Darkness: Captain Riley II (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 2)

by Fernando Gamboa

  In contrast to those two, Carmen’s face was an impassive mask, and Hudgens, the only one of them armed, seemed to be holding it together quite well.

  “Are you saying,” Riley asked, trying to find a way, “that you helped create that terrible virus designed to kill the majority of humans? Willingly?”

  “But why?” Carmen spat out before he could answer the previous question. “Why would you want to do something like that? Killing hundreds of millions of innocent people is monstrous.”

  Klein took a deep breath before he answered. “Do you know any virology, Miss Debagh?” He looked around. “Do any of you?”

  “That’s not what—” Hudgens started to say.

  Klein raised a hand. “Do you want an explanation?”

  Hudgens shut his mouth.

  “Viruses,” Klein went on, “are infectious agents that can only survive and multiply inside a living organism—an organism the virus usually ends up killing and as a result, being without a host, causes its own extinction. Are you following so far?”

  None of them said yes, but none said no either, so Klein went on.

  “Such viruses, of which the Kaliwán is a clear example, are what I call natural regulators. It’s one of the mechanisms nature uses to control species that escape from their natural niche and expand like plagues, threatening the whole ecosystem.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jack snorted.

  “These natural regulators don’t show up by accident,” Klein went on, ignoring the Galician. “They’re like lions controlling the population of gazelles, cats mice, or wolves deer. They always appear when nature is threated by a specific species and are a way of restoring balance since, without them, the species would become a plague and threaten the fragile natural equilibrium.”

  “What are you getting at?” Riley said impatiently.

  “I mean,” he said without changing his tone, “that natural regulators like the Kaliwán are not the problem but the solution. In this case, to the worst plague the planet has ever suffered.”

  “What plague is that?” Jack asked, confused.

  Klein looked at him gravely. “Us.”

  “You’re completely crazy,” Riley said, breaking the dumbfounded silence that resulted from Klein’s statement.

  “Humans are a plague?” Hudgens said. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Klein tutted with irritation as if doubting whether or not he should explain.

  Finally, he decided to, but without much enthusiasm. “Life on earth is doomed,” he said, “and human beings are the plague that will end it. Not today or tomorrow, or even in a hundred years, certainly,” he added, “but we will inevitably do it, because it’s our nature and that cannot be changed. Just like a plague, we’ll expand endlessly until we use up all the available resources, kill the host, and then we ourselves will go extinct. It’s an unavoidable natural law,” he stated. “We are what we are and will be till the end.”

  “I swear I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Riley admitted. “Human beings aren’t a plague of locusts.”

  “True,” he said. “We’re really much worse than locusts. We have the same predatory instinct, but thanks to our intelligence capacity we’re capable of doing much more damage to our host.”

  “Our host?” Carmen asked. “What host?”

  “The host that allows us to live on it.” He waved his hand around. “The only place we can survive, really,” he added.

  “Are you talking about the jungle?”

  “I’m talking about the whole planet,” he said after a short pause. “The place that wherever people go they destroy everything and build on top, ruining what doesn’t help them immediately and depleting everything else. The Belgian Congo, to stay close, is a perfect example of that, and if you’ve had your eyes open I’m sure you’ve seen how this place is being sacked and destroyed. All of Africa, really. The problem,” he added, after a pause, “is that resources are limited and our world is finite, though sometimes we forget it. A time will come when the resources run out and we’ll have poisoned the air, water, and land to the point of making the planet uninhabitable, and then we’ll die too. Just like what happens with viruses when they kill their host.”

  “Bullshit,” Hudgens replied. “That will never happen.”

  “See?” Klein pointed at the commander while he addressed the others. “That’s why it’s inevitable. No one sees any problem. They think they can keep eating the cake and it will never be finished. Do you know the population on earth, roughly?” he asked suddenly and answered himself as quickly. “Two billion,” he said. “And do you know how many there will be in 1975? Four billion. And in the year 2020?” he asked again without waiting for a response. “Eight billion. Eight billion human beings. Four times more than today . . . and it will keep doubling every thirty-five years.”

  “Those are just guesses.”

  “No, Mr. Hudgens, they’re not. They’re demographic projections, and very conservative ones, really. More likely is that growth will be even faster.”

  “But even then,” Riley said, “you’re talking about things that could happen after a long time. In the year 2020 I doubt any of us will still be here.”

  “And you don’t care that in the future billions will die because of war, hunger, and illness caused by overpopulation? Maybe your children and grandchildren will be among them. How will their future be?”

  “Of course I care. But not at the cost of causing an apocalypse now.”

  “But,” Carmen said, “the same problem will come up later. The only thing we can do is push it back.”

  “Of course, but that would actually probably be enough,” he argued like a professor in the swing of a lecture. “The planet’s carrying capacity, that is to say, the level of human population that it can maintain long-term, and stably, is between five hundred million and two billion.”

  “That’s the current population,” Hudgens pointed out.

