Nexus

25 THE PAWN SELDOM KNOWS

Kade swam in and out of consciousness. He was in a car. Sam was with him. His head was in her lap, her hand on his brow. Lights raced by. There had been a fight… Explosions. He caught flashes of conversation. Tasers. Kidnapping. Abduction.

He could just barely feel Sam's mind through a haze of static. She was concerned. For him. And she was angry. Someone was going to pay.

Then he was being moved, carried out into the night, through a doorway. There was a woman's face. Thai. A stranger. And then a coffin lid closed down around him.

He tried to fight, found he had no strength. They'd buried him alive. He blinked hard and the world swam back into focus. Strange noises all around him. Then the lid came away and bright light filled his eyes.

He was in a compact surgery. An operating table with lights and two insectoid robotic surgeons occupied one wall. An emergency metabolic suspension tank was against a second wall. The coffin he was in was an imaging bed. They'd been scanning him.

The Thai woman was at a console, looking at diagnostic results. Kade tried to sit up, failed. Sam gave him an arm and he managed it on the second try.

The Thai woman looked over at him. "You have a concussion. Not very serious. No significant brain bleeding. You do have a linear fracture of the skull on your right side, but it's faint, and not impinging on the brain. You're going to have major bruising of the side of your face."

Kade grunted.

She loaded up a syringe and approached him.

"What now?" Kade asked.

"I'm going to inject you with growth factors. Trust me, you want this."

Kade followed her instructions without further demur, letting her treat his wounds. He was lucky to be alive. If Sam hadn't been with him, or if she'd been a little bit slower, or if that guy had smacked him just a little bit harder…

Then again, if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be in this mess at all.

The last step was a lumbar puncture. The Thai woman slid a needle into his back, between his vertebrae, sucked out a tiny sample.

Cerebrospinal fluid. They're looking for signs that Shu inserted something else into me. They won't find any.

After the Thai woman was done with him, Sam led Kade to a room where he could lie down, then disappeared.

Kade dozed. He woke at some sound, disoriented.

Where am I?

The party, the fight, Thailand, Su-Yong Shu, it all came flooding back into him. A chill went up his spine. His stomach knotted up. He reached for the Nexus OS. No good. He couldn't get the OS to launch, couldn't invoke the serenity package. The nodes in his brain were scrambled. What was he doing here? Why were people trying to kill him, trying to capture him? He was going to die in this place. They were going to catch him, torture him, and then, even though he'd tell them everything, they'd kill him.

He felt faint. His heart was pounding in his chest. His breath was short. He was trembling. He felt cold all over. His body was covered in sweat. He needed to get out of here.

The door to the room opened. Light flooded in. Kade flinched, threw up an arm to ward away whatever was coming.

"Kade!"

It was Sam. Samantha. She had something in her hand. She moved towards him, closing the door behind her. He flinched back farther, put both hands up to keep her away.

"Kade!" She was on the bed with him now, her hands on him. "It's OK. It's OK. Husshhh. It's OK. I'm here. You're safe. We're in a safe place. It's OK. Shhhhhh."

Her words didn't reach him. Her thoughts did. She was calm. She was comfort. She was strength and safety and resolve. He was someplace safe. They'd gotten away. No one would hurt him here. It was OK.

Bit by bit he relaxed. His heart slowed. It no longer threatened to burst from his chest. His breath steadied. The trembling subsided. Sam held him, and he clung to her. It was OK. It was going to be OK. They were safe now. It was OK.

He lay that way for a while, feeling the comfort of her mind, listening to the strong beat of her heart, the rhythm of her breathing, feeling her stroke his hair as she whispered again and again that it was OK. Her thoughts grew stronger in his mind. He lay that way, and sleep took him.

Sam stroked his head and whispered kind things and exuded support and peace and safety until Kade fell asleep again. This poor kid, scared and out of his depth. They were the same age, but Kade seemed so young in comparison. How was it that Kade, who'd grown up in a happy middle class family, in a happy suburban town, shielded from all threats until recently, was the anxious one, while she, Sam, with all the damage and torments of her childhood, was the strong one?

