MJ-12: Endgame

by Michael J. Martinez

  “Why in God’s name would he do that?” Cal asked.

  The answer was terrifying.

  * * *

  Danny sped through the heart of Kaesong toward the concentration of Variants he had detected. There were two or three that had split off from the main group and were heading to the south and east, but he figured he’d best go with numbers for now. Besides, for whatever reason, his senses were growing fainter, not stronger, as they approached the city. Something was off, and he didn’t know what.

  He turned to Katie over in the passenger seat—and nearly ran off the road. A strange, ephemeral mist seemed to hang around her head, and it coalesced into the ghostly face of an old man, looking angrily at him. He glanced back at where Sorensen sat, still invisible, but saw the same mist where he should’ve been, and another face, this time a middle-aged Asian woman, glared back as well.

  “Something’s happening,” Danny said. “Our Enhancements are changing.”

  Katie looked at him quizzically. “How do you know?”

  “There’s …”

  Suddenly, the man’s face hanging around Katie’s head seemed to scream silently before dissolving into nothingness. The mist around Sorensen was gone by the time he turned his head. And suddenly, his senses grew much sharper, as if someone had finally fixed the rabbit ears on the television inside his head.

  “Never mind,” Danny said. “I’m getting Cal and Yamato up ahead. Maggie is heading to the southeast with two others. Assuming at least one of them may be Beria. Let’s move.”

  Danny let his Enhancement guide him as he drove, and they soon pulled into an abandoned, bombed-out factory—surrounded by a couple dozen North Korean troops. Danny drove past the installation instead. “Ideas?” he asked.

  “I’ll recon and see what’s there,” Sorensen said as the jeep’s rear lifted slightly, the telltale sign that he’d jumped off.

  “I’ll get close,” Ekaterina said, sliding out of the jeep. “It is an old building. It looks like it will collapse at any moment. I will help it.”

  Danny waited a few minutes for everyone to get in place, then wheeled the jeep around and drove into the factory compound. Immediately, a half dozen soldiers leveled rifles at him, but he continued to drive ahead until he was no more than thirty feet from the building entrance before stopping on several rail tracks.

  “Wmen yào qù kāi chéng. Ràng wmen tōngguò,” Danny ventured as an officer walked forward.

  “I speak Russian,” the officer replied. “I do not recognize you.”

  “I am here to join the others,” Danny said. “Surely they told you I would be coming?”

  The officer frowned deeply. “They did not tell me this. We did not expect anyone back here for two hours.”

  Somebody left for sure, then. “Well, where did they go?” Danny said. “Come now! I need to catch up to them.”

  The officer put his hand on his sidearm. “Step out of the vehicle.”

  Suddenly, there was a groaning, crumbling sound from above them, and Danny looked up to see the side of the corrugated metal building start to collapse downward. He took the opportunity to fling himself at the North Korean officer, tackling him to the pavement, and then rolled under the jeep as hundreds of pounds of metal crashed down on top of it.

  From the darkness under the jeep, Danny could hear the sounds of men crying out, then gunfire, and then a massive snapping sound—and more screams. It took about five minutes for the ruckus to die down, and another three or four before light returned.

  He rolled out to find Ekaterina and Sorensen standing over him. “No napping,” Sorensen chided.

  Danny got to his feet and looked around. Not only had the entire facade of the factory collapsed, but a massive steel girder, some thirty feet long, was on the ground about twenty feet away, with several inert bodies under it. “Baseball?” Danny asked.

  “A bourgeoisie sport,” Katie said. “But useful.”

  With the face of the building gone, Danny could see that the rail tracks continued into a large loading area inside. Sorensen handed him a Korean rifle, and together the three Variants ventured inside. Danny could sense all the Variants ahead, and it seemed like they were all inside the boxcar.

  “Odd. Why—” Then his senses winked out. “Null generators,” Danny said. “Find ’em. Move!”

  They ran forward and fanned out around the boxcar, searching around the wheels and by the doors. The first two were easy to find and destroy, but Sorensen had to climb up on top of the car itself to find the third. Once that was off, Danny’s senses roared back to life.

