Environment. The room resembled a steel cube: four walls, ceiling, floor, and the digital immersion unit. Gardner sat and stared straight ahead at the tiny D-I sensors, which scanned his face and irises, detected the vascular patterns in his neck and hands. Once the verification was complete, he gave his verbal cue and the DTE went dark.
Moments later, a smoky light began to drift into the room. The man known as the Administrator stood. As he walked forward into the coalescing light, he smelled the familiar warm evening scents of deep woods and river water on an African breeze.
Isaak Priest was waiting for him in a room at “the Palace” near Mungaza, a spacious old pine-walled lodge room with two wicker chairs and a large open window that afforded a view of moonlight in the eucalyptus trees, and on the swirling waters of the Green Monkey River.
The two men exchanged hellos as if they were in the same room, although in fact they were still 9,200 miles apart. Then they sat in the wicker chairs facing each other, seemingly six feet away. Gardner studied Isaak Priest’s face for a long time.
Eventually, the technology that enabled him to make this visit would be commercially available. The Gardner Foundation’s NTW, which had developed it in tandem with a half dozen other firms, was the only operator of what he called Digital Immersion Technology—a digitized, three-dimensional, holographic environment that realistically mimicked sights, sounds, and smells, allowing the participants to seemingly interact. Eventually, the technology would be used in offices, research labs, medical centers.
“Are you all right?” Gardner finally said.
“Of course. What do you mean?”
“I just want to know that everything’s on schedule.”
“Yes. As we discussed. The viral agents have all been delivered. The vaccines have been distributed. The initiatives, as you know, are proceeding ahead of schedule. One hundred and thirty-seven wind turbines are currently operational. Three solar farms under construction. Everything is set for the World Series.”
“And the first game.”
“On schedule. October 5, as you said. Tomorrow.”
Gardner continued to watch him. Something about his explanation sounded too pat. Almost scripted.
“The president is on board? The transaction completed?”
“Absolutely. As I reported.”
Gardner stood. He looked out the window through his smudged glasses, and he saw what wasn’t there yet: a New Paradigm. A model nation, created in the aftermath of a great tragedy. A nation with no poverty, no crime. One hundred percent energy self-sufficient. A laboratory for new technologies. For medical research.
The Palace, where they were now meeting, would one day become a research laboratory, where technologies that were being developed in Oregon would be implemented—wireless sensors that could determine cardiovascular health, brain signals, body temperature, blood pressure; implanted chips that would, daily, do the job of an annual physical exam, measuring cardio levels, blood and liver functions, even detecting cancer.
“This was our dream, wasn’t it?” Gardner said, still testing him.
“Yes. The New Paradigm.”
“You seem nervous.”
“No. I’m not.”
“Are you afraid you’re going to fuck up again?”
“Of course not.”
Gardner showed him his thin smile. “Good,” he said. He turned and walked back through the doorway where he had entered the room. Closed it. He stepped out of the DTE and walked to his private office in Building 67. No, it was not likely that Priest would fuck up at this stage. But if he did, there was another man inside who would carry this out. The man named John Ramesh.
FORTY-FOUR
JASON WELLS’ HONDA ACCORD turned onto Amadi Drive at two minutes before ten, proceeded about fifty yards along the empty street and pulled to the curb in the shadows of a banyan tree. Charlie stepped out from beneath an awning, opened the back door, and slid in. On the floor behind the seat, he saw, were two 7.62 bolt- action Remington M24s with fixed 10-power scopes and another weapon that resembled a stovepipe M-1 rocket- propelled anti-tank gun, only its barrel was narrower. The DPG, Destabilization Propellant Gun. There were also two spray tanks that appeared to be eight or ten gallons apiece.
Wells drove another twenty minutes through the potholed suburbs, making frequent turns and switchbacks, his eyes scanning the roads to make sure no one was following. Finally, he pulled to the curb on a block of 78th Avenue and cut the headlights. Lowered the windows and waited. Power lines buzzed above them. The shadow of a stray dog moved across the street. They were in a neighborhood of small clapboard houses and shady trees. Mallory could see people in the houses. Two minutes after Jason parked, a vehicle pulled from the curb two blocks ahead.
THE FIRST TWO plants were easy, as Jason Wells had predicted. They followed Nadra’s dark, late-model Jetta along an increasingly rural dirt road until they came to the scrubby farmland that bordered the northern suburbs. Nadra turned off her lights, then, and she drove by moonlight for another mile, shifting finally to neutral and letting the car drift to a stop under a canopy of trees, avoiding the use of her brakes. Wells did the same, about a quarter mile behind. Mallory and Wells covered Nadra as she ran through a field of weeds and wild grasses, dressed in black, moving in a crouch, two C-4 plastic explosives cradled in her hands.
Charlie knelt in front of the car. Wells crouched fifty yards away to the north, watching her through the scope of his sniper rifle. Triangular alignment, connected by cell phones. Charlie saw Nadra scurry into a field of withering maize stalks, moving toward the tracks south of the train station.
The station had closed at nine, but it was patrolled overnight by a foot guard. It was also possible that there were cameras around the platform or above the tracks, but they hadn’t seen any in Okoro’s aerials. The security post was at the front of the station, and Nadra was approaching from the rear. If the guard began a patrol, Charlie would dial her number and the cell phone would vibrate, warning her. That was their arrangement.
The night air was cool and scented with honeysuckle, the sky full of stars. Lightning bugs glowed in the trees. He watched her scuttle out to the tracks and step over two sets of passenger rails, passing a pair of detached freight cars, and then coming to the unused train line that led to the pit.
Charlie listened: He heard Nadra shifting rocks from the center of the track, working in the shadows, then using a rock to scrape a hole in the dirt underneath. The sound stopped and started, seeming unnaturally loud in the silence. Moments later, he heard the rocks again. Nadra covering the C-4 explosive.
Mallory looked at Jason Wells, who was watching her through his scope. When Wells caught his eye, he heard something else, a clicking sound. Faint, but steady. Becoming louder. Charlie froze. Footsteps on the boardwalk platform were moving toward Nadra.
Jason, crouched on the edge of the maize field, raised his left hand. Charlie reached for the cell phone and pressed Nadra’s number. Seconds later, he heard a scrambling sound. Feet sliding in rocks.
The footsteps on the wood stopped. Then resumed, echoing louder across the field. Mallory finally saw the man. Watched him reach the end of the walk and look out in his direction. A large, stooped older man wearing a black-and-white security uniform. He turned to his left, where Nadra was, then looked up at the sky and seemed to say something. Then the man reached into his pocket, pulled something out and held it in his hand.
He lit a cigarette, blew out the match. Looking in Charlie’s direction again. Could he see the shape of the car against the edge of the field? Mallory watched the glow at the end of his cigarette as the man inhaled. Then the guard turned and began to walk back, toward his office at the front of the station. Mallory let out his breath, listened to the guard’s footsteps. He heard Nadra scrambling farther south of the station, preparing to plant an explosive on the second set of tracks.
Two minutes later, he saw a figure running under the trees, back through the field. Nadra.
