The quantum solution, p.25
The Quantum Solution, page 25
She said, with a voice so shaky it terrified her, “That leaves Tribe.”
She felt heartsick that it was Tribe, heartbroken that he had lied to her, over and over.
“I mean, who else has the expertise?” she said.
Why had he brought her here? She couldn’t work that out; even looked at through this new prism it didn’t make sense to her. But then she was lost in a forest. She could only see the trees nearest her, and these kept shifting from oak to aspen to pine.
“He’s way ahead of everyone else,” she added.
Lyudmila huffed. “Says who?”
“Says Tribe.”
“You see what I’m getting at?”
That was the moment the trees nearest the rear of the house shattered, flew apart in a wall of deafening noise, a hail of semiautomatic fire.
39
WASHINGTON, DC
It was well known that when Wes Connerly, head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, worked late he always ordered Chinese food delivered from Fun Wen, the restaurant five blocks away from the agency’s building. This evening he ordered an egg roll, a quart of shrimp in lobster sauce, and kung pao chicken, extra hot. As he had done since he was a teen, he always asked for extra fortune cookies.
Security was so inured to his habits they scarcely looked at ID when the Chinese delivery person showed up. As long as they successfully passed through the metal detector, security was unconcerned. That this delivery person was female, that she was half Chinese, half Vietnamese, went entirely unnoticed.
Following Ben’s instructions, An Binh had no difficulty finding the locked delivery entrance at the rear of the building. Nor did she have any problem disabling the lock. She let Ben in, and together they rode the elevator up to the third floor, where Connerly was ensconced in his office. The floor was manned by the night shift, who because of the emergency lockdown were so overworked they had no spare attention to notice personnel from a food delivery service.
Connerly sat at his desk, staring down at a stack of papers without really seeing them. His anxiety over Zahra’s refusal to answer either his calls or his texts over the last eight hours had ratcheted up to an intolerable level. Beads of sweat decorated his forehead, his upper lip, the nape of his neck. His armpits felt swampy. He said, “Come,” without looking up when the discreet knock sounded on his door, along with a soft voice saying, “Delivery.” He had just picked up his phone to send yet another frantic text to Zahra, and was barely aware that the delivery person had set the plastic bag with Fun Wen’s familiar red pagoda imprinted on it down on the corner of his desk.
However, at some point he became fully aware that there was still someone standing in front of his desk. “It’s already paid for including a tip,” he said distractedly. “But if you’re angling for more—”
“I’m not here for money.”
The female voice was more of a purr and had the self-assuredness no delivery person ever affected, two oddities that made him jerk his head up. But did he see her? She meant nothing to him—less than nothing, because to him she was invisible. Instead, his gaze was fixed on Ben, who stood with his back against the door he had just silently closed.
“Butler,” Connerly said, “what the hell are you doing here? And what was the meaning of that—what d’you call it?”
“It’s called an emoji, and I didn’t appreciate you canceling dinner.” Ben came away from the door. “You’ve been looking for Zahra, I imagine. But you haven’t been able to find her, have you?”
Connerly’s face darkened. “How dare you ask such a question.”
“We know your backdoor deal with her,” An Binh said.
For the first time since she entered his office he focused on her, bewildered that she was there. “What backdoor deal?”
“Your deal,” An Binh said as deliberately as a judge rendering a guilty verdict, “to auction Zahra’s creation—the weaponization of time crystals—to the highest bidder. Their breakthrough was an enormous opportunity for you two.”
“That’s preposterous! What utter slanderous nonsense,” Connerly exploded.
“Time you mopped your face, Connerly.” Ben stepped across the office until he was beside An Binh. “You’re drowning in flop sweat.”
Connerly stood up abruptly. “Get out. Get out of my office or I’ll call security.”
“Go on.” Ben reached over, took the phone off the cradle, held it out to Connerly. “We’ll be happy to direct those boys to Zahra, who can tell them everything she told us, along with the proof.”
“She was secretly recording all her private conversations with you,” An Binh said.
Ben shook the phone in Connerly’s face. “That call will get us out of your office, I promise. It will also cost you your job, your pension, not to mention your freedom. But by all means call security.”
Connerly grabbed the receiver. “I don’t believe a word of this.”
An Binh produced Zahra’s cell phone, tapped the keys, and out came Connerly’s voice, followed by Zahra’s—the recorded litany of evidence, their deceit, their treachery, including duping Wilson, all laid out line by incriminating line.
Connerly opened his mouth to reply, then his jaw shut with a snap. He began to tremble so badly he was forced to sink back down into his chair.
Then the politician in him kicked into high gear. His head snapped up. “It was all her doing—Zahra’s. She got her hooks into me and wouldn’t let go. You can hear it in her voice, damn her. She sweet-talked me into it. She made it seem so easy, so simple. The future she laid out for the two of us—”
“The two of you,” An Binh echoed. “There was no two of you, there never was. She was going to turn you in the moment she had the money from the auction.”
“She had it all planned out, Connerly,” Ben broke in. “Every minute detail. Using Wilson. Using you.”
“A meticulous woman, your Zahra,” An Binh said in her devastatingly quiet manner. “Give her that.”
