Entanglement

by Michael Brooks

  Maybe it was the surroundings, but Alexandra Genovsky seemed taller and more poised than he remembered. She stared at him for a moment, but he couldn't decipher her expression. Best just stare right back. As she came into the room, he could see the bruising he had inflicted: it was more violet now, and the scar running down her cheek stood out as a dull red curve.

  'Come and sit down,' she said. She indicated an area of plush sofas on her left.

  He stood still. Genovsky eyed him with an amused curiosity.

  'Come on, let's not play games this time. Sit down, Nathaniel.' Her tone was terse and reproachful.

  He inclined his head slightly – it was meant to look reflective, like it was his own decision to move – then walked across the room and sat down on a luxuriously cushioned sofa. He sank into it, struggled upright again, and perched himself on the edge. Genovsky remained standing.

  'Scotch?'

  He shook his head.

  Genovsky lifted two crystal tumblers from a silver tray, poured a slug of rich gold into each, and dropped in some ice.

  She forced one on him. 'It's not poisoned,' she said. 'Have a drink, for God's sake.'

  He took it, and sipped. The smooth burn was a curiously welcome sensation.

  'I have your disk,' he said.

  'That's good.' Genovsky sat down opposite him. 'Because, as you know, I have your daughter.' She smiled.

  He didn't.

  'Is Rachel dead?'

  Genovsky didn't react at first. The smile was still on her lips, while her eyes bored into him. Did she care? Was she really that cold?

  'Yes,' she said eventually. Something in her eyes shifted.

  Virgo suppressed a shiver, and forced Katie's face into his mind. It pulled him back to the moment, away from Rachel. He felt guilty at the conscious abandonment of his wife. But he had to think of Katie.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out Radcliffe's disk. The plastic looked feeble, inconsequential in his hand. The case was scratched now, diffusing the irridescent shimmer of the disk inside. How could this be worth any life, let alone Rachel's? He pushed the tips of his index fingers against two of the sharp plastic corners, and watched the blood drain away, leaving his flesh a dirty yellow. He could feel Genovsky's eyes on him. Abruptly, he stood up again.

  'Here's how this is going to work,' he said. He caught her eye, and held it. 'I went to Gierek's lab this morning. Some pretty fancy stuff there.'

  Genovsky was watching him, her face impassive. He carried on anyway.

  'I suppose you've seen Gierek's entanglement generator, but it was new to me. I think it was just a prototype, but it was surprisingly easy to use.'

  Genovsky's face was frozen solid now.

  Pure speculation. But the bluff might just work.

  'I tried it out. I put your name and address and pretty much everything I know on a disk, and sent it to a friend at the FBI. I doubt you've got power over everyone there, Alex: I imagine that some people are beyond even Wheelan's control.'

  Still nothing on her face. He took another sip of scotch. 'By the way, where does Thomas Wheelan fit into all this, Alex? Is he your boss, or Vasil's?'

  For a moment, there was a flicker of something in her eyes, but then, immediately, she was simply returning his stare. She said nothing. He just had to keep going.

  'The data is entangled and unreadable just at the moment, of course. You're certainly safe for about the next hour or so – not even the FBI can hack into this. But I set it up so that I need to renew the encryption every few hours. If I get out of here safely, and continue to be safe after Katie is landed, well, eventually I'll destroy the data permanently.' He paused. 'You and I are going to have to trust each other, Alex.'

  Genovsky studied his face for a few moments.

  'Trust,' she breathed, eventually. 'What do you know about trust?'

  She sat down, and fingered the scar on her cheek. 'I trusted someone once and got my face cut open. I never forgot the lesson.'

  Virgo was transfixed by the finger running along her scar. He saw her wince, almost imperceptibly – it was something in her eyes – every time the fingertip slid across the bruise.

  'They made the priest stick the blade through the skin next to my eye. His hands were shaking and I felt every tremor as the metal tore a little more, pushed in a little bit further. Then they made him slide the knife down to my mouth.' She mimicked the slide with her finger.

  Genovsky's tranquil expression caught hold of him.

