The Prometheus Deception

by Robert Ludlum

  * * *

  Sweat poured down Bryson’s face; his black Nomex suit itched. He took several deep breaths, then stepped forward toward the shaft, reached up to the interlock, flicked it closed. The steel doors closed silently.

  Now he needed to orient himself, to determine which direction to move in order to find the security control room. That was the first order of business. It would tell him what he needed to know, where everything was. It was also the eyes of the enemy, and therefore it needed to be shut down.

  He pressed the talk button on the communicator. “I’m at the main level,” he said softly.

  “Thank God,” came Elena’s voice. Bryson smiled: she was unlike any field backup he had ever worked with. Instead of being briskly, coldly professional, she was emotional, caring, concerned.

  “Now which way to Control?”

  “If you’re facing the elevator, it’s left. There’s a long corridor running to either side…?”

  “Check.” She was working off an array of video surveillance images, going by sight rather than by blueprint.

  “Take the one to your left. When it ends, left again. There it widens out into a sort of long portrait gallery. That looks like the most direct route.”

  “Okay, roger. How are the eyes?”

  “Shuttered.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  He turned to the left and ran down the hall. Fiber-optic cables were threaded through the walls and foundations of this house, Bryson was certain. Miles and miles of the stuff, connected to miniature lenses whose pinhole apertures probably dotted the walls and ceilings. Unlike visible security cameras of old, these could not be detected, so they could not be spray-painted or duct-taped over. Were it not for Elena’s ability to replace the actual feeds with yesterday’s, Bryson would have been observed everywhere he went, with nothing to do about it. Now at least he could move freely, unseen. The security pass he had taken from the guard in the underground garage had so far done him no good at all. It hadn’t admitted him to the elevator, though it had switched on the lights once he entered the house. It seemed to be more for keeping track of its wearer than for penetrating security; it had to go. He unclipped it and placed it on the floor of the corridor, against the wall, as if it had been lost by the person to whom it had been issued.

  * * *

  Elena put down the two-way communicator when she heard the crunch of footsteps right outside the truck. It was going too smoothly, she thought. The forest patrol is going to ask questions, and she would have to be persuasive in her answers.

  She slid open the back of the van and let out a scream when she saw the muzzle of the pistol pointed at her eyes.

  “Let’s go!” shouted the man in the blue blazer.

  “I’m with the U.S. Geological Survey!” she protested.

  “Tapping into our security line? I don’t think so. Hands down at your side, and no fucking around! We’ve got some questions to ask you.”

  * * *

  Bryson had reached the long, rectangular room that Elena had called the portrait gallery. It was a peculiar-looking chamber, lined with ornate gilded frames like a room in the Louvre, except that each frame was empty. Or, rather, each frame held a flat grayish monitor, which probably turned into a high-resolution reproduction of a classic oil portrait, the picture changing according to the tastes of the person passing through, as broadcast by the electronic badge.

  Bryson was about to step into the gallery when he noticed a line of tiny black beads running up the wall in a vertical line between frames. Every four feet or so another line of these minuscule black dots ran up one wall of the gallery. It almost looked ornamental, like part of the décor, except that it was ever so slightly discordant with the flocked wallpaper, the French Renaissance style. Bryson stood at the entrance of the gallery without entering. The black dots began about eighteen inches from the floor and ended about six feet up. He was fairly sure he knew what they were, but in order to make certain, he took out the night-vision monocular and put it to one eye.

  Now he could see row upon row of thin filaments strung across the width of the long room every few feet, starting a few feet from the floor. What looked like glowing green strings were, he knew, laser beams in the infrared frequency: point-to-point sensors with columnated beams of light, invisible to the naked eye. But when the beams were broken by someone passing through—someone unauthorized—an alarm would be set off. They started eighteen inches off the floor, Bryson figured, so that they would not be triggered by any house pets.

  The only way to traverse the room was by moving along the floor, staying below eighteen inches at all times so as not to break the lowest infrared-laser beam. And there was no clean and easy way to do it, either. He fastened the monocular on to the head-mounting apparatus; then, when it was securely in place, he dropped to the floor and began sliding on his back, pushing off with his boots. The whole while he was looking up, making sure he did not cross the beam. The Nomex suit was slick enough to allow rapid, smooth movement. Although the cameras had been digitally blinded, the rest of the systems were live; the slightest misstep would trigger an alarm. Yet the greatest threat came not from technology at all but from human beings: the possibility of a guard coming upon him during rounds, as had already happened twice.

  He slid under a third, a fourth, a fifth infrared-laser beam. No beam was broken, no alarms triggered, not here.

  Finally he slipped under the last light beam. He paused, still on his back, and peered closely around to make sure there were no others. Satisfied, he sat up, then got carefully to his feet. Now he was not far from the security control room; Elena would guide him in the right direction.

  He depressed the talk button. “Passage successful,” he whispered. “Where to now?”

  No answer, so he spoke again, a bit louder.

  Again, no response, just staticky dead air.

  “Elena, come in.”

  Nothing.

  “Elena, come in. I need guidance.”

  Silence.

