The Genesis Plague (2010)

by Michael Byrnes

  ‘Are you crazy! What are you—!’

  ‘That’s him in the Explorer … behind us.’

  She turned to get a look. ‘Oh my God…’ she gasped. ‘Does this thing have airbags?’ she nervously asked, staying low in the seat.

  He didn’t reply, and focused on the traffic up ahead. A meandering canary-yellow duck boat chugged along the centre lane, splitting between a bus in the slow lane and a car easing to queue for a left turn where signboards pointed to Prudential Center’s underground parking lot.

  Flaherty’s anxiety spiked. ‘Come on … come on!‘ he yelled at the half boat, half truck.

  ‘You can’t stop!’

  ‘I know …’

  He considered an evasive U-turn along the wide avenue, but the traffic coming in the opposite direction was too thick and allowed no adequate opening.

  Any hope of making a right on to Garrison was instantly dashed as the bus eased to a stop with its right blinker on, waiting for pedestrians to cross the side street. The Chrysler Concorde’s front bumper practically kissed the duck boat’s rear as Flaherty angled around the bus. The rowdy tourists on board the modified WWII amphibious troop carrier began quacking loudly, just like they’d been told by the driver at the tour’s inception. Having been cheated of a full tour, thanks to the frozen Charles River, their pent-up energy was now fully directed at Flaherty’s Concorde. Under better circumstances, Flaherty might have thought the scene comical.

  An aggressively driven taxi slipped in behind him, one step ahead of the Explorer. Flaherty expected the Explorer to move in behind the taxi, but it didn’t. His eyes darted back to the road. The next opportunity to make a turn would come on Harcourt Street, just ahead on the right. However, he could see that that walkway was also clogged with pedestrians.

  ‘Shit,’ he growled. Staying the course towards the bottleneck at Copley Square was a losing proposition.

  ‘Look out!’ Brooke yelled, pointing out his side window.

  Flaherty turned just as the Explorer swerved into the centre lane and forced the duck boat to fall back with a dissenting blow of its air horn. The Explorer’s passenger window was already down and Flaherty glimpsed the assassin steadying the gun for a clear shot.

  ‘Down!’ Flaherty yelled. He ducked low and jammed on the accelerator just as the assassin fired a triple shot. The rounds blew Flaherty’s window into a thousand pieces. Luckily, Brooke had already squirmed down on to the floor, because the slugs that would have cut through her neck instead pounded through the door handle on the passenger-side door.

  Flaherty popped up again.

  The assassin nearly slammed into a bus that stopped abruptly in the centre lane, but made a hard turn that put the Explorer directly behind the Concorde, in the same spot the alarmed taxi driver had abandoned a split second earlier.

  As Flaherty was about to pass under the enclosed pedestrian bridge that connected Prudential Center to the Copley Place shopping mall he saw nothing but taillights flashing red all the way to the split for Stuart Street. Worse yet, the bus had boxed him in on the left. Even steering up on to the crowded sidewalk and mowing a path through pedestrians would only get him so far.

  If the assassin did manage to push him into the gridlock, things would get very ugly very fast. That left only one possibility - to outrun the Explorer; the worst possible scenario.

  ‘Here we go,’ he grimly warned Brooke.

  Crouched low, Brooke saw the narrow pedestrian bridge sweep overhead, just before Flaherty cut a hard right that threw her up against his legs hard enough to make her see stars.

  The Concorde careened through a line of garbage-can-sized orange construction barricades, giving the Explorer the split second needed to close the gap. The assassin drove full speed into the Concorde’s rear, shattering plastic and snarling metal. The trajectory of the impact nearly sent the Explorer into a spin, but did little to stymie the Concorde’s forward advance. The assassin righted the wheel and got the Explorer back on track.

  The roadway fed into a wide tunnel with tiled walls and began a sharp descent beneath Copley Place. The Concorde’s tyres squealed as Flaherty steered into the bend.

  Brooke was disoriented by what little she could see: ceiling tiles and lights. ‘You turned into a garage? What—?’

  ‘Not a garage. I’m taking a shortcut to the Mass Pike.’

  ‘Shortcut?’ That’s when she realized what he meant. ‘You’re going down into the tunnel?’

  He nodded.

