

  Her cool, pale eyes looked at him blankly. She studied him thoughtfully for a moment before speaking.

  “A complaint about what?”

  “The way this entire affair was handled. The wreck in particular. That was unnecessary. Lewis drove by us and looked frightening enough. There was no need for him to ram into my car and send us rolling down a hill.”

  Clayworth turned away almost disinterestedly, shading her eyes to watch the helicopter fade into the distance.

  “They believed in the drama—and why shouldn’t they?” she asked. “Assassins have been coming out of the woodwork for a week or more.”

  “That’s not what I meant. It’s not a question of believability. It’s a question of tactics toward a tangible goal—”

  “It was my call to make,” she said cutting him off. “You read her profile, the same as I did. She was determined not to end up in public service. She had to be convinced that her only refuge was in the folding arms of her government. How can you forget so quickly that she almost didn’t join us, even after all our arrangements?”

  “The situation was out of control,” he insisted. “They disappeared for half a day. It could have been a disaster, and I maintain that it could have been done much less dangerously.”

  “I disagree,” Clayworth said firmly. “The crash engaged Perez’s defensive instincts. He added the perfect bit of theater to the situation. The dashing detective kills an assassin to protect his prospective woman. Now they’ve bonded. They’ll be sleeping together by the end of the week.”

  Sandeep shook his head. “Heavy-handed and unnecessary.”

  “This isn’t like you, Sandeep.”She gave him a long, sour once-over with her eyes before finally turning back to watch the helicopter, which was now only a black dot in the sky. The dying sunlight glinted from the whirling blades.

  Sandeep felt the urge to speak further. He held onto it for a few moments but finally opened his mouth again despite her unspoken threat.

  “Lewis was killed,” he said. “He didn’t deserve that, but he nearly killed me when he rammed our vehicle with his truck. That was insane enough. But then to order him to approach armed men and threaten us with a weapon—”

  “Ah, the death. I understand. Some elements of the encounter were unfortunate, yes. Lewis took chances I didn’t specifically condone. His loss is a blow to our unit, and he will be sorely missed.”

  Sandeep didn’t say anything, but he was of the opinion that Clayworth didn’t give a rat’s hindquarters about losing Lewis. She was ruthless on a level he was unaccustomed to, and she’d become worse lately.

  “Madam,” he said. “I know I’m only an agency chief, but I’ve been working with you for a long time. Why are we taking this risk? Why send amateurs to work on our most sensitive projects?”

  “Times have changed, Sandeep,” Clayworth said. “We’re not in the same world we lived in just a decade ago. We must move faster, and thus with less caution.”

  “I assume by changes, you’re referring to the new ops by the Russians? They’ve always opposed us. And they will always do so, as long as we both remain the strongest dogs on the street. It’s the way of things.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “But the stakes are higher today. After the Cold War ended and our obsession with nuclear weapons faded with it, we enjoyed an era of sleepy self-indulgence. That time has passed. We’re on the verge of discoveries as profound as those made in the first half of the last century.”

  He looked at her with narrowed eyes, trying to imagine what she was talking about.

  “You mean a new weapon?” he asked. “Something more powerful than a nuclear bomb?”

  “Your imagination fails you,” she said. “Think about the last century, Sandeep. A man born on the first day of the year 1900 would exist in an alien world, one that we’d find overwhelmingly primitive. Electric power was a novelty back then. He’d probably grow up without running water in his home. Imagine living in a cold shack lit only by flame—no showers, no toilets, probably no carpets and only distorted plate glass to look through into an unpaved street full of horses and dust.”

  Sandeep didn’t feel like mentioning that many people from his parents’ home country still lived like that.But even so, he thought he was beginning to grasp her point. A person born at the start of the last century would have come from a very primitive world. Technology did matter.

  “Fast forward a century,” she went on, “a long lifetime for a lucky man. By the end of the first half, we’d split the atom. We’d built millions of cars and planes. Medicine had cured a thousand diseases that killed and maimed before. Electric lights, cars, telephones, simple computers, TV, radio—a thousand things had transformed from luxuries into commonplace necessities.”

  Sandeep listened politely. He had no idea where she was going with this line of talk, but she often took her time to get around to the point. He wondered if anyone who’d ever earned a doctorate could speak plainly.

