“Then there’s nothing implicating you in the hijacking?”
“Hardly. My son went missing with the rest of the passengers. Why would I have my own plane hijacked?”
His son dying in the process hadn’t been part of the plan. He was going to be taken off the island and brought back to Dubai, where the story would be that he had gotten off the plane at the last minute. But to the public, it would seem like Carlton had thought his son was on the plane and he was a father relieved to find his child miraculously alive. The story would be played for weeks, removing all suspicion that Carlton was involved.
But they’d found Adam dead on the plane’s cargo deck, his head bashed in and blood soaking the floor. The hijacker pilot was supposed to take his two-million-dollar fee and retire to Brazil, but Carlton had Natalie Taylor execute him for killing his son.
The Colossus Project’s chief scientist, Chen Min, a Chinese national who had been hired because of his groundbreaking work with artificial intelligence systems, burst out of a superstructure door and strode briskly toward them. His face was as unreadable as ever, but the way his thin body stalked across the deck made Carlton think something was wrong.
“Dr. Chen,” he said, “I assume you are still on schedule.”
He shook his head. “We still have integration code to write. I need those programmers on Jhootha Island, but I can’t get in touch with them.” His English was very good, resulting from years of study at MIT and Caltech.
“They’re gone. You’ll have to make do with the people you have.”
“Then it will take us a week to finish the installation of the satellite dish. I can’t test everything without that code.”
Gupta erupted. “Seven days! We need Colossus up and running before then.”
“He’s right,” Carlton said. “Romir Mallik will shut everything down if he gets his next satellite launched, and my mole said his backup satellite would be ready to go in six days. We need Colossus so we can stop that launch. If we have any more delays, we may never finish the project.”
Chen looked up at the sky as he thought. “I may be able to speed things up by a couple of days, but it will be risky. If we leave port and the software isn’t functional, we may have to return to install new hardware.”
“Do it anyway,” Carlton said.
“I need full authorization to make the exceptions. As you know, two members of the Nine are required to give me that authorization.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
Chen nodded. “Follow me, then.”
They went inside and wended their way to a room called the Core. It looked like NASA’s Mission Control, with dozens of workstations and a giant screen on one wall displaying all kinds of graphs and data that meant nothing to Carlton.
Chen sat at a keyboard and typed for a few seconds before showing them a screen that would allow him to bypass security protocols. He had Gupta put his hand on a flat panel that read his prints. Then he had Carlton do the same. The system had been put into place to keep any one of the Nine from controlling Colossus alone. Otherwise, Carlton would have left Gupta to rot back in the Library with the other members of the Nine. He wished he could get rid of him now, but he’d keep the Canadian engineering executive alive until he was sure he no longer needed him.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Chen said. “I will make every effort to get us online before Mr. Mallik has his own network operational.”
“For all our sakes, you have to,” Carlton said. “We also can’t wait for the Colossus 5 to get all the way to the Indian Ocean. Figure out the fastest way to get the Colossus ships connected.”
“Yes, sir,” Chen said.
To operate as a unit, the Colossus ships communicated by petabyte bandwidth microwave transmitters and receivers installed on each ship, which meant they had to be within twenty miles of one another. The satellite dishes were only used to tap into the worldwide internet. Once Colossus was fully linked together and functional, it would be able to gain access to Mallik’s systems and shut down his satellite constellation. Then Carlton would hunt him down and finish him.
It wasn’t that he harbored any personal grudge against the man. Mallik considered himself an idealist, but Carlton never bought into the “for the good of man” hype put forth by the rest of the Nine. Colossus was a way toward the most power ever concentrated in the hands of a single group. Or now a single person. With Colossus’s help, he would be able to do anything he wanted. Shape governments. Build a corporate empire the likes of which the world had never imagined. Rule from the shadows, as Wakefield had said. No one would be able to touch him.
“I’m going to my suite,” Carlton said to Gupta. “Let’s meet for dinner to discuss our next steps.” He nodded for Taylor to come with him.
Gupta agreed and was escorted the opposite way to his own cabin when they left the Core.
When he was out of earshot, Taylor said, “Do you want me to eliminate him?”
“Not yet. But we can’t let him leave. Not when we’re so close to finishing. During dinner, I’ll make the case for us both to stay with the project. If he is willing, fine. If not, restrain him by force.”
“Yes, sir.”
They reached Carlton’s multiroom cabin, which was as lavish as any cruise ship’s top-of-the-line suite. Every Colossus ship was equipped with three of them to house members of the Nine who decided to stay on board.
As was his habit, he picked up a remote