Chapter 20
TWENTY
Zürich, Switzerland
Steph knew where they were as soon as they dipped below the clouds and the plane descended to land at an airport an hour outside the city. From the plane they’d split into two groups, Ice and Kai going in one rented Mercedes while she and Adam got in the other. Of course, he insisted on driving.
“Because our insurance covers employees only.”
She clipped her seatbelt and looked up at him. “Sure, it is.”
This guy wasn’t like any special ops, military guys she’d met before—even if he had thrown her over his shoulder. That part was pretty typical. But the rest of Adam, aka Angus Dubkowsky, aka Phoenix, was different.
Of course, the timing was horrible even if she was interested in a relationship, which she wasn’t.
She was more interested in what they’d given the officials at this airport and if she had been claimed as an employee of their company—the one that owned the jet.
No wonder the CIA had opted to have these guys be the new Division Zero team.
Why waste resources setting up a team of their own when they could farm the work out to people who already had the infrastructure to move between countries? Budget cuts and all that.
They were probably cleaning house, giving work to contractors they could pay less than officers the CIA had recruited and trained. Moving into a new era where intelligence was gathered with computers.
Losing it all could be seen as a blessing, if she focused on the fact she was now free of all of her obligations. Except for one thing.
“It’s a drive to Johannsen’s flat.” Adam started the car. “Wanna tell me about the book?”
Steph didn’t even have a phone to stare at, and her spiraling thoughts weren’t a good place to be right now. “Why not?”
“I appreciate you humoring me.” He pulled out of the airport onto a quiet street in the countryside with trees on a deep-green berm on either side. The two-lane road had a strip of grass and then another asphalt lane beside it, presumably for bikes.
It almost sounded like he was amused.
He wouldn’t be when he found out that Vesper was the one who’d dumped the doctor and abducted her in Germany, because she thought Steph had the book—or knew where to find it. All because she’d been sent to deliver that envelope to the bookseller in Paris.
Another mystery she didn’t have the means to solve.
“The book is a philosophical blueprint for a network. A computer system that will span the globe. Connect everyone. Control everything. The guy who wrote it was way ahead of his time, and everyone thought he was a crackpot.”
The CIA had to have someone going after the book, which would’ve been Steph ordinarily. Maybe she could find out who had been dispatched to retrieve it. At one time she’d believed Dr. Warrington actually had the book—but that would mean Vesper had it weeks ago, when clearly she didn’t.
“So it’s more like a journal, or a notebook?”
“Written over a period between 1937 and 1943 by a German high-ranking officer. Konrad Voss. He was a scientist, not a military guy, so the position was honorary. They kept him tucked away in a research facility in Tarnopol. It was part of Poland back then. When the Russians invaded, he apparently fled and no one knew where the book ended up. Voss was reported to have been killed trying to escape the city, but no one really knows.”
Adam glanced over. “What does this have to do with drones and anti-AI terrorists?”
“Doctor Voss was working on ballistic trajectory computation for automated guidance systems. He dabbled with early cybernetics concepts and pattern recognition programs to predict outcomes for the war.”
“Did they predict defeat?”
She almost smiled. “The guy was brilliant, which means the whole thing is completely terrifying.”
“If it was lost, how does anyone know what’s in the book?”
“Torn pages have surfaced. Copies of pages have been sold on the black market over the years. We know enough to understand what it would mean to have it. But at the same time, it could be best that it’s never discovered.”
Would he and his team be willing to destroy the book?
She’d seen a whole lot of loyalty between the guys on the Division Zero team, and that loyalty might extend to the CIA if they were ordered to find the book and turn it over.
If Steph found the book first, she might be able to trade it back to the CIA in exchange for her life.
“The nation that surrenders decision-making to computation will never regain it,” she quoted.
“Something Voss wrote?”
She nodded. “I saw a page once. He predicted automated warfare, UAVs, and drones that act independently. Orbital oversight. The guy was obsessed with satellites. He dreamed of a worldwide network that was the ultimate in control over people’s lives, but his version was effectively a weapons platform and a way to control the airwaves.
And then after all that, he actually argues why it’s a bad idea.
Why that kind of control isn’t something we want. ”
“Now we have the internet, and free society.”
“You can change what people believe without them even realizing. How free are we really?” Steph shook her head.
“The book could be used as the basis for a worldwide satellite network. Most people don’t believe anyone is crazy enough to do it, though.
It would be a massive undertaking. And then Voss turns out to be against the whole thing, which was probably why they shipped him off to Poland and told everyone he was crackpot. ”
“I’m sure someone out there is nuts enough to want to try, despite his warnings. What about Vesper?”
