Nano

CHAPTER 46

Whitney Jones wasn’t helping Zach Berman’s mood. With the muffled drone of the jet engines in the background, he went over the events of the last fifteen hours in his mind. Whitney was sitting in a seat across from him and openly glared at him from time to time. Berman felt duped by Pia, and made to look ridiculous. He was angry enough about it without having to be reminded by the look on his subordinate’s face of how the whole Nano enterprise had been endangered because of his infatuation with one woman. “You idiot,” said the look on Whitney’s face.

But the more he thought about it, the more Berman was confident that his carefully laid plans and the countless hours of work and sacrifice over the years had been endangered, but not compromised. He went over every detail in his mind, looking for a loose end that remained, or a possibility that hadn’t occurred to him that jeopardized everything. He had yet to find one.

Pia’s penetration of what was called Nano’s inner sanctum had initiated a hurried but detailed operation to rid Nano of all evidence of the vivisected bodies and to substitute dogs in the aquarium baths. It was something that had been planned for the near future anyway, since the physiological experiments that the bodies had been used for were already successfully completed. Berman also knew he was assisted by the fact that Pia was a remarkably private, secretive person, a lone wolf who had few long-term friends, save for George Wilson, who was way off in L.A. and, according to what Whitney had been able to find out, was kept at arm’s length by Pia.

Berman had learned what he knew about Pia from the several times he’d had her followed by a local private investigator. From those reports he knew that the only possible problem was the ER doctor, Paul Caldwell. The head of Nano security agreed and considered Caldwell a potential difficulty, but as long as Pia had kept him in the dark, or neglected to tell him absolutely everything, which was assumed to be the case, then Caldwell was less of a threat alive than he was dead. One disappearance, that of Pia, would be relatively easy to explain considering her personality; but if a second person connected to the first went missing, too, then it became a pattern.

Berman was confident that Pia hadn’t stored or transmitted the information she might have gleaned from the blood samples, that much seemed clear. There were a couple of photomicrographs in the scanning electron microscope, but no evidence that they had been transferred, uploaded, or copied. There was nothing in her laptop or on her iPhone other than the single, hurried picture of one of the tanks. She had sent one text to Caldwell and no emails. The photo was hardly a problem, because it wasn’t possible to discern what was in the tank. Pia had told Caldwell she’d be right over but hadn’t shown up. Again, it might present a minor issue, but he’d know she was gone soon enough.

As for hard evidence, Berman’s security people had retrieved the blood Pia had collected from within Nano and the small sample from the Chinese jogger, and a viewing of the security recordings showed how much blood Pia had taken in the first place so that the amounts could be compared. Later, a discreet search of Boulder Memorial found no more hidden vials of blood anywhere in the ER — the security tapes there had quickly been scrutinized as well.

Berman was not happy about the security failures that had afforded Pia access to Nano and his own regrettable and embarrassing role in making them happen. It had taken Whitney Jones awhile, but she had figured out how Pia had circumvented the iris scanners, assisted in her detective work by her knowledge that the system indicated that it was Zachary Berman himself who was moving around inside the complex and not Pia Grazdani. Whitney was also the one who found the images of Berman’s eyes on Pia’s iPhone. Whitney was also the one who had shown the photos of Berman’s eyes to the embarrassed head of security. Jones told him to find new software that would eliminate the future possibility of a two-dimensional image that could fool the scanners.

Whitney had also left instructions that a security guard was to go to Nano and swipe Pia’s iPhone through the system twice more: once in and once out, and he was to wait at least an hour from the time that the Gulfstream was in the air before he did it. Whitney thought that Pia had left behind the technology to dupe the system; so why not use it to their advantage? The same guard was then to go to Pia’s apartment, leave a couple of items, and take some clothes and destroy them back at Nano. One of the female employees was driving the car Pia had been using east at that very moment, to be abandoned somewhere remote with Pia’s phone inside. Whitney was securing alibis for Berman and herself, and leaving evidence that suggested Pia had been home after being at Nano and had then taken off, heading east to an unknown destination.

More than any of these matters, what Berman thought about most in the hours of the flight to Europe was himself. He had been fooled by this woman, and made to look laughably callow, but as she lay unconscious in the back of the SUV on the way to the airport, when he should have been furious, he found that he didn’t desire her any less. If anything, he wanted her more than ever. And he had made a snap decision not to leave her fate up to the head of security or even Whitney. He was still in control, and he wasn’t done with Pia Grazdani. Even before they had intercepted Pia leaving Nano, Berman had phoned Jimmy Yan in China, where he was spending a few days with his family before the semi-controlled chaos of the athletics championships. Or at least that’s where he said he was and what he was doing.

Jimmy was calmness personified on the phone, and it reassured Berman. In response to a specific question about privacy, Jimmy confirmed that he was speaking on a safe link as Berman himself was, and that Berman could tell him exactly what had happened. When Berman had finished with the saga about Pia, Jimmy was quiet for a minute, and then told Berman what he had to do. Berman promised Jimmy that he would personally deal with Pia, and that he was able to leave immediately as requested.

