The Athena Factor

by W. Michael Gear

  “No matter what happens, no matter to whom it happens, we’ve got to keep them distracted for another hour and fifteen minutes. Do you understand?”

  “What happens in an hour and fifteen minutes?” Sid asked.

  “If we last that long, life is going to get really interesting for Genesis Athena.”

  Christal trotted up a second stairway, took a hard right, and stopped at a thick steel door marked SECURITY. “Pray for a miracle,” she muttered, raising the pistol with one hand and pushing with the other. A thick fold of paper fell away as the door swung inward.

  “Whew!” she exhaled as she stepped through, covering the room with the powerful HK pistol. “Nobody here but us mice. Get the door, Sid. Make sure it’s closed.” She stepped over to where she could see Vince behind one table. He still looked like a silver pupa. Behind the other, Gregor McEwan stared up from the duct tape like a bug-eyed worm.

  “What’s this?” Lymon had the fold of paper in his hand.

  “To keep the door from locking behind me.”

  Sid and Lymon were staring, wide-eyed, at the entire wall covered with monitors showing various views of the corridors, decks, and hatches. Here and there, images flipped from one scene to another as someone walked into the camera’s eye.

  “Sid,” she called, “keep an eye on the monitors. The security hatch is the one in the upper left. Holler if anyone tries to get in. Vince wouldn’t tell me whether anybody can open the door. It’s got a lock plate on the outside, and who knows how many people have the code.”

  “Neal Gray for sure,” Lymon said, striding up to look down at the bound and gagged men. “Friends of yours?”

  “That’s Vince,” she said, pointing. “He’s the one who looks like a silver mummy. Sort of handsome, actually, but you can only see his eyes. He’s got a short beard, but I’m betted three-to-one odds that most of it goes when someone finally pulls the tape off.”

  Vince’s eyes rolled in an unsettled manner, and he made mumbling sounds through the little hole where his nostrils weren’t covered.

  “And this is?” Lymon indicated the second man.

  “Meet Dr. Gregor McEwan. Late head of the Genesis Athena genetics program.”

  “McEwan?” Sid asked, looking up from the huge bank of monitors. “Scottish? Midthirties, light brown hair, brown eyes, kind of a round face?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Yahoo! He’s one of my kidnap victims!”

  “Not anymore. He changed sides.” Christal tapped her pistol meaningfully as Gregor watched.

  Lymon studied the security system, looking from the monitors down to the knobs. “Where’s Sheela?”

  “One of the nurses was wheeling her down to her room last I saw.” Christal glanced up. “Time was short. You were closer and didn’t have an armed guard following behind you.”

  Lymon tapped something into the computer and muttered, “Whoops” when the screens went dark. He hit Esc and they came on again.

  “Don’t fart around, boss,” Sid growled at him.

  Lymon turned to Christal. “How’d you get here?”

  She sighed, fingering the polymer grip of the HK pistol. “A friend of mine gave me an idea. I was down in the high-security area when I asked him if they’d cloned any Terminators, you know, from the movie? He said no, but I remembered Linda Hamilton sticking a needle full of drain cleaner into a bad guy’s neck. So the next time Gregor came in, we stuck a needle into his side, and he walked us out. I was playing his girlfriend in the elevator when I saw him staring hopefully at the security camera.”

  “So you came here first?” Lymon asked.

  “We couldn’t do anything until we controlled the security center. Gregor very persuasively talked Vince into opening the door.” She gestured at the monitors. “This is the high ground, boss.”

  “You said you had a partner?” Sid asked.

  “Yeah, Brian Everly, he’s—”

  “The Australian geneticist?” Sid asked, turning. “The guy who disappeared from Australia?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Nice guy, too. For the time being, he’s cooling his heels and staying out of trouble in—”

  “Whoa!” Lymon interrupted, pointing. “Bad guy alert! We’ve got movement! That’s Neal Gray, and there’s our friend Hank Abrams stepping into the elevator along with the redhead.”

