Human (30 page)

Sharky embraced his mother for a long moment and then turned to Smith's electronic ear and said, in unfeigned sincerity, "thank you."

"Sharky, I've done a very bad thing and this may be the last you and I are able to speak. I want you to know that I appreciate everything you have done for me and you and your mother will be well taken care of for the rest of your lives. I promised I would not abuse my power, but when they took Dr. Bayron and Hermelinda away, I guess my rage got the better of me."  Smith turned on the monitor to show Sharky the havoc he had wreaked on the entire Capital District before continuing.   "I don't know what my fate will be, son, but I know that I would do anything to ensure that Dr. Bayron and Hermelinda are safe. I mention this now, because you may be called on to judge me."

"You did what any man would do, Mr. Smith," Sharky replied.

"Any man with the power to do so."  Smith retorted.

"I'm going down there." Sharky said. "This is my mess too, you know."

"Please. Do what you can."

Sharky kissed his mother on both cheeks, rode down the elevator and walked out of the front door of the SmithCorp Building. There was no sign of the chaos that was raging just miles away. In fact, other than the bomb squad cars and van, the parking lot looked very normal for a crisp, early winter day. He got on his motorcycle and began speeding toward Latham. Not even five miles away, the seeming normalcy of the day devolved into a miasma of snarled traffic, fender benders, and honking horns. Sharky was able to maneuver his motorcycle through the cars.

Arriving at the first entrance to the mall on Route 9 Sharky's progress was halted by a man he vaguely recognized but whose uniform was clearly the uniform worn by the SmithCorp security team. Sharky took off his helmet to hear what the man had to say.

"Sorry, Sir, no one is allowed in or out." The uniformed guard announced.

Sharky reached for his SmithCorp security clearance card. The guard immediately recognized the card as placing its bearer in Elijah Smith's tight inner circle of scientists and engineers.

The guard looked at the card and matched Sharky's face to the picture and confirmed that the security marks on the card were untampered. "Okay," he said, "but leave the bike here and check in with the commander by the helicopters."

"I'll do that, officer," Sharky replied not knowing exactly how to address the uniformed guard. He obediently headed toward the CIA helicopter that was positioned across the lot.  As he approached, he saw that it would be easy to ascertain who the commander was as there were just a few men active behind a bank of monitors set up on folding tables in front of the helicopters. He held his identification card in front of him as he approached.

The SmithCorp Security Captain recognized the card from a distance and, as was his job, was able to recognize Sharky by face. He turned to the CIA mission commander and said, "Sarkis Ohangangian, SmithCorp R&D, level five clearance." 

The CIA commander nodded his understanding and the Captain motioned for Sarkis to join him behind the monitors. He gave Sharky a moment to understand what was on the monitors. Sharky's eyes moved from monitor to monitor. Some of the monitors were showing regular views which Sharky figured were helmet cameras for some of the people searching the parking lot. Other monitors showed infra-red heat images. There were several sets of headphones on the tables too which Sharky surmised, correctly, were connected to directional listening devices. "Your thoughts are welcome, son."  The Captain said to Sharky, hoping the young man might be able to contribute an idea.

"Maybe," Sharky said. "If you were locked in a box and you wanted to signal to people outside of the box that there was intelligent life inside the box, you'd try to broadcast a code or a rhythm. If he's hidden from view and maybe restricted from making noise, you would still try to figure out a way to send out a unique signal."  Sharky glanced over all of the monitors again. "Can I try something here?" He asked.

The Captain glanced over at the commander who was now the officer in charge. The commander nodded.

"Does anyone have some wire or something else conductive?" Sharky asked.

The commander pointed toward the CIA helicopter and in one motion both showed the Captain where he would find wire and also giving him the go-ahead to let Sharky try his experiment. The Captain easily spotted a spool of speaker wire in the utility hold which he tossed over to Sharky. Sharky immediately began shuffling the cables, talking while he did so. "Look, here's all the heat data from all of the heat cameras and here's all of the sound data from all of the directional microphones. All this outer edge stuff on the heat data is mechanical. To hot for a person, so we can filter that out. So I can just concentrate on signatures within human range. I'm just going to wrap this speaker wire around the coupler for the directional microphones so I can wire them into an oscilloscope.  That way we can see the sounds instead of hearing them and it'll be easier to pick out patterns. Then, on the oscilloscope we can filter out heartrates which would cycle at about 75 beats per second, give or take, and high cycles from engines, like 300 to 1500. So that way we can focus in only on rhythms and patterns that aren't cars or hearts. What we're left with in the parking lot are only deliberate rhythms and some natural rhythms and I guess some car cd players, but all of the other electronics are down. If one of the microphones finds a deliberate rhythm in the same proximity as a human heat signature we may be able to make a lucky guess and..."

Sharky stopped talking abruptly.

"What is it?" the Captain asked looking over Sharky's shoulder the monitor that had the heat and audio data displayed.

"What do you have?" the commander asked, suddenly becoming very interested in Sharky's idea.

"Listen," Sharky said, holding a set of earphones up so both of the men could listen at once.

The men heard a distinct pattern. "Dun duh duh dun dun, duh duh."  Shave and a haircut, two bits.  The pattern repeated over and over. Sharky pointed to the microphone which had picked up the pattern and then looked to see if there was a heat camera in the same general area which he quickly spotted. He scanned the area between the two devices as the two experienced officers followed his gaze.

"They're over here," Sharky yelled over his shoulder with absolute certainty. He was already in full sprint towards the semi truck that was stuck in the traffic near the Jade East loading bay before he finished speaking.

"Do not approach the vehicle son."  The Captain barked at Sharky in a tone that suggested the order must be followed. Sharky stopped in his tracks as the Captain approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. "We don't know what we're dealing with here, kid. Leave this to the pros."

