Maze Master

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

  “Is the plague worldwide, Anna?”

  He had such an expressive voice, though she doubted he realized it, or he’d probably try to change it. The answer to his question was ashes in her mouth. Spiritual suffering was always characterized by feelings of abandonment, isolation, and a sensation of unbearable futility. He’d managed to encapsulate that anguish in five small words.

  “If it isn’t already, it will be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Hakari said it would spread around the globe.”

  “But he couldn’t possibly know that. Could he?”

  She held his gaze. “He had an amazing ability to foresee the probable courses that genetic mutations would take. Though not even James could have predicted how quickly this virus is moving.”

  Hazor looked away and sadness filled her.

  She scanned the dark dunes again, feeling isolated and alone. Are you alive, Yacob? Where are you tonight?

  Micah Hazor turned back. “Anna, what turned you against the military?”

  She stiffened. “I never turned against the military.”

  “Why didn’t you share your findings with your superiors?”

  “I didn’t share my information with anyone, except Martin, and then only pieces of it, because I needed his help to decipher the maze.”

  Hazor shook his head. “I don’t get it. If you’d reported your findings, the best minds in the world could have worked—”

  “If I’d revealed the goal of my search, the military would have found the Egyptian cave, stripped it bare, and destroyed everything in a headlong rush to discover what I was searching for.”

  “But you weren’t looking for the historical Marham-i-Isa, so why would it have mattered?”

  As if that velvet voice could weave visions, she had a momentary flash of how he saw her, and it was like a bayonet thrust to her belly. “Do you really blindly trust the military, Micah?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then try to understand. I need to figure this out before I decide whom to trust.”

  His jaw moved, grinding his teeth for a while. “We’re not headed home are we?”

  “Sure we are.”

  “I don’t think so. When we came out of the Nile, we should have headed west and followed the African coastline to Spain. We didn’t.”

  “No, but I was hoping…” Don’t lie. He’ll know. “Okay, the truth is I was supposed to meet a man at Bir Bashan. He wasn’t there. Plan B was to meet at El Karnak. He wasn’t there, either. Plan C was to meet in Israel. That’s why we headed east instead of west. But we are headed home. Eventually.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  Emptiness yawned in her chest. “No. Not yet. If he were alive he would have signaled me from shore near Ashkelon. Which makes me think he may be dead. I don’t want to believe it, though.”

  “What was Plan D?”

  “There wasn’t a Plan D,” she lied.

  And their gazes collided like the clash of swords. But after a few seconds, his disdainful expression melted to something like understanding.

  “I wouldn’t reveal that, either, Anna. Keep in mind, I’m trying, but it’s not easy to place myself in your shoes, wondering what I’d do if I knew the secrets that you do.”

  “You’re a patriot. I know exactly what you’d do. Everything you could to keep the information out of the hands of the power brokers until you were sure it wouldn’t be misused.”

  “Wouldn’t be or couldn’t be? I’m not sure the first is ever possible. Especially if it’s a cure for this plague. Nations will want it for their own people, and they may not be willing to share, especially with their opponents. The plague will provide a very convenient method of erasing their enemies from existence.”

  “Now you’re thinking. Welcome to my world, Captain. Hakari feared the same thing.”

  Hazor pulled the AK beneath his poncho to keep it dry and took another grip on the stock. He knew as well as she did that if something could be used as a weapon, it would be.

  Anna rose to her feet and searched the beach and the ocean for movement, or any sign of impending doom. She felt something out there in the darkness, waiting, and started to walk away. “I need to check the perimeter.”

  Before she’d taken three steps, Hazor called, “You can trust me.”

  She looked back at him. His body glimmered, reflecting the distant lightning.

  “Can I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it. Truly.”

  He gave her a disbelieving smile. “Why don’t you start by telling me where it is?”

  “What?”

  “The historical Marham-i-Isa. You found it in that cave. I can tell. Is it here in camp?”

