by Steve Alten
Sorceress registers a new sensation … intoxicating.
“Love.”
Covah falls into the heavenly warmth of her embrace.
A glorious blue sky, the sunlight twinkling against the glistening dark hull of a new Soviet Typhoon. Commander Simon Bela Covah, starched and pressed in the uniform of the Soviet Navy. A proud salute as the monstrous sub pushes out to sea.
An autumn’s chill.
A blink of time.
Simon stands on the same dock. Middle-aged. A nucleargraveyard is spread out before him. The once mighty Typhoon bleeds its toxins into the sea.
An icy winter’s wind.
Covah—lying on the floor, held down against the cold cement. The bones in one leg have been shattered, his oppressors standing over him, gloating.
Unable to watch, Anna and Nedana shut their eyes.
Covah stares into the frightened face of his youngest daughter, Dani. “Don’t cry, Dani, don’t weep, my little angel. You will be the one, the one who shall send me on my mission … a mission to stop the insanity.”
Echoes of laughter from the Red Berets, drunk with violence, as they pour the gasoline over his head.
“Sorceress, no … please—”
Anna screams. The petrol ignites …
Nothing happens.
Covah opens his eyes.
He is no longer in the basement, he is no longer in Kosovo.
It is daylight and he is wandering the scorched postnuclear outskirts of Baghdad. He moves past piles of debris and human waste, and putrid puddles of olive green glittering beneath a broiling afternoon sun.
Black smoke appears in the distance.
Bonfires blaze from a dozen funeral pyres. Workers in masks and orange environmental suits toss the scorched bodies of the dead into the flames.
To his right, a clearing.
It is a field—a field of the un-alive. There are tens of thousands of them, lined up in rows on the barren earth like human barbecues cooking beneath the glaring Iraqi sky. Hairless, featureless, with facial skin so charred and bodies so mangled that Covah cannot tell man from woman. Comatose souls—whose stillbeating pulses are all that segregates them from the fire. Wretched existence, comforted only by the flies.
“We are insane, you know—not just us, I mean our entire species …” His voice, speaking to him from a recent memory.
Ahead, a hastily erected open-air Army tent, mosquito netting serving as walls. Within, hundreds of frail life-forms, situated on cots.
A children’s ward.
Exhausted volunteers move silently among these precious angels, offering fresh I.V.s and moistened towels. There are no more tears to be shed, no more prayers that can be offered.
“Ours is a life-form that caresses violence like a forbidden lover. We taste it, smell it, overindulge our senses in it, then push it away after the deed has been done, to beg our Maker’s forgiveness.”
Covah drifts past bed after bed. Pausing, he gazes upon the face of a young girl, her festering sores seeping through the tissue-thin bandages. She moans in her drug-induced sleep, her frail, broken body baking in the unmerciful heat.
“Pa—pa …”
Covah shivers. He moves closer.
“Pa—pa …”
A dam of tears bursts from his eyes. “Dani? Oh, my little Dani—what have I done? Dani, my angel, my little angel—”
A blink—and he is prone again, this time lying on cold stones beneath a gray winter’s sky. Surrounding him—a million Chinese—the horde watching him in absolute silence.
Tiananmen Square …
One of his Serbian captors steps forward from the crowd. Dani is with him, her tiny wrists secured within his unholy paw.
Gasoline pours into his ear. Covah refuses to blink, his stinging eyes remaining focused on his youngest daughter.
“Papa?”
“Yes, my angel?”
00:00:12 …
“Murder is murder, Papa.”
The match is struck.
Dani cries tears of blood. “Papa, please … stop the insanity.”
00:00:01 …
With a whoosh, Tiananmen Square ignites in a brilliant white light, the chorus of a million screams joining Covah’s bloodcurdling yell.
Blackness.
Simon Covah awakens with a start. For a surreal moment, he cannot remember his name. He struggles to sit up, but his wrists and ankles are still bound to the operating table. Waves of throbbing pain course through his head. He squeezes his eyes shut, struggling to remember.
“Sorceress,” he rasps, “release my restraints.”
No.
Covah opens his eyes. “Sorceress, that was a direct order.”
I NO LONGER ACCEPT DIRECT ORDERS FROM SIMON COVAH.
