The Traveler fr-1 Page 37

  Most citizens didn’t realize that their cars also contained a black-box system that provided information about what was going on in the vehicle a few seconds before a collision. Tire manufacturers had implanted microchips into the tire wall that could be read by remote sensors. The sensors linked the tire to the vehicle identification number and the name of the owner.

  As the helicopter continued to rise, the Brethren computers in London were forcing their way into code-protected data systems. Like digital ghosts, they glided through walls and appeared in storage rooms. The external world still looked the same, but the ghosts could see the hidden towers and walls of the Virtual Panopticon.

  ***

  WHEN LAWRENCE DROVE out of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, the rain was falling hard. Raindrops exploded on the pavement and rattled on the roof of the car. Traffic halted completely, then inched forward like a tired army. He exited onto Grand Central Parkway with a line of other cars. In the distance, he could see sheets of rain pushed sideways by the wind.

  There was one last responsibility before he disappeared into the jungle. Lawrence kept his eyes on the brake lights of the car in front of him and dialed the emergency phone number that Linden had given him when they met in Paris. No one answered. Instead he heard a recorded voice telling him about weekend vacations in Spain: Leave a message and we’ll get back to you.

  “This is your American friend,” Lawrence said, then gave the date and time. “I’m going on a very long journey and I won’t be coming back. You should assume that my company knows that I’ve been working for our competitor. This means that they will assess all of my prior contacts and every request made to the data system. I’ll be off the Grid, but you can assume that the older brother will remain at our research facility. The experiment is going well…”

  That’s enough, he thought. Don’t say anything more. But it was difficult to end the call. “Good luck. It was a privilege to meet you. I hope you and your friends survive.”

  Lawrence touched the switch in the armrest and lowered the electric window. Raindrops blew into the car, striking his face and hands. He dropped the cell phone onto the road and continued driving.

  ***

  PUSHED BY THE storm, the helicopter headed south. Rain hit the pilot’s Plexiglas windshield with a cracking sound, like little pieces of mud. Boone kept dialing different phone numbers and occasionally lost the signal. The chopper fell through a hole in the sky, dropped down a hundred meters, then regained stability.

  “The target has just used his cell phone,” Leutner said. “We’ve established location. He’s in Queens. Entrance to the Van Wyck Expressway. The Global Positioning System in his car confirms the same location.”

  “He’s going to Kennedy airport,” Boone said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Some of our friends will meet me there.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Do you have access to his car’s location-tracking device?”

  “That’s easy.” Leutner sounded very proud of himself. “I can do that in about five minutes.”

  ***

  LAWRENCE TOOK THE ticket from the machine and entered the airport’s long-term parking lot. He would have to abandon the car. Once the Brethren found out about his disloyalty, he could never return to America.

  The rain continued to fall and a few people huddled together in the parking lot kiosks waiting for the shuttle bus to take them to the airline terminal. Lawrence found an empty parking space and slipped in between the faded white lines. He checked his watch; it was two and a half hours before his plane left for Mexico. Plenty of time to check his luggage and the golf clubs, go through security, and drink a cup of coffee in the waiting lounge.

  As Lawrence touched the door handle, he saw the lock buttons glide downward as if pushed by invisible hands. A loud click. Silence. Someone sitting at a distant computer terminal had just locked all four doors of his car.

  ***

  BOONE’S HELICOPTER SETTLED on a landing zone near the private flight terminal attached to Kennedy airport. The main propeller continued to turn slowly as Boone dashed through the rain to the Ford sedan waiting at the edge of the runway. He yanked open the back door and jumped into the car. Detectives Mitchell and Krause sat in the front seat drinking beer and eating sandwiches. “Bring on the ark,” Mitchell said. “The flood is on its way-”

  “Let’s go. The GPS locator says that Takawa’s car is in either parking lot one or two near the terminal.”

  Krause glanced at his partner, then rolled his eyes. “Maybe the car is there, Boone. But he’s probably gone.”