  She considered lying to him, but he read facial expressions too well.

  “Yes. It’s in a small wax-sealed jar in Martin’s pack. But whatever is in that jar will not be the whole truth. That would be too easy.” For the Maze Master.

  Hazor’s dark eyes glistened with starlight. “And who first noticed the Golden Ratio?”

  She flinched before she could stop herself. He was piecing it together more swiftly than she’d thought he would. “It’s old. In written records the Golden Ratio, 1.618, can be traced to an ancient Greek sculptor named Phidias, who lived from 490 to 430 BC. When Phidias sculpted the famed statue of Zeus in the Temple of Olympia, and when he worked on the Parthenon in Athens, he repeatedly used a ratio of about 1.618. Phi is the first letter of Phidias’s name, hence phi became the symbol for the Golden Ratio. For millennia, architects have identified what they believe to be the most perfectly shaped rectangle, often referred to as the Golden Rectangle, because it has a ratio of just about phi. That’s why ancient philosophers believed the Golden Ratio revealed the mind of God, and why it was called the Divine Proportion.”

  He frowned as though he thought the entire discussion might be a distraction. “What does phi have to do with the maze? Is it just about the shape?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Yet.”

  A strange kinship had arisen between them. She smiled back … and had to remind herself that her enemies had probably inoculated this man. She had no idea what his role was in the upcoming battle. Her own fears, doubts, and half-convictions tightened her throat. “Quid pro quo, Micah.”

  He shifted, uneasy. “Okay.”

  “What else have you remembered about the battle where you almost died? What was your mission?”

  His smile faded. He was debating whether or not to tell her. She could see it in his eyes.

  “We were tasked by the Joint Chiefs with capturing an extremist named Taran Beth-Gilgal in Bir Bashan. Supposedly he was planning on dispersing the plague in Africa.”

  Anna thought about that. “I met him. I find that hard to believe, but I’m sure that’s what the brass told you.”

  Had the government been afraid of something Taran knew, or something he might do?

  “I wonder…” Her voice thinned to nothing as her heartbeat quickened.

  “What?”

  “I just had an intriguing thought. General Cozeba may have feared Taran would kill me before I could discover the secret.”

  “Cozeba?”

  “Yes. Cozeba was in charge at Bir Bashan. He’s a narcissistic psychopath. As well as a true military genius.”

  Hazor tilted his head suspiciously. “How do you know who was in charge at Bir Bashan?”

  “He’s currently assigned to the NSA, African covert ops. His specialty is finding and eliminating extremist training camps in Africa, and anyone who supports them. He gets a real kick out of toppling governments. Remember the coup in Zimbabwe three years ago? That was his work.”

  Hazor bent toward her with a stony expression. “Why would Beth-Gilgal want to kill you?”

  Conflicting emotions moved across his face: a magnetic attraction to her, fear, desperation. The longer they gazed at each other, the more loudly blood rushed in her ears. For
a blessed timeless moment Anna allowed herself to drown in the safety he offered. Every line of his face assured her that she could trust him.

  She tore her gaze away and looked up at the stars. “For two thousand years, Taran’s order has killed anyone who’s tried to enter the Cave of the Treasure of Light, the cave that held the Marham-i-Isa. The CIA and FBI knew that was my destination. They just didn’t know where the cave was.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She pursed her lips at his stupidity.

  “Oh, right.” He laughed at himself. “You’re a master code breaker. You decrypted the CIA’s and FBI’s internal correspondence. My next question is: How did they know? Did you tell them that was your destination?”

  She breathed in the stormy headiness of the night. The scent of ozone carried from the lightning flashes. Like the breath of a ghost, the breeze whipped loose strands of her auburn hair around her face. Hazor’s gaze briefly softened.

  “Oh, I see,” he said. “You wanted them to follow you. Why?”

  “It was necessary.”

  Rain blew across the beach in shining windborne veils. She watched them while Hazor watched her.