An odd glimmer now infused Connerly’s face. “Well, not so meticulous as she’d like you to believe. The auction was called off.” Connerly smirked. “Why? Because a buyer came to me and made a preemptive bid. It was an offer I didn’t refuse; it was also an offer I never told Zahra about.”
An Binh was wise enough to know that she and Ben were being baited and the best path forward was to say nothing, to let Connerly dangle in the vacuum they had made of his life. So when she sensed Ben’s muscles tensing up, because she knew his body’s signals so well, she immediately gripped his forearm to forestall him saying what had to be said, but not now, not yet.
“Well?” Connerly looked from one to the other and back again. The collar of his white shirt was now darkened by sweat. “I want a guarantee of complete immunity before I’ll tell you the name of the buyer. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Of course. The buyer’s identity is vital to you.”
An Binh took her hand away and Ben leaned in. “Here’s what I think, Connerly. I’m going to step out of the room for twenty minutes or so. I’ll let An Binh do to you what she did to Zahra.” A crocodile smile bloomed on his face. “How does that sound to you?”
Connerly’s eyes were nearly bugging out of his head; he’d been sure they’d jump in a heartbeat.
“Zahra wasn’t easy,” An Binh said so softly it was almost a whisper. “She’s a very determined young lady.”
“It took you what, thirteen minutes?” Ben said.
“Twelve,” An Binh replied. “Actually.”
“Good God.” Connerly cringed backward in his chair, but there was nowhere for him to go. “I’m ready to tell you, but I want immunity.” His gaze continued to flicker between them. They could smell his fear. “I think that’s fair, don’t you?”
“Why would we want to be fair with you,” Ben said. “You’re a traitor. It’s Gitmo for you. No one call, no lawyer, no trial. Just lockup. Sound good?”
Connerly stared at them as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. As if this were a nightmare and he’d pinched himself hard but he didn’t wake up—he was already awake. His lower lip trembled but no words came out of his mouth.
Quick as a snake, An Binh came around his desk and, hands on the armrests, shoved his chair back until it collided with the wall. Connerly’s head snapped back and then forward, by which time An Binh had her fingers inside the collar of his shirt, jerking so hard the top two buttons flew off. Slowly and deliberately she unknotted his tie.
“Did you ever in your wildest imagination,” she whispered in his ear, “consider that you would be strangled with your own tie.” It wasn’t a question and in any event it didn’t require an answer. She whipped the tie around his bare neck, caressing the silk as she pulled it tight.
He stared up into her face, saw his imminent death imprinted there. His bowels turned to water. An Binh paid the stench no mind; after all, she’d smelled worse.
“All right, all right,” Connerly rasped. His face was quickly draining of color. “The buyer’s name is Ayman Safra.” His eyes focused on An Binh, the death-bringer; silently pleading with her. “He’s a lawyer with one client: Marsden Tribe.”
40
LA PALMA, CANARY ISLANDS
There came a halt to the gunfire. By that time, Evan’s hearing was in limbo. The entire world was a ringing silence, as if she’d been inside a clanging bell for the last hour. The initial attack lasted only ninety seconds, but it felt far longer, and in that short time an immense amount of damage had been done. Trees were lying on the ground, their trunks shredded, their fronds trampled into muddy paste. The rear of the house was riddled with so many bullet holes it looked as if the siding had been ripped apart by a horde of harpy eagles.
There must have been screaming going on somewhere around her—she could feel the vibrations, the high-low so different from the steady racket the submachine-gun fire made. The firing had stopped for the moment, but soon enough an answering fusillade vibrated in her ears as Tribe’s men went to work, trying to cut down the intruders.
She stared at the shredded tops of the palms and at once found herself in Apocalypse Now, napalmed trees burning, smoke oily with chemicals and human liquids spreading slowly, thick as the silence that had descended on her.
Someone tugged on her arm. She started. Someone shouted in her ear and she turned, saw Lyudmila trying to pry her out of her temporary stasis. Together they dived to one side as the intruders’ firing started up again, shattering the place where Evan had been standing just a moment ago. She had yet to see a single figure amid the fallen debris of the trees nearest the rear of the house.
Going back inside the house was a nonstarter, as it would only trap them rather than protect them. They needed to find Tribe, Ionescu, and Timur, get them away from the area, the quicker the better. Had Tribe’s men already done that? Were they even now making their way to the helo? Would Tribe leave her behind to save his own skin? She didn’t think there was any question about it; his concern for other human beings was radically limited.
Crawling on their stomachs, they made their way to the far corner of the house, slithered around to the side. Almost at once they came up against one of Tribe’s men, his chest ripped open by at least a dozen bullets. Evan grabbed his submachine gun, Lyudmila ripped his handgun from its holster, both weapons slick with the dead man’s blood. They kept going, keeping as low as they were able, hidden by flowering bushes of Canary laurel.
Evan’s hearing was slowly returning and it brought the sound of continuing gunfire from the rear of the house. She could sense wooden boards disintegrating, wondered how long it would be before that part of the house was laid open.
