Androcide (Intel 1 Book 5)

by Erec Stebbins

  Richards laughed, but her eyes were dead. “A lot’s kept under wraps because of my company. But this psycho’s setting fire to it all. I guess secrets don’t matter. It’s a viral treatment. An infection with a benign virus targeted to the testes. Testes-specific promotors in our recombinant virus turn on a set of proteins. Screws up sperm production. Side effects are minimal. A small percentage get cold symptoms. Seminal fluid is unaffected. Arousal, performance, the same. Just no functional little genetic missiles swimming to target. Immunity’s a problem. Threatened to make it useless. But we’re working around that.”

  Sacker straightened in his chair. “You mean you’re working on an infectious birth control for men?”

  “Bothers you, detective? A harmless virus scare you more than hormone treatments for women and the cancer risks?”

  “Well, ah, I didn’t mean it—”

  She cut him off with an imperious wave of her vaping device. She glanced at Gone, one eyebrow arching.

  “What about you, little Sherlock. You figured it all out now?”

  Gone snapped shut her evidence box.

  “Thank you for your time, Dr. Richards. This visit’s been very interesting.” She turned, and offered her arm to Sacker. “Detective, would you be so kind?” She inhaled, glancing from her foot to his face. “Leg’s on its last legs.”

  Her brown eyes caught his. The emotion flowed again. He coughed and nodded.

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling for the first time that day. “The only thing more interesting than this visit would be to have a go at the corpses now.”

  He helped her out of the office toward the elevators, leaving Richards in a stunned silence.

  33

  Naraka

  Partho Ghosh beseeched the goddess in delirium.

  But sacrilege drowned him. His heartfelt prayers reeked. There shouldn’t be blood and vomit on her statue. He shouldn’t stink so, fouled from endless rounds of diarrhea burning through him like poison. The comely breasts of Parvati should not sway! She shouldn’t blur from the sweat stinging his eyes like some river of fire.

  My eyes!

  The fever beat in his head, a lunatic’s gong pulsing. And he saw them. Demons curdled from the stained carpets, their black forms dripping blood and tar dragged from Naraka. They whispered his name. They hummed like some demented choir, unholy vibrations shaking his soul. Red eyes burned through him.

  His vision tricked! It mocked. It closed in on him. The bloodshot eyes in the mirror no longer saw themselves. Only the ever-widening blur. He stumbled through the rooms of his New York apartment by fragmented memory.

  Yet his other eyes, his ajna, the sixth chakra opened wide. It discerned the demons. It perceived the deeper planes, even as his body crashed into walls and furniture. Blind.

  But not blind! No! I see you, monsters! Now I truly see you for the first time!

  “Didn’t I call Deepa?”

  Deepa had left in a storm last month.

  Or was it last year?

  Deepa. She cradled him sick with flu. Deepa of the sing-song fairy voice. Deepa of the large heart. Amla tea, spiced with cinnamon and sweetened with honey.

  Where is Deepa?

  Part of his damaged mind tried to speak. It clawed past the degenerating neurons, the dissolving blood vessels of his brain. It screamed a last warning: Partho, this is not the flu.

  Yes. The voice was right. This was serious. Something terrible. He needed to call the hospital. I’m a nurse! Certainly he must know this! What was he thinking? Silly.

  Move, Partho, move!

  Ghosh crawled. He crawled across the fetid carpet soiled in his own excretions. His filthy robe caught on the statue, yanking him to the side. He flailed like some netted fish and overturned it. His scattershot mind ignored the crash.

  Phone. Where is phone?

  Kitchen! Yes. Fool. Fire. Friends laughing at the clinic. Friends joking. Policemen. Men with holes. Men with holes in their crotch. Was it funny? He knew it was supposed to be funny. His friends laughed and laughed around him. Especially when he’d cut himself with the scalpel.

  “Jim. Sally?”

  They didn’t answer. They just stared at him and laughed. Their heads moved apart from their bodies. Laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Silence. “Tell me!” he screamed, his face collapsing to the tile floor.

  Darkness. He opened his eyes.

  Where am I?

