Voss began: “In five…four…three…two…one.”
A blinding white strobe pulsed from the goggle lenses, completely obliterating Cyrus’s vision. But as quickly as the light pulses had begun, they ended just as abruptly.
“Holy shit! What the hell was that?” Cyrus bellowed.
“That was the download,” Voss said in a matter-of-fact tone. He was already removing the goggles from Cyrus’s face.
Blinking rapidly, Cyrus still saw nothing but the blinding wash from the white light. He fought the panic for several seconds, hoping his vision would return quickly. When it didn’t, his concern reached its apex. “Doc, something’s wrong. I can’t see a Goddamn thing!”
Cyrus felt a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” Voss said reassuringly in his ear. “Your vision will return in about a minute’s time. We’ve just transmitted an incredible amount of data across your optic nerves. Since they aren’t used to the experience, it takes a few moments for your brain to compensate for what just happened.”
Choking back a wave of fear he had never experienced, Cyrus held his breath and waited. But when he felt Natasha’s hand slip into his own, a warmth rushed through his body and the panic suddenly disappeared.
“I’m right here,” she whispered.
She held his hand for another minute before the room began to shift back into focus. The ball of white light that had consumed everything in his eye-line began to dissolve. The contents of the room, in full living color, began to materialize at the periphery of his vision. The ball of white faded until it was a pin-sized dot before him, then finally disappearing entirely.
Seeing the smile on his face, Natasha moved to release him from the hand and foot restraints.
The first thing he noticed was the pinched look of concern on Voss’s face. He was tapping on the screen of the handheld computer and examining the contents of the display.
“What’s wrong?” Cyrus asked. “It didn’t work?”
Voss looked up, confusion clear in his eyes. “No…it worked,” he said in a hollow voice. “I’m just not sure how it worked.”
Cyrus waited for nearly a minute for Voss to continue, but the man just stared at the screen in his hands. Just when Cyrus thought Voss wasn’t going to clarify, he finally spoke.
“The transmission period was surprisingly brief,” Voss explained. “It should’ve taken thirty seconds—maybe a little more—to move that volume of data across your optic nerves.”
Rubbing the last of the fuzzy, washed-out, white halo from his eyes, Cyrus stared at Voss. “That didn’t feel like thirty seconds.”
Voss shook his head and turned the screen for Cyrus to see. It was a meaningless gesture since all he saw was a screen riddled with numbers and half-a-dozen small graphs.
“2.101 seconds,” Voss mumbled. “I’ve never seen anything like it. And the transfer is complete…in a fraction of the time it should’ve taken.”
Not sure how to interpret that information, Cyrus rubbed his eyes once more. At least that explained the headache, he reasoned.
Chapter 10
The Voss Compound
9:12 pm
Much of the remaining afternoon afforded Cyrus some rest and relaxation. It was time he gladly shared with Natasha. They sat in the building’s common area on the first floor and watched movies on the flat screen television. Although he was grateful for the down time, Cyrus also found it troubling. Voss had gone ahead with the memory restoration process less than a half hour after Cyrus and Natasha had vacated the lab. Since that time, neither had seen or heard from the scientist. Cyrus wasn’t sure what to make of the man’s absence, and it was all he could do to keep from grilling Natasha for more information about the restoration process.
What little he knew about the memory retrieval procedure was that, while it wasn’t as fast as the download process, it took only a matter of minutes to upload the data for review. The viewer accepted the upload using the same pair of goggles. The data, likewise, was transmitted to the brain along the optic nerves. But restored memories were flagged in a way that Natasha had difficulty describing. She said it was the mental equivalent of watching a video that had a two-inch thick red border around the edge of every single scene. It was a way for the person playing host to the restored memories to discern the transplanted experiences from their own without confusion or disorientation. It was complicated, she explained, but without it, the restoration process would’ve been impossible.
So what did it mean when Voss had disappeared for the remainder of the afternoon? The implications concerned Cyrus deeply.
