The Memory Collector (34 page)

K
anan heard footsteps ascending wooden stairs behind him. He turned around. He was in the stockroom of a sporting goods store, under bright fluorescent lights, surrounded by shelves stacked with basketballs and baseball cleats. A collection of Post-it notes and printouts from his phone’s camera was spread on a desk nearby. His arms were covered with writing. The footsteps drew nearer. He looked toward an open door that led to the basement.

A man appeared at the top of the stairs, dreadlocks swinging from his ponytail, his dark face deceptively serene. He was carrying a rifle with a night scope and three boxes of ammunition.

A wave of hope and relief rolled across Kanan. “Diaz. Damn, it’s good to see you.”

A look crossed Diaz’s face like he’d just stepped on a sharp rock. “Here you go, boss.” He set the rifle on the desk. “We’ve got this, plus the HK, the sidearm I’ll be carrying, and a Kbar in an ankle sheath.”

Diaz didn’t want to look at him. He seemed to be nursing a hurt.

“Have I been here long?” Kanan said.

“Long enough to say hello fifteen times.”

Kanan stared at his arms, then the desk, and understood. “Sorry.”

Diaz looked up at him. “You can keep saying hello. And I’ll keep you informed of our progress.”

Kanan checked his watch. It was seven forty-five P.M.

“Friday night,” Diaz said.

Kanan ran a hand over his face. He felt grubby and needed a shave. “Everything I can remember, I see extremely clearly.”

He recalled, with neon intensity, getting the text message saying that his family had been taken hostage. It had started with him sitting on the sunny terrace at the Four Seasons in Amman, drinking thick Arabic coffee from a silver cup, planning to catch his flight home with his trophies—the beautiful Damascus saber and daggers destined for the wall of Alec’s office.

Instead, he got a call from Chira-Sayf corporate, alerting him that the materials tech, Chuck Lesniak, had disappeared. So he headed to South Africa to find him.

And when he landed, the text message arrived.

Got them.
With photos of Seth and Misty bound and gagged and tied to a chair in a bare garage under a glaring electric bulb.

More messages had followed.
Don’t tell the cops. Don’t tell Chira-Sayf. Don’t contact Shepard.
Then they’d sent operational information about tracking Lesniak, who had stolen a sample of Slick from the Jo’burg lab and, instead of turning it over to these people and taking his 10 percent commission, had tried to cut his own deal with a higher bidder. Lesniak, the selfish, stupid son of a bitch, had wanted to grab the whole prize. But Lesniak didn’t hit the jackpot, because these people figured out they’d been double-crossed. And they figured that the only person who could recover Slick for them was Ian Kanan.

And they knew that the only way Ian Kanan would ever turn Slick over to them was if they threatened to kill his family if he didn’t.

He remembered the jet boat and the roaring sound of Victoria Falls. He remembered tightening down the lid of the flask and jamming it in his jeans pocket before he shoved the throttles hard forward and fought the current to safety.

And here he was, in San Francisco, without the flask, gearing up for a hunt. He looked at his arm.

Saturday they die.
He closed his eyes so that Diaz wouldn’t see him fighting his own desperation.

“Getting Slick from Alec is my fallback plan,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m betraying him, but I see no other way to save Misty and Seth.”

Diaz put a hand on his shoulder. “I know.”

Meaning,
You already told me.

Kanan knew why the kidnappers had insisted that he not contact his brother: because Alec would stop him. Alec knew how dangerous Slick was. He would worry about national security. If Alec found out what Kanan was doing, he might not help him, but go to the CIA or FBI instead.

And Kanan knew why somebody had written
Find Alec
on his left arm—because Alec was cagy. The kidnappers had to know that he himself was the only one who could track down his brother. He had designed all of Alec’s security precautions. He was the only one who knew how to get through them.

And the kidnappers had to know that Alec would never suspect his own brother—he would let Ian get close enough to put him in a helpless position.

Jesus, what a betrayal.

Diaz looked at the weapons laid out on the desk. “Sarge, I’m with you here, no questions asked, you know that.”

Kanan’s smile felt wry. “So go on and ask your questions.”

“You
sure
Slick is gone—you didn’t bring it back?”

“No, I’m not.”

He turned to the messy collection of notes and photos on the desk. “If I did bring it back, the clues to where it is would be in this stuff.”

Diaz picked up a laminated photo I.D. “This Johanna Beckett, she’s a doctor.”

Kanan shook his head. “No idea.”

Unexpectedly, the room seemed to sway. He put a hand on the desk.

“Boss, you all right?” Diaz said. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“I have no idea.” He steadied himself. “Actually, I’m ravenous.”

“Sit tight. There’s a Wendy’s around the corner. I’ll grab us some grub.” Diaz put on a black jacket. He wrote a note and stuck it to the back door of the store before unlocking it. Cold mist blew in from the alley outside. “You go through that pile of notes. Maybe we can get the stuff without going after your brother. I’ll be back.”

Diaz shut the door. Kanan locked it, sat down at the desk, and pressed his fingertips to his eyes. He was damned exhausted.

He opened his eyes. Held still. What was he doing in the stockroom of a sporting goods store?

Shepard’s Mercedes curved along the road through Golden Gate Park. Jo gripped the door, hoping Shepard could see well enough to keep from running into another car. Her head was pounding. Her ribs and leg were pounding. The enormous park, eaten by the fog, was a void of white mist.

Golden Gate Park stretched three miles across San Francisco, nearly half the width of the city. In daytime, the rises were green, fields emerald, lakes blue and ruffled by the breeze and by ducks paddling. Monterey pines and stands of eucalyptus turned the center of the city into a forested reserve. The road was wide, and during the day, parked cars usually lined the curbs. Tonight, nobody was around.

