She just wished she knew, really, who was behind the wheel.
The pounding on the door halted for a breath or two, as even the determined soldiers paused in rapt contemplation of the launch. Then the relentless hammering resumed again, and she saw the door’s cast-iron hinges begin to give way.
There was only one more thing to do. Shannon wasn’t looking forward to this part, but she knew it had to be done. “Initiate exit protocol,” she ordered the pyramid, bracing herself for the tranquilizing energy blast that Roberta had sworn would not harm Shannon permanently. The pyramid would not be so lucky; it was programmed to self-destruct.
“Acknowledged,” the obedient gizmo said with a beep.
There was a blinding flash of light and then, for the second time in her life, all her worries went away.
At least for another hour or so.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PALACE OF THE GREAT KHAN
CHANDIGARH, INDIA
JANUARY 10, 1996
KHAN WATCHED HIS WORLD COME APART ON A DOZEN DIFFERENT video screens. Multi-tasking was not a challenge for a mind such as his; accepting the ugly truths conveyed by the monitors was almost too painful to endure. Riots raged on the streets of Chandigarh as his troops battled hordes of angry demonstrators, provoked by the most recent round of arrests and assassinations. Libelous charges of corruption and economic malfeasance, regarding the justifiable diversion of state funds to certain questionable military projects, most notably the now-incinerated base on Muroroa, with its expensive black-market missiles and biological weapons facilities, had forced Khan to jail the entire editorial staff of a popular opposition newspaper, and order the covert executions of any and all suspected whistle-blowers in his administration. Alas, such Draconian measures had only sparked greater unrest among the common people, who unfairly blamed Khan for the wretched inadequacies of their sordid little lives.
Savages! Malcontents! Khan cursed the fickle, ungrateful populace revolting against his rule. They should have been happy to have been governed, at long last, by a truly superior leader, rather than by one of their own feeble kind. Yet look how they repaid me for my noble efforts to bring peace and order to an unhappy world! Slack-witted imbeciles!
“Damn you, Chen Tiejun,” he muttered bitterly. If not for Chen and her accursed amazons, his flesh-eating bacteria would have already rid the world of the puerile masses now ravening at his very door. Instead he found himself trapped upon a wretched planet overpopulated by inferior, unreasonable beings. Perhaps, he thought, it was time to put the Earth out of its misery?
Khan slumped against the velvet padding of his seat, gripped by a melancholy of heroic proportions. A simple crimson uniform, free of medals and decorations, suited his mood, while the P226 automatic pistol holstered at his hip provided more comfort and reassurance than any number of crowns, scepters, or fawning courtiers. Unbound and unturbaned, his dark hair fell behind him like a lion’s mane, only this lion felt more hunted than hunter at the moment.
His master control room, in the lowest reaches of his palace, had expanded dramatically as security concerns increasingly forced him to take refuge deep beneath the surface, like some joyless Plutonic king condemned to rule eternally over the underworld. Now an entire wall of video screens, monitoring his fortress, his territories, and the world, not necessarily in that order, shared the subterranean chamber with his last and greatest weapon: the targeting controls for Morning Star.
“Your Excellency! Look!” Joaquin, ever faithful, unlike ninety-nine percent of the worthless human race, pointed to a series of monitors keeping watch over the luxurious grounds and ornate rooftops of the palace above. Khan watched, his face immobile, as special forces commandos, in pitch-black night gear, parachuted into the fortress, immediately exchanging fire with what remained, after weeks of resignations and desertions, of Khan’s palace guardians. Russian Spetsnaz, Khan guessed, or perhaps Mossad.
Exon warriors, in their proud crimson uniforms and silver sashes, fought as well as Khan might hope, but the relentless Special Operations forces had soon penetrated the palace itself, leading to hand-to-hand combat and scorching firefights amidst the antique tapestries and marble-inlaid walls of Khan’s opulent residence. He had no doubt what the foreign commandos’ ultimate objective was. Indeed, he had been expecting just such a surprise attack ever since the thermonuclear destruction of his deadly germ-warfare initiative. Apparently, the so-called “legitimate” governments of the world now considered it more dangerous to leave him alone than to confront him. Hence, tonight’s clandestine incursion: a search-and-destroy mission aimed at Khan himself.
