Entanglement

by Michael Brooks

  'You can't do anything,' he said. 'The pilot can't do anything. It's all out of our hands now. It's in the hands of God.' His grip was strong, but Katie tore her arm free. Vicente sat upright and pulled out his pistol. But he didn't lift it from his lap.

  'I can do what I can,' she said. 'God or no God.' She felt a mild surprise that the gun held no terror for her.

  Katie nodded towards the pilot. He was standing at the front of the cabin, staring over the heads of his passengers. 'He is going to die thinking he should have done something to save the plane. At least I can make him understand that it's not his fault.'

  She looked back at Vicente. 'I'm doing this for you, too. To give you the chance to decide not to stop me. To realise that you respect these people's lives more than you respect your cause, whatever it is. You have to understand something, Vicente. If a life is worth anything, it's worth dying for. So go ahead and shoot me if you want.'

  Katie got up and walked towards the front of the plane, but before she'd walked more than a few paces, the pilot had disappeared back into the cockpit. She felt the plane lurch into a steep descent. Was that the pilot? Or was that something – someone – else? She hesitated and her gaze dropped to the floor. There was nothing she could do now. Katie looked up as a stewardess placed a hand on her arm.

  'You need to get back to your seat,' she said.

  Katie nodded and turned back towards Vicente. This was out of her hands now.

  CHAPTER 78

  GABRIEL MACINTYRE KNEW THIS feeling, and he knew he had to fight it. His throat was tight, his mouth arid, and he couldn't relax his back. The crackling tones from the loudspeakers made him flinch. If he could just let it go, round out his shoulder blades so he could breathe . . . This was not the time to have a panic attack.

  The disembodied voices mocked him.

  'We have less than two minutes, Mr President.'

  'I'm fully aware of the time. We are not going to do this before we have to. Lieutenant Horowitz, do you have visual contact with the crew?'

  'I do, sir. But I have received no indication the pilot is able to alter his present heading.'

  'What about you, Lieutenant Hill?'

  'Same situation, sir. We've tried everything we can think of, Mr President. We're awaiting your order.'

  MacIntyre could hardly swallow the mineral water he'd reached for. How the hell did Tom think they would get away with this now? The plan was to get the President's voice on tape, capture some decrypted communications. They'd done that now. The plane was just a device, that's what Tom had said. It was never meant to go this far. And where were his troops? Surely they were meant to be here by now? At this rate, they were all going to jail. If they were lucky.

  Ellie would never forgive him. He knew her well enough to know that she wouldn't stop loving him, but she could surely never forgive this. He had screwed up, big time. He had worked so hard for everything they had. But it had gone too far.

  When did he start to feel he had to earn her love, that he could lose it, that it couldn't come for free? She had loved him before he was anyone; he knew that from way back, when they were at college. She used to tell him when they were lying on the campus lawns outside the frat house. She still told him now, before she fell asleep at night. But he didn't accept it like he used to. When had he started replacing acceptance with effort?

  Whenever it was, that path had led them here, and it was going to pull them apart. He was guilty as sin. He had put Tom in touch with Marinov, he'd made sure the entanglement software was installed in the planes. Gabriel MacIntyre was right bang in the centre of it. The FAA, the airlines, the manufacturers – they all kept records, and when people died, everything went to hell. When you could talk about a rectifiable software fault, a coding error, another patch on the patch, no one made a fuss for more than a day. Everybody needed this stuff. The fact that they were prepared to put up with such badly written software made that perfectly clear. But when something went wrong on this scale, there was no recovery.

  Where was the strike force? They were meant to be here by now. This was all meant to be wrapped up. He hoped the machine in front of him was worth it. It was powerful, at least: Tom was right about that. Jesus Christ, he was sitting here, drinking mineral water and listening in on decrypted White House communications. He was listening to the President and a fighter pilot talk about the imminent death of another 300 people.

