But it was not the inexplicable match of fingerprints on the two dead men that troubled Mr. Church. For the last half hour he had barely looked at those reports. Instead all of his attention was focused on the brief note he had received from Jerry Spencer, who was now back at the DMS and ensconced in his forensics lab. The note read: “The prints taken from the boy are a perfect match for the unmarked set of prints you forwarded to me. The only difference is size. The unmarked set are larger, consistent with an adult, and there are some minor marks of use such as small scars. However, the arches, loops, and whorls match on all points. Without a doubt these prints come from the same person. There’s no chance of a mistake.”
When Mr. Church first read that note he called Spencer and confirmed it.
“I thought my note was clear enough,” said Spencer. “The prints match, end of story.”
But it was by no means the end of the story. It was another chapter in a very old and very twisted story. It painted the world in ugly shades.
Mr. Church finally moved. He selected a cookie and ate it slowly, thoughtfully, thinking about the boy called Eighty-two. The boy who had reached out to him, who had risked his life to try to save millions of people in Africa and to save the lives of the genetically engineered New Men.
Church picked up the boy’s fingerprint card and turned it over to study the photograph clipped to the other side. It had been taken during the physical examination of the boy. Church looked into the child’s eyes for long minutes, searching for the lie, for the deception, for any hint of the evil that he knew must be there.
Chapter Ninety-Six
“I think she suspects,” said Cyrus. He sipped his wine and held the Riesling in his mouth to taste its subtleties.
“About?”
“The Wave. Not that she could know anything with specific knowledge, but I think she suspects that we have some sort of global agenda.”
“Of course she suspects,” said Otto. “Wouldn’t you be disappointed in her if she didn’t?”
Cyrus nodded. It was true enough.
“But,” said Otto, “she can only be guessing. She can’t know.”
“No.”
“Not like we know.”
“No.”
“You’ll be able to see for yourself when you visit the Dragon Factory tomorrow.”
They thought about that for a while, and then they both laughed.
“Are you surprised that they invited me?” asked Cyrus.
“A little.”
“Do you think it’s a trap?”
“Of course. Our misdirection with the assassins probably only fooled Paris,” said Otto. He pursed his lips and added, “Though my guess is that this is a fishing expedition more than anything. She wants to look you in the eye when she talks about the attack. She probably believes that you’ll give something away.”
Cyrus laughed again. Otto nodded.
“She’s very smart, that one,” said Cyrus, “but I think we can both agree that she doesn’t know me as well as she thinks she does.”
“No.”
“So… a fishing expedition with a trapdoor if she doesn’t like what she sees? Is that what you think?”
“More or less. Probably not as rigid as that. Hecate likes wiggle room. If she’s not one hundred percent sure that you sent the assassins, then I expect she’ll give you some heavily edited version of a tour. Letting you see only what she thinks would appeal to you and perhaps flatter you. She’s her father’s daughter in that regard.”
“No, Otto… I think she gets that from you.”
Otto shrugged. “I believe that’s her plan.”
“And if she becomes convinced that I am responsible for the assassins? Do you think she’ll try to have me killed?”
“No,” said Otto. “Not a chance. She may torture you a bit; I think she’d be very happy to do that.”
“Let her try.”
“As you say. But ultimately I think Hecate would want you alive. She’s smart enough to know that you’re smarter. She and Paris have stolen more science then they’ve pioneered. You, Mr. Cyrus, are science. Hecate is too much your daughter to throw away such a valuable resource.”
“She’d want you dead, though,” Cyrus said.
“Without a doubt. And I would like to think that she’s too smart to risk torturing me. She learned the art from me, and she knows that turning it around is something I daresay I’ve pioneered. No… if Hecate gets the chance she’ll put a bullet in my brain.”
“If we let her,” said Cyrus.
“If we let her,” said Otto.
They smiled and clinked glasses.
They sat in lounge chairs that had been brought outside. All of the Deck’s exterior lights had been turned off, and they were miles from any town. There was nothing to mute the jeweled brilliance of the sky. They could even see the creamy flow of the Milky Way.
“Veder is on his way,” said Otto. “He’ll be here before the Twins’ jet arrives for you. Do you want him to accompany you? We can say that he’s your valet.”
“No. He can go in with the team. But once your Russians have breached the walls I want Veder to find me. I want him protecting me throughout.”
“Easy enough.”
They lapsed into a longer silence.
Several times Otto looked at Cyrus and opened his mouth to speak, but each time he left his thoughts unsaid. Finally Cyrus smiled and said, “Speak your mind before you drive me crazy. You want to know about the Hive. About how I feel?”
“Yes. We lost so much…”
“We lost nothing that matters, Otto.”
“The New Men. The breeding stock…”
“The Twins will have them somewhere. They’re smart enough to recognize what the New Men are. They would want to experiment with them. Once we take the Dragon Factory we’ll get them back. Or we’ll get enough of them back so that we can start again.”
“And Eighty-two?”
“I don’t think the Twins will have killed him. I think he’s alive. I feel it. If he’s at the Dragon Factory and unharmed, I might even show the Twins a degree of mercy.”
Otto did not need to ask what Cyrus would do — or to what extremes he would go — if Eighty-two was dead. No amount of pills would be able to control Cyrus if that happened.
But then Cyrus surprised him by saying, “But in the end it doesn’t matter.”
Otto gave him a sharp look.
“Somehow I feel like we’ve moved past that,” said Cyrus. “As we get closer to the Extinction Wave, so many of the other things are becoming less important.”
“The New Men fill a necessary role. A master race needs a slave race.”
“Maybe.”
“Those are your own words, Mr. Cyrus.”
“I know, and I believed them when I said them. But they don’t feel as valid now. We’re doing a great thing, Otto. We’re doing something that has never been done before. Within a year a billion mud people will have died. Within five years — once the second and third Waves have had a chance to reach even the remotest parts of Asia — there will only be a billion people on the planet. When we created the New Men we conceived them as a servant race during an orderly transfer of power. But… do you really think things will be orderly?”
Otto said nothing.