by Fritz Galt
Everett braked and vaulted over his car door. His flat-soled shoes suddenly skidded out from under him on the dewy grass.
A second later, he was lying on his back looking at the stars.
He got to his feet and wiped the wetness off the back of his coat and pants. Then he shuffled tentatively into the glaring light.
Alfred Mann was just introducing visitors when Everett fell in behind him.
“Mr. Ambassador, this is the White House director of protocol,” Alfred said.
“Welcome to CERN,” Rupert Pistol said.
“Mr. Ambassador, this is the president’s national security advisor.”
“Welcome to CERN.”
“Mr. Ambassador, this is the president.”
“Hey, there,” Rupert said with a familiar wink.
“How are you, Mr. Ambassador?”
“‘Rupert,’” the ambassador said.
“Mr. Rupert,” the president corrected himself.
“Mr. Ambassador, this is the Secretary of State.”
“Uh, welcome to CERN.”
“Mr. Ambassador, this is Mick Pierce.”
A minute later, Mick sat in the back seat of a limo sandwiched between two experienced-looking Secret Service agents and facing two more agents who had their guns at the ready.
They were the lead car in the bobbing line of limousines that converged on the Main Building at breakneck speed.
“We have to take the offensive and draw our target out,” Mick was explaining. “Look at this gray suit I’m wearing.”
The men took their eyes off the empty road for a second.
“Two days ago, I was forced to wear this suit with a detonator sewn into the lining. My captors had lodged a wad of plastique in my teeth.”
The agents gave him an irritated look.
“Listen carefully. The moment I took that coat off and walked more than ten feet from it, my dental ware would explode.”
That elicited a curious look.
“The force would be enough to knock over a small building. Fortunately, I got rid of the plastique.”
“Too bad,” one of them said.
“But someone out there still expects this thing to blow up. Here’s how we can flush him out.”
“Look, buddy,” another agent said. “We’re one minute away from jumping out of this car.”
“So here’s what I’ve got in mind.”
Mick and the two men beside him were putting the final touches on their plan when the motorcade came to an abrupt halt before an impressive glass building.
The larger of the two agents lifted a forearm and spoke into his cuff. “Hold the Eagle for one minute before entering the premises. I need a moment to secure the area.”
Presumably, he heard confirmation through his earpiece.
“Let’s roll.”
In the seat facing Mick, the two Secret Service agents opened their doors, jumped out and ran back to flank the armored presidential limousine. The two who had planned their strategy with Mick ran into the building while Mick waited in the car.
Through the car’s tinted window, Mick could see them replacing the guards at a metal detector.
He straightened his gray suit.
It was show time.
He moved sinuously out of the car and passed the presidential limousine that was idling just outside the glass doors. He recognized the Commander-in-Chief inside by his cloud of gray hair.
Trying to exude an air of confidence, Mick strode into the building.
“This way, sir.” One of the agents from the car directed him to the metal detector.
High ranking officials could pass straight through, but Mick needed to be checked.
“Don’t get fresh,” he whispered to the second agent, who frisked him.
Just beyond the metal detector, he saw a line of reporters. Beyond them, he smelled soft and exotic fragrances of perfume, heard glasses clinking, saw cigarette smoke spiraling upward and felt a charge of excitement as people noticed that the presidential party had arrived.
Cameramen squatted or leaned at angles, poised to capture the president’s entrance. Television lights flooded the glass doors. A general quiet fell over the group.
“Okay, you may pass,” the agent said.
Mick stepped forward through the wooden frame of the metal detector. Suddenly, the air was filled with an ear-piercing squeal.
Alarmed eyes turned toward him, and one of the agents grabbed him and pulled him back.
Mick smiled at his newly acquired audience and held up both hands in surrender.
All talking ceased as he emptied his pockets. He would have to go back and try the metal detector again.
Once again, the painful squeal left everybody cringing.
“I’ll need your jacket,” the larger of the two agents said brusquely.
Mick frowned, removed his suit coat and handed it to the agent.
“Now walk through.” The man’s voice was the only sound in the room.
“No,” Mick said, his voice rising. “I need my coat. Don’t walk away with it.”
The second man pushed him toward the metal detector.
“No! I need my coat,” Mick shouted.
The bank of reporters stood frozen. Only one was alert enough to snap a picture.
The large agent carried Mick’s suit jacket around a corner and disappeared.
Mick lunged through the metal detector after him, slipped and rolled across the floor. The front row of reporters moved out of his way, revealing startled guests, politicians and scientists, a mixture of Westerners and Arabs alike.
The metal detector shrieked and didn’t stop.
Mick picked himself off the floor and stood upright. Against the far wall, a shadow dodged out the back of the room.
“After him,” Mick shouted.
The two agents hurdled over a set of tables and plunged into the crowd after the shadow.
Everett Hoyle came running in from the motorcade, bypassing the metal detector.
“What the hell is going on?” he shouted over the deafening squeal and the roiling crowd.
“He ran off,” Mick shouted into his ear. “Proteus is here.”
