by Lee Goldberg, Scott Nicholson, J A Konrath, J Carson Black,
ULTIMATE THRILLER
BOX SET
J.A. Konrath
Blake Crouch
J. Carson Black
Lee Goldberg
Scott Nicholson
Table of Contents
ULTIMATE THRILLER BOX SET Copyright © 2012 by J.A. Konrath, Blake Crouch, J. Carson Black, Lee Goldberg, and Scott Nicholson
ORIGIN Copyright © 2009 by Joe Konrath
DESERT PLACES Copyright © 2004 by Blake Crouch
DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN Copyright © 2005 by Margaret Falk
WATCH ME DIE Copyright © 2005, 2010 by Lee Goldberg
DISINTEGRATION Copyright © 2010 by Scott Nicholson
Cover design by Jeroen ten Berge
ORIGIN
By J.A. Konrath
J.A. Konrath’s Amazon Author Central page
About the Author
Table of Contents
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison.
—Revelation 20:7
PANAMA
NOVEMBER 15, 1906
“Where is it?” Theodore Roosevelt asked John Stevens as the two men shook hands. Amador, Shonts, and the rest of the welcoming party had already been greeted and dismissed by the President, left to wonder what had become of Roosevelt's trademark grandiosity.
Fatigue from his journey, they later surmised.
They were wrong.
The twenty-sixth President of the United States was far from tired. Since Stevens's wire a month previous, Roosevelt had been electrified with worry.
The Canal Project had been a tricky one from the onset—the whole Nicaraguan episode, the Panamanian revolution, the constant bickering in Congress—but nothing in his political or personal past had prepared him for this development. After five days of travel aboard the Battleship Louisiana, his wife Edith sick and miserable, Roosevelt's nerves had become so tightly stretched they could be plucked and played like a mandolin.
“You want to see it now?” Stevens asked, wiping the rain from a walrus mustache that rivaled the President's. “Surely you want to rest from your journey.”
“Rest is for the weak, John. I have much to accomplish on this visit. But first things first, I must see the discovery.”
Roosevelt bid quick apologies to the puzzled group, sending his wife and three secret service agents ahead to the greeting reception at Trivoli Crossing. Before anyone, including Edith, could protest, the President had taken Stevens by the shoulder and was leading him down the pier.
“You are storing it nearby,” Roosevelt stated, confirming that his instructions had been explicitly followed.
“In a shack in Cristobal, about a mile from shore. I can arrange for horses.”
“We shall walk. Tell me again how it was found.”
Stevens chewed his lower lip and lengthened his stride to keep in step with the Commander-in-Chief. The engineer had been in Panama for over a year, at Roosevelt's request, heading the Canal Project.
He wasn't happy.
The heat and constant rain were intolerable. Roosevelt's lackey Shonts was pompous and annoying. Though yellow fever and dysentery were being eradicated through the efforts of Dr. Gorgas and the new sanitation methods, malaria still claimed dozens of lives every month, and labor disputes had become commonplace and increasingly complicated with every new influx of foreign workers.
Now, to top it all off, an excavation team had discovered something so horrible that it made the enormity of the Canal Project look trivial by comparison.
“It was found at the East Culebra Slide in the Cut,” Stevens said, referring to the nine mile stretch of land that ran through the mountain range of the Continental Divide. “Spaniard excavation team hit it at about eighty feet down.”
“Hard workers, Spaniards,” Roosevelt said. He knew the nine thousand workers they had brought over from the Basque Provinces were widely regarded as superior to the Chinese and West Indians because of their tireless efforts. “You were on the site at the time?”
“I was called to it. I arrived the next day. The—capsule, I suppose you could call it, was taken to Pedro Miguel by train.”
“Unopened?”
“Yes. After I broke the seal on it and saw the contents...”
“Again, all alone?”
“By myself, yes. After viewing the... well, immediately afterward I wired Secretary Taft...” Stevens trailed off, his breath laboring in effort to keep up with the frantic pace of Roosevelt.
“Dreadful humidity,” the President said. He attempted to wipe the hot rain from his forehead with a damp handkerchief. “I had wished to view the working conditions in Panama at their most unfavorable, and I believe I certainly have.”
They were quiet the remainder of the walk, Roosevelt taking in the jungle and the many houses and buildings that Stevens had erected during the last year.
Remarkable man, Roosevelt mused, but he'd expected nothing less. Once this matter was decided, he was looking forward to the tour of the canal effort. There was so much that interested him. He was anxious to see one of the famed hundred ton Bucyrus steam shovels that so outperformed the ancient French excavators. He longed to ride in one. Being the first President to ever leave the States, he certainly owed the voters some exciting details of his trip.
“Over there. To the right.”
Stevens gestured to a small shack nestled in an outcropping of tropical brush. There was a sturdy padlock hooked to a hasp on the door, and a sign warning in several languages that explosives were contained therein.
“No one else has seen this,” Roosevelt confirmed.
“The Spaniard team was deported right after the discovery.”
