Collateral Damage d-14

by Jim DeFelice

  10

  Sicily

  Turk’s five minutes playing with the i ragazzi turned into roughly a half hour, and certainly would have lasted longer had the teacher not finally declared it was time for the children to eat lunch.

  The kids demanded that he return. He promised he would come back in two days — a vow the teacher made a big deal of, even writing it on the class calendar.

  The game vanquished Turk’s hangover, or whatever physical funk he had been in. It also left him hungry, so he walked over to the cafeteria and got himself lunch — a warm octopus salad with red and blue potatoes and the mandatory side of pasta.

  He was just about done when he realized he hadn’t checked his phone for messages. There were a stack of them, including two from Ginella: Shooter Squadron was having a pilots’ meeting at 1500, and she hoped he’d be available.

  It sounded like a voluntary request, and while the military wasn’t exactly known for volunteerism, Turk decided he would interpret it that way. He also decided he would head toward Catania, a city on the coast about eleven miles north of the base. He hadn’t been there since arriving, and from what he’d heard, it would be the perfect place to let his mind wander while he took a mental breather.

  A public bus ran from the base up to the city. Turk hopped on it, and after a confused negotiation with the driver — who finally made it clear that he didn’t have to pay, grazie—he settled into a seat near the back and watched the countryside. Sicily was basically a volcano in the shallow Mediterranean, and the focal point of that volcano — Mount Etna — rose beyond the window as they rode. Despite the early spring heat, the top of the mountain was white-capped. A dim layer of mist rose from the peak; it was a benign presence this afternoon, barely hinting at its power to reshape the lives of the people in the area as well as the landscape.

  Turk got out near the city square, or piazza. He walked around for a while, looking at the buildings and the people, his mind wandering. Finally he took a seat at an outdoor café at one side of the square, ordered a wine, then got the menu and had a plate of pasta and a second wine.

  A succession of pretty women passed nearby en route to the tourist spots or somewhere to shop. He started to think he might like the idea of touring the country alone.

  Few people came close to him, though occasionally he got a smile when his eyes met a stranger’s. Probably this was a function of the flight suit, he realized. He should have dressed in civilian clothes — he was the only serviceman around, American or otherwise, and it seemed to strike an odd note with the tourists who wandered by.

  He was just about to pay his bill when his cell phone rang. Taking it from his pocket, he glanced at the number. It wasn’t one he recognized, but he answered it anyway.

  “Turk, are you making our meeting?” asked Ginella as he said hello.

  “Oh, Colonel, hey,” said Turk. “Meeting?”

  “We’re planning the next few sorties,” she said. Her voice was pleasant but businesslike. There was no hint that they had been together the night before. “I was hoping to see you.”

  “I got stuck with a few things,” he said. It wasn’t a direct lie, he thought; more like a slight disarray of information. “I didn’t think you guys needed me.”

  “The flu has knocked us down badly,” she said. “I’d like to be able to count on you tomorrow.”

  “Well—”

  “We’ll brief the mission at 0600,” she said, her voice growing more officious. “I am counting on you. I did speak to Operations. And to your colonel.”

  “Yes.” Turk wasn’t sure what to say. He did want to fly — he was developing a definite taste for the Warthog. It was just the situation with Ginella that was awkward.

  Maybe this was her way of removing that. She was being completely official — yes, he thought, she’s trying to make it easy for me.

  Great.

  “If I’m not needed by the Tigershark people, I’ll definitely be there,” he told her.

  “At 0600,” she told him.

  “Got it.”

  * * *

  Turk spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city. Around six he decided he would head back to the hotel and get changed before finding a place to eat. He thought it might be a good idea to find a dining companion.

  Li came to mind. But he had no way of getting hold of her — he didn’t know if she even had a phone.

  Maybe, he thought, he could just call her hotel and have the desk connect him to her room.

  He couldn’t remember the name of her hotel. His description of it didn’t help the concierge downstairs at his hotel.

  “Mi dispiace, Captain,” said the man. “But you have described nearly every hotel in Sicily. It even sounds a little like ours, though maybe not so close to the sea.”

  “True,” agreed Turk. “How about a nice place for dinner, not too fancy?” he asked.

  “I know just the place. Very quiet and out of the way.”

  Turk nearly jumped. Ginella had come up behind him. She placed her hand on his hip.

  It felt good, tempting even. But…

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” she told him.

  “I–I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I was waiting. They said you were out.”

  She was in civilian clothes, a mid-thigh black skirt and a red top. Not quite see-through, the top gave a hint of lace beneath.

  Which was pleasant.

  He thought of objecting, but what could he say?

  And why? Why object? Why not just… go with what felt good?

  “I was — I kinda went for a walk to clear my head,” said Turk. “After everything that’s happened. You know?”

  She nodded sympathetically, then leaned toward the concierge. “Can you make a reservation for two at il Bambino. Say in about an hour? No — make it an hour and a half.”

  “Il Bambino,” said the concierge approvingly. “Very nice.”

