Enemy One (Epic Book 5)

by Lee Stephen

  The operator’s voice was shaking. “Sir, it’s about Chernobyl.”

  Norilsk, Russia

  STANDING IN THE concourse of Northern Forge’s tram station, Valentin Lukin waited nervously, the keeper’s hands sweating as he clasped them behind his back. Along with numerous others standing behind him in waiting, he watched as the light of an approaching tram appeared from around the bend.

  EDEN Command

  “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE,” Blake said, eyebrows furrowed in something akin to panic. “Tell them to check again.”

  Staring at the display screen in front of him, the operator nodded as if to indicate that it’d already been done. “It’s like I’ve said, sir—they have. Again, and again.” Swallowing hard, he looked back at the president. “There are no dead bodies in the rubble.”

  “Sir?”

  Blake turned as another War Room officer addressed him.

  “Director Kang would like to see you in his office.”

  The president’s eyes trailed downward. Though he nodded his head in response, he said nothing. Hesitating and with a gradually heavying countenance, he looked at the primary communication station in the center of the room, his gaze locking onto the object that had made all of this possible.

  They’d found it abandoned in the ruins of Hami Station—left there like a prize to be claimed. Through it, EDEN Command had been able to listen in to everything the Nightmen were planning. They’d heard Chernobyl specifically named as the Nightmen’s rallying point, confirming what Oleg Strakhov had told them. They heard about the plan to hijack a train, giving EDEN the ability to set up their ambush. It had clued them into the fact that the Nightmen had stolen their access codes, prompting EDEN to briefly switch over to their backup satellite network while a new set of codes was put in place. They’d heard all of this discussed by Remington and the man called Antipov themselves.

  It was a Nightman helmet with a functional internal comm, tuned right into the channel the Nightmen had been using. All the while Blake stared at it, the featureless, expressionless helmet stared right back at him. Its poker face was unwavering.

  Norilsk, Russia

  AS IOSIF ANTIPOV stepped from the front door of the tram, his smoky eyes found Valentin. Smiling, the eidola chief marched confidently in the keeper’s direction. Behind him, Grigori Saretok and his legion of fulcrums began to emerge.

  “Keeper Lukin—so very good to see you.” Antipov offered Valentin a Nightman salute. It was returned in kind.

  His hand clutching Varvara’s as to not lose track of her, Yuri Dostoevsky slipped through the crowd, dodging the occasional leashed necrilid as they sniffed at their new surroundings. Emerging from the throng, Dostoevsky and Varvara’s eyes searched for anyone familiar.

  “I hope everything you find here will be to your satisfaction,” said Valentin as they marched down the halls.

  ANTIPOV SMILED PLEASINGLY. “I am sure that it will be.” Lifting his chin and drawing in a breath, he said, “You have done very well, Lukin. Above and beyond what was asked of you as keeper.” He glanced at those following behind him. “Could someone please inform the medical bay that I am here? I would like to see my daughter.”

  EDEN Command

  OLEG WAS SITTING ON a medical bench near the V2 that’d returned him to EDEN Command when an officer approached him. Wincing as the nurse treating him tended to his wounds, he turned his head to the officer as the man leaned down to whisper a three-worded report.

  Blinking back in disbelief, Oleg looked up at the officer with an expression of total befuddlement. The officer nodded his head slowly as if to reaffirm his words, before he turned to walk away.

  Though the officer was gone, the befuddled look on Oleg’s face remained. Staring ahead blankly and open-mouthed, the former eidola no longer seemed to notice the pain of his wound being treated. He seemed completely attuned to the revelation he’d received.

  At something that should not have been.

  Norilsk, Russia

  “I WOULD BE LYING if I claimed to understand all of what is happening,” Valentin said as he and Antipov walked on. The keeper looked at him with concern. “Why did you not want me to release Lilan’s video? Why was it necessary to send Remington and his comrades to a place where you knew EDEN would be waiting for them? And why send us to Hami Station for access codes that you knew EDEN could change as soon as they heard you speak of them? I understand why I was tasked with leaving behind a helmet, but…”

  Quietly, the eidola chief chuckled. “What is the most effective way to ambush someone?” he asked. Valentin shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know. “Make them think the ambush was their idea.” He lifted his chin. “I did not need access codes—just for EDEN to know that I possessed them. You see, Lukin…a well-designed machine has many parts, but not all of them touch.”

