Descent from Xanadu

by Harold Robbins

  “I’m still trying to comprehend it,” Sofia said.

  “We have to be cautious,” he said. “This is still a computer graphic, not the real thing. But there is one thought that came to me. Do you know if Zabiski injected some of his own brain cells in her cellular therapy combination when she worked on him?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “That part of the process she kept to herself. She never allowed anyone to watch her.”

  “It was a thought,” Sawyer said, almost to himself. “I would still like to do a scan on him as soon as possible.”

  “Let’s show this to him,” she said. “Maybe he’ll agree.”

  “Do you expect to see him later?”

  “I guess so,” she said. “I’m starting work on the Zabiski tapes this morning. I’ll bring this up to him when I see him.”

  The screen went blank. “Good luck,” Sawyer said into her receiver.

  “Thank you,” she said. “And luck to you, too.”

  ***

  The sunlight filtered through Judd’s eyelids. Without stirring on his hard bed, he opened his eyes. The room seemed blurred; his sight cleared. He turned his head and looked at the girls sitting on the floor beside him.

  They spoke almost in unison. “Good morning, Master.”

  “Good morning,” he said slowly.

  “Have you traveled far?” they asked.

  “Very far,” he murmured.

  “Beautiful,” they said. “We are very happy. Thank you, Master.” Their naked bodies, golden from the sun rays, gleamed as they ran silently from the room.

  He lay quietly on the bed. A moment later he felt his body shiver. He did not move. Again he shivered. He heard the door open. He did not turn his eyes.

  Amarinth, in the strapless white dress, looked down at him, her eyes dark and moist. He shivered once more and looked up at her.

  “You have traveled very far and you are cold with the ice of your voyage,” she said. “Let the fires inside me warm you.”

  He remained silent. He looked into her eyes, then at her torso inclining to him. He saw her hand clasp his erection, the tips of her fingers circling his testicles. He took a deep breath but he remained silent.

  “Your strength is the hard ridge of the palm tree, opening to spill a rivulet of love across my fingers.” Her eyes were fixed to the cobalt blue of his own. “Please, Master,” she begged, “allow me to serve you.”

  He didn’t speak.

  She lifted her dress above her legs to her waist and knelt on the bed, her legs against his sides. Still holding him with her hand, she leaned back on her haunches and guided him inside her. Her buttocks began to roll in orgiastic frenzy. “Master! Master!” she screamed. “Make me a baby! Please, make me a baby!”

  Then she looked into his eyes. They were distant and unseeing, behind a film she could not penetrate. “Master,” she cried, tears rolling down her cheeks. Slowly she moved from him. He was soft, his erection gone. She slipped to kneel on the bed beside him. Her tears were soft on his hand. “I’m sorry, Master, I’m sorry I could not please you.”

  He turned to her face and kissed her head. “Do not be sorry, child,” he said gently. “You have pleased me. It is I who cannot please you.”

  He sat up on the bed. “Please draw my bath, child,” he said. “And we will play beautifully together like children in the water.”

  “But I don’t understand, Master. You never come into me.”

  “It doesn’t matter, child,” he said. “Death will come only if I allow it to come to me.”

  “In my land, Master,” she said, “we believe that children prolong life.”

  “That is another land and another country,” he said slowly.

  ***

  The usual glass of orange juice was on his desk as he entered his private office. It was eleven o’clock and his dark tanned face was covered with perspiration that even stained his white jogging suit. He sipped at the juice and pressed the button that activated his computerized messages from Computer Central. There were a few: Merlin; Security Control director; Doc Sawyer; his mother, Barbara; Dr. Schoenbrun from Brazil.

  He punched in two other numbers. The first call he made was to Schoenbrun. That was the most important on the list. The call was placed instantly over his own Crane satellite. He turned on the screen and Dr. Schoenbrun’s face filled the picture. “Dr. Schoenbrun,” he said.

  The German doctor smiled, satisfied. “I have good news for you, Mr. Crane.”

