by Tom Wilde
“There was no way for us to speak candidly until now,” she said. “It is time for you to know the truth.”
“The truth about what?”
The woman’s face became a rigid mask as she said, “About how Vanya intends to destroy the world.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Château du Joux, France
So there I was, staring at the green rolling hills and tall snowcapped mountains. The sun was bright, the air was fresh, and my world had just taken a decidedly screwed-up turn for the worse. I didn’t respond to Rhea—or Suzume—immediately. Instead, I took out my flattened box of cigarettes and lighter, lit one up, and took in a deep, poisonous breath. I let the smoke out all at once as I said, “Please tell me you’re just making the worst joke in the world.”
Rhea came over beside me and leaned against the car. She didn’t look at me as she said, “No. Phillip Vanya may be the most dangerous man alive. It is now within his power to murder millions.”
“So you really are a Japanese secret agent?”
“Operative,” Rhea corrected, “and yes, I have been sent by my government to infiltrate Vanya’s operation and stop his plans.”
“So what has all this to do with finding the body of Alexander the Great?”
She stared across the distance as she said, “Vanya’s dream is, in his own twisted way, to save the world. To accomplish that, he’s willing to kill over half the people on the planet.”
I felt my head drop to my chest. “Okay, let’s take this from the top. Just how is he planning to do this?”
“Vanya doesn’t want to use Alexander’s DNA to prove any radical religious theories. He wants to use the genetic material to create a brood of children. Children who will be raised to believe they’re the natural rulers of the earth.”
“Genetic material? From a mummy? That’s insane.”
Rhea shook her head. “No. We have the science to do this. Geneticists now have the ability to harvest the genetic material of the deceased and fuse that material to a viable human female’s egg. The technique is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. The only reason it hasn’t been accomplished yet is because of all the ethical restrictions in the international scientific community. But putting moral objections aside, it can be done. At least Vanya believes this to be true.”
I was dimly aware of a car passing by on the road, carrying ordinary people to an ordinary destination. “But even if Vanya can use Alexander’s DNA, what good will it do him?”
“Imagine a whole family of Alexander’s progeny. You’ve seen the girls Vanya keeps in the compound? They’re his potential brood mothers for his new master race. The children they will produce will all be raised to be conquerors of the world.”
My mind flashed back to all the young, beautiful girls I met in Vanya’s courtyard, and Vanya’s own seemingly off-hand comment, “Children are the future.”
“Wait,” I said. “So what’s the hurry? Sounds like this is one long-range pipe dream.”
Rhea shook her head, almost imperceptibly. “The danger lies in the fact that Vanya knows that if word of his plans ever got out, the governments of the world would stop him, and he would be attacked. And he has already armed himself with weapons of mass retribution.”
I felt an icicle sink into my guts as I asked, “Weapons?”
“Plague virus.”
I felt my jaw clench as Rhea explained, “Vanya has had his scientists, some of whom are virtual prisoners on the island, create an enhanced, highly contagious and lethal plague virus. This virus is already in the hands of Vanya’s more fanatical followers throughout the world. Vanya calls this his Pandora’s Box, and his plan is to decimate the world population so that by the time his ‘children’ are ready, they will inherit a planet with a vastly reduced population and weakened governmental infrastructures.”
I began to automatically take in some more smoke, then dropped the cigarette and crushed it out. I was going to need something a lot stronger than tobacco to assimilate all this. “So why don’t you just kill him? You certainly didn’t mind killing those men of Ombra’s back in Paris.”
Rhea’s tone was almost wistful. “If it were that simple, I would have done it long ago. Vanya is a highly paranoid man. He’s told me more than once that if he were to die suddenly, he’s taking the world with him. His death will be a sign for all his worldwide followers to trigger the plague weapons they have. And hard as I’ve worked to prove myself to him, he still doesn’t trust me completely, and I don’t have the list of his followers who are already armed with the plague.”
“So he’s got an army of biological suicide bombers? Where’d he find that many crazy people?”