The two agents returned to the lobby empty-handed.
“He blended in with the crowd,” one explained.
Mick quickly assessed the situation. The president was still waiting outside. The crowd was jittery. Randomly stationed Secret Service agents appeared more than tense.
Mick had ruined the president’s grand entrance and spoiled the mood.
But there was also a killer on the loose.
Paul Schroeder rushed up to the two of them.
“Mick!” Paul cried. “Is the guy here?”
Mick nodded. “I think so.”
“Think so?” Paul said. “We’ve got to know, or this thing is going to proceed as planned. We can’t keep the president waiting forever.”
Mick studied him. Was Paul a part of SATO? Was Everett? Had O’Smythe revealed all the SATO agents?
Just then he saw a familiar figure. Natalie stood across the lobby, a sequined black evening dress draped slick and seductively over her shapely form. Her eyes, gorgeous and calculating, were trained firmly on him.
“Why is she here?” he asked.
Everett followed his glance. “I brought her here. We cleared her along with Alec when we learned that SATO was after you as well.”
“I thought that was just O’Smythe’s men chasing after me.”
“Apparently not,” Everett said. “There seems to be a split within SATO. Natalie and Alec were operating with the best of intentions. It’s the other half of SATO that’s out to destroy our mission and kill the president.”
Mick closed his eyes briefly and let out his breath. So Natalie wasn’t in bed with the enemy? He needed more than Everett’s assurance to convince him. Far more.
All of a sudden, he heard a loud stir.
Unannounced, the presidential party was entering the building.
Cameras flashed. Damon looked grim and determined.
CERN’s director general, the master-builder, showed the president the way into an adjoining room. The high-powered group hustled by without a smile, wave or pose and was gone within seconds.
Mick wiped the sweat off his forehead and chased after Paul into the room.
It wasn’t the auditorium as he had expected. It was a full-blown accelerator.
“Okay, Paul. Fill me in. Why aren’t we using the auditorium?”
Paul looked at him sharply, and Mick detected a hint of exasperation. “Change of plans. The president wants a photo op.”
“But there’s an assassin in the building. This is crazy.”
Everett stepped up behind them. “We can’t stop sheer inertia.”
Mick looked at the groups that were settling in among the conduits and control panels. The American delegation stood in one cluster against the circumference of the inner ring. CERN principles stood separately, comparing notes. Another group looked uncertain and underdressed.
“Who are they?” Mick asked.
“The Yugoslavs,” Alfred said. “They’re signing up for observer status tonight.”
The Yugoslav president tried to edge closer to President Damon while photographers stretched sideways to include both in the same shot.
Then, across the room, Mick spotted a bent figure with a shock of blond hair. Alec was skulking behind a string of red and green machines that lined the perimeter of the room. Where did his loyalties lie these days? With Anaïs and O’Smythe?
The whole scene was a recipe for disaster.
When it couldn’t be any more crowded, a new group blustered into the experiment hall.
Photographers wheeled about to capture the moment.
It was a royal entrance.
Natalie squeezed through a wall of royal bodyguards and fell into step with the King of Morocco.
She had no idea what she was going to do as the entourage entered the Antiproton Accumulator Complex, but she knew that Proteus was in the group. He’s tracking the king to CERN. He was likely going to kill the Abbad family’s old nemesis, the king.
Stumbling along with the Moroccans, she quickly grew disoriented, lost in the swish of finely woven and bejeweled robes. She listened to the familiar cacophony of French and Arabic spoken in the Marrakesh souks. She felt lost in the perspiration, percussive rhythms and perfumes. It seemed as if she were back at Djama al Fna, the Bazaar of the Dead.
Meanwhile, the director general of CERN was at the microphone introducing the President of the United States.
The king paused and took in the room with awe, as if he were appreciating another man’s fine palace.
“Please take a seat,” one of his advisors told the king, and showed him the table with the other heads of state.
But the king seemed unwilling to sit with the others.
Nearby, the American president mounted the podium, papers in hand.
“Wait,” Natalie cried out. How could she tell everyone that Proteus was in the king’s entourage?
The king turned slowly toward her and riveted her with his large, dark eyes.
“A woman?” he said, confused.
Then a smile grew on his lips. He extended a hand, his ring facing upward for a kiss.
Instead, she grasped his hand. She had to warn him.
His stiff fingers softened as he acquiesced to shake her hand.
Then robes intervened from several sides.
“No, no,” the king said dismissively. “It’s nothing. Let her talk.”
He withdrew his royal hand with a handsome smile.
As the tide of robes receded, another robe drew close, hood up, an old, white-bearded Berber within.
And then Natalie smelled the Aramis cologne. It was Brahim.
“Proteus,” she breathed.
The old man’s eyes grew large.
“Stop this guy,” she screamed, her voice echoing throughout the hall.
A protective circle of robes converged on the king, pinning her against the royal gown.
Through the mass of bodies and limbs, she glimpsed the old Berber in white robes turn away in frustration. His sandals slapped across the cement floor.
