Maze Master

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

  “There are lots of theories. It may have mixed with another virus to acquire the lethal mutation that switched it—”

  “I thought the Chinese engineered it?”

  Maris gave a faint shake of the head. “Start at zero, Zandra. Forget all the diversionary garbage Cozeba told us. Assume, for the moment, that this is just evolution taking its course. Through a random series of insertions and deletions the HERV-K sequence mutated into a form that required just a little push to become lethal. Out of the blue, something gave it that push and activated it. There may be no Chinese involvement.”

  “But the ghosts—”

  “I don’t know how to explain them yet. But none of the things Cozeba told us are necessary to explain LucentB. No bizarre Chinese genetic experiments, no secret U.S. projects. Just Mother Nature at work trying to figure out what to do with a changing planet.”

  Zandra spent a few moments filtering conclusions. “You’re saying Cozeba lied to us about everything?”

  “Maybe not everything, but…”

  Zandra’s gaze scanned the room, paying special attention to the shadows. Though she’d repeatedly searched and found nothing, she had not ruled out the possibility that all of their quarters were being surveilled, and she knew Cozeba would be furious if he ever got word of this discussion. “What goal would lies serve?”

  “Unknown. Maybe to shield a covert op? Maybe to cover his own mistakes?”

  Over the past few minutes, Zandra had grown increasingly photosensitive, which meant she had a migraine building. The blue gleam of her computer had turned into a knife, stabbing behind her right eye with brutal intent. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I do not find it hard to believe that Cozeba is engaged in some serious bullshit. I’ve worked with the general for five years. He’s a slimy bastard. So. If he’s blaming the Chinese to shift attention away from himself, he’s probably buying time to cover his own ass.”

  “I agree, Zandra. I can feel it in my bones.” Maris shifted her shoulder and winced as though it hurt.

  “Long hours in front of a microscope, eh?”

  Maris nodded. “Put all this together for me, will you?” She extended her hands and started counting on her fingers. “Anna Asher is trying to find an ancient medical cure which leads her to a cave in Egypt. We analyze everything in the cave and the only interesting thing is an ossuary that contains the bones of an old woman, who died around 1330 BC, and a thirty-four-thousand-year-old Neandertal or Denisovan child. Morphologically the boy could have been either. The boy has lesions in his skull that are very similar to those of LucentB victims. Then we discover that the HERV-K virus that causes LucentB dates to the time of the boy’s death, thirty-four thousand years ago.” She gritted her teeth for several moments, setting her jaw at an angle. “I’m starting to consider bizarre possibilities.”

  Zandra’s belly muscles tightened—anything similar to my puzzling hypothesis about a 300-qubit quantum device? “For example?”

  Maris closed her eyes and rubbed them. “I know this sounds insane, but I’m convinced that someone left the clues in that cave that would allow us to stop LucentB. Someone really scared.”

  “Or he’s a sick son of a bitch. Why didn’t he just call us up and tell us?”

  Maris opened her eyes. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could give me some ideas.”

  “Well, I need time to think about it. My brain is numb. I’ve been staring at my computer screen for so long that all I see are strings of bits running across the backs of my eyeballs.”

  Is there some “spooky” connection here?

  “There’s one other thing, Zandra. I tried to get DNA from the old woman’s bones. The results were degraded, fragmentary, but I think she died from a similar HERV-K retrovirus. The genetic sequence was different in a number of key areas from the boy’s, but that could be accounted for by the evolutionary mutation rate.”

  Zandra could tell that Maris was hesitating, not sure she wanted to present the rest of her hypothesis. “I hear a question coming. What is it?”

  Maris gave her a pleading look. “This is going to sound like a crazy hypothesis to you. I know I’m grasping at straws, but play along for a while, will you?”

  Zandra smiled. “Absolutely.”

  “Okay,” she exhaled the word. “Why did we find the bones of two LucentB victims from two different time periods in the same ossuary? Anna Asher’s former teacher, Dr. James Hakari, put them there.”

  “Hakari? What makes you think it was him?”