“They’re innocent true believers,” Rhea said with cold clarity. “They don’t know they’re holding biological weapons of mass destruction. They believe they are Vanya’s Chosen Few, and that the devices they’ve been entrusted with are actually signaling devices to be activated during the Second Coming of our Brethren from Space. But Vanya’s plan need not rely entirely on his followers—he can trigger all the devices remotely via worldwide broadcast as well.”
The weight of her words was as heavy as if the surrounding mountains had just fallen on top of me. “Now what? We just go along with this plan to dig up Alexander’s corpse? How’s that supposed to help stop Vanya?”
Rhea stepped away from the car and stood right in front of me, close enough for a kiss. “Yes,” she said with low-voiced intensity. “We go along with it. Because the only hope is to make Vanya believe that we are on his side, until we can find his list of agents and neutralize them. Hopefully before it’s all too late.”
“We’ve got to tell people about this.”
She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. “That is not a good idea. I believe Vanya and his people have already infiltrated your own government. Just last year, an American agent tried to join the Children of Cronos under cover. Vanya found out his identity and had him murdered.”
I felt my jaws clench as I remembered hearing about an agent getting killed during my briefing back in New York, and it pumped up my own paranoia to a heightened state of awareness. “So you’re saying we’re all alone on this?”
“Yes. Although now there are two of us.” She looked downward and said, almost shyly, “I am very glad you are here. I have been all alone, living with the enemy, for a very long time. But now we have to prepare to deal with what may lie ahead and keep our secret between the two of us.”
“How many more will you kill just to prove you’re Vanya’s pet?”
“As many as I have to,” she said simply. “What I do, I do for my country and the people of Japan. The question is, what are you willing to do for your people?”
I didn’t answer. All I knew at that moment was that she was standing way too close, and it felt like she was suffocating me. Finally, she shook her head, slowly. “You Americans; you lack the will and the strength to do what’s necessary, even to defend your own people. If you understood the Japanese way, your path would be clear.”
“And your way is better?”
“My way is simply efficient; Vanya is a threat, a threat my government has sent me to eliminate.”
“So Vanya really was responsible for the nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway?”
“Not directly,” she said. “But there were enough connections that I was assigned to the case. This is where the trail has led me.”
I thought back to what Mr. Jonas had told me about Vanya’s potential ability in regard to biological warfare, but he’d never mentioned the possibility of Vanya creating his own army of New Age Alexanders. However, it was Rhea’s words about Japan that brought everything into focus for me. I’d been sent to her country during my early Argo training. I was the guest of a family living on the outskirts of the Koga prefecture, where I was a student of a man who taught me many useful and dangerous techniques. The fragile-appearing elderly man who trained me didn’t speak a word of English, so his fourteen-year-old gra
nddaughter would translate. I never forgot how she would cover her face and giggle when the old man would throw me around the dojo, or twist me up into interesting and painful positions. But when the old man would speak, the girl would become completely serious as she looked downward and translated things like: “Grandfather says you are hopelessly clumsy, and he is afraid you will be here for a very long time.”
So if Rhea was willing to do whatever was necessary to stop Vanya from wrecking the world for the sake of her people, then well and good. As for me, I knew I’d do it just for the memory of a young girl I’d never see again. Besides, the world was screwed up enough without having a horde of egomaniacal, psychopathic Alexanders loosed upon it.
My eyes refocused to find Rhea still standing too close to me. “What are you thinking?” she asked gently.
“I was thinking that even if your story is half true, Vanya needs to be stopped.”
She nodded. “Good. Then we are partners?”
I remembered something I’d said to Vanya. “I’m in. All the way. So now what?”
“We should get a look at this castle. I believe we are very close now.”
We got back inside the German road rocket and I let Rhea direct me while she consulted her phone. I zipped along the winding mountain pass until Rhea held up her hand. “Stop. We’re here.”
I pulled over to the side and shut the engine down. From the car’s interior, I saw an abundance of green trees on the hillsides, past low, red-roofed, white-walled houses near the crossroads. I got out of the car, looked around, and then up. And up.
It looked like someone had planted a castle at the very peak of a narrow mountain, crowning the top. The mountain itself was clad in bright green foliage, offset by the dusty red tiles of the roofs of the castle fortifications, set in irregular shapes atop the gray granite walls and turrets. Even at this great distance, the fortress looked as impregnable as any I’ve ever seen.
