Maze Master

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

  Bibi looked around the room. “What about America? Has the disease reached there?”

  Cozeba started pacing in front of the window. “Unknown. Last I heard the U.S. was at DEFCON 2. Your guess about our current state of readiness is as good as mine. Since our readiness level here in the Mediterranean is DEFCON 1, I assume America is at the same level. I consider nuclear war to be imminent.”

  Bowen said, “What about communications, General? I can’t believe that all communications are down. How close are we to reestablishing—”

  “We’re working on it.” The answer was a clipped Leave it alone.

  Logan had a momentary glimpse of what might have happened if the entire U.S. had also gone to DEFCON 1. All nuclear treaties would be worthless paper. Every branch of the military would be poised to initiate its own version of annihilation. The new border walls across Canada and Mexico would be lined with soldiers, ready to fire at anything that tried to cross. The slightest wrong move from a suspected enemy … one missile headed for the U.S.… worldwide Armageddon. Not only that, if the average soldier knew that he or she might be able to contact his family back home, the communications center would be immediately overrun.

  Which made Logan think communications between the U.S. and Malta might be ongoing at the eyes only level.

  The conference room had gone so silent the sound of moth wings against the window reminded Logan of faint rifle fire. He unconsciously flinched.

  Cozeba walked to the head of the table at Logan’s right and looked down his nose at the assembled officers. “What is the status of the whereabouts of Captain Anna Asher? Who can update me?”

  Logan licked his lips and leaned forward. “We’re still searching, General. We have no way of knowing how they’re traveling, but to avoid the plague, we assume they may have acquired a boat. We have one drone dedicated to searching the coastline between here and Egypt for two people in a boat.”

  “I want her alive. Do the teams know that? Alive.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well. It’s important that all of you get back to your duties. But first, I’m issuing new orders that no one in this room is to leave the forward section of this fortress. Is that clear? You are in quarantine. Keep in mind that every exit will be guarded—for as long as we have guards—to make sure none of you leave. I simply cannot afford to lose any more scientific personnel to LucentB. This meeting is dismissed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chairs screeched on the floor as people rose and filed out of the room. When the oak door at last closed, and they were alone, Logan swiveled his chair around and looked at Cozeba. The general didn’t meet his gaze. He continued to glare angrily at the vanished scientific team.

  “Good day, Joe.”

  When Cozeba strode for the exit, Logan said, “Matt, we have to talk.”

  “I don’t have time. I—”

  “I want five minutes. That’s all.”

  Cozeba stopped at the far end of the table, braced a hand on a chair back, and said, “Colonel, it’s not my choice to keep you in the dark. All of this is—”

  “Has LucentB reached America, Matt?”

  Cozeba hesitated, made a decision, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “So communications are not down entirely, or you wouldn’t know that.” Logan stood and spread his feet. As he clasped his hands behind his back, he vented a taut exhale. “I need to know what’s going on out there, Matt. Who’s giving the orders?”

  “I’ll tell you this much, Joe, which, honestly, is as much as I can at this point in time.”

  “All right.”

  Cozeba nodded as though they’d struck a deal. “When the CW attacks failed, we had no choice. The world was crumbling at our feet. We had to blind our enemies, before they blinded us. It was America that launched the EMPs. We took out every foreign capacity we could. It did not work as well as we’d hoped. As you know, America has spent decades shielding our military equipment, subs, ships, aircraft, and especially our missile silos and communications, from the effects of an EMP. China and Russia had, as well. Their national economies may have stopped dead, but their militaries did not.” He paused for barely a second. “Our enemies retaliated. The destruction … it’s bad. The government, however, is still functioning. The president is giving the orders.”

  Logan silently took a breath and let it out. “So the president is alive. What about the cabinet?”

  “The president, vice president, and secretary of state are all alive. The rest are gone.”

  Logan massaged his wrinkled forehead. Emotional images were striking home inside him. He could see bombs falling across the U.S. Bombs falling on his family. “It would have been nice if the Russians hadn’t smashed the massive bank of computers in the basement of this building. We could have used them.”