  “The guy was absolutely brilliant, he—”

  “I know. I wouldn’t be sitting here in front of a 150-qubit quantum computer without him. He pioneered quantum cryptography.”

  “He was also a genius geneticist. Do you know that just before the government captured him, he was working on deciphering the ancestral form of the HERV-K virus? He believed it was the key to stopping diseases like cancer, schizophrenia, neurodegenerative disorders, and a host of other illnesses. He said if he could find the earliest form of HERV-K, he could create a vaccine that would stop every form of the virus. Kind of like developing a lifetime vaccine for the flu. He published one theoretical paper on it before we locked him up.”

  “That doesn’t sound crazy. What’s your crazy hypothesis?”

  Maris took a breath before she answered. “Maybe Hakari put the bones in the ossuary to show us the trail of specific mutations that lead from LucentB all the way back through time to the ancestral form of HERV-K.”

  Hope filled her voice, and it went straight to Zandra’s heart. Quietly, she said, “Too bad we locked him up in a mental institution. If he’d been in a lab, he might have had time to develop a vaccine—”

  “Who says he didn’t? I’m fairly sure that’s the cure Anna Asher was searching for in that cave.”

  Zandra’s heart seemed to miss a beat. “You think she found it?”

  “Possibly.” Maris hung her head as though in defeat and blinked at the floor. “I wish I’d had a chance to read all the documents from the genetics lab where the French student worked before Cozeba took them back. I think that lab knew far more than we’ve been told.”

  She’d said the words without a shred of awareness that she’d just dropped a bombshell. “What documents?”

  Maris frowned. “The notes of the researchers in Leipzig. I thought that’s why Cozeba took them away from us. So you, and others, could read them.”

  “I haven’t seen them.”

  “Well, maybe you’re next on the list.”

  “How long has he had these documents? If Cozeba did not share critical documents with his entire scientific team—”

  “Apparently, the documents were just discovered in Germany.”

  “We’re communicating with teams in Germany? How? I’m certainly not sending any messages to Germany.”

  Maris shrugged. “All I know is the documents support the hypothesis that there’s no way to stop the plague. Not without Hakari.”

  All the tendrils of hope that had been twining around Zandra’s heart suddenly withered to dust. Her daughter’s sweet face appeared and disappeared behind her eyes, followed by flashes of her husband’s loving eyes. “Are you sure?”

  Maris shook her head. “Pretty sure.”

  “Never say never, Maris.”

  “I won’t.” She clamped her jaw for a time, before she turned to look at Zandra’s computer screen. “Okay, your turn. What’s your problem?”

  Zandra laughed. “I think the sequence on the screen behind me is some kind of quantum message that I’m too stupid to figure out.”

  Maris’s brows lowered. “Quantum encryption isn’t my expertise. You need Anna Asher. In-house they called her the Magician. She could decipher any code. I remember once when we…”

  Heavy boots sounded in the hallway outside, soldiers running. Someone pounded on Zandra’s door. “Major Bibi? This is Private Wesson. Is Captain Bowen in there with you?”

  “Yes, Private, come—”


  The door burst open and four men with M-16s entered and surrounded them. Zandra slowly rose from her chair with her arms wide. “Private, you’d better explain yourself fast.”

  The man looked scared. “Sorry, Major, but I have orders to take Captain Bowen to the quarantine camp outside the fort.”

  “Outside the fort?” Maris said as she slid off Zandra’s desk and stood up. “Why?”

  “Private Madison, your guard aboard the Mead, just fell ill with LucentB, Captain,” Wesson said bluntly. “General Cozeba is afraid you may have contracted the disease from him, or while you were aboard.”

  Zandra couldn’t stop herself; as fear began to pump hotly through her veins, she leaped backward away from Maris. “Oh, my God.”

  Maris’s expression slackened. She stared at Wesson. “But, the quarantine camp is filled with soldiers dying from the plague. If I do not have the disease, and you put me in there—”

  “The general thought you might feel that way.” Wesson gestured to his soldiers, and they aimed their rifles at Maris. “He asked me to inform you that you will not be placed with the dying, but in the monitoring tent just outside the fenced camp. Please walk to the door.”

