Then Charles swallowed in a dry throat. “Those tactics are no
longer necessary. We have the technology now. This girl, we don’t
want her to scream, we want her to sing, like all the others on this
ship. Besides, it won’t be the same. She’s not a twin.”
“She’s not a twin,” Benjamin conceded. Then his eye brightened.
“There’s no twitcher. But the equipment is aboard. There are nanobots.”
“We’ve never . . .” Charles began, but he was intrigued. “We’ve seen it done many times,” Benjamin said. He stroked the
side of Minako’s head and she tried to pull away, as though his very
touch was foul and poisoned. “She cannot go unpunished. I won’t allow it. Not after what the McLure girl did to me. No, that is the last
time I will be humiliated and made a fool of.”
Charles was troubled, but this was better than the alternative. And
it fit within the beliefs they now had, the enlightened understanding
that had come hand in hand with the power to rewire minds. Terrorize and inflict pain, yes, but only if necessary. This act, conquering
the girl down in the nano, would empower Benjamin, hopefully without feeding the growing madness in him.
“Then, let’s go, my brother and friend,” Charles said. “Let’s go …
what is it the twitchers say?”
“Down in the meat,” Benjamin whispered. “Down in the meat.”
Pia Valquist had understated the nature of her contact in the Royal Navy. Understated both in terms of his position—rear admiral— and relationship. They had been friends. Close friends.
There was something very nineteenth century about Admiral Edward Domville. He was not particularly fit or trim, he was beefy, long-armed, short-legged and his face was the cheery red you might expect of a man who had spent years climbing masts and running out cannon. Of course he’d done neither; he had mostly served in submarines.
Pia had not been attracted to him because of his looks, but rather for his intelligence and completely unaffected sense of humor. His family stretched back to the Norman Conquest, with many an admiral or general or member of Parliament in that long lineage. Possibly even a marquess (or was it a baron?), if she recalled correctly.
They met in the lobby lounge at the Intercontinental Hotel. Most of Hong Kong was within a stone’s throw of water, but the Intercontinental was very nearly in the bay.
“Pia, my God, you’ve let yourself go completely,” he said, grinning around a missing tooth.
“Eddie, I can’t believe they still let you wear that uniform.”
They did a cheek kiss that went on a bit longer than it might if they’d really been only casual acquaintances.
“Let me! Hell, they’ve given me extra decorations. The sheer weight of them is wearying. How have you been, Pia?”
They looked at each other like old friends, in fact were old friends. The admiral was beginning to show his age in the jowls and the bulbousness of his nose. On the other hand, the extra decorations he’d alluded to were not for merely standing around and looking distinguished.
They took a table that looked out through prismed windows onto a stunning view of Hong Kong harbor and across the water to the wall of skyscrapers that was a sort of mirror of the similar wall of skyscrapers just behind the hotel.
“Tea is coming,” the admiral said. “Neither milk nor sugar, as I recall. But what can one expect of a Swede?”
“I have something rather bizarre, Eddie. You’re going to have a hard time believing what I have to tell you.”
“Am I?” His eyes narrowed and he got that conspiratorial badboy look that she liked.
“Have you ever heard of the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation?”
“I believe they deal in gift shops. Also weapons systems,” he said drily.
“And you know about the Armstrong Twins?”
“In a general sort of way,” he admitted. The tea came, and they spent several minutes performing the small rituals of pouring, parceling out sandwiches, tasting, complimenting.
“They are a tragic case,” Eddie said. “Or perhaps I should say tragic cases, plural.”
“Do you recall an old American surplus amphibious assault ship that foundered off the coast of Brazil a couple of years ago?”
“Oh hoh,” he said. A tiny sandwich hovered in his hand, forgotten.
“Eddie, it was a floating house of horrors. The Armstrong Twins were kidnapping people, often very young people, and using drugs and lobotomization and quite frankly Nazi techniques to . . .” She fell silent when she realized from his expression that none of this was news to him.
Eddie sat back in his chair, and the cheery face was less cheery by several degrees. “I have heard rumors.”
“The hell,” Pia said hotly. “You knew?”
Eddie shrugged. “There isn’t a great deal that goes unknown on the high seas. If the Royal Navy doesn’t know it, the Americans do. In this case, we both had suspicions.”
“Eddie, don’t dance around on this, please. I’ve met and interviewed one of the survivors.”
That surprised him. “Have you?”
“She’s in Finland. And let me tell you that her story would give you nightmares. She lives in fear, surrounded by former Mossad and dogs and electrified fences.”
Eddie looked grim. “By the time we knew anything about it, it had sunk. There was nothing actionable.”