The Overseer (31 page)

“And these spheres are controlled by our three friends.”

“Who else? Plus, the whole thing rests on the assumption that the people believe everything is fine. That means you have to manipulate them. And that’s where a highly developed system of education comes in.”

“Votapek.” Feric finished off his beer.

“Exactly.” Xander paused. “They’re following this thing to the letter.”

“There is, of course, an obvious weakness,” Feric added. “Cut off the head—get rid of this overseer—and the whole thing falls apart.”

“
Theoretically
… The problem is, they’re not working theoretically. What they did in Washington and Chicago coordinates perfectly with the last few chapter titles. Those episodes last week were a perfect test run for creating political chaos. And what just happened with the grain market, the economic chaos.” He paused. “Imagine when they try it on a larger scale.”

 

“Actually, it’s Trent,” she replied.

“I see,” said Votapek, his disquiet more apparent. “So many surprises.”

“It was a precaution. My role, however, isn’t important. The point is, I’m here because several people have a great deal at stake.”

“Several people? … Now,
you’ll
have to be more specific, Ms.
Trent
.”

“Jonas Tieg and Laurence Sedgewick,” she answered.

He raised his eyebrows slightly and then nodded. “I see.”

Sarah waited for more of a reaction; when none came, she said, “But those aren’t the interesting names, are they?” She knew she had no choice but to play the final gambit. “
Eisenreich
is.” She paused to give the word its full force. “Does that answer any questions?”

Votapek stood frozen, his small frame silhouetted against a backdrop of sea and sun. “Where did you get that name?”

“Assuming that there are only a select group of people who understand its relevance,” she replied, “the
where
doesn’t seem all that important.”

“Humor me, Ms. Trent.
Where?
”

Sarah stared at Votapek and then reached for her glass. “I was approached,” she answered.

“Approached? By whom?”

She slowly brought the glass to her lips and took a sip. “By someone who cares about the manuscript.” And, recalling a word from her conversation with Alison—a word uttered as if a coded signal—she added, “By someone who cares about the
process
.”

Votapek’s reaction was immediate. His head snapped toward her, eyes wide. “The
process
?” he whispered, clasping his hands together and moving slowly back to the table. “You say he approached you?”

The question carried none of the authority of only moments ago. Instead, Votapek seemed to be asking more for himself than for her.
He approached you?
she thought. Not Tieg, not Sedgewick—their names had prompted only a raise of the eyebrow. No, something else was responsible for his reaction. Something … or
someone
else. It suddenly struck her. A fourth man?

“That’s unimportant,” she added, “unless you have doubts about Sedgewick or Tieg?”

“Doubts?” he answered, still recovering from the onslaught. “That’s what you were doing in Tempsten—the extent of
my
loyalty, the depth of my
faith
.”

“Alison raises some very difficult questions, especially given how much she knows.” Sarah’s tone remained even.

“How much she knows?” The words again were half-whispered. “Alison is a child. I don’t know how she got the tape—” He cut himself off and looked at Sarah. “The man who approached you, Ms. Trent—would he have a name?”

Sarah stared directly into Votapek’s eyes, no sign of hesitation. “As I said—Eisenreich. That was the name I was given.”

“The name you were given?” An impatience colored his tone.

“Clearly, it’s not the man’s real name.” She knew it would be dangerous to press the advantage. Confirmation was enough. “And I would prefer to keep it that way. I’m not being paid enough to take that sort of risk.”

“I see. And why would this
Eisenreich
want to hire your services?”

“Because I’m very good at what I do, Mr. Votapek.”

“And that would be?”

Sarah sipped at her glass. “Given your access to State Department records, I thought you would know exactly who I am.”

“Clearly not, Ms.
Carter
. And since we’re alone, there’s no harm in you bringing me up-to-date.”

A single white gull appeared and perched on the low wall. Sarah kept her gaze on the bird as she spoke. “Five months ago, I was contacted by a researcher at the State Department—”

“Ah, then you
a
re
with the government,” Votapek broke in.

“If you dig deep enough, you’ll find that, until seven years ago, my
status
was quite different.” Another glimmer of the truth.

“Meaning?”

“I was in the field.”

Votapek paused. “
In the field
. So you were some kind of—”

“The term is irrelevant,” she interrupted without raising her voice. “Until 1990, I split my time between Europe and South America; during the Gulf War, I was in Syria and Jordan. I’m surprised you were unaware.”

“Don’t be.” Votapek’s patience was growing thin. “Syria and Jordan—in what capacity?”

“My expertise was infiltration—political and military cliques whose aim was to subvert American policy. My job was to create internal chaos so as to destroy them. My last assignment was General Safad in Jordan.”