  “Russia is not in the habit of giving us an edge.”

  “No, they’re not. What’s happening in China? Do we know?”

  “China mobilized five hundred million soldiers in four days. Just as though they’d been preparing for this crisis for years.”

  “You mean they didn’t trust us? Who would have guessed?”

  Every object in the room suddenly seemed to take on life. When wind gusted against the windowpanes, Logan heard the cries of children and the rattle of running footsteps. Strange how terror reinterpreted the most elemental of things.

  “What’s left of America, General?”

  “Insufficient data. Now, forgive me, Joe. I really must go.”

  “Thank you, General.”

  Cozeba walked through the door, and Logan went to stare out the window. As clouds moved across the face of the sun, alternating bands of light and shadow striped the ships in the harbor.

  CHAPTER 25

  OCTOBER 12. OFF THE COAST OF EGYPT.

  At dawn, Martin dipped his oar and steered them eastward, paralleling the beach where phosphorescent sea fog, tinged pink from the rising sun, eddied. The morning had arrived quiet and still. Their threadbare canvas sail hung slack upon the mast, which is what had forced them into paddling. All around, seabirds squawked as they skimmed above the gray waves, hunting the water for breakfast.

  Martin looked at Anna, who paddled to his right. She wore a black plastic slicker over her clothing. The fog had coated it with moisture, giving it a shine. He said, “Pretty morning.”

  “Yes, it is.” She nodded, but as she studied the coastline, her mouth tightened.

  Martin took another stroke and watched the sea foam spin around his oar in lacy patterns, then he cast a glance over his shoulder at Hazor, who sat propped against the food packs near the mast, his AK across his lap. Martin and Anna wore plastic rain slickers, but not Micah Hazor. At the mouth of the Nile, while Martin had traded for slickers, Hazor had traded ammo for an oiled canvas poncho. Not only did it have big internal pockets for carrying things, it didn’t shine like their plastic slickers. When the wind came up and their plastic slickers crackled and snapped around them, Hazor’s poncho barely made a sound.

  The shore had started to curve, heading slightly northward, but he had no idea what that meant in terms of their location. They’d left the Nile and sailed out into the ocean yesterday, so they must still be off the coast of Egypt, but where exactly? He couldn’t say.

  Dolphins leaped ahead of Martin, and then sped through the water as though racing the boat. He watched them play for a time, and finally gazed eastward where mist-shrouded forms appeared and disappeared on the land.

  “What’s that?” He used his oar to point.

  Anna replied, “Buildings.”

  “I mean, what city is that?”

  When the fog shifted, a jetty became visible, followed by a large marina. Ramshackle shops dotted the pier. Though colorful flags, designed to draw in tourists, fluttered in the morning breeze, no merchants stood in the booths. The tables, however, brimmed with goods. As they paddled closer, Martin saw baskets of fresh fruit arranged on one table.

  “Don�
��t get too close.” Hazor sat up straighter in the middle of the boat, clutching his rifle across his chest. The weapon never left his hands—even when he slept, which he did most of the day. Martin had managed a good trade for the amazing combat suit: the AK-74, one thousand rounds of ammo, a heavy sack of dried backpacker meal packets—that had to be at least a decade old—and a pair of real Levi’s with the knees almost out. The Levi’s seemed to make Hazor almost as happy as the AK. His health was slowly improving. His dark skin and eyes had lost their dull, sickly appearance, but he was still weak.

  “Why not?” Martin asked. “That fresh fruit looks really good.”

  Hazor gestured with his chin. “Tables filled with food. No one around. Trap.”

  Martin studied the marina. Boats bobbed silently in their slips, or tethered to docks. A few had washed up on the shore and lay canted on their sides. “We could use a new boat, Hazor. This one is a museum piece.”

  “We’ll find another one at a safer location.”

  Martin sighed and shook his head. He feared their ancient Nile fishing boat wasn’t going to last very long in the saltwater. It had already started to creak in misery.

  “I think this is El Arish,” Anna said.

  “Really?” The news stunned Martin.

  “Pretty sure.”