  Maris looked at Zandra and gave her a small smile. “Don’t let me down, Zandra. I expect you to figure this out.” She walked out the door with three soldiers escorting her.

  When she was gone, Wesson turned to Zandra. “Are you all right, Major?”

  She cocked her head curiously. “Aren’t you taking me, too? I have been in contact with Captain Bowen.”

  “A sterilization team will be here in a few moments to cleanse everything in your chamber, Major. Then we will be moving you to new quarters. General Cozeba says he cannot lose you. Not now.”

  Wesson saluted, and hurried for the door. He quietly closed it behind him.

  Zandra stood breathing hard, staring at the massive hinges on the door. They appeared wet and shiny. A shiver went through her. She turned back to gaze at her screen. Still running bits.

  Cozeba needs me to communicate with President Stein. That’s the only reason …

  She numbly walked to her bed and sank down atop the gray blanket, too frightened to return to the table where Maris had been sitting.

  After a few stunned moments, she got up and strode for the door. As her panic intensified, she broke into a run, dashing headlong down the long hall to get as far from her infected chamber as she could.

  CHAPTER 41

  OCTOBER 20. 1600 HOURS. ATLANTA, GEORGIA.

  The warm breeze blew across the wavering fields of grain and stirred Garusovsky’s white hair where he stood on the hilltop. He tapped the screen on his computer to shut off the power and tucked the device back in his coat pocket, then granted himself a few moments to watch the wind’s path move through the wheat like enormous invisible serpents.

  It reminded him of home. Or, rather, the home he remembered before the plague. Desolation filled him when he thought of his beautiful fields and two-story home built of golden sandstone that gleamed like honey at sunset. Of course, none of it existed now.

  Far down the highway he could see the empty dark towers of downtown Atlanta. He tipped his head contemplatively. Ten years from now, the towers would be overgrown and starting to sag. In fifty years, they would be ruins, habitats for mice and cockroaches. Only the most evolutionarily hardy animals would survive in the world to come.

  Garusovsky cast a glance over his shoulder. HazMat-suited soldiers climbed the hill below with Borodino.

  Garusovsky nodded when Borodino approached. “We have accomplished our mission, General.”

  “Show me.” He held out a gloved hand.

  Borodino extended the research papers encased in the individual transparent bags that they’d gathered from the Primate Center.

  Garusovsky took them and flipped through them. He had only a vague understanding of what the researchers had been discussing, but it would impress Cozeba. And he wished to do that. Garusovsky and Cozeba went way back. When Russia had finally decided it had to grow or die, it was Cozeba who’d been its archenemy, fighting Russia at every turn, cutting off its money supply, throwing Russia into a depression, starving the Russian people. Garusovsky disliked many people, but there was only one man he absolutely despised. Cozeba. That’s why, he was certain, Cozeba was now sitting on Malta. Malta had been one of their battlegrounds. Russia had needed the island as a military staging ground, especially for sensitive interrogations, and despite Cozeba’s best efforts, Russia had taken the island. Now Cozeba had taken it back. At this instant, he was probably smugly sitting in Garusovsky’s office with his feet propped on Garusovsky’s desk. Still, sometimes a man had to work with his enemy.

  “General?” Borodino said, and gestured to the documents. “They understood the link. They had traced the virus back five million years.”

  “They’re all dead, Lieutenant, which means that knowledge did them no good. That should be perfectly clear.”

  Borodino expelled a breath. “Yes, General, but I still think there may be valuable information here that will help us.”

  Garusovsky slowly straightened to his full height and clutched the report to his breast. He momentarily tugged his silver hood in frustration. “Is the American that we inoculated with the experimental vaccine still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “If he dies, our only hope rests with Anna Asher?”

  “I believe that is correct.”

  As Garusovsky turned to Borodino, his protective suit reflected the sunlight like a shimmering leaden sea. “Where is she?”

