by Jon Land
“Reports of a dozen more outbreaks still confined to the Middle East, mostly localized.”
“Mostly?”
“There’s anecdotal evidence of possible victims in both Beirut and Amman.”
“Anything outside the Middle East?”
“Not yet, no.” Van Royce hesitated, looked down and then up again. “I need to ask you again, Vicky.”
“Ask me what?”
“Back in that village, how you knew to warn us. How you knew what was coming.”
“I had a feeling.”
“It seemed to be a lot more than that at the time. So I’ll ask you again: What tipped you off, how did you know?”
Vicky could’ve told him her dead fiancé had sent her a text message telling her to GET OUT of the village, but the evidence was gone from her phone, leaving her not quite believing it herself. She knew she hadn’t imagined what had transpired back in the Sinai, just as she knew there was no rational way to explain it. And, as when diagnosing a disease, her training dictated that she consider all options before settling on the most logical and also the most ludicrous one:
That Vicky’s dead fiancé really had saved her life.
She’d found herself checking the phone constantly, reluctant to ever let it leave her grasp at times, on the impossible and utterly irrational chance another message from Thomas might come through. And every time the soft chime signaling an incoming e-mail or text sounded, her heart jumped.
Where was the rationality in that?
A lieutenant in the Egyptian army emerged from the office they’d been sitting outside of for hours, sparing Vicky from having to answer Van Royce’s question.
“The general will see you now.”
* * *
“I apologize for making you wait,” said General Azmir Malik, chief of staff for Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “Please, sit down.”
Vicky and Van Royce took matching fabric-covered chairs set before his desk, Malik waiting until they were seated to follow. His office overlooked Tahrir Square from the gleaming governmental ministries built atop the demolished refuse of former president Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Headquarters. The general had served al-Sisi in various roles since he began his historic rise through Egyptian military rankings to his current position as president.
He was a short man with unnaturally broad shoulders that made his uniform look as if it were full of stuffing. His eyes were dark, somewhere between black and brown, his furtive gaze reluctant to meet either of theirs directly in what Vicky took to be well practiced to avoid roiling allies or provoking enemies.
“I apologize for the delay,” he resumed, “but it was unavoidable, given the unprecedented nature of the events we find ourselves facing.”
“We understand the gravity of the situation,” Van Royce said, jumping in before Vicky had a chance to. “We barely escaped Al Arish with our lives. You should’ve taken steps to alert us, done whatever was necessary. My bloody God, man, we’re on the same side here!”
“You’re right, of course, and we did try to reach you via the cell and satellite phone numbers the WHO provided. But none of those communications went through and the WHO was similarly unable to reach you. I imagine you encountered much the same thing.”
“We did,” Van Royce confirmed.
Malik shrugged. “Our investigation into the breakdown in communication remains ongoing. In the meantime, you have my deepest regrets to go with a formal letter of apology from our president to your superiors at the World Health Organization.”
“What about your assistance in determining what we’re facing here?” Vicky chimed in. “Can we have that too?”
Malik’s chest puffed forward as she said that, as if the gesture was supposed to mean more to them than it did. “Of course,” he said, clearly not used to being deferential to a woman.
“Then let’s start with why you bombed the village.”
“We must speak theoretically,” Malik said, aiming his words at Van Royce.
“Of course.”
“Then, theoretically, our government could have received cryptic, garbled communications from the village suggesting some kind of hostile action, even an attack. Theoretically, we could have dispatched the appropriate military personnel to investigate. Theoretically, we could have lost contact with that team after a series of desperate exchanges, suggesting something even more serious than an attack.”
“We’re talking about suspected outbreak here, a potential epidemic,” Van Royce suggested.
“And what did you find when you investigated this potential epidemic?” Malik asked, addressing them both this time.
Vicky leaned forward. “Nothing. The patients and staff were all missing, like we told you. And there was no evidence of anyone about in the village either,” she added, not bothering to mention the shapes both she and Van Royce thought they’d glimpsed scurrying about the town proper.
“And if the cause of all that was, theoretically, this potential epidemic,” Malik said, seeming to weigh his next words carefully, his voice growing more measured and flat, “and if the final cryptic reports from the military personnel dispatched to the scene indicated they were under some kind of attack. Gunfire could be heard, screams too. Then nothing, no further contact.” Malik’s lips trembled for a moment before he took a deep breath to regain his composure. “In such a scenario, eradication would be the primary strategy to consider. In a theoretical sense, of course.” Malik laid his arms on his desktop and tapped his fingers together. “For something less theoretical, you need to go to southern Lebanon, fifty miles from the Israeli border.”
“And what will we find there, General?” Vicky asked him.
“A secret installation once involved with bio-weapons development. All contact has been lost with the facility, again following a series of panicked, cryptic messages. We’ve already arranged safe passage there for you with the Israeli and Lebanese governments. I’ll have a plane take you to southern Lebanon where you’ll be met by a Lebanese army escort. Lebanese troops are in the process of securing the perimeter, but won’t approach the facility until you arrive,” Malik told them both.
