Crux Page 7

  From the war room file Jackman tossed pictures that splashed across the smooth glass coffee table. The photos perfectly captured the gargantuan image of what could only be described as a demonic entity glaring balefully into the video as if it perfectly understood the machine.

  Jackman leaned forward to tap the image.

  “This bastard, and we suspect he’s just one of ’em, is using this portal to gain access into our world. They are fighting like hell to get through a dimensional gate created by this Hadron Supercollider and we’ve been volunteered to make sure this son-of-a-bitch machine is obliterated in a holocaust that will make it unusable until the stars fall from the sky. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is our mission.”

  Staring at the monstrous image, no one spoke.

  Then, finally, Susan said, “Ya know, that sorta’ looks like a demon.”

  “That’s exactly what the president said,” nodded Jackman. “And that’s why we are going to permanently disable the Large Hadron Supercollider. But that’s just half of it. And the easy half. Next, we have been asked to keep this to a zero-body count, and if we do have to kill some people, we do it so that it can’t be traced back to the good ol’ USA. Which means that we have to conceive a plan, execute it by destroying the most powerful machine in the world and, hopefully, do it all without making anybody dead. Then we coordinate our extraction without any official help.”

  Jackman paused. “But the rules of engagement do apply. If we are shot at, we shoot back. If someone attempts to kill us, we deal with it. This is not a suicide mission. The zero- body count directive was issued to keep down any collateral damage that might be traced back to us. But it’s not one of the Ten Commandments. It’s a request. Now, why don’t you introduce yourselves?”

  A muscular man with a bushy brown beard and a Hell’s Angel jacket and ponytail midway down his back said, “I’m Major Roy Burris.” He motioned to the remaining three men. “This is Jake. That’s Tanto. And this here is Picket. All of us are with the First Special Forces Operational Detachment. Most people just call us Delta.”

  “I’m Susan,” said one woman of hypnotic beauty with long brunette hair and green eyes. “I’m with Central Intelligence and my specialty is cyber-security penetration and counter-computer insurgence. And, no, Susan is not my real name, but on this Kamikaze mission I don’t think it matters. Any wrong name on whatever mass grave you drop me into will do.” She bent, staring at the photograph. “Just don’t let that thing get its hands on me. I don’t care if you can’t kill it. Kill me.”

  “I’m Janet,” said a ponytailed blonde who raised her hand. “I specialize in crippling computer systems, phone systems, security systems. Pretty much any kind of system. But let me tell you something about CERN. There are no outside means of accessing security. It’s protected by a multi-tiered defense that is activated by fingerprint, voice, a retinal scan, and a code that they change every day. Now, Susan and I are already cleared for access since we began orientation for the Observation Room, but how we’re going to get the rest of you inside without tripping an alarm is beyond me.”

  “Do any of you know what the Hadron Supercollider is secretly designed to achieve?” asked Jackman.

  “Susan and I have suspicions,” said Janet. “But this gizmo isn’t a Ford. It’s the most powerful, most dangerous machine in the world and we’re not sure what they might be doing with it. Or even what they’re capable of doing with it.”

  “Well, they’re trying to accomplish the worst thing they can accomplish,” Jackman continued, placing burly forearms on his thighs as he leaned forward. “One month ago these eggheads opened a gateway to a parallel dimension and something from that place physically reached into our world and snatched seven physicists into thin air.” He let that settle; there was no visible reaction. “So, like I said, our job is to get inside this facility, do something that will disable this Hadron Supercollider for a thousand years and, if we get killed, we get killed. I think some of that was explained to you before you signed on and it’s true. And since this is a classified mission, our families get no military compensation. You don’t get a flag-draped coffin. Like you deserve. We just drop you in a hole, say something poetic, and that’s it.”

  Roy muttered, “About like I always expected to end up.”

  Susan asked, “Do we have anything like a plan? I mean, Janet and I have space-age security passes and we have active duty inside the Observation Room, but nobody has told us anything like a plan.”

  “The plan is to get inside this supercollider, do something biblically catastrophic to the thing that will literally put it out of commission for eternity, and then go home as invisibly as we came. And, just so you know, there won’t be any paper trail because we were never here and this mission never existed.”

  Major Burris asked, “Not to seem pedantic, but I’d like to stress Susan’s point. Do we have anything resembling a plan?”

  “How we accomplish our mission is up to us,” stated Jackman, somewhat ponderous. “We have blueprints of this place. We have Janet and Susan inside. We have unqualified access to any weapons we request. But that’s all we got.”

  Roy asked, “What about medical backup if we’re disabled and not dead?”

  “The CIA has a Geneva-based emergency medical service on twenty-four-hour standby for their people and we’re temporarily under their care. That is, if you’re still alive. If not, we make sure your body is never found.”

  “Huh,” grunted Susan. “Sounds like a CIA operation.”

  Janet followed, “Well, we can’t just destroy a zillion-dollar supercollider without a convenient patsy. There has to be somebody they can point a finger at or they’ll blame America just for the hell of it.”

