The wind continued to rage. The ringing in his ears was so loud that it almost drowned out the faint mumble of his subject’s thoughts, but he managed to read them anyway. After about a five-minute session, he had them all. Mr. Icelandic policeman would now wake up oblivious of his and Zoya’s existence, thinking only that he had fallen asleep in his car.
“Alright, I am done,” he said, finally. “Let’s get him to the car and get a move on. How long do you think he will be knocked out?”
Zoya bent over and felt the pulse around the officer’s neck. She did the same with his wrist.
“Not sure but we should hurry. My dad used to tell me that if there are sudden spikes in the pulse rate then the person is trying to regain consciousness.”
“Let’s go then,” said Chris grabbing the officer’s legs. “Can you get his arms?”
“Yes, are we lifting or dragging?”
“Let’s try lifting first to avoid injuries. If it’s too much for you, we can drag.”
Evidently Chris had largely underestimated Zoya’s physical abilities. She was nearly five feet ten and a honed black belt, very soon to become a second dan in Shotokan. Together they were able to lift the officer off the ground with relative ease and carry him for roughly hundred meters or so to his car.
“You are a tough cookie,” Chris said admiringly when they finally had the officer seated behind the wheel inside his car.
“Thanks. We should probably dust the snow off his jacket, otherwise he will wonder why he is covered in snow,” Zoya said with a smile.
“Good idea.”
Soon the two had covered up the crime scene immaculately and were driving off along the mountain road. The sun had not risen yet, and even if it had, it would have been completely hidden behind the thick storm clouds. They trudged on in the semi darkness, bumping and dragging along through the thick snow.
Neither spoke until they had driven for at least an hour. By then, they were in the heart of the barren wilderness of rural Iceland and finally felt safer. Chris turned to Zoya and smiled.
“So, are you going to tell me more about your surprise appearance, then? Although, in hindsight, I am glad you came. You nearly saved my life back there. Thanks!” He smiled gratefully.
“Haha. No worries. I owed you one from that time at the airport, remember?”
“I do. So, how did you get here and why did you come?”
“That was pretty easy. I already knew the flight you were taking and the hotel you were staying at. So, after I went home that evening, I booked myself the same itinerary. I noticed you didn’t book a return flight. I realized that the plan was to keep your trip open-ended. I took the hint and decided to accost you once it was too late for you to send me back. So, here I am,” she said with a wink.
“Very sly. What did you do when you got to Iceland? You must have kept an eye on my moves.”
“Exactly. I took a cab to the hotel and waited at the window of my room to watch for your car to pull in. You were a lot more delayed than I had expected. What happened?”
“There was an issue with my luggage. My gun didn’t get here with me. I had to stay back at the airport to get that sorted.”
“Yes, I figured something like that. Anyway, I kept an eye on your movements from my window and then on the second night when you parked your car underground, I overheard you mention at the reception that you will be checking out in the early morning and dropping your keys off in the drop-box. So, I decided to hide in your car that night.”
“Interesting. It’s odd that I never saw you. You are really good at skulking around,” he said as he flicked her a coy grin.
Zoya blushed. “Hey, if it weren’t for my skulking—” she began to object.
“Then I’d be in jail by now. I know, I know. I was just teasing you. By the way, this is a useful skill to have for a Hekameses, given the nature of our mission. We are lucky to have you with us. You know, I have a hunch that the cops here may even be in cahoots with the Aifra. Otherwise, from what I’ve researched about this country, it’s unusual for a cop to be guarding a closed mountain road like that. So yeah, we’re real lucky you were here today! But tell me, how on earth did you get into my car? I don’t believe I ever left it unlocked.”
“You’re right, you didn’t. You were very cautious about that. Well done. But you are forgetting that I am also a Hekameses.”
“You tampered with the lock?”
“Exactly. Alejandro taught me how to engage electronic sensors with my mind while we were at Dr. Faraday’s house a couple of months ago.”
“Wow, you picked that up pretty quickly, eh?”
“Why is that surprising? Isn’t it something that all of us can do?”
“Not me.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. We all have our different strengths, depending on how the mutations happened. Interacting with electronics was always Alejandro’s thing. I could probably do it, but it’s much harder for me. I am more of a memory tamperer, among other things.” Chris chuckled.
“I see. What other things are you good at then?”
“A few. You will see. Now first thing’s first, does anyone know you are here?”
“Nope. Just you.”
“Shit! Dr. Müller must be worried senseless,” said Chris, as he pulled his phone out from his jacket pocket. “No signal. Here, can you keep an eye on this and tell me when it finds a tower? We need to tell Dr. Müller that you are here as soon as we can.” He passed her his phone.
“Sure, but you are not going to send me back, are you?”
“Unfortunately, we can’t do that anymore, although I would have liked to. Time is of the essence and we will risk too much by going back to send you to London.”
“Great, then you can call whoever you want and tell them I am here,” said Zoya with a broad grin.
