Safe House Part 5

3.

Major Arni would really have preferred to handle this meeting as a phone call, or virtually. But she could not, for Ernd Bioru outranked her considerably-not in straightforward military rank, which she could have dealt with, but in the shadowy and uncomfortable outranking which a very few politicians held over her department-and if he demanded an in-person meeting, he would expect his request, or rather order, to be dealt with instantly.

She stood there in the big plush office full of expensive furniture and watercolors waiting for Bioru to look up, and fumed at being treated like a piece of furniture herself. Unfortunately there was nothing she could do about it. The minister for internal defense had Cluj's ear, and a whisper in that particular appendage could land you in all kinds of uncomfortable or permanent places if you weren't careful. Inwardly, she scorned Bioru, for he had opted out of the working ranks of the intelligence service early, choosing instead to go abroad on diplomatic duties-achieving status by subtle means rather than by the overt hard work and slow climb through the ranks which the major considered the approved manner. Outwardly, though, she kept her manner toward Bioru correct and a touch subservient. It was safer to do so at the moment. In a year, two years, five, things might change, and an officer who had kept her mouth shut and done her work properly might yet see this upstart thrown out on his own ear. Cluj was well known in the upper reaches of government to be a volatile man, and even those who thought they best knew his mind and could "manage" him had received some savage surprises, just in these last few years. But for now- Now she looked at this short, slight, dark little man in his fancy charcoal-gray foreign suit and cursed him in her mind as he sat there reading his paperwork, page by deliberate page, and not looking up, just making her stand there. Finally he put the papers aside, sat back in his big comfortable chair, and looked at her. His was one of those bland faces, for all the sharpness of the bone structure. There was no telling what was going on inside that smooth regard-approval or rage-and no way to antic.i.p.ate which way he would jump. That immobile face made the blue eyes look curiously flat, like a shark's.

For all his diplomatic service, there was nothing of the diplomat about Bioru at the moment. "Major," he said, "where is the boy?"

"Sir, he is in a private home in the Alexandria area. As far as we can tell, the man holding him is an old scholastic a.s.sociate of the father."

He drummed his fingers on the expensive desk. "'As far as you can tell'?" he said. "This kind of vagueness sorts oddly with your reputation for precision and effectiveness, Major."

"Unfortunately the s.p.a.ceplane was diverted due to a mechanical fault," Major Arni said, wondering one more time exactly how likely that was with a machine as carefully serviced as s.p.a.ceplanes were, especially the hybrids. "Our operative had been at Baltimore-Was.h.i.+ngton, and we were unable to get an operative to Dulles in time to do a more effective intercept. Not that the security systems in operation would have made a straight 'lift' of the boy possible at that time."

"Considering the case in hand, you should have had someone at all that area's airports."

"Budget limitations do not permit us such lat.i.tude, sir," she said. "I am sorry."

There it was, she had had to say it. Now all she could do was wonder how he would take it.

To the major's amazement, Bioru let it pa.s.s. "As long as you know where the boy is now."

"We were able to determine that immediately from the local traffic computers," the major said, "to which the DC area police have access. Fortunately we have a source in the police force. Such personnel are chronically underpaid, and usually do not look carefully at where their data goes after they allow it to be leaked."

He nodded at that, turned over another page. "Just in a private house, though, you say."

"Yes, sir. In the suburbs. We are running a background check on the father at the moment. There are some connections which are not immediately a.n.a.lyzable, but that is understandable, when a background in political science is involved. The mother and the rest of the family are of no interest."

"You have someone doing surveillance at the house now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is it someone you trust?"

She swallowed. "For the moment."

Bioru looked up sharply, held her gaze for a moment. "Surely you're not angling for an a.s.signment over there for yourself yourself," he said.

"I have the language skills, granted," said the major, "but I have more pressing matters occupying me here."

"Such as?"

