by Tony Bulmer
Irving King turned and stood at the picture window of his penthouse eerie, master of all he surveyed. Far below him, the glistening lights of distant humanity pulsed with the feeble energy of a world on the verge of extinction. He pressed the push button handset once more and the tortured face of Lauren Whitaker disappeared, replaced instead by the sharp, angular head of Zhàn Tao. King turned, and looked into the cruel eyes staring down at him. “You caught all that?” he asked.
Zhàn Tao did not reply. Instead he said, “When he is no longer useful, he will be eliminated.” The screen went suddenly dead, the glowering face replaced by a burst of digital static, then a pause, before an animated spread sheet of global stock prices rolled in to replace it. King didn’t bother to look at the screens. He already knew which way the market was headed. He turned away, staring out over the fragile glittering streets of Manhattan. Very soon the new future of mankind would be here, a new beginning for the world and he, Irving King would be master of it all.
35
Mumbai, India
The dark corridor stretched away into the distance. Karyn Kane marched resolutely into the advancing darkness, her SIG 229 raised before her. She burst through one set of fire doors, then another. Taking turns with Jack Senegar to cover the dark void that lay in front of them. The gunfire was coming faster and more intense now, burst after deadly burst, merging into a hammering cacophony of death.
The crazed intensity of the scene pressed in hard. Office staff fleeing for their lives, grim faced detectives running into the melee. But where was the attack coming from? The sound of gunfire was bouncing in from all directions, the signature clatter of AK-47s, mixed in with the guttural bark of heavy caliber machine guns. Karyn paused in the blood-tinged gloom, allowing her internal compass to guide her. Her CIA training had taught her to assess each and every new building she entered, as though she was moving into a combat situation. She was no stranger to frontline combat. Her long years at the office of Naval Intelligence irregular warfare centre had thrown her into more firefight situations than most. Working as a command and control liaison for DEVGRU, the Navy sent her to the bad places, the dark places. Naval protocol dictated that women could never join the SEALS, but as a lieutenant commander in ONI her status went beyond black operations—she worked the deep black gigs, the kind of missions no one could ever find out about. But the ghosts of the seventh floor knew. The dark men and women at Langley—the controllers of the National Clandestine Service’s Deep-Five Division—the sentinels of fear and retribution—hovering guardians and executioners, who controlled their plays across a global chess board, securing the future of the greater American good. They had co-opted her. There had been no choice, only duty and a commitment to the values of righteousness. She had been ready then and she was ready now—more than ready and as she slid down the corridor almost spectral in the fetid gloom, she felt a surge of anger rising within her—not the heady impulsive kind of anger—a cold, calculating form of anger, instilled from years of covert warfare. Evil was close. The bad men were here, the servants of the ideologues who would shroud the world in a new darkness. They would not succeed—they could not succeed, she would not allow it—not at any price.
A sudden burst of gunfire exploded through the wall, heavy .50 caliber rounds popping fist sized holes through the stonework and exiting the other side of the corridor in a shower of exploding glass. The heavy shells pounded past, taking out windows, doors and ancient brickwork in an explosion of burning shrapnel. Karyn stepped behind a supporting pillar, holding her SIG in the twelve o’clock position. She drew a breath, holding it until the fusillade of death had passed. Jack Senegar barely paused. He flicked dust off the sleeve of his coat and moved onwards—immaculate, soundless, moving towards the very heart of the battle. The lights flickered blood-red and black, Senegar’s hard, face stood out momentarily against the fearsome shadows, he looked cruel and dangerous, the beast from the depths, risen once more into the world of man.
He glanced at her for a three count then kicked open swing through fire door that stood before him; as the doors flipped open a black figure with an assault rifle surged forwards and loosed off a long burst on full-auto. Hot bullets rattled past, cutting away everything before them. Karyn stepped out from behind the pillar and snapped off two quick shots. The deathly deuce caught the gunman between his nose and top lip, one round right on top of the other. The power of the point-blank impact almost took his head off. He sagged backwards as death spasmed through him, trigger finger clamped down on his rearing machinegun. A hail of bullets racked wildly through the ceiling, as the double-depth banana magazine cycled dry.