“Zoya, this is not a joke!” Chris scolded. “It’s an extremely dangerous mission that I am on and you have risked too much with your rash decision to join me. You have put both our lives as well as our cause in great peril with this move. Why did you come?”
“Calm down, Chris. I had to. I had to come.”
“Why?”
“Because I know where you are going. You are going after Aifra and they have Nancy. I’ve got to find her. I must save her, because no one else is going to. She’s my childhood friend. Almost like a sister. You don’t know how it feels!” Zoya hid her face inside her hands to stop herself from going hysterical.
“There, there. Now it’s your turn to calm down. I’m sorry. I understand how you feel. But it’s too dangerous and we don’t know that we’ll find her or even if there’s anything to find…” He trailed off.
Zoya seemed distraught. Chris extended his hand and patted her gently on the shoulder. He tried to change the topic.
“Did Dr. Cobb tell you that I am going after the Aifra? That would be odd because I was instructed to keep it a secret, even from you.”
“No.”
“Dr. Müller?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“I don’t get it.”
“No one told me about it per say, but I overheard them in their office.”
“I see. Sneaky.”
“I didn’t mean to sneak. I was just there to ask for the new password.”
“I see. Dr. Müller can be really loud sometimes. I should warn him about that.”
“Yeah. By the way, I was really angry with the professors.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t believe that they decided to send you all alone to face this terrible danger, without any reinforcements. It’s crazy!”
“It’s not that bad. I have been on missions like this before. Also, I am not alone. If I get into trouble, Dr. Müller can send reinforcements quicker than you can say reinforcements. You have no idea how connected he is, politically.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why?”
“Well, if he can send backup then why did
he not send them already? Why wait for when you are in trouble?”
“Good point. The reasoning is simple. This is a discreet operation. I am really good at avoiding detection. That is the whole game. I go in there, get the info. and get out. No one has to know and no one will. With you tagging along, however, things are now a bit more complicated. We’ll see what happens.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. What’s done is done. Now, don’t do anything rash. Follow my lead and stay close and hopefully we will still be fine.”
“I will, I promise. So, what’s the plan?”
They still had about an hour to go before sunrise and perhaps another couple of hours of stormy weather and Chris was planning to drive on until the day was clear. That way they could set-up camp somewhere hidden, well before people were out and about on the roads again. He wanted to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. So now he had enough time to roughly explain his plan to Zoya.
They were heading for the spot where the GPS signal from a sensor stolen from Dr. Müller’s lab had last been tracked. It was their belief that this sensor was stolen by Dr. Weilhammer, a scientist from the Max Plank Institute in Frankfurt who had possibly been recruited by the Aifra. If this was true, the trail of the sensor might lead them to an Aifra base or hideout.
They were going to travel by night as much as possible and camp during the day. They would try to stay clear of tourist spots, which were not that many, fortunately. Chris did not plan to camp in any designated camping grounds. They would set-up their tents in the wilderness. Iceland had many caves and waterfalls, many nooks and crevices within a mostly barren, unchartered land where they could stay hidden. If Aifra does indeed have a base here, then they possibly chose this country for the exact same reason.
Besides, it is one of the few countries in the world where security is far more lax than one would expect. The country has no standing army and the US military base that was in operation in the past was handed over to the Icelandic Coast Guard in 2006. US troops rarely visit the island in modern times and the country has enjoyed many years of relative peace and tranquility. All made for a convenient hideout, one would think, for a burgeoning terrorist organization, should they have the resources to withstand the extreme weather and risks of volcanic activity.
The location Chris was seeking on this mission appeared to be along the Western fjords, in the middle of nowhere, not far from an abandoned whaling station. With most countries around the world having banned whale trading in recent times, Iceland’s whaling industry was on the decline. A lot of their former whaling plants lay abandoned.
Iceland is a very drivable country, not more than 500 km from coast to coast in either direction. Back home Chris would not have taken more than half a day to reach his destination at such distances. Here, however, things got a little complicated with the extreme weather and the necessity of having to take the unpaved mountain roads, which were in fact, actually closed due to the weather. Still it was a trip he could easily manage in a day. But he didn’t want to travel in broad daylight, hence the need to break up the journey.
At around mid-day, the storm started to clear and the sun’s oblique rays began to rip through the clouds. Chris decided to set-up camp behind a rocky cliff along the Western coast for the remaining hours of daylight. If his calculations were correct, Dr. Weilhammer’s hideout should not be more than a couple of hours from here. They would set out again after sundown. Chris put up a tent and turned on his portable heater. He then pulled out some sandwiches he had packed earlier and laid them out on the tent floor.
“Hungry?” he asked Zoya.
“Yeah. What do you have?”
“Let’s see. I have roast beef, ham or salami. What do you like?”
“I have some food as well. Bread and some assortment of cheese. Some dried fruit. Sausages.”
“Cool. Looks like we are all set for the week.” Laughed Chris.