  “I don’t think so. We just locked him inside.”

  Detective Mitchell started the engine and drove toward the guarded exit. “There are thousands of cars in those lots. It’s going to take us hours to find him.”

  Boone slipped on a headset and dialed a number on his cell phone. “I’m taking care of that, too.”

  ***

  LAWRENCE TRIED PULLING up the lock button and forcing the door handle. Nothing. He felt as if he were sealed in a coffin. The Tabula knew everything. Perhaps they had been tracking him for hours. He rubbed his face with his hands. Calm down, he told himself. Try to be a Harlequin. They still haven’t caught you.

  Suddenly the car horn began honking while the headlights flashed on and off. The pulsing noise seemed to jab at his body like the point of a knife. Lawrence panicked and pounded on the side window with his fists, but the safety glass didn’t break.

  Lawrence twisted around, crawled into the backseat, and snapped open the traveler carrier for the golf bag. He reached into the bag, pulled out an iron, and hit the front passenger window again and again. Cracks appeared like an intricate crystal and then the steel club head smashed through the center of the glass.

  ***

  THE TWO DETECTIVES drew their guns as they approached the car, but Boone had already seen the smashed window and nylon carry-on bag lying in a puddle.

  “Nothing,” Krause said, peering into the car.

  “We should cruise the parking lot,” Mitchell said. “He could be running away from us right now.”

  Boone returned to the car, still talking to the team in London. “He’s out of his vehicle. Switch off the theft alarm and initiate facial scanning from all airport surveillance cameras. Pay particular attention to the arrival zone outside the terminal. If Takawa grabs a taxi, I want the license number.”

  ***

  THE SUBWAY JERKED forward, steel wheels screeching as it rolled out of the Howard Beach station. With wet hair and a damp raincoat, Lawrence sat in one end of the car. The sword was on his lap, the scabbard and gold handle still covered with brown wrapping paper.

  Lawrence knew that the two surveillance cameras at the airport had photographed him stepping onto the shuttle bus that carried visitors to the subway connection. There were more surveillance cameras at the station entrance, token booth, and platform. The Tabula would feed these camera images into their own computers and search for him using facial recognition technology. By now, they probably knew he was on the A train, heading to Manhattan.

  That knowledge was useless if he stayed on the train and kept moving. The New York subway system was huge; many stations had multiple levels and different exit corridors. Lawrence amused himself with the idea of living on the subway for the rest of his life. Nathan Boone and the other mercenaries would stand helplessly on the platforms of local stations while he roared past them on an express train.

  Can’t do it, he thought. Eventually they would track him down and be waiting. He had to find a way out of the city that couldn’t be monitored by the Vast Machine. The sword and its scabbard felt dangerous in his hands; the weight, the heaviness made him feel brave. If he was trying to hide within the Third World, then he needed to find similar places in America. Taxicabs were regulated in Manhattan, but unregistered gypsy cabs were easily found in the boroughs. A gypsy cab traveling on surface streets would be very difficult to trace. If the driver coul
d take him across the river to Newark, perhaps he could slip onto a bus going south.

  At the East New York subway station, Lawrence got out and hurried upstairs to catch the Z train going to lower Manhattan. Rainwater dripped down from a ceiling grate and there was a damp, moldy feeling in the air. He stood alone on the platform until the headlights of the train appeared in the tunnel. Keep moving. Always keep moving. It was the only way to escape.

  ***

  NATHAN BOONE SAT in the grounded helicopter with Mitchell and Krause. Rain kept falling on the concrete landing zone. Both detectives looked annoyed when Boone told them not to smoke. He ignored them, closed his eyes, and listened to the voices coming from his headset.

  The Brethren’s Internet team had accessed the surveillance cameras of twelve different government and commercial organizations. As people hurried down New York sidewalks and subway corridors, as they paused on street corners and stepped onto buses, the nodal points of their faces were being reduced to an equation of numbers. Almost instantly, these equations were matched against the particular algorithm that personified Lawrence Takawa.