  * * *

  They made love twice, once in a frenzy before dinner, Turk still damp from his shower, then again afterward, this time with even more desperation. Ginella silently urged him on, pulling him toward her. The second time she dug her fingers into his back so hard as he climaxed that he found tiny traces of blood on his sheets in the morning when he woke.

  She was gone by then. There was no sign that she had been on the bed or even in the room. The scent of her perfume lingering in the sheets and on his chest was the only hint that she was there.

  He called down for coffee, and took a shower for so long he was still inside when the coffee arrived. He got out, brought the tray inside, and showered again.

  It wasn’t pathological, he told himself. He had wanted to have sex. The memory of it as he showered threatened to arouse him again.

  Turk shaved and dressed. He jogged down the stairs rather than taking the elevator, trotting out to the lot after scoring his pick of the car pool.

  Heading to the base for the mission briefing, he began rehearsing different things he might say to her to break off the affair.

  He wouldn’t say them today, probably. But soon. Very, very soon.

  11

  Sicily

  Kharon’s search for Rubeo’s hotel turned out to be much easier than he thought, though as always it was absurdly expensive. He called the man who had arranged to connect the USB device to the maintenance computers; the man called him back inside an hour, while he was still driving. For two thousand euros he learned the American civilians were staying at the Crown Prince, a fancy hotel a few miles from the base.

  For another thousand euros he got the floor and room number.

  Kharon reserved a room at the hotel without trouble. He studied the layout, and within a half hour had it memorized.

  He walked through, placing a dozen miniature video cameras around, giving him a full view of anyone entering or leaving the hotel, and surveying each of the floors.

  Sending the images directly to his laptop would have been t
oo easy to trace, so Kharon routed the data through the hotel wireless out to the Internet, then through a set of servers, and had it post to a Web page hosted by a Polish provider. The page was encrypted, but it wouldn’t take a hacker with half the expertise of Rubeo to track it down and eventually decrypt it. For that reason, Kharon resisted the temptation to put extra devices on Rubeo’s floor, and didn’t set up anything to watch specifically for the scientist.

  Finished, Kharon went up to his room and took a shower. He decided he would rest — he hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours at least — but once in bed flopped around, unable to sleep. In short order he rose and began stalking the room. Nothing on television interested him, and he was loath to use his laptop to connect to the in-hotel network. He finally decided he would work off some of his excess energy with a walk. Dressing, he went out to the hall and walked down to the elevator. He leaned on the button, then saw from the display above the door that the elevator was all the way downstairs in the lobby.

  Better to walk, he decided.

  The marble tiles that lined the hallway floor were old and worn, but there were no cracks in them that Kharon could see. This intrigued him — was the marble so thick or perfect that it couldn’t break?

  Or was it fake? The overhead lights were not particularly bright. He was tempted to drop down and examine the material.

  Marble always cracked. The hotel had to be at least fifty years old. The floor looked original — scuffed and worn, yet no cracks.

  The stair treads were made of thick stone, some sort of granite, he guessed.

  Obsessing over odd matters was one sign of fatigue. Another was his eyes’ reaction to the light — everything seemed brighter than it was.

  There was no door on the stairway where it opened onto the floor above the lobby. Kharon shielded his eyes from the bright light reflected upward from the lobby chandeliers by the mirrored walls below. He started down the steps. Already he was tired — he’d walk once around the building outside, then return quickly and sleep.

  He was three-quarters of the way to the bottom of the stairs before his eyes could fully focus. Two men were coming in from the main door to the right. One large and bulky, the other even taller but thinner.

  Ray Rubeo.

  * * *

  Rubeo saw the face float above the steps. It transported him back some twenty years to his early days at Dreamland.

  Alissa Kharon. A talented scientist who’d died in an idiotic lab fire.

  It wasn’t her — obviously — but the eyes, the cheeks, the nose: the face was almost exactly the same.

  It was a man a little younger than she had been when she died, taller, but with the same coloring, the same expression.

  Haunted.

  Her son.

  “Neil,” said Rubeo loudly. “Neil Kharon.”

  He strode toward the stairs. The young man stared at him, confused.

  “Neil Kharon. I’m Ray Rubeo. Do you remember me?”

  “Uh, uh, yeah.” The young man stuttered, then glanced awkwardly at the hand Rubeo thrust toward him.

  “Your mother worked for me at Dreamland, back in the nineties. Do you remember me? I sent you an e-mail when you graduated from MIT. I know it’s been years?”

  Rubeo had done more than that. He had written a recommendation to help Kharon into a doctorate program in Europe — surreptitiously, with the help of the young man’s teachers at MIT. He’d actually hoped to steer him to Stanford, though there was really no arguing about Cambridge.

  Rubeo had lost track after that. It was a shame — the young man was brilliant, every bit as smart as his mother.

  “What are you doing in Sicily?” Rubeo asked.

  “I’m here — I was supposed to interview for a position at VGNet.”

  “With Rudd?” Rubeo touched his right ear, squeezing the post — an ancient habit, especially when holding his tongue.

  Armain Rudd, who owned the company, had the ethical standards of a slug, and treated his employees little better than slaves. VGNet was active in the artificial intelligence field, handling cognitive interfaces — basically helping sensors “talk” to brains. Its work was solid, but not anywhere near as advanced or as interesting as Rubeo’s work.