Warning sirens, belatedly responding to the lightning-fast raid, whooped hysterically. Titanium blast doors slammed into place, sealing off the lower levels from the attack above, at least for a time. “Your Excellency!” Joaquin blurted in alarm. “You’re in danger! We must flee!”
Khan dismissed the bodyguard’s fervid pleas with an airy wave of his hand. “To where?” he asked fatalistically. “With my fortress violated? My island destroyed?” He shook his head in doleful resignation. “I have been a prince, with power over millions. I will not be reduced to hiding in some squalid, festering rathole, while my enemies place a bounty on my head.”
You may my glories and my state depose, he mused darkly, finding bleak solace in the tragic verses of the Bard. But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
“Lord Khan!” Suzette Ling came running into the control room, from the radar and tracking station outside. She clutched a crumpled printout in her hand. “We have confirmed reports of American B-52s en route from Pakistan. We believe they intend to bomb the fortress!”
Khan laughed out loud, the sheer accumulation of disaster providing morbid amusement. “Bombs and commandos both?” he asked rhetorically, feeling almost flattered by the degree of overkill implied. Is this a coordinated international effort, he wondered, or does the Russian bear not know what the American eagle is up to?
It mattered little. Even if he managed to repel these twin onslaughts, and quell the bloody rioting in the streets as well, that would not bring an end to the murderous attacks upon his realm and person. The world’s leaders now knew of his ambition to purge the world of its superfluous billions; they would not rest until he was dead or captured, his power broken beyond repair.
The dream is over, he realized. Now all that remained was retaliation. “My sentence is for open war,” he murmured angrily, abandoning Shakespeare in favor of the more satanic poetry of Milton, “which if not victory is yet revenge.”
The world would pay dearly for thwarting his destiny.
Ament glided into the control room, her gentle tread as light as ever. Amber eyes rapidly took in the multifarious conflicts displayed upon the flickering panoply of video screens. “Lord Khan,” she addressed him forcefully. “Perhaps it is not too late to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the present crisis. You can still contact the American president, persuade him to call off his bombers.” In keeping with the severity of the occasion, she wore a simple indigo sari that fell past her ankles. Her long black hair, similarly unadorned, hung straight down her back. “For the sake of your soldiers and subjects, if not for yourself, do not let your exalted reign end in nothing but fire and blood.”
Khan rose imperiously from his seat before the monitors, his eyes narrowing in disdain as he confronted the peace-loving Egyptian counselor. “I should have known you would suggest as much,” he said coldly. How dare she recommend that he humble himself before his enemies! After all these years, did she know him not at all? His forbidding gaze swept the faces surrounding him. Steadfast Joaquin, anxious Ling, inscrutable Ament, all looking to him for a deliverance, and a happy ending it was not within his power to deliver.
“Out! Out, all of you!” The ire and frustration of years exploded within him and he banished them all with a sweeping wave of his arm. “I would be alone with my thoughts.”
Ling retreated quickly before hi
s wrath, but the senior members of his court were not so easily dismissed. “But, Your Excellency—!” Joaquin protested. His stricken expression betrayed his despair at the thought of leaving Khan unprotected at such a time.
Such stalwart devotion touched Khan, despite the fury in his heart. “Simply wait outside,” he instructed the worried bodyguard, his tone softening for a moment. “I will be safe with you at the door.”
Mollified to a degree, Joaquin left the chamber at last. Ament, however, showed no sign of departing.
“Did you not hear?” he asked her brusquely. “I desire solitude.”
“For what purpose, my lord?” Her gaze shifted knowingly from Khan to the control station for Morning Star, only a few paces away. “Forgive my bluntness, Lord Khan, but I do not think it wise to leave you alone in this place, not in your present state of mind.”
