Zig Zag

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  She sat up straight in her chair and spoke with the conviction she always had after making a firm decision.

  "No, David. We can't run away, and you know it. We have to go back." Their reaction was that of a table of stuffed dolls that suddenly sprang to life. Heads bobbed, bodies jerked, arms waved. "To New Nelson," she added. "This is our only chance. If Ric started all this from there, then that's the only place we're going to be able to 'solve the Zig Zag problem,' as you put it."

  "Go back to the island?" Blanes frowned.

  "No!" Jacqueline Clissot had been whispering the syllable for some time, slowly increasing in volume until it became a scream. Then she stood. Jacqueline was already a tall woman, and those black heels made her even taller. Her heavily made-up eyes flashed painfully in the dimly lit room. "I will never go back to that island. Never! Don't even talk about it."

  "Well, then, what do you suggest?" Elisa implored.

  "Hiding! Running away and hiding."

  "And in the meantime, we just let Zig Zag pick his next victim?"

  "There is nothing that could make me go back there, Elisa. Nothing and no one." Beneath her mane of wild hair and white makeup, Jacqueline looked threatening. "That place is where I turned into what I am now! That's where ... where he came into my life! I will never go back. Not even if he wants me to..."

  She brusquely stopped, as if she'd just realized what she said.

  "Jacqueline..." Blanes said soothingly.

  "I'm not a person!" With a horrifying expression on her face, the paleontologist began pulling her hair as though she wanted to rip it out. "This isn't life! I'm not alive! I'm sick! Contaminated! And that's where I got contaminated! There's nothing that can make me go back there. Nothing!" She raised her hands like claws, as if to defend herself against some physical attack. Her pants hung low on her hips, provocatively low. It was both a sensual and a depressing picture.

  Hearing her scream, rage rose like steam in Elisa's head. She stood and faced Jacqueline.

  "You know something, Jacqueline? I'm sick and tired of hearing you talk like you're the only one suffering here! You think you've had a hard time over the past ten years? Join the club. You used to have a profession, a husband and child?

  Well let me tell you what I had: my youth, my dreams, my future, my whole life ahead of me ... You lost your self-respect? I lost my stability, my sanity ... I still live on that damn island every single night." Her eyes were brimming with tears. "Even now, even tonight, with everything I know, something inside me feels guilty for not being at home, in my room, dressed like a slut, waiting for him, waiting to obey his disgusting orders, scared sick when I feel him approach and disgusted with myself for not being able to fight him off. I swear I want to get off that island forever, Jacqueline. But if we don't go back there, we'll never be able to leave. Don't you see?" she asked. And then, without warning, she nastily shrieked, "Can't you fucking see that, Jacqueline?"

  "Jacqueline, Elisa," Blanes whispered. "We shouldn't..."

  His attempt at reconciliation was aborted when the door opened.

  "He got Silberg. Hunted him down."

  Moments later, when she thought about it rationally, it occurred to her that Carter couldn't have expressed it better. Zig Zag is hunting us. We're his prey.

  "It was midflight. One of my men just called. It must have happened in a matter of seconds, because the pilots had already spoken to the escorts and everything was fine... When they landed, the escort realized the cabin lights were out and went to have a look with flashlights. The guards were on the floor, floating in a sea of blood, totally out of their minds, and Silberg was ripped to shreds and strewn all over the seats. My contact didn't see it, but he heard them say it looked like a slaughterhouse."

  "My God. Reinhard..." Blanes sunk lifelessly into his chair.

  Jacqueline's scream broke the silence. It was a thin, little voice, like that of a little girl. Elisa hugged her tight and whispered whatever words of consolation she could muster. She felt Victor's comforting hand on her shoulder and thought that never had such simple physical contact made her feel closer to anyone as it did at that moment. People who have never known true fear don't know what a hug can mean, even when offered in love.

