Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Utopia Experiment (A Covert-One novel)

by Kyle Mills

  Was the discovery real or just another delusion? His mild clinical paranoia had caused all kinds of problems in the past, including a lengthy episode when he thought people were putting poisonous spiders in his locker. When it came to computers and technology, though, his vision tended to be a hell of a lot clearer. Crystal, in fact.

  Randi appeared in the doorway and leaned against the jamb. “So what now, boss?”

  “I don’t know,” Smith admitted.

  “The cat’s just about all the way out of the bag. I’m not sure we can stuff it back in.”

  She was right. There was no way that Zellerbach was going to just let this go. All his other psychological issues paled in comparison with his obsession over intellectual closure. Left unresolved, this mystery would slowly drive him into a frenzy and eventually make it out onto the Internet.

  “We’re going to have to call Fred, Randi.”

  She shook her head. “What if he orders us to drop it again? What do we do with Marty?”

  Smith took a sip of his water, trying to overcome the growing dryness from his mouth. It was the million-dollar question: What do we do with Marty?

  Once again, he’d inadvertently put his friend in danger. But this time that danger came from the people he worked for. Both Klein and the president were good men, but they had responsibilities that far outweighed one reclusive, unstable computer hacker. What lengths would they go to in order to make sure none of this ever saw the light of day?

  “Look, I want to know what this is as much as you,” Smith admitted. “But if Marty can’t figure out a way to do a simulation, my people certainly won’t be able to.”

  “He said we should test it out on his neighbor who keeps calling the cops on him.”

  “That may not be an ideal plan.”

  She shrugged. “Probably not. But we need something. A vague report of a bunch of doodads moving at the same time isn’t all that compelling. It’s going to be too easy for Fred to walk away from.”

  He took another sip from the dirty glass. “The head of my tech team is a good man who’ll back me. If I tell him to take credit for the discovery, then it becomes a military issue.”

  “An issue you’re dead-ended on. Marty can’t figure out a way to simulate it and neither could Dresner if the graves in North Korea are any indication.”

  “You’re suggesting we try to get to the man himself?”

  “That seems a lot like jumping into a pool without checking if there’s water in it. He went through a lot of trouble to hide something in this system and he hasn’t historically been a big fan of the military.”

  “You think it could be something dangerous?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should ask the people in Division D. Oh, yeah, we can’t. They’re all dead.”

  Once again, she was right. His loyalty to the president and admiration for Dresner were preventing him from staring at this thing clear-eyed. The bottom line was that they needed to know what that hidden system did so they could take it to Klein. And they needed to know now.

  “I guess I’m going to have to volunteer then,” Smith said, “We’ll test it on me.”

  “Always the selfless hero,” Randi replied, digging in her pocket for a quarter. “Tell you what. We’ll flip for it.”

  She was about to toss the coin when something that sounded like a air raid siren started wailing through the house. A moment later a sultry woman’s voice came over hidden speakers. “Intruder alert, Marty. Intruder alert.”

  They ran back into Zellerbach’s office and found him staring into a monitor displaying multiple feeds from cameras on his property.

  “Do you know who they are?” he said in a shaking voice.

  A man had come over the hedge next to the gate and another two were over on what appeared to be the south side. One more was already moving toward a gazebo rotting away at the back of the house. The cameras’ light amplification created a bit of distortion, but not enough that Smith couldn’t immediately identify all of them as pros. Their long coats swept back almost in unison, displaying a glimpse of body armor as they pulled out American-made assault rifles. One of them seemed to be talking and his head moved in subtle, vaguely unnatural jerks. They were Merged up.

  “Are the defense systems you used against us activated?”

  Zellerbach nodded. “They’re automatic.”

  Randi moved closer to the screen. “Is that the best you’ve got? Is there anything more deadly?”

  “Deadly? No. Of course not.”