Maybe he was still recovering from the death of his parents six months ago.

Or maybe he was the normal one. Maybe she'd just had all the weakness beaten out of her.

She had work to do. She'd borrowed a slate from the safe house. She picked it up from the floor where she'd dropped it, shifted back into physical contact with Kade to reassure him, tapped and typed out her report. It took time. Three men, presumably Thai nationals, were dead. Bangkok Metropolitan Police would have found them by now. Her DNA could be at the scene. Oversight would have a field day with this. She finished up the report, shook her head, submitted it. Then she lay there, drifted into a half sleep with Kade beside her.

She woke – an indeterminate amount of time later – to a tap on the door. Someone turned the handle, stuck a head in. It was Lee, the squad leader. He spoke softly.

"You've got a call. ERD Deputy Director Becker. Want it on your slate or out here?"

Sam blinked the sleep out of her eyes. Her contacts said 3.05am. Kade was asleep, an arm around her.

"Out there," she said. "Be there in a sec."

Lee's head disappeared. Sam slowly extricated herself from Kade's embrace, slipped out and to the comms room.

It was a three-way call. Becker on one screen, Garrett Nichols on another.

"Sam," Becker said. "You OK?"

Sam nodded. "Yes, sir. Couple bruises, nothing major."

"I read your report. Good work out there. That was a hard fight."

"Just doing my job, sir."

"Any personal suspicions as to who the assailants were or what they were after?"

Sam nodded again. "They were after Lane, sir. I'm sure of it. They hit him first with non-lethal weapons, but didn't hesitate to use lethal force with me. As to who they were, hired muscle or organized crime, I'd guess. The self-destruct suggests the latter."

Becker nodded. "Nichols?"

"I agree with Agent Cataranes. This was an abduction attempt aimed at Lane."

Becker spoke again. "The major value that Lane has is the Nexus 5 design. That has to be what they wanted. As to who they are, let's enumerate the possibilities."

"OK," Nichols said. "First guess, Su-Yong Shu. She may want what Lane has. She's already shown interest in him. Inviting him to this conference may have been a ruse so she could nab him."

Sam mulled that over. "Why go to the trouble of having dinner with him?"

"Maybe she needed confirmation that he was what she thought," Nichols mused.

Becker nodded. "We know that Shu has connection to Thai organized crime through Ted Prat-Nung. And at their dinner there was heavy Nexus traffic between Shu and Lane. That might have been the confirmation she was looking for."

Sam frowned. "Sir, how do we know that?"

"Lane's phone was recording all Nexus traffic near it for later analysis," Becker replied.

"Sir, I turned off the Nexus functions on the phone before their dinner, per plan, to minimize the odds of it giving Lane away."

"The record function remained on, Sam. We needed to determine whether or not Shu has Nexus capabilities."

Sam frowned again. "Why didn't I know that?"

"It was on a need-to-know basis."

"And I didn't need to know?"

"No, Agent Cataranes," Becker's voice was firm. "You didn't need to know."

"Sir, with all due respect, I think that data would have been operationally relevant."

"Agent Cataranes," Becker said sharply, "that information was not operationally relevant to you. The phone was in passive record mode. There was no way for Shu to detect it."

"Sir–" Sam started.

"This topic is closed, Agent."

Sam took a breath, held her temper.

The pawn seldom knows what the King has planned, Nakamura had said once.

She didn't like feeling like a pawn.

"Next possibility," Becker said.

Nichols cleared his throat, looked at the camera again. "Ananda," he said. "He had Lane followed, demonstrating interest. It's possible they had a Nexus interaction as well. If so, Lane's technology could be valuable to him."

"Any luck identifying the man who followed Lane and Cataranes?" Becker asked.

"Not yet, sir," Nichols replied.

Sam held her tongue. Ananda seemed an unlikely suspect, but he had sent a monk to follow them. And stranger things had been true.

"Next possibility," Becker said.

"There are two possibilities left," Nichols said. "First, it's possible that someone else who knows Lane's work sold him out to some organization here, maybe Thai mafia, or Ted Prat-Nung's distribution cartel."

