"You too, Smith," demanded Desh. "On the ground. You and I need to have a nice long chat."

Smith shook his head. "I'm really not feeling all that chatty," he said.

And then, before Desh could react, Smith pointed his tranquilizer gun at his own leg and pulled the trigger.

PART FOUR.

Reunion.

25.

Kira Miller took the lead as they hiked through the woods. Desh was close behind, his .45 trained on her back, while Connelly and Griffin brought up the rear; all four staying alert for possible ambushes. Their destination was Kira's SUV, rented under an a.s.sumed name, which was parked at a campground a half-mile distant and which could not be immediately traced. They were in an untouched section of the woods, blazing their own trail, and their progress was slower than Desh would have liked. Kira had used a small GPS device to find the clearing, and she consulted it periodically to be sure they were taking the most direct line to her vehicle possible.

Desh fumed silently. How had he let Smith slip through his fingers! Smith had known they couldn't wait until he regained consciousness to interrogate him, and dragging his unconscious body along as they made their escape would be equally foolhardy. As expected, the man had carried no identification. s.h.i.t, thought Desh for the third time. He had been so close to finally learning what was going on and who was pulling Smith's strings. It was maddening!

Desh had tranquilized the remaining commandoes to ensure they couldn't sound an alarm. After he had cut Griffin and Connelly free, he had taken the standard, military first-aid kit from the helicopter and had cleaned and dressed the colonel's wound, giving him a potent pain killer as well. Before they had taken off into the woods, Desh also hurriedly dressed the wound of the now-unconscious soldier Connelly had shot.

All in all, Connelly had been lucky, but he had still lost a considerable amount of blood and the risk of infection was significant. He needed to get to a doctor soon.

Kira stopped walking and gestured toward Desh's gun. "Do you really need to point that at me?" she whispered, taking care that her voice wouldn't carry and advertise their presence.

It was a good question, thought Desh. Did he? She had warned him about Smith; warned him that Connelly was in danger. And she had been right. She had also just bailed them out of a big mess.

But what if this had been nothing but a set-up? For all Desh knew she and Smith were working together. Still, to what end? If she wanted Desh dead she could have accomplished this at the motel. If she was allied with Smith to acquire Griffin and Connelly along with him, they were seconds away from this as well. What's more, she had voluntarily put herself under Desh's control.

Desh wasn't about to holster his gun until they were in more secure territory, but he joined Kira at the front of the procession and no longer pointed it in her direction.

"Thanks," she whispered earnestly.

"So you bugged the sweatshirt, too, didn't you?" asked Desh in hushed tones as they began to move again, barely managing to keep any trace of admiration from his voice.

Kira nodded guiltily.

"What are you doing here?"

"I knew they'd follow the colonel to your meeting place and try to kill him. I decided I couldn't let that happen."

Desh studied her carefully but detected no sign of deceit. "Do you really have a suicide tooth?" he whispered.

A broad smile came over her face. "No," she admitted. "It was all I could think of at the time." She raised her eyebrows. "Actually, I figured my bl.u.s.ter wouldn't keep Smith from deciding I was bluffing for very long. I was counting on you to get the hint and jump ina"which is exactly what you did."

Desh knew that he should have done so immediately, but he had been too busy admiring her performance. "How did you know I was watching?" he asked.

"I heard Smith threaten your friends and give you three minutes to return and surrender. I knew you wouldn't let them die," she whispered approvingly. "And I knew if you heard my voice you'd stay hidden to see what was going on."

Desh nodded but didn't respond. In addition to being scientifically brilliant, she could think on her feet as well as anyone he had ever knowna"and this was saying quite a lot.

Before long they entered a large clearing with a sign that read, "Campground 3B". Eight small wood cabins were arranged in a semicircle within the clearing, and cars were parked beside several of them. A gravel road led away from the campground on the opposite side.

Kira had parked the SUV at the edge of the campground, and soon they were all inside, with Kira driving, Desh in the pa.s.senger seat, and Connelly and Griffin in the back.