The king protested against his cloak of security, but they weren’t moving.
“Stay down,” Natalie cried into his ear. “He’s trying to kill you.”
Alec watched aghast as the old Berber wrenched away from the group of Moroccans and nimbly scaled a ladder to one of the control booths high above the world leaders.
President Damon seemed unaware of the disturbance among the Moroccans, or of the figure in the white robe climbing overhead. He gathered his papers at the lectern and tested the microphone.
Nobody was chasing the Berber.
Alec sprang toward the ladder and began to climb after him, sliding his hands up the sides, taking two and three steps at a time.
The white robe disappeared into the booth and the door slammed shut behind him.
Breathing hard, Alec reached the booth and tried the door. It was locked from inside.
He felt the ladder lurch, and nearly slid off. The laser gun swung down from its retracted position. He heard a low-pitched hum, and the entire booth began to vibrate.
The hum increased steadily and rose in pitch to a deafening squeal.
To Alec’s distress, the robotic arm suddenly lurched out of control. An intense red and green beam of argon and neodymium shot out, its path reflecting sharply off of every metal object it hit. Within seconds, the entire room was crisscrossed with piercing hot light.
“Watch out below,” he shouted.
The robotic arm recovered control and began to descend rapidly, its deadly beam veering in an arc toward the podium.
President Damon disappeared under a scrum of Secret Service agents.
For those whose eyes weren’t squeezed shut, the intense light burned at the delicate tissue of the retina. Even stray rays presented a hazard.
Alec jiggled the doorknob. It was fixed tight. He hammered a fist against the plastic window. It only bent.
“Alec!” a voice came from below. “Use this.”
He looked down in time to see his brother toss a pipe wrench up the ladder.
The tool rotated slowly and landed in Alec’s fist.
“Thanks.”
He tightened the wrench’s teeth around the doorknob.
Below him, bodies disappeared under chairs and tables. Sparks scorched drywall and left liquid streaks across plastic consoles. The beam’s intensity was increasing.
He heard a woman cry out on stage. What was she saying?
Alec peered around the control booth. It was Natalie, strolling casually away from the huddled heads of state and waving her bare arms.
“Hey, baby,” she teased. “Come and get me.”
“She totally lost her mind,” Alec muttered.
He gritted his teeth and yanked on the wrench. The knob broke loose and fell with the wrench to the ground. Poking a couple of fingers through the hole in the door, he was able to pull it open.
Inside, he saw a form huddled over two levers, intent on fighting for control of the laser beam. Hood down and wearing protective goggles, the Berber was fighting to redirect the laser gun at Natalie.
Alec stepped into the booth. It wobbled underfoot. The white robe turned around.
The Berber ripped off his tinted goggles, then pulled a wrinkled rubber mask from his face.
Alec stood face to face with the killer. It was Brahim Abbad.
“You selfish bastard,” Alec said, gasping for breath.
Swinging freely, the beam veered toward the booth and showered them with sparks.
“I’m selfish? Your whole country is selfish,’” Brahim said with a stilted accent and a twisted smile as hot sparks rained down on his head. Putty and facial cream dripped from his face.
Alec was gripped with a bottomless loathing. What a poor excuse for a human this
was: an adulterer, a cold-blooded murderer, a scheming assassin and a man who sought to cheat the world of its destiny. “You didn’t do this for your country. You did this for yourself.”
He rushed forward, propelling Brahim toward the window at the front of the booth.
His charge sent Brahim reeling and bouncing off the panel of levers. With a final push, Alec thrust his arms outward.
The window popped open under Brahim’s weight, and his eyes filled with horrified realization.
“No. Help me,” came the weak voice, disembodied from the grotesque face. It was nobody’s voice. Beneath all that clever, protean disguise lay a deep, dark force. Anti-matter. A walking nobody.
Alec grabbed the levers and yanked back.
Brahim flailed, protesting, at the air as he plummeted toward the president and into the converging beam.
Alec watched in both horror and satisfaction as the beam sliced up through Brahim like a knife through baloney. In a crackle and puff of pungent smoke, the body split in two.
The cauterized human halves landed with a wet thud in the middle of the podium.
A short figure dodged toward an exit.
“Yashito,” Mick shouted. “Stop that man.”
A robust young woman in a veil jumped from the shadows of the doorway. Shawl flying off her black hair, she grabbed the fleeing man, rolled him over on the floor and pressed a serrated knife against his throat.
It was Zafina.
Of course.
She called over some soldiers who slapped handcuffs on the Japanese businessman.
Then her dark eyes flashed across the room at Mick. She seemed to be seeking his approval. He smiled, closed his eyes and nodded. When he looked up, she was standing over the man, one foot on his chest.
Wisps of blue smoke trailed upward from the podium. Amidst a jumble of arms, legs and armored overcoats, President Damon struggled to get to his feet.
“Get off me. Let me speak.”
Looking about cautiously, the agents stood up one by one.
“Let him speak,” someone shouted.
Other voices agreed.
So did Mick. The danger was over. The president might as well make the most of the moment.