“Why should I care?”
“For one thing, I’ve got information about Preston. I had access to information that you don’t get until you’re at least a Level 20.”
Ellis set her purse back down onto the table. “If the material is so great, then why hasn’t it been published?”
The peevish look on Drucker’s face foretold the fiasco he was about to describe. “My agreement with Wolf was that the book’s publication was contingent on two things. The first was his death. The second was completion of the Great Mission.”
“Great Mission?”
Drucker nodded. “But I got greedy. Before the old man had even seen the first draft, I sent a few chapters to a book agent. But this material was so hot. I thought maybe if we could get a big advance, then Wolf might change his mind and let us publish it right away.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, in fact. But my agent blew it for me. Somewhere deep in the representation agreement, I had apparently consented to let my agent place my work in short form for fair market value so long as it was for promotional purposes. The next thing I know, a portion of it had been edited and published as the article you found online.”
“I take it that didn’t go over so well.”
The very thought of it seemed to sap Drucker’s spirit. “Wolf’s security team used me as a punching bag.”
“They actually attacked you?”
“Broke my jaw and two ribs. Check the hospital records if you don’t believe me.”
Ellis was already planning on it. “And then what?”
“Like I said, they made me swear an oath that I’d keep quiet, or else. They took my computer, and I’m pretty sure they put a virus into the one I bought after that.” A smile crept across his face. “But they didn’t realize that I was such a paranoid son of a bitch.”
“You kept a copy?”
The ends of his handlebar mustache rose as he grinned devilishly. “All these years later, I’m still working on it. I know they periodically hack into my computer, but they’ll never find it. The best defense against cyberattacks is old-fashioned paper.”
Suddenly, Drucker slapped his neck hard. Ellis watched the horse fly bounce off Drucker’s shoulder and fall below. “Got the bastard.”
“Nate, I’m going to need to see that book.”
Drucker opened his mouth to reply, but words didn’t come. He groaned and moved his neck slowly to the right, straining against some unseen force.
It was then that Ellis noticed the growing welt on his neck, near his jugular. “Nate,” she said, “have you ever had an allergic reaction to an insect bite?”
He grunted. His lips and tongue seemed suddenly out of sync, and he was glassy-eyed.
The fly had fallen onto the table. Two of its legs were detached from the main body. When Ellis prodded it with her fingertips, she knew what Drucker never would. The fly was man-made.
Verona, Italy
The journey from South Africa to Italy had been a circuitous one. Their flight into Rome had been diverted to Munich due to thunderstorms across Italy. They had then been promised another flight the next afternoon, but Carver wasn’t content to wait that long. He opted instead to catch a night train heading south through the Austrian Aps.
Five hours later they arrived in Verona, where a train strike had forced the cancellation of the second leg to Rome. They would be forced to stay in the northern Italian town for the night. Both men were famished and grumpy as they headed for a late-night pizzeria near the station.
Now, sitting outside under a string of yellow lights, the two men looked better than they felt. They wore Hugo Boss suits and had both been to a barber at the Munich train station.
“About that thing you put in my arm,” Nico said, running his fingers over the welt where it had been inserted.
Carver nodded. “The tracking chip.”
“Not that I’m planning on it, but what’s to stop me from digging that out with a pocketknife?”
“It’s hooked around your cephalic vein. That’s the big one running down your bicep into your forearm.”
“What? How?”
“These hooks expand from the chip after it’s embedded. They start off as tiny, flaccid tentacles. But if you attempt to remove the chip after it’s embedded, the tentacles swell, go rigid and curl, cutting off blood flow.”
Nico was horrified. “And this thing is in me permanently?”
“I’m not that sadistic. It’s just that you can’t just get any quack to remove it. One of our people in the States will deactivate the hooks and remove the chip after the mission’s done.”
“That’s just wrong.”
“Not as wrong as handing you over to the CIA, which is what they wanted me to do. You’d be back in Lee Federal Penitentiary. Or worse, extradited to the Saudis, who would be willing to take your head in exchange for the money you stole from them.” Nico shivered visibly. Carver instantly regretted the remarks, hoping they hadn’t further hardened his asset. He softened his voice. “Look, Julian gave his personal assurances that this mission will pay your debt to America in full.”
“And Eva?”
“For the last time, it’s President Hudson now. And yes, I’m sure she’s on board as well.”
Carver wasn’t sure. But there was always a way. If Nico’s contribution to the investigation turned out to be half as valuable as Carver was expecting, a presidential pardon would be a moral imperative.
After dinner, they checked into a shabby motel with one bed, near the train station. Carver surveyed the dilapidated room, chewing on the end of a straw he had taken from the pizzeria. It wasn’t much, but they were just here to sleep before catching a train to Rome the following morning.
Carver urinated with the restroom door open, and then washed his face and hands. Then he pulled the blankets off the bed and handed them to Nico. “It’s all yours,” he said, gesturing toward the restroom.
“Where am I supposed to sleep, the bathtub?”
Carver nodded and tossed him a feather pillow. “Just for tonight. That way I won’t have to snooze with one eye open.”
“It’s not like I’m going to run.”
“I know. But it was only 24 hours ago that your girlfriend tried to shoot me, and I punched her in the face.”
“Ah. You’re afraid I’ll smother you with a pillow in the middle of the night.”
“Something like that.”
“Fair enough.”
Carver pushed the dresser against the bathroom door, sealing Nico inside.
“What if there’s a fire?” Nico yelled through the door. “I’ll be trapped in here.”
“Take a cold shower.”
W Hotel
The room lights were on full, offering Ellis a level of illumination that only the hotel bar’s cleaning crew usually witnessed. Men in white biohazard suits examined the booth where Ellis and Drucker had sat earlier in the evening. Two other crews probed every piece of furniture, glass and surface for electronic devices or cameras.
Drucker had died within 90 seconds of the insect bite. Ellis herself had frantically searched the 11th floor, as well as the P.O.V.’s rooftop terrace, for anyone suspicious. It had been a fruitless task. By then the lounge had been crowded with people, half of whom could have potentially utilized their phones as either cameras or remote control devices.
The object in question was in a sealed petri dish on the bar countertop. A federal robotics expert hunched over it, peering through a microscope, gently turning its tiny wings with delicate tweezers. Ellis and Speers stood behind him.
“Amazing nanotechnology,” the expert said.
Speers had divulged nothing of the situation — other than the fact that a man appeared to have been attacked — to any of the crew on site. “Who could have done this?”
“Beats me. I’m no entomologist, but whoever did this made a pretty convincing female tabanid, otherwise known as a common horse fly. Right down to the proboscis, which is that needle-like snout that a horse fly uses to extract the blood meal it requires before reproduction.”