The Dragon Factory jl-2

by Jonathan Maberry

  Bunny said, “Wait. . . . I thought this was a dead volcano.”

  “No, I said it hadn’t blown up for a while.”

  “Swell.”

  We set out, moving in a loose line, mindful of the terrain and wary of booby traps. The rain-forest foliage was incredibly dense, and I could see why it would draw the attention of biologists and whoever wanted to hide from prying eyes. There were hundreds of different kinds of trees and thousands of species of shrubs, and I swear there was a biting bug or stinging insect on every single goddamn leaf. I must have lost half a pound of meat and a quart of blood in the first three miles.

  “This is some serious bush,” muttered Bunny. He was the only one of us who hadn’t been jungle trained, and he was streaming with sweat. His entire term of service had been in the Middle East. He was also carrying a lot more mass than Top, who was a lean and hard 170, or me at 210.

  I kept my radio tuned to the Kid’s channel, but by the time we were five miles in there was still no answer.

  Then suddenly the static changed to a softer hiss and a shaky voice said, “Is this Mr. Deacon?”

  “Not exactly, Kid. But I work for him. Who are you?”

  “How do I know that you work for him?”

  “You don’t, but you dealt the play.”

  “Tell me something,” he said.

  “You first. Say something to let me know I’m talking to the right person.”

  After a moment the Kid said, “Unicorn?”

  I muted my mike. “Talk to me, Top.”

  He was looking at his scanner. “Definitely originating from the island, Cap’n. Three-point-six klicks from here.” He showed me the compass bearing.

  With the mike back on, I said, “Okay, Kid.”

  “Now tell me something,” he said. The Kid was a quick study.

  “Anyone listening?”

  “No.”

  “Okay . . . you sent the hunt video from a cybercafe in São Paolo. Second video was from this island.”

  “Um . . . okay.”

  “How do you know Deacon?” I asked.

  “I don’t. I just know the name. From an old file I stole a look at. Otto and Alpha really hate that guy, so I figured if they hated him that much then he had to be their enemy.”

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” I suggested.

  “Old Arabian saying,” the Kid said without pause. “Though it could be Chinese, too. They say it as ‘it is good to strike the serpent’s head with your enemy’s hand.’ ”

  “You know your quotes.”

  “I know military history,” the Kid said, and I noted that he changed the phrasing. He didn’t say, “I know my military history,” which would have been the natural comeback. I filed that away for now.

  “Where are you?” he asked. “Are you close?”

  “Close enough. You got a name, Kid?”

  “Eighty-two.”

  “What?”

  “That’s my name. But Alpha sometimes calls me SAM.”

  “SAM’s a name at least.”

  “No,” the Kid said, “it’s not. It means something, but I don’t know what. Alpha calls a lot of us ‘SAM.’ ”

  “Who’s Alpha?”

  “My father, I guess.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “No.”

  “Is Alpha his first name or last name?”

  “It’s just a name. He makes everyone call him that. Or Lord Alpha the Most High. He’s always changing his name.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  “I don’t know. But he sometimes goes by ‘Cyrus Jakoby.’ I don’t think that’s real, either.”

  The name Jakoby rang a faint bell with me, and I signaled Top to confirm that this was all going straight back to Church at the TOC. He gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Does Alpha run this place?”

  “Him and Otto. But they’re not here right now.”

  “Who’s Otto?”

  “Otto Wirths is Alpha’s—I don’t know—his manager, I guess. Foreman, whatever. Otto runs all of it for Alpha. The Hive, the Deck . . . all of it.”

  My pulse jumped. Otto Wirths. There had been a reference to a “Herr Wirths” in Mengele’s letter. Could this guy be related? There had to be some connection. We were actually getting somewhere, though I still didn’t know exactly where. Bug kept scanning the woods around us for thermal signatures, and the readings stayed clean.

  “How old is this Otto character?”

  “I don’t know. Sixty-something.”

  Too young to have been at the camps. Son, nephew, whatever.

  I glanced at my team. They were all listening in and I saw Bunny mouth the word, Eighty-two.

  “Why don’t I just call you Kid for now? A call sign. You know what that is?”

  “Yes. That’s okay. I don’t care what people call me.”

  “And you’re sure no one else can hear this call?”

  “I don’t think so. I made this radio myself. I picked the frequency randomly before I sent that e-mail.”

  “Smart,” I said, though in truth anyone with the right kind of scanner could conceivably find the signal. However, they would have to be looking, and in the digital age not as many people scan the radio waves. Even so, I said, “Okay, Kid. Call me Cowboy. No real names from here on out.”

  “Okay . . . Cowboy.”

  “Now tell us why we’re here. What’s this all about?”

  A beat.

  “I already told you—”

  “No, Kid, you sent us a video with almost no audible sound. We saw the ‘animal,’ but that’s all we know.”

  “Damn!” the Kid said, but he put a lot of meaning in it. “You don’t know about Africa? About Louisiana? About any of it?”

  “No, so tell us what you want us to know.”

  “There’s not enough time. If you come get me, maybe we can take the hard drives. I’m sure everything’s there. More than the stuff I know about. Maybe all of it.”

