Black Scorpion

by Jon Land

  “How do we stop it?”

  Samuel swung from the Stardust sign with a start. “I’m not sure you can. The problem is we’re not looking for anything installed on the chip itself, so much as an embedded signal.”

  “Embedded signal?”

  “A preprogrammed sequence of letters and numbers that once recognized would trigger Guardian to shut down the system it’s supposed to be protecting. Could be something as simple as, ‘Your mother wears army boots.’ Flooding the systems with a sequence of characters, a sleeper code, that would not randomly come up otherwise. Whoever’s behind this would then send that signal to all the systems Guardian is responsible for monitoring and boom, things go dark.”

  “A signal to the chip itself?”

  “Far more likely a simple message left on a message board asking for feedback from an airline, a bank, an energy supplier—you name it. All of those pass through the encryption system to to make sure they don’t contain viruses or worms. And once Guardian recognizes the embedded code, it flips the switch it was designed to flip.”

  “Then lights out.”

  “Worse,” Samuel told her, “because these systems send out code to every device on their network and, in turn, every device on the network would be infected. The message would be replicated and spread by every system it comes into contact along the server path is what I’m saying. And so on, and so on. In other words, you end up with exponential expansion of the embedded code’s reach, spreading the shutdown signal far and wide, as in farthest and widest.”

  Samuel moved on toward the bloodred glow of an ancient sign labeled STARR, the origins of which eluded Naomi. “Your only hope would be to preempt the plot at the source. Stop whoever it is from sending the activation signal in the first place.”

  “Easier said than done, Samuel. Is there any way to determine exactly how many Guardian chips have actually been installed?”

  “All computer networks that transmit data of any kind have encryption technology built in—that’s a given. The average system replaces its encryption chips, sometimes their entire motherboards, no more than every three years, or even less. So if you have reason to believe that this plot has been in the works for those three years it’s more than conceivable that whoever’s behind it can send a signal that can shut down pretty much anything and everything across the country and other parts of the world where Guardian has achieved a comparable degree of saturation. Comparing it to flipping a switch is a nice metaphor, but the effects wouldn’t be felt that way. Over the course of a day or two would be my guess for the spread to reach maximum density.”

  Samuel stopped and ran his gaze about the endless rows of neon signage that was ancient by today’s standards.

  “Maybe we were better off back in the days these babies lit the strip. The world worked simpler, wasn’t subject to such threats.”

  “And, if you’re right, trying to secure all these systems was what created the very vulnerability we’re facing today.”

  “Oh, I’m right, Ms. Burns. I know I am,” Samuel said. “And I’m not telling you it’s going to happen, only that it damn well can.”

  Samuel had started toward another display, when Naomi grasped his arm to hold him in place. “I’m assuming this had something to do with the murder of Edward Devereaux by sonic bomb in his Daring Sea suite at the Seven Sins.”

  “Oh, you bet it did,” Samuel told her. “Everything in those suites is controlled by computer. And when Guardian shut down Vegas, the system tripped and locked all the doors.”

  “Sealing Devereaux inside his room,” Naomi picked up, “and trapping him so he couldn’t escape once the glass began to rupture. I get that. What I don’t get is why go through such lengths to kill one man?”

  “That’s not the only thing this was about. I think whoever’s behind this figured out a way to embed a second signal unique to the motherboards for systems controlling Vegas. Not as hard as it may seem, given that there are motherboards task specific to the gaming industry. I think those few minutes here were a test of the system’s functionality, and I think whoever was behind the test used it as an opportunity to dispose of Devereaux.”

  “I guess we can assume they passed.”

  “Oh, with flying colors.”

  “So why not—”

  “Just put the word out,” Samuel picked up, figuring where Naomi was going, “and have Guardian removed from all these motherboards? First off, you’d have to present a very compelling case that would take a lot of time to build. Remember the whole Y2K fiasco, all the money that got wasted because people hit the panic button? Some in IT, plenty if not most, would see this as a repeat of that.”

  Naomi nodded, conceding his point. “Just one more question, Samuel. Tell me what you know about this tech start-up that invented the Guardian chip.”

  EIGHTY-SEVEN

  THE CITATION

  Michael sat by himself on the Citation after takeoff, across the aisle from Scarlett, who left him to his thoughts. Raven Khan had dropped him at the airport a mere twenty minutes earlier but it felt like so much longer, time slowed to a crawl.

  * * *

  Back on the road that rimmed the farm, she’d torn off in the SUV before Michael could even get his door all the way closed.

  “You look like shit.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” Michael told her, feeling the heavy force of cool air slamming him from the vents to break the interior’s blistering heat.

  “Something both of us know intimately.”

  “It was you, wasn’t it, Raven? You were the one who saved me back there at the farm.”

  She gave the SUV more speed so it thumped over the pitted road, her eyes constantly checking the rearview mirror.

  “You came home,” Michael resumed, when Raven remained silent. “That can only mean you finally figured out the truth.”

