Mount Dragon (11 page)

The room was octagonal. Each of its eight walls rose ponderously toward a groined ceiling that hung fifty feet above, softly illuminated by invisible cove lighting. Seven walls were covered with enormous flat-panel computer screens, currently dark. The eighth wall contained a door, flush with the wall, small but extremely thick to accommodate the room's external soundproofing. Although the room stood sixty stories above the Boston harbor, there were no windows and no views. The floor was laid in rare Tanzanian
mbanga
slate. The colors were a spectrum of muted grays, ashes, and taupes.

The exterior of the door was made of a thick, banded metal alloy. Instead of a handle, there was an EyeDentify retinal scanner and a FingerMatrix hand geometry reader. Next to the door, beneath a sterilizing ultraviolet light, sat a row of foam slippers, their sizes imprinted in large numbers on the toes. Below an overhead camera that swiveled ceaselessly to and fro, a large sign read,
SPEAK SOFTLY AT ALL TIMES PLEASE
.

Beyond lay a long, dimly lit corridor leading to a security station and an elevator bank. On either side of the corridor, a series of closed doors led to the security offices, kitchens, infirmary, air-purifying electrostatic precipitators, and servants' quarters necessary to fill the various requirements of the octagonal room's occupant.

The door closest to the octagon was open. The room inside was paneled in cherry, with a marble fireplace, a parquet floor covered with a Persian rug, and several large Hudson River School paintings on the wall. A magnificent mahogany desk stood in the center of the room, its only electronic device an old dial telephone. A suited figure sat behind the desk, writing on a piece of paper.

Inside the huge octagonal room itself, a spotlight was recessed into the very point of the vaulted ceiling, and it dropped a pencil beam of pure white light down to the midpoint of the room. Centered in the pool of light was a battered sofa of 1970s styling. Its arms were dark with use and wifts of stuffing protruded from the threadbare nap. Silver duct tape sealed the front edge. As ugly and frayed as it was, the sofa had one essential quality: it was extremely comfortable.

Two cheap faux-antique end tables stood guard at either side of the sofa. A large telephone and several electronic devices in black brushed metal boxes stood on one of the end tables, and a video camera, affixed to one end, was pointed toward the sofa. The other end table was bare, but it bore the legacy of innumerable greasy pizza boxes and sticky Coke cans.

In front of the sofa sat a large worktable. In contrast to the other furniture, it was breathtakingly beautiful. The top was carved from bird's-eye maple, polished and oiled to bring out its fractal perfection. The maple was surrounded by a border of lignum vitae, black and heavy, in which was inlaid a strip of oyster walnut in a complex geometric pattern. This pattern showed the
naadaa
, the sacred corn plant, which was at the heart of the religion of the ancient Anasazi Indians. The kernels of this corn had made the room's occupant a very wealthy man. A single computer keyboard lay on the table, a short remote antenna jutting from its flank.

The rest of the vast room was clinically sterile and empty, the only exception being a large musical instrument that stood perched at the periphery of the circle of light. It was a six-octave, quadruple-string pianoforte, supposedly built for Beethoven in 1820 by the Hamburg firm of Otto Schachter. The shoulders and lyre of the piano's rosewood sound box were ornately carved in a rococo scene of nymphs and water gods.

A figure in a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and beaded Sioux Indian slippers sat hunched at the piano, head drooping, motionless fingers dead on the ivory keys. For several minutes, all was still. Then the profound silence was shattered with a massive diminished-seventh chord, sforzando, resolving to a melancholy C minor: the opening bars of Beethoven's last piano sonata, Opus 111. The maestoso introduction echoed upward into the great vaulted space. The introduction evolved into the allegro con brio ed appassionato, the first motive notes filling the room with sound, drowning out the beep of an incoming video call. The movement continued, the slight figure hunched over the keyboard, his untidy hair shaking with the effort. The beep sounded again, unnoticed, and finally one massive wall screen sprang to life, revealing a mud-streaked, rain-spattered face.

The notes suddenly stopped, the sound of the piano dying away quickly. The figure rose with a curse, slamming the keyboard cover shut.

“Brent,” the face called. “Are you there?”

Scopes walked over to the battered couch, flounced down on it cross-legged, and dragged the computer keyboard into his lap. He typed some commands, then looked up at the vast image on the screen.

The mud-spattered face belonged to a man currently seated inside a Range Rover. Beyond the vehicle's rain-streaked windows lay a green clearing, a fresh gash in the flank of the surrounding Cameroon jungle. The clearing was a sea of mud, churned into lunar shapes by boots and tires. Scarred tree trunks were pulled up along the edges of the clearing. A few feet from the Range Rover, several dozen cages made of pipe and hog wire were stacked into rickety piles. Furry hands and toes poked from the hog wire, and miserable childlike eyes peered out at the world.

“How you doing, Rod?” Scopes said wearily, turning to face the camera on the end table.

“The weather sucks.”

“Raining here too,” Scopes said.

“Yeah, but you haven't seen rain until you've—”

“I've been waiting three days to hear from you, Falfa,” Scopes interrupted. “What the hell's been going on?”

