by Jon Land
But why were these boys doing this? It had to be a game, another exercise. She was being tested. In a few seconds the boys’ victory would be obvious and it would be done. Unless they were acting on their own, or, worse, had interpreted their instructions to mean precisely this.
“I want front,” Jack was saying, and Danielle felt Jules stiffen while holding her upright from the side.
They shoved her back against the tree long enough to pull down their pants. Then they jammed her forward again until she was standing between them with their hands laced over her shoulders. Soft, level brush lay beneath her feet. The fear made her heart lunge within her chest.
Stop! Stop! she pleaded, but grunts were all that emerged through her gagged mouth.
Jack penetrated her from the front first, hot and pulsing, motions as rapid as they were uncertain. It wasn’t as painful as it had been with the man in the camp, but it was just as revolting, and Danielle threw all her efforts into the rope binding her from the rear. The training had taught her how to slither through even the best of knots. She had to be patient and keep her motions slow. Focus on the hands, see the fingers sliding against the rope now, the knot weakening, weakening… .
She lost her concentration when Jules finally pushed himself inside her from behind. The agony rocked her. She cried out, forgetting the gag, and bit into her tongue. The motions of the two boys were erratic. She could hear them panting—Jack in front, Jules behind. Both having invaded her. Both inside her now. Both causing her pain.
Make it stop!
But she was the only one who could heed her plea. She focused even more on the hands that were gradually working the knot loose, as a hate surged through her that took her far away from this place, to where she felt nothing at all except the certainty of what she had to do.
Almost free …
Jules was panting horribly now, arms laced high on her shoulders just above Jack’s, where they linked behind her. She felt one of her hands ready to come free, and her eyes locked on the knife still sheathed on Jack’s belt. There was no question of what she was going to do. The rage within her was contained, controlled now, held like an attack dog under leash until just the right instant.
Jack was moaning now, lost in his passion. She feared him more, which made the time right. She tore her left hand from behind her and whipped it around her body low toward Jack’s belt, which was on his pants around his ankles, stooping slightly to ease the motion. Both boys sensed what was happening, must have realized what she was trying for, but by then the knife was in her hand and it was too late. Jack had pulled himself out of her, and he had reeled back when it slid into his stomach all the way to the hilt. His eyes bulged and he gasped, mouth dropped open for a scream that never emerged.
Danielle had the knife out and was swinging it around in the same motion. Jules had actually withdrawn from her first, which meant he had had more time to locate a weapon. Sure enough his knife was sweeping upward as he backpedaled, stumbling on the pants that had fallen past his knees. Danielle realized that she didn’t have to kill him, but by then her motion was already committed. Her blade sliced across Jules’s throat, and his blood jetted out on her as he spasmed over, writhing and twitching.
She collapsed not long after he did, sank to her knees and watched death come to him. She wanted to be sick but couldn’t. She wanted to feel guilty but couldn’t. She felt nothing—neither remorse nor satisfaction, but just an acceptance of the task and the necessity of it. She did not realize then that the boys had merely been acting on precise orders, that the men in the compound had orchestrated the entire incident to truly test her. Nor was it clear to her then that they had saved her in order to create her in the image they desired. They had known all along the proper buttons to press to release the hate she would need, and now they had proven to her what she was capable of.
After that night her training intensified on an individual level. She trained with virtually every weapon imaginable, became familiar with any and all firearms on the market. Document forging was studied and later the ways to manipulate computers, to make them allies when needed.
Not much later she was sent on her first mission, and before she had taken part in many more they became as much a blur as her past. One followed another. Sometimes she was around to witness the results of her handiwork, sometimes not. On a few occasions she wasn’t certain of success until a radio or television bulletin or a headline in a newspaper alerted her. Just as she had seen no beginning, she could see no end. There was simply the perpetuation of what she was, what they had made her.
They had saved her in the camp only to kill her a thousand different ways. Fate, though, in recent months had granted her the purpose she needed to overcome the indifference hammered into her during the training. Now she had a reason for what she did.
Through the limousine’s darkened window she saw the garage’s elevator doors slide open and James Robert Stanton Stone emerge.
Jim Bob, as he was known to anyone who knew him and plenty who didn’t, had been born rich and made himself a whole lot richer, but never at the expense of restricting his own life or damaging the lives of others. Over a period when most others in the oil business were losing their shirts, Jim Bob was sewing more of his own. Buying up others’ discarded wells for what he knew was the inevitable price rise drove his stock through the roof when it came. He was richer than he cared to be and made up for it somewhat by holding his prices down so the poor guy would get more for his ten bucks’ worth at the pump. As for himself, Jim Bob always had his chauffeur pull up to the self-service aisles. He liked the smell of gasoline on his hands. Made him feel like he was worth more than money.
The meeting in Fort Worth over new drilling rights had gone on longer and accomplished less than it should have thanks to men who could barely take a breath without authorization in triplicate when a handshake was plenty enough for Jim Bob. A pair of security guards escorted him down in the garage elevator and started back up only when he got the rear door of his stretch open. Jim Bob had thoughts of propping his feet up on one of the extra seats and pouring himself a Jack Daniel’s.