  'I was fourteen,' she said. 'That was when I learned about the consequences of trust.' She looked up. 'How old is your daughter?'

  Virgo didn't answer. This woman didn't care how old his daughter was. The beatific smile faded from her face. Her finger still played along the scar. He tore his eyes away from it.

  'Here you go. You've got what you wanted.'

  He threw the disk to her. Genovsky caught it deftly, strode over to a desk in front of the window, yanked irritably at a drawer and pulled out a silver-grey laptop computer. She opened it up, released the disk tray and put Radcliffe's disk in, then closed it up. After thirty seconds, she looked up.

  'It's blank,' she said. There was no attempt to hide the threat in her voice.

  'It's the formatting. It's to do with the entanglement.'

  Virgo narrowed his eyes and maintained the cold bravado. 'Where's the disk you took from Gierek's dead body, Alexandra? What was on that? Put the two together. Think about what he had achieved.'

  Careful. Not too much. She was studying him again, but she said nothing.

  'You've got your disk. You've got everything. Now I want my daughter flown home. We don't want to have the authorities involved, do we? I bet Wheelan wouldn't want anything stirred up that he might not be able to control.'

  She turned to face him, still betraying no reaction to the name. An icy silence hung in the air. Genovsky was staring into his face. Was his plan about to unravel? A cold threat simmered in her gaze, and the scar and violent bruising made her even more intimidating. Eventually she spoke, but her eyes were still studying him.

  'OK,' she said. 'I'll make the arrangements. You're free to go.'

  'How will I know Katie is safe?'

  Genovsky smiled coldly. 'I'm sure she'll call you when she's home.' She turned to leave the room, then paused and turned back.

  'Tell me something,' she said. There was an unpleasant edge to her voice, and the curve of her lip betrayed a sly smile. 'How do you know I won't have you killed next week?'

  He stood still, and held Genovsky's gaze. 'Because that would decrypt the information I sent to the FBI. I'm not going to tell you when I plan to finally destroy that information. And because I have also sent a note to my lawyer, to be opened on the event of my death or Katie's, detailing everything I know about you and your project.'

  He held Genovsky's gaze for a few seconds. Eventually, she looked down at the floor, then back up at him. She still seemed amused, though the chill had returned to her gaze. He couldn't tell if she believed his bullshit.

  'Goodbye, Nathaniel Virgo.' She walked across the room and opened the door she had come in by. A moment later, he was alone in the room.

  You're free to go. He stood, dazed, where Genovsky had left him. What was he going to do now? The chemical comedown of anticlimax flowed through his bloodstream.

  And what about Gierek's prototype – or whatever it was? What the bloody hell was an entanglement generator? Whatever it was, it was sitting in the wardrobe of his room at the hotel. He couldn't take it home. He couldn't hand it to the FBI – he didn't want anything to do with them until Katie was at least safe, and could corroborate his story. Was he just going to leave it in the room and walk away?

  He didn't have to decide that right now.

  He pulled open the door to Genovsky's office and descended the stairs, feeling as disconnected as he had done on the ascent. He was ambling, a foot hovering over each step before it fell. At the bottom, he pulled the door open, and a bl
ast of cold air hit him full in the face. Ahead of him across the street, beyond the laurel hedge and the swathe of grass, the boats rocked back and forth. Their masts and halyards were still clinking together, but the noise seemed tuneful now, like a childish percussion.

  He breathed deeply. The rain had stopped. Things were looking better. Genovsky had let him go.

  His foot paused mid-step.

  But why? She, or the people she worked for, had been ruthless at every turn. Radcliffe, Gierek, Rachel . . . why, after all of this, would Genovsky let him walk away? Did she believe him about the disks and the FBI? Was she worried that Wheelan would be exposed? Was he even right about Wheelan?

  He would just have to hope so. But it wasn't his problem. It couldn't be. Even if this involved the Secretary for Homeland Security, even if America was besieged by a thousand hijacked planes, it was Katie who mattered. Katie was the only story here. She was his only responsibility.