“Secured against what?” Vicky wondered.
Malik was suddenly reluctant to meet her gaze. “It’s better if you see for yourself.”
THIRTY-SIX
Over the Atlantic
“What am I supposed to call you?” Father Jimenez said, early into the flight aboard a U.S. military jet to the Middle East with the stranger who’d dropped out of the sky, literally, back in Brazil.
“Red.”
“That’s your name?”
“No,” the man told Jimenez, “but it’s my favorite color.”
The men who’d accompanied him to Brazil, well armed and virtually indistinguishable from one another, sat silently in the back of the plane not seeming to move through the entire duration of the flight. For his part, Jimenez quickly tired of trying to engage “Red” in conversation, lapsed into sleep several times over the course of the flight instead, only to be jarred awake by nightmares he couldn’t remember.
“What does this all really have to do with me?” he finally asked, after the jet had hit its cruising altitude, already streaking across the Atlantic.
“Goes back to your experience in Nigeria, almost thirty years ago now. That ring any bells?”
“Too many,” Jimenez managed, through the clog that had formed in his throat. “Can you be more specific?”
“No, I can’t. Remember I told you the world was going to hell? What would you say if I said that you were a part of it?”
“I’d say you were crazy. Who do you work for, and what is it you do for them exactly?”
Red’s gaze narrowed. “Well, you might say we’re in the same line of work, actually.”
“Religion or science?”
“Miracles or, more accurately, inexplicable phenomena. The difference being I do it on behalf of the United States, a branch of the governme
nt that nobody’s ever heard of. This isn’t the first time I’ve chased something like this, but it just might be the most dire.”
“Something like what?” Jimenez asked him.
“My job started out chasing weapons, or anything that could be weaponized. If there was a mass death, humans or animals, I’d be on the scene to see if the cause could be exploited. When NASA sent probes into outer space, I was there when they came back to see if any intergalactic menaces we could utilize had hitched a ride. If some armchair scientist patented something that could work to our advantage, I’d be knocking on his door the next day.”
“Just knocking on his door?”
“Figure of speech. You get the idea.”
“I’m trying very hard not to.”
“We’re both chasing miracles, Father; we just define them differently. For me, it’s inexplicable phenomena and nothing more. But what’s uniquely terrifying is how much of it as of late seems to be occurring across the globe. A veritable epidemic of the bizarre. And I happen to believe all the random, disparate pieces are connected. That’s where you come in.”
Jimenez leaned back, feeling a bit chilled. “Science, superstition. Not one or the other—both.”
Red didn’t nod, didn’t react, remaining noncommittal. “Let’s just say that the net I cast is substantially wider than the Vatican’s and I’ve got a whole floor of staffers checking what’s been reeled in. I’ve got an unlimited budget and all the resources I need. And, even with all those resources, we can’t keep up with all the data coming in right now. You know what that means?”
Jimenez felt turbulence shake the jet, bothering him far more than it normally would, as if in response to their conversation. “I haven’t a clue.”
“Patterns, connections. A surge in the kind of phenomena both of us are chasing, to the point where I find myself questioning what it may be leading us toward, how everything fits together.”
“I’ve managed to explain on a scientific basis every so-called inexplicable event I’ve investigated.”
“I’m aware of that, Father. But that doesn’t include Nigeria, does it?”
Jimenez stiffened. “I wasn’t working for the church yet.”
“No, but your signing on was directly related to what happened down there, wasn’t it?”
“You seem to know an awful lot about me.”
“It’s my job to know, Father.”
Jimenez realized his mouth was very dry but stopped short of asking for something to drink or getting it from the galley himself.
“And your involvement with what happened in Nigeria is why you’re on this plane, Father. But I’ve also gone back and read your books, particularly the passages on the origins of the Universe and the existence of dark energy. Thought I may have found a kindred spirit, someone who could appreciate the concerns that have come to dominate my experience, especially after you experienced your own miracle in 1991 that brought you into the priesthood.”
“An eclipse isn’t a miracle, it’s a naturally occurring scientific phenomenon.”
“And if it had happened no more than a few seconds later, your head would’ve been rolling around on the ground.”
“You want to call that a miracle, go ahead,” Jimenez told him, his mouth so dry that his voice cracked a bit.
Red raised his shade and spoke with his gaze focused outward, into the emptiness of the sky. “Something I didn’t tell you about my job description, Father: it comes with a whole lot of study and analysis. Call it an accumulation of necessary knowledge. Old texts, ancient writings, many dealing with what passed for science in their respective times. Books where the scribes were trying to make sense of what their world at the time told them couldn’t be. Like infestations and plagues and famines and droughts. Fish raining from the sky which everyone thought was a joke until it actually happened in Australia in 2010, then again in Alaska in 2015. The fact of the matter, Father, is there’s always a scientific explanation, if we try hard enough to find one. I’ve seen one for each of the Ten Plagues of the Pharaohs. Hell, I’ve even seen one for Moses parting the Red Sea that discounted the whole thing as a tidal anomaly in convincing fashion, but quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say? My point being that the line between myth or legend, and what we know as reality, is absurdly thin. I’ve been at this job a long time, and if I’ve learned nothing else, it’s that.”
