Pandora's Ark (Vatican Knights)

by Jones, Rick

  During the latter part of the Cold War, Leonid Sakharov was a pioneering savant in the field of nanotechnology—leap years ahead of Russia’s most brilliant scientists. In the mid-eighties when nanotechnology was in its genesis stage, the Russian and American tactical war departments realized that the use of nanobots, or nanoweapons, was the future of the arms race with far more devastating repercussions than nuclear devices. Billions of programmed molecules, unseen and indefensible, and with no need of special equipment to produce, could serve the military’s needs in several ways.

  Sakharov’s duties were to conceive nanoweaponry such as nano-scouts, bots so small yet capable of transmitting data from foreign sources that went undetected and unseen. Other military applications were nanobots that acted as poisons or a force field. More measures taken into consideration by the Kremlin were the use of nanoweaponry such as mind erasers, whereas nanobots would settle in an insurgent’s brain as micro fields, then fire off as small brain bursts that would wipe away sections of memory, and then reprogram it with new commands, new memories, and new ideologies suited for communist rule.

  Additional applications such as nano-needles and water bullets were scrapped because of their non-lethal relevance that would ultimately achieve the Russian means to rule by military dominance, which was to kill from a distance with something one-billionth of the size of a man. But more importantly, to do so with something that was highly programmable.

  It was just another matter of the race game between Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. But Russia had Leonid Sakharov, a brilliant physicist who realized that molecular nanoweapons were the next great superweapons. In order to get funding in a Russian economy that was slowly being whittled away by the war in Afghanistan, he explained in detail that the weapons were simple molecules converted by their own atoms, and then those atoms would insert themselves into atomic systems which would transform molecules into tiny computers that raced through space like submicroscopic viruses capable of finding the enemy, and then destroy them. After lobbying effortlessly for the sake, safety and cause of Mother Russia, he got the funding.

  However, his research did not come without tribulation.

  Progress was slow at first—baby steps, really—a stagger here and a stagger there, the frustration worming its way into his core until he took to the bottle to take off the edge. And then gains became strides, strides became leaps, and Sakharov was elated at the advancement made toward the evolution of the atom.

  He would spend nights on end with little or no sleep—his only true companions beside his underling associates were his own colossal ego, and a bottle of the finest vodka rubles could buy.

  But one night, in one of his celebratory moods after making a breakthrough, Old Man Sakharov took to lack of caution and, against the advice of associates, initiated a start-up program after he was warned about the consequences, since no pre-tests were conducted to determine the hazardous effect of the nanobots under controlled conditions. But the old man gestured with a dismissive wave of his hand, his ego and the influence of liquor now the driving forces behind his decisions, and engaged the program with the push of a button.

  As he sat at a monitor behind a bomb-proof resistant glass wall, he watched his associates as they examined a monkey that was isolated in a separate room behind another glass wall. At first there was nothing, the old man becoming flustered, angry, not understanding what went wrong. And then a waspy hum sounded over the mike as the monkey became agitated. Within moments the hum grew in intensity, the nanobots replicating faster than anticipated. And then the monkey began to scream at a pitch that none of the scientists had ever heard from any animal.

  Quickly, the rhesus’s fur began to slough off by the handfuls, the monkey waving and swinging its hands wildly at something unseen. And then its flesh began to disappear as if eaten away by patches, revealing the muscle and gristle underneath, then bone. The rhesus raised its head in agony, its eyes dissolving within their orbital sockets, and then it shuddered one last time before falling. Within moments, like a time-lapse reel of a movie running in fast forward, the monkey dissolved into skeletal matter. But it didn’t end there. The bone quickly became polished, and then cracked, revealing the marrow that soon disappeared. And then there was nothing, not even the outline of dust. Everything that was carbon matter was gone.

  And Sakharov smiled. “There you have it, gentlemen,” he said over the intercom. “The future is finally here.”

  But the celebration was short lived.