  “Good,” Judd said. “I can always use good news.”

  “The nuclear reactor is in place,” the doctor said. “Two weeks ahead of schedule.”

  “My compliments, Doctor,” Judd said. “When can I expect completion now?”

  “Two months, ten weeks at the latest,” Schoenbrun said. “The piping must be completed and the center of the dome welded in place. When that is finished, the bulldozer will cover the installation under thirty feet of earth. Trees and bushes will be planted and in less than a week even the most sophisticated satellite camera will not detect it. It will look exactly like the forest around it.”

  “Good,” Judd said. “And when will we be able to fire the nuclear reactor?”

  “Three months or less,” Schoenbrun said. “We will have all the checks completed by then.”

  “No one fires it up except me,” Judd said.

  “Of course, Mr. Crane,” Schoenbrun said smoothly. “You made it possible and only you should have the honor of pressing the start-up button.”

  Judd was thoughtful for a moment. “The Xanadu Project,” he said almost to himself. “It’s been three years.”

  “That’s correct, Mr. Crane,” Schoenbrun replied. “At first I didn’t understand the significance of the name Xanadu. Then I read the poem and I knew. But your dream is greater than Kubla Khan’s.”

  “I want weekly reports from now on.”

  “Of course, Mr. Crane.” Schoenbrun smiled smugly to himself. “No one would ever believe it was here. It is the most powerful nuclear energy plant in the world, buried deep in the ground almost a thousand miles into the Amazon forest.”

  “Without Ludwig’s pioneering work, our own might never have been attempted,” Judd said.

  “Your genius has made it possible, Mr. Crane. Even I can hardly believe that we have a plant so completely automated that only one man is necessary to operate it.”

  “Don’t underestimate your own genius and work, Dr. Schoenbrun. Perhaps the world will someday appreciate it. As I do,” Judd added.

  “Thank you, Mr. Crane,” Schoenbrun said. He hesitated a moment.

  Judd interrupted, for he could anticipate the scientist. “Five million dollars will be transferred to your Swiss account this morning. Another five million dollars comes to you when I press the button that activates the reactor.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Crane,” Schoenbrun said, almost bowing into the screen.

  “Good-bye, Dr. Schoenbrun,” Judd said.

  He pressed the computer key and the connection was severed. He ran the other messages through the computer routinely and called Security Control. The director came on the line. “John?” he began. “Judd Crane.”

  “Yes, Mr. Crane,” the Security director answered. The man was always cautious. “Are we on a scrambler, sir?”

  “Yes,” Judd answered. “Go ahead.”

  “Our lady doctor is in the shits again,” John said.

  “Explain,” Judd said.

  “She’s on four hit lists, sir,” John said. “Russia, Yugoslavia, China and the Mafia hired by the Cubans. That makes it four of a kind, four aces, very hard to beat.”

  “I don’t get it, John. Why now? She spent almost three years in Bangladesh, where they could have nailed her anytime they wanted.”

  “Apparently they feel she’s stolen some very top-secret documents and they’ve just discovered them missing. The documents had something to do with the late Dr. Zabiski’s experiments and files, best I can figure.”
>
  “They must be the files that Zabiski gave to me,” he said.

  “Not those. They already know about that bunch. I’d guess you only had part of the file. They allowed Zabiski to give that to you so you’d return Ivancich to her.”

  Judd was silent. “Where are the rest of the papers?”

  “With Ivancich, I should think. Otherwise why would they be so hot after your lady now?” He paused for a moment. “I think we had better beef up the security around Crane Island. It won’t take them long to discover where she is.”

  “Does Sawyer know about this?”

  “Not yet,” John said. “You’re the boss. You get the first message.”

  “Don’t say anything to him just yet,” Judd said. “I don’t want him to get nervous. But put a heavy blanket around him. I don’t want anyone to pull him apart to bleed information from him.”

  “Yes, sir,” John said. “And Crane Island?”

