Spark: A Novel (29 page)

Slam of the door. No more Lorcan. I was still lying on the floor and I watched Miss Holquist’s blue-and-white patent-leather pumps as they carried her around the loft. At that moment, it felt as if the shoes had more reality than their owner. Perhaps all she had to do was slip them on in the morning and the shoes made all the major decisions, taking her this way and that, carrying her around the city.

Miss Holquist dragged the chair across the loft and placed it in front of me. “Stand up and sit here. I’m sure that you’re not seriously wounded. Lorcan Tate is a sadist, but he knows how to use his tools. If he’d wanted to kill you, you most definitely would be dead.”

She was right. The cuts weren’t serious. But it took a conscious effort to stand up and plop myself down on the chair.

“Good. Now raise the towel.”

I obeyed the command. Miss Holquist leaned forward and examined my wound like an art critic inspecting a detail in a painting.

“You’ll need stitches and some antibiotics. When we’ve finished our conversation, my driver can take you to a physician who owes me a favor. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Good. Now please tell me … what went wrong in Paris?”

I had never lied to Miss Holquist. This would be the first time. The truth exists. Lies need to be invented.

The Turing Test tried to make a distinction between humans and machines. But these days Shadow programs like Edward and Laura can be programmed to say “I love you” or imitate other emotions. If a machine wanted to act like a human, then it had to deny the truth.

Lying, not love, is the fundamental indication of humanity.

“My plan wasn’t successful. Only one of the targets was neutralized.”

“And what was your plan, Mr. Underwood?”

“The family was living in an eighteenth-century palace that had been divided into different apartments. I left a package at the entrance for Jafar Desai.”

“Mr. Pradhani’s son-in-law?”

I nodded. “Jafar’s bodyguard picked up the package and carried it to the apartment. I followed him and shot him in the head the moment he opened the door.”

“And then what happened?”

“Jafar ran through the house and locked himself in the bathroom. I kicked in the door and killed him as he lay in the tub.”

“What about the wife? Why is she still alive?”

“I shot Nalini when she tried to get away. I thought she was dead, so I didn’t stop to fire a confirmation shot. An alarm started ringing and I was worried about being trapped in the building. I had to kill two more bodyguards in order to escape.”

“Yes. I’ve read news reports about what happened in Paris. The French press calls you
Monsieur Sangfroid
 … ‘Mr. Cold-Blooded.’ But the police don’t know your real identity. Do you think you left your fingerprints at the café mentioned in the
Le Monde
article?”

“No. I followed the rules I learned in training class. I picked up the cup with a paper napkin and I wore gloves inside Jafar’s apartment.”

“And did you speak inside the apartment?” She stared at me. “Did you say anything to the wife?”

“No. I shot her once and she fell onto the floor.”

Miss Holquist paused again. And this silence opened a space between us that was cold and dangerous. “And what about the child? He was your third target.…”

“I couldn’t find the boy. Maybe he was hiding.”

“Did you search his room?”

“Not really. I just opened the door and looked inside.”

“He could have been in the closet or under the bed.”

“It’s possible.”

“Mr. Pradhani said you showed some reluctance about this target.”

“There didn’t seem to be a logical reason to kill the child.”

“The boy was a target because our client made that your objective.”

“But Sanjay didn’t steal his grandfather’s money. He didn’t even know about it.”

“So now you refer to him as Sanjay. He has a
name.
And what is the relevance of his name?” Miss Holquist leaned forward. “Are you attempting to be
moral
about this issue, Mr. Underwood? If so, I’m very surprised.”

“No,” I said. “I’m trying to be rational. I obeyed your instructions, Miss Holquist. But I don’t understand how the child’s death would benefit Mr. Pradhani.”

“It’s not your job to understand anything. You’ve been hired to listen and obey.”

“All I’m saying is—”

“I know exactly what you’re saying and that’s why I’m annoyed.
Your newfound desire for explanations is like a wound that needs to be cauterized. Do you know what that word means, Mr. Underwood?”

“To burn something.”

“To burn or sear a wound to stop the bleeding.” Miss Holquist turned away from me and began to pace around the loft. “I don’t normally have personal conversations with my employees, but you’re going to meet an important person tomorrow evening. I want to be sure about you before that happens. You need to be clear about your thinking.”

She stopped and inspected the industrial sewing machine. “I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, in a once-beautiful house that had been transformed into a neighborhood eyesore. And the reason for that was quite clear. My father was a drunkard. I’m not going to excuse his behavior by calling him an alcoholic. He was a drunkard who could never hold on to a job.”

She moved on to the drill press. “When I was a little girl I tried to find an explanation for his actions. Why was Daddy drunk on Tuesday night and sober on Wednesday? Was it the moon and the tides? Something I said? The food we cooked for dinner? His actions seemed as unpredictable as a coin flipped in the air.

