But there’s nothing musical about what always comes after. The impact of the plummeting limousine sounds like nothing less than the end of the world.
It jolts him awake, as it does every night, and spares him the sight of Amanda, dangling upside down, hanging like a slaughtered fawn, her limp form straining against the nylon seat belt, her mouth agape, crimson blood leaking from one corner. Amanda’s face is etched with confusion, as though astonished by what’s happened. Astounded but lacking the spark of life.
His eyes snap open before he has to face the terrible image. This is how he awakes every morning, his sheets cast aside in fitful, restless slumber, soaked through with sweat. Every morning. For two years.
This particular morning, he awakes in a room in NH Genève Aéroport, an unassuming hotel just a five-minute drive from Geneva Airport. The overhead wail of the airplanes taking off and landing competes with the bleat of his iPhone’s alarm, set for 5:00 a.m. Dawn’s first light spits through the open blinds of the modest room, illuminating his solitude.
He staggers to the bathroom and catches himself in the mirror. He doesn’t recognize the man he sees as Jonas Cullen, PhD and Nobel laureate. Gone is any patina of youthfulness. Instead of a man in his late thirties, a fortysomething stranger stares back at him. Unshaven. Unkempt. Eyes that once held the spark of brilliance now bloodshot and weary.
Without bothering to flush or wash his hands, Jonas pads out to the chair where he laid out his clothing the night before. A simple shirt. A pair of slacks. A sweater. All custom made. All woven from cotton and other natural fibers. Even the soles of his leather shoes are made from caucho, a natural rubber. Each article of clothing—save for his socks and underwear—is dyed black. Nothing is artificial. Not a stitch is manufactured. This is important.
Once dressed, he moves over to the room’s small desk. Atop it is an aluminum briefcase with a combination lock. Jonas wheels the dials to Amanda’s birthday, pops it open, and lifts the briefcase’s lid to reveal a cluster of circuitry. He constructed the device only after arriving in Switzerland, assembling it from parts purchased from electronics and hobby stores. It would have been impossible to smuggle the technology through airport security. Its appearance is indistinguishable from that of a bomb. It would take three doctorates to divine its true purpose.
In the center of the technical mélange is a Raspberry Pi, a credit card–size computer. Jonas snakes a USB cable from it and plugs the other end into the HDMI port on the hotel room’s flat-screen, converting it into a makeshift monitor. A keyboard connects via Bluetooth, and Jonas goes to work, encoding a final set of calculations, which he confirms against the formulae inscribed on his inner left arm.
The tattoo is less than a month old. Its edges still betray a hint of inflammation, angry red skin, a wound not yet fully healed. The formulae are complex equations that cascade down the length of his forearm. Letters. Numbers. Greek symbols. Parentheses and braces. All with a timeless beauty and flow, like text on an ancient sandstone tablet.
The tattoo artist laughed when Jonas showed her what he wanted. She had thought it was a joke, some elaborate prank on the part of her employer or perhaps a coworker. A bit of whimsy to liven up the day. But Jonas had assured her that he was serious, that he needed the work completed in a single painful session, and that it needed to be precise.
He hopes the tattoo won’t be necessary. If he’s successful, he’ll have no further need of it. But there are still millions of ways that things could go wrong. No, that’s not right, he corrects himself. There are an infinite number of ways.
The television flashes green, indicating that the encoding is complete. Jonas reaches inside the briefcase, into the menagerie of circuit boards and microchips, and finds the ring of tungsten at its center. It is featureless but for a small groove where it forms an electrical connection with the rest of his invention. Removing it, he considers the small object, a simple band of dull gray metal. Beneath a layer of aluminum so thin as to be translucent, a small white light throbs like a vein.
Jonas slips the ring on the finger where he used to wear his wedding band. It radiates a subtle warmth, generated by a tiny lithium battery inside, against his skin.
A photograph hangs taped inside the briefcase’s lid. Amanda. Radiant, standing in Manhattan’s Central Park. A day that can only be described as perfect. She holds a Frisbee, fluorescent-pink plastic suffused with sunlight. A diamond engagement ring is taped to the underside, its sparkle outshone only by the sparkle in her eyes. Her smile is luminous, all teeth and naked exuberance.
This is his favorite photo of her. He knows each detail like he knows his own name. The second piercing in her left ear, devoid of a stud. The faint stain of yellow on her T-shirt from the hot dog they’d shared earlier that day. The hint of a dimple in her right cheek. The collie prancing in the background, its playful form slightly out of focus. He could draw the entire image from memory but still drinks the picture in, knowing that this is the last time he’ll ever see it.
A knocking at the door—three precise raps—returns him to the present. He glances at his iPhone: 5:45 a.m. Right on the tick.
