The Phoenix Variant: The Fifth Column 3

by Nathan M. Farrugia

  She ran for the doors, noticed something different.

  She felt it. It was blunt, fuzzy. Near the door. A sudden chill fired from her stomach to her lungs, stealing her breath. In mid-run, she spotted a trail of wiring that weaved its way through intervals of square boxes the size of a house brick.

  The buzzing made sense now. She was sensing another demolition charge. Not just the bubble, the entire base was wired to blow.

  She ran harder.

  Her vision widened. Blood shunted through her limbs. She shouldered through the connecting chamber and into the half-pipe, a new release of adrenalin almost knocking the doors off their hinges. She moved at double speed. No one was in the half-pipe. She kept moving. Ran for the door at the rear. She stuck to the exit she knew.

  She opened it without hesitating. There was no time to check. She sprinted through the snow towards the severed razor wire at the rear of the base. She felt the snow cold against one foot and realized she’d lost a boot. She couldn’t go back for it. She kept running.

  Her back warmed suddenly. Heat knocked her face first into the snow. Debris singed the air above. She didn’t move, stayed pressed deep in the snow. Her ears rang with the explosion. Her body felt the depths of the charges roll through the earth, shaking her. Searing hot air roared overhead. Bits of the base’s exterior rained down around her.

  She couldn’t hear anything. She got to her feet, checked her body for injuries. No bleeding. Her limbs worked. But she staggered, collapsed. She got to her knees, her feet. She felt her body sway. She stepped in every direction to compensate but her body was unsteady and just kept toppling. She collapsed again. Her balance was fucked.

  She lay in the snow, breathing, thinking. What did she do now? Her ears were still ringing from the explosion, only now she could actually hear the ringing. Worse, she could feel the presence of people nearby. And voices. Muffled at first.

  She tried to move, went for her knife. But it didn’t happen. She lay there, disoriented and immobile. She cursed herself. She hadn’t gotten far enough away from the detonation in time. She realized just how stupid she was to have ventured in there, even with almost no staff and few sentries.

  The voices hummed into focus overhead. ‘Whatever they had here, it’s gone. The meteorite too.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Plain-clothed. She’s one of Denton’s,’ he said. ‘We take her with us.’

  Chapter 10

  New York City, NY

  She was sharp and exquisite. Everything about her was unapologetic. Despite her chipped ear and missing eye, Denton thought she was perfect. Her name, after all, translated to perfection. And he knew why.

  His assistant, Czarina, looked past the glass-encased limestone statue. In her red jacket, she watched a frantic man push past a distracted couple and linger to apologize. The man stepped inside the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins and made a precise line toward them.

  ‘I see you have excellent taste, sir,’ he said.

  The man’s face glistened. He must have run the entire Museum of Natural History to reach them.

  ‘I haven’t seen her since Germany,’ Denton said. ‘Just as I remember her.’

  ‘Yes, it’s normally displayed at the Neues Museum in Berlin,’ the man said, gathering his breath. ‘You saw her there?’

  Denton shook his head, unable to take his gaze from the statue. ‘No, in a bunker,’ he said. ‘Hitler showed me.’

  The man laughed.

  ‘Her elongated skull is particularly interesting,’ Denton said.

  ‘Skull deformation was not an uncommon practice,’ the man said, his chin almost disappearing into his neck. ‘Even as recently as the Middle Ages.’

  Denton tapped the glass cube. ‘Not exactly. Her followers deformed their skulls, yes,’ he said. ‘Vulgar imitations. Hers was … you can alter the shape—’ he tapped his own shaved head ‘—but you can’t make a skull grow three times its volume.’

  The man winced. ‘Well now, I’ve never seen a large skull in person.’

  Denton frowned. ‘Yes, they’re usually classified. I often forget.’ He moved for his ID. ‘I’m a specialist with the CDC. Infectious diseases.’

  He imagined the sweat on the man’s face turn cold as he stumbled a response.

  ‘Is there … something wrong?’ he said, failing to register the badge.

