Safe House Part 13

"Mom, don't sweat it, I'll be here," Maj said. "I'm flying with some of the Group tomorrow night. We were going to take Niko with us, but one way or another, I'll be on site. It's just the flu, anyway."

"Yes, but he's in a strange place..."

"Mom," Maj said, "he doesn't need his diaper changed, either. No need to do the Great Earth Mother thing." She grinned a little. "You just go play kick-the-client as scheduled. Everything will be fine."

"Yes, of course," her mother said, and got up. "Come on, Miss m.u.f.fin, let's get you in the restraints for the night." She picked up the giggling, wriggling m.u.f.fin and carried her down the hall, shus.h.i.+ng her as they went.

"He's a nice kid." Rick said. "Has he shown any interest in sports?"

"You mean in sliding rocks around on ice?" Maj said with good-natured scorn. "He's shown much better sense than that. I think we're going to make a simmer out of him."

"A complete waste," her brother said, getting up and stretching. "Oh, well." He got up and started picking up dishes.

Maj looked at her dad. "You could always use the excuse," she said.

"No, your mom's right," he said. "Duty before pleasure. Unfortunately." He got up and started collecting silverware, and Maj rose to help him clear things away, it being the rule in the Green household that the Cook Didn't Clean But Everyone Else Did.

Her brother chuckled. "Smart kid," he said, "absenting himself before the cleaning frenzy was due to begin. He'll go far."

"He didn't know," Maj said. "And I don't think he would have avoided it, frankly..." All the same, she found herself fretting in a mode similar to the one in which she had spent much of the day at school.

It's just the flu. He'll be fine.

But if I'm so sure, then why am I twitching like this?

In the small dark room, six thousand miles away, a man sat in the predawn darkness listening to his little radio through his earphone. At the end of each day's first news broadcast, and after the day's last one at six, there was always a reading of personal announcements which people had phoned or linked in to the national broadcaster-sometimes notices for people traveling in the country, sometimes mundane announcements like details about sales or a change in the time of a local country market, news about police roadblocks (at least, the ones they wanted you to know about), or information about where the roads were being worked on. Armin listened to each of these broadcasts every day, waiting for the one that would tell him that his unknown friends were ready to help him leave the cellar, and the country, for the last time. Now he sat waiting, tense as always, getting more impatient all the time as announcement after announcement was read, and none of them was for him.

"-the A41 national road at Soara, we regret to inform travelers that this road will be closed for the next two weeks due to bridge repairs on the route. Travelers are advised to use the A16 road through Elmila instead...Leoru Town Market will start at eight-fifteen next Sat.u.r.day morning rather than at nine-fifteen as previously scheduled.... To Bela Urnim, presently traveling to Timisoara on business-"

The breath went into him in a gasp, got stuck there.

"-we have received your message of the eighteenth and understand it."

Armin sat up convulsively against the wall, feeling his hands go cold with fear all in an instant. That was one of the code phrases in the book given him by the organization that had been helping him, the book which he had memorized. This one phrase had stuck particularly in his mind even before everything was committed to memory, because he had often wondered in what circ.u.mstances it might be used. And now he knew.

It meant, All is betrayed All is betrayed.

Armin began to shake.

"Your s.h.i.+pment has been collected at its destination by Customs and the information which you designated before leaving is being used to process it," the uncomprehending voice reading the announcement went on. "The processing of perishable materials will be complete in twenty-four hours. You have that long to contact us regarding your desires regarding further handling. Otherwise the contents of the s.h.i.+pment will be disposed of.... This is a message for Gelei Vanni, traveling from Organte to-"

He pulled the earphone out of his ear, turned the radio off, dropped it on the dirty floor.

They have him.

He covered his face in his hands. I thought he was safe. I was a fool. They've found a way to get at him I thought he was safe. I was a fool. They've found a way to get at him.

And they've activated the microps....

He rubbed his eyes, trying desperately to get hold of himself, for now he had to think, think. One of his a.s.sociates had broken-no telling which. Sasha, or Donae, possibly. They would have known the machine codes for the microps which Laurent was carrying-there was a set of master codes which all the little creatures had been built to answer to in case of the need for an emergency shutdown. Now the police had those. And they had used them in the most effective manner possible, from their point of view.

His friends were all betrayed-they could not help him now. And the meaning of the message was clear enough. Come out and give yourself up, and we will spare your son's life. Keep hiding, and...

Armin stopped rubbing his eyes. All too clearly in memory he could see the slides from the brains of the poor rats who had had the "mistake" happen to them, the ones in whom the microps had run wild for only half a day. That was happening right now, inside his son. It would take longer...but not much longer. They would now be migrating to his spinal column to make their way up through the cerebrospinal fluid into the brain. Once there, they would start pulling the myofibrils apart, chewing away at the myelin that coated and interconnected the brain cells. In eighteen hours, his son would be seriously ill. In twenty-four, he would be on his way to being a vegetable.