Several of the CIA agents were already scoping out the truck.

In the parking lot at SmithCorp, Gonzales surprised his two colleagues. "I'm going to take the car and take care of some other business."  He said. Then addressing Cruz, he said, "Go with Julian and try to get to Latham and get a handle on the situation and work on that cover story. It's going to have to be real good. Smith is clearly not familiar with the covert aspect of covert operations. I'll find you later."  Cruz fished in his front pocket and handed Gonzales the key to his car. Gonzales saluted a stiff military salute toward Josey Cruz and Julian Waterstone and headed off alone toward Cruz's car.

"Go figure," Julian said to Cruz as he led him to his car. "I guess I'm driving."

They watched as Gonzales drove out of the parking lot, both curious to know where he was going, but both also wise enough to know that they would never know the answer to that question.

Gonzales drove up Central Avenue to New Karner Road and then onto the Washington Avenue extension. He rolled into the parking lot at the Daughter's of Sarah Nursing Home and entered the building. The receptionist acknowledged him and he spoke to her gently, playing on a hunch. "I'm a friend of Alice's. She said you have a resident here who speaks Russian. When I told her I speak Russian she said it would cheer her patient up to have someone talk to her in Russian. I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd stop by. Is Alice here?"  He knew damn well she wasn't. Her  body was still in the trunk of Cruz's car, now parked in the parking lot outside.

The receptionist told him that Alice had not been in for several days but that she was sure it would be okay for him to go in to talk to one of the residents. She gave him a little clipboard and asked him to fill out a visitor card as she began flipping through a written log of residents to see who the Russian speaking patient was. When she saw the name, she knew immediately who Gonzales was referring to. It had to be Mrs. Oronov in Room 318. "Oh," she said, looking up from her book, "I'm sure she meant Mrs. Oronov. She always spent a lot of time with her. In fact, until last week, I don't think she ever had any visitors."

"Did someone come to speak Russian to her last week too?"  Gonzales asked, pleasantly surprised that his hunch had paid off so quickly. He had come to the nursing home because it was the only other place that the CIPs had associated with Alice and he sensed there may have been something to learn there. He just didn't know what yet.

"Yes," the receptionist said, "her son made a special trip from Russia just to see her. Alice told me that she responded very well when her son was here, but otherwise, she's really in bad shape. We actually already released her personal effects to her son."

"May I see her?" Gonzales inquired.

"Let me call her duty nurse."  The receptionist answered. "We're on back up power and everyone's going crazy."

The duty nurse came to the front desk and looked over Gonzales and then looked over his visitor card. Everything appearing to be in order she led him back to Mrs. Oronov's room giving him instructions all along the way. Don't touch the equipment, press the red button if she appears to be in distress, don't say or do anything to agitate her, speak quietly and slowly, don't expect her to respond. "I'll be at the desk if you need me for anything," she concluded as she directed him into Mrs. Oronov's room.

Gonzales glanced around the little room keeping an eye on the door. He hoped he might find a listening device, a message drop, maybe a phone number, something, anything that would give him a lead to Vakhrusheva. If this was the meeting place between Alice and Vakhrusheva, he would find something. He just had to be careful not to appear too obvious in his searching the little room. It got easier after he figured out the duty nurse's pattern. She was checking on him in regular intervals. He made sure that when she was checking he was sitting down and speaking in Russian to Mrs. Oronov.

He had nearly given up when he heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. He quickly sat on the little stool near Mrs. Oronov's bed and began reciting children's rhymes in Russian, quietly, near her ear. The duty nurse appeared in the doorway with a man who Gonzales recognized immediately as Vladimir Vakhrusheva. He knew he was recognized also, though Vakhrusheva did not betray any signal of that fact.

"This is one of our new volunteers, Marcus Gottlieb," the duty nurse said to Vakhrusheva. "Mr. Gottlieb, this is Mikhael Oronov, Mrs. Oronov's son. You should give them some privacy," she said to Gonzales signaling for him to leave the room and let mother and son speak alone in private.

"No, no, no," Vakhrusheva said, with no attempt to disguise his heavy Russian accent at all. "Please, let him stay, my mother don't talk too much anyway. Is better if he stay."

The duty nurse shrugged her shoulders. "You can pull the curtain if you want some privacy." She said as she left the doorway.

The two men locked eyes and a long silence ensued between them, each man making a million mental calculations and trying to do so faster than the other.

"Your mission is a failure."  Gonzales said simply, in Russian, though the words were chosen very carefully.

"It is only a matter of time for us," Vakhrusheva replied, also in Russian. "We still have Ashkot. We'll get the code. Even if you and I kill each other right here in this room, there will still be players on the field. I may have failed to obtain the code, but the mission continues with or without me. You know that."

"Why did you come back here?  You know Alice is dead, and this room is clean."  Gonzales inquired.

"The mission that brought me to this place is over for me. My colleague either has the targets or not. My part is done. But I have another mission to accomplish. This is a mission I assigned to myself after having been here the first time. It is one of the benefits of acting freelance," Vakhrusheva said humorlessly.

"Your brother was a remarkable man, Vladimir. He penetrated our intelligence deeper and faster than anyone I've seen before or since. He died bravely and unapologetically. His commitment to his mission was unfaltering. He left that mark on my psych for all these years."

"Those are kind words, Gonzales. I do not think you are apologizing and that is good because I am not forgiving. It is not in my constitution to give a damn about your conscience. Nor do I expect you to give a damn about mine. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some private business with Mrs. Oronov."

"You expect me just to leave and let you walk out of here?"  Gonzales asked.

Vakhrusheva answered with his own question. "Will you gun me down in cold blood in the name of your mission?" 

"Of course."