“What saved me wasn’t religion or morality, but science. I’ll never forget finding out about the periodic table in Miss Foster’s seventh-grade class. There was no reason for hydrogen having only one proton and one electron. That was simply a
fact.
A fact that had practical uses. As I increased my scientific knowledge, I began to realize that there are only a few real facts and everything else is just an opinion. Are you listening, Mr. Underwood? I’m not going to waste my time if you’re not listening.”

I nodded.

“Good.” As she circled the chair, her high-heeled shoes made a sharp clicking sound. “Everything that goes on in the universe is a physical process that involves boson particles that have an integer spin such as one or two, and fermion particles that have odd, half-integer spins. And by everything, Mr. Underwood, I mean everything.”
Click.
“My father’s drunken behavior and the orbit of
the moon. The explosion of a star and the biochemical process by which a thought appears in our minds. These physical facts determine biological facts, including all aspects of human activity.”
Click.
“So what are the
implications
of this reality?”

The towel was sodden with blood and I felt blood dribbling down my stomach.

“There is no meaning to the universe, Mr. Underwood. No God.”
Click.
“No soul.”
Click.
“No grand explanation of life. And why is that? Because none of these big ideas have a scientifically verifiable connection to the bosons and the fermions.” Miss Holquist stopped pacing and faced me. “Are you listening, Mr. Underwood? Or are you just bleeding? Answer me!”

I nodded and she resumed her pacing.

“And because there’s no larger meaning to the universe, there’s certainly no meaning to human existence. Our thoughts are created by the bosons and fermions. Our actions are shaped by them as well. Morality does not exist.”
Click.
“Mass and energy exist. There is no good or evil.”
Click.
“Religion, history, and philosophy are just fictions we’ve invented to explain our meaningless world.”

Again, she stopped and faced me.

“So what motivates human activity? Self-interest. Even so-called virtues such as love and compassion are motivated by our selfish needs. It is in
your
self-interest to make money and create a comfortable living situation. Thus, it is a rational act for you to follow my orders and neutralize targets. It makes no difference if these targets are male or female, black or white, young or elderly. The bosons and fermions don’t give a damn. Is that
clear,
Mr. Underwood? Am I
communicating
with you?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Excellent.” She walked back to me. “Because I don’t want muddled thinking from my employees. Tomorrow night you’re going to meet Alexander Serby, the chief executive officer of the Brooks Danford Group. While you were in Paris, worrying about explanations, Mr. Serby received a disturbing phone call from India. Apparently, there were three coded files on that flash drive that involve something much more important than the black money deals of the
Pradhani Group. Mr. Serby is very worried that this information might get into the wrong hands. He wants a face-to-face meeting with both of us. And why is that?”

“Because we know about Emily Buchanan.”

“Correct. And he wants to keep the information circle as small as possible.”

Miss Holquist’s phone rang and she answered it. “Yes. Good. No, stay there. We’re coming down.” She switched off the phone and marched over to the door. “Lorcan is back with my espresso and we’re going to take you to the doctor. Find a clean shirt, and let’s go.”

When I opened my eyes the next morning, a white cross of gauze and medical tape was in the middle of my chest. Twelve hours earlier I lay on a table in an East Harlem medical clinic while a nurse swabbed away blood and a doctor sewed. Now two lines of black stitches held skin and muscle together; my Shell had been mended like a torn pair of pants.

The wound felt like a harsh red color as I rolled to one side. I picked up my computer and spoke to Edward. “Show Baxter …”

“Good morning, Mr. Underwood. It is my understanding that you would like to see
A Boy for Baxter.
Please say ‘No’ if I have made the wrong conclusion.”

“Play,” I said, and five seconds later the computer began to show the documentary with the sound switched off. I had watched
A Boy for Baxter
so many times that I knew what the parents and the doctors and the dog trainers were saying.

I got halfway through Gordon’s first tantrum, then I moved my thumb across the bottom of the screen and fast-forwarded to my favorite part: when Baxter cocks his head and wags his tail and jumps up on the couch beside Gordon.

After watching the scene seventeen times, I got out of bed, drank a bottle of ComPlete, and cleaned up the blood on the floor near the drill press. I was stuffing wadded-up paper towels into a garbage bag when Miss Holquist sent me an e-mail. She would meet me at the headquarters of the Brooks Danford Group at 9 p.m.

That left me plenty of time to search for information about the man I was going to meet that evening. For the last nine years, Alexander Serby had been chief executive officer of the bank. He had increased profits from the international division and the company’s stock price had gone up. A year ago, Serby had been sitting in a TV studio before an interview and wasn’t aware that the cameras and his microphone were switched on. When someone asked him what he thought about the president of the United States, Serby raised his forearm and wiggled his fingers as if he was manipulating a sock puppet. This caused a few days of controversy until a bank spokesperson said that Serby was motioning for someone to bring him a bottle of water.