by Terry James
Quick movement near his head! A hissing noise, like air escaping, only in short, uneven bursts. A snake! Three-and-a-half feet directly in front of his venerable face! A gray-brown snake, thick as a man's wrist, its white mouth wide, its fangs curved daggers poised to deliver its venom!
His heart thumped wildly while he calculated whether the moccasin could reach his head from that distance. This type had an unusually long strike capability compared to other snakes. Must remain still, watch the nervous reptile. Back away out of range slowly... very slowly.
The snake broke its tight coil and swiftly undulated from Jacob's path, disappearing into the matted marsh-grass. Sweat ran into his eyes while he scanned the grass for the snake, for others that might lie nearby.
His senses brought to a new level of alertness by the encounter with the snake, he crouched moments later, beside the blockhouse and again pulled the backpack from his shoulders and checked its contents — Kerry Vinchey's .45 Army Colt, the chloroform, the British commando knife, the Allegiant device, wrapped in foil — all in order. He glanced at the watch borrowed from the pilot, almost time for the diversion.
He squatted against the building, strapped the knife and its holster to his right calf, and waited.
Seven minutes passed, then 12. There! The thumping whir of the engine! Within seconds the black machine appeared just above the trees. Approaching slowly, then hovering over the block building, its motor noise vibrating the air about his ears, causing the building and ground to quake as he made his way to the corner where the side and front of the building met. Would it work? Or would the man inside alert his superiors before checking the disturbance?
The metal door opened, slightly at first, then swung fully open. A man in a bright orange jumpsuit stepped into the smog-diffused light with one hand shielding his eyes from the brightness while he looked upward at the helicopter intruder. Jacob noticed a dark object in the man's right hand. A pistol! No! An automatic assault rifle! Raised now, taking aim at the aircraft. He had to move now! The weapon could bring the copter down in a single burst!
Would the INterface agent turn the fire upon him when he rushed? The helicopter's engine was deafening, the sound held close to the ground by the heavy, wet atmospheric conditions. The gunman would not see him until it was too late...maybe.
The thoughts raced, as did his legs, toward the man who now held the weapon with both hands, trying to zero in on the helicopter. He turned to meet Jacob as Jacob left his feet, knocking the Naxos agent to the ground with a body block. Both men scrambled for the rifle, which flew from the man's hand at the impact. The man was too powerful for Jacob, easily throwing him aside and crawling frantically toward the gun. Jacob was quicker, diving from several feet away and landing on the man's back, wrapping his right arm around the throat jerking upward with all his strength. The man reared up, straightening to throw his rider, but Jacob straightened with him and rode out the man's effort, ending up in a kneeling position behind the Sector Coordinator.
The bigger, stronger man got to one knee, his face scarlet and contorted; the jugular and heavy veins bulged while Jacob jerked and squeezed with all his strength. Suddenly, the man spasmed to his feet, but in a squatting position. He used all his leg power on one tremendous recoil backward, landing on Jacob's chest and stomach, forcing the air from his attacker's lungs.
The Sector Coordinator was on the smaller man, tearing at his face and throat with powerful hands, slamming his right fist against the side of Jacob's head. Jacob desperately searched his right leg with his fingertips while the man pressed his elbow against Jacob's Adam's apple. Lower-inching, crawling his fingers lower. The hard, horizontally ribbed handle! The black, deadly commando knife, free of its holster.
His vision becoming blurry, dark; if not now, it would be too late! In a heaving burst of effort, he arched upward with his back, buttocks and heels, at the same time turning abruptly onto his left side. The sudden change of position threw the heavier man off balance. Jacob thrust the 8-inch blade into the Coordinator's chest beneath the sternum. Blood gushed from where the knife blade remained lodged, drenching Jacob's right hand and forearm. The warm liquid's cupreous odor singed his nostrils while it saturated his clothing. He stared into the man's eyes, only inches from his own. They were bulging, straining to burst from their sockets. The mouth opened, dripping saliva, the swollen, blue lips quivering as if trying to form a word. A slow, gurgling whine escaped from between the man's clenched teeth. An unspoken appeal for help to the one who had taken his life, before the cold eyes turned upward until only their whites shown, reflecting the dingy yellow sky. A final, violent convulsion, expelling air, blood and expectorate from the agony-twisted mouth, then total surrender to death.