Systems had been set in place for weeks in the event of the successful conclusion of the experimental phase of the relationship between Nano and Jimmy’s higher-ups in the Chinese government. Once the expected result in London was achieved, the first of the new rounds of secure money transfers would take place, and China would begin to receive access to the first of the equally secure Web sites that contained thousands of pages of technical specifications for some of Nano’s proprietary secrets, mostly in the arena of molecular manufacturing, and even a number of its products. Jimmy said that in two days he would pick up Berman at the airport and take him to the house he described to him, and then ended the call.

Jimmy Yan’s refusal to be rattled was comforting to Berman, but he knew his friend would have some explaining to do if he chose to mention these incidents to any of his superiors. Jimmy had alluded to the politicking that took place inside the Chinese government and had admitted that some individuals and factions disliked any arrangement with foreigners in the West, especially Americans. China could reach these technological goals on its own, it was argued. Yes, agreed Jimmy, of course China was capable of making such advances, but how long would it take? The opportunity was here, and they should seize it now with all the foreign reserves, particularly dollars, they were sitting on. And on top of that, they could get something else that they wanted almost as much: international athletic recognition to help make up for the loss of self-respect from having been subjected to centuries of abject colonialism by Western powers.

Berman turned his head away from the window and caught Whitney giving him the evil eye once again.

“Okay, okay! I screwed up,” said Berman. “What do you want me to say?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to, your face was doing the talking for you. I know what you are thinking: stupid Berman had to get involved with this woman. He couldn’t keep away from her like some besotted teenager. Okay, I’m a guy with a weakness for beautiful women. I don’t want to have to remind you of how you have personally benefited from my… interests.”

“Zachary, I promise, I didn’t say anything.”

“So you said,” said Berman. “Perhaps I need to talk it out for my own benefit. I’m confident Pia didn’t tell anyone about anything she found, except possibly the ER doctor. She didn’t have time. And if she had told the doctor, he would have rushed off to tell the police, which we know he hasn’t done. Right now, he’s sitting home in his apartment, and the only calls he’s made have been to Pia’s mobile phone. We know that for a fact. I predict he will go to work at three o’clock when he’s expected and only start taking action if he hasn’t heard from Pia when he gets off work, whatever ungodly time that might be.”

“You’re confident of that?”

“I am. You can’t raise an alarm because a grown woman hasn’t called you for a few hours. Can you imagine how flooded the switchboards would be? Even if it’s a whole day, the police aren’t going to do anything. And by then, we’ll be in Jimmy’s safe house.”

“I think you’re right,” said Whitney. “I know we’ll be fine.” She was placated to some extent, but there was one huge mistake Berman had made, to her mind. If they were speaking frankly, she would bring it up.

“The only real problem is the woman.” She nodded her head toward the back of the cabin. “What exactly do you have in mind?”

“So you have a problem with me bringing her like this?”

“Of course I have a problem. She’s the weak link in all of this. She’s caused this brouhaha, and she’s still with us. She can ruin everything. If it had been up to me, she should have been left in the hands of the head of security. Ultimately he’s the one to blame for all this by not keeping her out of Nano.”

“Of course you know what would have happened to her if we had left her in his hands. You don’t find that a problem?”

Whitney was quiet for a moment. She knew what would have happened, but she didn’t want to think about it, like she had never wanted to think about the people in the Nano aquariums. She had been brought into Berman’s vision, and her future was tied to his, she knew that. If he went down, she went down with him. But she did have her limits.

“Actually, no, I don’t. I don’t think about it. But the fact that she is here with us, that’s a problem.”

Whitney turned around and looked over her shoulder. Berman followed her line of sight, and there, as he was well aware, was Pia, unconscious and slumped back across two wide seats, her mouth open, her chest rising and falling in quiet, rhythmical breathing. She was handcuffed to the table in front of her, restrained like one of the many Chinese athletic prisoners who had traveled west on this plane.

“You bought her with us. She could ruin everything we’ve worked for. What are you going to do with her?”

“Well, that’s what I’ve been thinking about,” said Berman, and he smiled. “Her fate will depend on her willingness to become a team player. Maybe she could be your assistant.”

“My assistant?” Whitney howled. “No, no, no! You’re not going to saddle me with that willful bitch. I don’t want to babysit your latest plaything, especially knowing you, you’ll tire of her. She’ll be hanging around my neck, and I don’t have the time or the energy. Keeping you on track is enough of a job for me.”

“Oh, come on! Whitney. Your job’s gotten bigger and you need an assistant. She’s intelligent and tenacious: a hard worker. You could use her.”

“I don’t know,” Whitney said. She knew how much she owed Berman, and it was hard for her not to do his bidding. The trouble was she was reasonably certain the Pia business was going to end badly, and she didn’t want to get to know the woman and then have to be involved with getting rid of her, really getting rid of her.