him.”
“Maybe. If I do it’s because he has Church behind him. Or… maybe Church really is controlling him. Either way it brings Church into the picture. We’re directly attacking him and the President.”
J.P. Sunderland shrugged as if Church and his influence was a non-issue, though in truth he knew Church-and his potential-with greater scope and clarity than the Vice President could ever hope to possess. Sunderland finished his Scotch, hauled himself out of his chair, and waddled to the side table to pour a refill, heavy on the Scotch with a nominal spritz of soda. Then he made a fresh drink for the Vice President. The order in which these things were done was not lost on Collins.
“God, I just want this over with.” The Vice President jerked the glass out of Sunderland’s hand, sloshing some on his desk blotter. He scowled as he threw half of it back too fast and coughed. Sunderland looked amused as he tottered back to his chair and sank down with a sigh. Collins glared into his drink. “And I want that fucking computer.”
“We all want something, Bill. You want to get your office back to the level of power it had during Cheney’s time, and I want what I want.”
MindReader was the key for both of them. For Collins, acquiring it was less important than silencing it. Sunderland saw it as a short path to a veritable license to print money. His current business partners, the Jakoby Twins-those brilliant albino freaks-could use MindReader to filch even the most heavily encrypted research records from every other genetics lab in the world. The Twins had sidestepped most of the normal limitations most geneticists faced-an insufficient annotation of the genome-by stealing bits and pieces of annotation from different sources. As a result they were already miles beyond anyone else, but they’d hit a wall with what their current computer-Pangaea-could steal. The Jakobys were willing to pay absurd amounts of money to possess MindReader, but as he sipped his Scotch Sunderland toyed with the idea of only leasing it to them. Why give away the cow?
That way he could also lease use of the system to their father, Cyrus Jakoby. Sunderland greatly admired the elder Jakoby and shared many of Cyrus’s political, ethnic, and societal views. MindReader could push Cyrus’s plans ahead by an order of magnitude. And Cyrus would pay for that advantage, no doubt about it.
His other concern was his own brother, Harold, who was close with the Jakoby Twins and often went hunting with them or their friends. Harold was never the sharpest knife in the drawer, and if MindReader was ever aimed in the direction of the Jakobys then it would find Harold-and that would lead right back to J.P. and the bills he wanted passed. Harold was really the only traceable link, even though he wasn’t really a player himself. But more than one good scheme had been sunk by the presence of an idiot relative.
He shared none of this with Collins. Sunderland believed in the “need to know” philosophy, and if Collins knew, he’d either chicken out or want a huge cut.
Sunderland sipped his Scotch and watched the Vice President fret.
The things in which they both shared interest were the four biotech bills moving through Congress. At the moment there was absolutely nothing that could connect the bills with Collins’s personal interests or Sunderland’s private holdings. MindReader, if aimed in that direction, might change that. Any clear connection that came to light would ruin Collins, trash his political career, and make him a pariah in the business world. It was the lever Sunderland had used to convince Collins to take this action. If the bills were stopped because of some taint of insider knowledge or personal interest, then money would spill all over the place. Without approval of the bills a lot of research would have to go offshore, and that could be costly and time-consuming. Domestic licensing and approval for research led to faster patents, and that got drugs, cell lines, and procedures to market much more quickly.
Sunderland sipped his drink and hoisted a comforting and comradely smile on his face for the benefit of the Vice President.
“This had better work,” the Vice President said again.
Sunderland said nothing.
They sat in their leather chairs, separated by a big desk and an ocean of personal differences, and they sipped their Scotch, and they waited for the phone to ring.
Chapter Five
Holy Redeemer Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland
Saturday, August 28, 8:16 A.M.
Time Remaining on Extinction Clock: 99 hours, 44 minutes
The NSA guys had split into four teams, taking the corners of a big box with Helen’s grave as the center point. Not imaginative, but not bad. I made sure they saw me checking them out, which in turn made them front me a bit more. They stood tall and tried to look tough as nails from where they stood. Believe me, I was impressed.
Even so, I play a pretty good hand of poker, and the game’s as much about what’s on your face as what’s in your hand. I got up and as I walked toward Agent Andrews I let my shoulders sag a bit and deflated my chest so that I looked a good deal smaller than I was. He’d already seen me up close, but there’s a lot to be said for second impressions. Along the way I took a couple of sips from the water bottle.
“Are you ready to come with us, Captain Ledger?” he asked.
“Still waiting on a ‘why’ or a warrant.”
Andrews’s face was harder and I guessed he’d been in contact with his seniors. “Sir, we’re here by Executive Order on a matter of national security. We are not required to explain ourselves at this time.” Andrews’s partner shifted a bit to the right; I guess he wanted to show me how big his chest was.
I made a show of surprise at this pronouncement, stopping the water bottle halfway to my mouth and looking over the rim at Andrews. “You’re saying that the President himself ordered this pickup?”
Andrews didn’t blink. “Our orders come directly from the White House.”
He was being cute, which told me that he knew about the Vice President’s little maneuver. He was being very careful in how he phrased things.
“Okay,” I said as I took a sip.
Andrews blinked, surprised.
I spit a mouthful of water into his eyes, then threw the bottle at the other guy-not that it would hurt him, but it made him flinch and evade. Before they could recover I was on them. I grabbed Andrews by the hair and one lapel and pivoted him around into a foot sweep that caught him on the shin. My foot acted like a fulcrum and with his mass and the force of my spin he came right off the ground like he weighed nothing. I threw him into the second agent’s big flat chest and the two of them went down in a heap. I heard a huge
I wasted no time and sprinted for the parked cars. I had my Rapid Response folding knife in my hip pocket and with a loose wrist flick the blade locked into place. I ran past Andrews’s Crown Vic and did a quick jab job on one tire, and then knifed the tire of a second government sedan. But before I could run back to my Explorer, the Nose and the Surfer cut me off. Nose could run like a son of a bitch and he reached me eight strides before his backup. Dumb ass.
When he was three steps out I pocketed my knife and jagged out of my line of escape to drive right at him. He had a lot of mass in motion; he was coming in to sack the quarterback and he’d built up such a head of steam that there was no way for him to sidestep. I jerked left and clotheslined him with a stiffened right forearm across the base of the nose. There’s an urban myth that hitting the base of the nose can drive bone fragments up into the brain-even some karate instructors insist it’s true, but it’s not physiologically possible. However, a smashed nose, especially at high speed, can give whiplash, fill the Eustachian tubes with blood, set off fireworks in the eyes, and generally make you feel like your head’s in a drum and a crazy ape’s beating on it with a stick.
The Nose flipped backward like someone pulled the rug out from under him and he was out cold before he hit the deck. He’d need a lot of work on that nose of his, but he should never have put his hand on me. Not ever, and especially not here at Helen’s grave. I take that shit very personally.
As he fell the Surfer closed in at a dead run and he made a grab for his gun, but I pulled mine and pointed it at
