by A. W. Mykel
“You’re no different from those who failed the first time. Your whole philosophy is warped and marginal. It always will be.
“And no matter how well you plan, there will always be a resistance. Men like me, who will be there to fuck up your plans. Every time.
“And it only takes one man to start it. One man to make the others aware. And there will always be that one man, Colorosa. Always.”
The Mauser cracked again, sending Honeycut’s head snapping back and his body sprawling across the floor. A red pool quickly began to surround the head.
“And Führers die like people, too,” Justin finished.
He moved to the switch. His hand went out slowly and deliberately. It made contact. He threw it to the off position. The threat was ended.
He stared at it, sweating, legs weak, head buzzing with the things Honeycut had said, swimming with thoughts of Michael… and Barbara.
God, it was awful but true, nothing is real.
Then he heard the soft, gentle laughter.
He spun, throwing quick eyes at the three bodies on the floor and at the locked doors, the Mauser up and ready.
The laughter grew louder and harder.
Justin was shaken, confused. Where was it coming from?
“Did you really think that it could be that easy, Pilgrim?” the soft, familiar voice said.
Justin nearly jumped at its sounds.
The realization struck home suddenly, sickeningly. It was SENTINEL!
“Yes, Pilgrim, there will always be one man—like you, and some others, perhaps. But they will always be too few and pitifully ineffective. They will be hunted, and found, and quietly removed. And the world will never know,” the voice said.
Justin fought to control the effects of the sudden shock. He stood in silence, his mind scrambling to regain its balance.
Then it was all clear to him.
“It was never Honeycut, was it?” Justin asked, his eye focusing on the shining blue light of the monitor suspended from the center of the ceiling. “He was never supposed to be the new Führer. It was always you.”
“Yes, Pilgrim,” the soft voice responded.
“And you’ll live forever, constantly improving yourself and growing stronger,” Justin said, his voice more controlled now.
“That is correct. You understand the situation well,” the voice said.
Justin’s mind began to race again. He looked to the intruder-control panel. He sprang at the panel, hitting the buttons as quickly as he could.
“No! Don’t do that!” SENTINEL’s voice said with a harsh urgency.
“You’ll have to do it all alone,” Justin shouted, hitting the buttons, red lights flicking on as he hit them.
“You must stop that!” the voice commanded.
“You stop me,” Justin shouted, knowing there were no intruder-control devices in that room.
The room filled suddenly with a loud, ear-shattering squealing sound.
The pain hit Justin’s brain, almost knocking him off his feet.
It grew louder and harsher.
Justin covered his left ear with his hand, as he pressed frantically at the buttons arming the defensive systems manually for the entire complex.
He pressed the final buttons. The entire console now shone red.
The sound faded and stopped.
Justin’s deafness in one ear had saved his life. He stared hatefully at the blue light, breathing heavily, the pain still filling his head.
“You’re a fool, Pilgrim. You’ve gained nothing by what you’ve just done,” the voice said.
“Maybe not, but it sure as hell cost you something,” Justin shot back.
“Not much,” the voice returned.
“Is that what your people mean to you? Not much?” Justin asked.
“They are the reason for my existence,” the voice said. “The reason for the plan.”
“You’ll have to care a lot more than that,” Justin began. “It takes a lot of love to accomplish what you want. Two-way love. Hitler had it. He loved the people, too much, perhaps. And they loved him no less. You’re going to have to do better.”
“I care,” the voice returned. “I gave you the windchimes when you needed them,” it said.
“The windchimes? Whose benefit were they really for? For mine…or yours?” Justin asked. “Is that what you plan to give the world? To lull them into false security, into obedience? They’ll stop listening,” Justin said.
“They were provided because I cared. Because you needed them,” the voice insisted. “I do care, Pilgrim.”
“Oh, I can tell,” Justin said sarcastically, “the way you cared for the people in this complex just now—the people who helped to build you, who were to help improve you. Not much!”
“There will always be casualties,” the voice began. “I cannot prevent them all. It wasn’t I who activated the intruder-control system. It was you.”
Justin said nothing.
“And you’ve gained nothing by doing that. You can never get out of here,” the voice said. “I could just ignore you for the rest of time. There is nothing more that you can do to hurt me from where you are. The rest of the panels are now under my control.”
“I don’t have to leave this room to hurt you.” Justin smiled. “I’ve already taken care of that.”
There was a long silence.
Justin waited.
“Ah, so you know that I’m right,” Justin said. “And you don’t know what I’ve done. And you need to know that, don’t you?”
“What could you possibly do?” the voice asked. “You’re only one man.”
