by Greg Cox
The familiar setting failed to quench his righteous fury at the inexcusably preventable disaster that had befallen Bhopal. “I suppose you expect me to thank you,” he hissed venomously at Seven, “for rescuing me in the nick of time.” He angrily kicked over the carved wooden stool bearing the chessboard, scattering pawns and bishops to the far [321] corners of the room. “Never mind that, while we were playing spy games at the South Pole, my people were dying, gassed to death like rats being exterminated!”
He recalled the scurrying vermin he and Seven had encountered immediately upon their arrival in Bhopal. Small wonder the rodents had been so agitated in that dismal alley; they must have scented the fatal venom approaching on the wind. Did those rats fare any better than their two-legged brethren? he wondered morosely. And why was there no advance warning alerting city dwellers of the accident at the plant? There should have been time enough to raise some manner of alarm, if only to warn people to get indoors and close their windows. More administrative incompetence, he guessed, his blood boiling at the needless loss of life. Simpletons! Half-wits!
“I am very sorry,” Seven volunteered, “that this disaster has struck your country.” He stood stiffly at the back of the room, in front of a shelf crammed with used hardcovers and paperbacks. “It’s a terrible thing.”
His feeble condolences were not enough for Noon. “Then why couldn’t you have averted it?” he accused Seven, turning savagely on the older man. “Why was a satellite over Antarctica more important than that ticking time bomb of a plant next to Bhopal?”
“I’m not omniscient,” Seven stated quietly, taking no offense at Noon’s harsh words. “There was no way of knowing that this was going to happen tonight.”
“That plant was a menace that should have been shut down years ago!” Noon paced back and forth across the floor, unable to stand still. He hurled his heated reproaches at Seven like poison darts. “Everyone knew that! Why didn’t you?”
“That’s not my job,” Seven answered, refusing, much to Noon’s aggravation, to accept any complicity in the nightmare they had just exited. “What’s happening in Bhopal is a tragedy of horrendous, even historic, proportions, Noon, but it was only an industrial accident, not the start of a world war. My primary mission is to prevent mankind from destroying itself completely.” He stepped toward Noon, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I can’t solve all of Earth’s social [322] and economic problems. Nor should I. Those are for your own institutions—your own leaders and reformers—to grapple with as best they can. I’m sorry.”
Noon could not believe his ears. “Accidents happen? Is that all you can say to me?” He heard shouting, and racing footsteps, outside the room, the dormitory jolting to life despite the lateness of the hour. News of the disaster is spreading, he surmised, none too surprised by this development. If bad news traveled quickly, then word of Bhopal’s agonized convulsions must be crossing the country faster than a supersonic jet.
He strode across the room and switched on his small portable television set. It took less than a second to locate a special emergency bulletin, transmitted live from Bhopal. On the screen, thousands of injured victims mobbed a hospital emergency room, completely overwhelming the unprepared doctors and nurses. An ashen-faced reporter, clutching a microphone within his trembling fingers, informed viewers that equally horrific scenes were taking place at hospitals throughout the entire city. Preliminary estimates suggested that as many as twenty thousand people were in desperate need of medical attention, far more than Bhopal’s overstressed emergency services could even begin to cope with. The camera lingered on row after row of choking and sobbing Indians stretched out on hastily erected cots outside the hospital. Many more, perhaps beyond help, were left to die on blankets and mats laid out in the parking lot, largely ignored by the frantic hospital workers madly running about, trying in vain to keep up with the tidal wave of poisoned refugees.
Noon lowered the volume on the television, content to let the hideous images speak for themselves. “This is more than just an ‘accident,’ ” he spat at Seven. “This is an obscenity that should have never been allowed to occur. In a better world, a world under firm control, such abominable negligence would not be tolerated.” He angrily slammed his fist into his open palm. “Least of all by the likes of you!”