  The white squares stretched, an endless field toward infinity. They chilled his bones. Indifferent. Miles away. Ten thousand centuries away blurbed the refrigerator. Its form spanned parsecs and dwarfed the nebulae. Its low churning hum rose from the black bowels of the cosmos. Blurbing. Searching like the claws of the demons...

  Phone.

  Of course. Yes. I’m sorry Amma, yes. I’ll find the phone. It’s here, Amma. You’re right. I’ll be better. I promise. Can I have pinni, now, Amma? Amma, please? Pinni?

  Phone.

  The room retreated from infinity. Regained its dimensions. The kitchen stopped the mad charade of being a tiled universe and behaved itself.

  Like I will.

  Amma would forgive him for breaking the diya. He would have pinni.

  I’m on the floor.

  Dear God, something was wrong with him. He shook his head. Sweat slung against the cabinet doors, a languid molasses creeping to the ground.

  The counter with the phone!

  He needed help. The voice inside screamed. Time was short. His thoughts cleared. For a last moment, he found himself again in the midst of a decaying mind. He placed his hands on the cold tiles.

  Act now.

  Focusing, pressing with all his remaining strength, he lifted his body. His arms shook like some frightened bird’s wings, but he brought himself to a crouch against the counter. He gasped for breath, the effort Herculean. His entire body shivering.

  What happened to my arms?

  Trembling, he held out his hands. The robe fell back to his elbows, revealing a blue and red patchwork of bruised skin. Some thug had beaten him. Over and over and over. What else could explain it?

  Did I fall so much?

  He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember the important plan. The plan he must follow now, before it was too late. Too late. For what? For...

  The phone. He could see it now. Right above the stool beside him.

  “No....”

  It towered. Loomed. Impossible! A skyscraper above him. Mocking. Gloating with the hideous chants of demons.

  Ghosh wept and gasped from the pain. Too high! Too far. How could anyone be expected to climb so high? For what? What could be worth such effort?

  Life.

  Yes? Life. Had it come to that? Yes. Despite the shadows encroaching, he knew it had. His body was broken, the window of time closing.

  I’m dying. Dear, Amma. Beloved Deepa. I’m dying. Maybe I will see you? Are you both waiting?

  He had to focus. He knew he had to scale that mountain, climb the towering stool, hold upright, find the phone and dial the numbers. He could not slip. He could not fall. There would be no second chance.

  And he could not wait. Death slunk beside him, exhaling a rotten cloud down his neck.

  He knew what he had to do.

  And he knew that he couldn’t do it.

  34

  Half-a-Dozen!

  “I’m Frank Borden with Canid News, live in New York City next to Suite Tower.”

  The reporter shivered in his parka, a scarf pulled below his mouth. Clouds of vapor rose from his lips. His voice fought over the angry chanting of a wall of protestors behind him. Signs and fists rose in the air, directed toward a forty-seven story building. Its glass reflected spotlights, the darkening evening lit by one word in enormous, golden lettering: “SUITE.”

  “Thousands are gathered, clogging city traffic and hurting local businesses. Some threatening violence against the man who would dare challenge the imperial presidency of Elaine York. Mostly young, unempl
oyed or college students, these liberals believe in their cause, and are shouting it to the penthouse.”

  “No Suite! No KKK! No fascist USA!”

  The voices cried in unison, slogans and caricatures of the businessman-candidate swirling around the block. Across the street the Secret Service patrolled. Officers of the NYPD lined the avenues and sidewalks, sandbagged trucks shielding the block.

  “And we’ll send it back to you at Half-a-Dozen!”

  The screen cut to a television studio. Five suited men and a black woman were seated around a half-moon table. A blond man in the middle spoke toward the camera.

  “Changing of the guard? Will the Left stop at nothing to thwart the will of the people? I’m your host, Brock Allen. With me to discuss the continuing protests against the candidacy of Daniel Suite are Howard Roitman, John Mason, and Phillip Logan. Filling in for Alfred Cleave, our new voice from the Left is Lewa Ajayi, bestselling author and activist. Nice dreads there, Lewa.”

