Nano (30 page)

47.

THE OLD VICARAGE, CHENIES, U.K.

TUESDAY, JULY 23, 2013, 6:01
A.M.
BST

Berman’s body clock was shot. At two hours’ notice, he had flown twelve hours from Boulder to Milan, then refueled, turned around, and flown back west, although the journey from Italy to Stansted Airport in the U.K., London’s third airport, was much shorter.

Berman was very glad to have Jimmy Yan as his partner at this stage of his dealings with the Chinese government, as Jimmy was able to solve with ease and equanimity problems that might otherwise be intractable. Berman had established his own contacts airside at the Milan Linate airport with a general aviation enterprise, so coming and going discreetly had been no problem.

But now he had a piece of troublesome cargo he needed to get into the U.K., a country known to be more rigorous with import rules and regulations than the Italians. “No problem,” said Jimmy, “I’ll make your flight an official Chinese government one. No one will look at it. As for the cargo, a diplomatic pouch can be any size; just make sure the package is immobilized, and you can transport it in a large duffel bag. As for somewhere to stay, forget your West End hotel. What were you thinking anyway? The traffic in London is epically bad. The Chinese government has a house in the country used for diplomats and diplomatic purposes that is much more convenient. And much safer.”

Jimmy and his people had picked up Berman and his party and driven them west from Stansted around London’s orbital road, the M25. Berman noticed signs for quaint-sounding towns such as Potters Bar, Frogmore, and Chorleywood, which was where they got off the M25. They quickly decamped in a place he was told was called Chenies—pronounced “Cheney’s,” as if it belonged to the former USA vice president—in the county of Buckinghamshire.

Jimmy had been very quiet on the ride in the large, black limousine, only to tell Berman that he and his countrymen generally traveled by Mercedes station wagons and vans in the U.K. because SUVs stood out so much. With gas at $10 a gallon, only those with money to burn, almost literally, drove an SUV. He said that the Chinese delegation preferred to be more discreet.

Now Berman was sitting in the kitchen of a large, old stone house in this tiny village, looking out over a well-tended lawn and picture-perfect English garden surrounded by a sunk fence. He had noticed the massive iron gates, the numerous cameras and guards that represented the visual security. Although Jimmy had said something about diplomats, Berman thought that he was probably in a government safe house, perhaps belonging to the Guoanbu, the Ministry of State Security, China’s version of the CIA. Berman knew better than to ask which host he should send a thank-you gift to.

“How is the tea?” asked Jimmy, who had made Berman a brew in a mug adorned with the logo of the BBC.

“The tea is excellent, thank you.”

“I have gained respect for the English way of making tea,” said Jimmy. “I take it strong, with milk and sugar. And the water must be hot, but past boiling. No tepid cups of water with a tea bag on the side, like in your country. That’s an abomination.”

“The tea is very restorative,” said Berman, who felt that he needed more than a cup of tea to get back to a semblance of normality. “Where did you take her?”

“One good thing about English houses is that the old ones, like this one, have generous cellars. We have converted the one here so we can accommodate the occasional guest, particularly those who are, as we say, detained.”

“How convenient,” said Berman lightly.

Jimmy smashed his hand down on the table, and Berman’s hand jumped, sending hot tea over his knuckles. Berman had never seen Jimmy lose his temper. It shocked him.

“This is not a time to be flippant. I am taking risks for you doing this. Big risks. There is no place more treacherous than a house full of spies, which is what this is in actuality. So we took her down there and only a couple of people know it. How would I explain this woman to my superiors? How would I explain how your mind is controlled by your libido like a teenager?”

“But you said I should bring her. It was your idea.” Berman was momentarily taken aback.

“My desire would be for her not to exist at all, but she does. I realized that she could not be made to disappear adequately in Colorado, not with the resources that are available and with the bothersome independence of your police. Most of them, anyway. This problem must be contained. We are so close to fruition. I don’t want our collaboration to be jeopardized.” Jimmy looked pointedly at Berman. “So I will take care of things myself.”

“Look, Jimmy, I have unfinished business—”

“You are a foolish man. There are millions of women available.”

“Not like her,” said Berman, and he could see Jimmy relax slightly.

