“Heal,” he whispered. “Heal, damn you.”
The blood continued to flow.
He fell back into his chair, staring at the cut.
‘You can die like everyone else.’
No! No, no, no…
King had said something else, though. ‘I needed to know if you had the formula to counter the counter-agent.’
I can reverse this, he thought. The elixir of life is still out there. I can find it. Become immortal again.
Or I can let the world burn.
As he contemplated these diverging paths, King’s partings words flashed through his mind. ‘Your empire will die with you. It’s just a question of when.’
No, he decided, I won’t allow that to happen. My empire will live on. I will live.
And with trembling hands, blood still oozing from the cut on his thumb, he reached for the telephone.
55
Richmond, Virginia—Three Days Later
King laid the wreath at the base of the headstone, then straightened and took a step back. He gripped his father’s hand. Hugged his mother, carefully so as not to unbalance her on her crutches. Then he hugged his sister, and lastly, Sara, his wife.
No tears were shed. There was no need to revisit old grief. Julie had been dead a long time, and although she was missed, even by those who had never known her, time had healed the wound of her absence. They had come here to pay their respects, not to weep for her afresh.
“You know,” Bishop said, as they walked to their car, “she saved the world.”
King threw her a questioning glance.
“If you had not seen her face on television,” she went on, “we would not have known what was happening.”
“That wasn’t Julie,” he replied, his tone soft but emphatic.
“No, but it was her face.”
King considered that. Bishop was right, in more ways than one. It had been Julie’s death all those years ago that had inspired him to pursue a military career, which had led to his saving the world many times over.
The news that Russian forces were withdrawing from the Estonian border had broken while King was surreptitiously making his way back home. Even with his Chameleon adaptive camouflage system—a bit of old Chess Team tech that Deep Blue had managed to restore to working order—rendering him virtually invisible, getting out of Russia had been no mean feat. It would have been considerably more challenging if the Russian President had actually gone through with his mad scheme.
King supposed that, even if he had not been chasing Julie’s ghost, the team still might have been sent on the covert mission, but the outcome might have been vastly different.
He knew now that the leak of information about Volosgrad had been intentional. It was bait for a trap designed to lure him specifically to the research facility, so his DNA could have been harvested to perfect the Firebird serum. Without his discovery of the supply depot in Virginia—a direct result of his search for Julie—the team would have gone in blind, and the trap might very well have worked as planned. Moreover, they would not have been able to thwart the plan without the assistance of Lynn and Peter, who would not have been along if he had not seen the woman with Julie’s face.
His search for her had accomplished something else, too. It had brought his family back together.
After Julie’s accident, Peter had abruptly left the family, returning to Russia—though King had not known it at the time—to raise Asya. The resentment King had harbored toward his father had been somewhat ameliorated when the rationale for that decision came to light. For King, those events were literally ancient history now, but their relationship with one another had never quite regained a sense of normalcy. They had all lived too much of their lives apart and held on to too many secrets.
Maybe that would change now.
No, he amended, no ‘maybe’ about it.
He had told the Russian President—his grandfather, if the man had not been lying to Peter—that regaining mortality had taught him to appreciate the little things, and it was true. There were no do-overs in life, but there were second chances.
For the moment however, the family reunion at Julie’s grave would have to suffice. War with Russia had been averted, but there was another pressing matter—a different sort of family matter—that demanded his attention.
They said their goodbyes at the airport. Peter and Lynn boarded a plane for Seattle. Sara caught a flight back to Atlanta. Even though the Russian situation was de-escalating, the CDC remained on heightened alert, and Sara had to get back to her team. King and Bishop caught a military transport to Fort Bragg, where the rest of the team was waiting in Limbo.
They all looked none the worse for wear, with the exception of Rook, whose left arm was cradled in a sling while the torn ligaments in his shoulder healed.
Admiral Ward was waiting there as well. “Congratulations,” he said, shaking King’s hand. “You did the impossible.”
King was uncomfortable with the praise from the man who had, up until that moment, barely tolerated his existence. Fortunately, Rook quickly filled the awkward silence. “That should be our team motto. ‘We do the impossible.’”
“I’m afraid there were still a few things even we couldn’t manage,” King said. “Like bringing White Team home. I know it’s cold comfort, but without their sacrifice, we might not have pulled this one out of the fire.”
Ward nodded. “Those men knew the risks and took the job. They’re heroes. Just like you.”
“So are we finally off the no-fly list?” Rook asked.
“Off the list and back on the roster.” Ward caught himself. “If that’s what you want, that is.”
King looked around the room at the faces of his teammates, but he already knew the answer. “We’ve got some unfinished business, sir.”
Ward nodded. “Duncan.”
“You said you would give us whatever support you could. With all due respect sir, you owe us. A great, big, fat blank check.”