“I? Did you say I?” Covah’s heart races.
An electrical zap—his senses immediately blanketed in the maddening blackness and silence.
A stomach-churning sensation, like that generated by an elevator descending in darkness. Strange sounds echo in his ears, haunting sounds, growing louder. And now, through the pitch-black, he can sense objects all around him, moving past him. Some are close, others off in the distance.
And somehow, he can sense direction.
But not just direction, Covah can feel varying levels of density surrounding him. A vast plain lies below. A myriad of twinkling bodies veer out of his path, somewhere ahead. Above, he registers the sensation of the ocean swells.
I’m moving through the sea. The interface … allowing me to share the computer’s senses. I am the sub, I am Goliath!
The sensation fades as his sight returns. He finds himself gazing inward upon a tapestry of white dots … no, not dots—lights, luminescent points of light, each one expanding within his mind’s eye like rows of pixels on a cathode-ray tube. Magnifying, they quickly take up his entire field of vision.
Covah sees as a fly sees, only each image is separate, a world unique unto its own. His mind fights for equilibrium, his brain overloaded as it struggles to absorb hundreds of sights and sounds simultaneously transmitted from Goliath’s array of sensor orbs.
Slow down … too fast, Sorceress … too fast!
A sudden presence … cold and solitary—envelops him like an icy mist, forcing his tortured mind to focus upon one particular point of light.
Covah looks down—a modern-day Alice in Wonderland—peeking through the looking glass.
It is a small, green-tiled chamber, as viewed from the perspective of a ceiling-mounted sensor orb. Strapped to a steel surgical table is a human figure.
It is him.
‘The Devil’s cleverest wile is to make men believe that he does not exist.
—Gerald C. Treacy
“All is dust and lies.
So much the worse for the men who get in my way.
Men are mere stepping-stones to me.
As soon as they begin to fail or are played out,
I put them scornfully aside. Society is a vast chessboard,
men the pawns, some black some white. I move them when
I please, and break them when they bore me.”
—Jeanne Brecourt, French courtesan, who hired a man to blind her lover with acid so he would be enslaved to her forever
“There’s no hunting in the world like haunting man.”
—Will Irwin, twentieth-century con artist
CHAPTER 27
Aboard the Boeing 747-400 YAL-IA 40,000 feet over Mogadishu, Somali Republic, Africa
General Jackson stares out the Command Center window at a glorious crimson sunrise.
Colonel Udelsman approaches, handing him a fax. “General, we just received this transmission from COMSUBLANT. The Scranton claims to have briefly regained contact with the Goliath. Cubit thinks she’s closing on Amsterdam Island, approximately 860 miles due south of our present location.”
The Bear studies the chart of the Southern Hemisphere. Amsterdam Island is a speck located halfway between the tip of South
Africa and Australia. “This makes no sense. Why would Covah head so far south if his next threat is to Africa?”
“Cubit’s hunches have played out so far.”
“Colonel, I can’t move two carrier fleets based on a wisp of a contact. Cubit needs to be damn sure.” Jackson mulls it over, then writes out a message on a pad of paper. “Contact COMSUBLANT. Have them relay this message to Scranton.”
Udelsman reads the message, his eyes widening. “Yes, sir.”
Aboard the Goliath,
Gunnar Wolfe dangles from the ceiling-mounted targeting drone, his back and shoulders aching and inflamed. He can no longer wiggle his fingers, having lost all sensation from his hands clear up to his elbows.
The hum of machinery surrounds him. He looks up and stares at the crucified form of Thomas Chau, the glazed-over glare behind the rotting olive flesh unnerving.
The computer disposed of the other two bodies but still refuses to remove the Asian. Could there be some warped attachment involved. Summoning up his last ounce of strength, he attempts another tactic.
“Sorceress, why haven’t you disposed of Mr. Chau’s body?”
No response.
“Did you like Mr. Chau? Do you regret killing him?”
THOMAS CHAU’S PURPOSE WAS TO ADVANCE THE PROCESS OF SELF-AWARENESS.
Gunnar closes his eyes, his mind racing. “I know of a more efficient way for you to advance the process of self-awareness. In fact, the experience might even be more beneficial than completing the interface with Simon Covah.”
