by Paul Mceuen
Jake touched the trigger they’d implanted, the tiny thread next to his eye. All that was left to connect them to the outside world was the tracker, and soon even that might not work.
THE ROAD TOOK A SHARP LEFT, THEN BEGAN TO WIND THROUGH a forest of bare trees. Jake checked the time: they’d been driving now for almost eight hours. The clouds were thickening.
An address appeared on the iPhone: 23 Giles Street. Soon after, they came upon a series of cottages tucked back from the road, all empty for the winter. The windows were shuttered, the doors already blocked by small drifts of snow. Behind them, Jake glimpsed stretches of blue water through gaps in the woods. The slow-moving Saint Lawrence, here more a lake than a river, peppered with islands by the thousands. The border was halfway across. On the other side lay Canada.
Jake checked the addresses of the cabins on the right, the ones on the side of the river. Soon he saw 23 Giles, a nondescript saltbox with deep brown wood siding and an incongruous bright blue door. He pulled into the driveway, tires marking the snow, stopping in front of a two-car garage.
Kitano spoke. “If the other six Tokkō failed, I was to be the last to strike. Holding back the Uzumaki until it was time.”
“Too bad Connor took it away from you,” Jake said. He got out of the car, approached the front window of the house, all the while keeping tabs on Kitano. Jake glanced though the glass pane. The interior of the house was empty and dark.
Kitano joined him on the porch, his movements jerky and quick. His eyes darted around, as though he sensed danger just out of sight. He was freaking out.
Jake left the porch and checked the garage. Inside was the FedEx van, the back door open. No sign of life.
He returned to the car and grabbed the iPhone. The arrow on the screen pointed through the house and toward the water, the word rowboat underneath it.
He walked around to the back of the building, and Kitano followed. The wooden rowboat was pulled up into the middle of the yard, upside down to keep out the snow.
Two parkas were stored underneath.
Jake gave one to Kitano and put on the second himself. He prepared the boat for the journey, rolling it over and dragging it down to the edge of the water. Kitano excused himself, taking a piss over by the bushes. Jake watched him carefully.
MINUTES LATER, JAKE WAS ROWING ACROSS THE RIVER. HIS hands ached, from both the burns and the cold. The snow was still falling, cloaking them in a world of white. It was perfectly quiet. All except for the sound of the oars, the strain and creak of wood on wood, the small splashes as he pulled the oars through the water.
In the back of the boat, directly in Jake’s line of sight, was Kitano. The old man was silent now, huddled inside his parka. Jake was glad for the chance to focus. He was hyperaware of every shift of Kitano’s body movements.
The screen on the iPhone flickered. The map was gone, the display blank. Then two words appeared: Stop. Wait.
Jake lifted the oars, and the boat drifted in the current. They were in the middle of the vast, slow river, hundreds of yards from any of the islands. It was cold as hell. Kitano’s lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.
Jake took in his surroundings. The water. The gray-and-white clouds. The snow white on the shoreline, muted shadows cast by the empty trees. What were they waiting for? A boat? He played the oars back and forth in the water, keeping his muscles warm. He prayed that Dylan wasn’t suffering. Maggie would go crazy when she found out. She would be inconsolable. Assuming she was still alive. Jake tried to picture a way out of this, a scenario in which everything turned out all right. But it was impossible to imagine.
Kitano spoke again: “When Japan was conquered, our souls were imprisoned. We denied it. We managed to re-create ourselves within the matrix of the conqueror, like a bird living in the rib cage of the beast. The bird wakes up every morning and goes about its day. But soon the bird understands its fate. It lives in darkness. It lives in slavery. It serves no purpose but to digest the food of its host. It becomes a parasite.”
The old man’s eyes were lit up like coals. He had bits of white spittle in the corners of his mouth. “When this realization occurs,” Kitano said, “the bird first acquiesces. Accepts its fate. That is what I did. That is what the modern men of Japan have done, these grass-eaters. They are little birds, living inside the cage America built for them. They have never known any other life. They have never fought. They have never tasted blood.