  "The good news is that Silberg sent the documents to the safe address I gave him in case of emergency." Carter paced the room, picking up little things on the shelves in the room and putting them back down again. He hadn't stopped fidgeting since he walked into the room. "Before we go, I'll stick them on a USB so we'll have them at our disposal." He stopped and looked at them. "I don't know about you, but I'd be thinking about getting out of here. There will be time enough to cry later on."

  "What's the plan?" Blanes asked bleakly.

  "It's almost three. We'll have to wait for Harrison to leave the airport. My contact will let me know when he does. He'll take two or three hours to get back here. They'll have to seal the plane first, then put it in a military hangar and leave. He doesn't want anyone at a public airport getting wind of this."

  "What's the point of waiting for him to leave?"

  "Because, Professor, we're going to the airport," Carter replied sarcastically. "We'll be on a commercial jet, and I'm sure you wouldn't want the old man to see us at the boarding gate. Besides, I'll have to connect the hidden cameras for a while so he sees you and doesn't get suspicious. When he takes off, so will we. There are a few men outside who aren't on our side, but it shouldn't be too hard to lock them in a room and take their cell phones. That will buy us a little time. We'll take the seven o'clock Lufthansa flight to Zurich. I have friends there who can hide us someplace safe. And from there, we'll figure out our next step."

  Elisa was still hugging Jacqueline. Suddenly, she spoke, quietly but firmly.

  "Jacqueline, we're going to get rid of him. We're going to screw that... that son of a bitch for once and for all. And New Nelson's the only place we can do it... OK?" Clissot looked at her, nodded. Elisa nodded to Blanes, too. He seemed hesitant, but he said, "Carter, what sort of shape is New Nelson in?"

  "The station? A lot better shape than Eagle wants you to think. The warehouse explosion hardly damaged the equipment at all, and the accelerator has been repaired. They've maintained the instruments and have kept them in decent shape for the past few years."

  "Do you think we could hide there?" Carter stared at him.

  "I thought you wanted to stay as far as possible from that haunted house, Professor. Have you come up with some way to fix this mess?"

  "Maybe," Blanes replied.

  "Well, I don't see any problem. We can go to Zurich first and from there to the island."

  "Is it under surveillance?"

  "You better believe it. Four coast guards armed to the teeth and a nuclear submarine, all at the coordinator's behest."

  "And who's the coordinator?"

  For what might have been the first time, Carter smiled.

  SHIT happens. That's the only infallible popular wisdom there is. You don't have to be a great scientist to prove it. You're feeling fine until suddenly one day, out of the blue, you collapse like a house of cards; you plan something with painstaking detail, but you can't possibly cover every imaginable contingency; you predict what's going to happen over the next four hours, but five minutes later you're totally disproved.

  Shit happens.

  Harrison had thirty years of experience under his belt, and yet he could still be taken by surprise, downright shocked. Even horrified. Despite everything he'd seen over the course of his career, he knew that certain things were milestones. Markers. Events that divided everything into a before and an after. "It's like snow falling up," his father used to say. That was his expression. "Snow falling up." Something that changes you forever.

  Like the inside of that Northwind.

  That's what he was thinking, sheathed in his overcoat, hidden in his armor-plated Mercedes, as they sped back to Blanes's house. Some things leave a mark.

  "There's no answer,
sir."

  His right-hand man was beside him. Harrison looked at him out of the corner of his eye. He was a young guy, with a neat black mustache and blue eyes; a doting father, devoted to his job, an Anglo-Saxon through and through. The kind of man you can say anything to, order to do anything, and know that he'll never question your decisions or ask uncomfortable questions. That was exactly why he had to keep him ....pure, if that was the right word. Yes, that might be it. Pure. Virginal. Isolated from the worst. Harrison was smart enough to know that you can let your mind go crazy, but you must never let your hands do the same.

  "Should I try again, sir?"

  "How many times have you called?"

  "Three. It's very odd, sir. And there's still no picture on the screen, just interference."

