Sunfail

by Steven Savile

  She turned it over in her hand, studying it. “It’s not. At least, the eye isn’t. That’s Egyptian, the Eye of Horus. It’s a popular image, supposedly gives protection and health. The circle—see the markings here?” Jake and Ryan leaned in closer. There was a pattern around the eye, and it looked a lot like things Jake had seen on Mexican coins and calendars. “That’s Mayan, or maybe Olmec.” She frowned and clicked over to the image of the underwater ruins again. “Mayan and Egyptian together.” She shook her head. “It’s strange. I suppose it’s not out of the question that refugees or colonists from Egypt could have wound up forming the start of the Mayan Empire. That would explain the ruins. They may have been the bridge stage, between their old culture and their new one, some of the heritage bleeding into the new, being subsumed by the locals, rather than consumed, and altered to fit their own circumstances.” She was getting excited, Jake could tell. Her words came thick and fast, like she could barely keep up with her thoughts and their ramifications. “The Mayans were about the end of one thing and the start of the next, but the Egyptians, they were more about the journey, weighing the soul and proving its worth before being allowed to move on. There’s a heavy element of gatekeeper-ship in their mythos, the idea that someone has to stand in judgment and decide who is worthy and who isn’t.” Now her eyes grew wide. “If you combine the two cultures, the way these ruins suggest, you might wind up with a people who know when this age will end and feel it’s their duty to control the transition and make sure those who are worthy will survive and even prosper as the new age dawns.”

  “The Hidden,” Jake said. “That’s what the name means. They’ve been hidden all this time, in plain sight, watching and waiting, preparing for this day. Ready to sit in judgment and dispense their justice to the unworthy. That’s why they could act so quickly—they’ve had years to plan this all out. Every last detail.”

  “All but one,” she said. “They didn’t count on you. Make the call.”

  Chapter FORTY

  THE LIMO CAME TO COLLECT THEM AT FIRST LIGHT. The driver didn’t say anything as he opened the door.

  “Harry,” Jake said, looking at him. “Or should I call you Cabrakan?”

  “You can call me whatever you like, Jake. We’re old friends.”

  “I thought we were.”

  “Nothing’s changed.”

  “Everything’s changed,” Jake disagreed.

  The other man didn’t contradict him this time.

  Jake had come alone; he didn’t want to drag the others any deeper in. They were also his insurance policy. If things went south he was relying on them to get the information out there somehow. All Ryan needed was a computer and he could disseminate the truth far and wide. He had connections in hacktivist groups like Anonymous, the kind of people who had an interest in getting the truth out there. Not that Jake expected anyone to listen.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where you wanted to go. Mr. Alom’s looking forward to meeting you.”

  “I wish I could say it was mutual.”

  They drove awhile in silence. Life hadn’t returned to normal—the roads were still clogged with abandoned vehicles. Snow made it worse now. It would be weeks before it was cleared, but there were already signs of the National Guard moving in and beginning the clean-up. Jake didn’t see a single dog on the drive. Harry kept to the fringes of the borough, wending his way to his destination, a riverside heliport. The cranes of the docks towered over the scene, unmoving. There was a white Sikorsky S-76C on the tarmac. The pilot was already in his chair, the rotors turning over slowly.

  “After you,” Harry said, pulling up on the hard stand.

  “One question,” Jake said, unclipping his belt.

  “Shoot.”

  “Did you kill Sophie?”

  Harry turned to face him. “Would it make any difference if I said no?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t kill her. You have my word.”

  Jake stared at the man and realized he had no way of knowing how hollow that word was. Up until a few days ago he would have said Harry Kane was one of his few real friends in the world, now he had no idea who he was. What he did know was what Harry was: a killer.

  “How did you get messed up in all of this, Harry?”

  “You said one question, Jake. That’s two.”

  “I’m just trying to understand.”

  “Then save your questions for Mr. Alom.”

  “What about you? Don’t you ask questions anymore?”

  “As few as possible. Come on, he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  They clambered out of the limo, leaving the doors open as they crossed the tarmac to the waiting helicopter. The rotors began to chop the air, the engine’s whir turning into a roar. The downdraft battered them as they ducked low.

  “Relax, mate,” Harry said, his Englishness coming out in that single world. “If he wanted you dead, you’d be dead. We’ve had plenty of opportunities to kill you, believe me.”

  “That’s not as comforting as you’d think,” Jake said.

  Harry laughed. “I guess not. Just remember, you asked for this. No one forced you into it.”

  “Again, not as comforting as you’d think.”

  “No offense, but I need to pat you down, make sure you don’t try anything stupid. Up against the car, spread ’em,” Harry said, this time putting on a piss-poor American accent.

  Jake did as he was told.

  As Harry’s hands moved up the inside of his right thigh they found the obsidian knife. Harry stripped him of it, tossing it aside. Satisfied there were no other surprises concealed on his person, he told Jake to buckle up and try to enjoy the flight.

  A minute later they were rising up over the canyons of the city.