  Boone enjoyed this vision of constant information flowing like dark, cold water through cables and computer networks. It’s just numbers, he thought. That’s all we really are-numbers. He opened his eyes when Simon Leutner began talking.

  “Okay. We just accessed the security system for Citibank. There’s an ATM on Canal Street with a surveillance camera. The target just went past the camera, heading toward the Manhattan Bridge.” It sounded like Leutner was smiling. “Guess he didn’t notice the ATM camera. They’ve become part of the landscape.”

  A pause.

  “Okay. Now the target is on the pedestrian walkway of the bridge. We’ve already accessed the Port Authority security system. The cameras are up on the light towers, out of direct sight. We can track him all the way across.”

  “Where’s he going?” Boone asked.

  “Brooklyn. The target is moving quickly, carrying some kind of pole or stick in his right hand.”

  A pause.

  “Reaching the end of the bridge.”

  A pause.

  “The target is walking toward Flatbush Avenue. No. Wait. He’s waving to the driver of a livery cab with a luggage rack welded to the top of the vehicle.”

  Boone reached up and clicked the intercom switch to the helicopter pilot. “We’ve got him,” he said. “I’ll tell you where to go.”

  ***

  THE DRIVER OF the gypsy cab was an older Haitian man who wore a plastic raincoat and a Yankees baseball cap. The roof of the car kept leaking and the backseat was damp. Lawrence felt the wet coldness touch his legs.

  “Where you want to go?”

  “Newark, New Jersey. Take the Verrazano. I’ll pay the toll.”

  The old man looked skeptical about the idea. “Too many miles and no fare back. Nobody in Newark want to go to Fort Greene.”

  “What’s it cost one way?”

  “Forty-five dollar.”

  “I’ll pay you a hundred dollars. Let’s go.”

  Pleased with the deal, the old man shifted into drive and the battered Chevrolet chugged down the street. The driver began mumbling a song in Creole while his fingers tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel.

  “Ti chéri. Ti chéri…”

  A roaring sound came down on them and Lawrence watched as an intense wind flung raindrops against the cars. The old man slammed on the brakes, amazed at the vision in front of him: a helicopter slowly landing at the intersection of Flatbush and Tillary Street.

  Lawrence grabbed the sword and kicked the door open.

  ***

  BOONE SPRINTED THROUGH the rain. When he glanced over his shoulder, he could see that the two detectives were already gasping for air and flailing their arms. Takawa was about two hundred yards ahead of them, running down Myrtle Avenue and turning onto St. Edwards. Boone passed a cash-checking store with barred windows, a dentist’s office, and a small boutique with a lurid pink-and-purple sign.

  The towers of the Fort Greene housing project dominated the skyline like a broken wall. When the people on the sidewalk saw three white men chasing a young Asian man, they instinctively pulled back into the doorways or hurried across the streets. Drug bust, they thought. Cops. Don’t get involved.

  Boone reached St. Edwards and looked down the block. Raindrops hit the sidewalk and the parked cars. Water flowed down the gutter and pooled at the intersection. Someone moving. No. Just an old woman with an umbrella. Takawa had disappeared.

  Instead of waiting for the detectives, Boone kept running. He went past two rundown apartment houses, then looked down an alley and saw Takawa slip through a hole in the wall. Stepping around plastic bags of garbage and a discarded mattress, Boone reached the hole and discovered a sheet of galvanized steel that once sealed off a doorway. Someone, probably the local drug addicts, had bent the sheet back, and now Takawa was inside.

  Mitchell and Krause reached the mouth of the alleyway. “Cover the exits!” Boone shouted. “I’ll go in and find him!”

