Shiva

by Simon Sloane

“You must get your act together,” Diana said. “Every delayed response and every concealment makes you look guilty. The head of state who gave you millions of Euros has just been murdered, and you didn’t even mention that you knew him.”

  “Actually,” Hugo fumed, “I expect a similar gesture from your government. You destroyed equipment of much greater value than the French.” He didn’t mention that their missiles had severed his final connection to the love of his life. Going back to Paris would reopen the wound that had barely healed in Dubai. But an emotionally stunted ice block like Diana wouldn’t understand that.

  His grief was tempered by the fact that he had already lost his woman twice before, each time through his own fault. The time had come to let her go for good. Prolonging her virtual existence was just another act driven by Hugo’s selfishness.

  “The ATF might offer you a lot more than ten lousy million,” Diana said matter of factly, “if you resolve this.” She pointed at the chart from the Chicago commodities exchange. Panic buying in the wake of the blast made crop prices shoot up again.

  “I gave you some hints already,” Hugo said. “But the ATF doesn’t seem to care. Sending us back to Paris is just a waste of time. The chances of finding the perpetrator there are close to zero. We might as well fly to the Maldives and laze on the beach.”

  “Anyway,” Diana consulted her mobile while ignoring his objections, “Control decided that you must have a haircut and a shave.” She waved to a short-cropped soldier, who was waiting in front of the conference room with a small bag.

  “Why?” Hugo asked, although the length of his hair had begun to bother him as well. “Just tell him I’m not about to join the Royal Air Force!”

  Diana laughed. “Your contacts need to recognise you when you arrive in France. Just think about who might be in control of the countdown while this young fellow here makes you look like Hugo Hyde again.” She also gave him a brand-new mobile phone. “It’s got a wireless connection through our satellite network.”

  Hugo eyed the device sceptically. “We need to dig deeper. How long have we got until that obnoxious boss of yours comes back?” He used MECCA’s wireless network to download an encrypted communications app.

  Diana checked the clock on the wall. “Ten minutes, I guess.” Neither she nor Hugo bothered to fasten their seat-belts before landing.

  “That’s enough,” Hugo said as he contacted Sarah through the app.

  “So, your former IT director works at geek-o-matixx now?” Diana asked when Sarah’s long red hair appeared on the screen.

  Hugo unmuted the microphone. “Hello Sarah!”

  But the connection dropped as the plane decelerated and came to a halt.

  Within minutes, two fuel trucks approached from a rusty airport terminal in the desert. Army vans with mounted machine guns lingered at the edge of the runway like lions waiting to pounce. Hugo wished they were airborne again as he redialled.

  “Hugo!” Sarah greeted him a curious smile when she called him back. “I’m surprised … but then I’m not!”

  Hugo noticed that her skin had turned even paler since they had parted ways. “We don’t have time,” he said. “Geek-o-matixx gets the story of my return, if—”

  “We’ve already announced it,” Sarah interrupted, beaming with pride. “We were first, as usual.”

  “I’ll throw in an exclusive interview,” Hugo said, turning his new phone toward Diana, “plus the juicy bits.”

  Sarah groaned. “I already seen more of you than I would have liked.” The creases on her forehead revealed her disgust. “What do you want, Hugo?”

  “Who stands to benefit—hypothetically—from a prolonged food shortage?” Hugo asked without elaborating on his capture by the ATF.

  Through the onboard camera, he saw the pilots enjoying a cigarette break in the desert—well away from the aircraft—while thousands of gallons of kerosene were pumped into the modified A400.

  “It’s funny you ask,” Sarah said. “Albert wants me to research the same thing.”

  “Dr Albert Gothendorff?” Diana asked. “How’s he doing?” Her squinting eyes revealed that the ATF wanted the man behind geek-o-matixx as well.

  Sarah cast her a suspicious glance. “Depends who’s asking.”

  “He’s probably stacking up food cans in his underground shelter,” Hugo said as the air force sergeant resumed cutting his hair. “But tell me, Sarah, who gets rich when African children starve?”

