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“I didn’t come up with the name.”
“Now I’m hungry.”
“Want me to send a care package?”
“I’ll never turn down food.Project Marshmallow?What did it involve?”
“The creation of a non-lethal, medium-range weapon that could be used to clear an area in a hurry.Basically, it was designed to cause an immense amount of temporary pain.I can’t claim to understand everything about the technology, but lasers, radar, and millimetre rays were involved.”
“Millimetre rays?”
“Longer than X-rays, shorter than microwaves.”
Yup, he’d been briefed.Hell, he’d probably asked the same question.James was a man who liked to know the answers.
“How far did they get with it?”
“They built a prototype, but there were teething troubles.It was too easy to cook a person.”
“Cookthem?As in medium rare?”
He nodded.“Silently.Invisibly.From a mile away.”
“I see how that could be an issue.”
“The bigger issue is that five weeks ago, the weapon disappeared, along with Ottilie Marquette.I don’t think I need to tell you how big of a problem that is.If this thing gets into the wrong hands, thousands of people could die, and on the black market, it would be worth millions.”
Well, shit.
“And you haven’t found any trace of Ottie and the ray gun or whatever it’s called?”
“Not until you called.We thought she’d gone to Russia.”
“Russia?Why Russia?”
“The investigation team recovered several deleted emails from the network at Sandy Peake, and they connected those messages to associates of President Markovich.”
The head honcho in Russia.Now I got it.Kind of.
“If Ottie was such a genius, and she worked with software, no less, why would she be careless enough to leave deleted messages floating around in the system?”
“Precisely what I asked.She wiped out her other work, and that’s gone for good, but it could be a double bluff.I took a chance and spoke with Markovich, and he swears he wasn’t involved.He’s also incredibly nervous in case somebody tries to pin the theft or any subsequent use of the weapon on him.”
“So he says.”
I didn’t trust the Russian establishment, not even a little bit.
“He’s walking on a tightrope.Members of the old guard aren’t happy that he’s rooting out corruption and building bridges with the West, and those that do agree with his politics are cynical about his motives.”
Which was understandable.The Russian government was full of traitors and spies who’d stab a man in the back at the first opportunity.Lies were more common than the truth.Greed was so widespread that any hint of altruism was viewed with suspicion.
And Markovich hadn’t even been elected as president.No, he’d been a puppet prime minister until his boss died and he inherited the job.There were many who’d like to see him suffer the same fate as his predecessor.But I had to agree with James that Markovich was the least bad option right now, and over the past three years, he’d been taking steps in the right direction when it came to both foreign relations and domestic policy.
“Are you one of the cynics?”I asked.
James hesitated for a long moment.“Yes, but I also believe this is the best chance we’ve had in decades to improve global stability, and we can’t afford to squander it.If news of the Marshmallow theft gets out, it’ll finish Markovich.”
“Hence the raid in St.Petersburg?”