  “We’ve got a fall guy,” Jackman answered. “We’re gonna blame what they call their D-squad of electricians. That way, they can only blame themselves. And it’s not a far-fetched idea. Those clowns already blew the thing up once. Disabled it for years. But what we’ve got to do is a hundred times worse. We’ve got to put this machine permanently out of commission.”

  “Disabling the computer system won’t be enough to get the job done,” stated Roy. “Explosives offer the most certain outcome. And this new brand of Semtex doesn’t have any uniquely American chemical elements. Or, in other words, it can’t be traced. It doesn’t leave a fingerprint. Who has to approve the final plan?”

  “We are to design and execute our mission plan without the sanction of any authority whatsoever,” Jackman said in a grave tone. “We are outlaws, here, people. And that means that if we take this thing to the trash heap we might as well jump in with it. ‘Cause if this goes bad, nobody gets out of jail unless you can escape a Swiss prison. Our families will get a letter saying your son or daughter was killed in a classified training accident and that’s the short hairs of it.”

  He took a heavy breath. “Now, you’re all soldiers, so you damn well deserve a last chance to unvolunteer yourself. So if anybody wants to get their act in the wind, now is the time. But, after tonight, if you decide to take a hike, I’ll have to send you to Leavenworth or sanction you. You’ll know too much. I won’t be able to let you walk. And that’s the last order on this.” He raised a hand toward the door. “But you’re all heroes in my book for even being here. And if you want to get in the wind, that door ain’t locked.”

  “Let’s just blow this mother up and go home,” said the Delta commando named Tanto who was tall and lean and sported a Fu Manchu mustache. His wild head of dark hair framed a hard, merciless face and his arms were completely covered with tattoos of samurai beheading man and beast alike. “Just another day at the office, sir.”

  With a scowl Roy asked, “This machine is currently down for some kind of maintenance, isn’t it?” He motioned in the general direction of the supercollider. “How about we kidnap a few of the construction guys? We take their IDs, code entries, doctor the
pictures. I’m positive that the guards don’t know the faces of seven thousand rotating electricians. And an ordinary electrician isn’t gonna require a retinal scan. We split up for routine maintenance, coordinate the charges, and blow it. Then we just fade.” He gazed around the table. “It’s a simple plan. Not much can go wrong except those walls will prevent any radio communications, so we’ll have to trust each other and stay on the clock.”

  Janet commented dryly, “You can’t set a bomb with a timer on this machine. If you set anything on that supercollider that has any kind of electrical charge—even a signature as small as a wristwatch—alarms will go off all over the place.”

  “Can you disable the alarm system?” asked Roy.

  Janet paused. “I can disable it for a few minutes. But they’ll start searching for the source of the interference and they’ll find it no matter how well I conceal it. And when they do find it, it’ll lead back to my terminal. So unless I’m out of there by then, I’m dead. They’ll just shoot me on the spot.”

  “A few minutes is all I’ll need,” stated Roy. “I’ll get you out of there before your number comes up.”

  “But Susan and I are the only Americans in the Observation Room,” Janet added. “Won’t they eventually blame America just by default?”

  “By the time they figure it out, it won’t matter,” answered Roy. “Eventually they’ll discover who did this. There’s no stopping that. But we can’t worry about what these guys dig up in the future. Someone in the next administration can deal with the fallout.”

  Jackman stated, “Each of you will have foolproof alibis. Some of you were at the White House with fifty witnesses. Some of you will have papers proving you were on another mission in China. The most important thing—hell, the only important thing—is that none of you had anything to do with this. And you’ll be able to prove it. Incontrovertibly. With a presidential signature.”

  Jackman walked across the room, picked up a duffle bag, and walked back to the dining table. He laid out multiple blueprints, a dozen manuals, construction plans. Everything anyone would need to build the Hadron Supercollider.

  He motioned, “This is what we’ve got. We have construction blueprints, plumbing, electrical, breakers, and substations. These pinpoint every nut and bolt. There’s also a breakdown of the software with an analysis of the ungodly chemicals they use in that thing.” He frowned over the material. “The embassy will supply us with any ordinance we need. Just remember the bottom line. I want maximum destruction and I want an ironclad plan to get out of there before it goes boom. That’s it.”

  “Just one thing,” stated Roy.

  “What’s that, Burris?”

  “Are we sanctioned to use the warhead?”

  Jackman’s frown smoothed down his scarred face.

  “That’s my call,” he said. “But if I do, none of us go home.”

  ***

  “You make excellent tea,” said Amanda. “I’ve never tasted anything quite like it. What is it?”

  “It’s made out of some Chinese herbs and teas that I learned to mix when I was a kid,” Isaiah remarked as he reclined into a chair. “Where I grew up, it was nothing special. But all my friends here really like it. They say it triples their energy.” He laughed. “One of them wanted to start a website and market it.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Where was what?”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “Oh,” Isaiah glanced to the side before looking back. “I was born and raised in Vietnam until I was six. Then, after the war, the Khmer Rouge captured me and locked me up in an internment camp. That is, instead of just killing me outright like they killed almost everybody else. I guess they figured I was still young enough for re-education.”

  “They put you in a prison camp? How did you get out?”