>   “In the second half of that miraculous century,” she went on, “we slowed down in our advances. Or at least they became far less dramatic in their impact. What did we do after 1950? We developed better medicine, better computers, the Internet. Mobile phones. A few other things—but most of them were improvements upon the old. It was the first half of the last century that was the explosion.”

  Sandeep fidgeted. “You never answered my original question—about what they’re going to see.”

  “Hmm?” she said, looking at him mildly. She smiled at his baffled, mistrusting expression. “You’re wrong, Sandeep. I did answer you. They’re going to see the beginning of the next stage. The catalyst that will propel us into a new golden age of technology.”

  “Technology? All right, let’s assume you’re in earnest and correct in your assumptions. What is this conflict about? What is the point of it? Technology always spreads. In half a century, as you’ve just pointed out, the world will be sharing all of these new discoveries, whatever they are.”

  “No, not all. Some yes, but not all. Recall that only a handful of Earth’s nations have nuclear bombs even today. That achievement was first reached seventy-five years ago. What’s more important is who gains the new technology first and thus becomes the chief exploiter. The first nation to grab control of this cornucopia will build a new empire with it.”

  “And that’s worth all of this killing and skulking around?”

  She shrugged. “The Russians seem to think it is. I, for one, tend to agree with them.”

  Sandeep was troubled. The helicopter was invisible now. There was no sight or sound of it in the sky. He’d sent off a dozen like it, loaded with scientists and engineers. Each group had vanished toward Travis Air Force Base in the east. Some had gone on to Alaska, to a lab at the top of the world. Others had been taken east, to desolate places where secret work had been done for decades.

  A cornucopia of new tech… The idea was seductive. The technological world had become lethargic of late. Everything he’d seen invented in the last decade did seem stale. What was a computer tablet other than a rehash of things that had all been done before?

  What might Clayworth be talking about specifically?He didn’t bother to ask. He knew she wouldn’t answer meaningfully.

  A cure for cancer? Flying cars? Teleportation or mental communication? Something dramatic like that—those were the kinds of things he suspected were involved.

  He had to admit, thinking of such advances was exciting. He resolved to look forward to the good, rather than to dwell upon the unchangeable past. It was part of his personal philosophy to do so, and that mindset had always served him well in his role as a government agent.

  A hand tapped his shoulder suddenly, and he turned around, startled.

  Clayworth’s blue eyes met his. They searched his face for a second.

  “Daydreaming, Sandeep?” she asked. “Or are you soul-searching? Neither is in character.”

  Flustered, he didn’t answer her. He noticed there was a satellite phone in her hand.

  “Never mind,” she said. “Come, we have a situation.”

  “A situation? Is it local? We’ve gotten every target onto transport safely—at least all those that survived, and—”

  “It’s Barrow,” she said. “Lab 126 has gone dark. No one knows why, but it’s safe to assume something has gone wrong up there.”

  He followed her, taking the cut stone steps two at a time. The helipad was left behind in its quiet grove of trees.

  Chapter 20

  Lab 126, Alaska’s North Slope

  Twilight

  Edwin and Dr. Tanaka had expected solace and a warm greeting when they reached the facility. Instead, they found a very different reality.

  The guards at the gate were lying sprawled in the snow. The chain-link fence was down, flattened by something of great weight.

  “A snow cat,” Edwin said, kneeling to check the guards. “Had to be.”

  Yuki stood near him, and her legs were shaking. This was somehow more frightening than the polar bear had been. To be hunted by an animal was one thing—you knew you had a chance. But only men were capable of an attack like this. They’d come from the snowy landscape, broken past security and killed the guards. They had to be inside, killing scientists.

  “I don’t feel good,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “Take this.”

  He handed her a .45 pistol he’d taken from a dead guard. He put the second gun into his pocket along with all the extra ammo he could find.

  “Do you know how to use that?” he asked her.

  She was looking at the gun as if she had a rat in her hand. Her mind felt like it was floating.

  “It’s heavy,” she said.

  “Here, I’ll snap the slide back for you—and don’t shoot my foot off, please.”

  “Sorry. I’ll only aim at the ground.”

