BZRK: Apocalypse (BZRK 3)

The meeting with Stern followed all the rules of spy craft. They set up the meeting using text messages. They both spent an hour throwing off any possible pursuers. Their phones were off and therefore impossible to track. If she were being followed, then it was very professionally done.

And yet when Plath arrived at the steps of the public library in Bryant Park, there was a man sitting across the street in the window of a hotel café, sipping a latte and making no effort to go unnoticed.

He was middle-aged, with long graying hair and a wry, observant expression. He was dressed like a dandy—a purple velvet blazer, a top hat that sat on the counter beside him.

If he had ever had a real name, Plath didn’t know it. His nom de guerre, his BZRK name, was Caligula.

Plath had seen him in action. He was a confident and extremely capable killer. He was the eighth person of whom Lear had spoken. But it was not possible for Plath to imagine giving him orders.

It was Caligula who had killed Ophelia after she was captured by the FBI. He had burned out her brain so as to leave no traces of nanotechnology behind. If Plath brought him into BZRK now—into her BZRK—Wilkes, who had been close to Ophelia, who had very nearly died beside her, might try to kill him. And that would be the end of Wilkes.

And yet, here was Plath meeting Mr. Stern to discover what he had learned in his efforts to track down the elusive personality behind BZRK. Was that why Caligula was here? Did he already know? Should she be expecting a bullet or a knife or the killer’s trademark hatchet?

Could Caligula guess what they were talking about? Surely not. But he had found a way to follow her, or perhaps to follow Mr. Stern. That knowledge made her feel faint. It weakened her knees.

God, it was true: there was no escaping the man in the velvet suit. The NKVD. Plath had Googled it. Anya had spoken the truth. And now here was her own personal NKVD sipping a coffee and watching to see what she would do.

Or fail to do.

As Nijinksy’s body was being cut loose by paramedics, Plath bought a street pretzel and a Nantucket Nectars cranberry. Stern had a coffee and an Italian sausage. They looked, perhaps, like a girl meeting her father. Or a student with her atypically tough-looking professor.

“Now that we’re alone, how have you been, Sadie?”

“Getting used to being back in the world,” she said, looking around at the other lunchtime diners, all somewhere between coats and sweaters on this gray day.

“It was good of you to pay the money to the boat crew who died. One of them had two young kids. Softens the blow.”

“What have you found?” she asked, too cold to want to chat, and too aware of Caligula’s cobra gaze.

“On the Armstrong Twins? I suspect they are in a place called Sarawak, which is in Malaysia. AFGC owns a facility in Malaysia, a rare earths mine. Rare earths are a class of rare minerals used in some sophisticated electronics components. It makes sense that AFGC would have a source.”

“How likely do you think it is that they’re there?”

Stern thought it over. “I’d say seventy percent. It seems consistent with what we’re seeing. But it’s possible they’re elsewhere. It’s even possible they are back in New York.”

“And the other person you’re looking for?”

Stern glanced at Caligula. “There sits the one man who might be able to take us to Lear.”

“Stay away from him,” Plath said too quickly.

“You’re that scared of him.”

“I’ve seen his work, Mr. Stern. The man who warned me about him doesn’t scare easily.” Vincent. Back when Vincent was Vincent. “But he was scared of Caligula.”

Stern raised his cup, sipped, and said, “I have leads, nothing solid. Lear’s cell number is obviously switched out daily. You gave me four such numbers. All the numbers are throwaways. Burner phones. But interestingly, two of them were purchased in odd locations.”

“Odd how?”

“Well, one was bought in London; one was bought in Wellington, New Zealand; one was bought in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The last was from Punta Arenas, Chile.”

“What am I not seeing in those four locations?”

“Wellington and Punta Arenas share a distinction as major jumping-off points for Antarctica.”

“Antarctica. Why … never mind. I had another text exchange with Lear. Here’s the number.” She read it off to him. “Why doesn’t Lear just block the number?”

“Excellent question,” Stern said approvingly. “Arrogance? Or, more likely, he’s deliberately leaving breadcrumbs. Either a false trail, or …”