“Look, I know that powerful men have such weaknesses,” said Jimmy with a sigh of resignation. “I have a couple myself, as do all my superiors. We know how to handle this kind of situation. So we will handle this rationally. The precautions you have made are good ones. There is nothing to connect this woman with this property, which is the important thing at this time. And you will keep her quiet.”

“Whitney Jones is making sure of that. The woman is out cold and will continue to be sedated in the near future. All I want is a chance to convince her to join the team.”

Berman looked at his watch. By his reckoning, it was eleven
P
.
M
. in Colorado, and Paul Caldwell would be due to come off his shift.
How long before he raised the alarm?
Berman wondered.

48.

PIA GRAZDANI’S APARTMENT, BOULDER, COLORADO

TUESDAY, JULY 23, 2013, 1:12
A.M.
MST

Paul Caldwell had stayed at work at the hospital for more than an hour after his shift was due to end. He was exhausted, and gripped with anxiety about Pia, but there were hospital cases he couldn’t abandon, even under these circumstances. It had been twenty-two hours since Pia had left his sight without getting in touch with him, and by the time Paul drove back to Pia’s apartment, he was convinced something had happened to her.

Once more, he rang her bell, even banged on the door in frustration, and called her name. As he waited, a door down the hall opened a sliver and an elderly woman’s voice called out.

“Do you mind, young man? It’s very late.”

“Excuse me, I apologize. May I have a word?” Paul walked toward the voice, and heard the chain going on the door. “I’m a doctor.”

“I can see that,” said the woman. She had mostly closed the door, exposing only a three-inch vertical slice of her face and one eye. “It’s the coat. It’s the only reason I haven’t shut the door. What do you want with that young woman? I think I have seen you before. Is she your girlfriend?”

“She’s a friend. I’m worried about her. I haven’t seen her in a couple of days.”

“I have seen you here before. You’re only the third man I’ve seen visit her. Another one tried to visit her, but she wouldn’t let him. I was about to call the police. She doesn’t know I’ve seen people, but I have. I mean, I don’t see everybody, but I see a lot.”

“Look, madam, may I come in?”

“You may not. I saw her last night around this time. I don’t sleep too well at night, and I hear things like with you coming here now. She came home just about this time, and she was carrying her clothes.”

“Excuse me?” Paul said. He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “She was carrying her clothes. You mean she was naked?” That seemed hard to believe.

“No, she wasn’t naked. For some reason she had on her undergarments and was holding her clothes. And a camera, I think. I saw her, but she didn’t see me. I don’t know if I should be telling you this or not.”

“I’m glad you are. Did you see her again last night?”

“Yup. Wasn’t too much after she’d come home that she went back out again. This time she had her clothes on and was in a hurry. I mean, I don’t understand you young people, surely I don’t.”

“Did you see her after that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t see her at all today or hear anything?”

“No, I didn’t, but I sleep more in the day than during the night. I don’t know why.”

“Have you seen anyone else?”

“Yes. I saw you this morning. And a man who looked like a police officer was leaving the building earlier, but I don’t know which apartment he was in. It’s not like I stand here all day spying on people, you know.”

“I’m sure you don’t, madam.”

“Well, if you’re a friend, the key’s on top of the door. But you know that already.” And the door closed, indicating the conversation was over.

Paul checked the angle from the woman’s door to Pia’s and figured that she could see Pia’s door only if she had her own door open slightly, as she just had. It was likely she could miss someone coming or going unless she spent the whole day peering out through the crack in the door. If she heard a noise—and her hearing seemed reasonable—and she went to the peephole, she wouldn’t be able to see anything.

Which meant that Pia still might be inside.

Paul went back to Pia’s door. Taking the key down, he opened up.

“Be here, Pia. Be here,” he said quietly. But she wasn’t.

She had been here, though. There were signs of life about the place. A half-empty half-gallon carton of milk stood on the kitchen counter next to a copy of the Monday’s
Denver
Post
. Paul went into Pia’s bedroom, and her chest of drawers was open and apparently some of her clothes gone. He checked in the bathroom and there was no toothbrush, although he couldn’t swear there had been one there earlier.