Natasha, for her part, seemed at ease for the first time since his arrival. Apparently their impromptu airing of concerns had brought about a positive and cathartic calm. Still, Cyrus found himself waiting for the other figurative shoe to drop.
That’s just what happened when he saw Wagner. The guard at the far end of the wide room put his hand to his earpiece and tipped his head in concentration. He spoke quietly into the cuff of his sleeve for a moment, then approached Cyrus and Natasha where they lay reclined and nuzzled in the corner of the L-shaped sofa.
“Excuse me,” Wagner said. “Doctor Voss would like to see Mister Cooper in his office at his earliest convenience.”
Earliest convenience? Cyrus thought. He didn’t know what to make of the request after the man’s afternoon spent in mysterious seclusion.
Chapter 11
Somewhere over the Atlantic
9:31 pm (Isle of Kapros; local time)
Sitting at the window of the Gulfstream G450, Dargo stared silently into the darkness beyond. An endless expanse of ocean passed by far below the expensive executive jet, but he couldn’t see it thanks to the late hour. Even at its cruising speed of Mach .8 the cabin was deceptively quiet. The aircraft was a virtual duplicate of the one belonging to the Voss family, only this one belonged to King August Casper Borden, ruler of the Isle of Kapros, the sovereign country the Voss family called home.
From what Dargo had been told, Voss had provided the specifications for his plane and its outfitting upon the King’s request. Now that he sat in the aircraft’s cabin, he realized that the King’s aircraft was duplicated in every regard, right down to the color of the leather used on the seating, as well as the seat arrangement within the cabin. The only obvious difference was the color scheme used on the jet’s fuselage and, of course, the designated tail number. When Borden found something he liked, he didn’t believe in half measures.
Gretchen had taken Voss’s jet to the United States. When her security detail ran into trouble, Doctor Voss had secured a favor from King Borden, and borrowed the King’s personal jet for Dargo’s emergency flight to the U.S. Until he’d stepped on board, Dargo had written news of the duplicate jet off as nothing more than a fanciful rumor. Given the situation, Dargo had a newfound respect for the King’s excesses, his generosity, and the respect he had for Doctor Voss. After all, it would be these qualities which moved him to cross the Atlantic in record time.
Though Dargo knew the jet’s price tag was more money than he would earn in his entire life, he understood why Voss considered the aircraft a good investment. It was one of the select few business class private jets with the range necessary to cross the Atlantic Ocean without stopping to refuel. And since Anna Voss traveled the world competing in professional tennis tournaments, the ability to do so with a minimum of layovers made Dargo’s job of protecting her that much easier. Perhaps the aircraft’s capabilities also made it an ideal choice for King Borden.
He was on the return leg of his trip and his body was desperate for sleep, but Dargo found it difficult to quiet his active mind. The attack on Gretchen and her detail still wasn’t sitting well with him; some unseen part of what happened was causing him unrelenting anxiety.
Gretchen’s security detail had been decimated—six men lost in the operation. It was more than enough to rankle anyone’s nerves. But it was Gretchen’s survival that was ultimately setting off warning
bells in his mind, Dargo realized.
Anna Voss’s change of heart and decision to participate in a charity tennis tournament had resulted in Gretchen’s last minute flight to the United States. There, her security detail had been attacked, while Gretchen herself was left entirely unharmed. Lee Fairfax, the man she had flown out to meet, had been murdered, presumably prior to her arrival. But why? Only the security team had been harmed. What was the assassin’s objective?
She had described the receptionist who met them upon their arrival. The discarded wig, as well as the lack of the woman’s corpse, were clear indications that she was responsible for the loss of the security team. And although Dargo found it troubling that one person—one woman—could dispatch six of his highly trained men, he knew it wasn’t out of the question. Not if the woman was a highly skilled professional, which was clearly the case. But why had six armed bodyguards been killed only to leave Gretchen unharmed? It was the part of the puzzle that didn’t fit.
