really have to be here for this? And Claudia was kicking him in the shins, telling him, You not only have to be here, you have to fucking look like you’re enjoying it.
Ed, kissing a stranger at the airport, hoping for a quickie instead of working shit out at home with his wife.
Kowalski carried the Adidas duffel, Glad freezer bag, and hacksaw into the bathroom. It was time to see how thick Ed Hunter’s spine was.
The skin and muscle were easy. Sawing through the neck bone was a real effort. With every push and pull of the hacksaw, Kowalski found himself silently repeating a sentence, one syllable at a time.
Can’t [push] be [pull] lieve [push] I [pull] do [push] this [pull] for [push] a [pull] live [push] ing.
…
12:32 a.m.
Sheraton, Room 702
R eady, Jack? Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“Go ahead.”
“I have an experimental tracking device in my blood. Not one device; thousands of them. Nanomachines. You familiar with the term? Microscopic, undetectable by the human eye. I’m simplifying when I say that they’re in my blood. They’re in every fluid system in my body—my saliva, my tears, my lymph nodes.”
Jack blinked. He looked at Kelly, then at the nightstand across the room.
“Mind if I write this down?”
“I was hoping you would.”
There was a Sheraton pen and a scratch pad on the nightstand. He picked them up and took them back to the couch. He wrote “nanomachines.” Just in case this
was
leading somewhere.
Or if he should need evidence for the prosecution.
“Okay, so you’ve got these tiny machines inside of you.”
“Is this you being a reporter?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, stop. Let me tell it.”
Jack put down the pen and paper. “Keep in mind I only have seven hours to live.”
Kelly tightened her lips for a moment, then continued. “The machines are tracking devices. They constantly feed information to a satellite: body temperature, heart rate, global position. And that information is relayed to a tracking station.”
“Sounds very Big Brother.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. But think about the possibilities of tracking criminals or terrorists. Another is—wait, you said you have children?”
“A daughter.”
“What’s her name?”
“I’m not sure I want to tell you.” Jack looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was 11:30 back in Gurnee. Callie was no doubt asleep, clinging to her pink bear, which was also a miniblanket. The thing looked like a mutant tree sloth, but she’d had it since birth and refused to part with it.
“Don’t be a baby. How old is she?”
“Callie’s four.”
“Well, imagine, God forbid, if some sick bastard grabbed Callie from a shopping mall one day. You’d have no way of finding her, unless the kidnapper was stupid enough to walk past a surveillance camera.”
The very thought of it formed a cold, dark knot in Jack’s stomach.
“With this system, it would take a second to pinpoint Callie’s position, and the police would be able to recover her minutes later. Abductions would become a thing of the past.”
Jack thought about this. “Unless the kidnappers got smart and learned how to turn these nanomachines off.”
“Not possible. There are too many of them. Self-replicating, using blood waste as raw material. All the benefits of a virus, none of the weaknesses. Except if they leave the body. With nothing to feed on, they die. But once inside, there’s no getting rid of them.”
“You seem proud of these things.”
“I worked in the lab that created them. That’s my job. Was my job, back in Ireland.”
“You don’t have the accent. Though you did slip and say ‘flat’ a short while ago.”
“I’m trying to blend in, boyo,” she said in a thick brogue. “But now you’re here. And now it’s only you and me and the Mary—you know what I call these things?”
“No, what?”
“The Mary Kates. You know … those blond twins? The Olsens? They’re just like these little things.
Ed, kissing a stranger at the airport, hoping for a quickie instead of working shit out at home with his wife.
Kowalski carried the Adidas duffel, Glad freezer bag, and hacksaw into the bathroom. It was time to see how thick Ed Hunter’s spine was.
The skin and muscle were easy. Sawing through the neck bone was a real effort. With every push and pull of the hacksaw, Kowalski found himself silently repeating a sentence, one syllable at a time.
Can’t [push] be [pull] lieve [push] I [pull] do [push] this [pull] for [push] a [pull] live [push] ing.
…
12:32 a.m.
Sheraton, Room 702
R eady, Jack? Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“Go ahead.”
“I have an experimental tracking device in my blood. Not one device; thousands of them. Nanomachines. You familiar with the term? Microscopic, undetectable by the human eye. I’m simplifying when I say that they’re in my blood. They’re in every fluid system in my body—my saliva, my tears, my lymph nodes.”
Jack blinked. He looked at Kelly, then at the nightstand across the room.
“Mind if I write this down?”
“I was hoping you would.”
There was a Sheraton pen and a scratch pad on the nightstand. He picked them up and took them back to the couch. He wrote “nanomachines.” Just in case this
was
leading somewhere.
Or if he should need evidence for the prosecution.
“Okay, so you’ve got these tiny machines inside of you.”
“Is this you being a reporter?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, stop. Let me tell it.”
Jack put down the pen and paper. “Keep in mind I only have seven hours to live.”
Kelly tightened her lips for a moment, then continued. “The machines are tracking devices. They constantly feed information to a satellite: body temperature, heart rate, global position. And that information is relayed to a tracking station.”
“Sounds very Big Brother.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. But think about the possibilities of tracking criminals or terrorists. Another is—wait, you said you have children?”
“A daughter.”
“What’s her name?”
“I’m not sure I want to tell you.” Jack looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was 11:30 back in Gurnee. Callie was no doubt asleep, clinging to her pink bear, which was also a miniblanket. The thing looked like a mutant tree sloth, but she’d had it since birth and refused to part with it.
“Don’t be a baby. How old is she?”
“Callie’s four.”
“Well, imagine, God forbid, if some sick bastard grabbed Callie from a shopping mall one day. You’d have no way of finding her, unless the kidnapper was stupid enough to walk past a surveillance camera.”
The very thought of it formed a cold, dark knot in Jack’s stomach.
“With this system, it would take a second to pinpoint Callie’s position, and the police would be able to recover her minutes later. Abductions would become a thing of the past.”
Jack thought about this. “Unless the kidnappers got smart and learned how to turn these nanomachines off.”
“Not possible. There are too many of them. Self-replicating, using blood waste as raw material. All the benefits of a virus, none of the weaknesses. Except if they leave the body. With nothing to feed on, they die. But once inside, there’s no getting rid of them.”
“You seem proud of these things.”
“I worked in the lab that created them. That’s my job. Was my job, back in Ireland.”
“You don’t have the accent. Though you did slip and say ‘flat’ a short while ago.”
“I’m trying to blend in, boyo,” she said in a thick brogue. “But now you’re here. And now it’s only you and me and the Mary—you know what I call these things?”
“No, what?”
“The Mary Kates. You know … those blond twins? The Olsens? They’re just like these little things.
Similar Books
