She felt a sudden conviction that the nameless stranger, with his protective gauze mask, was somehow responsible for the mysterious pestilence sweeping through the Palais des Nations. The man’s next actions, however, were more puzzling than incriminating. Reaching again into the open lunch box, he pulled out an ordinary cardboard juice box, just like the ones she packed in her little boys’ lunch bags. Huh? she thought, bewildered; she couldn’t imagine the masked man was feeling thirsty.
Rather than raise the miniature box to his lips, which were covered by the gauze mask anyway, he purposely dropped the box onto the granite floor, then, with obvious premeditation, stomped on it with the heel of his boot. A greasy, yellowish fluid, roughly the color of beer, spurted out onto the pristine polished floors, whose stones, she reminded herself irrelevantly, had been shipped all the way from Finland. I don’t think that’s apple juice, she thought, an overwhelming sense of dread clutching at her heart.
A smell, like paint thinner or worse, reached her even over the nauseating reek of spilled blood and vomit. Something tightened in her chest and she started gasping for breath. Is it just me, she wondered, or is it really hot and stuffy in here? She tugged at the collar of her souvenir “I ♥ SWITZERLAND” T-shirt, suddenly feeling feverish and lightheaded. A painful throbbing started behind her eyes and, queasy and disoriented as she was, it took a second or two to realize that, oh dear God, whatever had sickened all those other people had gotten to her as well.
I’m not going to get away, she understood in a moment of blinding clarity. Strength oozed from her legs and she slid to the floor, landing in a sitting position at the base of the window. Her nose began to run, but she could barely raise her arm to wipe it with her sleeve. Her limbs twitched erratically. I’m going to die.
Knowing there was no escape, she stopped worrying about herself. Instead she grieved for her husband and sons, who were bound to take her death hard. I’m sorry, she told them sadly. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was going to send you postcards.
The pain behind her eyes grew and grew, like the mother of all migraines, exceeding even the agony it took to breathe with paralyzed lungs that could hardly move. As her vision faded, and the sunlit foyer was lost to the shadows encroaching on her sight, she remembered, bizarrely, the wacky get-rich-quick scheme that had brought Donald to Geneva in the first place, something about securing European funding for this cockamamie new business venture that involved freezing dead people and rocketing them into outer space for safekeeping, just in case someone figures out how to bring them back to life later on. Cryo-something, she recalled, trying to dredge up the right word. Cryosatellites, that was it.
To be honest, she’d thought it was a pretty goofy idea, but Donald had taken it more seriously. Wouldn’t it be funny, she thought, as the lobby grew darker and stuffier, if something like that actually happened to me? Imagine waking up in outer space hundreds of years from now!
The pain in her head exploded and everything went as black as the void.
What a ridiculous notion . . .!
Hunyadi leaned helplessly upon the black marble podium, unable to support his own weight anymore. The view from his single eye had dimmed dramatically, and there was a curious yellow tint to what he did see as he clung to the podium, determined to die on his feet if possible. A lesser man would have already succumbed to the ravages of the nerve gas, but Vasily Hunyadi had the strength and endurance of five ordinary mortals.
Even so, he knew his end was upon him. Agony squeezed his skull like a vise, and his dying breaths were shallow and labored. Damn you, Khan! he cursed, convinced that the wily Sikh had somehow engineered this atrocity, despite all their efforts to watch out for his agents. Bravo, Khan. I salute you, you Indian bastard!
Through the oppressive yellow haze, he looked out upon a vast auditorium now inhabited by only the dead and those soon to join them. Rows of empty desks, strangely unpeopled, mocked the self-confidence and bravado that had lured him to Geneva. So much for sending a message to the world! he thought bitterly, spitting a mouthful of bloody foam onto the floor of the stage. A message had been sent, to be sure, but not the one Hunyadi had intended.
Slumping against the podium, he watched as a faithful aide tried to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the lifeless form of the Brazilian ambassador, only to inhale even more of the fatal fumes herself. Hunyadi admired the aide’s loyalty even as he questioned her intelligence. He gazed dispassionately as she crumpled to the floor, coughing and puking furiously. Her limbs spasmed fitfully, then fell still.
Hunyadi had seen much death in his time, and caused even more, yet he faced his own imminent demise with growing trepidation and regret. He had dreamed of so much more, of becoming the undisputed ruler of the Balkans, then triumphantly carrying his banner across the length and breadth of Europe and beyond, but now those magnificent ambitions had evaporated into the air like the toxic vapors poisoning his lungs. He had lost, leaving another to reign supreme over mankind.
