Pandora's Ark (24 page)

Al-Sherrod lifted a hand to al-Ghazi’s shoulder. “None of
this will matter anyway,” he told him. “We have what we want, so this facility
has become irrelevant. We are now in a position to fear no one.”

“No doubt Mossad is deciding what to do.”

“No doubt. We were able to decipher some of the encrypted
contents sent. They know the location and specific agenda of Sakharov’s
findings. So I assume they’ll send their concerns up the Zionist chain of
command to justify a prompt strike. And, of course, they’ll notify the United States and its allies of their intentions. And, of course, the United States will try to stall them, which will aid us with the necessary time to move our
assets.”

“How long?”

“Two, maybe three days,” he answered. “Ahmadinejad is being
notified as we speak.”

Al-Ghazi had his own data files locked away in his satellite
office in Tehran, so he was safe. What happened to the facility, its wares, or
its people was beyond his concern. In fact, he didn’t really care what happened
to them, as long as he was in Tehran. But he did have a singular concern
regarding the timeline of their conspiracy against the Vatican. “Does that give us enough time to get things in motion?”

“It’ll be tight,” he said. “But doable.”

“And Doctor Sakharov?”

Al-Sherrod shot off another one of his malicious and
annoying smiles. “Now that, Ahmad, is another matter. His mind is too valuable an
asset, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Which means that he’s staying with your organization?”

Al-Sherrod did little to hide his zeal, his smile widening
to a Cheshire grin. “Did you really believe otherwise?”

#

Doctor
Leonid J.
Sakharov sat alone in his
residence, his sight stretching out for a long moment into the darkness, his
eyes unwavering. But his mind churned with the bombarding madness of nonstop
memories.

When he was in Vladimir Central prison he subsisted on his
memories, which drove in him the compassion to live, to survive, to keep moving
no matter how much the guards broke his body down. With random beatings by
their truncheons, and then to see those around him die with their eyes staring
at nothing in particular as the spark of life left them when their souls
departed, he kept going, afraid to die.

While in Vladimir Central he dreamed of buckyballs, of his
science, the molecular chains becoming the driving sustenance that kept him
alive during those wintery nights beneath threadbare blankets and lived by the power
of prayer, his science his God.

Now, with his dreams finally coming to fruition, he
realized that his God was a dark one.

He had seen its intention, to kill without impunity or
conscience or remorse. And he was the one to helm and unleash its ferocity into
the hands of extremists who bore no intent of purity in its application.

What have I done
?

His ambitions had corrupted him, he knew that. And he had
no justification for what he did because he knew their intent all along. He simply
chose to turn a blind eye knowing the power of his creation.  

In the darkness the old man brought his hands up and
cradled his head.

What have I done
?

With his aging eyes he watched his discovery tear a man
apart, saw the acid bite of his creation destroy flesh and sinew with quick and
ravenous hunger.

Feeling contrite to the point where his soul had paid a
horrible price, though not a religious man, old man Sakharov got to his feet. He
was no longer afraid.  

When the door of his residential capsule opened he was
greeted by a harsh light coming from the hallway, causing his eyes to squint
until they adjusted.

The hallway was empty.

He sauntered into the corridor in a gait that spoke volumes—that
he was not a threat by any physical means, could hardly raise a hand in
defiance let alone in retaliation. But it wasn’t his body they had to worry
about. It was his mind.

Old Man Sakharov made his way to the lab and silently
watched a tech at the console typing a program related to his nanotechnology,
the data transmitting as scientific cuneiform on the monitor. In a slow curdle deep
within the pit of his stomach; Sakharov could feel a slow boil.

Quietly he made his way behind the tech, and in doing so
picked up a metal clipboard on his way. After hefting it he realized that it
was too light to cause any real damage. Perhaps striking the man at the temple,
a well-placed blow, he considered.

Taking careful aim, the man’s head stationary, a firm and
unmoving target, Sakharov swung the clipboard as hard as he could, the corner
catching the tech at the thinnest point of his temple, cutting deep, the head
wound bleeding out as the tech fell to the side with his hand clutching at the
deep incision.

Sakharov hit the man repeatedly, as if he was a guard at
Vladimir Central, never relenting, blow after blow, more cuts, more wounds,
more blood. 