“She wants to prove it’s a bad idea and then destroy the book. She’s about the ideology and enforcing her belief that we should all be sent back to the Dark Ages. Which isn’t much different than trying to control what people see, what they hear, what they know, and what they believe.”
“I’d rather think for myself.”
“Any belief system is an ideology that, if you really believe it’s truth, should govern your life. But it has to be something you choose for yourself, not something forced on you.”
Steph, of all people, knew what it was like to live every day in a situation she hadn’t chosen, but which had been put on her. She’d done her best, but it had been years and she was tired. Would he understand?
“Anything else I need to know?”
Steph nodded. “There are rumors online that the book explains a theoretical weakness in the system. So it’s not just an argument about why control is bad, even though Voss was the one who thought of it. The book might also tell us how to disrupt the network if someone has managed to construct it.”
Adam tapped his index finger on the steering wheel, easing off the gas to join the line of traffic. “Drones, rocket launches. Artificial intelligence. Who knows. You think the CIA wants the book?”
“Everyone in the world should be concerned about an AI program evolving beyond its original programming. If someone has achieved this already, or they’re close to control? The CIA will want it, or they’ll want to destroy it.”
Soon enough he pulled over outside a four-story building that had likely been standing on this street for over a hundred years.
“Johannsen’s place is on the fourth floor.”
Steph unbuckled her seatbelt and got out. When Adam, Ice, and Kai huddled up to make a plan, she slipped away in the split second their backs were turned, disappearing into the sea of passersby on the sidewalk.
She ducked between a couple and an older man, brushed past a lady with a stroller, and hurried around the corner of the building. Down an alley. On the back side was a promenade that stretched the length of the river.
A short distance down from Johannsen’s building, she hid in an alcove.
With her back to the wall, she pulled the device free of her necklace and stuck it in her ear, well aware that she looked like Uhura in the old Star Trek TV series, even if this was more like a tiny cylindrical vial.
It always took a second to boot up, but the tradeoff was that it otherwise appeared to be inert and never transmitted.
When she had grabbed it in Germany, at the point she’d realized she was being kidnapped, it had sent a distress signal.
A ping of her location that was transmitted to the one person in the world who actually cared what was happening to her.
The only person, and the one who could get the CIA to send someone to rescue her.
She listened to the ringing sound over the connection.
As soon as the call connected, someone at the CIA would know where to find her—and Adam’s team.
Whatever had stopped her from exposing the location of their castle didn’t factor here in public.
But there was probably a limited time before someone from the agency showed up.
The call connected.
“This is your last opportunity to use this device,” a man said. “When this call ends, the service will be suspended.”
Service? Steph curled her hands into fists by her sides. “Who are you?”
“The agreement you had was predicated upon your employment with the CIA. Since that is no longer the case—”
She cut him off. “I did nothing to merit being burned. I kept my end of the deal. Now put my father on the phone.”
The man on the other end of the line chuckled for a second.
“The only person speaking with him will be me, and you’re in no position to make demands.
I’m certain we will have many chats over the coming weeks.
Months. However long I feel it necessary to keep him alive.
After I’ve exhausted all the knowledge he possesses, I’ll tell you where to find his body. ”
Steph could search the world, but she would never find where they had him. She knew, because she’d tried many times.
“I can get you the Voss ledger.” The words spilled from her mouth.
“Are you in possession of the book?”
“I can get it.”
“In that case, I’ll leave this line active and await your call.”
“And my father?” A shadow crossed in front of her. Steph looked away, finishing her call.
“His fate is up to you, as it always has been.”
The line went quiet.
Steph tugged the device from her ear and connected it back to her necklace, so it hung in front. Under her jacket.
“That didn’t show up on our scans.” Ice peered at it, his stare far too intense.
“It’s proprietary tech. It only works when I activate it, so it wouldn’t show up on your scans.”
Adam looked like he wanted to tear her head off.
“I didn’t activate it at the castle.”
“You could’ve told me what you were doing.”
“I’m not part of your team.” Steph didn’t like the huddle with her at the center, and all of them staring at her. But she could’ve left, started walking and not stopped. “I only wanted privacy for a moment.”
“So you could offer the book to…who?” Kai had a serious expression on his face, and she didn’t like that she had put it on the lighthearted man’s face.
Steph didn’t answer right away. “I have my own thing. It has nothing to do with your thing.”
“And your father?” Adam asked. “What was that about?”
She shook her head. “I can’t talk about it.”
“Eventually you’re going to realize you can trust us.”
“I doubt I’ll be here long enough for that.”