  Sometimes Denton wondered why he even bothered arranging accurate IDs. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

  He strode off through the hall into the circular chamber at the end of the museum, passing a pair of security guards. He stepped into the Ross Hall of Meteorites without a word. The man followed, waiting for an explanation.

  Glass cabinets of meteors spiraled upward into the center, where a truck-sized meteor was perched under an array of lights. Denton wasn’t interested in the truck-sized meteor. He checked the appearance of each specimen as he strode past. The man pumped his arms to catch up while Czarina paced herself behind them in jeans and black sneakers.

  ‘One of your samples was recently reclassified,’ Denton said. ‘CM1 class. Extremely rare.’

  The man finally caught up and pointed to a glass case at the top of the spiral.

  ‘Yes, I know the one,’ the man said.

  Denton couldn’t be bothered walking around the spiral so he leaped over the handrail to reach it. Behind him, the man hesitated to consider the same maneuver, but apparently thought better of it and took a more proper walk around the spiral.

  The meteorite looked similar to the rock he’d encountered in the Bavarian castle during World War II. It glistened like honeycomb covered in molten silver. During the war, the Nazis had recovered a total of seven meteorite samples, CM1 class—Carbonaceous Chondrite Type 1—from Siberia, Tibet and Antarctica. They had been found during expeditions that would fuel conspiracy theories of Nazi secret bases for decades to come. Since the war, the Fifth Column had classified 38,660 meteorites.

  Only sixteen of those were CM1 class meteorites.

  The most recent meteorite discoveries were in northern Africa and Nevada. The fragile matter he was looking for in these almost unattainable meteorites could survive entry into the Earth’s atmosphere but once it crashed and fragmented, it was vulnerable. Exposed to the desert heat, the virus would perish in two to eight hours. The Nevada meteorite was not observed at the time it landed and had been buried in the desert for some time, so Denton didn’t bother to dispatch a team for it. This meant it became the first CM1 class meteorite to become available to the public.

  The other fifteen CM1s, however, had landed in the Antarctic, where the cold temperatures had hardened the outer coating of the virus into a rubbery gel that protected it from deterioration. Unfortunately, the fifteen meteorites did not contain a virus. But this newly reclassified meteorite was a new addition. While other classes of meteorite might have brought plague and disease, either sprinkled from above or after impact, Denton knew the CM1 class carried greater promise.

  Since the castle in Bavaria, instrumentation advances had come a long way. Denton had had teams of cosmochemists on standby to analyze the meteorites for many years.

  In the seventy years he’d spent hunting the CM1 class meteors as they fell, he had only ever seen known of one other Phoenix virus in the hands of the Fifth Column.

  The sample was kept in right there in New York, in an old OSS/Fifth Column base beneath Grand Central terminal. The same base he once worked from, the same base his father once worked from, and the same base his son once worked from. His son had mislabeled it on purpose. No one knew it was there except him.

  Denton recalled the Czech prisoner, Yiri, who he’d plucked from the SAS assault. He’d made sure Yiri survived the war. Yiri had stayed briefly at the OSS base in Grand Central, where some testing had taken place—albeit fruitless, since the Fifth Column’s science, although decades ahead of anything mainstream, had still been crude by today’s standards. Yiri returned to Prague and started a family. Denton had kept t
abs on Yiri’s descendants while he waited for each meteorite to fall.

  Just that week, a rare CM1 meteorite had landed in Peru. Denton’s team scooped it up immediately and ran the tests. The heavens had looked fondly upon him because it matched the precise Phoenix virus he’d lost at the castle, the same Phoenix virus he’d lost with Sophia’s defection. And it was, at that very moment, on its way to New York.

  Denton checked his watch. Within the hour, he might well have all three viruses. By the time the Fifth Column realized what he’d accomplished they would be too late to do anything about it.

  Timing was everything.

  ‘We had quite a few meteorites come through here lately,’ the man said, finally rounding the spiral to reach Denton. ‘So many meteorites the last few years, we’re running out of room!’

  Denton didn’t want to look up from the unmistakable honeyed crystal of the CM1 meteorite. ‘Yes, the sun’s dark twin slings them through here every cycle,’ he said. ‘Like a cosmic pinball machine.’ He chuckled at his own joke.

