The Lazarus Protocol: A Sci-Fi Corporate Technothriller (The SynCorp Saga Book 1)

by Pourteau, Chris

  A thin man with dark, pockmarked skin stood on the other side. He was dressed in a heavy lab coat and flanked by a pair of security guards, armed only with Tasers and knives strapped on their hips.

  “Secretary Kisaan, this is unexpected.” The thin man spoke rapid-fire English with a thick accent Remy placed in Southeast Asia. “I was under the impression you were—”

  “Don’t believe everything you see on YourVoice, Dr. Okaga,” Elise replied smoothly. She stepped past the doctor and his security guards. Remy followed, feeling clumsy in the low-gravity setting from constantly overpowering his movements. He was painfully aware that the guards moved with the easy grace of men who knew how to handle themselves in lunar gravity.

  Elise seemed completely calm as she walked with the doctor. “The kidnapping was a cover story to get me off-planet. I’m here on a covert mission for the UN Committee for Global Reconstruction. Viktor sent me.”

  Okaga’s surprise deepened. “Dr. Erkennen? I wasn’t notified.”

  Elise eyed her companions. “You know what the term covert means, right?” She winked. “We’re to go to level 4 and contact Viktor via secured communications. He should be calling in” —she made a show of pulling up the chronometer on her retinal display— “two minutes, thirty-seven seconds.”

  Despite his growing nervousness, Remy smiled to himself. Okaga picked up his pace. “Of course, Madam Secretary.”

  They passed a security area filled with screens and a drone workshop. Remy counted two more guards. When Okaga pushed the button for the elevator, Elise said, “Two of my team will stay here, Doctor. Two will accompany me.”

  Okaga frowned. “But have you not been briefed on the latest protocols? No more than four people on level 4 at any time—and I must be accompanied by security.” He smiled nervously. “For obvious reasons.”

  Elise’s pleasant expression never wavered. “Like I said, I’ve been under the radar. My mistake.”

  Remy felt Hattan tense behind him. There was a pause as the general exchanged a look with Elise.

  “We’ll remain here, ma’am,” he said finally.

  Dr. Okaga and Elise stepped aboard the waiting elevator, followed by Remy and the taller security guard.

  The space was small, no larger than a modest closet, and smelled of ozone and recycled air. As they descended, Remy was acutely aware of his opposite number. The man was half a head taller and clearly accustomed to the reduced demands of the Moon’s gravity. His penetrating, gray eyes stayed alert, and he fingered the Bowie knife on his hip. The handle was worn from use.

  The elevator opened onto a small room. Flush storage panels like security deposit boxes lined the walls, and a computer console sat on a small desk in the far corner. Remy spotted a domed camera in the ceiling.

  “Viktor will be calling in less than a minute. We need the second key to sync with a change he’s made to the primary,” Elise said. Okaga looked alarmed. “Viktor can explain everything. He needs this key synched to my DNA.”

  “He wants the quantum key synched to you?” Okaga’s voice was tight. “That is most unusual, Madam Secretary.”

  “Viktor will explain,” Elise said again. “All you need to do is get the key out, doctor. We are running out of time and we want to be ready for Viktor, right?”

  “Okay, okay, just a second.” Okaga, sweating now, shuffled to the wall beside the desk and touched his thumb, index, and little finger to the silver steel. A phish of air, and the compartment opened.

  Okaga removed the case and set it on the desk. The computer screen sprang to life at his touch.

  “It’ll be just a moment to get the authorization program on line.” His movements, like his speech, were quick and precise. He obviously wanted to be ready for his boss’s call.

  As the doctor bent over the terminal, Elise slipped a blade from her sleeve. She stepped behind Okaga and plunged the knife into the base of his neck.

  Time froze for Remy, his mind refusing to process what he’d just seen. The doctor’s body slumped over the terminal station, then crumpled to the floor in the slow motion created by the Moon’s lesser gravity.

  Elise turned, silver case in hand, a flush of exhilaration on her cheeks. A bloody knife in her fist.