“Safad?” Votapek had stopped, his eyes riveted on Sarah. “You mean—”

“The coup attempt.” Her face showed no emotion. “Yes.”

“You don’t strike me as the James Bond type.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You can take it any way you like.” Votapek was doing little to hide his anxiety. “And then what happened? A breach of trust, the
rogue
spy waiting to return to the field? The story’s a little dated, don’t you think?”

“It is, and it’s not mine,” her words precise, spoken without feeling. “My career ended when I lost my hold on reality.” A strange emptiness washed over her eyes as she looked up at him, “I went over the edge, Mr. Votapek. In my department, it’s called ‘dropping.’ Sorry to disappoint you, but judging from my visit with Alison, I suspect you’re familiar with what I’m talking about.”

Votapek let a long moment pass before speaking. “I see,” his tone a
mixture
of uncertainty and self-reproach.

“There’s no need for concern. I’ve recovered.”

“Yes.” Votapek was clearly uncomfortable. “Evidently.”

T
EMPE
, M
ARCH
4, 9:40
A.M
.
The smell of freshly brewed
coffee
lingered in the air, the telltale sign of a change in shift at the
operations
center. Thirty computer terminals, subdivided into rows of five, defined the various sections of the cavernous room. Samantha Doyle, an employee of six weeks, sat in front of one of the screens, waiting for the call she had been told to expect at
9:50:45
. The light on her screen flashed green.

“I’ll take this one, Karen,” she said, adjusting her headset. “Good
morning
. Southwestern Bell. This is Samantha. How may I help you?”

“Yes, good morning,” came the reply, “I’ve been having trouble with my phone. I keep receiving calls for a Mr. Eisen.”

On time to the second. “All right, sir. I do need to ask if you want this call to be recorded by my supervisor?”

“No” was the answer. “I’m sure we can handle this ourselves.”

Samantha moved her laser pen to the red recording icon on the screen; a moment later, the icon vanished. It was to be a private call. Immediately, she double-clicked her mouse and watched as a grid of the region’s phone lines appeared, each of the central relay points flashing its routing code beneath. Without waiting for confirmation, a series of input commands streamed from the voice on the other end of the line, Samantha quick to enter them, uncertain what any of it meant. Every so often, she glanced up at the supervisor’s booth to her right. No one was paying any attention. Within a minute, a small box opened in the lower-left-hand corner of the screen, zeros and ones racing by at breakneck speed. She continued to type as she was instructed until, in a sudden shift, every routing code for every relay point on the grid changed. The voice now asked her to confirm the new sets of numbers. Half a minute later, she had checked each one. A final string of commands followed.

“Now enter.”

Samantha watched as the original codes appeared again on the screen; it was as if nothing had been changed. “The routing is back,” she replied.

“Excellent,” said the voice. And with that, the line disengaged.

 

It was time to lend the story greater reality. “There isn’t a great deal to
expect
after endless months of recovery. You don’t simply ask to be
reassigned
. Not that I wanted a new station. To be honest, I didn’t know what I wanted.” Sarah let her eyes drift to Votapek, a hint of a smile on her lips. “There’s the cliché you’ve been looking for. Another? I was angry, confused—not, I’m told, unusual for someone in my situation. After
everything
we’d done, Hussein was as powerful as ever, and Jordan was a
nightmare
ready to explode. You can imagine how that might have made me feel. Everyone said it was natural to be angry, that I’d
work
through it. Their idea of work was rather vague. The man who approached me gave that work direction. How he knew to approach me, I don’t know—or why, for that matter. I’m no zealot, Mr. Votapek—and I don’t care to know who is—but things in that manuscript made sense.”

“You’ve
seen
the manuscript?” He could do little to hide his surprise.

“Bits and pieces. Enough to spark an interest. Remember, chaos is my expertise.” The reaction, though slight, was there, in his eyes, and Sarah saw it. “Not to mention that he knew a great deal about me.”

Votapek nodded, placed his glass on the table, and moved back to the wall.

“The first meetings were casual, harmless—”

“All right,” he said, turning to her, “let’s assume that you are who you say you are. You still haven’t told me what you were sent to do.”

“Confirmation.”

“Whatever that might mean.” He did little to mask his resentment. “So you
did
expect this meeting. You were planning on it.”

“In so many words, yes.”

He nodded, his eyes scanning the horizon. After nearly half a minute, he asked, “What exactly happened in New York and Florence?”

“The first, as I said, was some kind of warning. The second … is a bit more complicated.”

“Explain.”

She knew he would find out eventually. “Have you ever heard of a Professor Alexander Jaspers?” Votapek shook his head. “He was in Florence looking for the manuscript.”

“The manuscript was in
Florence?
”

“Not the original. The German translation. It’s been recovered.”