Still holding the handle of the knife, his gaze transfixed upon the lifeless eyes that glared back unseeingly. Jacob's hand seemed welded to the killing instrument locked through the dead man's breastbone by the blade's serrated upper edge. He did not see or hear someone running from the opening where the helicopter had moments before sat down.
"Jacob!" Vinchey said nothing more for several seconds, seeing the crimson gore. He pulled his friend free from the body, having to force Jacob's fingers from the knife handle. "Come on, Jake. You had no choice. He would've killed us both."
Standing in the doorway several minutes later, the men glanced apprehensively at the ashen-faced corpse they had just finished clothing in jeans and a blue denim shirt. Jacob knelt and covered the body with an Army blanket.
Vinchey put a hand on Jacob's shoulder. "He had to die. If not now, then when I got him to Putnamville."
"It's not the same. I've never killed like this... Not like this."
"You saved my life, Jake. You had no choice. He'd have brought us both down with that Uzi. We have too much to do to stand here flogging ourselves for something that had to be done. You said yourself, it's a war we're fighting. The man was our enemy. It's not wrong to defend yourself against an enemy who's trying to put you and the people you love in chains."
The rationalization and the image of Karen, painfully etched in his conscience, did much to relieve the guilt feeling. Vinchey was right. No time to mourn this agent of the Naxos devils. Too much to be done.
"Let's get on with it, then," he said, reaching into the backpack. "Heat the paraffin; I'll implant the transponder."
Each went about his task quickly, Vinchey melting the wax substance over the portable burner, Jacob placing the tiny metallic Allegiant, needle point first, against the back of the corpse's neck just below the occipital bone, gently, carefully inserting it into the death-cooling skin. Vinchey poured the now liquid wax into the mold Jacob had prepared days before. With Jacob's help, he placed the dead man's right index finger and thumb into the molten paraffin and held the hand immobile while Jacob discharged C02 around the mold from the fire extinguisher taken from the helicopter.
"Now the latex," said Jacob after several minutes of cooling the wax. He carefully pulled the corpse's finger and thumb from the paraffin.
Vinchey melted the rubber-like substance, then poured it into another mold, this one consisting of three pieces — two solid metal finger-sized molds, both of which fit into the third containing the just-poured latex. Jacob cooled the mold apparatus with C02 until the latex compound was in a gelatinous state, at which time he pulled the two finger-like molds from the latex-filled mold, each finger now thick with the coagulating rubber substance. He then forced them downward into the mold of hardened paraffin where the dead man's finger and thumb had been moments before. Jacob held the mold assembly immobile while the pilot applied C02.
"Let's hope this works as well as it did when I was a kid using this stuff to make models of my hands and feet," Jacob said, glancing at the pilot and nodding that the molds had cooled long enough.
He carefully, slowly peeled the paraffin away from the now cooled rubber-covered molds, examining them to see that the removal had not damaged the latex stretched over the metal fingers
.
Jacob touched the latex, then pulled the material and let it snap against the molds. "Good. It's set, now."
After rolling the rubber coverings down the molds until they came loose from the tips of the metal fingers, he placed one covering over his right index finger, the other over his right thumb, then rolled them carefully down each digit.
"Make the prints," he instructed Vinchey, who pressed the tips of the dead man's right index finger and right thumb onto an ink pad, then onto a sheet of paper.
Jacob pressed his own latex-covered thumb and index finger against the ink pad then onto the paper below the dead man's prints. "Perfect!... Absolutely perfect, Jacob!"
Vinchey examined the two sets of prints with a magnifying glass, comparing first the thumb prints, then the index fingerprints. Jacob scrutinized them when the pilot finished and handed him the glass.
