Human (26 page)

"Roger that," Hughes responded.

Gonzales' brow had become deeply furrowed. "Vakhrusheva's no dummy." He said. "He's got his tracks covered nine ways to zero. The notebook is gone. The trail is cold. We know he got off somewhere between Rensselaer and Poughkeepsie."

Gonzales paused and turned to Cruz. "We have no choice. Start a dragnet. Cover a triangle two hours in either direction for Rensselaer and one hour in either direction from Poughkeepsie." 

"That's over 10,000 square miles. How are you going to do that without using the radio?" Smith, who was still on speaker, asked.

"We can't," Cruz responded.

"If you broadcast it on the radio and these guys are monitoring police bands, that's a death sentence for Sharky's mother, isn't it?"  Hermelinda chimed in, being the last to understand the full impact of Gonzales' instruction.

Suddenly Dr. Bayron jumped out of his seat as if he had received a strong electric shock. "Goddammit!"  he shouted to everyone's surprise. "Fe-Co is iron-cobalt. Iron-cobalt and a battery! He had a battery to magnetize the iron-cobalt. It's the most magnetic material on earth. We use iron cobalt wire in the lab all of the time and its almost exactly the same gauge as the spiral in my notebook. He replaced the spiral in my notebook with the iron-cobalt and charged it with the battery. The spiral...that's like a goddamn radio coil. Once those atoms go into overdrive from the battery charge they're going to produce a big and unique magnetic field. That notebook is broadcasting a distinct electromagnetic wave wherever it goes. That's a goddamn tracking device."

"20 Kilohertz." Smith chimed in having researched it in a split second.

Cruz was already on the phone.

"Now what?" Hermelinda asked. She did not wait long for an answer.

"We got him."  Cruz said. "He's heading north on the Thruway, just outside of Ravena. We're putting a bird on it."

"Good work, boy."  Gonzales said, clapping Cruz on the back, surprised by just how quickly they were able to get  a bead on Sharky's improvised tracker.

The moment the chopper pilot advised Cruz that the makeshift radio signal had come to rest in the parking lot of the Hampton Inn he and Gonzales were on their way.

Smith told Hermelinda and Bayron to come back to SmithCorp and he sent Myra to pick up Sharky at the train station, having confirmed that Sharky had bought a return ticket by hacking into the Amtrak computer. He also called Takahashi and asked him to come to the office. Then he called Hermelinda's babysitter and asked her to bring the baby to SmithCorp too.

As Hermelinda was driving with Bayron back to SmithCorp she said to him, "they don't care about Sharky's mother. They're going to let her get killed. That poor, poor boy."

"I'm sure they have it all figured out, Hermelinda,"  He replied. "They are professionals and they know what they're doing."

A silence descended into the car again until Bayron spoke. "I'm more worried about Elly, to be honest."

"Why are you worried about Elly?" She asked.

"The things he demonstrated today. I can't imagine the CIA is comfortable having that kind of power out there. And how do they know that he doesn't now have those codes kicking around in that bionic brain of his. How do I even know?  We've only been exposed to a fraction of what he's capable of and those have been parlor tricks:  accessing security cameras and spying on the president. What happens when he gets bored of spying?  Who knows what else he'll discover he's capable of?"

"You're afraid of him?"  She asked as she pulled into her parking spot at SmithCorp.

Bayron thought for a moment before he answered with a question. "How did you feel when he said he'd be watching us?"

"Oh, come on Doug," she said. "It's Elly, he was just being silly."

"You know he's watching us now," Bayron said signaling the security camera in the parking lot.

"Then you'd better not kiss me, Doctor."  Hermelinda said looking deep into Doug's eyes.

"I'd like to," Doug said, "but he's my friend and your husband and I've said too much already."

"If he's my husband and your friend then he is still Elijah Smith, and Elijah Smith is the one man that can be trusted with these superpowers. Anyone who knows him, knows that."

"If he's your husband and my friend then he is still human. Humans make mistakes, even the best of us. Its just that most of us don't have superpowers."

"You're just being paranoid, Doctor,"  Hermelinda replied, giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek as if to prove her point.

In fact, Smith was not watching them from the security camera in the parking lot. Rather, he had his attention focused on the security cameras in and around the Hampton Inn. As Cruz and Gonzales were walking through the front door, Cruz's cell flashed a text message. "Room 714. Smith."

He showed the message to Gonzales and Gonzales shook his head in acknowledgment. They assumed they were going to have to flash their badges to get information from the desk clerk, but instead they were able to walk to the elevators without calling any attention to themselves. As they rode the elevator up, they both knew that soon someone would be dead.

They took positions on either side of the door to room 714 and drew their weapons. Gonzales nodded his head and Cruz's strong shoulder slammed into the door, breaking the frame and causing it to swing violently into the room.

Gonzales turned into the now gaping door frame, quickly identified the figure in the room, pointed his gun and shot.

Alice collapsed instantly as the bullet from Gonzales' gun pierced right through her head.

"I hate killing women,"  Gonzales said.

Cruz quickly found the notebook Bayron had described and headed for the door.

"No, no, no." Gonzales said shaking one of his ancient fingers at Cruz. "The longer it takes Vakhrusheva to find out she's dead, the better chance we have to save that kid's mother. Let's clean up this blood and get the body out of here. Make sure you get her purse and her cell phone too."

They wrapped Alice's body in the spare blanket that they found in the closet and cleaned her still-liquid blood off the walls with moist washcloths. Cruz threw her body over his shoulder while Gonzales grabbed the purse, the cellphone and the dirty washcloths. They walked straight to the elevator and straight through the lobby, as nonchalantly as if they were going to take a swim in the pool. Gonzales positioned himself between the desk clerk and Cruz in such a way as to obstruct any view from the desk. It was unnecessary, the desk clerk had put the bell out.