  She’d driven this ramp many times - a main exit for Interstate 90, which the ambitious Big Dig had diverted through massive tunnels snaked deep below the city centre. Problem being that she knew the traffic flow only went up. ‘This tunnel is a one-way exit! You’re going the wrong—’

  ‘I know! I know …’ He checked the mirror and could see the Explorer’s headlights skimming the curved wall behind him. ‘The ramp’s closed for construction. It’s okay.’

  But up ahead, where the ramp merged at a Y, he spotted a contradiction to what he’d just told her - a hulking utility truck mounted with bright lights and workers in hardhats repairing tiles in the tunnel ceiling.

  Not okay, he thought.

  The truck was at a standstill in the centre of the roadway with barely any room to spare to its right. But there was no stopping now, thought Flaherty.

  He punched the accelerator and leaned on the horn.

  Seeing the headlights racing towards them, the befuddled workmen barely had time to react. They hit the deck and grabbed hold of the safety rail that looped around the truck’s platform, fully anticipating a violent collision. One brave worker vaulted the rail and dropped clumsily to the roadway before scurrying out of view.

  Flaherty gripped the wheel at ten to two, pulled slightly to the right to aim for the narrow opening. He winced on the approach and clenched his teeth.

  The wide-bodied Concorde slipped cleanly through the gap with inches to spare on either side. But not fifteen metres ahead, a second truck blocked his lane. Flaherty corrected the wheel hard to the left and slalomed around the truck, so close that the passenger-side rearview mirror sheared off with a loud clack.

  His heart was in overdrive and adrenaline had all his senses buzzing. And knowing that the most dangerous leg of this obstacle course still lay ahead only added to his anxiety.

  In his remaining side mirror he saw the Explorer bob and weave to avoid the second truck. But the assassin’s slight miscalculation ground the Explorer’s metal side panels along the tunnel wall with a showering plume of orange sparks. It cost the assassin precious seconds, but he quickly resumed the chase.

  ‘Son of a bitch. Can’t shake him,’ Flaherty grumbled.

  He focused again on the tunnel, which now began arcing downward like the curl of a question mark. He braked lightly along the sharp bend that gradually semicircled until yielding to a long and empty straightaway. He hit the gas hard again and the surreal sensation of rocketing through the tunnel’s tight confines made him feel like a bullet being shot through the barrel of a gun - the lights whipping by.

  Knowing the worst was yet to come, he clamped his hands tighter around the wheel.

  The straightaway angled slightly and Flaherty spotted construction barriers topped with flashing amber lights shaped like lollipops. Immediately beyond the cordon, the ramp tunnel yawned open where it joined the wide interstate tunnel at an extremely tight Y. However, with Flaherty coming the wrong way down the ramp the turn would be treacherous. He could see the headlights of vehicles zipping through the tunnel at highway speed, as well as the formidable cement barricades that lined the tunnel median.

  He drew breath, held it, stomped on the brake pedal. The car bowled through the barriers, flinging them up and out. He pulled the wheel all the way to the right and the car commenced a runaway spin into the oncoming traffic.

  The next second was a blur of screeching tyres and blaring horns.

  The Concorde dragged heavily across the roadway, managed
to avoid hitting a sedan cruising along the slow lane, but careened sideways into a yellow moving truck that was speeding in the fast lane. Flaherty felt the Concorde’s front end crumple and snap. The collision was bone crunching, but prevented the Concorde from striking the cement median, even managed to pull the car straight with forward momentum. Disbelieving that he was still alive and that the truck’s driver had enough wherewithal to not lose control, Flaherty immediately hit the accelerator and cranked at the wheel to tug free from the truck. The manoeuvre blew out the truck’s front tyre, forcing it to roll to a stop.

  ‘Sorry, buddy,’ Flaherty muttered.

  Flaherty’s heart nearly gave out when he heard a bellowing air horn that could only belong to a very large truck. All his muscles went tight as his eyes snapped to his side mirror. He saw the Explorer cut blindly into the roadway - a grave miscalculation that put the assassin directly into the path of a hulking semi. The big-rig locked its brakes … the cab jostling madly from side to side … the tractor swinging wide with its locked tyres churning grey smoke.

