Текст книги "The Human Division"

Автор книги: John Scalzi

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Abumwe nodded at Wilson again. “Tell her Rayth Ablant’s orders,” she said.

“He says his orders were to destroy any and all ships that presented themselves after he skipped,” Wilson said. “There was no discrimination on the part of his masters. They just pointed him at both of us and hoped for the best.”

“To what end?” Sorvalh said.

“Does it matter?” Abumwe said. “If we had been destroyed, the Colonial Union would have blamed you for the ambush. If you had been destroyed, the Conclave would have done the same to us. If we had both been destroyed, our two governments might already be at war. It’s as you said earlier, Councillor. At this point, the whyis almost trivial, unless we know the who.”

“If your Lieutenant Wilson is correct, and this Rayth Ablant has no way of knowing for whom he works, there’s no way for us to know the who,” Sorvalh said. “All we have to go on are methods, and these methods are closer to yours than ours.”

“Rayth Ablant doesn’t know who he’s working for, but he’s not all we have,” Wilson said.

“Explain,” Sorvalh said.

“He’s a brain in a box,” Wilson repeated. “And the boxcan tell us a lot of things. Like whose technology it’s made out of. If there’s anything off the shelf about the thing, then that’s a lead to follow. Even if everything is custom-made, we can reverse-engineer it and maybe find out what it’s closest to. It’s better than what we have now, which is nothing.”

“What will that require?” Sorvalh asked.

“Well, for one thing, I want to take Rayth Ablant off the Urse Damay,” Wilson said. “The sooner the better. We have a ticking clock here.”

“I don’t understand,” Sorvalh said.

“One of the first things Rayth Ablant said to us was ‘help me,’” Wilson said. “He said that because his life support is running off the emergency power batteries. He’s got about eight hours left before he exhausts the power supply.”

“And you want to bring him here,” Sorvalh said, indicating the Clarke.

Wilson shook his head. “He’s on a Conclave ship,” he said. “Wherever the box comes from, it’s interfaced with a Conclave power network. Your power systems on the Nurimalmore closely match those of the Urse Damaythan ours do.” Wilson smiled. “And besides, you have the guns.”

Sorvalh returned the smile. “That we do, Lieutenant,” she said. “But I can’t imagine your boss here will be happy with the Conclave taking possession of that technology.”

“As long as you allow Lieutenant Wilson to closely examine the technology, I have no real objection,” Abumwe said. “Technology is his job. I trust him to learn what he needs to know.”

“Your bosses might not be happy with that, Ambassador Abumwe,” Sorvalh said.

“This may be true,” Abumwe said. “But that’s going to be my problem, not yours.”

“When can you get started?” Sorvalh asked Wilson.

“As soon as you requisition Werd and Carn to help me again,” Wilson said. “The brain box is not too large, fortunately, but the environment in there makes it difficult to move. And the shuttle for transport, obviously.”

Sorvalh nodded to her assistant, who reached again for his tablet computer. “Anything else?” she asked.

“I do have one request,” Wilson said.

“Name it,” Sorvalh said.

“I’d like you to promise me that once you get Rayth Ablant on your ship, that you connect him to your network,” Wilson said.

“And your reason for that is?” Sorvalh asked.

“This poor bastard has spent the last God knows how long running starship operation simulations. All his friends are dead and he’s been talking to no one except the sons of bitches who put him in that box,” Wilson said. “I think he’s probably lonely.”

*   *   *

Do you mind if I ask you a question,Rayth Ablant said to Wilson. Wilson had opened the data band so that Rayth Ablant could address him directly through his BrainPal rather than through the display. He kept the text interface, however, because it seemed right.

“Go right ahead,” Wilson said. He was busy extracting batteries from underneath the deck of the Urse Damay’s bridge and was beginning to sweat inside his vacuum-proof combat suit.

I’d like to know why you’re trying to help me.

“You asked for help,” Wilson said.