I was aware through my peripheral vision that Rhea had gone to the trunk of the car. She came and stood beside me, handing me a pair of Steiner 10 × 50 binoculars. When I focused on the castle, the magnified view made me feel that many times worse, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold mountain air. “You have got to be kidding me,” I murmured.
Rhea tapped my arm. “What’s that over there?”
I swung the glasses in the indicated direction and saw, across a deep divide, another stone fortification, smaller and not as elaborately eccentric in design. “Great. Which one are we supposed to go and get ourselves killed in?”
I heard Rhea tapping on her cell phone. “Ah. The smaller one must be one called Fort du Larmont. We want the big one.”
“The big one,” I echoed. “Naturally. Want to bet they have a functional dungeon?”
“Why not? The place was supposed to be a prison at one time.”
Rhea took a quick but careful look around. “Open the trunk,” she said. This was the first time I’d gotten a look inside the luggage area. Besides Rhea’s black leather shoulder bag, I saw two large, silver-colored metal cases. Rhea tripped the combination lock on one of the cases. I caught a quick glimpse of electronic gear nestled inside protective foam. Rhea picked up a small, black plastic rectangle the size of a pack of playing cards. She thumbed a switch, and I saw a tiny green light activate. “Here,” she said, “put this in your inside coat pocket.”
I did as asked, then said, “What is it?”
“It’s a tracking device. So I can find you again.” She took another quick look around then said in a conspiratorial tone, “Now, do you want a gun?”
That remark made me look around in a guilty manner. “A gun?” I whispered. Rhea gave me a serious nod. “No,” I replied. “It might make me look like I had dishonorable intentions. I’m supposed to be a diplomatic go-between, right?” I truly was tempted by the offer of a real weapon, but I figured anything less than a rocket-propelled grenade launcher wouldn’t help much with storming my way into, or especially out of, a fortified castle.
Rhea shut the trunk lid and held out her hands for the car keys, which I reluctantly handed over. I was really getting to love driving the little German beast. I took my place in the passenger seat and Rhea expertly drove us toward the castle. In all too short a time, she pulled into a turnoff at a sign that informed us we were heading to the town of La Cluse et Mijoux, a small village of provincial cream-colored buildings with red-tiled roofs. Rhea pulled up at the base of a steep drive marked with a sign for the Château de Joux. She kept the engine purring as she said to me, “Remember, the deal is we will release Ombra to them in return for the Fouché letter, or any information they have on the location of Alexander’s tomb.” She handed me a slip of paper and a digital photograph of Ombra. I glanced at the photo—it was the same one I saw in the private jet, and he didn’t look good in the picture at all. “Once they agree, have them call that number on the paper for further arrangements.”
“Is that deal contingent on them letting me get out alive?”
She smiled. “Don’t worry. I have some emergency plans of my own. I’m not about to lose you now.” And before I could move, she grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me to her, kissing me with strength and passion, a kiss I automatically responded to for the wild, heady moment it lasted.
When she broke her hold, she leaned back and laughed, a pleasant, crystalline sound. “Sorry,” she said insincerely. “Call that the sealing of our partnership. Come back to me, and together we’ll figure a way to stop Vanya once and for all.”
I just nodded like an idiot and fumbled my way out of the car. Once I shut the door, she took off, burning the road in a wide, swinging one-eighty, and roared off back through the town, earning a raised fist from an elderly man riding an old, shaky bicycle. I took in a deep, cleansing breath of Alpine air mixed with a tincture of burnt tire and petrol, and let it all out. But I didn’t shake the lingering warmth of Rhea’s kiss.
I started my hike up along the steep climbing path toward the castle, setting myself an easy pace, as I wasn’t used to the altitude yet. And truth be told, I wasn’t in any hurry to deliver myself to the enemy. “Killing the Messenger” was an age-old tradition throughout the world, and I started to wonder what Odysseus would do in my situation. That got me thinking about the old adage in regard to accepting gifts from Greeks.
