"Thank you, Carlos," Nathaniel said. "Scan my chips here?"
"Mr. Jones indicates that won't be necessary," Carlos said, and switched off the gently humming security bar. "He confirms visual ID."
Nathaniel passed through the deactivated detectors, afforded the same treatment as a senior executive or a visiting dignitary. He carried no luggage.
Carlos had never met Mr. Jones. Such was the power of privilege—executive systems were almost always the favored point of entry for industrial espionage and sabotage. Executives hated to be bothered with fussy security—and hated worse being admonished by nerds.
"Fifteenth floor," Carlos reminded him, and stared with a puzzled sort of longing through the wide windows at Nathaniel's metallic blue Bentley. Rain beaded like clear glass game markers on the fresh wax.
Nathaniel hummed a Bee Gees tune as he rode the fast elevator to the seventeenth floor—not the fifteenth. He had thirty minutes. If Jones was with him—and so far, that seemed a solid supposition—the entire dataflow monitoring system for Latin America would soon require a maintenance technician's timely attention.
That lapse in the bitstream would ripple around the world, up the line to Geneva, and MSARC would enter a mode of vigilant relaxation.
The same type of unauthorized portal that Jane Rowland had exploited, but on a much larger scale. The Quiet Man would have been amused and perhaps chagrinned to learn that Spider/Argus had long been aware of his private backdoor into Talos.
For over an hour, in essence, MSARC would see and hear much, but would not render any important decisions.
Nathaniel had told Jones—who did not speak now, only listened—that the Quiet Man would have wanted it this way.
Chapter Fifty-Five
The Smoky
Schmitz and the Haitians led Fouad into another wing of Price's domicile, a seemingly endless labyrinth of hallways and rooms that could never be fully explored or resolved.
Against a backdrop of a wall covered with western paintings—horses and cowboys settling their differences, with much dust—Price was conferring with two men in expensive and perfectly tailored suits—two distinctive, silken shades of twenty-first-century gray. One was Asiatic, probably Chinese, but the other was definitely of classic Yemeni Arab lineage, likely of the Banu Hanifa—a prominent member of the house of Saud, perhaps the Prince in Exile himself.
Fouad did not immediately recognize him, but pictures of the prince had been forbidden since the overthrow of the Hejaz and the subsequent founding of Arabia Deserta, administered by the six-nation Muslim Council. He had put on weight and grown a neatly trimmed goatee and mustache.
Relaxed, chatting and smiling, they turned as Fouad approached. The Chinese continued to smile, but the Saudi's face went stony.
"Who is this Egyptian?" he asked Price, who watched with some amusement.
"One of my instructors," Price said. "Excuse me, gentlemen. Just a couple of matters to resolve, then we'll continue." He gestured toward a plump black man in white livery. "Breakfast for our guests, Lionel?"
"This way, gentlemen," the servant said, and led the pair through a double door into an adjacent dining room.
"The prince didn't recognize you," Price said. "Odd—since he's put a rich price on your head—in secret, of course. I thought I'd bring you up to date on a number of matters we discussed earlier. It seems our kidnapping situation has resolved itself. Everyone's dead. Blown right off the airport road."
Schmitz and the Haitians walked beside and behind Fouad as Price led them down another hallway, yet another part of his maze. "Nobody's happy with the way that turned out, but the feds took the situation out of our hands."
Price opened the door to an interior room about ten feet square, richly paneled in dark wood, with a huge gleaming vault safe mounted in the rear wall. Antique prints of butterflies were illuminated by gently glowing ceiling spots—exquisite dabs of blue, green and red. The room smelled of lemon oil and something Fouad couldn't quite identify—musty and repellent.
Price spun the combination, turned the vault wheel, and swung the steel door aside.
"My pride and joy—outside my family, of course. I do my best thinking here. Come on in."
The thick vault door wafted another sickly wave of odor—camphor laid over the ancient decay of myriads of tiny lives.