Who would conquer the world now?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FORT COCHISE
SOUTHEAST ARIZONA
UNITED STATES
AUGUST 29, 1994
NTO EXACTLY MY MOST GLAMOROUS UNDERCOVER ASSIGNMENT, ROBERTA thought as she knelt beside a cranky air cleaner, unscrewing its perforated steel housing in order to get at the burnt-out capacitor inside. The omnipresent air cleaners, which were installed all over the militia compound, were forever breaking down, necessitating never-ending repairs and maintenance. As a dedicated new recruit to the Army of Eternal Vigilance, “Bobbie Landers” was naturally expected to pitch in and do her part to keep the atmosphere of Fort Cochise safe from dust, dander, and surprise government gas attacks. General Morrison, she had discovered, was positively obsessed with poison gas. Although this particular air cleaning device was located in the women’s barracks, a hangarlike structure with whitewashed adobe walls and a corrugated tin roof, the steady hum of the filters could be heard inside every enclosed region of the compound, including the underground bomb shelters the AEV had fashioned out of the ghost town’s old gold and silver mines. Just another symptom of Morrison’s rampant paranoia, she wondered, or does he know something I don’t?
Screwdriver in hand, wearing a secondhand set of faded army fatigues, she strained and sweated to open up the balky mechanism while her overactive mind chewed over what she had learned about the militia so far. She had spent close to two weeks here now, working and drilling alongside the rest of Morrison’s private army, yet she remained uncertain of just how great a threat the AEV posed to world peace. Am I wasting my time? she fretted. A campful of trigger-happy nutballs was nobody’s idea of a good thing, but did Morrison’s superhuman leadership abilities make the AEV intrinsically more dangerous than any of the numerous other right-wing survivalist outfits playing war games in the backwoods of America?
My gut tells me yes, she thought, resolving to stick it out at least a little longer. Over the years, she learned to trust her instincts as much, if not more, than the case studies and mission profiles churned out by the Beta 6. Morrison is a menace, I’m sure of it.
“Speak of the devil,” she whispered as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the general approaching on one of his frequent surprise inspections of the camp’s defenses. Morrison regularly toured the premises, his raptor’s eyes searching for chinks in his citadel’s armor; after all, you never knew when those infamous black helicopters might come diving out of the sky, commencing the Beast’s much-anticipated assault on Fort Cochise.
The general was accompanied by his second-in-command, Freeman Clayton Porter, whom Roberta had so effectively ambushed on her very first day at the fort. The taciturn lieutenant, who had apparently worked as a rancher before joining Morrison’s army, still held a grudge against Roberta, so she tried to stay out of his way.
“I want the entire camp on a heightened state of alert,” Morrison told Porter. Roberta noted that, like a hawk, Morri
son had to turn his entire head to look in any given direction, suggesting that his peripheral vision might be as weak as his avian eyesight was acute. “Now is when we are most vulnerable; we must expect swift and forceful retaliation for our Geneva operation.”
Retaliation? Geneva? Roberta’s ears perked up, even as she appeared to be deeply engrossed in her battle with the malfunctioning air cleaner. A set of phony Walkmans made it look as though she were listening to music as she worked, an illusion she reinforced by bobbing her head in time to an imaginary pop song; in fact, the plastic headset actually enhanced her hearing, making it easier to eavesdrop on Morrison and Porter from several feet away. What’s he talking about? she worried, not liking the sound of this. Retaliation for what?
“Yes, sir,” Porter replied. “I’ve doubled the guards on the watchtowers and set up searchlights to scan the skies after it gets dark.” His body language was stiff, his manner characteristically intense; Roberta had never seen the man relax. “Nobody’s going to catch us with our pants down, General. You can count on that.”
“Good,” Morrison said. His jaws methodically worked his chewing gum as he ran a white glove over the weapons locker positioned at the end of the first row of empty bunks; this late in the morning, the female barracks was empty except for Roberta. “What about that force field gadget we got from our friend in Chandigarh? Have our tech boys got that up and running?”
“We think so, sir, although it’s hard to tell if it’s genuinely doing anything.” Porter lowered his voice and looked around cautiously before answering; thanks to the audio amplifiers in her Walkman, however, Roberta could still hear him loud and clear. “Do you really believe that the government truly possesses some kind of matter-transporter device? That sounds awful sci-fi to me.”
Morrison snapped his gum as he spoke, the sharp cracking noise sounding like a gunshot to Roberta’s ears. “Do not underestimate the resources of the Beast,” he warned. “If the redoubtable Mr. Singh says that our enemies can teleport into our very midst, then we would be reckless not to take him at his word, particularly when he also claims to have provided us with a means to block any such transmission.” He paused in his inspection long enough to look sternly at Porter. “I assume our technicians have thoroughly inspected the field generator and concluded that it doesn’t serve any other ulterior purpose?”
“That’s true,” Porter conceded reluctantly. “It doesn’t appear to be a bomb or listening device or anything like that.” He scratched his head worriedly, as if he didn’t even like thinking about the mystery machine. “As far as we can tell, it’s just emitting a strange sort of energy that none of our people have ever seen before.”
Roberta couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Khan had shared his anti-transporter force field technology with Morrison? She had suspected that there had been dealings between Khan and the superhuman militia leader, but she would have never expected Khan to give one of his rivals an extra defense against her and Gary Seven. This makes my mission a whole lot more complicated, she realized, swallowing hard, especially if I can’t just ’port out of here if things get hairy.
She was tempted to pull out her servo and check for the force field right away. That might be a little too conspicuous, though, with Morrison and Porter gabbing only a few rows of bunks away. Better to play it cool, she decided, and scope out the situation when she had a bit more privacy.