  The man’s face creased under the lights. ‘The sun’s what?’

  ‘Ah,’ Denton said. ‘Something I read on the plane.’

  He looked around the chamber. Since they’d posted security at both entrances to the chamber, Denton, Czarina and their new friend were the only ones present.

  Czarina stood at the bottom of the spiral. For a moment she looked like a fixture on display as she inspected the chamber walls. She peered up at them from under her Cleopatra haircut. He quite liked her deep red lipstick. It matched her ruby leather jacket and cinnamon skin. It wasn’t often operatives wore lipstick. But this was an unusual circumstance.

  ‘What temperature do you have this room set at?’ Denton said.

  ‘Sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit,’ the man said. ‘And fifty percent relative humidity.’

  Denton nodded. It was extremely likely that this CM1 meteorite had never reached room temperature; only the shell would have heated when crashing through the Earth’s atmosphere. If it had contained the Phoenix virus when landing in the Antarctic, the virus could still be intact and dormant. The very idea sent a shiver of excitement through his fingers as he ran them across the glass.

  ‘This could be the one,’ he said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ the man said. ‘Do we need to evacuate the building?’

  Denton took a moment to respond. ‘No. Not yet,’ he said. ‘But we’ll have to bring a prelim team in to check it out. There’s no need to concern ourselves yet, but if you’re as cautious a man as I am, you will keep anyone from entering this wing.’

  The man nodded. ‘I can do that. It’s a good idea.’

  Denton turned to him. ‘That’s a nice suit.’

  The man tried to conceal his pleasure as he extended his arms. ‘Oh this, just a Hugo Boss. Tailored, of course.’ His smile faded. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, back at that statue, how did they get the skulls that big?’

  ‘Maybe she was born with it, maybe it was Maybelline,’ Denton said.

  The man blinked and, at a loss for words, left Denton alone with the meteorite and Czarina. Denton waited for him to completely disappear before turning to Czarina. She hadn’t moved since he arrived; her attention diffused across the chamber.

  ‘Can you do it?’ Denton said.

  Czarina gave a single nod. ‘We’ll need a large amount,’ she said. ‘A very large amount.’

  ‘The explosives under Grand Central should do it,’ Denton said. ‘Don’t use it all though.’

  ‘Shall I bring in the cosmochemists?’ Czarina said.

  Denton returned the nod. ‘Have everyone else stand by,’ he said. ‘If this is it, we have to do it right.’

  Czarina turned and walked out of the chamber, leaving him alone with the meteorite.

  He touched the glass that surrounded the meteorite. ‘Perfection.’

  Chapter 11

  Giant colorful feathers brushed Sophia’s face as a line of drummers shuffled past her. Thanks to Aviary, Sophia was in the center of a colorful stampede of dancers, faces half-painted as sugar skulls, colors from dresses and suits swirling into her vision.

  Sophia stood near East Harlem at the corner of Central Park, shoved enthusiastically forward by Aviary into Dia De Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead festival. Percussion and the chirp of woodwind instruments guided the costumed through a progression of traditional Aztec and folkloric Mexican dances.

  Sophia stepped aside to avoid a woman in a cream corset decorated with large fiery marigolds. Her face made Sophia flinch, —it was painted sparingly with delicate black lines. Large circles around her eyes were shaded in violet and dotted with multicolored jewels that glinted in the setting sun. Skeleton teeth were painted over her lips and dark daggers across her nose.

  She felt Aviary’s hand on her shoulder. ‘Keep going.’

  Sophia checked her iPhone. There were no pulsing dots. She zoomed out and still found no dots. Not even in Newark. She seized Aviary by her arm.

  ‘They’re gone,’ Sophia said.

  Aviary took her phone and thumbed the control center. ‘It’s dropped out. Give it a few seconds.’

  Sophia nodded and took the phone back.

  They passed a boathouse on their right, beside a lake. She noticed their path was flanked by makeshift altars covered in cloth and decorated with fruit, candles, wild marigolds and other flowers. Aviary pointed to the edge of an altar as they passed and Sophia noticed packs of cigarettes, shots of alcohol, bottles of water, soda and even hot cocoa.

