The team would be able to draw upon every ounce of might the United States possessed, provided they could justify their proposed actions. They had direct lines to the president and Admiral Siegel, and had been told not to hesitate to contact them at any time, night or day, if they needed support.
They were given less latitude as to when their mission would begin—as soon as possible, with Bostic’s ability to harness his newfound abilities the rate-limiting step.
After ten days Bostic decided he was ready for what Cochran considered a critical test. He was flown by civilian helicopter to the state’s biggest city, Virginia Beach, landing on a private airstrip just off its famous three mile ocean boardwalk. The density of humanity in this resort area was immense, with hundreds of hotels, motels, and restaurants well within his range.
He lasted for five hours before he begged to be airlifted back to the farm. Had he been alone he might have considered eating a gun, just to make the raging voices go away. But by the end, weary though he was, he was adjusting, learning how to deal with even this volume.
He knew then that he would persevere. There was a light at the end of this tunnel, which had gradually come into focus. He would somehow find a way to make it out the other end.
He returned and convinced Cochran that at the rate he was improving, he was certain he would be ready in nine days’ time, almost three weeks after he had let a robot operate on his brain.
The president had accurately predicted the challenges he would face, and the rate at which his mastery of these new abilities would occur. He had warned him of just how brutal the early days would be, how threatening to his sanity, and had assured him he would eventually adapt, eventually be able to operate within the densest of populations.
But how could the president possibly have known this? Cochran had sworn to him that only one other man had ever possessed ESP, the legendary Nick Hall, who Cochran confirmed was just as dead as everyone thought. In Hall’s brief flash into the spotlight before he died, there had never been any suggestion that he and the president had ever crossed paths.
There was something President Cochran wasn’t telling him. Probably many things. Many important things.
Since the implants had been inserted, the president had ordered a dozen men to maintain a broad perimeter around the safe house, out of sight. Still, they were plenty close enough for Bostic to read their minds as if he were standing next to them and they were screaming in his ear.
These bodyguards had been tasked with the protection of Bostic and his team. They had been ordered to contact Bob Siegel if anyone entered or left the grounds, including any of the men they had been asked to safeguard. Other than Bostic’s side trip to Virginia Beach, he and his team had been ordered confined to the farm until their Iran mission began, for their own safety.
It all seemed perfectly reasonable, Bostic decided—if he were a complete imbecile.
What total and absolute bullshit. He and his comrades were seasoned members of SEAL Team Six. They didn’t require bodyguards. Not only were they more than qualified to protect themselves under ordinary conditions, they now had a mind reader on site. No hostile could even approach without them knowing it.
Bostic wasn’t being protected from the outside. The outside was being protected from him.
The president knew what kind of damage he could do if he were unleashed, and day after day these possibilities became more and more clear. Bostic was now virtually unstoppable.
Cochran would know that, too. He would know that if Bostic wanted to escape the confines of the farm, a dozen armed men on its perimeter couldn’t stop him. A hundred couldn’t do it. Not when he could read their positions, their thoughts, and their every moment of inattentiveness.
So the bodyguards weren’t there to protect Bostic, or even stop him from leaving. They were there simply to warn Cochran and Siegel if he did leave. The president expected Bostic to obey his orders to stay at the farm, but if he did ignore them, Cochran would at least know he was on the loose.
Which made Bostic even more convinced the president was hiding something. He suspected if he did disobey orders and leave, Cochran would immediately take Air Force One to an undisclosed location, well out of his mind-reading range.
This reasoning only intensified Bostic’s desire to learn what the president was keeping from him. Easy enough to do. He just needed to slip away during the night, without any of the bodyguards knowing he was gone.
DC was but a hundred or so miles away. He could travel there, station himself in close proximity to the White House, pillage the mind of the president for hours, and then return to the farm before anyone missed him.
But patience was the order of the day. His ability to tolerate large populations was improving by the hour, and DC was no farm. He had nine days before deploying to Iran. He would give his skills seven more days to improve before paying a personal visit to Timothy Cochran’s neighborhood.
By that time he should be more than ready.
Not only ready, but eager. Because jumping knee-deep into the mind and memories of a sitting president of the United States was a strangely enticing prospect.
He could only imagine what secrets he might find there.
45
Bostic stroked his dark beard, a bad habit he had developed whenever he had grown one, and waited for his guest to arrive. His three comrades were positioned out of sight in a pickup truck, waiting for him to finish up so they could fry an even bigger fish.
The biggest fish of all, in fact.
Bostic continued to read the mind of Rasoul Khan as the man walked briskly along the streets of Tehran. Khan was anxious, but who could blame him? This was the first time he had received a message from Hakim Osmani, the man he all but worshiped, the man who would soon take the reins of power from the current Iranian president, Javad Zarif.
Khan detested Zarif, a weakling who refused to deploy Iran’s nuclear arsenal, bowing to the whims of America and her money. A sniveling coward not worthy of his post.
Osmani, on the other hand, was strong and resolute. A man who showed no fear. A man dedicated to bringing a global caliphate into existence no matter what the cost, a glorious task he would soon commence.