“Japanese Tea Garden’s going to be closed, and I’m not crazy about meeting your colleague in the dead dark. How about a warm, well-lighted public place, with plenty of people around? The de Young Museum’s open on Friday nights.”

Shepard shook his head. “I’m not putting in a public appearance. The people who want Slick will go to any lengths to get it.” He glanced at her. “You’re safe with me. But I need to be sure nobody can get to me by tracking you. Do you have a pager? BlackBerry? Any communications device? If so, turn it off and remove the battery.”

“I’m clean,” she said.

Out of the fog, trees grasped for clear air. Flower beds full of pink hydrangeas flowed past, dusty gray in the darkness.

He lifted his foot from the accelerator. “This is it.”

In the distance, rising like arthritic hands, were the sculpted trees outside the tea garden. Shepard pulled to the curb on the left side of the road and parked against traffic. Killing the engine, he put down his window a few inches so he could hear approaching motors. He was scared and smart. The quiet poured in along with the damp chill of the fog.

“Alec, we don’t have much time. How can we get hold of Ian? Is there someplace your brother would go? Do you know his friends? His old army buddies? Can you contact him?”

“I’ve tried. I called him at home, I e-mailed him. No luck. And his phone isn’t answering—if I know him, he’s set it not to transmit.”

“Does he have any hangouts? A bar? A gym, a church, a storage company where he keeps weapons?”

Shepard shook his head. “I’m sorry. I really don’t know. He runs. He camps and fishes. He spends weekends tinkering on his SUV, or doing things with Seth and Misty.”

Jo tucked her arms against her chest to keep warm. “How is Slick transported? What form is it in?”

“It’s grown—baked, however you want to understand it—as single-walled carbon nanotubes, at high temperature. But it’s put in an oilbased solution, so when it’s dispersed, it can be sprayed, fired from a bazooka—we had all kinds of ideas.”

“What does it look like?” she said.

“Slick itself? The nanoparticles are each incredibly small. Basically, they’re molecular machines. Very tiny.”

“Why do the kidnappers want the actual nanoparticle?” Jo said. “Why couldn’t they steal the research data or smash a window and grab a hard drive that has all the information? Why do they need the actual product?”

Shepard ran a hand across his forehead. “It’s devilishly hard to duplicate the research and get Slick to grow correctly—it’s like baking from scratch. When you bake, you need yeast as a catalyst. If the kidnappers obtain Slick, they can use the actual particle as a catalyst. Under correct conditions another lab could get it to replicate.”

“So this quantity is the seed supply?”

“Yes.”

Shepard killed the engine. They sat for several minutes, listening to the engine tick as it cooled. They could see nothing. Finally Shepard opened his door.

“Where are you going?” Jo said.

“I can’t just sit here. I’m going stir-crazy. Come on.”

He closed the door and disappeared into the fog. Reluctantly, Jo followed.

The trees were shadows. The night was utterly quiet, close, and chilly. She hunched into her sweater, feeling how stiff her leg and ribs were growing. By the morning, she would be congealed into a solid bruise. A few hundred yards away, she knew, the park opened into a wide panorama. The de Young Museum was there somewhere, invisible, as was a huge outdoor music pavilion. She saw the slightest glow from the museum buildings.

Beyond the curving sidewalk the smell of pine and damp was thick. The pagodas of the Japanese Tea Garden, with their red lacquered wood and ornate black roofs, were lost to the mist.

Shepard stopped outside a heavy wooden portico. The gates were closed, the calming pathways of the garden locked up.

Jo lowered her voice. “Alec, how do you neutralize Slick?”

“Acid immersion. It unravels the carbon nanotubes.”

“No other way? Burning? Freezing? Detox? Chemotherapy?”

“X-ray exposure, but only a sustained, high-power burst.” He gave her the briefest glance. “Carbon nanotubes are resilient things.”

“Resilient machines that can get inside your head and reconfigure your brain.”
Hell
. “Slick apparently spreads by direct contact with open wounds.”

“Yes. Blood-to-blood contact.” He turned his head sharply. “You examined him?”

The gulp lodged again in her throat. “Yes. But I avoided touching the lacerations on his arm, and I had no cuts or scratches myself.”

The air felt clammy. She fought a shiver.

Shepard’s expression softened. “You should be fine.”

The shiver sloughed off, and for a second the cold air felt refreshing. She closed her eyes and breathed out. She wanted to smile. Wanted to laugh out loud.

“Thanks.” She did smile, with relief. She breathed in again. “Can Slick spread in any other ways?”

“Inhalation following an explosion. But of course, in an explosion, it would penetrate any blast wounds via shrapnel.”

“Inhalation puts fire and rescue crews at risk.” A vision of frightening emptiness passed through her mind. An entire street of people whose thoughts would be harvested before they could become memories.

“If it comes to it, hope Slick blows up in somebody’s office or car, not outside,” Shepard said.

“How much does it take to cause an explosion?”

“Two ounces would be more than enough.”

Her breath frosted the night. “Presume Ian got it when he went to Africa. And that he’s after you because he no longer has it in his possession.”

“Yes. He must have lost it.”

“Lost it? Or did he forget where it is?”

He turned to her. “Yes. Damn. Where is it?”

“How would somebody transport it?”

“Slick is dispersed in an oily emulsion. It could be liquid.”

“Presume he brought it back from Africa. Would he have checked it in his luggage?”

“He would never have let it out of his sight. Not out of his immediate possession. Never.”

“So where did he get separated from the sample?”

She thought of every place he’d been. South Africa. London. The 747. The airport, the ambulance, the hospital. The city of San Francisco.

“If he had it with him when he boarded the flight from London, he would have kept it on his person or in his carry-on luggage,” she said.