She knew an incoming rebuke when she saw it, and understood the message that nothing was more important than this this was at the moment, at least to this man. "Sir," she said, "I am entirely at your disposal in this regard." Then she immediately became sorry she had used the word "disposal." was at the moment, at least to this man. "Sir," she said, "I am entirely at your disposal in this regard." Then she immediately became sorry she had used the word "disposal."

"Huh," Bioru said, a noncommittal sound, and turned his attention back to his papers, turned a couple of them over. "It says here that work has begun on questioning the father's immediate a.s.sociates," he said. "'Equivocal results,' it says here."

"The a.s.sociates are-"

"One of them is dead dead," Bioru said. "I would not normally call that 'equivocal.' What kind of bunglers are you employing over there?"

"Sir, we can be as conscientious as anyone would wish-"

"Not so much so as I I would wish, plainly." would wish, plainly."

"-but we can hardly be held responsible for physiological reactions toward which the subject has never previously shown any tendency. The woman who died had no history of any kind of cardiac difficulty; she had undergone the usual pre-questioning workup to rule out anything that might interfere. Her cardiac arrest was attended by the university doctors, and they confirmed that such things happen sometimes without any clear reason-"

"Except pain," Bioru said dryly. "You overdid it. Or your 'technician' did. I want that person removed to other duties. No one is to work on this project except the most senior tech we have who's qualified for this work."

She swallowed. "Sir, it was was the most senior tech who was involved." the most senior tech who was involved."

He stared at her for a long moment...then pulled the paperwork over again and let out a breath. "Nothing was yet proven against that woman when she died," he said, looking down and paging through it. "That leaves us in an unpleasant moral situation. I should make him pay compensation to the family out of his own salary." Bioru sighed. "All right...let him stay. But I want his junior technician to work with him closely and monitor all his intervention choices. If he catches his boss in a mistake, well, we save another of these poor creatures for further investigation, and the underling gets a promotion."

"Yes, sir." The major had no quarrel with that method of operation. It was what she had used to get into her present position.

"So on to more urgent matters. The father-"

"Is still missing," she said. "But the search continues. The scientists with whom he routinely socializes at the university have been as cooperative as their personal loyalties allow." She got another sharp look for that. "Sir," she said, "if they are to remain of any use to us as scientists, we must take some care not to overly alienate them. They do understand our security concerns-"

"They had better," Bioru growled. "Those are more important than the whole pack of them. They'd better come to understand that. Better have some 'friendly' source whisper that news in their cars before we have to make examples of a few more of them. Your dead one here-an accident she may have been, but maybe she'll speed the process up a little...get the rest of them thinking harder about letting us know exactly where Darenko might have thought to hide himself away. A chance word could make the difference between finding him quickly, or taking forever about it and looking incompetent. See to it." He pushed the papers away again. "Meanwhile, what news on the search?"

"Nothing new, sir. He does not seem to be in the city."

He pushed himself back in his chair and gave her a look of extreme annoyance. "It's not as if he'll have managed to get across the border," he said. "He's in-country somewhere somewhere. Have the usual statements gone out to the press?"

"Yes, sir." Privately the major had her doubts about the effectiveness of these CITIZENS! HELP YOUR LEADER! CITIZENS! HELP YOUR LEADER! announcements. Most citizens didn't have the brains to find their own fundaments with a flashlight and a road map, and the rest could be surprisingly obstructive at times, even in the extreme cases when rewards were offered. Hoax responses to these announcements abounded, usually leaving you with more people to discipline and no useful results. announcements. Most citizens didn't have the brains to find their own fundaments with a flashlight and a road map, and the rest could be surprisingly obstructive at times, even in the extreme cases when rewards were offered. Hoax responses to these announcements abounded, usually leaving you with more people to discipline and no useful results.

"Find him," Bioru said. "Find him immediately. That's all I want from you in that regard. Go door-to-door, use dogs, use infrared, use molecular air-sampling, use anything you have to. I want him searched for as carefully as evidence of a murder would be sought for, with people in fields poking every inch of the ground with sticks, if need be. Are you clear yet about how urgently he is needed? The president himself has asked to be briefed about this proceeding. And the performance of the personnel a.s.sociated with it."

