by Rick Jones
On the TV screen, the warped image lifted the girl and carried her out of the house.
* * *
Yeong Che was sitting inside a SUV that was parked in front of the home. The area was quiet with little activity, his eyes darting about for anything that could compromise their position. So when the woman and child were placed in the rear of the vehicle in an operation that took less than three minutes, he was pleased.
Pulling away from the curb, Che made a call on his cellphone. His language was tight and curt as he spoke in clips, his orders clear. The first chapter of Scepter’s Rule had been written.
Now it was time to execute part two.
And to do this they would have to contact Ásbjörn Bosshart of The CERN, and provide him with an offer he could not refuse.
Chapter Four
The CERN Laboratory
Geneva, Switzerland
Same Day, 2:18 P.M.
Ásbjörn Bosshart was a leading scientist at The CERN in Switzerland, where the constant bombarding of particles took place in an effort to discover the creative forces that developed the universe in a way to recreate the Big Bang, and the physical cosmology that came after.
As one of the institute’s lead technologists, Bosshart was a man of average height whose key features were the bushy wreath of hair that circled his bald pate, and eyes as black as obsidian glass that were seemingly without pupils and always the shade of midnight. And though he was a man of scientific renown, Ásbjörn Bosshart appeared unkempt since his clothes were ill-fitting and always seemed to have Shar-Pei wrinkles to them.
Nearly three hours before the end of his shift, Bosshart headed for the security station with his briefcase in hand. The man was sickly pale with a hint of gray, his color similar to the underbelly of a fish. And the sweat stains on his shirt beneath his armpits and back appeared as Rorschach blots, indiscernible shapes of wetness. As he approached the guards’ station, he ran a tongue that was as dry as a strip of carpet over much dryer lips.
The guard manning the post offered Bosshart a grin before glancing at his watch. Known for putting in more hours than required, Ásbjörn Bosshart was leaving with three hours left to his shift, an oddity since The CERN was more of a home to him than his residence. The guard, a man who was tall and thin, greeted Bosshart by nodding his head. “Doctor,” he said, “surprised to see you leaving so soon?” When he said this he meant it as a statement in gest, since Bosshart never exited The CERN until the sun had set and the stars appeared overhead like a cache of diamonds spread over black velvet. But the evening sun had yet to set and night was still far away.
But when the guard noted Bosshart’s gray pallor and the sweat lines running rampantly from his brow, he cocked his head inquisitively and asked, “Doctor Bosshart, are you all right?”
Bosshart swallowed, then made another attempt at trying to draw moisture to his lips by running his tongue across them, and failing. “I’m afraid I ate something that didn’t quite agree with me,” he told him.
“You’re not looking too well.”
“Please,” Bosshart said, “I need to see a physician as quickly as possible.” He held the briefcase he was carrying out to the guard, who took it and placed it on the table, undid the clasps, and opened the lid.
Inside were a few papers and a thermos. After picking up the container and shaking it, Bosshart sucked air in through the slight gap between his front teeth, the action eliciting a slight whistling noise.
The guard looked at him. “Something the matter, Doctor?”
Bosshart shook his head too quickly, raising suspicion from the guard. “I’m fine.” Then he pointed to the container. “Please, do what you must. I need to go.”
Ásbjörn Bosshart was a gregarious man by nature, always friendly and quick with a dry joke, something only he thought was funny. But this Ásbjörn Bosshart was abrupt and curt.
The guard shook the container again, the action causing the worry lines and creases on Bosshart’s forehead to multiply before the guard’s very eyes. Then, while holding the container aloft: “Is there something I should know about, Doctor?”
“For God sakes, man, I’m ill. I want to leave so that I can see a physician as to what ails me.”
The guard nodded. “Of course.” Then he began to unscrew the cap to the thermos while watching Bosshart’s reactions, who seemed to wince with every turn. Once the cap was removed the guard looked inside. The container was empty, dry. Then he returned the cap and the thermos to the briefcase, closed the lid, and locked the clasps. Once done, he gestured for Bosshart to go through the metal detector, which he did without setting it off.
Handing Bosshart the briefcase, the guard said, “I hope you’re feeling better, Doctor.”
Bosshart took the briefcase without saying a word and exited The CERN with the urgent strides of a man on a mission.
Chapter Five
Geneva, Switzerland
Same Day
The day after Kimball Hayden met with the monsignor, he was assigned to escort a high-priority ambassador from Switzerland to the Vatican for the eventual entombment beneath the Basilica, to commemorate a life that had been most valuable to the church.
After taking a direct flight, Kimball landed in Geneva where he was met by a church emissary, who drove him directly to the Saint Rose Dominican Hospital.
The facility was white and pristine, the look entirely antiseptic in appearance as Catholic crosses marked the walls above the beds, and glass-framed paintings of Biblical scenes lined the walls.
The church emissary said little to Kimball—more of a guide rather than a conversationalist, which Kimball didn’t mind since he had little to say anyway. Words had been few from the airport to the hospital—even fewer once they passed through the facility’s doors when the most awkward moment came when they rode the elevator to the third level, the conversation between them nonexistent as the ride appeared much too long with the elevator rising at a glacial pace.