  Tom and Marinov had moved across the hall. They had their backs to him, and were discussing something in whispers. He was glad to be excluded. The less he knew the better. When it came to court – and he knew now that it would – it was better that he was in the dark on some things. They didn't look worried. Not one bit. And neither did anyone else. There were half a dozen guards dotted about the place now, and maybe ten or twelve technicians tinkering with the equipment, but everyone seemed ridiculously calm. Was no one listening to this stuff?

  The level of security was laughable, really. That must be the great thing about a senior position in Homeland Security – who were you going to worry about? Tom could keep all the other agencies in the dark, and no one would suspect anything except a non-specific, non-disclosable threat to national security. It was a walk in the park.

  The woman, Genovsky, had been gone a while now. He looked back at the main entrance. The guy who had called her out, the guy with the box, was just coming through into the hall. Genovsky had introduced them, but he hadn't taken any notice. What was his name? Something Born. Talk about your archetypal science geek: wild hair, jutting-out belly, the works. It made you pull in your gut just looking at him.

  'One minute, sir.'

  Marinov and Tom were headed back towards him. Whatever they had been talking about, they looked smug. Maybe this would be OK. Maybe they were about to pull the plug. They certainly had everything they came for. He tried not to catch their eyes; best just to look calmly away.

  Born was heading towards the front. He hesitated. He didn't seem to know what he was looking for. A couple of the technicians gave him funny looks.

  Then MacIntyre heard the clatter of running feet behind him. He turned, then turned back.

  Holy shit.

  What was Born doing?

  'Stop. Stop or I'll shoot.'

  Tom had drawn a gun and was sprinting down the hall, shouting with urgent abandon.

  Born stopped, his hand on the console. Tom pulled up fifteen paces from him, gun levelled.

  'Stop right there,' he said. His voice was hard like granite. MacIntyre could see his brother-in-law's eyes. They were popping wide, like he was being strangled by the Invisible Man. Wouldn't want to be Born right now, he thought.

  Tom was flicking the barrel of the gun upwards. 'Get your hands up in the air,' he spat. MacIntyre had never seen Tom like this. His brother-in-law's eyes narrowed, just for a moment.

  'Who the fuck are you?'

  Wouldn't want it to be me, MacIntyre thought again.

  CHAPTER 79

  IT WAS DARK OUTSIDE now, and the lights of Center Plaza twinkled as rain splattered against the windows. Delaney leaned across to see if anyone out in the main office was taking any notice of him. The office was a wasteland. There was nothing going on out there; everyone was in the field, at the airports.

  OK, so Virgo knew about the hijackings. Or he knew about one, at least. What Delaney couldn't figure out was, why? Was there a link to the quantum computer? Unlikely. Whatever the truth, the authorities would crucify Virgo when they got him. But it would be after the hijack stuff was over; no one except Delaney knew the two were linked.

  And, maybe, Thomas Wheelan.

  What was he supposed to do with that information? He had received a direct order to stay put, stay out of everything. But wouldn't it be beautiful for a washed-up FBI agent to nail Thomas Wheelan? Wouldn't that be poetic after everything Homeland Security had done to the Bureau?

  What was it Virgo had said? His daughter was on a plane coming out of Cuba. What was her name? Katie
. Katie Virgo.

  Absent-mindedly, he opened a browser window on Morgan's computer and opened a search engine.

  Katie Virgo.

  There were a million hits. Mostly astrology sites.

  Katie Virgo London.

  That narrowed it down. There were still thousands of hits. A catering business, a graphic designer in North London . . . He scrolled down the list. Jesus, there was everything here – a woman offering Reiki massage, a violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra. A fifteen-year-old amputee who broke a British junior paralympic sprint record last year.

  It sounded like a freak show. Delaney couldn't help himself. He double-clicked and opened the page.

  It was from the Richmond Observer, some two-bit South London newspaper. The screen took a couple of seconds to load.

  As the page flashed up, Delaney's elbow slipped off the desk.

  It was him.

  Nathaniel Virgo.

  He was standing on an athletics track, smiling for the camera, his arm round a young girl with a prosthetic leg. Delaney stared at the prosthetic for a full ten seconds. What was it, a titanium spring or something? It looked like you could jump over the moon with that thing.