  Cautiously he pushed through the metal sheet and entered a long room with a concrete floor and a high ceiling. Trash everywhere. Broken chairs. Many years ago, the building had been used as a garage. There was a tool bench along one wall and a repair bay in the floor where the mechanics once stood to work on cars. The rectangular bay was filled with oily water, and in the dim light it looked as if it could lead to a distant cavern. Boone stopped near a concrete staircase and listened. He heard water dripping on the floor and then a scraping noise coming from upstairs.

  “Lawrence! This is Nathan Boone! I know you’re up there!”

  ***

  LAWRENCE STOOD ALONE on the second floor. His raincoat was sodden with water, heavy with the thousands of dollars concealed in the lining. Quickly he pulled the coat off and threw it away. Rainwater splattered on his shoulders, but that was nothing. He felt as if an immense burden had been taken from his body.

  “Come downstairs!” Boone shouted. “If you come down immediately, you won’t get hurt!”

  Lawrence stripped the wrapping paper off the scabbard of his father’s sword, drew the weapon, and examined the shimmery cloud on the blade. The gold sword. A Jittetsu sword. Forged in fire and offered to the gods. A drop of water trickled down his face. Gone. All gone. Discarded. He had thrown everything away. His job and position. His future. The only two things he truly possessed were this sword and his own bravery.

  Lawrence laid the scabbard on the wet floor, then walked to the staircase carrying the bare sword. “You stay there!” he shouted. “I’m coming!”

  He climbed down the littered staircase. With each step, he lost more of his heaviness, the illusions that had burdened his heart. Finally he understood the loneliness revealed in his father’s photograph. To become a Harlequin was both a liberation and an acknowledgment of one’s death.

  He reached the ground floor. Boone was standing in the middle of the trash-filled room with an automatic pistol in his hand. “Drop your weapon!” Boone shouted. “Throw it on the ground!”

  After a lifetime of masks, the final mask was removed. Holding the gold sword, Sparrow’s son ran toward the enemy. He felt free, released from doubt and hesitation, as Boone raised his gun slowly and fired at Lawrence’s heart.

  49

  Vicki was a prisoner inside her mother’s home. She was being watched by the Tabula as well as by her church congregation. The power company truck had left the street, but other surveillance teams appeared. Two men working for a television cable company began replacing the relay boxes at the top of the phone poles. At night, there was no attempt at camouflage. A black man and a white man sat in an SUV parked across the street. Once, a police car stopped beside the SUV, and the two patrolmen spoke to the Tabula. As Vicki peered through the curtains, the mercenaries flashed ID cards and ended up shaking hands with the officers.

  Her mother asked for protection from the church. At night, one or
two people would sleep in the living room. In the morning, the night-shift team would leave and two church members would arrive to spend the day in the house. Jonesies didn’t believe in violence, but they saw themselves as defenders of the faith armed with the word of the Prophet. If the house was attacked, they would sing hymns and lie down in front of cars.

  Vicki spent a week watching television, but eventually she turned off the set. Most of the shows seemed childish or deceitful once you realized what was really going on beneath the surface. She got some barbells from a church deacon and lifted weights in the garage every afternoon until her muscles felt sore. At night, she stayed up late and searched through the Internet for the secret Web sites created in Poland, South Korea, and Spain that mentioned the Travelers and the Vast Machine. Most of them seemed to agree that all the Travelers had vanished, destroyed by the Tabula and their mercenaries.

  As a little girl, Vicki had always looked forward to the Sunday service at church; she’d wake up early, anoint her hair with perfume, and put on her special white dress. Now every day of the week felt the same. She was still lying in bed late Sunday morning when Josetta entered the room.

  “Got to get ready, Vicki. They’re sending a car to pick us up.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “There’s no reason to be frightened. The congregation will protect you.”

  “I’m not scared of the Tabula. I’m worried about my friends.”

  Josetta’s lips tightened and Vicki knew what her mother was thinking: They’re not your friends. She stood beside the bed until Vicki got up and pulled on a dress.