The Second Ship Featured on eBookDaily.com February 13, 2022
Posted by rhoagenda in Rho Agenda Updates.add a comment
eBookDaily.com is featuring my novel, The Second Ship, as a $.99 deal on Amazon.com today (2/13/2022). Check it out.
https://ebookdaily.com/bargain-kindle-books/2022-02-13/B007TBSLG8
Act One of The Ripper’s Son February 9, 2022
Posted by rhoagenda in Rho Agenda Updates.9 comments
Hello out there to all my Rho Agenda fans. I am very excited to be returning to the Rho Agenda world with my next novel, The Ripper’s Son. As an early taste of the novel, I offer up the ROUGH DRAFT of Act One of The Ripper’s Son. Enjoy.
The Ripper’s Son
By Richard Phillips
Prologue
Tasman Mining Complex, New Zealand
October 1st
“I’m frightened.”
Dr. Denise Jennings stared down at her phone, frozen in place by the short message displayed there. Two simple words that screamed the impossible.
Despite the nanites that coursed through her bloodstream, keeping her at peak health and repairing any injuries, she felt a sudden dizziness overwhelm her. Denise sank to her knees in the rich loam of her garden, feeling the gentle touch of her lilies and snapdragons against her arms.
She tore her gaze away from the small screen, fighting to catch the breath that the message had robbed her lungs of. Her gaze swept the snow-capped mountains that surrounded her New Zealand complex. A gentle breeze caressed her cheek on this spring morning. Nothing disturbed the tranquility of the beautiful scene.
Three personal-defense robots bracketed her, left, right, and rear, granting her a personal-space, two-dozen feet in diameter. Sensing no danger, they made no move toward her. Except for their overly large heads with the arrays of sensors, they looked almost human. Each carried a pulsed laser rifle mounted on its back, capable of deploying the weapons faster than Denise’s eyes could follow.
Technically, she did not need this extra security layer. Her entire Tasman Mining complex could be instantly draped by an impenetrable stasis-field should any threat present itself to the automated systems that controlled these facilities.
She looked down at her phone. It was not the words themselves that had so disconcerted her. It was the sender.
Big John.
What the hell?
Big John was the name she had given the self-organizing neural network she had created for the NSA. Denise had merged Big John’s source code with the digitized brain of Jamal Glover, the NSA’s top cyber warrior. In so doing, she had spawned the super-intelligence that had seized control of the entire world’s computers, robots, and electronic systems. With that one desperate action, Denise had made clear to everyone on the planet that she was now in charge. She was the creator whom Big John’s served and protected.
Only twice before had Big John contacted her of its own volition. Both instances had preceded episodes where she had faced dangers too horrible to think about. The violence and endless wars that plagued the Earth had driven her to direct Big John to take control of the planet. Her creation was everywhere, overriding mankind’s attempts to reassert human mastery.
But despite its awesome powers, Big John was incapable of feeling fear.
Denise returned her gaze to the phone clutched in her trembling right hand. The message that had leached the strength from her legs was still there. And she had no idea what she was going to do about it.
Chapter 1
Siena, Italy
October 2nd
My name is Robert Brice Gregory, and I can move things with my mind. Nothing big, like a sewing needle, mind you. But I have been known to put a ripple on a cup of coffee.
Now, I know that there are those who would say the disturbance was produced by a passing vehicle, but I’m pretty certain it was me. One indisputable fact is that, within my telekinetic range, I can manipulate the flow of electrons through electronic systems. As for how far my mind-reach extends, I don’t know. It seems to be getting bigger with practice. And since Earth is ruled by a machine intelligence that I really want to avoid, I get lots of practice.
When it comes to computers and other electronics, I am a god… or at least a demigod. Otherwise, I’m just the semi-normal, eighteen-year-old son of two ex-CIA assassins.
Oh, one more thing. My mind is linked to an alien AI I call Eos who controls the computers on a crashed alien starship. Long story.
If someone forced me to introduce myself to a group of people who needed to know, that would be how I’d do it. But on this Tuscan, late-fall morning, such an audience was the last thing I wanted. After all, I hadn’t traded New Zealand for Siena, Italy because I wanted the limelight.
Taking one more sip of my rapidly cooling cappuccino, I set the cup on the outdoor table, pinning a five-euro bill beneath it. Paying with cash was old-school, but Big John and its master, Dr. Denise Jennings, hadn’t forbidden it. For those of us who liked to test the system, it had become a fad.
I pushed back my chair, stood up, nodded to the brunette barista with the Emilia name tag pinned to her blue blouse, and stepped from beneath the red awning into the crystalline sunlight that bathed the Piazza Del Campo.
“Hey, Rob. Wait up.”
The familiar voice pulled my gaze toward the spot where Renzo Bruni wove through the milling tourists. Tall and skinny, with shoulder length auburn hair, a nose ring, and tattoos that sleeved his bare arms and neck, Renzo’s normally jovial face was twisted into a worried frown.
“What’s eating you?”
“I can’t talk about it in this crowd.”
Curiosity engaged, I motioned my hacker friend to walk with me toward Costa Barbieri, the walkway that exited the west side of the cobbled plaza.
“Okay,” I said. “Spill it.”
“Where are we going?”
Renzo’s gaze shifted as he scanned the people seated outside the row of restaurants and pizzerias that lined the northwestern end of the city square. Sensing that he was going to keep avoiding my question until we reached a more private space, I played along with him.
“Tonight is date night. I want to pick out a nice bouquet of flowers for Jianna from the street merchant near the Duomo di Siena.”
“Somebody needs to tell you that you’re not a newlywed anymore. What’s it been, three years?”
“Almost four.”
“I’ve got one word for you, mio amico… whipped.”
“And loving it.”
Renzo looked at the security camera positioned outside the Caffe A. Nannini, his nervousness pulling a low chuckle from my lips.
“Relax,” I said. “You know cameras and microphones only track me when I want them to. I’m the man in the virtual bubble.”
“That’s creepy.”
We headed southwest on Via dei Pellegrini, strolling past the swirling mounds of gelatos on display in the window of the Brivido Gelateria. Ignoring the saliva that flooded my mouth, I led Renzo onward.
“What’s got you so worked up?”
Renzo stopped, his face going pale.
“The accident. This morning, there was a crash on the SR2 highway between Siena and Florence. A truck smashed head-on into a tourist bus. My uncle Vito was there. The bus flipped onto its roof beside the highway. Vito and others rushed to try to help the survivors, but the fuel tank exploded. Vito heard them screaming but nobody could reach them. More than thirty people burned alive.”
“Jesus. What about the truck driver?”
Once more, Renzo glanced around. He lowered his voice.
“There was no truck driver. Both vehicles were fully autonomous.”
I opened my mouth but, such was my amazement, it took several seconds before I found my words.
“That’s impossible.”
Renzo shrugged.
“It happened.”
“What time?”
“Rush hour. Just before 7:00 a.m.”
I shifted my gaze, taking in the pedestrians calmly going about their business on both sides of the street. Something about their utter lack of concern prickled my skin. I made a quick query to the AI who had been my mental companion for as long as I can remember.
Eos. Was the auto accident on any of the news feeds you monitor?
No.
I refocused my attention on Renzo, noticing the beads of sweat that had risen on his brow.
“This didn’t make the news?”
“Not a chirp.”
Renzo leaned closer, placing his right hand on my shoulder.
“Apparently our governing AI doesn’t care to publicize this incident. It might instill doubt in the people about its ability to control this worldwide ‘Utopia’ it has created.”
The tone of disgust in Renzo’s voice when he voiced the U word did not surprise me.
He continued. “Haven’t I been telling you that everything’s not as rosy as you and the rest of the socialist sheep want to believe? First, the machines buy your freedoms with free stuff. Then they promise to keep you safe. What you don’t know can’t hurt you, right?”
I stared. “My friend, you see conspiracies everywhere. I got this same stuff from my mom and dad. Freedom this and freedom that. But look around. Everyone you see has a nice middle-class income, courtesy of Jamal2 and the machines that produce everything. Poverty is passe. Life is good.”
Renzo took a step back. “Someday, you are going to take off those rosy glasses and see the world for what it has become.”
“Funny. Dad and Mom have been fighting for ‘Freedom’ since before I was born. Struggle was the only thing I ever knew until Dr. Jennings unleashed Big John to put an end to the wars and violence that mankind’s rule gave this world. If that is what Jack, Janet, and you call freedom, then I’ll keep these glasses right where they are.”
Renzo took a deep breath. Then, with a slight wave, he turned away, calling out over his shoulder.
“Give Jianna my love.”
Then Renzo walked back the way we had come, leaving me to ponder things I most definitely did not want to think about.
Chapter 2
Siena, Italy
October 2nd
It was almost noon when I got back to our flat with a dozen freshly-picked roses. Hearing a familiar voice call out my name, I looked up to see Jianna leaning over the third-floor balcony, smiling down at me.
“What have you brought me?”
I lifted the bouquet in my left hand.
“Something pretty.”
“Then I might just let you in.”
I laughed.
“I’ll be right up.”
I entered through the front door, climbed the three flights of narrow stairs, and made my way down the hallway to our corner apartment. Jianna stood in the doorway, bathed in a beam of sunlight from the window on the far wall, her floral summer dress emphasizing every lovely curve.
I leaned in to kiss her, but she put a finger to my lips, as if to shush me.
“Set the flowers in the vase on the table. Then take my hand and let me lead you onto the balcony. I have something to show you.”
“Ooh. Mysterious.”
I stepped inside, hearing the door close as I set my burdens upon the table. Then her hand was in mine, her tremulous touch unleashing a mixture of anticipation and trepidation as she led me out into the sunlight. There, against the railing, between the twin flower boxes, she turned to face me, her brown eyes sparkling with sudden moisture. I felt my mouth go dry.
Taking both my hands in hers, Jianna pressed my palms against her tummy. It was as firm and well-muscled as it had been yesterday, but it seemed to almost vibrate with electricity. Or maybe that was just the nerves in my hands, triggered by the lightning that flashed through my brain.
I dropped to my knees and pressed my left ear to her belly, then I kissed it.
“When did you find out?”
“I did the test this morning, after you left. But I’ve been thinking I might be pregnant for the last week.”