"They look perfect, but we don't know how precisely the computer analyzes the print impressions. They do look good though, don't they?"
"A human eye couldn't tell the difference."
"There's only one way to determine if the computer's eye can. There won't be but one chance to test it, if it's not good enough.
"You know what has to be done, Kerry." The men stood beneath the drooping blades of the helicopter, Vinchey pulling the parachute over his shoulders, then jumping it into place on his back. He reached to take Jacob's extended hand when he finished with the chute.
"You have any questions?" Jacob asked.
"No questions. My job will be simple compared to yours. I don't envy you."
"Yeah. I think I've prepared right for it. I've studied those tapes and papers until, now, I have to force them out of my mind. I've looked the equipment over and it's just about like I pictured it."
"You think the transponder will withstand the crash?" Vinchey nodded toward the Sector Coordinator's body, which sat strapped in the helicopter's right seat.
"It's supposed to survive just about anything, according to the tapes. The main thing we have to make sure of is that the body doesn't survive in an identifiable form."
"I'll find the deepest gorge in the area and drop it from 2,000 or so. It'll have full tanks, so there should be some kind of explosion when it hits. Shouldn't be enough left to give them any clue to how many people were in the bird."
"Can you get out safely?"
"There's some risk, of course. I don't look forward to it, but if I didn't think I'd make it, I wouldn't do it."
"You're sure it will burn?"
"I guarantee it. I've put an incendiary charge with an impact detonator on one of the tanks."
"That's going to add to your risk."
"If I'm going to lose the chopper, I'm going to make sure it counts for something. It'll be okay. Just have to make sure I don't run into any trees on the way up."
"I'm sorry about your helicopter, Kerry."
"I'll borrow another one somewhere. Don't worry about it. I just hope they pick up on the signal sent by that thing."
"The crash will be well within their range. They'll pick up on it." Jacob shook Vinchey's hand again, then pulled the pilot to himself for a brief embrace. "Take care, Kerry. I can't afford to lose any more friends. And take care of those ladies. They've meant a lot to me."
His own tone and the emotion evident in the pilot's eyes summed up their feelings. They were, unless some unbelieved-in force who determined fate willed otherwise, seeing each other for the last time.
Chapter 17
Brilliant light flashed then faded; a tremendous blast sounded then diminished to rumbling. Jacob's attention was yanked to the glowing cloud that climbed to the top of the screen and spread, forming a boiling mushroom head.
"This is the barbarous act of the Jewish slime who infect INterface... who stand between humanity and peace!"
He straightened in the folding chair, his mind sorting the present from remembrance. The explosion! Was it the helicopter, carrying the Sector Coordinator's body and the Allegiant tracking device, blowing in its fiery consummation at the bottom of some New England gorge?
Confusion cleared, his eyes giving his brain the necessary view of the room around him, of the giant viewing screen where the nuclear cloud continued its spreading ascension. Facility 500, its own ambience of terror surrounding his senses, bringing him back to the reality of the present!
He ran his fingers along the belt of explosives, feeling the metal ridges and bumps that made up the detonator. Strange, the comfort his power to devastate gave at this moment. The choice of whether to live or die was not his to make; the power to choose how and when to die, was.
"Egypt is a wasteland, thanks to the Jew. How many more areas of our once pristine planet must suffer before these Jews are brought to an accounting for their plagues?!"
The narrator's voice put the question while the video changed from the mushroom cloud to black-uniformed controllers holding perhaps 50 people at bay with automatic rifles and dogs.
Hundreds of bystanders surrounded the controllers and the frightened prisoners, who were forced to back against a high brick barrier and pack closely together until their total mass resembled, from the camera's vantage well above them, a swarm of wasps milling about their symmetrical nest. Prisoners who tried to escape the pack were bludgeoned back into the swarm, or set upon by several of the big dogs. Spectators threw objects into the mass, more than once striking one or the other of the prisoners and knocking them unconscious. A small child squirted free of the pack, but was picked up by one of the controllers and flung into the center of the mass, which appeared to absorb the child. "Witness now the fate of subhuman enemies who pervert and destroy that which TRINITY has given the citizens of the earth's first soon-to-be perfect society!"