A carpet of smoking cartridge cases glittered and rolled across the debris strewn floor. Karyn stepped through the door into an echoing stairwell, Jack Senegar moving close to her shoulder. She took a quick glance over the stair rail and a hot blast of bullets yammered past her face. She sank back, moving into the shadows, as thick flakes of broken ceiling plaster rained down.
Inching along the bullet-pocked wall, the building plan flipped through Karyn’s mind. She ran the angles. After the frontal assault, the terrorists would be looking to take hostages, plant explosives and create a media-blitz finale of meaningless martyrdom. They had pulled the routine countless times before, in cities across the world. How many times had they succeeded? How many times had they machine-gunned innocents and blasted apart the freedoms of the many to satisfy the lust of their maniacal hate-filled ideology? Karyn ground her teeth. This time, those bomb happy creeps would be heading for Hades in a handcart, damned for all eternity under a tide of innocent blood.
Karyn circled the stairwell landing. As she reached the edge of the stairs there was a blinding flash, followed by concussive blast. The power of the explosion lifted her off her feet and smashed her against the bullet-pocked wall. The impact took her breath away, sent her sliding for the floor. Lying back against the baseboard, she shook away the blast wave aftermath and coiled into a defensive pose. The pressure of the blast had her head buzzing, a thousand manic insects drowning out the world in a hellish cacophony.
Light strobed through the darkness.
Jack Senegar at the rail, unleashing a furious blaze of gunfire into the darkened stairwell.
She could barely hear the return salvo, but she could feel it. The bullets came rattling up from the dark abyss, bouncing, ricocheting around the concrete stairwell, like killer hornets craving the taste of blood. Sparks blasted through the darkness as the high velocity rounds tore into the metal balustrade, showering the landing with fragments of molten shrapnel.
Karyn didn’t wait for the white-hot fragments to settle, she was already on her feet, bounding down the stairs towards the next landing, impervious to the maelstrom of terror that was spinning around her. She came upon another gunman right away. He wasn’t expecting to see anyone, let alone some firebrand woman moving in for the kill. The shock gave him pause. Karyn double tapped him in the sternum, then swung her elbow up hard and fast, and caught him a savage blow under the chin. His head snapped back sending him toppling, into his crowding compadres. They tried to field the falling corpse, but it was the last thing they ever saw. Karyn popped the first one in the side of the head, felt gore and cranial matter, splash across her knuckles. Fielder #2 tried to angle his weapon towards her, but he was wayyyy to slow for that. She gave him two simultaneous shots under the left eye and he went down with his buddies, all three hitting the dirt together.
Now, Jack Senegar was at her side once more. He threw her a quick look. She angled her eyes downwards, communicating soundlessly with a single glance. Senegar forged past, moving into the next stairwell. He moved decisively, cranking the hurt on full-auto courtesy of a Mec-Gar extended mag’ jacked into his weapon. An arc of flame reached from the barrel of his Beretta. Total chaos ensued—wild gunfire, the acrid smell of burning plastic filtering up from below. The hot stench was unmistakable—the building was on fire and the electronic sprinkler system had no
chance of saving it—the EMP detonation had fried everything.
The roar of explosions echoed up from the darkness.
The bad men were down there. Who knew how many.
Karyn took the lead. They moved down to the next landing. The emergency lights were out. Everything was midnight black. Moving forward, her SIG held high, Karyn negotiated the corpse-ridden darkness with care. The floor was sticky with gore. The soles of her boots clung to the mess. She felt the crunch of free-rolling cartridge cases laying ready to betray her presence. She moved careful—real careful. The stench of evisceration hung in the air like a curse. She inched forwards and the emergency lights suddenly flickered back on.
Outlined on the corner of the next landing, a hooded figure rose up. There was almost no time to react. Karyn swung her gun arm across her body she loosed off a quick-fire salvo. There was no time think, no time to aim; she just followed through, spinning across the landing, moving for a low finish, where she could fire again from a half-crouch.
A hiss and a gargantuan roar, followed by a choking vapor cloud that filled every part of the narrow stairwell.
RPG. Rocket propelled grenade.
The crouching figure had a shoulder-mounted launcher aimed directly at her. He didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger just as soon as he saw them.
There was no time left for anything.
The rush of explosive gasses came at them like an express train.