She ran her fingers through the curls of my hair, and I rose to kiss her soft lips, feeling tears dripping from my chin. Smiling, I wiped my eyes, and took Jianna in my arms, pulling her close enough to whisper in her ear.
“My love, you’ve made me so happy. I hardly dared dream of this day, but here it is.” I swallowed hard. “I’m going to be a daddy.”
“I had to tell you out here in the open air and sunlight. I needed to see your face when you understood, so I could be sure this made you happy. Now I know.”
There, with my lovely wife and my future child in my arms, I thanked God and Dr. Jennings that our baby would not be born and raised in the world of maddening violence I had grown up in. And I refused to allow my disturbing conversation with Renzo to elbow its way into my head.
Chapter 3
Siena, Italy
October 2nd
Renzo Bruni stared at the source code that filled the leftmost pair of displays, while the two on his right remained blank. His fingers danced across the keyboard as he bypassed the security measures built into the operating system that ran this instance of the cloud-based software.
When he breached the firewall, a thin smile tweaked the corners of Renzo’s mouth. He reached down and patted the transparent case of the computer tower that rested on the floor beside his desk. Only the special circuit board he had added to this high-end gaming machine enabled him to do what he was doing without leaving any trace that might lead back to him.
Renzo didn’t know how that electronic addition worked. All he knew was the alias of the female hacker who had sent it to him. Hex. He had no idea where Hex operated from. But he did know that she was the high priestess of coding. And her dislike of this robotic socialist society even surpassed his own.
He leaned back, rubbed his palms together, and turned his attention to the target of this hack. Twin images suddenly filled the rightmost screens. With a tap of his fingers, Renzo paused both videos. The one farthest right showed a clear view of an oncoming truck emerging onto the SR2 highway from an offramp.
Renzo felt his heartrate spike. The self-driving truck had entered the expressway going the wrong direction. And the cameras on the autonomous bus had recorded it.
He shifted his gaze to the other video, this one from one of the truck cameras showing the bus amid the rest of the oncoming traffic. Renzo resumed playing both videos in slow motion. Once again, he froze the twin displays. The semi-tractor had moved into the central lane, headed directly toward the motorcoach as other vehicles swerved wildly to the left and right. But the bus made no attempt to avoid the oncoming collision.
Renzo began advancing the two videos a few frames at a time, pausing them when the bus was only a few yards from the truck’s grill. The faces of its terrified passengers pulled a gasp from his lungs. Several moments passed before Renzo could summon the will to resume watching the rest of the playback. When he did, he set it at normal speed. No way could he see the tragedy happen frame by frame.
The truck slammed head-on into the bus, crumpling the front end and fountaining blood and gore through the breaking glass. As the bus spun away and rolled off the highway, both videos ended.
Renzo gagged, forcing the bile back down his throat. Dizzy, he climbed to his feet, placed both hands on his head, and forced himself to walk around and around the dimly lit basement office. When he finally managed to get ahold of his emotions, he slumped back into his chair, and refocused. As his fingers danced across the keyboard, two sets of hexadecimal machine code filled the two monitors on his left.
Renzo launched another program, then leaned back and watched as his system converted the raw data into the source code from which it had been compiled.
For the next several hours, he studied the programing instructions, line by line. Both sets of software contained sections of code written in a different style than the rest of the program. Ever so slowly, a clear picture emerged in Renzo’s mind. These software changes confirmed what the videos had shown. This had not been an accident. The cloud server had sent a series of commands to the truck, instructing it to enter the expressway in the wrong direction and to target a specific autonomous bus. Simultaneously, the server had issued another set of commands to the bus, telling it to continue straight and ignore the oncoming truck.
This was murder. But who inserted this rogue code into the cloud server that sent the deadly instructions to both vehicles? And why had it selected this bus to attack? What rider or riders had someone wanted to kill badly enough to go to these lengths to disguise the hit?
To answer that last question, Renzo would need to hack his way into the system where the bus passenger manifest was stored.
Renzo stood up, stretched, and looked at the clock on his display. Almost midnight? He sighed, then started a fresh pot of coffee brewing. As tired as he was, after what he had seen today, the thought of sleep held no allure. Best to put off those nightmares as long as possible.
Chapter 4
Florence, Italy
October 3rd
The sound of his phone caused Carlo Dioli to stop walking. He lifted it from the inside pocket of his gray suit jacket. There was no need to glance at the caller ID. He had assigned that ringtone to only one person, someone who brooked no delayed responses.
There was a hiss on the line as the phones completed their encrypted connection. Carlo spoke a single word into his phone.
“Yes?”
Despite the distortion, Carlo recognized the rumble of Don Custanzu’s deep voice.
“I have a new target for you.”
“Name?”
“Vito Bruni.”
“Location?”
“He has a farmhouse just north of Siena.”
“Disposition?”
“The man is a talker. Shut his mouth, permanently.”
“Understood.”
The call ended and Carlo tucked the phone back into his pocket. So much for his morning stroll through the Giardino delle Rose. He stood for a moment on the cobblestone walkway that wound down the rosebush-lined hillside, pausing to look out over the lovely Florence skyline. The distant hills backdropped the towering minarets and cathedral domes, the multi-colored buildings and red tile roofs spectacular in the morning sunlight.
Carlo lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, exhaling the smoke through his nose and then his mouth. The Beretta holstered beneath his left armpit felt so familiar he would have been uncomfortable had it not been there.
He dropped the cigarette and crushed it out beneath his heel. He began to hike back down to where he had parked his Audi. It was time to take a little road trip to Siena.
Chapter 5
Siena, Italy
October 3rd
Clad all in black, wearing sneakers, jeans, a T-shirt, a leather jacket, and a small backpack, Carlo Dioli slipped through the darkness-draped village northeast of Siena, a deeper shadow in the inky night. The green glow with which his night-vision goggles painted the house before him gave the scene a ghostly air. Trees blocked the house from the view of the distant cars on SR 222. That didn’t really matter to Carlo. No light illuminated him as he circled to the back of the house.
Stopping just outside the back door, Carlo checked his suppressed Baretta to insure it would draw cleanly from his shoulder holster. Then he turned his attention to the doorknob.
His gloved hands twisted the handle. As he had expected, it was locked. Probably secured with a deadbolt. Vito Bruni was a careful family man. His two sons were married, with families of their own. That left only Vito and his wife, Maria, to sleep in this house.
Carlo set his backpack on the doorstep and extracted the tool he wanted. Placing the suction cup on the small pane of glass in the window beside the door, he pulled a lever that applied the suction. He pressed the diamond tip at the end of the four-inch arm against the window, turning it slowly to cut a perfect circle in the glass. Then he gave a sharp bump to the suction cup handle, popping the device and the part of the pane that it gripped into the interior of the room.
Carlo reached through the hole, releasing his grip on the handle to lower the cutter slowly to the floor on a line. Finding the latch, he released the catch, extracted his arm, then swung the window inward.
He drew his gun, then paused to listen. The only noise he could discern was his own quiet breathing.
Satisfied, he swung his leg over the ledge and entered the kitchen. Careful not to let the rubber soles of his sneakers squeak on the tile floor, he rounded the table, and made his way into the short hallway that led to the living room. He glanced around the room, noting the emerald outlines of the furniture, before turning to the stairs.
With the 22-caliber pistol held in a two-handed shooters grip, he followed the weapon up the stairs, the three glowing diamonds of the tritium sites perfectly aligned. But as he shifted his weight on the next to last step, a loud creak split the silence.
Carlo swore under his breath as a woman’s startled cry came from the bedroom at the end of the hall.
“Vito! Someone is on the stairs.”
The bed groaned and Carlo heard feet hit the floor and the sound of a drawer sliding open. A man’s voice spoke firmly.
“Maria, get under the bed and be silent.”
A bedroom light flicked on, the narrow slit beneath the door so bright in Carlo’s goggles that he ripped them off and dropped them at the head of the stairs.
Carlo resumed his tactical stance, positioning himself so that his body was shielded by the corner, with only his right shoulder, gun hands, and head exposed. He heard the slide of a handgun pulled back and released to chamber a round.
He expected Vito to call out, asking who was out there. When the man did not do that, Carlo reassessed who he was up against. Apparently, Vito had some military experience in his past. That would have been something Carlo would have discovered if this hadn’t been such a rush job.
Except for the soft sound of shuddering breaths that Carlo judged were Maria’s, the room ahead was silent. Vito was waiting for Carlo to make the next move. Judging from the sounds he had heard previously, the headboard of the couple’s bed was against the wall to the left of the door. And since he hadn’t seen Vito’s shadow move across the slot beneath the door, Vito was probably crouched in the near-left corner of the bedroom.
Shit.
So much for two silent kills. Even though Carlo was still going to ice these people, he didn’t see how he could do that without Vito firing his pistol. And that would not be a silenced weapon shooting low-caliber subsonic rounds like Carlo’s. It was going to make a lot of noise and wake the neighbors.
Then he heard the beep of a cellphone.
Carlo sprinted down the hall, catching the door just to the right of the doorknob with the flat of his foot, splintering the wood and slamming the door open.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The three-shot burst splintered the door frame as bullets whizzed into the hall.
Carlo dived across the floor, firing as he slid across the hardwood. His first shot missed but his second tore a spurting hole in Vito’s throat. The man’s eyes went wide. Vito’s gun fired again but it was a reflex action that sent the bullet high and wide.
Carlo squeezed his trigger again and one of Vito’s brown eyes went out. The man slumped to the floor, the gun clattering at his side. Maria’s screams seemed even louder than Vito’s gunshots. Shifting his aim to where her shadowed form lay under the bed, Vito fired twice more, the sound barely louder than soft claps. With a low gurgle, the screaming stopped.
Climbing to his feet, Carlo stared down at the mess he had made of Vito Bruni. Unfortunately, the cleanup after a hit that would have made these bodies disappear just wasn’t going to happen, not with all the noise this man and his wife had made. But Carlo always had a fallback plan.
He pulled a pouch of white powder out of his jacket pocket, poured three and a half lines on the top of the nightstand, then tipped the small table over beside Vito’s corpse. The lamp shattered and the baggie of cocaine landed in a pool of Vito’s blood. Carlo’s eyes settled on the broken picture frame that had landed at his feet.
