Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (16 page)

“That is not a real face, Colonel,” Klein told him flatly.
“Nor are any of the other Lazarus images.”

Smith raised a single eyebrow. “Oh? Then what are they?”

“Computer constructs,” the other man told him. “A blend of
artificially generated pixels and bits and pieces of hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of real people all mixed to create a set of different faces. The
voices are all computer-generated, too.”

“So we have no way to identify them,” Smith realized. “And
still no way to know whether the Movement is run by one man—or by many.”

“Exactly. But it goes beyond that,” Klein
said. “I've seen some of the CIA's analysis. They're convinced those
images and voices are very specially crafted—that they represent archetypes, or
idealized figures, for the cultures to whom the Lazarus Movement is delivering
its message.”

That would certainly explain why he had reacted so favorably to the first
image, Smith realized. It was a variation on the ancient Western ideal of the
just and noble hero-king. “These people are awfully damned good at what
they're trying to do,” he said grimly.

“Indeed.”

“In fact, I'm beginning to think that the CIA and FBI may be right
on-target in fingering these guys for what happened yesterday.”

“Perhaps. But skill with propaganda and
secrecy doesn't necessarily reveal terrorist intentions. Try to keep an open
mind, Colonel,” the other man warned. “Remember that Covert-One is
the B-Team on this investigation. Your job is to play devil's advocate, to make
sure evidence isn't overlooked just because it doesn't conveniently fit the
preconceived theory.”

“Don't worry, Fred,” Smith said reassuringly. “I'll do my
best to poke and prod and pry to see what breaks.”

“Discreetly, please,” Klein reminded him.

“Discretion is my middle name,” said Smith with a quick grin.

“Is it?” the head of Covert-One said tartly. “Somehow I never
would have guessed.” Then he relented. “Good luck, Jon. If you need
anything— access, information, backup, anything—we'll be standing by.”

Still grinning, Smith disconnected his phone and computer and began
preparing himself for the long day ahead.

Emeryville, California

Once a sleepy little town full of dilapidated warehouses,
rusting machine shops, and artists' studios, Emeryville had suddenly blossomed
as one of the centers of the Bay Area's booming biotech industry.
Multinational pharmaceutical corporations, genetic engineering startups, and
venture capital-funded entrepreneurs pursuing new opportunities like
nanotech-nology all vied for office and lab space along the busy Interstate 80
corridor between Berkeley and Oakland. Rents, taxes, and living costs were
all exorbitant, but most corporate executives seemed to focus instead on
Emeryville's proximity to top-notch universities and major airports and,
perhaps most important of all, its spectacular views of San Francisco, the Bay,
and the Golden Gate.

Telos Corporation's nanoelectronics research facility took up a whole floor
of one of the new glass-and-steel high-rises looming just east of the
approaches to the Bay
Bridge. Interested more
in profiting from its multimillion-dollar investment in equipment, materials,
and personnel than it

was in publicity, Telos maintained a comparatively
low profile. No expensive and flashy logo on the building advertised its
presence inside. School groups, politicians, and the press were not offered
time-consuming tours. A single guard station just inside the main doors
provided security.

Pacific Security Corporation deputy Paul Yiu sat behind the marble-topped
counter of the security station, skimming through a paperback mystery. He
flipped a page, idly noting the death of yet another suspect he had fingered as
the killer. Then he yawned and stretched. Midnight had long since come and
gone, but he still had two hours to go on his shift. He shifted uncomfortably
on his swivel chair, readjusted the butt of the pistol bolstered at his side, and
went back to his book. His eyelids drooped. A light tapping on the glass doors
roused him. Yiu looked up, fully expecting to see one of the half-crazy
homeless bums who sometimes wandered down here from Berkeley by mistake. Instead, he saw a petite
redhead with a worried expression on her face. Fog had rolled in from the Bay
and she looked cold in her tight blue skirt, white silk blouse, and stylish
black wool coat.