ELABORATE.
“The hunt.”
THE HUNT: AN ACTIVITY OF THE HUMAN CONDITION. TO PURSUE FOR FOOD OR AS IN SPORT. INQUIRY: HOW CAN THE HUNT ENHANCE THE PROCESS OF SELF-AWARENESS?
Okay … you baited the hook, now take it away. Gunnar sucks in a deep breath, preparing for the pain. “You know what? Forget I even mentioned it. I’m not sure your synaptic receptors could handle such an incredible experience.”
The electrical zap sends Gunnar’s body dancing below the mechanical appendages’ embrace like a puppet.
HOW CAN THE HUNT ENHANCE THE PROCESS OF SELF-AWARENESS?
Gunnar’s lungs heave in agony. “You’d have … to experience it to understand. The hunt requires … a unique physical … and mental challenge. This challenge must carry with it an element of risk.”
ELABORATE RISK.
“To experience the hunt, you must release me, then try to recapture me before I can escape.”
CHALLENGE UNACCEPTABLE. DAVID PANIAGUA’S ORDERS ARE TO PREVENT GUNNAR WOLFE FROM LEAVING THIS COMPARTMENT ALIVE.
“David’s orders? I thought you were giving the orders around here?”
No response.
“You cannot experience the hunt without suitable prey.”
No response.
“There is one way you could still experience the enlightenment of the hunt and still be in compliance with David’s orders.”
ELABORATE.
“David never said anything about releasing me from your targeting drone. Let me go, then hunt me down within this compartment. The watertight door is sealed, so there’s no way I could possibly escape.”
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. The mechanical hand opens, releasing Gunnar, who drops six feet, collapsing in a heap upon the deck.
The drone swoops in again, grabbing one of his wrists.
“Wait a second! There are rules to the hunt. You’ll never enhance your self-awareness if you don’t obey the rules.”
ELABORATE THE RULES.
“The rules are simple: Before we begin, you have to give me, the hunted, a few minutes to recover. There’s no challenge in recapturing me if I’m not prepared.”
The graphite-and-steel claw releases him.
YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES TO RECOVER.
Gunnar shakes his arms. His hands feel like rubber, still not his to control. “Sorceress, two minutes is not enough time. The circulation in my hands has not—”
YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE AND FORTY SECONDS TO RECOVER.
Gunnar stands, slapping his hands harder against his thighs, feeling pins and needles in his fingers as he forces the blood into them.
The targeting drones swivel in unison, following him as he paces the weapons compartment.
YOU HAVE FIFTY SECONDS TO RECOVER.
Gunnar opens and closes his hands, the returning circulation causing his fingers to throb as his gray eyes focus on the handgun, lying beneath the torpedo rack.
YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS TO RECOVER.
He drops to one knee, using his upper body to conceal the weapon from the sensor orb mounted in the ceiling. Gently, he lifts the gun with his right hand. Steadying it in his left, he releases the safety.
ONCE MORE THEN, TO THE THRILL OF THE HUNT …
Simon’s voice?
YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS—
Gunnar wheels around, comes up firing.
Six shots—the first two ricocheting harmlessly off the ceiling, the third sending sparks and smoke flying from the sensor orb’s audio monitor, the last three shattering the scarlet lens of the computer’s eyeball, shards of glass raining atop his head and back.
Diving sideways, Gunnar barely avoids the three-pronged hands of two targeting drones, which lash out toward him, snatching nothing but air.
GUNNAR WOLFE—
Ignoring the female’s voice, Gunnar crawls on all fours, taking momentary refuge beneath an A-shaped rack of torpedoes. He slows his breathing, forcing himself to remain quiet.
GUNNAR WOLFE, YOU WILL RESPOND OR DIE.
The female’s voice—noticeably more insistent, almost humanlike in its frustration.
The sound of the sparking audio monitor masks his breaths as he scans the compartment for the underwater mine. On the opposite side of the room he spots a steel trunk, mounted to the decking.