Roosevelt used the sleeve of his elegant white shirt to clean his spectacles while Stevens removed the padlock. They entered the shed and Stevens shut the door behind them.
It was stifling in the small building. The President immediately felt claustrophobic in the dark, hot room, and had to force himself to stand still while Stevens sought the lantern.
Light soon bathed the capsule setting before them.
It was better than twelve feet long, pale gray, with carvings on the outside that resembled Egyptian hieroglyphics to Roosevelt. It rested on the ground, almost chest high, and appeared to be made of stone. But it felt like nothing the President had ever touched.
Running his hand across the top, Roosevelt was surprised by how smooth, almost slippery, the surface was. Like an oily silk, but it left no residue on the fingers.
“How does it open?” he asked.
Stevens handed his lamp to Roosevelt and picked up a pry bar hanging near the door. With a simple twist in a near invisible seam the entire top half of the capsule flipped open on hidden hinges like a coffin.
“My dear God in heaven,” the President gasped.
The thing in the capsule was horrible beyond description.
“My sentiments exactly,” Stevens whispered.
“And it is... alive?”
“From what I can judge, yes. Dormant, but alive.”
Roosevelt's hand ventured to touch it, but the man who charged up San Juan Hill wasn't able to summon the nerve.
“Even being prepared for it, I still cannot believe what I am seeing.”
The President fought his repulsion, the cloying heat adding to the surreality of the moment. Roosevelt detected a rank, animal smell, almost like a musk, coming out of the capsule.
The smell of the... thing.
He looked it over, head to foot, unable to turn away. The image seared itself into his mind, to become the source of frequent nightmares fo
r the remainder of his life.
“What is the course of action, Mr. President? Destroy it?”
“How can we? Is it our right? Think what this means.”
“But what if it awakens? Could we contain it?”
“Why not? This is the twentieth century. We are making technological advancements on a daily basis.”
“Do you believe the public is ready for this?”
“No,” Roosevelt said without hesitation. “I do not believe the United States, or the world, even in this enlightened age, would be able to handle a discovery of this magnitude.”
Stevens frowned. He didn't believe any good could come of this, but as usual he had trouble going toe to toe with Roosevelt.
“Speak your mind, John. You have been living with this for a month.”
“I believe we should burn it, Mr. President. Then sink its ashes in the sea.”
“You are afraid.”
“Even a man of your standing, sir, must admit to some fear gazing at this thing.”
“Yes, I can admit to being afraid. But that is because we fear what we do not understand. Perhaps with understanding...”
Roosevelt made his decision. This would be taken back to the States. He'd lock it away someplace secret and recruit the top minds in the world to study it. He instructed Stevens to have a crate built and for it to be packed and boarded onto the Louisiana— no, better make it the Tennessee. If Mother found out what was aboard her ship she might die of fright.
“But if the world sees this...”
“The world will not. Pay the workers off, and have them work at night without witnesses. I expect the crate to be locked as this shed was, and the key given to me. Worry no more about this John, it is no longer your concern.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Roosevelt clenched his teeth and forced himself to stick out his hand to touch the thing; a brief touch that he would always recall as the most frightening experience of his life. He covered the fear with a bully Roosevelt harrumph and a false pout of bravado.
“Now let us lock this up and you can show me that canal you are building.”
Stevens closed the lid, but the smell remained.
The twenty-sixth President of the United States walked out of the shed and into the rain. His hands were shaking. He made two fists and shoved them into his pockets. The rain speckled his glasses, but he made no effort to clean them off. His whole effort was focused on a silent prayer to God that he'd made the right decision.
CHAPTER ONE
PRESENT DAY
“You have reached Worldwide Translation Services. For English, press one. Por Espaol...”
BEEP.
“Welcome to WTS, the company for your every translation and interpretation need. Our skilled staff of linguists can converse in over two dozen languages, and we specialize in escort, telephone, consecutive, simultaneous, conference, sight, and written translations. For a list of languages we're able to interpret, press one. For Andrew Dennison, press two. For a...”
BEEP.
The business phone rang. Andy glanced at the clock next to the bed. Coming up on 3am Chicago time. But elsewhere in the world they were eating lunch.
If he didn’t pick up, it would be forwarded to voice mail.
Unfortunately, voice mail didn’t pay his bills.
“WTS, this is Andrew Dennison.”
“Mr. Dennison, this is the President of the United States. Your country needs you.”
Andy hung up. He remembered being a kid, sleeping over at a friend’s house, making prank calls. It seemed so funny back then.
He closed his eyes and tried to return to the dream he’d been having. Something to do with Susan, his ex-girlfriend, begging for him to come back. She’d told him that would only happen in his dreams, and she’d proven herself right.
The phone rang again.
“Look, kid. I’ve got your number on the caller ID, so I know you’re calling from...”
He squinted at the words WHITE HOUSE on the phone display.
“Mr. Dennison, In exactly five seconds two members of the Secret Service will knock on your door.”
There was a knock at the door.
Andy jack-knifed to a sitting position.