As Kira started the engine, Desh turned to her and said, "I a.s.sume you came here from the road that parallels the one we took. Can you get us back there?"

"Absolutely." She pulled onto the gravel road and slowly moved forward. Connelly winced as the SUV vibrated on the unpaved surface and jostled his injury.

"Where to once we hit the main artery?" she asked.

Desh pursed his lips in concentration. "That depends. Any guess as to when they'll link this car to us?"

"Hard to say," she replied. "It depends on when they discover their raid back there failed, and how many cars are on the road. It shouldn't be immediate, though."

Desh's eyes narrowed as he sorted through various possibilities. "There's a large shopping center between Petersburg and Richmond called the Manor Hill Malla"it's all-enclosed, making it inaccessible to satellite surveillance. We could lose ourselves in the crowds and then leave. They may be able to track us to there, but they'll have a h.e.l.l of a time tracking us from there."

Kira looked impressed. "I like it," she said.

"Colonel?" said Desh.

"Me to," said Connelly. "I recommend we split up once we're there."

"Agreed," said Desh. He turned to Kira. "If you can get us on I-95 north, the mall is just off a main exit."

She nodded. "Will do."

The wide gravel road soon ended in a skinny paved one that wound its way through the heart of the woods for a half mile before hitting an arrow-straight main artery. Kira pulled onto the main road and accelerated as rapidly as the rental would allow.

Desh turned in his seat to face Connelly. "Colonel, how are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," said Connelly stoically, but blood was still slowly seeping through his bandages and he looked pale.

"Matt?" said Desh. "How about you? Are you okay?"

"Not really," he said. "But it's hard to complain when I'm sitting next to someone with a bullet wound who isn't," he said dryly.

Desh was encouraged that Griffin had recovered his sense of humor. "When we get to the mall, we'll split up into two groups," said Desh. "I'll go with Kira. Matt, can I count on you to look after the colonel?"

"Look after him?"

Desh nodded. "Don't let him fool you. He's not doing as well as he's pretending." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his thick stack of hundreds; pa.s.sing about forty of them to Griffin in the back seat. "A little spending money," he said. "I need you to see to it that he gets to a doctor."

"I'll do my best," said Griffin solemnly.

"Colonel, any good military doctors you trust with your life?" asked Desh.

Connelly considered. "Yes. Don Menken. He's retired but still lives near Bragg. I can trust him to patch me up and not ask any questions."

Kira opened the SUV's center console and pulled out a cell phone. She pa.s.sed it back to Griffin. "Use this phone to reach us," she instructed. "I have its mate. Hit Autodial 1 and it will speed-dial my number. The phone is completely secure."

"No cell phone is secure," said Connelly wearily, the vitality of his voice beginning to wane as his blood loss began to catch up with him.

"The signal can be intercepted easily enough, but the phone can't be connected to me. Even if it could, the audio is sent scrambled. These two phones can unscramble each other's signals, but even top cryptographic experts won't be able to decipher the conversation."

Connelly doubted her code was nearly as tight as she thought it was, but he didn't argue the point.

"Let's come up with a game plan we can use when we get to the mall," suggested Desh.

"Agreed," rasped Connelly. "But first give me the shorthand version of why we're joining forces with enemy number one here."

Kira glanced at Desh with interest, as though curious as to what he would say.

Desh sighed. Connelly was the least well informed of any of them. "We both know there's far more going on here than we understand," he began. "Smith's men crashed the party at the motel. And Smith had a cell phone that responded to the number you gave me and told me you were taking orders from him. But we know that was a lie. Kira claims she's innocent and not involved in any terror plots. She warned me that you were in danger from Smith, and she was right." He raised his eyebrows. "And she did risk herself to rescue us," he added pointedly.

"You've seen her file," responded Connelly. "She's a brilliant manipulator and liar. This could all have been staged."

"This is true. And believe me, I haven't lost sight of that. But she claims she can prove her innocence and explain what's going on, and I'm going to give her that chance. I can a.s.sure you that I'll bring a healthy dose of skepticism to the table."

