by John Walters
Leaving the equipment behind, he struck out across the hills towards the highway.
Chapter 14
The Enemy’s Face
After Chuck Townsend had jumped the train to escape from Finwinkle he’d gone to Nagpur; he had taken rickshaw after rickshaw, run through crowded markets, gone in the front door and out the back door of restaurants, crept through dirty alleys and back streets and shanty towns; then he’d detoured down to Hyderabad and had made the same evasive maneuvers; and finally when he was confident that he wasn’t being followed, he went to Pune and on to Bombay.
In the midst of the tightly-packed crowd surging towards the exits at the train station, he heard a voice. “Who is it? Who’s there? I feel someone.”
“It’s me, Chuck Townsend. Who are you?”
“My name is Jasmine.”
“Jasmine?” Chuck almost lost his balance and fell over; he would have been trampled by the multitudes of passengers and coolies. “I’m looking for a couple named Jason and Jasmine.”
“Jason is in Goa. How do you know our names?”
“From someone named Paul. He sent me to find you. He said he met you in Nepal.”
“Paul! Where is he? Is he all right?”
“So you are Paul’s Jasmine?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Paul’s in trouble. He sent me to find you. He said it was a rescue mission. See, there was this woman, a Vietnamese woman actually, and I was in Afghanistan, and…”
“It sounds like quite a story, Chuck. Why don’t I give you directions how to find me, and you can relax and tell me everything. Some of us are leaving for Goa in the morning by boat; you can come with us and meet Jason, too. Is that all right with you?”
“Sure, sure. But there’s not much time. Paul needs help.”
“We’ll do what we can. I promise.”
* * *
On the fifth floor of the Hotel Intercontinental near the Gateway to India, Finwinkle stared out the window at the dirty waters of Bombay Harbor while an Indian woman in a red and black sari studied a gridded map on a computer screen. “Townsend’s position has stabilized,” she said. “He’s near Anjuna Beach in Goa. He’s been there for over a day.”
“Such a naïve idiot,” Finwinkle said. “He thought that by running away like that he could give us the slip. To the opposite: he couldn’t have done better. All those evasive tactics gave him the confidence that he was safe, so he led us right to them. Just to be sure, send a couple of people to check out the location.”
“There’s a team in Goa now.”
“Are they already implanted?”
“Yes.”
“Good. But tell them to be discreet. We don’t want to give ourselves away yet. I’m sure this is it; we’ve got them this time. We need to move quickly before they disperse. How many men do we have in the area?”
She tapped a few buttons; pinpoints of light filled the screen. “Twenty-six in Western India; all implanted and on line.”
“Order them to Panjim. Arrange accommodation and weapons. This will be a mission of eradication. You and I will leave as soon as we get word from the scouting team.”
* * *
It smelled musty, like the inside of a doghouse or a cage in a zoo. Corridors led off in three directions; they were illuminated by dim red lights that barely provided visibility. The silence was not quite complete; there were muffled clicks and hums and shufflings and scrapings.
Paul turned and tried to call back the elevator, but the panel seemed to be locked.
He turned again. No one was in sight. He sensed a presence somewhat like the shadows that had pursued him in Nepal, but different and definitely malevolent. He wondered why he had been left alone. A picture came to him of Theseus in the Cretan labyrinth; he wondered what form the Minotaur would take.
He followed the central corridor; it was slightly wider than his outstretched arms and barely higher than he was. It sloped downward, and was not straight, but wound back and forth like the writhing path of a snake. The ceiling and walls were of a smooth material like plastic or Teflon; the floor was softer, as if it was covered with a layer of thin foam rubber.
Eventually he entered a small circular chamber. To his right were several desk-like stone surfaces covered with electronic instruments on which dim red, orange, pink, and yellow lights blinked in seemingly random patterns; to his left was a chair like the interrogation chair he’d been strapped in by Fraser. “Not again,” he whispered.
“Good evening,” a rasping voice behind him said.
It resembled a man, except it was a head taller than Paul. It had short dark hair and small off-white pink-edged eyes that did not quite seem to focus properly, and wore a gray business suit similar to Finwinkle’s. To Paul the appearance seemed to be a facade; another and quite different image was just beyond vision, like a dream that upon awakening has faded from memory.
“Mr. Traven,” it said. “We meet at last.” The sounds whistled through gaps between its teeth like wind whistles through cracks in a window. Noticing Paul’s shock, it added, “Is something wrong? Ah. You expected that I would have a somewhat different appearance. No. The surgery was most thorough.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Furen,” it said. “It was I who ordered you brought here. Finwinkle and Fraser are in my employ.”
“Why me? What do you want?”
