by PJ Manney
“I’m not every man.” He gripped the chair and stood up.
Her hands and lips fell away. She sighed. For the first time, it felt like the real Vera rose to the surface. “You have no idea how rarely they mean it. It’s sad. Here are men who have everything. They could have love, too. But they deny themselves, always thinking something better is around the corner. They want to be free, thinking freedom is a commodity you buy and sell. You seem to understand there is no such thing as freedom, unlike your fellow countrymen. And we Russians have known it for centuries. Freedom is an illusion, except maybe in love. Life is servitude to others, those who have power over us and those whom we are in obligation to, and that means suffering. We are only free in our hearts when we love and are loved. And that makes you a truly free man. You must cherish and protect that.”
“And you, my dear, are the quintessential philosopher whore, both intellectually and physically stimulating . . .”
“Thank you.” She preened at the compliment.
“. . . but I don’t agree. Love is servitude, too, but it’s the kind where you welcome the chains. Because to be free means to be alone. And that’s suffering.”
Elvis Costello’s anguished scream and thrashing lead guitar rang in Tom’s head. He lowered it away as if Vera might hear the tortured howl escape his ears.
“Is something wrong?”
“I have a headache.”
“Isn’t that what the woman is supposed to say?” she teased. “Let me find Bruce. He will take you back.” A brief GO call, and less than a minute later, Lobo arrived.
A look passed between the two, signaling her failure. Bruce’s eyes narrowed. Suddenly, he acted more intoxicated than the moment before. He grabbed Tom’s arm, the blind-drunk leading the blind. Staggering down the porch stairs, Lobo tripped, pitching forward. He grabbed Tom to right himself, but dragged him down, too. As everything slowed, Tom did his best to cushion himself, but Bruce shoved him extra hard to make sure Tom crashed on the rock-strewn ground. There was nothing Tom could do to stop the laws of physics or Bruce’s plan.
Lobo bellowed like a child, “Vera! He hurt himself!”
“What did you do to him?” she cried. Bruce lifted Tom’s cut hand.
She ran inside to emerge with a cloth handkerchief. It was embroidered with her initials in Cyrillic lettering. Who used handkerchiefs anymore?
Tom pushed them away. “Please, I’m all right.”
Bruce grabbed his arm with a strong grip while Vera forced the handkerchief around the wound. She turned on Lobo. “Bruce, you are a clumsy oaf.”
Trying to squirm free, Tom grabbed some RFID particles in his pocket and touched the bloody cloth, tagging it, sending Talia the ID coordinates. Bruce snatched away the handkerchief and tossed it to Vera. “Bleeding stopped. Can you get the stain out?”
She rolled her eyes in disdain. “Are you sure you can get him back safely?”
“Yes, yes, yes . . .” Bruce waved her away. “You’d think I just had my training wheels removed.” He waved to Vera. “Nighty-night.”
Vera stood on the porch as Bruce led Tom into the night. The woods were dark and the sounds of enthusiastic lovemaking surrounded them until they left the red light district.
Bruce had him. One of Lobo’s companies owned the patent on a DNA sequencing machine that could decode the entire human genome in hours. Tom had to ensure it was intercepted any way necessary before it reached Lobo’s lab. If Talia didn’t catch it, the lab would find the RFIDs, as well as identify him. But if Bruce discovered Thomas Paine was Peter Bernhardt, it didn’t matter what else Bruce knew.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The RFID tags never left camp. They and the blood sample remained in Bruce’s cabin, under the watchful eyes of Crichtons ordered to guard his effects with their lives. Talia never intercepted the couriers, because there were no couriers to intercept.
The DNA was Bruce’s advantage and Tom had to wait for him to play his hand.
During the remaining six days of Camp Week, the rhetoric flowed thick and fast from all quarters. Josiah Brant was in total control, whipping the ideologues into a frenzy of hypothesizing and planning about the future of the country—and the world. Through camaraderie and cocktails, policy lectures and pissing contests, dramatics and drinking games, Tom expected to be uncovered all week. He waited, wondering if it would come as kidnapping and torture or a bullet to the back of the head.