  EDEN Command

  DIRECTOR KANG WAS already waiting when Blake knocked on his door. When the president stepped inside, the scent of aging pine needles hit his nostrils.

  “President Blake,” said Kang, the old Chinese man pacing about the back of his desk. “Congratulations on a wonderful day.”

  With trepidation, Blake closed the door behind him, though at no point did his stare deviate from Kang’s. “Thank you, director—”

  “I hear that Todd Kenner was present on this mission,” Kang said, cutting the president off. “Would you care to explain why?”

  Blake rubbed his bald head, blowing out a breath before answering. “Yes, well, it appears that the good captain of Vector was…keeping his friend informed. He admitted to us that he told Kenner about the operation. Whether he asked Kenner to partake or Kenner volunteered on his own, I don’t know for sure, but Captain Faerber definitely knew that Kenner would be there.”

  “I see,” said Kang, facing Blake again and smiling. “I understand now why Kenner was involved. That is all I wished to know. Thank you, Mister President.”

  Eyeing Kang curiously, Blake turned back to the door only when the director resumed his pacing. Reaching for the knob, he turned it to pull the door open.

  Norilsk, Russia

  ANTIPOV WENT ON. “While EDEN’s primary satellite system has many layers of security, their backup systems do not—for they are only meant to shoulder a workload for brief periods of time. And so in these systems, I hid a Trojan. It is called Torchlight. The Trojan was designed to deliver itself to its target only when the backup system came online, as to remain hidden. It would be lost among the millions of other files being transferred naturally in the switch. It would arrive at its destination completely unnoticed, just waiting for someone to activate it.”

  “What is its destination?” Valentin asked. “What does it do? And who would be there to activate it?”

  Wryly, Antipov looked at him and smiled.

  EDEN Command

  BLAKE WAS HALFWAY out of Kang’s office when the director called his name again. Raising an eyebrow, Blake stepped back through the door and looked at him.

  “I have one final question for you, Mister President.” Once again, the director stood, motionless. The ancient Chinese man was staring at Blake eye-to-eye. “Please explain to me, if Mister Kenner was informed of our operation by his friend, Captain Faerber, why he booked a flight to Japan two days before the operation was ever conceived?”

  Staring flatly for several seconds, Blake’s eyes narrowed with confusion and curiosity. He waited for Kang to answer the question for him, realizing only after a short span of time that the director couldn’t. The office fell into silence.

  Far away from the Intelligence wing, making his way through the twisting halls of EDEN Command, Todd Kenner—the black sheep of Vector—strode toward a hall terminal. Tapping his fingers rapidly on the screen, he followed a very specific path to a temporary folder. A place where no one would look without having a reason. A folder with a single executable file. A light unto EDEN’s world. Dragging the cursor over it, and without a second’s hesitation, Kenner a
ctivated it.

  Buried deep inside EDEN’s master server, a signal ping was sent out. It traced the invisible highway that connected it to EDEN’s satellite system, then whipped around like a slingshot toward its final destination. One buried deep within the mountains of Norilsk, Russia.

  Chirp!

  Upon hearing the sound come from his comm, Antipov slid it off his belt and looked at the display. Examining it for a moment, seemingly in thought, his expression finally shifted into the faintest of smiles. Chuckling a single time, he simply said, “Interesting choice.”

  “Papa?”

  Lifting his eyes from the comm, Antipov’s smile widened when he saw his pixie-haired daughter approach. “Marina, my love.” Glancing briefly at Valentin, he handed the keeper the comm. “Make sure someone writes that down.” Turning his focus purely to Marina, Antipov opened his arms to accept her embrace.