  “Four heavy-armored helicopters in the sky over the island twenty-four hours a day. Eight armored speed launches on the water, also around the clock. And twenty of our best sharpshooters deployed on the ground day and night.”

  “We’ll need six hours, sir,” John said.

  “Two hours. We may not have six hours.” Judd signed off.

  10

  Sofia’s voice was angry on the telephone. “That old bitch! She’s fucked all of us!”

  Judd’s voice was expressionless in the receiver next to her ear. “So what else is new?”

  “You don’t sound excited,” she said. “Maybe you don’t understand what I said. She never planned that you would get all the answers.”

  “I’m not stupid,” he said. “I knew that. Why do you think I asked you to come here? I thought you’d have some of the answers. Isn’t that what you stole from the Russians’ files?”

  “How did you learn about that?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “Half the Eastern world is after your ass. You have no place to hide except with me.”

  “Is that what State told you?”

  “Partly,” he said. “Now what about your files?”

  “I’ll get them,” she said. “But it won’t be enough. There’s still a third file. But I think I know where it is.”

  “Tell me.” His voice was flat. “Whose?”

  “The Indian mentioned in your files. She never mentioned him in the Russians’ files. It fits. Your file covers everything from the beginning of 1953 onward. The Russians have your files except for any mention of the Indian. Their files go back to 1944, when they captured a German experimental laboratory where she was working.”

  “She was working with the Germans?” He was surprised.

  “Yes,” she answered calmly. “What are you so excited about? Didn’t you people capture all the German rocket scientists and bring them with you to the States?”

  “Okay, okay,” he conceded impatiently. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “The Russians got her and some of the other doctors, but somehow the files covering 1941 to 1943 were never found. She told them they had been burned, together with an Indian scientist the Nazis considered non-Aryan. But I think she got him out of there with the files before the Russians came in.”

  “Then how did she manage to make mention of the Indian in my file?” he asked.

  “Look at your original copy. Those notes about the Indian were written with a ball-point pen in her own peculiar kind of shorthand. The rest of the notes are either typed or written with a fountain pen. My guess is that she added them on the plane while coming to meet you. I would also guess that the Indian was not one of the staff doctors. Somehow, he assured the success of her own experiments. That’s why she wanted to save him.”

  “What happened to the others?” he asked.

  “The Russian file I have listed many experiments that were buried with the scientists who ran them.” She was thoughtful for a moment. “You were right when you said she was a tough lady.”

  “She was a tough lady.”

  “But she was also a genius. And you were the only one she ever trusted.”

  “But not enough to go all the way, I guess,” he said.

  “Maybe she couldn’t bring herself to place all the pieces in one file. If she had, the Russians might have gotten hold of it, and she couldn’t be sure what use they would make of it. You were the only man in the world she felt she could trust with that power.” She paused for a moment. “Now what?”

  “Why didn’t you try to reach me before?” he asked.

  “I did try once. But there wasn’t enough time and I couldn’t find you. I had to go back. I was still Brezhnev’s doctor. After he died I was sent to Bangladesh to work on nutrient experiments at a children’s clinic. When I received your message, I left in the middle of the same night. If I had waited till the next day, it would have been all over for me. They would have intercepted your message, and they would have killed me. As useful as I was to them, I still knew too much.”

  He was silent.

  She felt very tired. “I guess it’s over now. I might as well go back. You can have the files. You were going to get them anyway, if I died.”

  “I would prefer to see them while you’re alive,” he said crisply. “I don’t propose to lose you now.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “I said it, didn’t I?” he snapped. “Now lock your office door and don’t open it until you hear my voice outside.”

  ***

  The telephone clicked in her ear. Slowly she put the receiver down and started to rise. A gentle knock came from the door.

  She opened her handbag and took out a specially made snub-nosed Magnum and held it out before her in both hands. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Max, Doctor.” His voice came muffled through the door. “Mr. Crane asked me to bring you up to his office for lunch, ma’am.”

