NSA, CIA, FBI, the Joint Chiefs, everybody. We got a war on our hands. I’m not so sure we don’t have a world war on our hands.”
Twenty-two
Palo Alto, California
As soon as the funeral service for Dr. Cohen was over, CIA director Brick Kelly approached the president and said he needed to go for a long walk. He had a few hours to kill before Angel was wheels-up again. Her next stop was Los Alamos, for an emergency presidential briefing on the AI research being done there. Los Alamos scientists had been working feverishly to prevent some kind of cyberattack on the facility. It was the lead scientist’s contention that only AI-level intelligence was capable of launching attacks such as were now occurring against the United States.
Prior to that, the president and the secretary would engage in a parlay with the brass at Travis AFB about what was now being referred to as “the Incident.” At Travis, they’d teleconference with the Joint Chiefs and discuss the implications of the near-disastrous attack on Air Force One, coupled with the sinking in the Caribbean.
Besides, Brick thought, the rolling, wooded hills of the cemetery perfectly suited his mood. A cold, wet fog had rolled in from the bay during the service, like an Irish mist. Perfect atmosphere to do some much-needed thinking, he thought, strolling through a garden of chiseled and sculpted stone.
Under the dripping trees, a long line of black cars was beginning to move down the winding lane. The saga of America’s most brilliant scientist was now officially laid to rest. Brick shivered, suddenly very cold, and he wrapped his raincoat tightly around himself.
Cohen was gone. Inexplicable. He’d talked to the man via telephone just a few short weeks ago. Found him brimming with optimism and energy. Telling his same jokes, funny still despite years of repetition. And excited about a recent breakthrough in his AI research. Something, he’d told Brick, that would “change everything.”
His death constituted a huge loss for the American military, defense, and intelligence communities. Brick knew the DOD had been counting on him to make the huge AI advances needed to give the United States a leg up on the warfare of the future. Neo-War, Cohen had called it. Now? In what had become a blinding glimpse of the obvious, the United States had not only failed to surge ahead, but, judging by recent frightening events, they’d clearly fallen woefully behind.
But behind who? That was the question.
He found a stone bench at the base of a great sequoia that was reasonably dry, raised his umbrella against the drip-drip-drip, and sat down. He expelled a sigh that hung in the damp air before his face like a small cloud. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees since the service. California weather, he remembered it well. But, he reminded himself, he wasn’t here to think about the goddamn weather. He was here to think about the survival of his country.
Brick Kelly was a lanky Virginian, too old to be the “whiz kid” he’d once been in Washington, but still considered relatively young blood around town. As he aged, his reddish hair flecked with grey, he was acquiring a “Jeffersonian” demeanor that suited him well. He was more at home among his books than out “pressing the flesh,” and he’d brought much-needed respect to the once-troubled CIA. He’d worried about how he’d fit with the new president, but he and McCloskey seemed to have meshed seamlessly.
Brick spoke softly and let the president wield the big stick.
These were hard times for everyone in the White House and in government. He couldn’t remember a time in his career when he’d felt so helpless in the face of the country’s many enemies. Now, a faceless, unnamable enemy seemed to have leapfrogged ahead in the ways war worked in the twenty-first century. Hell, in the ways the world worked. If you suddenly possessed the power to seize control of anything, anything, and bend it to your will, then all the warships and warplanes and nuclear warheads were rendered irrelevant. Useless.
How do you fight an enemy like that?
He composed himself, clearing the decks, giving his mind a little breathing room.
There was only one way, and the insight was so obvious Brick almost laughed out loud at his own thickheadedness.
You put your very best and brightest people together and you focused on the who, what, and where. Not to mention the how. Who had this new power? What was this new power and how did it work? And where the hell was it sourced from? Answer those questions correctly and you had a fighting chance of surviving this nightmare to fight another day. Hell, he felt better already.
A small, white-haired woman in black approached tentatively from his right. He’d seen her grieving at the graveside, throwing a spray of flowers onto the lowered casket, her frail, sorrowful shoulders heaving beneath the long black coat, her face a portrait of unbearable loss.
It was Dr. Cohen’s widow.
“May I sit down, Mr. Kelly?”
“Of course, Stella. Let me move over. You used to call me ‘Brick,’ remember?”
“Yes. Brick. That’s right. Thank you so much for coming all this way. You and the president and his wife. It would have meant so much to Waldo. He believed in you all, you know, Washington. Not so keen about some of the gentlemen who’ve passed through the White House of late. But he believed in us, do you know what I mean? All of us together. Americans.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“I’m supposed to be home now, receiving guests bearing casseroles. I just couldn’t do it. I happened to see you sitting over here-I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Of course, not, Stella. I’m glad we have this chance to-”
“He didn’t kill himself, you know.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It wasn’t a suicide, like they’re saying. No, my Waldo was murdered, sure as I’m sitting here.”
“Stella, you don’t-”
“I told this to the local police. They said they’d look into it. But I could see the look on their faces. They think I’m just a crazy old woman who can’t face reality. So when I saw you just sitting up here all alone on this hill, I thought, well, if there’s anyone in the world who might listen to me, God parked him under that tree.”
“Tell me, Stella. Tell me why you think Waldo was murdered.”
“Oh, I’ve no idea why he was murdered. He didn’t have an enemy in this world. But I do have an idea how he was murdered. That’s why the police think I’m crazy.”
“How? How was your husband murdered?”
“He was… hypnotized. Put in some kind of a trance, I don’t know what else to call it. Here, let me show you something.”
She reached into the pocket of her overcoat and withdrew some object, her fingers closed around it tightly so that he couldn’t see what it was.
“Ready?” she said.
“Ready.”
She opened her hand to reveal a stunning piece of jewelry. It was a shimmering golden butterfly, perfect in every detail, perched on her palm. “Watch this,” she said, and gently stroked the folded wingtips. The gossamer wings slowly opened and began to move. And suddenly the butterfly lit off, darting this way and that before heading up into the branches overhead.
Stella closed her hand and put it back into the pocket of her raincoat.
Brick stared up in openmouthed wonder.
“Stella, what on earth?”
“Waldo made that for me. His gift. For our fiftieth wedding anniversary. He gave it to me just after we finished dinner. I cooked his favorite thing. Roast leg of lamb. Beautiful thing, isn’t it?”
“Unbelievable. Stella, it flies…”
“That’s Waldo for you. Wouldn’t give a girl just any old ordinary piece of jewelry, now, would he?”
“But-”