Jim Bob was halfway in when he noticed the woman.
“On the rocks with a twist, isn’t it?” she asked him.
Jim Bob saw the glass in one hand and the gun in the other. “Got that right,” he told her, freezing in place. “Suppose you want me to get in and close the door.”
“Please,” Danielle said.
Jim Bob did so, eyeing the darkened partition behind the front seat. “My driver, ma’am, is he …”
“Fine. Just incapacitated. In the trunk. I made sure he could breathe easily.”
“Right nice of ya.”
Danielle tapped the glass divider. Her driver started the big car and eased it toward the garage exit.
“Kidnappin’, I suppose,” Jim Bob said surely, sipping his liquor.
“Not at all.”
“Well, it ain’t no social visit.”
“There are questions I need answered, Mr. Stone.”
“Call me Jim Bob. All my friends and kidnappers do. What are you, some kinda reporter desperate for a story? Hell, you coulda made an appointment, you know.”
“It isn’t like that.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it is like, ma’am?”
“I’m not a reporter.”
“But you still got questions. So ask away. Just get me to the airport in time to make it home to catch my son’s football game.”
“Division championship,” Danielle noted.
“For someone who ain’t a reporter, you’ve done some pretty deep research.”
The limo was cruising the city streets now, moving toward the Airport Freeway. Danielle’s free hand crept into her pocket and came out with a syringe.
“Ma’am, I’m not much for needles. ’Sides, I can’t answer your questions asleep.”
“It’s sodium amytal,” she explained. “Truth serum.”
“Hell, I d
on’t need that shit to tell the truth. Just ask away. Cross my heart and all that stuff.”
Danielle shook her head. “It’s for your own good. You won’t remember any of the questions or answers this way.”
Jim Bob Stone started to roll up his sleeve. Turning away from her, he squeezed his eyes closed, muttering, “Damn, damn, damn …”
An instant after she injected him, he went limp. A minute later she turned his head toward her. His eyes opened, glassy and barren.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
“James Robert Stanton Stone. Friends call me Jim Bob.”
“Mr. Stone—”
“Jim Bob.”
“Jim Bob, what is Spiderweb?”
His voice emerged in a slow drawl, like a tape recording being run on low batteries. “Operation undertaken to assure future oil reserves when everything else is gone.”
“What kind of operation?”
“Mining the largest oil reserves left on earth. Much as all them Arab countries combined.”
“Where?”
“Antarctica.”
Danielle leaned closer to him. “What is the significance of the word ‘Spiderweb’?”
Jim Bob Stone started to speak again, with his eyes fixed blankly ahead. “Finding the oil and bringing it up ain’t the problem. Problem was what to do with it thousands of miles from anywhere. Solution was to build a pipeline linking all the wells together at a central pumping station. Called Spiderweb ’cause of the way the lines run through the landscape.”
“When will the pumping start?”
“It already has. Been goin’ on for years now. We’re stockpilin’ oil in underground containers to ease the import pressure. More crude than we know what to do with.”
Danielle stopped to collect her thoughts. This entire operation had been carried out in total secrecy, unknown to the press or the public. It wasn’t hard to believe. After all, the Antarctic continent was in many respects the last wilderness on the face of the world. Engineering crews would be able to work unbothered and in secret. But what could that have to do with the stolen plans for a Jupiter-class super-Trident? There was only one possible link.
“Why is Spiderweb on Defense Department data tapes?” she resumed.
“ ’Cause oil is the best defense of all against future economic dependency on less than friendly nations. Spiderweb’s like a giant life preserver ready to be tossed out to the country in case we start sinkin’.”
The enemy possessed not only the plans for a super-Trident submarine, but also the schema for this Spiderweb installation Stone was describing. Obviously they were connected. But how?
“Tell me about the central pumping station you referred to. What’s it called? Where is it?”
“Outpost 10,” Jim Bob answered emotionlessly. “Located beyond the Ross Ice Shelf and Transantarctic Mountains, sixty miles due northwest of the Shackleton Icefalls. Almost exact center of the South Pole.”
“How was such a massive operation hidden from the public and press?”
“Army Corps of Engineers used for almost all the work, and all coordinating left to small panel of businessmen composed of me, Benbasset…”
Danielle could tell the sodium amytal was wearing off, and she didn’t dare risk another injection. “You said almost. Other parties must have been involved as well. Who?”
“Problem was ice: drilling through ice and frozen tundra to lay the pipeline. Kept us stuck for months until we got hold of Cyberdine Systems, ’cause of a new process they’d invented. Incredible. Gained us back the time we lost.”
Stone’s head slumped to his chest. Danielle lifted it back up and pinched him at the chin to force him alert.
“Who was your contact at Cyberdine?” she demanded. “Who did you work with?”
“Mendelson,” Jim Bob said with the last of his voice. “Dr. Alan Mendelson.”
Then he faded off and started snoring.
The Fourth Trumpet
The Flying Dutchman
Thursday, November 19; 10:00 P.M.
