by Warren Fahy
“We need a solemn vow from all of you to never divulge what I am about to say,” Agent Wright said.
There was silence.
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Andy informed them. “Hendros never leap before they look. They won’t promise anything in advance. Just cut to the chase. They’ll decide afterwards if they agree with you or not. OK?”
“Um, OK.” Jane looked at Mike and nodded. “If you understand after we’ve told you why it is important not to talk about it, will you promise to keep it secret?”
“You’re confusing them now,” Bo said, shaking his head.
Joe nodded. “Me, too.”
“OK.”
Andy noted how readily she had conceded, and it made him even more anxious. “What’s going on?”
Mike Kalajian went first. “We know now that the Russian oligarch, Maxim Dragolovich, is trapped inside an underground installation in Kaziristan, where he has been manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. The WMDs he has been manufacturing are species from Henders Island.”
“What?” Andy asked, his mouth falling open.
“They are contained within the facility, but the species have apparently gotten loose, and Nell and Geoffrey are trapped inside, as well,” Jane Wright said.
Kuzu sat forward, both eyes extended. The hendros had understood varying degrees of what had just been said, but what they did understand put them on full alert, their fur bristling and flushing colors.
Wright sat on the edge of a chair and looked at Hender. “There was practically no way to trace where your friends were for quite some time,” she said. “We were about to rule their disappearance a homicide, since no ransom demands had surfaced.”
“What is homicide?” Hender said.
“When humans kill humans,” Kuzu said.
“Yes,” said Kalajian.
The sels all gasped in horror.
“A few days ago, a man named Galia Sokolof walked through the front door of CIA Headquarters in Virginia,” said Kalajian.
“Galia Sokolof is Maxim Dragolovich’s right-hand man,” Wright said. “He is the only man who managed to escape from the underground facility before it was sealed off and overrun by specimens from Henders Island.”
“Wait … what?” Andy shook his head in confusion.
“You may have seen the news about a fire in the Kremlin,” Wright said. “That fire was deliberately set by the government of Russia because Maxim Dragolovich managed to deliver a box of cigars to one of its offices. One cigar tube contained disk-ants.”
“The only way to contain them was to burn the entire building to the ground,” said Kalajian.
“Holy shit!” Andy said.
“Yeah,” Kalajian agreed.
The hendros glanced at one another silently.
“Go on,” Andy said.
“According to Galia Sokolof, the city was built around a salt mine by Stalin in the 1950s. It was purchased by Maxim Dragolovich ten years ago,” Kalajian said.
“Apparently, he kidnapped Nell and Geoffrey and at least two other scientists who had been on Henders Island. They went missing around the same time,” Jane said.
“What can we do?” Hender asked.
“We are sending in a special-ops team to rescue them and make sure that the facility is sterilized and sealed off,” Jane said.
“Good idea,” Andy said.
“We would very much appreciate the guidance and assistance of one of the sels when we put our team in,” said Agent Kalajian. “We are dealing with Henders organisms. If they get out…” He shrugged. “I think you know what that would mean, Andy.”
Andy nodded.
“We’re asking for volunteers,” said Wright, looking at each of the sels. “It is urgent that we get your help. No special-ops team on Earth has ever dealt with this kind of threat.”
“Will you help us?”
Hender’s fur flushed deep blue. “Humans saved us,” he said. “I will go.”
“Then I will go, too,” Andy said.
“Thank you, Andy.”
“I go, too,” Kuzu rumbled.
“Excellent!” Kalajian said.
“Fantastic,” said Wright. “We need to leave tonight.”
Hender raised four hands. “Wait.” He looked at Kuzu with one eye. “We will do this only if you guarantee our freedom to leave here when we are done.”
Kuzu nodded. His voice registered a deep bass vibration and hissed like a cement mixer: “Good, Shenuday!”
The other sels watched nervously as Hender and Kuzu blackmailed the humans.
“We will have to check on that,” said Jane Wright.
“We need to make some phone calls,” Kalajian said, and they stepped away to confer.
Andy gave them a fist pump. “Right on!”