  “Which way, damn it?”

  Christ, no! Were the communicators malfunctioning? He spoke again and received no response. Was there some jamming technology in place here, keeping her from receiving his signal, him from receiving hers?

  But his people had to communicate! There was no way to jam all possible radio frequencies but the one you wanted to use yourself. That was an impossibility.

  Then where was she?

  He radioed her again, and again. No answer, no answer, nothing.

  She was gone.

  Had something happened to her? That was a possibility he had not seriously considered.

  He felt a cold dread come over him.

  But he could not stop, he could not expend any time figuring out where she was or what had happened to their communications. He had to move.

  Bryson didn’t need radioed instructions to tell him where the caterer’s kitchen was. He could smell it down the hall, the enticing aroma of the hot hors d’oeuvres. A door slid open at the far end of the hall and a caterer came through, dressed in black pants and a long-sleeved white shirt, with a large, empty silver tray at his side. Bryson ducked back into the gallery, though not so far as to set off an alarm. There was enough room here, sufficiently removed from infrared beams, for him to change clothes. He quickly removed the tactical vest, then stripped off the black body suit. Taking a neatly folded set of black dress pants and a white shirt from a plastic-sealed package in the tac vest, he got into them at once, then changed his combat boots for rubber-soled black dress shoes.

  Sticking his head into the hall that led to the kitchen, he heard laughter, bantering conversation, the metallic clink of pans and utensils. He stepped back into the gallery, waited until he heard the sound of the kitchen’s double-doors swing open, then emerged stealthily. The same waiter who had come in five or so minutes earlier was now holding aloft a large tray loaded with appetizers.

  Treading silently along the hallway, Bryson stole up b
ehind the waiter. He knew the man would be an easy mark, yet he could not afford noise, could not afford to attract attention. When he was just a few feet behind the caterer, Bryson lunged, clapping one hand over his mouth, crooking his elbow around the neck, forcing the man to the floor while, at the same time, grabbing the tray of food. The waiter tried to scream, his cry muffled behind Bryson’s hand. Bryson set the tray down carefully and, with his free hand, squeezed hard at the nerve bundle under the man’s jaw. The waiter slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  Quickly dragging the body back into the gallery, he pushed the waiter into a seated position, hands folded, head down, as if grabbing a quick catnap. Then he ran back down the hall and grabbed the tray of food.

  Move it, he told himself. At any moment another waiter could enter the hall and see his face, not recognize him. He knew the security control room was nearby, but where?

  He turned into another hall, the door sliding automatically, initiated by electric eye. No: this led directly to the formal dining room, which tonight was unused. He turned around, heading back in the direction of the kitchen, then retraced the path the waiter had taken when first approaching the kitchen. Another set of electronically operated doors slid open to a corridor that he could see led to the main reception hall, but another hall intersected long before then, branching off to the right. Perhaps. He took the right, walked about fifty yards, saw a door marked:

  SECURITY AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!

  He stopped before it, took a deep breath to calm himself, then knocked on the door.

  No answer. He noticed a small inset button on the doorjamb, which he pushed once.

  In ten seconds, just when he was about to push the button again, a voice came over a speaker mounted on the wall outside the room. “Yes?”

  “Hi, it’s catering—I’ve got your dinner,” Bryson said in a singsong voice.

  A pause. “We didn’t order anything,” the voice said suspiciously.

  “Okay, fine, you don’t want any, no problem. Mr. Manning said to make sure his security people got fed tonight, but I’ll just tell him you didn’t want any.”

  The door flew open. The man who stood there in the blue blazer was stocky, his hair dyed brown with an unfortunate orange tint. The name badge on his lapel said Ramsey. “I’ll take that,” the man said, reaching for the tray.

  “Sorry, I’m going to need the tray back—it’s a big crowd out there! I’ll set it up for you.” Bryson stepped forward into the security room; Ramsey relaxed somewhat and let him through.

  Bryson looked around, saw that there was just one other guard there monitoring. The room was round, high-tech to the point of being futuristic, its walls smooth and unbroken by individual monitor screens, yet dozens of individual panels showed different views in and around the property.

  “We’ve got smoked duck breast, caviar, gougère, smoked salmon, tenderloin … Do you have a surface where I can set this up for you? This room seems awfully crowded.”

  “Put it anywhere,” the man named Ramsey said, turning his attention back to the images on the wall. Bryson set down the tray gingerly on a bare area of console, then reached over to his left ankle as if to scratch. He quickly pulled out the tranquilizer gun and fired off two quick shots. Two sharp coughing sounds, and each of the security guards was struck, one in the throat, one in the chest. Both would be out for hours.

  Now he rushed to the computer keyboards that controlled the images. Pictures could be enlarged, moved around, brought to the center. He located the set of images that represented the views of the main reception hall.

  The reception hall, where a banquet was taking place. A meeting of the Prometheus Group on the eve of its takeover.

  But a takeover of what?

  And by whom?

  He tapped at the keyboard, quickly figuring out how to manipulate the images. By moving a computer mouse, he realized, he was able to move a security camera, basically pan it from side to side, up or down, even move in for a close-up.

