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“He didn’t even say where this Arsenov guy had been working before fleeing to Mexico. I assumed the U.S., but he never actually admitted it.”
The news turned to other crises; Zoya rubbed away the mist that had formed in her eyes, and then she stood and returned to the bathroom without another word.
Court grabbed an iPad from his bag, logged on to the Internet, and began trying to find out more about the assassinations in Mexico.
His search of the news first turned up an assassination in California. This he ignored, and then he scrolled down to a killing in Japan. He didn’t think for an instant this could be related to what had happened to him and Zoya the night before in Guatemala, so he kept searching, scrolled past news of an assassination attempt on some celebrity in the UK, and then saw a headline about a car bomb killing in Haifa of a prominent Israeli software manufacturer.
Court stopped scrolling, checked his search parameters.
All of these events had taken place in the past two days or so.
He looked them over again.
The man Genrich had been trying to protect was a software engineer.
“Carrie?” he called out to Zoya in the bathroom, but she didn’t hear him.
Over the next five minutes he did a lengthy Google News search. The killing in Palo Alto involved someone who acquired commercial technology for the U.S. Defense Department. The man targeted in Oxford, England, was a world-famous tech mogul focused on artificial intelligence, and the woman killed in Japan was a prominent computer scientist.
A BMW engineer in Munich, characterized by his coworkers as brilliant, had been killed, as well, along with a Romanian AI expert found dead on a boat.
Court was no trained investigator, but he saw a pattern.
Zoya returned to the room.
Court said, “Lancer and his associates, whoever they are, are targeting people all over the world.”
She shrugged. “You said he’s a freelance assassin. That’s pretty much what freelance assassins do, right?”
“No…I mean…these are related killings. Eight dead, all in the past day and a half, and that’s just from a quick search. There could be others. And they’re all electrical engineers, computer scientists, and robotics experts.”
Zoya sat down on the bed.
“Plus, there was an attempt on a guy named Anton Hinton in London.”
Zoya’s eyes raised. “The Anton Hinton?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
Zoya’s eyes went wide. “You don’t?”
Court shrugged. “I don’t get out much.”
Zoya waved it away, then said, “Just like Slava said. A new artificial intelligence weapon is about to come online. These people knew about it, maybe.
“But why did they come after me, even when I didn’t go back to Mexico with Slava?”
“Maybe because they don’t know what you know. They might assume Genrich told you something.”
“He didn’t tell me anything other than what I told you. I don’t even know who the bad actors are in this.”
“Maybe Genrich was holding out on you, or else the engineer was holding out on Genrich. Whoever the enemy is, they are treating us as if we have the ability to undermine their entire plan.”
“What do we do?” Zoya asked.
“Tomorrow we get a ride to the Belize border.”
“And then what?”