  Valentin watched them for a moment before he himself looked down at the comm’s display. Narrowing his eyes curiously, he beheld the simple numerical data that was there.

  A latitude and longitude.

  Though the keeper raised a bewildered eyebrow, the reaction only lasted a moment before it was replaced by dawning comprehension. His eyes widening, Valentin felt the hair on his arms tingle then stand on end. Lifting his head slowly, he stared at Antipov from behind in disbelief and awe.

  * * *

  Standing with his hands behind his back, Benjamin Archer watched Scott through the glass of his high-end security cell. Not once did Scott turn to face him, nor even indicate that he knew Archer was there at all. The outlaw leader was facing the back wall of the cell, slumped limply against the wall as if he was sleeping. Had it not been for the fact that Archer could see Scott breathing, he might have thought their newest capture dead. But death would come in due time.

  Inhaling a slow, dark breath through his nostrils, the British judge lifted his chin. In a hushed voice, far too low for the guards around him to overhear—not that it would have mattered—he spoke. “Hello, courier of H`laar.” As they stayed fixed on Scott, Archer’s amber eyes narrowed. “It’s time for us to talk.”

  37

  Location: Unknown

  Time: Unknown

  SHE WAS SO CLOSE. Contorting her body in a way that made the effort look more like a stretch of some sort than an attempt to ascertain an object, Svetlana rubbed her left thigh against the corner of Nagogg’s chair and the floor. There, barely an inch away from her skin, sat the magnetic key to her clasps. She’d spent the past several hours trying to figure out a way to touch the device—to somehow, someway set it on a course closer to her left hand, still clasped to the floor. It was a much more difficult goal than she’d imagined.

  Svetlana had yet to figure out what exactly her plan would be upon possessing the key. She only knew that, inevitably, Nagogg would order Svetlana and Mishka—who once again sat perched above her on the bridge—back to the animal pen. When that happened, Ka`vesh would realize that the key was missing. Pieces would be put together, and he would look toward her. The jig, and any hope to catch the Bakma off guard in a coup, would be up.

  Gritting her teeth, she again caressed the side of Nagogg’s chair with her torso. She was so close. At times, she thought she could even feel it. Pushing her body further than she had at any point in the effort thus far, she bit her lower lip and strained for all she was worth.

  On the near side of the bridge, sitting at his console near the door that exited into the hallway, Gabralthaar looked Svetlana’s way. As the blonde slowly rubbed her body against Nagogg’s chair, the titan tilted his head curiously. His bulging eyes narrowed behind his faceless sentry helmet.

  Come on! Svetlana urged herself. Her hips were fighting the shackles so hard, she felt like she was going to dislocate them. But it was right there. It was so incredibly, incredibly close. If she could just…

  …she felt it.

  The key was pressed against one of her love handles. Freezing in place, she thought rapidly on how to lift it and move it forward. She could figure this out.

  Rising from his console, Gabralthaar stepped out from around it. The titan crouched to the floor and bent his head to observe Svetlana’s now rigid body. As Svetlana’s head was on the floor in concentration, he peered beneath her.

  She could move it. If she pinned the key against the chair hard enough, if she stroked forward with her skin carefully enough, she could move it. This could actually work.

  Across the bridge and unbeknownst to her, Gabralthaar began walking her way.

  Svetlana had just begun her first stroke when the connection clicked in her head. Ed’s voice resonated urgently. Cease your efforts! You are seen!

  Blinking, Svetlana looked up at the Ithini, then to her side. Standing just before her and looking down at her, stood Gabralthaar. Her heart stopped as he slowly bent down.

  Freeze, Sveta, she said to herself. The key is pinned against the chair! If you do not move—if it does not fall—he will not see it.

  Reaching beneath her, his massive, gnarled fingers probing between her hip and the chair, Gabralthaar took hold of the device. Svetlana pressed harder—she did everything in her power to keep the device in place as if that would somehow dissuade the titan from pulling it out—to no avail. Withdrawing his hand, Gabralthaar stared at the small, magnetic key. Behind his helmet, his pupils drifted to meet Svetlana’s.

