MIND FIELDS (15 page)

  Kincade smiled.  “No, sir.  Just a few questions I have about nanobots.  Something about an auto accident I’m investigating.”

  “
Our
nanobots?” JT asked.

  “Aren’t they all, Mr. Anderson?”

  “Wait in the lobby, Detective, would you?  I’m going to call my lawyer.”

  “Suit yourself, sir.”

  Kincade was disappointed as he watched Anderson walk into the building.  He had hoped to pry a little information from Anderson before the legal eagles interfered.  A man’s reactions to probing questions were quite a bit different when his lawyer was by his side.

  Mr. Seymour motioned Kincade toward the door.  “I’ll show you to the lobby.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Tony, get the detective a cup of coffee, would you?”

  ___

  As for digging up any incriminating evidence, the meeting with JT Anderson turned out to be as fruitless as Kincade suspected it would be, but he could tell from the CEO’s body language that Anderson had something to hide.  Whether it was just the usual corporate paranoia or something more sinister, Kincade was not sure, but he suspected the latter.  A man of Anderson’s stature was not usually so unnerved by a simple visit from a lowly detective.

  Kincade didn’t even bother asking Anderson if he could review the employee files to check out the story that Shelly Lange had told him.  It was obvious that he would not get his hands on any private company information without a subpoena, something that would not be so easy to get with the connections that a man like Anderson could use to block the detective’s path.

  Kincade left after a few short questions about nanobots and BNI’s processing system. 

  Anderson dismissed his attorney, and sat alone at his desk contemplating his next move.  He was unnerved by the sudden turn of events.  He didn’t like someone snooping around so soon after Harold Bradley’s accident, the accident that had killed Rocky Stankowski. 

  He glanced out the door as his secretary entered the outer office and reached up to hang her coat on the rack.

“Carla, make sure I’m not disturbed.” 

  She nodded and walked over to the coffee machine as he closed his door.

___

  Kincade was disappointed, but knew he had not come away empty-handed.  He pulled out of the lot in his ’43 Malibu, and turned north on Highway 29 toward Baltimore. 

  Richie didn’t mind driving; it gave him time to think.  This morning was no exception.  His meeting with JT Anderson hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped, but he had definitely touched a nerve.  Anderson was hiding something.  Richie wasn’t sure exactly what, but he did know that he would eventually find out.  This sort of thing, spending time chasing down information from a deceitful weasel like Anderson, irritated most guys, but Kincade loved it.  This was the part of the job that made it fun.  The information that someone was trying to hide, that he really had to dig for, that was the stuff that was always the most useful.

  “Computer, get me the phone records from BNI.  I need a list of the most recent calls made form there, anything after seven-thirty this morning.  Download the results to my desktop computer at the station.”

Chapter thirteen

  James O’Grady had been in law enforcement for as long as he could remember. He and his sister Jenna were born in Dublin, Ireland, but the family immigrated to the United States shortly after Jenna’s birth, and settled in Baltimore.  His father, Timothy, worked at the steel plant and made an honest living.  Jimmy needed more excitement in his life.  He was a good student, but one who was always getting into trouble.  He was just fourteen when his parents were killed in an auto accident on I-95, later determined to have been caused by a car bomb planted by members of the Irish Republican Army, who feared that Timothy O’Grady, once a member of the IRA, would divulge sensitive information to the wrong people.  James and Jenna had no other family, and were placed in an orphanage.

As soon as he was old enough, Jimmy entered the police academy, but even police work didn’t provide enough excitement for him.  He attended night school and studied criminal law in the hopes of getting into the FBI, but fate twisted in a different direction and he landed in the National Security Agency, commonly referred to as the NSA.

Whenever possible, he made time to visit Jenna, five years his junior.  He felt obligated to make sure she had what she needed to make a life for herself, at least that’s what he had always told himself.  But when she moved back to Ireland to marry Jonathan McKnight, he realized that he needed her more than she needed him.  It was tough having no one, no family in the country, but it made him more valuable as an NSA operative.  He had little to lose, and his dedication to the job paid dividends.  He advanced through the ranks, and currently was in charge of the development of covert operations technology.  His specialty was biotechnological weapons, a very controversial area, which was opposed by the current Democratic administration.