  Katie Virgo, in vest and shorts, was grinning like a chimp. She had her arm round her father on one side, and round an attractive woman on the other. The caption said that was Rachel Virgo, Katie's mother.

  Now deceased.

  Christ. What did you do with stuff like this? They looked so happy. The kid was a champion athlete. The cheesy smiles said it all: at that moment, those were the proudest parents on the planet. Delaney couldn't take his eyes off the screen. Wasn't this everything everybody should have? A wife, a husband, a daughter who made you so proud it felt like the top of your head would flip off.

  Virgo had it all this time last year. Now, there was damn near none of it left.

  Something flashed in the corner of the screen. Delaney dragged his eyes onto the message feed. Another hijack, a plane heading towards downtown Boston. He felt a moment of alarm, but they would shoot it down long before it crossed the city's air perimeter. He was safe. All the passengers would die, but he would survive. Again. Cruel chance. That's all there was.

  Something in the message caught his eye. He scanned it again and felt his heart stop for a moment.

  The plane was coming out of Cuba.

  Morgan had access to the passenger manifest; he had to admit this new computer system wasn't all bad. Hurriedly, Delaney scanned the list.

  Katie Virgo wasn't on it. But she was on board. He knew it.

  His eyes flicked back to the cheesy, grinning shot. It was probably just an annoying evening job to the photographer, just another assignment that meant a late dinner and no TV. But Delaney felt it turn him around.

  There was something worth saving here. And someone worth nailing. But how?

  CHAPTER 80

  VIRGO HEARD WHEELAN'S SHOUT. The hall was just a short sprint away: dressed in the guard's uniform, no one would see his face if he played it right. He drew the pistol as he ran. He had to stop running before he hit the doors; no matter what was going on inside, he couldn't afford to be noticed.

  He pushed at the door and slunk into the hall, dropped into a crouch. Seven guns. There were seven guns pointing at Born. His made eight. There was nothing he could do now. Born had his back to them, his right hand on the key inserted in a console at the front. Had he turned it yet?

  'Thirty seconds, Mr President.'

  He hadn't.

  'Take your hand off the instruments.'

  Virgo darted his eyes across the room. Thomas Wheelan had a gun trained on Born. His voice was steady, unruffled, and he had a strange smirk on his face, like he was hoping Born would do something stupid. In the silence, Virgo could hear a tiny, repeated beeping fill the room. It came from the equipment behind Born and sounded like a heart monitor, regular, reliable, understated. Beep, beep, beep. The miracle of life just carrying on as normal.

  Virgo felt his stomach tighten. He had done this, made this happen. He had wilfully crushed Born's dream. He had calculated the maximum impact, manipulated things until Born felt like risking it all. No wonder he'd decided to go this far. What about Genovsky? What would she do when faced with the truth? If she was still alive, that was.

  The beep was still there. Coming from the shiny silver box, another of Gierek's machines. Beep, beep, beep. Slowly, Born swung round, keeping his right hand on the key. The look on his face said it all: a manic, determined set to his jaw; grim, thin lips with the blood pinched out of them by the grip of his teeth. It was the look of a man who had finished with it all. A man about to die.

  Born locked his gaze onto Virgo. The two men stared at each other for a moment. Virgo wanted to read something into the look, but all he saw was emptiness. Born turned the key. It was a tiny movement, almost nothing. The work of a few strands of muscle fibre, a slight displacement of the carpal bones.

  The noise of a single shot cracked off the walls. The bullet entered the side of Born's head, throwing him back against the console. He slid towards the ground.

  Wheelan was a dead shot; no one else needed to fire. Daniel Born, the man who invented the quantum computer, was dead.

  The beeping had stopped.

  A wave of shock hit Virgo, almost knocked him over. He had brought death on yet another soul. In the back of his mind, he could remember the scene in Born's kitchen, the decision he'd made not to run but to save him. Now, with a little insight, a little cunning and a few well-chosen words, he had sent him to his death. Saving him once, twice, a thousand times, didn't count now. Born was dead and Virgo felt the weight of it.