  Katie crushed the now-dormant null generator in her hands, then went toward the chained and padlocked doors of the boxcar. But Danny rushed over and pulled her aside. “Give it a moment,” he said, then shouted toward the boxcar itself. “All clear!”

  The doors of the boxcar burst open, one of them flying across the loading area. Then, slowly, a large crate moved out of the boxcar …

  … hovering in thin air.

  “Well, that’s new,” Sorensen said from the top of the car.

  The crate gently settled onto the concrete floor, and Danny could see that the top had already been removed.

  Inside was the unmistakable shape of a bomb.

  “Jesus,” Danny breathed.

  People began pouring out of the boxcar, including Yamato and Cal. The last time Danny had seen him, Cal was a hale thirty or so. Now, he looked close to his natural age. Danny rushed over and gave him a bear hug. “You all right?” he asked.

  Cal returned the hug. “I’m okay. But we got a problem.”

  Danny turned and saw eight Soviet Variants, including Savrova and the Mongolian, staring at him. “Is this the problem?” Danny asked.

  “Not sure. That bomb is the bigger problem,” Cal said.

  Savrova walked over to Danny. “We cannot disturb the bomb,” she said. “Any attempts to disarm it or cut off the radio detonator will automatically engage the nuclear reaction.”

  Danny held up a hand. “Nuclear? This is an A-bomb?”

  “Actually, it’s a prototype H-bomb,” Yamato said. “Our friends here say Beria diverted it from the Russian nuclear program he’s been overseeing.”

  “And Beria has the radio detonator,” Danny finished.

  There were nods around the room, along with some quiet Russian translation.

  “You all know where he’s going?” Cal asked. “Come on, now. You know we gotta stop him.”

  “Panmunjom,” Savrova said. “The armistice talks.”

  Danny glanced over at the bomb. “Okay, we need to go. Let’s find vehicles. Move!”

  The Russians looked at each other in confusion, even as one or two began to step forward, along with Hei Feng and Padilla. But Savrova wasn’t one of them. “We are Soviets,” she said. “We do not follow American orders.”

  Danny and Cal traded a look of disbelief. “Good Lord, there’s a bomb here,” Cal said. “Look, now I know you folks think we’re the Devil’s own, and honestly, we don’t think too highly of you either. But Beria’s done sold you out. So you can stay here and die, you can run and hope we take care of him, or you can actually do something about all this. It ain’t about Russians and Americans no more. We got lives to save.”

  A few more Russians began walking forward, but there were still holdouts. “Look, we’re in North Korea,” Danny added. “When this is done and you wanna stay, it’s not like we can stop you. But right now, for all our sake—for the sake of Variants everywhere and all these people who are gonna die—we gotta do this. Let’s go.”

  At this, one of the Russians transformed into shadows and simply disappeared, which caused a murmur among the others. Finally, the holdouts looked over to Savrova, who finally gave a curt nod.

  “Grab weapons from the guards outside,” Danny said as the group surged forward toward the now-missing wall. “Find jeeps. Move it!”

  They took off at a jog, though Danny stayed behind to keep pace with Cal, wh
o was doing his best to move fast. “Well?”

  “Beria is crazy,” Cal said between breaths. “He’ll do it, no doubt. Surprised he ain’t done it already.”

  “Why?” Danny asked.

  “You ain’t gonna believe it.”

  June 22, 1953

  Something’s different.

  Frank looked around the room as one of the North Korean envoys droned on and the translator droned right along with him. Everyone looked rather sleepy as the heat of the day grew, and nobody seemed particularly bothered by anything.

  And yet something happened in Frank’s mind, like a balloon deflating. All of the voices he’d been holding back suddenly seemed to just … fade. When he dropped his concentration for a moment, all was silent.

  “Rose,” Frank whispered.

  Mrs. Stevens looked at him wide-eyed. “Something happened,” she said. “Hard to explain.”

  He looked over at Beria, who had stopped writing in his notebook, his pen in midair. The former First Deputy Premier was looking around furtively, and he seemed to catch Maggie’s eye as well, who gave him an almost imperceptible shrug in return.

