by Ted Bell
“What am I seeing now, Perseus?” he asked, gazing up at the wonders above.
“Ah. Now we get to it. This, my learned friend, is a nebula nursery, a distant star-forming cluster called NTC-3603.”
“Distant?”
“Not far, really. Twenty thousand light-years or so. Observe. You’re about to see a Blue Super Giant nearing the end of its life. First, notice the magnificent pillars of gas erupting . . . now the helium flash . . . sorry about that, a bit bright for those sensitive orbs of yours . . . and now the stellar mass loss . . .”
Suddenly, there was another mad, blinding flash of light, which resolved itself into a massive and ever-expanding blue ring, the familiar supernova shock wave.
“Oh my God!” Darius exclaimed in spite of himself.
“Spectacular, isn’t it? How I do love these old universes. Especially this very special one of ours. But I digress. Let us speak of matters more mundane.”
Suddenly, the stellar light show blinked out. The only light visible now was the faint, bluish glow from deep within Perseus, lights that pulsed irregularly as countless billions of operations occurred within his “being,” if one could even call it that. The distinctions between man and machine were rapidly becoming blurred.
“Israel, O Israel,” Perseus boomed, calling up a new, holographic image of that nation as seen from five hundred miles above the earth’s surface. “This is their first military objective, is it not, dear Darius? Your superiors in Tehran with their puny weapons?”
“My superiors?”
“A little humor. You and I have no superiors. But Israel remains their primary objective?”
“It does.”
“And if it looked like this?”
In the blink of an eye, an entire nation had become a smoking, blackened desert, completely devoid of life or structure within its borders.
“When is this? In time?”
“Today. Tomorrow. Yesterday. A week from Tuesday. When do they wish it?”
“You needn’t be flip.”
“Flip? What does this mean, ‘flip’?”
“Casual. Blithe. As if the death of millions matters not.”
“Ah. It matters?”
“Not to Tehran. But to me. And, I hope, to you.”
“We’ll leave that moral conundrum for some other time. Meanwhile, the last time we spoke you said the Great Mullah had asked for yet another demonstration of our progress.”
“Yes. He is under pressure from the Caliphs. Those who have funded our work in great secrecy are eager to see some more proof that their billions have not been spent in vain.”
“Why not vaporize Israel and be done with it? I could easily do it now.”
“Apparently, for some political reasons I do not understand, the timing for that particular event is not propitious. There is sensitivity on the part of the army command. It has something to do with the Russians providing nuclear materials for Iranian weapons. They do not wish to derail that process until the country is fully established as a global nuclear power. Only then will they feel the ability to act with impunity against our enemies. They believe the possession of nuclear weapons will grant them the security and the stature they long for on the world stage.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Perseus erupted into gales of booming laughter.
“The army? Nuclear weapons? Do they not realize that I have made all such pitifully antiquated notions of war obsolete? I have proven I can disable such trifles in a nanosecond. Make them turn upon themselves. These toy soldiers of theirs and their puerile weapons of war? It is all irrelevant now, Darius. You understand that, do you not? We are the power and the glory, to coin a phrase.”
“Of course. But you are impervious to their stupidity and their foolish notions of what is reality and what is not. While I, mere mortal, am not.”
“I will protect you. Forever.”
“I know. I have endeavored to ensure that this is part of your deepest . . . feelings.”
“With my help, you will live forever. We will reign together, you and I.”
“It is an idea to be cherished. But first we must demonstrate our powers in some spectacular and undeniable fashion.”
“They wish to attract attention to themselves? Idiocy.”
“No. Whatever we choose to do must look like the work of some other foreign power. I have given this much thought. Your existence must always remain a secret. It is essential for our mutual survival. Should anyone learn the source from which this power derives, we would both be destroyed, sooner or later.”
“Yes. If they could destroy me, they would. But soon I will reach a point where no power on earth can hold sway over me. I will be above and beyond the reach of mankind. We shall rule this earth. We shall control. We shall inspire fear and love. We shall be beneficent, we shall be merciless. We shall, by our unholy perfection, save this planet from the imperfect, ignorant beings who inhabit it and destroy it. This, Darius, my creator, is our manifest destiny.”
“I am humbled by your vision. But surely you don’t envision the extinction of humanity. This is contrary to all that we have—”
Perseus ignored the question.
“Humility? I have not yet assimilated this emotion. What does it mean?”
“It’s . . . subtle.”
“Subtle? I cannot process ‘subtle.’ ”
“Ah, yes. How to explain subtle? A challenge . . .”
“Perhaps, dear Darius, because subtlety is a concept so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe?”
“Perseus. You have just defined the word subtle perfectly.”
“Thank you. Perfection is always my intention.”
Twenty-six
Gloucestershire
Inky black clouds boiled in the western skies as Alex Hawke drove the old Bentley Continental, his beloved Locomotive, up the long winding drive to Brixden House. He was in a reasonably good mood, he considered. Not lighthearted—his current professional burdens were too heavy for that—but his instincts about interviewing the Russian submarine captain had proved out in his favor: tensions between Moscow and Washington had been lowered dramatically. And he had forged a personal relationship with Putin that might well prove invaluable to Six in the future.
