Forever (79 page)

'Colonel, sir! I've called up her card
number!'

Colonel Valerio kept his eyes on the
fibre-optic wall map, silently congratulating himself on his
foresight. Unknown to everyone but a handful of his senior security
personnel, each plastic key card - including Ernesto's, Eduardo's,
Dr Vassiltchikov's, and Zarah's - had a microchip transmitter
embedded in its magnetic strip. As soon as he activated Ms Merlin's
it would give her position away.

'Punch the visual search mode and activate
her transmitter,' Colonel Valerio called out.

'Sir!' The man at the computer console
tapped some keys. Almost instantly, a green dot glowed at the very
epicentre of the pyramid.

Colonel Valerio felt the tension and
excitement of imminent victory.

'Zoom in on the pyramid and give me a
three-dimensional picture.'

'Sir!'

More buttons were tapped and as Colonel
Valerio watched, it was as if a camera's zoom lens was activated in
conjunction with a crane boom. With incredible speed and smooth
elegance, the

entire map of the complex tilted forty-five
degrees, the buildings took on delicate, green three-dimensional
gridwork forms, and everything surrounding the pyramid disappeared
off the map until it was the only building left. A perfectly
detailed cutaway, complete with spandrels, individual floors,
elevators.

There she was.

On the top floor.

In Eduardo de Veiga's office.

Now only one question remained: Was she
alone?

'Activate all transmitters of all personnel
immediately.' Colonel Valerio ordered.

The mostly deserted pyramid lit up with red
lights - cleaning personnel or people working late. And, on the top
floor, beside the green dot, glowed a single red one.

Colonel Valerio smiled. 'Ah, now that is
most interesting,' he said, turning away. 'She has someone with
her.'

'Opus number?' Johnny said softly. 'What the
hell is an opus number?'

Stephanie drew a deep breath. 'It's a code
of some sort,' she said. 'A password.'

'Uh-huh.'

'And,' she said slowly. 'I think I may have
been told what it is.'

He stared over at her. 'You don't sound so
sure.'

She raked both hands back through her hair.
'What I'm not so sure about is whether I remember it or not.'

He continued to look at her. 'You mean,
someone told you a password and you forgot it?'

'At the time,' she snapped, 'I didn't know
it was a password!'

'Sorry. Hey . . . don't be mad at me.' He
held up both hands placatingly.

'I'm not mad at you. Just let me think for a
moment.'

Stephanie shut her eyes and thought back to
the week-end on Ilha da Borboleta. Was it possible it had been just
this past weekend? It seemed so long ago. Part of another month.
Another year. Another lifetime . . .

Zaza and I had been alone in the Sala de
Hercules having tea. It was after Eduardo and I swam and made love
in the cabana.

The brief memory stabbed like a pain,
threatened to bring on tears. Swiftly she fast-forwarded the mental
images. Back to the Sala de Hercules. Tea time, long before the
storm.

Zaza dressed all in Queen Mother lavender
and huge pearls. I remember admiring them. They were
sixteen-millimetre genuine pearls. Four. . . no five strands of
them!

The mental image became so clear, that
remembering their embrace, Stephanie could actually almost smell
the old lady's fragrance of old-fashioned powders and sweet toilet
waters.

Joana had brought in the tea. An elaborate
antique silver service.

Why don't you put on some nice music? The
stereo is over there . . .

I remember getting up. But what did I
select? What did I play? She sat there, racking her brains.
Finally, she sighed and opened her eyes and slumped back in the big
executive throne. 'I can't remember!' she said softly, staring
across the desk at Johnny in horror. 'I simply can't remember!'

Colonel Valerio paced slowly back and forth
in front of the huge fibre-optic pyramid. He was surprisingly calm
and in command. His spine was erect and he was deep in thought. The
dozen men in the security room were waiting for their orders.

At last, Colonel Valerio turned to them.

'You, you, you, you, you, and you.'

The six men he pointed to stepped forward
and stood at attention.

'You will be the advance party. You are to
go to the floor directly below the penthouse of the pyramid and
secure the immediate area. You will seal off all the exits. If
there are cleaning personnel around, you will quietly clear them
out of the area. You will not draw attention to yourselves. We have
two intruders in the penthouse, and for all practical purposes, you
will be as quiet as mice. Is that understood?'

