The Merchant’s War

"Can't tell." He reached out and slid the window behind the driver's head closed. "Probably just a double-cross boy or a thugster, but you can't be too sure. Worst case, a freelance thief taker trying to make his quota. Nobody you'd want to be nabbed by, that's for sure."

"In broad daylight?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "Times are hard."

Shit. She stared at him. His closed expression spoke volumes. "What am I going to do?" she asked. "My business. My house. They'll be under surveillance."

I le raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure they will be."

"But what can I-"

"You can start by relaxing," he said. "And letting the salon dye your hair." His lips twitched in a brief smile. "Then, once we have checked into the hotel, if you'd honor me with your presence at dinner, you can tell me all about your recent travails. How does that sound?"

"That sounds-" This is going to be tougher than I realized, she thought faintly, as the cab lurched around a corner and pulled in opposite an imposing row of store windows near the base of a large stone building. "-acceptable."

* * *

Late afternoon in NYC, mid-morning in San Francisco. Colonel Smith had brought a laptop and a briefcase full of work with him on the Air Force Gulfstream, holing up at the back of the cabin while Dr. James worked the phones continuously up front. Dr. James had brought along a small coterie of administrative gofers from NSC, and two Secret Service bodyguards: the latter had sized Smith up immediately and, after confirming he was on their watch list, politely asked him to stay where they could keep their eyes on him. Which was fine by Eric. Every time he ventured down from one of the FTO aeries he got a sensation between his shoulder blades as if a sniper's crosshairs were crawling around there. Even Gillian had noticed him getting jumpy, staring at passing cars when they went places together-in the few snatched hours of domesticity that were all this job was leaving him. Bastards, he thought absently as he paged through the daily briefing roundup, looking for any sign that things weren't going as badly as he feared. I hope this isn't a waste of time...

Dr. James had been as infuriatingly unreadable as usual, saying nothing beyond the cryptic hints about some project at UC Berkeley. Lawrence Livermore Labs weren't exactly on campus in Berkeley-it wasn't even a daily commute-but that seemed to be where they were going. The gray Gulfstream executive jet touched down at San Francisco International and taxied towards a fenced-in compound where a couple of limos and two SUVs full of security contractors were waiting for them. "Take the second car," James had told Eric: "The driver will take you to Westgate badge office to check you in before bringing you to JAUNT BLUE." He nodded. "I've got prior clearance and an appointment before I join you."

"Okay." Eric swung his briefcase into the back of the Lincoln. "See you there," he added, but James had already turned on his heel and was heading for the other car.

It took more than an hour to drive out to the laboratory complex, during which time Eric ran and reran his best scenarios for the coming meeting, absent-mindedly working his gyroball exerciser. James wouldn't be visiting in person if he didn't think it was important, which means he 'II be reporting to the vice president. Progress. But what are they doing here? He'd pulled the files on the only professor called Armstrong who was currently on faculty at UCSD: some kind of expert on quantum computing. Then he'd had Agent Delaney do a quick academic literature search. A year ago, Armstrong had coauthored a paper with a neurobiologist, conclusively demolishing the Penrose microtubule hypothesis, coming up with a proof that quantum noise would cause decoherence in any circuit relying on tubulin-bound GTP, whatever the hell that was. Then he'd written another paper, about quantum states in large protein molecules, before falling mysteriously silent-along with his research assistants and postdocs. The previous year they'd put their names on eighteen papers: this year, the total was just three, and those were merely citations as co-authors with other research groups.