The sweat broke out all over her, instantly, and she hoped desperately that it wouldn't show. "Yes, sir," the major said, and hoped her voice betrayed nothing of what she was feeling.

Those eyes went back to looking flat again, much to the major's relief. "We have some other technicians," Bioru said then, a little more calmly, "going through the extant data from the project at the moment. This could be very, very lucrative stuff...very useful. Most specifically, there are intelligence implications for us once we get the technique working and in production. The ability to carry the longest message undetectably, swimming free in a courier's blood, a.s.sembling itself into content only on command...or the ability to take a rouge operative's brain apart from the inside in a matter of hours. The little things eat holes all through it and leave it looking like a Swiss cheese. The results look just like, what was it called, mad cow disease." He smiled a little at the image. "Even the North Americans have nothing like these little"-he lifted one of the pages, glanced down at it-"microps. And we intend to make sure it stays that way."

He looked up at her. "The boy," he said. "Preparations must be made to have him recovered, without fuss, on signal on signal, and not a moment before or later...for we'll need him to work on the father. I'll give you details when you need them. Take the minimum of time to a.s.sess the situation and then get him out of there and back over here. You might want to exit the country in the opposite direction, toward the far east. They might not immediately expect that. Or the great-circle route over Canada. If you feel the need, go yourself," he said. "I'll authorize the expense immediately. But his recovery must be so managed as to happen before before the father's found, if what we're planning is to have the maximum effect. His own interrogation is going to require that the part of it involving the boy be very precisely timed...otherwise the father will have no incentive to cooperate properly with us." Bioru frowned. "He's one of those stubborn ones as it is, a psych profile like a rock...the break-but-don't-bend type. A nuisance, likely to kill himself to keep us from finding out what we need. However, if the boy's situation has been made properly threatening...if the timing is right...he'll not only not suicide, but he'll help us gladly, and beg to be allowed to do so for as long as we like." the father's found, if what we're planning is to have the maximum effect. His own interrogation is going to require that the part of it involving the boy be very precisely timed...otherwise the father will have no incentive to cooperate properly with us." Bioru frowned. "He's one of those stubborn ones as it is, a psych profile like a rock...the break-but-don't-bend type. A nuisance, likely to kill himself to keep us from finding out what we need. However, if the boy's situation has been made properly threatening...if the timing is right...he'll not only not suicide, but he'll help us gladly, and beg to be allowed to do so for as long as we like."

Bioru smiled, and suddenly she realized why he had been taken out of the diplomatic service and redirected into politics. No diplomat, seeing that expression across a desk from him, seeing those eyes come alive, would do anything but panic. "Get on it," he said. "I want you in place to make the recovery on signal. There are some aspects of the operation that have to be finessed at our end before it can go ahead. For the time being, close surveillance will do. I will be in contact with you immediately after you arrive over there, in the usual way. Make sure you're ready to jump the instant you hear from me."

From me. Not from her normal superiors. How many levels above me have been cut out of this operation? How many levels above me have been cut out of this operation? the major thought. the major thought. Or perhaps cut out permanently? Or perhaps cut out permanently?

"Yes, sir," she said, saluted, and left, resolved to carry this whole business out with absolute care and panache. There could be all kinds of promotions at the end of it, if everything worked out.

There would certainly be all kinds of shootings, if it didn't.

Maj's father was nowhere to be found when she went looking for him; at least nowhere in the house where Maj would go-there being an understanding that the children of the family did not enter their parents' bedroom without permission, or knock on the door when it was shut except in case of emergency or a phone or link call that hadn't been picked up. That door was shut, and Maj looked at it, shrugged, then went back into the kitchen to see if there was any more e-mail and to look over the Group of Seven briefing again.