Sam was frowning.

"Yes, Agent Cataranes?" Becker asked.

"Something just occurred to me, sir. Narong Shinawatra, the student who invited us to that afterparty. He introduced himself to Kade, apparently bumped into him randomly. He rapidly befriended us, invited us to this relatively small event. He knew the route we were taking. He had the opportunity to notify the ambushers when we were leaving the club."

"…and we know that he's had contact with Suk Prat-Nung." Nichols was nodding.

Becker nodded as well, thoughtfully. "Good observation. Any suspects on the US side who might have sold Lane out?"

Nichols shook his head. "We'll get on it, sir. We can mine phone and email for any contacts with people in Thailand or obvious short hops away. We'll look for sudden bank deposits as well."

"Nichols, you mentioned one more possibility?" Becker prompted.

"Yes, sir. The last possibility is a leak within our organization. Someone inside the ERD could have sold this information, to the same sorts of sources as discussed in the last possibility."

Becker nodded. He looked troubled.

Sam spoke up. "My instincts say no."

"Why is that, Agent Cataranes?" Becker asked.

"They would have come at us harder."

Kade came slowly back to consciousness. The panic attack had passed. Sam was gone from the bed. He could feel her across the link. She was nearby, still in the safe house. It comforted him. She was talking to her superiors. Becker. The thought of the man was like a bitter taste in his mouth.

Nexus felt much stronger now, much more stable. Whatever effect the taser had on it, it seemed that sleep and time were undoing it.

Tasers. They'd wanted to take him prisoner. He was lucky they hadn't gotten him. He owed Sam. She'd risked her life to keep him from them.

There was only one reason for them to try to take him prisoner. They wanted what he knew about Nexus. They'd wanted to take it and make it their own, use it however they chose. And him? Perhaps they'd planned to kill him after they had what they wanted. Perhaps they'd planned to make him a slave, improving the technology for them.

I won't be anyone's slave. No one.

And the ERD?

Ilya was right. He shouldn't have given Nexus 5 to them. He didn't trust them. That was the past. He wouldn't make the same mistake again. Had he actually thought of going to work for them, trying to change the system from the inside? No. He would just become another slave. He would find another way.

And Shu?

The same. Her goals attracted him, her promises captivated him. He wanted with all his being to join her. But her compromises were many. She was a tool of her country's military. And he wouldn't be a slave of the Chinese military any more than he would of the ERD.

He would find another way.

"…they would have come at us harder," Sam said. "They would have known that I was a field agent. They would have brought more firepower to bear, and started with me."

Nichols looked thoughtful.

Becker nodded. "OK, I agree that a leak is a lower likelihood. Let's focus on the organized crime angle, Shu, and Ananda. The dead assailants are our best evidence. Any data on them?"

Nichols shook his head. "No matches on face recognition, DNA, or prints."

"What about the fourth person?" Becker asked.

"Nothing so far," Nichols said. "We're running deep trawls now. If there's anything out there on any of them, we'll find it."

Becker looked down at his wrist. It was early afternoon on the US East Coast by now, Sam knew.

"OK," he said. "Good work, both of you. If there's one silver lining to this, Sam, it's that you've saved his life now. He'll be more in your debt. He's primed to trust you more. He's vulnerable now and he's gonna look to you for protection and guidance. Take advantage of that."

Sam felt something inside her twist. Trust? Is that what this was about?

Becker was continuing. "Nichols, I want you moving forward on all angles. This is a Pri 1 investigation now. Tap whatever resources you need. Sam, keep your chin up. You did good today. I want another report in eighteen hours."

"Sir," Sam said. "There's something else I'd like to discuss."

"OK," Becker said. "But make it quick. I have a meeting on the Hill shortly."

"Sir, I think we should abort the mission, or at least send Kade home."

"What?" Becker said.

"Sir, we've achieved the primary mission objective. Kade has an invitation to Shanghai, and Shu has practically offered him the job. In addition, he's a civilian, and his life may be in continued danger here."

"No," Becker said.

