Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (151 page)

Julia asked her husband about Chang, but Terrance had shrugged it off. “Nah, he’s nobody. Well, that’s not true. He’s a nerd’s nerd, the kind who thinks in binary and optimizes code in his sleep. We need guys like that these days, but they’re not the decision makers.”

Chang shut the laptop and tucked the probe into the pocket of his lab coat. “You mean, why is the ape freaking out?”

“Monkey. Macaques are monkeys, baboons are apes.”

“Monkey, whatever. I took out his food tray while he was eating. Couldn’t get a good signal with the jaw movements. Guess he was hungry.”

She gave the macaque a suspicious glance. It had started to calm down. This particular animal was the most docile of the bunch. Seemed unlikely to go berserk over something like a removed food tray.

“But what are you doing with the probe anyway?”

“Just extracting log files. One of our log channels is skipping a non-critical code block that should be executing when the subject enters REM sleep.”

“How does that matter?” she asked. “This guy doesn’t even have the newest implant. Markov told me we were going to deactivate their implants and retire them to a sanctuary, then bring in some new animals.”

“But since they’re disposable,” Chang said, “the powers that be decided to make some software modifications, save us some headaches for the next round.”

“What powers that be? Who are you talking about?”

He shrugged. “Hey, they don’t tell me anything. I just follow orders.”

Following orders or not, he’d avoided assigning responsibility to anyone or anything. Probably Markov’s doing, she decided. Over the last six months, he’d gradually eroded her involvement in the applications side of the implants. Claimed it was too complex for one person to do everything. There were dozens of investigators working on decoding the signals sent by each of the six cortical arrays. She should focus on perfecting the surgical technique.

Fine, but not here. Not in her lab.

“Since you like orders so much, here’s one,” she said. “You want to touch my animals, you talk to me first.”

“Whatever,” he said. Then, when she put her hands on her hips and refused to move, he added, “Okay, fine. Heaven forbid I mess with your monkeys.”

________

Julia came home for dinner intending to ask Terrance for more details about Chang. Who exactly did he report to, and how could she get put in the decision loop about matters such as software upgrades to existing implants?

Julia walked into their bedroom to put away her jacket and glanced at her nightstand with a frown. A pile of books and papers overflowed in stacks onto the floor next to some old Chinese takeout containers. She’d set out a few months back to understand some of the software algorithms used for the implants, but she felt more confused than ever about support vector machines.
Too much to learn. No time
. She walked into her closet where her clothes were organized by season and by color and hung her jacket. The unexpected smell of Indian food pulled her out of daydreaming as soon as she returned to the hall. She’d missed lunch again through stress and inattention. The onion and ginger changed her mood instantly.

Terrance smiled when Julia entered the kitchen. There were bowls of chicken korma and basmati rice, and even garlic naan, but she couldn’t see takeout containers anywhere.

“You made all this?” He was a good cook, but hadn’t done anything this elaborate in months. Early in their marriage he would cook for her frequently, but her coming home well past dinner time all throughout residency had put a stop to that practice. “When did you have time?”

“No, I didn’t make it, not exactly.”

“Ah, so it
is
takeout. I was wondering.”

“Not as such.” He smiled, and she could see that he was proud of whatever he’d pulled off. “It’s our new delivery service. Come on, give me a hand while it’s still hot.”

Terrance explained while they set the table in the breakfast nook. He’d contracted with a service that came into the house and prepared meals using their own kitchen, then cleaned up and disappeared before the Nolans came home from work. Terrance had selected a menu for the month, which included many of Julia’s favorite foods.

“Sounds great,” she said. “But expensive. Our own private cooks for five dinners a week? Are you sure we can afford it?”

“Sure we can. I told you, we’re doing fine. We’re both working. You’re a brain surgeon for crying out loud. Relax.” He ladled korma over his rice, then took a bite. “Wow, give that a taste. It’s got a kick but it’s damn good.”

It tasted every bit as good as it smelled. With the best meal she’d had in days and the window open to let in the soothing sound of the stream, she could almost convince herself that everything was okay with their marriage. Terrance had found a great deal on a house when property values dived, a short commute from Langley with several acres of woods. The owners had been getting a divorce, Terrance said, and needed a quick sale, which meant slashing the price in the current market.

Apart from the previous owners’ divorce, which seemed like a bad omen, Julia was happy with their luck. She kept telling herself that things would come around. But that was five months ago and things were just as tense as before. Julia tore off a piece of naan and sopped it in her korma sauce. “That software guy was sniffing around the animal lab today.”

“Which software guy?”

“You know who I’m talking about. Hubert Chang. Claimed he was extracting log files, but he managed to really piss off the macaque.”

“He’s a software engineer. I talk to those guys and it feels
almost
like we’re communicating. I swear half of them have Asperger Syndrome. Anyway, you can’t expect him to have good bedside manners with a monkey when he can barely interact with real humans.”

“But what was he doing down there?”

“Uhm, sounds like he was extracting log files.”

“Don’t patronize me,” she said. “And you know more about what’s going on here than you’re telling me. I checked out the specs for the implants and the docs haven’t changed since before the human implants. But then Chang comes along and he’s fiddling with the software and nobody will tell me why, or how.”

Terrance sighed. “Come on, Julia, you know we can’t talk about this. Not here. In fact, you’ve gone too far already.”

