The Singularity Race (12 page)

“Yeah. He was given liaison responsibilities with the naval base at Pearl Harbor.”

“Did he have any leads?” Mullins asked.

“No. Kim's car was wiped clean, as was her laptop. The laptop was what got everybody's attention. Scrubbing it was no small feat. Even Hillary Clinton couldn't permanently erase her server.”

“Anybody see Kim in that little New Hampshire town?”

“It was dark and snowing. The only conclusion was she went there because of Professor Milton. He, too, was never seen again. His car and all his belongings were at his lake house about five miles away.”

Mullins thought the steps down seemed to go on forever. He drew a deep breath. “What about their cell phones? Were Kim and the missing scientist linked by them?”

“No. There were no calls or texts after noon on December 31st. That sounds strange to me because Kim used her phone like a third hand.”

“No activity at all?”

“Only a GPS program she used for the drive from Boston. Her destination was right where the car was found.”

“And Milton's phone?”

“The same. No records after noon on New Year's Eve.”

“The file contain any theories?”

“The prevalent consensus was they were abducted by a person or persons unknown. The thickest material in Kim's file was actually selected copies of the evidence compiled on Milton and his friend Dr. Kaminsky.”

“The first scientist who went missing.”

“Yes,” Woodson said. “The one Milton was worried about. So, if Milton was an instigator in some plot, it makes no sense that he would reach out to the FBI.”

“Has the Marriott attack moved Kim's case to the front burner?”

“Along with others. The FBI is attempting to connect any of the identified assassins with the Boston area four years ago, as well as international murders and disappearances of scientists in the artificial intelligence field. We know of five kills. One in England, two in Israel, one in China, and one in France.”

“Can we eliminate those countries, then?”

Woodson stopped and looked up at his father-in-law on the step above him. “No. What if there is a game of tit-for-tat going on? Israel loses two key scientists and thinks German intelligence was behind it. So they go after Brecht when he's here, hiring contractors with no connection to them.”

“How far back do these attacks go?” Mullins asked.

Woodson started down the stairs again. “The disappearances of Milton and Kaminsky were the first.”

“What about the Chinese scientist?”

“Three years ago. That's based on chatter in the scientific community. The Chinese don't say much about their setbacks.”

“Which means other incidents could go back further and the governments simply quieted them.”

“It's possible,” Woodson admitted. “Do you have something in mind?”

“Dr. Li's husband for one. These people are smart and the best way to commit an intelligent murder is to make sure it appears to be something else.” He stopped as a new thought struck him. “I wonder if Brentwood's plan to lure Dr. Li away was as secure as he thought. If the Chinese got wind of it, they could have been behind an abduction attempt. Her assailant had a kill shot he didn't take. The two assassinations offered a bonus to deal a setback to the competition.”

“You think the Chinese are behind all this?”

“I don't know,” Mullins conceded. “But if Li's husband was murdered, it might have set an international targeting and retribution cycle in motion. There's another thing. If one of your key assets is annihilated, what do you do with your others?”

“Get them to as safe a place as you can.”

“Yes. When Dr. Li's husband died, she disappeared for almost a year. That's a long time to grieve, especially for someone as driven by her work as she is.”

Woodson halted on one of the landings about halfway to the bottom. “In addition to Kim's file, I've got the photos and fingerprints of the five dead men at the Marriott. If the computer resources you've got are as good as you say, you ought to run them. But I'll be surprised if they beat MacArthur's resources.”

Mullins leaned against the landing railing and caught his breath. “Okay. And I've got something for you to check out. Tell MacArthur to put them through his best lab.” Mullins took two white envelopes out of his pocket. One was marked A and the other B. They were identical to the envelopes he'd sent earlier to Rudy Hauser at FBI headquarters.

Woodson tucked them in his empty camera case. “What are these?”

“Hair samples. Get a DNA read and tell me everything you can about them.”

“You want them cross-referenced in our data base?”

“Definitely not. I want as little attention drawn to them as possible.”

Woodson nodded. “I'll get MacArthur to expedite it. When are you coming home?”

