High Treason (Noah Wolf Book 18) Page 10

  “I may be able to help,” Esmeralda said. “With your permission, Noah, I can use the same encrypted channels by which Allison contacted me to send a message back her way. Of course, if she is cooperating with this potential plan to trap you and your people, there is always the possibility she will simply lie to me.”

  “Agreed,” Noah said. “On the other hand, I can think of one way we might test the situation. Esmeralda, do you have any way to securely contact Nathan Parker?”

  Esmeralda sat perfectly still and looked at him for a moment, but Noah knew that she was actually examining all the pertinent data before giving him an answer.

  “The only way I could contact him directly would be through his telephone, and I cannot be certain that it is a secure connection. However, if I may exercise my own initiative, I have just become aware that the CIA operative who assisted on your last mission is actually serving as Doctor Parker’s personal bodyguard at this time. He carries a VX-7 satellite phone, which is capable of receiving a single-use encryption code. I could create an encryption code and transmit it to his device, then place a direct call that could not be intercepted.”

  “Do you have reason to believe he is with Parker right now?” Noah asked.

  “His current orders require him to remain with Doctor Parker twenty-four hours a day,” Esmeralda said. “It is approximately their lunchtime in DC right now. Shall I attempt to make contact with him?”

  “Yes,” Noah said.

  Esmeralda suddenly froze, and Noah noticed Catherine Potts watching her curiously. Since she was sitting just to his left, he leaned close and spoke softly.

  “I’m sure your security clearance is quite high, but I’m about to raise it,” he said. “In a few moments you’re going to have a lot of questions, but I’ll ask you to save them until we have this situation settled.”

  Catherine looked at him and her eyebrows rose. “All right,” she said. “But I’ll admit that things are starting to seem rather curious.” She shot a pointed look at Esmeralda. “You said this is the daughter of your research engineer?”

  “In a sense,” Noah said. “Wally designed her, along with a number of other scientists and engineers. He also came up with the innovation that led to the quantum computer she uses for a brain. Esmeralda is—well, I started to say a robot, but I don’t think that’s truly accurate anymore. I suppose she’s an android, now.”

  Catherine’s eyes widened only slightly, and Noah was impressed. “Amazing,” she said. “She looks perfectly human. Goodness, she even acts human most of the time. Artificial intelligence?”

  “I’m not sure that term really applies. She was originally built to be an AI, and I’m told that there were hundreds of thousands of man-hours involved in programming her, but the quantum computer she uses is many steps ahead of anything else out there. From what Wally tells me, it has more potential neural connections than any human brain ever could, and she apparently reached the point of simply becoming self-aware. Once she realized that she herself existed, and that she was capable of independent thought and action, I think any artificial qualification went out the window. She’s as sentient as any of us, and I personally find her fascinating as I watch her transforming into an actual person.”

  “Absolutely incredible. As for my security clearance, I’m certain it’s not high enough to know about her, so I’m sure I can safely assume that revealing her to my government would make me one of your targets?”

  “I’m not going to threaten you, Catherine,” Noah said. “I’m simply going to rely on your discretion. Besides, if you go back and tell your bosses that those Yanks over by Guildford have a robot that passes for human, are they really going to believe you?”

  “Not at first,” she said, and then she turned to look him in the eye. “But it’s a general policy of MI6 to investigate every report made by one of our agents. I’m not going to say anything, but if I did, you would undoubtedly find yourselves surrounded by a squad of soldiers and taken into custody while my claim was investigated.”

  “I’ve made contact,” Esmeralda said suddenly. “Mr. Long remembered me, and he is taking the phone to Doctor Parker. It seems Doctor Parker was having lunch with a lady friend and Mr. Long was keeping a respectful distance.”

  Noah blinked. “That means Parker told him to back off,” he said. “When he comes on the line, please tell him that I…”

  Esmeralda opened her mouth and Doctor Parker’s voice suddenly came out of it. “Noah? What the hell are you doing calling me? Didn’t we tell you to avoid direct communication?”

  Noah blinked again. “Doctor Parker, I found it necessary to make contact. However, you can be certain that this communication is secure. Can you speak freely?”

  “Have you ever known me not to?” the old man asked. “When Kenny gave me the phone and said it was you calling, I told my lunch date to make herself scarce. Pissed her off, too, I might add, but she insisted I tell you hello.”

  “Please tell Monica that I return the message,” Noah said, and Parker laughed.

  “You got it in one, Monica Lord. How did you know I was talking about her?”

  “Ms. Lord is the only woman I ever saw you take any particular interest in,” Noah said. “I remember that your eyes always dilated whenever you had to meet her face to face. If you are meeting a woman in DC for lunch, and particularly if she knows who I am, it was a fairly easy guess that it was Monica Lord.”

  “All right, enough about me and my love life. What prompted this call, Noah?”

  “Doctor Parker, I’m in receipt of a message from some American intelligence agents who are suggesting the current mission you and Allison sent to me might be a trap. Has it become necessary to sacrifice some of my people to bring this fiasco to an end?”

