Michael Crichton: State Of Fear

"Alone?"

"Yeah."

"Because I hear talk about some gorgeous woman. Sexy woman in high heels, tight skirt."

"I would have noticed a woman like that," Mallory said.

"You wouldn't be amp;leaving her out?" Another skeptical glance. "Keeping her to yourself?" Mallory noticed a bulge on the American's hip. Was it a gun? It might be.

"No. He was alone."

"Whoever the guy was."

"Yes."

"You ask me," the American said, "I'd be wondering why anybody needed half a million feet of wire for anti-tank missiles in the first place. I mean, for what?"

Mallory said, "He didn't say."

"And you just said, Right, mate, half a million feet of wire, leave it to me,' with never a question?"

"Seems like you're asking all the questions," Mallory said. Still sweating.

"And I have a reason," the American said. His tone turned ominous. "I got to tell you, pal. I don't like what I am hearing."

The last of the boxes were stacked in the van. Mallory stepped back. The American slammed the first door shut, then the second. As the second door closed, Mallory saw the driver standing there. The woman. She had been standing behind the door.

"I don't like it either," she said. She was wearing fatigues, army surplus stuff. Baggy trousers and high-laced boots. A bulky green jacket. Heavy gloves. Dark glasses.

"Now wait a minute," the American said.

"Give me your cell phone," she said. Holding out her hand for it. Her other hand was behind her back. As if she had a gun.

"Why?"

"Give it to me."

"Why?"

"I want to look at it, that's why."

"There's nothing unusual"

"Give it to me."

The American pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. Instead of taking it, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward her. The cell phone clattered to the ground. She brought her other hand from around her back and quickly gripped the side of his neck with her gloved hand. She held him with both hands around his neck, as if she were strangling him.

For a moment he was stunned; then he began to struggle. "What the fuck are you doing?" he said. "What are youhey!" He knocked her hands away and jumped back as if he had been burned. "What was that? What did you do?"

He touched his neck. A tiny trickle of blood ran down, just a few drops. There was red on his fingertips. Almost nothing.

"What did you do?" he said.

"Nothing." She was stripping off her gloves. Mallory could see she was doing it carefully. As if something were in the glove. Something she did not want to touch.

"Nothing?" the American said. "Nothing? Son of a bitch!" Abruptly, he turned and began to run up the ramp toward the street outside.

Calmly, she watched him go. She bent over, picked up the cell phone, and put it in her pocket. Then she turned to Mallory. "Go back to work."

He hesitated.

"You did a good job. I never saw you. You never saw me. Now go."

Mallory turned and walked to the back-stairs door. Behind him, he heard the woman slam the van door, and when he glanced back, he saw the van racing up the ramp into the glare of the street. The van turned right, and was gone.

Back in his office, his assistant, Elizabeth, came in with a mockup for the new ultralight computer ads for Toshiba. The shoot was tomorrow. These were the finals to go over. He shuffled through the boards quickly; Mallory had trouble concentrating.

Elizabeth said, "You don't like them?"

"No, no, they're fine."

"You look a little pale."

"I just, um amp;my stomach."

"Ginger tea," she said. "That's best. Shall I make some?"

He nodded, to get her out of the office. He looked out the window. Mallory's office had a spectacular view of the Thames, and the Tower Bridge off to the left. The bridge had been repainted baby blue and white (was that traditional or just a bad idea?), but to see it always made him feel good. Secure somehow.

He walked closer to the window, and stood looking at the bridge. He was thinking that when his best friend had asked if he would lend a hand in a radical environmental cause, it had sounded like something fun. A bit of secrecy, a bit of dash and derring-do. He had been promised that it would not involve anything violent. Mallory had never imagined he would be frightened.

But he was frightened now. His hands were shaking. He stuck them in his pockets as he stared out the window. Five hundred rockets? he thought. Five hundred rockets. What had he gotten himself into? Then, slowly, he realized that he was hearing sirens, and there were red lights flashing on the bridge railings.

There had been an accident on the bridge. And judging from the number of police and rescue vehicles, it was a serious accident.

One in which someone had died.

He couldn't help himself. Feeling a sense of panic, he left the office, went outside to the quay, and with his heart in his throat, hurried toward the bridge.

From the upper level of the red double-decker bus, the tourists were staring down, covering their mouths in horror. Mallory pushed through the crowd clustered near the front of the bus. He got close enough to see a half-dozen paramedics and police crouched around a body lying in the street. Above them stood the burly bus driver, in tears. He was saying that there was nothing he could have done, the man had stepped in front of the bus at the last moment. He must have been drunk, the driver said, because he was wobbling. It was almost as if he fell off the curb.

Mallory could not see the body; the policemen blocked his view. The crowd was nearly silent, just watching. Then one of the policemen stood, holding a red passport in his handsa German passport. Thank God, Mallory thought, feeling a flood of relief that lasted until a moment later, when one of the paramedics stepped away and Mallory saw one leg of the victima faded black tracksuit and a dirty Adidas running shoe, now soaked with blood.

He felt a wave of nausea, and turned away, pushing back through the crowd. The faces stared past him, impassive or annoyed. But nobody even glanced at him. They were all looking at the body.

Except for one man, dressed like an executive in a dark suit and tie. He was looking directly at Mallory. Mallory met his eyes. The man nodded slightly. Mallory made no response. He just pushed through the last of the crowd and fled, hurrying back down the stairs to his office, and realizing that somehow, in some way that he did not understand, his life had changed forever.

IDEC, the International Data Environmental Consortium, was located in a small brick building adjacent to the campus of Keio Mita University. To the casual observer, IDEC was part of the university, and even showed the coat of arms ("Calamus Gladio Fortior"), but in fact it was independent. The center of the building consisted of a small conference room with a podium and two rows of five chairs facing a screen at the front.

At ten in the morning, IDEC director Akira Hitomi stood at the podium and watched as the American came in and took a seat. The American was a large man, not so tall but thick in the shoulders and chest, like an athlete. For such a large man he moved easily, quietly. The Nepali officer entered right behind him, dark-skinned and watchful. He took a seat behind the American and off to one side. At the podium, Hitomi nodded to them and said nothing.

The wood-paneled room darkened slowly, to allow eyes to adjust. On all sides, the wood panels slid silently away, exposing huge flat-panel screens. Some of the screens moved smoothly out from the walls.

At last, the main door closed and locked with a click. Only then did Hitomi speak.

"Good morning, Kenner-san." On the main screen it said "Hitomi Akira" in English and Japanese. "And good morning, Thapa-san." Hitomi flipped open a very small, very thin silver laptop. "Today I will present data from the last twenty-one days, correct up to twenty minutes ago. These will be findings from our joint project, Akamai Tree."