  The current and tailwind had been shoving them along at a brisk pace, but if Anna was right, they’d sailed over one hundred miles. It seemed too good to be true. That meant the Gaza Strip was only about twenty or thirty miles away.

  “Surely it won’t hurt to get a little closer to shore,” Martin suggested. “Just to take a good look. The marina seems empty. If it is, we can think about restocking our food supplies.”

  “Bad idea,” Hazor said.

  Martin swiveled around to look at him. Hazor’s beard had turned scraggly. The guy was obviously just being cautious, but Martin saw nothing to justify it. “Just bear with me, Hazor. If that food has been abandoned—”

  “Extremely unlikely, Professor.” Hazor used an open palm to gesture to the stuffed packs where he perched with his AK-74. “Besides, we have plenty of supplies. Where will we put more if we obtain it?”

  “Well, if I had my way, we’d put them in our new bigger boat,” Martin said to press his concerns home. “Keep in mind, if we bypass these fresh fruits and vegetables, there’s no telling when, or if, we will see anything like this again.”

  Hazor gave Martin a curious look. “Has it occurred to you that your new boat may be contaminated with the plague? At least this boat is free of the disease, and we know it. Until we understand the range of the plague, and we can—”

  “I agree with Martin,” Anna interrupted. “If there’s a chance this is safe, let’s stock up with vegetables and fruit while we can. But I think we should also keep our exposure to a minimum. Only one of us will go ashore. Me. And I won’t touch anything I don’t have to.”

  Hazor’s mouth pressed into a white line, but his objections ceased as though a switch had been flipped off. Clearly he considered Anna to be in command—which Martin found more than a little interesting. Why would Captain Hazor yield command so easily to someone he barely knew? But as Martin thought about it, why wouldn’t he? Hazor was injured and frail. Anna was the only military person here who was fit to command.

  Martin and Anna paddled through a break in the jetty, heading for the marina. Rusting trucks and cars littered the coastal highway. At this time of day, traffic should be picking up. Lights should gleam in the distant houses as people readied themselves for work. He saw only dark windows. But he heard donkeys braying and dogs barking. A few roosters crowed to announce the first rays of sunlight.

  “Do you think they’re all dead?” Anna asked.

  “Looks like it,” Martin said.

  Hazor reached for one of the canteens that rested on the packs. While he unscrewed the lid and took a drink, his gaze held Martin’s. It wasn’t hostile, just very worried. Hazor took another drink, screwed the lid on the canteen, and shifted positions. They’d been mixing the dried meals with water, letting it hydrate, then eating it with their first two fingers the way Arabs did. Every meal tasted like shredded cardboard. The thought of fresh fruit left his mouth watering.

  Anna’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “Martin? Hazor may be right.”

  He squinted at the empty winding streets and lack of humanity. “Why? What do you see?”

  “Nothing, I just … I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  “Trap,” Hazor repeated.

  As the sun rose above the eastern horizon, golden light glared through the fog. Martin pulled his recently acquired fedora low over his forehead, and kept stroking for shore. Blond hair stuck out around his ears. He imagined he looked a little like a hippie Indiana Jones.

  “So far, I don’t see anything threatening,” Martin replied.

  Hazor countered, “If I were you, I’d be far more worried about what I can’t see.”

  “You mean like the plague virus?”

  Anna glanced back at Hazor. Her expression had gone granite hard, as if she and Hazor shared some strategic understanding that a person who’d never been in the military—like Martin—could not. His belly muscles tightened. His great-uncles, the men who’d served in ’Nam, had shared a weird sixth sense when it came to danger. Martin recalled one time in high school when his Uncle Keith had told him not to go out with the boys that night. For some reason, Martin had listened to him. His friends had been hit by a pickup truck doing eighty. Two had died.

  A string of tables filled with sacks of grain came into view. Martin stared at them. Bags of grain would last years—though, of course, that wouldn’t be necessary. Martin was fairly certain that once they got to Europe, they would discover a safe world again. Surely the medical communities of First World countries had gotten the plague under control by now. Memories of sidewalk cafés in Rome sprang to mind. Vivid flavors of garlic pasta and great wine filled his mouth, which made him smile. Over the past few days, he’d found himself desperately craving the amenities of civilization.

