by Greg Cox
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 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, 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, 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 only a child, he thought guiltily. I had 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 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 crime
s 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.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FORT COCHISE
SOUTHEAST ARIZONA
UNITED STATES
AUGUST 16, 1994
THE TIGHT SECURITY REMINDED ROBERTA OF 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 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 pickup 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.”
The guard nodded, but continued to eye Roberta with suspicion. “Please step out of the car, ma’am,” he said sternly, a Colt Commando assault rifle slung over his shoulder. His breath frosted the air outside the window.
Not wanting to make waves, Roberta did as the guard asked. Her legs were stiff from the long ride from the airport, but it felt good to get out of the car. Looking back the way she’d come, she saw a lonely desert road stretching through an arid landscape distinguished by sun-bleached cattle skulls and PRIVATE PROPERTY signs. Tumbleweeds rolled along dried-up riverbeds, past reddish-orange rock formations jutting up from the earth. Scattered cacti and yucca plants hinted at a trace of moisture somewhere beneath the arid soil. Not much of a vacation spot, she decided.
“Name?” the gatekeeper demanded, brandishing a pen and a clipboard.
“Roberta Landers,” she lied. The guard dutifully jotted down the name on his sign-in sheet.
It was a cold, clear morning in Arizona, and Roberta hugged herself in hopes of hanging onto some of the warmth trapped inside her fringed leather jacket. A flannel shirt, Levi’s, and cowboy boots completed her outfit, which seemed appropriate to her present assignment. Slightly jet-lagged from the red-eye flight from Spokane, where “Bobbie Landers” supposedly lived, she would have killed for a cup of hot espresso, but suspected that there wasn’t a convenient Starbucks anywhere in the vicinity.
“Please raise your arms.” The guard frisked Roberta, a bit more intimately than she thought was strictly necessary, then waved a wand-shaped metal detector under her arms and along the outline of her body. The wand beeped once, forcing her to extract her servo from her pocket in order to appease the guard. He gave the apparent fountain pen a cursory inspection, while she pretended to be unconcerned. What if he wants to confiscate it? she worried. The disguised device was more than just a weapon; it was her lifeline back to Gary Seven and the Isle of Arran.
A second guard, walking what looked like a mean-tempered doberpit, circled the Humvee. Straining at its leash, the dog sniffed around the vehicle, then padded over to snuffle warily at Roberta’s ankles. Its slobbering jaws drooled over the toes of her snakeskin boots, while she waited anxiously to see if the first guard would be taken in by the servo’s innocent contours.
“All right, ma’am.” The guard returned the all-purpose device, and Roberta repressed a sigh of relief. He nodded at Butch, who had remained behind the wheel of the Humvee. “You can take her in.”
Grateful to have passed the security screening, she climbed back into the car. The steel barrier raised in front of them, and Butch drove her past the fort’s outer defenses. A large wooden sign, reading KEEP OUT! TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT! did little to calm her nerves.
Fort Cochise, headquarters of the “Army of Eternal Vigilance,” was built on the site of a defunct mining town, abandoned in the early thirties when its precious gold and silver deposits ran dry. Many of the original adobe buildings were still standing, converted into dormitories and storage areas. Roberta spotted the crumbling facade of the old town jail, complete with bars over its windows. Let’s hope I manage to stay out of there, she thought.
Butch parked the Humvee just past the barbed wire fence, then led her across the grounds of the compound. Uniformed men and women, wearing various shades of khaki and cammo gear, went diligently about their business, repairing fortifications, patching up weathered adobe, or transporting heavy crates of food, medicine, and ammunition from one building to another. Roberta couldn’t help noticing that every one of the fort’s adult inhabitants appeared to be heavily armed, with shotguns, pistols, or both. Even a group of women stringing up laundry to dry had handguns holstered to their hips.
A sudden burst of automatic gunfire startled Roberta. Raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, she spotted several militia members practicing at a firing range set up on the western side of the compound. Round after round of unleashed firepower blew apart cardboard cutouts of Janet Reno, Hillary Clinton, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Yikes! Roberta thought, gulping at the sight. A former flower child and self-described “hippie chick,” she felt more than a little out of place. I’m a long way from Woodstock, she realized. Geographically, chronologically, and psychologically.
The whole camp, in fact, seemed to be on a war footing, gearing up for some big siege or battle that might break out at any moment. Unfortunately, as Roberta knew before she even got on the plane in Spokane, the enemy these people were preparing against was their very own government—and anyone else they perceived as part of a nebulously defined global conspiracy. Even worse, Fort Cochise was not unique in that respect; similar camps and private armies had sprung up throughout America over the last decade or so. But only one militia is run by a genetically engineered superman, Roberta recalled, trying to look on the bright side.
Ironically, given all his anti-government rhetoric, General Morrison’s personal offices turned out to be housed in the refurbished shell of the town’s long-dead post office. More men, equipped with automatic rifles and doberpits, guarded the entrance of the building, where Roberta endured another round of passwords, searches, and overly invasive inspections before being handed off to a rangy, grim-looking soldier, who finally led her into the presence of the AEV’s supreme commander.
Hawkeye Morrison rose from behind his desk as Roberta entered the room, escorted by her intimidating new baby-sitter. She recognized the notorious militia leader, and one-time Chrysalis kid, from various right-wing periodicals, not to mention her and Seven’s own surveillance photos. “Welcome to Fort Cochise,” he greeted her cordially, his jaw working on a piece of chewing gun as he spoke. Tan-and-olive army fatigues clothed his stocky, alpha-male physique. A holstered Glock pistol rested on his hip.<
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“Please, call me Bobbie,” she insisted, seeing her own face reflected in the General’s silver mirrorred shades. Confident that her alias would do the same, she surveyed Morrison’s office with open curiosity.
An authentic Revolutionary War-era flag, bearing the defiant motto “Don’t Tread on Me,” hung on the stucco wall behind Morrison’s desk, while a framed news photo immortalized the choking smoke and flames of the Waco disaster. On the wall to her right, a mounted world map, dotted with numerous brightly colored pins, bore an eerie resemblance to a similar map currently residing in Gary Seven’s office in Scotland. Looks like he’s keeping track of his superpowered siblings, Roberta deduced, but as potential allies or enemies?
Thankfully, Jugurtha, Pachacutec, and many of the lesser supermen had self-destructed by now, or else were bogged down in bloody civil wars throughout Africa, South America, etc. But she was worried about the growing size of General Morrison’s militia, which seemed to be gaining converts by leaps and bounds.
“It’s such an honor to finally meet you!” she burbled energetically. There were no windows in the room, probably as a concession to Morrison’s paranoia, but she heard the sound of mechanical air filters humming away in order to get the office adequately ventilated. “You’re a genuine American hero.”
Morrison accepted her praise with a show of humility. “I’m just an old-fashioned patriot, determined to protect our freedom to the best of our abilities.” He sat back down behind the desk, which struck Roberta as frighteningly tidy and well-ordered, as opposed to the “creative” clutter of her own desk back at the farmhouse. “Please take a seat,” he offered, gesturing toward a plain wooden chair resting on the Navajo carpet in front of the desk.