“So if we go back to the lab, to a secure place, you’ll tell me everything you know, right?”

“What would Markov say?” Terrance said.

“NTK.”

“That’s right. Need to know.”

“Dammit, I’m chief investigator on this project. Exactly what don’t I need to know?”

“And if the modifications had anything to do with the physical specifications of the implant, then you’d know, I’m sure. But it’s just software and that’s beyond your purview. Besides,” Terrance added in a more gentle tone, “I don’t know anyway. My scope is operational in nature, which means I know even less than you do about technical specifications of the implant. My job is to make sure those guys complete their mission and return alive.”

“And you can’t tell me anything about that, either, I suppose. Can you at least tell me if they’re doing okay?”

“They’re fine. Better than fine because they’re the best we’ve got. Really, don’t worry about them.”

Julia pushed away her plate of food. She wasn’t exactly full, but her appetite was gone nevertheless.

CHAPTER SIX

The woman with the latex gloves was back. They’d strapped Ian and Kendall into chairs and the woman told Ian to open his mouth while she prodded at his teeth and then looked up his nasal cavity. His mind spun through options. Only chance was to cooperate and hope Dupont started to second guess himself.

“It’s on them,” Dupont said. “It has to be. We took their truck and gave them new clothes. That means it has to be physically on their bodies.”

“If it is, I’ll find it,” she said.

Dupont muttered something in French, then said, “That’s what you were supposed to do last time, remember?”

Unlike the tent, where they’d been given their last inspection, this was a permanent concrete building. It looked new, like the wall that he’d crouched behind to eavesdrop. Exposed wiring stretched across the ceiling and the floor was bare and dusty, except for a couple of area rugs tossed down near the entrance by a computer server array in the corner. Two Blackwing guards stood posted at the door.

“You’re paranoid,” Kendall said. “Whatever is going on here, it has nothing to do with us.” Ian’s friend didn’t look so good. There was bruising around his eyes and a trickle of dried blood at his lip.

“He’s right,” Ian said. “Maybe you’ve got a mole. Could be anyone in the camp. One of the Chinese guys, probably. Think about it. If we came here to spy on you, would we have been so bleeding stupid as to have sent radio broadcasts when we just got here? Why would we do that?”

Yes, why? Someone out there had screwed up and now Ian and Kendall were paying for it. Completely unacceptable. They’d been totally unprepared for the mission, with no operational control. That would never have happened to a Ranger platoon commander.

Ian thought about the satellite dishes. They must be part of a sophisticated anti-snooping system. These days the private contractors, accountable only to their corporate masters, had tools at their disposal that one normally equated only with elite military units or national security agencies. The woman with the gloves moved to Ian’s scalp. She traced along his hairline, behind his ears and then started to pick through his hair. He forced his breathing to remain calm and even, his wrists relaxed in the restraints.

Her fingers scratched over the raised welt, moved past, then returned.

Ian turned to face Dupont, as if he didn’t notice that the woman had located his surgery scar. “You don’t want us here, fine. We’ll leave. Plenty of others who would be happy to have our services. But you have no right to hold us over what? Because you’re suspicious about—”

“Here it is,” the woman interrupted.

“What? Are you sure?” Dupont stepped forward and peered down at his scalp. “I don’t see anything.”

“This raised welt, here. I might not have caught it, but it looks like he’s been scratching at it.”

“What are you talking about?” Ian demanded, his voice angry to disguise his growing fear. “I whacked my head on the edge of the door when I was changing a tire.”

“Yeah, I see it,” Dupont said. He sounded dubious.

“Here are some more scars, here and here. Smaller, but definitely there. And when I press on the skull I feel a hole. Someone cut through the bone.”

“But wouldn’t bone grow back in?” Dupont asked.

“Not in the skull. That’s one bone that doesn’t grow callus.” She stepped back, looked more certain now. “Definitely something inside his head, but whatever it is has a small footprint. That’s a very small incision.”

“Well, what’s in there?” Dupont said.

“We’ll have to cut it out to be sure. I don’t have the resources to do this safely. I’d need…”

“I don’t care about that. Just get it out and figure out what we’re dealing with. Unless,” he added, as if to himself, “it would make more sense to get what we can via interrogation, first, then cut it out.”

Ian opened his mouth to start a new round of futile, increasingly desperate protests, when an explosion rocked the building. Windows shattered inward and Ian reflexively ducked his chin to his lap before glass showered his face. It knocked both Dupont and the woman to the ground. Another explosion, this one farther away.

The two guards at the door picked themselves up and rushed into the night. A burst of heavy machine gun fire, followed by the thump of something that sounded like a tanker exploding.

Definitely a spooky,
Ian thought. The C-130 was a deceptively simple looking four engine turboprop that had been in service for over fifty years. The third generation gunship model, the AC-130U, bristled with 30 mm MK-44 and 105 mm cannons. A sensor suite of radar, infrared, and television sensors sniffed out targets on the ground, either to direct airstrikes or to turn its cannons on the enemy themselves.

All that stuff was only as good as the guys flying it. Friendly fire in Afghanistan had taught him that lesson. A massive explosion tore off an entire wall of the compound. A block of concrete fell on the female doctor, who still crouched on her hands and knees. She lay screaming in a pile of rubble and dust. Dupont crouched and lifted his hands to his head.