  Christal followed his finger to a monitor displaying a group of people as the elevator doors slid shut. “The woman is April Hayes. She’s my Copperhead from LA. They’re kind of the Genesis Athena brain trust for covert operations.”

  They watched the monitor as the cage descended. Christal felt her gut tightening as she studied the faces. At that moment, a white dot appeared at the corner of the screen, and Sid cried, “Got it!” He was fiddling with a mouse on a pad beside the control board.

  A half second later, the image shifted to the big central screen and the audio kicked on.

  Neal Gray was saying, “ … Depends on Marks. In the meantime, April, I want you to run down to H Deck and find out where McEwan is. It’s not like that asshole to miss a meeting.”

  “On my way,” April said as the elevator door slid open. Text at the bottom of the screen told them the cage was on C Deck.

  Abrams and Gray stepped out, and Christal saw them emerge onto one of the smaller monitors.

  “Which one do we follow?” Sid asked.

  “Go for Hank and Neal,” Lymon replied.

  “I’ll keep an eye on Copperhead.” Christal watched as the monitors shifted. Hayes rode the lift down to H Deck and stepped out. The image on the monitor constantly shifted, as one by one, the complicated computer program sorted from camera to camera as it followed her the short distance, and around the corner. Christal watched Copperhead approach the security entrance and ring her way through.

  Hayes stopped short in the box, staring through the glass at Max. Her mouth worked, and Max spoke in reply, hunching his shoulders as if in confusion.

  Hayes frowned, asking something further.

  Max bent down, fingers running over the control board as he watched the various monitors to either side. After a moment, he shook his head.

  Christal could almost read Copperhead’s lips as she said, “Then where is he?”

  “Trouble, people.” Christal straightened as Max lifted a phone to his ear and punched a number. The phone by Lymon’s left hand bleated.

  “That’s Max,” Christal said. “He’s calling, trying to find out where Gregor is.”

  “So?”

  “So, answer it! Pretend you’re Vince and say that Gregor went to his quarters to boff his sweetie.”

  “What makes you think I can sound like Vince?” But Lymon was already lifting the receiver, saying in a bored voice, “Security center, what do you need, Max?”

  Lymon listened as Christal watched the face on the monitor. Max looked slightly puzzled, but was talking.

  “He’s in his quarters doing his girl.” Lymon spoke with a slight wryness to his voice. After a pause, he said, “Got me.” And hung up.

  Max was staring thoughtfully at the phone; then he looked straight into the monitor, as if trying to see behind the camera. Christal would have given anything to hear what he said to Copperhead, who in turn stared up at the camera with thoughtful eyes.

  “Can we switch this?” Christal asked.

  “Wait.” Sid was watching Abrams and Gray as they entered what appeared to be a lounge. A big conference table was surrounded by chairs. Several men, Arab from their looks, sat drinking sodas, smoking cigarettes, and talking. They looked up when Hank and Neal entered.

  “Heads up,” Neal said as he stopped at the table. “We’ve got a situation developing.”

  “There’s got to be a way to listen to both monitors at once!” Christal growled as she stared impotently at the keyboard controls. Glancing up, she watched as Copperhead stepped out of the controlled entrance and fiddled with a lock plate. Before the camera went dea
d, Christal got a glimpse into the control room where Max was sitting. The screen obligingly switched to an Arab woman scrubbing a section of I Deck.

  “Damn!” Christal knotted a fist, glaring at the monitor.

  “We don’t know yet what our options are going to be. Marks may or may not cooperate. If she doesn’t, the police are going to find her drugged to incoherence in her hotel room in Jamaica. We’ll leave enough cocaine scattered around to keep her and her lawyers entertained for a decade.”

  “What about her security?” one of the Arab guys asked.

  “We haven’t decided that yet. If they can’t be bought off cheaply, it may be more economical for the LAPD to find a stash of drugs in Bridges’ house. They’ll tie it to Marks’ Jamaican binge. We can accomplish that for as little as ten thousand paid to the right people.”

  “Sons of bitches!” Sid bellowed.