  “Thanks to a nightmare I’ve been having for as long as I can remember. A part of me recognized that farm as soon as I set foot on the grounds; I wish I could I tell you how.” She tried for a smile and came away looking only sad. “So what do I call you? Brother?”

  Michael nodded, slowly. “Our parents were murdered,” he managed, realizing his mouth had gone bone dry. Saying the words made him feel strange, almost like someone else was speaking them. “I witnessed it from the barn. Until five years ago, I thought you were dead, too.”

  “Then the woman who died protecting me in my dreams…”

  “Our mother. She was making lunch,” Michael added for reasons he didn’t understand. “A few minutes more and I would’ve been killed too.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  “No.”

  A pause, dominated by the thickest silence Michael could ever recall, broken only by the steady hum of the SUV’s engine.

  “Last week, I boarded a ship that had women and children for cargo, Brother,” Raven said finally. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life and I’ve seen a lot of bad things. Some disease had swept through the hold. The sight, the smell … There was a child, three or four years old maybe, clutching her dead mother. I haven’t been able to close my eyes since without seeing her, and now I understand why.”

  “The man you shot at, Vladimir Dracu, the one wearing the veil. It was him on the farm that day,” Michael told her. “He’s the one who murdered our parents, the monster who’s haunted your dreams.”

  Raven’s gaze grew distant. “Returning to that farm triggered something in me. For a few brief moments—the sights, the sounds, the smells—I felt … innocent, a little girl again, maybe for the first time. It made me realize that little girl on the ship was me, both of our lives destroyed by Black Scorpion. I have to kill him, Michael. I wish I didn’t, but I do. This Vladimir Dracu has to die, or there’ll be countless more lives ruined, more innocence stolen. He made me a victim, he made you a victim. We were there for his beginning. Now we have to be there for his end.”

  “There’s something else, Raven. Adn
an Talu, your adopted father.”

  “What?”

  “He was in charge of Vlad Dracu and the other men who came to the farm that day.” Michael stopped, heard Raven’s breathing and nothing more. “They were after my gold relic, filling an order for some rich American. Dracu was the one who started shooting, acting against orders because he didn’t care about the relic. He only wanted Vito Nunziato dead.”

  “Why?”

  Michael told her.

  * * *

  Raven said nothing for what seemed like a very long time. Finally she cracked a slight smile, even as a tear rolled down one side of her face. Michael watched her from across the seat and pictured her processing the truth about their father of whom she held no memory, likely making it even harder for her to accept and reconcile.

  She sighed deeply, sniffled. “I guess it figures.”

  “That our half brother is a monster?”

  “That it’s up to us to stop him.” She wiped the tear from her cheek. “I’ve never needed anyone’s help, Brother. Just Talu, who put me in that orphanage he ultimately pulled me out of.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know what you’re feeling.”

  “Walk away, Michael. Leave this to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then stay out of my way.”

  “Vlad’s out to destroy me, Raven. I need to take him down first.”

  “Then you need to know I worked for Black Scorpion once—unwittingly. When I rescued some scientific genius from a Russian gulag. The man’s name was Taupmann, Niels Taupmann, I think.”

  “Niels Taupmann,” Michael repeated.

  “We need to take down all of Black Scorpion, and Michael Tiranno can’t help me do that.” Her eyes bore into his. “But the Tyrant can. Think you’re up to it?”

  “Try me.”

  * * *

  And now the Citation was streaking toward London with Alexander behind the controls. Michael tried to read his father’s journal from scratch again, but his thoughts kept veering back to his sister Rosina, now Raven Khan. As gratified as he was to be reunited with her, he knew it wouldn’t last. Knew that when all this was over, like so many other things in his life, she’d be gone. Again.

  “You’re scaring me, Michael,” Scarlett said suddenly.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve never seen you this quiet.”

  He rose from his seat to settle into the one next to her. “I’m sorry,” he said, and kissed her on the forehead.

  “You have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “For what?’

  “Making you come halfway around the world to risk your life.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Scarlett.”

  “Whose fault was it then?”

  Michael felt the outline of the relic beneath his shirt. “No one’s.”

  EIGHTY-EIGHT

  HOIA-BACIU FOREST, ROMANIA

  Dracu entered the underground lab without fanfare, adjusting his veil as he approached his supervisor, a tall man with pointy, angular features named Bemke.

  “Domnule,” Bemke greeted, stiffening.

  The lab in question had been constructed within the mountain fortress’s single underground level, formerly the Soviets’ command and control facility for this installation forged out of near solid rock, reinforced by steel at all points, and contained actually beneath the surface of the lake waters beyond. The satellite relays connecting its vast array of machines to the outside world were located in the surrounding forest, camouflaged to the point of being rendered invisible.

