STAR TREK - TOS (25 page)

Khan nodded at Joaquin, who obediently assisted the feeble visitor over to the iron bench beneath the mango trees. Williams dropped gratefully onto the bench, his chest heaving. “Yes, that’s much better,” he gasped, clearly exhausted by his short walk across the garden. “Many thanks.”

Placing his pith helmet down beside him on the bench, Williams began rooting around in the front pockets of his bush jacket. Joaquin tensed, just in case the palsied Englishman had somehow managed to smuggle a weapon past the palace’s assiduous screening process. He relaxed only slightly when Williams produced a packet of cigarettes and a lighter instead. “Do you mind if I smoke, Your Lordship?” he asked, apparently anxious to inflict more damage on his already-blighted lungs.

“Yes,” Khan stated unequivocally. He was starting to question whether this decrepit Westerner was

[220]worth his time. He gazed down imperiously at his seated visitor. “Please get to the point, Dr.

Williams.”

The wheezing fossil sheepishly put away his cigarettes. “Whatever you say, Lord Khan.” He looked up at Khan through watery, bloodshot eyes. “As I started to explain before, I worked closely with your mother back at the old Chrysalis Project, at our underground facility in Rajasthan.” He vainly searched Khan’s stony face for any trace of sympathy or softheartedness. “She was quite a remarkable woman, Your Lordship. A brilliant mind coupled with a positively indomitable will and sense of purpose. There would have been no Chrysalis Project without her, Your Lordship.”

“So I have always understood,” Khan stated flatly. His visitor’s fulsome praise of his mother did little to assuage his growing impatience; did this man have nothing to offer him except nostalgic reminiscences of bygone days? “Go on, Doctor.”

Williams seemed to realize that he was trying Khan’s patience. “Yes, right,” he said hastily. A nervous tremor shook his dilapidated frame. “Anyway, after everything went to hell in seventy-four, I thought it best to drop out of sight for a while. By then, the authorities had somehow twigged on to what we’d been up to at Chrysalis, and a number of my colleagues ended up in custody, or else disappeared entirely. I suspect that some of them got drafted into one covert government project or another, and that others were simply ‘retired’ permanently, if you get my drift.”

The geriatric caller ran a finger across his throat to clarify his meaning. “Me, I’ve been lying low ever

[221]since, keeping body and soul together by selling my scientific expertise under the table, as it were.”

Khan wondered, without too much interest, what manner of dubious enterprises Williams had been involved with. He had heard rumors of recent illegal cloning experiments, involving everything from human embryos to the Shroud of Turin. Whatever sort of illicit research the seedy Englishman might have been engaged in, Khan felt certain that it had been highly disreputable.

“Recently, however, through no real fault of my own, mind you, I’ve found myself in a bit of hot water with respect to a couple of my more, er, unforgiving clients.” Williams paused, clearly reluctant to elaborate, then jumped ahead in his narrative. “Consequently, a change of scenery seemed to be in order, and it occurred to me to look you up.” He fixed a calculating gaze on Khan, providing a glimmer of a wily mind within his wasted shell. “I must admit, I’ve followed your career with some interest, Lord Khan.

Your mother would be quite proud of the heights to which you’ve risen, I assure you. It’s a pity she didn’t live to see you fulfill the tremendous potential she crafted for you.”

My destiny will be complete when the world is mine,Khan thought,
and not a moment before.
He noted that the sun had risen significantly since he had first sat down to pose for Herr Vogellieder; the morning was swiftly passing away. “Permit me to save us all precious time by cutting to the core of your purpose here today,” he said disdainfully. “Having incurred the wrath of unspecified third parties, whose activities I suspect are of questionable legality, you have come[222]here seeking my patronage and protection, trading solely on your long-ago affiliation with my deceased mother.” He did not bother to blunt the sarcastic edge of his tone. “Isn’t that correct, Dr. “Williams?”

“Yes—I mean, no, Your Lordship!” Flustered and distraught, Williams heaved his sloppy bulk back onto his feet, clutching his chest as he did so. An angry blue vein throbbed wildly on his right temple.

“That is, yes, I would certainly appreciate your hospitality and financial assistance at this difficult period, but, no, Your Lordship, I have not come here empty-handed, with no other claim besides the legitimate fact of my past service to your mother.” He grabbed onto Khan’s sleeve, as if fearful that Khan was about to turn his back on him. “I have far more to offer you than that!”