I also tried to blow up your ship with you in it.

“That was before you knew me,” Wilson said.

I’m sorry about that.

“I’m not going to tell you not to be sorry,” Wilson said, “but I can understand wanting to get your body back.”

That’s not going to happen now.

“Not through the assholes who did this to you, no,” Wilson said. “It’s not to say it couldn’t happen one day.”

It doesn’t seem likely.

“You’re saying that to a guy who is on his second body,” Wilson said. “I’m a little more optimistic about your plight than you are.” He hauled out a battery and placed it next to the several others he had extracted. Werd and Carn were elsewhere in the Urse Damay,pulling out batteries of their own. They would serve as the power source for Rayth Ablant’s brain box until they were all safely on the Nurimal. The trip from the Urse Damayto the Nurimalwould be a matter of a couple of minutes, but Wilson was a big believer in overkill when the downside was someone ending up dead.

Thank you for this.

“Thank you for being a terrible shot,” Wilson said. He returned to his task.

You know humans have a bad reputation. Among the rest of us.

“I’ve heard,” Wilson said.

That you’re deceptive. That you’ll go against your contracts and treaties. That you’re terrified of all of us and your way of solving that problem is trying to destroy us all.

“But on the bright side, we all have lovely singing voices,” Wilson said.

I’m telling you this because I’m not seeing any of this in you.

“Humans are like anyone,” Wilson said. “Is every Easo a good person? Before the Conclave, did your government always do the best thing? Does the Conclave always do the best things now?”

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to start a political discussion.

“You didn’t,” Wilson said. “I’m talking about the nature of sentient beings everywhere. We all have the entire range of possibilities inside of us. Personally, I don’t expect much out of other people. But for myself, whenever possible, I try not to be a complete prick.”

And that includes rescuing brains in boxes.

“Well, that includes rescuing a person,” Wilson said. “Who at the moment happens to be a brain in a box.” He hauled out another battery.

Lieutenant Werd came into the bridge, hauling his own supply of batteries, and set them down next to Wilson’s. They jostled in the slight pseudogravity offered by the ship’s tumbling. “How many more of these do you think you need?” he asked Wilson. “Dismantling an entire spaceship was not supposed to be in my job description.”

Wilson smiled and counted the batteries. “I think we have enough,” he said. “The box here is not that securely bolted into the deck, so we should be able to pull it out easily enough. Lifting things is in your job description, right?”

“Yes,” Werd said. “But setting things down costs extra.”

“Well, then,” Wilson said, “what we have to do now is make sure there’s no significant interruption in power flow to the box when we disconnect it from the Urse Damay’s system and attach it to the batteries.” He pointed to the box’s external outlets and the cords that snaked from them into the ship’s power system. “There’s probably a buffer unit in the box itself. I need to see how much energy it stores.”

“Whatever you say, Lieutenant Wilson,” Werd said. “This time, you’re in charge.”

“Thank you, Werd,” Wilson said, and opened the door to the box, again carefully, to avoid dislodging any part of the contents. “Between you, me and Carn, we’re the very model of cooperation that suggests all of our nations may yet live in peace and harmony.”

“Sarcasm is not exclusive to humans,” Werd said, “but I will admit you do a good job with it.”

Wilson said nothing to that. Instead he peered intently into the box.

“What is it?” Werd asked. Wilson motioned with his head that Werd should come closer. Werd did.

Wilson had separated a thick tangle of wires that plugged into the container holding Rayth Ablant’s brain and nervous system to get a look at where the power cords entered the box. Where they entered was indeed what looked like a power buffer, to store a minute or so of energy to assist with an orderly system shutdown in case of loss of power.

There was something else attached to the power buffer as well.

“Ah,” Werd said. Wilson nodded. “Carn,” Werd said, into his communication circuit.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Carn said.