The tech tried to crawl away, the damage inflicted minimal,
but driving.

As the tech lay dazed with the collar area of his lab coat
saturated with blood, Sakharov labored into the seat and attempted to wipe away
the data. But the characters were in Farsi. He looked over the console, a quick
perusal. The keyboard he used for his experiments, the one with Russian
characters, was gone.

The data continued to download on the screen before him.

He tapped the buttons in random.

Nothing.

And then he became desperate, almost feral.

He looked at the tech that had crawled his way to another
terminal, saw the blood track he left in his wake upon the floor and the bloody
handprint on the silent alarm, which he pressed before passing out.

Sakharov got to his feet and found an inner strength. He
was no longer afraid, but angry, his mind closing out all forms of impending
punishments, not caring, his will to succeed in the dismantling of his findings
far greater than the retribution he was about to receive.

He picked up the chair, though his arms found it difficult,
and swung it against the console, then against the monitor, causing a
star-shaped crack in the glass. Another strike, the blow futile and causing no
damage, his arms weakening in the process, the muscles starting to turn to gel.

And then he heard the sound of coming footsteps, the Quds
approaching.

After another feeble blow Sakharov turned, only to be met with
the stock end of a rifle.

Lights out.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The ceiling.

The
walls.

The
lights.

The glass
partition.

When Sakharov came to he saw that he was inside a vacuum
chamber. Immediately, he conceded to his fate.

“Good morning, Doctor,” said Al-Sherrod, his voice coming
through the mike system. His face appeared humorless with no lines of his ugly Cheshire teeth showing. Beside him stood al-Ghazi, who shared the same flat appearance,
the same emotionless expression. “You’ve been out for most of the day. Welcome
back.”

Sakharov measured his surroundings.
Did he expect
anything less
?

“I hardly thought that you’d make such an attempt, Doctor.
My mistake for letting my guard down. I didn’t believe you had it in you.”

Sakharov looked at the diminutive man and at al-Ghazi, who
stood much taller. “So now you’re going to kill me the same way you killed
Umar?”

“Umar was not his real name. He was a Zionist.”

“Does it matter?

Al-Sherrod deflected him with another direction of
answering. “I had plans for you, Doctor Sakharov. Huge plans.”

“Not interested.”

“I gathered that since your little escapade early this
morning. But there’s good news, I suppose. The only damage you inflicted was a
broken monitor, nothing more. So you failed in your attempt to annihilate your
findings, which I assume was the purpose of your action?”

When Sakharov didn’t answer, al-Sherrod paced back and
forth in front the glass like a caged feline, to and fro, looking and studying Sakharov
who watched his every move.

“Big plans,” he finally commented. “President Ahmadinejad
presumed to move you and your findings to a different locale, so that you could
further your studies.”

Studies
?
Is that
what you call it
?

“I have resigned to my fate,” he answered. “I will not lift
another finger to help you or your regime. I was foolish to do so in the first
place.”

“So you said, Doctor. I believe the term you used was ‘In
the pursuit of my own progress, I have abandoned my humanity.’”

“And should there be a Devil,” he added, “then I have
surely nailed my soul to the Devil’s Altar.”

“Foolishly poetic,” said al-Sherrod, “but your so-called
lack of humanity is actually a state in which ‘true’ evil will be eradicated,
and the infidels laden impotent once and for all.” Then, as if imploring his
line of thought: “Don’t you see, Doctor, your technology will evolve the world
into a much better place.”

“My technology will destroy this planet because of people
like you who do not bear the insight or foresight of its true capacity. You
only see what you want to see without realizing the destructive potential of
what I created. You are misled to believe that a simple program can put you in
a position of control when, in fact, you fail to see your own short fallings in
the same way I was unable to foresee my own . . . And in the end, I lost. The
same will happen to you.”

“Hardly,” was his response. “You are a foolish old man who
could not control his passions. But your ideas will live on, Doctor. And they
will do so under the Iranian banner.”

Sakharov’s jaw clenched.

“Unfortunately for you, Doctor, I presume that your action
early this morning means that you refuse to further the program with extensive
studies to add, or perhaps modify, your findings?”

“Piss off,” he said.

Al-Sherrod turned to al-Ghazi for clarification. “Piss
off?”

“It’s a derogatory remark telling you to back off. It’s a
crude expression.”