  “Then my team’s mission may actually have been to protect you. Is that possible?”

  Interesting thought. A long time ago, she had fancied herself to be a magician—a mage of symbols and numbers, with an almost alchemical capacity to decipher any secret, anywhere. She followed out sequences. That’s what she did. She deciphered the path of the falling dominoes to determine what they were designed to knock down. Then why hadn’t she seen Cozeba’s move against Taran?

  “Micah, how did you get from Bir Bashan to El Karnak?”

  Through a taut exhale, he answered, “I have no idea.”

  She gestured to his wrist. “What have you remembered about your inoculation? Who inoculated you?”

  “That part of my memory is still gone. Sorry.”

  Orange flared far out in the ocean. A very large mushroom of fire. Hazor pivoted to look. Long heartbeats later, the muted booms reached them, and the clouds above the explosion flickered.

  She rose to her feet. “Try to get some sleep, Captain.”

  CHAPTER 36

  OCTOBER 19. 0500 HOURS. MALTA.

  Joe Logan paced back and forth through the dim strips of window light. His camo clothing was clean, but unpressed. The solar lamp cast a faint bluish gleam around the room.

  General Cozeba stood at one of the windows to Logan’s right, watching the wavering sheets of rain that swept across Malta. The temperature had dropped ten degrees in the past hour. The stone room seemed to breathe cold. Standing at ease, the general had his hands clasped behind his back.

  Captain Maris Bowen nervously shuffled the papers on the table in front of her.

  “Go on,” Logan said. “You called this meeting.”

  Bowen placed a hand on the printouts, as though protecting them. “We did not find evidence of the ghosts, Colonel. However, it is a retrovirus. Every member of Hazor’s team was infected. If they hadn’t died outside of Bir Bashan, they would have shortly thereafter.”

  Cozeba kept his back to them, but he exhaled, annoyed. “That’s old news, Captain. We’ve known for months that it’s a retrovirus.”

  “Yes,” Bowen said with a sigh. “But did you know that it’s a fossil virus that comes from Denisovans?”

  Logan glanced at Cozeba to see if he understood. The general didn’t even blink, just kept staring out the window. Logan said, “What the hell is a Denisovan?”

  “Sorry, sir,” Bowen said. “Denisovans are ancient Siberians. Closely related to Neandertals. They went extinct around thirty thousand years ago.”

  “Then how did we get it?”

  “Sex between Neandertals, Denisovans, and modern humans left many varieties of HERV-K in our genome. They passed them on to us.”

  Logan roughly folded his arms across his chest. “Dear God, how many of these hidden viruses are there?”

  “We currently think that about eight percent of human DNA is composed of fossil virus fragments, Colonel.”

  “Eight percent! You mean we have these things lurking in our DNA, just waiting to eat us alive?”

  Cozeba actually turned away from the window to stare at Bowen, but his face showed no emotion whatsoever.

  “No,” Bowen said. “I mean, well, maybe, but not likely. They are harmless, or even beneficial, unless something triggers—”

  “LucentB isn’t harmless.”

  “Obviously not.” Bowen was starting to get frustrated.

  Logan forced a deep breath, willing himself to be patient. They were all hung out pretty far, living on the ragged edge of oblivion. Bowen had closed her eyes and was massaging her forehead.

  “Explain, Captain.”

  “Sir, for years we thought all fossil virus fragments were harmless. There were no known infectious members of the HERV-K family, which led us to believe they were just interesting curiosities in our DNA. We thought they were incapable of causing infection. Recently, however, several studies have suggested that HERV-K may be implicated in autoimmune diseases like MS, as well as sudden onset schizophrenia, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and many other cancers, even HIV. A report in 2007 suggested that HIV caused HERV to express itself, to become active in HIV-infected cells. Another study in 2017—”

  “Wait a minute.” Logan’s bushy brows knitted over his crystal-blue eyes in a way that he knew terrified his staff. Bowen winced. “That’s a lot of information that doesn’t tell me a goddamn thing. What are you getting at? Why did this ancient HERV-K virus suddenly resurrect?”

