by Jon Land
“What happened?” she asked a butler standing just inside.
“It’s bad, miss, very bad,” he reported grimly. “She’s waiting for you. She wouldn’t let the doctor sedate her until she spoke with you.”
Then Nikki was sprinting up the wide, carpeted stairway. Locke followed. He could feel the tension and despair in the air mixing with the ancient rustic-ness of Kreuzenstein itself. They had reached the third floor when Nikki veered to her left down a corridor and entered what looked to be the master bedroom. Chris heard her muttering to herself as she approached a bed containing an old woman propped up on several pillows. A man was moving a stethoscope over her chest.
“You’re just in time,” the doctor reported softly.
“Is he here?” the old woman asked Nikki, grasping blindly for her hand.
Locke moved into the room, noting the woman’s ghastly pale face and empty stare. Obviously, she had been expecting him too, but why?
Chris stopped in his tracks, seized by a chilling realization of something both awful and incredible. His eyes fell on the woman in the bed just as Nikki’s voice reached him.
“She’s your mother,” Nikki said.
Chapter 30
LOCKE FLOATED, UNABLE TO move, barely managing to breathe. His whole body was tingling. He might have even passed out for an instant; he wasn’t sure. He just kept staring.
“Come closer,” the old woman beckoned him.
“You know who … I am?”
She managed a weak nod, the motion obviously a struggle for her. “And now you know who I am … or was.”
Locke did nothing but stand there.
“Stop dawdling and come closer,” the old woman ordered. “I’m in no condition to shout.”
Chris found his feet and shuffled forward, stopping just out of reach. He could see the bandages covering the old woman’s entire midsection. She looked so old and frail, such a contrast with the young and vibrant mother who sometimes came to him as a stranger in his dreams.
“I have little time, Chris,” the old woman muttered through dry, cracking lips. “None to spare on apologies or explanations. There is much you have to learn and none of it concerns personal things. The past must be put aside, if there is to be a future for anyone.”
Locke wanted to say something but there were still no words.
“It was all many years ago,” the old woman said, eyes drifting, voice fading. “If I had it to do again, I would have changed much, all perhaps. I loved your father, I truly did. But times were so different then. We all had our duty, and that duty had to come first. He understood that.”
“He never understood!” Was that his voice? Had he said that?
“It was not easy for me to leave him or you. And it was even harder never to contact you after my escape was complete.”
“They caught up with you at a farmhouse.”
“There was an escape runnel that was never discovered. For me the war was over, for Germany too. I knew it; others didn’t. I used the time to arrange for the requisition of funds. Years later, when the world was ready, that money gave birth to the Committee.”
“You were its founder,” Locke said.
“And only leader these many years.”
Chris looked at his mother, wanting to feel bitterness, hate, sadness, anxiety, even affection. But he felt nothing. He stood there transfixed, feeling overloaded. Too much was coming in too fast.
“We searched for methods of control,” Audra St. Clair said. “We sought from the beginning to succeed economically where the Nazis had failed militarily. We came close a few times—the oil embargo, the wave of international terrorism unsettling governments everywhere. But only with the latest operation did we see the opportunity to truly realize our goals.”
“Tantalus,” Locke muttered.
The old woman nodded weakly. “Food became our weapon. We would destroy America’s crops and dangle our own grapes beyond their reach.”
“And you used me to help you!” Chris charged. “From the very beginning you used me!”
“But the risks you faced were minimal.” The old woman’s dying eyes tilted toward Nikki. “Nikki was around to protect you. I had a brief love affair some years ago and from that she emerged. I was so grateful for the chance to have another child. Abandoning you had left a hole in my life.”
Locke felt his knees wobble. “Then she’s—”
“Your half sister.” She struggled for breath. “Weeks ago, when we learned of your involvement from our Washington representative and elected to … use you, I dispatched her to keep you alive. With Nikki in your shadow, I never feared for your safety. She’s quite good at what she does. I’ve made sure she’s had the best training available.”
“You turned her into a killer.”
“To survive, one becomes what one must.”
Chris shook his head. “You want me to accept all this but I won’t. I’ve seen too much, been scared too much these past weeks. My son, your grandson, had a finger chopped off and I couldn’t even stay long enough to comfort him when he came out of shock. Not that I would have known what to say. All of you seem the experts when it comes to explanations.”
Audra St. Clair’s eyes moistened. “That was Mandala’s work,” she said softly.
“So was this,” Locke told her, showing her his hand.
The old woman’s features squeezed together in anguish. “Retaining his services was the one mistake I made,” she said distantly. “But he was an expert in fields we needed covered. We hoped that through him we might avoid direct entanglements with authorities. He was our cover. The strategy seemed sound.”
“Because it allowed you to keep your hands clean of the blood he spilled,” Chris charged. His feelings confused him more than anything. He couldn’t look at the old woman as a stranger, yet she was nothing more. Anxiety knotted his stomach.
“No, you don’t understand,” St. Clair said. “It was never meant to be like this. Mandala exceeded his parameters. I should have put an end to it earlier. I should have known what was coming after the massacre.”
