The Lazarus Vendetta - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,110
he said icily. Then stepped back and stood in silence, watching his father march away to renewed captivity.
His eyes were hooded. As so often before, Jinjiro had disappointed him - had even betrayed him - with the shallowness of his thoughts and with his lack of courage. Even now his father was too blind to admire the achievements of his only son. Or perhaps, Hideo thought, savoring an old and bitter resentment from his vanished childhood, his father was simply too jealous or coldhearted to offer the praise that was his due.
And praise was due; of that he was sure.
For years the younger head of Nomura PharmaTech had worked almost day-and-night to make his vision of a cleaner, less crowded, and more peaceful world a reality. First, careful planning had made it possible to build, staff, and fund this hidden nanotechnology lab without drawing unwelcome attention from his shareholders or from anyone else. None of his many competitors had ever suspected that Nomura, apparently lagging behind in the nanotech applications race, was, in truth, months or years ahead of them.
Next had come the intricate task of subverting the Lazarus Movement, of bending the loose organization slowly and inexorably to his unseen will. Movement leaders who opposed him had been pushed aside or killed, usually by one of the Horatii, the trio of assassins whose creation and training he had financed. Best of all, every unexplained death had acted as a spur toward further radicalism by those who were left alive.
Arranging the mysterious disappearance of his own father, the last of
the original Lazarus Nine, had been comparative child's play. Once that was accomplished, Hideo had been free to secretly gather all of the frightened Movement's reins into his own hands. Best of all, though, the CIA-led search for Jinjiro had brought him into contact with Hal Burke. And with that, the last piece of Hideo's plan had fallen suddenly into place.
Hideo laughed coldly and quietly, remembering the ease with which he had gulled the CIA agent and, through him, others in the American and British intelligence services - playing on their paranoid fears of terrorism. By feeding them ever more damaging information about the Movement, he had manipulated Burke and his associates into launching their foolish and illegal war. From that day forward, all events had been managed according to his will, and his will alone.
The results spoke for themselves: The world's population was increasingly terrified and hunting for scapegoats. His competitors like Harcourt Biosciences were helpless, buried by an avalanche of new government restrictions on their research. The Lazarus Movement was growing stronger and more violent. And now the American and British spy services were rendered helpless by scandal and corrosive suspicion. By the time the first murderous rain of nanophages fell on Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, it would be impossible for anyone to uncover the terrible truth.
Hideo Nomura smiled to himself. After all, he thought savagely, how better to win a game than to play both sides at once?
Chapter Thirty-Six
Lazarus Address
The new digital video of Lazarus released by the Movement repeated the pattern of his first world broadcast in the wake of the Teller Institute Massacre. Pieces of untraceable footage arrived simultaneously in TV studios around the globe, each one with a different digitally constructed image of Lazarus designed to appeal to a particular audience.
"It is no longer possible to hide from the truth," Lazarus said sadly. "The horrors we have witnessed testify that a new weapon is being unleashed on humanity - a weapon forged by a cruel and unnatural science. Humankind stands at a crossroads. Down one road, the road charted by our Movement, lies a world of peace and tranquillity. Down the other, a path laid down by greedy men obsessed by power and profit, lies a world wracked by war and genocide - a world of carnage and catastrophe."
The Lazarus figure stared straight into the camera. "We must choose which of these two futures we will embrace," he said. "The ruinous advances of nanotechnology, genetic meddling, and cloning must be aban-
doned or suppressed before they destroy us all. Accordingly, the Movement calls on all governments - especially those in the so-called civilized nations of the West and the United States in particular - to immediately ban the study, development, and use of these sinister, life-destroying technologies." The face of Lazarus grew stern. "Should any government fail to heed this demand, we will take matters into our own hands. We must