  “Captain Asher?” Hazor gripped his AK and tipped his chin. “See them?”

  Martin followed Hazor’s intense gaze. Four men stood between two booths with machine guns cradled in their arms. They wore distinctive black-and-white camo. They waved and shouted menacingly.

  “Who are they?” Martin asked. “Are they speaking—”

  “Russian,” Hazor and Anna responded at the same time. Hazor gave Anna a curious side glance, before continuing: “They’re telling us to stay away, or we’ll be shot.”

  Anna said, “What’s Russian military doing in Egypt?”

  “At this moment? Guarding their supplies.”

  Anna shipped her paddle and turned all the way around to face Hazor. “Russian imperialism in action? They’re taking over the world?”

  “Maybe the plague pushed them out of their own country.”

  The Russians shouted something else.

  Hazor stood up in the boat, making certain the Russians could see that he was armed, and shouted back in Russian. He listened to their reply, and said, “They ordered us to row back out to sea. I told them we would. Let’s do it. Quickly.” He sat down again.

  Martin and Anna dipped their paddles and dug deep, sending the boat slicing across the still water inside the jetty and back out into the bucking waves. When they were a full kilometer from the coastline, the fog thickened again and devoured the land. Quiet prevailed. Martin listened to the waves slapping the hull. Occasionally, sea gulls squawked as they flew overhead.

  As he stroked for open ocean, Martin’s brain worked overtime. Had war broken out between Israel and her neighbors? If so, Russians would have supported Iran and Syria. That might explain their presence this far south.

  Ten minutes later, debris appeared. Chunks of metal bobbed on the water ahead. “What’s that?” He pointed with his paddle.

  “Let’s get closer.”

  Finally, Anna reached
out to pull in a floating object that turned out to be a fragment of airplane fuselage. Martin took it and examined it, trying to find evidence of where it had been manufactured. Dread filled him. Was it American? He found nothing to tell him, and handed the piece to Hazor.

  “Blown out of the sky by Russians?”

  Anna didn’t answer. Her gaze had riveted on something in the water ahead. “There’s a body.”

  The bloated corpse of a woman rode the swells.

  “Passenger?”

  “Possibly.”

  In a matter of moments, an entire flotilla of dead bodies rode the swells ahead of them. As they paddled through the floating graveyard, hundreds undulated past, along with chunks of foam insulation, seat cushions, and an occasional piece of luggage. One man’s legs had been stripped of flesh; the bones swam in the water after him like a perverse fish tail, seemingly guiding his course to shore. The dead children affected Martin the most. Their waterlogged faces looked so peaceful. White-blond hair haloed their heads, shining like corn silk in the newborn light.

  “Are they Scandinavian?” Martin asked. Horror had left him slightly lightheaded. “Look at their pale hair and skin.”

  Hazor responded, “Russian soldiers in Egypt and now dead Scandinavians floating in the ocean?”

  Almost too low to hear, Anna murmured, “Come on. Let’s get as far away from this place as we can.”

  As they threaded the boat through the swollen bodies, Hazor said, “Where’d you learn to speak Russian? It’s not an easy language.”

  “On-the-job training. I was captured once on a mission in Kazakhstan. Russian prisons give you a surprising amount of time to study the language.”

  Martin jerked around to peer at her with surprise in his eyes. That was news to him.

  Hazor waited for some kind of conversation between them. When it didn’t happen, he said, “Yes. They do.”

  CHAPTER 26

  OCTOBER 13.

  By noon, the wind had picked up, and they set their tattered sail so that the boat skimmed across the waves, heading in a northerly direction. Micah granted himself the luxury of enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face. The fresh air seemed especially pleasant today. He didn’t want to think of anything dire. The color of the water had turned turquoise, and it calmed him to watch the squawking seabirds fluttering around the sail. Occasionally, a gull perched on the mast as though grateful to have a high point to survey its fishing prospects.