  The lab itself, a sprawling open floor with walls of natural stone formation that bled moisture sucked up almost immediately by powerful dehumidifiers, contained the most advanced communications and monitoring technology anywhere. Built at incredible cost, though over the course of several years, as Dracu’s plan took shape with the rescue of Niels Taupmann from the Russian gulag as its centerpiece. It was lined wall-to-wall with real-time satellite schematics and depictions, so Dracu would be able to follow the results of his plan once it was put into motion. More important, though, were additional screens offering detailed maps of various regions of his target that filled out the entire front wall. Had those screens been fit together, they would’ve formed a perfect schematic of the United States. Taken individually, they would allow Dracu to similarly gauge the country’s plight on a minute-by-minute basis. The many dots lit up across the various maps onto which they’d been squeezed represented power grids, cell phone towers, airports, banking centers, traffic systems, data relays and interchanges, and broadcast transmission sources. Once they started flashing, he’d know another part of his plan had succeeded.

  An army of technicians, recruited mostly from among the many engineers and specialists displaced from Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union, occupied endless rows of individual computer stations, each with its own grid to follow and report on. Checking the system, both practically and in theory, was constant, and Dracu had been down here to personally witness the five minutes Las Vegas had been turned dark as a test of the system’s functionality.

  Which it had passed with flying colors.

  With the moment of activation fast approaching, personnel worked furiously on final preparations that to no small degree included building monitoring networks capable of charting the Guardian chip’s effects. Dracu’s gaze lingered on the electronic maps covering the walls awash in flashing lights congested in the areas of densest populations. He imagined the hundreds of thousands of people each of those lights represented, all just three days away from being plunged into darkness.

  “I wanted to alert you that the professor is coming down for a visit,” Dracu told his supervisor. “He’s en route now.”

  “Then let’s make sure he sees exactly what he expects to see,” Bemke said, grinning, approaching the nearest keyboard.

  EIGHTY-NINE

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  Michael’s thoughts were still a jumble when the Boeing 737 touched down back at McCarran. He’d tried to sleep on the flight home from London, but every time he closed his eyes, the ghosts came for him.

  There was his father—both his fathers now, the hero Davide Schapira and the farmer Vito Nunziato. He felt them merge in his consciousness, realizing how much he’d loved his father and, more than anything, perhaps resenting how little that affection had been returned. Now Michael understood that the source of Vito Nunziato’s detachment lay in his fear of losing what he loved again. His experience in Romania had scarred him in a way both profound and indelible, as if he’d left a piece of himself back there with Stefania Tepesche he knew he’d never be able to recover.

  There was Michael’s mother, too, old before her time, always smiling and ready with a hug no matter what ills the family was facing. There was his sister Rosina and Raven Khan, the same person separated by the years. Raven a great mystery and puzzle who’d resisted all his overtures until fate had thrust them together once more.

  Naomi Burns was waiting outside the terminal when the 737 taxied to a halt, not far from the helicopter affixed with the logo of Tyrant Global. The pilot saw him emerge and started the engine.

  “You know, I’ve never actually ridden in a chopper before,” Scarlett told him, as they moved toward it.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” Michael said.

  * * *

  Michael glued his gaze downward as they reached the outskirts of the city, soaring over the Las Vegas Strip. A hefty police presence remained, perhaps even increased since he’d left in the blackout’s wake. He noticed occasional checkpoints near the largest of the hotels, including the Seven Sins; even a National Guard presence, its soldiers armed with assault rifles and wearing flak jackets.

  His city, his home. Under siege again, this time at the hands of Vladimir Dracu who was determined to destroy everything Michael loved to finish the process he started with th
e massacre. His half brother having been denied love and now wanting to steal it away from him, so they could truly be the same. And the upshot of his resolve was a city that had already come under attack, with the entire country soon to follow.

  Did Michael bear the responsibility simply because Vlad was his blood, or for some greater, more intrinsic reason rooted in a fate he was just beginning to grasp? The prospects of that confused him, left his thoughts a jumble, his own resolve tightened into knots by sight of the city he loved again held hostage by a madman. First Max Price, now a powerful organization called Black Scorpion.

  Michael saw the Seven Sins growing majestically before him as the Tyrant Phantom Class, custom-made black helicopter soared straight for the resort’s roof atop the Forbidden City. It gleamed beneath the sunlight like a palace of old, an oasis of hope amid a rising tide of decadence and destruction. Saving all he’d built, preserving it, was only part of the greater responsibility he bore, a microcosm rooted in symbol. He had made himself into an American, a businessman, a casino owner, and finally a tycoon. But all of that paled in comparison to what he must accept himself as now and forever if the madness that enveloped the world was to be beaten back:

  The Tyrant.

  * * *

  The chopper landed on the roof, Michael and Naomi taking the private glass elevator straight down through the Daring Sea to his bubble glass office at the very bottom, while Alexander remained with Scarlett. Michael brought Naomi up to date on what had transpired in Caltagirone quickly as the cab whirred downward, continuing even after the glass doors had opened again at the entrance to his office.

  “I’m speechless,” was all Naomi could manage. “Raven Khan, after we tried to find her for so long … And what happened at the farm, the three of you all in the same place…”