All he had to do now, to stop it, was give himself up.

And after that he would be made to re-create his work-especially, he knew, the dark side of it. If he did not, they would threaten Laurent again. Or they would simply kill them both, and hand his work over to someone else to continue. For they had Laurent-and dead or alive, they could be able to get enough information from whichever of his a.s.sociates had cracked to get the microps out again. After that they would not care what happened to him.

Armin sat there for what seemed an eternity, in the darkness, frozen and trying to think what to do. It was, in reality, about five minutes. There's no point in fighting any longer There's no point in fighting any longer, said the back of his mind. They have him. It's all over now. If you're going to save him, you must act quickly They have him. It's all over now. If you're going to save him, you must act quickly.

Yet there was still another part of him, stubborn, sullen, angry, which was unwilling to give up while he was still breathing. There was one last chance. Very slim, not likely to do any good...but he had to try it. For Laurent's sake, as much as for his own.

Armin sighed, reached into the deep pocket in his trousers, and came up with the cell phone.

He had purposely not used the cell phone at all for the last few days, had not even turned it on, because its signal could be all too easily targeted...a.s.suming he was in a location where it would even work. But he had been given a number to call if things went badly wrong, a last-resort number, which he could call once but not again.

This seemed like the time to use it.

Armin thumbed the b.u.t.ton to turn it on, and waited.

Waited.

Then, after about ten seconds, during none of which Armin breathed, a single bar of light appeared above the little "antenna" symbol. The phone was close enough to an antenna to successfully dial out.

He hurriedly touched in the quick-dial code for the number programmed into the phone, and put it to his ear.

It rang.

It rang for at least thirty seconds, and Armin hung on, beginning to shake. It was not safe to have the phone active even this long, really, and activating it twice-he didn't dare. Yet the thought that he would have used it in the first place and possibly caused himself to be found without any success at the reason he used it in the first place- Someone picked up the phone. "Yes?" said the voice, in English.

He told them who he was, and where he was, all in a quick burst of words; and he told them why he was calling.

"We know," said the voice on the other end.

"Help me," was all he could say. "My son..." And he ran out of breath.

"We'll try," said the voice. "No guarantees."

"I know. Thank you."

"Don't thank us yet," said the voice, and hung up.

He stared at the now-mute chunk of plastic and put it back in his pocket, and then breathed out and put his head down on his knees. It was all he could do.

It was all he had time to do...for, in the next breath, he heard them outside, hammering at the old painted-over door with something heavy. He heard the ancient rusty padlock break.

And then with a screech, and another screech, the old doors were levered open, and the light of dawn came flooding in, blinding him. His eyes watered, so that he could barely make out the uniformed shape that came down the stairs, silhouetted against the light. He did not need to see details. He knew who put hands under his arms, who helped him up and walked him, staggering slightly, up the stairs.

It was Death.

8.

Maj did not sleep well that night, and she was up unusually early, even for her. What surprised her somewhat, when she pulled on jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt and meandered into the kitchen for her first cup of tea, was finding her father there before her. He wouldn't normally have been up for another half hour or so-but here he was, nursing a cup of coffee, cold from the look of it, and wearing an extremely haggard expression.

"Daddy?" she said, starting to go over to the kettle...and then stopping. There was only one thing she could think of which would make him look so bleak. "Did you hear anything?"

He nodded. He looked down the hall first to see who might be there, and then said softly, "I got a call from James Winters about fifteen minutes ago. Their information-service people who listen to the media over there picked up an announcement on the morning news. They've arrested Armin Darenko."

"Oh, no," Maj said, and forgot about the kettle, and went to sit down at the table-her legs felt weak under her all of a sudden. "Oh, no, it's not fair-"

"I don't know that fairness comes into it," her dad said, looking into the coffee, "but I feel terrible."

"Oh, you're not alone," Maj said. She gulped. "What happens now?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. James didn't seem to think there was a lot of chance of getting him away from them again. The country is so isolated and so tightly sealed...and just so paranoid...that new people can't easily blend in. Operatives from any any friendly force are very thin on the ground." friendly force are very thin on the ground."

"Will they-" Maj gulped again. It was odd how it was suddenly hard to think. "They're going to try to do something to Laurent, now, aren't they."

"They may have it in mind," her father said, "but I doubt they'll get far. The house is being watched twenty-four hours a day, James tells me. Net Force, and others."