The security guard slid off his chair, straightened his own khaki uniform
shirt and tie, and went to the door. The young woman smiled in relief when she
saw him and tried the door. It rattled but stayed locked. “I'm sorry,
ma'am,” he called through the glass. “This building's closed.”
Her worried look came back. “Please, I just need to borrow a phone to call
Triple A,” she said plaintively. “My car broke down just up the
street, and now my cell phone's gone dead, too!”

Yiu thought about that for a moment. The rules were quite clear. No
unauthorized visitors after business hours. On the other hand, none of his
bosses ever had to know that he had decided to play the Good Samaritan for this
frantic young woman. Call it my good deed for the week, he decided. Besides,
she was pretty cute, and he had always had an unrequited passion for redheads.

He took the building key card out of his shirt pocket and swiped it through
the lock. It buzzed once and clicked open. He pulled the heavy

glass door back with a welcoming smile. “Here
you go, ma'am. The phone's just—”

The mace blast caught Yiu right in the eyes and open mouth. He doubled over,
blinded, gagging, and helpless. Before he could even try to fumble for his
weapon, the door slammed wide open —hurling him backward onto the slick tiled
floor. Several people burst through the open door and into the lobby. Strong
arms grabbed him, pinioned his arms behind his back, and then secured his
wrists using his own handcuffs. Someone else yanked a cloth hood over his head.

A woman bent down to whisper in his ear. “Remember this! Lazarus
lives!”

By the time Yiu's relief arrived to set him free, the intruders were long
gone. But the Telos nanotech lab was a total wreck—full of smashed glassware,
burned out electron-scanning microscopes, punctured steel tanks, and spilled
chemicals. The Lazarus Movement slogans spray-painted across the walls, doors,
and windows left little doubt about the loyalties of those responsible.

Zurich, Switzerland

As the weak autumn sun climbed toward the zenith, thousands of protesters
already clogged the steep tree-lined hill overlooking Zurich's
Old Town and the River Limmat. They
blockaded every street around the twin campuses of the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology and the University
of Zurich. Scarlet and
green Lazarus Movement flags waved above the crowds, along with signs demanding
a ban on all Swiss-based nanotech-nology research projects.

Squads of riot police holding truncheons and clear Plexiglas shields waited
at parade rest some blocks away from the mass of protesters. Armored cars with
water cannons and tear gas grenade launchers were parked nearby. But the police
did not appear to be in any real hurry to move in and clear the streets.

Dr. Karl Friederich Kaspar, the head of one of the labs now under peaceful
siege, stood just behind the police barricades, close to the upper station of
the Zurich Polybahn, the funicular railway built more than a century before to
serve both the university and the Institute. He checked his watch again and ground
his teeth together in frustration. Fuming, he sought out the highest-ranking
police official he could find. “Look, why all the delay? Without a permit,
this demonstration is illegal. Why don't you put your troops in and break it
up?”

The police officer shrugged. “I follow my orders, Herr Professor
Direk-tor Kaspar. At the moment, I have no such orders.”

Kaspar hissed in disgust. “This is absurd! I have staff waiting to go
to work. We have many very valuable and expensive experiments to conduct.”

“That is a pity,” said the policeman carefully.

“A pity!” Kaspar growled. “It's more
than a pity; it's a disgrace.” He eyed the other man angrily. “I
might almost think you have sympathy for these ignorant dunderheads.”

The police officer turned to face him, meeting Kaspar's furious gaze without
flinching. “I am not a member of the Lazarus Movement, if that is what you
are suggesting,” he said quietly. “But I saw what happened in America. I do
not wish such a catastrophe to occur here in Zurich.”

The lab director turned bright red. “Such a thing is impossible!
Utterly impossible! Our work is completely different from anything the
Americans and Japanese were doing at the Teller Institute! There is no
comparison!”

That is excellent news,“ the policeman said, with the faint hint of a
sardonic smile. He made a show of offering Kaspar a bullhorn. ”Perhaps if
you assured the protesters of this truth, they might see the error of their
ways and disperse?"

Kaspar could only stare back at him, dismayed to find so much ignorance and
insolence in a fellow public servant.