  “I need to get Copperhead back,” Christal said, frantically reaching down to tap the Backspace button on the control keyboard. Nothing happened. She could hear Vince snickering against the tape from behind the table. For an instant she considered walking back and booting him real hard in the ribs, but gave it up as the sound of a pager came through the speakers. On-screen Neal Gray reached for his small belt radio.

  Copperhead’s voice barked from one of the control room speakers, saying, “Neal? Cracked Castle. Go now.”

  They watched Neal switch channels on his belt radio before lifting it to his ear. After saying, “Yeah,” “Uh-huh,” and “Keep me informed,” Gray turned, saying to Abrams, “April and Max can’t find Anaya. They think she’s out with Everly and McEwan. She and Max are reviewing the tapes right now.”

  Hank frowned, lifting his own belt radio and pressing a button. Hank’s voice asked, “Vince?” from the speaker.

  Lymon gave Sid a knowing glance and picked up the microphone, saying, “Security, Vince.”

  Christal heard Hank ask, “Do you have the location of …” Hank frowned on-screen, glancing up as if to stare at them through the monitor. “Who is this?”

  “Vince,” Lymon said in a bored voice. “Just like every day at this time. What do you need, Hank?”

  Christal was staring into Hank’s eyes as his frown deepened and he lowered the phone. She could see his mind racing, trying to put the pieces together. “He’s not buying it.”

  “Oh, shit,” Lymon muttered as he set the mike back on the desk. Abrams had leaned close to Gray’s ear, whispering. Then they both turned to stare up at the camera.

  53

  Lymon glanced around the security center as Abrams and Gray continued their whispered conversation on the main monitor, then started around the room, whispering into the ears of each of the other security personnel. As they did, one by one, black pairs of eyes turned toward the camera. The expressions were anything but friendly.

  Lymon stepped to the cabinets at the back of the room, finding electrical equipment, assorted cables, and conduit in one, life jackets in another, tools and what looked like spare parts in a third, paper supplies in a fourth. Another held gas masks and protective gear. A fire extinguisher hung on a bracket beside the hatch. “Christal, when you arrived here, our guns and stuff were on one of the tables, right?”

  “Affirmative. That one there.” She pointed.

  “But was there a big black plastic case?”

  “Sorry, boss, it’s already up on the bridge.”

  “Damn!” He slammed the last locker and glanced down at the duct-tape-swathed men. Vince had wiggled slightly to one side. From the amount of tape wrapped around him, he wasn’t getting free anytime soon. McEwan just stared with a glum resignation in his worried brown eyes. Most likely considering what the Sheik was going to do to him for letting Christal out.

  “If we’re going to do something, we’d better be on it fast,” Christal called. “Copperhead is on the move, and she’s talking into her radio. It’s not coming through here. Cracked Castle must be their code to change band lengths.” She studied the complicated control board. “If we only knew how to use this.”

  “Evidently she’s in contact with Gray,” Sid replied, “because he’s whispering into his as well.”

  “We’re moving,” Lymon decided. “We’ve got seconds to wreck this place and go.”

  “Negative,” Christal said, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder. “We’ve got McEwan. He’s a major player. Worth a bundle to us as a hostage.”

  “And they’ll have Sheela if we don’t get to her ASAP,” Lymon shot back sharply.

  “You go,” Christal told him, reading his sudden desperation. She reached into one of the lockers he’d opened and lifted a pair of the belt radios. Pressing the button, she said, “Testing.” One of the room speakers crackled and repeated it. She tossed him the belt radio. “I’ll hold the fort here and try to break their communications frequency.”

  Sid stood, taking the other radio. “I’m with Lymon.”

  “No!” Lymon shot him a knowing smile. “Get the hell off this thing. Someone’s got to get the facts to the authorities.”

  “Hurry!” Christal cried, watching the monitors. “They’re headed this way. You’ve only got seconds.”

  Sid stepped to the hatch, undogged it, and leaped out into the hallway. Lymon was hot on his heels. When the heavy hatch swung shut, the lock clicked with finality. Christal watched as the security system followed their flight.