  But still the Explorer couldn’t accelerate fast enough to skirt the semi, which struck with brute force. The Explorer seemed to explode into a thousand pieces - glass and metal shooting out in all directions.

  Flaherty barely glimpsed the assassin’s body as it was catapulted out through the Explorer’s windshield, over the median, and into the windshield of another big eighteen-wheeler barrelling through the Pike’s westbound tube.

  In the side mirror, he stole a final glimpse of the jackknifed tractor trailer and the mangled Explorer. Then he sped off through the tunnel.

  30

  IRAQ

  The Blackhawk bounced to a rest in a grassy field just beyond the perimeter of the encampment. Hazo gazed out the fuselage window to the jagged cliff face. Surprisingly, during the three hours he’d been away, the debris that blocked the cave had been thoroughly cleared and muted light glowed within the passage. Mammoth boulders strewn at the base of the cliff had raked deep lines into the hillside.

  There was a lot of activity at the site - marines moving up and down the slope, snipers posted along a tight perimeter. He spotted Jason to the side of the opening, consulting a trio of techs huddled around a small tactical robot. They were preparing to infiltrate the cave, he surmised. Not just any cave, though, Hazo reminded himself. Lilith’s tomb.

  The photo of Michelangelo’s ceiling fresco scrolled through his mind’s eye again - the half serpent, half woman entwined around Eden’s forbidden tree. He still grappled with the notion that the opening page of the Bible loosely chronicled an ancient story linked to this very place.

  Not one to succumb to superstition, Hazo felt vulnerable to sudden dread. What if the enigmatic Lilith did exist long before written history? What if she had been some demoness who’d brought mass death to this place? Could her spiteful spirit still haunt this cave?

  They are only legends, he reminded himself.

  A marine crab-walked beneath the chopper’s slowing blades and slid open Hazo’s door. Hazo pulled off his flight helmet, unbuckled himself, and hopped out. By the time he was clear of the rotorwash, Jason had come down the slope to meet him.

  ‘Glad you’re back,’ Jason said.

  Before Jason said anything else, he hooked Hazo by the arm and led him past a dozen marines gathered nearby in a loose circle.

  In passing, Hazo curiously observed the marines. Some sat cross-legged, dutifully cleaning their weapons. Other sat on their helmets scooping rehydrated ravioli rations from foil packs. Four of the unit members were women, though he could tell they took great pains in downplaying their femininity when consorting with the men. A short male marine with close-set eyes - who looked more boy than man - seemed to be recounting an epic bar brawl.

  ‘After you left, Crawford sent them over the mountain,’ Jason told him, motioning to the group. ‘They came back just after sundown. Didn’t find anything.’ Once he had led Hazo safely out of earshot, he asked, ‘How did you make out?’ Glancing back to the command tent, he saw Crawford standing stiffly with arms crossed, leering over at him.

  ‘I discovered many things. Many disturbing things,’ Hazo clarified. ‘As I told you earlier, my cousin recognized the woman whose picture was on the ID badge.’ He expounded on the information he’d given Jason shortly after his meeting with Karsaz - the woman’s presence in 2003 and her apparent close association with US military personnel.

  ‘Not long after you left, my guy in the States found this woman. Had a talk with her. It all agrees with what your cousin told you.’

  ‘Oh,’ Hazo said, somewhat disappointed.

  ‘How about your visit to the monastery? Were the monks able to help you with the pictures from the cave?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Hazo said. ‘Very much so.’ He told Jason about the shocking conversation he’d had with Monsignor Ibrahim - the incredible story of Creation and a wicked woman named Lilith. ‘Jason, the monsignor told me that this place … this cave … The legends say that it is Lilith’s tomb.’

  ‘Tomb?’ Brooke Thompson hadn’t mentioned this.

  ‘That is right. These monks … they are very smart men. They know many secrets, many hidden truths.’ He gazed warily at the cave opening. ‘The monsignor told me that she is buried beneath the mountain. The head … the body,’ he said in a whisper. ‘This place is evil, Jason. Cursed.’

  Hazo looked genuinely spooked and Jason had to struggle not to smirk. ‘Buddy, don’t let the monk’s stories scare you,’ he said, cupping a hand on the Kurd’s shoulder. ‘Last I checked, ancient tombs don’t have steel security doors. And the only evil inside that mountain is still alive and kicking and armed with a rocket launcher. All right?’

