“Maybe it's a misprint, a mistranslation of snoring?” his wife said, putting down her binoculars with a long sigh. “10:14 already and still nothing. We’ve been on this damn truck since dawn.”
“Here in Botswana we have many lions, but they are most active at sunset or after dark,” the driver admitted to a chorus of groans.
Polo Shirt’s wife rested her head on her husband’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “Wake me up when you see something, hon.”
The safari jeep crawled along the dirt path as the guide continued. “The King of the jungle keeps his own schedule, so we may only see him sleeping today. Rest assured we still have the hippo . . .”
She’d see lions yet, if only in her dreams.
Her body rang like a bell. Hard to believe she could be shivering cold on the African savanna. She opened her eyes to darkness, struggling to define shapes moving before her. She smelled the sweat of fellow tourists, but the barely padded seat of the jeep no longer vibrated. They had stopped. Maybe the nocturnal lions were finally making an appearance.
“I must have slept all day,” she assumed, squinting at her husband. “Did you catch anything?”
Her husband, far more interested in his binoculars, shook his head.
“I know I dozed off, but did you use that as an excuse to add on the night tour?”
“No!” he said with some worry. “Look at your watch.”
She jolted upright. “I was only out twenty minutes. It’s an eclipse! I’ve never seen one before!”
“No. Can’t be. It’s too dark,” her husband said, still searching for something in the distance.
The driver had abandoned his rehearsed play-by-play.
“Why did we stop?” shouted another polo shirt behind them.
With one hand the driver tried to call his office, while the other reached for the tranquilizer gun strapped to the dash. The phone failed to connect, and the murmuring of the tourists made him nervous.
Pairs of luminous yellow circles bobbed closer as the big cats woke and took interest in the jeep that smelled like fatty meat.
“Get us the hell out of here!” a sun visor crowned with white hair yelled.
The driver rolled the truck slowly over the plain. The absence of sunlight liberated humidity, wisping fog into the high beams.
A local man pressed the driver. “Time has quickened. Day to night in the blink of an eye. These are signs, brother. The Yawm ad-Dīn!”
“That’s all nonsense,” the driver brushed him off, raising his voice. “Everyone, don’t worry. We are okay. Going back to town now.”
“How can you be so blind? I expect it from the infidels here for cheap memories, but brother, do you not see the signs of the Day of Judgment? Did you not hear the trumpet of the Israfil? And now your phone is silent.”
“Shut up!” The driver gripped his right hand tighter on the rifle. “That’s all bullshit.”
The man from Lagos gained strength from the rejection of his faith, the gift of a chance to testify at the very time he believed Allah to be watching closely.
“Have not the Nations, the United Nations, called for the destruction of Islam? Do not the women involve themselves in their husbands’ business? Is not wine and libation consumption at an all-time high, even among Muslims? Is not the AIDS crisis the test of plague that Ibn Umar warned us of? We have been waiting for this judgment for decades, the signs accumulating and culminating in this very moment. Do not be afraid. Celebrate this moment of joy with us, brother!”
“Joy?” The driver banged the GPS on the dash next to the emergency rifle and stopped the truck before leaning closer to the devout Muslim. “The map is broken and we’re lost in a game preserve the size of Syria. If any of the tourists get hurt the company is going to fire me. Will Allah pay my rent?”
“Lost? Allah suffers not the reward of believers to be lost, brother. We have witnessed the splitting of the Moon, for we drive in darkness, through the smoke.”
“What moon?” The driver craned his neck out to look up. “There’s no Moon up there, in pieces or not. And what smoke?”
“The very mist that your headlights struggle to penetrate.”
The driver grabbed the religious man’s lapel. “Stop talking like that, you’re going to scare the tourists!”
“Hey! Why did we stop again?” an infidel yelled.
The driver shouted back past the local’s ear. “Just a summer storm! Don’t worry!”
“It is no ordinary storm. We are under the black cloud of smoke,” the man insisted and closed his eyes before whispering low prayers.
