Nexus

32 PREPARATIONS

Sam woke to someone paging her slate. Garrett Nichols. She padded into the bathroom, turned on the shower for background noise, and answered.

"What's up?"

There was another chime. Becker came online, his strong square face filling up half the screen. It was 6.24am Sam's time, 7.24pm Becker's time. They were on nearly opposite sides of the planet. She could see he was still in the office.

"What's the situation?" Becker asked.

Nichols answered. "Twenty minutes ago, Lane received an email from an anonymous account telling him that tonight is a trap."

The message appeared on screen.

Sam absorbed it.

"Who sent it?" Becker asked.

"We don't know, sir," Nichols replied. "Anonymous account. We can try to backtrack, but if they have any sense it'll be difficult, and it could also give us away."

"Do it," Becker said.

"Yes, sir."

"What's our operational strength for this mission?"

"Twelve combat assets in-country, not including Blackbird. All local contractors approved by CIA." Mercenaries, he didn't say. "Second-generation combat enhancements."

Becker nodded. The Boca Raton held a platoon of marines, but deploying them would require authorizations they didn't have. The mercenaries would have to do. "Deploy them all. I want as many of the assailants as possible taken alive. They could lead us back to Prat-Nung."

"Yes, sir."

"You said you can stop them from self-destructing?"

"It's possible, sir. Based on data picked up by Agent Cataranes' phone, we think we know the self-destruct frequency and code. We can jam that."

"Good," Becker said. "Anything else?"

Nichols spoke. "Sir, I think we should reconsider Lane's role in this."

Becker narrowed his eyes. "Don't tell me you're going to give me the Lane-is-a-civilian line as well?"

Sam kept her breathing steady. Becker wasn't going to get a rise out of her today.

"No, sir," Nichols answered. "But he's an important asset. He's key to getting closer to Shu. It may not be wise to risk him tonight."

"And you, Cataranes?" Becker asked.

"Sir, Special Agent Nichols took the words right out of my mouth."

Becker's eyes flicked down, scanned the message again. "Acknowledged. We have to balance that against the possibility of capturing or neutralizing Ted Prat-Nung. And Lane is not irreplaceable if Shu is going to invite Shankari as well."

He paused for a moment, drummed his fingers. "Agent Cataranes, your top priority is to keep the asset alive. This message advises of us another abduction attempt. That should make your job easier. Special Agent Nichols, make sure the assault team also understand the priority of keeping Lane alive. We should be starting with non-lethal rounds and escalating to lethal fire only if absolutely necessary."

Nichols nodded.

Sam remained silent.

Becker went on, more gently this time. "They'll be expecting just you, Sam. They'll up their firepower to be sure they can handle you. They won't be expecting a dozen fully armed operatives. The advantage will be ours."

"Yes, sir," Sam said, her tone completely flat.

"And delete that email from Lane's account. There's no reason to spook him. You both have your orders. Becker out." His face disappeared.

Sam rubbed her eyes.

"All right, let's talk details," Garrett Nichols said.

At 6.47am, Watson Cole's daemons alerted him that the email account he'd used was under attack. A reply had been received from Lane's account. It contained a known Trojan Horse attack. Opening it would hand over control of his account and systems to the attacker. Forty-five seconds later, a bank of servers began issuing logon attempts to the account, thousand of them per second. Someone was trying to hack into his account. Disappointing.

Wats disconnected from the mail system in Sweden, then issued the commands to completely wipe the machine in the Cayman Islands.

The cyber-attack meant that the ERD had read his mail first. And their response suggested that they didn't mean to heed his warning.

Wats stood up to his full height and stretched. Joints cracked in his thick neck, his beefy shoulders. He looked down at his massive arms, his dark brown skin, his superhumanly strong hands with their light palms, and contemplated his near future.

These hands had killed before. Many times.

Was he willing to kill again?

Yes. If he needed to, he would kill.

What would that do to his karma?

It was too late for that. His karma was as dark as could be. If he would suffer so that Kade might live, so be it. If he would send himself into an even deeper pit of hell that the world might be a better place, so be it.

He turned his hands over, studying them. Somewhere beneath his skin, DNA was slowly unraveling. Somewhere, the seeds of cancers were being sown.

We're all born dying, Wats told himself. What matters is only what we do with the instant we're given.

He'd doomed himself already. The world could still be saved.

It was time to collect his weapons and make his preparations. This was going to be a loud and bloody night.

In the command center aboard the Boca Raton, an hour after he'd signed off with Cataranes, Nichols received another call from Becker.

"Sir."

"I wanted to confirm with you: The other asset, the November asset. He's operational?"

"Yes, sir, though…"

"Yes, Special Agent Nichols?"

"I still think Agent Cataranes should know about the November asset, sir."

"What she doesn't know she can't spill," Becker replied. "The November program may have a very long lifetime. We're under strict orders to keep it to a minimum of disclosure."

"Yes, sir." Nichols bowed his head.

"Good. I've cleared my Friday schedule. I'll be online with you and your team for most of it. Get some rest. Tonight I need you at your best."

"Yes, sir."

Becker signed off.

Nichols sat alone in the command center, restless and troubled.

Kade sat on the bed in their room at the Prince Palace Hotel. It was 9.20pm. Soon, he and Sam would activate their implanted memory-sets. His had been updated by two rounds of hypno today. He'd forget that he was here on false pretenses, that Sam was an ERD agent, that his friends back home were in danger, that someone had attempted to kidnap him two nights ago, that Su-Yong Shu intended a posthuman revolution against humanity, and more. He would be the Kade of two months ago, innocent, unbloodied, shy, nervous, optimistic. That idea should appeal, he thought. It didn't in the slightest.

He'd pushed through the final day of the conference today, Sam and a member of their backup team constantly near him. He'd seen Narong, finally. The Thai student had greeted him and Sam and said he was looking forward to tonight.

Kade had the urge to warn him, even with Sam there. He didn't. He found the logic inescapable. If he warned Narong, friends back home would be harmed for certain. If he didn't warn Narong or the others, they might all still come through this unscathed.

I have to think strategically, now, he thought. I have to wait for my chance. It'll come.

Cataranes came out of the bathroom. She had make-up on. They'd have extensive support, she'd assured him, but he could tell that something about this mission didn't sit well with her. She claimed it was just normal pre-mission adrenaline.

Soon, he wouldn't remember or care. He'd be a different Kade altogether.

"Time to go," Sam said.