The Chimera Vector (41 page)

‘Have you seen Nasira?’

That was Lucia’s voice. Sophia turned to see her enter from the east. She stopped just short of Novak’s rotund body.

‘Where have you been?’ Sophia said.

‘Buying you some time, keeping shocktroopers distracted,’ Lucia said, out of breath.

‘Jay didn’t tell you when he came through?’

Lucia shook her head. ‘I didn’t see him.’

‘Nasira’s dead,’ Sophia said.

Lucia clenched her fists. ‘We have to go. I’m counting seven minutes until the missile hits.’

‘What about Damien and Jay?’ Sophia said.

‘They have the Chimera vectors. If anyone can stop Denton, it’s them. There’s nothing we can do for them now.’

Sophia shook her head. ‘I can’t leave them behind.’

‘If we stay, we all die,’ Lucia said. ‘But if we go, you have the chance to save some of us.’

Chapter 46

The closer Damien drew to Denton, the more he felt as though some part of him was being siphoned away. At first, he thought it was his eyes playing tricks on him. Denton seemed younger. The fine wrinkles in his face, around his mouth and eyes, had disappeared. He seemed at least a decade younger.

He’d injected both Chimera vectors.

Damien came to a halt right before him, only the almost invisible panel of aluminum oxynitride separating them.

Denton cemented his stance, his lips parting in curiosity. ‘It seems all of your efforts have been in vain.’

‘Not all of them.’

Damien held up an empty syringe, the one Benito had given him, and watched the color drain from Denton’s smooth, regenerated face.

He tossed the syringe aside, then placed the palm of his hand on the panel that divided them. He felt warmth spread from his palm, hot against the surface. It hummed softly but Damien couldn’t be sure if he was hearing or feeling it. 

He focused. The aluminum oxynitride sheet fractured into a million pieces. 

They stood squared off, five meters apart. 

Damien heard Jay’s footsteps and looked over his shoulder. ‘You made it.’

***

‘Always.’ Jay raised his pistol at Denton.

Denton rolled his eyes. ‘It’s unfortunate that you’ve chosen to betray me after all I’ve done for the both of you,’ he said. ‘I can only imagine the iconoclastic brainwashing techniques Sophia employed to draw you into her cult. I suppose you blame me for the brainwashing. One among many of her colorful conspiracy theories.’

‘We’re both injected,’ Damien said. ‘Benito was kind enough to put his cryptanalyst skills to good use.’

‘Nothing like “residual memory” to even the odds, right?’ Jay said. ‘Benito hacked into your computers, grabbed the Chimera thingie from the SLAM.’

‘RAM,’ Damien said. ‘He means RAM.’

Denton smiled. ‘As children, the two of you showed every promise of becoming valuable assets. I’m not quite sure what spurred you to do it, but, to my own surprise, I am willing to overlook your betrayal  . . .’

He took one step closer. A little too close for Jay’s liking.

‘. . . if you consider what will be my only offer.’

‘You’re in no position to be making offers,’ Jay said. He tasted the roof of his mouth. The only fear he could detect was Damien's.

Denton checked his watch. ‘You’re in no position to be declining them. We have six minutes before the bunker-buster bomb hits. If we die here, now, fighting over the same thing, that would be regrettable. And pointless. I’d like to think it possible for us to work together to achieve a common cause. Every resistance throughout history has failed,’ he said, ‘until now.’

He turned away.

What the hell was that, Jay thought. He projectile vomits his disappointed parental speech and then just fucks off? Screw that.

He aimed his pistol at Denton’s head. His hands were trembling. He dropped his aim slightly, to Denton’s back. He couldn’t do it. Not yet. He needed to know.

‘What common cause could we possibly have?’ he said.

Denton looked over his shoulder. ‘Dismantling the Fifth Column.’

He manually opened a pair of glass doors and exited the lab. His confidence was starting to piss Jay off. He raised his pistol again.

‘Don’t think I won’t shoot you!’ he yelled.

Denton laughed and called back, ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea.’

Damien seized Jay’s shooting arm. ‘What are you doing?’

Jay didn’t look away, kept the back of Denton’s brain stem in his sights. ‘I’m about to kill him.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Damien said. ‘I want answers.’

‘To what?’

‘To us!’ Damien yelled. ‘What happened to us, our families. Everything that happened.’ He pointed to the open glass doors. ‘I don’t want to admit this any more than you do, but if anyone can really give us that, it’s him.’