“I don't know. As soon as we get some leads. Maybe next weekend. I'll use the burner phone to contact you at least once a day.” Mullins looked up and down the steps, making sure the two of them were alone. “I'd better go now. I'll check in with Kayli on my regular phone.”

To Mullins' surprise, Woodson stepped forward and hugged him. “For God's sake, Rusty, take care. Right now, we don't know our friends from our enemies. I'm afraid that was the position Kim was in.”

“I will. You do the same.”

“No one knows I'm here.”

Mullins stared at his son-in-law gravely. “Which means if no one knows you're here, then no one will know if suddenly you're not here.”

Chapter Nineteen

Mullins sat on the front porch of the guest cottage, his glass of Scotch on the wide armrest of his Adirondack rocker. During the day, someone on Brentwood's staff had spaced the chairs evenly, but while Lisa Li was tucking Peter into bed, Mullins had moved two of the chairs closer together.

He could hear the soft murmur of their voices coming through the screen door, only slightly louder than the crickets chirping in the woods around him. He took a sip of the drink and then rested his head on the back of the chair.

The day had been productive. After meeting Woodson, he'd eaten lunch at Medina's Village Bistro, a small and surprisingly good restaurant near the entrance to Chimney Rock. He'd logged onto their Wi-Fi with his cell phone. He fully expected his location to be monitored through the sim card Farino had installed, but he hoped the Wi-Fi wouldn't yield any content he might e-mail through the restaurant's system. Just to make sure, he'd disabled the cellular data function.

He'd dropped a note to Kayli saying he was fine and to e-mail him if anything urgent arose. He didn't reveal his location. Then he'd driven the roads adjacent to the lake and verified Brentwood's assertion that no one route looped it. His final activity had been to rent a kayak and approach the house from the water.

Brentwood's magnificent view had come at the cost of making both the main residence and guest cottage very visible from the lake. The kayak excursion had lasted two hours because he'd also examined the homes and terrain of the opposite shore for a sniper's vantage point. Most homes were close to the water, but a few had garden terraces that would make excellent shooting positions. He'd find out which might be year-round residences, second homes, or vacation rentals.

Between kayaking and the flights of stairs, Mullins' day had been as much physical as mental exercise. But he'd held up his end of the dinner conversation and told Brentwood he would drive Lisa and Peter to the research complex the next morning.

He took another swallow and set the glass on the floor by his foot. The breeze from the lake carried the scent of woodsmoke. Somewhere someone warded off the late April chill with possibly the last fire of the spring. Mullins closed his eyes.

“Rusty?” Lisa Li eased into the chair beside him. “You don't have to stay up on my account.”

Mullins noticed she held her glass of Scotch. The aroma of woodsmoke became tinged with the scent of her perfume.

“I'm fine. Just enjoying the evening. Did Peter go down okay?”

She smiled. “Not without protest. He wanted to keep reading his Asimov book.”

“He's a smart boy. He seems comfortable with you.”

Li stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he's away from his mother and father. And his friends. I'd think he'd be a little homesick.”

“Peter and I are very close. My job's enabled me to help my sister and her husband financially. They've been supportive of the opportunities I'm in position to provide for their son.”

“How's this job going? You didn't say much about it at dinner.”

“Better than I'd hoped. The team already has very sophisticated stealth programs in place. I can adapt them to keep Asimov hidden.”

“Why would Apollo have stealth programs?”

Li laughed. “You're the detective. Why do you think?”

“So he can hack and infiltrate undetected.”

She lifted her glass to him. “Infiltrate. That's the word. Hack doesn't describe the precision.”

“What are the targets?”

“Any source of information Apollo can find.”

Mullins' eyes widened. “You mean Apollo will be given free rein to choose his own targets?”

“Eventually. He'll be the most intelligent one in the room. Except he won't be in the room. He'll be worldwide, monitoring everything.”

“Doesn't that make you nervous?”

