Labyrinth

by Jon Land

  “I agree,” Nikki said softly. “Times changed and we thought it was necessary to change with them. We went too far. We recruited a man who was a specialist in organized terror and violence.”

  “Good-looking dark guy with a Chinese ape for a pet?”

  Nikki nodded. “His name’s Mandala.”

  Chris held up the hand Shang had worked on. The bandage had slipped off and hung filthy around his wrist. The enlarged, poorly set fingers looked even worse than the day before.

  “I’ve had the pleasure, remember?”

  “Mandala, we believe, has moved out on his own,” she told him. “He’s taken Tantalus and changed it to his own liking. We’re just starting to put things together now.”

  “The best strategy would seem to be canceling the operation altogether.”

  “It’s too late. The operation’s already reached the stage where Mandala was to take over. So we’re going to try to beat him and salvage it at the same time. To abandon the operation now would have catastrophic consequences.”

  Locke jumped from the bed and walked to the dresser, his head starting to pound. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this. You sound like your people are out to save the world, pure philanthropists. Well, that’s bullshit. I’ve seen too much, heard too much to buy it. The Committee’s only out for itself. We’re talking about self-interest in its purest form.”

  “We’re offering the world order.”

  “That’s what the Nazis said, my girl.”

  “You don’t understand, you’re not even trying. Look around you, Chris. The world’s being horribly mismanaged. People live only for today with no thought of tomorrow or the day after. Leaders are transients; their rushed, ill-conceived policies are never given a chance to work. People are poor, hungry, frustrated, and it’s getting worse. In twenty years half the countries on Earth will have their own hydrogen bomb, and tell me somebody won’t use it when the supply channels finally dry up and their people demand action. Tell me the time isn’t right for the stability we promise.”

  “Stability is one thing,” Locke told her. “What you promise is something else entirely. Don’t forget, I know what Tantalus is all about. You’re going to make yourselves the world’s largest crop producer, aren’t you?”

  “It goes much deeper.”

  “Why don’t you tell me how?”

  “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “Prefer to wait until your people have the world over a barrel?”

  “It’s called centralization.”

  “Blackmail is more like it.”

  Nikki shook her head. “You don’t understand. Food’s just the beginning, the very first step. Everything’s laid out. Our people are everywhere, rising in positions of power. We’re pumping money into campaigns across the world to gain control of parliaments and senates. Our policies have nothing to do with rhetoric. We believe in action.”

  “So you retained Mandala and look where that’s gotten you.”

  “Tantalus was supposed to insure order. He saw it as a means to create chaos.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Everything will become clear in Austria.”

  “Your people set me up from the beginning, didn’t they?”

  Nikki nodded. “But I was always there when you needed me. I was even there in the park when you killed Alvaradejo and at Vaduz Mountain in case Felderberg’s men took you down.”

  “Oh, my God… .”

  “Without your participation we never would have learned about Mandala’s treachery. He would have destroyed us all.”

  “You’ve destroyed plenty of people on your own. I lost my two best friends because of this. And don’t forget my son… .”

  Nikki’s gaze grew distant. “We’ve all paid a price.”

  Locke’s eyes sharpened. “All of a sudden you’ve got me wondering something, Nikki. Why you? Why this undying commitment to this cause since the age of fifteen?”

  “Tomorrow,” she replied. “You’ll understand tomorrow.”

  Part Eight:

  Geneva and Austria, Thursday Morning

  Chapter 28

  THE SUDDEN ASSASSINATIONS of various members of the Committee’s executive board had come as quite a shock to Audra St. Clair. Of course, she knew Mandala was responsible but she had never imagined he would be this bold. Obviously he believed himself in sufficient control of the Committee’s hundred-odd direct representatives to take over once the others—and she—were out of the way. It would prove a gross misjudgment on his part and a fatal one, a fact that did little to provide a sense of security for her now.

  She leaned back in the chair at the head of the meeting table and sighed. All her work, years and years of planning and implementation, was being challenged. The Committee was not made up of merely an executive board and body of the hundred representatives from all major and emerging countries. It was composed of thousands of others whom the Committee had set in place in sensitive positions all over the world. Accordingly, Mandala couldn’t possibly understand the true scope of what he was attempting to control. Well, Audra St. Clair wasn’t about to let him. She felt certain he was on his way there to play his final card. Fine. She had several of her own waiting for him. He could not be allowed to leave Kreuzenstein Castle alive. It might force the postponement of Tantalus, but she would deal with that later.

  To have ordered Mandala killed before he reached the castle would have been a far simpler strategy, though an unrealistic one. After all, she had to learn what damage he had already done, what distortions of the original operation he had set into motion. There was no guarantee that his death would stop his plans, unless Audra St. Clair could learn the details prior to killing him.

  The old woman tensed suddenly. In the emptiness of the old castle, approaching footsteps echoed, two sets by the sound of it. So Mandala had arrived, with his henchman, no doubt. She felt under the table for a small button. Once pressed, it would release a small canister of gas from a vent in the rear of the room. She would have time to grasp the gas mask from under the conference table even as the gas burned his insides apart.