‘What about Sophia?’

‘She doesn’t know what Denton knows.’

Damien ran towards the glass doors.

‘Shit,’ Jay said, and chased after him.

They found themselves at the bottom of a narrow flight of stairs that ascended to a closed door.

‘Come on!’ Damien yelled at Jay.

They climbed the stairs and kicked the door open. They were in the aircraft hangar, the same access door they’d used in the past for debriefs.

He saw Denton making for the row of high-speed Piasecki X-49 Speedhawk helicopters. He couldn’t see any Blue Berets. Or shocktroopers. Or aircraft pilots. There were only three Speedhawks. Had Sophia taken one already?

Together, he and Damien ran to catch up, slowing as they reached Denton. He was already in the cockpit, strapping on his flight helmet.

‘Do you even give a shit that we could kill you right now?’ Jay yelled.

‘Don’t just stand there, for Christ’s sake,’ Denton said. ‘We have three minutes. Get in.’

Damien took Jay’s pistol and stepped closer, aiming at Denton’s head. ‘We want our records. From Project GATE.’

‘Help me find the General,’ Denton said. ‘And the records are yours.’

Chapter 47

Rotor blades sliced the air ahead. Sophia slowed her sprint as she reached the two Piasecki X-49 Speedhawks. They had thin lifting wings on either side that reminded her of dorsal fins on a fish. The tail sported a vectored-thrust ducted propeller that looked like an oversized fan. Maximum speed: 268 kilometers per hour. If anyone could hot-rod a helicopter, it would look something like this. And just as well. It was probably the only thing that had a chance of getting them clear in time.

Damien and Jay were nowhere to be seen. She realized they weren’t going to make it.

Lucia was already in the pilot’s seat of the closest Speedhawk, her helmet on. Sophia turned to see Benito farther away than she’d thought. The hangar roof above was already open. She climbed up into the cargo hold.

‘Faster!’ she shouted at Benito.

He slowed to a halt. ‘I’m not going with you.’

‘You don’t have any choice!’ she yelled. ‘Get in!’

He started for one of the other, slower helicopters. ‘I have a pilot’s license. I can fly my—’

‘Those helicopters are too slow. We don’t have time.’ She aimed Renée’s pistol at his face. ‘Get in now.’

‘Or what?’

‘Or I
will
shoot you.’

Benito swallowed, then began to climb in. She holstered her pistol and offered her working hand to help him, but he ignored it. She yelled for Lucia to go, then held on as the Speedhawk rose sharply towards the hangar roof.

‘Hang on!’ Lucia shouted over the noise of the rotor blades.

The Speedhawk ascended faster than Sophia had expected. Benito was half in, hands clawing for something to hold onto. She leaped forward, sliding on her stomach, and seized his wrist just in time. The Speedhawk was out of the hangar. The humid air hit her, then rushed out of her lungs as she was slammed flat onto her chest.

As the Speedhawk shot skyward, she held onto Benito’s wrist to stop him falling out. His eyes were wide and his hands searched for something to cling to. There was only her arm. He seized it.

She slid herself further forward and snatched whatever she could grab—the back of his collar—and tried to haul him inside. He managed to crawl up to his stomach. She only had one hand as leverage. With her wounded shoulder, she didn’t have the strength to pull him in.

Past his head, she could see Desecheo Island below. She guessed they were about thirty floors high off the island. Something glinted in the sunlight. She watched it disappear into the center of the island with the sound of rumbling thunder.

The bunker-buster bomb.

She held her breath. They were still too goddamn close.

Lucia shouted something, but Sophia couldn’t make out what she was saying.

Again, she tried to pull Benito in. She gripped the back of his blood- and sweat-stained undershirt. It tore from her grasp. She reached further down, her fingers wrapping over his belt. An instant later, he was lying beside her, hands sprawled across the slippery floor.

Below them, the island disappeared into a cloud of iridescent white. Then the Speedhawk shuddered, knocking her right over Benito and out of the helicopter. The white cloud trembled, and a thin white halo spread out below her as she fell. She could see the ocean ripple in its wake.

Frantically, she hooked both arms around Benito’s right leg. Her brain rattled inside her skull as she went from headfirst to upright. Without warning, the Speedhawk lurched sideways, nearly tearing her free. It felt like the helicopter was a lure on a giant fishing line that was being cast out to sea at phenomenal speed.