“It makes Brentwood nervous. He says a computer like Apollo is inevitable so we'd better be the first to develop it. In fact, Apollo's stealth is primarily focused on rivals. Robert secretly monitors the progress of Jué Dé, Google, and others to ensure they aren't advancing ahead of him.”

Mullins picked up his Scotch and thought a moment. “Where's the government in all this?”

The smooth skin of Li's forehead wrinkled into a scowl. “Where you'd expect. Right in the middle.”

“Farino,” Mullins said. “The marriage broker between Brentwood and the Pentagon.”

Li shrugged. “You understand American politics better than I do. But at the core, all governments have the same goal—to keep their power.”

Mullins took a swallow and then asked the question her statement elicited. “And your government, does it now see you as a traitor?”

“Rusty, there's a good chance it doesn't see me at all. Jué Dé might not have told them I've gone, or they've invented some cover story. Otherwise, my government's wrath could be directed as much to them as to me. They could even close Jué Dé's U.S. facility. Governments.” She took a sip of Scotch as if to wash the taste of the word from her mouth. “No wonder Apollo speaks Esperanto.”

“Esperanto?” Mullins tried to place the word. “What country is that?”

“No country. It was created by one man in 1887. An eye doctor in Poland named Zamenhof. He called himself Doktoro Esperanto and he wanted to create a politically neutral language without national ties or ethnic heritage. He called it the language of peace and international understanding.”

“Esperanto,” Mullins repeated.

“It means one who hopes, and it's Apollo's native tongue.”

“And you speak it?”

“A little. Since I work in code, the language is irrelevant. But Brentwood insists any direct communication with Apollo, written or oral, be in Esperanto.”

“He thinks it will bring world peace?”

“He thinks it will reinforce Apollo's global identity of being beholden to no country or corporate power.”

Mullins gave Li a penetrating stare. “Is he for real, Lisa?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “He's an idealist, but he's not naive. Brentwood knows anytime you break new ground you threaten someone's power. Take Esperanto. Both Hitler and Stalin saw the language as subversive. During World War II, Zamenhof's grown children were imprisoned and executed by the Nazis.”

Mullins flashed back to the chaotic scene at the Marriott. “Someone whose power feels threatened could be behind the assassinations in Washington. It's not about preserving humanity, it's about protecting special interests. We need to find out whose.”

Li touched Mullins lightly on his arm and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think I have a way to use all of Apollo's abilities without leaving a trace.”

The mellow feeling Mullins was enjoying evaporated. Even the soft touch of Li's fingers on his skin was forgotten. He sat up straight. “What is it?”

She leaned closer. “I told Brentwood I need to be able to put Apollo in a shadow state. Like creating a dual personality that temporarily becomes the controlling entity. It's the safest way to test my work without Apollo having any memory of it. As if I were logging in as a different user on a computer, although much more discreetly.”

“How's that an advantage?”

“No one else will know what I'm doing. My work is shielded from Apollo's team, and Apollo will essentially have amnesia. If someone discovers it, I'll say it was a test, a test that Asimov failed.”

“And all these stealth pathways and infiltrations?”

“We'll have access to wherever Apollo has gone. I know his team is probing into and retreating from other systems as they refine his capabilities. When everything is ready, Apollo and Asimov will be wedded together as conscious and subconscious, and the brave new world will be upon us.”

For a few minutes, Mullins said nothing. Something about her proposal bothered him.

“What's the matter?” Li asked.

“We need two tiers,” Mullins said. “Much like you're designing this computer brain. Brentwood expects me to use you and his resources to identify whoever tried to kill you. No trace of doing that will raise his suspicions.”

“I could tell him what we're doing.”

“Definitely not. We don't know where this investigation is going. If this is a conspiracy, we need all the conspirators identified. Brentwood would be a loose cannon that could fire prematurely.”

“So, what do you suggest?”

“We run some inquiries through Apollo and others through the alter ego. I'll let you know which to use in each case.”

“When?”

“Is your laptop here?”

“It's in the bedroom but I can't access Apollo from here.”

“I just want to transfer some information. Can you get it without waking Peter?”

“He's either asleep or he isn't.”