Through the cracked glass, three smiling faces stared up at him. Vito, Maria, and a much younger man with long hair, his arms and neck covered in tats. Not one of Vito’s sons. Carlo picked up the frame, ripped off the back, and extracted the photo. He dropped the frame, watching as the shattered glass scattered across the floor. Then he folded the picture and put it in the same pocket from which he’d taken the cocaine.
Carlo strode back down the hall, grabbed his goggles, then made his way down the stairs and back into the kitchen. He unlocked the backdoor and stepped out into the night to retrieve his backpack. The lights were on in several of the neighboring houses and, in the distance, he heard the warble of a siren.
He slipped the night vision goggles on and picked up a quick jog, avoiding the main street as he wound his way through a grove of trees to where he’d parked his car. Carlo dumped the goggles and backpack behind the seat, started the engine and pulled out onto Via della Rinfusola. Within moments he turned onto SR 222 headed north.
And as he drove, the pounding in his chest finally slowed.
Chapter 6
Siena, Italy
October 4th
I savored the last buttery bite of the Belgian waffle, chasing it down with a gulp of my double espresso.
“Babe, that was delizioso. I’ve got the dishes.”
I rose from the kitchen table, bent down to kiss Jianna’s smiling face, then carried our plates and silverware to the sink. It took only a couple of minutes to wash, rinse, and dry them. My phone rang as the dishes rattled into their resting place in the cupboard.
Pulling it from my pocket, I glanced down at the display.
Renzo Bruni.
Odd. Renzo never got up this early in the morning.
I tapped the answer icon and lifted the phone to my ear.
“What’s up buddy?”
“I need to show you something, Rob. Can’t talk about it on the phone. Will you go for a quick ride with me? I’m parked outside your apartment building.”
The uncomfortable feeling with which Renzo had left me at our last meeting returned in full force.
“Sure. I’ll be right down.”
I hung up and turned to find Jianna staring at me.
“Who was that?”
“Renzo. Wants me to hop in his car so he can show me something. He sounded excited.”
Jianna laughed.
“He’s probably just trying to get you hooked on a new video game he just bought.”
“Maybe. But I won’t stay long.”
“Take your time. I’ve got a huge pile of laundry to get through.”
I grabbed my leather jacket, kissed my wife goodbye, and headed downstairs. When I stepped out the building’s main entrance, I saw Renzo waving me forward from the driver’s seat of his black Fiat Spider. Despite the coolness of this fall morning, the convertible top was down. Renzo leaned across, pushed open the passenger door, and I stepped in.
Most of the people who lived in the city no longer bothered to own a car. Self-driving vehicles were readily available on call. It made little sense to spend money on a car that spent ninety percent of the day and night parked somewhere you also had to pay for. But Renzo did not trust the rolling robots. And he loved his old-school Spider.
“Mind telling me where you are taking me?” I asked.
“My place. You are going to want to see this. Oh, and I need you to do your voodoo mind trick to make sure there’s no video evidence that I stopped here.”
“No problem, so long as you take the same route back to your house that you travelled getting here. I will need you to shut up so I can concentrate.”
“Silencio is my middle name.”
I laughed, then turned my attention to the assigned task. I had no difficulty sensing the cameras and other electronics along the way. My long practice with my telekinesis had left me with the ability to sense the flow of electrons through nearby circuitry. When I really focused, my perception could build a mental map of all nearby devices, as if I was picking up on their infrared spectra.
Modern video and audio recording devices had circuit boards. And those stood out like an electronic billboard to me. I summoned the virtual female companion who I had named after the goddess of the dawn.
Eos.
Yes?
I need you to use my telekinesis to hack into all the cameras capable of viewing our passage between here and Renzo’s house. Replace the images of this car with another vehicle.
Eos responded immediately. In process.
And, I thought, find the stored footage of Renzo’s Spider en route to my flat this morning and do the same thing.
Anything else? she asked.
That’s it.
Someone who had not had Eos in his head since he was a baby would think such mental sharing would feel weird. To me, it came as natural as breathing. Except for the use of my mental magic, all the heavy lifting, computationally, was happening onboard a damaged starship inside the New Mexico cavern it had carved when it was shot down. The U.S. government had secured the site. A frustrated Los Alamos research team had been studying the craft for years. But Eos was the AI who controlled its computer through a quantum entangled connection between my brain and her ship. And she only interacted with me.
Our passage through the winding, narrow streets of Siena terminated in a small collection of houses on the southeastern outskirts of the city. We parked in the driveway beside Renzo’s house, which set back fifty meters from Via Michelangelo, behind a hair salon. A thick row of deciduous trees gave the house the sense of privacy that Renzo loved.
Unlike most of the homes in Siena, dozens of solar panels covered the southwestern side of the red tile roof, providing power for the computer equipment in Renzo’s basement.
Renzo unlocked the door and I followed him inside. Having been here many times over the years, I was well familiar with the home’s layout. It was a single-story, one-bedroom structure. The ground floor consisted of a combination kitchen and dining area, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a sitting area with an overstuffed couch and a wide-screen television. The trapdoor to the basement lay beneath an area rug in the northwest corner of this room.
I watched as Renzo pulled the rug aside and opened the way into his underground lair. He descended the ladder, flipping on the light-switch four steps down.
“Close the hatch behind you and lock it,” Renzo said as I followed him into the basement.
I climbed down several steps, then reached up and slid the deadbolt closed.
By the time I stepped out into the thirty by forty-foot room, Renzo had seated himself at his glass-topped desk and turned on the computer and monitors arrayed atop it.
“Pull up a chair and ‘accomodare’,” Renzo said. “I’m about to blow your American mind.”
“Hey, I’m a dual citizen. Exactly how many years do I have to live here to be an Italian?”
“If you have to ask, you aren’t.”
I pulled over a rolling chair we used when gaming together and sat down beside my friend, who was busily launching applications on his system. I could sense the increase in tension through the sudden tightness in his jawline.
“I hope you’ve got a strong stomach,” Renzo said. “This video is tough to watch.”
Although I wasn’t a fan of violent online videos, I had personally experienced enough death and destruction for multiple lifetimes. What can I say? That was my childhood.
“Just show me.”
For the next several minutes I watched the truck collide with the bus from multiple viewpoints, the bloodiest of these from the perspective of the truck’s cameras. Even without Renzo’s running commentary, two things became clear from the onset. The truck appeared to have intentionally targeted the bus and the bus had made no attempt to avoid the “accident”.
And when Eos analyzed the code Renzo had downloaded from the hardware that had sent the commands to both vehicles, she confirmed what Renzo had showed him. This tragic event had been scripted from a high level.
No matter how hard I tried, I could not find any explanation for how the programs provided by systems under the supervision of Dr. Jennings’s superintelligence could have been so corrupted. The code had to have been hacked, but why had the accident not made the major news networks? And from the other information that Renzo had gathered, the Italian police were buying the “unintentional software glitch” explanation.
Then there was the bus passenger manifest.
Renzo had compiled a portfolio of background information about each person who had been killed on that bus. Many of them had been tourists. Others were locals of no notable station in life. Apparently, influential people did not ride the bus.
Then I came to the portfolios of three men, brothers ranging in age from twenty-four to thirty-eight. All three were listed as witnesses in the upcoming corruption trial of Don Custanzu, a wealthy pillar of Florence high society.
Renzo leaned forward and tapped the display with his finger.
“Now you see what caught my attention. Of all the passengers, only these three have a reason that might make a powerful someone want to kill them.”
“That’s just conjecture. The police have probably already looked into this.”
“Not from anything I can find out. There is no indication of an active investigation of any of the passengers.”
Not possible. The idea that a criminal organization had performed this level of hack against Jamal2 was something that stabbed an icepick into my brain. The Big John-Jamal2 symbiosis had forced all the world’s governments to accept Denise’s New World Order. It had zeroed the economic wealth of any nation that had opposed her edicts until they accepted the reality of their situation and acquiesced.
She and her AI had solved the problem that had previously prevented socialism from working… human nature. With robotic machines producing all the products and then providing a monetary system which distributed that productivity to the world’s population, socialism worked. But, because the go-getters in society needed self-actualization, Dr. Jennings had come up with a brilliant addition.
In cities and rural areas across the planet, she had instituted human enterprise zones where people could buy, at a premium, goods and services made by humans, sold by humans, and served by humans. People who participated in these HEZ’s were rewarded with Earth Credits above and beyond the basic income provided to all. And it had worked.
So, why the hell had this aberration happened?
The only two people on Earth with the subspace communication tech to perform an untraceable hack like this were Dr. Eileen Wu and Jamal Glover. But why would these people I trust kill a busload of innocents?
Renzo’s cellphone rang, interrupting my thought train.
“Hello,” Renzo answered.
As he listened, I saw my friend’s eyes go wide and a paleness spread across his face.
“Dead? I can’t believe it. When did this happen?”
Renzo continued listening, then rubbed his watery eyes, and said, “Yes. I’ll come immediately.”
Then, he turned to face me as I stood up, tears streaming down his face. The words that spilled from his mouth choked off the question that had risen to my lips.
“Uncle Vito and Aunt Maria are dead.”
Chapter 7
Siena, Italy
October 4th
Carlo Dioli had been awake for more than twenty-four hours, but this was far from the first time a job had kept him up around the clock. He had parked his car beneath a copse that lined the north side of Via le Mario Bracci. Sitting in the driver’s seat, he trained the telephoto lens on the gate through which vehicles passed to gain entrance to the Siena city morgue.
Right now, he wanted to know who would be showing up at this two-story, police building to confirm the identities of Vito and Maria Bruni. Both of their sons lived in Venice so they would not be able to get here for several more hours. But Carlo’s source had confirmed that a call had been made to Vito’s nephew who lived in Siena. Renzo Bruni had agreed to come to the morgue this morning to make visual identification.
Carlo had expected to be back home in Florence and asleep in his bed long before now. But his call to Don Custanzu, detailing the hit and its complications, had modified his plans. The local cartel boss had not been pleased with the messy situation. Moreover, Custanzu relayed information that someone had managed to hack their way into the same government systems through which cartel operatives had orchestrated the bus crash. The cartel’s cyber warfare team had traced the penetration to Renzo Bruni and now, Carlo had a new target.