  Bowen’s face picked up the bluish tint of the solar lamps. “Something triggered replication, maybe filled in the code, sir. Might have been an epigenetic trigger.”

  Logan’s gaze lanced through her like a hot knife.

  “I apologize, sir. Epigenetics is the study of how and why genes turn off and on. In this case, there are a wide variety of possible triggers.”

  “For example?”

  “Insufficient information.”

  “Spec-u-late.” Logan turned it into three words.

  The muscles in Bowen’s arms contracted, bulging through her shirt. “I—I don’t … I mean, the trigger could be related to the changing climate. As viruses try to survive heat waves or cold spells, they pull the genes they need from other viruses. It’s ordinary evolution. Maybe—maybe”—Bowen raised her voice, which made Logan’s eyes narrow—“the gaps in the retrovirus code were filled in and became active because of interaction with another virus—which could be anything. A flu virus, for example. Just as HIV triggers HERV to express itself, the unknown virus could be the trigger for the creation of the HERV-K form of LucentB.”

  Cozeba strode forward, pulled out a chair, and sat down at the end of the table. “It’s killed billions, Doctor. I need to know how to stop it. I expect you to find a way to turn it off.”

  Bowen laughed as though the general had just asked her to rope the moon and pull it down.

  “Sir, if I had a sophisticated genetics lab at my disposal, it might be possible to create an antiviral therapy that would disable the virus, but without such a lab, I guarantee you no one can.”

  The muscles at the corner of Cozeba’s right eye started to twitch. “Are you telling me that despite the precious time I gave you in the Mead’s lab, you have no idea how to stop it?”

  Bowen nodded. “At this point in time, with our limited facilities … I don’t see how.”

  The soft sound of rain pattering against the windowpanes filled the stone room. Just like in combat situations, the human brain attempted to cope with epic tragedies as best it knew how. Unimaginable defense mechanisms kicked in as the individual struggled to deny conclusions that forced themselves upon the conscious mind. It took time to sort them out. Especially when the magnitude of the tragedy was almost inconceivable.

  Slowly, Logan’s grimace relaxed as the ramifications filtered through h
is emotional haze. He pointed a stern finger at Bowen. “Do you realize what you’re suggesting?”

  Bravely, she said, “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Well, let’s get it out in the open so we’re all clear. What you’re saying is that the resurrection of this retrovirus has nothing to do with evil Chinese geneticists. It’s either environmental or viral, maybe just evolution taking its course. Which means that the U.S. military murdered millions to establish quarantine zones in what was essentially misinformed folly.”

  “Yes,” Maris said.

  “So, Mount of Olives was not a heroic last-ditch effort to save humanity, but a holocaust that will make Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin look like amateurs.”

  Maris hesitated, as though she wanted to say something even more damning. Instead, she quietly replied, “Yes, sir.”

  Clenching and unclenching his fists, Logan paused to gather his wits about him. He’d been under enormous stress. Just caring for their own dying troops and feeding those still alive was proving to be the greatest challenge of his career. He had organized convoys to ransack every building on Malta searching for food, sent out fishing and hunting teams, and resorted to stripping the European coastline of what little food existed, all to feed his troops. But he’d been hoping …

  Cozeba leaned toward Bowen. “What did you learn from the German scientific papers? Anything useful?”

  Bowen quietly said, “Sir, they thought they’d accidentally created LucentB in their lab while experimenting with fragments of ancient genomes. They did not. But they wasted a lot of time trying to ease their own consciences. After considerable thought, my best guess is that LucentB is probably the natural outcome of HERV-K’s evolution. We’ve known for years that if the climate really were changing, a wealth of new diseases would be born. By mutating, LucentB may be struggling to save itself. In the process, it’s created a disease that’s killing us.”

  “Dear God, who could have ever anticipated this kind of devastation?” Logan asked.