“Lieutenant Wilson and I realized we’ve forgotten some tools, and we’re going to need you to come help us with them,” Werd said. “Head back toward the shuttle. We’ll meet you there.”

“Sir?” Carn said, slightly confused.

“Acknowledge the order, Corporal,” Werd said.

“Order acknowledged,” Carn said. “On my way.”

Is everything all right.

“Everything is fine,” Wilson said, to Rayth Ablant. “I just realized some things in your internal structure here are going to be trickier to deal with than others. I need some different tools. We need to go back to the Nurimalfor them. We’ll return momentarily.”

Makes sense to me. Don’t be gone too long. The ship is already beginning to shut down.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Wilson said. “It’s a promise.”

Rayth Ablant said nothing. Wilson and Werd made their way silently to the shuttle rendezvous; they and Carn made their way back to the shuttlecraft without an additional word.

When the shuttlecraft was on its way, Wilson opened a channel to the Clarke. “Hart,” he said, to Schmidt, “you need to get Abumwe over to Nurimal. Be there as soon as possible. We have a wrinkle. A really big damn wrinkle.” He cut the connection before Schmidt could respond and turned to Werd. “I need you to get your people to get me a schematic of the Urse Damay’s power systems. There are things I need to know. Right now.”

“We might not have them,” Werd said. “The Urse Damay’s not part of the Conclave military fleet.”

“Then I need one of your engineers to explain how Conclave power systems work. We can do that, at least, right?”

“I’m on it,” Werd said, and opened up a channel to the Nurimal.

Carn looked at the two of them, saw their expressions. “What happened?” he asked.

“We’re dealing with complete assholes,” Wilson said.

“I thought we knew that,” Carn said.

“No, this is new,” Wilson said. “There’s a bomb attached to the power supply on that box. The one Rayth Ablant is in. It looks like it’s set to go off if anything happens to the power going into the box. If we move Rayth Ablant, he’s going to die.”

“If we don’t move him, he’s going to die,” Carn said. “His power supply is running out.”

“And now you know why I said we’re dealing with complete assholes here,” Wilson said. He was silent the rest of the way to the Nurimal.

*   *   *

It’s just you this time.

“Yes,” Wilson said to Rayth Ablant.

That’s not a good sign, I think.

“I told you I would be back,” Wilson said.

You’re not going to lie to me, are you.

“You said you liked that I wasn’t like the humans you had heard about,” Wilson said. “So, no, I’m not going to lie to you. But you have to know that the truth is going to be hard to hear.”

I am a brain in a box. The truth is already hard to hear.

Wilson smiled. “That’s a very philosophical way of looking at things.”

When you’re a brain in a box, philosophy is what you have.

“There’s a bomb in your box,” Wilson said. “It’s attached to the power buffer. As far as I can tell, it has a monitor that tracks power input. The Urse Damay’s power system is integrated with its emergency power systems so that when the first goes down, the second is already running and there’s no interruption of power to critical systems, including your box. But if we remove your box from the system entirely, the monitor is going to register it, and the bomb will go off.”

It would kill me.

“Yes,” Wilson said. “Since you asked me not to lie, I’ll tell you I suspect the real point of the bomb is to make sure the technology of that box you’re in isn’t taken and examined. Your death is an incidental result of that.”

On second thought, maybe you can lie to me a little.

“Sorry,” Wilson said.

Is there any way to remove me from the box?

“Not that I can see,” Wilson said. “At least, not in a way that keeps you alive. The box is, if I may say so, an impressive piece of engineering. If I had more time, I could reverse-engineer the thing and tell you how it works. I don’t have that time. I could take you out of the box—the part that’s actually you—but I couldn’t just then take that part and hook it up to a battery. The box is an integrated system. You can’t survive without it.”

I’m not going to survive long in it, either.

“I can reattach the batteries we’ve removed from the system,” Wilson said. “It can buy us some more time.”

Us?

“I’m here,” Wilson said. “I can keep working on this. There’s probably something I’ve missed.”