There was nothing new in her in-box-or rather the slick steel-and-hardwood table where such things arrived in her work s.p.a.ce-and the briefing told her nothing she hadn't digested the first time around. We're going to have a bad time of it We're going to have a bad time of it was most of what she had learned from the first reading. A big amateur squadron had gone in last night in a preemptive attack on the s.p.a.ce station which was the focus of this operation, trying to s.n.a.t.c.h a little glory for themselves. They had managed mostly just to get away with their skins, and not much more. The defenses of the place were redoubtable, and the Archon's forces had been waiting for them, not even a particularly large grouping of the Black Arrows...but it had shredded poor DawnSquad, "killing" most of the players and leaving the rest of them with crippled s.h.i.+ps. Maj was feeling increasingly nervous at having missed the briefing and the final practice session which had followed it. Nothing to do about it now.... she thought. was most of what she had learned from the first reading. A big amateur squadron had gone in last night in a preemptive attack on the s.p.a.ce station which was the focus of this operation, trying to s.n.a.t.c.h a little glory for themselves. They had managed mostly just to get away with their skins, and not much more. The defenses of the place were redoubtable, and the Archon's forces had been waiting for them, not even a particularly large grouping of the Black Arrows...but it had shredded poor DawnSquad, "killing" most of the players and leaving the rest of them with crippled s.h.i.+ps. Maj was feeling increasingly nervous at having missed the briefing and the final practice session which had followed it. Nothing to do about it now.... she thought. Just go in there tonight, tough it out, do our best... Just go in there tonight, tough it out, do our best...

...As DawnSquad had done its best. The thought nagged at her as she got up and stretched. She listened to the air around her. Somewhere in the distance she thought she could hear Mom and the m.u.f.fin talking together, the Muf still all excited, her mother making sedate calm-down-dear noises as she worked. She was in the household Net, probably working online, and keeping the m.u.f.fin occupied and away from Niko's bedroom at the same time. Quite an accomplishment.... Quite an accomplishment.... Maj thought. Maj thought.

"Dad?" she said to the air.

There was a pause. "Yeah, hon?"

"You busy?"

"In my office."

She smiled slightly. "The big one or the little one?"

"Both."

"Got a moment?"

"Sure."

Maj went to the door in her back wall, opened it, stepped through.

Books, and the echo-that was always her first impression. Her father was one of those people who read every hour of the day, who read anything, and then filed the information away in their heads, seemingly able to find it again at a moment's notice years later. She wondered sometimes whether this library was a conscious expression of that trait, a joke, or just good old-fas.h.i.+oned virtual wish-fulfillment, his picture of where he'd like to be if he had his choice. Now, as she walked down the long, long hall full of brown shelves full of books, towering up toward the ceiling, reaching away in all directions, she found herself leaning toward the latter theory. And it made her smile, for her father couldn't make up his mind where he wanted to be.

There was part of this place, about half a mile along the central hall, which looked like a straightforward reconstruction of the Great Library of Alexandria, burned along with all its books three thousand years ago-open porticoes and columns, that ruthless Mediterranean sun burning outside, the sea lapping up nearly against the steps. The part to which she was now coming looked more like the old British Museum Reading Room-a high, light dome, a huge circular room full of shelves and ladders for getting up them without killing yourself. But out one of the side doors, Maj knew, was a part that looked more like the National Library in Dublin, all carved mahogany shelves with busts of philosophers on pedestals at the ends of them, and the Book of Kells in a gla.s.s case down at one end. Another hallway favored the Stiftsbibliotek in St. Gallen in Switzerland-thousands of shelves in light wood, aged dark, high stained-gla.s.s windows half a millennium old, a floor worn smooth by twenty lifetimes' worth of readers. A third one led out the front hall of the New York Public Library and left you standing on the stairs between the two white lions, Patience and Fort.i.tude. "I always have a soft spot for that one," her dad had told her once. "They threw me out of there once when I was six...."

She kept meaning to ask him what he'd done. But for the moment there was other business. She wandered through into the light streaming down through the dusty air from the windows set high in the dome of the Reading Room, and made her way over to where her father's desk sat incongruously in the middle of it all. He looked up as she came over.