  They were in the middle of C Deck. Sheela was aft on B Deck, past the security hatches. Here and there in the cameras, men were emerging from cabins and hurrying along the corridors. For the moment, Lymon and Sid seemed to have a straight shot aft, through the security hatch, and up the stairs.

  So, what needed to be done? Christal studied the big hatch, her point of vulnerability. Shore it up? A thick wad of electrical cable had spilled out of one of the lockers Lymon had pulled open. This she dragged to the hatch, along with several lengths of metal conduit. She pulled out a drawer on one side and wedged the conduit behind the fire extinguisher bracket on the wall on the other. Then she used the electrical cable to lash the conduit across the hatch wheel so that it couldn’t be turned from the outside. Finally she took one of the chairs, cramming it under the wheel for additional bracing.

  Only then did she slip into the command chair and stare up at the monitors. Lymon and Sid were running full bore down a corridor listed as C Left on the screen.

  In the screen above them two guys in suits—security from the lounge—were running the opposite way in B Left.

  “I get it,” Christal whispered as she studied the screens. Each level of screens matched the different decks. She was watching figures on the left side, no doubt for the port side of the ship.

  She lifted the large microphone that rested to the side, and keyed it Anyone with a radio would overhear her. “Lymon? You there?”

  She watched him lift his radio. “Here!”

  “Bogies at twelve o’clock. B Deck.”

  He seemed to get it. “Roger.”

  In the right-hand monitor that covered C Deck, she could see Copperhead stepping out of the elevator before hurrying down the hallway and taking a right Christal watched the woman come to a stop right outside the security center hatch.

  “Knock, knock,” Christal said softly as she picked up the HK Compact, rocked the slide back to visually check the chamber, and let it slip back over the reassuring gleam of brass.

  April Hayes punched a short sequence into the lock plate, saw it gleam green, and tried to turn the wheel that would open the hatch.

  Christal watched the wheel move a couple of degrees before it bound tight on the electrical cable. In the monitor, April was straining against it, face in a grimace. Then she stepped back to raise her belt radio.

  “Oh, my,” Christal said sympathetically. “We just don’t look happy today, do we?”

  She glanced at the clock. They had forty minutes left. Time enough for everything to go terribly wrong.

  Sheela ate like she’d be
en away from food for days. The nurse, Asza, fiddled with the room service cart that had been delivered to the suite. Just inside the door, Achmed stood at ease, his ominous black HK submachine gun hanging from its sling. His face remained expressionless, eyes flat.

  As if I were some sort of threat! Sheela shook the thought off and continued cutting sections of steak into cubes before wolfing them. She had no idea what the future was going to bring, but the opportunity to eat couldn’t be turned down. Supper consisted of creamed corn, beef steak, mashed potatoes, and lobster tail.

  As she ate, she could feel herself coming alert again as her blood sugars began to rise. The last of the lethargy created by the anesthetic was wearing off. Still, she had a feeling of fatigue, as if the stress were nibbling at her bones. An unfamiliar tenderness lay deep within her belly. Aftereffects of the hormone shot?

  “Why are you involved in this?” she asked Asza.

  “I serve my family,” the woman told her evenly. “It is a great opportunity for me. Here I am valued, well paid, and I get to see so much of the world.”

  “Stealing other people’s souls is valued work?”

  Asza looked back quizzically. “I do not steal anyone’s soul.” She tapped her breast. “The soul is in here.”

  “What of the babies you plant in other women?”

  “Allah will give them each a soul of their own.” Asza lifted a spoon from one of the dishes on the cart. “Would you like some more corn?”

  “I want the hell out of here.” She indicated the guard. “What’s his purpose? To shoot me if I try to leave?”

  “He is here for your protection.”

  “Right.”

  She was considering testing the limits of her protection when her door opened and two men burst into the room. Sheela froze, her fork halfway to her mouth.

  “Get her up, and get her out of here!” the first, a tall blond man in an immaculate suit, ordered.

  “Just who do you think you are?” Sheela demanded as the second man—younger, brunette, with a handsome face—rounded the table, waved Asza aside, and grasped Sheela’s elbow.

  “Ms. Marks,” he said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut supper short.”