  “You’re being a bit vague here, Kid. If you want us to help you, then you have to help us out. We know where you’re broadcasting from, but we need some details. Are there guards? If so, how many and how are they armed? Are there guard dogs? Electric fences? Security systems?”

  “I . . . can’t give you all of that from here. I’ll have to sneak into the communications room. I can access the security systems from in there and can watch you on the cameras.”

  “Go for it. How long do you need?”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “Once I’m in there I’ll have to lock myself in. They’ll know I’m there. They’ll break in eventually. If you don’t get here by the time they get to me, then I’m dead.”

  Kid had a point.

  “Terrain’s rough. It’ll take us forty minutes to get to your location safely. How far out are the first cameras?”

  “Six hundred yards from the fence.”

  Top held out his PDA. He magnified the satellite display of the compound so we could see the thin lines of a double fence.

  “Okay, Kid, what’s our best angle of approach? What will keep us safe and give you the most time?”

  “I can’t describe it—”

  “We’re looking at a satellite image of the compound. Describe a building and I can find it.”

  “Oh. Okay, there’s three small buildings together on the top of a hill and a bunch of medium-sized buildings in a kind of zigzag line sloping down toward the main house.”

  “Got ’em.”

  “That’s all maintenance stuff. Come in on the corner of the fence. The camera sweeps back and forth every ninety-four seconds, with a little twitch when turning back from the left. I think it has a bad bearing. If you wait for it to swing to the left, you should be able to get from the jungle wall to the fence. The camera is angled out, not down.”

  “That’s pretty good, Kid. Better get off the line. Contact me again when you’re in place,” I said. “And, Kid . . . good luck.”

  “You,
too.” He paused, then added, “Cowboy.”

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  The Deck

  Sunday, August 29, 2:31 P.M.

  Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 69 hours, 29 minutes E.S.T.

  Otto Wirths sat on a wheeled stool and watched as Cyrus Jakoby’s fingers flowed over the computer keys. Cyrus was the fastest typest Otto had ever seen, even when he was writing complex computer code, inputting research numbers, or crafting one of the codes they used to protect all of their research. It was hypnotic to see all ten fingers merge into a soft blur that was streamed like water. Otto found it very soothing.

  They were at their shared workstation, which could be invisibly networked to any and all stations here at the Deck or at the Hive but which could also be hidden behind an impenetrable firewall when the need for secrecy was greatest.

  Like now.

  The sequences Cyrus was currently writing were the distribution code that would be sent to key people positioned around the world. People who were poised to accomplish certain very specific tasks. Some would begin the distribution of bottled water as part of the faux promotional giveaway to launch a new international competitor in the growing bottled-water market. The company was real enough, and there were several hundred employees on the payroll who truly believed they worked for MacNeil-Gunderson Water-Bottling. Legitimate advertising companies had been hired to create a global campaign for the release of the water under a variety of names, including Global Gulp, GoodWater, Soothe, Eco-Splash. Celebrities had been hired to endorse the water, including two Oscar winners who were widely regarded for their support of the environment and a dozen professional athletes from six countries. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of the water had been promised to fledgling sports teams in developing countries and in the inner cities throughout the United States. After the initial “free giveaway,” a portion of the regular sale price of the water would be donated to several popular ecology groups. Those payments would actually be made . . . until the world economy began to collapse and chaos set in. The IRS could audit any of the companies connected with MacNeil-Gunderson Water-Bottling and every cent would be accounted for.

  Another group of key people would receive a code command from Cyrus to distribute bottles of water at specific locations throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas. And then there were the operatives who would dump gallons of pathogen-rich fluid directly into rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.

  And codes would be sent to the team of software engineers who had designed what Cyrus called the Crash and Burn e-mail virus that would send hundreds of thousands of infected e-mails to the CDC, WHO, the NIH, FEMA, and dozens of other disaster response and management agencies. The viruses were unique and poised to launch in waves so that as one was taken down another would go out. None of the organizations would be totally disabled, but all that was required was confusion and slower reaction time. Once the Wave was in motion it would no longer matter what those organizations did. It would be too late.

  In all, 163 people would receive a unique coded “go” order sent by the trigger device. The go order would arrive in a coded form, and if no cancel order was sent the program embedded in the message would automatically decode the message and present a clear and unambiguous order to proceed with the release. The fail-safe had been Otto’s idea. There had been too many delays to rely on an absolute go/no-go code signal. And Cyrus was, they both had to admit it, mad as a hatter. A lot of careful planning would be ruined by Cyrus sending a release order during one of his radical mood swings.

  The code Cyrus was writing would be saved on a flash drive that had a miniature six-digit keypad. The keypad code on this trigger device would be changed daily by Otto, whose memory was sharper than Cyrus’s, and they both knew it. They still had to decide between them who would wear the trigger device on a lanyard around his neck. Cyrus felt that as the Extinction Wave was his idea it should be him. Otto agreed that Cyrus deserved to be the one to activate the trigger, but he did not trust Cyrus’s mood swings. The last thing they needed was for Cyrus to fly into a rage and smash it with a hammer or on a whim feed it to one of the tiger-hounds.