  Chapter 24

  Beneficiaries

  Friday, 4:15pm CET pm (6:15pm CET)

  Diana didn’t know what to make of the redhead on the screen, but Sarah didn’t flinch at Hugo’s question. “The malnourishment topic is heating up,” she said, “and not just among conspiracy theorists. This is my research.” Sarah shared a file through the encrypted app. “Beneficiaries of hunger include populists, anarchists and wingnuts—anyone who wants a revolution.”

  Hugo didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t say anything while the ATF sergeant continued his haircut, having completed his shave. “Not too short,” he grumbled, staring at the reflective coating of the screen in front of him to gauge the movements of the man with the scissors behind him.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Diana said. “Apart from France and India, no elections are scheduled for the coming months that could bring radical forces to power.”

  “No politician has the ability to cause these types of disasters,” Hugo said. “They’re usually the last ones to get a grip on new technology.”

  “Who could it be then?” Diana asked. She had a hard time believing a contender for the Elysée Palace had unleashed plagues on a biblical scale. She checked the onboard camera and saw one of the Omani soldiers talking on his wireless. MECCA’s pilots butted out their cigarettes, idling in the desert sand.

  “Think of someone with enormous technological resources and an incentive to starve the world,” Hugo said.

  “Even Albert’s drawing a blank,” Sarah replied. “Maybe that’s why he’s so interested in the topic. He can’t figure out who’s behind it.”

  Diana smiled. Sooner or later, they’d catch Dr Albert Gothendorff like they had caught Hugo. And then they would get the geek-o-matixx founder to talk as well.

  “What about the global agribusiness giants?” Hugo asked.

  Sarah shook her head. “The Big Three would win only in the short term. Reduced output will soon eat up the profits that Cropscientor, Syngenetiq and Akasha currently enjoy from higher margins. Here’s my research.” She shared some financial graphs through the app.

  Hugo gave Diana a shrug, but she remained doubtful. “Couldn’t one of them gain at the expense of others?” she asked.

  “No,” Sarah replied. “All of them are operating at full capacity. And they are bound to suffer if their farmers go bankrupt due to floods, droughts and locusts.”

  “I see.” Diana traced the timeline of events that had driven global food prices to all-time highs. “It’s just that—”

  Gunfire made her jump from her seat.

  Hugo stared at the monitor in shock, as did Diana. She was just in time to see both pilots fall from the gangway. Their bodies hit the ground, blood trickling into the sand.

  “We’re under attack!” Diana cried into the intercom.

  Alarmed, the young soldier abandoned Hugo’s haircut and rushed out of the conference room.

  Chapter 25

  Trigger

  Friday, 4:30pm CET (6:30pm CET)

  Hugo ran after Diana to the front of the airplane. Both pilots had been killed, and it was essential to retain control of MECCA.

  The Omani soldiers who had shot the ATF men seemed to have the same idea. Through the windows, Hugo saw them running up the gangway.

  Diana shot them when they reached the cabin. The first attacker fell down at her feet, while the next ones tumbled backwards and fell from the gangway.

  “Take this!” Diana tossed the enemy soldier’s AK-47 at Hugo. “Just hold firm,
and brace for the recoil.” She took the pilot’s seat and started the engines.

  Hugo leaned against the cabin wall when he pulled the trigger, getting rid of two more Omanis dressed in camouflage. Showers of adrenaline rushed through him. Why were the Omanis attacking a Royal Air Force plane? He blasted another barrage at the oncoming hordes, but then his assault rifle clicked.

  “I’m out of ammo!” This wasn’t the manner he had had in mind for his passing. If only he could blast a few more of the attackers away!

  He heard a whirring sound as the rear of the airplane opened. “Counterattack!” Diana cried into the intercom. “Take out the Jeeps!” Hopefully, it wasn’t too late for the ATF men to blunt the force of the assault.