“Surely you must have some idea by now. You have something that we need, something that I have been trying to obtain for a long time. You found it by accident, or perhaps it was not accident. One aspect of this situation I still do not understand: why Jason and Jasmine were following you. But the rest of it is coming clear. Shortly after you met them you found out you had the power of extra sensory perception, to be able to mentally communicate with others. I am very much in need of this power. When we first came across the Ahana, instead of subjugating them, which is our usual practice, we decided to destroy them, because we feared this power. We infected them with a virus that would exterminate their race, only to later regret our haste when we realized what a splendid weapon such a power would be. Since then we have been doing research on the survivors, or lingerers, I might say, because eventually the plague should catch up with them; it is very efficient. You though, are an anomaly that we discovered by accident; you are the first human we’ve managed to isolate to whom this power has passed. This makes you a more important subject of research than even the Ahana themselves. This proves the power can be learned or acquired.”
The Furen took a step forward, and Paul took a step back. “I don’t know how it happened,” Paul said.
“I am aware of that. I have studied every word you have spoken and watched every video that has been made of you since you arrived. Two conditions seem to be important: proximity to the Ahana, or possibly to someone else who has the power, and some kind of stimulus that can open a door to transmit the power from mind to mind. I must have this power and I will do anything to get it. I have brought you here so I can be close to you, physically close. I suggest that you try to get through to me psychically, because if we don’t succeed this way, and soon, we will have to take more drastic measures.”
“What measures?”
“Use your imagination for now. Perhaps great fear, great pain. Trauma often causes a shift in mental attitude. You must cooperate, Mr. Traven. It will be by far the easiest way.”
“I don’t know how to help you.”
“I know. But I will study you and a solution will be found. Though the ability to use this particular psychic power has eluded us, we have the accumulated knowledge of many civilizations, including your own.”
He gestured towards the instruments. “This is the center of our operations here on Earth.” He placed his palm on a throbbing beige rectangle of light; a world map outlined in red and covered with orange dots filled one wall. “The larger dots are Furen outposts like this. The smaller dots represent our employees, your people, but controlled by us; all are
in key positions in politics, economics, the media, the military. I can track them, I can listen to their conversations, I can control them to some degree through stimulation of their nervous systems; but it’s not enough. I want to know what they are thinking; I want to be inside their minds.”
“I won’t help you.”
“That is of little importance. Why don’t you sit down and we will begin. Ahh… There is only one chair; I believe you have used it before.”
* * *
The probe was not only the size of a mosquito but looked like one too, in case it should be detected. It had 360-degree vision, a powerful audio pickup, the ability to gauge minute temperature changes such as indicate emotional stress, sensors to analyze the composition of surrounding materials, and many other more subtle instruments. When it reached the compound it circled around the periphery, then began a building-to-building search. It lingered long in Paul’s room, skimming close to the bed, the table, the window, the bathroom, before it slipped under the door and followed the distinct trail across the clearing to the main building, down the hall to the cabinet that concealed the elevator door. It paused, backtracked, and did a room-to-room study of the ground floor, then upstairs, analyzing each inhabitant. It returned and flew behind the cabinet, through the minute crack between the two sides of the sliding elevator door, down the dark shaft and through the door at the bottom, and along the dimly-lit red corridor, finally to hover silently in the small chamber.
“My strength is enhanced to many times that of yours, so it is futile to resist. I would only have to damage you, and I would prefer not to.” It grabbed Paul, forced him to sit, then bound his wrists and ankles to the chair. “That’s right,” the Furen said. He tightened leather straps around Paul’s forehead and chest. “We’re ready,” he said.
“I’ll cooperate,” Paul said. “You don’t have to do this.”
“At this point I don’t care whether you cooperate or not.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I have told you, and if you were able to freely give it I am sure you would have done so by now. But you do not have the ability to consciously pass on this power, so I must try to take it for myself. Now… What stimulus opened a channel for Jason to transmit the power to you? It was a drug: lysergic acid diethylamide, a strong hallucinogen, often used by your young people for recreational purposes. But as I understand, you took too much of it, far too much, and started to lose control of your mind, and as you did, the barriers between your two minds dissolved and you involuntarily absorbed the power. I believe you told Finwinkle you took four times the usual dosage. I have had my laboratory prepare two hundred doses, should that many be necessary. During the actual power exchange I myself will take a trace amount to stimulate the interaction.”
The Furen uncapped a hypodermic syringe and jabbed Paul’s arm. “It works faster this way,” it said. “I haven’t much time. During this first session I am only giving you a single dose so I can monitor your physical reactions and establish a base line.” After attaching wires to various points of Paul’s anatomy, it shifted its attention to the monitors and flickering lights on the stone tables.
