Eternal Night

by Richard Turner

  Mitchell heard the shame in Max’s voice. “Sir, you did the right thing. When the missiles strike the base, will the blast be enough to eradicate the bioweapon?”

  “I’ve already commenced purging the tanks. There won’t be a single microbe of Achlys left, in a few minutes from now.”

  Mitchell felt sorry for Max. The man had been forced to make a horrible weapon to protect his only daughter. The missiles soon would destroy the base and the only person alive who knew how to make the weapon.

  “Mister Mitchell, please call my wife and daughter when you get home and tell them that I’m sorry and that I’ll always love them.”

  “I will,” he replied.

  “Goodbye,” said Max, pulling out a chair, He sat down, held his head in his hands, and began to cry.

  Mitchell felt a lump in his throat.

  “Ryan, time’s running out,” said Grace. “We need to do something.”

  “Yeah, it’s time to leave.”

  Cardinal felt his satphone vibrate in his shirt pocket. He retrieved the phone and answered the call.

  The signal was bad. “Gordon, is tha— you?” asked O’Reilly.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied.

  “Gordon, wh— going on?”

  “We’ve just landed. I’m not sure what’s happening inside the base.”

  “Get—you— people out —air strike—fifte— from n—.”

  Cardinal heard enough to know all hell was about to be unleashed. He dropped the phone, grabbed his rifle, and sprinted toward the cave opening. His love for Sam drove him to run faster than he’d ever run before.

  Jackson looked behind him at one of the dead sappers. On his back was one of the explosive devices. If he could reach it, perhaps he could destroy the office and the men keeping him pinned down. Jackson couldn’t see anything he could use as a pole, so he reached back with his rifle. A burst of fire hit his rifle, almost cutting it in half. He dropped his weapon and pulled his arm back.

  Damn, thought Jackson. This won’t do.

  Dawn had it no better. Trapped behind the pillar, she couldn’t move.

  Jackson checked his watch. It was nearly quarter to ten. Time was slipping by.

  A shot rang out, quickly followed by another. Jackson raised his head and couldn’t believe his eyes. Cardinal was walking calmly forward with his rifle in his shoulder, picking off anyone in the overhead office who popped his head up. Jackson leaped to his feet, drew his pistol, and added the weight of his fire. Dawn swung around the pillar and fired off a long burst as she ran to Jackson’s side.

  “I thought I was going to die behind that damned pillar,” said Grace.

  “Not today,” replied Jackson, reaching back for the dead sapper’s explosives. He removed the pack and opened the top flap. He set the timer for five seconds, jumped up, and hurled it at the office.

  “Down!” yelled Grace, yanking Jackson back down behind the cart.

  An ear-splitting explosion rocked the base, sending debris raining down. Jackson popped his head up and let out a loud whoop. Where the office once stood was now a blackened heap of plastic and metal.

  “Nate, get everyone out of here!” yelled Cardinal. “The airstrike is inbound.”

  Jackson faced Dawn. “Have the remaining sappers plant their charges by the elevators to stop anyone from below trying to escape, and then head back to the choppers.”

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “I’ve got to help my friends get out of here alive.”

  A nearby sapper brought up his AK to fire.

  “No!” screamed Cardinal, as Mitchell walked out of the stairwell onto the main floor. The sapper lowered his rifle. Sam saw her boyfriend and sprinted to his side. She threw her arms around his neck, almost knocking him to the floor.

  “Nothing like waiting until the last second to make an entrance,” said Jackson to his friend.

  “Well, you know me. Always last to arrive at the party.”

  “Time to go,” said Cardinal, tapping his watch.

  “Get the choppers ready to go,” ordered Mitchell.

  Cardinal, keyed his radio and passed the word.

  “The bioweapon?” asked Jackson.

  “All but destroyed,” replied Mitchell. “I’ll tell you all about it on our ride home.”

  A shot pierced the air.

