Chen blinked, and his perfunctory smile faded. “Surely some part of you relishes what is about to come.”
“The chairman agreed to my request,” Huang Lei said.
Chen sat quietly for a moment and then nodded his head.
Huang Lei watched as Chen typed for a moment. The text window on their videoconferencing session popped open. It contained a single IP address, a username, and a password. “This will be most helpful, Mr. Chen.”
Chen nodded. “May fortune shine upon you.”
Huang Lei opened a terminal session and connected to the IP address, entering the provided name and password, then gazed in awe at the screen.
The Lotus Blossom was the culmination of a long-running Chinese project. It was a massive data warehouse, larger than any other on earth, that contained every piece of information the Chinese had accumulated through public means or via espionage.
It contained the family relationships, friendships, financial records and shopping habits of every human being on the planet. There was a special emphasis on Americans. Every American citizen born since the turn of the twentieth century was modeled, analyzed, and connected to every other American.
Even more, the Lotus Blossom contained predictive analysis that could model human behaviors. Even small choices such as food choices, vacation destinations, or sexual preferences could be accurately predicted.
With full access to the Lotus Blossom and its AI, he could finally find his adversary.
Where are you, Nathan Elliot?
Chapter Twelve
Smith sat up and rubbed at his eyes. The phone on the coffee table vibrated, and he tried to remember why it was important. Nancy sat across from him, and she looked at the phone with a mixture of anticipation and dread. From the other side of the room, a sleepy voice said in thickly accented English, “You wait all night and now phone rings. Pick up the phone!”
He turned to stare at Melamid, who still sat in his chair in front of the fireplace, a blanket covering his legs.
What is Melamid doing here? We just had breakfast.
No, that had been months ago. The memories bubbled up. The plan to contact Alexandra. Nancy threatening Melamid. The message at the dead drop. It was like a giant puzzle finally being solved, and then Smith was himself again. He stared at the phone and shivered.
It’s happening again.
He barely had time to consider the consequences when he noticed Nancy looking at him with an odd look on her face. He pointed at the phone. “Answer it.”
Nancy reached out and tentatively picked up the phone. Her voice was soft and unsure of itself. “Hello?”
There was a rustling, and he turned as Melamid approached. “Is it Alexandra?”
Nancy held up her hand and spoke into the phone. “Yes, we will meet you there. No. No. Yes. We’ll see you then.” She pushed the button to end the call and nodded at the two men. “We’ll meet her in an hour.”
Smith’s voice caught in his throat. “Wh — where?”
“The Diner on Eighteenth Street.”
There was something in his daughter’s voice, a sense of wonder he had never heard before.
It was almost 3:30 in the morning when they arrived at The Diner, and the light traffic allowed Nancy to park the Lincoln near the entrance. The three of them got out and made their way inside, taking seats at a table near the south side. A pretty young waitress named Betty came and took their order, returning soon after with cups of coffee for everyone and a plate of fried eggs and sausage for Melamid.
The old Russian skewered a sausage link on his fork, popped it in his mouth, and chewed a few times. “Is good.”
Nancy shook her head in disgust. “How can you eat?”
Melamid took a drink from his cup. “When you get old, you will eat when given a chance. A valuable lesson, little girl. Food is life.”
Smith sipped from his own cup, then added two packages of Sweet’n Low and creamer and took another sip. The coffee was flavorless, and not even the creamer and sweetener helped.
That’s… not good.
According to Hobert, the sense of smell was the first things to go. Much of what people considered taste was actually smell. When the sense of smell faded, it was a sign that the brain was shutting down. The stimulator implant had renewed his sense of smell, at least for a few months, but now it was gone.
Melamid was busily wolfing down his scrambled eggs while Nancy stared at the table. Smith took the opportunity to glance around the restaurant. A couple sat at the long counter to the west, eating and taking every opportunity to touch each other’s hands and legs. An older man at the very back of the restaurant ate pie and drank coffee while reading a book. Four kids of high school age sat near the middle of the restaurant, speaking loudly and laughing so hard that tears ran from their eyes.
Nancy finally looked up at him. “I’m nervous.”
“Even though she hasn’t seen you since you were born, she loves you with all her heart.”
Melamid stopped chewing and nodded. “Alexandra was… passionate woman. She would not betray her country for stupid reason. You are not stupid reason.”
Nancy turned to Melamid and regarded him with an unreadable expression. As she did, the front door opened, and Smith looked up to see a middle-aged black man with a shaved head approaching.
The man stopped in front of their table and inspected them with casual indifference. “You Smith?” he said to Nancy.
“Yes.”
The man nodded. “Got something for you.” He withdrew a yellow envelope and shoved it toward Nancy.
Smith was so engrossed in studying the man that he almost missed the sound of the door opening again. Nancy faced him, Melamid was to his right, and the man with the envelope to his left, but over Nancy’s shoulder, there was a flicker of movement.
A man wearing a balaclava that covered most of his face entered the diner. The man was raising something, something black and metallic — a submachine gun — and Smith’s brain slowed.
That’s an Uzi.
The gun was rising, and Smith’s hand went for his Colt 1911 inside his shoulder holster.
Without hesitation, Nancy whirled around and shoved the table with her hip while drawing her own gun.
The table knocked Smith back as the gunman opened fire. There was a whup-whupping as the Uzi cut loose and then a matching wham-wham and then silence.
He stared at the ceiling in the aftermath before struggling to his feet.
The gunman held his stomach, his dark coat black and shiny with blood. The Uzi slipped from his hands and clattered to the tile floor.
Nancy strode forward and without hesitation pulled the trigger of her Sig Sauer. Blood and brain matter sprayed from the man’s head, and then he collapsed on the floor, clearly dead.
People were shrieking and crying, and Nancy turned to him. “Are you okay?”
Smith nodded his head. “Just bruised from the fall.”
Nancy’s eye twitched. “Vasilii was hit.”
He turned around and found Melamid sprawled on the floor. “Oh, no.” His knees cracked and popped as he knelt on the tile. “Vasilii?”
Melamid’s eyes were watery and his cheeks were red. The front of his coat was slick with blood. He coughed, and bright red blood stained his lips. He wiped at his mouth, smearing it across his pale skin. “My — my chest…”
Smith tried to unzip Melamid’s jacket. “We need to stop the bleeding.” He managed to get the zipper down and opened the jacket.