8:11 P.M.
After prolonged discussions on their cell phones, the two agents returned.
“Yes, yes. We will agree to that,” Kalajian confirmed.
“At least as far as it applies to U.S. territory,” Wright said.
“What about the rest of the world?” Andy asked.
“That will take longer,” Kalajian said, sneaking a look at Andy.
“But, considering the value of your help,” Jane said, “I don’t think we’ll have any difficulty obtaining that small debt of gratitude from other governments.”
“Provided you succeed, of course,” Kalajian said.
Hender glanced at Kuzu, who laughed quietly as he admired Hender’s diplomacy. “My weapons.”
“Weapons?” Kalajian looked confused.
“Kuzu’s weapons are in the London Natural History Museum,” said Hender, his brows lowered in a V over his eyes. “I saw them there.”
“We’ll get them.” Kalajian confirmed it with his partner, and she punched in a number, speaking into her phone. “You need to be ready to leave in five hours,” he said. “We’ll pick up Kuzu’s weapons at our first stop. Good enough?”
Kuzu nodded.
Hender squeezed Andy’s hand. “Thank you for coming, Andy.”
“Sure,” Andy said. “We better pack.”
Hender could see that Andy was afraid, and he reached out and touched Andy’s arm with three hands. “I will protect you, Andy.”
11:16 P.M.
Tapping another channel of memory, Hender typed into his laptop with three hands:
The 7th Darkness
10,000,003 years ago came a darkness that lasted two years. Some sels saw a star fall and smash into the sea before the waves came and covered most of Henderica except for the highest mountains, killing all but a few sels from each of the five tribes, who went underground again.
The creed of Alok took hold of Kuzu’s ancestors, and they tried to kill the sels who would not follow them, deciding that they had brought the darkness by not believing in Alok.
The 8th Darkness
6,598,718 years ago, as Henderica continued to fall into the poison sea, the 8th Darkness came. For 200 days, the tribes went underground, again, but this time they built walls inside the tunnels to protect themselves from each other.
MARCH 28
6:42 P.M. CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME
The phone shattered Standish Harrington’s tranquillity as he sat on the balcony of his Swiss chalet, watching the sunset purpling the waters of Lake Geneva. He watched a Jet Skier draw a chalk-line across the mirrored surface, sipping sherry and smelling the bratwursts his girlfriend was grilling.
Standish was a happily retired investment banker at the ripe old age of forty-seven. He was indebted to several politicians, who had provided him with a platinum parachute to bail out of his own financial Hindenburg. But the parachute had come with a lot of strings attached. One of them was attached to the phone, whenever it might ring, for the rest of his life. He noted the number of the incoming call and picked it up, waving off his girlfriend, who walked away, annoyed. “Yes?” he answered.
Someone proceeded to give him the names and numbers of two men
who might be susceptible to a financial incentive for accepting a certain assignment. The task was to make sure that neither of the hendros joining a certain dangerous expedition survived.
Standish poured himself another drink and gazed across the darkening lake.
MARCH 30
10:27 A.M. CENTRAL EUROPE TIME
Hender, Kuzu, and Andy were belted into seats against the wall of the C-130 Hercules transport plane as it took off from the Zürich–Dübendorf military airfield. Around them sat ten others comprising the rescue team that had been assembled.
Much to the humans’ surprise, Kuzu turned “invisible,” his fur projecting the wall behind him, as the aircraft raced down the runway and took off. When the plane was airborne, and they were all finally allowed to unbuckle and move about inside the transport plane, Kuzu finally reappeared, freaking them all out.
“Nice trick,” said a large man seated next to Kuzu who had fine blond stubble on his head.
Captain Craigon Ferrell, a former American Army Ranger and now a Delta Force operator, gave a sudden two-fingered whistle beside Kuzu. The soldier’s angular face was all business. His crew-cut hair was jet-black. “Listen up!”