If you tinker with the bomb, then there’s a chance you’ll set it off.

“Yes,” Wilson said.

And when the power goes out, the bomb will explode anyway.

“I imagine the bomb will use the energy in the buffer to set itself off, yes,” Wilson said.

Do you dismantle bombs on a regular basis? Is this your specialty?

“I do technology research and development. This is up my alley,” Wilson said.

I think this is you lying to me a little.

“I think I might be able to save you,” Wilson said.

Why do you want to save me?

“You don’t deserve to die like this,” Wilson said. “As an afterthought. As a brain in a box. As less than fully yourself.”

You said yourself this box is an impressive piece of technology. It looks like whoever did this took some effort to make sure it couldn’t be taken. I don’t want to insult you, but given that you’ve had only a very little amount of time with this box, do you really think you’re going to find some way to outwit it and save me?

“I’m good at what I do,” Wilson said.

If you were that good, you wouldn’t be here. No offense.

“I’d like to try,” Wilson said.

I would like you to try, if it didn’t mean you possibly dying. One of us dying seems inevitable at this point. Both of us dying seems avoidable.

“You asked us to help you,” Wilson reminded Rayth Ablant.

You did. You tried. And even right now, if you wanted to keep trying, it’s clear I couldn’t stop you. But when I asked you to help, you helped. Now I am asking you to stop.

“All right,” Wilson said, after a moment.

Thank you.

“What else can I do for you?” Wilson asked. “Do you have friends or family that you want us to contact? Do you have messages for anyone I can send for you?”

I have no real family. Most of my friends were on theUrse Damay . Most of the people I know are already gone. I have no friends left.

“That’s not entirely true,” Wilson said.

Are you volunteering yourself?

“I’d be happy if you considered me your friend,” Wilson said.

I did try to kill you.

“That was before you knew me,” Wilson repeated. “And now that you do, you’ve made it clear you won’t let me die if you can help it. I think that makes up for your earlier indiscretions.”

If you are my friend, then I have a request.

“Name it,” Wilson said.

You are a soldier. You’ve killed before.

“It’s not a point of pride,” Wilson said. “But yes.”

I’m going to die because people who don’t care about me have used me and then thrown me away. I’d prefer to leave on my own terms.

“You want me to help you,” Wilson said.

If you can. I’m not asking you to do it yourself. If this box is as sensitive as you say it is, if I die, the bomb could go off. I don’t want you anywhere near when it does. But I think you could find another way.

“I imagine I could,” Wilson said. “Or at the very least I could try.”

For your trouble, let me offer you this.

There was a data ping on Wilson’s BrainPal: an encrypted file, in a format he wasn’t familiar with.

When I had completed my mission—when I had killed your ship and the Conclave ship—I was to feed this into the ship’s guidance system. It’s coordinates for my return trip. Maybe you’ll find whoever’s behind this there.

“Thank you,” Wilson said. “That’s incredibly helpful.”

When you find them, blow them up a little for me.

Wilson grinned. “You got it,” he said.

There’s not much time before the emergency power is entirely used up.

“I’ll have to leave you,” Wilson said. “Which means that no matter what happens I’m not coming back.”

I wouldn’t want you here no matter what happens. You’ll stay in contact with me?

“Yes, of course,” Wilson said.

Then you should go now. And hurry, because there’s not a lot of time left.

*   *   *

“This isn’t going to be a popular sentiment, but he’s going to die anyway,” said Captain Fotew. “We don’t have to expend the effort.”

“Are you suddenly on a budget, Captain?” Wilson asked. “Can the Conclave no longer afford a missile or a particle beam?” They were on the bridge of the Nurimal,along with Abumwe and Sorvalh.

“I said it wouldn’t be a popular sentiment,” Fotew said. “But someone ought to point it out, at least.”