Khan was one of Zarif’s most trusted lieutenants, trusted, in fact, with safeguarding Iran’s nuclear missiles. Yet another glaring error in judgment made by this so-called leader.
Over a period of two years, while continuing to ingratiate himself with the president, he had managed to place three other moles, three other Osmani loyalists, in key positions within Iran’s nuclear arms command and control. The four had gradually managed to gain a stranglehold over the arsenal, modifying software, stealing launch codes, so that the missiles would now dance on their command, with the idiotic Zarif having no idea this control had been wrested from his hands.
Not that it mattered, Khan had often thought in disgust. The weakling would never use the codes anyway. But now that Khan was in control, he could send missiles to destroy Israel and the West whenever he wanted. It had taken all of his willpower not to fire them the first chance he had, and the daily urge to do so had never weakened. But he would stay strong. He would wait until Osmani was in power, and then, together, they would unleash Iran’s terrible might upon the world.
Osmani’s message had taken him by surprise. It was marked urgent, and had all the proper verification codes and identifiers, leaving no doubt that it was legitimate. In it, Osmani had ordered Khan to meet with an unnamed man at midnight at a small abandoned warehouse whose address was specified. This agent would be waiting for him there, and would pass on information that was vital to ensure the success of the coming coup. Khan was not to communicate back with Osmani under any circumstances, or tell anyone else about the meeting.
It was an unusual message, he was thinking as he approached the door, looking furtively at his surroundings to be sure no one had followed him or could see him now. Khan had no idea that Craig Bostic was looking at the entranc
e through his eyes, and standing behind it waiting for him to arrive.
Khan opened the door and stepped inside a small concrete space that was dimly lit. Before his eyes could adjust, Bostic emerged from behind the door and drove his foot into Khan’s right ankle, breaking it instantly.
Khan screamed in agony and fell to the concrete floor against the wall, while Bostic calmly closed the door, knowing that no one was within hearing distance of Khan’s screams.
The mind reader waited patiently for Khan to get over the shock and initial pain and look up to the man who was now hovering menacingly above him.
Khan battled his way through the agonizing pain and considered his situation in panic. What had happened? Had Osmani’s message been intercepted? Had the man Osmani sent to meet with him here betrayed the great leader?
“Just so you know,” said Bostic in perfect Farsi, “Osmani didn’t summon you here. I did.”
“Impossible!” blurted out Khan, his face still contorted in agony from an ankle that had been completely shattered, tears of pain welling up in his eyes.
“If you say so,” said Bostic with a shrug, hulking over the man, knowing from reading his mind that this added to his already great physical and psychological discomfort. “But it doesn’t really matter, does it? Because I’m going to kill you. Very soon. But before I do, I wanted you to know just how completely you had lost.”
Bostic paused to let Khan stew for a few seconds longer. “You know your three associates?” he continued. “The ones who helped you wrest control of Iran’s nuclear arsenal away from President Zarif? The three others like you who pretended to have an allegiance to Zarif, but who became lapdogs for that shithead Hakim Osmani?”
This man must work for Zarif? thought Khan. But how could this be? Zarif knew nothing of Khan’s activities, he was certain of it. Besides, this man spoke Farsi with an American accent, so how could he be in league with the president? Nothing added up.
“I have no idea what three men you’re talking about,” said Khan.
Bostic shook his head in contempt. “Of course you do!” he said. “But don’t waste more breath on denials. I don’t give a shit what you say. Because I’m in here,” whispered Bostic menacingly, reaching down and tapping the top of Khan’s skull. “In your head. So I don’t care what you say. Only what you think.”
What kind of madman is this? thought Khan.
“The kind of madman who’s about to kill you,” said Bostic, as if Khan had spoken aloud.
Khan’s eyes widened. This is just a coincidence, he thought. Just a wild coincidence.
“Not a wild coincidence,” said Bostic calmly, tapping the top of Khan’s skull a second time. “I told you, I’m in here. How is this possible? you’re thinking. I’ll tell you. Allah sent me. He says he’s checked his naughty-or-nice list twice, and it turns out you’re one of the bad ones.”
He paused. “Oh wait, wrong guy. He’s not the one with the list.” He shrugged. “No matter, because you’re at the top of my shit list. And that’s the very worst list you can be on.”
“Who are you?”
“A vengeful Westerner,” said Bostic. “Determined to snuff out you and your kind. And by that, I don’t mean Muslims. I’ve worked with Muslims who are among the finest men I’ve ever known, men I would give my life for. I respect your right to practice any religion you want, Rasoul. But it really pisses me off that you don’t respect anyone else’s rights. That you’ve sentenced everyone not practicing religion the exact way you do to death. I have a bug up my ass about extremist assholes who believe that the slaughter of billions of innocents is something their God implores them to do. ”
“No matter what you do to me,” spat Khan defiantly, “you will always be an infidel. You will go on to suffer eternal damnation. Experience an infinity of pain.”
Bostic kicked the man’s shattered ankle. “You first,” he growled through clenched teeth, his words drowned out by Khan’s screams of agony. He waited for almost a minute until Khan’s screams subsided, tears of pain still rolling down the man’s face.