Chapter 14
THE BED WAS SURROUNDED by a black plasteel curtain that swallowed even the shadows. It ran the full length from floor to ceiling, creating a void that was penetrated only by the dozens of cords and wires that ran beneath it.
Beep … beep … beep …
The regular sound of medical machines and monitors was maddening until the ear grew accustomed to it, though it was impossible to get used to the breathing. A gurgling rasp was more the sound of it, an asthmatic in the midst of an attack no inhaler could ease, the noises amplified by the various life support machines that permitted any breath at all.
Quintanna had never been inside those curtains, not once. Yet his dark features and equally dark clothing suited the surroundings perfectly. He was a tall man, his gaunt frame layered with long bands of sinewy muscle. He approached the black curtains cautiously, aware that his progress was being followed the whole way from the elevator by the video camera mounted atop the curtain that broadcast its picture onto a monitor inside for the man, or what was left of the man, to see. Quintanna stopped at his usual spot and waited with feigned reverence for the voice to address him. He was adept at playing up to those who could help him, and the man within the curtain was helping him achieve the goal of a lifetime’s work. It was a noble goal, even a holy goal, one his brethren from years past would have been wiser to pursue. At that time they had served as instruments of power instead of pursuing that power for themselves. But fortune had not dealt as kindly with them as it had with him. Fortune had brought him to the man behind the curtain who possessed the vast resources he needed for achieving his goal.
Quintanna stood there and waited. When the voice came, it knifed through him as always—not a voice so much as syllables squeezed together on borrowed breaths, as if the speaker could not separate the independent actions and had to combine them instead. There was never any cadence of tone to the words, no rhythmic balance or intonation. It was all mutters and half-formed utterances, the shadow of words but not the form. It emerged through a small speaker as black as the curtain it hung from.
“Mr. Quintanna,” the box said, “you have more to tell me?”
“We have received additional information concerning our failure in Atlanta,” Quintanna replied in a voice formed of so many accents that its origin was unidentifiable.
“Why refer to it as ‘our’ failure when you mean yours?”
“Whatever you wish.”
“What I wish is that your people simply fulfill their side of the bargain. You and your group were retained to avoid such complications.”
“It is merely one woman.”
“Not just a woman!” The voice came out as a whispery shout. “A cog, a vital cog in a machine that must be rendered impotent before the rest of my operation can begin. You are failing to live up to your part of the bargain. Perhaps I should consider failing to live up to part of mine.”
“The woman will be eliminated. The situation is under control.”
“Really? Then what is this additional information you came up here to pass on?”
“The Eiseman woman’s life was saved by a man who has apparently discovered our pattern.”
“This man, who is he?”
“His name is Jared Kimberlain.”
More awful breathing. “You mentioned his name earlier, Mr. Quintanna. Now I wish to know who he is.”
“Many things, all of them dangerous.” And Quintanna proceeded to provide a capsule summary of Kimberlain’s rather extensive file. When he was finished, the breathing filled his ears for long seconds before the voice emerged from it.
“Spoken from memory, Quintanna. Apparently you know much about this … Ferryman.”
“He came close to us during his tour with The Caretakers.”
“And yet you didn’t kill him. Why? Were you frightened? Are you frightened of him?”
“It is often better to avoid a problem than to confront it. Ki
mberlain is a powerful adversary and one it is advisable not to cross.”
The breathing filled the air beyond the black curtains.
Beep … beep … beep …
“Mr. Quintanna, I do not approve of you or what you stand for. You were chosen to fulfill a purpose for me, and I realize I fulfill a purpose for you as well. Fine. We serve each other, and when my work is done, I care not in the least what you make of the remains. But I will have my work done as I wish it until the time that final moment comes. We cannot permit this Ferryman to become a hindrance to us. I must see my operation finish as I have planned it. I must see the dawning of tomorrow.”
“Kimberlain has only pieces, fragments, nothing to alert him to the true shape of our plan.”
“ ‘Our’ again, Mr. Quintanna?”
“Figure of speech.”
“You will kill the Ferryman. Do it any way you choose, but I want him killed. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“The woman too, only sooner. Immediately.” Quintanna could feel the man watching him on the monitor. “You’re hedging, Mr. Quintanna.”
“We know where she is, but she is extremely well protected. It can be done, but it will take time. A day at least.”
“Then get started, and see that she is disposed of.”
“Using our resources for such a risky venture seems senseless at this stage of the operation.”
The sounds of the monitor quickened. The breaths emerged thicker and wetter until the voice resumed.
“It is my lot to make sense of this, Mr. Quintanna, not yours. You still do not understand. You still do not see that the individuals must be made to pay separately. These tycoons of technology were responsible in themselves for this world of terror and death and must accordingly be torn from the planet like so many trees that no longer fit in the landscape—the landscape I am crafting and you will inherit when my work is done. The woman must be made to pay as the others already have been. You will see to it, Quintanna. Whatever it takes to reach her, to kill her.”
“Yes,” Quintanna acknowledged, burying his reluctance in the thought that it wasn’t a “what” that was called for, but a “who.”