For the first time, he noticed a thick bar at the top of the flat screen display. Half of it was red; near the middle of the screen it turned blue. As he watched it, the red portion grew a bit, consuming a fraction more of the blue. It looked exactly like an old-fashioned download indicator, the kind he’d seen on the very first computer he’d ever owned.
Ryan risked a glance at him and saw what he was looking at. “That’s the turnover indicator,” he said. “I invented it myself. As soon as it’s all red, we’ll have fully synced the algorithms…and the ship will be ours to take.”
“Thirty seconds to completion,” Andrew said in a low voice.
Simon understood what they were saying. Once the algorithms were fully integrated, the information they would be sending could not be traced; the Munro would recognize Andrew’s instructions as if they were genuine commands sent by the military. They could turn the ship, stop it, send it to wherever they wanted, and no one on the vessel-not the navigator, not the Captain, not even the on-board AIs-would think to question the commands.
Four men, sitting in a cottage in Corsica, using twenty-year-old contraband equipment, were about to take control of a top-secret military operation without anyone’s knowledge.
The red bar grew longer and longer, and then the last of the blue blinked away.
The S.S. Munro-and the Spector I that slept in its hull-was theirs.
They all stood speechless for a second, trying to take in the reality of the moment. Simon finally broke the silence. “As my father used to say, ‘Dis-information is power.’”
Hayden looked at him with a serious expression and then slowly nodded as he frowned. “It’s the truth,” he said. “Back in the beginning, thirty years ago or more, we called this ‘The Information Age.’ But it’s not. Never was. We learned damn quickly that just having all that information didn’t mean a thing. We learned that it’s not what we know; it’s what we believe. Your dad was right: dis-information is power. Change the reality and you change the outcome. Controlling destiny.”
Ryan looked up at them with a new kind of horror and elation in his eyes-like a child who had just done something without understanding its consequence.
“Control your destiny,” he echoed.
“Wow,” said Andrew, taking a deep breath. He too was just beginning to realize what they had done.
The window of opportunity had been locked open.
They were on their way.
* * *
Simon cleared his throat abruptly. “Let it sit for a while,” he said. “Let’s make sure we’re a hundred percent.”
The others looked at each other, then looked back at him.
“It’ll be okay,” he said soothingly. “Let’s have dinner, then we can send the new coordinates to the ship.”
Ryan inhaled deeply and placed both hands behind his head. He looked pale and shaky, as if he hadn’t taken a breath in an hour.
“Good idea,” Andrew replied, wiping sweat from his forehead. He stood up as Samantha walked into the room, trying to balance several large platters of food.
“Let me help you there,” Simon said with a smile. “It’s been a while since you had to pull off the two-armed double truck.”
She almost laughed. Simon was teasing her about her short-lived job as a waitress-the only gig she could get back in college to pay for her tuition. It was a mandate of her parents that she learned the hard way, even though they could easily have helped her. It was a disaster and they both knew it. “You know,” she said, “the same bastard may have fired me three times, but at least I learned how to do this. It’s second nature to m-oops!”
Simon dove to catch one plate as it slid from her forearm. He got a hand under it just before it hit the Armenian rug. They all laughed-all of them, even Sam-and the tension that had filled the room for an hour suddenly burst like a bubble.
They were careful to put the food at the far end of the table, well away from the computer modules and the flat screen. And for the next twenty minutes, the old friends shared a meal and a bottle of wine and tried to forget that they had just changed their destiny.
* * *
Hayden didn’t talk very much during the brief meal, far less than the younger people at the table. He was in no mood for small talk. He finished quickly and excused himself with a grunt, then moved away from the table to the warmth of the fireplace at the far end of the room where he could gaze uninterrupted into the flames and just think.
Deep down inside, Hayden knew the truth. No matter how hard they tried, no matter how clever they were, they would eventually be discovered. And deep down inside, at least it didn’t matter-not to him.
His life was over.
Two decades of scientific research flashed before his eyes. Tonight, his career as a scientist had taken a turn that he hadn’t expected-one he thought never would, no matter what his mad dreams might have been. Whatever he had been before was finished now. The technology he needed, the funding necessary for his level of dedication…no one would ever give it to him, ever again.
He suddenly felt very old, and at the same time brand new.
There was a burst of laughter from the table behind him. He hunched his shoulders as it sent a chill down his spine. The others were famished from their traveling, relieved and exhilarated by their easy success. But the journey ahead would be extreme and challenging for all of them, and it was quite possible that they wouldn’t have another moment like this together in the coming weeks. He was glad they could have this, at least. He wished he could share it.
He stared into the fire. It had dwindled to a few pieces of glowing orange wood. I would have thought Leon would have kept a better eye on this, he thought absently. After all…
Hayden suddenly looked up, looked around, thought back.
“Simon,” he said, breaking through the easy conversation. “Where’s Leon?”
* * *
Something twisted in Simon’s stomach. He stood up from the table a little too fast and said, “You’re right. Where the hell is he?”
He turned and almost ran from the room. The others sat very quietly now, listening to Simon move swiftly from room to room, calling the caretaker’s name.
“Leon! Leon!”
There was no answer, and no halt to the search.
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” Andrew said. “Not good at all.”
Samantha heard a door slam, then saw a flash of movement beyond the great room’s windows. She stood up and peered out, into the night.
“Look,” she said. The others joined her at the window, just in time to see Simon disappear into the darkness, still calling Leon’s name, then reappear almost immediately, grim-faced as ever.
A moment later he was back in the great room. He turned to Hayden and said darkly, “I might be a while. Help them set the rendezvous coordinates for the Munro and then everyone- all of you-try to get some rest. We have to be down by the dock before five a.m.”
Ryan looked at his watch. It was half past one. He rushed over to the digital display and began to monitor the Munro’s activities halfway around the globe.
Simon left without another word. There was only one more place to look-the one place he had been thinking about and avoiding since the moment they’d set foot on Corsica.
Oliver’s private study.
He began to climb the stairs to the second floor as quickly as he could. Then, unaccountably, he found himself slowing, moving just as he had as a child, almost tip-toeing to the upper landing, creeping down the hall, and pausing before the study doors, his eyes locked on them, his heart pounding.