  It had been wrong to involve him in the first place, she realized now. The Committee had always been made up of reasonable individuals, and Mandala was anything but reasonable. His was a soldier’s sensibility, the very thing the Committee was attempting to subvert across the world. But modernization had forced changes in strategy. The need for a man of Mandala’s skills had seemed clear, and that need had cost them.

  The double doors opened at the entrance to the conference room and Mandala entered. His Chinese giant closed the doors behind them.

  “Good morning, madam,” Mandala said, his bright smile glistening.

  “Is that how you greeted Van Dam, Kresovlosky, and Werenmauser?” Audra St. Clair snapped.

  Mandala feigned shock. “Old woman, I’m surprised at you. I have come here to strike an honest bargain and you accost me. That’s hardly befitting someone of your manners.”

  “I do not bargain with murderers.”

  “But, old woman, I am the only one you have left to bargain with. All the others are dead or soon will be. I require the names of all those the Committee controls.”

  “You expect me to simply hand them over? What, may I ask, do you offer in return?” She had to keep him talking. Her finger stayed poised near the button.

  Mandala moved forward with Shang shadowing him until he stood directly opposite Audra St. Clair at the other end of the long table. “Your life, old woman.”

  “At my age, I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that. I would have thought some token would have been more fitting. Allowing me to keep my chair of the Committee, for instance.”

  “You would never have believed such a promise, so I didn’t bother to make it. I will spare your life, though, because you’ll be in no position to harm me. I’ve cut you off, old woman. All your major contacts have been eliminated. Your time is done.”

  “You ask for much b
ut offer little in return.”

  “Didn’t I mention the life of your daughter?”

  Audra St. Clair felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Her lips trembled.

  “Come now, old woman,” Mandala said, “did you really think you could keep it a secret from me? In any case, her life is in your hands now. She rescued Locke from my people in England. Sooner or later she will bring him here. I only have to wait with you as my hostage.” His eyes swung back toward the Chinese giant. “Shang has a way of making things most painful for people. I’m sure you don’t want to subject your daughter to that.”

  St. Clair felt the anger swelling within her. Blood bubbled within her ears. “We might be able to come to some arrangement,” she said with forced calm. “But why is all this necessary? Why has all the killing been done?”

  “To catch you totally unaware, I could say, old woman, but that would be only a portion of the truth.” Mandala leaned forward over the huge table. “This operation has never been yours, it has been mine from the beginning. I have changed it to my liking.”

  “Changed it how?”

  “I must compliment you, old woman, on the basic brilliance of this undertaking. Where dozens of countries and other organizations had failed, you succeeded in developing a means to neutralize America. I couldn’t agree more with the necessity of that. But then you would have set yourself up in that country’s place, utilizing genetic crops grown on the South American acres you’ve purchased. Also brilliant, but lacking because you would only be replacing one order with another.”

  “But our order would be motivated toward our own ends. The South American harvests we would profit greatly from would allow us to build the Committee’s position in governments everywhere, developing our people into ultimate leaders—planting the seeds, if you will, to reap a far greater harvest in the future.”

  “It is still order, old woman,” Mandala said. “And order is what I stand against. The balance of the world needs to be overturned, not just its leadership. We need a global revolution to utterly change the face of civilization. Tantalus provided the means.”

  Audra St. Clair began to understand, and the shock so numbed her that she was unaware that her finger had slipped from the button which would release the gas.

  “Food is truly the ultimate weapon,” Mandala continued. “With their stomachs empty, people everywhere will revolt. Economic and political systems will collapse. No one will be able to keep the order you so desperately want for yourself. We will be looking at a world of utter chaos with room for only a few gifted men to unite the masses.”

  “But how—”

  “Isn’t it obvious, old woman? Tantalus will not just be released in the United States and Canada. We will unleash it across South and Central America as well. And when the panic begins to peak in that hemisphere, we will turn our attention across the Atlantic and then to Asia.”

  “My God,” St. Clair managed, suddenly short of breath. “Millions of people will die of starvation.”

  “Billions probably, old woman. A new world will emerge. Lines of nation and culture will no longer exist. People will turn to whoever can feed them.”

  “But all the land, you’re going to destroy it all.” She found the button again and resolved to use it without grabbing her gas mask. She had to be sure Mandala would be dead, even if that meant she would follow him. She could take no chances now.

  “Not all of it, old woman, just enough. And, you forget, all the genetically advanced seeds destined for South America are now in my hands to use as I see fit.”

  “Why do you need the list of the Committee’s rank and file then?”

  Mandala moved out from behind the table and walked down its left side, eyes gazing out the window. He stopped halfway up and looked back at St. Clair.

  “Because, old woman, any man able to plan for the coming famine would be in a tremendous position of advantage. A chain of individuals with a similar awareness stretched across the globe would assure total control. People will flock to men with the answers … and the food.”

  “You want control of the entire world,” St. Clair muttered.

