The Facts Of Death

by Raymond Benson

  With that, he placed his hand on the timer switch.

  “Wait!” It was Hera. She was pointing a handgun at Romanos. Bond recognized it as the Daewoo he had seen her use before. Five of the armed guards aimed their weapons at the other guards. Melina Papas stood away from General Georgiou and the others.

  Romanos was confused. “Number Two?”

  “The gods have given me orders too, Konstantine. The Decada has benefited greatly from your leadership. You supplied us with money, equipment, contacts, and a plan to make ourselves heard round the world. But as Pythagoras himself knew, it was possible that some followers might have other plans. Your leadership ends here, Konstantine. You are no longer the Monad. The True Decada is born here and now.”

  “Hera, you fool, what are you talking about?”

  The gun went off, wounding him in the shoulder. Romanos fell back onto the concrete floor, clutching his bloody arm.

  General Georgiou lunged at Hera, but one of the guards turned to him and fired an AK-47. Bullets riddled the general’s body, knocking him lifeless next to Romanos.

  The other Decada members cowered against the wall. Hera turned to them. “You others can join me if you like. If not, you die here with him.”

  Eyes wide, they nodded their heads furiously.

  “Then go and get into the helicopter.” They complied, running outside, escorted by two guards. Melina Papas remained with Hera.

  Hera walked over to Romanos and stood over him. She pointed the gun at his right leg and fired again. He yelled and bent over in agony.

  Bond, helpless on the table, watched in fascination and horror.

  Hera squatted beside Romanos and tenderly stroked his sweating head. “I once knew a little girl,” she said. “She was only twelve years old. Her parents were killed by Turks in Cyprus when she was nine. For three years she lived on the streets and fended for herself in an extremely hostile world. Then, one day, she met a man. He was two decades older than she was, but he was very handsome. He had a magical way of speaking. He became a father to her. He promised to rescue her, to take her away to his land and teach her about life. And that he did … while he kept her a prisoner for ten years. It’s true that he taught her many things and fed her and clothed her and took care of her. But it’s also true that he systematically raped her for ten … long … years!” Hera said it with venom.

  “Hera,” Romanos gasped. “I never meant it that way …”

  She stood up and kicked Romanos hard in the face. Then, tenderly again, she said, “I thought I loved you once. You were so many things to me at so many different times … You were my torturer, you were my father. You were my brother, my lover, my teacher. I worshipped you!”

  She kicked him again.

  “We share many ideals,” she continued. “I promised myself that I’d help you see the Decada’s first Tetraktys through to the end, because I hate the Turks as much as you do. But what I hate even more is how you corrupted me. Now I’m taking back the life you took from me so many years ago in Cyprus. Hera, the queen of the gods, was always a vengeful deity. I’m taking over the Decada, for it’s my destiny to do so. I see our role in the world as being far bigger and more profitable than you ever did. You taught me well. You made me what I am today, Konstantine. Remember that!”

  Her voice began to tremble with rage. She aimed the pistol at his chest.

  “You always pushed me to be the best—the best climber, the best fighter, the best assassin, the best killer … the best … lover … Well, it’s no wonder I was a good pupil. After capturing me and breaking me, it was easy to teach me to hate and murder. Now I know no other way.”

  She paused and took a breath as tears rolled down her cheeks. “You taught me more about life than I ever cared to know, Konstantine. Now I’m going to teach you about death.”

  With that, she pointed the gun at his head and fired. Romanos’s skull blew apart, spraying blood and tissue several feet, around them.

  After a long, tense silence, Bond said, “My God, Hera, you’re madder than he was.”

  She turned and looked at him curiously, as if she had completely forgotten that he was in the room. Then Hera stared past Bond blankly, traumatized by the act she had just committed. Melina reached out and touched her arm. Hera turned to Melina and the two women embraced. The metal briefcase dangled awkwardly.

  “What’s in the case, Hera? The BioLinks virus?” Bond asked.