  “Come in,” she called calmly. “The door’s open.”

  The door opened into the room and she saw him, one hand reaching for something inside his coat pocket. A look of surprise came over his face as he saw the gun in her hands. It was the last thing he ever saw.

  The heavy-caliber bullet blew him through the open door, across the corridor, blood pouring from his chest over his white coat. He spun, grasping at the wall opposite him, then slumped slowly to the floor across the elevator doors. The shot echoed down the corridors like an explosion.

  She stayed in the office, the gun still held out rigidly in her hands. She heard steps running down the corridor toward her, then the elevator doors opened.

  Fast Eddie, holding his big Colt, sprang out of the elevator over the body of Max; he knelt beside it in the corridor as security guards came rushing toward them. Judd, just behind all of them, ran toward the elevator doors.

  He sensed rather than saw the door at the corner of the corridor open. “Behind you,” he yelled at Fast Eddie.

  Fast Eddie wheeled, but Sofia was even faster. She squeezed the trigger of her Magnum the moment Mae appeared in the door, the Uzi machine pistol rising in her already dead hands. Again the shot burst like an explosion down the corridors. Mae tumbled back into the room, the Uzi crashing to the floor.

  Fast Eddie looked through the doorway at Mae. He looked back at the others. “She caught it too,” he said.

  Judd stepped over Max’s body and went toward Sofia. He could see the grim pallor on her face, the frozen tension of her body. He held out a hand and took the Magnum from her. “I thought we were supposed to be protecting you,” he said softly.

  The tension melted from her body, the fear in her eyes disappeared. She let out a deep breath. “I figured this is the only way to go, if you’re to live forever, Judd,” she said with the faintest trace of a smile.

  “They weren’t after me,” he offered.

  “Bullets have a way of altering life expectancy,” she said. “One has to be extra-careful.”

  He looked down at the Magnum. He thumbed the latch and pu
shed open the cylinder. He turned the barrel up and let the bullets fall into his palm. There were four bullets and two empty cartridges. He examined the bullets. “Cute,” he said, looking up at her. “Explosive heads. Everything is special about this gun. Where did you get it?”

  “The KGB,” she answered. “They have a man who specializes in toys like this.”

  He nodded. “Had it long?”

  “Ten years,” she said. “This is the first time I have used it, except in trials.”

  He dropped the gun and the bullets into the pocket of his jumpsuit. He turned to look at the corridor. It was filled with security men. He gestured to Fast Eddie. “Let’s go back to my office,” he said, reaching for her hand.

  She followed him into the elevator. Fast Eddie entered behind them. Judd covered the button before he pressed it. “Which one of you is the section chief on this watch?”

  “I am, Mr. Crane,” said a tall, solid man with gray-black hair. “Officer Carlin.”

  “Clean up this mess, Officer Carlin,” he said. “Then send a team over to the cottage. Check out everything there and have Dr. Ivancich’s possessions taken to my apartment.”

  “Yes, sir,” Carlin replied. “I’m sorry, Mr. Crane. We had no warning. These people had all the proper security passes.”

  “That’s not your fault, Officer Carlin,” Judd said. “I’ll bring it up with Security Control.” He pressed the button and the elevator doors closed.

  11

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Crane,” John said quietly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get off the island. There’s no way we can defend it.”

  Judd looked around his library. Merlin sat next to the Security director, John, in front of his desk, Sofia and Doc Sawyer on the couch. Fast Eddie leaned against the bar. Judd turned to the windows and gazed out at the night sky. The sea was dark and ominous; clouds covered the moon.

  “I don’t know how those two breached our security screen, but they did,” John went on. “Nothing was found at the cottage that belonged to them. We have to assume they made contact with their people in Havana. The fingerprints we picked up from the FBI files identified them as among the first batch of refugees Castro shipped to the States over ten years ago.” John was apologetic. “How we blew that in our check, I don’t know. But we fucked up and there’s nothing I can say about it except I’m sorry, sir.”