2054 by Elliot Ackerman & Admiral James Stavridis USN

Author:Elliot Ackerman & Admiral James Stavridis, USN [Ackerman, Elliot & Stavridis, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

г

22:55 May 10, 2054 (GMT-5)

Four Seasons Hotel, Georgetown

Lily Bao was always on time. James Mohammad had come to admire her punctuality. In five minutes, at the top of the hour, he knew she would knock at the door of his suite. They would sit down and talk. She had helped him and his colleagues understand the ever-accelerating political crisis in the United States, and the implications of that crisis on the technological race for the Singularity.

In a way, their double life had begun long before either of them had committed a single act of espionage, if that was what this was. The death of his parents and his hidden obligation to his uncle, which had become an obligation to his country, had forced Mohammad to live in two worlds. It was the same for Lily, or so he’d allowed her to see. The death of her father, her exile to the United States, the death of her mother, all of this had contributed to her sense of a double life. As had her inability to ever, truly, find acceptance in this country. Shriver had seemed to promise that acceptance. He claimed to love her back. But Shriver hadn’t been there on the night Mohammad found her in that hospital, when Sherman lay dying.

Mohammad had mourned Sherman’s death with her. He made himself wholly available to her; and soon she made herself available to him. She told him about the encounter with Senator Shriver at the Hay-Adams; the fact that Wisecarver would be leading the commission to investigate President Castro’s death.

When Lily Bao arrived at his suite, on time to the minute, James Mohammad handed her an envelope.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Open it,” Mohammad said.

The two of them settled into two chairs in a corner of the suite. She tore open the envelope. An official-looking seal with an adhesive back slid into her palm. “I don’t understand?”

“It’s a four-year multiple-entry visa to your home country,” he said. “I thought when you found the time you might like to visit.” He watched for her reaction. This felt like hand-feeding an animal in the wild—a single misplaced gesture could cause it to spook.

James Mohammad’s uncle had thought that offering Lily Bao a visa of such value after she’d delivered a single piece of intelligence was premature. Zhao Jin had figured differently. He favored decisive action. Political developments in the United States were moving quickly, too quickly, and a lengthy recruitment process could prove a costly mistake. Ultimately, over his uncle’s objections, Mohammad agreed with Zhao Jin and the decision was made.

“This is very generous of you,” she said, holding down the last word long enough to acknowledge to Mohammad that she knew who this gift was really coming from. She added a curt, “Thank you,” and to Mohammad’s great relief accepted the visa by tucking it in her handbag. Then he mentioned that there was something else he and his colleagues had hoped she might help them with.

“It has to do with your work at the Tandava Group.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.