Dark Matter. Greg Iles

answered some of the fundamental questions of human existence. To know that such a mind had gone out of the world left me feeling hollow, as though my species were diminished in some profound and irrecoverable way.

      “What will happen to me now?” Lu Li asked quietly. “They send me back to China?”

      Not a chance, I thought. One reason Trinity was so secret was the belief held in some quarters that other countries might be at work on a similar device. With its history of aggressive technology theft, Communist China ranked high on that list. The NSA would never let a Chinese-born physicist who had been this close to the project return to her native land. In fact, I worried about her survival. But I could do little to protect her until I talked to the president.

      “They can’t send you back,” I assured her. “Don’t worry about that.”

      “Andy say the government do anything it want.”

      I was about to answer when headlight beams shone through the foyer. A car was passing slowly by the house.

      “That’s not true,” I said. “Lu Li, I don’t like saying this, but the best thing you can do right now is to cooperate with the NSA. The less trouble they see you making, the less they’ll perceive you as a threat. Do you understand?”

      Her face tightened. “You say now I should let them kill my Andy and say nothing? Do nothing?”

      “We don’t know that Andy was killed. And there’s very little you can personally do right now. I want you to leave everything to me. I’ve called the president, and I could hear back from him at any time. He’s in China now, of all places. Beijing.”

      “I see on TV. Andy tell me you know this president.”

      “I’ve met him. He was a friend of my brother’s, and he appointed me to my job. And I promise you that one way or another I’ll find the truth about Andrew’s death. I owe him that. And more.”

      Lu Li suddenly smiled through her anguish. “Andy was good man. Kind, funny man. And smart.”

      “Very smart,” I agreed, though words like smart meant little when applied to men like Andrew Fielding. Fielding had been a member of one of the smallest fraternities on the planet, those who truly understood the mysteries of quantum physics, a field reserved—as Fielding’s Cambridge students often joked—for those students who were “too smart to be doctors.”

      Rachel squeaked in surprise as a white ball of fur raced into the room and leapt into Lu Li’s lap. The furball was a small dog, a bichon frise. Lu Li smiled and vigorously stroked the bichon’s neck.

      “Maya, Maya,” she cooed, then murmured softly in singsong Cantonese.

      The bichon seemed anxious at the presence of strangers, but it did not bark. Its little brown eyes locked on me.

      “You know Maya, Dr. David?”

      “Yes. We’ve met.”

      “Andy buy her for me. Six weeks ago. Maya my baby. My baby until God blesses Andy and me with …”

      As she lapsed into silence, I realized that my sixty-three-year-old friend had been trying to have a child with his forty-year-old wife.

      “I’m sorry,” I said uselessly. “I’m so sorry.”

      Rachel looked as though she wanted to speak, but there were times when even a gifted psychiatrist found herself at a loss for words. As Lu Li stared into space, my anxiety grew. If Fielding had suspected that he might be murdered, and he had voiced that fear to his wife, then the NSA might know he had done that. They almost certainly knew I was here now. If they were outside, they had probably photographed Rachel and would be trying to figure out what she was doing here.

      “Maya looks like she could use a walk,” I said brightly.

      Lu Li started from her trance.

      “I’ll be glad to take her out for you,” I added.

      “No. Maya no need—”

      I cut her off with an upraised hand. “I think the air would do us all good.”

      Lu Li stared at me for several moments. “Yes,” she said finally. “Is good idea. Me inside all day.”

      Looking around for something to write with, I saw a message pad by the telephone. I went to it and wrote, Do you have a portable tape recorder? Then I pulled off that sheet and wrote my cell phone number on the next page.

      When Lu Li read my question, she walked back to Fielding’s study and returned with a Sony microcassette recorder, the type used for dictation. I put it in my pocket and led both women to the glass doors that opened onto the patio.

      Maya followed us out but stuck close to Lu Li, who attached a leash to the dog’s collar. About a hundred meters through the woods lay the University of North Carolina’s outdoor amphitheater. On two previous occasions, Fielding had taken me there to talk.

      “I know Andrew swept the house,” I whispered to Lu Li, “but I still don’t feel safe talking inside. I need to speak to Rachel alone for a few minutes. I want you to go back inside. Lock the doors, but leave Maya with us. We’re going to walk through the woods to the amphitheater. We’ll be back very soon. I have my cell phone, and I left the number on your message pad. If anything strange happens, call me immediately.”

      Confusion and worry wrinkled Lu Li’s face. “You need Maya?”

      “For cover. You understand? An excuse to walk out here.”

      She nodded slowly, then knelt, whispered something to the dog, and retreated into the house. I picked up the whimpering bichon and walked swiftly across the backyard to a narrow path that led through the woods. Rachel struggled to keep up as branches began to pull at our clothes.

      “What are we doing?” she hissed.

      “Keep quiet. I have to talk to you, and I don’t think we have long.”

      I wasn’t sure of the source of my fear, but I knew it ran deep. Without being aware of it, I had shifted the dog to my left hand and drawn my gun with my right.

       SEVEN

      “Ritter’s here,” said Corelli, his voice sounding tense in Geli’s headset. “He’s already got the laser trained on the front window.”

      “What’s he hearing?”

      “Definite sounds, but no conversation. Like one person moving around the house. They could be in one of the back rooms.”

      “Change position and put the laser on a back window. Hurry.”

      “Right.”

      Geli could hardly stay in her chair. Something was going down at the Fielding house, and she had only one way to know what it was. A minute passed, then Ritter’s deeper voice said, “Nichts.”

      “You’re not getting anything in back?” she asked.

       “Nein.”

      “They know where the bugs are, and they’ve plugged them.”

      “Ahh,” said Ritter. “How could they know that?”

      “Fielding.”

      “That bastard,” said Corelli. “He was always playing games with us.”

      Geli nodded. Around Trinity, Fielding had acted like an absent-minded professor, but he was the sharpest son of a bitch in the place.

      “They’ve probably left the house,” Geli said. “Fielding and Tennant did that twice before. Walking Fielding’s dog. I’m going to put a team in the woods.”

      “Nein,” said Ritter. “Tennant