All those Eastern European books and magazines were still scattered over the desk. He pushed a few of them off to one side to make room for her to sit down. "Quiet out there," he said.

"For the moment," Maj said. "Mom has the m.u.f.fin. Niko's had a collapse."

Her dad raised his eyebrows. "Nothing serious, I hope!"

"No," she said as she swung herself up onto the desk and got comfortable. "Just jet lag, I think. But, Daddy," Maj said, "his name's not Niko."

Her father turned a rather shocked expression on her. "What did he-"

"He didn't tell me anything," Maj said. Then she smiled slightly. "He doesn't answer answer to it, that's all. Not the first time, anyway." to it, that's all. Not the first time, anyway."

"Oh," her father said. "Oh..." He sighed. "Well, this was why I wanted to talk to you, anyway. What is it with the timing of things, this weekend? Everything keeps getting messed up...."

She idly picked up one of the bound sets of Eastern European magazines. "He's not really a relative of ours, is he," she said.

Her father shook his head. "Not by blood."

"So what was that big story you told us yesterday?"

"I knew you were going to pick right up on that," he said, looking rueful. "I would have preferred to tell you and your mom right then, but the m.u.f.fin was there...and if she didn't think she had an immediate handle on who our guest was, she would have started asking questions. And probably in public as well as in private. And the fewer questions asked about our guest, the better."

Maj was inclined to agree. The m.u.f.fin had the family curiosity in full measure, and if she thought someone had a secret, she would pester them mercilessly. For her, all secrets smacked of Christmas or birthdays. "Simpler to let her think he's what his ID says, I guess."

"I thought so. But truly, Maj, I didn't want you to think I didn't trust you. It was all just bad timing."

Maj nodded. "Daddy, it's okay. You told Mom, didn't you?"

"Last night."

"I think she tried to tell me this morning. Just bad timing again. The m.u.f.fin arrived in the middle of it. So what is is he really?" he really?"

"A thirteen-year-old kid," her father said, running one hand wearily through what was left of his hair, "whose father is very big in biotech in his home country. Which is the Calmani Republic."

Maj had to search around in her head for a moment to think why the name seemed familiar. "It was part of Romania, wasn't it?" Maj said. "It split up."

"Sort of the same situation as Carpathia," her father said. "Worse, in a way...from the historian's point of view, anyway. Never mind that. His dad has been working on some cutting-edge research in biotech. Stuff that would be advanced even if it were being done on our side of the cultural divide. Nanotechnics..."

"Microsurgery," Maj said, "that kind of thing?"

"More involved," her father said. "I don't understand the details. Frankly, I don't think a lot lot of people are equipped to understand the details...which is probably the source of the trouble. He's really one of the brilliant ones, a groundbreaking scientist in his particular art. Which is building the smallest machines anyone's ever seen, and programming them to do the most delicate work possible...at the molecular level, maybe even the atomic level." of people are equipped to understand the details...which is probably the source of the trouble. He's really one of the brilliant ones, a groundbreaking scientist in his particular art. Which is building the smallest machines anyone's ever seen, and programming them to do the most delicate work possible...at the molecular level, maybe even the atomic level."

He folded his arms and looked thoughtful for a moment. "He and I met at Georgetown together when I was doing my master's-level work. One of those unusual friends.h.i.+ps-heaven knows, 'interdisciplinary' stuff is considered strange enough on campus. When a physicist or a biologist starts to hang around with humanities people, there are those who'll start to question the sanity of both sides. And there was the language barrier as well. And even beyond that, a certain amount of mistrust. Everybody knew why his government had sent him over, and Armin wasn't too sure at first that we weren't all spies. But despite everything, Armin and I hit it right off. And he amazed me from the very beginning. I knew he was going to be big at whatever he decided to do."

Her father stretched, then smiled a little. "You know this thing, that your mom likes to do when you complain?" He lifted one hand, rubbed the thumb and forefinger together. "'This is the world's smallest violin, and it's playing just for you?'"