Desh looked at his watch and calculated how long it would take them to reach their destination. "We need to be sure we know what we'll be doing at the mall and think it through so we don't make any obvious mistakes," he said. "But that shouldn't take long. With the time remaining I'll try to give you a 30,000-foot view of what I know. Matt can fill in more of the details when he has the chance."

"Fair enough," said Connelly.

"Before I begin, I need to warn you: without the details you're going to find most of this hard to believe."

Matt Griffin smiled slyly and rolled his eyes. "You can say that again," he muttered from the back of the SUV.

26.

The Manor Hill Mall was a hive of activity. Between them, Petersburg and Richmond had a population of over a million people, and it wasn't hard to believe that half of them were shopping at Manor Hill. The mall was four stories high, with all four stories under a vaulted atrium ceiling, and encompa.s.sed a total square footage of retail s.p.a.ce that was hard to comprehend. Connelly had donned Desh's windbreaker to hide his blood soaked bandages. Desh and Kira had dropped Griffin and the colonel at one end of the mall before driving almost half a mile to enter the mall at its opposite end.

As they had planned during the drive, Griffin and Connelly entered a crowded clothing store and made themselves over from head to toe in an ensemble chosen to help them blend in. They then bought scissors and shaving gear and emerged from a restroom ten minutes later without any facial hair. When Griffin had been told this would be necessary he had almost mutinied; but in the end he had agreed that this was a better alternative than being discovered and shot to deatha"barely. Connelly was also pained to part with his prized mustache, but he took the loss with military stoicism.

After altering their appearance, the two men ordered a cab under an a.s.sumed name and took it to a side entrance of a nearby Hilton hotel. They then pa.s.sed through the lobby to the front of the hotel and convinced another cabbie to take them all the way to Connelly's doctor friend. The cabbie had adamantly refused to drive this far until he was handed a stack of hundred dollar bills, after which he decided that the customer was always king, and he'd be happy to take them where they wanted to go.

Desh and Kira changed outfits as well. Desh was now wearing a pair of pre-faded jeans and a hooded, burgundy-and-gold Washington Redskins sweatshirt with oversized pockets. Kira replaced the tan jacket she had been wearing with a blue one of a different style, and her hair was now tucked up inside a Redskins ball cap. Both wore tennis shoes for comfort and mobility.

Whoever tracked them to the mall would expect their stay to be brief, just long enough so they could lose themselves among the crowd before racing off by cab or stolen car. The last thing anyone would expect them to do would be to loiter at the mall for several hours in plain sight, which is exactly why they planned to do so, leaving on a bus that wasn't scheduled to depart for several hours yet.

Manor Hill had fourteen restaurants and a Food Court. They found an information booth and asked for a restaurant with a romantic ambiance; shorthand for one that was so poorly lighted they couldn't be easily seen while inside. At the same time such lighting would allow them to readily see anyone entering the restaurant from the mall.

Twenty minutes later they were in a booth in the back of Montag's Gourmet Pizza, a restaurant whose dusk-like level of lighting was unexpected in a pizza place, gourmet or otherwise, but was perfect for their needs.

The waiter noticed their matching Redskins attire from a distance and a.s.sumed they were on a date, but as he got a closer look at the grime and dense shadow of stubble on Desh's face, he changed his mind. They must be married, he thought. No one on a date would have such little regard for personal hygiene.

Desh ordered a soda, Kira iced-tea, and they ordered a large pizza to split. Although Desh knew he had far more important things to worry about, sharing a pizza seemed too much like breaking bread with the devil for his taste; albeit a devil who had probably saved Connelly's life. He remained determined to keep as much emotional distance from the woman across from him as he could manage.

When the waiter left, Desh stealthily drew his gun and hid it on his lap, under his oversized sweatshirt, with his finger on the trigger. He situated himself at an awkward angle in the booth so he could watch both Kira and the entrance to the restaurant as they spoke.

