Jeffy smiled and nodded. “I understand that point of view. I just want to slide back a little ways to when people didn’t spend all day staring at screens and trying to tell other people what to do and think, back to when a day seemed twenty-four hours long instead of twelve, when you could breathe.”
“If that’s what you want,” said Falkirk, “better stay here in your little house, never go outside. This is the closest you’ll get to living forever in yesterday. The world turns faster every year. The human race is on a rocket ride, Mr. Coltrane. A rocket ride. That’s our destiny.”
10
Walking up the lane toward the next house in the company of two subordinates, Falkirk counseled himself not to allow his suspicion to settle on the Coltranes, father and daughter, to the exclusion of their neighbors. The little bitch had mocked him, maybe because she knew where Harkenbach could be found, or maybe because it was just her nature to be a wiseass.
She reminded him too much of his younger half sister, Phoebe, that smug and snarky pig who, with his half brother, Philip, had long ago screwed him over and changed his life for the worse. He would like nothing better than to punch the hateful smirk off Amity Coltrane’s face. Over the years, there had been a few others like her, surrogate Phoebes who mocked him and lived to regret it—or died regretting it. Every blow he struck against one of their kind was like an orgasm.
If Jeffrey Coltrane and his smart-ass brat proved to be friends of Harkenbach, they would be subjected to hard interrogation, during which Falkirk could do whatever he wanted to the little bitch, as well as to her father. His National Security Agency credentials were merely operational cover. He didn’t answer to the NSA or to any of the government agencies known to the public. He served the masters of the shadow state, and like his masters, he was above the law.
Indeed, all his life, as far back as he could remember, he had known that laws were for others, not for him. He was born wise to the truth of the world: The only virtue is vice, and the acquisition of power justifies all things.
11
Falkirk and company had left disarray behind them. In an hour and a half, the Coltranes, father and daughter, restored order to their little world.
Beyond the windows, sunshine flaring off their windshields, racing black Suburbans returned from the wilds, carrying luckless vagrants as passengers. They were possibly bound for facilities established to serve the homeless, although more likely they would wind up at a ghastly, isolated warehouse on the edge of the Mojave where tough interrogations could be carried out in an atmosphere such that the words “I have a right to an attorney” would elicit only their jailers’ amusement.
Catercorner to each other at the kitchen table were Amity with a morning orange juice and Jeffy with black coffee so strong that its smell alone was sufficient to wake anyone in a coma.
Perched on Amity’s right shoulder, Snowball nibbled on a kernel of cheese popcorn that appeared enormous in his tiny pink paws.
On the table lay the key to everything.
Jeffy didn’t know what hell the device might be capable of bringing down on them. He was pretty sure, however, that the wise thing to do was purchase a barrel, mix a few batches of cement before lunch, and forget about waiting a year.
Never open the box, Jeffrey. Keep your promise. The thing in that box can bring you only misery.
As the clatter of helicopters faded and a fragile sense of normalcy settled on the canyon, Amity said, “Looks like a phone.”
“If you study it closely, it’s not a phone. No switches on the sides. No charging port, so then maybe no battery. No camera.”
“It’s got a home circle you can touch at the bottom of the screen.”
“That’s not enough to make it a phone.”
She reached for the device, and Jeffy lightly slapped her fingers. “Don’t touch.”
“You touched it.”
“Very carefully. Holding it by the sides with thumb and forefinger. Anyway, I’m the adult in the room. Adults make the rules. It’s been that way since time immemorial.”
“Is that why the world is in such deep poop?”
“Maybe.”
After a slug of orange juice, she said, “All those SUVs and helicopters and tough guys . . . I guess the stupid thing probably did cost seventy-six billion.”
“Government research money,” Jeffy agreed.
Attracted by the silvery glimmer of the mysterious object, Snowball dropped the popcorn, raced down Amity’s arm, scurried across the table, from which he was usually banished, and sat on what seemed to be the screen of the device.
The girl gasped, and both she and Jeffy shot up from their chairs, reacting as though Edwin Harkenbach hadn’t entrusted them with any kind of key, but instead with a compact nuclear bomb.
Snowball peered at the dark mirrored surface under him, in which he could see his murky reflection.
After a few seconds, a soft gray light filled the previously glossy black screen.