  That could be sorted out later.

  At the moment, however, Otto let himself become lost in the flow of Cyrus’s clever fingers as they constructed the release code and built its many variations. Otto smiled a dreamy smile as he watched this little bit of magic that would serve as the link between the dream of the New Order and its reality.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Isla D’Oro

  Sunday, August 29, 2:57 P.M.

  Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 69 hours, 3 minutes E.S.T.

  The terrain directly around the compound was less treacherous, so it only took twenty-two minutes to get into position. There was nothing from the Kid, so we waited. The next eight minutes crawled by. We listened for shouts or screams from inside the compound; we listened for gunfire; we listened for anything that would indicate that SAM had been discovered. The jungle, though far from silent, simply sounded like a jungle. And then suddenly there was a wail of a siren.

  Then SAM’s voice whispered to me, “Cowboy . . . ? Are you there?”

  “We’re here, Kid. Where are you?”

  “In the communications room. I started a fire in the laundry room at the other end of the compound. Everyone went running. I don’t have a lot of time before they come back.”

  “Then let’s move this along.”

  “All the cameras are on, but I can’t see you. Can you stand up or something?”

  “Not a chance.” But I signaled to Bunny to shake a tree. He grabbed a slender palm, gave it a couple of quick jerks, and then moved off away in case it drew fire.

  “Was that you?” the Kid asked.

  “Yes. Now what do we do?”

  “I’m the only one watching the monitors. You can rush the fence. Don’t worry; I just turned off the electricity.”

  “We’re taking you on a lot of faith. You’d better not be screwing with us, kiddo,” I said. I didn’t mention that U.S. and British warplanes would reduce this island to floating debris if this was a trap. The boy seemed to have enough to worry about.

  “I’m not. I swear.”

  “Hold tight. Here we come.”

  We came at the fence at a dead run, running in a well-spaced single file. Top reached the fence first and ran a scanner over it.

  “Power’s definitely off. No signs of mines.”

  Bunny produced a pair of long-necked nippers and began cutting the chain links. We repeated this at the second fence, then ran fast and low toward the cluster of utility sheds.

  “There’s a stone path by the sheds,” SAM said, “but the guards always make sure not to step on it. I think it’s booby-trapped.”

  Bunny flattened out by the flagstones and nodded up at me. “Pressure mines. Kid’s sharp.”

  “We get through this,” Top said, “we can chip in and buy him a puppy.”

  “Guards are coming,” SAM said in an urgent whisper. “To your right.”

  We flattened out against the sheds. I had my rifle slung and held my Beretta 92F in both hands. It was fitted with a sound suppressor that you won’t find in a gun catalog. Unlike the models on the market, this had a special polymer baffling that made it absolutely silent. Not even the nifty little pfft sound. A toy from one of Church’s friends in the industry.

  Two guards came around the corner. They were dressed in lightweight tropical shirts over cargo pants. They each carried a Heckler & Koch 416 and they were moving quickly, eyes cutting left and right with professional precision. An exterior grounds check was probably standard procedure with any emergency, and the fire SAM started must have been big enough to inspire caution.

  I shot them both in the head.

  Top and Bunny rushed out and dragged their bodies behind the sheds.

  “Holy Jeez!” the Kid said.

  “What’s our next move . . . ?”

  “There’s a door right
at the corner of the first building. All of the buildings are connected to that one by hallways. I cut the alarms on all the doors and blanked out the cameras inside the buildings.”

  “You’re making me like you, Kid. What do we do once we’re inside?”

  “Um . . . okay, there are colored lines painted on all the floors. The blue line will bring you to the communications room, but you’re going to have to go through the maintenance pod and then the common room. It’s like a big lobby, with chairs and soda machines and a coffee bar. If you go straight across that, you’ll see the colored lines start again. Keep following that.”

  “Roger that, Kid.”

  “Wait!” There was some rustling noise and then he came back, breathless. “I think they’re coming back!”

  “Can you lock yourself in until we get there?”

  “The door’s just wood. They’ll kick it in.”

  “Is your radio portable?”

  “Yes. I rigged a headset.”

  “Then get your ass out of there. Find someplace to hide. We’re going to have to make some noise.”

  “God. . . .”

  “Are there any civilians we need to worry about? Any good guys?”

  “Yes!” he said immediately. “The New Men. You’ll be able to spot them . . . they’re all dressed the same. Cotton pants and shirts with numbers on them. Please,” he begged, “don’t hurt any of them.”

  “We’ll do our best, but if they offer resistance . . .”

  “Believe me . . . they can’t.”

  He said “can’t” rather than “won’t.” Interesting.

  “Anyone else?”

  “No . . . everyone else here is involved.”

  “Then get out of there.”

  “Okay, but . . . Cowboy? Watch out for the dogs.”

  “What breed and how many?” I asked.

  But all I got from the radio was a hiss of static.

  “Okay,” I said to Bunny and Top, “pick your targets and check your fire. If anyone surrenders, let them. Otherwise, it’s Bad Day at Black Rock.”

  “Hooah,” they replied.

  “Now let’s kick some doors.”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  The Hive

  Sunday, August 29, 3:08 P.M.