There was no one in the house. They had reached the front, saw the door wide open, and, to their left, glimpsed furtive movement within the cover of the line of palms closest to the ocean. As Lyudmila moved off toward it, Evan asked herself why there were gunmen at the rear of the house and nowhere else. Of course a frontal assault would have been discovered before they came close enough to do any damage, but they could have crept along the palm line toward the side of the house. Maybe there weren’t enough men to attempt an assault from two directions at once. There was another answer that filled her with fear, and, without taking another breath, she raced off in the general direction Lyudmila had taken. But instead of running just inside the first line of palms, she melted into the tree line, where thickets of salt wind-blasted junipers lent her heavier cover than the palms with their bare trunks. She was obliged to keep her back bent, as the junipers were only more or less five feet tall. A great deal of the island that hadn’t been cultivated or planted for the millionaires was barren until the upper slopes were reached, where forests of three different pine species flourished. That was not the case here in the wide scar of solidified lava and ash that had gushed from the volcano. If she turned her head to the left Evan could glimpse that swath of barren land blazing in the slanting rays of the dying sun as if it were a gateway to another world—one of fire, choking fumes, and death, a battlefield heaped with the bleached bones of the dead.
Up ahead, she could see that the junipers were thinning out. Beyond, the final tongue of once-fiery lava, now a whitened wasteland, had destroyed all plant life in its path. Farther along the corniche began; nowhere to hide there. Where were Lyudmila and whoever it was she’d caught up with headed? Soon enough they’d be on open ground, sitting ducks for the assailants. And then, with a chill racing down her spine, she understood, her worst fears realized. She had to head them off before they reached the end of the palms that fringed the beach.
In the headlong rush she had lost sight of Lyudmila; she had no idea where she was and of course it was impossible to call out to her. In the next moment a shot rang out and nothing else mattered. She folded onto her stomach, aware again of the bruises and lacerations over her upper body. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly to manage the pain. Everything seemed to come to a standstill. Even the onshore wind had flattened and failed.
Had she heard a groan somewhere ahead of her? Eyeing everything in her immediate environment, she crawled forward, the weapon cradled on the inside of her elbows. Veering a bit to her left, she saw a figure lying in the brush: Lyudmila.
Quickly she made her way over to her, put a hand on her back. Lyudmila’s head turned. She had bitten her lip. My left thigh, she mouthed. Crouching next to her, Evan ran her hand down Lyudmila’s backside. The moment she touched the back of the thigh, Lyudmila winced. Evan saw the cloth of her pants leg, black, soaked with blood. A second rifle shot pierced the ground inches from Evan’s hip. Instead of reacting, slithering away or returning fire, she went prone on the ground and froze in place. While she counted silently to one hundred she observed the hole the bullet had made in the ground. From this she was able to make a reasonable estimation of the sharpshooter’s location up the slope. When all remained quiet, she flipped over onto her back, took a look at Lyudmila’s thigh.
“Lucky. The bullet went straight through the muscle and out the other side.” She ripped the sleeves off her shirt and used them to fashion a makeshift pressure dressing.
“Don’t move an inch,” she whispered. “Play dead. I’ll be back for you.”
Lyudmila nodded, going into prana breathing to oxygenate her body and minimize the pain. Her chest did not move; her lower belly did all the in-and-out work.
Evan backtracked, scurrying sideways like a crab, moving farther into the salt-dwarfed junipers, unmindful of them scratching her like thorns. Up and up she went, snaking her way around in a semicircle higher up than where she calculated the sharpshooter lay in wait for their next victim.
A flash of metal catching the last rays of sunlight caused her to pause, change course, moving slowly up and to her right until she was directly behind the sharpshooter. Gathering herself, she rose up into a crouch, descended in a straight line. She did not want to use her weapon unless it became absolutely necessary; no good could come from giving away her position.
She was almost upon the sharpshooter when he sensed her, turning in her direction up on one elbow. She kicked out, striking the elbow with such force the humerus bone ripped free of the ligaments and tendons attaching it to the shoulder. The sharpshooter grunted, whipped around his AK-308, swung the stock into Evan’s already injured face. She bit back a shout as stars exploded behind her eyes. In the next instant the sharpshooter was on her, his weapon jammed across her throat. He pressed down with his good arm in the center of the rifle, using the full weight of his body, severely restricting oxygen to her windpipe. He had pressed her arms to her sides with his knees.
She knew she had very little time before her body, depleted of oxygen, would lose strength. Jackknifing her legs, she trapped his head between her ankles, jerked him back, then let go and slammed the sides of her boots against his ears. He groaned, hands instinctively going to his ears in a vain attempt to limit the pain.
Evan, released, used his own weapon, thrusting the end of the barrel into the soft tissue of his jaw just above his neck. Blood spurted, his eyes rolled up in their sockets, and she shoved him off her.
She rose, gasping, rubbing the reddened area of her throat. She knew better than to touch the place on her cheek where he had struck her with the rifle’s stock. It was already throbbing, hot and dry, the skin pulled taut by the swelling.
She made her way down the slope to where Lyudmila lay just as Evan had left her.
“Got him,” Evan whispered in Lyudmila’s ear. “How’re you doing.”