Maj laughed, and her father looked ironic, for the truth was that mostly her mother used that gesture on him him. "Well, once, as a joke, when he had met your mother-this was some time before we were married-and heard her use that line on me, he built built that. The world's smallest violin. Four longchain molecules fastened together with benzene rings, and one molecule knitted back into itself for a bow. Five thin little hyoprotein constructs for strings on the violin. One to string the bow. And a little submolecular wheel and pulley to make the bow go back and forth across the string. I saw it work. Of course, you needed an electron microscope to see it." He grinned. that. The world's smallest violin. Four longchain molecules fastened together with benzene rings, and one molecule knitted back into itself for a bow. Five thin little hyoprotein constructs for strings on the violin. One to string the bow. And a little submolecular wheel and pulley to make the bow go back and forth across the string. I saw it work. Of course, you needed an electron microscope to see it." He grinned.

"He did that as a joke joke?"

Her father nodded, somber. "That was always the problem with Armin," he said. "You never knew what to say around him, because you might give him an idea for something he could build...and then he would vanish for weeks at a time until it was done. Oh, he'd come out for exams and lectures and so on.... but in between times, you wouldn't see him until he'd succeeded at what he was doing." He sighed. "Absolutely brilliant man. And with the most important part of brilliance-persistence."

He let out a long breath. "And now," he said, "I can't get in touch with him. Which, if it means what I'm afraid of, suggests that what he he was afraid was about to happen has happened. They've arrested him." was afraid was about to happen has happened. They've arrested him."

"Oh, Daddy, no!"

Her father nodded, looking grim. "Maj, I don't know for sure. But he had hoped to be at his new contact address by now, so he told me the other day...so one way or another, something's gone wrong. I really hope they don't have him. It would be bad news if they did. But it's so soon, maybe too soon, to tell...."

He leaned back and looked across the room at nothing in particular. "He saw this coming some time ago," he said softly. "Armin has been...well, maybe a little too brilliant. The Calmani government has been very much shut out of trade, the way Carpathia has. Import sanctions linked to improvement of their human-rights record-and since they have no intention of improving that, there are all kinds of things they can't get. High-technology things, mostly. To have someone like Armin was a big coup for them-someone whom they could, in a way, use as a bargaining chip with the West. You want our technology, you have to trade us things we we want." want."

Her father raised his eyebrows. "That by itself, maybe, didn't bother him. He loved his country, though I doubt he would have extended that love to his government. But Armin rarely stopped to think about such matters. He wanted to get busy creating things, and he was willing to stay where he had been born and do that...help his people, work for them, especially when he thought the Calmani government would help him do that. And for a while, he thought he was doing all right, and that the work he was doing would actually get to the people he was trying to help. But then I think he started to realize that the government had other plans for what he was doing. Especially the medical end of it. He was involved mostly with building micromechanisms that would heal people. The government, I suspect, saw them in an entirely different light. I don't know the details...but that was when Armin decided to detect. He was intent on getting Laurent-that's Niko's real name-out of there. Well, that's gone well enough. Except that now the government certainly knows what he intends by what he's done."

"Oh, no..." Maj swallowed.

Her father shook his head. "Exactly what the problem is at the moment, what it is that made Armin decide to jump right now, I can't say. He wasn't willing to discuss it much, and I wasn't willing to press him on the subject. He was none too sure of how secure his own communications were; even the last one I got came to me secondhand. But I think he had come up against some kind of crunch. Either he felt that he couldn't go on with his work as he had been...or that it was becoming too dangerous somehow...He was very oblique."

Maj was still stuck with the idea that Niko's, no, Laurent's father was in some little windowless cell somewhere, with secret police looming over him. She imagined how she would feel in Laurent's place, and s.h.i.+vered. "If they do have him...then what?"

"I wouldn't necessarily think that would be a permanent situation," her father said. "Armin has a lot of friends working for him, there...and here. Though 'here' may matter more at the moment. Net Force is interested, as you'll doubtless be hearing. I spoke to James Winters this morning. It was the least I could do."