“San Sebastian …”
“It was the key to everything, but I didn’t see that in time. He killed an entire town acting totally on his own. He loved death; we knew that and accepted his actions. We still needed him, you see. Something else was involved, though, something he had to hide. He had done more than subvert Tantalus. He had remolded it to fit his own goals. He was out of control. We had given him the rope he needed to hang us.”
“And the United States.”
“More than just the U.S.,” the old woman said with a sudden burst of energy. “He’s after much more now, and you and Nikki are the only ones left who can stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“There are things you must hear about Tantalus before you can understand. Years of exhaustive and expensive research paid off some months ago with the discovery of a fungus that destroys all field crops in an amazingly short period of time. The fungus, through a toxin it produces, kills them almost on contact and is spread both through the air and the soil. It is swept over the earth remarkably fast by weather systems. If the jet stream cooperates, all American and Canadian crops would be affected within a week, dead within two at the outside.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Nothing can stop the fungus once it’s released. It’s unkillable, a perfect organism. It regenerates and multiplies at an incredible level. We developed it in a vacuum. It contains qualities literally not of this world. The only way to destroy it once the spoors are active would be to deny it a food supply, roughly a hundred square miles for every ounce released into the atmosphere.”
“Which explains why San Sebastian had to burn.”
“Exactly. But keep in mind what I said about the potency of one ounce and then consider that nearly one thousand canisters containing a hundred and twenty-eight gaseous ounces each are going to be released over the United States. The whole country would have to be burned to
destroy the fungus.”
“Over America,” Locke muttered. “The gas will be released by airplanes?”
“Cropdusters taking off from the center of the nation. A place in Texas called Keysar Flats. A chain will be set up through the country’s center. Each set of cropdusters will handle a hundred-mile segment, then land and pass the remains of their canisters over to the next set. The switching process will not take more than an hour. In the course of little more than a single day, then, the whole of America’s central portion, the nation’s breadbasket and Corn Belt, will be infected.”
“And the fungus will begin moving both east and west with weather patterns.”
The old woman nodded weakly.
“But Keysar Flats is the key. If we can stop Tantalus there, we can stop it altogether.”
The old woman was breathing hard now, her strength ebbing. She grasped the bedspread tight as if to hold on to life. The doctor hovered over her again, probing with stethoscope. She pushed him away.
“Not anymore,” she managed. “Our plan was merely to eliminate field crops in the U.S. and Canada. That didn’t suit Mandala. He has expanded the operation. Sunday is when the planes are scheduled to leave Keysar Flats. On Monday he will release the fungus in South America.”
“But the Committee owns those lands.”
“Mandala is not part of the Committee. We are a civilized body. Yes, our plan was to use genetic crop production to overcome the loss in the market caused by the destruction of crops across North America. The world would go on, but the United States and Soviet Union would be hostages to us.” The old woman lost her breath, snatched it back. “Chaos would reign throughout the U.S. but our crops would be the linchpins of order through the rest of the world. It was the beginning of a far deeper plan.”
Audra St. Clair hesitated as death reached out for her.
“With destruction of lands in South America, our order will disintegrate. Massive starvation will result. Economic chaos and upheaval will spread everywhere. We teeter on a tightrope. Mandala is going to push us off, even if that means spreading Tantalus … everywhere.”
“He could destroy the world,” Locke said.
The old woman nodded, face hardening. “But he can still be stopped. If North America can be saved, there is hope. His fleet of planes at Keysar Flats will be well protected but vulnerable to the right kind of attack.” St. Clair reached out and grasped Locke’s arm. He stiffened but didn’t pull away. “You and Nikki …” She was fighting for air every two or three words now. “… two of you must go there, go to Keysar Flats in Texas and find planes… . Destroy them before … contents of canisters … is released. Only sure way to kill fungus … is while it lies in inert state. Planes … must be burned, blown … up.”
“What about going to the American government for help?” Locke wondered. “They’d have to believe—”
“No!” the old woman ordered, fingers digging into his flesh. “Mandala’s people everywhere. Government channels too open, take too much time to clear. Might … be walking right into him. Can’t take risk. No time.”
Audra St. Clair started to rasp horribly. The doctor started to herd the others out of the room.
“No,” she commanded him in a voice that was barely a whisper, “not yet.” Back to Locke now. “Mandala’s dangerous. Avoid him at all costs. Avoid his giant.” Her eyes dipped in and out of consciousness. She was rambling. “Bullets … can’t … kill him.”
Locke shuddered. “He’s the one who broke my fingers. I shot him six times. Six times and he kept coming!”
“Thanks to space-age steel, not magic” came a voice from the doorway.
Locke turned and saw Dogan. “Ross!”
“It’s good to see you, Chris, and quite a surprise.”
Audra St. Clair’s eyes wandered. “Grendel? Here? Alive?”
Dogan stepped forward. “I’m here, Madame St. Clair, and I’m very much alive.”
She looked up at Locke. “Tell him everything I told you. He’ll know what to do. He’ll know … how to stop Mandala… .”
