BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy (39 page)

Jake was on a soiled blanket on the earthen floor of an eight-foot-square cell. Sarafina was curled beside him. So was Francesca. Neither of them stirred from their drug-induced sleep.

His mind flashed and the puzzle pieces of recent events snapped into place.

Jake was disgusted with himself. Battista had bragged from the onset that the purpose of the implant subjects had been to help spies infiltrate America. There had been three subjects unaccounted for. The first had died during his attempt to kill Jake and blow up Francesca’s school. The second had masterminded the activities at the warehouse and had been killed by Tony. And the third was Bradley, the mild-mannered teaching assistant who’d baited Jake and his friends into the trap that had brought them here. With everything that Jake’s new brain allowed him to do, it had done nothing to help him sense the man’s duplicity.

Jake rose to face Battista. “Bastard.”

“That’s it?” Battista said. His voice was raspy. “After everything we’ve been through, the best you can come up with is ‘bastard’?”

“Go to hell.”

Battista ignored the comment. He gestured to the expansive space behind him.“Welcome to your new home.”

The enclosure was the size of a basketball court. Stout rough-hewn columns supported a rusted aluminum roof fifteen feet overhead. Cinder-block sidewalls ended short of the ceiling and Jake saw a canopy of vegetation through the insect screen that covered the open-air gap.

The air was sticky and humid. The sound of cicadas, birds, and rustling leaves surrounded the structure. A howler monkey whooped. There were half a dozen bamboo cells along either side of the space. Armed guards stood at attention at the two exits. A group of dark-skinned men huddled in a cell at the far end of the building. From their ragged clothes and weathered features, Jake figured them for locals. But it was the two cells opposite Jake that captured his attention. Marsh, Lacey, and Becker were in one cell; Tony, his family, and Josh in the other. Even Max lay sprawled beside them. They were all unconscious.

Jake felt a primal rage. His body shook. If not for the bamboo bars that separated them, Battista would already be dead, he thought. “You are going to pay,” he growled.

“No, Mr. Bronson,” Battista said. He rubbed the ugly wound on one side of his neck and lower jaw. “It is
you
who is going to pay.” He motioned to Abbas.

 Abbas used the toe of his boot to pop the lid from a two-foot-tall basket on the floor. Battista took a step back. Abbas dipped the tip of the handler tool into the basket. His focus on the task was absolute. There was a rustle of movement. Abbas snapped the probe downward. Once. Twice. On the third try, he breathed a tentative sigh. When he lifted the probe, it gripped a three-foot-long writhing snake.

“Bushmaster,” Battista said, maintaining his distance. “Deadliest viper in the Western Hemisphere. This one is but a baby.”

Abbas eased the suspended snake between the bamboo bars of Jake’s cell. Jake edged backward, keeping himself between the viper and the girls.

“It’s known for its aggressiveness…” Battista continued.

Abbas jerked the probe forward like a fencer with a foil. The snake struck at the air, its anger focused on Jake. Venom squirted from its fangs. It thrashed and coiled about, desperate to be free of the claw that gripped it.

“And its speed.” 

Battista nodded. Abbas released the trigger on the handler and the snake dropped to the floor.

Jake jumped, barely avoiding the lightning-fast strike at his foot. The snake rushed toward the next closest target—Sarafina’s bare ankle.

Reflexes took over and time slowed.

The viper cocked its neck, mouth wide, fangs locked into strike position. Jake lunged, fingers outstretched. The snake started its forward strike, venom glistening, inches from Sarafina’s skin. Jake snatched its neck. Cool, reptilian texture within his grasp. A violent yank. The viper flew across the cell to smack against the bamboo bars. Reptilian blood spattered on Abbas’s astonished face.

The entire move had taken less than a second, but the effort caused Jake’s heart to pound like a sledgehammer against the inside of his chest. It staggered him.

Battista’s voice was steady. “We have many snakes, Mr. Bronson. We are surrounded by them.” He motioned to Francesca and Sarafina. “You won’t always be so close at hand. Do you understand?”

Jake was bent over like a runner after a marathon, hands braced on his thighs. He sucked in another lungful of air. He glanced at Sarafina’s sleeping form and said a prayer of thanks. He was shocked—and grateful—that his reflexes had kicked into gear. If only for a moment.

 “From this point forward, you will do exactly as I say. Without hesitation. Because if you make one false move, even if it’s just a smart remark that rubs me the wrong way, I will see to it that your friends and loved ones taste such pain and anguish that even Dante would be shaken.”

Chapter 70

J
ake squinted against the morning sun. He still wore the coveralls he’d taken from the lockers at Area 52. The fabric felt sticky against his skin. He massaged the muscle of his upper arm. It ached from the injection they’d given him. It was a counter agent to the gas that Bradley had administered. Battista wanted Jake awake. Francesca and the rest of them were still unconscious.

Two guards escorted him across the grounds of the large installation. The hopelessness of his situation sank in further with each step. The facility was in a half-mile-square clearing surrounded by a hundred-foot-tall wall of canopied trees. Mountainous terrain and rolling jungle stretched in every direction as far as Jake could see. Inside the tree line he counted a dozen structures and a beehive of soldiers. A windsock and hangar in the distance signaled the presence of an airstrip. Nearby, a yellow bulldozer spun tracks as it felled an encroaching copse of underbrush. A golf cart traced a course along the perimeter, spewing a fog of insecticide. The sporadic crack of gunfire echoed from the opposite end of the camp. The lack of reaction from his guards told him the gunfire was expected.

A week ago he’d been flying free and easy in his Pitts. Now he was at a terrorist training camp in the middle of a rainforest. Hell, he didn’t even know what country he was in. He had no plan, no means of escape, and his heart was on the edge of failure. So why did a part of him feel at peace? Was it resignation? Or had his messed-up brain finally slipped over the edge into insanity?

