The gunshots, cannon fire, and explosions of the morning and afternoon had stopped. A couple of helicopters still hovered like lost dragonflies, dropping searchlight beams. The beams danced in the ascending heat. Hours would pass before the Earth cooled enough to kill all the shimmers and dust devils, the djinn of mirages.
Fouad was glad to be driving away from this day. He needed to communicate with his handlers and tell them he had what they wanted.
He pulled up to the lonely blockhouse at the Monarch gate, rolling slowly between three pairs of arched silvery wands, fringed like moth antennae. A guard scanned his iris, then swept batons over his arm chip and the windshield, while another ran mirrors and sensors on low carriages under the frame. Nothing broke this routine, unless they did not want to let you pass.
The guards pulled back the trolleys and mirrors and grimly waved him through. Nobody at the gates ever smiled. Their attitude was always, you made it through this time, but we're waiting for you to slip up big time.
Even after years in America, to Fouad, many English phrases still seemed wonderfully colorful, both cryptic and visual.
The chief of security back in Buckeye had not detained him. So perhaps he had not slipped up big time, after all.
He drove in sinusoid arcs around the concrete and steel barriers, then down the long, straight black access road that led to Old Tejano Trail, the main north-south artery of Lion County.
Fouad smiled and bared his teeth. Air rushed dry and hot through the open car window. He hung his arm out the door and waved his hand in the oven breeze. In the rearview mirror, his skin glowed and his eyes glittered like a demon's.
Only now did he allow himself to reflect on what had happened back in Buckeye. He had not dared to do so earlier, since one's thoughts were often reflected in one's features, and guards were trained to be alert to such.
As for the programmer, Nick—given his superhuman strength, skill, and startling speed—madness seemed out of the question.
Lion City had received its name from the color of the surrounding land—tawny brown-gold, like a lion's pelt. It was no more than a midsize town, laid out respectably on a square grid, with two big parallel streets lined with shops topped by apartments whose windows looked out over square overhangs and faded awnings.
Nine or ten longer, narrower streets cut crosswise like railroad ties, lined with Chinkapin oaks and modest but neatly kept homes fronted by dying lawns.
Bumped up around them came a scatter of outlying neighborhoods, more industrial, less reputable. People who did not work for Talos Corporation lived out in those neighborhoods, and for them, these were hard times.
Fouad's stomach growled, but he never stopped at the eateries and truck stops that serviced local traffic and the Talos day and night shifts. All they offered was beef or pork and potatoes. Some had salad bars, but he had become superstitious of late about cross-contamination, perhaps because of long acquaintance with the American manner of fixing and eating food: their was a world ingeniously designed to frustrate any Muslim's attempt at keeping to halal.
Though no doubt the prochines within him were also haram—forbidden.
Still, these were good people, mostly; hard-working and religious, roughly pious, all of the same God, (there is no God but Allah), but Fouad rarely spoke of religion.
For twenty years, Talos's biggest contractor had been the Pentagon, whose officers and troops were trained in the Monarch compound. In the past five years, however, the U.S. military presence at Talos had been reduced to a minimum.
Expansion of the mercenary training program—mostly Haitians—had filled the gap, filling both Buckeye and Monarch.
The second largest bloc of contracts had traditionally come from security agencies of the U.S. government; they had once occupied Swallowtail. Those numbers had been reduced as well of late.
The third largest, considered as a cluster—police from states and municipalities around the United States—took up Birdwing. Several hundred were still in residence, receiving local antiterror (and anti-illegal immigrant) training.
The fourth largest—foreign police and security forces—had expanded in the last two years, and now helped fill the barracks and grounds of Buckeye. Buckeye was also the home of the Talos security and computer system.
Fouad had worked in all four compounds, training forces both foreign and domestic in Islamic languages and culture, with a side emphasis on special tactics in Middle Eastern war zones.
Talos had been pleased with his performance, awarding him two substantial bonuses.
A mile from the campus, Fouad switched on the radio and listened to the news. Food prices were up. They rose each month as more nations cut food exports, preferring to focus on feeding their own.
Bloody civil war finally raged in Burma, as did yet another drug-fueled insurrection in northern Mexico; three assassinations in Russia in the past twenty-four hours; oil prices falling to levels not seen since 2010.
America was finally on a course to energy independence from the Middle East and South America, thereby threatening economic instability in both regions.
As he drove, apartment buildings and condos and gated housing developments popped up like forts on the bare Texas land.
New slender black roads linked them all to Old Tejano.
He switched off the radio, turned west, and swung into the apartment complex that served as home, away from the instructor dorms.
He had spent more time here a few months ago while dating, but that relationship ended and the woman went back to her family, of old Mexican descent; they had not approved of Fouad. No risk—good for his cover. Talos encouraged and expected roots in the community, like Alexander in the east.
Fouad climbed the steps by the enclosed garage and opened the door with a brass key, then stood for a moment on the first floor, in the stuffy, air-conditioned darkness, peering into shadows, checking corners.
The blinds were drawn on the windows and the rear patio door.