Jimenez looked past Red out the window, as the jet settled into a softer pocket of air. “What does all this have to do with Nigeria?”
“You mean, beside the fact that it wasn’t an ordinary meteor strike at all, any more than Brazil was?”
Jimenez tried hard not to look surprised that Red somehow knew that. “How much do you know about meteor or asteroid strikes?”
“What I need to, Father.”
“Then here’s some more. A meteor capable of doing the damage on the scale done at the Nigerian site would be of sufficient size to give off a decidedly audible bang that could be heard for hundreds of miles, like a sonic boom.”
“Your report mentioned nothing about that.”
“Because there wasn’t one, nor were there any infrasound components either.”
“Infrasound?” Red asked, the level of his technical expertise clearly not including that.
“Extreme low frequency sounds inaudible to the human ear that travel in what’s generally known as a wavefront. Take the relatively recent Chelyabinsk meteor strike in Russia as an example. The infrasound given off not only radiated across Chelyabinsk and much of Russia, but around the world several times. I use that as an example because in terms of mass and force, it should’ve been close to what we encountered in the Nigerian strike twenty-seven years ago. And yet no infrasound whatsoever was detected. Then there was the site itself.”
“What about it, Father?” Red prodded, again as if seeming to know where Jimenez’s thoughts were headed.
“It’s inconceivable for a strike of that magnitude, coupled with atmospheric entry, not to rupture the structural integrity of the meteor, and reduce it to smaller chunks of rubble. So in addition to our examination of what we determined to be Ground Zero at the scene of the strike, my team reconnoitered a large stretch of area in search of pellet-sized holes in the ground, samples left by the shotgun-like spray the meteor’s rubble fragments gave off. Again, nothing.”
“Impossible or unprecedented?”
Jimenez weighed the distinction. “I’d say both, at least based on the limitations of science both then and now. Unprecedented because even the most shallow angle of descent couldn’t account for such an anomaly. Impossible because every other bit of visual and anecdotal data we collected told us it had absolutely had to be there. So take your pick. But, based on the degree of damage we encountered, we should’ve been looking at a meteor at minimum twenty meters in diameter. And yet we found absolutely nothing.”
“Just like Brazil, eh, Father?”
“Brazil was no meteor strike.”
“According to you, neither was Nigeria. And what both these incidents have in common is that neither can be explained away by applying scientific principles, at least those within the limits of current knowledge.” Red settled back into his seat, the soft fabric seeming to absorb him. “That’s where I come in. That’s what I do. And I can tell you, without violating any security clearances, that I’ve been doing it a hell of a lot over the past few months. And this pattern, if it can truly be called that, could potentially date back to well before Nigeria.”
Something scratched at Jimenez’s spine, just as a fresh wave of turbulence shook the jet. “So what do you need me for? What does all this have to do with the latest crisis in the Middle East that I have nothing to do with?”
Red stopped just short of a smirk this time. “Actually, Father, we think you do, more than you can possibly imagine.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
New York City
“Close the door, Pope,” Weeb Bochner told Max, twenty-four hours to the minute
after their first meeting had concluded.
Max sealed it behind him and held his ground halfway to Bochner’s desk.
“I’m gonna give you some advice, hoss,” Bochner continued. “Turn around, walk back out that door, and forget you ever came to me. Because you’re about to hear things you can’t un-hear, and maybe it’s better if you don’t hear them at all. That’s the thing about truth: it really does hurt. The older it is, the more it hurts.”
“I’ve never had a problem with pain,” Max told him.
* * *
Max had spent much of the past day walking the city, refreshing himself with a world he’d abandoned, for good he thought, a decade before when he’d become a different person. New York was remarkably unchanged, frozen in time. The smells, the sounds, the sights. Different storefronts, of course. More chain stores, comfortable in familiarity and, he supposed, capable of affording the incredible rents. He strolled past these where they mixed with massive skyscrapers rising like steel and glass monoliths, as if birthed by the razed establishments, the names of which Max couldn’t recall.
He walked not so much in search of a memory, as a feeling. Something that would take him back to growing up in Manhattan through a succession of schools both private and public. His father absent through much of it, always away at work, as he and his partner Dale Denton expanded their energy empire to a corporate headquarters in Houston. It was Max and his mother, she seeming to sense in him what his father always denied. She’d tried to understand what was happening, just as he had, neither of them succeeding very well at all, while her sanity fled her in leaps and then bounds.
Max had told Weeb Bochner nothing of this, only of his real identity accompanied by a highly sanitized version of his background and the circumstances that led him to shed his father’s name and reinvent himself as an entirely new person.