The voice, no longer calm, rose to threatening volume. A truck moved between the taunting spectators and the people against the barricade. Several orange-uniformed people, wearing helmets which completely covered their heads and draped over part of their upper bodies, spilled from the truck. One of the helmeted men shouted and motioned for the spectators to move back in order to clear a larger space between themselves and the people, who appeared doomed to a fate Jacob could not resist watching.
Hoses were unrolled from the rear of the truck's large, square tank. The helmeted men and women, wearing what looked to be heavy, insulated gloves that extended to their elbows, pointed the nozzles at the terrified people against the brick wall and, upon verbal order, one of the operators released liquid, which shot in a yellow-orange, high-pressure stream, soaking the prisoners.
Their shrieks tore at his ears, and he wanted to turn his eyes from the ghastly video, but could not. Acid? Were the poor devils being hosed with some highly caustic liquid? No... No smoke from dissolving clothing and flesh. Not acid. What then?
His answer was quick in coming. The truck operator, who had turned the valves releasing the liquid, now held a black nozzle pointed at the soaked victims, some of whom tried to run from the mass but were beaten back. Pathetic souls. Men, women, tiny children, now gawking silently, submissively at the helmeted men and women standing with the instruments of death pointed at them. Pitiable forms, suddenly resembling stark black and white photographic images of war-torn captives in some long ago conflict. Their eyes no longer wide with fear, just weary of the struggle, and resigned to what must come next.
Flame gushed from the nozzle into the people. In an instant, they became a collective boiling, rolling ball of yellow and red flame, black shoots of oily smoke streaming upward. Gasoline!
Burning, flailing forms ran spastically, or jumped wildly, or crawled, then crumbled into dying heaps, soon becoming individual smoldering cinders. Most died and turned to charcoal in the middle of the huddle against the brick wall, unable to break free of the prison of searing, melting flesh that surrounded them. All movement stopped in less than two minutes and the flames went out, finally, leaving a mound of black, smoking corpses.
"Such will be the end of all illegal J
ews from this moment on, who are caught outside the impounds. Jewry must be quarantined, isolated from human beings, lest mankind continues to be infected by their cancerous sub-race!"
To be alone with the narrator in this room --his gaping, brutish mouth spewing insane hatred, would make his own death worthwhile. To see the look on the narrator's face when Jacob exposed the belt of explosives and made the man know he was about to push the detonator, would make dying almost joyous. Instead, depression that the fantasy could not be realized.
"Like in all of nature, there is a place for scavengers, for parasites, for bacteria... under, of course, the right controls." The video changed from incinerated corpses to shabbily dressed, underweight people digging and scraping sludge from various surfaces which were impossible to identify because of the brevity of the quick cut, close-up shots. Only the looks on the thin faces remained consistent. Hollow, lifeless eyes and drooping mouths, while the people went about their exhausting work under the watchful glares of black-uniformed controllers and the huge police dogs. No question. They knew — knew that he was Jacob Zen. That he was a Jew. Eyes peering at him from unseen cameras mounted in the walls, in the ceiling, behind the screen. They had known for... how long?
"Even as the processes of natural order depend upon the rodents, the vultures, the parasitic bacteria to clean the excretory by-products of life, so the Jew shall be utilized to remove the wastes from INterface. The Universal Mind has not randomly placed life, but rather intends all life to work in its own appointed way to serve the Universal Body. The Jew's natural function was meant to be that of the scavenging, cleansing parasite, proving that the great Universal Organism, of which we, individually, are cells, can use even the lowliest, most repugnant creatures for the good. TRINITY decrees that those individual Jews who choose to serve their predestined purposes will live until their destinies are fulfilled on behalf of INterface. If not, they must join their kindred in burnt sacrifice to the well-being of the Universal Body."