  Silence hung in the air. Ten, maybe twenty seconds passed. No one moved.

  'The pilot reports control restored, Mr President. We are bringing the plane to the ground. Landing at Logan in ten minutes. Runway cleared and ready, agency forces already in position.'

  'I have to go and make some phone calls, Bob. I want to know everything about this incident. Everything. And nothing else leaves the ground tonight. Send someone to my office the minute you have anything.'

  Virgo fought the euphoria. But that was it. That was what he had wanted to achieve. Born had made his own decisions. And Born had redeemed himself in the end; he'd driven Born to turn from one path and take another, to save Katie. He hadn't driven him to his death. That was Born's choice.

  He could feel his calf muscles begin to burn in the crouch. What were the other guards doing? Following their lead, he slowly stood up, then lowered and put away his gun.

  What now? Keep still. Blend in. Then get out. No one knew him. Katie was OK. They were bringing her plane into Logan – there wasn't time to alter that now. Now he had to get out. Now he had to go and throw his arms around her.

  Wheelan still had the gun in his hand and the smirk on his face. He walked up to Born's body and kicked it away from the console.

  'The Cuba plane is immaterial,' he said. 'We have all we need now.'

  MacIntyre deflated: his relief was visible, even from across the room. But he hadn't heard what Virgo had heard. The words signalled closure; the tone said anything but. Something new was about to begin.

  Marinov was watching from across the hall. His eyes were almost sparkling with fascination. Virgo felt it, too. Something was about to happen between Wheelan and MacIntyre, something Wheelan had been looking forward to for a long time.

  The silence was loaded now.

  Which made it a really bad time for Virgo's phone to ring.

  CHAPTER 81

  IT WAS STILL RAINING, the lights outside were still twinkling, and Frank Delaney was still staring at the picture on the screen.

  What was he going to do? What could he do – what could any one person do, faced with the cruelty of the unfolding world?

  Part of him wanted to do nothing. He wanted to go back to Quantico Creek and paint birds and reeds and brackish water. But now he knew that wasn't what Nancy would want. Nan
cy was dead. That whole entanglement thing, that notion that she and he were still connected, it was just wishful thinking. Escapism. If Nancy was sending him a message it was here, loud and clear, in Katie Virgo's broad, beautiful grin. Life was for the living. He wanted to think Nancy still painted through him, but Nancy was dead and gone. There were all kinds of reasons for that. He had messed up, Morgan had made a bad call. Maybe Nancy had slipped in her instincts, too. But whatever the explanation, she was gone. Even something as strange and hokey as quantum entanglement didn't change that.

  And Katie Virgo was still alive. Delaney dragged his eyes back onto the message feed.

  The update came through like a sign from heaven. The plane's controls were restored and it would be coming into Logan. It'd be landing in minutes, and all local agents would be engaged in offloading and interrogating the passengers. Delaney shifted his weight, made to get up from the chair, then sat down again.

  He had a choice to make. He could sit here, mesmerised by the screen, watching the reports coming in. Or he could do something.

  He could get to Katie, preserve her testimony, follow the trail right back to Wheelan. But he wasn't going to call anyone. Not this time. This time, it would be his op. And it would be beautiful. The Secretary for Homeland Security was about to see what one of his agents could do.

  CHAPTER 82

  VIRGO HELD STILL. IT seemed like his phone had been ringing forever. Maybe no one here would know it was his – on the trains in London, on the commute up from Richmond, no one could ever pinpoint whose phone was ringing. Everyone dived into their bags or pockets, like the whole world shared a single ringtone. Maybe he would get away with it.

  Who was calling? Katie? Imogen? The FBI? They would surely have traced his signal by now. He forced his mind back into the hall. No one was moving. The lights were still flashing on the displays at the front, and the silver box still stood resplendent on its dais. Born's body was lying in a pool of darkening blood.