After the waiter returned with their drinks and then left again, Kira got right to the point. "I a.s.sume you remember where we were last night before we were, ah a interrupted?" Desh nodded. It was hard to believe their discussion had taken place just the night before. "You can make yourself smarter, but when you do you turn into a psychopath." As he spoke he continued to anxiously watch the entrance, scrutinizing anyone who approached the hostess podium and scanning all human mall traffic in his view.

"Who knew you had such a way with words," said Kira. She smiled warmly. "That may be the most succinct summation in history."

"We can't be sure when we'll be interrupted again," said Desh icily, subconsciously trying to counter her warmth. "Since you're so eager to convince me you're not working with terrorists, let's not waste any time."

"Agreed," said Kira soberly. She quickly gathered her thoughts. "I left off about two-and-a-half years after I joined NeuroCure," she said. "When I had achieved my breakthrough. Do you have any questions about the treatment before I move on?"

Desh thought about this as he watched a group of teenaged girls stroll by the restaurant, wearing clothing that was several years too old for them along with a colorful a.s.sortment of flashy costume jewelry. "How long does the transformation last?" he asked.

"Only about an hour. I was afraid to make it last any longer. Not without better understanding the treatment and what it was doing to me."

"Including your newfound admiration for the work of Nietzsche?"

"Yes."

"I'm surprised the effect is so short."

"It seems longer when you're experiencing it. And at this level of intelligence, the number of insights you can have in a single hour is staggering. To make the effect permanent, I would need to make other modifications to the body. Even in an hour your body becomes depleted of the molecular precursors for neurotransmitters and you get a craving for glucose like you wouldn't believe. After a transformation, I wouldn't feel completely normal for days. I decided not to try it more than once a week, at most."

Desh wondered if anything Smith had told him in the car was true. Since Kira had listened in to this entire conversation there was no reason to be coy. "So where did you decide to focus this towering IQ of yours?" he asked. "Smith said you were working on extending human life and eventually conquering mortality itself."

"He was right," she said. "I'll go into that in more detail later, but this was one of three major goals I set for myself."

Desh considered pressing her to talk more about longevity, but decided to be patient and let her continue in her own way. "What were the other two?"

"One was to achieve another jump in intelligence. In my transformed state it was clear that a level substantially higher than what I had achieved was possible." She took a sip of her iced-tea and set it back down. "My last goal was to uma"" She paused and looked slightly embarra.s.sed. "Acc.u.mulate ma.s.sive wealth."

"And here I was beginning to think you were Mother Teresa."

Kira nodded. "I had a feeling that would be your reaction," she said. "In my defense, I didn't want the money for luxuries. I just wanted to be sure that money would never be an issue if I needed equipment or supplies for my other projects, wherever my enhanced intelligence would lead me."

"I wouldn't doubt that immortals would need to have a pretty big nest egg," he allowed. He fished a breadstick from a small wicker basket on the table filled with an a.s.sortment of rolls. "Becoming wealthy is the one goal I'm fairly certain you achieved. That is, if I can be certain of anything these days," he added in frustration. "But I'm eager to learn just how it is you were able to accomplish this so quickly," he finished accusingly.

"You think I sold my soul to terrorists?"

"Why not? Even if you aren't sociopathic normally, you admit you are in your enhanced state. Why let a little thing like the deaths of millions slow you down?"

"Come on, David," she snapped in annoyance. "Think it through. Even if I acted on my sociopathic tendenciesa"which I didn'ta"I would only be a raving sociopath, not stupid. I had achieved immeasurable intelligence. Creativity that would put Thomas Edison to shame. An intellect that would make Stephen Hawking look slow. With capabilities like these, do you really think I'm going to spend years working on a bioterror agent to sell to people who would happily kill me for not covering my face?" She shook her head in exasperation. "I could make millions just selling the cryptographic software that I thought up in ten minutes, or any number of other inventions that could be marketed immediately. What do you think the government would pay for a material that completely shields heat signatures?"