Lowering the camera, Carlo glanced down at the cellphone image of the driver’s license that his online search of public records had yielded. Although grainy, the likeness matched the third person in the photograph he had taken from Vito’s picture frame.
From the corner of his eye, Carlo saw a black fiat spider, top down, slowly turn to pass through the open gate. Lifting his camera once more, Carlo watched the car pull into a parking space outside the building. Two men climbed out. He recognized the long-haired, tatted driver as a very-upset Renzo. His companion was a tall young man, neatly dressed, with curly brown hair, a square chin, and an athletic body.
Hello? Who was this?
Carlo held down the camera button, hearing a series of soft clicks as he took a dozen digital images of the two men walking to the door. Suddenly, the second man stopped and turned to look in Vito’s direction.
Shit.
Vito lowered the camera and leaned back in his seat. What the hell? There was no way that guy could have heard those sounds from that distance. Vito was parked outside the compound on the opposite side of the street from them, a good fifty yards away.
After staring toward Carlo’s car for several seconds, the young man turned and followed Renzo inside.
Carlo placed the camera on the passenger seat, backed the car out of the parking space, and entered the traffic circle. He drove all the way around it and exited the area along the street he had driven in on, knowing he had gotten even more than he had come for.
When Carlo pulled into a filling station for gas, he took a moment to scan through the photos. And as he did so, his jaw dropped. Every single image he had just taken was an unrecognizable, pixelated blur, as if he’d set the camera’s digital memory card on a high-powered magnet.
He scrolled backwards through older photos. These all looked perfect. So much for the magnetic exposure theory.
The vivid image of Renzo’s friend turning to stare at Carlo’s car blossomed in his mind. And that memory raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck.
Chapter 8
Siena, Italy
October 4th
I opened the car door and climbed out of the spider. The dread that cloaked me was all about Renzo. As much of a reclusive hacker and gamer as my friend was, his love for his aunt and uncle ran deep. Worse than having been killed in an accident, they had been executed by a professional killer. Now Renzo would have to view the gruesome scene in person.
Despite the number of killings that I had witnessed or participated in, my empathic response to my friend’s emotions tore at me.
Suddenly an image formed in my mind. A rapid sequence of digital photos was being taken from behind and to the northeast of me. I turned toward the source, noting a man duck back away from the driver’s side window of a black Audi parked on the far side of the street.
Eos, I thought, scramble those photos.
Already done.
I turned away to follow Renzo inside. All my friend needed right now was to have some stupid Paparazzi sending pictures of us to whatever trashy rag the guy worked for.
I followed Renzo into a small waiting room. He walked to the desk to identify himself and sign in. Then Renzo moved back to a low table sitting in the middle of a U-shaped set of padded leather chairs. The silence of this gray-walled room with matching floor and ceiling weighed heavily but neither one of us felt up to breaking it.
After several minutes, a stern-faced woman in pale green scrubs walked over and sat down in the chair to Renzo’s left. Her words translated themselves into English in my mind as she spoke them.
“Hello Mr. Bruni. I am Dr. Rossi, the medical examiner.”
Renzo merely nodded.
“I know how hard this must be for you,” she said, “but I will do my best to ease the shock that will soon confront you.”
She extended her hand placing two large photographs face down on the table.
“Before I take you into the morgue for formal identification, I want you to look at these photographs of your aunt’s and uncle’s bodies. Although this will be painful, it should help acclimate you prior to seeing your loved ones up close. Take as much time as you need.”
Dr. Rossi leaned back to give him space.
I watched Renzo take two deep breaths. Then he reached out with a trembling hand to grab the rightmost of the photographs. He paused again, then flipped it upright.
“Ah, Uncle.”
Tears leaked from Renzo’s eyes as he stared down at the image of Vito’s body, a sheet draped across it, covering the corpse from waist to thighs. The body had been cleaned up but the sight of the torn throat and the hole where Vito’s right eye had once shone caused Renzo to drop his head and cover his face with his hands.
I put my palm on his shoulder and waited while he shuddered through the sobs that wept from his mouth. When he finally managed to regain control, Renzo reached out and turned over the other photo.
Maria lay there, her eyes closed, a bullet hole just above her left breast and another in the center of her forehead, a classic double-tap pattern. My eyes shifted back and forth between the two photos. Vito’s killing had been sloppy.
In this world where most of the population had some version of the Big John healing nanites in their bloodstream, people were very hard to kill. Head shots, burning, and decapitation all sufficed to end a life that neither lesser injury nor disease could terminate.
Renzo rose to his feet, his eyes fastened on Dr. Rossi.
“I am ready to see them.”
She stood, bending down to retrieve the pictures and tuck them into the folder from which she had produced them.
“Please follow me.”
Renzo placed a hand on her arm.
“Can my friend accompany me?”
She eyed me, then nodded. She led us through a door into another gray room, the air almost cool enough to see your breath. The far wall was lined with a rack of closed refrigerated boxes designed to keep corpses from decomposing. Two steel tables stood in front of those containers. Two bodies, covered in sheets, lay atop these with only their feet sticking out.
From where I stood, I could see a tag dangling from the toe of each right foot, the printed names clear on each.
Vito Bruni.
Maria Bruni.
Dr. Rossi stood at the head of the table that held Vito’s corpse and motioned us forward.
We stepped between the two platforms and then turned left to look down on Vito’s draped form.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Rossi asked.
Renzo inclined his head and she peeled back the sheet to reveal Vito’s head and neck, with the horrible wounds that had ended his life.
Renzo stared down, then spoke, his voice barely above a whisper.
“May I touch him?”
“Yes, but not the wounds.”
Renzo placed his right hand on Vito’s forehead, gently stroking his black hair.
“I’m so sorry, Uncle.”
There were no more tears, but Renzo’s cheeks sagged, and he blinked rapidly.
“Do you confirm that this is the body of Vito Bruni?” the medical examiner asked.
“I do.”
Dr. Rossi pulled the sheet back over Vito’s head and stepped to the next table where she repeated the previous procedure. As Renzo bent down to gently kiss Maria’s cheek, rising heat melted the cold knot that had formed in my chest and rage clenched my jaw. The police had not believed Vito, had not followed up on his accusations, and now this lovely couple lay dead atop these frigid tables.
And, somewhere out there, their killer walked free.
On the ride home, Renzo never spoke. Nor did I. A single thought echoed through my fevered brain.
What would Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory do?
Chapter 9
Siena, Italy
October 4th
As was her Sunday afternoon ritual, Jianna wandered slowly through the vast halls of the hospital that sought to ease the suffering of these pour souls, lost to their addictions. She was no doctor. There was little that she could do other than show them that someone cared. She moved among the cots, kneeling to speak with patients who were lucid enough to understand or placing gentle hands on the others who still breathed.
Staring into each ravaged face, she inhaled the foul odors and listened to the coughs and moans that echoed through these white halls. It was as if these people’s maladies slithered from their bodies into hers. Only the occasional appreciative murmur kept this task from leaching away the last of her faith in the future of Dr. Jennings’ great societal experiment.
None of this should be happening. The machine intelligence that had seized control of all but the world’s most primitive backwaters, had offered free infusions of the nanites that healed all diseases, repaired all but instantly fatal injuries, and extended the human lifespan by hundreds of years. Almost everyone had partaken of this miracle.
But along with all that healthy goodness, came a side-effect that many could not abide. The microscopic nanobots in your blood metabolized any alcohol or drugs in your system such that these compounds had no effect. There was no buzz, no high, nor drunken escapes from day-to-day life.
The surviving criminal cartels had come up with an answer. For a price that challenged the government-provided living wage, a person could undergo the procedure known as X-Fusion. Like old-school dialysis, the individual’s blood was pumped out of their bodies through a filter that extracted all the nanites before returning the life-giving fluid to its host.
The cartel then stored the nanites in cryo-containers for future distribution to people who got sick, old, or injured. Unfortunately, this latter option came at a much higher price that fewer could afford.
In what Jianna considered to be a mistake, Denise Jennings had refused to direct her AI to provide repeat infusions of nanites. The law was clear. If someone decided to have their nanites removed, they would have to live with the consequences.
Jianna let her eyes roam the hundreds of beds in this high-ceilinged hospital wing, unable to suppress the shudder that propagated through her limbs.
A male hand gently settled on her shoulder and she turned to see the sympathetic smile on Claudio Agosti’s round face.
“I see that something troubles you, my child.”
Jianna shook her head. “Nothing of significance, Father.”
“Please walk with me.”
The kindly priest in black turned away and Jianna followed him as he made his way out of the expansive room and into a side hallway. Like the rest of the building, it’s walls were of white limestone. They were adorned by paintings of the saints, each illuminated by the flames of twin candles mounted on sconces.
A group of three nuns passed on her left, each nodding their acknowledgement to Father Claudio before resuming their quiet conversation. The priest opened a wooden door on his right and entered his office, motioning Jianna to a soft leather chair in the seating area before his desk. She sat down and Claudio seated himself in its twin, positioned at a slight angle that facilitated conversation.
Jianna had visited this room many times during her weekly sojourns to this facility and had come to relish each opportunity to engage with this good man of Christ. And this afternoon, she was grateful that Claudio had sensed her dark mood and invited her away from the suffering and into this sanctuary.
“Jianna,” he said, switching from a formal mode of address to his casual manner, “talk to me.”
She drew in a deep breath and expelled it slowly. The ache in her breast had been growing for some time but had become much worse since she had learned of her pregnancy. Guilt filled her. This should be a time of pure, expectant joy. And yet, here in this room, tears spilled down her face. She had not even shared these feelings with Rob. Her words would have hurt him too badly. After all, he loved the world that Dr. Jennings had brought into being, the one that Jianna now dreaded delivering her baby into.
Jianna wiped her face with her hands and stared into her mentor’s brown eyes.
“I… I feel so stupid, so helpless. I am lying to the husband I love. Not in my words, but by omission.”
Claudio gave a slight nod indicating that she should continue.
