Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

“I’ll have a feasibility breakdown and a timetable in my hands by 0300,” he said.

“Yes, you will,” Blackburn agreed. And with that, he dismissed the team with a gesture and watched in silence as they filed out of the briefing room.

It had been pointless, maybe even foolhardy, to mention Ground Zero in front of the general staff. But he was burning with curiosity and impatience concerning the most recent discoveries they had made down there at the bottom of their deepest shaft. He had to know what they meant, how they were to change the world yet again.

History has already been rewritten, he told himself as the last of his lackeys scurried away. But now the possibilities are literally endless.

Oliver Fitzpatrick was the key. As much as it pained Blackburn to admit it, without Oliver’s cooperation Vector5 would never be able to reach its ultimate goal.

He wondered for the tenth time if Oliver’s son Simon was-or had been-in the vessel. If he had come here looking for his father, or if there was a far larger, far more complex and sinister plan at work.

He would have to make double-sure that Oliver was closely guarded, and that Simon would be terminated long before he reached his father’s side. Oliver lives for the hope of seeing his son, he thought to himself, if he does, I will surely loose him. He will lose all his will to live and impart the secrets that he holds.

“He’s done,” Blackburn said, though there was no one else in the room to hear it. “Done.”

Deep in the earth, barely five hundred feet above Ground Zero, Oliver Fitzpatrick lay in his cell and wished for death.

He struggled weakly against the restraints that tied him to his life-support system. If he could have freed himself, he would have torn the tubes and wires out of his body and simply died, but he could barely move.

He was trapped.

Oliver was almost blind from exposure to radiation. He had developed first-degree burns on thirty percent of his body from contact with unknown chemicals that flowed like polluted water in caverns close by. He drifted in and out of a dream state-wishing for death, fearing rescue, making impossible plans, and remembering-always remembering.

Memories of his son’s childhood kept him alive in his dark captivity. He tried to dream about Simon as a little boy in Oxford. His first step. His first word. Their summer together in Corsica, and the wonders they uncovered together.

Deep emotions swelled in him, and he shivered-in pride or grief, or simply as a reaction to Vector5’s harsh medications, he did not know. What a life they had lived, together and apart. What people they had known, what adventures they had shared.

And it all came down to this. This. And the awful things he had done that had brought him to this place. How could he have been so selfish all his life? What would happen to the memories, the history that man had created? What would happen to those children who knew nothing but love?

Oliver had never been sure about the existence of God. The wonders of the universe seemed too complex; too amazing to be random, but how could God justify this? Vector5 in all its evil vastness, and the things that waited beneath him, five hundred feet below.Why would the universe turn its face away from mankind this way?

His hope was fading, but a new kind of courage was rising at the same time.

Death was the answer.

The secrets-all of them-would die with him. It would be better if no one knew what was on the horizon. And death was very, very near. He could feel it-death was a heartbeat away.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, thinking of Simon playing in their cottage on that single, perfect summer day.

Thinking of the past and praying for death.

Lucas led Max and Simon to the far end of the encampment toward a meeting area fifty yards deeper into the cave. “Your people are down here,” he said.

Lucas led the two friends as they trudged toward the camp, so weary they could barely lift their feet. It had been a long, cold hike from the Spector, and the information they had been given had stunned them completely. It was hard for Simon to think clearly at all.

Nastasia was waiting for them on the edge of the camp-waiting for Simon in particular, it seemed. She was looking only at him with a wild mixture of relief and obsession, as if she had done nothing but stand and wait for him constantly since they had parted.

What does she want? he wondered as he approached. What could be so important?

He pretended not to notice her strangely intense gaze. He just nodded to her briefly as he passed and saw her turn toward him out of the corner of his eye, swiveling to face him, still staring, as if she didn’t dare to let him out of her sight now that he had returned.

Never mind, he told himself. Not now. Besides, with the revelations of a decades-old, worldwide conspiracy of politicians, business people, and scientists, he wasn’t sure he could stand talking to her at this very moment. He trusted his friends from Oxford; he had known them for years, worked with them just as long. But Nastasia had been included at the last minute, picked up along the way because of the words-or manipulations-of others. He didn’t know about her. At all.

He had to sit and think. He had to talk with Max and Samantha-the ones he could really trust-and work this out.

The rest of the team had set up a temporary encampment next to the escaped scientists. It was heated by a cobbled-together network of battered and mismatched thermal units, hastily adapted from a half dozen vehicles of different designs and haphazardly connected to create a tiny area barely warm enough to allow the opening of the masks and relatively easy breathing. That circular meeting area-a campfire without a flame-was directly in front of a dimly illuminated structure, the likes of which Simon had never seen.

The structure’s surface was constructed of a durable plastic or vinyl material that seemed to be made of a million tiny cells no bigger than a fingernail, each one filled with air and somehow stiffened or solidified. From a distance, it looked like crystalline rock with an unnaturally smooth, organic exterior. Up close it looked like a honeycomb made of artificial materials, but as rigid as stone. The construction itself was unlike anything Max and Simon had ever seen.

“It’s a Vector5 inflatable structure used for emergencies,” said Lucas as he dropped his bag on the icy ground. “We found it inside one of the larger vehicles we uncovered last week. Thank god we did; it’s no fun sleeping in an ice cube.”

The other members of the Spector VI team had gathered with some of Lucas’ scientists in that small, warm circle, making seats out of crates that seemed to be ammunition cases or empty ration cubes. Simon recognized a few of them as recent arrivals from Spector VI.

As they entered the circle, Andrew greeted them with one upraised arm. It held a nearly full bottle of scotch.

“Greetings,” he said to Simon. “Sit on down, warm yourself up.”

One of Lucas’ men, sitting heavily in a field chair near the edge of the circle, suddenly broke into a wide grin. “Oh yeah!” he rumbled. “Where the hell did you get that?”

“It was packed in a case that traveled with us in the Spector,” Andrew said, slowly opening the bottle with flourish. “Personally, I’ll drink anything that comes my way, but some people around here are a bit picky about their personal brand of scotch.” He cast a sarcastic look at Simon, even as Lucas stopped to gaze in awe at the bottle of liquor.

“Wow,” he said sounding more like a frat boy than a scientist, if only for a moment. “We haven’t seen one of those in years.”