Greg Bear - Mariposa

Jane folded her arms and looked at him askance.

"I've put two and two together," Tom said. "It ain't you, right?"

"No."

"Because I'm a pro, you need me-you wouldn't fuck with me or try to scare me. Could be anybody, then. But the more I think about it, the more I ask myself, why isn't he looking at you, too? And then I realize, he is. He must be. You're the show runner, so he's more interested in you than in me. He's tracking me-because I'm helping you."

"I'm the only one you're helping?"

"Of course not," Tom said. "But it seems tied together."

Jane stepped over to the barred window at the end of the hall. Three cameras peered down from shiny dark covers in the drop ceiling. "Gene Hackman. That's good. What makes you think it's a he?"

"Well, we ceded our constitutional rights to any number of federal agencies, including yours, back in the bad old days. So I could easily enough picture a bunch of young hackers lined up in a dark room, tickling joysticks and taking control of every security system in the world, at the 24/7, caffeine-strumming command of, say, Laura Linney. They could aim satellites, take control of foreign CCTV, station millions of agents on every street corner, ready to pull out in black Suburbans or hop on Vespas… Cool. But that's not what's happening."

"How do you know?"

Tom gave her a quizzical glance. "Because I'd help design and install anything like that. I'd be Laura Linney's main man."

"Oh," Jane said.

"I love severe." He winked, not at all salaciously.

"We need to get back, Tom," Jane said, uneasy with the way this conversation was going.

Tom's demeanor switched to abject worry. He leaned in toward Jane to whisper, "He leaves an analog signature. A sound recording. Right?"

"Does he?" Jane said.

"I'm not going to violate any confidences if I tell you what that signature is. Because you already know."

"Do tell."

"A crying child. More specifically, a sobbing little boy."

"I see," Jane said, her arm hairs rising.

"He's smart, perfectly capable of breaking into this system, this fly-by-wire setup, and screwing us over. What if he's working out of Talos, or more scary still, out of MSARC? We gave up so many secrets to get those loans-"

Jane slapped her hand over Tom's mouth and pushed him to the wall. "Shut up," she said.

"Sorry," he said, muffled.

She let him go.

"Nothing has ever been able to track me that way before," Tom said, pulling down his shirt and trying to look dignified. "I'm good, I travel light. I'm mostly invisible. What if he means us harm? You should have told me what you knew eighteen hours ago."

Tom's hound-dog eyes turned critical.

Jane followed him back into Mason's office, feeling not just unease now but anger-because she no longer knew what was secure and what was not, and that meant she was vulnerable, and that meant all her colleagues-including Tom Cantor-knew she was vulnerable.

In their line of work, that perception was killer.

The Border Security drone flew over the southern extent of its range when it encountered Talos craft operating at the same altitude.

Mason spoke in a tense undertone to his remote pilot, then turned back to Jane and Tom. "We've been through this sort of standoff before. We've never taken direct fire from their birds-only from the ground, and only if we're near the Talos campus. Some of our pilots enjoy hot-dogging, but I just made sure we don't provoke a response. Don't want them thinking we're tracking any sort of unusual target. They can have armed vehicles out in that range within half an hour. We're back on visual now."

Jane and Tom put on their spex and looked out over the dark early morning landscape. The cameras switched to FLIR-Forward Looking Infrared-then to infrared enhanced by computers and overlaid with satellite imagery.

Cross-hairs centered to a small circle.

The circle zoomed.

"Got something moving," Mason said. "Is that your snake?"

"Wow," Tom said.

"That's it. Only one," Jane said, disappointed.

The pilot dropped the drone quickly-too quickly, it seemed, as the black, green-speckled desert suddenly swooped up and the horizon shifted to a high line.

The display now changed to satellite side-scan radar, combined with the drone's IR perspective-additional overlays marking roll, pitch, and altitude.

The drone circled over the edge of the Talos campus.

"Maybe it got lost," Mason said.

The drone sideslipped into a steep helix.

Jane gripped the chair arm.

"Steady," Mason whispered.

The drone straightened as its descent smoothed and leveled at a hundred feet. One more veer east and it raised its nose and dropped spindly gear, then jounced and lofted twice before rolling to a stop.

The cross-hairs squared and the camera jogged left and right, then zoomed on a rounded W of shadowy curves-just a hint of motion in the detectors.

One snake.

"Send the signal," Jane said.

The drone lowered on its gear and somewhere behind them, in virtual sound, they heard whirring. The view shifted to the dropping ramp.

With a faint rustle, the snake maneuvered around a shrub, approached the ramp, and cautiously wormed into the craft's hold.

The ramp swung shut.

"Amazing," Mason said.

Jane settled back in her chair, chin almost on her chest. "No way of knowing whether it got what it came for," she said.

The pilot's voice announced takeoff. "I've got three Talos craft within a kilometer radius," he said. "Looks like they're taking an interest."

The drone was quickly airborne.

"Beeline home," Mason instructed. "Do not outmaneuver, do not engage."

"Up and away. Precious cargo-one, repeat, one snake," the pilot said. "We'll have it delivered in forty minutes."

"We always get our snake," Mason said, and glanced at Jane.

"Our team is bringing in the necessary equipment," Jane said. "We'll do the rest in the hangar-by ourselves, please. No observers, no assistance."

Tom took off his spex, shook his head with a sigh, and slumped in his chair. He was instantly asleep. His real duties began when the snake was returned.

If it carried what they were hoping for.

And failing that, if they couldn't save Fouad Al-Husam.

The Smoky

After the robot snakes, the night passed without further incident.

Fouad ate a small late snack of crackers and hummus and sardines, then turned on the television and watched a movie about young cowboys. Absorbing yet also disturbing that in a Western-so much about chivalry and honor-young men should be taught to kill and exact cruel vengeance as a necessary rite of passage.

Of course, he had no excuses before Allah. He had killed and likely would kill again.

He switched off the television, then spread his small threadbare rug and prayed salatu'l isha' but did not ask for advice or guidance, perhaps because it seemed his fate was already decided, and it was not polite to be pushy and impatient.

Fouad went to bed and slept soundly.

The soft noises of boots in his room brought him half awake, and a firm shove on his shoulder an instant later finished the job.

It was six in the morning, still dark outside.

Broad shoulders and a bullet head on a thick neck.

"Mr. Price requests your help," Schmitz said. "Fifteen minutes."

This time, they met in the office where Price received foreign guests. The room was palatial-a high-beamed ceiling arching over two thousand square feet of pearlescent slate tile, surrounding a circle of rustic wood floor on which Price's stainless steel desk sat, backed by great sliding windows that overlooked more acres of tallgrass prairie.

Price was signing papers as Fouad entered. The secretary lingered. Price waved her off.