The black T-shirt over Ferrell’s chiseled chest sported a dragon brandishing samurai swords. A black and red tattoo on one of his biceps showed an eagle gripping two bloody daggers, and there was a skull-and-crossed-machine-guns patch on his cap. “As you know, we are entering an underground facility that has been identified as a WMD lab. An outbreak of dangerous biologicals has occurred inside the facility. Our first objective is to set explosives in a railway tunnel to stop the outbreak from spreading to points unknown. These exceptional units have joined us for the mission.” He extended a hand presenting the hendros.
“Mmm,” Kuzu buzzed like a subwoofer.
Ferrell flashed a nervous smile at the sel and looked at Andy. “Do you need to translate for them, Dr. Beasley?”
“Understand,” Kuzu said.
“Me, too,” Hender said.
“They understand.” Andy nodded. “If Kuzu can’t, Hender can translate. Please continue.”
Ferrell had seen a lot of things during his life in the service, but it took all his focus and training to overcome the shock and awe of being in the presence of alien beings that appeared to have something like human intelligence. And yet they were said to have evolved on Earth; indeed, they were said to have lived longer on Earth than humans. “Our secondary goal,” he said, “is to locate and rescue Nell and Geoffrey Binswanger and capture or kill Maxim Dragolovich, the terrorist who funded the construction of this place and who might still be trapped inside this city.”
“Whoa, wait—city?” exclaimed the large man sitting next to Kuzu as he set up a miniature chessboard on his cannon-sized thigh. Jackson Conway Pierce was a six-foot-five Alabama farm boy with a 171 IQ, a black-ops officer for the United States military with a very dry sense of humor. “Nobody said anything about a city.” He gestured to Kuzu. “Chess?”
Kuzu looked at the big man. “Yes.”
“Well,” Ferrell said. “It’s a city. Is that clarified enough for you?”
“Yeah,” Jackson said. “Go on.”
“The city was called Pobedograd in Stalin’s time. It was built in the years before his death and purchased by Russian bazillionaire Maxim Dragolovich about ten years ago. It would be a lot easier, of course, to just place a tactical nuke down there and call it a day. But we have targets to rescue and targets to kill or capture, if possible.”
Andy’s heart plunged. Finding Nell and Geoffrey alive seemed to be a conflicting and secondary objective of the mission.
Ferrell continued with mechanical efficiency. “The government of Kaziristan has buckled under considerable pressure by both the U.S. and Russian governments to let us send in this team. The Kaziristanis claim they have no knowledge of this facility, at all. They also claim they have sealed off all known ventilation shafts and entrances to it, so you do the math. The Russians have provided us with a map of the city in exchange for letting these three comrades join our team. Let me introduce them to everybody. This here is Spetsnaz stariki Commander, Dima Volkov, Russian special forces.”
A light-haired, green-eyed man with a sharp, devilish grin, Dima waved at the others cheerfully. “The only reason we decided to let you Yanks come along was because you brought hendros. Zdras-tvooy-tyeh!” he laughed.
“Spasiba,” Hender replied.
Dima’s tanned face blanched. “You speak Russian?”
Hender smiled. “Russian is fun to speak, da?”
Dima looked at his Russian comrade in shock.
Ferrell pointed at the huge commando who was relacing his boots beside Dima. “Spetsnaz Alfa team leader, Tusya Kovalovich.”
“A small hand for the big man.” Jackson nodded.
Andy clapped, then stopped, cringing in embarrassment. Jackson winked at him. “Did you say his name was Sonuvabitch?” Jackson said. The big American cupped his ear with his broad right hand as he set up the last couple of chess pieces on his magnetic board with his left hand.
Ferrel cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, former Army Ranger, Delta weapons specialist and all-around asshole, Jackson Pierce.”
“Did you say Jackoff?” Tusya cupped one hand behind his ear and gripped Jackson’s hand with the other in a crushing handshake. “Pleased to meet you!”
“OK,” Jackson chuckled. “Let go now, Sonuvabitch!”
Tusya let the big man’s bloodless hand go. “Da, Jackoff!”
Dima snickered.