“Perhaps,” Seven offered by way of paltry consolation, “this tragedy will lead to positive steps to prevent future accidents of this nature. Increased safety standards. Greater awareness of the dangers of [323] stockpiling dangerous chemicals near heavily populated areas. Stricter enforcement of whatever environmental statutes already exist.” His dark suit, and pious platitudes, reminded Noon, unfavorably, of an undertaker. “It is a sad but universal principle that the most lasting lessons frequently come at the highest cost. It’s small comfort now, I understand, but such disasters often spur enormous progress in the long run. I know; I’ve seen it happen before.”
Noon would not let Seven shirk his responsibility so easily. “Do not lecture me, old man. I have seen the resources at your disposal, the astonishing technology at your command. You have the power to enforce your will anywhere in the world.” He shook an accusing finger at the complacent, middle-aged spymaster. “And yet you let billions suffer while greedy corporations and weak, fallible, inferior men allow this planet to spin out of control. Men such as we, of superior intelligence and ability, have the power—the duty!—to bring order to the world!”
“There’s a fine line between order and tyranny, Noon,” Seven sermonized. “The human race cannot truly advance unless it is free to learn from its experiences, even those as heartbreaking as we now see in Bhopal. Civilization cannot be imposed on the world through force and coercion. It has to evolve naturally, over time.” He placed the overturned chess set back on its stool and began carefully putting the tiny ivory soldiers back where they belonged. “Trust me on this, Noon. I know what I’m talking about.”
Noon laughed mirthlessly. “Trust you? I did so once, and look what has become of my homeland!” On the television screen, silent aerial footage depicted city streets literally strewn with corpses. Noon clicked off the TV in disgust. “No, it is clear to me now that, despite all your impressive talk about making the world a better place, you lack the courage and conviction to do more than tinker with the status quo.” He crossed his arms atop his muscular chest, striking a heroic pose before the crimson pennant upon the wall. “The long-suffering people of this planet deserve more than your timid half-measures and insignificant course corrections. They require a genuine visionary, a leader who is strong enough to take the reins of command, and bold enough to guide mankind into a new golden age!”
[324] Seven’s dour expression grew more disapproving than ever, not that Noon cared anymore about the older man’s opinion of him. “For your sake, and the world’s,” Seven intoned gravely, “I hope that this emotional outburst is just a reaction to today’s traumas. The last thing Earth needs right now is an impetuous, would-be Caesar with messianic delusions.” He activated his servo, summoning his distance-warping blue mist. “Farewell, Noon Singh. Perhaps we can speak again someday, when you are older and less overwrought.”
“Do not call me that anymore,” the youth said forcefully, making a momentous decision on the spur of the moment. “Noon” was a child’s name, and, after today, he was no longer a child. He had killed a man, only to see him rise up unscathed, and he had witnessed firsthand the murder, through unforgivable negligence and stupidity, of innumerable countrymen and their families. All this had changed him irrevocably, he realized with a sense of utter certainty. He was a man now, with a man’s work ahead of him.
“Call me Khan,” he said, claiming at last the exalted title his long-dead mother had prophetically bestowed upon him. It was a good name. A man’s name.
A name for a conqueror.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
NINETY MILES NORTH OF LAS VEGAS
NEVADA, USA
JULY 5
, 1986
THE WHIRRING BLADES of the black military helicopter, employing the latest stealth technology, made amazingly little noise as the top-secret aircraft carried Shannon O’Donnell through the warm summer night. The copter passed swiftly over the low mountain ridges below, which jutted upward from acres and acres of barren desert landscape. No artificial lights shone among the hills and plains below the chopper, suggesting that the bleak terrain was completely devoid of human habitation. The contrast with Vegas’s gaudy neon excess, which Shannon had departed less than an hour ago, could not have been more striking. Like going from Earth to the moon, she thought. A trip she one day hoped to make for herself, assuming NASA accepted her application.
“Any idea what this is all about?” she asked the chopper pilot seated next to her. Thanks to the copter’s special design features, she didn’t need to raise her voice to be heard above the muted whisper of the spinning black rotors.
“Sorry, miss,” the pilot replied. His khaki uniform bore no identifying badges or insignia. He kept his gaze fixed upon the infrared display mapping the rugged terrain ahead of them. The stealth aircraft flew without any visible headlights, navigating entirely by radar and [326] infrared sensors. “All I know is that I was supposed to bring you back to the base, pronto.”