“Rayth Ablant has given us vital information about the whereabouts of the people directing him,” Wilson said, and pointed toward the bridge’s communications and science station, where the science officer was already busily attempting to crack the encryption on the orders. “He’s been cooperative with us since our engagement with his ship.”

“It’s not as if he had much of a choice in that,” Fotew said.

“Of course he had a choice,” Wilson said. “If he hadn’t signaled to Corporal Carn, we wouldn’t know he was there. We wouldn’t know that some organization out there is taking the Conclave’s missing ships and turning them into glorified armed drones. We wouldn’t know that whoever this group is, they’re a threat to both the Conclave and the Colonial Union equally. And we wouldn’t know that neither of our governments is engaging in a stealth war with the other.”

“We still don’t know that last one, Lieutenant Wilson,” Sorvalh said. “Because we still don’t know the who. We still don’t know the players in this game.”

“Not yet,” Wilson said, motioning back to the science station. “But depending how good your code cracker is over there, this may be a temporary problem. And for the moment, at least, our governments are sharing information, since you’ve gotten that information from me.”

“But this is a problem of proportion, isn’t it?” Sorvalh said. “Is what we learn from you going to be worth everything we’ve expended to learn it? Is what we lose by granting Rayth Ablant his death more than we gain by, for example, what remains of his box when the explosion is over? There’s still a lot we could learn from the debris.”

Wilson looked over to Abumwe pleadingly. “Councillor,” Abumwe said, “not too long ago you chose to surrender your vessel to us. Lieutenant Wilson here refused your surrender. You praised him for his thinking then. Consider his thinking now.”

“Consider his thinking?” Sorvalh said, to Abumwe. “Or give him a decision on credit, because of a presumed debt to him?”

“I would prefer the first,” Abumwe said. “I would take the second, however.”

Sorvalh smiled at this, looked over to Wilson and then to Fotew. “Captain?”

“I think it’s a waste,” Fotew said. “But it’s your call to make, Councillor.”

“Prepare a missile,” Sorvalh said. Captain Fotew turned to do her bidding; Sorvalh turned her attention back to Wilson. “You used your credit with me, Lieutenant,” she said. “Let’s hope that in the future you don’t have cause to wish you had spent it on something else.”

Wilson nodded and opened up a channel to the Urse Damay. “Rayth Ablant,” he said.

I am here,came back the text.

“I’ve gotten you what you wanted,” Wilson said.

Just in time. I am down to the last 2 percent of my power.

“Missile prepped and ready for launch,” Captain Fotew said, to Sorvalh. Sorvalh nodded to Wilson.

“Just tell me when you want it,” Wilson said.

Now is good.

Wilson nodded to Fotew. “Fire,” she said, to her weapons station.

“On its way,” Wilson said.

Thank you for everything, Lieutenant Wilson.

“Glad to,” Wilson said.

I’ll miss you.

“Likewise,” Wilson said.

There was no response.

“We’ve cracked the order,” the science officer said.

“Tell us,” Sorvalh said.

The science officer looked at the humans on the bridge and then Captain Fortew. “Ma’am?” she said.

“You have your orders,” Fotew said.

“The coordinates for the return flight of the Urse Damayare in this system,” the science officer said. “They resolve under the surface of the local star. If it came out of skip there, it would have been destroyed instantly.”

“Your friend was never going home, Lieutenant Wilson,” Sorvalh said.

“Missile has reached the Urse Damay,” Fotew said, looking at her bridge display. “Direct hit.”

“I’d like to think he just got there on his own, Councillor,” Wilson said.

He walked off the bridge of the Nurimaland headed toward the shuttle bay, alone.

EPISODE TWELVE

The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads

“This is a very interesting theory you have, about conspiracy,” said Gustavo Vinicius, the undersecretary for administration for the Brazilian consulate in New York City.