It was like every last molecule of air had been sucked out of the world. Karyn’s lungs burned as the toxic cloud hit. But she knew what was coming next, and her forearms were already pressing hard across her ears; her jaw hanging loose, to allow the concussive shockwave that was coming to pass through and out her skull, without blasting her head apart.
The rocket tore past her face. The burn from the exhaust so compressed in the tight stairwell it felt like a wall of furnace heat surging through her in a molten wave. It was the last thought she had before the blast hit.
The power of the explosion caught her in its grip and flung her down the stairs. She hit the dude with the rocket launcher chest-to-chest smoke, rubble and brick dust closing in around them.
Hard, brutal fingers clutched for Karyn’s neck, they connected, squeezing tight. The thick calloused hands were like sandpaper; they gripped tight, tearing at her flesh. She grasped one of the fingers, pried it back then twisted hard. She felt the bone snap but she couldn’t hear it. The insectoid buzzing in her ears had reached a crescendo of white noise. She kept hold of the finger and twisted it mercilessly. Her attacker cringed away, desperately trying to compensate. He switched his grip, clutching for her face in a vicious attempt to gouge her eyes. She writhed back. Clubbed him brutally with her SIG. The gouging grip slackened off, but he was rolling now, like a crazed alligator on the verge of a kill. She was just too close to him to gain leverage, and the force of the blast had left her weak—her attacker wrassled her onto her back—quickly pinning her against the floor with his legs. In the swirling smoke haze, she glimpsed his crazed eyes burning with pure hate. He clutched at her neck, pinning her, whilst his arm swung back like a hammer, a heavy chunk of masonry clutched tight in his thick, calloused fingers. He was going to club her face to pulp—he was going to—
She pressed the SIG in close under his ribs and shot him point blank—again and again until every last round was gone. He hung there for a long moment, rearing above her, as every synapse in his body short-circuited in unison. The rock fell slow from his fingers and bounced down the stairs.
Karyn rolled free, gave the toppling corpse a savaged kick and watched it slide into oblivion through the broken metal balustrade. She scrabbled backwards on her ass and suddenly became aware of a presence looming over her. She turned quick, her empty gun held impotently before her.
Jack Senegar stared down at her, a twitch of something that could almost have been an emotion flickering very briefly at the corner of his mouth. The twitch disappeared just as soon as it had arrived. He snapped a fresh Mec-Gar magazine into his Beretta and jacked a shell into the breech. “I would offer you a hand up Kane, but you got a thing about help, don’t you?”
Karyn pulled a sour face and flipped on to her feet. She brushed down her jacket and popped the empty mag out of her SIG.
Senegar drew back his coat revealing an array of extended magazines hanging from his shoulder holster. “You need one of these?”
He was real close to her now in the bloody half-light. Karyn stared into the cold-grey eyes, scrutinizing her like he was about to reveal some all-encompassing truth. She pursed her lips very slightly and reached out one of her own .40 cal. Mags. She snapped it into her weapon with lightening speed.
He had been standing behind her the whole time—
He could have taken out her attacker any time he wanted—
But he chose not to—
Maybe the smoke clouded his line of sight?
Maybe he couldn’t get a shot off for fear of hitting her?
—Or just maybe… Karyn frowned hard. No. The other possibility didn’t bear thinking about. She cocked her weapon, raised an eyebrow fractionally and said, “You are a real piece of work aren’t you Jack?”
He snorted with contempt. “Are we going to do this thing, or just hang out here shooting the breeze?”
Karyn didn’t answer. She was already heading down the twisting stairwell, moving quickly towards the sound of encroaching gunfire. Every instinct she had was screaming danger. The terror attack was beyond anything she had ever encountered—a watershed moment for the whole of mankind. Karyn ground her teeth with savage determination. She had no doubt she would come through this mess, but come through it to what end? Now that the dark powers of extremism had finally gotten their hands on a weapon that could draw the world back into the stone age, what kind of future could be left for mankind? Sure, there was only one bomb left. But what the hell would those maniacs do with it? Blow up another city? Or gift the bomb to some semi-mechanized terror state, where maniacs without scruples would replicate the EMP weapon endlessly, fashioning hundreds of new terror bombs, to breed death across the entire planet.