  After a pause, Hera moved away from Melina. She had regained her composure, but she was a time bomb of nerves just waiting to explode. She replied, “We call it the Decada Virus. It was a project that the Monad began, but that we’re going to finish. Melina here extensively studied the effects that ricin has on the human body. There is no antidote for ricin poisoning. She successfully created a chemical compound from the castor bean which acts like a virus. In other words, she has made the symptoms that one experiences with ricin poisoning infectious. The germ lives and breathes like bacteria. Once a person is infected with it, everyone they come in contact with will also become infected. People will die, one after another, very quickly—unless they’re given the vaccine. Yes, there is a cure, which Melina also created, and we have all been inoculated.”

  She pointed to Melina’s briefcase. “In there are several samples of the Decada Virus in protective tubes, as well as all the information we need to create more. The only samples of the vaccine and its formula are in there as well. That’s why we don’t want that case to leave Melina’s wrist, do we? Melina, why don’t you go on out to the helicopter. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  The hawk-nosed woman nodded and left the room. Hera was now alone with Bond and the dead bodies around them.

  Bond looked at her and said, “You’ve sent that virus to medical clinics all over the world, haven’t you? Hidden in sperm samples!”

  “You never cease to amaze me, James. You are indeed a clever and resourceful man. Yes, the virus is out there waiting, swimming around and just waiting to be injected into someone. We have people on the payroll in clinics all around the world. Their instructions were simply to transfer the material from the sperm to an available blood supply. Cities like New York, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo—boom—they’re hit with a deadly epidemic. It’s not pretty.”

  “Why, Hera? Because you were abused as a child? Because Romanos twisted your mind and turned you into a killer? That’s not a reason to set off a chain reaction that will destroy all human life on the planet!”

  “That’s not going to happen, James,” she said with confidence. “Once the virus starts spreading like wildfire, I will announce to the world that BioLinks have developed a cure. The price to receive it, though, will be … very high. The deaths of millions of people will simply be the example of what the virus can do. In order to sell a product, you have to prove to the world that there is a need for it!”

  “Don’t you think there are biochemists in the world who are smart enough to study your virus and come up with their own vaccine?” Bond asked.

  “Of course, but by then it will be too late,” Hera said. “As we implement new Tetraktys strikes in different parts of the world, there will be rapidly increasing outbreaks of the virus. The nations of the world will have no choice but to quickly buy the only available vaccine—ours.”

  Bond shook his head. “So you’re just another cheap extortionist. You’re only in it for the money. I might have known.”

  “Goodbye, James,” she said. “I think I’ll leave you with Konstantine’s little maths problem. He always did have a perverse sense of humor. Maybe you can at least stop a war between Greece and Turkey. But that seems so insignificant now, don’t you think?”

  With that, she flipped the switch to set the timer in motion, then turned and left the room. The door slammed shut and Bond was left alone.

  A Huey UH-1 Iroquois helicopter sat on a landing pad that had been built on the summit of the cliff outside. The pad was actually the launch doors for the missile, which would ope
n in less than eight minutes. Hera emerged from the lair into the night air and joined Melina Papas, the loyal guards, and the remaining Decada members aboard the helicopter.

  Back in the launch room, sweat was pouring off Bond’s face. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t free himself from the manacles. He would just have to wait until the four minutes was up.

  Where was the bloody Greek Army? How long was it going to take them to get there?

  Bond’s heart was pounding. It felt as if it would push right through his sternum. What was happening to him? Was this the end? Was this what happened when you knew you were going to die? They said that your life passed in front of your eyes when the moment of truth finally came. Bond had been close to death before, but somehow he felt that this time it was real. Had he been placed in a hopeless situation? Was that it? Was he subconsciously accepting the fact that no matter what he did in the next few minutes, it would all be over soon?

  No! he cried to himself. Not this way! He would not let it end like this. He was not about to give up. If he died, then so be it. He had seen plenty of death in his lifetime, but he had also seen an enormous amount of life. He had beaten the grim reaper so many times before … why would he think that it would all end now?

  The manacles suddenly sprang open. He was free.

