The Savior's Game (The Daniel Byrne Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Chercover

  He was seeing—

  —himself, in Source, raising his hand to his mouth, unable to make sense of what he was seeing.

  38

  Daniel lowered his hand from his mouth. He stared up at the hologram hanging above Noah’s followers. At himself.

  The version of himself in the Tudor chapel stared back, also lowered his hand from his mouth, looking every bit as shocked. Then Hologram-Daniel whipped his head to the side, attention drawn away. He turned and sprinted out of the chapel.

  Raoul had said Pat was near the south woods. That had meant something, but what? And—

  Stop. Recalibrate. You’re in Source now—at least this part of you is. You can’t chase Pat, that’s the other Daniel’s job.

  Daniel felt lightheaded. Yes, this is what he’d intended, but still his mind reeled, questions flooding in faster than he could focus.

  How can I be in both places? Because Digger was right; I’ve always been in both places. But will I be able to get back? Can I ever be the other Daniel again? Am I stuck here now? And what will—?

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath.

  Be here now.

  He opened his eyes again and took stock. With Noah’s entire flock in attendance, the hologram was much larger—huge, compared with the last time he was here. He looked at the sea of people sitting in silence just a few feet away, all in deep meditation, oblivious to his presence. No, something beyond that. This was more than meditation; these people were almost . . . somewhere else. Daniel could probably split their skulls with a meat cleaver and they wouldn’t even notice.

  He took a step toward them, and the dome of light that powered the hologram stretched lower as he did, an energy barrier preventing any further approach, making it impossible to disrupt their meditation. The light wasn’t glimmer exactly, and Daniel could look at it. He could almost see structure in it, but constantly shifting and reshaping, kaleidoscopic in nature. This was the energy sent by Noah to power the meditation, but the way it moved to keep Daniel out seemed automatic, not consciously directed.

  Go back to Source, Pat had said. Grow strong, and help shape the next dream.

  But Daniel wasn’t here to set in motion the next dream. He was here to save the flawed and fragile dream we’ve already got, and there was no time to grow strong. Whatever strength he had now would either be enough—or it wouldn’t.

  He took one last look at the hologram. The chapel on Earth, where the other version of himself had stood before sprinting off to stop his broken best friend from knocking over the first domino of Armageddon.

  “Good luck, Daniel,” he said. “We’re both gonna need it.”

  He turned from the hologram and entered the stairwell, spot-traveled up to the next landing, and did it again.

  Now he stood at the door to the heart of Noah’s world, and he could feel Noah’s confidence clearly through the door. But for some reason Noah still hadn’t noticed him, even at this distance.

  He reached for the door handle. Locked. He thought back. When Noah had appeared before Daniel in San Diego, he’d surrounded himself with plain white walls. Daniel had no idea what was on the other side of this door. Without the ability to picture it in his mind, there was no way to spot-travel there.

  How could he have come this far, even bifurcating his consciousness between two worlds, only to be stopped by a locked door?

  He stared at the keyhole.

  Then he remembered.

  Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out the blue rabbit’s-foot keychain Huck had given him on the beach.

  He slid the key into the lock.

  Thanks, Tim.

  39

  Daniel stood in the chapel, watching as the other version of himself lowered his hand from his mouth, staring back from the meditation hall in Source.

  The radio on Daniel’s belt crackled and Raoul said, “Daniel, convoy is on the X. Pulling up in one minute.”

  He heard boots in the hallway behind him—members of the castle team heading to the front entrance.

  He forced his attention away from himself in Source. He could suffer an existential crisis later. Right now, he had work to do.

  Pat had been at the edge of the south woods just a few minutes ago. He couldn’t drive back to the castle without being seen on camera, and there wasn’t time to cross that distance on foot.

  He didn’t have to.

  Create a painful situation, then offer an escape from the pain, Pat had said as they drove through the Spanish countryside. They’ll go where you want them to go, do what you want them to do, every damn time.

  Daniel sprinted for the hallway.

  The castle’s front doors stood wide open to greet the dignitaries, two security men stationed inside the doors. Raoul stood with Evan Sage and three others, just outside on the front steps. The convoy was already crossing the moat, almost to the circular drive, followed by the Range Rover from the front gate—the second follow-car.

  Moondoggie behind the wheel. Pat’s friend.

  I’m gonna grab dinner with the boys, engage in a little pre-battle bonding.

  Daniel kept running, almost there.

  The follow-car stopped between the moat and the circular drive, as the rest of the convoy pulled into the drive and around. The convoy came to a stop one by one, drivers and bodyguards disembarking to open rear doors and hold umbrellas for the dignitaries.

  Raoul started down the front steps, toward the president of Latvia, who was stepping out of his car.

  “Raoul!”

  Raoul stopped and turned and Daniel reached the front steps just in time to see Moondoggie toss a smoke grenade, creating a screen between the attack team and the rest of the convoy. A gunshot rang out, the round pinging off the castle’s stone wall.

  Security men grabbed dignitaries, shoving them down behind the cover of the SUVs, as two more smoke grenades sailed into the driveway. More gunfire from behind the smoke and Evan Sage pitched forward, clutching his gut, face first into the gravel.