Invisible vultures cackled overhead in the moonless night. A pride growled a few meters behind the truck. In the distance an elephant trumpeted, heralding the thunder of heavy feet.
“The final sign, brother. The beasts of the earth come to call. We will soon join our ancestors in Jannah!”
The driver let go of the man’s shirt, gripping the rifle tight with both hands and wondering how many darts were left.
Chapter 1
Kamran recognized the implicitly terrifying noise signaling nature’s wrath. Tsunamis were swift and unforgiving, he knew that much from watching CNN, but he’d heard that sound here before. It usually signified a rather large, but relatively nondestructive storm front.
Whether it would affect Kamran and the Chos, on the top floor of one of the newer buildings on campus, was debatable. Surely it would be nothing compared to the tropical storms he’d ran for cover from with Jill Tarmor years ago under the Arecibo complex in Puerto Rico.
Here too, a woman he considered very lovely would accompany him through this storm. However, he’d decided long ago he’d not make the same mistake with Dr. Cho’s daughter that he made with Jill. SETI might play it loose with employees that mix business and pleasure, but MIT had stricter standards. Unlike his former graduate studies detour, a misstep here while waiting for tenure could cost Kamran a very distinguished career.
“Is that noise your curfew, Dr. Douglass?” The elderly man across from Kam smiled and took off his thick gold-rimmed glasses.
“I’m afraid not, Dr. Cho. That’s a storm warning.”
Natalie smiled and grabbed Kam’s arm. “Father is joking. We live in the Typhoon Belt, we are surely more familiar with storm warnings than you.”
Dr. Kyung-Soo Cho’s smile widened and his eyes crinkled as he adjusted his hearing aid. “Forget that racket. I’m an old man. I didn’t fly all the way from Seoul, pull you out of bed, and keep you on campus till the wee hours of the morning just to be scared off by a little rain.”
“And you’ve kept me here through to Christmas morning, Suzie,” Kam added.
Suzie? The old man glanced at his daughter. Maybe she didn’t catch it, but he’d browbeat Kam a little anyway, for fun. “If you were any less brilliant I might not let you talk to me like that, Kamilla.”
“And maybe if you had forced him to drink a few less bottles of Hite, Appa, Kam wouldn’t talk to you like that.”
“Americans like to drink on Christmas!”
“Eggnog, Appa, not Korean beer.”
“Drunk is drunk! Anyway, the gift this old man has brought him is worth a hell of a lot more than whatever Santa had in mind.”
Kam looked at his feet. He hated the financial side of research.
Natalie rubbed her father’s shoulder. “Appa, we should see how bad the storm is. We’ll take you to your hotel before it gets bad.”
Natalie eyed the floor to ceiling glass windows of the campus conference room they’d reserved. She and Kam grabbed their mobiles to check the storm warning.
“The network is down.” Kam plunked his useless mobile on the clear blue glass table. “Winds must have knocked out the cell towers again and the public Wi-Fi in the building shuts down between 2 and 6am for security, so we’re cut off. I could find a terminal with a LAN, but we should probably just get you both to your hotel. You must be tired.”
The old man chuckled. “In the war
we had mobile people. The network only went down if our radio operator did. And he didn’t get to quit because he was tired.”
“You sound suddenly dismissive of the technology that made you rich enough to take a first class last minute flight straight from Seoul to Boston and keep me here all night.” Kam smirked. “You should be thanking radio.”
“Kam, don’t give Appa another opportunity to toast to something,” Natalie only half-joked.
“Yes, where would I be without radio? Probably tending rice paddies and complaining about tired feet like my father before the war. Still drink the same beer, though!”
“Maybe we toast to war, then: the equal spur of suffering and growth. The halcyon lens with which to appreciate the peace of later life, eh?”
“Sounds like you’re auditioning to be a vocabulary teacher,” Dr. Cho giggled.
“Or a professor of philosophy,” Natalie added.
Although he loved his research in linguistics, Kam treasured philosophizing with the old and experienced Dr. Cho more than discussing the specifics of the research grants he’d come to oversee.