While Dargo was en route to the United States aboard King Borden’s jet, Gretchen was inflight and crossing the Atlantic in the opposite direction. A video conference link allowed Dargo to interview her before he reached the U.S. and before she’d landed on Kapros. Unfortunately, the details she provided had proven as fruitless as his efforts to collect evidence from the scene of the attack. In the end, he’d come away with absolutely nothing to help him understand who was behind the attack on his people.
Now on the return leg of his trip, Dargo was feeling more anxious than ever. His investigation was stalled until he could land on Kapros. He hoped that speaking with Gretchen face-to-face would prove more productive. She was his best hope of drawing understanding from the senseless attack.
Dargo couldn’t fathom the point of the assassin’s operation. The killer hadn’t demanded anything of Gretchen. Even more perplexing, apparently Gretchen hadn’t even been confronted by the assassin following the elimination of the security team.
It just doesn’t track.
If he thought she was lying, Dargo would’ve had something to work with—some rationale to help him offer an appropriate and effective defense against whatever was coming next. But his complete lack of understanding hampered his response and left him at a distressing disadvantage.
There was just no logic to attacking Gretchen’s security detail, only to leave her unharmed. The only thing the assassin had accomplished was to send him winging across the Atlantic to deal with the issue personally. It was a waste of—.
Dargo felt his blood run cold. His gaze darted violently around the jet’s small cabin. Two of the men from his security team sat at the front of the cabin, their backs to the forward bulkhead just behind the cockpit. Both men were awake and alert. Each was belted into his seat and staring out the window into the endless black as if he could see the Atlantic far below.
Glancing over his right shoulder, Dargo saw three more of his team seated at the rear of the cabin. Nothing seemed out of order, and none of his men seemed the least bit anxious. There was only one man on the entire team who had a fear of flying. Dargo had been content to leave Talbet behind to oversee security at the compound.
Despite his overwhelming trust in his men, Dargo now had the nagging feeling that something wasn’t right. There was only one logical reason for attacking Gretchen’s team and leaving her unharmed: She’d been used as bait to pull him away from his duties back at the compound.
Releasing the buckle of his seatbelt, Dargo pulled himself upright. In a hunched position, he headed for the cockpit. He needed to radio the compound and sound the alert. While he didn’t know what was about to happen, he was now certain that someone was planning to make a move against that installation.
No sooner had he stepped through the cockpit’s narrow door then the jet lurched to the right. The starboard wing dropped as if the pilot had executed an evasive maneuver. Seeing the pilot’s frenzied reaction, Dargo knew the violent move had surprised the flight deck crew as much as it had him.
Dargo’s head crashed against the frame of the open door before he had a chance to brace himself. He turned quickly, wedging his broad shoulders in the narrow doorway and preparing to stave off another fierce shift from the aircraft. It was easy since he barely fit through the door in the first place.
“Jesus, Walker! What the hell was that?” the copilot squawked in an unprofessional, piercing voice.
“It wasn’t me,” the pilot bellowed as he fought the control stick. “I’ve been compensating for some kind of drift—it’s been pulling us starboard for about a minute and a half. All of a sudden, it was like the wing just turned to…concrete.”
Dargo could tell the jet was losing altitude fast. It was hard to make out the horizon through the windscreen, but the floor beneath his feet was pitched forward at a pronounced angle. Had he not jammed himself in the doorway, he would’ve been thrown into the cockpit and made a bad situation worse.
Glancing over the pilot’s shoulder, Dargo realized the man was fighting some sort of invisible force that was dragging the jet to the right; like a large, unseen magnet. As a result, the pilot had the control stick pushed far to the left, feathering the control with minute and constant adjustments.
“We just lost the starboard turbine,” the copilot croaked. “I’m shutting down fuel to that power plant.”