“I don’t know, sir,” Porter said, shaking his head. His creased, humorless face looked even scowlier than usual. “I don’t trust that crafty Indian, General.”
For once, Roberta agreed with him. What was Khan up to here?
“Neither do I, Freeman Porter,” Morrison stated. “But for now our interests appear to coincide. Don’t forget: all he asked in exchange for the force field generator was that we stage the Geneva operation on one particular day.” His silvered sunglasses reflected the empty barracks, which was built on the foundation of a demolished frontier dance hall. “If sometimes we have to make a deal with the devil to strike back at the Beast—well, war is a dirty business. There will be time to wrangle with Khan Noonien Singh later on, after we’ve taken down the rest of the New World Order.”
“If you say so, sir.” Porter looked unconvinced. He gave Roberta a dirty look as he and Morrison’s inspection carried them right past the khaki-clad repairwoman, who scrambled to her feet and saluted diligently as the general went by. Morrison saluted back distractedly, scarcely glancing in Roberta’s direction.
So Khan was in cahoots with Morrison on this mysterious Geneva operation? Roberta would have appreciated this info more if she’d had any idea at all what the general was referring to. Something big has happened, she gathered, but what?
A yard or so beyond Roberta, the general resumed his hushed discussion with Porter. “Phase One, Geneva, is a success,” he pronounced. “Are you and Connors ready for Phase Two?”
“Yes, sir,” Porter answered. “We already have our passports and plane tickets.”
“And your ‘refreshments’?”
Roberta caught an ironic tone to Morrison’s query, but its significance went over her head. Refreshments?
“Packed and ready, sir.”
“Don’t forget to pack the antidote as well,” Morrison cautioned him.
Porter cracked a rare smile, as if the very idea was laughable. “Not likely, sir!”
“Excellent!” Morrison said, slapping Porter on the back. “We’ve struck a major blow against the New World Order today, but Geneva is only the beginning. The malignant forces of collectivism threaten human freedom as never before. Liberty will never truly be safe until we have rid the entire planet of our enemies, once and for all.”
Their impromptu stroll finally took them beyond the range of Roberta’s artificially enhanced hearing, leaving her frustrated and feeling badly out of touch with what was going on in the outside world. No surprise, considering that Morrison tightly controlled the flow of news into the compound. She and the other rank-and-file members of the militia were completely cut off from the rest of the planet: no TV, no radio, no newspapers, no Webzines, nothing. The mainstream media were just the mouthpieces of the Beast, right? So why risk contaminating the troops with corrupt government propaganda? Even e-mail was suspect; as far as Roberta knew, the only computer in the compound with a working connection to the Internet was the one in Morrison’s personal office.
I need to find out what happened in Geneva, she realized. As soon as the two men left the barracks, she pulled out her servo and tried to contact Seven. In theory, he was keeping a close eye on the ongoing nuclear showdown between North and South Korea, but he would surely be able to update her on what was going on in Europe as well.
No such luck. Just as she feared, she was unable to send a transmission out of the compound. That darn force field, she realized; apparently, it was indeed fully operational.
That left her only one option: that computer in Morrison’s office. Now’s my chance, she thought, while the general was out making his rounds.
Hastily screwing the top of the air cleaner shut again, she scrambled to her feet, wiped the dust from the knees of her khaki trousers, and headed off in the opposite direction from the route Morrison and Porter were taking. She knew she had to move quickly, before the general finished his inspection.
Fortunately, the remodeled post office was not far from the women’s barracks. Beneath a cloudless Arizona sky, she walked at a brisk but unsuspicious pace across the dusty grounds of the busy camp. Target practice and boot camp training shared the repopulated ghost town with more domestic chores; Roberta’s mouth watered as she smelled barbecued spare ribs cooking over by the communal mess hall, while one of her fellow “Freewomen” was hanging laundry out to dry on a line stretched between two freshly plastered adobe buildings. There wasn’t much variety in the dangling garments, which came exclusively in varying shades of olive, tan, and khaki. Roberta found herself pining for the garish colors and fashions of her bygone hi
ppie days.
Two rifle-toting guards, standing watch over the entrance to Morrison’s headquarters, posed a major obstacle to her plans. She briefly considered zapping them both with a tranquilizer beam, but that would pretty much blow her cover, especially in broad daylight. Too many people, including the guards on the watchtowers, were likely to notice.
What I really need is a good distraction, she decided. Glancing around furtively, she again noticed the paramilitary laundry hanging on the line. “Perfect,” she whispered, setting her servo on Burn. An invisible beam zipped across the courtyard, igniting the dangling clothing, which burst immediately into flame, clothesline and all.
Roberta didn’t need to sound the alarm herself. Several passing militia members, including the startled woman collecting the laundry, did that for her. “Help! Fire!” the cry went up, drawing the immediate attention of everyone within earshot. “Help!”
As hoped, the two watchmen guarding the old post office ran to help put out the fire, which Roberta hoped would be chalked up to spontaneous khaki combustion. Taking advantage of their momentary absence, she sprinted for the front door of the squat adobe building and silently darted inside. A quick zap from her servo shut down the interior security cameras.