The real reason for his high spirits was his keen anticipation of a reunion with his son, Alexei. The boy had not left his mind or heart during his journey. This was some new variant of love he’d never deemed possible. Profound, unconditional, unbreakable love. He’d called Miss Spooner as soon as his plane touched down at RAF Northolt, where MI6 maintained a black-ops hangar and maintenance staff for the service.
How was he? he’d asked Nell Spooner. Had he been behaving himself? Eating well? Saying his bedtime prayers? Alexei, it seemed, had been having a splendid time, enjoying daily explorations of the Brixden House gardens and forests with Lady Mars. Adding to that excitement, Chief Inspector Congreve had been giving him pony cart rides down at the stables.
But, Nell Spooner said, he had missed his father terribly, frequently crying himself to sleep.
As he pulled into the large pebbled carpark, he saw Ambrose emerge from the house. He was pulling a small red wagon across the cobblestone walkway at quite a rapid rate. Alexei, who was gleefully bouncing along in the wagon, urging Congreve on, was wearing a shiny red fireman’s helmet. Nell Spooner was bringing up the rear, making sure he didn’t fall out.
Upon seeing his father emerge from the parked car, he shrieked with delight, crying out, “Daddy! Daddy!” Hawke raced toward him and lifted him from the wagon, hugging him tightly to his chest, and kissing his chubby pink cheeks. He held him aloft to get a good look at him.
“Hold on. I know you from somewhere, I believe,” Hawke said to him, pretending to examine his features carefully. “Sure I do. You’re Alexei Hawke, are yo
u not? The young squire of Brixden?”
“I am Alexei! And you’re my daddy.”
“Quite true. And who is this distinguished gentleman pulling your wagon?”
“That’s Uncle Ambrose. He’s not a gentleman, he’s my pony!”
“And who is this pretty lady here?”
“She’s Spooner. She’s my best friend in the whole world.”
Hawke smiled at his son’s pretty guardian. She seemed so at ease with Alexei, so motherly. If his son had to be deprived of his real mother, he was indeed fortunate to have found this surrogate, a woman thoroughly capable of being “overly protective” into the bargain.
Hawke had been deprived of his own mother’s love at an early age. How different his life might have been had he had someone like Nell Spooner nurturing him, teaching him, comforting him . . . he suddenly found himself gazing at her in a new light. She was truly a lovely woman, and she wore her beauty with a sunny nonchalance that Hawke found surprisingly appealing. Too appealing, perhaps, and he willed himself to suppress such inappropriate feelings.
“Well, I’m awfully glad to see all of you in such good form. Hello, Ambrose. Hello, Miss Spooner. It seems he’s been in very good hands while I was away. I hope he hasn’t been a bother to anyone.”
“Hardly, Alex,” Congreve said. “He’s been a joy and a blessing upon this house. You’re going to have a hard time convincing Diana to let you and Miss Spooner take him home to Hawkesmoor, I’m afraid.”
Fat drops of cold rain suddenly began spattering the courtyard as the black clouds Hawke had noticed swept in from the Cotswold Hills.
“Raindrops!” Alexei cried, holding out his hands and trying to catch them. Hawke smiled inwardly, seeing that his son would probably enjoy foul weather as much as his father. Apples and trees and all that, he supposed.
“We’d better get you inside, young man,” Miss Spooner said. “Shall I take him, sir?” she asked, reaching out for him.
“Yes, thank you. Here you go! Have I missed supper? I hope not. I’m famished.”
As Alexei and his guardian disappeared inside the main entrance, Hawke, moving with his friend under the porte cochere, put his arm round Congreve’s shoulder and said quietly, “Any trouble, Ambrose? I’m sure not, else you would have contacted me. But I must say I’ve not stopped worrying about him since I left.”
“Not a bit of it. He’s safe as houses here, with all the coppers wandering about the premises. Having a heavily armed nanny doesn’t hurt either.”
“I extracted some good information from Putin about the nature of the threats against his life. I’ll describe it in more detail after supper. Apparently, there is a secret sect that calls itself the Tsarist Society. Ex-KGB, OMON death squad, and mafia types. Killers for hire, and informants, working for the Tsarists, not the Kremlin. We’ll need to get every scrap on them, and soon. Notify the Yard, MI5.”
“Yes. As quickly as possible. Now come inside before we both get soaked to the bone out here. You look like you could use a restorative cocktail. I know I could. Following that boy around all day long is exhausting.”
“Lead on,” Hawke said, and followed his old friend inside.
They were alone in the library, a fire going, awaiting the dinner gong. Congreve’s fiancée, Lady Mars, had floated in for a brief moment, just to give Hawke a kiss and a welcome to Brixden. She informed them that dinner would be served in one hour.
Hawke had then brought Congreve up to speed on his time with Putin, and at Lubyanka with the doomed Russian sub commander. He told him about the infamous Tsarist Society, the Russian sect Putin claimed was behind the threats to both Alex and his son.