“Damn it!” the pilot growled. He had the control stick pressed so far to the extreme left that it was banging against its stops. “I don’t get it. It’s like an elephant just climbed on our wing! I can’t fully compensate. Radio our coordinates and declare an emergency. I can’t keep us in the air.”
The copilot reached for the instrument console to prepare the radio for the call, but Dargo reacted on instinct. He pulled a shoulder free from the doorframe and grabbed the copilot by the shoulder. “Nyet,” he commanded.
The copilot shot a terrified look over his shoulder, evidently seeing the large Russian for the first time. “There’s nothing we can do! We’re going down, Sir!”
“Not a word over open airwaves,” Dargo yelled over the cacophony of alarms sounding from the instrument clusters. “This is an attack. Using the radio will give away our position.”
“In two minutes that’s not going to matter,” the pilot said. The absolute certainty of his warning rang out crystal clear in his voice.
“Understood,” Dargo said. He had already pulled a satellite phone from an inner pocket of his jacket. Tapping two buttons, he waited for the line to connect. “I will call for help,” he told the pilot. “You worry about putting us down in one piece.”
“One piece?” the copilot quivered allowed. “There’s no place to land for at least a hundred miles!”
Dargo was already on his way out of the cockpit. The pair of guards beyond the bulkhead grabbed him as soon as he appeared, offering him support as the cabin jolted beneath his feet. With the help of the men, Dargo flung himself into the first empty chair and cinched the safety belt tight. At last, he heard the click of the satellite phone making a connection to a secure line.
“This is Triad,” the voice said.
“This is Graystone, declaring an emergency. Pull position from my GPS until you lose contact. The aircraft has suffered critical damage to the starboard wing and is losing altitude quickly,” Dargo offered in a calm, clear voice.
“Roger that, Graystone,” the voice responded from back at the compound. “We’ll send all available help immediately.”
“Negative,” Dargo snapped in response. “I repeat, negative. Do not transmit an SOS on open frequencies. Find us help, but do so quietly.”
The voice on the other end of the line took a moment to respond. “Ah, roger that, sir. We have a fix on your position and we’re scrambling for a solution now.”
“Also, be advised—I believe an attack on the compound is imminent. I have no specific details. Put every man on alert and lock everything down.”
When a response was not immediately forthcoming, Dargo bellowed, “Do
you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the voice confirmed. “Understood. I’ve already raised the alert inside the installation. We’re on it, sir.”
The aircraft dipped hard to the right once more and Dargo had to struggle to keep hold of the phone, as well as his most recent meal. Moments later, the vicious pitch was countered by the pilot, and the cabin rattled as the plane drew slowly closer to upright. Dargo felt his body weight fall from the safety restraint and drop back into the leather upholstered seat. He immediately cinched the seatbelt tighter.
“I must be clear,” Dargo said into the phone. “The safety of the facility is priority one. No manpower can be diverted to aid or assist in our recovery. I have reliable information indicating that someone is about to move against the compound.”
“Understood, sir,” the voice from base confirmed. “We’re tracking your location and circling the wagons here. Don’t worry, sir. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. You get that plane down in one piece and we’ll find a way to pick you up.”
Walk and chew gum? Dargo rolled his eyes. It was obviously Mister Wagner’s shift in the control room. The man was ex-special forces and prone to using idioms that confused the rest of the civilized world.
A painful screech blasted from overhead speakers as the pilot’s voice filled the cabin. “This is Captain Walker Gilmour. As you may have noticed, we’ve got ourselves in a bit of pickle, folks. At this point, it sort of goes without saying, but I need everyone in their seats and buckled in good and tight.
“Best put those heads between your knees, too, folks. We’re going down. Keep in mind that each seat is equipped with a flotation device so be sure to take that with you on your way to the exit.”
The intercom cut out with another screech and Dargo was left shaking his head. Pickle? The pilot was another American and, as such, Dargo had no idea what a pickle had to do with their predicament.
Rogue Faction Part 2: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book Three Page 7