  “Call the police,” Smith said as a turret rose from the ground and started firing paintballs at the man near the gate. “These kind of guys live and breathe anonymity. The sirens might scare them off.”

  “The police won’t come. I have this sort of feud with some of my…” His voice faded when a man sprinted across the dying grass and disappeared into the same trap Randi had.

  “One down,” she said as two others started firing at the turret tracking them. The man by the gazebo went for the house and tripped the weapon Smith dreaded above all the others. A flounder rocketed out of a skeet launcher and caught him in the side of the face hard enough to knock him to the ground.

  “Are there any more underground traps that we could funnel them toward?” Randi asked.

  “No. Just the paintball guns, some flash grenades, and stink bombs. Oh, and a couple of pressure washers that I haven’t really been able to get the targeting working on. It’s a fluid dynamics issue. The force of the water is kind of unpredictable in the way it—”

  “So you’re telling us that in about thirty seconds, these guys are going to realize none of this crap can hurt them and come right for the front door,” Smith said. “You’ve still got the Mace that shoots out there, though, right?”

  Zellerbach shook his head miserably. “I got sued over it and one of the provisions of the settlement was that I had to disable it. Stupid Girl Scouts…”

  “What about other weapons? Do you have any in the house?” Randi said, pulling out her Beretta. That and her ever-present blade were all they had. Once again, Smith had left the house unarmed.

  “No.”

  “What about the back way out,” Smith said. “Is that still there?”

  Zellerbach seemed to be having trouble concentrating. He had an uncanny ability to apply laser-like focus to one thing at a time, but was easily overwhelmed. “Yes.”

  On screen, one of the men took fire and went down on the same slippery sheet of plastic that Smith had.

  “Then get us the hell out of here, Marty.”

  Zellerbach grabbed something that looked like a television remote and they followed him into the bathroom, where he punched a sequence of commands into the device. A moment later, the bathtub started to rise and a trapdoor beneath slid open. Randi dropped into the crawl space first, followed by Zellerbach and then Smith. The hatch closed above them and emergency lights came on as they moved into an abandoned sewer pipe. It ran a few hundred meters before dead-ending into a ladder leading to another trapdoor.

  They climbed quietly, exiting into the pitch-dark interior of a similar bungalow that Zellerbach owned on the next street. The lights snapped on and Smith was about to tell Zellerbach to shut them off again when he realized that his old friend wasn’t responsible.

  James Whitfield moved away from the switch holding a Colt in his right hand. A quick glance behind confirmed that Randi was similarly covered by two men with assault rifles.

  “I’ve underestimated you in the past,” Whitfield said. “But I think you’ll find that I learn from my mistakes.”

  Randi was completely ignoring the retired marine, instead staring furiously at the red-haired man holding a gun on her. “So you’ve gone over to the other side, huh, Deuce?”

  The young soldier frowned and gave a disappointed shake of his head. “What other side, Randi? We need the Merge and you’re doing everything you can to screw that up. All the major wants is to make sure we’re the best-equipped army in the w
orld.”

  Whitfield activated an old-fashioned throat mike beneath the collar of his dress shirt. “We’ve got them. Pull back to defensive positions.”

  64

  Near Washington Circle, District of Columbia

  USA

  JON SMITH WATCHED WHITFIELD examine the wires connecting the disassembled Merge to Marty’s Cray, then turned his attention to the two men guarding them.

  Both had switched to pistols due to the close quarters and both had the slightly wandering gaze of Merge users—undoubtedly the military version he’d been developing. The man Randi called Deuce had bright red hair and a sunburned face that made him look less than intimidating despite his black garb and body armor. The fact that he’d gotten fairly close to her a number of times and she hadn’t made a move, though, suggested that his appearance was deceptive.

  The one standing next to him was older, probably pushing forty, with the look of someone who had risen through the ranks of the special forces and lost none of his edge to the passing years.