  The hum of the nanobots sounded like a hive gone mad, growing louder, the speakers sounding off as if the volume was being turned up.

  No! No! No! They’re replicating too quickly!

  Sakharov’s mind began to go into panic mode, his two associates looking at him through the glass from the lab, wondering what was wrong.

  And then the noise ceased, the waspy hum cut off as if on cue.

  Not a collective breath could be heard as the two scientists stood as still as Grecian statues.

  And then the glass that separated the two scientists from the rhesus lab began to crack. At first it was just one spot, a pinpoint with spider-web cracks that blossomed into full designs. And then a second and third pinpoint, the cracks trailing across the pane until they met other cracks, the window becoming compromised, and then it blew outward with an explosive force, the hum now sounding like a freight train speeding through a tunnel.

  Sakharov’s associates began to slap at their coats, at their faces, as if swatting away annoying gnats or insects. And then the material of their coats began to disappear, and then strips and slabs of flesh. Their faces simply disappearing: the skin, the muscle, ultimately revealing the curvature of bone underneath and the empty sockets where their eyes once were. Their tongues no longer lolled, the meat stripped away, vanished. And in a last act of self-preservation they clawed at the window that separated them from their mentor with the bony tines of their fingers, the digits of bone clearly seen as they ticked against the glass in macabre measure.

  What have I done?

  Sakharov watched with paralytic terror as the men slid down the glass leaving bloody trails against the pane.

  And then a silence that was complete and absolute followed.

  Sakharov looked at the speakers.

  Not a sound.

  And then it came as a single tick against the glass that separated him from his associates’ lab. The glass divide between his room and his associates took on a single pinprick hole that was beginning to web out with a series of meandering cracks.

  Acting quickly, Sakharov lifted the plastic emergency shield that covered a red button and slammed his palm down. A titanium wall came down and covered the glass. And then he pressed the button again. This time initiating a failsafe program that ignited the lab, burning everything within the room at more than three thousand degrees. Everything, including the nanobots, was incinerated.

  Nevertheless, Sakharov was hailed by the Kremlin as a hero, whereas his associates were looked upon as collateral damage. But he knew differently. He had become drunk to the delight of his own ego, casting aside all precautions and believing that nothing could have gone wrong when, in fact, everything had gone horribly wrong. And it wasn’t too long afterward that he came to the realization that such nanoweaponry was far too dangerous. According to an article by Eric Drexler, whom he considered to be his “near” equal, replication was much too fast if not contained. And within a week the bots could exponentially grow to such numbers that the entire surface of the Earth would be consumed by matter Drexler termed as “grey goo,” which is to say everything alive on the planet would be devoured and anything to come within its gravitational pull would be consumed as well.

  But the Kremlin didn’t want to hear this side of the scenario. What they wanted were results, so funding was extended with expectations that Sakharov would be able to program the molecules to keep from replicating themselves, and to better devise a way to control the
m from a computer monitor.

  When Sakharov told them that such science was decades away, they simply told him that the “first” second of the first decade just ticked away; therefore, he wasn’t to waste another moment.

  For years he worked on methods and theories, having diagrams of buckyballs with scribbled notes wallpapering the walls. He worked effortlessly, truly believing that he could be the next Nikola Tesla, the Serbian genius.

  As months and years drew on, as the wall crumbled in 1991 and with it communism, the new leadership refused Sakharov any true freedoms and placed him under the auspice of the new Directorate S, an updated version of Kremlin bureaucracy.

  With pressure mounting and with Sakharov struggling with the bottle, his work went well beyond stressful and gains were minimal. With more pressure being asserted by the powers that be, Sakharov finally snapped and erased almost ten years of data from all computers and their banks, leaving nothing to be retrieved.

  This earned Sakharov nine years in the prison system where he watched inmates die around him in the most horrific conditions.

  But he did not blame Mother Russia. He blamed himself, knowing that his ego was paramount and that his downfall and failures was of his own doing.