  “Exactly,” he hit the table with his index finger. “We’re right on the edge of sustainability. Which means if we reduce the population significantly, let’s say . . . to one tenth, we’ll gain more than a century to reorganize ourselves as a global society and plan to face the future with a guarantee of survival. We’d have an extra century to save the human race.”

  “Saving the human race . . . by putting it on the verge of extinction,” Riley said, not believing what he was hearing. “Have you lost your mind? You nearly caused a massacre and left the world in the hands of the Nazis.”

  Klein shook his head. “Political regimes and ideologies don’t matter when the destiny of the human race is at stake,” he objected. “Sometimes you have to amputate a sick limb to save one’s life no matter how painful it is. Though you still don’t see,” he added, “that what I’m trying to do is give the human race a chance before it’s too late. We have to choose between terrible suffering today and a certain death tomorrow.” He opened his hands to show there was no other choice. “You should think about it awhile and reason with this perspective in mind, Mr. Riley.”

  “I could put your head up your ass,” Jack hissed. “Then you’d have a new perspective.”

  “Please,” Hudgens jumped in, raising his hands. “Let’s not lose our tempers. We didn’t come here to insult Dr. Klein.”

  “Well, now that you mention it,” he said, “this would be a good time to explain why you’re here and what you really want from me.”

  Hudgens coughed, indicating he knew he should answer the question. “As you already figured out,” he said, “we’re here as a result of your investigations, and I’ve been authorized in the name of the government of the United States to offer you asylum in our country, where you can continue with your work without past actions being held against you.”

  “What?” Jack exclaimed.

  “What are you talking about?” Riley said, eyes like saucers, pointing at the German. “Asylum? For him?”

  Klein smi
led skeptically. “Are you offering me work, Mr. Hudgens?”

  “Commander Hudgens of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Dr. Klein,” he said to underline the seriousness of his proposal. “And yes, I’m offering you the chance to continue your work in the United States. There you’ll have all you’ll need at your disposal and receive support from my government, which would include residence in the country and work in the naval research department.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Riley kept staring at Hudgens. “Are you offering work to a madman who wants to murder ninety percent of humanity?”

  “All the more reason to have him on our side.”

  “On our side?” Riley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Have you not been listening to him? This bastard doesn’t have a side,” he shouted. “He just wants to kill everyone, regardless of whose flag they’re flying. And you’re offering him a damn lab in the US?”

  “I’m not offering anything,” he clarified with a frown. “I’m just following orders.”

  “But how are you going to follow orders if we end up—” Riley shut up suddenly, leaning back in his chair. “You know,” he spat. “Fuck, damn it, you know . . . Everyone knows.”

  “Knows what?” Jack asked, looking from one side to the other, face full of concern.

  “No, we don’t know,” Hudgens said. “But it’s an eventuality we considered.”

  “But what?”

  “Not what, Jack,” Carmen said. “Who.” She pointed at the German. “Him.”

  Jack blinked a couple times, processing what that meant. “Don’t screw around.”

  “That’s why the interest in participating in Postmaster and then coming here and going upriver,” Riley murmured. “Now it all makes sense. From the start the mission was him.” He stared at Hudgens. “Isn’t that right?”

  The commander shook his head. “No,” he responded. “We had hunches and contradictory information, but nothing really plausible until the Duchessa’s cargo led here.”

  “That bastard McMillan lied to our faces,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Our fault for believing a politician.”

  “Actually,” Hudgens said, “the senator isn’t aware of the details of the operation. He just knew enough to authorize it.”

  “So,” Riley said, “it’s Rear Admiral Wilkerson’s thing.”

  “He also follows orders. Like you, like me.”

  “Orders from who? The chief? The president?”

  Hudgens bit his lip, apparently reluctant to keep talking. He exhaled through his nose. “Even they receive orders,” he said. Then he added with resignation, “I’m sure you’re not so naïve, Captain, to think that politicians only obey their public, right?”

  Riley didn’t answer. He knew perfectly well that power always came from money and not from the people—and all over the world, in the United States in particular, there were people with incredible amounts of money.

  “And why didn’t you tell us what the real mission was?” Jack asked, looking displeased. “Why’d you keep us in the dark up till now?”

  “Because you wouldn’t have come if you’d known,” he responded. “And once on the river I couldn’t risk having you want to turn around.” Then he looked at Klein and added, “Anyway, now that all the cards are on the table, as Miss Debagh said, there’s no point in beating around the bush anymore. I’d like you to come with us back to the United States, Dr. Klein. What do you say?”

  The German looked at him for a long time before answering. “When?”

  “Immediately.”

  Another long pause. “Can I say no?” he asked cautiously.

  Hudgens smiled coldly. “It’d be good for everyone if you said yes.”

  Klein took a deep breath, looking over the rest of the diners. “I need to think about it,” he said.

  Hudgens nodded politely. “Of course, no rush.” He smiled like he did before. “We don’t have plans to go anywhere tomorrow.”