However, Kam had seen the veteran turn grumpy in bad weather before. No matter what typhoons they’d lived through in Seoul, he was certain he’d hear about it if they walked through Boston sleet. Not to mention the thought of the old fellow slipping on ice and breaking a hip, a surefire way to sour any large donation before the ink dried on the check.
“I hear the Hilton has a wonderful bar, a great place to toast to your good fortune and stay toasty while the storm rages outside. You must be chilled to the bone by now, they barely run the heat at all in this building before the first morning classes.” Kam didn’t have to act when he rubbed his arms to stay warm.
“Yes, I can almost see my breath, Doctor Douglass, now that the cocktails from our midnight dinner are wearing off. Perhaps we should think about relocating, after all.” Dr. Cho reached for his cane, but patted his daughter's side instead. “See what a smooth talker he is? And I hear he’s single, too.”
Natalie gulped.
Kam looked away. “Doctor Cho, I . . . uh . . .”
“And like all men, he loses all control in front of a pretty woman. Oh the things I struggled to say in front of your mother, Natalie!” The old man laughed at his own joke to the point of a coughing fit, missing a startling thunderclap in the distance.
Natalie joined Kam at the window, staring through the glass.
Dr. Cho put his spectacles back on and joined them. “Planes are turning around. What does that mean?”
“They’ve closed Boston-Logan,” Kam answered. “It’s a nor’easter. The sky is dark, the Moon gone. The clouds are only going to get worse, and they’ll bring rain. Lots of it.”
“Do they evacuate the whole city for nor’easters?” Natalie noticed from the high floor that between MIT and Logan half a million people began to stream west, away from the Atlantic. Massachusetts Bay teemed with the light from ships jamming the harbor hoping their passengers could make landfall before the storm on their tail.
Kam feared telling her the answer, not for her sake, but for the delicate old man in their care that wanted to feel anything but. What looked like an Australian ‘morning glory’ cloud formed in the distance, a thick and tall circular column running the span of the horizon. Kam knew better; the water molecules weren’t harmless vapor. They’d smash through the glass in the building with more force than a wrecking ball if he was right. He looked at his watch, estimating the speed of the wave of water and distance left to travel.
Ten minutes.
“This isn’t a nor’easter.” Kam turned and ushered them toward the open stairs leading down from their top floor conference room. “We need to get out,” he tried to say calmly.
At the top of the stairs Kam began calculating the fastest route out of the ten story steel and glass technological showcase. By the time they reached the bottom he knew where to go.
As they ran through the small courtyard behind the Dorrance Building, Dr. Cho puffed, “Where we going, Kamran?” between disguised gasps, his gilded cane wobbling in his hand.
“There’s a helipad on campus, I’m sure that’s where we’re going,” Natalie suggested as she strained to support her father.
Eight minutes.
“Just follow me.” Kam knew a helicopter would be nice, but unlike the Cho’s he didn’t have one ready. If he didn’t get killed trying to steal one, flying it through the storm certainly would finish the job. Did Natalie really think MIT would have a staff helicopter chauffeur just waiting at four in the morning on Christmas?
Kam remembered a visit to the Cho family compound outside Seoul. Yes, she could easily believe it. Natalie’s family lived in an echelon of reality hard for Kam to comprehend. Another reason not to get involved. Managing research grants came with its own difficulties, but the old man wouldn’t live forever. Managing the Cho estate, without learning Korean, would be impossible.
Better to let them believe they’re headed for a helipad. No good to tell them the real plan, especially if the Credit Union didn’t have what they needed.
A turn through the alley by Whitacker brought them to a courtyard in front of one of the more photographed buildings on the MIT campus. The Ray and Maria Stata Center, erected just before Kam first came to the school as a graduate teaching assistant, was MIT’s crown jewel for some and an oblique eyesore for others. Its towers, slightly leaning in, with windows jutting out like octopus cups, seemed more organic than mechanical. In another hour every building in the city might look like that, or worse.