  Surely young Kharon could do better than that.

  “You’re looking for a job?” Rubeo said. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

  “I—”

  “Give me your contact information.”

  “Uh—”

  “Forget what you’ve told them, or they’ve told you. They’re not to be trusted anyway. We will easily meet their offer. Really, Neil, I’m disappointed you didn’t think of us. You’ll be a good fit for us — we have a lot of interesting projects. Tell me about your interests.”

  “I, uh, well—”

  “You have a date tonight?”

  “I was actually meeting, uh, a young lady,” stuttered Kharon.

  “Naturally. Unfortunately, I’m going to Africa tomorrow. Wait.” Rubeo took out his wallet and retrieved a business card. It was a bit worn at the edges; he couldn’t remember the last time he actually gave one out.

  “Here,” he told Kharon, handing him the card. “You are to send me an e-mail. Or call that number at the bottom. Call as soon as you get back to your room tonight. There’ll be a secretary. Make an appointment.”

  Kharon took the card.

  “The secretary may be a computer,” added Rubeo. “Or maybe not. See if it passes the Turing Test.”

  * * *

  Kharon shoved the card in his pocket and walked toward the lounge. His cheeks were burning; he felt unbalanced, small and weak. It was as if he was trapped again, back in the closet.

  He went to the bar and ordered a beer. He took it from the bartender’s hand and practically drained it, still feeling pressed in on all sides.

  Undone by a chance meeting? What kind of coward are you?

  What kind of sissy weakling are you?

  You should have shot him dead right there. Killed the bodyguard, too.

  He hadn’t brought his gun. That was just one of his many mistakes.

  “Are you all right?” asked the bartender in Italian.

  “Bene, bene.” Kharon raised his head and looked at the bartender. Then he glanced at the bottle — it was nearly empty. “Un altro, per favore,” he said stiffly. “Please. Another.”

  The bartender smiled. “A woman, eh?”

  “Yes. My mother.”

  “Ahhh,” said the bartender knowingly. He went and got the beer. “I am sorry for your loss,” he said, placing the bottle on the counter.

  In a way, the man had drawn exactly the right conclusions, Kharon thought. He was still grieving.

  * * *

  Upstairs, Rubeo left Levon Jons and went into his room, checking the security first with his bug detector. The device mapped the room’s electrical circuitry, and was sensitive enough to detect even the NSA’s latest generation of nanopowered “flies”—a certification Rubeo was sure of since his company had worked on the technology employed in the microsized listening gear.

  The room was clean. Rubeo sat down in the large chair opposite the television and turned the set on, flipping to the U.S. news stations.

  Alissa Kharon’s son working for VGNet. Good God!

  The news program detailed a shake-up in the Libyan government’s ruling body. A group of alleged moderates had taken over.

  Since when did moderates take anything over? Rubeo wondered.

  He changed the channel. CNN was carrying a discussion program. The host introduced a speech from a member of the Iranian government saying the American plane that had bombed the village was the spawn of the devil.

  “I’m sure you’re an expert on that,” spat Rubeo.

  He sat back on the bed, mind drifting. He thought of Alissa Kharon. He’d had a crush on her. She probably didn’t even know. He’d certainly never acted on it: She was married and, though he was her supervisor, a few years older than he was.
<
br />   Pretty woman. And very smart.

  He closed his eyes and heard the alarms, smelled the fire, the aftermath. Alissa had died from suffocation in the lab bunker. The laser system she was working on had malfunctioned, and rather than leaving, she’d tried to put out the fire — a classic mistake, but like her in a way, insisting that she could shut down the systems and prevent more damage.

  Rubeo knew exactly what she must have thought — all that work they’d done about to be ruined. The laser was connected to a hand-built targeting system that the team had spent two years perfecting. She had jumped from her station and run to it as the others began to leave.

  The bunker had been equipped with a state-of-the-art fire suppression system. But state of the art in the early 1990s wasn’t quite good enough to kill the chemical fire the laser unit spawned. The doors locked, and for some reason no one realized that she was still inside.

  Rubeo, working upstairs on something else, distracted as he always was then, arrived to find one of her assistants screaming frantically.

  “Where’s Alissa?” she’d yelled. “Where’s Alissa?”

  He overrode the system, but when they opened the doors they were met with a wall of black smoke. He had to close the doors — he closed them himself, knowing she was already dead, lost somewhere behind the smoke.

  The hazmat team arrived a few seconds later. Rubeo went and got himself a suit, and went in after them.

  Her body, badly burned, was back near the unit. The main AI unit lay inches from her outstretched hand.

  She was a beautiful woman, and smart, with a kid and a husband. The husband dissolved after her death. He died of cancer a year later, but he’d been a broken man, unable to pull himself back together.

  By then the assistant who had screamed had committed suicide.

  Not because of Alissa’s death, or so the investigators said — she had marital problems, which were prominently mentioned in the note she left. But Rubeo remembered the last line of the suicide note:

  I will see Alissa for you all.

  So much pain. So much success and achievements, and all he could think of was the pain.