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“Got something!” Nevers said. “I’ve coded out the virus algorithm from the Trojan’s. It’s endlessly regenerative. Amazing, really.”
“What I want to know, Nevers, is whether it can be stopped.”
“Intervention,” Nevers said, nodding. “Not the way you’d ever think to nullify a virus, which is what makes it so clever. You have to flip a switch, so to speak, from insidethe algorithm.”
Anderson hitched his chair forward in order to get a better view. “So do it.”
“Not so fast,” Nevers said. “The virus is encoded with traps, failsafe mechanisms, and dead ends.”
Anderson groaned. “One step forward, two steps back.”
“Better than being in the dark.” Nevers hit the enter key. “I’ve just transmitted everything I’ve discovered to the rest of the IT team.” He turned, gri
Anderson grunted.
“Richards destroyed the software keylogger just before he activated the virus. That’s the kernel of the problem. The software recorded only the partial code, not all of it. We can’t stop it until we have the code in its entirety.”
“Don’t you have enough information to make an informed assumption, intervene, and flip the algorithmic switch?”
“I could,” Nevers said, “but I won’t.” He turned to Anderson. “Look, this virus is so full of thorns—triggers, in other words—that if I don’t know precisely what I’m doing, I could inadvertently set off one of these triggers and make things infinitely worse.”
“Worse?” Anderson said, incredulous. “What could be worse than all our data being obliterated?”
“The motherboards overloading, the servers becoming nothing more than a pile of silicon, rare earths, and fused wire circuits. Vital enciphered communications would be down for God knows how long.”
Then he gri
When Nicodemo saw Don Fernando Hererra, he froze, still as a statue.
Hererra was dead—at least, according to Martha Christiana. But she had lied, and now she herself was dead, lying on the cobbled street on the Île Saint-Louis. Whether she had jumped from the fifth-floor window or had been pushed was impossible to say. But what was irrefutable was the presence of Hererra talking to the cops while the photos were being taken and fingerprints lifted from the crime scene.
Craning his neck up, Nicodemo could see through the windows detectives treading through what must be Hererra’s apartment. More flashbulbs lit up the night, more fingerprints were being taken up there in every room. What they expected to find, Nicodemo had no idea, nor was he interested. His focus, which had been on Martha Christiana, the woman Maceo Encarnación had told him to pick up and bring back to the waiting jet, now shifted to Hererra. There was nothing Nicodemo could do for Martha Christiana anymore, but there was certainly something he must do about Hererra.
Retreating to the shadows around the corner, he pulled out his mobile and called Maceo Encarnación.
“I’m standing around the corner from Don Fernando Hererra’s apartment,” he said when he heard the other man on the end of the line. “I don’t know how to break this to you, but Martha Christiana is dead.”
He pulled the mobile away from his ear at the tirade of curses that emanated from it.
“Fell or pushed, I don’t know which,” he continued when Maceo Encarnación had expended the depths of his shock and rage. “I’m sorry, truly. But we have other matters to occupy us. Martha Christiana lied about Hererra being dead....I know, I am too....But he’s standing big as life....Of course I’m sure it’s him.”
Nicodemo spent the next few moments absorbing every word Maceo Encarnación spoke, at the end of which he said, “You’re sure that’s what you want me to do.”
More withering talk, during which Nicodemo began his preparation for the assignment Maceo Encarnación had given him.
“Get it done,” Maceo Encarnación concluded. “You have twentyfour hours. After that, if you haven’t appeared, I take off without you. Clear?”
“Perfectly,” Nicodemo said. “I’ll be back before the deadline. Count on it.”
Disco
Nicodemo flipped out a cigarette, lit up, and smoked languidly as he continued to assess the scene. When, at length, the detectives were finished with Hererra, they gave him their cards, and he turned away, returning to his building. Nicodemo watched as he pressed a four-digit code into the panel on the right side of the huge wooden doorway to the street.
He waited until the detectives left and, amid the slowly dispersing crowd of onlookers, stood confronting the panel, which consisted of ten raised brass buttons, numbered one through zero. Taking out a small vial, he blew a white powder, finer than talcum, over the buttons. The powder adhered to the residue of oil left by Hererra’s fingerprints, revealing four whitened buttons. On the third combination, the door’s lock clicked open, and he stepped inside.
He stood for a moment in the cobbled i
Two women, one young, one older, were lounging against a wall beside the front door, discussing the tragedy. The older one smoked. Nicodemo took out a cigarette and, approaching them, asked for a light.
“Terrible thing.” The young woman shuddered. “Who can sleep after something like that?”
“Now the street will be clogged with the morbidly curious,” the older woman said, shaking her head.
Nicodemo nodded sympathetically. “Why would someone throw themselves out a window?” he wondered out loud.
“Who can say?” The older woman shrugged her meaty shoulders. “People are mad, that’s my position.” She sucked down more smoke. “Did you know the poor girl?”
“A long time ago,” Nicodemo said. “We were childhood friends.”
The older woman looked sorrowful. “She must have been so unhappy.”
Nicodemo nodded. “I thought I could help her, but I arrived too late.”
“Do you want to go upstairs?” the younger woman said, as if struck by a sudden idea.
“I don’t want to disturb Señor Hererra.”
“Oh, I’m sure he could use the sympathy. Here.” She crossed to the door, slipped her keys out of her pocket. She pressed the attached disc against a metal pad beside the door and it buzzed open.
Nicodemo thanked her and went into the vertical vestibule. A large iron staircase curved upward, and he ascended. The building was eerily still, as if everyone in it were holding their breath in horror. No one was on the stairs, all the apartment doors were firmly closed, as if against a rapidly spreading disease.
Don Fernando’s floor was likewise deserted. He went soundlessly down the landing to stand in front of the apartment. He listened but heard nothing.
Then he put his ear to the door.
Inside the apartment, Don Fernando could still smell the stale clothes of the cops and detectives. He felt as if his home had been broken into. He didn’t want to smell anything but Martha Christiana’s distinctive scent, and he resented deeply the official invasion. He stood stiffly, his back ramrod-straight, and tried to separate his thoughts from his emotions.