Rubeo closed his eyes. He hated the nickname; it was very 1984. “Very well. Come with us, Colonel. And please don’t touch anything. It may blow up.”

Rubeo was so deadpan that Freah didn’t know whether that had been a joke or not.

The scientist led the way down the hallway—more nano walls—to a small room set up like a library. Small armchairs were clustered around a large cube at the center of the room. The cube that was a display unit for MY-PID. Breanna took one of the chairs and pulled it close to the cube. Danny did the same.

“Ray Rubeo, 13–13-13,” said Rubeo.

“Acknowledged,” said a disembodied voice.

“I need the weather in Moscow. Display it please.”

A graphic showing a sun covered by a cloud appeared on the center screen. The temperature, in Celsius and Fahrenheit, appeared under it.

“The weather tomorrow, in Moscow,” said Rubeo.

Rain.

Rubeo made a number of other requests for data, all instantly answered by the computer. Danny was used to computers and their ability to quickly produce data from their memory banks. While the cube and its graphics appeared very slick, the system didn’t seem to be anything unusual. Even the voice command interface was familiar from Dreamland.

Rubeo produced a small button from his pocket and placed it on top of the cube.

“Locate Colonel Freah and project his image,” said the scientist.

Danny’s image—captured by the tiny video bug—was displayed on the screen.

“How does it know it’s me?” asked Danny.

“Produce positive identification of subject,” said Rubeo. The computer complied, displaying a skeletal biometric image next to Danny’s face.

Danny still wasn’t impressed.

Rubeo took a set of earphones and a small, iPodlike device from his other pocket and handed it to him. Danny put on the device, and heard the computer’s voice ask him to identify himself.

“Danny Freah.”

“Identity confirmed. Please calibrate voice level.”

“It wants to get a feel for how loud you’re going to talk to it,” explained Breanna. “There are microphones in the wire.”

“How loud should I talk?”

“Whatever level you’re comfortable with,” Breanna said.

“Testing, testing,” said Danny.

“Ask it any question you wish,” said Rubeo.

“Who won the World Series?” asked Danny.

“Which year?” asked the Voice.

“Last year.”

“The Boston Red Sox, four games to two, over the Chicago Cubs.”

“Who’s going to win this year?”

“Insufficient data.”

Rubeo rolled his eyes. He glanced at Breanna, then left the room.

“Locate Dr. Rubeo,” said Breanna after he was gone.

The screen moved its schematic, showing Rubeo in the maze of rooms about fifty meters away. He was in a lounge area, making himself a cup of tea.

“It’s tied into a satellite system that can be used to track individuals all over the world,” Breanna explained. “The system uses biomarkers that can be picked up by the satellites. There are some limitations, but as long as a subject is aboveground, the system can find him. Down here, a separate system is used. The rings. The Voice can plug into a number of different systems, not just its central core here. It’s like an automated assistant. The idea is that it will help CIA officers in the field. And Whiplash.”

“How close to going operational is it?” asked Danny.

“We’ve been using it for a little over two months on a special project. You’re going to hear about that project in about twenty minutes.”

“Where is this MY-PID?”

“It’s not in a specific place.” Breanna always had trouble explaining exactly how the system worked. “Think of it as a cloud, or even the Internet. The computers you just passed are part of it, but they’re not the sum total. The network is scattered around the world, and then there are the different sensors. Different video bugs can be plugged in, and the system can ask to be admitted to some databases and other intelligence systems.”

“Who controls it?”

“No one. The Voice is completely automated. It’s on its own—just like your laptop would be. Because, that’s what it is: a personal computer for field operators.”

Danny wasn’t exactly sure what to make of that—a computer system that had no one running it? The parallel to personal computers didn’t reassure him.

“All right. How does Whiplash fit into this?”

“MY-PID will be one of its tools. The unit itself will work on different projects. We want you to support Nuri on Jasmine—he’ll explain that.”

“Support?”

“Yes. The whole idea is to get technology onto the front lines. Whiplash is part of that.”

“Are we testing, or doing?”

“Both. Just like we were at Dreamland. Whiplash and all of us.”

Danny felt comfortable with the parallel to Dreamland, but using a computer system that had no human supervisor sounded impractical. There had been a few automated systems at Dreamland—the robot Ospreys, for example, which were part of his security at the base. But even there, someone on watch was always supervising them, prepared to jump in and override if necessary. Here, there was no supervision.

“I was hoping that we would have more time to build things up, but this situation seems more serious than we thought.”

“So what else is new?” said Danny.

7

CIA Headquarters (Langley)

McLean, Virginia

FOR AN OFFICER WHO SPENT MOST OF HIS TIME IN THE FIELD, coming to CIA headquarters was not generally something to look forward to. Even if one wasn’t coming home to be called on the carpet, the stay tended toward the onerous. For one thing, it was almost always associated with paperwork: official reports, expense reports, and briefings. Then there were the routine and not routine lie detector tests, dreaded audits, and the even more dreaded physical and psychological fitness exams.

But perhaps the worst thing that could happen to you at Langley, at least as far as Nuri Lupo was concerned, was being second-guessed. Which he expected was on today’s agenda in bulleted capital letters. He’d taken it as a particularly bad sign when Reid told him to take the weekend off. Reid himself always worked Saturdays, so a routine pummeling could easily have started then. Anything that had to wait for the work week to begin was guaranteed to be onerous indeed.

Not that there was really much to second-guess him on. But of course, that was never the point.

Nuri’s only consolation—and it was thin—was the fact that he had found a restaurant with a cute waitress the night before. She’d flirted a bit, and he figured he’d be eating there a lot if he was stuck here for any length of time.

He drove to the parking lot near the main building, parked in one of the visitor’s slots, and went inside to meet Reid. He was a few minutes early, and after going through the ID and weapons check—guns were frowned on—he decided to head down the hall and grab a coffee at the Starbucks. Along the way he passed the displays of Cold War paraphernalia. Though put out mostly to impress visiting VIPs, Nuri found the old gadgets endlessly fascinating, and lingered on his way back, admiring the miniature bugs in the cases, huge by today’s standards.

Reid, coming down from the other direction, spotted Nuri in the hall. He paused and studied the agent, surprised at how young he looked. He was, in fact, young, though Reid would never hold that against him.

It was nearly impossible for the older man not to draw parallels with officers and agents he’d known in the past, and his mind did so freely in the few seconds that passed before Nuri looked up and saw him waiting at the end of the hall. The young man reminded him of several people, all good men, all dead well before their time. The comparison that came most readily was to Journevale—Reid remembered the agent’s code name, not his Christian name, even as he pictured him.