The old woman’s voice tailed off and she slumped forward. The doctor rushed over and checked her eyes and pulse.
“She’s alive,” he announced grimly. “But it won’t be long now.”
Chris looked over at Nikki and noticed her tears for the first time. She was holding the old woman’s hand tenderly. So many questions had been answered now, so much was clear. Nikki was his half sister! No wonder she looked so familiar to him. No wonder—
Dogan’s hand grasped his shoulder, lifting him from his daze.
“Let’s go downstairs and sort this thing out.”
Locke started to follow him from the room. Nikki let go of her mother’s hand.
“I thought you’d want … to stay with her,” Chris said.
“You heard her last orders. My place is with you.” Then, toward Dogan: “And him.”
“Meet my guardian angel, Ross, and my … sister.”
Then everything fell into place for Dogan. “The old woman’s your mother, isn’t she?” he asked softly.
Locke just nodded.
In the downstairs study, the three of them were met by a large, dark man with a black eyepatch. Both Locke and Nikki noticed a number of armed men standing around the perimeter of the semicircular drive before the castle.
“This is Masvidal,” Dogan said, “who has graciously agreed to lend us his firepower.”
“It must have been his people I saved you from in London,” Nikki explained, “the ones who sent the old hag to take you out later in Liechtenstein.”
“All that’s in the past,” Dogan cut in before Locke could respond. “We’re all together now and that’s the only way we can win. First I want to hear everything Audra St. Clair told you.”
Chris related her words as best he could with Nikki adding elaboration on several key points.
“My God!” Dogan said at the end. He thought of the vague accusations of the woman in the shack before he killed her. She had been there to stand guard over the next phase of Mandala’s operation. “Mandala’s going back to San Sebastian.”
“And taking his Chinese monster along, no doubt,” Chris added. “What was it you said about space-age steel?”
“Our scientists—and others obviously—have been experimenting for years with a thin but virtually impenetrable alloy that can be molded to fit the body of a man. It would protect him from any shot other than a direct hit to the head or neck. This man Shang must make that kind of steel underlayer a regular part of his wardrobe.” Dogan paused tensely. “But Mandala’s our problem now.”
Minutes later they were inspecting a map of Texas. They saw that Keysar Flats covered a surprisingly large patch.
“Christ”—Chris moaned—“it’s the size of Rhode Island.”
Keysar Flats was located in northern Texas, nearly two hundred miles east of Lubbock off Route 82. The North Wichita River was its central landmark.
“Those cropdusters won’t be easy to find,” Locke persisted.
“You’ll have help,” Dogan promised, and his eyes moved from the map to Masvidal. “How many men can you get to Texas?”
“Given two days, between a hundred and twenty-five and a hundred and fifty.”
“Equipment and weapons?”
“I’ll have them brought up through Mexico. A few helicopters should be easy to get. They should make the search for the planes far simpler.”
“I’ll say,” Locke noted. “It’ll be damned impossible otherwise.”
“You’ll need lots of explosives too,” Dogan told Masvidal.
The head of SAS-Ultra smiled. “My specialty.”
“How did you find us here?” Locke asked Dogan, who gave him a brief review of what he had learned in San Sebastian and from Vaslov.
“The Committee’s planners are out of the way for good,” he said at the end. “Mandala’s the only thing we have to concern ourselves with.” He looked at Locke closely. “Chr
is, you and Nikki will go straight from here on the fastest route to Texas. We’ll have to come up with a rendezvous point for you to link up with Masvidal in or near Keysar Flats on …” He looked to the one-eyed man for the answer.
Masvidal calculated briefly. “I’ll have to gather the men together at my base in Spain and leave en masse. Say Saturday afternoon.”
“The operation is scheduled to begin sometime Sunday,” Locke reminded him. “That doesn’t give us much time.”
“We won’t need much,” Masvidal said. “I have been waiting for years for the chance to destroy my greatest enemy.”
“Then we’re all agreed so far,” Dogan concluded.
“Sure, boss,” Locke snapped sarcastically, “except what am I supposed to do about my son?”
“I don’t know what—”
“Mandala wanted some answers from me back in Rome. He thought showing me one of the boy’s fingers might do the trick.” Chris steadied himself, backed off. “Nikki stashed him with a doctor in Devon.”
Dogan turned to Nikki.
“I’ve used him in the past,” she explained. “Just me. Mandala doesn’t even know he exists.”
Dogan looked back at Locke. “Then your son’s safer where he is for now. When this is over, the U.S. government will fly him home in Air Force One.”
“Unless we fail and there’s no one left to make the reservation.”
“We won’t fail, Chris. We can’t.”
“I’m going after Mandala,” Nikki said suddenly. “No trips to Texas on my agenda.”
“So you’ll leave Chris to make it there on his own?”
She hesitated at that. “You saw what the bastard did to my mother. I owe him.”
“And I’m the only one who can find him,” Dogan told her. “But he won’t be in Texas; that part of the operation has been planned like clockwork all along. It can easily proceed without him. Mandala will be in South America preparing to get the second stage of his plan underway.”