  Hazo nodded.

  ‘You did great,’ Jason said, giving him a gracious pat on the shoulder. ‘But right now, we’ve got a much bigger problem to deal with.’ But he could tell by Hazo’s downcast expression that he didn’t agree.

  ‘I understand,’ Hazo said. ‘The terrorists—’

  ‘Not just the terrorists, I’m afraid,’ Jason corrected. ‘I’m more concerned about this guy Crawford. He hasn’t said one word about the military having been in that cave.’

  ‘But would he know about it?’ Hazo said.

  ‘I’m thinking yes, he does. And I’ll tell you why.’ He detailed the call he’d received from Thomas Flaherty - the thwarted assassination attempt on Brooke Thompson.

  Hazo was deeply disturbed by this new information. ‘Crawford sent an assassin to find her?’

  ‘The timing is too convenient for me to think otherwise.’ He glanced back to the command tent. Now Crawford had his back to them, talking furtively into his satellite phone again. ‘And he’s been on that phone an awful lot. I’d love to know who’s bending his ear.’ Jason shook his head. ‘We’ve got to tread very lightly … watch our backs on this one. Whatever’s going on here, I don’t want our men being dragged into it.’ He saw Hazo’s preoccupied gaze slink back up to the cave.

  Suddenly something caught Jason’s eye too - a dark form sweeping in and out of the moonlight high up near the mountain’s crest. Keeping his head still, he honed his gaze on the spot. He detected more subversive shifting along the ridge. A watcher was skulking in the darkness. ‘We’ve got company.’

  Hazo’s eyes shifted up to the mountaintop and panned slowly back and forth. He squinted when he thought he’d found the nearly indiscernible anomaly. ‘Yes. I see him.’

  ‘I don’t like this one bit,’ Jason said. ‘Let’s walk over here.’ With Hazo keeping pace beside him, Jason headed for the terrorists’ four abandoned pickup trucks, which the marines had parked in a neat row beside the road. When they’d reached the vehicles, Jason looked back to make sure no one was watching. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a long, tubular object.

  ‘I am sorry. I do not smoke,’ Hazo meekly replied.

  Jason chuckled. ‘It’s not a cigar, Hazo. It’s a paint pen … a marker. Comp
liments of Israeli Intelligence.’ He uncapped it and began drawing a circle on the hood of the first Toyota.

  Not seeing any ink coming out from the marker’s tip, Hazo was confused. ‘I don’t understand. It doesn’t do anything. I don’t see anything.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s the point. The ink is invisible to the naked eye,’ Jason explained. ‘But not to military satellites.’

  ‘Ah,’ Hazo said. ‘Very clever.’

  ‘Makes it very easy to track vehicle movements from the sky.’ He casually moved to the next pickup and scrawled an invisible star on its hood. ‘I’ve already got the serial numbers for all the military vehicles in Crawford’s platoon. Those can be tracked in-house by our agency using GPS, no problem. If, however, one of these trucks goes missing, they fall off the grid. Unless they’re marked.’ Another glance to the camp, and Jason stepped up to the third pickup. This time, he traced out a square. On the hood of the fourth pickup, he drew an invisible triangle. Capping the marker, he slipped it back inside his pocket. Then he pointed to each pickup in turn, saying, ‘Circle … star … square … triangle.’ He committed each pickup to memory - paint, model, distinguishing marks (like the blown-out windshield and blood-smeared cab of the pickup that had been the convoy’s lead vehicle).

  ‘Very good,’ Hazo said, impressed.

  ‘And since we’re on the topic of satellites …’ Jason pulled out his binoculars, activated the infrared, and discreetly spied Crawford’s position in the tent. The colonel was still on his call, pacing in small circles. ‘Who are you talking to, Crawford?’ Jason muttered to himself. He used the laser to calculate Crawford’s GPS grid. Then he flipped open his sat-com and put out a call of his own - one which Crawford certainly would not approve.

  31

  ‘Mack, it’s Yaeger. I need a big favour,’ Jason said. Thanks to the cloudless Iraqi sky, the sat-com’s reception was flawless. On the other end of the call, he could easily hear GSC’s star Communications and Remote Weapons Specialist crunching away on some potato chips.