  46

  The Roi des Boers floated with its port side a few yards from the bank, a thin board serving as a gangway. On land a wide semicircle of torches stretched around both sides of the board, lighting up the beach like a Hawaiian luau. No one could get within twenty yards of the boat without being seen.

  What’s more, they used fishing line to hang empty cans with pebbles in them along the length of the boat’s railing. Whoever tried to board the boat at any point besides the gangway would hit the line, and the cans would ring out like bells at a concert.

  They’d also arranged two-hour watches from sunset to sunrise to avoid any kind of surprise, and Carmen’s turn was the first watch. Riley’s would be from three to five in the morning, but he still decided to stay with her and take advantage of a couple of hours of relative peace to be together.

  They sat on the edge of the upper deck, gazes lost in the deep darkness that stretched beyond the ring of torches, a tiny island of light in the darkness.

  Riley thought cavemen must have felt that way when they lit fires to protect themselves from the invisible dangers hiding in the night.

  “What are you thinking about?” Carmen asked.

  Riley turned toward her. Under the light of the torches, her brown skin shone like it was molded in bronze, and the fact that she had the heavy Martini-Henry on her thighs made her seem even more desirable for some twisted reason.

  “Nothing,” he lied.

  Carmen didn’t bother to insist. She just kept still, waiting for a more believable response.

  “I’m thinking,” Riley corrected himself, “about what happened tonight. How Klein already knew we were coming and Hudgens already suspected Klein was here, so the only ones in the dark who knew nothing about anything were us. I’m thinking how I hate being tricked.”

  “That’s why you left the military, right?” Carmen said. “People who play with other people like they’re pieces on a board.”

  For a moment Riley tried to argue against that simple statement, but he realized that it was actually pretty accurate. “Yeah, something like that,” he admitted. “That’s why I swore never to enlist again.”

  “But here we are.”

  “But here we are.” He nodded.

  Carmen looked toward the darkness and asked almost in a whisper, “Do you think we’ll have more trouble?”

  “With Klein?” Riley answered in the same voice.

  “With Klein. With the natives. With the police. With him.” She gestured toward the other side of the deck, where Hudgens was asleep in his hammock.

  Riley shrugged. “I think getting here was the worst of it,” he said. “Now it’s just Hudgens convincing Klein to come with us.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Then . . .” He took a second. “I guess we’ll have to kill him. We can’t leave him here alive.”

  Carmen decided not to comment on that, since she already knew it was coming. “And if he does convince him to come to the US?” she asked.

  This time Riley didn’t hesitate to respond. “If that happens I’ll kill him myself,” he said coldly.

  Carmen didn’t object at all to that response either. “You don’t think Klein’s come to the same conclusion?” she suggested, looking toward the house on the hill, now in the dark.

  “It’s possible,” Riley admitted.

  “And if he decides he doesn’t want to come with us and we aren’t able to kill him?”

  “Then we’ll have problems.”

  She preferred not to ask what type of problems they would be. Regardless, it wasn’t too hard to imagine them. “What I don’t understand,” she said instead, “is if the Office of Naval Intelligence already suspected Klein was here, why did they send us and not just send Marines to take him by force?”

  “That’s exactly what I asked our friend Hudgens when we were on our way back to the boat a minute ago.”

  “And what’d he say?”

  “That if they sent commandos for Klein he would have noticed much earlier and hidden in the
jungle and it would have been impossible to find him.” He made a resigned face and added, “That’s why they decided to send someone who didn’t seem like a threat.”

  Carmen nodded, resting her hand on the Martini-Henry. “Us,” she said. “We’re the bait.”

  “Something like that. Let’s hope the fish doesn’t eat the worm and leave.”

  Carmen looked at Riley a moment, then nodded.

  Riley let a few seconds pass before switching to a less troubling topic. “It’s been a while since we’ve been like this, you and I, alone,” he said.

  Just then from a couple of yards behind them, Jack let out a loud snore, breaking the spell.

  “Not quite,” Carmen said with the hint of a smile.

  “No, not quite,” Riley admitted. “But I think we should take advantage of it to, you know, talk about what’s happening with us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Us, Carmen.”

  She studied him a moment before responding. “I think it’s already very clear.”

  “So there’s no chance,” Riley said, “of you changing your mind?”

  Carmen shook her head. “Look at me,” she said. “I’m standing watch in the middle of the African jungle with a gun I barely know how to shoot in my hands while being eaten by mosquitoes.”

  “I told you to eat raw garlic,” Riley said, taking a couple cloves from his pack and offering them to her in his open hand. “Mosquitoes hate the smell they leave in your body.”

  “Not just the mosquitoes,” she said, scrunching her nose and rejecting the cloves. “You know I’m not talking about that.”

  “I know,” he said, looking back at the arc of torches. “But it’s not always like this.”

  Carmen swallowed a dry cackle. “No, I know. Sometimes it’s worse.”

  “That’s not fair. I never planned for things to be like this.”

  “Yes. The problem is there’s a world of difference between what you plan and what actually happens.”