He switched on lights in random sequence—never the same. A quick tour showed that nothing had been searched, nothing moved or rearranged except perhaps with micrometer precision.
He assumed the apartment was wired and that sensors were embedded in the paint, the furniture, the carpet. Elsewhere, computers would assemble amorphous streams of visual data into crystal-clear pictures, like so many virtual lenses.
Being watched was a perpetual assumption for anyone who worked for Price. Best not to bet otherwise.
Fouad opened the refrigerator and removed a Coca-Cola. He then climbed the narrow apartment stairs and sat in an armchair by the small den window, sipping with eyes closed, wondering if he should read or watch television. Act as if relaxing.
Settling in from hard day's work and of course the incident in the circumference hall.
After a few minutes he got up and walked into the bedroom to retrieve from his nightstand a yellow-jacketed university press paperback of Ibn Khaldun. His father had given it to him in Cairo many years ago. He had so few things from his father. It contained a small sample of elegant Arabic script, translated into English with square, precise roman letters:
Allegiance to God above all. But don't tell that to the kings, generals, and tyrants.
He returned to the den to read and think for a few minutes.
He had what he had come here to get. It was time to arrange for his discreet extraction. He could not just drive or walk away. He would likely be intercepted before he reached the county line, either by the Lion City sheriff or by Talos security.
Detectors around Talos used natural dust in the air to reveal and pinpoint laser communications from the ground. Radio and microwave transmissions were detected by other sensors, which quickly triangulated sources.
All unknown transmissions were investigated.
Internet traffic was tightly controlled by Talos as a public service to the Lion County area, to prevent "foreign hackers" from causing trouble and to protect locals from down
loading or viewing material of a questionable political nature—or pornography.
Price very likely had access to quantum decrypt, which could crack almost any transmitted cipher in hours.
Talos had once offered a class on breaking foreign encryption, limited to U.S. military and government agents with high security clearances . . . That work had been okayed as a favor to Price back in the days of the Bush administration, when significant aspects of nearly everything about security and defense had been outsourced to corporations like Talos.
In truth, a potentially nasty security breach had spurred the investigation in the first place—the discovery that people beholding to Price had accessed top secret research documents in the NDI and NSA.
There were still over twenty retired generals—and several former CIA and NSA officials—on Price's payroll.
With communications in and out of Lion City closely monitored by people and agencies who either worked for sympathized with Axel Price, there was only one channel left open for what Fouad needed to do: an old method, though not as antiquated as smoke signals and less traceable.
Somewhere within a ten mile radius of Fouad's apartment complex, a private home had been rented by the Bureau and equipped with a hidden earth current transceiver—capable of receiving and transmitting high-voltage, 700-hertz DC signals sent through the dirt itself. An agent was posted there at all times.
Earth current telephony had a long history but was mostly known to history buffs and a few ham radio amateurs. Fouad's own unit was disguised as an antique Grundig radio receiver. Even this had a cover story. It had originally been purchased by his father in Egypt. He kept it for sentimental reasons.
Through a hole drilled by hand in the concrete floor of the garage—where he was relatively certain there was no surveillance—Fouad had sunk two copper spikes deep into the stony soil, disguising the arrangement as an ordinary ground wire for a gas pipe. The device's maximum range was likely less than twelve miles. When atmospherics were wrong—during the frequent thunderstorms that lashed this part of the world—sending or receiving a signal would be difficult or impossible. Lightning surging through the Earth overwhelmed any other transmission. But the weather today had been calm all across Texas.
No lightning strikes for hundreds of miles.
Trailing two runs of lamp cord, Fouad descended the steps from the first floor into the garage. One cord was attached to the radio speaker. All he needed to do to send a signal was tap the other cord against the twisted cable. The return signal would come as a series of clicks over the speaker, above the murmuring crackle of natural noise.
Under clear conditions, voice communication was theoretically possible, and even painfully slow data transmission, but clicks were more difficult to distinguish from background noise: air conditioners and refrigerators switching on and off, motors starting everywhere.
Just in case Talos kept an electronic ear to the dry Texas ground.
Fouad laid a small foam exercise mat on the concrete floor, squatted, and sent his brief message. Within ten seconds, someone at the opposite end began to respond.
He pulled the wires away and coiled them in the cardboard box with the old radio. Then he went upstairs, opened his closet, removed laundry from his small suitcase, took a quick shower, and changed clothes. After, he looked through the almost empty cupboards, contemplating what he might have for supper. Canned fava beens imported from the United Arab Emirates looked likely, mixed with canned chicken and onion and dried vegetable flakes.
This was simmering in a pot on the stove when he heard military vehicles in the parking lot outside. He went to the window and peered down through the open ironwork of the balcony rail. Two armored Torq-Vees—high-riding armored personnel carriers, originally designed for the deep mud roads of Afghanistan—had rumbled into the lot and blocked both exits. The closest Torq-Vee lurched a few yards forward, bumping the garage door, and three helmeted security personnel in black assault gear dropped from the open hatches.
Their boots send heavy thumps and rattles up the stairs and around the apartment.
Frowning, Fouad met them at the open door, bowl of beans steaming in one hand, spoon raised in the other. This was it, he thought. He would be interrogated while still hungry.