  He still loved his country, even though it was a marginal facsimile of what she used to be.

  But he survived Vladimir Central. And by the time he was released, Russia had a new political face. And it turned up its nose at him by telling him that he was aged and forgotten.

  But my mind is as sharp as it always was.

  He smiled because this was true.

  In Vladimir Central he would draw diagrams and formulas in the mud, then commit them to memory before erasing them at the approach of the guards. Now that his mind wasn’t addled with drink, he could think, configure, and institute new measures of control if given the opportunity to do so. He would be diligent and careful. And though he quickly found a reason to purse his lips around the mouth of a bottle the moment he was released from Vladimir Central, he would gladly give it up to prove to himself that he was not the failure Mother Russia believed him to be since she discarded him like yesterday’s news.

  He then raised the glass of vodka to his lips and drank, the alcohol going down much cooler than the urine that often left his body. You’re coming apart, old man. But he smiled at the thought.

  Regardless, he had lived a good life, developing weaponry he believed would serve as a deterrent against the United States, for which they would fear retaliatory strikes derived from Sakharov’s wares. The old man truly believed that he was once the front line of his nation’s defense, when, in fact, he was just a cog in the scheme of Russia’s massive operation that was well beyond his comprehension.

  He sighed. He stared. He thought. And he drank; knowing once he left this apartment, once he left for Iran, and despite the promises of reliving his glory years, Leonid Sakharov knew his time was limited.

  Again he smiled. And then he lifted a full glass of vodka and extended his hand toward the lights of St. Basil’s Cathedral and proposed a toast. “To my beloved Mother Russia,” he whispered. “I have missed you so. And I promise to make you proud.” And then he drank until the glass ran empty.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tehran, Iran, Three Days Later

  Deep in the center of Iran’s capital, by far the largest urban city with a population of over eight million people, al-Ghazi found it easy to hide within the bustle of the major metropolis. After meeting with Leonid Sakharov, he took an immediate flight back to his central base.

  The weather was hot and dry, the sky a deep blue, a cloud not to be seen. The stink of a big city was evident with the smell of fumes and exhaust permeating the air as if a sandstorm had swept through the streets, the atmosphere cloyingly thick with haze the color of desert sand. People milled about the bazaars where animal meats hung from hooks. And al-Ghazi took it all in as he sat at a table outside an eatery enjoying a Sharbat, a sweet drink prepared from fruits and flower petals. As always he was impeccably dressed in a shirt so white that it cast a glowing radiance, whereas everyone around him wore the traditional Shalvars or Sarbands.

  Patiently, while at leisure with his drink, al-Ghazi waited. His contact would be prompt, as always. So at noon when his phone rang he knew exactly who it was.

  He recognized al-Zawahiri’s voice right away.

  “There is no doubt the Americans will eventually come after me since they murdered Osama,” said al-Zawahiri. “After today I will stay in contact through couriers, since I must now go into exile.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you have the physicist?”

  “Not yet. But arrangements have been made for him to arrive in Tehran shortly. My men will be there to pick him up.”

  “There will be problems getting him through customs, yes?”

  “Not at all,” he answered. “I have been given assurances by custom agents at the Imam Khomeini International Airport that Dr. Sakharov will pass uncontested. If he does not, then it is understood that consequences will befall those who stay his passage.”

  “Is he capable of doing the job? My sources tell me that the physicist has grown infirm.”

  Al-Ghazi took a sip from his Sharbat, the outside of the glass sweating. “It appears that drink has taken his body, al-Zawahiri, but not his mind. So what has become Russia’s loss is now Allah’s gain.”

  “Then you’ve done well, al-Ghazi. Allah truly shines upon you with favors.”

  “I am blessed, yes.”

  “Quickly, tell me of your agenda and then speak no more of it to anyone hereafter.”

  “The good doctor will arrive tonight and be taken to a safe house at the northern edge of the city where he will rest. On the following morning he will then be taken to our base camp in the Alborz.”