The face broke into an ingratiating smile. “We had problems getting gas for the trucks. I've had a whole village out in the jungle, at a dollar a day per person, for the last two weeks. They're all rich now, and we've got fifty-six baby chimps.” He grinned and wiped his nose, which only served to smear more mud across his face. Or maybe it wasn't mud.

Scopes looked away. “I want them in New Mexico in six weeks. With no more than a fifty-percent mortality rate.”

“Fifty percent! That'll be tough,” Falfa said. “Usually—”

“Yo, Falfa!”

“Excuse me?”

“You think that's tough? See what happens to Rodney P. Falfa if more corpses than live bodies arrive in New Mexico. Look at them, sitting out there in the goddamn rain.”

There was a silence. Falfa honked and an African face appeared in the window. Falfa cracked the window a half inch, and Scopes could hear the miserable screams of the animals beyond. “Hunter mans!” Falfa was saying in pidgin. “You cover up dat beef, you hear? For every beef dat ee go die, hunter mans get dashed out one shilling.”

“Na whatee?” came the response from outside the Range Rover. “Masa promise de dash of—”

“Do it.” Falfa snugged the window shut, locking out the man's complaints, and turned to Scopes with another grin. “How's that for prompt action?”

Scopes looked at him coldly. “Piss-poor. Don't you think those chimps need to be fed, too?”

“Right!” Falfa honked the horn again. Scopes pressed a button, cutting off the video communication, and sat back on the sofa. He typed a few more commands, then stopped. Suddenly, with another curse, he winged the keyboard angrily across the room. The keyboard hit the wall with a sharp cracking sound. A single key, jarred loose, rattled across the polished floor. Scopes flopped back onto the sofa, motionless.

A moment later the door hissed open and a tall man of perhaps sixty appeared. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, with a starched white shirt, wing-tip shoes, and a blue silk tie. Between graying temples, two fine gray eyes framed a small, chiseled nose.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Scopes?” the figure asked.

Scopes gestured toward the keyboard. “The keyboard is broken.”

The figure smiled ironically. “I take it Mr. Falfa finally checked in.”

Scopes laughed, rubbing his unruly hair. “Correct. These animal collectors are the lowest form of human being I've encountered. It's a shame the Mount Dragon appetite for chimps seems insatiable.”

Spencer Fairley inclined his head. “I wish you would let somebody else handle these details, sir. You seem to find them so upsetting.”

Scopes shook his head. “This project is too important.”

“If you say so, sir. Can I get you anything else besides a new keyboard?”

Scopes waved his hand absently. As Fairley turned to go, Scopes suddenly spoke again. “Wait. There were two things, after all. Did you see the Channel Seven news last night?”

“As you know, sir, I don't care for television or computers.”

“You crusty Beacon Hill fossil,” Scopes said affectionately. Fairley was the only man in the company Scopes would allow to call him sir. “What would I do without you to show me how the electronically illiterate half live? Anyway, last night on Channel Seven they discussed a twelve-year-old girl who has leukemia. She wanted to go to Disneyland before she died. It's the usual exploitative crap we're fed on the evening news. I forget her name. Anyway, will you arrange for her and her family to go to Disneyland, private jet, all expenses paid, best hotels, limos, the works? And please, keep it strictly anonymous. I don't want that bastard Levine mocking me again, twisting it into something it isn't. Give them some money to help with the medical bills, say, fifty thousand. They seemed like nice people. It must be hell to have a kid die of leukemia. I can't even imagine it.”

“Yes, sir. That's very kind of you sir.”

“Remember what Samuel Johnson said: ‘It is better to live rich, than die rich.' And remember: it's to be
anonymous
. I don't even want
them
to know who did it. All right?”

“Understood.”

“And another thing. When I was in New York yesterday, this fucking cab nearly ran me over in a crosswalk. Park Avenue and Fiftieth.”

Fairley's expression was inscrutable. “That would have been unfortunate.”

“Spencer, you know what I like about you? You're so droll that I can never tell whether I'm being insulted or complimented. Anyway, the hack number on top of the cab was four-A-five-six. Get his medallion pulled, will you? I don't want the son of a bitch running over some grandmother.”

“Yes, sir.” As the small door hissed shut with a muffled click, Scopes stood up and made his way thoughtfully back toward the piano.

A loud tone sounded in his helmet, and Carson jerked up from his terminal screen with a start. Then he relaxed again. It was only his third day on-site; he assumed that eventually he'd get used to the 6
P.M.
reminder. He stretched, looked around the lab. De Vaca was in pathology; he might as well wrap up for the day. He laboriously typed a few paragraphs into his laptop, detailing the day's events. As he connected the laptop to the network link and uploaded his files, he found himself unable to suppress a sense of pride. Two days of labwork, and he knew exactly what had to be done. Familiarity with the latest lab techniques was the advantage he'd needed. Now, all that remained was to carry it out.

Then he hesitated. A message was flashing at the bottom of the screen.

Hurriedly, Carson went into chat mode and paged Singer. He hadn't been plugged into the network all day; there was no telling when Singer had originally requested to speak with him.

Wondering what Singer wanted, Carson issued the network logoff. The computer responded:

Carson switched to GeneDyne's electronic messaging system and brought up the message.
Probably an earlier message from Singer, wondering where I am
, he thought.