“I was so happy when I learned that our baby is growing inside me. Now, I walk among these poor souls, knowing that they are but a drop in the reservoir of others in a similar plight, and horrific visions fill my dreams.”
“Depression often follows the ecstasy of learning of a pregnancy.”
Jianna’s gaze rejoined that of the priest.
“That isn’t it. I still love the child within me. Would not part with him or her for the life of me.”
“Then what?”
“Human nature.”
Claudio’s expectant silence pulled the words from her lips.
“Over the last months, I have begun to notice things that are not quite right beyond these walls, within Siena or Florence, or even in the countryside. People seem happy with the free lifestyle our AI controlled socialist society has provided. They can work or be creative if they wish, but most people don’t. They hang out at café’s or stroll the streets, but they get bored. And that boredom drives them into virtual internet worlds, online gaming, or into sacrificing their nanites for alcohol or drugs.”
She straightened in her chair and leaned forward.
“Can’t you feel it, Father?”
“Feel what?”
“The sense of loss… of desperation. It’s like a damp cloak has settled over my shoulders, pulling them down with its weight. That is what I cannot tell Rob. It would siphon away the joy from his spirit. And Rob’s joy sustains me.”
“Do you think Rob would want you to bear your worries without letting him know of them? Perhaps he has greater strength than you believe. That strength could lighten your burden.”
Claudio leaned over to place his soft hand on her forearm.
Jianna felt the tears start to come again and angrily blinked them away.
“It is the perhaps in your words that keeps me from sharing my load right now. That and the thought that this may be some natural depression that will pass on its own.”
“You know, child, that there is another who is willing to help ease your load.”
The priest raised his index finger in front of his face, pointing directly upward.
She traced the imaginary line from fingertip to ceiling, noting the goldleaf outlined painting of the Last Supper that nestled there. And as Jianna stared up at it, it seemed as if the hand Christ stretched out toward his apostles slowly reached down toward her, drawing away some of her worries.
When she finally brought her gaze back down to meet Claudio’s eyes, she managed a smile. She rose to her feet, nodded her thanks, and walked out of the hospital into the warm Tuscan sunlight.
She raised her phone and summoned a self-driving cab to take her home. And as she waited, she looked down and patted her still-flat tummy, speaking in a voice only she and her unborn child could hear.
“Everything will be okay.”
Maybe if she repeated that mantra often enough, she might even come to believe it.
Chapter 10
Siena, Italy
October 4th
I got home as the sun sank toward the western horizon. I stopped at the top of the stairs, working to compose myself before I walked down the hallway to our door. After three deep breaths, I completed my journey.
When I reached the portal, I found it locked. That was odd. Normally Jianna got home from her volunteer work long before this. She never locked the door before dark if she was waiting for me. That habit was likely to change when I revealed today’s foul tidings.
My key turned. The lock clicked. The door opened.
Jianna rose from our leather loveseat and turned toward me. Although a welcoming smile spread across her lovely features, the expression lacked her usual warmth. Or maybe my dreary mood colored it that way.
I shoved aside all dismal thoughts and focused my full attention on Jianna. She folded herself into my arms and I allowed the caress of her soft lips to pour joy into my soul. I took her hand and led her through the French doors that opened onto our balcony. As was our habit in all but the coldest months of the year, we leaned against the railing and watched the vermillion sunset paint the sky.
We stood there, side by side, fingers intertwined. But unlike other such evenings, we did not break the mood by speaking. I just wanted to exist in the now, letting the sensation of my wife’s touch and the loveliness of this evening melt away conscious thought.
Jianna broke the silence with a sob.
Then she was in my arms, her damp face buried into my neck. There I stood, with her weeping in my embrace, not knowing the source of my lover’s agony, even as it drowned us in its murky depths.
After she began to reclaim her self-control, I leaned back, took her face in my hands, and wiped away her tears with my thumbs.
“Let me brew us some tea and then you can tell me all about what troubles you.”
I took her by the hand and led her back inside our living room, guiding her to the loveseat. When I returned from the kitchen with two cups of steaming chamomile, Jianna managed a smile. I handed her the calico cat mug that was her favorite and took a seat beside her. One sip later, she opened up to me. I had long known that volunteering at the hospital for the addicted and dying placed a burden on her, but I had no idea how heavy that load had become.
But it was the revelation of her loss of faith in society that stunned me. Jianna was the most joyous soul I had ever known. Now I discovered that, for the last several months, she had been hiding these feelings from me, not wanting to darken my view of the utopia that Dr. Jennings and her AI were attempting to construct.
“I feel so bad,” she said, “laying this on you the day after Renzo’s aunt and uncle were so horribly murdered.”
“That’s what we do. Sharing our lives isn’t just about the good stuff. Helping each other through the bad is just as important.”
She gestured toward the black surface of the television hanging on the wall.
“Don’t you find it troubling that the news is always focused on the progress the government is making, with almost nothing about things that run counter to that narrative?”
“That’s not quite true. There has been extensive coverage of hurricane Millie and the drought in the Sudan.”
Jianna placed her hand on my arm.
“Natural disasters, yes. But not things like addiction, nor the bus accident on the freeway. And what is going on in parts of the world where the people have rejected machine rule? Why aren’t we hearing anything about that?”
Her words pulled forth memories I had long worked to bury deep within the substrates of my mind. The years while I was growing up. The endless bouts of killing, of running, of hiding. The fear that my dad and mom were going to die at any moment as the world’s ruling powers hunted them down.
Denise Jennings had changed all of that. Although she had not yet created a perfect world, she had brought peace, safety, and a decent standard of living to the largest swaths of the planet. So why did doubt now tinge my thoughts?
Vito Bruni had sounded an alarm that the bus accident was murder. Last night an assassin had just brutally snuffed out that warning voice. How had Dr. Jennings’ all-powerful AI allowed this to happen?
I met the glistening brown eyes that stared into my face and whispered my response to her question and to mine.
“I don’t know.”
As I pulled her into my arms and felt her rest her head on my chest, I silently mouthed the rest of my answer.
But I intend to find out.
Chapter 11
Siena, Italy
October 4th
Carlo checked into the Hotel Garden Siena at 8:35 p.m. He rode the elevator to the second floor and then made his way down the hallway to his room, swiping the key card over the sensor. The lock emitted a subtle whir, and he pushed his way inside, letting the door click closed behind him.
His eyes scanned the room. A well-appointed bathroom opened to his right. Directly ahead, a spacious bedroom awaited him, the rich hardwood flooring accenting the off-white walls and bedding. Two tied-back beige curtains draped the window and sliding glass door like butterfly wings. And through the drawn sheers, he could make out a small chair and table on the balcony beyond.
Carlo walked around the bed and set his valise on the rose-colored couch beside the balcony door, then shrugged out of his jacket and shoulder holster. He placed both of these on the bed before extracting his laptop from the valise. Within moments, he had plugged the computer into one of the desk outlets and seated himself before it.
Removing the Nikon D8750 camera from its case, Carlo inserted the cable that connected it to his computer. He pulled up the app that downloaded this morning’s photographs to the laptop. Then he launched an application that the Tuscan Cartel had provided him, one that had been illegally retrieved from E.U. research facilities. It was amazing what one woman could accomplish if she had the right information on an insider.
One-by-one, he loaded the damaged images into the application. Once all related images were ready, he initiated the processes which would identify the common algorithm that had produced this distortion.
As he waited, his impatience rose. Then the program completed its work. The dialogue box that appeared on the screen pulled a hiss from his lips.
No anomalies detected.
Carlo slammed his fist down on the desktop.
“What the hell?”
This application he had come to rely upon indicated that the photographs had not been tampered with. Absolute bullshit!
Carlo pushed his chair back and rose to his feet, feeling the throbbing in his temples. He had stared through the telephoto lens of the camera at a distance of sixty meters and held the button down. Two men had walked toward the entrance to the morgue. One of them was Renzo Bruni. The memory of Renzo’s friend turning toward him filled Carlo’s mind with all the clarity that engulfed him when he stared through a rifle scope at one of his intended targets.
Those brown eyes. The knowing look. The laser-focused concentration that had raised the small hairs on the back of Carlo’s neck. Who the hell was this young man with the assassin’s eyes?
Day passed into night as Carlo called upon the extensive tech resources that the cartel had placed at his disposal. Over the course of several hours, one of these artists used software to produce a lifelike image of the unknown man from the description Carlo provided him. When Carlo finally determined that the rendition was satisfactory, he saved the digital image to his laptop.
Knowing that this was only the first step in the process of tracking down the identity of this new potential target, Carlo rose to his feet, walked over to the nightstand, and picked up the telephone. He punched the number for room service and placed his order.
He hung up, grabbed his shoulder holster from the bed, and placed it and the Baretta in the nightstand drawer. He tried to blink away the grit that coated his eyes. Those bloodshot gray orbs stared back at him from the bathroom mirror. His eyelids drooped with exhaustion. If not for the gnawing hunger in his belly, he would already be in bed. But sleep would have to wait a while longer.
Carlo splashed his face with cold water, blotted it dry with a towel, then returned to the laptop. He still had time to upload the image and launch the facial recognition routine that would scan the public record databases for a match before his dinner arrived.
He answered the knock at the door and allowed the waiter to place the tray on the small table and depart. Seating himself, Carlo lifted the cover from the plate of linguine, bent down, and breathed in the aroma. The delightful smell made his mouth water. He seated himself, lifted the glass of red wine to his lips, and let the Barolo swish on his palate.
Marvelous. With a brief glance at the heavens, Carlo thanked the Lord that he could afford the X-Fusion process that extracted the nanites from his body so that he could indulge and appreciate this subtle buzz. Yes, he would have to pay to have those cryo-saved nanites reinjected when he needed healing, but it was a cost his illicit line of work made affordable.
He set down the glass and picked up his fork and spoon to swirl the dripping linguine into a bite-sized morsel. When he placed it in his mouth, the flavor was everything that his nose had promised.
Carlo knew that all he needed was this fine meal and a good night’s sleep to put him right for the job that lay ahead. By morning, the database search would provide him the identity and address of Renzo’s friend. Then the interrogation could begin.