Mullins pushed himself up from the chair. “Bring it to the kitchen table and set up two folders on the desktop. One for Apollo and one for what we want to keep secret. I'll join you in a moment. And Lisa, be careful what you say. The cottage could be bugged.”

He didn't wait for her but went into his bedroom and retrieved the camera Woodson had given him. He sat on the edge of the bed and scrolled through the images. He found photos of the five dead assassins and the report of the facial recognition hit for the gunman arriving at the Montreal airport from Mozambique. His trail didn't go back any farther.

The two assassins identified by fingerprints had generated background dossiers. Known aliases were listed as well as additional photos compiled from Thailand and Belize showing the neighborhoods where each had resided. Previous addresses were listed as unknown. Their trails were as cold as their bodies.

The only other document related to the attack was a copy of the Internet posting from the group called Double H—Humanity's Hope. Mullins read the brief text—“We will not be enslaved by machines. Those who would make them our masters will meet the fate of Brecht and Ahmad. For we are Double H—Humanity's Hope, and we will prevail.” A note from some analyst reported the message had been posted on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites from an Internet café in Amsterdam. There was no video surveillance and even though the posted time was in the wee hours of the night, the café had been busy enough that no one remembered any individual who stood out for any reason.

The last section of photographs was of the documents in Kim Woodson's FBI file. Mullins had decided to hold Kim's information back from Li for the present, but as he browsed through the pages, he changed his mind. He noted her ID photo, her SUV parked behind the barn playhouse, and the head shots of the professors Milton and Kaminsky. Maybe there was at least one avenue to explore. He took the camera and its USB cable into the kitchen.

Li had opened her laptop on the table and arranged two chairs in front of it.

“It needs a minute or two to boot up,” she said. “Then just tell me what to drop where.”

Mullins handed her the camera and cable. “Everything's on here. I'll walk you through what I need.”

Li created the folders and then connected the camera. She opted to use it like an external drive, viewing its contents as a series of jpegs. To minimize the risk of potential monitoring, Mullins said nothing but pointed to what he wanted copied and pasted in the Apollo folder: all the photos of the dead assassins, the images from Belize and Thailand, and the list of the known aliases. He also included the photo from the Montreal airport and the information about the Amsterdam café.

Li looked at the remaining files. “And these?” she whispered.

He pointed to the second folder.

Li transferred the photographs of Kim Woodson and her car.

“Good,” Mullins said. “That will give Apollo a starting point.” He gestured for her to disconnect the camera.

“Let's go back outside,” he said.

He took the camera and led her to the side of the cottage.

“What are we doing?” Li asked.

“I want you to take my picture.”

“You? Why?”

“I want to see how deep and thorough this search goes. What kind of connections are made about my own life.”

“Okay.”

“Use the flash and make sure everything behind me goes to black. I don't want some fluke background object pinpointing our location.”

Mullins stood in front of a patch of dark forest. Li took three photos. They were actually quite good. Certainly better than the mug shot on his driver's license.

“Is there anything on those photos that's more than picture?” Mullins asked.

“You mean like metadata?”

“I guess that's what I'm asking. I've seen some photos that have time, date, and a GPS reading attached.”

“I'll strip all that away. All they'll see is you.”

“Poor them.”

“You have a nice face, Rusty.”

Mullins felt the blood rush to his cheeks and was glad it was dark.
I'm acting like a smitten junior high kid
, he thought. He wanted to say something in return but just mumbled a thank you.

“What do you want to know about these files?” Li asked. “I need to write up parameters.”

“Well, obviously any facial matches and records of any of the alias names. I'd like to get deeper into any CCTV video footage, especially in Montreal and Mozambique. Anywhere, for that matter.”

“Time parameters?”

“Would the last ten years be too much?”

She shook her head. “We could go back to the Ming dynasty if they'd had computer databases.”

Mullins laughed. “Ten years will be fine. Even the Ming dynasty must have had statutes of limitation.”

“Don't be so sure,” she said flatly. “And for the hidden search?”

“Facial recognition for the woman and two professors. Anything that overlaps them.”