Somehow Maj did not feel particularly relieved. It had seemed to her, though, that there had been rather more cars than usual parked around here the last couple of days. She was almost able to be slightly pleased with herself for having noticed that, even subliminally. Not that there had been people in the cars, either...but that did not mean that they could not have been wired for eighteen different kinds of surveillance.

She sat looking at the table for a moment, and at her hands, folded in front of her, and then looked up again at her father, who was staring unseeing at his coffee cup.

"Daddy," she said, very slowly, "are you sure they haven't haven't found a way to do something to Laurent?" found a way to do something to Laurent?"

Her father looked at her blankly.

"Is he still sick?"

"Uh, yes," her father said. "I looked in to see if he wanted to go running...he said no, and turned over. He doesn't look very well. And frankly, I don't feel much like running myself, now."

"Fine...but don't you think it's kind of a coincidence that this should have happened to him right now? now?"

Her father looked at her a little strangely. "Maj, you wouldn't normally strike me as the conspiracy-theory type. There's no evidence to support such a conclusion."

"I know, but-" Maj shook her head. "Dad, he said he started to feel funny while he was online."

Her father shook his head, too. "Good thing there's no such thing as a genuine 'Net virus,'" he said. "I'd hate to think what could happen if there was one. But whatever may be the matter with him, you can't catch diseases on the Net."

"That's certainly what they tell us," Maj said.

"By the way," her father said, "James tells me that apparently someone tried to get into Laurent's accounts the other night."

Maj was horrified. "Did they?"

"Of course not. Those accounts are apparently on Net Force's own servers, and they've got firewalls like the Great Wall of China. G.o.d Himself would have to call their sysop and ask her for a pa.s.sword." He sighed. "All the same, I don't like it. Leaving aside the matter of his father's capture, they're snooping around Laurent pretty actively...and Laurent is here."

"This extra security, this surveillance...do you think it's enough?"

"I think maybe the less said about that, the better," her father said softly. "But I'm told we're safe, honey."

"It's not us I'm worried about," said Maj. "It's Laurent."

The look her father gave her was just slightly humorous, the first normal-looking expression he had produced in this conversation. "Fortunately," he said, "I know what you meant by that. But my concerns are elsewhere, too. Your mother. You and Rick. The m.u.f.fin."

Maj swallowed. The thought of someone from that country's intelligence services coming here to try to get Laurent, and possibly hurting the m.u.f.fin instead-It was too horrifying to think about....

"And I always knew that this might happen," her dad said. "So we just need to keep our eyes open, all of us. Except the Muf, whose composure I'm not going to disturb with all of this, for reasons you'll understand. A six-year-old has enough to do, coping with the world we're living in nowadays, without thinking that the bad people might actually come to her house and try to kidnap someone she reads to."

He sighed. "And as for Laurent, I'm not sure this is exactly the best time to break this news to him, either."

Maj flushed hot suddenly. "Daddy," she said, "he's not a child."

"Uh, excuse me, O ancient of days...but he is is a child." a child."

"You know what I mean! You were the first one to suggest that he was a little 'older' in the brain than usual. You can't keep this from him. Someone's going to have to tell him eventually!"

Her father rubbed his face. "Yes," he said. "I agree with you. But not right this minute, all right?" He looked up at her then. "Besides...there's always the possibility that something may happen."

"'Something'?" She looked at him.

He stood up, turned away from her. "Don't ask me for details," he said. "I can't give them to you. But in the meantime, let's just sit on this piece of information for a day or so and hope that it changes."

He dumped the cold coffee out in the sink. "Mom will be here today," he said. "You'll be back before she and I have to go out again. Just keep an eye on things, and don't get all panicky, all right?"

"I won't panic," she said. "I don't usually."

"I know you don't," her father said, and kissed her on the top of the head in pa.s.sing; then went on down to the bedroom again to get dressed.

Maj sat there for a good while, with her chin propped on her enlaced fingers, and cursed the unfairness of the world. Then she too got up and got dressed to go to school.

The day was sheer h.e.l.l. Maj could not keep her mind on anything. Her shattered concentration cost her many points on a math test for which she had had great hopes, having studied for the stupid thing for a good chunk of the last week-but Venn diagrams seemed strangely useless to her today. And it was Laurent's father, more than anything else, whose case was on her mind. Laurent might be sick, but he was safe. His father was in that little bare room with a light trained on his face, now, by the bad guys-the "bad room" from all those old movies...and there was nothing that could be done about it. Think how you would feel if your dad were in that room.... Think how you would feel if your dad were in that room.... Maj thought. Maj thought. Dad's right. It's too awful. Let Laurent wait awhile to find out...until he feels better, anyway Dad's right. It's too awful. Let Laurent wait awhile to find out...until he feels better, anyway.