“But the bars of the cage are rotting away. Soon America will be too weak to protect itself, let alone Japan. So the bird must act. The bird must fight its way out of the darkness, and back into the sun. Japan must break free. It must retake its position as a dangerous and proud nation.”
A chill ran up Jake’s spine. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Do you know what we call you? You Caucasians? The bata-kusai—the men who smell like rancid butter. You are disgusting creatures who cannot even bathe yourselves properly. And you are cowards. You come and we defeat you. The Dutch came and conquered, but in the end we defeated them. The French, the British, the same. In the end our courage, our willingness to die, is your undoing. Your century is over. Ours has begun.”
“You’re insane. Japan doesn’t even have a real army,” Jake said. “Your constitution forbids it.”
“Your constitution,” Kitano said. “MacArthur wrote it. It has no authority over me. The armies of the east, of China and Japan, already equal in number those of the United States, and we can raise five times that number. Our military spending is doubling every five years. In a few short years, it will exceed America’s. China’s economic growth is outstripping yours by a stunning margin. You falter, China rises, with Japan leading her forward. You are not stupid, Mr. Sterling. You must know it. Soon we will dwarf you. China will be the body. And Japan the head.”
“China and Japan hate each other.”
“Waters ebb and flow. The nations of Europe were mortal enemies for centuries. The Chinese and Japanese similarly fought, struggling for the upper hand. But now we will join together.”
Jake felt an incredible heat coming off Kitano. The man was on fire. Jake heard a humming noise coming from far away. After a minute, he spotted it gliding over the water, too small to be an airplane.
It passed directly overhead, then banked and circled. Jake recognized it—an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, maybe one of the old RQ-2 Pioneers the Navy had flown in the First Gulf War. Jake had seen them up close on a number of occasions: they were human-sized, a few feet tall, with a wingspan of maybe fifteen feet, primarily used for reconnaissance. This one was sleeker than the old RQ-2s, probably one of the newer RQ-7 Shadows. What the hell was an RQ-7 Shadow doing out here?
“Do you know the history of the kamikaze?” Kitano said, completely ignoring the UAV. “They are named for a pair of giant typhoons, the winds of God, that destroyed Kublai Khan’s Mongol fleets in 1274, and again in 1281. The Mongols came to invade Japan. They paid for their arrogance with their lives. Those not killed by the storm were slaughtered by the Japanese forces. For the next seven hundred years, no gaijin dared repeat that mistake. Not until the Americans, the bata-kusai, the latest incarnation of the rancid-butter men. When they are destroyed, when you are destroyed, no one will dare threaten Japan again.”
The air was cold and still. Snowflakes fell slowly. “Cut the bullshit,” Jake said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Let me ask you a question. What if you Americans discovered the Chinese had the Uzumaki since the war? And told no one? What if they had built a billion-dollar facility whose mission was to develop a cure for the Uzumaki? And then what if an extremely high-ranking Chinese official was caught on tape describing a plan of attack, a plan to release the Uzumaki in the United States, killing millions and millions of your citizens. What would you think then? Would you do anything to stop them?”
“Quit playing games.”
“Answer me. Would you do anything to stop
them?”
“Of course.”
“And if someone else stopped them, if someone else made them pay? Would that person, that nation, become your ally? Even if in the past they had been your enemy?”
“Tell me what is going on.”
“Hours ago, Orchid sent a series of encrypted files to the Japanese and Chinese embassies. In them are documents and audiotapes proving that the United States is preparing a biological attack against China. A secret, underhanded, despicable act. A plan to use the Uzumaki as a weapon to bring down the Chinese government. To kill thousands, perhaps millions, of innocent Chinese civilians.”
The words were like an electric shock. Suddenly Jake understood.
“You son of a bitch. You hired Orchid.”