By week’s end, professional lobbyists and political operatives of all stripes had spent time with Tom, as though they could sniff the shifting wind. But camp wound down and Josiah hadn’t revealed any secrets.
After meticulously tagging every member of the Phoenix Club, his background analysis revealed almost everyone had a relationship of some sort with Anthony Dulles. However, no one stood out as the mole, and his few clues did not expose the club’s plan. In the meantime, meta-analysis revealed the club consisted of a handful of generators, those deserving of the label “best and brightest” who produced work at a high level, but most others were sycophants, schemers, operators, and hucksters, men of mediocre minds and little talent except for self-promotion and survival who congregate around the extraordinary. Their backgrounds and connections betrayed the price they paid to live at the top of the food chain. They didn’t get this ride of a lifetime for free.
Surveillance data revealed Josiah, Carter, Bruce, and a handful of staff made regular visits to the mines. Tom tried a few approaches to the shaft entrance, his Hoover cane tapping the way, but was intercepted by staff every time. He knew one entrance was an industrial-sized double door, made to look like rough-hewn wood on the outside, but it closed with the low, breathy thud of solid steel. From his shepherds’ behavior, not only was he being watched and reported on at all times, it seemed certain people had been ordered to keep others away from him. And he couldn’t just stuff his pajamas with a pillow and sneak around Ninja-style in the night. The camp rocked 24/7. Even if he manipulated their electronic security, the risk of live security was too great. While he knew the entire membership’s whereabouts at all times, that didn’t mean he knew why they were all there.
He felt certain the technology he had invented was nearby and would be used to kill or brainwash a large number of people soon. But he had no idea how to stop it.
On the last day, Josiah Brant asked Thomas Paine to take a stroll. Josiah guided him as they chatted about the week’s events while circling bonfires’ ashy remains and skirting the dark forest’s edge until they arrived at the mine entrance.
“If you don’t mind, I have someplace mighty special to show ya,” said Josiah.
The icy chill of déjà vu suffused Tom’s brain, even though he had never passed through the mine doors before. And he was right about the steel. They were atomic-blast shields, fitted with a rustic veneer. Some of the underground was still Atomic Age. The first retrofit occurred in the ’40s for a World War II bunker to avoid possible Japanese bombing. The second in the ’50s expanded it as a Cold War nuclear-bomb shelter, should mutually assured destruction break out during Camp Week. But more was Nano-Bio-Info Age, which indicated a recent renovation. The steel doors opened into a white foyer, bare except for a doorframe surrounding a second set of steel doors, recessed lights, biothreat sensors, fire sprinkler and decontamination caps on the ceiling, and a biological identification system next to the door. It simultaneously measured multiple biometrics of iris, retina, palm, and voice. Josiah stepped up to an ID station and leaned his chin and forehead against a padded brace, positioning his eyes properly, while placing his right hand on a scanner, spoke his name into a tiny microphone in the headpiece and added, “Guest: Thomas Paine,” to prevent the alarm sounding if two bodies passed through the doorway. The console displayed both names, and the door slid open. Josiah took Tom’s arm and guided him through the door.
It slid shut behind them, and his internal wireless blinked out. The walls were too thick, the facility’s internal computing system hardwir
ed and not networked to the outside to avoid discovery or tampering. Cut off from his constant information flow, he was running blind. So close to knowing, and suddenly unconnected! The Internet was a lobe of his cortex, and this was brain collapse.
It was a different world on the other side of the door. The original mine tunnel was transformed into a long hallway, off of which numerous doors led to unknown chambers beyond. Instead of the sterile environment of the foyer, it was beautifully appointed with subtle, creamy paint, lush and thickly padded carpeting, detailed wood moldings and excellent oil-and-canvas reproductions of great works of art. At least he hoped they were reproductions. Otherwise, the real Nighthawks was in a mineshaft and a copy of Edward Hopper’s iconic painting hung in the Art Institute of Chicago. It looked more like a hallway in the Ritz-Carlton than a bunker to house civilization’s survivors at the end of the world.