  The black woman smiled, shaking the cascading strands of hair around her face. “Always gracious, Brock. Good to be here.”

  Allen turned to a heavyset man in a blinding red blazer. “Let’s start with you, John. Are we looking at another Occupy movement?”

  Mason’s baritone boomed over the room. “It’s worse. Candidate Suite dared challenge the liberal stranglehold on America. He’s promised to take the fight to those eroding America’s place in the world. He’s stood up to thugs erasing our culture and heritage with politically correct foreign religions and customs. Sharia Law. Homosexual agendas. You bet the socialists and feminists aren’t going to take this lying down. This is war.”

  “Phil, your take?” Allen flashed polished teeth.

  Thin, in his thirties with a receding hairline, Logan placed an elbow on the table and leaned in. “York represents the ruling elite. What happened during this so-called coup? Let’s be honest, with the White House cover-up, we’re never going to know. But we must ask, what are they hiding? This president rules like a tyrant. Suspending normal Congressional actions. Declaring martial law. It’s classic Leftist autocracy. Lenin and Stalin in the USA.”

  Ajayi cut in. “The national infrastructure had collapsed! A coup ensued. It was the biggest crisis since the Civil War. You might cut her a little slack for saving the country.”

  The old man among them, Roitman, adjusted his glasses, a strong Brooklyn accent clashing with Ajayi’s Nigerian cadence. “Saving it for whom? Herself? Other Washington elites? Our military fought her! Instead of demonizing them, maybe we should consider why they did? Now most are dead. And dead men tell no tales. Maybe York presented a danger they had to stop to save the republic!”

  Logan hopped in his seat. “Exactly! Exactly! The witnesses are conveniently dead.”

  “Conveniently?” Ajayi blinked. “Half a million died just in the Kansas City area. Nukes your noble generals launched to kill York!”

  “That’s never been proven!” shouted Logan.

  “You visited Kansas, recently, Phil?”

  Roitman sighed. “Stop playing games, Lewa. Nukes were launched. People died. It was horrible. But who really gave the orders?”

  Logan pointed a hooked finger toward Ajayi. “Alex Jones believes it was York herself! A false flag!”

  “Jones? That nutcase? Next you’ll tell me we didn’t land on the moon.”

  “Mocking us won’t win you any arguments,” said Roitman.

  Allen chuckled and tossed several yellow locks from his forehead. “I can see that we’re going to have a live one tonight! Let’s turn then to the question of—”

  “Hold on just a minute, Brock,” said Ajayi, leaning forward in her chair. Her index finger pointed across the panel. “You asked a question. You wanted to know if the protests are a new movement. I can answer that for you.”

  “I’m sure you can,” mumbled Roitman.

  Ajayi’s bright teeth shone in a snarl against her dark skin. “These protestors march for a simple reason. Daniel Suite is not an ordinary political candidate. He represents the worst of America.”

  “There she goes—” began Logan.

  “His rap sheet is a mile long,” she continued. “He’s a serial liar and fraud. He’s slandered entire ethnic groups and religions, threatened their First Amendment rights, threatened to shut down mosques and deport millions.”

  “Enforcing standing immigration laws!” said Roitman.

  “Ethnically cleansing America!” Ajayi shot back. She pounced on the moment of shock. “And that’s what it is. The whitewashing of America. The bleaching of it by a man who has surrounded himself with known bigots and white supremacists.”

  Allen’s smile was gone. He waved his arm toward Ajayi.

  “We’re here for a reasoned debate, not to insult presidential candidates.”

  “That’s all the Left has,” scoffed Logan. “That’s all they do. Deny freedom of speech. Cleave at least had respect.”

  “Cleave? Your token liberal who plays nice because you pad his bank account? That’s not me, friend. There’s no reasoning with white supremacy. No civilized debate about ethnic and religious cleansing. Just look at you. Another white male panel of judges. You don’t understand this movement because you can’t see through your privilege and abuse of it.”

  Allen spoke in a monotone. “I’m going to cut your mic.”