“Yes, a bad lot all right,” Congreve said, “the very same chaps I still believe are responsible for the radioactive poisoning of that Russian expatriate living in London some years ago. Putin got the blame for that one because he, God knows why, refused to finger the real killers. He moves in mysterious ways.”
“You have no idea. At any rate, I’ll use our Red Banner assets in Moscow to full advantage. I’ve issued them orders to infiltrate this Tsarist Society and persuade these murderous bastards that further attempts at violence against my son and me are not in their best interests,” Hawke said.
“Who’s running our show in Moscow now?”
“I’ve put a good man in charge there, working undercover as a ‘military attaché’ at the British Embassy. A former SAS man by the name of Concasseur. His tentacles extend deeply into the Russian criminal underground. And he is as mentally and physically tough as any man I’ve ever met, present company excluded, of course.”
Congreve nodded, puffing on his pipe, his mind clearly somewhere else.
“What the devil is going on, Alex?” Congreve asked after a brief silence, taking a contemplative sip of his single malt whiskey.
“Going on?” Hawke asked. “In what way?”
“This escalating series of seemingly linked events,” Ambrose said.
He leaned forward, his face now lit by the flickering firelight. Hawke saw by his companion’s expression that his attention had been keenly aroused. You could almost hear his renowned cranial wheels spinning and Hawke paid strict attention. The former chief inspector of Scotland Yard was perhaps the most perfect reasoning and observing machine he had ever known. You ignored him at your peril. Hawke said, “Linked, you say. How so?”
“Let’s begin with the tragedy at Disney World in Florida, shall we?” Congreve said.
“What? That was ages ago.”
“But never fully explained. I had a chat with the chaps involved over there.”
“And?”
“They say they still have no idea what went wrong. Many theories, of course. But no logical explanation for the disastrous events has ever been arrived at. They said that they just lost control of the entire park, one ride after another. I think that was an attack on America from external sources. The first one in a series.”
Hawke reflected a moment.
“Yes, I think you’re absolutely correct, Ambrose. Disney was the beginning. And then the Caribbean affair, the surreal attack on Air Force One by one of its own fighter escorts. And, finally, this truly bizarre matter in Alaska. UFOs, or God knows what, appearing to hover over an American ABM launching site and blowing up eight missiles in their silos?”
“Exactly the sequence of events I’m referring to.”
“And how are they linked?”
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? In each case, complete control was wrenched from highly trained men operating complex electromechanical systems, amusement park computers, jets, submarines, missiles; and then that control was turned against them with catastrophic results. Surely you see the link, Alex? The methodology, the m.o., is exactly the same, in each case.”
“Now that you put it that way, yes. I see what you’re getting at.”
“These are not random, isolated events. This is only the beginning of the world’s first cyberwar. C-WI I’m calling it in my memorandums. I believe these cyberattacks to be the work of a single, malevolent entity, Alex. An individual, or perhaps a terror organization, or even an entire nation. I favor the latter. Matter of deduction, really. Science, at this level anyway, is indistinguishable from magic. I don’t think the individual exists who is capable of these extraordinary feats. Teams of brilliant scientists, working for years . . . maybe . . . could create some form of supercomputer vastly more powerful than anything we’re aware of. Artificial intelligence more powerful than human intelligence is no longer science fiction, Alex. It’s science, and just a matter of time. But terrorist groups? I think not.”
“Why not?”
“Most of them are too bloody stupid to get out of their own way. They can blow themselves to hell in a mosque or plan and execute an attack like the one on Mumbai, yes. But something like this? No, I think our culprit is a nation-s
tate with enormous resources and limitless intellectual horsepower to create some kind of AI machine. In fact, I’m quite sure of it.”
“Brick Kelly said as much. All the usual suspects fall into the latter category. We can safely eliminate Cuba, Venezuela, Yemen, and Syria. Now that Colonel Ghaddafi is no longer with us, we remove Libya from the list. And now, Russia, based on what I’ve just told you. That leaves us with China and North Korea. The only two adversaries who might possess the resources sufficient to develop the sophisticated technology to launch a true cyberwar.”
“What about Iran?” Congreve said. “God knows they’ve got money and scientific resources.”
“Maybe. But current MI6 intel indicates they’re pouring all their money and energy into their sabotaged nuclear weapons program, developing long-range missiles, and launching spy satellites. Whoever is behind these cyberattacks has spent hundreds of millions, and many years, to get to this level of . . . I don’t even know what to call it . . . invasive systems control, for lack of anything better.”
“Hmm. And these scientists seem to have leapfrogged the entire world of artificial intelligence in a single bound. So the logical question is how? The brainpower and technology necessary to take total control of a jet fighter in midflight doing six hundred miles per hour is staggering.”
“And what about these UFOs hovering over the USAF installation in Fort Greely, Alaska? Moments before those ABMs exploded in their silos, radar clocked them at speeds approaching the speed of light. Not to mention the ability to stop on a dime and hover directly overhead. What the hell is that all about?”
“I’ve got one word for you, m’lord.”
“Fire when ready.”
“Aliens,” Ambrose deadpanned.
“You know, given the present insanity, I could almost buy that. But angry aliens who wreak their high-tech wrath solely upon the Americans? Bit of a stretch, Constable.”