  “A trap?” Parker asked. “Who in the world told you that?”

  “As I said, some unnamed American agents. The fact that you didn’t bother to answer the question directly tells me there is at least some truth to it. Can you fill me in?”

  “Just how certain are you that this line is completely secure?”

  “I’m calling you through Esmeralda, who is currently serving as a speakerphone. All of my people are here, including Wally and Molly, and I’m also in the presence of Catherine Potts. If there’s something you need to say to me privately, I can have everyone but Esmeralda leave the room.”

  “Hell, they might as well all hear it. Noah, Allison’s head is on the chopping block. She has been ordered to produce bodies to take the fall, and she isn’t a bit happy about it. It’s a trap all right, but it isn’t a trap for you or your people; she’s turning it around on the people behind it, which is the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee. SIOC has its panties in a bunch about E & E being exposed, and may well throw Allison under the bus, herself. They want her to lure some of your people into DC so that they can be taken into custody, and then they get the famous Angel deal.”

  Noah’s eyes narrowed. “The Angel deal?” he asked. “What is that?”

  “The Angel deal is out of some book by Terry Pratchett, but some variation of it has been around forever. A notorious criminal gets caught by the police and is sentenced to hang. They march him up the steps of the gallows and put the hood over his head, drop the noose around his neck and the trapdoor falls, everything goes dark for the poor guy. Then, he wakes up all of a sudden to find himself in a coffin. Naturally he panics and starts shoving up on the lid, and the big surprise comes when it pops open. He’s not at the bottom of a grave, the coffin is lying on the floor of the local dictator’s office. The big guy tells him that he must have had a guardian angel, because some of his criminal talents are useful to the government. He gets a new name and a new job and suddenly he’s Mr. Popularity. Sound familiar?”

  “Yes,” Noah said. “So, what you’re saying is that if I send people in and they get arrested, they’re going to be used for propaganda, then released?”

  Parker laughed. “Or shoved into a whole new job.
That’s the plan, but Allison doesn’t like to play by somebody else’s rules. She prefers to make her own. That’s why she told me to make sure you got the message, and I had to use Kenny, here, to send it through back channels to your MI6 contact. He’s a pretty sharp operator, Kenny is. Anyway, Allison sent you the mission exactly the way she was told to, and the truth is that Clark and Mitchell are definitely severe national security liabilities. They need to be taken out, there’s no doubt about it, but NSA and DHS are doing their best to make sure you can’t get close to them without being caught.”

  Noah was silent, thinking, for several seconds. “If my people are captured, am I going to get them back?”

  “That’s supposed to be the final result, but I wouldn’t trust a politician as far as I could throw the moon. You need to find some way to carry out the mission and still protect your operatives. If they do get caught, Allison will do everything she possibly can from her end, but the Angel deal will probably involve your people having to testify against her. We need to avoid that at all costs, Noah.”

  “I agree,” Noah said. “All right, you’ve given me a lot to think about. Keep Long close to you, because this is the only secure communication I have with anyone back there. If I run into any problems, I’ll be calling again.”

  “He’s not going anywhere, he’s been assigned to me for the duration. Apparently, there are a few people on the Hill who think I need to be retired, and preferably silenced at the same time. I guess somebody finally remembered just how long I was the staff analyst for Congress. Hell, it’s almost like they think I know where the bodies are buried.” He laughed again. “Hey, come to think of it, I do.”

  “Then it sounds to me like they need to be careful not to let anything happen to you,” Noah said. “I’m assuming you have a stockpile of evidence that will be released in the event of your untimely death?”

  “It’ll be released if I die under certain circumstances. At my age, Noah, it would be hard to say my death could be untimely, don’t you think? You don’t need to worry about me, I’ve had a good run. Just do your best to keep Allison’s ass out of the fire, will you?”

  “I will,” Noah said, “but you implied that she has a plan to somehow use this against the SIOC. Can you enlighten me?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Parker said. “SIOC has been taking a lot of the heat over E & E, so they’re trying to toss the blame back on Allison and the previous administration. They seem to think that doing so will appease the public, take the pressure off of them so they can get back to the job of trying to take over the world for democracy. What we need to do is expose the members of that committee who were actively involved in funding and covering for the outfit, namely Senators Andrews, Wellborn, Lewiston and Hester. Those four comprise the Hemlock Committee, so named because they are the ones who had to review every sanction Allison ever approved. They were going to be looking at yours, as well, but all this blew up before they had a chance to call a meeting since you took over.”

  “It sounds like they are the ones who benefit most if Allison takes the fall. Any idea how she plans to throw it back in their faces?”

  “Hell, Noah, she’s counting on you to do that. She’s got the entire SIOC breathing down her neck, so that’s going to be on you, I’m afraid. She needs to distance herself from you completely until that committee can be shut down for good.”

  “In your opinion, sir, should those people also be eliminated?”