  “Cut it then, Brock. Silence my speech. But if you want to know what this movement is, I’m telling you: A fight for decency, against racism, misogyny, and fascism. A fight against corporate greed and plutocracy. Suite is no man of the people. He’s a child of a billionaire, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’s off-shored jobs, made his products abroad, shafted workers, and hasn’t paid a dime in taxes for decades! He’s everything Occupy was against. And far, far worse. If he’s elected on a platform of hate, then I promise you—”

  Her voice became a whisper in the background. The camera focused on Allen’s teeth-grinding smile.

  “Apologies to our loyal viewers. At Canid News we try to be balanced and present a fair look at all sides. But it’s always hard to entertain the extreme voices of the Left. Half-a-Dozen will return after a commercial break. With a new panel. This is Brock Allen.”

  35

  Connections

  “Rebecca?”

  Savas stared at his wife. She was draped like a thick coat over the office chair, brown hair a caramel river flowing over the seat-back. Her eyes were shut, her breathing slow and deep.

  Enough with all this. Let her be.

  In the middle of this crisis, for one long moment, he stopped caring about the rest of world. He stopped caring about his team and their enemies. He’d tuned out the voice of the US President on the speaker phone of his office.

  “John!” cried York.

  Cohen snapped upward at the president’s shout, her eyes wide and confused. Bloodshot. She waved at Savas to ignore her and eased herself up.

  “Where are they now?” repeated the President.

  Savas rubbed his temples. “CIA safe-house outside Ankara. The Agency intel was right. They came in from the Caspian. The report is fragmented. Communications were minimized as they went into hiding. Smuggler’s ships. God knows what happened. Once in Turkey, it looks like it went relatively smoothly.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” scoffed York. “Erdoğan’s been a total prick. He nearly held it all up, was going to deny clearance and hold them. I had to give in to his blackmail, promise we wouldn’t back the UN resolution on the Kurds.”

  “I’m sorry, Elaine,” said Cohen. She lowered her head.

  Savas felt the weight of her guilt drag on him as well. The collateral damage of their royal mission screwup was growing by the hour.

  “UN resolutions are like politicians’ promises. Worthless. But with Iran announcing the big reveal and blaming us for the destruction of Azadi Tower—we had to clean up this mess fast.”

  “What about Iran?” asked Savas.

  “Th
is won’t be forgotten. Not for a long time. There is enough circumstantial evidence to convict us in the courts of international opinion. But they’re quieter than I expected.”

  “Nemesis,” said Cohen, emptying the contents of a thermos into a mug. She buried her face in the steam. “Almost certainly. She’d love to hurt us more, but too much investigation might shine light in places she doesn’t want. She must have pressured the government. Shut things down. But it was damn close.”

  Savas ground his teeth. “Ugly and a mess. And I take full—”

  “No time for that,” York cut in. “The double agent?”

  “Zaringhalam? He’s alive. Agency assets pulled off some miracle field triage. He’s hospitalized in Germany. Going to lose the leg.”

  “Damn.”

  “Could have been worse.”

  Cohen spoke. “We nearly lost them all.”

  Static popped on the speaker. York’s voice was distorted. “Yes, but worth the risk. INTEL 1 pulls off another stunner from the jaws of defeat. The data Lightfoote sent. You’ve verified it?”

  Savas glanced at Cohen.

  “Yes,” she said. “It took some analysis to figure it out in the first place. Bringing the confidence up, that was harder. False companies, shell games and money laundering. A trail of shadows.”

  “But there is no doubt.”

  “There’s always doubt,” Savas answered. “But we’re pretty sure. Money funneled to SuperPACs, individual think tanks. Even some core advisors of the Suite campaign are paid lobbyists. Several internet-based news organizations, too. They popped up over the last two years, doubling their numbers over the election cycle. They’re basically running on this money. All their news is highly critical of your presidency. Some of it is just wild conspiracy theory material. But it’s everywhere. It’s damaging.”

  “Foreign powers have tried different things to manipulate US elections before,” said York. “But this is unprecedented. I’m biased, no doubt. But I also try to believe in the meaning of our system of government. And it’s under threat.”