"But, sir," Sam protested. "The risk to Kade–"

"No, Agent Cataranes." Becker spoke with a flat finality. "Leaving now risks raising Shu's suspicions. And Prat-Nung is as important a target as Shu. This is the best lead we've had in three years. We have to take it."

"But, sir…"

"Agent!" Becker raised his voice.

Sam felt herself bristle. She pulled herself erect in the chair, said nothing.

"This isn't open for discussion," Becker said in a tone Sam knew too well. "We have an opportunity to get closer to PratNung. We're going to take it. If it is a trap, it's an even better opportunity to identify and neutralize the opposition. You and Lane, our asset, will be well protected. And we'll do absolutely nothing unusual, like sending the asset home days early, to raise Shu's suspicions. Am I making myself absolutely clear, Agent Cataranes? Special Agent Nichols?"

"Yes, sir," Sam said smartly.

"As crystal, sir," Nichols replied.

"Good. Becker out."

His face disappeared from the screen. Sam slumped in the chair.

Nichols' face drooped. "Sam, we'll bring security in tighter around you and Lane, starting immediately. Friday night… we'll have people stationed right there. Your support will be seconds away, I swear it. We won't leave you twisting in the wind on this."

Sam nodded sadly. "Thanks, Garrett. We can talk details later." She disconnected.

She dimmed the lights in the comms room, crossed her legs in the chair, put her hands lightly in her lap, focused on her breathing, tried to let her mind empty and peace come. A memory came instead. Nakamura.

She'd been nineteen, perhaps, a year or so into her training. He'd been in his mid thirties, the summer he told her he was leaving the ERD, transferring to the CIA.

"In this business, Sam, you have to remember that you're just one piece on the board."

"What do you mean?" she'd asked. Nakamura often spoke in metaphors.

"It's like chess. White against black. But it's not just one piece against another. It's sixteen pieces on a side. Many will fall, even on the winning side, before the game is over."

Sam had mulled that over. "You're saying that if I keep moving forward with this, my life is at risk. I could get killed doing fieldwork."

They'd been in DC, on the National Mall. Nakamura had paused to skip a rock across the reflecting pool, had taken his time with his words.

Sam had squinted behind dark shades in the bright sunlight, her newly enhanced eyes still sensitive to so much stimulus. Everything had hurt that summer. Already the viruses were spreading genes no human ancestor had ever carried through the cells of her body. Muscle fibers were lengthening to inhuman proportions and strengths. Neural ion channels and myelin sheaths were being transformed to speed nerve signals between brain and muscle. Reprogrammed bone cells were extruding organic carbon fiber webs to harden themselves against impact. Everything hurt, and she didn't care. She was going to save the world. She was going to save all the little girls.

Nakamura had skipped another rock, then spoken softly. "Sometimes dropping a piece is necessary in order to win," he'd said. "A sacrifice. A gambit. A trade for a more valuable piece. It's not just that you might be killed in this line of business. It's that you might be intentionally sacrificed or traded to further advance your side's position."

Sam had scoffed at that. "That's not how we play. We take care of our own."

Nakamura had grunted, said nothing.

They'd walked a bit more in silence. She remembered the intense heat of the sun. DC was so hot that summer.

Eventually she'd asked, "So what kind of pieces are we? Knights? Bishops?"

Nakamura had chuckled. "You, my young friend, are a pawn."

Sam came out of the reverie. She could feel Kade through the Nexus link on the phone, she realized. The Nexus felt stronger now. It was coming back together in her head.

She was troubled by the conversation with Becker. Not just because he'd scolded her. It was the notion that Kade might trust her more now as a side effect of the ambush. It was true. She'd felt it. The hostility had dropped. He felt honest gratitude that she'd saved his life. He'd felt comforted by her presence. That could only be an advantage to the mission.

In seeking to uncover the causes of an event, ask yourself: who stands to benefit from it? More wise, cynical words from Nakamura.

Becker stood to benefit from this, she thought. The mission did. The ERD did. Is there any chance this was a set-up? That I was meant to beat those guys? That it was all to play Kade? Were those men pawns, sacrificed in a larger gambit?

No. That was just paranoia talking. Surely just paranoia. Wasn't it?