Paul digested the information he had gleaned. Pia had been here, but why hadn’t she been in touch? Was it so imperative that she leave that she would do so without so much as a text? Paul thought it unlikely. No, it wasn’t unlikely, it was impossible. He looked at the copy of the newspaper and the carton of milk. Did Pia drink milk? He had never seen more than a pint of milk in the fridge, and there was no new box of cereal to account for using so much. And a newspaper. To Paul’s recollection, he had never seen Pia read a local newspaper. And why buy one only to leave it behind, obviously unread? Paul tried to think like Pia would, first about the worst-case scenario to explain a series of events. Someone had been here and tried to make it look as if Pia had been here. Whoever was behind this was trying to establish a timeline, and what better way to do it than with a newspaper?

Continuing to think along those lines, Paul went over to Pia’s Mac and tapped on a key. The screen came to life, and showed an open MapQuest Web page, with driving directions to a nanotechnology research laboratory in New Jersey.
That’s a little too convenient,
thought Paul. But then again, in the absence of Pia herself to say otherwise, how else would anyone explain what he had found in the apartment?

Paul suddenly felt very uneasy, and he left Pia’s apartment as quietly as he was able to, carefully replacing the spare key. He looked down the hall, but the old lady’s door was closed. The thought went through his mind that if Pia was really gone and there was an investigation, would he be a suspect?

He sat in his car in the parking lot pondering his options. In the morning he would call the police, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t do anything. Before that, there was one call he could make and be sure of a quick response. He looked in his phone’s contact list and found the number for George Wilson.

49.

THE OLD VICARAGE, CHENIES, U.K.

TUESDAY, JULY 23, 2013, 3:58
P.M.
BST

It was a beautiful English midsummer’s day. Zach Berman felt somewhat better after his three-hour sleep, but he wanted to feel fresh air on his face. The interior of the vicarage was a warren of stale air, with corridors and passageways linking wings of the building. Most of the rooms, like his bedroom, were tiny, and all the ceilings were low. Running along the walls and framing doorways were massive wooden beams, some of which had been salvaged from British warships in the eighteenth century, according to Jimmy Yan.

The garden was lovely, with English summer flowers and a manicured lawn as flat as a green on a golf course. A game of croquet had been set up. In one of the distant, expansive lawns was a flock of sheep, which made the place resemble a nineteenth-century painting. It was all terribly bucolic. It was as if the Chinese were playing the lord of the manor.

Berman walked around the house a couple of times and thought about what he might say to Pia and how to couch his argument. He knew it was going to be an uphill struggle, headstrong as she was and as self-righteous as he expected her to be. He could already hear her purported outrage. If the prize wasn’t as important for him, he wouldn’t bother to make the effort. From his perspective it was absolutely critical that she acted volitionally. Berman had never on principle paid for sex nor had he ever, in his mind, forced himself on a woman. His enjoyment depended as much on his partners’ as on his own. What Berman wanted more than the physical rush was the boost to his self-esteem.

After his second circuit of the house, he stood in front, looking down on the village. He could see the village green in the center, with modest, storybook houses dotted around. They looked as if they had been molded from the landscape, as if they had grown rather than been built by human hands. In the middle distance a car was navigating a one-lane village road and kept disappearing behind the hedgerows. Beyond them, rows of golden wheat swayed in pocket-sized fields.

Berman was joined by Jimmy Yan.

“It’s very pretty,” said Jimmy, looking out at the scene.

“It is. And peaceful.”

“Quite so. No one bothers us here; no one asks any questions; everything is quiet. We are careful to keep our traffic to a minimum.”

The two men stood in silence for a moment. Jimmy turned slightly and indicated another large building to the west of where they were standing, almost obscured by a dense copse of trees.

“That is the manor house, built in 1460; a rather chaotic time in British history. We own that as well, but it has not been decided whether to renovate it. It will require a lot of money. It is ironic that we Chinese are here now buying such real estate after all the mischief we endured during the colonialism era. But it is a lovely building, and quite old. Of course, Chinese civilization is the most ancient of all, and I don’t think much was happening in the culture of your country in 1460.”

Actually, there was a lot going on in the North American continent before Columbus discovered the new world,
thought Berman, but he didn’t have the energy or inclination to engage in an academic debate with Jimmy Yan.

“So have you decided what to do with the girl?” Yan continued.

“I’m going over that in my head right now.”

“Well, you should be prepared, because I’ve been informed that she is waking up. You need to go and see her. As I mentioned, we like things to be quiet around here. Not that anyone will hear what is happening, but we dislike disturbances of any kind. I hope you understand.”