Battista had finally won, right? He’d outsmarted Jake at every turn. And in an ultimate display of his superiority, he had imprisoned nearly everyone Jake cared about, including the children—

Jake stopped in his tracks; his mind went into afterburner.
And that
, he realized with a start,
was your ultimate bad move, Luciano Battista. You think you can control me because I have so much to lose. But the truth is, you will never allow any of them to live, will you? So, I now have
nothing
to lose. Saving the world, saving my friends, saving my life—all impossible because you placed me in a no-win situation.

One of the guards prodded his back with an assault rifle. Jake accepted the nudge and moved forward. He walked taller. His mind drifted to the pleasure he would take in bringing Battista’s world down around him. He imagined the look of shock on Battista’s face when he realized that an American infidel could display a resolve that was second to none, even if it meant the sacrifice of his loved ones. He anticipated the satisfaction of crushing the man’s scarred throat with his bare hands… 

It was in that moment that Jake realized the ancient alien visitors had been right all along. Man’s violent nature
was
instinctual. The argument was unassailable. When faced with his life being short-circuited by another, even Jake felt the call.
Violence begets violence
, he recited the biblical concept in his head. After a moment’s thought he added his own twist:
but extermination leads to peace.

The guards urged him forward. Jake picked up the pace. The military called it Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), where the force used by opposing factions is great enough to ensure the total and irrevocable annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.

Jake examined his surroundings with a different eye.

Memorizing. Plotting.
Targeting.

He noted the throaty hum from a pair of diesel generators as he and the guards approached the largest building on the site. Unlike the other structures, which appeared renovated from an old mining camp, this one was new. It resembled a double-wide hangar, with aluminum roof and sidewalls and a fresh coat of camouflage paint.

There was a wall-mounted keypad beside a security door. One of the guards entered a five-digit code and Jake was escorted inside. The cool blast of air conditioning was a welcome change. The cavernous space had been divided into two major work areas. The overhead lights on one side had been turned off, but a snapshot glance into the shadows was all it took for Jake to memorize everything he saw. The sight shook him at first. But only for a moment.

Perfect
.

The guards urged him to the opposite side of the building. Battista, Abbas, and a dozen techs and scientists stood in a semicircle. They watched as he approached. Jake suppressed a flash of anger when noticed Bradley beside the group. He wore a bandage across one cheek and the area surrounding it was red and swollen.

They studied Jake’s approach. A few of the unfamiliar faces appeared eager to meet him. Others looked as if they would like nothing more than to slit his throat. Jake wasn’t surprised to see the inverted alien pyramid on a raised dais behind them. The unusual vibration it emanated—one that only he could hear—had announced its presence the moment he’d woken in his cell. It was illuminated by an overhead rack of halogens and surrounded by tables supporting computers and analytical equipment. The equipment looked top-notch but the layout lacked the sophistication of what he’d seen at the underground facility in Nevada. The mini from Area 52 that he’d stowed in his pocket was missing. But he sensed its presence in the room like an alcoholic smelled liquor in a bar. It could buy him the time—and
speed
—he needed.

For now, he would play along.

Chapter 71

B
attista motioned to the pyramid. “It’s an exact duplicate of the one from my home.”

Jake shifted uneasily. The mention of Battista’s Afghan home was accompanied by more than a few glares from the men surrounding him. Scientists or not, they likely had friends and relatives who had been killed as a result of Jake’s assault on the mountain stronghold. Until Jake could set his plan in motion, he needed to pique their interest, establish his bona fides, and keep them at ease. “I’ll bet there’re a lot more of them planted around the planet, traps just waiting to be triggered.” 

“Assuming what you told us about the first one is the truth,” Battista said.

“Oh, it’s the truth all right,” Jake said, grateful for the opening. “When the visitors arrived twenty-five thousand years ago, they witnessed a simple but violent species. At the time we posed no threat to anyone but ourselves. But the aliens surmised that one day our brains might evolve to the point where we’d be able to tap into the infinite power of the universe. When that happened, they wanted to know about it. Because then, we posed a risk beyond the bounds of our planet, and they’d deal with it as necessary.”

A bespectacled scientist stepped forward. He was older than the rest and his curiosity had temporarily blunted his contempt. “Infinite power of the universe?” 

“That’s right,” Jake said, pleased that the man had taken the bait. “Which means no need for power plants, nuclear reactors, solar collectors—you name it. Energy doesn’t need to be produced mechanically.” He made a sweeping motion with outstretched hands. “Because it’s already all around us. It exists in every bit of mass, from the smallest subatomic particle to the largest star in the universe…” 

Time to set the hook.

“And mankind has the ability to tap into it telekinetically.”

Glares vanished. Curious glances were exchanged. Even Battista seemed intrigued.

“You can do this?” the scientist asked.

Jake nodded.

“Show me.”

Jake motioned to the man’s pocket protector. “Let me see your pen.”

The scientist handed it to him. Jake supported it in his palm. The group edged closer. Clearing his mind, Jake braced himself for the headache that would follow. Using his mind this way had become more taxing with each attempt. He wrapped his thoughts around the pen and slowly lowered his hand.

The pen hovered. Gasps from the group. One man uttered a prayer in Dari.

The pen rose and even Jake marveled as he willed it to spin like a propeller. It was easier than he expected and he realized that the mini’s proximity had already boosted his abilities. He felt strong. No headache. He imagined he could fling the pen with enough force to penetrate the aluminum roof. He fought the temptation—and the giddiness that came with it—and instead released his hold and allowed the pen to drop to the concrete. No fatigue. But his heart rate increased.