“The board is here?”
“By video phone.”
“Oh. Why are they meeting with the board?”
Before she could answer, a door slammed upstairs and Abby Smith came rushing down, Nueve hot on her heels.
“I don’t care,” Abby was saying. “It wasn’t the bargain we made, Nueve.”
“A bargain impossible to keep, Director,” Nueve said. “As the board pointed out to you.”
Abby whirled on him. “This is entirely your doing.”
He had stopped three steps above her, and his back stiffened when she snapped at him.
“I am the Operative Nine. All Items of Special Interest fall under my jurisdiction.”
“He’s not an ‘Item,’ Nueve. He’s a human being.”
Ashley stood up. “What going on?” she called across the room.
They turned and stared at us. I don’t think they knew we were there.
“Ah, Alfred,” Abby Smith said with forced pleasantness. “How did you sleep, dear?”
“I had a great dream,” I said. I looked at Nueve, then back at her. “And now I’m kinda sorry I woke up.”
Nueve said to Abby, “Tell him.”
She came over to me and put both hands on my shoulders. “Alfred, I’m afraid there’s been a minor modification to the extraction protocol.”
I shrugged her hands away. “Cut the Company double-talk and tell me what’s going on. Are you going to extract me or not?”
“The short answer is yes,” Nueve said from the stairs.
“I’ll handle this,” Abby snapped at him. She looked up at the ceiling. I looked up too, wondering what was the matter with the ceiling . . . and then I heard it, the low growl of helicopters in the distance.
Nueve fairly bounded toward the front door.
“They’re here,” he said. He flung open the door and then flung himself outside, slamming the door shut behind him.
“Who’s here?” I asked Abby.
She sighed. “My guess is Dr. Mingus.”
“Mingus?” I asked.
“Mingus!” Ashley gasped.
“And a security detail,” Abby added. “Nueve is quite thorough.”
“Who’s Dr. Mingus?” I asked Abby.
“The head of GD,” Ashley answered when Abby hesitated. “Why is he here?” she asked her.
“I know what ‘GD’ usually stands for,” I said. “But what does it stand for in OIPEP-speak?”
“Nueve ordered it,” Abby said. Her face was very pale. “Before the conference call, obviously. He must have already known the board’s decision.” She gave my arm a quick squeeze. “He’s here to conduct the standard preextraction evaluation, Alfred. It’s part of the protocol and perfectly SOP.”
Ashley choked out a laugh. “SOP—right!” She turned to me. “Alfred, ‘GD’ stands for Genetic Development.”
04:03:43:05
Abby led us to a conference room on the second floor. We sat at a long table, Ashley right beside me and Abby Smith across the table with a laptop in front of her. She pressed a button and a screen slowly lowered from the ceiling. She tapped another button and the lights in the room dimmed.
“What’s going on?” Ashley demanded. “Alfred has a right to know.”
“A minor shift in the extraction protocol.” Abby hit a key on the laptop and a picture faded in on the big screen. It was an aerial shot of a tropical island on a sunny day. Palm trees, waves breaking on a sparkling white beach, a few buildings with whitewashed walls and straw roofs. It looked like something from a travel-agency poster.
“What is that?” I asked.
“That is Camp Omega-I, an uncharted island in the South Pacific,” Abby answered. “And our most secure base, other than headquarters. Besides the personnel permanently assigned to COI, only myself and the Operative Nine—and now, Ashley, of course—are even aware of its existence.”
“Well,” I said. “It’s not the Caribbean, but it’s more like it.”
Beside me, Ashley breathed, “Oh, no.”
“Why ‘Oh, no?’ ”I asked. When Ashley didn’t answer, I said to Abby, “I don’t get it. What’s this COI have to do with me?”
Abby refused to look at me. She was staring at the picture of the island. “It’s your new home, Alfred.”
She hit a button, and the picture changed to a closer shot.
I saw a cabana and some clothes drying on a line. The water was emerald blue. Paradise, I thought. And for some reason a shiver went down my spine.
“It looks pretty nice,” I said slowly.
“Alfred, you don’t understand,” Ashley said. “They’re not going to give you a new identity. There isn’t going to be a reinsertion into the civilian interface. They’re going to drop you there and keep you there. Forever.”
“For now,” Abby said.
“I still don’t get it,” I said. “Why are you dropping me on an unchartered island?”
Abby said, “I was informed of the modification just this morning, Alfred. The board’s decision is final, I’m afraid. It believes that, given the peculiar circumstances involved here, a standard extraction is out of the question.”
“How come?”
Abby glanced at Ashley. I went on. “And if you say ‘that’s classified,’ I’m coming over this table at you.”
“Because of his blood, isn’t it?” Ashley asked. “Because of what it can do.”
A voice spoke up behind me. “We cannot risk losing the carrier of the most important active agent in Company possession.”
Nueve. He was standing just inside the door, leaning on his black cane. Smiling. Eyes glittering. For some reason I thought of pirates.
“In short, you are simply too important, Alfred,” he said, patting my shoulder as he walked around the table to slide in next to Abby. “A vital concern for people your age, as I understand. More vital than small pores. Even if the Phoenix Protocol succeeds, there is still a chance, however small, that something, oh, shall we say irreversible, could happen to you.”
“If you’re worried about Jourdain and his boys, you could just kill him,” I said. “Extract him extremely or whatever you call it.”