The vault was bigger than many houses, filled wall to ceiling with beautiful wooden cases fronted by nearly invisible glass. In the cases reposed tens of thousands of butterflies, arranged not in scientific order, but according to size and then color—dead but vibrant rows sweeping from duns and browns to one side, through reds, blues, and greens, to case after case of shining white.
Price chuckled at Fouad's wrinkled nose.
"Some of my contacts in Washington have penetrated your veil, if not your actual plan, Mr. Al-Husam. But I'm going to take one last swing at conversion. After all, my culture, your culture, we have a lot in common. My country has been occupied for a hundred and sixty years. Oh, we pretend we're used to it—we're polite to guests, and we're natural patriots. We even send our boys to die for the cause of the occupiers—because we share temporary needs and goals, not because we truly belong.
"Ask why all the fuss about the second amendment and a well-regulated militia—well, it was never about keeping arms to fight foreign invaders. It was about taking up arms against the government. That's our instinct. We hate government, any government, our own most of all. Our politics has always been guerrilla politics—fast and dirty. Best to lie low and always be ready to move. Maybe that's you, too.
"It was inevitable, after a few rocky decades, that the Islamic world and my people would find common ground and make alliances. We're both highly religious—both, warrior cultures. We both kept slaves. It was our due. Then—the world changed. Now I'm going to help set it right.
"That's what's happening out there now. We're celebrating a new relationship, a new world. Your people—well, they'd like nothing better than to be rid of both the westerners and the Jews. Real thorns in their sides. So I will no longer support Israel—that's that. Your people—"
"My people are diverse," Fouad said.
Price leaned back into the far corner of the vault, and folded his arms. "Your daddy told his bosses over and over again they were screwing up. That's why he never advanced much in the CIA. Always a foot soldier. Have you been candid with your bosses?"
"On occasion," Fouad said.
"I doubt it," Price said. "You've never told them the truth. The kafir world itches your hide like a dug-in tick. Push out the west and you can find your own maturity—whether it's the Caliphate or something else entirely, I don't care. Once the Jews are out of Jerusalem and the Middle East, our dispute will be over. Your people will have enough on their plates to occupy them for generations to come."
"I am a citizen of this country," Fouad said. "My patriotism is not a shallow thing. Perhaps you can no more speak for your people than that Wahhabi can speak for all Muslims."
"That Wahhabi, as you call him—though I wouldn't use that slur to his face—that very fine Saudi gentleman doesn't know who you are. All he has is a few fuzzy pictures taken in Mecca, of all places. You, in the company of non-Muslims, killing the faithful by calling down fire from heaven. But if I put a name to those fuzzy pictures, you'll make a dandy gift, tied up with a nice big ribbon, for any would-be protector of the sacred cities. Unless . . ."
Fouad could no longer tolerate the smell in the vault. He stepped back, chains rustling, and bumped up against Schmitz, who stood with his pistol drawn—a formidable armored pillar. Fouad guessed the man's weight at 240, all muscle—but ten years older.
"Never," Fouad said.
Price shrugged. He followed Fouad out of the vault and swung the door shut with another cold sigh of insect decay. "Maybe real power is forever out of reach for a cultural half-breed like you. In which case . . . A rich reward. One hundred million Euros. Truth to tell, I'd love to stick a pin through
a true-blue federal morpho."
The vault locked and the combination reset.
"The next few hours are going to be impressive," Price said. "Pomp and circumstance."
Schmitz grabbed Fouad with two strong hands. The Haitians stood by in case Fouad struggled, but he was quiet, watchful, measuring with spread hands and rapid flicks of his eyes.
He slowly increased the tension on the chain.
Eighty centimeters from cuffs to leg irons.
A gift—for the right moment.
"From now on, sensible, moral people have little to fear," Price said, his blue eyes like hot little jewels masked in shadow. "Immoral people—that's a different story. They should run and hide. We're coming for them—and we've got the goods."
Chapter Fifty-Six
Over Lion County
Rebecca felt her ears pop.