Danielle Lowen frowned. She was supposed to be having this meeting with the consul general, but when she arrived at the consulate she was shunted to Vinicius instead. The undersecretary was very handsome, very cocksure and, Lowen suspected, not in the least bright. He was very much the sort of person who exuded the entitled air of nepotism, probably the less-than-useful nephew of a Brazilian senator or ambassador, assigned someplace where his personal flaws would be covered by diplomatic immunity.

There was only so much Lowen could stew about the nepotism. Her father, after all, was the United States secretary of state. But the genial, handsome stupidity of this Vinicius fellow was getting on her nerves.

“Are you suggesting that Luiza Carvalho acted alone?” she asked. “That a career politician, with no record whatsoever of criminal or illegal activity, much less any noticeable political affiliations, suddenly took it into her head to murder Liu Cong, another diplomat? In a manner designed to undermine relations between the Earth and the Colonial Union?”

“It is not impossible,” Vinicius said. “People see conspiracies because they believe that one person could not do so much damage. Here in the United States, people are still convinced that the men who shot Presidents Kennedy and Stephenson were part of a conspiracy, when all the evidence pointed to single men, working alone.”

“In both cases, however, there was evidence presented,” Lowen said. “Which is why I am here now. Your government, Mr. Vinicius, asked the State Department to use this discreet back channel in order to deal with this problem, rather than go through your embassy in Washington. We’re happy to do that. But not if you’re going to give us the runaround.”

“I am not giving you a runaround, I promise,” Vinicius said.

“Then why am I meeting with you and not Consul Nascimento?” Lowen asked. “This was supposed to be a high-level, confidential meeting. I flew up from Washington yesterday specifically to take this meeting.”

“Consul Nascimento has been at the United Nations all day long,” Vinicius said. “There were emergency meetings there. She sends her regrets.”

“I was at the United Nations before I came here,” Lowen said.

“It is a large institution,” Vinicius said. “It’s entirely possible that you would not have crossed paths.”

“I was assured that I would be given information pertaining to Ms. Carvalho’s actions,” Lowen said.

“I regret I have nothing to give you at this time,” Vinicius said. “It’s possible that we may have misunderstood each other in our previous communications.”

“Really, Mr. Vinicius?” Lowen said. “Our mutual State Departments, who have been in constant contact since your nation brought its first legation to Washington in 1824, are suddenly having communication difficulties?”

“It is not impossible,” Vinicius said, for the second time in their conversation. “There are always subtleties which might go misread.”

“I am certain things are going misread at the moment, Mr. Vinicius,” Lowen said. “I don’t know how subtle they are.”

“And if I may say so, Ms. Lowen, in the case of this particular issue, there is so much disinformation going on about the event,” Vinicius said. “All sorts of different stories about what happened on this ship where the events took place.”

“Is that so,” Lowen said.

“Yes,” Vinicius. “The eyewitness reports aren’t especially credible.”

Lowen smiled at Vinicius. “Is this your personal opinion, Mr. Vinicius, or the opinion of the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations?”

Vinicius smiled back and supplied a little hand movement, as if to suggest the answer was, A little of both.

“So you’re saying that I am not a credible eyewitness,” Lowen said.

Vinicius’s smile vanished. “Excuse me?” he said.

“You’re saying I am not a credible eyewitness,” Lowen repeated. “Because I was part of that diplomatic mission, Mr. Vinicius. In fact, not only was I there, I also conducted the autopsy that established that Liu Cong’s death was murder, and also helped identify how it was the murder was accomplished. When you say that the eyewitness reports are not credible, you’re talking about me, specifically and directly. If what you’re saying actually reflects the opinion of the Ministry of External Relations, then we have a problem. A very large problem.”

“Ms. Lowen, I—,” Vinicius began.

