Monday, March 26
3:31 P.M.
Midtown Manhattan
263 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Ronald Lynch waited by the service elevators in the dirty back room of another office building, just a few blocks away from NewYew. He’d worked in this building for years, but he’d never once entered through the front doors. Corporate espionage was a little more complicated than that.
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened, revealing a heavyset man in an ill-fitting suit, leaning calmly against the back railing. He didn’t move, but raised one finger and beckoned for Ronald to step in and join him. Ronald did, and the man nodded.
“Floor seventeen,” said the man. Ronald pushed it, and the doors closed. “I’m Abraham Decker,” said the man, and offered his meaty hand to shake. “Chief scientist. We’ve never met, but I’ve read your reports. You do good work.”
“I came straight from the product test,” said Ronald. “They wouldn’t let me take a sample, but I—”
“Straight?” asked Decker.
“Well, I … meandered a bit first,” said Ronald. “Obviously. Nobody followed me.”
“I don’t think they understand what they have yet,” said Decker. “We need to be extra careful with this one.”
Ronald frowned. “Seemed like a pretty standard test to me.”
“It’s a whole new technology,” said Decker. “It’s so cutting edge we’ll need new legislation just to manage it.”
“For a wrinkle reducer?”
“For genetic engineering,” said Decker.
Ronald looked at his hand in shock, wondering what he’d just rubbed on his skin, but before he could ask any more questions the elevator dinged again and the doors slid open. Decker heaved himself up from the railing and walked into the hall, Ronald close behind, and after a few short turns they entered a massive corner office, bigger than Ronald’s entire apartment and furnished like a mansion. This, more than anything else, is what finally started to make Ronald scared. He didn’t mind reporting on product tests: rival companies were always going to spy on each other, and Ronald figured somebody was going to get paid to do it so why not him? He honestly kind of liked the excitement. But he’d always dealt with intermediaries—burner phones and anonymous envelopes of cash—but this office was a whole new level of intrigue. This was a place for high rollers; this was a place for people who were ambitious and proud and ruthless. This had to be the CEO.
Ronald started to realize that this was a much bigger deal than he’d expected.
“Have a seat,” said Decker, plopping down on a couch by the wall, and gesturing for Ronald to join him. A few moments later another man walked in, tall and stern and flanked by two dark-suited giants whose skills, Ronald guessed, had little to do with cosmetics. They arrayed themselves in front of Ronald and stared at him a moment.
“Ira,” said Decker, “this is Ronald, one of our informants in the product testing program.” Ronald stood up to shake his hand, but the beefy man on Ira’s right pushed him back down. Ronald swallowed and tried to smile.
“How do you do, sir?”
“Welcome to Ibis Cosmetics,” said the man. “My name is Ira Brady, and I’m the CEO. You’re our man at NewYew?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ronald. “At least for today, sir. They were testing a new kind of hand lotion with some kind of antiaging—”
“I know what they were testing,” said Ira. “What we don’t know is the interior layout of the building. You’ve been in a part of NewYew none of us has visited.” He started pacing as he talked, gesturing broadly with his hands. “What floor did they take you to? How many doors did you pass through to get to the room where the test was held? How many turns did you take, and in what directions? And perhaps most importantly …” He turned back toward Ronald. “Did you happen to see any laboratories while you were there? And could you tell us accurately how to find them?”
“You’re going to steal the lotion,” said Ronald.
“Of course I’m not going to steal it,” said Ira, “that’s illegal. But a technology like that is bound to be stolen eventually, and I suspect that it may, through circumstances beyond our control, end up in my hands. Now: describe the building.”