The spiral grew tighter, until the plane banked almost on wingtip. The dry scrub and flat desert around Lion City spread below the little window beside her seat: grainy and tawny, too sharply detailed, like a mold-spotted pelt. Trails and road tracks cut long, skinny scars on the land. The boundaries of the window soothed her eyes—she did not have to look at everything all at once.
The weapons officer wedged and huffed his way forward in the tilted cabin. He carried a remote trigger—a small black wand with a square display. "Bright number one away at three thousand meters," he said. "It'll descend to a thousand, then inflate and maintain. Next two are on auto. Got any electronics you didn't declare back at the airport? I mean anything. This is going to be a wide-spectrum pulse."
Kunsler, across the narrow aisle, shook her head. Rebecca did the same. Haze did not dignify the question with an answer, simply held up his bandaged arms.
The pilot spoke over the intercom. "Blackouts starting in the northwest. Homeland Security is calling international Code Red. Not our work, of course—must be Price's snipers taking out their first power stations—but it fits our needs. Command is out to all military and civilian aviation—ground your planes.
"There's a Gulfstream G950 requesting clearance at JPB, last one in the air. I count twenty-three fancy birds already on the apron—maybe one is hard. The rest are about to become junk."
The weapons officer addressed the cabin. "Bright in five minutes. Sit inboard—fold your arms, don't lean against the cabin walls, and keep your feet on the rests provided."
He took his own seat and leaned over to look back at Kunsler and Rebecca. "The town east of us will suck up a pretty big dose," he said. "Anything within a hundred miles—cars, trucks, UAVs—is going to sizzle and stall. Discharge is minimal—like really bad static—not deadly unless you're holding a cable or standing on a rail line. But lots of people have MedAug these days—"
"Pacemakers for heart and brain, hearing aids, older model stents," the second officer said. "We've never worked a scenario where everyone stayed upright and healthy." He braced with his boots and shook his head in honest pity.
Then he dropped deftly into a seat, strapped in, and assumed the proper position.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The Smoky
Schmitz and his two Haitians hauled Fouad aside in the hallway beyond the butterfly vault room and with a fair degree of firmness, but no malice, positioned him against a concrete wall.
Schmitz took out a small syringe and swiftly injected it through the sleeve into Fouad's arm.
"Bring him down to the ballroom in five minutes," Price ordered, whisking by with two other guards.
Fouad guessed the drug, saw the size of the dose, and quickly estimated its effect on a man of his body mass and age. Not good—an hour of confusion and weakness, and no doubt they would then drug him again.
"I wish they'd keep me better informed," Schmitz muttered, his mouth close to Fouad's ear. "This whole Mecca thing—that's legendary. Nobody knew whether it actually happened that way or not—but here you are. You saved the whole damned city, didn't you? A man with those talents, a man who survives that sort of mission, is a man to be admired—not paraded around like a prize monkey. You deserve better, Mr. Al-Husam. But it ain't going to happen. Not today."
Fouad's vision fogged slightly and his legs almost collapsed. As he struggled to stay upright, the Haitians supported him by his elbows. Schmitz had cuffed his hands in front, another small mercy—and a potentially deadly softness.
His chains made dull music as they hauled him toward the ballroom.
The main ballroom of the Smoky was the size of a basketball arena and sometimes doubled as one: prime red oak floor under gracefully arched cedar beams supporting a high curved roof, those beams now richly festooned with banners in Chinese and Arabic and Russian.
Long golden streamers dangled and twirled as the room quickly filled with at least a hundred and fifty well-dressed men and about a third as many women.
Schmitz escorted Fouad up a ramp and onto a gallery riser, several feet above the floor, where a single red-draped table and four chairs had hastily been arranged, illuminated by a single high spot.
They sat and a waiter promptly brought a pitcher of punch and four glasses.
Fouad woozily surveyed the incongruities.
"I think these good people hoped they might sleep in this morning," Schmitz observed.
