Half an hour after touching down in San Francisco, Philip is in a cab on his way to W&P.
On the freeway he reads the coverage on Water and Power’s wholly unexpected paramilitary assault on Biotechnica’s Bay Area research facility. According to a W&P spokesman, founder James Cromwell’s adverse reaction to an experimental longevity drug sent him into the intense manic state that led to the tragic events at Biotechnica and finally his suicide; in the spokesman’s view, this doesn’t diminish Mr. Cromwell’s enduring legacy as a humanitarian and an entrepreneur, nor does it reflect on the principles of good citizenship and ardent but ethical capitalism on which Water and Power Capital Management was founded. Skimming the press releases, the rhetorical posturing and the webs of pending litigation, Philip has the sense that Biotechnica is getting the worst of it. Senator Willem H. Lugh (R., North California) praises Cromwell for his philanthropy and calls for more rigorous vetting of certain classes of neuroactive drugs. Editorials bemoan the erosion of the state’s monopoly on force, draw comparisons with the last days of the Roman Republic and call for change, but that will soon pass, and then it will be back to business as usual, world without end.
An aide ushers him into the grey light of a room full of books and pinioned butterflies and the yawning skull of what’s probably an allosaur. Magda waits behind her desk, looking unhappy and somehow coiled. On the desk is an architectural model of a campus of some kind, its centerpiece a sort of huge neoclassical pyramid.
“New project?” he asks.
“Yes. A university, founded in James’s honor.” She touches the pyramid, suddenly tender. “This is his memorial.”
They sit in silence as her aide leaves and when the door finally closes he says, “What happened to Irina?” in the hope his bluntness will shock her into disclosure.
Magda leans across her desk and her rage is so close to the surface that he expects her to say Irina is dead and he’s welcome to join her, but, speaking carefully, she says, “I honor the feeling that brought you here. You must have expected a cold welcome, but here you are just the same. So that’s why I’m going to tell you what I know about her whereabouts, which is … nothing, and believe me, I’ve looked. I won’t bore you with the details, but we—I—have unusual resources. So now you know, and that’s all I can do for you. Now you should go.” As he rises she says, “Don’t come back,” her voice now hard, and he considers trying to comfort her, but she seems inconsolable, and it’s not his place, so he leaves.
* * *
It’s a good year for his company, and money is for spending, so he burns through ten percent of his net worth trying to find her, but learns nothing, is left wondering.