“Like the astronomy app I have on my iPhone? You just hold it up to the sky at night and it shows you the stars behind it with their names. I love that.”

She seemed less impressed. “Dresner didn’t want the company. He wanted their technology guru. An old hacker named Javier de Galdiano.”

“And what’s de Galdiano do now?”

“No one really knows. What I do know, though, is that Dresner’s bought up more than a few hardware companies and patents that would be complementary to what Javier was trying to accomplish at his start-up.”

“You know a lot.”

“Keeping tabs on what Dresner is doing is pretty much my job. And I’m saying he’s getting into computing.”

“Seems like a pretty saturated market. These days everything is just a bigger, smaller, or lighter version of something that already exists. Steve Jobs was amazing at taking existing technology and making it useful, but I see Dresner more as someone who’s looking to blow people away with something they’ve never even thought about before. I mean, the guy’s completely changed our understanding of how the mind and body communicate. His work in immunology has saved hundreds of thousands of lives and headed off a health disaster that I guarantee was coming. I can’t help thinking this is going to be something…amazing.”

She hooked an arm through his and tugged him toward the people moving to the seating in front of the stage. “Then let’s push through all these geeks and get you into the front row. Maybe we could sit together? I’d feel safer having a military man close. You know, in case the Russians invade.”

He grinned and responded in that language as they tried to do an end run around one of Google’s founders.

“I’m intrigued. What did you say?”

In fact, it was an old proverb about the benefits of beautiful young women, but he decided to equivocate a bit.

“I said, ‘Can you give me directions to the bathroom?’ It’s the only Russian I know.”

“Still, you sold it. And that’s what’s important.”

3

Khost Province
Afghanistan

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED down there?”

Randi Russell swept the helicopter over the village at about 120 meters, passing through the haze created by still-smoldering buildings. She kept her attention on the controls and let the redheaded soldier next to her survey the scene through a set of binoculars. It would have been more practical to just come in lower, but there was a stiff wind blowing upcanyon and she was admittedly not the best pilot in Afghanistan. Truth be told, she might not have been the best pilot at your average Cub Scout meeting.

“What are you seeing, Deuce?”

“Weird shit—so, basically, the same thing I see every day. I vote we head back to base, get a drink, and forget all about this. It’s almost happy hour.”

Randi risked a look down at the bodies strewn across the sand and the bizarre blooms of blood growing from the tops of about half. Weird shit? Definitely. But not your everyday weird shit.