She hung on. Her shoulder wanted to tear away from her body. About 200 meters below her, through squinted eyes, she saw the shockwave shredding the island apart. An unbearable heat smothered her, forcing her to close her eyes.

In her mind’s eye, she saw Leoncjusz smile as he held up a ruby-colored Christmas ornament.
My mother calls these bombka
.

She opened her eyes. It felt like her grip around Benito’s leg was slipping. He was hanging off the side of the Speedhawk’s cargo-hold doorway again, and this time his grip looked worse than hers.

The shockwave faded. Their sideways slingshot had ended. Miraculously, the helicopter was still upright. Lucia stabilized it.

Sophia was dangling below Benito, one arm wrapped around his ankle and a fifty-level drop to the Caribbean below. Every muscle in her body was on fire. Light danced across her vision. She no longer had any feeling in her hands, feet or even her face. Everything felt numb. She felt numb.

Benito managed to pull himself further in. Sophia reached out to grip the edge of the doorway. With her weight off him, he was able to drag himself inside. She hauled herself in after him and shut the door. Collapsing on one of the seats, she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, hoping the tears wouldn’t come. The pain in her shoulder returned with a vengeance, stealing the breath from her. She could barely think, let alone speak.

She opened her eyes to find Benito dressing her shoulder with her field dressings. His hands trembled as he took his belt off. With some more dressing as padding, he tightened the belt around her shoulder to staunch the blood flow between her heart and the wound. Once he was done he checked for something in his pocket. A single vial of iridescent blue liquid. He still had the anti-psychopath Chimera vector. Even if Cecilia failed, they would still succeed. But it didn’t change the fact that Cassandra, Nasira, Damien and Jay were all dead.

It should’ve been her. Not them.

Chapter 48

Benito looked out the window of the Speedhawk at the ledge extending from the sheer jagged cliff where the helicopter was to land. Lucia kept them hovering for a moment, then carefully settled the helicopter down on what looked like an aluminum platform.

There was a cave opening before them, large enough to squeeze a light aircraft through. Benito watched as the cave doors parted on hinges, turning inwards. The doors themselves were covered in mountain rock, decorated with moss and fernery to conceal the true material beneath it: reinforced steel. The Speedhawk jolted as the aluminum platform began to withdraw through the cave doors.

Once inside, Sophia leaped off the platform, nearly losing her balance with only one good arm. Lucia followed suit. Benito contemplated staying in the helicopter by himself, but decided it was safer with them. He made sure he kept no more than three paces away from them, aware that they still had their pistol and rifle ready. They didn’t bother to close the fake-rock doors behind them, which he found rather odd.

As he stepped off the platform, he saw that it had wheels that ran on a pair of rails, powered by an on-board motor. The rails themselves were retractable.

‘We can’t stay long,’ Sophia said quietly. ‘The Fifth Column might know about this base by now.’

‘I can smell blood,’ Lucia said.

‘Whose?’ Sophia asked.

‘Not sure. Our people are here. Cecilia. Everyone.’ She shook her head. ‘No soldiers though.’

‘Damn,’ Sophia said. ‘We’re too late.’

Benito remained behind them as they surveyed the chamber. The walls and ceiling were fabricated, and seemed to be molded upon the existing shape of the cave. He knew Cecilia had chosen the location for this place, and financed the discreet conversion of the natural limestone cave system into a cleverly retrofitted forward-operating base. The fact that the base was carefully concealed in an archeologically protected region of Belize meant it was unlikely to be stumbled upon even by the most persistent treasure hunter.

‘Where is ev—’ Benito stopped mid-sentence as Sophia brought a finger to her lips.

He watched her move lightly into the next chamber. Crates and boxes of various sizes were stacked around them. At the other end was a pair of tubular passages. Sophia led them down the left one. As they walked, he noticed the passage descending. Lucia walked behind him, her attention focused on their rear. Something wasn’t right. But he didn’t want to say anything, preferring to wait and hope for the best.

A thicket of cables sagged along the limestone walls, marked every ten meters by light bulbs that bled onto the limestone with fingers of black iron. Benito tried and failed to suppress a chill that shook his body. He was careful not to slip on anything as the passage twisted to the right and then to the left again, before expanding out into a large galley kitchen.