“Mr. Vinicius, it’s clear we got off on the wrong foot here, because I was assured there would be actual information for me, and because you are clearly an unprepared idiot,” Lowen said, standing. Vinicius rushed to stand as well. “So I suggest we start again. Here’s how we’re going to do that. I am going to go downstairs and across the street to get a cup of coffee and perhaps a bagel. I will take my time enjoying them. Let’s say a half hour. When I return, in half an hour, Consul General Nascimento will be here to give me a full and confidential briefing on everything the Brazilian government knows about Luiza Carvalho, which I will then report back to the secretary of state, who, just in case you didn’t know, as it’s clear you don’t know much of anything, is also my father, which if nothing else assures that he will take my call. If, when I return, Consul Nascimento is here and you are nowhere nearby, I might not suggest that you be fired by the end of the day. If, when I return, she is nothere, and I have to see your smug face again, then I would suggest you take a long lunch break to book your trip back to Brasília, because you’re going to be there by this time tomorrow. Are we clear on these details?”

“Uh,” Vinicius said.

“Good,” Lowen said. “Then I expect to see Consul Nascimento in half an hour.” She walked out of Vinicius’s office and was at the consulate’s elevator before Vinicius could blink.

Across the street at the doughnut shop, Lowen pulled out her PDA and called her father’s office, getting James Prescott, his chief of staff. “How did it go?” Prescott asked, without preamble, as he opened up the connection.

“Pretty much exactly as we anticipated,” Lowen said. “Nascimento wasn’t there and pawned me off on an egregiously stupid underling.”

“Let me guess,” Prescott said. “A guy named Vinicius.”

“Bing,” Lowen said.

“He’s got a reputation for stupidity,” Prescott said. “His mother is the minister of education.”

“I knewit,” Lowen said. “Mommy’s boy made a particularly dumb remark, and that allowed me to tell him to produce Nascimento or I would start a major diplomatic incident.”

“Ah, the gentle art of cracking heads,” Prescott said.

“Subtle wasn’t going to work on this guy,” Lowen said, and then the windows of the doughnut shop shattered from the pressure wave created by the exploding building across the street.

Lowen and everyone else in the shop ducked and yelled, and then there was the sound of glass and falling debris outside, all over Sixth Avenue. She opened her eyes cautiously and saw that the glass of the doughnut shop windows, while shattered, had stayed in their frames, and that everyone in the doughnut shop, at least, was alive and unharmed.

Prescott was yelling out of the speaker of her PDA; she put the thing back to her ear. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”

“What just happened?” Prescott asked.

“Something just happened to the building across the street,” Lowen said. She weaved her way through the still-crouching patrons of the doughnut shop and went to the door, opening it gently to avoid dislodging the shattered glass. She looked up.

“I think I’m not going to get that meeting with Nascimento,” she said, to Prescott.

“Why not?” Prescott said.

“The Brazilian consulate isn’t there anymore,” Lowen said. She disconnected the PDA, used it to take pictures of the wreckage on and above Sixth Avenue and then, as a doctor, started to tend to the injured on the street.

*   *   *

“Amazonian separatists,” Prescott said. He’d caught the shuttle up from Washington an hour after the bombing. “That’s who they’re blaming it on.”

“You have gotto be kidding me,” Lowen said. She and Prescott were in a staff lounge of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions. She’d already given her statement to the New York Police Department and the FBI and given copies of her pictures to each. Now she was taking a break before she did the whole thing over again with State.

“I didn’t expect you to believe it,” Prescott said. “I’m just telling you what the Brazilians are saying. They maintain someone from the group called in and took responsibility. I think we’re supposed to overlook that the specific group they’re pinning it on has never once perpetrated a violent act, much less traveled to another country and planted a bomb in a secure location.”

“They’re crafty, those Amazonian separatists,” Lowen said.

“You have to admit it’s overkill, though,” Prescott said. “Blowing up their consulate to avoid talking to you.”

“I know you’re joking, but I’m going to say it anyway, just to hear myself say it: The Brazilians didn’t blow up their own consulate,” Lowen said. “Whoever our friend Luiza Carvalho was in bed with did it.”