A few days later, Snowfeather finally routed a call from her apartment to Dr. Owen through an encrypted phone in a downtown insurance agency. Even though she had carefully followed Gabriel’s directions, she was surprised that the contact protocol for Dr. Owen got an immediate response. Speaking softly, she sat in her kitchen, bare feet rubbing together on the old tile floor.
“Dr. Owen? Is this really you?”
“Snowfeather, I’m so glad you called,” John said. “I had hoped to hear from you a lot sooner.”
“I was afraid.” Snowfeather paused. “Is this call secure?”
“Just a second.” He checked. “Yes, this call is secure for now. The second that changes, I’ll just hang up. Call me Uncle John, Snowfeather. I miss that.”
“Good to hear you’re okay, Uncle John.”
“Elisabeth said to say hi.”
“Where is she?”
“Here. And so are Ken and little Josh.”
“Give them my love.”
“I will. So you need some drugs? I can have them sent immediately, no charge. I’ll send directions for a pick up to the business Gabriel asked you to use to route this call, okay?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Uncle John.” Snowfeather felt tears welling.
“Snowfeather, I heard you finally had a run-in with the Sisters a few days ago.”
“How’d you hear that?”
“I have friends.”
“Well, it was amazing and disgusting.” Snowfeather scanned her apartment nervously, but she was still alone.
“I wondered when they might get around to noticing you.”
“I guess they ‘noticed’ you right away.”
“All they have is my right hand,” John said.
“What?”
“When they kidnapped me in Seattle that night before the vote, I um, had to leave it behind. I feel like Captain Hook sometimes.”
Snowfeather laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “That was funny.”
“It was meant to be.”
“Dad said you are working on the political side. What do you intend to do?”
“Eventually, we hope the U. S. Senate will trash the whole Treaty regime, but the timing isn’t right yet.”
“And Dad can really help with that?”
“Hugely. The Commission has an iron grip on the media but Gabriel’s webcasts are already making a difference. And your appearances are working, too.”
At that point, the teakettle began to whistle. Snowfeather went into the kitchen carrying her phone. She poured a cup of tea, returned to the table and sat down. “I’m being more careful these days,” she said.
“Good. But this drug pickup will be very risky. Couldn’t you get someone else?”
“Sorry. There really isn’t anyone except me. Aren’t you at risk too, Uncle John?”
“It’s what we …”
Dr. Owen’s phone call ended abruptly.
——
“What just happened?” John asked. He was sitting in his offices in the new Vector Pharmaceutical plant.
“Looks like someone duplicated the floating key,” Ken Wang said, removing his headphones.
“Meaning?”
“We use floating key encryption. A new key is transmitted every few minutes over a separate satellite feed, concealed in routine weather traffic. Our software can tell when someone gets hold the key, other than the secure server used to route Snowfeather’s call.”
“I meant how much of this call did they get?”
“Very little, I hope. In theory, your call was automatically ended when the duplicate key was used. But we can’t know for sure.”
“What can we do for Snowfeather?”
Ken frowned. “I’m not sure we can even warn her in time.”
——
The drug pickup was made just before dawn in an old waterfront area. Snowfeather was dressed in a gray ski jacket with a black watch cap, pulled down to hide her hair. She had come alone—against Roberto’s advice to take a lookout. Her taxi waited just out of sight.
The narrow alley led between two soot-stained brick buildings. A yellow street lamp’s glow reached only to the center, where the shadows were impenetrable. The Edge Medical courier, a sturdily built young man dressed in stained work clothes and a dark pea jacket, was just a tall shape next to a fire ladder. “Snowfeather?” he whispered.
“Here,” she said. He held a reinforced paper shopping bag. They met in the middle of the alley.
“I have it,” the young man said.
“And this is?”
“About twenty five thousand doses. That’s a month’s production run from the New Kona Two plant.”
“Thank Dr. Owen for me.”
“Yesterday, we lost touch with him. I’ll pass that along as soon as we get another secure line.”
“And thank you.” Snowfeather held out her hand. The young man gripped her hand, then disappeared soundlessly into the shadows. Snowfeather turned without looking back. She walked briskly. The taxi would be to the right, just around the corner from the alley. Her breath smoked in the air as she walked. She clutched the bag fiercely; the parcel was surprisingly light for its significance.
Just as she reached the street, Snowfeather heard the sound of squealing tires. She dashed to the corner to find that her cab was gone.
“What are you doing here, Snowfeather?” It was the hissing voice of Cynthia. “I told you, Tan!”
Snowfeather spun about and saw Cynthia, with Berker and a younger blond woman, all standing outside the alley. She began to run, holding the bag of antibiotics tightly to her chest.
Floodlights suddenly blazed on both sides of her and directly ahead.
“Stop!” An amplified male voice. “You are under arrest.” Two uniformed policemen stepped into the glare.
“I’ll take that bag,” one said.
“Thank you ladies,” the other said. “We’ll take it from here.”
——
In New Kona, seven hours later, Bill Dornan was standing at the threshold of John Owen’s living room. “I have good news and bad news.”
“Sit down, Bill,” John said. “Scotch?” He pointed to an open cabinet.
“Not yet,” Dornan said, dropping into the adjacent wicker chair.
“Okay,” John said. “Let me have it.”
“We’ve secured the leak and re-contracted out New York people.”
“Good work. What’s the bad news? That all our secrets are compromised?”
“Actually, no. We’re reviewing all transmissions and so far the damage looks minimal. The bad news is that the drug drop to Snowfeather failed. She was arrested.”
Owen swore. “Where is she now?”
“A Manhattan jail.”
“City police?”
“So far.”
“Then at least we can keep her safe,” John said. His mind was racing ahead. “We still have friends in NYPD. Have Ken get a legal team on it. See if we can reach Gabriel. Are the transmissions secure now?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll have some calls to make tonight.”