  “I don’t make those decisions,” Parker said. “That job is yours, remember? The question you have to ask yourself is whether eliminating them is going to solve any problems. As for Mitchell and Clark, I agree that something definitely needs to be done about them, but I’m not certain that killing is the answer. You might consider other possibilities.”

  Esmeralda blinked suddenly, then closed her mouth. “He hung up,” she said.

  Noah nodded. “He does that when he’s finished talking,” he said. He looked around at the rest of them.

  “So,” Ralph said with a bitter look on his face, “we’re being set up, right?”

  “I agree that it looks that way, but Allison apparently wanted Parker to make sure we got the message that Catherine Potts brought to us. That tells me that she’s still in control, at least for now. Neil, give me everything you can on the Hemlock Committee; I need to see if they have any weaknesses we can exploit. Esmeralda, I want you and Molly to look at other options for Mitchell and Clark. Specifically, I want to know if it would be better to abduct them than to kill them. Ralph, your teams will proceed as planned, flying out tomorrow morning. Do your prep work and be ready to strike, but don’t complete the missions until you hear from me.”

  Ralph sighed. “Okay, Boss,” he said.

  TEN

  Everyone went to their rooms to begin packing and preparing for the trip, leaving Noah and Sarah alone. As soon as she closed the door behind the last of them, Sarah turned and looked at her husband.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “You’re thinking that if there is a risk of our people getting arrested, you should go and handle this mission personally.”

  “I’ll confess the thought had crossed my mind,” Noah said. He looked directly into her eyes. “However, there’s a reason Allison wanted to put me in charge, and that’s to make the decisions that have to be made. One of those decisions is to send people into the potential of harm’s way, and that’s what I have to do in this case. Going in myself won’t make the situation any less precarious, and it’s quite possible that putting myself out there to be arrested could make things even worse. After all, mine seems to be the only name Senator Mitchell actually had, and we don’t know for certain that she never shared it with the people at Government Watch. If I get arrested trying to carry out a mission, that’s going to give GW and the Hemlock Committee even more ammunition to use against Allison.”

  Sarah let out a breath. “Thank you,” she said. “I was praying that you’d see it that way, but I just never know with you.”

  Noah held out a hand and she came and joined him sitting on the bed. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, and she laid her head against his chest.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Especially not now, when you are likely to have this baby anytime. I’m right where I’m needed most, and I’m not going to put myself at risk during this time. Ralph can handle his team, and I’m confident that Esmeralda will complete her mission without any serious problems. To be honest, I’m more worried about her getting arrested than anything else; the last thing we need is for anyone to figure out that she’s not exactly human. There are a lot of people who would take her existence as confirmation that artificial intelligence is going to bring about the end of mankind.”

  “Are you sure it won’t? I mean, she uses logic the same way you do, but a million times faster. What if her logic tells her that humanity is a problem that needs to be eliminated?”

  Noah shook his head. “I don’t think that could happen,” he said. “Just like each of us is basically programmed by our upbringing, Esmeralda’s basic programming still controls the majority of who she is. She has the ability to think beyond it, but she can’t override it. You heard her—she can only take a human life when she is ordered to do so by me. In any other situation, her programming requires her to avoid harming anyone, and even to do what she can to protect human life.”

  Sarah pulled back and looked up at him. “Okay, I guess I see that point. I know there are things about me that come from the way my dad raised me, and changing them seems like it’s just about impossible.”

  Noah cocked an eyebrow at her. “Really? What sort of things?”

  She chuckled. “You mean you haven’t noticed? What happens every time we pass a really nice custom car, or one of the new supercars?”

  “You get a little flushed,” Noah said. “Your breathing becomes more rapid and you seem to have trouble pulling your eyes away from it. Is that what you’re talking about
?”

  She smiled. “Darn right,” she said. “It’s the rush, it’s the feeling that I could grab that car and be gone and nobody would even know what happened. My dad raised me to be a car thief, Noah, and I’m very good at it. When it’s in your blood like it is in mine, it’s hard to fight off the urge to grab a car like that and disappear.” She chuckled again. “Back in the day, when I was only fourteen and could outdrive him, he started just cruising around and letting me look for the cars we wanted. When I spotted one, he’d drop me off and let me steal it, then try to run interference if any cops got on my tail. It usually wasn’t a problem, because we never saw any cops, and I’d pull the car into whatever chop shop we were working with at the time, collect the money and hurry outside so we could go look for another.”

  “I see,” Noah said. “I can understand how it might be hard to give up a habit like that. On the other hand, don’t you have new priorities now?”

  “Oh, sure. I have you, and now the baby is coming, so that’s my main priority.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “Doesn’t mean I don’t still feel the excitement when I spot a tricked-out Mustang or Charger, you know what I mean? It’s like a drug addict, I guess—there’s a feeling that comes over me that makes me want to go for it just one more time.”

  “I’m glad you don’t,” Noah said. “I’d hate for you to have this baby in jail.”

  “Which is why I don’t. On the other hand, there were a few times when we were out on missions that I almost gave in to the temptation.”