  That was why he hadn't let him get on that plane. It was the right decision. May a red velvet curtain hide those things from you forever, kid. May you never see snow fall up.

  Of the three agents who had boarded the Northwind with him, two were taken to a hospital, as had the pilots and guards. The third was more or less OK, though he was heavily sedated. Harrison had coped, just like he had with Marini's remains in Milan. He had experience. He was a regular when it came to all things sick and horrifying.

  "Call Max."

  "I did. He's not answering either."

  Dawn was just beginning to break. You could see the light coming over the treetops. It was going to be a beautiful March in the Madrid sierra, though Harrison couldn't care less. He was exhausted after the hours of stress at the airport, but he didn't have time to take a break. Not until he decided what to do with the remaining scientists, with those monsters (Professor Robledo included) who were responsible for horrors like the one he'd just seen inside that Northwind.

  A van as dark and swift as his thoughts sped by in the other direction.

  "We've got coverage now, sir. I'm trying all the channels, but..."

  Harrison blinked. He was running out of ideas, but with the few he had left he strung together a conclusion. Neither Carter nor Max are picking up.

  Shit happens.

  The scientists knew things that they shouldn't. They had found out, for example, how Marini, Craig, and Valente had collaborated on experiments Eagle wanted to carry out. Carter explained that Marini, having panicked about what was happening, had confessed everything to Blanes in a private conversation in Zurich. Harrison had proof of that conversation.

  Carter had given it to him.

  Paul Carter. An irreproachable guy, a born warrior, a brick wall of a man, and smart, too. Ex-military turned mercenary: the best kind possible. Harrison had known him for over ten years and thought he knew everything he needed to in order to say he trusted him 99 percent. Carter had fought (or trained the kids who fought) in the Sudan, Afghanistan, and Haiti, and was always available to someone who could pay him for his services. Eagle, on Harrison's own recommendation, had bought him (paying his weight in gold) to coordinate the military side of Project Zig Zag. He had only one rule, as far as Harrison knew. Just one code that he lived by: his safety, and that of his men. That lent him a certain...

  His safety, and that of his men.

  Harrison fidgeted on the comfortable leather seat.

  "I don't know what to make of it, sir. Max said he'd stay at the house with Carter and..."

  A lightbulb clicked on in his brain. That van.

  "Dave," he said through the intercom, speaking to the driver without changing the tone of his voice. "Dave, turn around."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Turn around. We're going back to the airport."

  BRAIN drain. Wasn't that the term they used to explain the sad state of science in countries like Spain? Victor tried to distract himself with word games. Three scientists are going down the brain drain, like taxpayers' money. They're fleeing like fleas. To be hidden in Switzerland, like dirty money; to hide from the authorities and save their hides. And there he was with the rest of them at Madrid's Barajas International Airport, Terminal One, waiting for Carter to get their boarding passes with fake passports at the Lufthansa counter. He hadn't even been able to say good-bye to his family, though he'd managed to phone Teresa (the department secretary) to tell her that he and Elisa had come down with the same virus and would be out for a few days. He'd taken delight in that lie.

  It was almost six thirty, but you couldn't see daylight in that part of the terminal. Just early birds (both men and women) coming and going, carrying leather briefcases and standing in line. The only thing Victor had in common with them was that he was tired. He'd been up all night listening to creepy, horrific stories about an invisible, sadistic assassin that everyone was desperate to get away from. He was terrified and tired, in equal parts. On the plane, no doubt, fatigue would overcome fear and he'd get some sleep. But for now he felt like he was on a caffeine drip.

  "Harrison probably knows what's happened by now," Elisa said. Looking at her, Victor again thought that not even the most exhausting night either of them had ever had could decrease her beauty. What a gorgeous woman. Her long, jet-black hair drove him wild; it framed her intelligent face beautifully. He felt lucky to be with her. The smiles she flashed him, and simply being by her side, made up for everything. It was cold at the airport, or maybe that was just the excuse he used to put his arm around her. Misery loves company. That was another saying. A cliché. Like brain drain. But cliché or not, Elisa did seem comforted by that arm around her shoulders.