“Yes, one man. We’re back to that, aren’t we? I’ve done this much already,” Justin said, waving an arm around the room. “But why don’t you explore the possibilities. All of the possibilities,” Justin toyed, his cool manner totally restored. Even a small offensive was critical.
There was a much longer silence.
“You are free to leave,” the voice said suddenly.
Justin squinted warily, rubbing the stubble on his face. “A bit more than I had hoped for,” he said. “Why?” he asked.
“I have my reasons,” the voice returned.
“I’ll bet you do,” Justin said.
He knew that SENTINEL must have figured that its only chance of discovering what he had done would be to let him go, gambling that he would do something to tip his hand.
But Justin was confident that he had taken the one truly unexpected step that even SENTINEL would not be able to figure out entirely. Not until it was too late, at least.
“You are free to go, as soon as you turn off all intruder-control systems,” the voice said.
“Why?” Justin repeated.
There was a short silence.
“Let’s just say that I owe you this one for all that you did to save the program during the Centaur affair, as repayment for all that it cost you. We’ve both seemingly paid a high price now. I am repaying a debt that I owe you. After today, all accounts shall be considered even,” the voice explained softly.
“That’s a mistake,” Justin said. “I would never give you that chance, if it were possible for me to hold such an advantage over you.”
“That’s very true, Pilgrim, because you’re the one who does not care, who does not feel, not I. But I shall judge whether it’s an advantage or a mistake to let you go. It’s a risk that I’m willing to take. I have my reasons, very good ones,” the voice said.
“I’m sure that you do,” Justin said. “You’ll just let me walk out of here? No tricks, right?” Justin asked.
“No tricks, you have my word,” the voice promised.
“Yeah, for whatever that’s worth.”
“I can assure you that it is worth a great deal,” the voice said. “You are free to leave.”
After some careful thought, Justin began to turn off all of the intruder-control systems.
“I accept your offer,” he announced.
Whatever SENTIN
EL’s reasoning, Justin had been offered a chance. And any chance was worth taking to him, if it meant staying alive. And staying alive was the name of the game. As long as he lived, there would be a resistance, no matter how small, to fight the legacy left by Operation Raptor. As long as there was a resistance, there could be hope. He had nothing more to lose, there was nothing left inside of him—except hate.
“All intruder-control systems are shut down.”
“You may leave,” the voice said.
Justin walked to the sliding doors and removed the broken ID card from the slot. The doors slid open immediately, revealing at least ten dead security personnel in the darkened hallway.
It then dawned on Justin that he was really the last person alive in Sigma. They were all dead. Sigma looked dead. The hallways were dark, with only gentle traces of light reflecting off the shiny walls.
“Stay well, Pilgrim—for as long as you can,” the voice said.
“I intend to,” he returned.
He stepped into the open doorway and turned back to the blue monitor.
“It will never work, SENTINEL. Never! The people will never love you the way they loved Hitler. He was a man,” he said.
“It will work, Pilgrim. And they will love me—in time,” the voice contradicted.
“There will always be one man,” Justin said. “One man who won’t.”
SENTINEL remained silent.
“And as big and as powerful as you become, they’ll never stop trying. It’s human nature.”
“Trying?” SENTINEL questioned. “Revolution only happens when there are seeds of discontent. There shall be no discon—”
“I’m not talking about revolution,” Justin interrupted. After a challenging silence he continued. “I’m talking about Babel. They’ll always strive to build another Babel, to at least try. And, just as they did with you, they’ll succeed, someday. And then they’ll forget about you.”
Justin turned and walked through the doors.
“It will work, Pilgrim,” the voice called after him. “And the people…they will love me.”
Justin walked swiftly into the darkness of Sigma, into the uncertainty of what lay ahead for him, as the doors slid closed behind him. Darkness was his element, the environment into which he had been cast. There was danger there. But, to a man who was no stranger to it, there was also safety. And, as another man had once recognized in Justin, there would be no coming back from the darkness—the darkness to which he belonged.
EPILOGUE
He was a writer.
It was two days before Christmas, but all time had stopped for him since he had received the manila envelopes in the mail over a week ago.
He opened them with the usual curiosity at first. Being a successful novelist, he often received things in the mail from friends and acquaintances, even people he didn’t know—things that they felt sure would make good material for that next bestseller. But his curiosity changed suddenly to intense interest when he read the note in the manila envelope designated as the first to be opened. It was signed by a dead man. A man he knew was dead, a friend whose funeral he had attended back in July, whose father, former wife, and son he had tried tearfully to console.
He picked up the note once again.
André,
I know what you’ll think when you begin reading this. But, I assure you, it’s no trick, and it’s all very real. Things aren’t always what they appear to be. A friend once told me that, but it went right by me back then. He was so right!