Jonas opens the door to find Macon standing outside, all six feet, three inches of him. He wears a dark gray commando sweater, black jeans, and black leather boots. No jewelry to break up the utilitarian ensemble. He has a face like leather, wrinkled and hardened by too much time in the hottest places around the globe. Tiny strands of gray fleck a goatee groomed with military precision. His eyes remind Jonas of two black holes, drawing in everything and emitting nothing. Eyes that have seen the worst the world has to offer.
“It’s go time,” Macon says with as much emotion as one might use to report the weather. Jonas just nods. He moves to leave, but with the barest hint of effort, Macon blocks his path. “No pay, no play.”
Jonas stops short. He completely forgot. Retreating into the room and moving toward the closet, he realizes that he’s more scared than he’d let himself admit. What he’s about to attempt could very well result in his arrest, injury, or death.
On the floor of the closet is a navy blue gym bag. Jonas lifts it, feeling its heft. He turns around, surprised that Macon is standing right behind him. Pushing that breach of etiquette aside, Jonas hands him the bag.
Macon unzips it, and Jonas watches him mentally tally the stacks of euros bound with currency straps. “A lotta money.” Then, a hint of suspicion. An incredulity honed by a lifetime of dealing with the less scrupulous members of humanity. “Didn’t think you academic types pulled down much bank,” he says. He makes “academic types” sound like a curse.
“My wife had a life insurance policy.”
This answer evidently satisfies Macon, because he produces a Glock 19 from beneath his jacket, expertly trombones the action, and holds it out to Jonas.
“I specified no fatalities, Mr. Macon.” Jonas had been firm on this point, but now the words come across as slightly ridiculous, as if Jonas were as accustomed to hiring mercenaries as he is ordering a pizza.
“Well, Doc,” Macon patiently explains, “there’s what we plan for, and there’s what actually happens.”
Jonas thinks on that for a second. He takes the gun.
The Glock digs uncomfortably into the small of Jonas’s back where he has secreted it as instructed. Although he hopes he won’t have to use it, he now knows how, after two weeks of intensive instruction by Macon and his team. For fourteen days, they drilled and rehearsed and trained. For fourteen days, Jonas pretended he was someone else to learn what he needed to do. Like quantum physics, the field to which he’d devoted his life, the training had its own rules and, within that structure, a kind of beauty. Jonas has always been good at following instructions, taking comfort in the bright lines drawn between “do” and “don’t.” Between “correct” and “incorrect.” But the line he’s straddling now—between “right” and “wrong”—is blurred and indistinct, a suggestion more than a rule.
He strides with Macon across the tarmac at Aéroport de Genève. Spinning up ahead of them, its shape backlit by the morning sun, is a Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin. Although its carbon fiber rotor blades are revolving a good four feet above his head, Macon gestures for Jonas to duck as they climb aboard.
Three men wait inside. They wear bulletproof vests and balaclavas, each man professionally inspecting semiautomatic rifles that Jonas can’t identify. The sounds produced by their ministrations—the snapping in of bullets, the slamming home of cartridges, the racking and reracking of actions—fills the cabin with a percussive staccato that reminds Jonas of an orchestra tuning up.
“Somebody hook the doc up with his Kevlar,” Macon grunts.
In short order, a heavy bulletproof vest is thrown Jonas’s way. For an instant, he debates whether to put it on. He’ll only have to remove it later, and that could end up costing him precious seconds. On the other hand, he doesn’t know what kind of resistance they’ll encounter. There’s what we plan for, Macon had observed, and there’s what actually happens.
Jonas tries to put on the vest but struggles with its complex system of folding plates and Velcro fasteners. The other men smirk and titter, finding humor in Jonas’s inexpertness.
“Help you out?” Macon asks, more impatient than amused. Without waiting for an answer, he manhandles Jonas, spinning him around and slapping the Kevlar into place.
One of the mercenaries throws Macon a wary glance. “Hope you got us paid first.” The other men laugh. Macon just points Jonas toward his seat and dons a Kevlar vest of his own.
As Jonas straps himself in, he feels the mercenaries studying him. Assessing. Judging. Considering whether his inexperience will get one or more of them killed today.
The fuselage vibrates as the rotors begin to pick up speed, and the helicopter lurches upward. As it climbs, Jonas cracks his knuckles. He feels a coldness form in his chest as his heart begins to gallop. He considers the ring on his hand. Sunlight streams in from the helicopter’s windows, glancing off its matte silver finish. Its white light pulses, as reliable as a promise. Everything will be all right. Everything will work out.
He takes a deep breath. But it will take more than that to calm him.
The Control Centre building is five minutes away.