Ferrell’s jet-blue eyes burned under charcoal eyebrows as he pointed at a large man sitting across from Kuzu. “That California redwood sitting in the corner is Teddy ‘Bear’ Jenkins.”
The big man with cropped black and silver hair nodded his scarred head, irritated.
“Bear’s a former Army Ranger who’s now a Delta force sniper and sapper,” Ferrell said, referring to a clipboard. “And one-half Blackfoot Indian.”
“Even though he was one of the ones who screwed up at Tora Bora, we brought him along, anyway, mostly for his charming personality. Right, Bear?” Jackson laughed.
“Fuck your mother’s ear,” Bear growled. The mountain-faced man, who had been tuning a crossbow on his lap, extended a hand to Tusya, who immediately regretted taking it as Bear vised his grip. “Nice to meet you.” Tusya felt the bones in his hand grind together as Bear grinned.
“OK!” Tusya yelled, conceding.
Kuzu watched as Bear finally let Tusya’s hand go.
“Thank you, Bear.” Jackson winked at the wounded Russian.
Kuzu admired Bear’s weapon, stretching his neck as he peered at it with both eyes.
“OK, General Ferrell,” Jackson sneered, “since you seem to be Mr. Voice and have a pipeline to SOCOM, why don’t you narrate exactly what’s going on in this movie?” Jackson looked down at Kuzu’s latest rapid-fire move, perturbed. He enjoyed chess, but he did not enjoy getting his ass beaten like an omelet in less than four minutes by this genius spider crab.
“Let’s look at the map of the city,” Andy said.
“Let me introduce you to our expert in Russian excavations.” Ferrell held out a hand to a slender black-clad woman who had blended like a shadow into the fuselage. “Anastasia Kurolesova from the Moscow Geological Institute—or should we call you Doctor?”
The rather beautiful woman with short black hair smiled sardonically. “Call me Nastia.” She leaned forward as she pulled a large blueprint out of a leather tube at her feet.
“Nastia is an honorary member of the Diggers Russian Underground club, I believe,” Ferrell said. “She’s helped map hundreds of miles of passageways in Metro-Two under Moscow—isn’t that right, Doctor?”
“Of course not,” she smirked. “Metro-Two does not exist. In any event, mapping it would be illegal. But, I am an expert on Soviet-era engineering projects, especially underground projects. And I’m also a musophobiac.”
> “What’s that?” Jackson said.
“I am terrified of rats,” she said.
“Then why would you devote your life to studying sewers?” Bear asked.
“Exactly.” Nastia gave a faintly ironic smile as she whipped a rolled sheet of paper open on the floor of the plane between them. Her caviar-black eyes glittered with excitement as she admired the faded blueprint. “I obtained this plan of the city from Kremlin archives two days ago and was only allowed to bring a copy because of the dire circumstances. The Diggers have been requesting maps such as this for over twenty-five years, and we were always told they don’t exist because, of course, none of these places exist. So, I suppose that means this is the only underground city that exists, since this is the only map that exists.” She deadpanned them with 90-proof Russian sarcasm. “Stalin called it Pobedograd—‘Victory City.’ Construction went on from 1950 to 1959 before it was abandoned, shortly after Stalin’s death.”
They gathered around the blueprint. Kuzu and Hender immediately began memorizing it like a gameboard or like a jungle, tracing walls, passages, and escape routes.
Nastia waved her hand over the large circular cavern at the center. “Sector Six is the main chamber of Pobedograd. It has a central tower thirty-five stories tall that was built for party officials. The streets radiating from the tower were to be lined with workshops, supply depots, factories, fire stations, and even restaurants and taverns. Along the river at the south end of the city are apartments and a bridge crossing the river to a train station at the southeast corner. In the northwest corner is Sector One, Stalin’s palace.” Her hand motioned over the blueprint as she continued. “South of the palace is Sector Five, a farm, and to the east of the palace, in Sector Two, was a garrison for Stalin’s guards. Further east is Sector Three, a hospital and medical laboratory, and east of this—” Nastia pointed her red-nailed index finger at the upper right corner of the map. “—warehouses and a self-sustaining power plant.”