A hundred connections appeared, images flooding his mind. Connor jumping off the bridge. Vlad shot in the head. Dylan alone in an isolation tank. All because of this man. “You’re paying Orchid to get you out of jail. You did all this to set yourself free.” Jake grabbed one of the oars, held it like a club. “Tell me where Maggie is.”
Kitano ignored the threat. “The United States kept the Uzumaki secret for over sixty years. It covered up Japan’s infamous Unit 731 to protect this precious secret. And now it is undertaking an aggressive countermeasures program that will allow it to use the Uzumaki as an offensive weapon. I have documents proving all of this.”
“That’s total bullshit. No one will believe you. Documents can be forged. You think China will love you after this? Be your friend just because you cook up some crazy conspiracy theory that the U.S. is going to attack China?”
“The Chinese will revere me for exacting revenge against the white devils.”
“Revenge? What the hell—”
Kitano cut him off. “You still do not understand, do you? It is over. The Uzumaki is already free. It is already spreading.”
48
DUNNE SLIPPED AWAY TO THE WOOD-PANELED ROOM THAT was his temporary office at Camp David, phone pressed to his ear, talking frantically to Paul Waller, his attaché. Reports had started coming in from the prison at Hazelton. “Seventeen guards called in sick,” Waller said. “The prisoners are agitated. They started a riot.”
“Why?”
“No one knows. Everyone is acting crazy. The warden said he’s never seen anything like it.”
“Find out why.”
Dunne tossed the phone down on his desk, skin itching like fire. He tried to keep calm, but it was as if his thoughts shredded before he could understand them. Streaks of light shot across his line of vision.
He sat at the desk, poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. His hand shook as he tried to take a drink. “There’s something wrong with me,” he said aloud. Denying it was no longer possible. Now his thoughts were crawling everywhere, almost as if they were outside his head, like spiders on his scalp. One second he was Lawrence Dunne, sinew and substance, the deputy national security adviser for the most powerful nation in the world. The next second he was a loose collection of dust, water, and sand.
“Walking dead,” a voice said.
Dunne looked up, shocked. It took him a minute to realize that he had said it. He was sitting in a chair, at a desk, his BlackBerry on the desktop before him, but he was also standing across the room, watching himself sitting in the chair. I’m having some sort of breakdown.
The other Dunne watched him. The other Dunne was now a rotting corpse, bits of skin hanging down like peeled paint. The other Dunne spoke, his voice sounding as if it came from the bottom of a well. “Walking dead.”
Dunne closed his eyes. The other Dunne was still there, waiting in the blackness.
I’m cracking up.
A wave of nausea hit. He shook his head, saw streaks of lights like tracer bullets. The walls began to pulsate, as if the office were a giant, breathing animal.
The prison. Everyone at the prison was going crazy.
He flashed to Kitano, the old man on the floor of his prison cell, a drop of spittle on his lips.
His phone vibrated on his desk, wriggling like a living creature. Dunne forced himself to pick it up.
It was Waller again. He sounded panicked. “They tore apart Kitano’s cell. He had a phone. A goddamn cellphone—one of the guards admitted to smuggling it in for him. He’d been texting back and forth with someone. Lawrence, he knew. He knew everything that was coming. The demands, everything. But that’s not the worst. In one of the books he’d carved out a little space. Inside it they found a MicroCrawler. It was wrapped in a note. The note said, ‘The falcon strikes.’ ”
Dunne dropped the phone. The room pulsed a dark red. Dunne fought to keep control of his thoughts. The walls ran bloodred. Looking up, he saw a falcon pulling in its wings.
Dunne ran out of his office, trying to get away. He stared upward, seeing not the ceiling but a sky on fire, flames tearing holes in the world. From the center of the maelstrom came a Tokkō plane diving, orange flames shooting as it fell, melting and re-forming, as a falcon, as a burning sword. Yelling at the top of his lungs, Dunne heard nothing, screaming and running until the Navy guards grabbed him.