  The people passing along the footpath below were hunched against the bitter wind. A cloud swept across the sky over the sea. He felt the chill now, too: the elation, even the comedown was dissipating fast. He buttoned up his jacket and stuffed his numb hands into its pockets. His fingers felt the absence of Radcliffe's disk.

  Briskly, he skittered down the steps onto the sidewalk and moved out to the edge of the street. He had to get back to the hotel. He had to be ready the moment Katie landed. He had to talk to her before she even got through immigration. A passing cab pulled over at his anxious wave, and he climbed in.

  CHAPTER 47

  GENOVSKY WALKED QUICKLY, KNOWING she'd be late for Vasil if she didn't hurry. They were meant to be meeting for a quick lunch at Les Zygomates. She didn't want to phone him; she'd simply have to turn up flustered. If she was first there, that would give her time to cool down; if he beat her to it, then she would at least look like she had hurried.

  It was an act of will not to take a cab; South Street wasn't far enough away to bother getting involved with the grinding traffic, but Genovsky hated walking under the gleaming skyscrapers of the financial district. If she looked up, the reflections in the glass disoriented her; it felt as if the buildings were falling. She looked down at the pavement, or at the people coming towards her, souls occluded by suits.

  Like Gabriel MacIntyre. She hadn't met him yet – that would come later today. But from what Vasil said, his suit mattered more to him than his soul. He had jumped at the entanglement software, no reservations. She hadn't been in on the early stages of the sale. Something strange had gone on between Vasil and Laszlo in the weeks before. There had been a new tension between them, an increased intensity in Laszlo's servitude. That was when she had first felt excluded, like she was a hired hand, not a partner, in Vasil's enterprises. She became so upset she had even dared to ask him what was going on. He said nothing, of course. Vasil was properly focused, single-minded even, when a project was coming to fruition. If it didn't concern her, he wouldn't include her. It was only fair.

  And he did tell her eventually. Vasil and Laszlo seemed to emerge from that period happier than she had ever known them. She had actually heard Vasil laugh at one point. Laszlo just looked dazed and relieved, like a man released from death row. And MacIntyre was suddenly the centre of their world.

  He paid a lot of money, too: they were almost at what they needed. Or what Vasil needed; it had never been about money for her. She had nothing when he took her in, and she needed nothing more now. Everything she did – the clothes, the presentation, the programming, the co-ordination, the killing – was for him. It was what she owed him. She glanced at her reflection in the office windows. She was looking good today. Black Chanel, the trouser suit he liked.

  The skyscrapers eventually gave way to brick and arches; the galleries and lofts, the old warehouses of the leather district, were more trustworthy. She liked it here, among the artists with their strange tattoos.

  As she passed the restaurant window, she glanced in. Through the smoked glass, she could see Vasil, his long silver hair scraped back into a ponytail. He was sitting at their usual table, examining the back of his left hand. She felt a shot of nerves – she never knew how he would be. Sometimes he was happy to wait, to indulge her failings. And sometimes he didn't have the time or the patience.

  She ran up the steps and pushed the door open, clothing herself with a look of hurried apology. To her relief, he gave her a thin smile. She sat down opposite him. He was wearing a black suit, and the multicoloured tie she'd bought him for St Lazarus's day. It was a mess of orange, green, pink, yellow and blue; it had reminded her of the costumes she'd worn in the village processions. The blue was the colour of the Bulgarian sky in spring.

  'He arrived at the last moment, but it's all in hand,' she said. 'I have the disk.'

  'All in hand, or all done?'

  She hesitated. The restaurant was busy and loud with conversation and laughter, people from the financial houses entertaining each other on bottomless expense accounts. There was so much money in this city. People said it had a soul, a heart, but she'd never seen it. Genovsky preferred the honesty of the cities in the south, where greed was open, worn on the sleeve. Here, they pretended it was all about something else, about Harvard and MIT, about knowledge and learning and improvement. But people were people, whatever business they were in. It was always about money.

  'All done.' She didn't want to lie to him, but she knew how he could be. Loose ends upset him. And this one wasn't really loose. She had both the disks now: between them, they would be able to figure out what was going on with the entanglement.

  'All done. We can put his daughter on the plane. He won't take any risks. Once today is over, we can get rid of him.'