The Haitians nodded agreement. "It is very early," one observed, his voice deep, mellifluous.
The ballroom crowd consisted of Middle Easterners, Europeans, Russians, Asians, and a few Indonesians, all having just arrived or politely roused from their cabins in the last hour.
Ten white men in slacks and sports coats, who might have been Russian or Middle European and who might have been more comfortable in uniform, kept to one side of the floor, watching with irritated frowns. They did not like crowds or pageantry. Possibly they had not reckoned on the scale of Axel Price's plans.
Serious men—men of might, international finance, and worldly consequence—did not relish the prospect of all the rules changing at once.
A slow waltz was piped into the ballroom and after a moment of hesitation six couples started to dance halfheartedly to a steady beat in the center of the floor. Fouad could hardly believe this spectacle. It almost made him doubt their sanity—or his. So familiar—but from where?
Another group of older men—without women—entered from the reception area. These seemed contented with their present lot in life but more pleased still by the shining prospects.
Even in his present state, Fouad recognized a senator, a congressman, and an admiral—a member of the joint chiefs. He fought back against a muzzy tide of anger—not productive. Not efficient.
"Bastards," Schmitz grumbled as he pushed back his chair. "Whatever your loyalties, traitors always stink up a place."
Fouad could not entirely understand this man, but here was yet no opportunity—no weakness and no vacillation.
"Undignified," Schmitz added, and poured Fouad a glass of punch. "You'll want to keep drinking. Those drugs can do a job on your kidneys."
One of the new arrivals, the senator—an elderly man with pale blue eyes and a shock of brown hair that poked over his forehead—was escorted to their small table by a blond woman in a long purple dress.
"Mr. Price has been telling us all about you. I just wanted to shake your hand, sir, on this fortuitous day," the senator said with a big grin, and held out his plump paw. He raised his eyebrows at the sound of the cuffs as Fouad thumped them on the tablecloth. "I see. A very dangerous man, but worth one hundred million on the hoof! Marvelous!"
Fouad struggled to fight the drug.
Others came flocking, standing beside the riser and gawking, as Price had obviously intended. Fouad turned away and clutched the table, feeling ill. Somehow, Schmitz shooed the crowd back. "Mr. Price is going to offer better distractions soon," he said. "Please move on and give us some space."
Across the ballroom, a huge screen began to unfurl, initiating a sequence of screens dropping around the room, lighting up with images a
nd text feeds from news organizations around the world. The sound was not yet above the music of the waltz and the dancers continued to spin and step and spin again.
Fouad felt he might be hallucinating. This all reminded him of something from his youth, a frightening story . . .
Axel Price strolled onto the oak floor, wearing a tailored denim suit and pointed black boots, his handsome but undistinguished face angled to take in the nearest screen and the world's teeming details.
Six more of Colonel Sir's crack Haitians flanked him and kept close watch, all heavily armed, gimbal harnesses supporting computer-controlled assault rifles. Formidable—but a matter of concern to the ten men near the wall, who might have been Russians.
The music softened. The crowds gathered and began to reluctantly mingle—Arabs with Indonesians, Chinese with Russians, Eastern Europeans with members of congress and the military in mufti—and Price's assembly became one, with Price at the center and the world arrayed in glowing walls around them.
Schmitz poked Fouad and he sat up straight, groggily surveying the crowd, the floor, the swirl of video feeds.
"This is it," Schmitz said.
The two Haitians began to fidget in expectation. One broke a big, almost boyish grin at Fouad, his teacher, a man he had been raised by his Mama to respect but now must stand guard over—then dropped the grin back into sober contemplation.
Price held up his arms. "Thanks for traveling so far on such short notice, and apologies for not letting a whole bunch of you get some sleep. We're all up and about early this morning for a good reason," he said, his voice amplified throughout the ballroom.
On two of the screens, his image came up and the room briefly filled with a feedback whine. Guests laughed and tapped their ears, and he laughed along with them, then waved at the dancers, who had, mercifully, stopped their gyrations.