  This wasn’t happening. Elise—his Elise—had just committed cold-blooded murder. She wasn’t capable of…

  The guard, only two steps to Remy’s right, recovered first. He drew his Taser like a gunslinger. Even while his brain stayed frozen, Remy’s training kicked in. He drove his shoulder into the larger man’s chest, sending the Taser’s electrodes into the dead scientist.

  But in the low-g, Remy overpowered his attack. The bigger man shrugged off the hit and drew his blade. Remy bounced off the wall, landing on all fours.

  The big Bowie knife looked like a sword compared to the slim blade in Remy’s hand. The guard was light on his feet, at ease in the lunar gravity. He sliced at the air in front of Remy, backing toward the elevator. The only sound was the hiss of his breath between his teeth.

  Remy felt the glare of the ceiling camera overhead. If security locked this place down, he and Elise would be trapped. Hell, the guard had probably already pulsed for backup.

  The guard paused, listening to his earpiece. He reversed course, charging into the room. Remy fell back against the steel wall, barely fending off the assault. The heavy Bowie knife sliced at his body armor, just missing the gap under Remy’s armpit. He drove a knee into the guard’s stomach to push the man back.

  The guard feinted, Remy dodged, then sprawled backward, tripping over Okaga’s prone body. He felt more than saw the coming attack as the guard loomed over him. Trapped between the dead body and the wall, Remy was out of space to maneuver. He lashed out with a boot and missed.

  There was a flash of movement behind the guard, and the man dropped to floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Blood sprayed, and Remy realized Elise had hamstrung the guard.

  With a shriek, Elise dove on top of the big man, her thin blade clenched in both hands. His legs might be useless, but his arms worked fine. He stabbed the Bowie knife downward. Elise dodged, and the blade slammed into her bionic leg.

  The guard paused for a microsecond, expecting a response from what should have been a devastating wound. He grunted, tugging at the handle, but the knife was stuck.

  Elise plunged her knife into the hollow of his throat.

  The man gurgled once, blood welling over his lips. His death rattle splattered blood across the pristine white of her government uniform. Lifeless fingers released the Bowie knife, still stuck firmly in her mechanical limb.

  “Jesus!” Remy said. “Jesus!”

  “Pray later,” Elise muttered, rolling off the guard’s corpse. She worked to pry the big knife from her thigh. A brutal grin of satisfaction painted her face as the big knife came free.

  Elise opened the case and took out a black ring, which she slipped over her wrist. She bent over the terminal and tapped at the keyboard. Remy could see Okaga’s still-wet blood on the back of her hand.

  She nodded to herself, then tucked the silver case under her arm. Pausing at the elevator door, Elise turned back to Remy. “We’re on a bit of a schedule, lover. You coming?”

  Chapter 23

  William Graves • Bangor, Washington

  The officer of the deck, a twenty-something young man with short red hair, gave an order and the massive submarine heeled in a slow turn. Water piled over the bow in white, creamy waves, creating a football field-sized churning wake behind them. Graves’s stomach shifted. There was a reason he’d chosen the Army instead of the Navy.

  On the flying bridge of the USS Independence , he studied the distant Seattle cityscape across the blue-gray waters of Puget Sound. Rain fell in a mist, collecting on his face like a second skin. After the closeness of the drydock, the open air and rain felt wonderful, like Mother Nature herself was washing him clean. That seemed somehow appropriate to Graves. If they were successful here, if Taulke’s bio-
seeding technology worked, Mother Nature and mankind would be getting along a lot better from now on.

  Graves had been given command of the submarine’s mission, but not operational control of the vessel itself. His partner in command was the CO of the Independence , a hard-eyed Navy vet named Richard Scobee, who didn’t bother to hide his skepticism of Graves and their joint mission. Still, the captain was a professional and treated Graves with cold respect.

  Dealing with H was another matter. The fast-talking, sardonic woman with the body morphs was the antithesis of the straight-laced naval officer, and the captain openly disdained her. For her part, H ignored him.

  “Sir?” the OOD handed Graves a handset. “Captain wants to talk to you.”

  The colonel cleared the salt spray from his throat. “Graves.”

  “Colonel, I’ve just received a … request … from the Coast Guard for us to turn around.”