“Those are agents Smith and Jones. They're to escort you to a limousine waiting downstairs.”
Andy took the cordless over to his front door, squinted through the peephole. Standing in the hallway were two men in black suits.
“Look, Mister—uh—President, if this is some kind of tax thing...”
“Your particular skills are required in a matter of national security, Mr. Dennison. I'll brief you in New Mexico.”
“This is a translation job?”
“I can't speak any more about it at this time, but you must leave immediately. You'll be paid three times your normal rate, plus expenses. My agents can explain in further detail. We'll talk when you arrive.”
The connection ended. Andy peered through his peephole again. The men looked like secret service. They had the blank stare dead-to-rights.
“Do you guys have ID?” he asked through the door.
They held up their ID.
Andy swallowed, and swallowed again. He considered his options, and realized he really didn’t have any.
He opened the door.
“As soon as you're dressed, Mr. Dennison, we can take you to the airport.”
“How many days should I pack for?”
“No need to pack, sir. Your things will be forwarded to you.”
“Do you know what language I'm going to be using? I've got books, computer programs...”
“Your things will be forwarded.”
Andy had more questions, but he didn’t think asking them would result in answers. He dressed in silence.
The limo, while plush, wasn't accessorized with luxuries. No wet bar. No television. No phone. And the buttons for the windows didn't work.
Andy wore his best suit, Brooks Brothers gray wool, his Harvard tie, and a pair of leather shoes from some Italian designer that cost three hundred dollars and pinched his toes.
“So where in New Mexico am I going?” Andy asked the agents, both of whom rode in the front seat.
They didn't reply.
“Are we going to O'Hare or Midway?”
No answer.
“Can you guys turn on the radio?”
The radio came on. Oldies. Andy slouched back in his seat as Mick Jagger crooned.
Chicago whipped by him on both sides, the streets full of people even at this late hour. Summer in the city was around the clock. The car stopped at a light and three college age girls, drunk and giggling, knocked on his one way window and tried to peer inside. They were at least a decade too young for him.
Their destination turned out to be Midway, the smaller of Chicago’s two airports. Rather than enter the terminal, they were cleared through the perimeter fence and pulled directly out onto the runway. They parked in front of a solitary hanger, far from the jumbo jets. Andy was freed from the limo and led silently to a Lear jet. He boarded without enthusiasm. He'd been on many jets, to many places more exotic than New Mexico.
Andy was bursting with curiosity for his current situation, but sleep was invading his head. It would probably turn out to be some silly little international embarrassment, like a Pakistani Ambassador who hit someone while drunk driving. What was the Hindko word for intoxication? He couldn't remember, and since they didn’t let him take his books, he had no way to look it up.
At a little past four AM the pilot boarded and introduced himself with a strong handshake, but didn’t offer his name. He had no answers for Andy either.
Andy slept poorly, on an off, for the next few hours.
He awoke during the landing, the jolt nudging him alert when the wheels hit the tarmac. After the plane came to a stop, the pilot announced they’d arrived at their destination, Las Cruces International Airport. Andy rubbed some grit from his eyes and stretched in his sea
t, waiting for the pilot to open the hatch.
The climate was hot and dry, appropriate for the desert. The pilot informed Andy to remain on the runway and then walked off to the terminal.
Andy waited in the powerful sun, the only human being in sight, his rumpled suit soon clinging to him like a close family. A minute passed. Two. A golden eagle rode a thermal in the distance, circling slowly. Andy wondered when his ride would arrive. He wondered why this town was called The Crosses. He wondered what the hell was so important that the leader of the free world woke him up at 3AM and flew him out here.
From the opposite end of the runway an Army Humvee approached. Andy noticed the tags, Fort Bliss. The driver offered him a thermos of coffee and then refused further conversation.
They drove west on Interstate 10 and turned onto highway 549, heading into the desert. Traffic went from infrequent to non-existent, and after they passed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant; a large complex fenced off with barbed wire, they turned off road and followed some dirt trail that Andy could barely make out.
The Florida Mountains loomed in the distance. Sagebrush and tumbleweeds dotted the landscape. Andy even saw the skull of a steer resting on some rocks. This was the authentic West, the West of Geronimo and Billy the Kid. He'd been to several deserts in his travels; the Gobi in China, the Rub al-Khalia in Saudi Arabia, the Kalahari in South Africa... but this was his first visit to the Chihuahuan Desert. It left him as the others had—detached. Travel meant work, and Andy never had a chance to enjoy any of the places he’d visited around the world.
The Humvee stopped abruptly and Andy lurched in his seat.
“We're here,” the driver said.
Andy craned his neck and looked around. Three hundred and sixty degrees of desert, not a building nor a soul in sight.
“You're kidding.”
“Please get out of the Humvee, sir. I'm supposed to leave you here.”
“Leave me here? In the desert?”
“Those are my orders.”
Andy squinted. There was nothing but sand and rock for miles and miles.
“This is ridiculous. I'll die out here.”