  The medic froze. There was no playing this off. There was no explaining it away or running. She’d just been caught with Ka`vesh’s key. Gradually, she turned her head to look at Gabralthaar. She knew what would happen the moment she saw the coldness in his stare.

  Rising to his feet, the key held out in his fingers, Gabralthaar looked at Nagogg. “Lord,” the titan said. The chieftain turned his head Gabralthaar’s way. When his sunken eyes spotted the key, he blinked. Across the room, his own attention now on the object in Gabralthaar’s possession, Ka`vesh inhaled and rose to his feet. Frantically, he searched his wardrobe. His key was gone. As Nagogg stared at Gabralthaar in bewilderment, the titan said simply, “She had it.”

  I am dead. Svetlana’s mind raced frantically, trying to find any way out of this situation. There was none. They were going to kill her.

  Nagogg’s face twisted with rage. Rising from his chair and with spear in hand, he marched around Svetlana until he stood just before her. With a murderous gaze, the chieftain said, “Bring her to her feet.”

  Kneeling down, Gabralthaar used the key to unlock her clasps. Before she could even rationalize the potential of running, the titan grabbed her by her blond roots and yanked her up. Svetlana yelped out in pain.

  Turning away, Nagogg strode to the very spot where he’d slain the Kalarael. Without looking back, he pointed to the canrassi. “Release him.”

  As Svetlana was dragged before Nagogg and shoved down to her knees, she managed the faintest of glances back toward Nagogg’s chair. Ka`vesh, having taken the key back from Gabralthaar, was now unlatching Mishka’s clasps. There was only one reason why they would ever do that. Nagogg was going to order the canrassi to eat her alive.

  …he didn’t know.

  In the midst of the fear, a new feeling arose deep in Svetlana. All that while, she had been trying to maneuver herself free—to catch Nagogg and his crew off guard. It was still going to happen. Her blue eyes narrowing, Svetlana stared at Nagogg’s emaciated face as he stared down upon her. Huffing gutturally, Mishka stood at the rider’s side.

  Through his wide skeleton’s grin, Nagogg rasped, “Time and time again, you have resisted what you were destined to face. Despite the truth that surrounds you, you have clung futilely to a hope that offers nothing.”

  Nagogg will not expect this—he will be caught off guard the most. Head angling faintly, she looked at Ka`vesh in her peripherals. Gabralthaar is wounded. Of he and Ka`vesh, Ka`vesh is the threat. Far behind her, on the other side of the room, she knew the starved Uguul was observing. That left only Nik-nish, and the pilot didn’
t have feet. Five threats in all.

  “You would be no worthy offering to Uladek. To offer a creature like you would be an insult.”

  The cache of assault rifles were still stacked by Ed. It wasn’t fifteen feet away. Drawing in a breath of calm—a calm before a storm—Svetlana closed her eyes.

  Lifting his chin, Nagogg said, “Do not waste your last breaths begging for mercy. You will receive none.”

  I have never let go of my hope in You. Across the stars, I may be, but I have always been in Your reach. My God, I call upon You now.

  Taking a step back, Nagogg grabbed Mishka by the collar. Jerking the canrassi toward him, he led the beast before Svetlana. Saliva still falling from Mishka’s maw, he angled his head down at her.

  Make me what I need to be. Make me Your weapon.

  “Prepare to meet your false god,” Nagogg said.

  So be it.

  Pointing at Svetlana, Nagogg’s skeleton grin opened to issue the order. The medic spoke first.

  “Mishka,” she said calmly. An obedient purr emerged from the canrassi’s throat.

  Nagogg blinked. Angling his head, he stared at the two.

  Opening her eyes, Svetlana looked up at the canrassi. She and the beast locked gazes. “My God is real, Nagogg,” she said in perfect Bakmanese. The moment the words came out, an audible gasp spread through the bridge. The Bakma chieftain flinched. “And He has found me, even here.”