Each handsomely paneled door had a number on it, beginning with 1-1 and 1-3 on the right side and 1-2 and 1-4 immediately across and so forth. Some doors were open. A closed and multilocked door was labeled “Armory.” As they ambled past, Tom could see, with his peripheral vision, meeting rooms, exercise facilities, an opulent and spacious dining area.
“It smells and feels like a hotel. Where are we?”
“If it all went to hell tomorrow, odds are you’d end up here. Mount Phoenix is part of the Continuity of Operations Plan, which includes locations replacin’ necessary governmental operations in case catastrophic events endanger or destroy DC. There are several facilities around the country, includin’ Cheyenne Mountain, which is on warm standby to house NORAD, Site R in Pennsylvania, which contains a mini-Pentagon, and Mount Weather, which organizes FEMA and houses Congress in extremis. When 10/26 hit, we shipped all the politicians there, just in case. You shoulda heard ’em squawkin’ all the way to West Virginia. We also got several aircraft, like Airforce One ’n’ Two, Nighthawk,” which pinged the painting’s pun, “and Lookin’ Glass, which takes over for NORAD, and others that act as travelin’ command bases.”
“Which department is based here?”
“Not a specific department. A type of person. Phoenix people. Those who can rebuild a society from the ground up. We’re well aware that society isn’t a bunch ’a generals and politicians runnin’ around. The foundation of society is the people who bind us together and can envision and create change. That’s what you and all your brothers are. The engine of society. Think of this as the home of the ultimate think tank for humanity.”
“Well, it’s nice to know I’ll have somewhere to go if it all goes to custard. What about spouses, families?”
“We can get our membership and staff down here, but that’s a few thousand already. No more room or supplies.”
“I’m sure there’d be a lot who might turn you down in that case.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Survival is a powerful imperative.”
“Could you leave Maggie and your kids and grandkids behind?”
Josiah was pricked for a moment by his private thorn. “If the future of my country depended on my survival, yes, I could.” He looked to Tom expectantly. “But it might be easier than I think.”
They entered an elevator. It, too, had biometric devices, and Josiah was IDed before the elevator would move. They went down eight levels out of a possible nine.
The door opened onto a very different floor. Painted flat white, with a concrete floor and lit by utilitarian LEDs. Their movements made noisy echoes down the hallway.
“This feels different. Where are we?”
The old man moved quickly for someone his age. He raised his elbow, detaching Tom from him, and slipped behind and into an open door. His sports shoes made no sound. To a real blind man, he would have disappeared.
“Josiah?” Tom turned in a circle, like a dog chasing his tail, as he tapped out the perimeter with his cane and hit the two corridor walls. “Hello? Josiah!” he yelled louder.
The initiation test had begun. Acting frustrated, he felt his way with his hands and cane to the closest open door and passed through. Then Tom felt a wall of fabric, which he batted his hands along until he found an opening.
“Josiah?”
With the fabric acting like a light shield in a photographic dark room, the room behind it was completely black. The space felt small, confined; he could hear the short reverb of his movement’s sounds. There was quiet breathing. He supposed one was Josiah, but it sounded like three others, one in the center and the rest on the perimeter. His cane tapped to the middle, then hit the leg of a heavy wooden chair . . . then something soft, fleshy. His fingers found a body duct-taped to the legs and back of the chair, with a cloth bag over its drooping head. It smelled foul, like old excrement. Tom found the victim’s carotid artery and checked for a pulse. It beat slow, but steady. The limp body indicated unconsciousness.
Tom heard the switch of an electrical circuit microseconds before the room flooded with a blinding interrogation light hung from the ceiling. He made sure his lids were shut to stop his body’s involuntary jerk from dilated pupils.
Josiah, Carter, and Bruce stood in the room.
“Sorry to be constantly testing you, son. I know you must be sick of it. But that nifty defensive move you made at your first initiation was too surprisin’ not to double-check.”
“Bet you couldn’t see this coming,” snorted Bruce.
Carter flinched at the bad joke.
“Who else is here?” asked Tom, weaving his head to hear their presence.
