Ballard laughed again. “If you say so. As soon as our clients arrive, I’ll be happy to show three fresh subjects to demonstrate our recent developments on.”
Friedman had a hand pressed over his bleeding forehead. “I would rather die than be a test subject for you.”
“That’s too bad,” Ballard said. “Because with the Ring, you really don’t get a choice.”
“This is cruel,” Elad said. “Think about what you are doing. Think about the pain you are causing these people.”
Ballard laughed incredulously. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”
“Remember what?” Elad asked.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” Ballard said. “But here you are. Right where you started, in the company you helped found. Welcome home, my backstabbing friend.”
-31-
Frederick, MD
Kasim had to admit he was impressed by Morris’s unorthodox thinking. It had taken the analyst only a few minutes to work his own contacts and arrange the delivery of a fully integrated electromagnetic compatibility, or EMC, testing system. The device itself was nearly the size of a refrigerator. A door opened up to reveal a few LCD screens and keypads. Attached to it was a stand with a red antenna that looked like something straight out of a science fiction novel.
They had wheeled the device into the cell culture chamber in the labs.
Morris positioned the red antenna so it was pointed at the biosafety cabinet. Behind the glass shield of the cabinet were the tiny 3D-printed brain analogues Park and Weber had made. The two scientists had also positioned thermoscopic and fluorescent cameras above the cell culture plates. A pair of electrodes underneath the plastic dishes measured electrical activity much like an electroencephalogram that would be used by a doctor.
“How long will this take?” Kasim asked Morris. While he wanted to understand how the Ring of Solomon worked so they knew what they were dealing with, Cruz was never far from his mind. He had just gotten confirmation that Wolfe and Rahel had arrived in Athens, accompanied by a full briefing on their activities in Naxos. He prayed the data they had recovered from Smadi would be useful, but he wasn’t about to hold his breath over it.
“This will take me five, maybe ten minutes to set up,” Morris said. “Then I’ll let you guys run your experiments.”
“Good,” Kasim said. “I want you back in your office tearing through the uploads from Smadi’s computer as soon as Mossad gives us access.”
“I can’t wait.” Morris rubbed his hands together and then continued punching in commands on the EMC system’s keypads. While he worked, he gave some basic instructions to Park and Weber. “You can adjust the frequencies up to 50 GHz. This will test nearly every frequency these nanoparticles could possibly be responding to.”
“Assuming they really are antennae,” Park said.
“Yeah, either of you want to bet against the man, the myth, the Morris?”
Weber gave the analyst a scrutinizing look. “I’m not trying to lose money today. Just trying to save lives.”
“Good choice.” Morris explained how to pause the test and adjust the frequency should they find a particular frequency they were interested in investigating further. “Any questions?”
Park and Weber shook their heads.
“Go find Skylar,” Kasim said.
Morris sauntered out of the lab. “Call if you need me.”
Park clicked on the machine. It buzzed to life. Normally, an EMC testing system like this was used to ensure electronic devices didn’t respond poorly to the various radio frequencies they might encounter in everyday circumstances. This was important for testing consumer devices. No one wanted a pacemaker to screw with Grandpa’s heart because his grandson turned on the RC car. Those type of devices were supposed to be resistant to interference.
However, according to Morris’s hypothesis, the rings in the brain tissue formed by the Solomon weapon should react to a signal sent over a specific frequency.
“You think our computer prodigy is right?” Weber asked Park. “That this will actually work?”
“This would not be the first time silver nanoparticles were used to form antenna.” Park shut the door to the EMC testing system. “I found evidence that people created tiny antennae with silver nanoparticles in an Applied Physics journal paper in 2016. The antennae worked for 1.8 GHz band applications.”
“But it’s one thing to create an antenna for an electronic device and another to transfer that technology into a living organism,” Weber said. She started the imaging software on the computers attached to the cameras over the 3D-printed brain tissues.
“The closest tech was made by a team from Harvard,” Park said. “They developed nanorobots made of synthetic DNA molecules.”
“DNA?” Kasim asked.
Park shrugged. “Researchers use DNA as a material for things like 3D printing or tiny particles to deliver drugs. In this case, they constructed these so-called nanorobots from DNA. Then the scientists tethered drugs to the nanorobots. They could control the release of the drugs with an external signal from an electromagnetic coil. Put these two technologies together, and boom, you have the Ring of Solomon.”
“Okay,” Kasim said, still trying to wrap his mind around what Park was talking about. It sounded like something Heinlein or Asimov would’ve made up. But he had long since learned that sometimes the scientific advances coming out of university labs sounded more like fiction than fact. “Let’s see if you all are right.”
Park hit another button that began the full battery of EMC tests. The humming of the machine grew until it sounded like a hive of angry bees. Invisible waves of radio frequency electromagnetic radiation emitted from the antenna toward the 3D-printed brain tissues.
Kasim watched the screen with the view from the cameras Weber had set up.
The thermoscopic camera detected the temperature of the tissues. Each culture dish showed up on the screen with a light orange-yellow glow. That meant they were warm. About body temperature, thanks to the heated environment to keep the tissues alive.
