LITMIR.BIZ

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him. He seemed to be in the grip of profound paranoia. Tom intuited the purpose of this building. The billionaire feared that if a hit team somehow got onto this vast property undetected, they would first marshal their forces in the cover of timberland and then make their way within striking distance of the main house by staying as much as possible within one swath of forest after another. This hut was an automated listening post, of which there were no doubt more situated in other isolate woods. Computers running sound-analysis programs would seine from the common chorus of nature any noises that implied a human presence and would alert the security detail at the main residence.

      Hollister didn’t need to track bootprints in the snow or search the storm-shrouded night for the flicker of a flashlight. He need not have the knowledge of an Indian scout of another era. He was at this moment being informed telemetrically that Tom Buckle was transiting these particular acres of pines.

      In fact, the moment the door of the hut had been breached, an alarm—silent to Tom—surely would have alerted those at the house. No doubt Hollister, whether on foot or in a vehicle, had likewise been informed by way of whatever communications device he carried.

      The hunter was even now venturing through this island of trees or approaching its shores, and he knew precisely where his quarry could be found.

      Gripping the pistol in his right hand, Tom Buckle snatched the Tac Light off the ground with his left, turned from the hut, and ran the gauntlet of evergreens. His eyes were not dark-adapted anymore. And he could no longer presume that darkness would avail him more than speed. He kept the Tac Light on its broadest, palest setting, the better to see optional pathways through the pines, but also because its narrowest, brightest beam was so intense that, on a clear night, it could be seen two miles away. The density of the woods precluded detection at such a distance, but Hollister was likely to be much nearer than that and perhaps closing fast.

      The thick-growing woods, seeming to condense around him as he ran, made it unlikely that he would be shot in flight, even if the billionaire was armed with a fully automatic carbine. Scattered patches of the dirty crusted snows of other days and a thick carpet of pine needles provided treacherous footing. However, the greatest danger came from low-hanging branches, of which there were few in this mature woods, though not few enough.

      He had lost all sense of direction. He wanted only to flee from the hut and find a meadow, where the faint phosphorous glow of the snowfield would make the flashlight unnecessary. Perhaps there would be no high-tech listening stations in the open land, where Hollister need not fear that assassins might gather undetected.

      The billionaire’s voice played in memory as Tom ran: I am also a fair man, Tom. In the contest to come, you will have a chance to survive.

      Perhaps a fragile thread of truth wove through Hollister’s tapestry of lies, but the devil was in the definitions of fair and chance. He was as fair as certain poisonous spiders are fair when they paralyze their prey with venom that leaves them feeling no pain while later they are eaten alive. And one chance in a thousand is still a chance, as is one in ten thousand.

       9

      Traffic congealed again, and during the rushless last hour of their journey to Newport Beach, Jane told Vikram Rangnekar about Bertold Shenneck’s nanoweb implants, the Hamlet list, the adjusted people, the brain-scrubbed rayshaws shorn of memory and personality, reprogrammed as stoic and obedient killing machines. She explained the degree to which the cabal could influence—maybe even control—the majority of media outlets, as well as the extent of their infiltration into the FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, and other national security and law-enforcement agencies. She skimmed through the high points of her actions in recent weeks, quickly describing what evidence she had gathered.

      Although Jane’s story sounded like a fever dream even to her, Vikram listened with just a few interruptions, and his silence signified neither disbelief nor even skepticism. What he had learned on his own were pieces of a puzzle that clicked into place with each of her revelations, forming a dire picture that was as logical and convincing as it was dark and strange. Each time she glanced at him, his sweet face hardened further from disquiet to dismay to dread. Once when he met her glance, she saw a horror of the future in his large, expressive eyes.

      Nearing Newport, as Jane transitioned from Interstate 405 to State Highway 73, Vikram said, “If we could capture one of these adjusted people and put him through an MRI, would we see proof of this brain implant?”

      “I guess so. I don’t really know. I don’t think we could get one of them to cooperate, and even if we saw proof, I’m not sure we could drill through the media blackout on all of this.”

      “The Arcadians have it locked down that tight?”

      “I don’t know how many journalists, publishers, and other media types are true believers in the cause and how many might be adjusted people, brain-screwed, being controlled by Techno Arcadians. But, yeah, they seem able to block all reportage of this.”

      The congestion relented again, and traffic was moving fluidly.

      As they descended to the new freeway via an elevated connector, Jane saw a patrol car below, snugged against the right-hand shoulder of the roadway, waiting for an unsuspecting motorist to enter the down ramp faster than the posted speed allowed. She looked at the speedometer. She was all right.

      “A few weeks ago,” she continued, “I spoke to a forensic pathologist, Dr. Emily Rossman, who had worked in the Los Angeles medical examiner’s office. When she trephined the skull of a woman who committed suicide, she saw the nanoweb.”

      They swept past the cruiser and merged one lane to the left, heading south on State Highway 73. In the rearview mirror, she saw the patrol car’s headlights bloom. Its roof-mounted lightbar suddenly blazed and began flashing with authority.

      “Dr. Rossman saw a gossamer fairylike structure of intricately designed circuits netting all four lobes of the brain, disappearing into various sulci, with a concentration on the corpus callosum. She was scared shitless. She thought she was looking at evidence of an extraterrestrial invasion.”

      The patrol car was coming up fast behind them, but no siren wailed yet.

      “Shortly after Dr. Rossman opened the cadaver’s skull, maybe as a reaction to contact with the air, the nanoweb dissolved. She said it was ‘like the way certain salts absorb moisture from the air and just deliquesce.’”

      Still without a siren, the cruiser moved one lane to the left of the Explorer and sped past, dwindling in the night as if it, too, were a construct of deliquescent salts.

      “There was residue?” Vikram asked.

      “Some. Dr. Rossman sent it to the lab. She never got the report because the next day she was told to leave and accept severance pay or be fired. They had trumped up a charge against her.”

      “Don’t they videotape autopsies?”

      “As I recall, the video disappeared.”

      Vikram pointed to a sign that listed upcoming exits. “We’re close now. Get off at MacArthur Boulevard.”

      The patrol car was nearing the top of the exit ramp as Jane drove onto the bottom of it.

      Halfway up the ramp, she glanced in the rearview mirror to see if another black-and-white might be tailing her. Nothing.

      She said, “I feel boxed in even when I’m not.”

      “Which is why you’ve survived this long.”

      From MacArthur Boulevard, they turned onto Bison—and saw a cluster of four police vehicles in front of a store in an upscale strip mall to the right.

      “Tell me that’s not where we’re going,” Jane said.

      “It’s not. Turn right at the next corner.”

      He pointed to a self-storage facility on the north side of the street. “There’s a package

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