Wired

told him I didn’t remember the recipe.”

“Which was now absolutely true,” said Desh.

Kira nodded. She took a final bite of her sundae, her spoon clinking loudly against the sides of the tall parfait glass as she retrieved it, and pushed it aside. “Unfortunately, I was unable to hold anything else back from him. Under the drugs I told him about the flash drive. I told him exactly how I had partitioned the GPS coordinates in my memory so I couldn’t retrieve them under duress. He dutifully reported this to Moriarty.”

“And did Moriarty believe you?”

“I assume so. If not, I think he would have had Lusetti use torture in addition to truth drugs, which he never did.” Kira paused as if bracing herself to continue, dreading the prospect.

Desh could sense something was very wrong. “What happened then?” he prompted gently.

“I woke up the next morning, still a hostage.” She looked off into the distance and a tear slowly formed in the corner of one eye. “And Lusetti told me they had my brother, Alan.”

Desh’s eyes widened as the connections became obvious.

“Lusetti told me his boss was in Alan’s home in Cincinnati,” she whispered in horror, “and would burn my brother alive unless I gave him the secret.”

“Did you?” said Desh softly.

She looked pale as she shook her head no.

Desh realized he had asked a stupid question. If Moriarty already had the fountain of youth, he wouldn’t be so desperate to capture her alive.

“I knew that Moriarty was a man without principles before his brain was rewired,” she explained somberly. “But if he had the secret to extended life, he could become the biggest monster in history. What could stop him? He could enhance his intelligence and could use the promise of extended life to amass power beyond imagining. The kind of power that Smith accused me of wanting.”

Kira stopped and a single tear shook itself loose and rolled slowly down her cheek.

Moriarty had forced her to make an impossible decision, Desh realized. He could tell this had caused a deep rift to her psyche that would never heal. “You knew the stakes, and you did what you had to do,” he said softly. “I admire you for that.”

She shook her head as tears now welled up in both of her eyes. “I wasn’t a hero,” she said miserably. “I was a weakling. I would have done anything to save Alan, even at the risk of unleashing another Hitler on the world. I tried to unlock the memory with all of my might. But I couldn’t,” she whispered. “The barrier I had constructed was too good.” Kira lowered her eyes. “It didn’t matter, anyway. I knew in my heart that Moriarty would never let Alan go. Once I gave him what he wanted, he would kill Alan and me both—and Lusetti as well. We would be dangerous loose ends.”

Desh realized her analysis was dead on. She had truly been in a no win situation. “So what did you do?” he asked.

“I needed to buy time to rescue my brother. So I told Lusetti the truth. I told him I was trying but couldn’t reach these memories. The software I had set up in my mind to guard them wasn’t fooled. I explained I was under more duress because of the threat to my brother than if I was being physically tortured.”

“Did he believe you?”

“I think so,” she said, absently wiping a tear away with the back of her hand. “I pleaded with him to make sure Moriarty wouldn’t hurt Alan for twenty-four hours while I found a way to unlock my memories. He told me Moriarty agreed to this.”

“And then you killed Lusetti.”

She nodded. “He untied me for a bathroom break right after the call with his boss. I knew I had the upper hand in any struggle. I knew he couldn’t risk killing me before he had the fountain of youth. I was able to hit him with a marble bookend while he was trying to incapacitate me. I didn’t want to kill him,” she insisted, her voice distraught. “It just happened that way.”

Desh’s eyes narrowed. “So you rushed to Lusetti’s apartment, hoping you could learn who was pulling his strings,” he said.

“That’s right. I took his laptop and a file I found with my name on it and went straight to the airport. I took the first flight to Cincinnati, using one of the false identities I already had in place. I studied the file and laptop on the plane, but neither contained Moriarty’s identity.”

Kira gathered herself. “I’m sure you’ve guessed the rest by now,” she said. “The plane landed and I raced to my brother’s house. I was determined to do whatever it took to save his life.”

“But you were too late,” said Desh solemnly.

A tortured expression came over Kira’s face and eyes. “I was too late,” she repeated softly, shuddering. She picked up a napkin and wiped away several tears that had begun to roll their way slowly down her face. “I had a special relationship with my brother Alan. He was five years older and always looked out for me. When other kids taunted me because I was different, or because I had skipped a few grades, he defended me. And then when my parents died—”

Her voice broke. She paused and fought to get her emotions under control. “Alan was in college then,” she said finally, her voice regaining strength. “At Ohio State. He took a year off to stay with me to make sure I would be okay. I pleaded with him not to put his own life on hold for me, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t go back to finish his degree until I left for college myself.”

Desh nodded sympathetically and waited for her to continue, but her expression indicated she was emotionally spent and couldn’t bear to talk about her brother any further.

“So once you realized you were too late to save him,” said Desh solemnly, “you knew you had to vanish from the grid.”

She nodded.

“I am truly sorry,” he said softly.

Silence hung over them like a rain cloud for several long seconds.

“You killed Lusetti,” said Desh finally. “But this was clearly in self defense. If what you say is true than you really haven’t committed any crimes.”

She sighed. “If you don’t count illegal human experimentation and misappropriation of corporate resources.”

“I don’t,” said Desh without hesitation.

Kira tried to force a smile but couldn’t quite manage it. “Moriarty has been hunting me ever since. He was probably already wealthy and powerful when he got into the game, not to mention ruthless. But it wouldn’t take twenty-three hours of superhuman intelligence to create immense wealth and power. I started with very little and created a fortune in no time. Think about what he’s been able to do in the last several years.”

Desh did and it wasn’t a pretty picture. “Any ideas who he might be?”

“None,” she said, beginning to recover her emotional equilibrium. “Whoever it is will be very subtle about his wealth and power. You won’t find him on the cover of business magazines. The truly powerful don’t advertise, they just pull strings from off stage.”

Desh thought about this and decided she was almost certainly correct.

“Whoever he is, he didn’t waste any time framing me for the murders of Lusetti and my brother. But that wasn’t enough to suit him. He decided to pin the Ebola plot on me as well so he could galvanize the entire US military against me. I don’t know if he has any other plans with terrorists, but the evidence you’ve seen is due to his involvement, not mine.”

“What does he gain by working with terrorists?” asked Desh.

“I don’t know. But there has to be more to it than we’re seeing. Because I’m convinced he won’t be able to perfect a genetically engineered cold virus capable of delivering Ebola genes.”

“Why not?”

“Too complex a project.”

“Even with enhanced intelligence?”

“Yes. When my mind is transformed, I have thousands and thousands of hours of the study of molecular biology in my memory for my intellect to draw upon. He almost certainly doesn’t. Without this, no matter how great his intelligence, he doesn’t have the knowledge base to succeed.”

Desh frowned. The more he learned, the more confused he became. He decided to move on. “So why does he