“Carter and Bruce, son. It’s all right. We just need you to meet the man in the chair.” Brant, posturing with drama lost on a blind man, whipped off the black bag from the torturee’s head.
It was Chang Eng.
The blinding light woke Eng with a start. Dazed, he squinted blankly at Paine, not recognizing his former employer. Chang’s mouth was duct-taped shut, his ears taped over, most likely covering earplugs. Eng could speak no evil and hear no evil, but they allowed him to see it. His once-immaculate white button-down shirt and pressed chinos were torn and stained with sweat, blood, urine, and feces. His feet were bare and bruised, three toenails ripped off with bloody scabs in their places. His hair was no longer a number two buzz cut, but an inch long and shaggy. They’d been torturing him a long time.
“His name is Chang Eng. Ever hear of him?” asked Josiah.
Tom thought for a moment, then said, “Wasn’t Chang Eng an employee of Carter’s? And I thought he was killed by the FBI for 10/26.”
“Yes . . . and no. The FBI weren’t really FBI. They were our private security team. And they pretended to kill him. Fired some blanks here, some squibs and fake blood there, just a bit of theater, so the world would think he was gone.”
Which meant Peter Bernhardt was chased from the hospital by the club, not the feds. Was all surveillance on him run by the club and not the government?
“And he wasn’t really a member of ATEAMO,” continued Josiah. “Eng worked for the club. We arranged for him to disappear so he could continue his work for us.” He circled Chang, regarding the man with no more consideration than he would an irritating pile of manure. “But we checked his loyalty recently and found it wantin’.”
“How?” asked Tom.
Carter stepped closer. “He came to work here after ‘dying’ at Prometheus. Initially, all was well, but we needed him to be more productive, so we installed the Hippo 2.0 to increase productivity and the Cortex 2.0 so we could read his chip, and therefore, his mind. It’s always good to know what your most important researcher is thinking.”
If Chang was involved with the club now, he was probably involved in 10/26, along with the club. That meant Biogineers was indeed responsible for mass murder. And Peter Bernhardt never knew . . .
They’d also broken the algorithm for reading thoughts before him. Carter developed the processor from a theoretical to a practical device. How did Miss Gray Hat and Ruth not discover that? Unless it had been done here, in the mine.
> Tom’s transmitter could contact Chang’s receiver on his processor. They could communicate, but it would reveal his augmentation. Certain there was no Wi-Fi receiver in proximity, Tom sent a message.
Chang? Why did you do it?
Chang’s head swiveled in panic, neck joints clicking, searching for the source of the transmission.
whoareyouwhoareyouwhoareyou . . . ?
It’s Peter.
Eyes widened and panic intensified, his head weaving and clicking, back and forth. wherewherewherewherewherewhere . . . ?
Calm down! ordered Tom. He needed Chang to relax, because the torturee’s panic was swamping his own wiring. He struggled to push Chang’s terror back.
Peter is dead! Chang wailed in Tom’s brain.
Tom asked Carter, “And what did you find when you wired him up?”
“He didn’t want to participate anymore,” said Carter.
“Chang’s been dead for some time now, even if he didn’t realize it himself,” said Josiah. “You’re just finishin’ the job. Please understand I would never ask you to do somethin’ like this if it wasn’t crucial for you to grasp the stakes by which our country will rise or fall.”
Chang, did you work for the Phoenix Club? transmitted Tom calmly.
You’re not Peter . . . you’re not Peter . . .
Peter is dead. Your brain is coping with helplessness by creating him. Answering the question to an alter ego will bring relief.
No! It’s from my processor!
You’re so far gone you don’t even realize you’re psychotic. Talking to me, the Peter manifestation, will assuage your guilt and bring you peace. Did you work for the Phoenix Club?
Yyyyyeeeesssssss! Chang visibly relaxed. So did Tom.
Doesn’t admitting things to yourself feel better? What did you do for them?
Designed bots.
Which bots?
10/26. And new bots.
“How many others have this system in their heads?” asked Tom.
Carter replied, “Chang was the first person in the world to receive the full two-part unit.”