  Jake stared out of the window as they streaked south down the line of the Hudson River before banking west toward the New Jersey blight. The world looked so small down there. If he’d needed any sort of dividing line between the haves and the have-nots in this world, this journey was it. The Sikorsky was about thirteen million bucks’ worth of extravagance. It was also the only thing in the sky. It rode the thermals, skimming over the rooftops of the skyscrapers before angling away toward the sea.

  It took twenty minutes before the city was a thing of the past and the distant white blur on the horizon resolved into the shape of a luxury super-yacht with concave surfacing and sleek lines as well as its own onboard pool that jutted out from the transom.

  The pilot brought them down smoothly onto the helipad.

  A woman waited on the sundeck. She was dressed in a pencil skirt and crisp white blouse with her hair pulled back in a tight bun.

  “She really is something, isn’t she?” Harry said.

  He wasn’t wrong. The woman’s lines were more impressive than the super-yacht’s.

  “I’ve seen better,” Jake said.

  “Of course you have. Come on then, let’s get this over with, shall we?” He let Jake out first. “Miss Kinch Ahau,” he said, inclining his head deferentially.

  “Cabrakan,” she replied. “Mr. Carter, Mr. Alom is expecting you. If you’d be so kind as to follow me?” She led them across the sundeck to a stairway that led up to a glass-fronted cabin that offered an incredible view of the sea from all aspects.

  “How the 1 Percent lives,” Jake said, doing his best to take it all in.

  The woman opened the door without responding. The interior was the epitome of wealth over taste. Jake stood on the threshold.

  “Come in, Mr. Carter,” a voice said from inside. “Miss Kinch Ahau, please see to it that we are not disturbed.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And invite Cabrakan to join us.”

  “Yes sir. Anything else?”

  “That will be all, thank you. Close the door behind you on the way out.”

  She nodded and backed up a step, allowing Jake past, then closed the door.

  “Sit, please. No reason we can’t be civil
about this, Mr. Carter.”

  Jake still couldn’t see the speaker. There were three leather armchairs in the room. Jake took the middle one, and turned the angle slightly so it faced the room’s one solid wall. It was made of rich lacquered wood, and within the grains he was sure he could make out some of the same swirls and spirals of the Mayan symbols he’d seen elsewhere. They were subtle, and he could just as easily be seeing patterns where there were none, but before he could rise and cross the room to check, a door opened on the far side of the cabin and an older man with silver hair and steel-gray eyes entered. Midseventies, Jake guessed, but in good physical condition, not bowed by the weight of years on his narrow shoulders. A regular Hugh Hefner playboy character. There was something about his face, though, that didn’t look quite right. No doubt he had small scars behind his ears from where the surgeon had performed the lift. Jake rose out of habit, though stopped short of offering his hand.

  “Now, this is a pretty mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, isn’t it, Mr. Carter?”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Jake countered.

  “So, perhaps you should tell me why you wanted this meeting. I see little benefit in it, personally, but Cabrakan made a good case for your life. You should thank him.”

  “I’ll try to remember that. As to why I wanted to face you, apart from knowing my enemy? Short term: survival. Long term: survival.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Look, it doesn’t take a genius to know you outrank me in society’s chain of command. I’m a grunt, you’re a general.”

  The old man offered a wry smile. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Carter. Is that the plan?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to explain to me why I shouldn’t simply have Cabrakan throw you overboard and be done with it. You’ve been nothing but a thorn in my side, Mr. Carter. I am not a forgiving man. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can appeal to my better nature. You have cost me a lot of money, more than you can possibly imagine, and that is not even the worst of your crimes. You’ve left a trail of bodies in your wake that I am sure the authorities would be interested in, for one. But that’s just being petty. You obviously view me as some kind of monster, no?”

  “It has crossed my mind.”

  “Let me ask you a question, Mr. Carter.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Are you a patriot?”

  “Of course.”

  Alom nodded. “As am I. I love my country, Mr. Carter. Fiercely. Everything I do, I do out of love for this great nation of ours. I watch over her.”

  “Like a vampire watching over big herd of human cattle.”

  “No, no, no, not like that at all. I look around and I see everything our fathers and our forefathers built slowly crumbling and decaying and I want to stop that. I see riots in Ferguson, Los Angeles, and Baltimore, and I feel immense pain.” He held a hand flat against his heart. “I see people without hope, ground down by circumstance and failure, and I want to do something.”

  “Profit.”

  “Cynical, Mr. Carter. I want to make a difference. I want to protect everything that is great about this nation of ours.”

  “You make it sound like a noble cause.”

  “It is. I’m not the monster you are looking for. Look around you, look at a government that has its hands bound tight by conflict in both houses of Congress, that can’t pass legislation to make even the least bit of difference because it’s all about politics and fear. Look at how insular everything is. We don’t have global leadership initiatives in place to handle things like the climate and depletion of natural resources, and they are global issues. Wouldn’t you agree that our greatest debt to the world—and our greatest challenge as a species—is to build a better world? Aren’t things like clean water, nutritious food, affordable housing, education, medical care, safe energy, access to high-tech communications and information, and freedom—aren’t these things all basic human rights? A life of possibility for all?”