  “You have seven shots,” he told her. “I’m not going to give you more because I’d have to teach you how to load it, and that might not work out. Try to make them count. Don’t shoot at anyone who’s more than about twenty feet away. Better yet, wait until they’re within ten feet.”

  “Okay,” she said weakly. “Do I have to shoot anyone?”

  “Hopefully not,” he said. “But I’d rather give you a chance. Run away if I’m hit. Hide. When they come up close, shoot them by surprise.”

  She stared at him. “Can’t we just go back to town?”

  He shook his head. “They took down the cell tower. We’re tired and cold now. You’re hurt. If we try to walk—it must be ten miles. Do you think you can make that? With bears?”

  Yuki shook her head. She knew she couldn’t make it all the way back to Barrow. She almost sobbed, but she held it back. She didn’t want to do this, but she didn’t think there was any way out of it.

  She followed him past the twisted wreckage of the gates. Her shoulder was no longer numb, instead it throbbed and ached. She didn’t even want to think about what the recoil of a heavy pistol would be like on her injured side.

  Edwin didn’t creep into the compound. He walked quickly from one spot of half-cover to the next, peeking over trash bins and snowdrifts toward the main complex.

  Lab 126 wasn’t anywhere near as grand in scope as Lawrence Livermore or Los Alamos. Rather than a campus of dozens of large buildings spread over hundreds of acres, it consisted of a cluster of what looked like six hunting lodges to her. Every roof was blue composite, every wall was a terracotta orangey-brown. The buildings were all above the ground on stilts and connected together with ramps that were also high off the ground. She knew that was to keep them traversable even in the depths of the winter snows when this land was cast into unending darkness.

  She could smell the sea as she followed Edwin. It was only a faint salty tang here, but it was noticeable. Although there were no seabirds, she thought she heard the barking of distant seals.

  “Edwin,” she said, “if we get out of this alive, I want to go on a date with you.”

  He glanced back at her. His expression was one of bewilderment. “Uh, great,” he said. “Do you see any bodies out there?”

  “No, nothing alive or dead.”

  “That’s good, I guess. You serious about a date?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great,” he said, giving his head a little shake and taking in a deep breath. “I bet you jinxed me, though.”

  “What?”

  “I was going to ask you out later. I figured I was out of my mind, what with you being a babe and younger than me and all—but I thought I would give it a shot. Then you had to go and read my mind and ask me first. I’m dead for sure, by God.”

  She gave him a little kiss and squeezed his gloved hand with hers. When her lips touched his cheek, she realized his face was almost as cold as the snow itself.

  “It’s good luck, not bad,” she said. “Just like when you hopped off that snow cat and came to check on me. What do you think happened to that
second cat, anyway?”

  He pointed back toward the gate. “I think someone ambushed it. I think that’s what was used to knock down the gates.”

  Yuki shuddered. She knew he was probably right—and that meant everyone who’d come in on this flight to the Lab was dead. Everyone but Edwin and her.

  Edwin turned away and edged forward. He crept around the lab, moving up to a high vantage point. Yuki crept along after him. They soon crouched on a snowy ridge over the lab. He had his rifle out and the strap wrapped up tightly in his left hand.

  “Aren’t we going down there?” she whispered.

  “No. Not unless it looks clear for a looong time.”

  “Do you see anyone?”

  “No. But they have to be waiting for the second cat to arrive. Isn’t that what you’d do?”

  “You mean—you mean if I wanted to kill everyone here?”

  “Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean.”

  She licked her lips. She didn’t even like thinking about it. But she nodded.

  After about ten minutes, they both heard a door slam. At first they ducked, but then they slowly nosed up to look around. They didn’t see anyone, but they still didn’t move—they waited.

  Finally, they heard an engine rev. Yuki knew that sound. It was a snow cat.

  The unseen driver pulled the snow cat out into view. It had been inside a long, low building near the gate.

  “He’s given up waiting for Roy,” Edwin said. “What should I do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What should I do?” he asked again.

  Yuki realized he wasn’t really asking her. He was talking to himself. He was keyed up, breathing hard and thinking fast. His eyes darted from side to side.

  Suddenly, Edwin stood up and assumed a shooting stance. His rifle was at his shoulder. He aimed down at the passing snow cat. Whoever was inside couldn’t be clearly seen.

  “You can’t just shoot the driver!” Yuki hissed.