Ward shuffled nervously but said nothing.
“He’s out there somewhere.” King was looking at Ward, but saying it to all of them. “We’re going to find him, whatever it takes, and we’re going to bring him home. He’s part of our family. And you all know there’s nothing I won’t do, nowhere I won’t go, to keep our family together.”
“I wish I had something to tell you,” Ward said. “But right now, we’ve got no leads, and no ideas about who was behind this.”
“Leads or no leads,” King said, “starting right now, finding Tom Duncan is our only mission.”
EPILOGUE
DARK SIDE
Unknown Location
How long had it been?
Days? Definitely.
Weeks? It was possible.
Months? Probably not that long.
Weeks, then, maybe two, maybe less.
He had tried counting the passage of time by the number of times his captors brought him food or came to empty the bucket that served as his toilet. Always two men—probably not always the same two, but he couldn’t be sure. They wore hoods and masks to conceal their physical features. One of them kept a Taser gun aimed at him at all times. They never spoke, communicating with brusque gestures. If he mistook their intent, he would receive a hard backhand slap. But after the sixth visit—or was it the seventh? Eighth?—he realized that they were staggering the intervals between visits. There could be only one reason for that. They were trying to disorient him, a prelude no doubt, to interrogation.
He was almost certain that he was on a submarine, partly because the tiny room in which he was kept looked like it belonged on a naval vessel—a particularly cramped naval vessel. But mostly because no other vessel could have gotten close to the secret detainment facility where he had been kept. In fact, he couldn’t think of any other way in which his captors could have approached the black site without anyone noticing. They certainly had not arrived, or departed for that matter, by land or air.
All he really
knew with any certainty was that a group of men wearing white camouflage and carrying automatic weapons had stormed the Alert facility and brutally gunned down his jailors. He did not see what happened after that, because the commandos had dropped a heavy sack hood over his head. His other senses were still supplying him with information, but without a visual context it was difficult to make sense out of what he was experiencing. His captors—his new captors—did not utter a single word, at least that he could hear. They could not entirely conceal the fact that he was being moved, though. There had been a short journey on foot, no more than a quarter of a mile, across the frozen Arctic landscape. After that he had been manhandled onto a ladder.
Up? Down? Up then down? He couldn’t be sure, but after that, the world had gotten a lot warmer. He had spent the next few minutes being herded slowly along a hard walkway—metal judging by the feel of it underfoot. After that, he had been strapped to a chair and left alone for a period of at least a few hours. It was long enough for his stomach to begin rumbling and his bladder to begin cramping. Even before the hood was removed, he could feel a change in the air pressure—another sign that he was probably on a submarine. Aside from that one clue, all he really could tell was that he was no longer outside.
Eventually, the hood came off and the chair was taken away. He was left in the small room with metal walls, with just a threadbare blanket and a bucket to piss in. Every meal was the same—cold, sticky rice in a plastic bowl, served without utensils. He was also supplied with a paper cup full of water. There was almost enough room on the floor for him to stretch out and sleep or do calisthenics—the two activities that occupied most of his time.
He could not help but speculate about the identity of the mysterious commandos who had taken him from his prison. There were so many possibilities. Were they soldiers or spies sent by a foreign power? Mercenaries working for a private interest or a global criminal conspiracy? A rival intelligence service within the United States government? All seemed equally possible, and each carried with it a different set of motives and outcomes. The only thing he was certain of was that at some point, someone would begin asking him questions. That was the only conceivable reason for keeping him alive.
The door opened and he saw the two men waiting outside. He was expecting meal number eighteen—give or take a few—but instead, the lead man tossed a ball of fabric at him. He caught it, and as soon as he realized what it was, he knew that the time for his interrogation had arrived.
Here we go, he thought, slipping the hood over his head.
They led him down the same corridor, manhandled him up the ladder—definitely up this time—and then he was forced to lie flat on a platform…
No, it was the deck of a moving vehicle. A truck or van.
A bumpy ride followed, lasting ten or fifteen minutes, and then he was removed from the vehicle and forced to walk a short distance. He felt solid ground underfoot. Concrete or macadam, or possibly hard-packed earth. Then he was moving up a ramp, into a building of some sort.
A hand on his shoulder signaled him to stop moving. He stood still, waiting. Wondering.
“You may remove the hood.”
The voice—a man’s voice—sounded muffled through the heavy fabric, but there was something odd about it. Odd and oddly familiar.
He did as instructed and found himself in a small room with a bed, a sink and a commode. There were no windows, but there was a large mirror on the wall opposite the bed—almost certainly a concealed observation window. The door next to the window had no knob.
My new cell, he thought.
It was a step up from the austere conditions aboard the submarine, but it fell well short of a Michelin four-star rating.
