Protocol 7 (13 page)

…but the icon shivered to digital dust at the touch of his fingers. He tried to recover it; he checked his archives and backups.

It was useless. Fae, who had served as his loyal assistant for more than five years, had been thoroughly fried.

He gaped at the display for five heartbeats, trying to understand what had happened. Then he looked at the ceiling, thinking about his library upstairs. “Damn it,” he said and dashed to the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

The library was destroyed: artwork, charts, data plaques, and discs were scattered all over the floor. Every cabinet had been emptied, every drawer overturned; every one of his books had been thrown off the shelves.

“Who would do this?” he said out loud. “Who—”

He suddenly grew stone cold.

“Jake,” he said.

He turned to the hallway door and dashed back into the hall.

“Jake!” He ran back downstairs shouting, “Jake, Jake! Come on boy, where are you?”

He checked under the tables, behind the sofa, trying not to shake as his body went cold. “Jake, come on boy!” He even pushed at the furniture that was far too small for Jake to hide under, desperate for a clue. Finally, he rushed to the bathroom, the last door he hadn’t opened. He almost broke the handle in his frantic rush to get inside.

The door flew open and slammed against the wall, revealing Jake, dazed and tied up on the floor, wrapped in tight silvery loops of duct tape.

Simon fell to his knees and put his arms around the Great Dane, impossibly grateful the dog was still alive. “Jesus, who the hell would do this to you?” he said as he pried at the bonds.

Jake whined as Simon gently opened the duct tape around the dog’s muzzle. Anger swelled in him, but he forced himself to keep his voice low and comforting as he kissed the dog and murmured in its ear. “It’s okay, boy,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s okay.”

He checked every inch of the room and pulled the tape away from the animal’s paws. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; nothing revealed who had broken into his home or what they were looking for.

With the last of the tape pulled away, Simon stood and dashed out of the bathroom, determined to continue his search. Jake grumbled and struggled to compose his clumsy limbs, equally determined to follow his master as he always did.

Simon went through the whole apartment a second time, this time with even greater attention, but he could find nothing missing. After twenty minutes, he flopped down on the sofa in frustration and buried his head in his hands. Who would do this? he asked himself again, trying to quell his rising anger and failing miserably. Why?

Jake tottered into the room, his doggy expression made up of equal parts shame and curiosity. “Hey, buddy,” Simon told him. “Do you know who got in here?” Jake tilted his head and opened his warm brown eyes even wider than usual. Simon was suddenly happier than ever that his companion hadn’t been hurt…or worse. He patted the cushion next to him and said, “Come on over here, you big potato. Come on.”

Jake didn’t climb onto the couch. He just lumbered across the room, put his massive head in his master’s lap, and gave him a huge sigh, long and deep. Simon stroked the short, dense fur on the crown of Jake’s head and said, “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay. I knew you were never much of a guard dog.”

He looked blindly at the chaos around him and tried to make sense of it. It couldn’t be a straight and simple break-in; nothing of any value had been taken. It wasn’t simple vandalism, either; everything had been tossed around, but nothing had been broken or defaced. Jake cocked an eye at him, as if to say I agree. Simon watched as the wounded dog lifted his head and turned away, moving slowly and a little painfully out of the room and into the kitchen. Clearly, he hadn’t fully recovered from being tied up for hours; he was looking for something to eat and drink.

Simon rose and walked behind him. “I know you’re sore, Jake. Let me get you—”

The realization stopped him cold. It was so obvious: they were looking for something. It wasn’t burglary or vandalism—it was a search. That’s why they had killed the AI. That’s why they had overturned every single drawer.

And he was willing to bet what they were looking for was what he had been carrying in his coat pocket all along—since the moment Jonathan gave it to him.

He pulled out the hand-bound chess diary with one hand and the bulky, awkward “safe” phone with his other. Clumsily, he worked the foreign keyboard, finally sending a single-word text to Jonathan: “Urgent.”

Jonathan called him back immediately. He hadn’t even reached his hotel. “What’s up?” he asked, sounding tired and a little miffed at being bothered so soon after he’d left.