Berman nodded, and Jimmy Yan returned to the house. Berman listened to the songbirds another minute, then followed him inside.

—

She was standing in a room, but the light was so blinding she couldn’t make out any details. When she tried to turn away from the light, she realized she couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot, her arms and legs glued to her side, and she couldn’t even close her eyes to offer some protection against the light. Then the lights went off, and she was in complete darkness. All she could hear was her own breathing, until she heard voices and people moving around in the room. What were they doing? She couldn’t speak; she couldn’t see; she couldn’t move.

The lights came back on, but not so bright, and she could see a body lying submerged in a glass tank of liquid. The person was dead, surely, as half of him was missing. From the waist down, there was nothing. She couldn’t look away, so when the half figure turned in the water and stared at her, there was nothing she could do but scream silently. Then she felt a punch on her arm, and she was falling, falling straight down into a black nothingness.

—

Very gradually Pia could make out her surroundings more clearly, but what she was aware of most of all was a restraint on her right arm. She was lying on a bare mattress, shackled with a length of chain connected to a ring on the wall in a large, damp, musty room. It was hot as Hades, and Pia’s head pounded in time with her racing heartbeat. Where the hell was she? What had happened to her?

Pia picked up snatches of a dream.

She remembered being inside Nano and seeing the dreadful tanks with half-dissected people inside. Paul. She had seen Paul and made him go somewhere with her, but she couldn’t remember where. Then it was as if she were looking through a powerful microscope, but she didn’t know what she was looking at. Paul came to mind again; Paul was going to help her, but he couldn’t because she never made it back to him. Zachary Berman had stopped her, and now she was here, wherever here was. She felt fear grip her throat, and she started to shiver despite the heat.
I’ve got to get ahold of myself,
she thought, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. The shaking stopped.

Pia looked around. The room was perhaps twenty feet long, ten feet wide, and as high as twelve feet, lined with red brick on all four walls. On the wall opposite the bed was what looked like a planked oak door with no details. There was a sheen of condensation on every surface. Next to the platform-style bed was a toilet with no seat. Next to that was a sink with a single faucet. In the corner of one wall, where it met the ceiling, was a tiny window, but the light in the room came from big fluorescent lamps that hung incongruously from above. There was no clue as to where she was, and Pia had no memory of being taken anywhere. But she thought time had passed. There was daylight outside, but what day was it from which she remembered those events? Monday, perhaps.

Pia closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on something other than her throbbing head. Sunday. Yes, that was the day she went to see Berman at his house. With that, the memories came back in a rush: Berman, the camera, what she saw at Nano, Paul Caldwell, the blood sample from the ER lounge, Nano again, seeing the spherical nanorobots and being stopped by the police on the way back to Paul’s. Now she knew what had happened. She had been kidnapped by Zachary Berman. She knew she had to think hard about those events to recall all the details, but she was unable to concentrate.

In addition to her headache, Pia was stiff all over, especially where her injuries from the car wreck were still healing. Her broken left humerus in particular felt as if it had been broken all over again. The sling was still in place, as was the gauntlet cast for her left radial fracture. That felt fine. With some effort she got herself up into a sitting position on the side of the bed. She could see that there was enough chain for her to reach the toilet and the sink but that was about all. Sitting up made her left arm feel better.

When she was able to think a bit more clearly, Pia tried to figure out if anyone could possibly have seen her being kidnapped. Paul Caldwell must be expecting her back, but unless someone saw her getting taken, she would have simply disappeared. But she had been stopped by Boulder cops! They looked like Boulder cops, in what appeared to be a Boulder police cruiser, which was why she had pulled over to the side of the road, so unless Berman had bought them off, they would know. Pia considered the possibility, then sank back on the mattress. The cops had been in on it, she realized. The cops had stayed in their cruiser while Berman took her. If they were real cops.

She had been in a terrible predicament before, but Pia felt more desperate this time. Not only did she have no idea where she was being held, but she hadn’t seen or heard a soul since she had started coming around. She thought about yelling out but didn’t think her headache would tolerate it. Best to wait. Was she someplace within Nano? She had no idea.

So it was almost with relief that a few minutes later Pia heard dead bolts being drawn on the heavy wooden door opposite where she was lying. A figure ducked his head to pass through the low doorway, and Pia knew before he looked up that it was Zach Berman.