“I see.” He turned back to Sakharov. “Is that your final
answer, Doctor? To tell me to ‘piss off’?”

Sakharov did not respond, the man obviously resigning
himself.

“Then you leave me no choice,” said al-Sherrod. With a
motion of his hand al-Sherrod proffered an order to the tech manning the
console.

The tech that Sakharov had beaten with the clipboard tapped
a command into the keyboard, then waited for further instructions from
al-Sherrod, who stretched the moment out as long as he could as the gazes
between he and Sakharov remained steady.

And then: “Do it.”

The tech pressed the ENTER button, initiating the sound
waves.

Sakharov then closed his eyes and braced himself, his hands
clutching at the armrests of his chair as the waspy hum began to advance on
him.

Within less than two minutes it was over.

And Leonid Sakharov, a man with a brilliant mind, had
succumbed to the creations of his own ambitions.

#

As
al-Ghazi and
al-Sherrod watched the Quds
soldiers remove the remains of Sakharov from the chamber, al-Ghazi turned to
the diminutive man with pressing questions.

“It won’t be long until the Zionists retaliate,” he said
simply.

“The Americans will stall them,” he returned. “So we have
time.”

“We don’t know this for sure.”

“The Americans are intent to keep their economy in check.
Such a violation against Iranian sovereignty only provokes to cripple an
already hurting economy by escalating gas prices, which is a major concern for
the Americans. He who holds the oil, my friend, also holds the scepter of rule.
And the Americans know this. They will talk the Zionists to stave off their attack
and let the sanctions work.”

“But Israel will not hold off forever.”

“Of course not,” he said. “Past history has shown that. But
past history has also shown that they will wait long enough to placate the United States, as well.” Then: “We still have time. We simply need to be careful with our
applications and not rush into this with any chance of failure.”

“How long?”

Al-Sherrod mused over this for a long moment before
answering. “A week,” he finally answered. “Perhaps two.”

“Two weeks may be too long,” he replied.

“Your impatience is showing, Adham. I thought it was a
conviction of your people to exhibit the virtue of patience.”

“We are not without reality, either,” he told him. “The
gamble is too great should the Israeli’s decide to strike. The optimum thing to
do is to act accordingly to the situation. And the situation dictates that the
location of the facility has been compromised and the nature of our findings
made clear to the enemy.”

Al-Sherrod considered this.

“We have the technology,” said al-Ghazi. “We have the
capability to manufacture enough nanobots to achieve the means of an initial
strike against the Vatican. We cannot wait on the assumptions of what the United States and Israel might do.”

Al-Sherrod looked at al-Ghazi squarely in the eyes and
noted his fiery determination. “One week,” he finally said. “I believe we can
produce enough of the quantity necessary to achieve the means. But will that
give you enough time to set everything in motion?”

“I have replaced Umar with others,” he told him. “They have
decided to martyr themselves.”

“Are they capable?”

“They are skilled to initiate the program,” he said. “It’s
just a matter of introducing the Ark in a timely fashion.”

“And how will you do this?”

“I will contact a leading religious principle with the
condition that the true Ark will be an offering to be shared by all religions,
with its opening to be commenced at the Vatican with all leading principles and
political states of head present. When the lid is opened to reveal the tablets,
then the canisters inside will be activated. Everything made of organic matter
within Vatican City will be destroyed within minutes.”

Al-Sherrod suppressed his smile. The leading political
principals, as well as leading religious leaders and other spiritual dignitaries
who pray to false gods, will be neutralized. But his goal was not borne of
religious extremism, but out of political radicalism.

“Should this succeed,” he told al-Ghazi, “then we will
plant such canisters in New York, Washington D.C., Tel Aviv, London, to
whatever locations that will propel Iran as an international power.”

“You do whatever your agenda requires,” said al-Ghazi. “If
yours is strictly political, so be it. Ours is for religious purposes only. We
do this for the sake of Allah.”

“I see.”

“We need to commence this while we have the advantage.”

Al-Sherrod nodded. “Then the Ark is yours,” he said. “Do
with it what you will and set forth the precedence of changing the balance.”

Al-Ghazi, at least for the moment, shared his enthusiasm.
“Then with the will of Allah,” he said, “let us set forth Pandora’s Ark.”