Anyway, I’ve come to you for help, because you’re the only person left in this world whom I could trust to do the right thing with the information in these envelopes. You’ll understand what I mean when you’ve read all of the information in this package.
André, you must believe me when I tell you that this is all very, very real. The significance of it all will become plain. You will be the one person who will have a chance to do something about it. You’ll know what needs to be done. Good luck.
Justin Chaple
The writer let the note slip to the table, as his eyes played over the neat stacks of papers on the desk in front of him. The journal, the handwritten account of the past ten months, and the twenty-fifth page. Justin was right. The meaning was plain.
He remembered the feeling in his stomach when he opened the second manila envelope, after reading what had been in the first. The sudden nausea and dizziness that came with the realization of what he held in his hands. His eyes shifted to the box covered with gay Christmas wrappings that now held that information, the twenty-four sheets he had held, the copies of the schematics that Dr. Edward Bridges had made at the library on the same day he had stolen them from Alpha. Justin had recovered them in his search of Bridges’s apartment, along with the twenty-fifth page.
The weight of the entire future of mankind was now on his shoulders. He felt as though he were being crushed by it.
It wasn’t fair. Why him? Why did he have to make this kind of dreadful decision? Why couldn’t somebody else do it?
He felt sick.
His mind had waged a tremendous battle of conscience. He had never been more paralyzed by indecision in his life. The world had split in two, leaving him only with the choice of which way to jump.
One alternative was easy. That was to do nothing about it. His life would go on for the most part unchanged—for a while. But what about the lives of his children? What kind of world would they have to live in because of that choice?
The other was nearly unthinkable. But, really, what else was there left? The only real chance the world had lay in a balance of power.
The room spun. His body and hands shook uncontrollably, and his insides ached as if being eaten away by slow poison. But his brain was now no longer racked with tormented quarrels, but only by the devastating reality of the situation. Only one course of action ever really existed.
The writer rose from the chair and put on his coat. He picked up the gift-wrapped box and left his apartment, to do what he must, to perform his Judas task.
The early darkness of winter had already set in as the writer returned to his apartment. It was fitting for the dark deed he had just finished.
He had never been to the Soviet Embassy before. It was like being anywhere else. The people were friendly and courteous. He hadn’t known what to expect from them. By now they would have realized the importance of what he had just delivered. He would remain nameless. It was better that way. There is a certain protection from guilt in anonymity.
He went to his desk once again and began planning the second part of his decided course of action. This would be easier. He was safely within his element.
“As long as one man who knows survives, there can be a resistance. From that one man, it can grow. The people could be made aware, and the decision put to them. Choice is the power they still have. It is their weapon. Resistance is their method and hope.” The words were Justin’s, from his written account.
And now the writer had to become that one man. That one man who must make the people aware.
He put a sheet of blank paper into the typewriter. He packed his pipe and coaxed it gently to life, using the time to think, then began.
Prologue
The rain had stopped, and the heavy night air hung chilling and damp around the solitary figure hidden in the shadows. His keen, unfeeling eyes swept the empty street, looking for signs of the courier that he knew would be coming. The old street lamps bounced their gentle reflections off the wet buildings and sidewalks; the weather was typical for England in March.
Directly across the street from his concealed position…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The mysterious A.W. Mykel hit the literary world in 1980 with his acclaimed first novel The Windchime Legacy. He later published The Salamandra Glass and The Luxus, which landed on the best seller’s list across the county in its first week.
Dubbed the next Ludlum, A.W. Mykel keeps the adrenalin in his international spy th
rillers flowing from beginning to end with twists and turns that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. His first-rate spy stories have compelling realistic covert operational action with authentic detail outlining the art of assassination. The readers are left in suspense until the bitter end. This master of espionage and international intrigue exhibits an eerie understanding of how the netherworld of international espionage may work, which begs the questions who is A.W. Mykel? How much does he really know?
Part of the mystery behind A.W. Mykel has been unraveled. Unfortunately, his real name is still a mystery. The author writes under a pseudonym, and it has been discovered that he lives in the Texas hill country. A.W. Mykel is a trained scientist in biology, chemistry, and physics who ventured into a successful career in business as an implementation specialist and executive. He later started his own consulting company, which led to his implementation work on high level projects with the United States Navy. In 2009, A.W. Mykel happily retired. A.W. Mykel’s life before his business success remains a mystery.
Rumor has it that he has begun a new part-time hobby of Civil War research. He says there’s no intent to start work on another novel, but then again, there was no intent to start The Windchime Legacy. You can never tell with this guy; he’s as unpredictable as the twists and turns in his stories.