"May I help you?" he asked.
The lead, a trim thirtyish man with jet-black hair and pale skin—eyes hidden behind darkened spex—approached the door as his team flanked the steps.
"Mr. Al-Husam, Mr. Price has requested a meeting. We've had communication problems—phones are out. Apologies for the show of force." The guard was smiling but by little movements of his head, Fouad could tell his eyes were scanning Fouad's face and the apartment behind him. "We should get going, sir, if you're going to make your appointment."
"Of course," Fouad said, and replaced his frown with a smile. It was always a privilege to meet with Mr. Price—bragging rights would be his. "Lead on."
Chapter Eleven
Dubai
Two hours later, haggard and somber, Nathaniel took a limo to Dubai Airport.
The Quiet Man had always been aware they might face difficulties. As a precaution, Jones had reached out and created false identities for all of the Turing Seven. So many fingers in so many pies around the planet.
Jones was that good.
The people in the Ziggurat lobby . . . He did not know just how they would have disposed of him when they were finished.
The desert, vast and empty.
In the packed airport mall, under the shade of a gigantic hammered-brass palm tree, Nathaniel used one of his assigned IDs to link up with a pilot who flew oil and architecture execs from Jiddah and Dubai back to the states. The pilot arranged for him to hitch an anonymous ride on a MedPetro jet to London.
There, using a new passport—traveling as Robert Sangstrom—he would pay for a ticket to the United States.
He would arrive in Los Angeles just in time to greet the California dawn. Nathaniel had made up his mind. Novelty was the game of the hour.
For now, and just for starters, he would try doing some good, just to see how it felt.
Chapter Twelve
Talos Campus
The wide window of the Talos command center looked out over forty acres of calf-high, swaying grass, dazzling green beneath high banks of football lights. The field had been planted at Price's orders to replicate the original Texas tallgrass prairie that had once covered twenty million acres.
Indiangrass and Little Bluestem flowed up to the window, lush and deceptive.
Axel Price was a tough man to see, even when he was doing the summoning. Fouad was increasingly certain his cover was blown. There were many sympathetic to Price even within the Bureau. He wondered which would come first: his meeting or security police dangling handcuffs.
With the slow, painful decline of oil prices in the second decade of the twenty-first century—and the living death of the local cattle industry after three major outbreaks of hoof and mouth disease—Talos Corporation was now the only thing that enabled anyone to make a living in this part of Texas. It supported almost a quarter of the state; it might even elevate Axel Price to governor—or emperor, Fouad mused, if the state legislature finished cutting itself away from the feds.
This time, there would be no Abraham Lincoln to stand in their way.
The receptionist—a slender brunette in a tight brown skirt and white blouse, mincing on shiny black high heels—opened the door to his left and tapped across the slate floor. Her glasses were shaped like cat's eyes, with small wings on their outer tips, as if they wanted to fly away.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Al-Husam," she said. "Mr. Price was here a few minutes ago, but a helicopter came and took him out to the Smoky. He told me you should hop a shuttle and meet him there."
"Thank you," Fouad said.
Even more privilege. The Smoky was Price's private ranch, four hundred acres on the northern edge of the Talos Campus. He did not raise cattle or horses but kept antique cars
, helicopters, and armored vehicles in hangars and garages nearby—along with a sophisticated fighter jet, a two-seat Sukhoi Su-27 that he sometimes flew out of the Lion City airport, with the help of a professional pilot.
"I've called the van," she continued, "and it'll be here in five minutes. Terribly inconvenient, but he says it's important."
"I will wait out front," Fouad said.
"You do that! It'll be here in a jiff."
He left the reception area and stood on the porch beside the parking lot. Crickets sang in the dark heat. He wondered where they found their moisture. His own lips were dry. Of course, crickets did not have or need lips. Cartoons from television again came to mind: they spat black juice and played guitars.
Or perhaps those were grasshoppers or locusts.
The security team was nowhere in sight.
Other than the timing, there was no good reason to believe he had been discovered. He had been exceptionally careful and Jane Rowland had trained him well.
Still, Talos was a place of unexpected eyes and ears. Price's dictum was that since he trusted everyone, no one should mind being closely watched. "We're all family here—partners in a big effort. I'm watched, we're all watched. It's no big deal."
Price had nothing to hide. Of course, reports of his activities ultimately ended up on his own desk.
Fouad did not know what to make of what he had seen of the information that now passed through the tiny machines in his blood. Banks, corporations, international holding companies, names—nations.
He was grateful he was merely a vessel and not an analyst.
Even so, as he waited under the Texas night—the stars bleached from the sky by the banks of lights—he made a few surmises, put together a few educated guesses.
It did not look good.
The Bureau had been right to send him here.
A shuttle pulled up to the curb, a long, broad black van with twelve seats, all empty. The door swung open. The driver was a young, muscular black with short hair. He wore a gray jumpsuit with red stripes on the sleeves and pants legs, as did all support service workers on the campus. He smiled at Fouad as he climbed up the steps and took a front seat, facing the windshield.