The next thing he knew he was on the floor, strong arms holding him down. The President, the cabinet, the Joint Chiefs, all stood over him. Men in their uniforms, the trappings of power. Bombs, missiles, satellites, all worthless, nothing. Today it ended. Kitano would end everything.
49
MAGGIE WAS RUNNING OUT OF TIME.
She strained against the cuffs on her wrists. Two feet away, on the little table, lay the pair of tweezers that Orchid had used the day before. They were a pitiful weapon, but if she could get her hands on them, it might just be enough.
The skin on her right wrist tore, rolled back. The blood was slick, acting as lubrication between flesh and metal. A few more minutes and she’d be there. If Orchid would stay away just a few minutes longer.
Maggie was very close.
If only Orchid would stay away.
THE LAST TWELVE HOURS HAD BEEN A TERRIFYING JOURNEY. A descent into madness, and then, incredibly, a return to sanity. Orchid had infected her with the Uzumaki, then left her overnight in complete darkness. For hour after interminable hour, Maggie had grown increasingly frantic, trapped inside the claustrophobic gas mask, trying to scream, trying to escape the corpses grabbing at her.
Hours later, Orchid had returned and switched on the lights, dispelling for the moment her ghostly attackers. Maggie had let loose with a string of curses like she’d never uttered. She’d howled, called Orchid a bitch and a whore, screeched all the ways she’d like to kill her. A demon possessed her that had little relation to the self that Maggie had known.
Orchid had opened her backpack on the bench, reached inside. Maggie had kept up the invective, only stopping when she saw what Orchid held in her palm. A glass vial filled with her grandfather’s glowing Fusarium fungus.
Orchid had taken some of the multicolored stringy fungus and mixed it together with a liquid in a test tube. With a hypodermic, she’d pulled the liquid up inside, then injected it into Maggie’s stomach.
Then Orchid had left.
Over the next few hours, Maggie’s shakes had continued, with mad visions of Crawlers tearing apart her son and corpses grabbing at her. But after a while, she’d noticed a change. The hallucinations were lessening.
The crazy itching, the homicidal fantasies. The corpses. All retreated further with every passing hour. Orchid would return for a moment, closely observing her movements. She would take Maggie’s temperature, as well as a blood sample, which she stored in a small refrigerator.
Maggie could tell that Orchid was pleased.
The glowing fungus.
“Your grandfather,” Orchid had said.
Maggie thought of the glowing fungus on the piece of wood: the prize that Liam had left at the end of the letterbox trail. That’s what they were meant to find. That’s what Liam had left for them. Her grandfather had created an antidote for the
Uzumaki.
He had created an antidote for the most dangerous biological weapon ever developed. Because of it, she wouldn’t die here, unhinged and alone. The progress of the Uzumaki could be stopped. Because of her grandfather.
As that understanding took hold, Maggie was overcome with emotion. Profound awe, a tremendous respect and admiration for her grandfather, and a relief that soaked her entire body. He had succeeded in doing, all alone, what all the scientists at Detrick couldn’t accomplish.
But soon enough, Maggie’s relief dimmed. Slowly, a darker knowledge had taken root inside of her.
Orchid had the cure.
Connor’s law: you have the cure, you have a weapon.
MAGGIE PULLED AS HARD AS SHE COULD, IGNORING THE searing pain. One last, vicious yank and her hand popped free. She opened her fingers, the muscles obeying, though she could barely feel them.
A noise. The door opened at the top of the stairs.
She grabbed the tweezers off the table and quickly put her hand back down, as if her arm was still handcuffed.
She forced her breathing to slow, nice and easy.
One chance.
Orchid came down with a gun drawn, as she always did. She saw Maggie, ran her eyes up and down her, then holstered the gun in the small of her back and flipped the snap closed.
Maggie tried to control her breathing as Orchid took a fresh needle from the plastic pack, attached it to the syringe. To draw Maggie’s blood.
Maggie went over it again and again, rehearsing the moves in her head, trying not to completely freak out. Finally Orchid turned, needle in hand. She came toward Maggie as she had each time before.