  The reception hall was immense, several stories high, ringed with several balconies overlooking the atrium. Around dozens of elaborately set tables, covered in white tablecloths, with flowers, crystal, bottles of wine, were dozens of people—no, over a hundred people. Faces, familiar faces.

  At one end of the room was a great, dazzling, gilded-bronze sculpture, twice life-size, of Joan of Arc astride her horse, sword drawn and pointing straight up, leading her countrymen into the battle of Orléans. Strange but somehow fitting for the crusader who was Gregson Manning.

  And at the other end of the room, standing at a sleek, minimalistic podium, was Gregson Manning himself, wearing an elegant black suit, hair brushed back. He clutched the sides of the podium, his fervor evident even without any sound. Most remarkable was the wall behind him, which was lined with twenty-four giant video screens, each broadcasting a live image of Manning speaking. It was the sort of egomaniacal display one expected of a Hitler, a Mussolini.

  Bryson moved the mouse to zoom in on the audience, the seated guests, and what he saw stunned him, paralyzed him.

  He did not recognize all the faces by far, but many of those whom he did recognize would be known anywhere in the world.

  There was the head of the FBI.

  The Speaker of the House.

  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  Several leading United States senators.

  The secretary general of the United Nations, a soft-spoken Ghanaian admired for his civility and statesmanship.

  The head of Britain’s MI-6.

  The head of the International Monetary Fund.

  The democratically elected head of Nigeria. The chiefs of the militaries and security services in another half-dozen third-world nations, from Argentina to Turkey.

  Bryson stared, jaw agape, gasping.

  The CEOs of quite a few multinational technology corporations, some of whom he recognized quickly, some vaguely familiar. All of them, dressed in black tie, the women in formal evening gowns, were listening to Manning with riveted attention.

  Jacques Arnaud.

  Anatoly Prishnikov.

  And … Richard Lanchester.

  “My God…!” Bryson breathed.

  He found the volume knob and dialed it up.

  Manning’s voice came over the speakers, velvety smooth.

  “… a revolution in global surveillance. I’m also pleased to announce that Systematix facial-recognition software will also be ready for use in all public places. With the CCTV capabilities already in place, we will now have the ability to scan crowds and match faces against a stored, international database. And this is only possible because of the cooperation of all of us, representatives of forty-seven nations and growing daily—all of us working together.”

  Manning raised his hands as if delivering a benediction to the crowd.

  “What about vehicles?” The accent was African; the speaker a dark-skinned man in a dashiki.

  “Thank you, Mr. Obutu,” Manning replied. “Our neural network technology allows us to not only recognize vehicles instantly but track them around the cities, around countries. And we can record and store that information for future use. You see, I like to think that we are not only widening the net, we’re narrowing the mesh.”

  Another question, which Bryson couldn’t make out.

  Manning smiled. “I know my good friend Rupert Smith-Davies of MI-6 will heartily agree with me when I say that it’s long past time that both the NSA and GCHQ must struggle with legal handcuffs. How ridiculous that, until now, the British could monitor the Americans but not themselves, and vice versa! Were Harry Dunne, our CIA coordinator, well enough to be here, I know he would stand up and tell us all a tale or two in his inimitably profane way.”

  There was general laughter.

  Another question: a woman, her accent Russian. “When will the International Security Agency’s powers become effective?”

  Manning glanced at his watch. “The same moment that t
he treaty takes effect—which is in approximately thirteen hours. The esteemed Richard Lanchester will be its director—global security czar, you might say. Then, my friends, we will all bear witness to a true New World Order, one in which we can take pride in having created. No longer will the citizens of the world be hostage to drug cartels and drug smugglers, terrorists and violent criminals. No longer will public safety be forced to take a backseat to the privacy ‘rights’ of child pornographers, pedophiles, and kidnappers.”

  A deafening round of applause.

  “No longer will we all live in fear of another Oklahoma City bombing, another World Trade Center, another downed airliner. No longer will the U.S. government have to beg courts for permission to place wiretaps on the phones of kidnappers and terrorists and drug lords. To those who will complain—and there will always be complainers—that their individual liberties are being abridged, we will simply tell them this: those who do not break the law will have nothing to fear!”

  Bryson did not hear the door to the control room open until he heard the familiar voice.

  “Nicky.”

  He whirled around. “Ted! What the hell are you doing here?”

  “The same question might be asked of you, Nicky. It’s always what you don’t see that gets you, hmm?”

  Bryson took in Waller’s attire, his tuxedo and black tie.

  Ted Waller was a guest.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “You’re—you’re one of them!” Bryson whispered.

  “Oh, Nicky, good Lord—what’s all this talk of sides? This isn’t some schoolyard game—shirts and skins, Jets and Sharks!”

  “You bastard!”

  “What did I tell you about the need for a continual reappraisal and reassessment of strategic alliances? Adversaries? Allies? Such terms are, finally, meaningless. If I’ve taught you nothing else, at least I’ve taught you that.”

  “What are you doing? This was your battle, you enlisted all of us, for years…”