The symphony will not be played again. I can see in the faces of the crowd how they have been changed, how something inside them has weakened, something that will not heal with time. No others will come once these few return to their lives to spread word of what they have witnessed.
I’m sampling the caviar when word comes from the dressing rooms that Rustikoff has suffered a stroke. An ambulance has been called, but it’s too late. He will not recover. The symphony has killed him. The idea leaves me breathless.
In the morning I fly to Africa, to Algiers, and perhaps later to Tripoli, if I do not find what I seek. An invitation once extended awaits only acceptance. It was no accident that James Henry Webster’s life was spared much as that of Diego Eduardo Velez, no error that the black casket lies at the bottom of the Mediterranean sea, resting only until it is again disturbed by men, no happenstance that the story has grown as it has until it cannot be ignored for its weight. It inhabits a secret place within my mind, a place filled with menace and terrible sounds that thrill my heart, and when I open it I transcribe those noises and give them structure. Other sounds sometimes play, music rising from another place, a lighter, happier world that reminds me of my mother before I turned fourteen, but it is those grim tones that command my will. Of late, they have grown louder and increasingly urgent. My new compositions reach further even than that of tonight’s symphony and the notes, when played, shall reach deeper and touch darker regions than anything I have ever created. In this new symphony my great-grandfather and great demons shall live, and I shall witness the future of mankind splayed bare before me.
In Algiers, perhaps, I shall hear it performed.
Vicious Swimmers
A steel door creaked and slammed in the wind, and Charlie Barrow thought about predators and prey. To the south, beyond the squat black cubes of the research complex, he watched the half-diamond silhouettes of shark fins knifing the surf, their edges gilded with silver moonlight. Maybe half a dozen, circling, waiting, all large enough to be Great Whites. A steel mesh pen kept six of them close to shore. But there were others, farther out, slicing the endless roll of the low whitecaps with steady precision and drawing nearer. On shore each twitch of the door expelled a burst of air tainted with the odor of blood and death. Charlie wondered if something bloody and ripe in the water had attracted the sharks or if they’d come for other reasons. Hungry predators were dangerous; those protecting their territory were even more so.
In the gloom just inside the entrance, a pale shape shimmered: a hand, fingers curled like the legs of a dried tarantula, probably dead. As Charlie approached the building, an electric sensation tickled his spine beneath the pressure of his custom, Kevlar vest. In response he wrapped his fingers around the grip of the Glock tucked into his belt and steadied himself.
“Think they got out?” Charlie said.
Behind him, standing near a black Land Rover, General Brenner answered, “Shit, that’s all we need.”
“No, no. They’re still in there,” said a thin, middle-aged man emerging from the truck’s backseat. “I left the door unlatched when I escaped.”
“You’re sure, Doctor Fordren?” said Charlie.
“I was running for my life. I did not look back. I did not pause to shut the door,” Fordren told them. “Anyway, they didn’t want to get out. The open sky agitates them.”
“Someone’s down on the floor inside.”
“Doctor Michaelman. He was right behind me. He didn’t make it.”
“Well, obviously,” said Brenner. “Ladies, tell me, are we going to find out what kind of headache-causing, ulcer-inducing shit we’ve got on our hands in there or not? I didn’t drive all the goddamn way out here in the middle of the goddamn night for a goddamn kaffeeklatsch.”
“Patience, Tommy-boy.” Charlie knew Brenner hated the nickname. “When hunting wild animals, it’s best not to make any sudden moves.”
“We’re dealing with soldiers here, Agent Barrow. Human beings.”
Charlie laughed. “Human beings are merely wild animals who happen to make art and sleep indoors. That lack of insight must be what’s holding you back from a fourth star.”
Brenner, a short man built of wiry, corded muscle, ignored the jibe, peeled off his uniform jacket, and tossed it across the front seat of the truck.
“Or is it true what the other field ops have been saying?” Charlie said. “That you’ve lost your killer instinct. Gone soft.”