Nobody knew the potential of nanotechnology as a weapon better than James O’Grady, and it had become his primary area of focus.  Back in the early 2040’s when he first read of the possibilities of replacing brain cells with microscopic computers, he immediately saw the potential for its use in agency activity.  To be able to monitor the thoughts and actions of a target would be the ultimate in espionage, but until then, he hadn’t even imagined something like that could actually be possible.

By that time, JT Anderson was already making a name for himself in the world of technology and business, and after weathering the controversy of his stormy departure from Hopkins, O’Grady knew that Anderson was the kind of man he could sway to his side.  He set up a meeting with Anderson, under the guise of being a political lobbyist who could help BNI obtain government funding for nanotech research.  He wasn’t being entirely untruthful; his connections on Capitol Hill were considerable.

Anderson was not difficult to convince.  Not only was he motivated by the promise of government funding to advance R&D at BNI, but he considered himself a true patriot as well.  The thought of helping the CIA develop technology that could help the United States was alluring.  After all of the controversy over the Hopkins split, Anderson was considered something of a rebel, the kind of man who achieved success in American society, but success without honor.  The thought of doing something that could cast him in a heroic light appealed to JT’s boyish idealism.

O’Grady was highly influential in the development of the neurological nanobot project at BNI.  He was the one who had convinced Anderson to establish a new lab dedicated solely to this project.  He had been instrumental in setting up security protocols to keep the work safe, and had encouraged Anderson to put the project into the hands of a young nanobotic specialist named Sean Lightbourne.  Once Lightbourne joined the team, work proceeded rapidly.  O’Grady was pleased with the progress and used his political influence to introduce Anderson to Senator Russell Stetson, a proponent of a strong military presence for the United States, and an influential member of the Senate Subcommittee on Nanotechnology.

O’Grady liked to keep a low profile, and communicated with Anderson only when absolutely necessary.  He had given Anderson strict instructions never to try to contact him at the Agency, but gave him his private cell phone number for emergencies.

  “This had better be damned important, JT.  I had to cancel lunch with the Senate Majority Leader, not a great career move.”

  Anderson glanced over his shoulder as he shook James O’Grady’s hand and hurried him through the door of Flanagan’s Pub.

  “I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t.  The less we’re seen together the better. I’m no idiot, Jimmy, but there was no other time I could slip away today and this can’t wait.”

  Flanagan’s was a discreet establishment frequented by many politicians, lobbyists and local business leaders in suburban D.C..  Their private lunchrooms weren’t the place to grab a cheap burger, but the privacy was secure.  Flanagan’s reputation was made on that security.  The long, private drive into the wooded estate owned by Harry Flanagan assured that the press could never be certain who was meeting with whom.  In fact, they rarely bothered to even stake out the place, because it never resulted in a story their readers could sink their teeth into.

  O’Grady and Anderson settled in at their table and ordered quickly.  The waiter left and carefully closed the door to the private dining room behind him.

  “OK, JT.  What’s got you so jumpy?”

  “A detective from Baltimore came snooping around BNI this morning, some guy named Kincade.  Ever hear of him?”

  O’Grady shrugged.  “Nah, doesn’t ring a bell.  Should it?”

  “Hell, I don’t know.  Damnedest thing, though.  I mean, he didn’t schedule a meeting or anything.  He just came running at me in the parking garage this morning and chased me into the building.”

  “Chased you? What in the hell did he want?

  “Routine questions, he said.  But I didn’t buy it.”

  “Why not?  What did he ask you about?”

  “Just some basic stuff – how we manufacture the neuronanobots, how they work, the clinical results, that kind of thing.  Then he left.”

  “That was it?  And you called me in a panic over that?  Hell, JT, your reaction is the only thing that sounds suspicious about this whole thing.”

  “No, listen.  You weren’t there.  The stuff he asked, that’s all stuff that anyone could get in five minutes on the Net.  That wasn’t what he came to ask me.  I’m sure of it. 

I could see it in his eyes, but as soon as Stan walked in, his whole demeanor changed. I mean …”

  “Stan?  You called a lawyer in when a cop said he just wanted a little info on nanobot production for a case?  Are you nuts?  Listen, man, this whole thing’s going to blow up in our faces if you don’t keep your cool.  We’ve got the highest level of national security on this.  There’s no way some street cop could have gotten wind of the project.”

  “I’m telling you he knows something.”