Weber and Park had loaded the nanoparticles with tiny fluorescent molecules that would shine bright green if they were released. But the fluorescent camera images were all black. No glow meant no molecules had been released.
For the first few minutes of the test, they burned through different frequency bands. The thermoscopic camera pictures of the tissues still shone that golden color, the model brain temperature constant. Similarly, the fluorescent camera view remained completely black.
“Are you sure this is on and working?” Kasim asked, pointing to the cameras.
“Absolutely,” Weber said. “We tested them before. The particles just aren’t responding.”
The EMC machine kept humming and buzzing. Seconds ticked by without a single reaction from the 3D-printed brains.
“I’m beginning to think we’re missing something,” Kasim said. “Maybe Morris was wrong.”
“Maybe,” Park agreed. “I would expect—”
Suddenly, the brain tissue turned a slightly brighter shade of yellow in the thermoscopic camera.
“It seems to be heating,” Weber said.
“Should I stay on this frequency?” Park asked.
“Keep going,” Kasim said.
The frequency bands continued to increase on the display panel of the EMC machine. With it, so too did the temperature of the brain tissue. The Ring of Solomon particles shone white-hot, almost as if the camera was pointed straight at the sun.
“Heiliger strohsack!” Weber cried. “I’m getting a spike in EEG activity too.” She pointed at a different graph, her German accent more pronounced than ever. “Based on our 3D-printed models, this is showing absolutely tremendous increases in left-biased asymmetric frontal cortical activity. Far beyond anything healthy.”
“English, please,” Kasim said.
“These are the portions of the brain associated with anger and, in extreme cases, psychopathic be
havior.”
“So it isn’t a drug that makes them aggressive,” Kasim said. “The RF signal is enough to heat up these particles.”
“Yes, yes, exactly,” Park said, his head bobbing. “The particles are organized in a way that provokes this massive anger response.”
“That explains the violence,” Kasim said. “But how are the sedatives released?”
“Watch and wait,” Park said.
The EMC machine continued pushing through the different frequency bands. Eventually, the thermoscopic camera showed the brain dropping back to normal physiological temperatures. The EEG activity returned to normal.
Kasim watched the fluorescent camera images. But while they had provoked the psychopathic response, they hadn’t seen any fluorescent green glowing across the screen. That meant they still hadn’t figured out how drugs were released from the particles.
Until the EMC machine hit another frequency a moment later.
A green cloud bloomed around the brain tissue.
“That’s it,” Kasim said. “A signal from one frequency band provokes the anger response. The second signal over a different frequency band releases whatever drugs are attached to the nanoparticles.”
“The responses are independent of each other,” Park said. “Whoever controls the signal transmission controls how people will act.”
“This is a most terrifying revelation,” Weber said. “So far, the particles we’ve seen have only been designed to cause violence and deliver drugs that render people catatonic. Theoretically, whoever is behind this could continue to expand the capabilities of these particles. They can attach other chemicals, other drugs to these particles and release them into the brain. Not to mention, they could learn to activate more specific portions of the brain until they have discovered how to completely control a human being. If the developers of these technologies are allowed to continue weaponizing the Ring of Solomon particles, we could very well be looking at a weapon of mass mind control.”
“Good Lord,” Kasim said. “It almost makes me want to make a tinfoil hat.”
“Even a tinfoil hat won’t protect you from this,” Park said.
“Then what do we do to protect our agents?” Kasim asked. “Tell them not to breathe in the particles?”
Park shook his head. “Even that won’t work. These particles are so small they’ll slide through any mucus membrane, including your eyes. Maybe even your skin.”
“Most gas masks won’t work either,” Weber said. “The particles were designed to avoid the activated charcoal in a standard gas mask.”
“That explains why Skylar said those men looked like they were wearing custom gas masks in Amman,” Kasim said. “So what’s our option if we can’t get our hands on whatever these people are using to protect themselves from the weapon?”
“You could use a frequency jammer,” Park said. “That could disrupt our own comms. Otherwise, what we really need to do is find out who is in control of the particles and stop them.”
Norwegian North Sea
Elad was shackled to a stanchion beside Skylar and Friedman. Each of them had chains secured to the metal cuffs around their ankles.
At least they hadn’t had the tops of their skulls removed. Not yet, anyway.
He still couldn’t believe what Ballard had told him. That he had somehow been responsible for this nightmarish place.
Ballard stood in front of him with a tablet computer. “Look, we don’t have much time before our client gets here. Who has the particles you took from the lab? You must understand we can’t just let anyone have access to them.”
“I can’t remember anything,” Elad lied. Unfortunately, this was something he did know. But he couldn’t tell Ballard. This might be the only leverage he had over the man. “You must be lying.”
“I am not.” Ballard’s voice rose. “You were a part of our organization. You were my partner. And now you act like you don’t even know me.”
“I don’t. And I would never join an organization like this. I was a Mossad agent.”
Ballard shrugged. “And I was in the CIA.”
Elad said nothing.