  Smith had gone over every angle, every remote possibility, and concluded that there was no hope. Randi had been disarmed and these guys were serious players acting with a level of caution that suggested they were aware of what had happened to the team sent to Randi’s cabin.

  Another man who stank of former special forces came in and snapped to attention when Whitfield turned toward him.

  “The premises are secure, sir.”

  “Police?” Whitfield asked.

  “No calls from here have been received at the precinct. One neighbor made a complaint but it appears that these kinds of disturbances aren’t unusual and the dispatcher suggested they pursue the problem in civil court.”

  Probably accurate, Smith knew. Despite the shabbiness of his home, Zellerbach was a multimillionaire with a battery of lawyers dedicated to keeping him out of jail. And one of their favorite strategies was orchestrating generous out-of-court settlements to the people he’d inconvenienced.

  Whitfield dismissed the man and folded his arms across his chest. “What have you found, Martin?”

  Zellerbach gave Smith a terrified, pleading glance but kept his mouth shut.

  “Have you cracked Dresner’s encryption? Do you have access to the operating system?”

  “No,” Zellerbach mumbled. “That’s…That’s impossible.”

  His voice wavered a little but it was hard to know if it was fear or if he was getting to the end of his medication cycle. What Smith didn’t need was his old friend going manic in a situation this precarious.

  On the other hand, maybe it didn’t matter. It was unlikely that either Klein or the president knew anything about Whitfield’s presence here, which meant that when he got the information he wanted, it would be a quiet burial for all three of them. He undoubtedly thought it would be easier to ask forgiveness than permission. And he was probably right.

  There was a wild card, though. Despite Whitfield’s likely plan for their demise, they were basically on the same side. Was it possible that the man didn’t know anything about the hidden subsystem?

  “Tell him,” Smith said.

  “What?”

  “Go ahead, Marty. Tell him everything you told us.”

  Zellerbach just stood there, obviously wondering why his amazing mind couldn’t immediately grasp the elaborate ruse that Smith was recruiting him for.

  “This isn’t a trick, Marty. He’s a son of a bitch but, in a way, he’s our son of a bitch. Answer all his questions completely and honestly.”

  The aging hacker’s confusion deepened.

  “He’s serious,” Randi said. “Do it.”

  “Okay,” he said, drawing the word out as he watched his friends for some sign of what he was really supposed to do. “There’s a hidden subsystem.”

  When Smith just gave him an encouraging nod, he continued.

  “It’s disguised as battery management and upgrade paths. No one’s been able to figure out what they do.”

  “But you have?” Whitfield said, undoubtedly aware of the mysterious hardware from Smith’s own reports.

  “No. I figured out how to bypass the operating system and trigger it. But no one was wearing the Merge at the time so I don’t know what it does.”

  While Whitfield’s face gave away nothing, his silence spoke volumes. He hadn’t known about this.

  “How do we find out?”

  Zellerbach licked his already wet lips. “The only way I can think of is to, uh, have someone try it.”

  Whitfield nodded and pointed to Smith. “Okay. Why don’t we volunteer the colonel here.”

  With guns on him and his companions, there wasn’t much choice.

  “Jon…” Randi cautioned as he sat down at the terminal to calibrate the unit to his mind.

  “We’re dead anyway, Randi. Might as well exercise my curiosity.”

  He went through the familiar routine quickly and then stood, pointing to the chair. “Marty.”

  “But I don’t know what it’s going to do,” he whined. “I don’t want to.”

  To his credit, Whitfield didn’t threaten or even get involved. A commander who knew when to step back was a rare and impressive thing. Unless he was your opponent.

  “Just do it, Marty. Okay? We need to know, and this is the only way to find out.”

  Zellerbach reluctantly activated an icon on his screen and clicked it. Smith tensed as the screen flashed red and buzzers hooted through hidden speakers, but that was all. He waited eighteen seconds for the system to fully cycle but other than the adrenaline he was pretty sure he was generating himself, there was nothing.