  Bond leaped to the missile and pried the control panel off with such force that he cut the ends of his fingers. A wire-cutting tool and the piece of paper fell out. Underneath he saw a glass panel covering a control panel and a single toggle switch that was obviously the abort button. On top of the glass was the booby trap—three colored wires, one red, one blue, and one white. One or more of them had to be cut before he could get to the controls. Bond grabbed the paper and read it. In English, it said:

  PYTHAGORAS WAS FAMOUS FOR HIS THEOREM THAT STATES THAT IN A RIGHT TRIANGLE, THE SUM OF THE SQUARES OF THE LEGS IS EQUAL TO THE SQUARE OF THE HYPOTENUSE. THE CONVERSE IS ALSO TRUE. IF THE LENGTHS OF THE SIDES OF A TRIANGLE ARE “A,” “B,” AND “C,” WHERE “C” IS THE HYPOTENUSE AND A2 + B2 = C2, THEN THE TRIANGLE IS A RIGHT TRIANGLE. SO IF A TRIANGLE HAS SIDES 3, 4, AND 5, IT IS A RIGHT TRIANGLE, SINCE 32 + 42 = 52 (9 + 16 = 25). FURTHERMORE, IF A2 + B2 DOES NOT EQUAL C2, THEN THE TRIANGLE IS NOT A RIGHT TRIANGLE.

  LET’S SAY YOU HAVE SIDES OF LENGTHS 17, 144, AND 163. DOES THIS FORM AN ACUTE, RIGHT, OR OBTUSE TRIANGLE?

  CLIP THE RED WIRE IF YOUR ANSWER IS “ACUTE.”

  CLIP THE BLUE WIRE IF YOUR ANSWER IS “RIGHT.”

  CLIP THE WHITE WIRE IF YOUR ANSWER IS “OBTUSE.”

  YOU HAVE FOUR MINUTES. GOOD LUCK!

  TWENTY-SIX

  THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH

  THE CLOCK HAD TICKED AWAY FORTY-FIVE SECONDS.

  Bond stared at the puzzle in horror. It was impossible to solve in two minutes! He searched the depths of his brain to recall what he knew about the Pythagorean theorem. If it was a right angle triangle, the sum of the squares of two sides must equal the square of the hypotenuse. Bond could mentally calculate that 17 squared was 289, but there was no way that he could calculate the squares of 144 and 163 in the time available.

  There had to be a trick to this. Why would Romanos simply pose a routine problem made difficult because Bond had no calculator? It must be a logic puzzle, not a math problem. Did he have the time to think it through? Or should he gamble with life and death by selecting a wire and cutting it? How could he decide which wire to cut? Had his entire life come down to a flip of the coin?

  Sixty seconds had elapsed. He had three more minutes to stop the missile.

  Wait! What was it Romanos had said about “assumption”? It was at the casino in Athens. He had said that a mathematician begins with assumptions and must provide the proof from there. What was the puzzle’s question again?

  LET’S SAY YOU HAVE SIDES OF LENGTHS 17, 144, AND 163. DOES THIS FORM AN ACUTE, RIGHT, OR OBTUSE TRIANGLE?

  The problem didn’t actually say that the sides were part of a triangle. The question was what kind of triangle would be formed with the sides of 17,144, and 163. Bond had been assuming that the lengths formed a triangle. The correct answer was that it wouldn’t be a triangle at all! For a triangle to exist, the sum of the lengths of any two sides must exceed the length of the third side. In this case, 17 + 144 = 161, which was not greater than 163.

  Bond knew then that he should not cut any of the three wires. With one minute left to go, he made a fist and plunged it into the thin glass panel. The controls were at his fingertips.

  Forty-five seconds …

  He flipped the toggle switch and the timer stopped. All of the blinking lights around the control panel shut off. The missile was lifeless. A viewscreen indicated that the detonator was disengaged from the nuclear core. The conventional explosives in the warhead could still ignite, but critical mass could never be achieved.

  Bond took a deep breath and slid down to the floor. Romanos had underestimated his ability to make a decision by making no decision. He thought wryly that it had been more of a Descartes-like action than a Pythagorean one, because it was Descartes who once said, “Not to decide is to decide.”

  He heard a loud boom on a floor below him. It sounded like an explosive demolishing a door. Bond got up and ran to the only exit from the room. Outside he could hear running footsteps and men speaking Greek. He pulled back the bolt and opened the door. Three Greek soldiers turned and pointed M16 rifles at him.