Brenner checked the clip in his .45 then slid the weapon back into its holster at his side. “You’re a cocky fuck, Barrow, and I’ve never liked you.”
“You really mean to go in there?” Fordren said, dispelling the rising tension. “Shouldn’t you—you know—call for back-up or bring in a tactical team or something? Secure the perimeter? Lock down?”
“No can do, Doc,” said Brenner. “Failure is not an option for your outfit. Your operation here is on the books as having non-lethal, humanitarian applications only. I don’t intend to be called on the carpet by a Senate oversight committee to explain why three of your subjects suffered psychotic breaks during tests of experimental military-purposed gear. We’re going to clean up this mess tonight, and then you’re back on the clock.”
“There are at least six dead inside, including half the core research team,” Fordren said, horrified, inching toward taking a stand. “How are you going to explain that?”
“He’s not,” said Charlie. “The bodies will be washed. When we’re done here, he’ll make a phone call or two for a clean-up team. Then there’ll be a nasty single vehicle accident involving a van, perhaps a light aircraft crash, or maybe a freak gas explosion at one of your researcher’s homes. All your dead will be found faraway from here and thoroughly mangled or burned to conceal the true cause of death. End of story.”
Fordren looked to Brenner for denial that didn’t come. “Sonofabtich,” the scientist whispered.
Charlie gauged the scientist’s epiphanic expression, which meant that he had realized all at once how deep the shit in which he was now mired ran. Panic or despair would follow. The clock was ticking. He needed to keep Fordren focused. This time yesterday Charlie had been on a sniper run in Mexico, and the five hours sleep he’d nabbed on the flight back hadn’t been enough after three straight days awake. He wanted to be done here, to have a hot shower, a cold beer, and a seventeen-hour nap. He wanted nothing to do with Fordren if the man turned hysterical.
A dry gust kicked up and swung the loose door wide before cracking it shut three times in curt succession. The sound cut the summer air like axe blows. Charlie watched waves break on the beach a hundred yards away. He thought what a lonely place this was, this cramped jumble of buildings nestled along the Atlantic Ocean on Long Island’s south shore. It stood concealed from the nearest road by two acres of thick woods, secured behind an unbroken rectangle of fencing and high-tech security equipment, all of which seemed supremely useless against a threat that originated inside. People lived less than a mile away, and yet absent the prospect of backup, Charlie felt as isolated as he would have alone at the heart of the Mojave Desert. He’d gotten used to being on his own, but familiarity only dulled fear; it didn’t eliminate it. It was there every time, waiting for him to master it and use it.
“Tell me again what you were doing here,” he said. “And this time, leave out the lab jargon so Tommy-boy will understand what it is we’re up against.”
“Bite me,” said Brenner.
“It’s all about electromagnetic fields,” Fordren said. “We’re looking for a way to make them ‘visible’ to human senses. Sharks possess a unique organ called the ampullae of Lorenzini. Gives them the natural ability to sense electric fields generated by living organisms and use the Earth’s electromagnetic field to orient themselves. Imagine transferring that capability to a person. We could restore sight to the blind. Pilots could navigate without instruments. Soldiers could fight unhindered in the dark. Think of the lives we’d save in urban street-fighting if
our men could ‘see’ through walls.”
A fragment of memory shook loose from the sediment of Charlie’s mind and floated to the surface, something he’d heard a few months back, something that cut through Brenner’s façade and told him this was personal for the general. One year ago the man’s granddaughter had been born blind; Fordren had mentioned earlier that Brenner had fast-tracked them and arranged for their grant about eight months ago. To the general, Fordren’s work must have seemed like a potential cure. Charlie let a long breath hiss out of him. Any true predator would turn on its pack when personal stakes demanded it, especially where its young were concerned.
“Doctor Michaelman developed a procedure for removing the ampullae intact. He rigged a method of harvesting the organs, enhancing them, and cybernetically linking them to a human brain,” Fordren said. “We worked with Great Whites for their high sensitivity and resilience.”