  Hugo dived on top of the perforated corpse of the second Omani soldier who had managed to enter MECCA. He ripped the AK-47 from his corpse and turned around to fire at the platoon of five soldiers closing in on him. He couldn’t help but admire how they ignored the dead bodies of their fellows piling up in front of them. Fearless of death, they approached him relentlessly, despite the hail of bullets that awaited them.

  Maybe they were convinced that seventy-two virgins awaited them in paradise or they felt like Hugo had felt after the ATF had destroyed what he had built in Dubai. Self-sacrifice was easier when there was nothing left to live for.

  The fact the Omanis didn’t return fire meant they wanted to seize MECCA intact. Hugo stopped counting how many he had felled. He blasted round after round through their beige uniforms, covering them in scarlet stains.

  “That was my last shot!” he cried as Diana frantically worked the control panels.

  There was a thud, and the door closed in front of Hugo’s face. Through the window, he stared into the dark eyes of the Omani captain.

  Chapter 26

  Elysian

  Friday, 4:45pm CET

  “Did we catch him?” Jean-Marc Tanguy asked the directeur du service de la sécurité intérieure as they sat down in the Salon D’Argent of the Elysée Palace. Often had he dreamed of the rosewood table and the armchairs covered with green leather. Soon they would be his.

  “We’re close,” the slender SSI man said with a nervous flicker of his eyelids. “Ask me again in an hour.” He opened his battered briefcase and took out a file.

  Tanguy couldn’t believe that France’s supreme intelligence officer didn’t even carry a laptop or a decent phone. He made a mental note to replace him after the vote.

  “I still can’t believe it!” Henri Charenton exclaimed. “Our beloved president!” Waves of ash-blond hair bounced off his thick neck as he shook his head in despair. His body shape and clumsiness invited comparisons to Obelix, the bumbling cartoon character from ancient Gaul. It was time to put him to pasture.

  “We must eradicate Al-Antqam once and for all,” Tanguy insisted. He made sure his voice trembled with anger, although he felt triumphant. The assault at the Louvre had exposed the government’s weakness on terrorism. Soon the pity effect would fade. Letting his gaze glide over the Elysian gardens, Tanguy thought about where to build his tennis lawn when he moved in.

  The previous year, they had robbed him of everything as a direct consequence of Hugo Hyde’s shenanigans. All Tanguy’s posts and honours had been withdrawn—with the exception of his patronage of the bell towers of Notre Dame Cathedral. Someone must have forgotten to remove him from the ceremonial post. But Tanguy’s moment was about to come. His god was the god of second chances, and he was about to get everything he deserved.

  The black fingernails of Charenton’s assistant clicked on her laptop. She ran a nervous finger through her blond hair while reviewing her transcript.

  “I invited you, Jean-Marc,” Charenton said gravely, “to offer the suspension of all campaign activities for the sake of piety and bipartisanship. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Tanguy laughed. “Of course!” He spread his arms generously, knowing his momentum was driven by activists on social media, who would carry on regardless. In any case, Charenton’s expression of “bipartisanship” was code for letting Tanguy share the blame for the incumbent party’s failure. Only a fool would fall for it!

  “By the way,” Tanguy said, scratching his head as if he was deep in thought, “is it a coincidence that Hugo Hyde reappeared on the day our president was killed?”

  “Hyde was living in Dubai under a false identity,” the SSI director said. “There are no signs of his involvement, but the Brits seem to think he’s been up to something.”

  “Why did they take him?” Charenton asked, making Tanguy’s spine tingle. If there was a chance to dispose of Charenton and Hyde in one swoop, that would be quite something. Tanguy felt the bile rising in his stomach whenever he thought of how unceremoniously Casimir-Perier had deposed him in the wake of the Sibyl crisis.

  “At least five secret services picked up Hugo’s wireless signal from Dubai,” the SSI director continued. “Some Al-Antqam type was recorded quoting Charles Darwin with reference to global starvation. Our team narrowed down the origin of the video to the Burj Al-Arab, but the British ATF was faster.”

  Tanguy banged the rosewood table. “Why am I learning this only now? Put your cards on the table, Henri! Or shall I inform the press about your incompetence?”