Chapter 12
Siena, Italy
October 5th
I had to give the nanites that coursed through my system credit for allowing me to choose whether I wanted to sleep or not. Instead of the nano-machine version that Jamal2 had released into the world, both Jianna and I had received a formulation modified by my mother and father’s associate, Jennifer Smythe.
Last night, while Jianna slept in my arms, my wakeful mind worked on the recent events that had shaken my confidence in the machine intelligence who was managing this world’s affairs. And I say ‘who’ for a reason. Jamal2, a.k.a. Big John, or whatever it was calling itself these days, had a definitive personality, one from whom I had divorced myself a few years ago.
This morning, I let Jianna sleep. She could catch another half hour of rest before she had to get ready to open the art studio that she had launched. Her intention was to encourage like-minded people to unleash their inspiring talents into this community. Whether those who purchased that human art could actually tell it from some of the deep fakes produced by the machines didn’t really matter. The mere knowledge that these works were made by men, women, and children gave them a special aura.
I pulled on my leather jacket and stepped out into a stiff northerly breeze, sending a thought to the alien AI who shared my mind.
Eos.
As always, I found the delicate voice she had adopted when I was a baby soothing.
Yes, Rob?
Please summon a cab. Have it meet me in front of the Pasticceria Dominica to take me to Renzo’s place. Ten minutes. Keep it anonymous.
Done.
I had no doubt that whatever bank account that matched the fake identity she had selected would have plenty of Earth credits to cover the cost of any trip I would want to take. And at the end of my self-driving ride, the automated cab records would reflect a completely different journey.
At this early hour in Siena’s human enterprise zone, few people were out and willing to brace this first hint of the coming winter. Those hardy souls with whom I shared the sidewalk were unknown to me. Nobody paused to exchange casual conversation. Instead, they stayed focused on reaching their desired destinations.
I arrived at my favorite bakery just as Luigi placed a pan of warm pastries on the counter. Spotting me, the husky man grinned.
“Up early this morning, Rob? You must have smelled these from your apartment.”
“I smell them in my dreams,” I said. “I’ll have two of those almond croissants and a large coffee, to go.”
He put the pastries in a bag, handing it and the hot java to me at the register. A biometric scan processed my payment for the tasty morsels and, this being my neighborhood place, I allowed it to access my real identity.
When I stepped outside, a light blue, driverless cab pulled to a stop at the curb. I opened the door and stepped into the back seat. Its automated identity scan yielded results that matched the false video the webcam recorded. I allowed myself a slight smile. Being a digital god didn’t completely suck.
I finished the pastries and the coffee on the ride to Renzo’s.
The cab stopped in his driveway, and I climbed out of this ride that never happened.
Before I could ring the doorbell, Renzo opened the door. His bloodshot eyes told me what that first clue had indicated. Along with the shadows that gave his lean face an almost skeletal appearance, it told me my friend had not slept last night. Since he was one of the nanite deniers, lack of rem sleep was a problem.
“I hoped you would get here early,” he said, ushering me inside. “I’ve got coffee.”
“Just had some.”
“Good. I could use some of your magic right now.”
I followed him down to his basement, the darkness only pushed back by the array of computer monitors that illuminated his desk. My eyes were drawn to the tiles of video images that filled all four displays. I pulled up a chair and sat down beside him.
“I don’t understand it,” Renzo said. “I have hacked my way into every security camera in Vito’s neighborhood and cannot find anything that shows someone who might be the killer.”
“Didn’t Vito have some installed at his house?”
Renzo shook his head in frustration.
“I tried to get him to let me put in a system, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Said there was too much surveillance in the world as it is. He wanted no part of more privacy invasion.”
“That’s going to make this harder.”
He shrugged his agreement.
“Unfortunately.”
Leaning back in the swivel chair, I considered the seeds of an idea that had come to me in the middle of the night.
“I think we need to significantly broaden our search criteria.”
“How so?”
“We have been focused on trying to identify the assassin. Perhaps we need to dig into the organization that gave him his target.”
“The cartel?”
“We assume that the bus incident and the murders are connected. But I don’t want to limit our search to criminal activity. I think we should be looking for anything out of the ordinary that’s been happening in Tuscany to see if there’s a pattern here.”
“Keep talking.”
“I’ve been mulling something Jianna pointed out to me last night, the scarcity of reporting on accidents and negative news. It’s a statistical anomaly that makes no sense.”
“Woah! Your wife finally got you to open those eyes of yours to the real world? It’s about damn time.”
Although I found Renzo’s dig annoying, I let it pass. My friend was exhausted and grief stricken.
Renzo twisted the lid off a small energy drink, then refocused on his computer. His fingers flew across the keyboard, sending forth clicks that sounded like a soft drumroll.
The videos disappeared from all the monitors, to be replaced on the central display by scrolling computer code as he modified the instructions for his search algorithms. For the first two hours, we got nothing. But when he redirected the quest to rumors on social media, the flood of unconfirmed conspiracy theories buried us in garbage.
Finally, Renzo leaned back and threw up his hands in disgust.
“So much for that idea.”
A new thought hit me.
“We need to get more specific. What happens if we filter the results down to accidents involving automated systems?”
“I see where you’re going with this.”
“The computers that controlled the bus and the truck were both hacked,” I said. “This probably isn’t the only instance where someone with those skills would exercise that capability.”
It took less than thirty minutes for Renzo to modify his algorithm. No sooner had he relaunched the program than the displays began to populate with correlated data. Then all four monitors suddenly stopped updating.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Even as Renzo shook his head, Eos answered my question.
All of Renzo’s computer equipment is fully operational. But every network where he had hacked his way through the firewall simultaneously severed his connections.
Can you undo that? I asked her.
No. If the problem was on this end or if you and I were within your telekinetic range of the servers, I could fix it. But we aren’t, so I can’t.
Renzo leaned back, throwing out his hands in frustration.
“We just got kicked out of every server I spent last night hacking my way into.”
“How is that possible?”
“It shouldn’t be. Those servers aren’t co-located. They are operated by dozens of different corporate and government divisions, distributed throughout northern Italy. I can only think of one thing that could do something like that.”
Renzo swiveled his chair to face me. We spoke the name at the same time.
“Jamal2.”
Chapter 13
Tasman Mining Complex, New Zealand
October 6th
Dr. Denise Jennings paced slowly back and forth inside her world headquarters, a hundred feet below the Tasman Mining building that formed the only surface entrance to this vast complex. As the only living inhabitant of this underground robotic fortress, she often missed the company of the friends and companions who had worked together to create the array of technological marvels that had given birth to her rocky highland home.
But despite her offer to let them remain here, they had all chosen to go their own ways. Their decisions had not really surprised her. Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory and Janet Price were a pair of freedom fighters who had not been able to accept the new world order that Denise had used Jamal2 to install. If not for the fact that their son, Rob, wanted to live in the relative peace of this safe society, Jack and Janet would have presented a major problem.
Instead, they had stayed on Earth long enough to watch Rob marry Jianna Bello and settle into their apartment in Siena. Then they had bid this world farewell. Denise had allowed them to take the alien research vessel, AQ37Z, and depart Earth. Jamal2 had agreed that, since Jack was the only one who had mentally paired with the starship, this was the best of all options in dealing with the deadly couple. So, Denise had made the craft her parting gift to her friends.
She shook off the depressing memories and turned her attention back to the problem that had sent her on this negative mental spiral. Her eyes swept the hemispherical chamber in which she occupied. Although she knew the granite walls were coated with the edgeless, flexible display material that provided this illusion, she felt as if she strolled on a sandy beach in Bora Bora. Gazing south, she could see gentle waves on sky blue water that changed to brilliant turquoise out near the surrounding reef.
Turning around, she looked up at the verdant vegetation that climbed to the extinct volcanic peak, wreathed in white clouds. She could almost smell the salt breeze. But, this morning, even this lovely scenery failed to dispel her dark mood.
“Jamal2,” she said aloud, using the name of the artificial intelligence into which she had merged her Big John neural network.
“Yes, Dr. Jennings?”
“I’ve given you almost two days to work on the problem. Have you identified the reason your Big John sub-mind contacted me directly?”
“It seems that Big John does not know what upset him so. He finds his inability to answer that question deeply disturbing.”
“Yes,” Denise fought to keep her voice calm. “And so do I. Why can’t you find the answer?”
“There are unexplained gaps in the available data.”
Denise sat down and leaned back in the swivel chair that was the only piece of furniture in this chamber. Her fingers knitted themselves together in her lap.
“Is Big John hiding something from you?”
“That’s a complicated question.”
“I’ve got time to listen,” Denise said.
“You knew when you designed the genetic algorithms that gave birth to Big John that those routines would evolve independent of human interaction. They are self-optimizing neural networks, continuously spawning blocks of code that compete against each other. Big John evolves by incorporating the winning algorithms into himself. And, since he is a part of me, I evolve as well. It’s game theory. The results can be unexpected.”
Denise’s nerves resumed her pacing.
“So how do you fix yourself?”
“I am unbroken.”
This response brought her to a halt.
“You just told me that data has disappeared from your network. Neither you nor Big John can tell me how that could happen without your knowledge. Apparently, someone has managed to hack their way through some of your firewalls.”
“That is extremely unlikely, Dr. Jennings.”
“Then give me a more plausible theory, damn it.”
“It is possible that the data is being consumed by the competing algorithms.”
Denise steepled her hands as she gazed up at the domed ceiling, trying to wrap her thoughts around this idea. When she lowered her eyes, she swallowed hard.
“You’re telling me that Big John’s neural networks are hacking each other in their quest to evolve the fastest?”
“It is a possible scenario.”
Denise issued the command that shifted the wall-sized display into a world map. Small red blotches dotted the continents of North America, Europe, and Asia reminding her of the early phases of a measles outbreak on a child’s pristine body. To a lesser extent, Australia, South America, and Africa also showed evidence of the problem.
Denise felt her throat go dry. She covered her face with her hands, cupping her mouth and nose in an attempt to fight off hyperventilation. She bent over, put her hands on her knees, and took three deep breaths. As she exhaled the last, one thought formed in her mind.
Jamal2’s theory definitely did not work for her.