Paul groaned as he felt the first nauseating surge in his stomach as the drug took effect. The room shimmered…
Chapter 15
Visions
Sunny awakened in semi-darkness. Outside in the hallway, beyond the drawn curtains, she could hear voices and footsteps; inside, the three women who shared the room with her were asleep on their cots, wrapped in sleeping bags and blankets. Their clothes were draped on chairs, and toiletries, books, and odds and ends of cheap souvenirs were stacked on the table.
Since the tantalizing summons to Goa had stopped, she had lingered in Tehran. She felt the urgency to proceed to India, but at the same time something she couldn’t quite grasp held her. Paul must have passed through; probably he had stayed at the same hotel. Why had he vanished so suddenly? She kept getting pictures of him there at the Amir Kabir, but whenever she did, he was not alone. The other presences with him reminded her of the people who had met her uncle in Athens: dark-spirited, stealthy, like carnivores stalking prey. And she kept thinking of Persian carpets. Why?
She pulled on her jacket and left the hotel. It was raining, as it had been since she had arrived. The wide gutters on the roadsides were full of murky water, swift-flowing around garbage and other debris. Because of the weather no tourists were walking about, so she was the only woman in a city of men. Dark eyes furtively stared at her as she passed as if she were an alien on a planet that was not hers; she was anathema, an outcast, an untouchable that at the same time they desired to touch, and so they hated her all the more. The hostility she felt was similar to the malevolence of the dark shadows that searched for her, but not exactly the same. Here, she was an intruder in a forbidden realm, or rather, in a place that they would like to be forbidden to her but was not, and they resented the fact that it was not. She was not a gazelle being stalked by a lion but merely an irritation, an affront.
Entering the Grand Bazaar was like entering a vast concrete cavern with passageways leading in all directions, and every direction led to carpets. They were hung from every wall and covered every floor and lay one upon another in high stacks. In every shop on every side bearded men huddled together, speaking softly in Farsi, sipping coffee. When they sensed her presence they would pause, stare at her as she passed, then resume their whispering but with more intensity. On and on she went, deeper and deeper into the maze, until she was uncertain that she could find her way out.
Then she paused at an intersection of corridors, and looked around. In the back of a small shop, surrounded by carpets of intricate design in indigo and gold, rust-red and ochre and brown, black and purple and every shade of blue, sat a young man with curly black hair and a black beard. Her eyes met his, and she realized that he had led her there. Perhaps he had had no intention of doing so; perhaps she had followed the trail of his consciousness as a bloodhound follows its quarry, by the lingering traces left behind in passing.
She had never spoken to anyone with what Paul had called the inner voice, but now she tried. “Who are you?”
No response.
“Can you hear me? Do you speak English?”
A picture of her three roommates sleeping at the Amir Kabir.
“How did you do that?”
He still didn’t answer. Instead, she saw in her mind a replay of her walk to the Grand Bazaar and her circuitous route through the myriad passageways to the shop.
“You’re projecting visions, aren’t you?”
A picture of Paul, then of the dark-spirited men who had been with him at the hotel. Then… The picture snapped off suddenly, like a television whose plug has been pulled. The young man’s eyes shifted sideways.
“Can I help you, miss?” Another man had approached quietly. His lips were fixed open in an oval shape that was supposed to approximate a smile; his teeth were various shades of beige, yellow, and gray. He was short, plump, and balding, dressed in traditional baggy pants and tunic, with jewel-studded gold rings on most of his short fat fingers. “I am Mohammed Abdul Khan. I have the finest carpets,” he said. “And the best prices too. You can do nothing better than to buy from me.”
Sunny turned from the newcomer to the young man, and back to the newcomer.
“You cannot speak to him,” the carpet seller said. “He does not speak English, or even Farsi. He cannot speak at all. He is, as you say, deaf and dumb. He works for me. He weaves carpets.”
Realizing she had to maintain protocol, she answered, “The carpets are indeed beautiful.”
Somehow it seemed he never broke his smile even when he talked, as if it was wired in place. “Beautiful, yes. Take this one, for example…” He led her from one to the other, pointing out the patterns and the colors and the fineness of the materials and the reasonableness of the prices. “But down the hall, in my other shop, the carpets are even more elegant. Let me show you.”
She hesitated, then saw a picture of him grabbing her and forcing her to the floor and trying to tear off her clothes.
“Well… Thank you, Mr. Khan, for your generous offer, but I need to be going…”
“You have come such a long way…” The oval smile elongated. “It would be a shame to lose this opportunity.” He lowered his voice. “The Shah has many enemies here in the Bazaar, and the enemies of the Shah are the enemies of the West as well. They conspire in their offices as they drink their coffee; they smuggle anti-government speeches on audio cassettes from outside and pass them from hand to hand. Many would resent your presence here, but I am your friend.”
She saw the picture of a serpent, the head of which melted, re-formed, and became his face.