  “In a helicopter heading for the island of Malta.”

  Garusovsky searched the dejected faces of his men. He suspected that continuing this futile search was a mistake. He had not given up hope, not by any means, but there were limits to what men could stand. So many disappointments sapped the will to survive, and he could see it in his men’s eyes.

  “Very well. We will need more troops for Malta. Fortunately, Lieutenant, thanks to your vaccine, we still have troops.”

  “So far, but it won’t last.”

  CHAPTER 42

  OCTOBER 21. 1300 HOURS.

  “Echo One, this is Tango Zulu. Arrival in approximately ten minutes, over,” the helicopter pilot called on his radio, waking Micah where he’d been dozing beside Anna.

  “Affirmative, Buckner,” the radio operator replied, and it relieved Micah that communications seemed to be up and running—at least for the military. “You are instructed to set down on the upper plaza and await further orders.”

  Micah straightened in his harness and yawned, wondering where they were. Through the cockpit windows, he could see vast ocean and sky, but no land.

  “Roger that, base. Tango Zulu out.”

  The copilot said something Micah couldn’t hear and shook his head. The pilot responded with a shrug of what looked like confusion. Gallia noticed, too. The sergeant unhooked his harness, and quietly walked forward to speak with Buckner. In the sunlight streaming into the cockpit, his khakis had an amber hue. At some point, the windows had suffered an impact. The one visible to Gallia’s right was spiderwebbed with tiny cracks that glittered. The pilot reached down to the instrument panel and flicked a switch. Green lights twinkled in response.

  Across the chopper, the marines had their shaved heads together, discussing something. They kept glancing at Micah and Anna.

  Micah gave them a friendly nod, but he felt like he’d somehow entered a state of suspended animation. What alarmed him was how sluggishly his brain was processing the data. He’d seen the debris clouds and massive bombing campaign, yet he felt no fear or sense of urgency, just a distant awareness that the world was dying, and he could do nothing to stop it. He wondered if the Hiroshima survivors had felt this same numb sense of utter despair.

  Sergeant Gallia peered out the window behind him. In his early twenties, he was stocky and overly muscular. He must pump iron all day. After a minute of looking out
the small window, he said, “There it is.”

  The other marines turned to look. A tall African American said, “Finally,” in a relieved voice, and a hushed conversation broke out.

  Obviously, they would arrive soon. Micah just had no idea what that meant. As far as he could tell, the helicopter was jostling its way across a vast expanse of empty Mediterranean Sea.

  He sat up to see if he could spot anything through the cockpit windows, and woke Anna, who’d been sleeping, slumped in her harness next to him. She’d had a tough few hours, constantly jerking and moaning in her sleep, repeating Yacob and James, as though locked in horrific nightmares.

  At last, she straightened and rubbed one eye with the back of her bound hands as though surprised to find herself in the belly of a helicopter. Auburn hair curled around her face.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  As the chopper descended, an island came into view. Or rather, three islands strung together, the largest to the south, the smallest in the middle. A city gleamed on the east side of the larger island.

  After a few seconds of blinking herself awake, Anna stared as though in awe. “Malta. I don’t believe it.” Her eyes were narrowed and stony, but a slight tremor shook her voice. “The city you see is Valletta.”

  Micah tilted his head curiously. “You’ve been here?”

  “Yes.” As though they hurt, she shifted her bound hands to a different position, and Micah noticed the rings of dried blood where the plastic ties had cut into her wrists.

  “Why would a cryptographer come to Malta?”

  “The first time? Mystical geometry. Four years ago, I came here with Hakari. We were trying to understand the secrets of the prehistoric and historic sites. Hakari was convinced the Knights of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, who built the fort, understood the Divine Word, and he—”

  The helicopter banked right and swung around. Bucking air currents, it flopped up and down like a wounded seagull. When the harbor came into view, filled with maybe fifty sunlit U.S. warships and several submarines, Micah found himself frantically searching for sailors. Someone should be on deck doing maintenance, repair, or just cleaning.