  “Turn around?” Graves caught H’s eye. Lines appeared on her forehead. “The Coast Guard? Do they have jurisdiction over you?”

  “Well, no, not technically. You’d better come down here, Colonel.”

  Graves passed the handset back to the OOD and turned to descend into the ship. H caught his arm, then tapped her glasses. “I just heard. Someone’s making a play. Congress, maybe, I dunno. Whatever Scobee says down there, we are not turning around.”

  Pulling his arm away, Graves hurried down the ladder. The interior of the sub was a bewildering array of screens and switches and handles and pipes crammed into every available space like an old steampunk creation gone digital. And yet, every sailor seemed to know exactly where to find whatever they were looking for. After the bracing, fresh air of the bridge, the control room assaulted his nose with its humid funk of body odor, coffee, and seawater. Foreign, but not unpleasant to Graves. He stepped aside to let a sailor rush past—they were always rushing somewhere—and made his way down the swaying hallway to the wardroom.

  Captain Scobee sat at the head of a red table. His XO, a heavyset woman with mouse-brown hair named Utsey, occupied the chair to his right. The two looked up when he entered. Scobee’s face went flat as H stepped into the room.

  Graves accepted a towel to wipe the sea from his face and a fresh cup of coffee from the steward. “What seems to be the problem, Captain?”

  Instead of answering, the sub’s CO put an audio call on the speakers. “USS Independence , USS Independence , this is Coast Guard Station Puget Sound. On the authority of the governor of the state of Washington, you are directed to reverse course and return to base. Repeat—”

  Scobee killed the audio. “That’s the problem.”

  “You said the Coast Guard had no authority over you, correct?” Graves asked.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Then you keep going,” H broke in.

  “Young lady,” Commander Utsey snapped, “you are not in our chain of command.”

  Graves held up his hand. “XO, please. We’re all on the same team here.” To Scobee: “How have you responded?”

  “We haven’t.” The CO shrugged his broad shoulders. “Frankly it’s an unprecedented situation. I’m not sure how to respond. I’ve been doing this for twenty years, and I’ve never let the Coast Guard tell me to do anything. I’m not planning to start now.”

  “Good—” Graves began.

  “Bridge to Captain.”

  “Go ahead, OOD.” Scobee threw the call from the officer of the deck onto the room’s PA system. “This is the captain.”

  The young officer’s voice sounded strained. “Captain, I’ve got three Coast Guard cutters approaching at high speed. It looks like they’ve got a boarding party on deck.”

  H started to talk, and the captain cut her off. “What are your orders, sir?” he said to Graves.

  “Can we submerge?” Graves said.

  Commander Utsey shook her head in a way that told Grave he should have known better. “Too shallow.”

  Scobee took a deep breath. “We could repel boarders. Clear the bridge, seal the ship. Short of an anti-ship missile, there’s no way for them to get inside.”

  “Do it,” Graves said. Utsey stood so fast her chair slammed back against the wall. She dashed from the room.

  A moment later, a pulsing alarm sounded throughout the ship.

  “General quarters, general quarters, all hands standby to repel boarders!”

  Feet pounded in the hallway outside.

  Graves swallowed his now-cold coffee in one gulp. He was out of his depth, and he knew it. But Scobee and Utsey seemed to know their shit.

  Tearing off her data glasses, H sat up straight in her chair. “You need to launch the missiles. Now . I just got authorization from the president. ”

  Scobee grimaced. “As my XO told you, you are not in the chain of command. And that’s not how we do things in the Navy—”

  “Get an outside newsfeed,” H said. “The president is addressing the nation … no, wait” —she looked at Graves, then Scobee— “the world.”

  The captain of the Independence threw a broadcast from YourVoice to the wall screen. The last time Graves had seen the president in public was at the UN address. He’d worn image-perfect makeup, the finest cut of suit. What he saw now was a man who’d just stepped out of a tough meeting. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and his tie was missing. A gray sheen of stubble shadowed the dark skin of his jaw as he approached a podium with the seal of the President of the United States. His surroundings didn’t look like the East Wing of the White House, where he traditionally spoke.

  More like a bunker somewhere , Graves thought.