“But where was I?” said Bostic casually. “Oh, that’s right. I was speaking about your three friends who’ve helped you take over Iran’s nukes. Well . . . you know how they all used to be alive?” He shook his head in mock sadness. “Well, that’s not so true anymore. I sent them messages as well—impossibly legitimate-looking ones like yours, to flush them out—and my colleagues did the wetwork.”
Bostic glared at the man below him in contempt. “But I saved you for last, Rasoul. And I insisted on sending you to the afterlife myself. Because you’re the most evil of them all. The most deserving of a painful death. I only wish I had more time to make you suffer.”
Bostic paused, realizing he wasn’t just saying these words, but really meant them. He had always done what was necessary, never flinching, defeating monsters in the name of his country while getting the adrenaline high he craved. But he had never taken pleasure in torture, in punishing his adversaries unduly, in taunting the helpless, no matter how despicable.
What was happening to him? Was he turning into a sadist? Why had he crushed this man’s ankle, and why was he prolonging what had to be done, instead of driving a bullet cleanly through Khan’s skull?
The answer had to involve his newfound abilities. Because he now knew exactly how despicable of a human being Rasoul Khan really was, that he had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Khan was a predator and an unapologetic sadist, deriving almost sexual pleasure from the pain of others, using his high position to routinely beat and rape women with impunity. Bostic had been sickened when he came upon these acts in Khan’s mind, reliving a steady stream of cruelties.
Khan had obtained footage of the aftermath of Hiroshima and watched it over and over, fantasizing about the millions of lives he would take with his missiles, how those in the blast zone would be vaporized instantly by a heat like that of the sun.
And his fantasies had nothing to do with serving his god. He tried to pretend this was his justification, but his ecstasy at the thought of the deaths he would bring had nothing to do with the caliphate. It had everything to do with the fact that his soul was utterly black.
Bostic had read so much ugliness in the past few days, so much sadism and hatred and intolerance. But he hadn’t been exaggerating when he told Khan he was the worst of them all, the most deserving of a painful death.
Bostic had also been under a state of constant psychic stress since the mission began. It wasn’t just having to read the evil in men’s souls. It was the maddening cacophony always in the background, clawing its way into his every last nerve.
He and his team retreated to unpopulated regions each night, so at least he was able to recharge and get some sleep, but his sleep was limited, and troubled by nightmares. Nightmares fueled by vivid images of barbarities perpetrated by the Jihadists whose minds he had read.
All of this was taking a heavy psychic toll. The voices were like a splinter in his brain, a constant painful irritant driving him to distraction, making him irritable, increasing his violent tendencies. He was less and less able to control his temper. More and more capable of uncharacteristic acts that might appear like sadism to an outsider not aware of how deserving of suffering Rasoul Khan really was.
“So three down, one to go,” said Bostic. “Although your ankle really doesn’t look so good, so I’m probably doing you a favor. Putting you out of your misery.”
“Do what you will to me,” whispered Khan, his face now perpetually contorted in agony, “but in the end you’ll have to answer to Hakim Osmani. When he captures you—and he will—he’ll introduce you to a level of suffering you didn’t even know existed.”
Bostic laughed. “That’s not going to happen, Rasoul. Because I don’t just know everything you do. I know everything Osmani knows also. So guess what, not only are your three friends nothing more than an ugly memory, you and Osmani no longer have control of Iran’s nukes.” He pointed at his own chest.
“I do. America does. And we’ll lock out any further changes, so that control remains with us. If your leaders ever try to launch them, imagine their surprise when they learn their codes won’t work.”
Bostic shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking,” he continued. “You’re thinking that control of the launch codes isn’t enough. But it is. Because right after I’m done here, I’m going to kill Hakim Osmani, also, now without any fear that such an attack will lead you to launch the nukes I’m trying to prevent.”
“You won’t get anywhere near Osmani!” insisted Khan. “He can’t be found. And if you were somehow able to find him, he’s surrounded by brave men willing to die to protect him.”
“Oh don’t worry. We’ll make sure they get that chance.”
“Everything okay in there, Craig?” transmitted Larry Potomac through their telepathy channel. Potomac was his second-in-command on the tiny four man team. They were waiting for him a half mile from the warehouse and knew he didn’t need any time for interrogation. Not given what he could do.
“Everything is under control,” Bostic sent back. “Just finishing up.”
“As fun as I’m sure this has been for you,” said Bostic out loud to Khan, “I need to wrap up. But I did want to make my second point about your nukes. It’s true that if your leaders discover they can’t launch their missiles, they have other nukes they can put in other missiles. So it’s only a delay tactic. But I’ve learned the locations of every nuclear device in your arsenal. I know where they are kept, how to bypass security, what codes to use, and which devices are decoys. I’ll soon give all of this intel to Israel, and they’ll be only too happy over the next six months to use this knowledge to sabotage them all, to poison them, rendering them harmless.”
Khan was a nuclear expert, and Bostic knew he had no need for further elaboration. Nuclear bombs would only work if they contained ultra-purified uranium, which was very difficult to achieve, and was the reason that Iran had spun this material in centrifuges for so many years, inching closer to the necessary purity.
MindWar (Nick Hall Book 3) Page 26