Shannon sighed, none too surprised by the pilot’s inability to satisfy her curiosity. Everything else at the base operated on a strictly need-to-know basis; why should this be any different? She couldn’t help wondering, however, what was so urgent that the Powers That Be had sent a copter to fetch her back to the lab with all deliberate speed. Has something happened to Dr. Carlson? she worried. I kept telling him that he smoked too much, especially for a man his age.
The twenty-eight-year-old engineer had been attending an aeronautics conference in Vegas when she received a curt, cryptic summons to report back to the base immediately. With barely enough time to pack before the unmarked copter arrived to pick her up, she was still wearing the little black dress and high heels she had sported at the glitzy cocktail party she’d so hurriedly been spirited away from.
Feeling distinctly overdressed for this particular airborne excursion, and half-expecting the copter to turn into a pumpkin any second now, she tied her long red hair into a slightly more professional-looking bun. Her alert, intelligent face bore a distinctly apprehensive expression.
The nearly invisible aircraft descended silently toward a desert valley between a pair of moonlit hills. The infrared display revealed a runway and landing pad built into the dry, rocky bed of a long-vanished lake. A single metal hangar had been erected at one end of the runway, surrounded on three sides by a forbidding barbed-wire fence. Shannon looked past the hangar, at the weathered granite ridges at the base of the southwest hill. Almost home, she thought, anxious to find out the reason behind her hasty return. I hope the doc is all right.
A Jeep Cherokee was waiting for her at the landing pad, along with a driver wearing cammo fatigues and a holstered automatic pistol. The soldier helped her with her suitcase as she climbed out of the copter and scurried toward the Jeep, the wind from the spinning rotor blades threatening to undo her hastily constructed bun. Her driver whistled appreciatively at the sight of Shannon in her entirely incongruous [327] party dress, but she was in too much of a hurry to be either amused or annoyed by the soldier’s attentions. “Let’s go,” she tersely instructed him as he tossed her luggage into the back of the Jeep and climbed back into the driver’s seat. Within minutes, they had left the ebony copter behind.
They headed straight for the southwest hill, the Jeep’s headlights shining upon the perfectly graded dirt roadway before them. Cameras mounted on wooden posts kept watch over the lonely road and the surrounding wasteland, while radar dishes scanned the cloudless night sky for unauthorized aircraft. Patches of flowering yucca grew alongside the road, and, somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled at the moon. Shannon wondered how in the world the crooning canine had managed to penetrate the base’s security.
As they approached the foot of the hill, their progress was blocked by a metal barrier lowered across the road. A machine-gun-toting soldier emerged from a concrete guardhouse next to the gate and asked to see Shannon’s ID, which she promptly volunteered, just as she did every single time she hit this checkpoint on her way to work. Shining a flashlight in her face, the guard compared her features with the photo on her ID card before raising the barricade and waving the Jeep forward.
Although standard procedure, the stringent security measures felt more time-consuming than usual tonight, so impatient was Shannon to reach her final destination. She tapped her fingers restlessly against the dashboard as the Jeep’s headlights fell upon a large hangar door built into the side of the mountain. An electric eye scanned the vehicle and its occupants, and the metal door rolled upward, well-greased gears making minimal clatter. The rising gate exposed a paved, man-made tunnel that led directly into the zealously guarded heart of what the United States government, when grudgingly forced to acknowledge this installation’s existence, referred to simply as the “Groom Lake Facility.”
Better known to the rest of the world as Area 51.
The Jeep parked deep inside the hollowed-out mountain, where yet another armed soldier appeared to escort Shannon the rest of the way. [328] Not that she actually needed directions, of course; after so many months, the hardworking engineer guessed that she could probably find her way to the lab blindfolded, despite the maze of interconnected tunnels making up the underground complex, which was large enough to house numerous laboratories, mainframe computers, and storage facilities, including room for any number of experimental aircraft. Unlike, say, NASA, the clandestine projects at Area 51 seldom had to worry about budget crunches.