“My flat has been tossed,” he said without preamble, quietly. “They had to be looking for the diary.”

“Shit.” Jonathan tapped the break and swung his rental car into a U-turn. “They know. Somehow, they know.”

Dread was like a fist full of ice in his stomach, but Simon pushed the sensation away. “We’re going to have to move even faster than we thought,” he said. “I’m the most obvious target, but any—”

There was a raucous beep in his ear. He pulled the phone from his ear and glared at it. Samantha’s number was glowing in the screen. He stopped cold, realizing the danger everyone could be in.

“I’ve got to call Sam,” he told Jonathan, “make sure she’s okay.”

“Never mind. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Simon hung up and dialed Sam’s number. “Come on, Sam. Pick up,” he urged the ringing phone. But she didn’t pick up. He tried again. Still no answer. “Something is wrong,” Simon said redialing Sam, over and over.

He had to go to her. Now. But he had to do one other thing first. He had to take care of Jake.

Moving as fast as he could, Simon snatched Jake’s leash from its hook by the door and snapped it onto the dog’s collar. “Come on, buddy,” he said softly. “Let’s go see Mrs. Elli.”

Her door was straight across the hall from Simon’s, and Jake went willingly. Simon had no time for explanations. He tied Jake’s leash to the handle of his neighbor’s door and kissed his companion on the head. He knew that Jake would be safe with Mrs. Ellingsworth. That was all that mattered. He rang the bell and disappeared in two seconds. He didn’t know when he would see his Jake again. He had no time and no strength to look back. Simon gave up on dialing and ran to find her. Jake looked on as the form of his master’s body and scent faded into the hallway and down the steps.

A distant ringing faded and Samantha’s eyes snapped open. She lurched into a sitting position, gasping as if she had been touched by a live wire. Her head was pounding; her bedroom spun around her. She clutched at the bedclothes as a powerful wave of nausea surged through her. The safe phone faced away from her on the side table; Simon’s missed call disappeared from the screen.

The last thing she remembered was a shadowy man standing over her. Then a stinking cloth slammed over her mouth, so tightly she couldn’t breathe. There was a struggle, and then…

Nothing. Nothing until this moment, still in her clothes from last night, in agony as the room wheeled around her.

She couldn’t remember what had happened or who that may have been. She had a strong sense that she had spoken to him, or vice versa. She half-remembered a voice, but she had no real recollection, no idea what she might have said or what she might have been told. And when she tried to think of it, when she concentrated on the moments after that ghostly stranger stood over her, she could see only one thing—the man’s lithe frame.

She pushed away the half-memory and the nausea, fighting to think clearly.

She had to tell Simon. He would know what to do, how to help.

She took a breath and called to her AI. “Hollis? Call—”

—and she stopped herself. Why didn’t my security systems work last night? she suddenly asked herself. Where was Hollis? Was the system compromised? And what about the phone lines now?

Simon had given them all those silly, old-fashioned phones at Ryan’s house last night. Maybe she should—

“Call whom, Doctor?”

“No one,” she said, thinking it through. “Never mind.”

She reached to the side table, picking up the cell phone Simon had given her. She knew she could use it safely. She had to tell him what had happened. Ask for help. But she stopped, her hand an inch away from the phone.

She felt confused and began to reconsider. If she did indeed tell him what had happened, she knew what would happen next: she would be cut out of his plan to find Oliver. She’d be left isolated and alone. Too big a security risk, they would say. Compromised. And the others would go off without her. She wouldn’t be there to help them, wouldn’t be able to protect Simon. And she knew, she was positive, he was going to need her more than once—more than ever—in the difficult days to come.

What else could she do? She thought looking around her immediate surroundings, then decided Simon needed to know. Otherwise, he may be in more danger if she didn’t tell him.

She decided she was sure and grabbed the phone, just as there was pounding on her front door. She froze, clutching the phone in hand.

Simon didn’t realize how fast he had gotten to Samantha’s apartment.

He pounded on the door as hard as he could. “Sam!” he called out, desperate for an answer. “Samantha!”