  Bond held up his hands. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Mr. Bond?” one of them, a sergeant, asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go. We get you out.”

  Bond followed them out of the door in the nick of time, for the explosives inside the launch pad room went off full force. Bond and the three men were thrown several feet by the blast, and the stone walls around them began to crumble.

  “Go! Go! Go!” the sergeant shouted.

  The four men jumped up and kept on running. Another explosion went off near them, but by then they had made it into the Decada’s conference room.

  “What’s the quickest way to the surface?” Bond asked. “The whole place is going to blow.”

  “This way,” the sergeant said. He led them out of the conference room, through the control room, and up a flight of stairs, just ahead of more explosions below them. The steps fell apart as they climbed. They navigated around a ten-foot statue of the god Ares and entered a passageway that was shaking. Before they could get through it, a huge explosion rocked the entire structure. The walls, floor, and ceiling cracked open, leaving a gap of seven feet between them and the other side of the passageway.

  “What now?” a soldier asked.

  Bond looked back at the statue. “Help me with this thing!” He ran to it and started to push. The other men got the idea and helped tilt it over onto the ground. Together they shoved the statue across the gap, creating a bridge. One by one they crossed to the other side.

  They reached the secret hatch to the outside world just as another explosion sent flames shooting up toward them from below. The men rolled out of the complex and could feel the heat as the entire mountain trembled.

  More soldiers were outside. A lieutenant approached the sergeant and spoke rapidly in Greek. Bond caught the words “helicopter” and “Decada.”

  The sergeant turned to Bond and said, “We can still catch them if we hurry.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Bond asked.

  They ran to the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter that had landed on the same launch pad Hera had taken off from. They piled into the aircraft and it rose into the air.

  The Blackhawk is one of many American-made machines that the Greek military have bought. It is equipped with an External Stores Support System, which includes the carriage and live firing of the Hellfire anti-armor missile. If they could catch up with Hera, the ensuing dogfight would be in their favor.

  Once they were airborne, Bond asked the sergeant, “How is your agent, Niki Mirakos?”

  “She will be
fine,” he said. “Her leg wasn’t broken, but the knee was twisted badly. She will be on crutches for a while. She might need some surgery—it’s too early to tell.”

  “What about the Decada? Where are they headed? They have a briefcase that must be retrieved.”

  “They took off toward the mainland ten minutes ago. We’ve alerted all bases between here and there to intercept them.”

  Bond took a moment to look around the cabin of the helicopter. There were three Stinger missiles with one-man portable launchers attached to the side of the craft. He immediately unfastened the harness on one and removed it. He realized that the sergeant was staring at him incredulously, so he asked, “May I?”

  The sergeant shrugged and said, “Be our guest.”

  A radio communication came through, and the sergeant translated. “One of our Apaches has engaged the target three miles ahead.”

  They were there in a minute. In the dark, Bond could see only the streams of fire coming from the machine guns on the Huey and the AH-64 Apache. The Greeks’ helicopter was at a slightly higher altitude, pursuing Hera’s helicopter at top speed.

  The Huey UH-1 was another American-made helicopter that was used extensively in the Vietnam War. Its 1,400-horsepower engine sat over the cabin instead of filling up the body, leaving plenty of room for troops or cargo. It was armed with machine guns, rockets, and grenades, and could cruise at 125 miles per hour.

  Suddenly a bright streak shot from the Huey and hit the Apache, which exploded into a fireball. Hera apparently had missiles of her own.

  “Now it’s just us,” the sergeant said. He gave an order over the radio for the backup units to hurry up.

  Bond slung the Stinger launcher over his shoulder and got it ready to fire. “If you can get me in position, I’ll hit them with this.” He had to cripple the helicopter without completely destroying it. Hopefully, the metal briefcase would survive intact.

  The Huey climbed, slowed down, and positioned itself above their Blackhawk.

  “They’re going to drop mines! Evasive action!” Bond shouted. The sergeant translated the order into Greek, and the pilot flung the aircraft into a dive as a volley of mines poured out of the Huey.