  Raoul started to rush forward. Daniel grabbed his arm.

  “Raoul, your evacuation route is compromised.”

  And that’s when Raoul Aharon’s head exploded, showering Daniel with blood and gore. Raoul’s body crumpled and rolled down the steps.

  Daniel bolted back inside, the gunfight raging behind him. He ran the length of the main hallway at full speed, his heart pounding, but a part of his mind was calm now, focused on how Pat’s plan would unfold.

  Moondoggie’s not attempting an assassination. No chance a half dozen mercs could win that battle—they were way outgunned—and Pat would know that. No, this attack was meant to trigger Raoul’s evacuation protocol . . .

  Visualizing the floor plan from the briefing file, Daniel turned and ran through the dining hall, down a short corridor, and through the kitchen to the castle’s back door.

  The security team out front will lay down covering fire, get the dignitaries into the castle, and follow this same route . . .

  He ran into the rear yard. The gunfire continued out front, the attack team keeping everyone pinned down. Smart. Make them work for it, just a bit, and they’ll never suspect they’re being led.

  Daniel kept his speed up, running past the line of waiting escape vehicles to the drawbridge, where he held down the button to lower it.

  And the security team will drive the target straight into Pat’s crosshairs . . .

  There was nothing Daniel could say to stop them. His only chance was to get there first.

  The drawbridge came to rest and Daniel hopped into the nearest SUV and cranked the motor to life. He threw it into gear, stepped on the gas, and tore off across the bridge and into the back meadow, heading for the south woods.

  Daniel turned the key and opened the door to Noah’s rooftop palace. He thought of Kara for a moment. Whatever happened on the other side of this door, at least she knew how he felt. He took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway, into the light.

 
The light blinded him at first, but as his eyes adjusted, it settled to a cool blue-white. Still too bright—he had to squint—but not painful, and it didn’t make him feel queasy anymore.

  Maybe this was what glimmer looked like from the inside, or maybe something about Daniel had changed.

  No, not from the inside. The glimmer was above him, a dome maybe twenty feet over the rooftop, and all around, stretching down to meet the edge of the roof. He was not inside the glimmer, but beneath it and beside it, surrounded by it.

  Impossibly close, yet he felt fine.

  Something about him had changed.

  He raised his head and squinted straight up into the glimmer. He could see fractals in it. Moving, merging, growing, shrinking, evolving, appearing and disappearing, but never coming to rest.

  It was beautiful.

  It’s just a swirling dance of energy and information. Digger’s words on the beach came back to him full force, as if she were in his head again.

  He lowered his eyes from the glim above, and Noah’s rooftop palace revealed itself not as a palace at all, but just a rooftop.

  Noah stood at the far edge of the roof, maybe forty feet away, right next to the glim. Daniel could barely make out his figure in the light, and he couldn’t tell if Noah was looking at him, but he could feel Noah’s strongest emotions. The confidence was unchanged, and with it Daniel could feel a sense of intense concentration . . . but not directed at him. Was it possible Noah still didn’t know he was here?

  Daniel crept forward, keeping his footfalls quiet as he closed the distance one agonizingly slow step at a time. Closer now, he could see Noah was facing away from him.

  Facing the glimmer.

  About twenty feet away, Daniel could make out more detail. Noah was doing something with his arms, gesturing with them just above his eyeline.

  Daniel stopped about ten feet behind Noah, and his stomach fell. Noah’s hands were almost touching the glimmer as he gestured, so close his hands and wrists shimmered, almost merging into fractals themselves.

  And the glimmer itself was shifting in response to Noah’s gestures. He was manipulating the very stuff of creation. As he worked, the fractals in front of him organized themselves into a cohesive image, like a photograph appearing in front of his eyes. An image of a crowded city street, but Noah flicked his wrist leftward and the image turned on an angle and slid to the side before Daniel could identify any details.

  Then Noah made another image, and this one Daniel saw clearly. A long line of tanks rolling down a country road. Noah flicked it to the left and it came to rest parallel to the first image.

  And then another: soldiers marching through an Eastern European city square.

  Another: a massive peace protest turned violent, in London’s Hyde Park, demonstrators fighting riot police.

  —An American aircraft carrier battle group, moving at speed, white wakes streaming behind.

  —A full meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

  —A political rally, but so much worse. Something right out of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, but not Nuremberg and not 1934.

  It was Washington, DC, and soon to come.

  Noah reached out and rearranged the photographs, putting the Hyde Park protest after the carrier battle-group deployment.

  Tim Trinity and Angelica Ory and Kara and Daniel and probably hundreds of thousands of other people around the world with AIT had all been overcome by visions that later came true as real events on Earth. But Noah was not having visions, he was making them. Creating the future—the self-destruction of the human race—out of glimmer, with his own hands.

  Daniel lunged forward.

  Almost casually, Noah turned and reached his right hand straight to the side and then whipped it forward, pointing directly at Daniel, and a spike of blue fractals shot out from the glimmer wall and slammed into Daniel’s chest.

