Scorpion by Christian Cantrell (best english novels for beginners txt) 📗

“In the United States,” Allard reminds her. “Not in France.”

“Mr. Allard, if that message came from the future, whoever sent it might be alive today. If I’m going to help you find them, I need to see the contents.”

Allard smiles amusedly. He leans back in his chair, crosses his legs. Swirls his brandy but does not sip it.

“I’m afraid not everyone believes in transmission du temps, Ms. Yi.” He looks up at the ceiling and wags the fingers of his free hand as though manifesting something supernatural. “This fantasy of time transmission.”

“Fine,” Henrietta says. “Forget about where—or when—The Static came from. How am I supposed to help you stop future attacks if I don’t know what I’m trying to stop?”

“The only way to stop future attacks,” Allard tells Henrietta, “is to conceal The Static.”

“There’s a term for that,” Henrietta says. “It’s called ‘security by obscurity,’ Mr. Allard. And you and I both know it doesn’t work.”

Allard leans forward and cradles his glass in both hands.

“Ms. Yi,” he begins, “I’m not sure you appreciate the gravity of what occurred here. A man with no experience in bomb making, munitions, or explosives of any kind was able to build a device out of off-the-shelf components, transport it from Tokyo to Paris—on a commercial flight—and detonate it right under the noses of the CIA and the DGSI. Whether he knew what he was doing, whether he was manipulated, or whether it was simply an accident is irrelevant. Sixteen city blocks and over three thousand lives…” He lifts a hand into the space between them and snaps his fingers so crisply that Henrietta blinks. “Gone. Just like that. We have absolutely no idea how to defend against a threat such as this. The only chance we have is containment.”

“The only chance we have,” Henrietta counters, “is to understand how it was done so we can get those components off the shelf. You can’t just assume no one will figure out how to do it again. And again, and again, and again. In fact, exactly the opposite. For better or for worse, the most powerful tool we have is our imaginations. Now that the world knows this kind of destruction is possible, someone will reverse engineer it.”

“But the world does not know, Ms. Yi. As far as the world is concerned, this was nuclear terrorism. And I intend to do everything in my power to keep it that way.”

“What about the lack of radiation?”

“Easily faked.”

“What about video taken by civilian drones that are hacked to ignore geofences?”

“We begin construction on a radiation containment dome in two days. In the meantime, we shoot down anything that originates from outside the zone de silence.”

“What about Russian and Chinese reconnaissance satellites? I’m sure they already have thousands of images. You may be able to contain this for a few more days—maybe weeks—but there’s no way you’re going to contain this forever. You have to know that.”

“Perhaps,” Allard admits. “But if the truth leaks, it will not be the fault of French intelligence.”

“Of course,” Henrietta says. She leans back in her chair and smiles defeatedly. “I should have known. This has nothing to do with actually keeping people safe. This is about covering your asses. This is about politics.”

The smile Allard returns is clearly meant to suppress something else. He throws back the last of his cognac and raps the thick glass against his desk.

“Thank you for stopping by, Ms. Yi,” he says. “Do you require an escort, or can you find your own way?”

But Henrietta does not move. She was the first person to discover a hidden message in the backlog of one of the most sensitive scientific instruments ever built. It was her technique of training a neural network on quantum anomalies that allowed a Japanese solar physicist to uncover The Static. And there’s no way that the use of OWL encryption was a coincidence. Henrietta does not yet know who sent the message, but she has no doubt whatsoever that it was addressed to her. And she has already decided that she is not leaving Paris without it.

“They call you Pépé, you know,” she says.

“Pardon me?”

“Simon and his wife,” Henrietta continues. “Zoey. And their little boy. They call you Pépé.”

Allard is no longer smiling. “You’re lying,” he says.

Henrietta is wearing a shoulder bag across her body, and her hand maneuvers through the magnetic flap to find the phone inside.

“Unfortunately, you’re still dead,” Henrietta says as she taps and swipes. “But they talk to him about you all the time. They tell him that your spirit watches over him and keeps him safe. He used to be afraid of the dark until they told him nighttime is when Pépé and Mémé come to visit and sometimes leave him little presents if he’s been brave.”

“Are you saying that I am a…”

“I’m saying that you’re a grandfather, yes,” Henrietta says. “And if you give me a second, I can prove it.”

Allard sits very still, watching Henrietta. It takes her another minute to find exactly what she is looking for, and then Allard’s handset lights up from the corner of the desk.

“Go ahead,” Henrietta says. “Check Semaphore.”

Allard’s eyes do not leave Henrietta’s—even as he reaches. It is not until he is holding up his phone and it unlocks that his attention shifts from her to whatever it is that awaits.

And then his face changes.

Henrietta did not fully realize how tense and defensive Allard had been until she sees him so thoroughly disarmed. As he pans and zooms the photo of his son’s family during the Spring Picnic on the south lawn at Langley, she can see that he is becoming increasingly unmoored.

In reality, not only is Simon unmarried, but he is openly gay. The original photo came from the events section of the CIA’s intranet, which, while Allard waited, Henrietta opened in an AI-based photo editor. The man already had the right physique, which made it straightforward to combine it with Simon’s photo from the agency’s directory. Since the