You think you know me, do you? Khan smirked cruelly. Perhaps it might be amusing to show her just how little she truly understood of the Machiavellian workings of his mind. “Very well,” he said curtly. “Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to shield you from the harshest necessities of power.” He strode with confidence over to the computer governing Morning Star. The lighted display tracked the killer satellite’s steady procession over the rectangular map of the world. “Watch and learn, my lady.”
His hands clasped behind his back, he spoke crisply to the machine. “Morning Star, begin targeting sequence. Command authorization: Hammurabi-1792.”
Sophisticated voice recognition software was yet another recent improvement to the control room’s capabilities. For surety’s sake, the computer was programmed to respond only to select code words, known exclusively by Khan, and only if those codes were delivered by Khan’s own voice.
“Command authorization approved,” the machinery responded in Punjabi. Disk drives whirred in obeisance. “Please select target.”
Ament looked more alarmed than he had ever seen her. “My lord!” she exclaimed, stepping hurriedly toward the satellite controls. “Please, in the name of sanity, do not do this thing.”
Khan ignored her entreaty, as, indeed, he had been ignoring her counsel for some time. “Global targeting,” he specified. “Gomorrah scenario.”
This, as its name implied, was Morning Star’s most apocalyptic option, spelling the total destruction of Earth’s entire ozone layer. On the illuminated map, a bloody crimson tint spread over continents and oceans alike, condemning the whole of the planet to the killer satellite’s unchecked depredations. “Target selected,” the computer confirmed impassively. “Moving into position.”
On the global display, Morning Star, now symbolized by a flashing yellow dot, adjusted its orbit to zero in on the North Pole, where Earth’s magnetic field was strongest. From there, it could begin the process of stripping away the planet’s first line of defense against ultraviolet rays. “Arming satellite,” the computer announced. “Ten minutes until Gomorrah position.”
“No!” This was obviously too short a countdown as far as Ament was concerned. Squeezing between Khan and the satellite controls, she shouted decisively at the computer. “Morning Star, halt targeting sequence. Command override: Bubastis.”
She glanced back at Khan over her shoulder. “My apologies, Lord Khan,” she said with what sounded like genuine sorrow, “but I cannot permit this.”
“Command override rejected,” the computer stated flatly. “Nine minutes until Gomorrah.”
The look of shocked chagrin that appeared on her lovely face pleased Khan even more than he had anticipated. “What?” she blurted, her distraught gaze swinging from the recalcitrant computer to Khan himself. “I do not understand—”
“Really, my lady?” Khan gloated, tsk-tsking her in his most patronizing tone. “Did you truly believe that I would not discover your presumptuous installation of an emergency override command in Morning Star’s programming, implanted, I believe, when I was lost at sea in the Adriatic, and thus temporarily out of touch with Chandigarh?” Taking hold of her shoulders with both hands, he effortlessly moved her away from the satellite controls. “I stumbled onto your perfidy shortly after my return from Europe, and changed the command codes, granting me sole control of Morning Star.”
Unrepentant, Ament tried once more to avert the coming apocalypse. “Command authorization Hammurabi-1792,” she called out, parroting Khan’s code phrase from moments before. “Halt targeting sequence.”
The computer was not impressed. “Termination command rejected. Eight minutes to Gomorrah.”
Khan shook his head disparagingly. “No use, my lady. Once the Gomorrah scenario has been initiated, it can be halted solely by a second code phrase, which I alone have knowledge of.”
“Please, Khan,” Ament pleaded, dispensing with any honorifics, “why not accept defeat gracefully? Do not make the entire world suffer for your crushed ambitions.”
Khan responded by citing Milton to her, spitting out Lucifer’s immortal words with rancorous passion:
“What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.”
Cutting off his soliloquy, he sneered at Ament with sardonic amusement. “Resign yourself to the facts, O lady of little faith or fidelity. Within minutes, Morning Star will herald the beginning of the end for the corrupt and venal human race, and nothing you can say will dissuade me from this course.”
“Then perhaps you will listen to me,” a new voice interrupted.
Khan looked away from Ament in surprise, just in time to hear a familiar electronic hum coming from right outside the control room, where Joaquin stood watch. A moment later, a lean old man in a dark suit strolled into the futuristic-looking chamber. Sparks leaped between the twin antennae of his servo, while vaporous tendrils of blue plasma swirled about his ankles, wafting in from the radar and tracking room beyond.