  Charenton’s hands trembled. “No one talks about this!” he snarled. Instantly, his assistant stopped typing and tucked a strand of wheat-coloured hair behind her ear. “I hereby impose a gag order,” Charenton continued, “for reasons of national security. Heads will roll if I read a single word of our conversation in the press.”

  Tanguy laughed. The stand-in president’s tough act reminded him of a fat, old farmer poking his pitchfork at the crows picking off his grain. Charenton’s fairy-tale narrator voice didn’t scare anyone. “It’s not just your cover-up of the botched Hugo Hyde operation,” Tanguy said. “Our food stocks must be running low.”

  “Wh-why would you say something like that?” Charenton stammered.

  Tanguy pounded the table again. “Because you sent our elite forces after some Islamist rambling about starvation! Because I’m not the only one who’s aware of recent corn price movements. And because you’re quaking in your boots!”

  “Such impertinence!” The bewildered SSI head jumped out of his seat, but Charenton made him sit down with a wave of his hand.

  “Speaking of bipartisanship,” Tanguy said in a delicate tone, “maybe we should launch a parliamentary enquiry into how you’re running the secret service. Let the representatives uncover how many days’ worth of food remain in our inventories!”

  “That’s none of your business,” Charenton snapped. “And if you,” he hit Tanguy’s chest with his fleshy forefinger, “spread a panic with unfounded rumours ….”

  Tanguy laughed. “You don’t scare me, Henri! But thanks for giving me something to think about on the campaign trail.”

  Chapter 27

  Brave Boys

  Friday, 5:00pm CET (7:00pm local time)

  Hugo held onto the armrest of the co-pilot’s seat, holding his breath.

  Diana pulled the steering handle. MECCA accelerated down the runway, leaving their attackers in the dust.

  “What the hell is going on?” Out of the blue, Control’s stern voice rang from the communications console.

  Ignoring her, Diana switched off the monitor. “Let’s see if our decoys also work on Jeeps with mounted machine guns,” she said. She pushed a button, and their pursuers were surrounded by a cloud of aluminium particles.

  “And we’re off,” Hugo said as the wheels of the enhanced A400 lost touch with the ground. He couldn’t believe how relieved he felt to have escaped the death trap, considering how willing he had been to die only a few hours earlier. Working with Diana to resolve the escalating crisis had given him a goal worth fighting for.

  She pulled up to avoid a mountain range and steered them toward the open sea. “We should be safe in a few minutes,” she said.

  Although not fearful of fl
ying, Hugo now knew the agony of falling from the sky without a parachute. “I wouldn’t put it past the Omanis to chase us deep into international airspace,” he said.

  “I think so too,” Diana replied as she unlocked the safety lock of their missiles. “We better take some preventive measures.”

  “How many soldiers did we lose?” Hugo asked when they reached cruising altitude and the auto-pilot took over.

  Diana sighed heavily. “All twenty-five of them. Brave boys!”

  Hugo couldn’t believe their sacrifice. “We wouldn’t have been able to take off if they hadn’t gone out and fired at the Omanis on the ground.” The only way to honour them was to help Diana complete her mission, whatever it took. He felt sorry for not having gotten to know them any better before they sacrificed themselves.

  “It’s what they’re trained to do,” Diana said without a hint of emotion. “But we’re going to avenge them.” She touched a button on the defence console, zooming in on the single runway in the Omani desert.

  “Why did they attack us in the first place?” Hugo asked as he watched a series of explosions on his screen. Within seconds, MECCA’s missiles turned the military airport into a pile of smoke and rubble.

  Diana shrugged, giving no indication of satisfaction that all of the aggressors had been vaporised. “Maybe their government sided with the Emiratis. Judging from Control’s face, she didn’t have a clue. She’ll be furious when she hears what happened.”

  Hugo tilted his head. “What if she doesn’t?”

  Chapter 28

  Disconnect

  Friday, 5:15pm CET (7:15pm local time)