God of War

by Jeff Rovin

  A bag of fertilizer that she used for her small rose garden.

  “From the earth you came, to the earth you return,” she said as she removed the cord that bound the top of the plastic sack and gently screwed the sample down into the mulch.

  She walked the scooter outside through the back door of the shed where she would have better cell phone reception. The woman had no doubt that Foster had remained at the radio all night—not just waiting to hear from someone on the boat but listening to communications of the harbormaster and the NSRI. The National Sea Rescue Institute was staffed by 980 volunteers and had a total of 32 coastal bases. If anyone had seen the fire, boats would have been dispatched.

  “Katinka!” the voice burst from the phone. “Is—is that you?”

  “It’s me. I’m home and coming over.”

  “We had a distress call from—”

  “I know. The boat is gone. I came ashore on the autogyro, in case anyone asks. I’ll explain everything, Chief. I’ll see you soon.”

  “But the call—the reason for the call!”

  “It’s under control.” She sat on the bike and started the engine. “I’ll see you soon.”

  She hung up. Two minutes later, having strapped on her beige cap helmet and slipped into her sunglasses, Katinka Kettle was headed down the street, rousing dogs one after the other, the morning and evening heralds, as she made her way to the coastal road and East London.

  * * *

  MEASE was located on the top floor of a small, modern, unassuming two-story gray office building on Old Transkei Road. Occupying the bottom floor were a car dealership and travel agency, also owned by Claude Foster. Both allowed him to move people, machinery, and cash to wherever it was needed for MEASE business.

  Parking was in a small lot behind, with a chain-link fence. On the opposite side of the fence was a repair shop that handled everything from motorcycles to airplane engines. Foster owned that as well.

  The forty-eight-year-old college-educated accountant and football enthusiast was savvy and confident in a way that attracted devoted employees. In a nation where racial discrimination was illegal but old biases remained, the son of a white father and black mother was extremely generous with every member of his diverse team, in all of his operations. The man himself had no political or social worldview. His older brother, Aaron, was a trade union activist in the 1980s—rare for a white man. He was shot in the spine and died two years later, a paraplegic. Foster lived in the modest Val Du Lac mansion alone, save for the occasional escort he brought for a visit. He did not believe in relationships. He could not afford a moment of weakness in which he would trust anyone.

  For Foster, success was the only cause that mattered. To achieve it, there was not a day that he defied a socially unbalanced system that had replaced a racially unjust system in which mining and wealth were the only constant. And that was controlled by powerful interests that ruthlessly stamped out entrepreneurs.

  The MEASE office itself was a large open area with no walls, just workstations. Foster’s office was a glass cubicle. It wasn’t that he did not trust any of his employees. It was that he could not afford to. Security cameras were trained on every computer and on every landline. Smartphone calls were not permitted. Everything remained logged, recorded, or stored in the office.

  The glass was also bulletproof. He was dealing with mercenaries. By their very nature, they were greedy and untrustworthy. Even Dawid Aucamp, his oldest employee, could be double-dealing. There were other illegal mining concerns throughout the nation. Aucamp rarely identified sites in the Northern Cape Province. Perhaps he was selling information to them as well.

  Just now, Foster was not thinking about what he might be missing. Everyone had gone home but he had remained before the incident on the Teri Wheel. He had remained, napping at his desk and ordering food from the café across the street. He made his own strong coffee, a lifelong habit.

  The call from Katinka was like a jolt of caffeine.

  Hearing her terse explanation, his first reaction was relief. The organization was safe.

  “The boat is gone.”

  Hearing that, after Krog’s frantic call, there was no self-reproach. If some act of God had brought this on, there was nothing he could have done to prevent or even anticipate it. If the destruction had been willful, then Katinka—who was smart and resourceful—had done what had to be done.

  He would know very soon. At least there was nothing about the boat on the Internet. All the news was about the South African airliner that went down.

  Security was always Foster’s primary concern on these expeditions. Not the loss of a vehicle or even the crew. Insurance would cover one, and the others—they knew the job was dangerous. Society would not miss them. He would not miss them. He could always hire more. Like cockroaches they were everywhere and defied eradication.

  What worried him was the investigation that would follow. The cover story he maintained—that MEASE exported only collectible rocks such as crystals, meteorites, and trilobite fossils—would not bear up under careful scrutiny. Not everyone could be bribed. Or cleanly removed.

  One of the reasons Foster had bought this building was that, from this spot, he could hear the elevator mechanism or footfalls on the stairs. Security cameras had since replaced what he called his “early warning system,” but he was still attuned to every sound from outside the office.

  Katinka had entered the building using the keypad then walked with uncommon heaviness up the stairs. Whatever was in the backpack sagged; it no doubt added to the burden she carried inside. Plus exhaustion. The crossing from where the yacht was back to shore would not have taken long but the wind, cold, and waves would not have been pleasant.

  But Katinka Kettle is tough and ambitious. Otherwise, she would not be working for me.

  The main door to the office opened with a beep. Foster rose from behind his desk. He waited until the door had clicked shut behind the gemologist before emerging from his office.