“It worked?” said Charlie.
“Not at first. The early prototypes did nothing. We couldn’t risk tinkering with a human brain so we devised a machine that let us test different configurations on a rudimentary basis. After a month of trial and error we got results. We should’ve stopped then, laid out the groundwork better, but we were jubilant, so we pressed on. That’s when things started to get strange.”
“Strange how?”
“The EM-eyes worked best underwater, so we mounted them on a submersible for field testing. The more we fine-tuned them, the sharper the results. After a few weeks we could identify individual species of fish and plants by their electromagnetic signatures, and we could almost navigate without use of traditional instruments. But there was interference: an inordinately powerful EM field on the ocean floor, out beyond the continental shelf. Whenever we tried to take a direct reading it burned out our sensors. And it seemed to be moving closer, spreading, like an oil slick rising out of a crack in the sea floor. It was fascinating, yes, but not really within our mandate, and we had to meet the General’s timetable to keep our funding. So we brushed it off as weird weather, maybe a sensor glitch, and went back to the lab. We redesigned the human interface, and this time: success.”
“So, now we’re facing three soldiers who’ve gone a touch psychotic and who can see in the dark,” Charlie said.
“Their enhanced awareness overwhelmed their intellect. Their minds weren’t equipped for the input of a literal sixth sense. It’s very likely something we can correct in future prototypes.”
“Assuming we can capture your test subjects.”
“Well, yes. It would help to have them subdued for further study. There’s phenobarbital and sodium thiopental in the surgery. We use it for anesthesia. I can administer them to the soldiers if you restrain them long enough for me to get close.”
“Forget it, Doc. You’re staying here.” Brenner walked past the scientist and stood between him and the open door. “You’re too important to the work to risk losing.”
“As much as I agree with you, General, the fact is they’ve knocked out most of the power. It’s pitch dark in there. I know the facility. Neither of you do. You need me to guide you.”
“He’s right,” Charlie said. “But don’t fret, Tommy-boy. I’ll keep him alive. Scout’s honor.”
Brenner turned back, walked to the Land Rover, and popped the back hatch. He produced a vest similar to the ones he and Charlie wore and tossed it to Fordren. “Put it on,” he said. Then from a suitcase he removed another .45 and checked the clip, before handing it to the scientist, who regarded it like a lump of dead meat.
“It’s loaded and the safety’s off,” Brenner said. “When the time comes to use it, you’ll know. Just don’t point it at anyone you’d like see grow old and die in bed.”
“Ah, of course.” Fordren’s thick hair swayed in the wind. He looked like a half-crushed insect with the black vest strapped around his torso.
“Good. Charlie, you’ll take point.”
Charlie moved to the swinging door, pushed it all the way open, and chocked it in place with a cobblestone from the row that lined the front walk. Sparing a last glance at the ivory moon, he drew his Glock and entered. The odor of viscera filled his nostrils. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, the sight of Doctor Michaelman’s body sharpened. He’d been slit from waist to shoulder and left for dead, his innards creeping out of his belly. Remembering the sharks circling in the surf, Charlie had half expected to find the body partially consumed, but he saw no signs that it had been disturbed. For that, he was grateful.
The corridor led to a square lobby, thick with darkness. Charlie slipped an LED flashlight from his waist and clicked it on so he could scan the area.
All clear.
Additional milky light appeared as Brenner and Fordren joined him, each carrying a flashlight.
“The right hallway leads to the office suite,” Fordren said. “The other goes downstairs to the lab and the surgery. That’s where we’ll find them. They were fascinated with the sharks. After we plugged them in, they spent hours in the observation tube, watching them swim, watching them feed. They hardly slept at all after having the EM-eyes implanted, but the tube seemed to relax them.”
Charlie ran a hand across the dark stubble that covered his scalp. “Hot in here,” he said.