  Zellerbach glanced down at his feet for a moment and gave his lips another quick swipe with his tongue. It was then that Smith understood. He hadn’t triggered it, instead using his computer to generate some impressive, but meaningless, displays.

  Unfortunately Whitfield came to the same conclusion.

  “I’m not stupid, Martin.”

  “I did it!” Zellerbach protested a little too energetically to be convincing. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it really is just an upgrade path. I could have the key wrong, too. I’m not a miracle worker!”

  Whitfield glanced at his men, obviously trying to decide what to do. He’d be considering torture, of course. And putting a gun to Randi’s head. But in the back of his mind, he’d know neither of those strategies led to certainty. Zellerbach was, by every measure, a genius in his area of expertise. And that area was computer trickery.

  Smith thought he’d considered all of Whitfield’s options and was shocked when the retired marine pulled Zellerbach from his chair and sat, starting to recalibrate the unit to his own mind.

  When he was finished, he stood and shoved Zellerbach back in front of the terminal. “Do it.”

  “I…I don’t think—”

  “I didn’t ask your opinion, son. Just do it.”

  Randi seemed happy with the turn of events and gave a short nod. “Go for it, Marty. Can’t get any worse for us.”

  He pulled up an innocuous prompt, typing what looked like a nonsensical line of code into it. His finger hesitated over the return button for a moment, but then dropped obediently onto it.

  This time, there were no alarms or flashing lights. A couple of seconds passed and Smith started to wonder if the system really didn’t do anything when Whitfield suddenly grabbed his right arm and grimaced in pain. A moment later, he had collapsed to the floor.

  “Shut it off!” Smith shouted, dropping to his knees beside the man.

  “I can’t. Once it’s triggered, it runs off the internal battery.”

  Randi devised a typically inelegant but effective solution—grabbing a wrench and attacking the individual parts of the Merge on the table.

  Smith ignored the men guarding them and felt Whitfield’s neck for a pulse. Nothing. Based on everything Smith knew about the Merge technology, it was impossible. But impossible or not, the man was dead.

  65

  Near Was
hington Circle, District of Columbia

  USA

  CHRISTIAN DRESNER SAT WATCHING a massive computer monitor on the wall. It was an irritatingly archaic technology, but transmitting a feed from someone else’s Merge directly to the mind of another had turned out to be problematic. The complexities were slowly being ironed out but for now it did little more than create confusion as the brain struggled to differentiate its own experiences from the experiences of the person at the other end of the connection.

  The image of Jon Smith performing CPR on Whitfield was coming in real time from Deuce Brennan and Dresner leaned forward, watching carefully. Russell was looking around, undoubtedly for a weapon, but her expression suggested she knew she’d be dead before she could use it. Zellerbach—a man whose genius he’d managed to completely overlook—was panicking, knocking things off his desk and tripping over them as he backed away.

  The sweat was hot and slick in his palms, but Dresner forced himself to remain calm. While the discovery of his subsystem so soon was a potential disaster, it appeared that control could be regained. In fact, he might one day look back at this moment as the day his mounting problems were resolved.

  Dresner glanced at an icon hovering in his peripheral vision but instead of activating it, he stood and walked closer to the monitor. He’d experimented extensively with the effect of shutting down his subsystem after four seconds in order to simulate the experience of headsets being knocked off. The survival rate was twelve percent with no intervention and forty-nine percent with immediately administered CPR.

  With implants and the full eighteen-second cycle, though, fatalities were nearly one hundred percent, even with medical intervention. Whitfield’s situation—a shutdown halfway through the cycle—was something he hadn’t considered. Could he be revived?

  “You told me this couldn’t hurt anyone,” Randi Russell said over the speakers. “That even with a full battery discharge, it would only give you a little shock.”

  “It can’t,” Smith responded, sounding understandably perplexed as he continued to hammer the motionless man’s chest. “I don’t understand it. There’s just not enough power.”