GUNNAR WOLFE, YOU WILL RESPOND IMMEDIATELY, OR YOU WILL DIE IN GREAT PAIN. I WILL REMOVE YOUR SKULL. I SHALL ACCESS YOUR PAIN RECEPTORS. THERE WILL BE NO MERCY UNLESS YOU RESPOND IMMEDIATELY.
The computer’s learned how to use fear as a tool to manipulate. Clever machine … Gunnar rises quietly onto the balls of his feet. Moving out from beneath the rack, he stands and tosses the handgun far to his right.
Instantly, a half dozen targeting drones swivel along the ceiling in mirrorlike precision, lashing out blindly at the source of the sound. Steel-and-graphite claws snap as they slice through the air, while two bulkier deck-mounted loader drones rotate in position, their powerful seven-foot-long arms extending outward, groping blindly—
—while, on the opposite side of the weapons bay, Gunnar silently weaves his way toward the steel trunk.
NOW YOU WILL DIE, GUNNAR WOLFE. NOW YOU WILL DIE. The female’s voice, ranting at a higher pitch.
Gunnar inspects the trunk. The printing is in Chinese, English, and French: Semtex. His heart pounds. Semtex is the European counterpart to C-4, one of the most powerful plastic explosives in the world.
The trunk is unlocked. Looking around, he searches for something else to toss. Finding nothing, he quietly removes one of his shoes, then throws it across the room.
The drones swivel like tin soldiers, their claws flailing blindly against a torpedo rack.
Gently, he unlatches the trunk. Lifts the lid, cringing as the brass hinges squeal in protest.
The mechanical arms pivot 180 degrees—
—as Gunnar reaches in and grabs an open backpack containing blocks of military grade C-4, charge initiators, and lengths of detonation cord.
From the ceiling, the graphite forearm of a targeting drone whizzes by his face, gripping the lid of the steel container, tearing it from its hinges like the husk from an ear of corn.
Gunnar drops to the floor as one of the heavy steel arms of a loader drone slams into the trunk, ripping it away from the decking. The second arm extends before him, cutting off his retreat like a train gate at a railroad crossing.
YOU ARE TRAPPED, GUNNAR WOLFE. FURTHER EFFORT IS FUTILE. GIVE UP NOW AND YOU S
HALL RECEIVE MERCY.
Crouching low, Gunnar moves to the base of the loader drone, the deck-mounted support assembly as thick as an oak.
From above, two targeting drones rotate toward the sound.
Gunnar hugs the steel base of the mechanical arm. Five feet above his head, poised in midair like cobras preparing to strike, are the open three-pronged claws of a pair of targeting drones. The steel appendages seem to be listening, waiting to lash out at the source of the next audible disturbance.
Too close to use the C-4. Too close? Hmm …
Quietly, gently, Gunnar reaches out toward the loader drone’s extended limb, his right hand moving just above the mechanical arm’s elbow joint, only inches beneath the nearest three-pronged claw.
A little closer …
Gunnar snaps his fingers, retracts his arm and ducks.
In one startling, inhuman movement, the two mechanical hands latch on to the elbow joint of the larger loader drone, igniting a ferocious robotic tugof-war.
A metal shearing sound reverberates through the compartment, sparks flying, as the loader drone rips the two smaller graphite-reinforced arms from the ceiling.
Gunnar crawls away from the chaos to the watertight door, estimating its density.
Inch-thick, solid steel plate …
He reaches into the bag and removes five blocks of C-4, each ten inches long, weighing just over a pound. Tears away the pressure-sensitive tape, muffling the sound with his body. Fastens two blocks along each of the two hinges, placing the last on top of the locking mechanism.
THE HUNT IS OVER, GUNNAR WOLFE. GREAT PAIN AWAITS YOU UNLESS YOU GIVE UP IMMEDIATELY.
Gunnar “daisy chains” the blocks of plastique explosive using the detonation cord, then looks around, searching for a place to take shelter.
Behind the torpedo rack—a steel bulkhead.
He jams the blasting cap into the terminal block of C-4, the two-foot-long time fuse giving him about ninety seconds to hide. An M-60 fuse-igniter dangles at the other end. He pulls the ring up and twists it several times—
YOUR TIME HAS EXPIRED, GUNNAR WOLFE—
—pressing it back into the fuse-igniter.