Once the doors parted, the emissary left the elevator with Kimball in tow. Footfalls echoed slightly off the surrounding walls. There were more paintings, more crosses, more crucifixes, all to prescribe a sense of spiritual sentiment to ease and serve as a constant reminder that the twilight of life was not the end, but the beginning of something else.
Once they reached room #311, the emissary swept his hand toward the open doorway as an invitation for Kimball to enter, then left the Vatican Knight to stand alone.
Sitting in a wheelchair next to the bed was an aged man whose skin was so translucent, Kimball could clearly see the veined tracks on the backs of his hands and along the stretch of his curved neck—could even see their slight pulsations that counted down to the last moments of the man’s life.
When Kimball entered the room, he could see that the old man was appraising him without betraying any thought or emotion, his eyes scanning the Vatican Knight with absorption.
The man looked at the cleric collar that Kimball wore, which was incredibly white and in contrast to the black cleric shirt that seemed to fit the large man too snuggly, and noted the symbol of the Vatican Knights on the breast pocket of his shirt. It was an iconic symbol since World War II that had never changed over time; the image of a powder-blue shield and silver Pattée supported by flanking heraldic lions standing on their hind legs with their forepaws bracing the shield steady and upright.
“That symbol,” said the old man, pointing his finger, “has not changed in nearly seventy years. Not one stitch.”
Kimball took a step closer to the man in the wheelchair. “Frederic Becher?” he asked him.
The old man nodded.
“I’m your escort to the Vatican.”
Becher waved a hand at Kimball. “I know who you are,” he told him. “I know everything about you.”
Kimball saw a thick file laying on top of the bed, his biographical records. “You’ve been reading up on me. Why?”
“I didn’t read much,” he told him. “Didn’t
have to. I know you more than you think, Kimball.”
“Something I should know about?”
Becher gestured a bony hand to the edge of the bed in invitation. “Please,” he said, “we have forty-five minutes before we leave for the station.”
Kimball took a seat and grabbed the file, the bed protesting and dipping greatly under his weight. Opening the folder, he saw his photo that was taken during his days as a black operative for the United States government, an old picture. Then he flipped the pages and began to read. It was an impartial account of his history that noted his mission objectives and kill-count, the credited number of killings not as high as they should be, some undocumented. Then he put the file aside and looked at Becher. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Frederic Becher.”
“I know your name,” Kimball said. “But who…are…you?”
Becher looked at Kimball for a long moment. Then: “I’m you, Kimball…forty years from now. I’m your mirror image for what you’re about to become.”
Kimball Hayden had no idea what the old man was talking about.
Chapter Six
Euro Train Station
Geneva, Switzerland
Ásbjörn Bosshart was sure that his heart would misfire in his chest as he stood at the counter waiting for his one-way ticket to Rome on Euro Railways. The woman behind the counter was pretty and lithe, her eyes big and blue and as large as saucers. When she handed him his ticket, Bosshart snatched it from her grasp with a rude tug and hastened his way to the roomette onboard the Express.
He was sweating profusely, his forehead and face entirely slick with a sheathing of wetness. As he walked down the cramped aisles that divided the roomettes he bumped into several patrons, which encouraged angry remarks. The people called out to him for an apology on the part of Bosshart, but he hurried to his assigned area oblivious to those around him.
He looked above the doors of the roomettes and checked his ticket.
…G-12…
…G-14…
…G-16…
Then he found it: G-22, which was near the end of the car.
He grabbed the handle of the door and slid it open. Once inside, he lowered the briefcase carefully to the bench, closed the door behind him, and pulled the drapes to give him privacy. Then he mopped his brow dry by bringing his forearm across it, and sat down. Closing his eyes, he fought for calm and stability by meditating. Then after taking a few deep breaths and releasing them as equally long sighs that were meant to calm and ease, Ásbjörn Bosshart found no comfort at all, the exercise one of waste.
Opening the briefcase, Bosshart grabbed the thermos and held it in front of him with great caution, as if it was a relic to be cherished. What the guard missed at the station proved to be his gain. But not for long. In a few hours the discovery of the missing items would immediately point the accusing finger at Bosshart as the thief. But he had no choice or alternative. What he did was for the salvation of his wife and child, a girl of nine, the theft justified in his mind.
Slowly, Ásbjörn Bosshart placed a hand at the bottom of the thermos and began to unscrew it, the means that had been missed by the guard. After several turns of the underside cap, Bosshart separated the bottom from the rest of the mug, and held it out before him.
The underside cap was a holder capable of securing sixteen small vials. The contents of each vial weighed exactly one ounce, with the total sum of the sixteen vials adding up to one pound, or 448 grams. In each vial was a glowing ember that vacillated from color to color like the facets of a diamond turning in the light, the hues glowing iridescently in blues, yellows, reds and greens. As he held the underside cap in the palm of his hand, the hues glowed different shades against his face.
Then he carefully screwed the cap to the thermos’s underside, and placed the mug inside the briefcase. Once done, he removed a tablet from the case, turned it on, and typed in an address.