  “I escaped.”

  “What!”

  Isaiah laughed as he added, “After I got a little bigger, they put me on a squad digging graves and burning bodies. So, one day, after we began to bury the last one, I slid into the grave and crawled under the body of some politician they’d tortured to death. Then they shoveled in the dirt and I was buried with a decapitated body.”

  Amanda didn’t move.

  “It was a unique experience.” Isaiah continued. “But, anyway, I immediately started digging my way out because I knew it’d take me a while to claw through all that blood and dirt. And about … oh, I don’t know … right after sunset, I guess, I finally broke the surface and crawled into the jungle.”

  “And that was it?”

  “No,” Isaiah shook his head. “That was just the beginning. After that, I had to sneak back to the cave where I picked up the only thing I owned. The one thing I wouldn’t leave behind. Then I grabbed a bag of mangos and rice and started making my way through the jungle, which was the absolute worst bush you can imagine, a killing ground where they still practiced cannibalism. And that was an ordeal. Believe me. There were cannibals and snakes and tigers and unexploded bombs. But eight months later, and half-dead, I reached an American Red Cross station in Thailand and from there I eventually immigrated to the United States. And, in case you’re wondering, I am indeed a naturalized American citizen.”

  “Who were your parents?”

  “My mother was French but she died when I was young,” Isaiah said with a somewhat sad shrug, the first real hint of loss Amanda had seen in him. “The man who raised me said his name was Coldy Bimore. He was an old man then. He was a veteran of World War II. Then he saw action in Vietnam because he was a super-lifer. He said we might outlast the killing if we stayed low long enough, but the Khmer Rouge found us the day after the last American chopper lifted out of Saigon.”

  Amanda’s eyes had softened. “Did they hunt for you after you escaped?”

  “Oh, yeah, they hunted for me. I heard them beating the bush. But I climbed a tree and hid there until they gave up. Then I walked into the jungle and eventually reached Thailand. Fortunately, my so-called father had taught me English and my mother had taught me French and Vietnamese, so language wasn’t a problem.”

  “What’d you do when you got to America?” Amanda asked with a tone of genuine interest. “You had no family.”

  “I had the name of a relative of my mother. He lived in San Francisco. And I had the one thing my father kept with him his entire life.”

  “What was that?”

  Isaiah signed more deeply. “When my father died, and they ransacked the cave, they failed to find the only thing he valued.”

  “Which was?”

  “It was a sword,” stated Isaiah simply. “I thought it was just an ordinary sword, but it turned out to be a Japanese National Treasure that was supposedly destroyed during World War II.”

  “Is that what Deb meant when she said you could defend yourself like nobody she’s ever seen?” Amanda’s eyebrows rose curiously. “You use your sword?”

  “I’ve used it to defend myself a few times. And I did have to use it to defend your friend, Deborah.”

  Amanda stared at the case.

  “Can I see it?” she asked.

  “Sure.” Isaiah rose and walked to the bed. “I’m not superstitious.” He flipped three locks, three switches, and opened the case; the katana was approximately four feet long and the handle, or hilt, was strangely wrapped and very well-worn. The grip was also embedded on one side with what appeared to be a gold dragon.

  “I know a little bit about these things,” Amanda said, extending a hand. “My father was an avid collector of Japanese weapons. Can I touch it?”

  “It’s all right with me,” Isaiah shrugged. “I don’t hold the Japanese philosophy that a samurai’s sword is his soul.”

  Amanda touched the gold dragon, which felt ancient and smooth. “I think I know what this is. In fact, my father talked about it. What’s the name of this
sword?”

  “It’s the Honjo Masamune.”

  “The Honjo Masamune,” Amanda laughed. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. Everyone has. My father was obsessed with this thing. He told me it was made seven hundred years ago by Goro Nyude Masamune.” She raised her face. “Yeah, I remember every word he told me because he searched for this sword his whole life. He said it was forged during the Kamakura Period of Japan. It belonged to the house of Tokugawa Lemasa, president of the House of Peers, until an American soldier confiscated it after the war. But there wasn’t any record of it being confiscated. Do you think that’s because your so-called father knew he was stealing a Japanese National Treasure?”

  Isaiah smiled, “Probably. Anyway, the Japanese relative of my mother who raised me thought that my possessing the Honjo Masamune was something like destiny, so he taught me how to use it. He said I was born to be one with the sword since we had each escaped from the grave. And, when I was older, he sent me to Japan to study with an old-world kendo master. The last of his kind. I was in Japan seven years practicing kendo ten hours a day, every day, before I returned to America.”

  “Like a samurai,” joined Amanda.

  “More like a Ronin,” Isaiah remarked. “And so I’ve used it my whole life, mostly just in practice but sometimes to defend myself or someone else. And, on a stunt like this, I feel better with it than without it.”

  “You don’t like guns, huh?”

  “No,” Isaiah stated coldly.

  Amanda blew out a breath. “Well, I won’t ask. I’m sure you have your reasons. And they probably run deep like everything else about you.” Her smile brightened. “So! You gonna call me and let me know what time to be at the airport?”