  "He might," Blanes admitted. "But the Zurich plane takes off in less than an hour, and Carter's sure Harrison has no idea where we're going."

  "Can we trust him?" she asked, eyeing his broad back as he leaned over the ticket counter.

  "He wants to get out of here as bad as we do, Elisa."

  Carter came back, fanning out their boarding passes like a blackjack dealer. Victor was glad he was so cool under pressure, such a natural leader. He didn't need to say anything to get them moving, following him like little lambs, Jacqueline's heels clicking away.

  "Do you think Harrison knows by now?" Blanes asked, looking around.

  "It's possible." Carter shrugged. "But I know him, and I've tried to second-guess him. Right about now, he'll be at the house, confused, shouting orders and wondering what happened. I left him a few false trails. By the time he figures it all out, our plane will be in the air."

  HARRISON stepped into Barajas International Airport's Terminal One, speaking on his cell phone. He'd acted fast. Much faster—he was guessing—than Carter could ever have imagined. He hadn't lucked into the position as Eagle's head of security because he was interested in science projects.

  "You're right, sir," the voice on the other end of the line said. "He just checked in five passengers on the seven o'clock Lufthansa flight to Zurich, using fake passports. They recognized him at the counter. E-mailing them his photo was a great idea. He's probably on his way to the gate right now."

  Harrison nodded silently and hung up. He knew Paul Carter well. He might be a traitor, but he was the same old mercenary using the same old tactics. You're going to have a big surprise, Paul. He glanced at his watch, striding quickly toward the gate with his right-hand man. Six forty-five.

  "Have you spoken to Blazquez?" he asked without slowing.

  "They're going to delay the flight, sir. The Spanish police have been alerted, too. We'll get them at passenger control."

  Harrison congratulated himself, not for the first time, about the state of international panic the world had been living in for over a decade now. Everyone was so afraid of terrorists that orders to do things like delay a flight or detain five suspects in a foreign country where he had no jurisdiction were obeyed in the blink of an eye. Fear was quite useful, even in Europe.

  A woman pushing a luggage carrier got in his way. Harrison almost crashed into her and cursed under his breath. His man pushed her aside without stopping. At the same time, Harrison heard the announcement over the loudspeaker, first in Spanish and then in Engli
sh: "Lufthansa announces that the departure of its Zurich flight will be delayed due to mechanical problems."

  They had them now.

  "We repeat, the departure of the Lufthansa flight to Zurich..."

  BLANES paled visibly as they rushed to the security line.

  "Carter did you hear that? The flight's been delayed."

  There were six passengers putting their luggage onto the conveyor belt. Beyond them, a group of uniformed men seemed to be having some sort of confab. Not a single passenger was making it through without a thorough search.

  "Flights are often delayed, Professor. Don't get all worked up about it," Carter replied. He passed one of the lines and headed for the next one, his head twisting and turning, straining from side to side on his wide neck, attempting to see something.

  Blanes and Elisa exchanged looks.

  "Have you seen all those cops, Carter?" Blanes insisted nervously.

  Rather than reply, Carter kept walking. He passed the last passenger in line and didn't stop there, either. Then he turned toward the exit. The scientists trailed behind, baffled.

  "Where are we going?" Blanes asked.

  A black minivan awaited them just outside. The man who was driving hopped out. Carter took his place behind the wheel and turned the key of the ignition.

  "Get in, let's go!" he shouted.

  Only after they were all settled into the back and the car had taken off did he explain.

  "You didn't really think we were going to Zurich on a commercial flight, traveling on tickets bought right at the airport, did you?" He backed up and then accelerated. "I know Harrison. I'm one step ahead of him. I was pretty sure he'd send my description to the authorities ... though it's true he moved faster than I expected. Let's just hope he takes the bait and buys the Zurich story for as long as possible."