  'Why wait? Why didn't you kill him once you had the disk?'

  She looked from side to side. Vasil had leaned forward to whisper, but his voice was still too loud. She didn't know enough about what Virgo said, about the entanglement generator, to tell Vasil the truth. Not yet. She realised she was staring at the black and white check of the floor, and quickly raised her head to meet his gaze.

  'I didn't want to worry about a body. Not here. Not today.' Here was a chance to change the subject. 'Is everything ready?'

  Vasil leaned back in his chair. 'It's all ready.' He smiled, and she felt a thrill.

  They looked over the menu in silence. After a couple of minutes, Vasil leaned forward again, and ran a finger over her cheek. 'He gave you quite a pounding.'

  She flinched and pulled away. 'I've had worse.'

  'Still, I can't help but feel we owe him something.' Vasil pulled a phone from his jacket pocket. 'And it won't hurt to keep the stakes high a little longer.' He looked down at the phone and frowned, then held it up. 'No signal in here. I'm going outside. If Artur comes, I'll have grilled pears, then the catfish.'

  She watched him through the window. When he ended one call, he dialled another number, and his face became hard. He seemed to be in an argument – something changed in his face when he was angry, but she could never see quite what it was. The second call only lasted half a minute.

  When he returned, she waited for him to say something, but he seemed lost in thought.

  'You haven't told me about the . . . the threat,' she said eventually. 'Where are the planes coming from?'

  'Lots of places.' Vasil smiled, almost imperceptibly. 'Including Cuba.'

  It took her a moment to work out what he meant. She didn't know why it upset her: she had been happy to kill Virgo, after all. She still would be. And his wife was nothing to her. But his daughter – that felt different; fifteen was so young to lose your life. She should know.

  'There's no screwing this up, Alexandra. This deal is . . . it could make everything worthwhile. All those years . . . Even that –' He reached out and touched her scar again. 'Have you done all the checks? The feeds are in place?'

  'Everything is in place. Wheelan's had the Oval Office link set up for days. The only difficulty has been in keeping up with the
Pentagon's key changes. Someone has to spot that the transmissions are encrypted again. But Wheelan says the quantum computer has got the transition time down to thirteen seconds now. That's thirteen seconds we lose every fifty-seven minutes. This thing's really powerful, Vasil.' She looked up at him, searching for a hint of a smile, an acknowledgement of all they had achieved together. There had been almost no difficulties, only the problem with Paul Radcliffe. And they had dealt with that now, wiped it away. She was sure Vasil must be pleased at how things had turned out.

  He looked at her, seemingly amused, for a moment. Then he turned away, looking for a waiter. No sign of one anywhere. He turned back.

  'So he – Virgo – will do nothing while his daughter is on the plane?'

  She wondered if she should have killed Virgo already. For his daughter's sake. No, she had done the right thing. She was right to check out his story. There would be plenty of time to dispose of him later.

  'No. He won't do anything,' she said. And she couldn't help what was going to happen to his daughter. She looked at her watch. It was too late to change anything now.

  Vasil was watching her. The amused smile was back. 'It's better this way. Now we just have a teenage girl to deal with. Do you remember how easy it is to keep teenage girls in check, Alex?' His smile broadened. 'You were no trouble, were you?'

  Genovsky stared back at Vasil, through him, into the past. He was right to be so callous. They had a job to do.

  But it did seem different now. Now that they were ripping apart the life of a young girl, she felt something shift. Somehow, it weakened her, and she couldn't allow that to happen. She forced herself back into the room.

  'We should order,' she said. 'Where are all the waiters today?'

  CHAPTER 48

  IT WAS A SOUND Katie had only ever heard in black and white movies: the tinny ring of an old telephone bell. It seemed to take Vicente by surprise; he jumped to his feet and scurried out of the room to answer the call. Miguel followed him out, leaving her alone with Ramón. He grinned at her, and pointed the gun at her head. But he also seemed to be on edge, not quite sure how he was meant to behave now. Edgy didn't seem like such a good state for him to be in: it was time for her to start talking.