IP encryptions began to scroll on the tablet’s screen, numbers and letters and symbols, until he was taken to a particular sight, one with the means to Skype. After typing a very specific code, Bosshart was brought to a live feed at an unknown location.
The area on the tablet’s screen appeared like an abandoned warehouse with useless wooden pallets and pieces of old canvas tarps lying about. The location appeared dark and poorly lit, more shadow that light.
And then from Bosshart: “I’m here.”
Silence.
And then once again from Bosshart, though louder, he said, “I’m here.”
“You’re late,” came an accented voice. Coming into view onscreen was a man wearing a ski mask, though his eyes were clearly almond-shaped, an Asian by descent.
“Only by a few minutes,” he said.
“Seven minutes,” was the answer. “You’re late by seven minutes. Now that you’re on the Express,” the man continued, “I must assume that you have the required goods in hand.”
Bosshart nodded. “Four hundred forty-eights grams,” he told him.
“No problems?”
Bosshart shook his head. “No…None.”
“When The CERN closes its doors and takes inventory, a computer analysis will register a shortage of useable product. A lockdown will commence and tapes will be poured over. So congratulation, Doctor Bosshart, you have become a fugitive. And in four hours you will become Interpol’s most wanted man.”
“I don’t care about that!” he stated harshly. “You know what I want.”
“Upon us receiving the thermos, Doctor Bosshart, you will receive your wife and child in good health, as promised.”
“So I’m to give you the contents in Rome?”
The man onscreen shook his head in the negative. “In four hours, Doctor Bosshart, while the train is en route, the discovery of your theft will be confirmed, as well as you getting on the Railway as a means to escape authorities. Interpol and local agencies will be waiting for you at the next debarkation points.”
“So what’s the point of all this, if the authorities will be waiting for me at every turn?”
“All you need to know, Doctor Bosshart, is that plans are in motion. And all you need to do is sit tight. We’ll do the rest.”
Bosshart attempted to swallow back a sour lump that was cropping up in his throat, but he failed, the lump too large and too hot to push back. Then with the man almost in tears, Bosshart added, “Please don’t hurt my family.”
“Follow through with the mission’s goal, Doctor Bosshart…and everything will be fine.”
But Bosshart did not trust this man. How could he since terrorists put little value on human life?
“We’ll be in touch, Doctor. In the meantime, stay in G-22. Do not move from your position, is that clear?”
Then: “I want to see them.”
“Your family is fine.”
“I want…to see them.”
After a frozen moment, the Asian on the other end said, “Very well.” Moving the camera, the captor moved down a dark corridor and entered a dreary-looking room filled with discarded materials and junk. In the room’s center tied and bound with their backs together was his wife and daughter. They had been crying, their faces marred by tracks where tears streamed down against dirt-encrusted faces. And then the camera returned to the face of their captor.
“They’re fine, Doctor, as you can see.”
“I want to speak to them.”
“Doctor, let’s get one thing straight. You’re not in command here. I am.”
“I have what you want. Harm my family…then you’ll never see a gram of this.”
“Speak to me in that manner again, Doctor—” The Asian produced a combat knife on the tablet’s screen, one that appeared wickedly keen and sharp, and began to rotate it as if to showcase the weapon in its entirety. “If you speak to me in that manner again, Doctor, I will personally take the edge of this knife and filet the skin off your wife while she breathes, and then your daughter. Are we clear on that?”
Tears
began to slip from the edges of Bosshart’s eyes. “Please don’t.”
“Are we clear, Doctor Bosshart?”
Bosshart nodded. “Yes,” he said.
“Then sit tight and do not leave your roomette. Stay in G-22. Is that clear?”
“It is.”
And then the display on the tablet winked off, the picture growing to the size of an ember, to a mote, and then it was gone.
Chapter Seven
Warehouse 47
The Outskirts of Zurich, Switzerland
Yeong Che worked as a high-end operative for the shadowy North Korean agency called the Reconnaissance General Bureau, or the RGB, which formally falls under the military, but is often associated with the spy-training unit known as Office 35.
His specific duties were to plan and develop operations with the use of militants in order to achieve the means for the greater good of North Korea and Kim Jong-un. Today, however, marked the final day of Operation Scepter’s Rule.
Setting the tablet aside after his discussion with Bosshart, Che removed his ski mask and tossed it on top of the device’s e-screen. Behind him he could hear the sobbing of Bosshart’s wife and daughter, which sounded more like hiccups. Then he yelled for them to cease and desist, which they did to some degree, the noises diminishing to mewling’s of despair.
Dressed in a black jumpsuit, Che walked over to the captives and stood over them. “Look at me,” he told them, his words carrying the tone of a draconian commander.
They did with eyes that were red and rheumy from too much crying, as they fell upon a man with almond-shaped eyes and high cheekbones. His lips were thin, a grim line that parted slightly to show even rows of ruler-straight teeth when he spoke. And though his features remained neutral, despite the tone and measure of his voice, his slender frame carried with it a toughness that had been brought on by years of military training.