Khan was skeptical, but still willing to be convinced. “Explain,” he commanded, pulling his arm free of the man’s cloying grip. “Quickly.”

A sly expression crossed Williams’s florid countenance. “Have you ever heard of necrotizing fasciitis?”

he asked with an unsavory grin.

Khan thought the term somewhat familiar, but he had been trained as an engineer, not a biologist. “Some manner of bacteria, correct?”

“A flesh-eating bacteria,” Williams said with positively ghoulish gusto, “capable of devouring living tissue at a frightening, and invariably fatal, rate. Specifically, it’s a strain of antibiotic-resistant streptococcus.”

He leaned toward Khan, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Before she died, your mother developed an unusually potent strain of the flesh-eating bacteria. She also made sure that you,[223]and the rest of the Chrysalis children, possessed a genetic immunity to all forms of streptococcus.”

Khan stared at Williams in shock, torn between horror and morbid curiosity. This was the first he had heard of any such genetically engineered bacteria. “But why would my mother do such a thing?”

“Why, it was all part of her master plan, Your Lordship!” Williams chuckled evilly, growing bolder now that he had clearly captured Khan’s attention. “To clear the world of its surplus population when you and the other children were ready to take over. The plan, which only a very few of us knew, was to wait until you came of age, then unleash the bacteria all over the planet.”

Khan took hold of the Englishman’s grimy collar. “Is this true?” he demanded, uncertain what he should think or feel about this startling revelation. Germ warfare—against all of humanity? The very idea was horrific, and yet ... wasn’t it only less than half an hour ago, right here in this tranquil garden, that he had despaired of ever bringing peace to the world’s warring billions? Hadn’t he lamented aloud to Joaquin that there were too many ignorant, inferior people in the world?
Is it even possible to cleanse the world
the way Williams is describing?
With a single hand, he lifted the pudgy scientist off the ground, so that Williams’s feet dangled several centimeters in the air. “If you are lying to me,” he snarled at the Englishman, leaving the precise nature of his threat to the older man’s imagination.

“I swear it! Cross my heart!” Williams flailed helplessly in Khan’s grip, choking on his twisted collar.

Saliva sprayed from his contorted lips. Frantic,[224]blood-rimmed eyes bulged from their sockets. “Dr.

Kaur—your mother!—she had already acquired the missiles from the Russians, equipped with experimental bio-warheads to disperse the bacteria!” His portly body trembled like an overripe fruit before the monsoon. “It’s all true, I tell you!”

The extremity of his fear lent credibility to his panicky assertions.
They say the tongues of dying men,
Khan thought, after Richard the Second,
enforce attention like deep harmony.
Rather than pressing Williams quite that far, he released the man’s collar, dropping the terrified relic back onto the terra-cotta walkway. “What became of the bacteria?” he asked coldly.

Shaking and plastered with sweat, his body doubled over so that his hands rested on his quivering knees, Williams struggled to catch his breath. “It can be yours, Your Lordship!” he gasped. “I pinched the recipe—the exact genetic sequence—right before Chrysalis blew up!”

Khan could readily imagine Williams’s actions that fateful night, pocketing the precious formula as he scrambled for safety, leaving Sarina Kaur to perish with her dream. “In other words, you stole my mother’s secrets, then abandoned her!”

“No, Your Lordship, it wasn’t like that at all, I swear!” He clutched his throat, massaging his brutalized windpipe, while the pulsing vein on his temple threatened to explode. “There was no way I could have saved your mother. She was determined to stay on at Chrysalis until the bitter end!” Panic elevated the timbre of his voice. “I was just trying to preserve the fruits of her genius!”

“And your own craven skin,” Khan accused.
I was
[225]
only a child,
he thought guiltily.
Ihad no choice
but to leave my mother behind when Chrysalis was evacuated.
But what was Williams’s excuse for deserting Sarina Kaur at her moment of greatest need?

Khan’s hand fell upon the hilt of his silver kirpan. He was sorely tempted to execute Williams on the spot, in long-delayed payment for his cowardice twenty years ago. The Englishman must have spotted the deadly intent in Khan’s eyes, for he dropped onto his knees and raised his clasped hands in supplication. “It wasn’t my fault,” he pleaded, wringing his hands together fearfully. “It was Seven and that damn blonde! They’re the ones who got your mother killed!”