“Welcome back, Ms. O’Donnell,” the guard said as he marched beside her down a long corridor lit by mounted fluorescent lights. Shannon was on good terms with this particular soldier, who had been stationed here for as long as she could remember.
“Thanks, Muck,” she replied, her pace accelerating the nearer she got to her own designated corner of Area 51. Her high heels drummed rapidly upon the reinforced, earthquake-proof concrete floor. “Is the doc okay?”
Sergeant Steven Muckerheide didn’t break stride as he answered her worried query “As far as I know, yeah. Something’s up, though. I hear the Navy got their hands on some whatchamacallit that has Doc Carlson and the other brainiacs all worked up.” A carefree shrug conveyed that heavy-duty science was beyond the soldier’s expertise. “You didn’t hear that from me, of course.”
“Absolutely,” she assured him. “Thanks for the scoop.”
Now that she knew nothing dreadful had befallen her boss, apprehension gave way to excitement, adding an extra spring to her step. She couldn’t wait to find out just what sort of “whatchamacallit” Muck had alluded to. Could it be? she wondered breathlessly After all these years, had they made contact again?
A brisk march brought her to the end of a corridor. Now only a gleaming steel door, guarded by an alert female soldier bearing an M16 assault rifle, stood between Shannon and the answers she craved. PROJECT F—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, read the large block letters printed on the face of the impregnable door. Shannon slid her laminated ID card into a slot next to the door handle, then waited for several interminable seconds as concealed lasers scanned [329] her inside and out. A moment later, she heard the lock click open, and the door slid open on lubricated grooves.
“See you later,” she told Muck, who lacked the necessary clearance to go any farther. Instead her armed escort relieved the soldier at the doorway, taking a defensive position outside the lab entrance.
“Take care,” he called out amiably as Shannon passed over the familiar threshold into the restricted laboratory. “Hope it’s worth the rush.”
Me, too, she thought. The steel door slid back into place with a muffled thunk, and she hurried past a short row of lockers and closets toward the working areas of the lab. �
�Doc?” she hollered, taking a second to put on a white lab coat over her black satin dress. “Are you there?”
An enthusiastic voice answered from the inner depths of the well-equipped laboratory. “Shannon? Is that you?” She instantly recognized the voice of her favorite mad scientist, Dr. Jeffrey Carlson. “Hurry! Come quickly You have to see this!”
“Coming!” she shouted back, the back of her white coat flapping behind her. This has to be big, she realized, further energized by the remarkable exuberance in her boss’s voice. I’ve never heard him so excited before.
She found the elderly scientist in Lab F-1, bent over a shining chrome counter. A fraying white lab coat was draped over his bony shoulders, blocking her view of whatever he was examining, while the smell of burning tobacco permeated the theoretically pristine atmosphere of the lab. Shannon sighed out of habit, hoping that her chainsmoking superior wasn’t working with anything too flammable at the moment. Amazing, she thought, how one of the brightest minds of the planet can’t overcome a lifelong addiction to nicotine.
“Ah, there you are,” Carlson said, turning to greet her. The affable, sixtyish scientist had a high forehead that had only grown more prominent as his hairline receded to near nonexistence. Lively hazel eyes peered out from behind a pair of old-fashioned bifocals; despite his age, Carlson had retained more curiosity and idealism than many much younger researchers. A lit cigarette gripped between his fingers, he beckoned Shannon with a hasty gesture. “Take a look at these beauties!”
[330] She joined him at the counter, where she discovered two curious artifacts, neither of which she could immediately identify. Each smaller than a shoebox, the objects were constructed of an odd black substance that seemed to possess qualities of both metal and plastic. Silver highlights added a bit of flair to the instruments’ designs, suggesting that whoever—or whatever—had constructed the devices had taken aesthetic considerations into account. One of the objects vaguely resembled a pistol or welding tool, complete with a handgrip suitable for an adult human or humanoid, while the other was a compact, rectangular device the size and shape of a sixties-style transistor radio. The latter object also featured a digital display screen, currently unlit, as well as a variety of tiny switches and knobs. Shannon couldn’t begin to guess what function the device was intended for. Maybe some sort of scanner or communications device?