  Mitchell spun round. Grace stood with a blank expression on her face. A second later, she and Sandesh dropped to the floor. Both had been shot. In the billowing smoke, Mitchell saw a dark shape run for the stairs. He fired off a shot, but couldn’t be sure he hit the man.

  “Don’t think about it,” said Jackson, grabbing Mitchell’s arm. “Whoever it is has got away. We need to get moving, or we’re going to be incinerated along with this base.”

  Mitchell dropped to one knee next to Grace. Blood oozed from a wound on her left shoulder. He placed Grace’s hand over the hole. “Press hard,” he said. “We’ll patch you up in the chopper.”

  Grace nodded. She let out a hiss from between her clenched teeth as Mitchell scooped her up in his arms.

  Jackson picked up Sandesh and threw him over his shoulder. “Okay, people, run!”

  Sam led the way back outside. Already, the helicopters’ rotors were spinning, and Saya’s men were filing back into the three operational choppers. Rather than go in the helicopter they came in, Sam led them all to Yuri’s lead chopper. They rushed inside and took a seat wherever they could find one. Jackson slammed the side door closed and picked up a headset. “Yuri, we’re all in. Get us the hell out of here, now!”

  Right away, the helicopter began to rise from the ground. Yuri gave the chopper as much power as it could take, and brought the helicopter up and over the destroyed temple. In a line behind him, the other choppers followed close behind.

  Mitchell glanced at his watch. It was nearly ten o’clock. He looked out a window as a dark object flying at treetop level slammed into the base. A split-second later, the ground seemed to rise up as the missile penetrated deep inside the facility and exploded. Dirt, rocks, and trees hurtled skyward. Unseen in the explosion, two more bunker buster missiles struck home, obliterating the base from the face of the earth.

  Mitchell slumped down in his seat and let the fear and anger in his body fade away. On the floor of the chopper, Sam worked furiously to save Sandesh’s life. While Cardinal pumped air in Sandesh’s lungs, Sam did compressions on his heart. After a minute, she reached up and placed two fingers on his neck. Sam sat back and shook her head. “He’s gone.”

  Jackson grabbed a blanket and draped it over Sandesh’s body.

  “Let me see that,” said Sam, moving Grace’s hand aside so she could work on her wound.

  “Did anyone see Dimov?” asked Mitchell.

  “No,” replied Jackson. “But if he was in that office when it blew, he’s getting prodded with a pitchfork right about now.”

  “That kind of reptile never dies easy. I’d love to have learned who he was working for.”

  Jackson patted Mitchell on the leg. “Ryan, we did okay. We got Sam and Grace back, and stopped whatever madness Dimov was planning.”

  Mitchell sat up as if he had been struck by lightning. “Someone, give me your satphone.”

  Jackson handed a phone over.

  “Come on, come on,” said Mitchell, as he waited for O’Reilly to answer the call.

  “Hello.”

  “General, it’s Ryan. You need to get in touch with the Pentagon pronto to pass a message to the Indians.”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “A Sandesh corporation Learjet left Mandalay Airport about forty minutes to an hour ago. Onboard the plane is enough bioweapon to kill billions. The plane is heading for Oman, and then Europe. It can’t be allowed to land.”

  “What about the flight crew?”

  “Sir, they’re Dimov’s men. Please hurry.”

  “Will do.”

  Mitchell terminated the call and sat back. “Will this day ever end?”
/>
  “What are we going to do about Sandesh?” asked Dawn.

  Mitchell handed her his phone. “Call his brother and arrange to have him meet us in Mandalay, where he can claim Varun’s remains from us.”

  Dawn nodded and made the call.

  Mitchell closed his eyes and thought of Jen and Sarah. The steady rhythm of the rotor blades seeped into Mitchell’s subconscious. In seconds, he was fast asleep, and snoring almost loud enough to drown out the engines.

  61

  The Bay of Bengal

  Lieutenant Commander Singh brought his Mig-29 behind his target and radioed back to his aircraft carrier. “Vikramaditya, this is White Dragon. I have the target in sight.”