Five seconds, he told himself. Then I kick the door in. Five…four…thr—

“Simon?” Sam’s weak voice came through the door.

Simon blew out a sigh of relief. At least she’s okay, he told himself. “Sammy, it’s me,” he said. “Open up.”

He heard her unlocking the door and impatiently helped to push it open, eager to see her.

Sam’s eyes were still half-shut; she looked disheveled and surprised. She was dressed in the same clothes from the night before. She must have fallen asleep as soon as she got home, he reasoned. And then…

Simon moved closer to her and held her shoulders, looking straight at her face as he asked, “Sammy, tell me everything that happened.”

There were tears in her eyes. “That’s just it, Simon, I don’t remember.”

He dropped his hands, still looking into her eyes. “Then tell me the last thing you do remember. Andrew dropped you off…you came inside…you…”

“…brushed my teeth,” she said, almost dreamily, “…sat down on the bed, still dressed and so tired…and…”

Her eyes were wide and empty when she looked at him. “And that’s all. Nothing else until I woke on the bed an hour ago, still dressed.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands. She was doing her best not to cry. “Oh, Simon. God, what…?”

He saw it then—a tiny, circular rash about the size of a large coin on the side of her neck. He wouldn’t have noticed it at all except for the angle of the light; it was just a slight roughness to her skin and not much more.

“Wait a second,” he said, leaning forward, sniffing at her neck.

“Simon, what the devil…”

“Sorry,” he said again. But he had caught a whiff of what he had expected to: the astringent, garlic-like odor of the DMSO derivative used in most medi-patches. “You were drugged, Sam.”

She put her hand to her neck protectively, as if she half-expected a knife to be put there. “A patch?” she repeated. “But who…and why would they…?”

Simon was already on his feet again, pacing nervously. “I want you to gather some clothes and come with me. Now.”

She looked at him, confused. “What are you talking about? Have you gone mad?” He was already moving toward her closet, looking for a suitcase or a bag. “Where the hell do you want me to go?”

“Something tells me we shouldn’t be here,” he said. He shook his head tightly, quickly. “We should get the hell out of here. Sam, my place was broken into last night. Get your stuff—we’re leaving.”

More in response to the urgent tone in his voice than any real understanding, she jumped up and started toward her room to gather her things. “None of this makes any sense,” she muttered. She sounded muzzy and confused; clearly, the drugs were still in her system.

Simon moved back into the living room, thinking furiously. Maybe I should go back to my flat, he thought. But…but they could be waiting. He wasn’t quite sure what to do; he had never been on the run before, especially from something as bizarre as this. Max would know what to do, he told himself. This is his element. But he had no choice. He couldn’t go to the authorities; for all he knew UNED and Jonathan’s CIA bosses were part of the group that was after him and his friends. And now he was conspiring to steal a multi-billion-dollar piece of government technology. They couldn’t possibly know about that…

…could they?

Simon came to a decision at that very moment: their only alternative was to accelerate the plan that he had discussed just a few hours earlier. Get to the Spector safe house undetected—all of them. Highjack the fully assembled submersible, and get the hell out of Oxford, out of England, and as soon as possible out of the Northern Hemisphere entirely.

Simon looked at his watch, then called out to Samantha. “We’ve got to go.”

“I’m almost there,” she replied.

While she packed, Samantha suddenly asked him, “Do you remember Corsica?”

Simon was surprised. “You actually remember that?”

“How could I forget?” she replied, but made sure to add with a sarcastic tone. “The question is, how could you forget?”

Simon hadn’t forgotten a thing. He vividly remembered the weekend they had spent at his father’s hideaway, a beautiful cottage nestled in the hills in Corsica, when they were both in college. That was the first time Samantha had told him how much she cared for him…and the first time he had disappointed her.

“Never mind,” he said.

That weekend on Corsica had been a major event in Simon’s life as well—just not the one that Samantha imagined. It was the last time he had been at the cottage with Oliver—the last time in his adult life that he had a chance to share a few days with his father.

The secure phone made its familiar and annoying buzz. He put it to his ear and keyed the communication. It was Jonathan.