She gripped her umbrella tighter, seemingly unsure what to say. “We still don’t know what happened, Mr. Dresner. I suppose we never will.”
He held out a business card, blank except a single phone number centered on it. “This comes directly to me. If there’s anything you need — anything I can help you with — please call.”
She accepted the card and this time seemed a bit more relaxed when they embraced. Dresner stood by respectfully as she retreated to the fold of her family and then started up the slope toward the house. A limousine appeared along the muddy road and glided to a stop in front of him.
Dresner pulled the door open, freezing for a moment when he saw a figure sitting next to the heavily tinted window on the opposite side.
“Hello, Christian.”
The voice was immediately recognizable and Dresner slipped inside, dropping his dripping umbrella on the floor in front of him. “Very dramatic, James. I’ve always admired a good entrance.”
“You said you wanted to talk and that it was important. I thought I’d take advantage of your rare presence in our country.”
The limousine weaved through the people still gathered in front of Bailer’s house and Dresner took a seat opposite the man. He had retired years ago as a major in an area of U.S. military intelligence where rank was not necessarily well correlated with power. Now he was in his early seventies, with gray hair still cut in an efficient military style and a gaunt, sun-damaged face that meshed perfectly with a body that was a product of a lifetime in the Marine Corps. The scar that ran from the edge of his starched collar to the underside of his chin completed the image but, ironically, was not a souvenir from combat. According to Dresner’s investigators, it was actually the result of a childhood accident.
“Sorry to hear about your CEO. Can I assume that it won’t affect the production of military-specific Merges?”
“Your concern is heartwarming.”
“Everyone dies, Christian. Even you and me one day.”
Dresner looked at the glass separating them from the driver and security man in the passenger seat. It was soundproof, but he still would prefer to have this conversation elsewhere.
“We’ve run into some cash-flow problems that need to be dealt with in order to keep manufacturing at capacity.”
“Cash-flow problems? What kind of cash-flow problems?”
“Nothing that fifty billion dollars won’t resolve.”
Major James Whitfield sat in silence, nothing registering on his face. It never did.
“It’s a temporary shortfall,” Dresner continued. “The rollout is actually ahead of projections.”
“Whether it’s temporary or not is irrelevant. The amount isn’t though. We’ve already given more than a hundred billion to this project.”
“And in return, I’ve agreed to provide America with a number of critical exclusive technologies. Certainly the Merge is more useful than obsolete aircraft carriers and fighter jet prototypes that have trouble getting into the air.”
“Do you think I just call the Pentagon and tell them to write a check?” Whitfield said, his voice turning menacing. “Making this kind of money disappear from the defense budget isn’t trivial. Even for me.”
“Obviously, I could go looking for the money on the open market. I imagine the Chinese government would be interested.
When Whitfield spoke again it was through clenched teeth. “Anything else?”
“In fact, yes.”
Dresner pulled up a photo on his Merge and was about to securely transfer it to Whitfield but then remembered the old soldier still refused to adopt the technology. Instead, he was forced to use a laptop lying on the seat next to him.
“What am I looking at?” Whitfield said, accepting the computer and examining the enhanced image.
“The two people sitting in the booth are Randi Russell from the CIA and Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, whom you’re familiar with.”
“What’s he holding?” Whitfield asked.
“A severed head that Russell found in Afghanistan.”
“Why do I care?”
“Because that particular Afghan was involved in an experiment you paid for almost four months ago. The skull has Merge studs in it.”
Still, nothing registered on the former marine’s face, but the rise and fall of his chest increased noticeably. “Where did you get this?”
In fact, he had quite a bit more — including photos of Russell actually retrieving the head. He couldn’t reveal that, though, without compromising his view into Whitfield’s world.
“Smith is in charge of the military’s adoption of my technology. It makes sense for me to watch him to the degree practical.”
“Why wasn’t I told about this experiment?”
“You never seemed interested in this level of detail.”
“Christ…” Whitfield said under his breath. “Does anyone at Central Intelligence know about this?”
“I can’t say for certain, but I don’t think so. She and Smith have a personal relationship — he was engaged to her sister when she became one of the first victims of the Hades virus. It appears that Russell came straight to him because of that history and his position as the director of Merge development. I take it you haven’t heard anything through military channels?”
Whitfield shook his head. “If Smith is concerned about this, he hasn’t gone up the chain of command with it.”
“Then there’s still time. Watching Smith is one thing, but dealing with him and a CIA operative is obviously beyond my experience.”
“Dealing with? Why the hell were you even following him? This isn’t your sphere of influence. If you feel people need watching — and goddamn well if they need ‘dealing with’—you come to me.”
“I have come to you, Major. And I’m expecting you to handle it.”
32
Fred Klein followed an unconcerned Secret Service man toward the president’s executive residence. The reason for the casual attitude was that this was a regular occurrence. Klein and the president had been roommates in college and the friendship they’d formed there transcended the world of politics and intelligence that they now lived in. Sam Adams Castilla surrounded himself with the same political creatures that every president was forced to, but he only really trusted the people he’d known before his rise to power. It’s how Klein had ended up heading Covert-One and why his virtually unlimited access to America’s leader would be the envy of everyone — if they knew about it.
While the two men occasionally met publicly in the Oval Office under the completely reasonable assumption that Castilla would periodically ask his old friend’s advice on matters of national security, it was better to keep those meetings to a minimum. Klein, to the degree that it was possible in the information age, felt most comfortable when working from the shadows.
Castilla was sitting on a threadbare sofa that had come with him from the governor’s mansion in Santa Fe when his old friend entered. He started to rise, but didn’t seem to have the strength. Instead, he grabbed a can of Coors off the coffee table and raised it in greeting.
“Even you wouldn’t believe the day I just had, Fred.”
Klein had always been suspicious that American presidents started slowly dyeing their hair gray the day they took office — a transition from the youth and energy expected of a candidate to the maturity and gravitas expected of a president. Now he knew. It wasn’t dye.
“For me?” Klein said, taking a seat across from him and pointing to a glass of scotch on the table.