  “Roger, wait one,” replied a duty officer on the carrier.

  “White Dragon, confirm the target is a Learjet.”

  “Roger that. I confirm the target is a Learjet.”

  “What color is the plane?”

  “Black and gold.”

  “White Dragon, the target is considered to be hostile. I say again, the target is hostile. You are to engage and destroy the target immediately.”

  Singh hesitated for a few seconds. He’d trained for years to engage in aerial combat against an aggressor, not to blast civilian planes out of the sky. “Please confirm that the target is hostile.”

  “White Dragon, the target has been deemed hostile. You are weapons free.”

  Singh decreased speed, creating a significant gap between himself and the jet. “Switching to missiles,” he reported. Singh waited for a steady tone in his headset, indicating his air-to-air missile had locked on the target. The tone filled his ears. “Firing Fox-One,” said Singh, activating the R-77 missile on his right wing.

  With a whoosh, the missile shot out from underneath the Mig and flew straight toward its target. Eight seconds after firing, the missile struck the rear of the Learjet, blasting the plane apart.

  Singh watched as the flaming debris fell into the Bay of Bengal. He reported, “Target destroyed.”

  “White Dragon, roger. Return home immediately for debriefing.”

  Singh acknowledged the order, and banked over in the sky. He had no idea what they could debrief him on. He’d been ordered to destroy a civilian target, and he had done so. Little did he know that the entire mission would be erased from his plane’s computer and camera systems, along with the computer and radar logs on the aircraft carrier. He would later be told by the commander of the Indian Navy that his mission had been a normal combat air patrol over the carrier group, with no significant incidents to report.

  62

  Bangkok, Thailand

  Mitchell took a seat by a window in their hotel’s bar, overlooking the bright lights of the city. It wasn’t long before Jackson and Grace joined him.

  “I take it this is it for the evening?” said Mitchell.

  “Sam and Gordon haven’t come out of their room since we got here, and Yuri disappeared sometime after we landed, so I’d say we’re it,” said Jackson.

  “I sent Dawn back home to sort out the looming squabble over who pays for what,” added Grace. Her left arm was in a sling.

  A white-jacketed waiter approached them. Mitchell and Jackson ordered bourbon, while Grace asked for a double tequila. The server returned with their drinks, leaving them in peace to talk.

  Mitchell looked over at Grace. “Since we’re parting ways tomorrow, I thought it might be useful if you filled Nate and me in on a few details of this last assignment.”

  Grace took a sip of her tequila. “Like what?”

  “For starters, when did you realize that you needed backup?”

  “Almost right away. After meeting with Aneesh Sandesh, it became clear to me that I’d need your help sooner rather than later. My business only has three permanent employees, myself, Dawn, and another woman. Everyone else is a freelancer who I hire on an as-needs basis. Your organization is always ready to go anywhere in the world, and has far greater depth than mine could ever hope for.”

  “Fair enough. Why all of the secrecy?”

  “Yeah. Why did you give us the impression you were dead, or being held hostage?” asked Jackson.

  “Good questions,” said Grace. “From the very second I met Dimov, I knew he was far cleverer than he looked and could never be trusted. I couldn’t risk contacting you, just in case he had me under surveillance. Having Dawn come to you was my only real option.”

  “What I don’t get is the sword? How did you know it was there and would lead to Spiridov Island?” asked Mitchell.

  “Last year, during one of my less stressful assignments, I came across a book written in Arabic from the ninth century, which discussed a mythical sword once owned by the prophet Mohammed. As time went by, I slowly learned more clues about its existence, and then stumbled upon a diary belonging to one of the officers of the submarine that picked up Mister Wright in Indonesia during the war. The officer claimed to have seen the sword itself when Wright’s companion was cleaning it. After that, I found out about Wright’s flight to Oman, and his subsequent disappearance.”

  “So, you concocted a story and had our people go looking for the relic,” said Jackson.

  “I knew your friends would find it, so yes,” she replied.

  “But what I don’t get is how you knew about the facility on Spiridov,” said Mitchell.