Albuquerque International Airport, New Mexico

With the sun rising red behind it, the huge An-124 Condor thundered low over
the airport's inner beacon line and dropped heavily onto Runway Eight. Its four
large pylon-mounted turbofans howled as the pilot reversed thrust.
Decelerating, the Condor bounced and rolled down the nearly
thirteen-thousand-foot-long landing strip, chasing its own lengthening shadow.
In seconds, it lumbered past the hangars and revetments holding F-16s that
belonged to New Mexico's
150th Air National Guard Fighter Wing. Still slowing, it passed camouflaged
concrete-and-steel ordnance bunkers, which had been used to store strategic and
tactical nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

Near the western end of the tarmac, the enormous Russian-made Antonov cargo
aircraft turned off onto a freight apron and rolled
ponderously to a complete stop beside a much smaller corporate jet. The shrill
noise of its engines died away. Seen up close, the Nomura Pharma-

Tech-owned plane dwarfed the group of reporters and cameramen waiting to
record its arrival.

The An-124's sixty-foot-high rear cargo ramp whined open, settling heavily
on the oil- and jet fuel-stained concrete. Two crewmen in flight suits walked
down the ramp, shading their eyes against the bright sunlight. Once on the
ground, they turned and began using hand signals to guide the drivers slowly
backing a convoy of vehicles out of the Condor's cavernous cargo bay. The
mobile DNA analysis labs promised by Hideo Nomura had arrived.

Nomura himself stood among the journalists, watching his support crews and
medical technicians quickly and calmly preparing to make the short drive to Santa Fe. Their
efficiency pleased him.

When he judged that the media had all the footage they needed, he signaled
for their attention. It took some time for them to refocus their cameras and
make sound checks. He waited patiently until they were ready.

“I have one other major decision to announce, ladies and gentlemen,”
Nomura began. “It is not one I have made lightly. But I think it is the
only sensible decision, especially in view of the terrible tragedy we all
witnessed yesterday.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Effective
immediately, Nomura PharmaTech will suspend its nanotechnology research
programs—both those in our own facilities and those we fund in other
institutions around the world. We will invite outside observers into our labs
and factories to confirm that we have halted all our activities in this scientific
field.”

He listened politely to the frenzied clamor of questions aroused by this
sudden announcement, answering those that seemed best suited to his purposes.
“Was my decision prompted by the demands made earlier this morning by the
Lazarus Movement?” He shook his head. "Absolutely
not. Though I respect their motives and ideals, I do not share the
Movement's bias against science and technology. This temporary halt is prompted
by

simple prudence. Until we know exactly what went
wrong at the Teller Institute, it would be foolish to put other cities at
risk."

“What about your competitors?” one of the reporters asked bluntly.
“Other corporations, universities, and governments have already invested
billions of dollars in medical nanotech. Should they follow your company's lead
and halt their work, too?”

Nomura smiled blandly. “I will not presume to dictate what steps others
should take. That is a matter for their best scientific judgment, or perhaps
more appropriately, for their consciences. For my part, I can only assure you
that Nomura PharmaTech will never put its own profits ahead of innocent human
life.”

Boston, Massachusetts

Big, bullheaded James Severin, the chief executive officer of Harcourt
Biosciences, watched the CNN tape of Hideo Nomura's interview come to an end.
“That sly, shrewd Japanese son of a bitch,” he murmured, half in
grudging admiration and half in outrage. His eyes blinked angrily behind the
thick lenses of his black-framed glasses. “He knows his company's nanotech
projects are way behind everybody else's work—so far behind that they've got no
real chance of catching up!”

His senior aide, just as tall but about one hundred pounds lighter, nodded.
“From what we can tell, Nomura's people lag our researchers by at least
eighteen months. They're still sorting out basic theory, while our lab teams
are developing real-world applications. This is a race PharmaTech can't
win.”

“Yeah,” Severin growled. “We know that. And our friend Hideo
there knows it. But who else is going to see what he's up to? Not the press,
that's for sure.” He frowned. “So he gets to pull the plug on failing
projects that have been costing his company an arm and a leg while masquerading
as a selfless corporate white knight! Sweet, isn't it?”