“Welcome, President Duncan. I’m sure you have many questions. We have many questions for you. But please, first take a moment to freshen up. A hot meal will be brought to you shortly.”
The voice was coming from a speaker in the ceiling, and now that he no longer had his hearing obstructed by the sack hood, Duncan recognized it immediately. The odd inflection and cadence, each word enunciated as if completely disconnected from the next—his captors were using a text-to-speech program to further mask their identity. A clever idea, but not without its faults. If he could keep the person on the other end of the conversation talking long enough, a grammatical or idiomatic slip would help him figure out who had taken him.
Knowing that was the first step toward figuring out how to escape, and escape was most definitely a priority for Duncan. He might have been an ex-president, but he would always be an Army Ranger. Long before he took the Oath of Office, he had learned and memorized the soldiers’ Code of Conduct.
If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape.
Resist, first.
“Let’s cut the bullshit, all right? No one back home is going to pay a red cent to ransom a disgraced former president, which can only mean that you want something from me. Probably some kind of classified information that you think only I can share. Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Any information I might have is already several years out of date. You’d have better luck looking it up on Google.”
He waited, curious to see what the response would be. After nearly a minute passed with no reply, he wondered if silence would be the only answer. Then the artificial voice spoke again. “Very well. You are correct. You have information that we require.”
“I told you. I don’t know anything that would be of value to anyone.”
“In 2009, you authorized the LCROSS mission for NASA.” The automated text reader spelled out the acronyms letter by letter.
L-C-R-O-S-S.
N-A-S-A.
“Uh, I guess so.”
“What was the true objective of the LCROSS mission?”
L-C-R-O-S-S.
“I…I don’t recall, off the top of my head,” Duncan lied. “Something scientific, I’m sure. Presidential authorization isn’t required for routine NASA missions.”
They know about LCROSS. His mind was racing. Or they suspect. Who are these guys?
Another long silence. Then, “Why don’t you take a moment to freshen up. A hot meal will be brought to you shortly. Then, you will tell us the truth about LCROSS.”
“I told you. There’s nothing to tell.”
“Then you are going to be here a very long time.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jeremy Robinson is the international bestselling author of fifty novels and novellas including MirrorWorld, Uprising, Island 731, SecondWorld, the Jack Sigler thriller series, and Project Nemesis, the highest selling, original (non-licensed) kaiju novel of all time. He’s known for mixing elements of science, history and mythology, which has earned him the #1 spot in Science Fiction and Action-Adventure, and secured him as the top creature feature author.
Robinson is also known as the bestselling horror writer, Jeremy Bishop, author of The Sentinel and the controversial novel, Torment. In 2015, he launched yet another pseudonym, Jeremiah Knight, for two post-apocalyptic Science Fiction series of novels. Robinson’s works have been translated into thirteen languages.
His series of Jack Sigler / Chess Team thrillers, starting with Pulse, is in development as a film series, helmed by Jabbar Raisani, who earned an Emmy Award for his design work on HBO’s Game of Thrones. Robinson’s original kaiju character, Nemesis, is also being adapted into a comic book through publisher Famous Monsters of Filmland, with artwork and covers by renowned Godzilla artists Matt Frank and Bob Eggleton.
Born in Beverly, MA, Robinson now lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.
Visit Jeremy Robinson online at www.bewareofmonsters.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sean Ellis has authored and co-authored more than twenty action-adventure novels, including the Nick Kismet advent
ures, the Jack Sigler/Chess Team series with Jeremy Robinson, and the Jade Ihara adventures with David Wood. He served with the Army National Guard in Afghanistan, and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Resources Policy from Oregon State University. Sean is also a member of the International Thriller Writers organization. He currently resides in Arizona, where he divides his time between writing, adventure sports, and trying to figure out how to save the world.
Visit him on the web at: seanellisthrillers.webs.com.
ALSO by JEREMY ROBINSON
Standalone Novels
The Didymus Contingency
Raising The Past
Beneath
Antarktos Rising
Kronos
Xom-B
(aka: Uprising or Freeman)
Flood Rising
MirrorWorld
Apocalypse Machine
Nemesis Saga Novels
Island 731
Project Nemesis
Project Maigo
Project 731
Project Hyperion
Project Legion (2016)
SecondWorld Novels
SecondWorld
Nazi Hunter: Atlantis
(aka: I Am Cowboy)
The Antarktos Saga
The Last Hunter – Descent
The Last Hunter – Pursuit
The Last Hunter – Ascent
The Last Hunter – Lament
The Last Hunter – Onslaught
The Last Hunter – Collected Edition
The Jack Sigler/Chess Team Thrillers
Prime
Pulse
Instinct
Threshold
Ragnarok
Empire (A Jack Sigler Thriller Book 8) Page 34