  The Alborz is a mountain range in the northern part of Iran stretching from the borders of Azerbaijan and Armenia in the northwest, to the Caspian Sea in the south. The range also borders Afghanistan to the east and seats the tallest mountain in the Middle East, Mount Damavand, which is well over 18,000 feet tall.

  The range is porous with caves, like Afghanistan. But unlike Afghanistan, the region is highly protected by President Ahmadinejad’s forces since the area falls under Iranian sovereignty. To breach the area would be difficult. To find the exact location of the lab site would be almost impossible. And as far as al-Ghazi was concerned, he was untouchable.

  “And you’re ready, I presume?”

  “Quite. This facility is located deep within the base of Mount Damavand. President Ahmadinejad was kind enough to create a state-of-the-art laboratory that will be activated by power cells.”

  “It appears that Ahmadinejad’s nuclear program has more applications than just an energy resource as he claims. I’m sure he did not do this from the goodness of his heart.”

  “Of course not, but his stake is a simple one,” he said. “In exchange for his use of the lab and his continued protection, he respectfully requests that his team of scientists be given access to all data regarding Sakharov’s nanotechnology.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  And then: “We have no other choice?”

  “The facility is well protected, al-Zawahiri. And the equipment is something the good doctor may understand. Even with my schooling, I have no concept as to what they do. They are truly state-of-the-art, which gives us the promise of achievement that would bring us victory over the infidels in a final assault that would give Allah his true station above all.”

  “I may believe in you, al-Ghazi. And I may believe in Dr. Sakharov. But I do not trust Ahmadinejad. I’m afraid once this is all set and done, then he will take it all for himself.”

  “There will be a fail-safe against that,” al-Ghazi returned evenly.

  “And what would that be?”

  “If President Ahmadinejad should fall back on his agreement, then I will make sure that the data will be compromised, ren
dering the entire operation useless.”

  “I see.”

  “There is a solution for everything,” he said. “I will maintain all data so that a lab in Pakistan has the chance to emulate the progress of what we are doing inside Mount Damavand. If Ahmadinejad falls back on his word, then at least you’ll have the necessary information to replicate the technology.”

  “You’ve considered your options well,” said al-Zawahiri. “Impressive.”

  “I’m a soldier of Allah’s army. I plan for every contingency.”

  “And what about the Ark of the Covenant?”

  “It’s safe inside the facility in Damavand,” he answered. “Once the nano project is complete, then the Ark will come into play.”

  Although al-Ghazi could not see al-Zawahiri, he knew the old soldier held a pleased look about him.

  “Allahu Akbar,” the old soldier finally said.

  Al-Ghazi nodded, smiled. “Allahu Akbar.”

  The line was severed.

  Al-Ghazi then removed the SIM card from the phone, destroyed it, and quietly watched the people of Tehran mill about as he sat back and enjoyed his Sharbat.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Vatican City, Domus Sanctæ Marthæ

  On the edge of Vatican City but adjacent to St. Peter’s Basilica lies the Domus Sanctæ Marthæ, the residential quarters of the Cardinal Electors who are housed there prior to entering the conclave to elect a newly appointed official upon the passing of the pope.

  Three days after his arrival, Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci took up residence in a dormitory room overlooking the Basilica.

  To be back at Vatican City held something special for him, the air of the plaza bearing its own uniqueness unlike anywhere else in the world. Or so he believed.

  In the days that followed his arrival, politicking began, the camps congregating with discussions as to who would provide the best possible leadership and guidance, and whether or not the names bandied about were more conservative or liberal in ideology. Like last time, Cardinal Vessucci’s name entered discussions as a leading candidate alongside Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo, whose camp banded with the late Pope Gregory’s in the last election and caused Vessucci to lose by a marginal count and ultimately his exile by Gregory. In exchange for Angullo’s collusion entitling him the papalship, Pope Gregory would grant Angullo Vessucci’s old post as the Vatican’s secretary of state, the second highest position in the Church.