  “Weird,” Frank muttered. “Be ready.”

  After about an hour or so, the negotiators took a break. Beria closed his pen, stood up, and walked swiftly out of the building, Maggie and Illyanov in tow, causing some murmurs in his wake. Frank and Mrs. Stevens got up and followed.

  Outside, amongst the guards from both sides and some of the other delegates, Beria was talking quietly and hastily with Maggie and Illyanov, but noticed Frank and immediately began walking over.

  “What have you done?” Beria demanded.

  Outline of an object in his left jacket pocket, too boxy to be a gun, one of the MGB men said in his head.

  He’s agitated. Something’s not going to plan, General Davis added. He’s going to be unpredictable—be careful.

  Frank smiled slightly. It was kind of nice to have them back. “I didn’t do anything, Comrade. What about you?”

  “This is a trick,” Beria said, his eyes narrowing. “Some sort of null generator.”

  “I feel fine,” Frank countered. “How about you?”

  Beria opened his palm and, immediately, a small flame rose above it. “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t know, but I feel better than I have in weeks,” Frank said.

  Mrs. Stevens stepped forward, putting herself between Frank and Beria. “Sir, maybe this is a good time to take a step back, think about what you’re planning, whatever it is. You told Frank here that people’s Enhancements had changed. Maybe they’ve changed again. Maybe not. But I think we should get a handle on it, your side and mine, before we do anything else.”

  Beria stared at her mutely, as if she were an animal in a zoo, then turned and stalked off, Maggie and Illyanov following him.

  “I need to talk to General Harrison,” Mrs. Stevens said. “This can’t be good. You follow him.”

  Frank nodded and began walking off after Beria, who was heading for the jeeps on the North Korean side of the building. Before Beria got there, however, four other jeeps roared into the compound from the northwest, setting off all kinds of ruckus amongst the guards.

  Danny. And … company?

  Beria stopped in his tracks, then wheeled around and headed back toward the main building. He’s panicking, said Dr. Koslov, a psychiatrist Frank had absorbed a few years back. I don’t think you should let him in there.

  Frank immediately moved to intercept him—but his path was suddenly blocked by Boris Illyanov, who had been walking behind Beria a second ago.

  “Shit,” Frank said. “Move your ass.”

  Illyanov just smiled and shook his head from side to side.

  “Fine.”

  Legs, said a voice in Frank’s mind. It was Yushchenko, the double-agent MGB man from back in ’48.

  Frank threw a punch, but kicked out his left leg while doing so. Illyanov easily dodged the fist, but hit Frank’s leg as he tried to move around him, and ended up sprawled in the dirt. Frank immediately followed up with a sharp blow to the head, which put out Illyanov’s lights for good.

  He looked up to see several people in Russian uniforms running toward Beria—running with Danny and Cal and Yamato and a couple others Frank didn’t recognize. In about a minute, they had Beria surrounded, and Frank rushed over to join them.

  “Hand it over,” Danny said in Russian, a rifle aimed at Beria.

  By this time, the rest of the camp was in chaos, the Koreans not quite knowing what to do about this confrontation between people who all seemed to be Russian, and the Americans starting to back away and head for their vehicles.

  “What is this?” Beria said, eyes shifting quickly from face to face. “Why have you joined with the imperialists?”

  “You betrayed us,” said Maria Savrova—Frank was surprised to see her, and doubly so that she’d confront him like this. “You said we would be at the vanguard of a new order! And you lied!”

  Beria grew red. “Your sacrifice was a noble one! You were to fuel a new wave of Empowered across the world!”

  “You never gave us the choice!” shouted another Variant, one Frank recognized from their initial surveillance activities in Moscow. “You would have killed us!”

  Beria quickly reached into his left jacket pocket, even as he pulled out his sidearm with the other hand.

  Here we go, Frank thought.

  “Drop him, Mags.”

  * * *

  “You’re looking swell,” Frank said. Status report.

  Maggie smiled. “The uniform’s not flattering.” Trouble brewing.