“What?” Khan hissed, feeling his blood turn to ice. “What did you say?”

“It was two American spies,” Williams insisted, letting loose a torrent of shrill explication. “A man named Gary Seven and this blonde chippie who called herself Veronica Neary. They infiltrated Chrysalis right there at the end. We never found out who exactly they were working for, but Seven somehow managed to activate Chrysalis’s emergency self-destruct procedure. The whole place went up in a mushroom cloud, taking your mother with it.” Williams’s red-veined eyes were wild with fear, and his shallow, labored breaths came so rapidly that Khan suspected he might have to summon a medic. “There was nothing I could have done, Your Lordship! I swear it upon my life!”

The Englishman’s meaningless oaths meant little to Khan, yet he knew with utter certainty that Williams had spoken the truth. In the back of his mind, he had always suspected that Gary Seven and his pert

[226]amanuensis had played some part in the destruction of Chrysalis. Why else would Seven have tracked Khan and the other superchildren so meticulously? At times, Khan even thought he recalled being spirited away from Chrysalis by the swirling blue energy of Seven’s matter-transporter device, even though the passage of decades had left the memory maddeningly elusive and unreliable.

It was one thing, however, to suspect Seven and the ubiquitous Ms. Lincoln of complicity in his mother’s death; it was quite another thing to have those dire suspicions confirmed at long last.
You should never
have let me live,
he silently admonished Seven,
let alone tried to convert me to your cause.
His fists clenched so tightly that his manicured nails dug into his palms. Khan contemplated with growing fury all the manifold ways in which Seven had attempted to twist Khan’s destiny to his own design.
No more,
he vowed,
you and your perfidious henchwoman will regret that you ever set foot in India.

“Please, Your Lordship! Have mercy!” Down on his knees, Williams continued to beg for his life. Sweat streamed down his abject face like pus from an open sore. “I meant no harm! I only came here because I knew you could protect me!”

Khan reached down and effortlessly pulled the groveling scientist back onto his feet. In light of what he had just revealed about Seven, the Englishman’s own crimes no longer seemed of much consequence.

Khan had weightier matters on his mind, namely a son’s rightful vengeance—and his mother’s last legacy.

“Tell me more about this flesh-eating bacteria,” he commanded.

SOUTHEAST ARIZONA

UNITED STATES

AUGUST 16, 1994

THE TIGHT SECURITY REMINDED ROBERTAof Area 51, or East Berlin back during the bad old days of the Cold War.

Barbed wire and timber watchtowers barricaded the outer perimeter of the militia headquarters. Goons in paramilitary uniforms patrolled the grounds with fierce-looking guard dogs that resembled a cross between a Doberman and a pit bull. (A
doberpit?
she wondered.) From the outside, the compound resembled a prison or concentration camp more than the voluntary residence of dozens of self-styled patriots.

Roberta gazed at the camp through the tinted windows of the black Humvee carrying her toward the fort. Sitting in the backseat, behind the driver, she did her best to conceal her apprehension as the[228]

vehicle pulled up to the front gate, where an Uzi-toting guard manned a lowered steel barrier.
Remember,
she reminded herself,
you’re thrilled and excited to be here.

“So this is it, huh?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” the driver, who called himself “Butch,” confirmed laconically. Not exactly the talkative sort, he had resisted all of Roberta’s sporadic attempts to make small talk since picking her up at the Tucson airport a few hours back. She wondered if he was this uncommunicative all the time, or only with nosy new arrivals?

The Humvee braked in front of the horizontal crossbar and Butch rolled down the window to talk to the khaki-clad guard standing watch over the gate. “Freeman Butch Connors, returning from a pick-up in Tucson,” he informed the sentry in clipped, military tones. Unlike the surrounding guards, Butch was clad in civilian garb, the better to blend in outside the camp.

“Password?”

“Ruby Ridge,” Butch responded.

Only partly satisfied, the guard peered in through the window at Roberta, scowling at the sight of the unfamiliar woman. “Passenger?”

“A potential new recruit,” Butch explained. “Here to meet with the General.”