  “I didn’t. Before I left Switzerland to begin my deep cover, I contacted Victor. We’ve done favors for one another in the past, and I asked him if he had any dirt on Varun Sandesh. He said that he didn’t, but would look into the Sandesh family for me for a price. The only thing I had of value was the missing relic, so we agreed that if you found it, he’d supply you with what information he’d found out about Varun.”

  “That still doesn’t explain how he found out about the island,” said Jackson.

  “He’s a former Russian agent. You’ll have to ask him the next time you see him, I have no idea how he learned of Site Bravo.”

  “Thank goodness he had that piece of the puzzle, or we’d never have found you, and stopped Dimov’s scheme from coming to fruition,” said Mitchell.

  Jackson checked his watch, downed his drink, and stood. “Time to call home. Not sure what I’m going to tell my better half, but it sure as hell won’t include any talk of bioweapons.”

  Mitchell chuckled. He was reaching for his drink when he realized Grace was staring at him. “Yes?” he said.

  “I was just thinking what a lucky person your wife is,” said Grace.

  Mitchell shook his head. “Grace, you’ve met Jen. We have a child now. I’m the luckiest person in the world, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “A girl can dream.”

  “And that’s as far as it will go.” Mitchell stood and tossed a ten-dollar bill on the table for his drink. He locked eyes with Grace. “Now, Ms. Maxwell, if you ever put Sam and Gordon in danger ever again, I’ll let her tear you in half.” Mitchell walked away, praying that this would be their last encounter. His gut, however, told him otherwise. They weren’t done with one another yet.

  63

  Pizen, Czech Republic

  Lena drove her silver Jaguar XJ smoothly over the cobblestone road leading to her father’s estate. Tall fir trees lined the route. She slowed down, and waved at a man sitting in a booth. He recognized Lena, and opened the gate. She drove inside and parked outside of her father’s eighteenth-century manor house. A pair of swans flew overhead and landed gracefully in a pond near the home. Lena climbed out of her car, smoothed the wrinkles out of her gray suit, and entered the building. Her high-heeled shoes echoed down the corridor. Lena stopped at her father’s library, took a breath, and pushed open the door.

  “Good morning, Father, I hope you are well,” she said to a man wearing a tweed jacket, sitting next to a roaring fireplace.

  “My dear Elena, it is good to see you again,” said the man. “Come over here and give your father a hug.”

  Elena smiled and embraced her father lo
vingly. “I missed you,” she said.

  “I was worried when I didn’t hear from you after the missile strike on the complex.”

  “We took the wrong turn and got lost in the jungle. It took us hours to find the right trail and the ULA.”

  “Take a seat,” said her father.

  Elena chose a comfortable armchair, and studied the man across from her. Although only in his early sixties, her father looked as if he had aged a decade in the last year. The stress was beginning to show on him.

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you made it out of there alive,” said the man.

  “Me too. Did any of the Achlys survive?”

  Her father shook his head. “Not a drop. They even shot down the plane carrying the samples from Site Alpha. Thirty years of trial and error, all gone in a few hours.”

  “Father, we can start again. There has to be data from the last experiments hidden somewhere that we can study.”

  “Perhaps. But that is for another day.” Elena’s father picked up a laptop from the floor and opened it. He waited for a picture to appear on the screen before turning it, so Elena could see the image.

  Her eyes widened when she saw Dimov standing on the side of a boat, with his arms tied behind his back.

  “Carry on,” ordered Elena’s father.

  A man walked over and cut deep grooves in Dimov’s arms. Bright red blood ran from the wounds. The man filming the execution walked to the edge of the boat. The water below churned from a shark feeding frenzy occurring just behind the vessel.

  “Throw him in,” ordered her father.

  “No!” cried Dimov, as he was dragged to the side of the boat and thrown into the water. In seconds, the sea to the boat’s stern turned red with blood.

  Elena brought a hand up to her mouth. She wanted to scream, but dared not show any more weakness around her father.