Cruz threw Alice's dead body into the trunk of his car.

A text message appeared on the little screen of Cruz's phone. "That's too bad. I always liked her. E.S."  He chuckled to himself when he saw the message. Smith was a playful man, he saw, just as he had been reputed to be.

"Where to boss?" Cruz asked as he started his car.

"SmithCorp. I'm sure I don't have to explain why."

Cruz nodded and pulled out of the parking lot to make the short drive to the SmithCorp Building. He parked in a public park spot on the SmithCorp premises and the two men walked together through the front door and up to the security desk. "We're here to see Mr. Smith."  Cruz said taking out his badge wallet to show to the guard.

"Names?" The guard asked.

"My name is Josey Cruz and this is Marco Gonzales," he said pointing his thumb at Gonzales.

"Yes, I see that you're expected. You'll be going to a secure floor so I'll need to get you an escort," the guard said while motioning to an escort who was posted near the elevator. "Steve will take you."

The two men walked up to "Steve" who directed them to a separate elevator. He got on the elevator with them and inserted a security card into a slot on the elevator's button panel. The elevator ascended to the seventh floor. Steve said, "this is your floor" and pointed them towards a large double door at the end of the hallway.

On the other side of the doorway, a young receptionist escorted them back to Smith's makeshift office. As they walked in, they immediately recognized Dr. Bayron and Hermelinda. They recognized Takahashi from his CIP. The receptionist asked them if they wanted any coffee or water and both men requested coffee. She then pointed them to seats at the conference table.

Shortly after they settled into their seats, Sharky and Myra entered the office and took their own seats at the conference table. Everyone in the room could see that Sharky was still in a nightmare. After everyone was seated, Smith spoke, displaying the oscilliscopic representation of his voice on the large monitor.

"Folks," he said in a very serious tone which only made the mechanical aspects of his voice sound more pronounced, "we have a problem."  Everyone made noises acknowledging the obvious truth in his statement.

"First and foremost, we know that Sharky's mother is being held hostage even as we speak. The reason she is being held hostage is because there are some Russian fellows who wanted a notebook that Sharky had. They still have their hostage, but they don't have their notebook. I have never been in the intelligence game like our new friends here," Smith continued, "but I am considered quite adept at strategies. They had the advantage of us not being aware of them until they struck. They no longer have that advantage. It doesn't strike me as being strategically wise for them to sacrifice their bird-in-hand with the expectation of getting another bargaining chip now.

"Furthermore, of all the people to kidnap, Sharky's mother just doesn't make sense. They were after the notebook and couldn't find it. Now that we know that Alice was working for them, we have a pretty good guess as to how they connected the notebook to Sharky. No more inside man.

"Finally, they know that the notebook never made it back to them and they must suspect that our CIA friends have it and aren't going to give it back for all the Sharky's mother's in the world. That means that the only way they can get the information that they want is to get to Dr. Bayron personally and, no offense old friend, but I know that you don't have a photographic memory and would have to reconstruct the formulas in that book from scratch."

Gonzales was the next to speak and he posed a simple question, "Is that true Mr. Smith?"

"No its not. I actually have the information they want. I don't know why and I don't know how...perhaps it is one of the mysteries of the subconscious, but I have Mr. Ashkot's memories including the launch code.

"Now that you have the notebook, all you have to do is  kill me and those launch codes would be gone forever, but in all likelihood, that will result in Sharky's mother dying."

"It is a small cost."  Gonzales said.

Sharky jumped to his feet and lunged at Gonzales, "You son of a bitch!" he shouted. Cruz got in between the two men and wordlessly made it clear that order would prevail. Sharky sat back down and stewed.

"Now for the benefit of our two new friends, killing me won't be so easy. There are four persons who hold the keys required to shut me down and destroy all the data I have generated wheresoever it may be stored. At least two of those people have to agree that shutting me down is the right thing to do. I am one of those four people and I will be honest. I am not afraid to die. I have already died once, and frankly, it wasn't so bad. My vote is not based on a fear of death. My vote is based on a lesson I learned as a child:  that to save one life is to save the entire world."

Sharky was struck by the fact that the only other person he had ever heard utter those words was his own mother.

"I will not vote to shut me down while Sharky's mother can still be saved," Smith asserted.

He let the silence linger for a moment and then turned to Hermelinda, "Hermelinda?"

"No, if there is any possibility of saving that poor woman, we have to try," she said.

"Sharky?" Smith asked.

"It's my mother," he answered snarkily, "what do you think?"

"That's three," Smith said. "Doc, I guess you're off the hook."

"These pills make me terribly sleepy, Hermelinda. Can I go home now?" Dr. Bayron asked, as if he had not been listening to the conversation at all.

Hermelinda noticed that he was staring at his feet, it was clear to her that he was completely disconnected from what was going on around him--a terrible setback she would have to report to Dr. Beedle.

"Gentlemen," Hermelinda said, "you have our answers.

Smith spoke again. "So, here's where we stand:  everybody who has the information they're after is here in this room. Everyone who could be used as leverage to get that information is also here. This building is as secure a location as any. They cannot come to us and we cannot go to them. That's a real pickle. Mr. Cruz and Mr. Gonzales, understandably will sacrifice Mrs. Ohangangian in a heartbeat but they cannot consider their mission over until they have destroyed one small black notebook, one very large computer array, and, unless we can convince them otherwise, one very talented doctor. They can easily burn the notebook and shoot the good doctor right now, but as we have just demonstrated, they cannot kill me.

"I am a man of my word and there is no one in this room who would say otherwise be it behind my back or to my face. I am offering my life in exchange for that of Sharky's mother and the life of Dr. Bayron. I caused this mess and I will take responsibility for it.