'Sir, yes, sirV they bellowed in chorus.

'Good. Only once I give the order are you to
ascend the stairs and take them prisoner. You will be armed, but
you will not shoot.'

His cold gaze swept the men from left to
right and back again.

is that clear?'

'Sir, yes, sirV they barked.

Colonel Valerio selected a tall, scarred
young man from among their ranks. 'You, Queiroz.'

The scarred man's chest puffed out proudly
as he stepped forward. 'Sir!'

'You're in charge. Now march 'em out.'

'Yes, sir!'

Colonel Valerio stood there, watching them
march from the room. The net's tightening, he thought with
satisfaction. Now for the hard part. Waiting to see precisely how
much Ms Merlin and her partner have learned.

'Those ads are right,' gloomed Stephanie
with a frustrated sigh. 'A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Oh,
why didn't I pay more attention, dammit? The old lady spelled it
all out for me! She laid out the entire answer - and what did 1 do?
Let it slip my mind!' She looked at Johnny desperately. 'Jog my
memory, dear heart. Please, please jog it! Talk to me about music,
Johnny!' she pleaded. 'Discuss the four big Bs of classical music
with me.'

'The Four Big Bs? That a group I'm supposed
to have heard of?'

'I meant Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, and
Boccherini,' she snapped impatiently.

'Aw, shit, Steph! You know my musical
education stopped with Derek and the Dominoes!'

'Think Brahms! Strauss!'

'Johann or Richard?' he asked smugly.

'Ha!' she narrowed her eyes triumphantly.
'Derek and the Dominoes, indeed. You know more than you're letting
on.'

'Right, Brahms. Big bearded fellow.'

'That's right. Now then, if you'll just reel
off what he wrote, maybe it'll ring a bell.'

'Well now ... let me think. A lot of gloomy
symphonies and something called Schicksalslied. The Song of
Destiny. But my own favourite Brahms recording -'

'Say that again?' Stephanie whispered.

'I said, my own favourite Brahms recording
-'

And as he said it, something began to stir
in the depths of Stephanie's mind.

Zaza's gnarled, dry fingers gripping her own
smooth hand.

For an instant, she was back at the
quinta
, and she closed her eyes. Letting it come.

The old lady was pulling her close, so close
Stephanie could feel her breath on her face. She could almost hear
her voice now, speaking very slowly, like a teacher hammering home
a point. She remembered the gnarled fingers clutching her hand so
tightly she'd all but cried aloud.

'My own favourite Brahms recording . .
.'

'My own favourite Brahms recording . . . is
Opus . . .'

'My own favourite Brahms recording is Opus
60 in C-minor, Quartet number 3.'

Startled, Stephanie sat up straight, it's
Opus 60, C-minor, Quartet number 3,' she repeated quickly, lest she
forget it. 'Opus 60, C-minor, Quartet number 3 . . . you got that?'
She looked at Johnny.

'Opus 60, C-minor, Quartet number 3,' he
said nodding. 'Got it.'

'Good. Because numbers tend to slip my mind.
That's it, Johnny! THAT'S IT! Now, let's see what the computer says
about that\ Sure'd like to know what secrets are lurking in that
Opus file, wouldn't you?'

And letting out a whoop of joy, she rolled
herself up to the very edge of the desk and let her fingers do the
tapping.

TWENTY

Sitto da Veiga, Brazil

Colonel Valerio lazed back in his swivel
chair, his eyes on his blank desktop monitor. It was a normal-size
screen, but he couldn't care less. In fact, the ordinariness of it
suited his purposes ideally. It didn't look like it was capable of
doing much more than running off the simplest form letter or
calling up crude graphics, but that was the beauty of it. Nobody
took any notice of it, dismissing it out-of-hand as a piece of
outmoded equipment.

When Colonel Valerio had explained his needs
to the wild-haired computer whiz kid, he'd been pleasantly
surprised. 'What you're asking for, man, are two things. First, a
built-in virus, which eats up all the programmes, say, if one of
three or four key people don't check in with it daily.'

'What, exactly, do you mean by, it "eats up
the programmes"?'

'I mean, it literally eats itself up, man,
until there's nothing left. It's like I said. If at least one of
three or four key people don't punch in every twenty-four hours,
the whole programme comes under attack by the virus, and within ten
hours - kebang! Every byte of information is gobbled up? Poof!
Kaboom! You know, like swallowed up by a black hole.'

