EUROPEAN AIR TRANSIT CORRIDOR – GENEVA – SWITZERLAND

The strong and sweet black tea began to tilt toward the shallow cup’s gold-rimmed edge, and Elizabeth DuClare’s eyes flicked up from the encrypted data tablet holding her attention. Weak light through the oval windows of her private jet shifted across the interior wall of the opulent cabin as the aircraft started its final inbound leg, on course to descend into Geneva International.

The trip had been swift, not following the more circuitous route that a common civil flight might have made, but cutting directly over zones of disputed airspace that other aircraft would have been prohibited to transit. That made no difference to her. Those in positions of power knew whom the jet belonged to, and they knew what kind of retribution would befall them if there was so much as a momentary delay to the flight passing through their area. She rode inside a shell of power that was soft and ever-present on the surface, but steely and inviolate beneath. And this was as it should be.

DuClare frowned, taking a purse-lipped sip of the tea before straightening the elegant scarf around her neck. An expensive brand from London, the garment also served a dual purpose of masking her identity – woven into the threads of the innocuous-looking cloth was a frequency-flattening material that made it nigh-impossible for digital cameras to get a coherent image of her face.

Her eyes dropped to the tablet again, as she tapped the screen to lock away the reports she had been reviewing on her flight back from Naples. There were so many issues that required her attention.

In her leading position at the World Health Organization, the everyday and the mundane tasks of programs for the sick and needy were dealt with by lackeys. Her work was far more important, concentrating on the clandestine, the places where the WHO’s operations dovetailed with the Council of Five’s plans. She considered the reports of work in progress from the retroviral vector team in Kiev and the various Helix-designation genetics labs and their many initiatives. DuClare made a mental note to check in on the status of the D-Project, as once more her bio-programmers were tardy with their latest summary.

She was reaching for her seatbelt when the jet’s engine note suddenly changed, shifting to a keening whine as the aircraft lifted its nose above the horizon and angled into a sharp turn. The landing had been aborted, and they were climbing again.

DuClare stabbed an intercom button on the arm of her chair with one perfectly manicured fingernail. “Pilot. What’s going on?”

“Orders, ma’am.” The reply came immediately from a speaker on the desk before her chair. “We’ve been told to divert into a waiting pattern.”

“Orders from whom?” she demanded. The jet’s identity transponder carried permissions equivalent to that of any head of state, effectively giving it carte blanche to land whenever and however it wanted. DuClare shot a look out of the window but saw nothing amiss. The very idea that someone could divert her flight, even for a moment, was ridiculous.

“Stand by for incoming communication,” said the pilot, and from above, a holographic projector hidden in one of the crystal light fittings came alive, sketching a human figure in glowing laser lines.

As a virtual representation of a face took shape, she knew immediately whose orders had superseded hers. In the end, it could have been no-one else.

“Elizabeth. Apologies, my dear, but something has come up and this seemed the most expedient method of contacting you.” His digitally rendered voice echoing across the distance, the synthetic version of Lucius DeBeers stood before her, unaffected by the turning motion of the jet pulling everything slightly to the starboard.

She gave a demure smile. “Of course.” The subtle message here, that Lucius had overruled her standing orders at a whim, was not lost on DuClare.

“You’ll just circle for a bit,” he said. “Up here, the signal compression is better and we can talk in real-time.” Lucius’s avatar gestured toward her. “About what we spoke of at the hotel? It seems our adversary is moving assets into play in North America. Something is afoot.”

“Where? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

He nodded. “Just so. I’ve kept it from all the others, for reasons of… confidence, you understand? This remains between you and me for the moment.”

“Of course.” His desire for secrecy also explained this unscheduled conversation. On the ground, there was always the chance of unwanted ears listening in.

“Janus has sent people to Detroit, Michigan. I don’t know why as yet, but there’s other activity in that city that concerns me and their presence there cannot be coincidental.”

She frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Lucius.”

“There’s more. News has reached me from our asset embedded at Interpol. It appears that operatives from the Task Force 29 counter-terrorist team have located a target of particular interest. They’ve been searching for information on Adam Jensen.”

DuClare’s lips thinned, finally shifting into a cold smile. “He went home? How very like him to do something so… human.” DuClare had reluctantly taken responsibility for the loss of Jensen after the man escaped from a WHO clinic under her nominal control. It had been the job of her people to monitor him after his recovery, and that failure had caused her to lose face with Lucius. But now Jensen had resurfaced, and there was a chance that she could regain control of the situation. “Not for the first time, I must admit, I wonder if things would have been better if we had simply left him in the sea after Panchaea…”

“There’s truth in that,” offered DeBeers, “but after everything that has been invested in our next phase, we have to take a firm hand here. This needs to be handled decisively.”

She leaned back in the chair, thinking of plans operating within plans, of layers of intent and scheming that went deep and far. Her cold amusement returned once more. “Perhaps there is an element of fate to it. All the pawns, gathering in the same part of the board, each unaware of what guides them.”

DeBeers chuckled. “I quite like that analogy. You have a flair for a poetic turn of phrase, dear Beth.” He paused, considering. “We’re going to press the situation forward, I think. See what the roll of the dice offers up.”

“And what about potential risk to our assets in the city?”

“Oh, you let me take care of that. In the meantime, revisit your initial plans. This may even work in our favor.” The hologram gave a slight bow. “Until next time.”

With a flicker of color, the lasers vanished and DuClare was alone in the cabin once again. She heard the engines shift pitch and felt the jet returning to its original flight path.

Her hand moved back to her data tablet and called up the contents of a secured file. “Open search mode,” she told the device. “Show me all files pertaining to data string ‘White Helix Lab’, subset project name ‘Black Light’. Begin.”

A myriad of pages began to build across the screen, one after another.

EIGHT

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