  “My fellow Americans,” Teller began. “For centuries, men and women in this office have addressed the people of this nation in just that way: my fellow Americans. Today, I break with that tradition. Today, I wish to address the entirety of humanity—that citizenship we all share, regardless of our national borders.

  “My fellow world citizens, we have fought a losing battle against ourselves since long before any of us were even born. I am talking, of course, about the climate war. We’ve seen cities fall to drought and flooding. We’ve watched our coasts submerge, our people drowned and displaced. The refugee crisis grows worse each year. Every country on this Earth has been affected by evolving weather patterns. The scope of the problem is just so vast, so overwhelming, that the future without intervention seems only to lead, like a rushing river unchecked, to the fall of nations. And, in the end, to the death of mankind.

  “But we can do something about that. We can redirect the course of the river before it drowns us all. Months ago at the United Nations, I proposed a worldwide bio-seeding program to dramatically reduce the amount of carbon-based compounds in our atmosphere. We can reverse the warming of our planet and the volatile, destructive weather patterns.” Teller leveled his steely gaze at the screen. “But political interests fought against this measure.”

  “His ratings are off-the-chart high,” H whispered, her eyes snapping back and forth behind her glasses. “This is bitching!”

  Scobee passed her a sour look.

  “What you do not know,” Teller continued, “is that the United States continued developing this program in secret. We’ve outfitted the USS Independence , our latest ballistic missile submarine, with bio-seeding dispersal units in place of nuclear warheads. We have turned a weapon of war into a vessel of peaceful science that can heal our planet.”

  Teller’s words took on a mesmerizing cadence. “Today, even as the Independence puts to sea, a group of rogue operatives are planning an attack. My fellow world citizens, we can wait no longer. We cannot miss this chance at salvation. Like Lazarus in the Bible, we will raise our planet from the grave to live another day. Therefore, by the powers vested in me by the War Powers Act, I am ordering a launch of the bio-seeding missiles aboard Independence .”

  Teller paused for a breath. “To the leaders of the world, I want to reiterate: launching these ballistic missiles is not—I repeat, no
t —a hostile action. It’s are our gift to the planet. Good night, my fellow citizens of Earth … and may God, in whatever form you worship, bless you all.”

  The screen went dark.

  “Holy shit,” Scobee said.

  Graves released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

  H leaned over the wardroom table. “Captain, you need to launch those missiles.”

  The CO slammed his fist on the table so hard, Graves’s coffee cup jumped. “How many times do I have to say it? I don’t take orders from you!” He shifted his glare to Graves, who felt his mouth go dry.

  Graves groped in his breast pocket for his data glasses and put them on. There was a red light indicating an incoming transmission. He blinked an acceptance.

  “There you are, Colonel.” Teller’s voice was tired, his eyes weary. “I assume you saw my address? I’m ordering you to—”

  The display fritzed, then went blank.

  “We’re being jammed!” H said, her voice ratcheting up. “You got the order, right? Teller said launch, right, Colonel?” Her green eyes drilled into Graves.

  Technically, Graves knew, the answer was no . But they were here now, at the brink of history. All he’d experienced on the ground came back to him: the refugees, the constant, forced retreats from an unbeatable adversary in a losing war … the mother and her daughters in that minivan, who’d died with hope in their hearts but no air in their lungs.

  The decision was his now .

  Graves stood and pulled the launch key from under his t-shirt. The metal was warm in his hand. “Captain,” he said, “I order you to launch all missiles.” His voice was in its lowest register, weighed down by the words he spoke.

  Scobee stood, pulling his own launch key from under his shirt front. The two men stared at one another for half a moment too long.

  “Launch all missiles, aye, sir,” Scobee said.

  Chapter 24

  Anthony Taulke • San Francisco, California

  Coffee wasn’t doing it for him, so Anthony popped two stim tabs in the form of chewing gum. The rhythm of his jaws helped him to think. After YourVoice crowned him as the mastermind behind the global launch of thirty-six bio-seeding missiles, there was not much need for secrecy anymore. He’d moved from his private office in the penthouse down to the boardroom, filling the walls with virtual screens showing media feeds and data streams from all over the world. His handpicked technicians manned workstations to ensure he had the best possible information at hand.