“I hope we don’t have to stay that long though,” said Zoya as she pulled out the food items from her backpack.
“Me too. Here, pick one,” said Chris pushing the sandwiches in her direction.
After lunch Chris curled up in his sleeping bag and took a nap. Zoya sat close to the heater and kept watch. At around four they switched watch. By eight they were all packed up and ready to hit the road again.
“You want to be my navigator?” asked Chris, handing Zoya the map.
“Sure. What are we looking for?”
“You see this whaling wharf that I have circled out?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the one we are looking for.”
“Why aren’t we using the GPS?”
“It won’t find it. This is an older map from when the whaling station down there was operational. It no longer shows up on the maps, but I am hoping that there should still be some sort of a run-down shed over there that we could use as a landmark. Otherwise there is no GPS that would find that area. It doesn’t have an address or any roads nearby.”
“Got it. What happens when we find it?”
“Well…”
“Yeah?”
“Then it gets tricky. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
It was about an hour and forty-five minutes when Zoya finally saw what looked like a rundown shed in the distance, right along the coast.
“I think that’s it,” she said, pointing West.
“Could be, but how do we get there?”
“You have to drive out of the tracks and over the snow. We have a four-by-four, we should be fine.”
“There’s one problem.”
“What?”
“It’s forbidden.”
“Going to the abandoned whaling station is forbidden?”
“No, driving outside the track is.”
“Jeez, that didn’t stop us the last time.”
Chris smirked and turned his car off the track and onto the snow-covered black sand along the coast.
“Keep an eye out for any cops will you,” he said.
Zoya did as she was asked.
“Hey, look at that!” she said after a couple of minutes, pointing towards the horizon in the far West beyond the wharf.
“Looks like a wind farm,” Chris observed.
“Yeah, it does. But who would need any electricity down here?”
“Maybe it’s from the time the whaling business was operational. It probably fell into disuse as the industry took a hit and this whaling outfit was abandoned.”
“Probably. What a waste, though. There is so much wind here.”
“Yeah. The blades are spinning like crazy. Okay let’s stop here.” Chris braked the car when they were within a couple of hundred meters of the abandoned factory.
“Do you want to go in?”
“No. They are probably not hiding in there. It looks deserted. In any case, we shouldn’t go in even if they are in there, without planning this out properly.”
“Got it. Could you not track the GPS on the sensor Dr. Weilhammer stole to figure out where he is right now?”
“No. We haven’t been able to track that sensor in days. He must have figured out it had a GPS device and managed to disable it.”
“That’s too bad. What now, then?”
“Can you see a cell phone tower anywhere?”
“Huh?”
Chris leaned back and reaching for his rucksack in the back of the car rummaged inside it for a few minutes. Finally, he pulled out a pair of binoculars and started scanning the surroundings.
“I think I see one over there,” he said pointing towards the northeast. “Let’s go.”
He turned the jeep around and drove in that direction. In about ten minutes they could see the tower looming in the distance. Chris pulled the car up as close to the tower as possible. It was right next to the highway which wasn’t an unusual location for a phone tower. Chris parked right behind the tower next to a jagged block of rock so that the vehicle would not be easily visib
le from the road. He then got out and started pulling out climbing gear from his backpack.
“Woah, what’s going on?” asked Zoya rushing to his side.
“I am going to have to climb that tower.”
“What the…why?”
“This is the part where I get to use my other strengths you were asking about earlier,” said Chris as he struggled to put on a jumpsuit.
“Rock-climbing?”
“Well yes, but also mind reading.”
“You lost me.”
“I have this ability to pick up people’s brain waves. Under normal circumstances, I see random images here and there of people around me, but I can block them out if I want. However, when I am on a cell tower, due to the proximity of the RF antenna, for some reason, I can see clear images of people within my vicinity, where they are, what they are doing etc. I can even map their positions mentally and determine exact physical distances.”
“Wow! What’s the range, I mean in kilometres, of this tracking ability?”
“Roughly about ten kilometres or maybe more depending on how crowded a neighbourhood I am in.”
“Amazing. That’s almost an entire city!”
“A small one, yes. Could you please hand me those gloves?”
“Sure. What does the outfit do?” she asked, looking quizzically at Chris who was now completely clad in a coverall with a hood and special boots.
“It’s a RF protection suit. Alright, I am ready,” he finally said as he tightened his safety harness. “Do you know how to fire a gun?”
“Yes, Alejandro gave me some lessons.”
“Good, then take this and wait here. If you see someone coming, fire a shot in the air and I will rappel down as quickly as I can.” Chris handed Zoya his Glock G29.
The wind started blowing furiously again and Chris could feel its sharp, biting edge through his many layers of clothing. It wasn’t a difficult climb by his standards, but the weather made it much more treacherous. Balancing himself close to the top of the tower, he secured his lanyard to a suitable anchor point and cleared his head. Shifting images were already starting to form in his peripheral vision and now he just had to focus his attention on them.
The Coming of Kalki Page 19