  Daniel pressed the accelerator pedal down hard, keeping as much speed as he could on the wet gravel, barreling south toward the woods, now less than two thousand yards ahead and closing fast. The rain had settled into a steady shower, and the wiper blades on their highest setting could just keep up with it, swiping back and forth in front of his eyes, like the pocket watch of an overcaffeinated hypnotist.

  He stole a glance in his rearview. The convoy of escape vehicles was well past the drawbridge, less than fifteen hundred yards behind him. They could see him from that distance—maybe if he radioed a warning, he could convince them he’d spotted a sniper ahead.

  He grabbed for the radio on his belt, cutting his hand on something sharp. He glanced down. The radio had taken a bullet, the hard plastic shattered. He tossed the radio on the passenger seat.

  Running out of options . . .

  Driving straight ahead meant driving straight into Pat’s crosshairs. There was a stand of evergreens ahead on the right. If Daniel could get behind the stand of trees and to the end of it, he could approach Pat on his left flank, using the trees for cover. But if he left the road and cut across the meadow too soon, he’d lose speed, and the convoy would close the distance and get to the woods before him.

  He had to stay on the road and keep his speed up as long as possible.

  He thought about the other Daniel—the one in the meditation hall in Source. Maybe that guy was having more luck. Maybe he could disrupt the meditation.

  But so what if he did? Beating Noah wasn’t enough. If Pat made this shot, war would follow. And millions would die, whether the ribbons touched today or next week or next month.

  And then Daniel saw Pat’s SUV ahead, parked in the middle of the gravel road, just inside the edge of the woods, facing this way.

  Close enough to take the shot? Maybe. If not yet, then any second now.

  Daniel held his breath and kept his speed up, almost expecting his chest to bloom red at any moment, as Tim Trinity’s had on that outdoor stage in Jackson Square.

  He shot a look at the stand of trees ahead on the right.

  Just a little longer . . .

  He glanced in his rearview again. The convoy was gaining, but still out of range.

  Hold your nerve . . .

  He reached across his body and did up his seatbelt.

  Just a little longer . . . NOW.

  Daniel swerved right, easing off the gas. He bounced wildly across the grassy meadow and two wheels came off the ground and he thought he might be going over but he steered into it in time and the wheels came crashing back to Earth and his jaw slammed shut, making him see stars.

  He spat some blood and a piece of tooth onto the floorboards, straightened the wheel, and gave the car more gas, making it to the cover of the evergreens.

  But the convoy had kept to the road and was now coming into range.

  And just beyond the trees, less than twenty yards away, Daniel saw Pat, rifle in hand, now standing on the driver’s seat of his SUV, torso rising through the sunroof, aiming straight down the road.

  The bolt of fractals retreated back into the glimmer wall, leaving Daniel flat on his back, convulsing on the rooftop, his electrical system misfiring. He’d never felt such agony. He struggled to raise his head. Noah stood over him, watching with what looked like mild curiosity.

  “I suspected Pat wouldn’t be able to kill you. He’s a bit sentimental that way. But it doesn’t really matter if you die there or here. You can die knowing that he’s completing his mission at this very moment.”

  Daniel tried to get his body under control, tried to sit up, but he could do nothing but lie there, twitching. The glimmer behind Noah shifted and the images suspended there began to lose focus.

  Noah turned back to them, leaving Daniel prone and helpless and sure he was dying, remembering the first night he was hit by AIT, back in Barbados. He’d dreamed of a bolt of lightning hitting him in the chest. The vision had recurred several times, and Daniel now understood it had been a premonition of this moment. His last moment.

  Once Noah’s attention returned to
his task, the images became clear again, and he went straight back to work creating new ones.

  —A city on fire at night.

  —Thousands of dead soldiers strewn across a battlefield.

  —A B-52 bomber, raining its payload down on Moscow.

  —Radioactive snow falling on the ruins of Manhattan, covering it like a poison blanket.

  —Nuclear blast shadows of civilians left on sidewalks and the walls of buildings.

  Daniel could only watch as Noah created these horrors and organized them into a narrative of the future, setting up the dominos that would draw Earth closer until the ribbons touched and the dream ended.

  He could feel the purity of Noah’s intention. Not moral purity, but the powerful thrust of pure intention, untainted by doubt or any uncertainty. Noah continued to project confidence in his success, but that was all.

  No anger, no hatred. This was simply the most efficient way to get what he wanted, to sweep away the universe containing Earth so he could create a new dream in his own image. He was utterly indifferent to the suffering he was causing but he didn’t feel hatred, and that horrified Daniel even more than if he had.

  The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. Tim Trinity had said that many times during Daniel’s childhood, warning the boy to stay away from people who could turn their feelings off like flipping television channels.

  If Daniel was going to die now, he didn’t want to die bathed in Noah’s indifference. He closed his eyes to the horrors unfolding in front of him, and he focused his mind on the opposite of indifference.

  He thought of Kara and the intimacy they’d shared, and it hurt, but the pain was real and Daniel pulled it close to his chest. He thought of Tim, the deeply flawed father figure who had loved him and treated him with kindness, and who had warned him about indifference. And he remembered the gut-wrenching pain he’d felt cradling Tim in his arms as he died. And he thought of Pat, and the pain he’d felt when he learned what Pat had become.