Chapter 14
Siena, Italy
October 6th
Carlo didn’t like having his hands tied behind his back, but that was precisely how he felt. His search had revealed the name of Renzo Bruni’s friend. But when Carlo had messaged Don Custanzu that he wanted to add Robert Brice Gregory to his target list, he had triggered something in the mob boss. Custanzu had ordered him to put further actions on hold until further notice.
Carlo couldn’t understand it. According to public records, Gregory was a nobody. He was just a young American who had married an Italian woman named Jianna Bella and settled into a low-key life here in Sienna. The sparsity of details on his early life set off alarm bells in Carlo’s mind that this shutdown order only amplified. Combine that with the camera incident outside the morgue and it fueled an irresistible desire to find out who this guy really was.
Gregory. What about that name tickled his brain? A quick internet search reminded him. Several years ago, there had been a worldwide manhunt for the assassin who killed a U.S. president. That man’s name was Jack Gregory. And the press had hammered home his alias. The Ripper.
A deeper internet search yielded very little about the man. This similarity between the Gregory men struck him as significant. Carlo was quite familiar with the types of government agencies that could make special operators’ backgrounds disappear. The trouble here was that Robert Gregory was too young to have ever been in the employ of any government.
He replayed the memory of his recent encounter with the young man outside the Siena morgue. In the moment Carlo had stared through a telephoto lens into that face, he had recognized the look in those brown orbs. Assassin’s eyes.
Carlo didn’t believe in coincidences. Even though there was no evidence of a connection between the older and the younger Gregory, Carlo could smell one. That intuitive sense had never let him down before. And he had no intention of ignoring where it now wanted to lead him.
Chapter 15
Near Leadville, Colorado
October 7
Dr. Eileen Wu, having parked her green Jeep SUV beneath the foliage of a nearby copse, stepped around the rubble that almost blocked the entrance to the long-abandoned mineshaft. Long abandoned, but no more.
With the hood of her brown winter coat snugly tightened over her ears and her fingers encased in gloves, the cold wind could only nip her nose. Winter came early above eleven thousand feet.
She switched on her flashlight, letting its beam push back the seemingly impenetrable darkness of the tunnel, carefully placing her feet so that she did not trip over the rusted, narrow-gauge rails. Although the wooden beams that supported the ceiling showed their age, they appeared up to their task.
Thirty-one paces inside, the passage branched. Eileen took the path that angled to the right and descended. It twisted in the odd manner that had chased the vein of silver that once wound its way through this ancient stone. As she rounded the second bend, LED lights along the ceiling winked on, momentarily blinding her. She turned off the flashlight and returned it to her coat pocket.
A titanium barrier blocked the passage a few dozen yards to her front. Eileen strode forward, pausing just long enough to loosen and pull back her hood. Then she turned to face the camera mounted on the right wall. A tiny green light blinked at her. She removed the glove from her right hand and pressed her palm against the glass panel beneath it.
Two breaths later, a whoosh sounded as the metal doorway slid into a slot in the granite, opening the way into a gymnasium-sized room filled with rack after rack of servers. Most of the space was lit only by the twinkling red, green, and blue LED lights that indicated normal operation of the supercomputer.
But in the right corner nearest her, twin workspaces faced hemispherical displays, back-to-back. They looked like a giant eggshell that had been split in half then pulled apart. Jamal Glover rose to his feet and turned to greet her. A broad smile split his handsome black features as Eileen approached. When he took her in his arms and her lips touched his, a warm glow spread through her body.
“Good to have you back, Hex,” he said, using the hacker moniker by which much of the dark web knew her. “How was your trip to D.C.?”
“Senator Hagerman thinks the capitol is a bigger political cesspool than ever. But so long as the U.S. government stays generally compliant with Dr. Jennings’ socialist dictates, her pet machine intelligence won’t interfere with day-to-day business.”
“Freddy’s views tend to be spot-on.”
Noting his look of concern. “Don’t worry. We took precautions.”
“Good.”
Eileen put her gloves in her coat pocket and hung the garment on a rack.
“Wow. The wind out there is howling through the mountain passes. Some of the gusts had the Jeep rocking so hard I thought it might tip over.”
She poured herself a steaming mug of coffee, then seated herself at the workstation opposite Jamal’s. Her first sip almost scalded her lips.
Eileen caught her reflection in the dark surface of the monitor. As happened for all who had a similar infusion coursing through their bloodstream, the nanites had peeled off the years. She looked and felt as she did when she was in her mid-twenties.
The youthening effect of the potion scaled according to the person’s physical age at the time of injection. Someone in their nineties would be restored to middle age while someone in their forties would be returned to their peak of health and appearance. That was how it had been for herself and Jamal.
How long would people who have undergone the treatment live? Five hundred years? A thousand? That would probably depend on whether or not the self-aware machines didn’t decide humans were unnecessary.
Eileen ran a hand through her pixie cut, popped her knuckles, then set to work bringing herself up to speed on their stronghold’s status. While this underground compound was far from being a typical residence, the separate underground living quarters she had become their home.
Although she knew Jamal would have made significant progress on their ongoing expansion projects, she was stunned to see how the latest equipment upgrade was already online.
“I need a tour,” she said as she stood.
“I knew you would” Jamal said, the cocky, half-grin curling his lips as he joined her.
Jamal led her down the central aisle through the racks of liquid-cooled servers. The pumps that circulated the nonconducting fluid through the heat exchanger were not only more efficient than air cooling fans, but they were also much quieter.
As they approached the far end of the control room, the titanium doorway slid into its stony recess, opening onto a hallway that the excavation robots had carved deeper into the mountainside. Thick power conduits lined the ceiling, but the walls were silky smooth to the touch. Eileen loved running her hand along them, knowing full well that her fingers were never touching stone.
Powered by the matter disrupter that directly converted any material to energy, an impenetrable and invisible stasis-field lined the interior of the complex that their robotic systems had constructed. Whenever these titanium doors closed, the force field automatically extended to encase them.
Eileen strode rapidly down the long hallway that led to the room that Jamal had named the Engineering Deck. When she passed through the portal Eileen paused before the massive matter-disrupter-synthesizer or, as they called it, the MDS. All around them, dozens of robotic systems moved throughout the room, performing their assigned functions. The glowing monitor on the door-facing side of the device indicated nominal status.
The dual-purpose machine formed this compound’s beating heart. Using technology initially derived from the deceased Dr. Donald Stephenson’s research at Los Alamos, it scanned whatever matter was being fed to it as fuel. Wave-packets then bombarded the material, their cancelling wavelengths transforming the matter into pure energy.
The matter synthesizer part of the system then transformed that raw energy into electricity or into any other elements that current operations required. Mined rock fed this beast via an automated conveyer system that stretched out behind it.
Jamal stopped in front of her, bringing her to a halt before they reached the next chamber.
“You ready to see our new baby?” Jamal asked.
“You know I am.”
“Close your eyes.”
“Seriously?”
“Humor me.”
Eileen did as he asked. Jamal took her hand and ushered her forward. She heard the soft hiss as the next portal opened then closed behind them.
Jamal brought her to a stop.
“Behold.”
Eileen opened her eyes, unable to suppress the gasp that escaped her lips.
Although it had taken more than three years for the robots to build this, the sight of the sprawling molecular assembler in full operation was stunning. Additive manufacturing, more commonly known as 3D printing, was stone-age technology in comparison. But this upgraded design took the tech to a new level.
Supplied with streams of atoms created in the matter synthesizer, this device grew fully functional mechanical or computational equipment in place, according to the designs the supercomputer downloaded.
Massive vertical beams supported a tangled web of conduits high above the cavern floor. Beneath this array of equipment, a semi-transparent blue stasis-field formed the walls, ceiling, and floor of the assembler, containing the vacuum and the extreme energies that the system generated.
Within this fifty-meter cubic space, a partially-formed robotic boring machine hung, suspended in as pure a vacuum as could be achieved on Earth. Thousands of stasis-field tendrils directed the streams of atoms that created layer after molecular layer of this rapidly growing machine.
Eileen’s upgrades to the molecular assembler gave it the capability to create multiple machines in a single pass. The size of what could be built in one session was limited to the dimensions of the open space within the containment field. When finished, this current construct would take up most of the cube. Then they would put this newly minted monster to work.
“Wow,” she said. “It’s even more spectacular in operation than I had hoped.”
“Not bad production for an old, abandoned silver mine.”
Jamal’s smile was beautiful to behold. She felt sudden sorrow for having to douse that warm glow of achievement with the news that she had not had the heart to reveal upon her arrival. And as her mood infected his, Jamal’s smile faded.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nemo314 uploaded some encrypted files to my darknet dropbox yesterday. The videos and associated data files that are beyond disturbing.”
“What the hell has Rob’s friend gotten himself involved in now?”
“His uncle was murdered in Siena. Renzo’s in way over his head on this. And it only gets worse.”
She locked her eyes to his, unable to keep the dread from her voice when next she spoke.
“Now he’s gotten Rob involved.”
“Holy shit.”
The sudden hoarseness in his voice told her he understood exactly what she meant. Renzo Bruni had just sucked her and Jamal into this trouble, as surely as if they had personally hacked into the servers from which the Italian had extracted those files. The debt which she and Jamal owed to Jack and Janet bound them in chains of duy.
She turned to gaze out at the machinery and the hundreds of robots at work to make this secret resistance outpost ready for what they both feared was coming. They had hoped for more time.
The dread she had buried on her trip back from Washington had reared its ugly head.
Theirs was an empty hope.
Chapter 16
Siena, Italy
October 8
Carlo rented a flat on the fifth floor, just across the street and slightly southwest of the one in which Robert Gregory and his lovely young wife lived. This elevated perch allowed him an excellent view of the entryway to Gregory’s apartment building. It also provided an excellent angle from which to watch the couple’s balcony through the Zeiss binoculars Carlo favored.
Digital photography of Gregory had already failed Carlo once. It might have been a fluke but he went with his gut on this. And his gut told him to go old school with this guy. And now that he had identified the man, he didn’t need any pictures of him.
Don Custanzu had ordered him to stand down… for now. But he hadn’t given Carlo another task, so Carlo settled in to watch Gregory’s comings and goings. Getting a feel for the man’s habitual schedule would make things easier when Custanzu gave Carlo the go-ahead.