  “Well, if he wasn’t suspicious that something was going on at BNI before he met with you this morning, he sure as hell will be now.  Hell, even the waiter was nervous after he got a look at you.  You’re oozing anxiety.”

  JT wiped his brow.  “I’m not used to this kind of thing, Jimmy. Not like you.  I can take on a boardroom full of angry investors, I can maneuver an aggressive press corps into writing a story in a way that makes me look like the philanthropist of the century, but I don’t like dancing around the law.”

  “Get over it.  We
are
the law.”

  The waiter walked in and served their meals quickly.  “Everything satisfactory, gentlemen?”

  They both nodded affirmatively.

  “Just ring if you need anything.”  He motioned to the blue button on the wall.  He would not return until summoned.  O’Grady watched him walk out.

  “What was this detective’s name?”

  “Richard Kincade.  He’s with the BPD.  Here’s his card.”  He handed the card to O’Grady who glanced at it, and then stuck it in his shirt pocket.

  “I’ll take care of this guy.  Now relax and enjoy your lunch.  They’ve got the best crab cakes in D.C. here.”

  JT felt a little better.  O’Grady had connections.  JT wasn’t sure just exactly what those connections were and he did not intend to ask, but when James O’Grady said a problem was taken care of, it was taken care of.

  “As long as we’re here, why don’t you give me an update on the project.  I don’t think I should be seen with you at BNI for a while with this detective snooping around.”

  “What, here?”

  O’Grady looked up from his meal, and motioned around the room with both arms.  “Christ, JT, this place is more secure than the Oval Office.  Nothing leaves this room.”

  JT was hesitant, but gave in. 

  “Well, the Phase Three bots have been completed.  They are designed to be injected into a host who has already been treated with TPNT,  the Two Phase Neuronanobot  Treatment for brain injury.  The Phase One bots repair the damage caused by a brain injury, the Phase Two bots go to the same spot and replace the dead nerve cells, and the Phase Three bots are attracted to the same area by a chemical released by the Phase Two bots.  When the new Phase Three bots get there, they hook up to the nerve cells in the area, and … now this is the really cool part … they can send any message we want to the rest of the brain through those connections.  In other words, we can take control of that person’s brain, tell them to do anything we want.”

  “Awesome, JT, awesome, but how do you control them?  How do you change the message after they’re already inside someone’s brain?”

  JT beamed.  He was clearly proud of his work. “We’ve developed a way to control the Phase Three nanobots by radio frequency.  We have the ability to reprogram them after they are in the brain with a simple little remote control device that’s no bigger than a cell phone.  In essence, anyone who has our Phase Three bots in their head becomes our robot.”

  “Can these cells be detected?  I mean, can they be traced back to BNI?”

  “Well, that was a problem at first.  We made the first Phase Three bots out of an inorganic material.  It was the only way we could get the radio frequency controller to work.  The problem was, that inorganic material lit up on an MRI; they were easy to detect.  That’s why we killed off that first subject, that Hanes fellow, and had him cremated.  Somehow, that seemed like a poor long-term solution.  The bots would have limited application if we had to kill off their hosts and cremate them each time.  Sooner or later it would arouse suspicion.”

  “Seems you may have already done that,” O’Grady said, tapping the pocket that contained Richard Kincade’s business card.

  “Yeah, well anyway, we solved that.  One of my guys managed to make the Phase Three bots organic.  They can’t be detected by any scans now.  You wouldn’t even find them on an autopsy.  Once the body’s dead, they look just like any other nerve cells in the brain.  At first, they were harder to control than the inorganic bots.  The first subject went into uncontrollable seizures when we tried to activate them.  It was a good field test though.  She was hospitalized and scanned with every machine available in an effort to get her seizures under control, and the doctors never picked up anything suspicious.  The organic Phase Three bots are medically invisible.”

  “You got the kinks out of it now?  We can’t risk failure.  We’re only going to have one shot at this.”

  “Oh yeah, we’ve got it nailed down now.  The next two tests went perfectly.  We got one guy to drive his car right off a bridge, man.  Plunged it into the Middle River — clean investigation; no evidence of foul play.”

  O’Grady raised an eyebrow.  “Not bad.  Not bad at all.”

  “Thanks,” JT smiled, “but we’ve done much better.  On the final test, we stepped it up a notch.  We got the subject to carry out a much more complex task, something she never would have done on her own.  The whole thing went like clockwork, and afterwards she didn’t have a clue what she had done.