“The AC went out with the power. Auxiliary is on line, but that only serves the key lab and safety equipment,” said Fordren.
They followed the corridor through stillness so impenetrable that it struck Charlie as unnatural. He imagined they were moving down the gullet of a leviathan eager to swallow them up for all eternity. No place he’d ever been had seemed this barren, this isolated and sepulchral. Even during the seven hours he’d spent buried alive six feet underground two years ago, there’d been constant, small noises and the moaning vibrations of shifting earth. He’d weathered that by reciting passages from Othello until the extraction team had unearthed him.
He’d officially ceased to exist afterward, which proved quite liberating in his work, and which was why Brenner had called him in alone on this. Charlie was one of a handful of untraceable military specialists, deadly jacks of all trades, who went wherever in the world they were needed at anytime, and did whatever they were asked, mostly. They were charged with protecting the interests and security of the nation as they best saw fit, and in that duty they enjoyed remarkable latitude for soldiers.
“You said they’d killed six of your people,” Charlie whispered to Fordren. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Most of them holed up in the cafeteria at the other end of the complex. I told them not to herd together like that, like a school of fish. They didn’t listen.”
Fifteen feet past an inactive elevator, the hallway turned hard right and sloped down to a steep, iron stairwell. Charlie estimated that they were heading toward the beach and moving under it as they descended the steps. The dampness in the air thickened, heightening the faint smell of sea salt and blood. The ceiling dripped tiny beads of condensation that had accumulated after the air conditioning died. The drops pattered against the metal stairs, blending with the beats of their footsteps. The noise was a dead giveaway, but if the soldiers could see through walls as Fordren had said, then there would be no surprising them. They already knew they had company.
Charlie wondered what it looked like, seeing EM fields and sensing life energy like a shark. If Fordren’s device could grant sight to a blind child then a man like General Brenner might move mountains to make it happen. The question was whether he and Brenner were working toward the same goal.
Uncertainty, complication. Charlie hated them.
Life was simpler when you just did your job and had no one to worry over, no weaknesses to undermine you. He liked it that way, living like a ghost. But then Brenner has something more to fight for, doesn’t he, Charlie thought and wondered how that changed a man.
He led them downward for almost two minutes, descending into a pale, green luminescence that filled the lower passage. A patchwork glow rose fr
om the myriad tiny lights and dials on the coffin stacks of equipment that lined the walls in shadowy rows. Charlie thought he saw small, crackling lines of electricity coursing through the light, but when he looked head-on, they vanished like phantom fireflies.
They had to be underwater now. Charlie could almost feel the pressure of the sea weighing down on them, an icy void that had been home to nature’s most perfect predator for more than 400 million years. Barely changed in all that time, sharks—Great Whites in particular—were life idealized, organisms that marked the evolutionary pinnacle for survival of the species: Kill, eat, reproduce, do it again.
“Extending the complex underground and into the ocean wasn’t cheap,” Fordren said as they surveyed the area. “So it’s cramped down here. The corridor leads to the main lab and the surgery. It ends at the airlock for the tube.”
“Airlock?” said Brenner.
“A precaution, in case the tube was ever damaged.”
“There’s no other way out?” Charlie said.
“There’s only the elevator or the stairs.”
“The submersible you mentioned?”
“Strapped to the deck of our research ship, docked a quarter-mile west of here.”
“Then if they’re down here, they’re cornered, and that’ll make them mean,” said Charlie. “Keep that in mind.”
The lower level extended several hundred feet further underground and undersea, all of it cluttered with equipment and compact work stations, a windowless artery clogged with the detritus of research. Behind its walls the backup generators hummed like the nasal breathing of a sleeping giant. Eventually the passage hit a dead end, just as Fordren had predicted. The brassy tang of blood wafted through the air. The lab door was closed tight; the door to the surgery gaped wide. Between them stood the airlock, clamped shut like a locked jaw.
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