  “Better than you think. Like Rita Hayworth on a USO tour.” I’m not buying it.

  “I was going for Garbo.” Fake-double protocol in place.

  “Really?” Frank said. “You don’t have the hair for it.” Still not buying it.

  Maggie rolled her eyes. “But I got the chops. Left jacket pocket. See you later.” Double-agent confirmed. Check left jacket pocket. Will rejoin when appropriate.

  With that Maggie walked off and the crowd was asked to take their seats. Frank checked his pocket and, finding nothing, went to his assigned seat—front row, good sightlines, and right next to Mrs. Stevens.

  “Well?” Mrs. Stevens said as Frank sat down.

  “Garbo.” She’s still on our side.

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh, thank God. Anything else?”

  Frank looked over to Beria, who had taken a front-row seat behind the North Korean negotiators. “Left jacket pocket.”

  * * *

  Immediately, Beria’s eyes grew wide and his hands began to tremble, as if he’d seen the scariest fucking thing imaginable. Which, knowing Maggie, he probably had.

  “It’s over, Comrade,” Maggie said, stepping forward. “You’re really gonna want to give me that.”

  Beria began sobbing uncontrollably—but he still held his pistol in his right hand, and a small device in the other. “No!” he wailed. “We are so close! A new dawn for all the Empowered!”

  Danny walked over to Maggie’s side, sharing a small half-grin with her before turning to address Beria. “It’s over, Comrade. Let it go.”

  “Never!”

  Beria roared in agonized rage and lifted his gun, firing a shot toward Maggie. At the same time, he fumbled with the device in his hand …

  … until a shot burst cleanly through his wrist, causing him to drop the detonator …

  … which quickly flew away from him and landed several meters away.

  Move. Now, came several voices in Frank’s head.

  Rushing forward, Frank hit Beria with a left cross that sent the Russian sprawling.

  And then all was silent.

  Frank turned to check on Maggie, only to see her kneeling on the ground, holding a prone Danny in her arms.

  “Oh, shit.” Frank rushed over and slid down next to them. “Move, let me see.”

  Maggie r
elented and Frank went to work. Shot entered through left lung, between fifth and sixth ribs. Short range, likely reached his heart as well. Breathing shallow, pulse erratic. Emergency surgery needed stat. If a disembodied voice could sound grim, this was very grim indeed.

  “Get off him!” Frank shouted, pushing Maggie back. “I need a knife! Now! Cal, get over here!”

  One of the Russians offered him a rather wicked-looking field knife, which he used to cut away Danny’s uniform as Cal slid down next to him. “Oh, no. Oh, Danny, no.”

  “Give him as much as you can,” Frank said.

  Cal placed his hands on Danny’s shoulders for several long moments as Frank began to make a ventral incision over Danny’s heart.

  “Frank.”

  Frank looked over at Cal—who hadn’t aged.

  “I can’t get him, Frank. I think he’s gone.”

  Agreed. Breathing and pulse have ceased.

  Frank shoved Cal aside and prepared to pound the hell out of Danny’s chest to try to revive him.

  Then the world went dark.

  * * *

  Frank.

  In the blackness, Frank could hear Danny’s voice. “Don’t go,” he pleaded. It was all he could say.

  I’m already gone. Just shut up and listen.

  “What?”

  They’re not aliens or anything like that. The things beyond the vortex. They’re people. People who have passed on. They latch on to the living, giving them abilities.

  “Why?”

  To get out. The A-bomb. It ripped a hole between the living and the dead. It made them want to come back. All of this, all of our Enhancements—all designed to keep us fighting each other. To build up to another bomb to release more of them.

  Frank tried to look around in the darkness for Danny, but saw nothing. “What happened?”

  I think they did something back at Mountain Home to keep them from communicating. They were trying to push us. They nearly succeeded with Beria. They wanted him to detonate the H-bomb with Variants at ground zero to open up another vortex.

  Frank thought back to the voices, how insistent they were. “So what now?”

  Tell them to keep a lid on the vortex. Tell the Russians too. We have to keep them out. You’ll all still have your abilities, but we need to be careful now. Tell them, Frank.