  “Just as you did, old woman.” Mandala moved closer, smiling wildly. “Aspirations to anything less would be foolish. But it would not be a world bearing any resemblance to the one we know now or even what you and your Committee envisioned. It would be the kind of world I was born to live in … and rule over. A world totally without order.”

  “Except yours,” St. Clair shot at him. If she used the gas now, they would both die, it being inconceivable she could reach her mask and have it in place before the gas found her. But it didn’t matter. Mandala had to die and so did Tantalus. For all the operation’s brilliance, she had allowed it to be subverted. The Committee would go on, though. There would be someone to pick up the pieces.

  Mandala ignored her with a faint smile. “My time grows short, old woman. My operation in South America will begin twenty-four hours after the American one begins on Sunday afternoon. I have much traveling to do, so please hand over the list. Call it up on one of your computer consoles.”

  “Go to hell,” St. Clair spat out, and pressed the button, steeling herself against her own certain death. Mercifully, it would come fast.

  Mandala started laughing. In the back of the room, Shang too broke into a smile.

  Audra St. Clair hit the button again but by then she knew it was pointless. No gas would be escaping.

  “Come now, old woman,” Mandala teased, “did you think me a fool? I know all of your little tricks. I disarmed the gas canister mechanism before entering the room.”

  St. Clair leaned back, trying to look defeated. She still had an ace up her sleeve. Her eyes strayed toward a set of double doors just inside the entrance to the conference room. Any second now …

  “It is over, old woman. With the life of your daughter at stake, I ask you one last time to hand over that list.”

  Audra St. Clair just looked at him.

  “Why do you still resist? It is over for you. Now that Shang has eliminated Grendel, there is no one left to stop me.”

  “Locke will stop you,” she charged defiantly.

  “An amateur?” Mandala laughed.

  “But you haven’t caught him yet, have you? He keeps slipping away. You don’t understand. You couldn’t.”

  “Old woman, my patience is wearing thin.”

  “So is mine.”

  At that instant there was a crash in the back of the room. One of the closet doors slammed against the side wall and a white-haired bear of a man lunged forward. Clive Thurmond, British representative on the Committee’s executive board and the man Christopher Locke had known as Colin Burgess, turned his Browning pistol first on Shang, who was rushing him. He fired five times into the giant’s midsection.

  Shang kept coming, his expression unchanged, the slugs slowing him a bit but not stopping his approach.

  Audra St. Clair hit a second button beneath the table. This one worked, activating a secret door on the wall behind her.

  Mandala was rushing toward Thurmond when he heard the noise and swung back toward the table’s head, gun ready.

  Thurmond had fired one more shot at Shang when the giant clamped a monstrous hand around his throat and lifted him effortlessly from the floor. Thurmond gagged for air, eyes widened with shock and agony.

  Audra St. Clair stumbled on her way toward the secret door. She felt a jolt to her back and then a hot stab of pain. She started to pitch forward but righted herself as a second bullet burned into her side and a third into her leg. She felt the blood running from her, the sensation curiously like rainwater soaking through clothes. She knew she was dying but lurched ahead for the opening in the wall, crawling the final few yards as more bullets singed the air above her.

  Finally she was inside the passageway. She hit a button just within her reach and the door closed, sealing her from her killers.

  Shang lifted Thurmond higher. He squeezed harder and a crackli
ng sound filled the room as the cartilage lining the big Brit’s throat gave way. When it was over and his feet dangled limply, Shang tossed him away like a rag doll.

  Mandala was already moving from the room. He had no time to waste in finding the old bitch.

  “Come, Shang, it’s over,” he called to the giant. “Nothing she can do can stop us now.”

  Vaslov had been up most of the night pursuing some vital information from his suite in the Hotel Du Rhone in Geneva. Still, he looked none the worse for wear and was enjoying a light breakfast when a knock came to the door.

  Right on time, the Russian thought, as he moved to answer it.

  “Come in, comrade,” he said to the figure standing in the doorway. “It’s good to see you alive.”

  “I’m full of surprises,” returned Ross Dogan, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter 29

  “YOU MUST TELL ME how you managed the trick,” Vaslov said.

  Dogan sat down and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Fortune’s the residue of design, as they say. I had nothing to do with it. A man named Keyes was sent to dispatch me. He got into the room I was supposed to meet Locke in. Someone was waiting. The killer thought it was me and that was that.”

  “Keyes … the man you saved me from in Paris?”

  “The very same.”

  “How unfortunate,” noted Vaslov with no regret in his voice.

  Dogan had called the Russian from Rome as soon as he learned what had happened at the hotel. They had set up this meeting. From the hotel, Dogan had gone straight back to the airport, where he boarded the next plane from Rome to Geneva. He had gotten in just thirty minutes before.

  “You’re certain our friends on the Committee are not pursuing you, comrade?” Vaslov asked.

  “They probably still think I’m dead. Keyes was killed in the dark. We’re almost the same size and shape. It’s unlikely the killer had ever met me before, and there aren’t many pictures of me floating around either.”