The Travelers Read Online Free PDF

level of security. In the eighties this analog lock was replaced by an electronic device, then over the past two decades by ever more sophisticated digital models, with increasing frequency of upgrades, as strongly advised by the consultants and developers who never fail to push each year’s advance as an exponential technological leap, last year’s security laughably outdated this year. Or so claimed by the people who profit from the technology, with no practical way for any of its consumers to assess the claim, least of all Malcolm. What a racket.
    So now this mechanical button is merely a secondary system. Malcolm activates the primary system via a hidden panel at chest height, behind a big thick reference book, using his thumbprint and the input of a long access code.
    With a nearly silent click, the entire section of bookcase is released. The wall swivels open a couple of inches of its own accord, on sturdy brass hinges; this is a heavy section of wall, hundreds of pounds. Malcolm pulls it open wide enough to walk through. Then he closes the door behind him, and disappears into the wall.

PARIS
    The big man’s phone dings in his pocket, the sound reserved for actionable alerts. The message had been encrypted on another continent, then decoded by a complex proprietary app that gets updated regularly. He seems to spend half his life waiting for his devices to update, plugged into outlets and the Internet,
Updating…Please wait…Updating…
    He walks through the dimly lit shabby-swanky bar of a four-star hotel in the 2 ème that’s frequented by international businessmen and high-end hookers, which is why he’s here, looking for a blue-eyed blonde to fulfill a recurring fantasy that he’s been unable to shake while spending copious time in the professional company of a blue-eyed blonde, sometimes even talking with her about sex, God help him. He steps outside to the deserted boulevard, and places a call to that same blonde, who at the moment is lying in bed in a marginally seedy hotel in downtown Bordeaux, reading Robert Hughes’s book about Australia.
    “Yes?” she answers, putting down a glass of room-temperature mineral water. Her hair is in curlers, her face slathered with a mud mask. She’s doing everything she can do tonight to look as good as she can look tomorrow. Except being asleep. It’s very late.
    “He’s airborne,” the man says. “You ready?”
    She sighs. This is a stupid question, requiring either a stupid answer or rudeness. “As ready as I’ll ever be, Roger.”
    “You’re going to be great.” He probably thinks he’s being reassuring, but he doesn’t have any idea how to help her. This is not something he’ll ever experience or understand, not remotely. Of all the crappy things she has already done in her life, this is going to be a new one.
    “Just great,” he reiterates, one of those meaningless phrases of pat encouragement that pass for supportiveness.
    She puts down the phone, and puts down the book, and stares at the ceiling, hoping she can fall asleep.
    NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN
    As suddenly as it started, the unexpected turbulence subsides, then disappears entirely, then the plane is once again cruising smoothly thirty-six thousand feet above the ocean, hundreds of miles in any direction from the nearest land, in the dead middle of the night.
    It had lasted only a few seconds, the feeling that he was about to die. Maybe a half-minute, not very long at all. But long enough for Will to discover something about himself that he wished he hadn’t.
    PARIS
    In the misty morning, Will walks past the Louvre into the fog-shrouded Tuileries, young mothers with babies, old men with newspapers, the people who sit in parks on weekday mornings, the same everywhere. He exits at Concorde and continues up the Champs-Élysées, toward l’Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower off to the left. A greatest-hits album.
    “Excusez-moi,
monsieur.”
An old man is blocking Will’s path, holding out a