  He was surprised by the woman’s expression. Her brown eyes were open very wide and her mouth had an exultant set that emphasized her naturally feline look. Foster noticed one thing at once. She did not swing her backpack off with a catlike dip of her shoulder, as she usually did. She removed it with deliberate care and set it on her desk.

  Foster’s gray eyes caught the light and seemed to glow within their deep eye sockets. His long face showed salt-and-pepper stubble. He was examining the young woman carefully, her puzzling expression.

  The man eyed the contours of the bag. “Two core samples.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What did you find on the island?”

  “The better question is what did we unleash?”

  “Krog spoke of a malady.”

  “Like a man receiving last rites, he finally spoke the truth,” she said.

  That, too, was new—God-fearing Katinka making light of death and misadventure. She was always the cautious scientist, reserved with her opinions.

  “We found diamond dust, but something underneath it was instantly deadly, communicable by air, and held safe within these samples. A microbe, I suspect, because something like uranium-235 would have killed me long before I got here. I was closer to it than anyone on the boat yet I alone survived.”

  “You were using filtration because of the dust.”

  “That’s right. Consider it, Mr. Foster. The entire crew infected and dead in less than a quarter hour. I blew up the boat to sink any evidence—whatever particles remain will be corrupted or destroyed by the sea.”

  The lean man of medium height did consider it.

  “You chose not to destroy the samples,” he said.

  “No.” She pointed to the bag. “Whatever this is can make us rich.”

  He regarded the gemologist. She went to church, she believed in prayer—yet a superficial part of her had always been a bit of a carnivore, a little hungry. As much as she spoke of faith, there was something feral in the eyes.<
br />
  A baptism of reality, he thought. Greed is theoretical until suddenly wealth is attainable.

  This was a leap to something bigger. He needed to think. The man walked back to his office, returned with coffee for himself and Katinka.

  “You are aware of the commercial jetliner that went down?” he said.

  “Yes. Where?”

  “Marion Island.”

  “We heard an impact—did not know until later what it was,” she said. She looked at him strangely. “I’m tired, Mr. Foster. Are you saying the drill team did that?”

  “There is talk, serious talk, of bioterror. I was listening to the maritime channels, seeing if there was any news of the Teri Wheel. People were talking about a report from investigators in New York. It must be somewhat credible, because the aviation rescue and recovery people are gearing up accordingly. Hazmat suits, the works.”

  Katinka’s wide eyes grew larger as she turned back to the bag. “A biological agent.”

  “How could something that deadly just have been lying around?” Foster asked. “Your team didn’t—you couldn’t—go very deep. Not with a hand auger.”

  “The acid,” Katinka thought aloud. “I had to use two quarts to get through the ice, the ground, the rock. It may have gone deeper. We may have hit a primeval air pocket, a frozen bog.”

  “But you’re alive.”

  “I was wearing my acute toxicity inhaler because of the acid. I only had the one mask so everyone else was back at the dinghy, sheltered from the wind.”

  Foster regarded the bag with a blend of fear and awe. “I heard Krog’s descriptions. People vomiting blood, tissue—”

  “That’s what I saw. Here’s something curious, though. If it was a microbe, it may have clung to my clothing as I made my way to the ship.”

  Katinka noticed Foster start.

  “Don’t worry, I took them off, they’re back at the house,” she said. “That’s not the point. If something did get snared in the fibers, it was dormant or dead. This may be airborne but the germ has a narrow life span in that medium.”

  Foster returned to what Katinka had said earlier. He was rich but he was a big player in a very small game. Legally and with force of arms, the gem consortia kept him and others away from the large deposits. This find would allow him to leapfrog over everyone, like a lanky kid who was suddenly and to everyone’s surprise the top player in Confederation Football.

  Surprise and horror, he thought. This wasn’t just about elevating him but crushing those diamond bastards and the bureaucrats. Under apartheid, people were kept down because of their skin color. After apartheid, they were kept down if they could not pass wads of cash under the table. The system was still rotten, only in a different way.

  Katinka had perched her tired body on the edge of her desk. She stiffened, stared out the window. “I just realized something. We have to move very, very fast.”

  “Why?”

  “The excavation point—it’s still open. Investigators will see it, possibly the navy outpost on Marion. Maybe someone will die from it. We will no longer have a monopoly.”

  Foster smiled. “You were thinking of selling the samples for weaponization.”

  “Yes. Those are international waters with sophisticated vessels. Someone certainly heard Krog’s broadcast.”

  “Even in his panic, he was vague—but you’re correct. He may have been overheard. We have to act quickly. But why sell? What is wrong with blackmail?”

  The woman remained sharply upright as her eyes turned to him.

  “Why would anyone believe you?”

  He replied, “We will show them.”

  Foster excused himself as he called the police to let them know his autogyro had experienced mechanical trouble and had set down on Nahoon Beach.

  They did not seem overly concerned, except for the well-being of the aircraft when the tides came in.

  Katinka assured him it was parked well enough inland.

