Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(130)

Raul laughed. “I guess so. Lots of people are already upset about the total breakdown of birth control in the third world. Pill’s not working. Normal abortion methods failing. Little sperms have gotten hardy. All the world for a condom, eh?”

Stephenson shrugged. “Which brings us back to Henderson House. We already had one leak, which we were lucky to plug.”

“I don’t get it. What’s my work got to do with that?”

“All programs have leaks. Especially the most sensitive.”

A light dawned in Raul’s mind. “And you want to be able to instantly reach out and touch someone should that happen. By creating a gateway.”

“I need you to stop surfing the Internet and focus every ounce of your attention on the task I assigned you.”

“You know what I want.”

“I’ve known for a long time now. You want the McFarland girl.”

“Then you know why I’ve been searching the world’s data feeds.”

“You just focus on getting the machine working. You do that and I’ll tell you where to go get her.”

Raul was stunned. Was it possible that Stephenson could know where Heather was? He couldn’t really put it beyond the man. He’d surprised Raul before.

“You’d let me bring her here?”

“She’s a runaway known to be suffering from psychotic delusions. Nobody would even know what became of her.”

Raul stared into the deputy director’s face. There was something else there, something Stephenson was hiding behind those cold eyes. Whatever it was, the scientist wouldn’t be making him this promise if he couldn’t deliver.

Raul shifted his concentration and ten thousand tiny strands of force plunged into control panels around the room, the massive neural network directing the simultaneous repair work ramping up to full capacity.

Dr. Donald Stephenson grinned, then turned and strode from the room. His departure went entirely unnoticed.





136


Garfield Kromly strolled nonchalantly through the crowds on the vast open lawns of the Washington Mall, enjoying the first really nice Sunday morning in weeks. Pam would have loved it. He could almost feel her delicate little hand in his, her shoulder pressed against him as they stared out at the great spire of the Washington Monument.

“Ah, my sweet little darling,” he muttered under his breath. “I miss you.”

Someone jostled him, but when he looked to his left, he couldn’t tell who it might have been. All he knew was that the small brown paper-wrapped package he’d been holding in his left hand was gone.

Despite his best efforts and those of the few people he trusted at CIA, Kromly had been unable to fully break the encryption on the data disk. But the one thing he had learned was enough to give him chills.

The network of global positioning system satellites, more commonly known as GPS, had been compromised by a super-secret US government program, somehow connected to the Rho Project.

That they were using GPS was oddly fitting. When global positioning data had first been made broadly available, the US government had partially corrupted the down-linked time data using a process known as dithering, part of what was called Selective Availability. The idea had been to provide the correct information only to classified subscribers, so they would have much more accurate location data.

As was often the case with such schemes, civilian users immediately came up with ways to correct the data, allowing almost the same accuracy for their users as that available to the US military and intelligence communities. Thus, the huge sum of money aimed at Selective Availability was essentially a complete waste. Another hundred-million dollar military toilet seat.

But now the GPS signal was being manipulated in a very subtle way, acting as a carrier signal for information transmitted worldwide. The data on the DVD disk containing this information had been extracted by the late Dr. Nancy Anatole from the personal laptop of Dr. Donald Stephenson. It was a disk she had hidden away with instructions that it be forwarded to a friend on the Senate Intelligence Committee should anything happen to her. And although the disk had eventually found its way into Kromly’s hands, he had not been able to unscramble enough of the information to discover the true purpose underlying the GPS embedding.

As the soft breeze gently tousled his gray hair, Garfield returned his gaze to the Washington Monument and the small flock of birds settling into the grass near its base.

Well, the pass had been made. He could only hope that the Ripper’s resources exceeded his own. The disk was Jack’s problem now.





137


“Prettiest pregnant lady I’ve ever seen.”

The voice lifted Janet from her chair and whirled her toward the door. As fast as she moved, Jack was quicker, sweeping her up in an embrace that somehow managed to be both powerful and gentle, like being wrapped in warm velvet rebar. Then their lips met and parted, the gentle flick of his tongue barely touching her own, sending an electric thrill through her body that left her breathing ragged.

As she pulled her head back, she laughed. “Careful. That’s how I got in this condition in the first place.”

“Thought I’d taken care of that.”

“Apparently, those nanites have been busy fixing what got snipped.”

Jack stepped back, holding her out at arms length, his eyes scanning her body from toe to head.