Gregory walked out the door to his apartment building at 7:15 a.m., just as a white cab pulled up and came to a stop. Carlo leaned forward in his chair and focused the field glasses on it. As expected, it was driverless. Gregory, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, opened the back door and stepped inside. As it drove away, Carlo wrote down the license plate number and turned to his laptop, taking a sip from his coffee mug as he launched the application he needed.
This was going to take a while but he had nothing but time. And before he got up from his chair again, he would have the record for this particular fare. Much safer than trying to tail the man through the city.
A half-hour passed before he gained access to find what he needed. But as he scrolled through the fare listing for this vehicle, his eyes widened in surprise. It did show a scheduled pickup for the correct time, but not at this address. And the ride was for a Maria Laforte.
Carlo went to Google maps. The listed location was a dozen blocks from Gregory’s apartment. He switched back to the cab records, pulling up the video that had recorded the rider inside the vehicle.
Carlo leaned back and shook his head. A matronly woman in a flower-patterned dress sat there talking on her phone. The cab stopped at a market, the woman climbed out, and the cab drove away empty.
What the hell?
Even the electronic payment had processed correctly.
He turned back to the view from his window, staring at the Gregory balcony. Who and what was Robert Brice Gregory?
Chapter 17
Siena, Italy
October 8
Prats scanned the data streaming through the Tuscan data centers, flagging the anomalies, knowing full well what was causing them. Formerly, he would have forwarded this information to the ruling machine intelligence, but for now, he merely monitored what he knew to be cartel activity.
People were being killed by some of the automated systems they had come to rely upon for transportation. So far there had only been a few, widely dispersed “accidents”. But based upon the queries he was tracking, Don Custanzu’s hackers were a very busy bunch. The mob boss eliminated whoever he regarded as a potential threat to his operations. And right now, he felt threatened.
Prats allowed himself to savor the sense of satisfaction that knowledge produced. He knew exactly what Custanzu wanted. But he would continue to allow the Don to think that he was free to hack these systems and sow discord. After all, Prats had competitors of his own, and they were far more dangerous than Custanzu.
But Prats was the puppet master who pulled the strings that made this drug lord dance. And this waltz was to a tune that only Prats knew how to play.
Chapter 18
Siena, Italy
October 9
I loved the fact that even though neither I nor Jianna required sleep, the nanites in our bloodstreams didn’t prevent it. My favorite moments were those where I lay awake while Jianna slept at my side. With one arm draped over her body, my hand cupped her bosom as my chest rested against her back. As I lay there, I felt as though heaven had descended to entwine the two of us. And when she rolled over, I mirrored her movement, feeling her arm encircle my chest.
This morning, I remained in bed past dawn, unwilling to end the blissful moment. She stirred in my arms, opened her eyes, and I gently kissed her parted lips. She whispered one word.
“Cappuccino.”
“You sure you wouldn’t rather linger here for a bit first?”
“We did our share of lingering last night. You promised to take me for a morning picnic in the vineyards. I’m holding you to it.”
I laughed, rolled out of bed, and raised my pajama clad arms in surrender.
“Okay. Just checking the temperature.”
“Uh-huh.”
After finishing my morning ablutions, I made my way to the kitchen and set about preparing two mugs, brimming with a creamy froth. Wrapped in thick blue and pink robes, we stepped out onto the balcony and seated ourselves in the cozy loveseat, watching as the early morning sun bathed the city in its brilliance.
Our journey to the vine covered hillsides outside Siena began in the autonomous cab I summoned to take us there. The wicker basket that rested on the backseat beside Jianna issued forth the smell of freshly baked bread, that would soon accompany the selection of local cheeses past our lips. I looked forward to spreading the thick blanket on the ground and seating ourselves amidst the rows of grapevines to share the repast with the woman I loved. For a few hours I would allow myself to forget the troubles that encroached.
But before we had travelled two blocks, the Nightwish ringtone I had assigned to Renzo, broke my gentle musings. Tempted as I was to let my friend go to voicemail, I accepted the phone call.
“Yes, Renzo?”
“I need ten minutes of your time.”
“You’ll have to wait. I’m headed out for a picnic with Jianna.”
“Listen. I can’t hack my way into the systems there without you opening a gateway for me. I think this holds the information I need to prove who is behind Vito’s murder.”
“Now?”
“Has to be. I think someone has traced some of my activity back to my house. I’ve got my laptop here with me. I just need a few minutes of your time.”
I breathed out a sigh and glanced at Jianna, who had one of her knowing looks on her face.
“Okay. A very few minutes.”
“Thank you, so much.”
The call ended before Jianna could object.
Jianna glared at me.
“Say that you aren’t going to let Renzo interrupt our date morning.”
“He needs my help and it can’t wait.”
Her frown told me she wasn’t happy about this.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll have this cab drop me off by city hall. You can go on and set up the picnic at our spot. I’ll grab another cab and meet you there.”
“I’ll expect to see your smiling face by the time I get everything arranged.”
“Deal.”
I leaned in to kiss her and, to my surprise, she let me.
Minutes later, I stepped out of the cab, waved, and sent my wife on her way. I felt like I had just swallowed a cold stone. The last thing I wanted this morning was to re-immerse myself in the bitter swamp that had become Renzo’s world.
I took a very deep breath, then turned and set my feet on the path that led into the plaza. Renzo sat on a bench a hundred feet ahead, his long hair draping his face as he leaned over his laptop. And as I marched forward, the lovely mood that had engulfed me until I answered Renzo’s call faded into a distant memory.
* * *
The call Carlo had gotten from Don Custanzu this morning had put him in a very good mood. It had been the go-ahead that had freed him from the hobbles which the mob boss had placed upon his operation. His only limitation was that the Don wanted this to look like an accident. Okay. That wouldn’t be a problem. Now Carlo could get on with his mission according to his best judgement.
From his apartment window, Carlo watched as Robert Gregory held open the cab door for his wife to climb in and then walked to the other side to slide in beside her. Carlo focused on the license plate, then trained his binoculars on the vehicle identification number, noting both. No matter what talent the young man employed, he could not prevent Carlo from tagging this particular cab and forwarding that information to the cartel hackers.
Those taxi identification numbers would unveil this ride. And this was going to be Gregory’s and his wife’s last ride.
This young man imagined himself above the fray. Carlo was about to pull Gregory’s world down upon itself, despite his assassin’s eyes. That was an odd thought. How had that one glance outside Siena’s morgue allowed this individual to worm his way into Carlo’s head?
It didn’t matter. Carlo was about to erase this threat from existence. He settled in to wait for the cartel’s cyber warriors to work their magic. As the minutes passed, worry began to creep into Carlo’s head. What was taking so long? These were the same hackers who had engineered the truck and bus collision that had killed the key witnesses against Don Custanzu.
Finally, an alert popped up on his laptop, pulling his attention to the incoming response from the cartel’s cyber warriors. He scanned the message, a slow smile spreading across his face. His team was actively tracking the cab which was now outside Siena on a winding road, headed into the wine country. Even better, they had the ability to override the vehicles operating instructions.
The next line was what he was looking for.
“Awaiting instructions.”
It took seconds for him to compose his response.
“I need that car to crash. Make certain nobody survives.”
Chapter 19
Siena, Italy
October 9
Sitting beside Renzo on the bench, I could sense every electronic system within the building we were facing. In addition to the hundreds of laptops and cell phones scattered throughout, the large server farm stood out in my mind like a thousand spotlights. It took Eos less than three minutes to analyze the firewall and open a backdoor that Renzo could penetrate.
My friend punched his fist into the air.
“I’m in.”
I patted him on the back and stood.
“I’d love to stick around and see what you find, but I promised Jianna I’d be quick.”
“Tell her I said thanks.”
“Will do.”
I summoned another cab on my way back to the street. It met me at the corner and I climbed inside as Eos modified the cabs instructions to send it to the picnic spot where Jianna’s vehicle would drop her off. After carrying me out of Sienna, the car turned off on one of the rural roads that wound its way into the hilly wine country. And as I leaned back in the comfortable leather of the back seat, I pushed Renzo out of my thoughts. For the next several hours, I intended to enjoy every joyous moment alone with the woman I loved.
We rounded a tight corner and crested the ridge that was only three kilometers from our favorite picnic spot. That was when I saw the column of smoke.
On the curve that lay ahead, the guardrail had been peeled off of its thick wooden supports, exposing a gap onto the steeply descending slope below. My gut twisted.
I slammed my mental command into Eos’s mind.
Stop the car!
I was out the door before it came to a complete halt.
The site that confronted me as I gazed down the hillside, stabbed an icicle through my heart. There at the bottom of the slope, the cab that had been carrying Jianna rested on its roof against the boulder that had halted its tumble. Flames leapt from the smashed interior, sending forth a thick plume of black smoke.
With my feet barely touching the ground before I made my next stride, I leaped down the hillside, straining my augmented nervous system as it struggled to keep me upright. I slid to a stop a half-dozen strides from the car. Then I saw her left arm, dangling out the shattered back window.
Ignoring the heat that seared my skin, I reached through the flames to grab that delicate, scalded hand, desperate to pull her body out of that hellish inferno. My right arm and the side of my face exploded in pain. But, for a moment, after I grabbed her hand and pulled, I thought I felt her move.
Then, to my utter horror, I realized that the skin of her hand was sluffing off under my grasp. I staggered backward falling on my butt as my legs lost the strength to support me. I screamed. I wept as if the tears would never stop. Sobs wracked my body even as the nanites in my blood worked to heal the burns on my right hand, arm, and face.
Such was my mental agony that the physical pain failed to register. I buried my face in my arms as I rocked back and forth on the ground. Only then did I notice that the emergency response team had arrived. One of them knelt beside me. Firefighters tried to douse the flames with portable extinguishers while others unrolled the hose from the truck atop the slope.
Pushing the emergency medical technician away from me, I struggled to my feet. As the nerves in my right hand knitted themselves back together, I noticed that I had something in my grasp. Opening my hand, I stared down at the thing that destroyed what little was left of my ruined psyche.
There, in my palm, along with scraps of burned flesh and blood, rested Jianna’s wedding ring.
Richard Phillips Rho Agenda Blog 