The lights were on in the Credit Union at the eastern end of the Stata Center courtyard, a stark contrast to the unusually dark night outside. However, there didn’t seem to be anyone inside.
Five minutes.
Kam studied the night sky for a moment, perplexed.
Dr. Cho laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I will pay for the helicopter, Kam. We have no time for you to make a withdrawal.”
“No, I was thinking about the Moon. I thought nor’easter clouds blocked it earlier. I see nothing but stars now.”
“This is no time to get distracted,” Natalie urged. “Where is the helipad?”
“I don’t know where either of them are.” Kam banged on the glass of the Credit Union, jostling holiday garland hung in circles along the facade. Inside, a well-lit Christmas tree twinkled under fluorescent lights, half turned off. “Hello! Anybody in there?”
Kam had to laugh. What was he thinking, why would there be anyone there on Christmas morning? Even the students who lived on campus would be home for the holidays.
“What’s going on, Kam?” Natalie pleaded. “Maybe we should go back.”
“No. Stay right here a minute.”
Four minutes.
He ran to the long line of almost empty bicycle racks straddling the wall at the edge of the courtyard.
“Please please please,” Kam muttered as he searched the rows, inspecting the few bikes. “Thank god!” He kneeled down and began to remove the nuts from a bicycle’s wheel. Once the wheel came off he lifted the frame free from the rack, leaving only the wheel chained.
The old man checked his glasses. “Now we are bicycling to safety?”
Kam ignored him and went back to the Credit Union window. He swung the bicycle frame three times before the safety glass shattered. He motioned for the Chos to follow him inside. They walked over glass chunks into the lobby amidst blaring alarms competing with tsunami sirens.
“Where would the vault be?” Kam leaped over the teller window and went back into a narrow hallway.
Moments later, Kam nearly smashed into the large steel wheel at chest level. “Ha! This way,” he said, running back to help Natalie and Dr. Cho.
“That big brain and you came up with the same solution as Indiana Jones? I’m starting to question my investment.”
“That was a refrigerator, Appa. You’re not helping,”
The old man stood an inch taller
and glared at his daughter. She wondered how much of this her still-intoxicated father thought was really happening.
Kam studied the spinning and coded fingerprint lock. He had forgotten that the vault would be locked and the employees gone.
Two minutes.
The burglar alarm, omnipresent in their cochleae for the last two minutes, stopped cold as the power flickered. A faint knocking replaced it.
“That came from inside the vault!” Natalie exclaimed.
Ninety seconds.
They banged fists against the brushed steel of the vault door. A grinding began from inside like the winding of a gigantic watch.
Sixty seconds.
The six spokes of the vault’s wheel spun and with a groan the massive door swung open, dwarfing the hallway’s inhabitants.
Forty-five seconds.
“Looks like I’m not the only one that had to work on Christmas,” said a smartly-dressed woman. “Well, come on!” Susan, still sporting her bank nametag, urged them. “The nor’easter ain’t gonna wait till you’re inside.”
Kam motioned for Natalie to go in first. She pushed her father in before he could stage another protest.
Kam looked back down the hallway and lost his breath. In the courtyard, beyond the glass windows of the Credit Union, something hurtled toward the building. The black shape smashed through the remaining windows and distributed equal parts blood, feathers, and glass into the lobby. Leaves, branches, birds, insects; anything small pushed into the building. Farther away, great sounds of steel bending and trees snapping meshed into a soup of destruction. An army of giants stomped up from the Bay and began pounding South Boston.
Thirty seconds.
“C’mon!” Kam felt a tug at his arm and entered the vault. Susan frantically sealed the door.
“I’m going to die in a bank vault,” the old man grumbled.
“Maybe it’s fitting,” his daughter steamed. “Dangsin-eun oebu gago sip-eo?”
Kam assumed she told him to go back outside if he wasn’t happy.
Ten seconds.
“What can we hold onto?” Kam asked. “Will the deposit boxes come loose?”
The Filter Trap Page 13