'In other words,' Colonel Valerio had said,
'it will be irretrievable?'

'Beyond even that, 'cause in order for
something to be irretrievable, it first has to have existed. And
once this virus automatically goes into effect - bam\ There's no
proof any thing's ever been there.' He'd paused. 'Like, it's the
ultimate shredder

. . . you following me?'

'Perfectly.' Colonel Valerio had smiled.
'And you guarantee that if the programme disappears, no one will
ever be able to . . . resurrect it?'

'Hell, Colonel, even I wouldn't be able to
do that - and I can do most anything with these machines, you
know?'

'I'll take your word for it.'

'Now, for this other thing you asked about,'
the kid went on. 'It's what we call a "window", or a "trapdoor".
It's an object command which lets you get into the programme while
bypassing all the security key-check programmes. You following
me?'

Oh, I follow you all right, I follow you
better than you think . . .

'Will I be able to watch on my screen what
somebody else is doing on theirs?'

'Hey, you're talking to the expert, man!
Sure you can do that, if we design it that way. It's simple. All
you need is your own secret code, and so long as we put the
trapdoor in, it's yours to come and go as you like. And sure if you
want we can make it so all you do is sit back and enjoy yourself
and see what anybody else is up to . . .'

Now Colonel Valerio sat forward and switched
on his keyboard and monitor and tapped out the trapdoor command
code.

He had chosen an appropriate one: Eagle Eye
One.

He used his fingers to hunt-and-peck: SEARCH
DAT.LIMIT- EXEC ONE.

Exec One was the numero uno computer in the
pyramid. He waited, and when the screen blinked again - bingo! He
was tied in to Stephanie's vastly superior terminal in Eduardo's
office. Was seeing exactly what she was seeing on her screen, that
flashing message: ACCESS DENIED ENTER OPUS NUMBER.

He sat back and put his feet up on the desk
and laced his hands behind his head and watched. Soon he'd know
what she was up to.

He thought, She's a smart little bitch, I'll
give her that. But she's no match for me, no, sir. No way . . .

Stephanie was cool, controlled. Getting more
and more confident by the minute. She felt absolutely no
nervousness and was breathing easily.

Thanks to a little specially acquired
knowledge, she thought, giving Zaza a blessing.

'You want an opus number?' she murmured.
'Well, try this on for size, big boy.' With a flourish, she
punched: 60. After a brief

pause, the screen replied: ENTER KEY NUMBER.
Stephanie typed in: C MINOR.

There was another short pause, then: ENTER
QUARTET NUMBER.

'Three,' Johnny reminded her. 'The quartet
number's three.'

She typed:3.

The reply came instantly: THAT IS
INCORRECT.

Stephanie's stomach twitched violently. 'Son
of a bitch,' she swore under her breath. 'I could have sworn it's
three.'

'Don't panic,' Johnny said. 'Let me think a
moment.' He frowned and pursed his lips and wiggled his little
finger around in his right ear. 'Aha!' he said. 'Try 03.'

'No harm in it, I guess,' she conceded, and
typed: 03.

The response was immediate: OPUS NUMBER
CONFIRMED. PROCEED.

'I'll be damned!' Johnny crowed. 'You did
it! Whooee!' He raised a clenched fist.

it's still a little early to celebrate,' she
warned.

'Nah,' he said. 'My gal knows what she's
doing.'

in that case, your gal's committed. Here
goes.' And slowly verbalising the syllables aloud, Stephanie tapped
out: JONES, VINETTE.

There was a long pause, then: SEARCHING
PARAMS ANGEL FILE.

'Johnny?' She snapped a strange glance at
him.

'What's the matter, babe?' He hurried around
the desk and crouched by the side of her chair.

She pointed to the word 'Angel' with a
trembling finger. 'That,' she croaked hoarsely, a choking coming up
inside her. 'How . . . how dare they? God, the arrogance! The
blasphemy!' She stared at him. 'How could they?' she whispered, her
face haunted, her eyes demanding an answer.

He puffed out his cheeks and released the
air slowly. Then he reached for her hand and held it between both
of his. Her flesh felt cold. He kissed her fingers quietly. 'You
can't let it eat at you,' he said softly. 'Steph, you can't.' He
looked up at her.