Wired - Douglas E. Richards [51]
Desh frowned deeply and then nodded. “Okay … Smith. I’ll help you.” He waited until Smith turned from the road to glance at him and then locked onto his eyes with a laser-like intensity. “But this time we’re going to do it my way.”
20
The darkness was beginning to gradually give way to the coming dawn, and tiny flecks of water appeared on the windshield as the early morning drizzle that had been forecast arrived on schedule. In another month this same precipitation would result in snow flurries. Smith set the wipers to a ten second delay between strokes and waited for Desh to spell out his terms, the silence of the twilight drive broken only by the intermittent squeaking of the wiper blades.
“Pull off here,” instructed Desh, pointing.
Smith raised his eyebrows. “A shortcut to your apartment?” he asked.
“No. It makes more sense for you to drop me at Griffin’s apartment. I need to retrieve my clothes and watch,” he explained. “Not to mention my SUV.”
Smith said nothing but exited the highway as instructed, decelerating rapidly to a stop at the end of the long off-ramp. He glanced at the gas gauge and proposed they stop for fuel. Less than a minute later they pulled into a nearby gas station. While Smith began to fill the tank the gnawing in Desh’s stomach reminded him just how hungry and thirsty he had become. He also realized that he didn’t have his wallet with him and was forced to borrow ten dollars from the Black Ops officer, feeling slightly foolish.
Desh entered the store’s mini-mart and pulled a 32-ounce bottle of water from the cooler and an orange juice for Smith, and then tore two bananas from a fresh bunch near the register, both for himself, and walked to the counter. The entire time he watched Smith attentively through the transparent storefront to make sure he didn’t open the trunk and try to regain access to his weapons. He and Desh appeared to be on the same side, but that didn’t mean Desh was prepared to trust him. Whatever was going on, and whoever could be believed, the stakes were very, very high, and he was determined to err on the side of paranoia.
A number of nagging questions still gnawed at him. If Kira Miller really did have some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world in her pocket as Smith suggested, then why hadn’t she had them use their influence to call off the manhunt? And how was it that she wasn’t better protected? The beneficiaries of her therapy would have an enormous vested interest in her welfare and survival. If she died, so did their longevity. Even if she had refused bodyguards, they would have activated armies of guardian angels, staying in the shadows but ensuring that the Smiths of the world didn’t get nearly as close to her as they had at the motel.
There was far more going on than Desh understood. He was convinced he was fumbling in the dark, feeling the elephant’s trunk and being persuaded it was a snake. He needed to go back to basic principles. If he believed Kira Miller really had been able to optimize her intelligence, it wasn’t much of a stretch to believe she had also successfully developed a longevity therapy. And if this were the case, than all bets were truly off. Smith portrayed himself as being on the side of the angels, and maybe this had largely been true in the past. But what about now, in this situation? What would Smith do if he really did have Kira in his grasp? And what about the people above him? Could Desh trust this group to do the right thing once they had her? Would they simply pry the secret from her and give it to the world? It would take but a single weak link for her to bribe herself to freedom or for someone to take her place. She was the key to unlimited power, and if only a single corrupt person was in the loop, he could obtain her secrets for himself, kill her, and disappear; potentially becoming even a bigger monster than she had been.
Desh believed that dangerous character traits such as megalomania, sadism, and sociopathy tended to be enriched in populations of people who