I stopped my trek and caught my breath in the cold air, feeling along the sides of the leather coat Rhea gave me. The Kevlar lining was built into the vest, leaving the arms of the jacket more supple. I took out the black box from my inside coat pocket. The box was coated in some kind of flat black material, and it didn’t weigh much at all. It was featureless with the exception of a small sliding switch and the green light on one of the sides. Rhea said it was a tracking device, and apparently Vanya’s technology was way behind the U.S. government’s, if you compared this thing to the wedding ring Caitlin gave me that performed the same function.
Out of curiosity, I snapped the switch, and the green light extinguished. I then got my pocket tool and went to work on four small screws that held one side in place. I popped the lid off and saw the expected array of transistors and diodes. Along with a one-ounce square of plastic explosive nestled within the device.
The bitch was planning to kill me.
I felt a freezing trill run along my spine that had nothing to do with the chill air, and my hands began to tremble. Then I laughed, glad I didn’t have an audience, since I didn’t sound entirely sane in the process. Rhea had slipped me a perfect one-shot murder device. With the box in my jacket pocket next to my heart, Rhea could explosively pulverize my chest while standing right next to me, since the Kevlar lining would contain the shrapnel. It was murderously ingenious.
I carefully peeled the plastique out of its hardwire nest and closed up the box, losing one of the screws in the process due to my unsteady fingers. I switched the box back on and replaced the device back inside my jacket. I then took a couple of other precautions, and
finally rewarded myself with one of my dwindling supply of cigarettes, letting the smoke smooth over my nerves.
I looked out over the postcard-perfect green hills and valley, as if seeing it all for the first time, while recalling the words of Winston Churchill, who maintained that there was no more exhilarating feeling in the world than to be shot at and missed. It was a feeling that I certainly never tired of. But the euphoria was fleeting as I realized my world had once again taken an enormous downward turn for the worse: On the path ahead of me was a fortified castle containing ruthless enemies, while behind me was a treacherous assassin and the worldwide army of a maniacal madman who had Caitlin in his clutches. And here I was, all alone in the world, trapped between the two, caught betwixt the hammer and the anvil.
It was high time to even up the odds.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I finished the rest of the winding uphill climb, all the while keeping my eyes on the looming presence of the Castle Joux. The cold air and all the trees were somewhat alien to me. Usually when I was surrounded by this much greenery it meant that I was in the midst of sweltering jungle growth. But the view of the castle itself was almost majestic enough to make me forget I was walking straight into a double-sided trap.
As I reached the apex, I saw an empty parking lot and a tunnel ahead cut through a low green hill. The chateau, with its collage of styles and designs, looked like it was grown right from the limestone rocks at the base of the plateau, which were then cut into roughly rectangular bricks in varying shades of gray, crowned in slanted roof tiles of faded, rust-colored terra cotta, with numerous gray stone chimneys sprouting forth. The path led to a stone tunnel that curved to the right. A sign affixed to the wall announced in French that I was at the Château de Joux, originally built in AD 1034. The sign also mentioned three of the chateau’s distinguished prisoners: Mirabeau, Kleist, and Toussaint L’Ouverture. I hoped I wouldn’t add my name to the list.
The tunnel opened up to the massive outer wall of the castle, with the words “Fort de Joux” chiseled above the stone portal. All of the ancient stonework of the castle was weathered with the weight of centuries, brightened here and there with tufts of mossy green that sprouted through the cracks. Once through the outer wall and under a raised iron portcullis I was greeted by another tunnel, which brought me to an actual drawbridge with a pointed archway. Here I spotted some modern touches in the metal guardrails and the inactive floodlights at the base, along with metal grates laid down on the path to accommodate vehicle traffic, but the archway itself was adorned with bas-relief carvings of late-medieval-era arms and armor. The beauty of the drawbridge portal was stolen by the long, ugly drop to the rocky bottom of the chasm it spanned. Just across I could see a rounded castle turret on the right that was married to a solid, rectangular wall—different centuries of fortifications mated together. I was surprised to see actual windows in evidence; I was still expecting to be greeted by arrow slits.