  “Are you trying to tell me you’re some sort of benevolent force sneaking around in the background trying to make everything all right?”

  “I’m trying to tell you that things are not as black-and-white as you might like to believe. Everything I do, I do it for the greater good. Take what I believe to be one of humanity’s greatest failings: aging. I truly believe we are within striking distance of changing everything. We already know so much about how life works, and our scientists—men and women working in clinics we fund in Switzerland—are in the process of developing a medicine that will bring aging under the same degree of control that we already have for most infectious diseases. Think of it, think of the pain and suffering caused by age-related conditions like Alzheimer’s, macular degeneration, dementia, cardiovascular disease, cancer, all of them brought under control. That is the greater good. That is what governments like ours will never bring us, because they cannot work together. So we take matters into our own hands. Money can change the world, Mr. Carter. And I make no apologies for being a very, very rich man.”

  “And all of this? Everything you’ve been doing?”

  “To ensure that we can continue to protect people who need protecting.”

  “Is that your sales pitch?”

  The old man’s smile flickered for just a moment, betraying a chink in the armor, a glimpse at the man behind the mask of civility. “I am simply asking you to consider the bigger picture. Prejudice, as I am sure you can appreciate, is a killer.”

  “I’m just not sure I’m buying this, Mr. . . . I’m sorry, I’m not very good at names. Until yesterday I thought he,” Jake nodded out toward the deck, “was called Harry. Turns out I was wrong.”

  “Alom. Gabriel Alom.”

  “Mr. Alom. It all sounds a bit too good to be true. Self-serving.”

  “Let’s not forget that you asked for this parlay, Mr. Carter. You have come here, into my home, carrying secrets I already know, and want to trade them for your life? But I don’t see how that benefits me. If you want a secret kept, the best thing you can do is not share it. Once two people know, a secret it is impossible to keep unless one of them is dead.”

  “I’ll be honest, that’s what I expect. I came here thinking that maybe I’d get one shot, cut your throat or crush your skull, and then your goons would take me out. I came in here prepared to die. I’ve made my peace with it.”

  “How very noble of you. You truly are a warrior. What if I told you it doesn’t have to end that way? That there’s an alternative.”

  “I’d say I don’t believe you,” Jake replied. “We’re both men of the world, let’s keep the bullshit out of this.”

  The old man leaned forward and put something on the table between them. A gold pin.

  “I can always use a good man like you, Mr. Carter. Especially considering the losses we have encountered recently.”

  “You’re asking me to join you? What, just pick up where Sophie left off?”

  “I’m presenting it as an alternative.”

  “You want me to kill for you?”

  “Crude, Mr. Carter. I want you to consider how you have wasted your life since leaving the service of our country, and to consider taking it up again. We have enemies, people who don’t want us to see our plans through to fruition. There are always predators and prey, Mr. Carter. And every predator is prey for some other apex hunter.”

  “And who preys on you? Or are you the apex predator?” Jake asked, unable to help himself.

  “You can answer this yourself. Did you simply stumble upon the brownstone, or were you dispatched? And don’t bother lying to me, I know Sophie reached out to them. She told them who you were and how she hoped to use you to strike at the heart of our operations here in New York. She used you. They all did.”

  “But you won’t? Is that it?”

  “Oh, no. I’ll use you too. I won’t lie to you, though—that’s the difference.”

  “But who are they?”

&
nbsp; “Department of Defense, Homeland Security, the NSA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence, any of them, all of them. We frighten them because we are the one thing that can deny them control as we march toward a brave new world. We are free men. We have money. Money grants power in this day and age, but more than that, it buys influence. We shape the politics of the world. We can make things happen one way or another.”

  “So why all this now?”

  “Control costs money, Mr. Carter. That is just the way the world works. If you want to make a difference you need to have money. Lots of it. It doesn’t matter whether it is New York, Paris, London, New Delhi, or Tokyo—it still costs money. If you are poor, you are a drain on society, you weaken the world rather than add to it.”

  “Okay. So you’re not some end-of-the-world cult? This is all about money and politics?”

  “Isn’t it always?”

  “Right. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and never the twain shall meet? And the deal is, I take this,” he looked down at the pin, “you let me live, but I become an enemy of the United States government. I say no, you kill me. Am I missing something?”

  “I won’t kill you.”

  “Semantics,” Jake said. “I’ll be just as dead whether it’s you who pulls the trigger or Harry.”

  “Then use your head, take my offer. Think of the good you can do. You say you are patriotic. Serve your country again, Mr. Carter. She needs a few good men now more than ever.”

  Jake stared at the tiny gold pin on the table between them, such a small, insignificant thing, and yet carrying so much weight. Picking it up would mean taking on the burden Sophie had carried, but it would also keep Finn and Ryan alive. Was that the kind of devil’s debt he was prepared to take on?

  He took the memory stick out of his pocket and set it down on the table. “This is everything we took. But like you said, the only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead. Take it in exchange for their lives. This is just between us. It ends here.”

  “Does that mean you are saying no?”

  “No.”

  The Beginning