  ‘For the weary spirits, when they arrive,’ Aviary said, adjusting the ruck on her shoulders. Although she hadn’t said anything, it looked like she’d purchased the same ruck Sophia carried.

  ‘Remind me why I’m here again,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Because I want to eat food and drink alcohol,’ Aviary said. ‘And by extension you will also eat food and drink alcohol.’

  Sophia continued with the flow. People in stilts loomed over her, faces painted entirely as skulls: white with black around the eyes, nose and mouth. Men dressed as women and women dressed as men, other mourners dressed as skeletons and still others as demons.

  The altars changed. These were decorated with candy and toys. Tiny white skulls covered in colorful icing, ornaments and bejeweled eyes. Aviary called them sugar skulls; they had large ones for adults and little ones for children. They each represented a departed soul. Aviary quickly added that you’re not supposed to eat them, not that Sophia was planning to.

  Tables offered food people were actually eating, however. Mounds of fruit, peanuts, plates of chicken mole—the smell was strong and reminded her she hadn’t eaten since the morning. There were also tortillas and some sort of large bread Aviary called pan de muerto.

  As the sun began to set over New York, they passed a collection of grave markers. The markers looked like miniature houses painted in lavender, blue, a pale yellow and some in pink. All were lit with candles inside.

  Soon they reached Aviary’s friends, although it was hard to recognize the four jaguar knights through their makeup and costumes. She had to suppress a laugh at the four rigid-framed knights, ex-Force Recon marines, as they curtsied for her. Like most of the attendees at the festival, their faces were half painted as skulls. But what she found most delightful was they were dressed—rather elegantly, she thought—as women, each wearing an adorable white dress and wielding not a carbine but a white lace parasol. The three Hispanic knights looked completely unfazed while the fourth, an African American knight she recognized from their operation in Denver, seemed fractionally self-conscious.

  ‘That’s an interesting costume,’ she said to him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, twirling his parasol. ‘But you know what? It’s kind of liberating.’

  ‘Shots!’ one of the knights yelled, spiraling into the group with a cluster of tall shot glasses.

  Sophia found herself cradling a glass—or plastic as it turned out—as the knights cheered, yelled, ‘
To the dead, salut!’ and emptied their glasses—delicately so as not to smear their face makeup.

  She watched them drop into the procession, dancing like lunatics. Aviary raised her glass to Sophia and drank half of hers. It didn’t look pleasant because the redhead winced afterward.

  ‘Mezcal,’ she said, pointing to the glass in Sophia’s hand.

  Something cracked nearby—a gunshot. Sophia dropped to one knee, reaching for the Glock under her jacket. Fireworks blossomed above, followed by more cracks and bursts. She relaxed and stood, conscious of nearby stares, including Aviary’s. Her glass of mezcal was now half-empty. A line of drummers passed by, banging faster. Sweat dripped from their skull-faces.

  ‘So tell me why we’re really here,’ Sophia said.

  Aviary flashed a smile. ‘To laugh at death and show we’re not afraid.’

  More fireworks exploded above. Sophia didn’t flinch this time. She lifted her glass with Aviary.

  ‘Salut,’ she said.

  It burned her throat. Before she could recover, Aviary plucked the plastic shot glass from her fingers and tossed it into a nearby bin, then pulled her farther into the crowd. Everyone had started moving south along the eastern edge of Central Park. The path curved left and they walked between two giant walls of candles. Aviary told her, above the cacophony of drums, that the candles would guide the deceased loved ones.

  The drums stopped and the candle flames quivered in the breeze. The pace of the procession slowed suddenly and Sophia felt uncertainty crawl inside. Everyone walked slowly now, in silence. Sophia suppressed the urge to check for her pistol again. She heard church bells ring in the distance. Incense smoke rippled through the air. Everyone around her seemed excited. She didn’t share the sensation.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she whispered into Aviary’s ear.

  ‘The dead are coming,’ her friend said. ‘And we’re waiting for them.’