Ballard shook his head, backing away. “Come on, Elad. I realize that sometimes the Ring of Solomon causes amnesia, but this is ridiculous.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Elad said. “I have no memories of what you’re talking about.”
“Let’s see if we can fill in the blanks, then,” Ballard said. He checked his watch. “We have a few minutes.”
A tap on the tablet showed an image of this same room. Another tap, and a video began to play.
“You thought you shut off the security cameras in this chamber,” Ballard said. “Of course, I’ve always been a bit paranoid. I’d never install a system without some technical redundancy. So here you are, trying to play spy, as usual.”
The video showed Elad walking past the rows of humans standing dazed, their brains exposed. All the experimental subjects. He had a hard-shell backpack on—the same one he’d found in the Karak Castle. He crept to the back of the room toward a doorway. There he plugged in a passcode on a keypad, and the doorway opened.
A few minutes later, he emerged again.
Ballard rapped his knuckle on the edge of the tablet computer. “Here you are now, your backpack full of stolen samples of the Ring of Solomon. Do you know why you were stealing them?”
Elad thought back to waking up in Petra and wandering around Wadi Musa. How destitute he had felt. Yet total strangers had shown him kindness. Attayak, the Bedouin man who had risked his own safety to give Elad shelter. Wolfe and Cruz, despite their suspicious natures, had helped him too. Even Arnon had shown mercy, and he did not think that was something she often did.
His memories kept returning to the stray dog he had shared his last bits of food and water with. He was not like Ballard. He was not a bad person.
“I was stealing it because I wanted to stop this,” Elad said, trying to convince himself. “I was taking it to Mossad to warn them.”
Ballard merely laughed. “It’s amazing to see what wiping your memories clean has done to your self-perception. Watch.”
The video continued playing.
Elad shut the door to the secured storage room. He was walking toward the exit when the door swung in. Two security guards marched toward him.
“Ballard said no one is to remove those vials,” one of them said, their voice tinny through the tablet’s speakers.
“You know who I am,” Elad growled back.
“But Ballard made it clear that no one, not even you, can remove them from this room.”
Elad took out his pistol and fired. The screen went bright with the gunshots, and a second later, the man was sprawled across the floor, not far from where Elad was secured right now.
On the video, the second guard rushed in. He tackled Elad and tore the backpack away, ripping it open. A few of the vials hit the floor. Together, the guard and Elad fought in a violent mess of blows, smashing the vials under their boots. A dense cloud of particles burst and sparkled around the two figures.
Then there was another flash of gunfire. Both bodies were still for a moment. Then Elad stood, coughing, and kicked the dead guard out of his way. He replaced the unbroken vials in his pack then sprinted out of the chamber.
“Very sloppy,” Ballard said. “You infected yourself. An extraordinarily large dose.”
Elad felt sick watching himself on the screen as the camera views changed. They showed him dashing down the corridors, shooting at anyone who tried to stop him.
Ballard stopped the video. “You had a chopper waiting for you. An accomplice.”
“What happened to him?” Elad asked.
“You escaped with him to Jordan,” Ballard said. “There, we unfortunately lost track of your exact whereabouts. A couple of my men found you near Karak Castle, but you lost them. You knew, as well as I did, the risk of a heavy Ring dose. That must’ve been why you ran.”
Ela
d thought back to the cryptic clues he’d left himself. A messy, haphazard scavenger hunt. He hadn’t had much time to prepare, but on some level, he must’ve known that with those particles in his mind, it was only a matter of time before he lost himself. He had wanted to leave reminders, signposts to get him back on the trail when and if his mind was scrambled.
“Then we tried to activate the Ring of Solomon in an attempt to get you to show yourself,” Ballard said. “An enormous burst of RF radiation. When we heard reports of a tourist on heavy narcotics in Petra, we guessed it was you. But even with your mind erased, you are a tricky individual, Elad. It’s why I thought you would make a good partner. Didn’t realize I was hiring a thief.”
Ballard dragged his finger across the tablet computer. An image appeared. It showed a middle-aged man with dull eyes whose skull had been carved away to reveal a brain infected with the Ring of Solomon.
“This is the pilot,” Ballard said. “We found him in Amman, trying to board a private flight to Argentina with a suitcase full of cash. He made a good test subject.”
He played a video of the pilot strung up in chains inside a room with blank white walls. The man jerked as if he was being pelted with hot coals.
“He told us you intended to go after Smadi when the professor tried to cancel his contract with Gadriel. Maybe you wanted to use Smadi for your own benefit. Maybe even start your own company. But that was all this waste of space claimed to know. No matter how much we tried to convince him to talk, he kept saying he didn’t know anything else. I guess maybe he was really telling the truth.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Elad said, looking away from the screen. “If I was your partner, why would I try to strike out on my own?”
“Arrogance? Greed?” Ballard shrugged then turned away. “I couldn’t begin to explain. Now it looks like you never will either. You went behind my back to steal my clients, promising them you could sell the technology and protocols to them directly. I’ve got recordings of you making these offers shortly before you tried to escape.”
Demon Mind (Vector Book 2) Page 28
