Chris Mooney - World Without End

"We have to make this look authentic. Hurry up and get the syringe ready. We'll be at the drop zone any minute."

Conway's thoughts seemed disjointed, the torn pieces of a picture he felt he should have recognized. He was aware of someone touching his wrist. Then he remembered.

Friday night, late October, and a whopper of a storm blanketed Vail with ten inches of powder. The following morning he went skiing and came back to the house around six. Samantha Richardson, a twenty-six-year-old investment planner from Boston, blond hair with a plain face and thin, tight lips, pretty in that waspy New England way, was here on vacation. She knew him as Jeff Cotton, a Web designer from Los Angeles. Conway checked his watch. She would be over in less than an hour.

When he opened the door, he saw at least nine men moving about the living room, dining room, and part of the kitchen, their hands covered in latex, all of them packing boxes and wiping down counters with an electrified urgency. Standing in front of the lit fireplace was Pasha, dressed in a solid-black suit, cut with the kind of sharp lines and curves that made Con-way think of the sleek, powerful elegance of a Mercedes. A phone was pressed against her good ear, her right.

Pasha looked up and saw him, put the phone away and picked up the briefcase next to her leg.

"Downstairs, right now."

The gray basement was cold and bare and smelled faintly of mildew. It was lit by two bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. A dining room chair had been brought down; standing next to it was a bearded man with a blond crewcut drawing clear fluid into a syringe. When he finished, he placed the syringe on a silver tray full of needles and shiny surgical instruments that was set up on a TV tray stand.

"Strip," Pasha said to Conway. She wasn't smiling she never did but it was the way her expression changed when she looked at her watch, like an invasion was imminent, that made him rip off his clothing without question. When he had stripped down to his boxers, Pasha kicked the clothes away.

"Get rid of the underwear," she said.

"This is about Armand, isn't it?"

"The woman you invited over for dinner is bringing along two friends who plan to peel back your skin with pliers. Their buyer wants pictures, so this has to look authentic. Hurry, we're running out of time."

Conway slid out of his underwear. Pasha put her hands very strong, masculine almost on his shoulders and turned him around.

"The scar's still visible," she said.

"Perfect. Stand still."

Behind him, Conway heard a briefcase snap open, followed by the sound of latex snapping over skin. Next he felt something cool and wet, like hard jelly, wrap around his throat. Pasha pressed it against the skin, making sure it stuck.

"It's a fake gash to make it look like your throat was slit. Now get on your stomach," she said, and when he was lying facedown on the cold floor she bound his hands and feet with plastic flex-cuffs.

"Turn your face to the left side, just stare. You'll feel something cold. Don't move, just lie there and keep still or you'll ruin the effect."

Cold liquid was splashed around his throat first and then poured over his wrists and feet. A small red river ran across his cheek and dribbled onto the floor: blood or at least it looked like blood. His mind rushed back to the memory from not that long ago, that of himself writhing on the floor, the blood real, the pain real. Pasha rubbed the fake blood into Conway's hair, streaked it across his back and then rubbed her gloved hand across the floor in a wide, flat streak to make it look like Conway's body had been dragged.

"Stare off into space, keeping your eyes still… Like that. Good."

A flash went off, followed by the small whine of the camera as the flash recharged. Upstairs were the sounds of loud, urgent footsteps.

This comfortable, quiet slice of life, with its luscious winter landscapes and clean, soothing air was being taken from him.

"Take a piss," Pasha said.

"It will look more authentic."

Conway didn't ask, just did what he was told. He relaxed himself and urinated, feeling its warmth spread across his legs, his emlarrassment overshadowed by the panicked tone in Pasha's voice. More pictures.

Still bound, Pasha and the agent picked him up and threw him on the chair. More pictures. Pasha cut the flex-cuffs and tossed Conway a bath towel. Clean clothes were folded neatly in the corner, near the furnace.

A phone rang. The man grabbed a cellphone from the silver tray.

"Targets are moving," he said.

"One van is following her, the other just broke off."

Pasha said, "Time to leave, Stephen."

As the van pulled out of the driveway, the last image Conway had was that of gloved men drawing the shades.

It was snowing at a good clip. They drove through the snow-packed roads, the ride bumpy, Comvay listened to the van's tires crunching over the packed powder, his mind numb, unable to process the thoughts playing behind his eyes. Pasha sat across the table from him, leaning against the van's window. The moonlight highlighted the smooth texture of her full lips, but her eyes were hidden by shadows. The computer screens and the surveillance equipment were turned off, the back of the van dark and cut only by the bursts of moonlight that filtered in from the gaps between the trees.

"The woman you met on the slopes is Armand's second in command," Pasha said.

"We think she may have formed her own group. We don't know how she found you. One of our informants provided us with her name two days ago. We've been watching her ever since. We got lucky."

Conway turned and looked out the window and watched the rolling banks of snow glowing in the moonlight.

"I'll find out the rest of the details later," Pasha said.

"The pictures are to be left at a locker at the airport. We'll stake it out, follow the person who picks it up tomorrow morning and take it from there. Hopefully, they'll lead to the laser rifle."

"How long have you been following me?"

Pasha drummed her fingers across the table. She was never at a loss for words, even in times of crisis. Pasha was like Spock in that way: the vigilant, logical stoic; every problem had a solution. And she never, under any circumstances, let her emotions interfere with her job or her personal life whatever personal life she had. No one had been invited to her island.

"Watch this," Pasha said, and then handed him a pair of bulky goggles with earphones and a wire running into a virtual reality machine.

Conway put the goggles on.

A brief period of darkness followed, and the next thing he knew he was standing in a desert, watching a tank moving across the horizon. It was dusk. The sky was dark blue and full of rolling clouds. He didn't feel the wind but could hear it blowing around him. The effect was very real. It was like he was actually standing in the desert watching the sun's dying gold color reflecting off the tank's armor and Hundreds of dots appeared on the tank's armor, showing the area behind the tank, as if holes had suddenly burrowed through to the other side, and with almost lightning quickness the dots exploded into paint spills, bleeding into each other until the tank was gone, replaced now by desert and sky.

The tank was there it had to be, it couldn't just vanish but Conway couldn't find any shadows or outlines.

"The technology is called optical camouflage," Pasha said.

"Thousands of fiber-optic cameras are mounted on the tank's armor. A computer takes pictures of the surroundings and using pixel replication, paints a picture across the tank. Any missing information is filled in through an interpolation algorithm and within the blink of an eye, you're invisible. The U.S. Army's battle lab in Colorado has been trying to develop and integrate high-tech equipment for battle situations involving troops. It's called JEDI the Joint Expeditionary Digital Information program. They're in the process of finishing a working prototype of a combat suit that uses this optical camouflage technology. You climb inside, press or speak the code, and within the blink of an eye, you're invisible.