Karyn was moving fast now her SIG ready to take out anything that moved. She used the balustrade to speed her progress. Every landing they hit, Jack Senegar leaned over the rail and squeezed out a hot burst of death to herald their advance.
At the bottom of the stairwell they found a graveyard of wreckage and broken corpses. They battled their way through the carnage before finally, the top corner of an emergency exit door became visible. With much difficulty, Karyn managed to slide in behind the push-bar door release. She waited a five count until Jack Senegar was in place beside her then gave him a silent signal to go on three.
She kicked open the door, then surged forwards in a fast moving tactical stance, her SIG held ready for the go.
A scene of devastation opened up before her, the lobby of Maharashtra police headquarters decimated by a furious firefight. But there was no gunfire now, just a resounding wind blown silence that filtered the sound of rain blowing in, from the wilds of the monsoon night. Every window was gone. Every bullet-riddled wall wracked by death. A forest of lights, harsh and blinding, reached out towards her from every corner of this eerie world.
Karyn scanned the room; her eyes narrow against the glare. She couldn’t see the laser sights, but she knew they were there, every one of them focusing in on her target chakras, like she was some kind of practice range piñata.
It was over.
She moved super slow, easing her hands apart until her fingers were level with her ears. She let the SIG drift slowly around her finger, the barrel of the weapon angling harmlessly towards the bullet-pocked ceiling.
Then Jack Senegar stepped out behind her, the sharp sound of broken glass grinding beneath his leather-soled shoes.
Time hung still.
The world shuddered—then stopped.
36
The Faz Huq Villa, Islamabad Pakistan
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It was night. The breeze filtered in through the window screens, bringing with it the screeching calls of alien birds and the soft scent of jasmine. Thin curtains wafted like organza in the soft air. Lauren Whitaker lay on the palatial bed, the humid sheets coiling around her. She was alone, but the sounds and smells of the encroaching night warned her that at any moment monsters would be upon her. The world outside was thick and vast, stretching away into the endless night. The humidity closed in, squeezing the darkness ever more tightly around her.
Lauren pulled the thin, soiled sheet up over her breasts and gnawed anxiously at her bottom lip. Night was no longer a time for sleep—it was a time for dark uncertainty. Where was she? How had she gotten here? She didn’t really know the answer to either of those questions. But one thing was for damn sure, her kidnappers had drugged her and spirited her out of China, with consummate skill.
The soft breeze rolled through the window screens once again, bringing with it stories of the mountains—glacial vistas, towering peaks and the freedom of a time long past. But the stories danced away just as quickly as they arrived, replaced by thick, humid horror of the lowland heat and the terror of the men with guns. The men were all around—dark-faced bearded men, with black turbans. They lounged outside the summerhouse, their garbled conversation rising guttural and insistent, through the thin-shuttered windows; every word was accompanied by animal stares, every gaze a dark, fearful glance into the psyche of pure hatred.
They walked the orchard too, carrying their trophy guns with curved magazines, striding amongst the trees like they were rulers of world. The men in the orchard were jumpy and vigilant, their thin emaciated faces ever watchful. They patrolled endlessly, by day and night and as they walked, their attention was often drawn to the sky; looking up into the monsoon grey clouds, as though some divine secret was coming their way. During the days, Lauren sat and watched the men as they passed by the window. Sometimes, a convoy of battered Toyota land cruisers raced along the dirt track out front of the summerhouse, over-loaded with heavily armed gunmen. But night shrouded everything. Sitting there on the bed, Lauren imagined that it was almost possible, if she tried hard enough, to imagine that this was all a horrible dream; that she would wake up in the Hamptons—or Miami. But looking up at the vast mountain range that dominated the skyline it was far easier to think of a late summer morning at her ski-lodge outside Denver Colorado. How many houses she did she have? It was difficult to keep track—at last count, seven at least. It was a constant and ongoing task to manage the upkeep of so many homes—cleaners, gardeners, drivers, cooks and interior decorators. The payroll bill alone was astonishing. And then there were the assorted managers, coordinators and facilitators, all of them engaged to make sure that the fabulous world of property ownership went smoothly. Now all that was gone—eternally distant—consumed by another world. Perhaps she would never again see that land of easy privilege. And what of her husband, the valiant Truman; where was he? Alive? Dead? Fighting to secure her release?