“Hello, Khan,” Gary Seven said. “We need to talk.”
Instinctively, Khan reached for his P226, drawing the Swiss-made handgun with preternatural speed. “Stay back,” he warned Seven menacingly. In theory, there should have been nothing the meddling American could do to derail Gomorrah, but Khan was not inclined to take chances where Seven was concerned. “Do not come any closer.”
Nodding in acknowledgment, the older man deactivated his servo and laid the silver instrument down on a convenient countertop, adjacent to the open doorway. “I am not here to do battle,” he explained in calm, measured tones. He remained where he was standing, slowly raising his hands to display empty palms. “As I said, I just want to speak to you. One last time.”
Sensing sincerity in the man’s word, Khan felt less threatened by Seven’s sudden appearance. He had the advantage, after all, as long as he retained sole control of Morning Star; even if Khan was somehow incapacitated, Seven could not halt the satellite’s doomsday directive without the necessary code phrase. Like Ament, Khan realized, Seven could do little more than make a futile appeal to the vengeful superman’s unheeding conscience. A pointless exercise, in Khan’s judgment; it had been many years since Seven’s words had held any influence over him.
Let him talk until senility sets in, Khan thought scornfully. It will avail him nothing. Although he declined to lower his gun, Khan relaxed enough to take stock of his unexpected visitor. With the Lincoln woman carrying out Seven’s manipulative agenda by proxy, it had been a long time since Khan had actually beheld his onetime mentor in the flesh.
Seven’s short, neatly trimmed hair was entirely silver now, while the lines of his craggy face had grown deeper and more severe with age. His intellect and vitality, how ever, appeared undimmed by the passage of time. Khan saw enduring cunning and purpose in the American’s cool gray eyes, while his erect bearing betrayed little trace of infirmity.
For a second, it struck Khan that there was something he could not quite place missing from the man’s appearance, then
he realized what he had been unconsciously looking for. The ubiquitous black feline, Khan recalled, noting the animal’s conspicuous absence. No doubt Seven’s four-legged familiar had long since gone to its eternal reward. . . .
“The years have been kind to you,” Khan granted magnanimously, his P226 aimed squarely at the other man’s breast. He dipped his head slightly in salute, while not letting his gaze leave the enigmatic old spymaster for a heartbeat.
“And you, Khan,” Seven replied in turn. His eyes grimly surveyed the humming, blinking hardware filling the control room, lingering at last on the mounted map of the world, now rendered incarnadine by Morning Star’s targeting processors. “Although I regret that we must conduct this reunion under such ominous circumstances.”
“Eight minutes to Gomorrah,” the computer reported, oblivious to the tense encounter in the control room. Khan was gratified to see a flicker of apprehension cross over Seven’s bony face at the automated announcement. How does it feel, he wondered mercilessly, to see all that you have worked for come to ruin?
“I confess I am curious about how you managed this timely visit,” Khan admitted, glancing briefly at Seven’s feet. At this point, the last wisps of the ectoplasmic blue fog had dissipated entirely into the climate-controlled atmosphere of this subterranean level. He tilted his head quizzically. “My force field?”
To his surprise, Ament supplied the explanation. “I lowered the shields, Khan,” she said simply. Stung by her betrayal, he turned to berate her—but the elegant Egyptian woman was no longer there. In her place was a sleek black cat with gleaming amber eyes.
Her ebon fur glossy and impeccably groomed, the impossible feline meowed once before leaping into Seven’s arms. “Hello, doll,” he addressed her fondly. “I’ve missed you, too.”
Eyes and mouth agape, Khan stared at the cat in unalloyed astonishment. An ancient memory, long neglected, intruded into his consciousness: of that final night at Chrysalis, over two decades ago, when a much younger Khan, no more than four years old, had seen the same black cat transform into an exotically beautiful woman. I had thought that but a dream, he marveled, a childish fantasy born of the trauma and confusion of that fateful evacuation.