  Foster was not concerned.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  South Indian Sea, South Africa

  November 11, 9:50 P.M.

  The nearly three-hour ride in the Atlas Oryx helicopter was a rich pageant of things, none of them pleasant.

  It was loud. Even the headphones could only muffle, not silence the noise. If it were only the monotonous beat of the rotors, Lieutenant Colonel Gray Raeburn might have been able to treat them as white noise. But it wasn’t. The wind kept up an uneven whine that rose and fell without a pattern. Sometimes it was a whisper, sometimes a scream.

  It was cold. The forced air that warmed the cockpit did not do a very good job in the small, inadequately padded cargo and passenger bay. The wind made sure to remind them they were heading into the subantarctic.

  It was also too bumpy, another gift of the air currents, of passing from strong westerly to strong easterly currents. The harness kept him secure in the seat but that meant he went with every jump and dip of the helicopter.

  But the worst of it was not the ride. After about an hour, the tight plastic mask with its old, stiffening rubber seal had abraded his cheeks. Every knock of the wind and bounce of the chopper spread that discomfort. But he dared not shift it, even as it rubbed raw, mask-shaped contours into his flesh.

  The doctor did not even try to sleep. The physical discomfort aside, the ugly unreality of what had happened and the life-changing suddenness clawed at mind and soul. He had not even contacted Commander van Tonder. What would he tell him?

  Raeburn thought about returning the call of Barbara Niekerk. He did not worry about whatever message she had left in his voicemail. It would have been nothing more than an insistent “Call me.” He wanted to, if only to tell her he was on his way to try and deal with the problem. But she would want to know more than that—such as the bug’s viability in the atmosphere and how to treat it. These were things he could not know. Not until he had obtained a sample and looked for mutation.

  The one window beside his plastic bucket seat was damp with condensation and smudged with filth. But the skies were relatively clear and misleadingly cheerful as Prince Edward Island appeared on the sea ahead. It did not seem as if eight years had passed since he was last here. Then, he had traveled in a helicopter not unlike this one, with a select special ops intelligence team that reported directly to Krummeck. They did not know what was being buried here. The hole had been dug and the coffin-sized casing winched down. Raeburn himself—and alone—went down on the winch and interred the canisters. Then the top was lowered and the hole was buried.

  The naval outpost on Marion Island had been ordered to stand down during this operation. There were no outside witnesses.

  Now there are, he thought as the helicopter swept in low over the sea. Whatever he did here, it would have to be for the first time, as it were. He could not have seen the burial chamber or what was inside.

  The familiar shape of Ship Rock came into view, standing solitary over the sea with the main island behind it. Both were crusted with ice but no fresh snow. Small floes of ice had clogged the waters between the island and the rock. They would be solid enough to stand on while Raeburn investigated whatever had happened here.

  He was glad they were too low to see the wreckage on the far side of Marion Island. There was no smoke; whatever fires there had been were out. They had passed the two Maule M-7-235C amphibious planes an hour earlier, as well as the refueling boat that was coming along behind them. The Maule was an adaptable aircraft with removable pontoons. One of these two, he suspected, was a flying laboratory the Civil Aviation Authority used for crashes on sea and land. The other bore a red cross: medical evac.

  The navy Denel AH-2 Rooivalk was soon visible. The sunlight bouncing from the bubble front made it impossible to see the men inside, but there would have been nowhere to go.

  Raeburn was about to tell the pilot to radio the navy aircraft when the flyer contacted him.

  “Doctor,” he heard through the headphones, “there is someone else off the
island.”

  Raeburn craned to see, but his side view was only to the east. He did not want to unbuckle and could see only sky through the other window.

  “Any idea who it is?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the pilot replied. “It’s a corvette, model 056. People’s Liberation Army Navy, China.”

  * * *

  Commander van Tonder had seen the Chinese ship when it was still dark and the vessel was far out at sea. The silhouette of the corvette was visible against the stars, and by its own lights flashing red and blue on the tower.

  It was not uncommon to see Chinese, American, Russian, and Indian naval vessels in the region. With increasing aggressiveness, the Chinese and Indians were vying for control of the Indian Ocean Basin. Part of this was their inability to flex military muscle on land with the Himalaya Mountains between them. A larger part was the need for China to keep its economy growing. That required oil, which came through these sea-lanes. Increased investments in the ports of Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives gave China exponentially greater access to the waterways.

  South Africa was mostly a bystander in all of this. Neither nation came to these islands, merely passed by.

  Until today.

  Lieutenant Mabuza was not well. He was feverish, dehydrating—the water had already run out—and rarely conscious. Van Tonder kept him covered; there was nothing else he could do.

  Ensign Sisula kept the commander informed about developments regarding the crash. Except for the fact that they were on the way, there was no news from them.

  “Simon says there’s another heli on the way,” Sisula said. “No details, but it’s one of theirs.”

  “Medical, I hope.”

  Sisula had not been aware of the Chinese vessel. Until they contacted the outpost. Van Tonder listened to the communication over the radio.