Cosega Sphere (The Cosega Sequence Book 4) (7 page)

Taz and Stellard had discovered enough about Gaines and his Sphere that the entire Foundation was on high alert. All of its many assets —money, connections, control, power—were being mobilized, but the Foundation’s most powerful tool—a young, brainy woman and the object she studied—were secreted away in a highly secure, yet unassuming office park in northern California.

Savina, thin, beautiful, and brilliant, commanded the attention of everyone who shared the same room as her. It didn’t matter if it was filled with men, women, scientists, billionaires, or dogs. With long brown hair, dropping below her shoulders, and an affinity for wearing blue jeans and striped tee-shirts, she looked eighteen instead of thirty. The Foundation had paid a lot of money to retain her.

As one of the brightest physicists in the world, she’d been extremely sought after. No one would have guessed by her parents—her mother a librarian, father a plumber—that she would turn into a child prodigy, but even in her crib, as she counted and organized toys, the signs were obvious. Savina was reading by two, and at four she’d devoured a couple of years’ worth of
National
Geographic
magazines from the family bookshelf. When her mother gave her some advanced math and science books, the spark really ignited.

Savina looked into the smooth, highly-polished dark ball in front of her, and waited as it cycled through the Sequence. Watching it always made her smile, not because of the remarkably impossible show it displayed, she was long over the dazzle of that, rather her smugness came from the advantage she had over her adversary. Savina now knew there was another Eysen-Sphere on Earth, but the newly no-longer-dead Dr. Ripley Gaines, she believed, did not know another Eysen-Sphere remained.

Each day for nearly five years she’d begun her studies of the ancient object watching the Sequence, trying to decode the universal depths of knowledge contained within its infiniteness. Every one of those days had been an adventure, expanding her already genius mind.

As recently as two weeks ago she’d requested a larger staff, but as always the Judge said no. “The Judge,” as she called the wealthy man who’d hired, and inspired, her out of grad school, was not truly a judge, at least not in the legal sense. His philosophy of what the world ought to be had changed her life, and in turn, she had changed his. With this new information that the other Eysen had not been destroyed, she was certain he’d give her the staff she needed.

The Judge’s denial of her request had nothing to do with cost. He’d given her everything else she’d ever wanted. The facility in which she studied the Eysen-Sphere was among the most advanced in the world. No, it was a matter of security. Savina and her two assistants had been vetted, investigated, and triple-checked in every manner available. Unbeknownst to them, he also kept them under around-the-clock surveillance, monitoring their phone, email, mail, Internet, and their physical locations and actions.

Savina would not have been surprised if she’d known, nor would she have cared. She knew the future was at stake—everything—and she believed the Judge knew what was right. If anything, her work had proved his prophetic genius even more. The future she’d seen inside the Sphere showed a potentially humanity-ending plague emerging soon. The views changed radically when the Phoenix Initiative was added to the equation, and the closer they came to the launch, the higher the survival rate became.

“Hello, Dr. Ripley Gaines,” she said into the Sphere as her two male assistants looked surprised.

“He’s alive?” one of them asked.

“Apparently,” she replied, adjusting her large tortoise shell eyeglasses. “And we’re going to track him down.”

“Is that possible?” the assistant asked. “I mean to
find
him
inside
the Sphere?”

“Remember the research? The Eysens can connect to other Eysens.”

“Yes, I remember the
theory
based upon the time, centuries ago, when there were multiple Eysens still floating around out there . . . no pun intended,” he said, glancing at the Eysen-Sphere levitating above the table. “But we looked, and we found nothing. Maybe Gaines is alive but the Eysen didn’t survive?”

“Possible, but doubtful,” Savina replied in such an assured manner that her pronouncement seemed indisputable. She’d been homeschooled, finished high school level at age twelve, and graduated from MIT at sixteen. Next was Harvard, and in between then and the Sphere, she’d worked at a number of universities, research labs, CERN, including time at the Large Hadron Collider, and even NASA.

“So why didn’t we find it?”

“We didn’t try hard enough,” she said absently as she peered into the center of the Sphere.

“We spent months,” the other assistant countered.

“I didn’t say we didn’t spend enough time, I said we didn’t try hard enough. We didn’t understand two things back then,” Savina explained, pushing her glasses on top of her head. “First, we only half believed that the other Eysen might still exist.”

“That shouldn’t matter,” one of the assistants interrupted.

“Oh, but it does,” she said, a subtle hint of awe in her voice. The assistants didn’t completely believe Savina’s long held theory that the Eysen was “in tune” and able to understand and react to one’s thoughts. “That’s why we didn’t get the second part,” she continued as projections of light beamed from the Eysen, showing cross-sections of the Earth, spinning, divided by levels of color in a manner they still did not comprehend. “We didn’t understand that we were not looking for something separate.”

“What does that mean?” one of them asked while checking on the video recording equipment. They tracked and recorded the Eysen from multiple angles whenever it was “on.” The system was automated, but a few years earlier they had lost hours of crucial data to a glitch. Ever since, they constantly inspected the gear to make sure it was working. In spite of being meticulous, about once every few weeks they would discover it had inexplicably stopped.

“The Eysens belong to the same source,” she said, as if it should be obvious. “We were looking for another one because it isn’t here, and therefore we see it as separate, but just as two particles can react when separated by great distance—”

“Action at a distance, quantum entanglement?”

“Yes . . . sort of.”

“But that’s a murky area of disagreement.”

“And the Eysen isn’t?” she asked rhetorically. “I’m saying they are
one
. If the Eysen-Sphere has taught us anything, it’s that it is connected to some kind of undying, recharging, enormous energy that we don’t understand. It may even be incomprehensible given the limitations of current human intelligence.”

“And yet here we are.”

“Right, but what did I tell you each on your first day in this lab?”

“And you’ve told us again at least a thousand times since,” one of them said. “In fact, we should make a sign so you could just point to it.”

“
‘
You cannot think of the Eysen in terms of anything you understand because it is too far beyond our knowledge to apply the limitations of our understanding,’
”
they recited in unison.

“Right,” she said. “It must show us. We’re all simply wanderers in the universe trying to find our way home.”

“A home we don’t remember.”

“Yes,” she said. “Whenever you hit a wall and aren’t sure what to do, stop thinking and unleash your imagination. Instead of trying to answer the question you’re working on, try to answer the question you’re
about
to ask. This relates to the other Eysen
because
it’s a piece of this Eysen.”

“Then how many pieces are there?”

“I don’t know,” she said, rubbing her eyes and staring off into nothingness, as if contemplating that question for a moment before shaking it off. “But I do know that there’s at least one other piece, and Ripley Gaines has it.”

The assistants had become like family to Savina, and yet they did not know of the Judge’s mission. They believed the secrecy was to protect the Eysen from exploitation by nefarious people or governments until it could be fully dissected. They each took their charge of secrecy very seriously because they had seen things in the Eysen that made them understand the world was radically different than they, and all other scientists, had previously believed.

At NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, a high level videoconference, which included the Directors of the CIA and the NSA, concluded with a renewal of the Scorch and Burn, or “SAB,” order given seven years earlier. SABs were so rare that none had been issued since the first hunt for Gaines and Asher. In fact, only two others had ever been initiated. One concerned Edward Snowden’s leaks, and the other, no one left alive outside the secret committee which dictated NSA tasks could remember.

The two lead agents, Claude Rathmore of the NSA, a gung-ho super-patriot who always appeared ready for a fight, and Quinn Murik of the CIA, a man who thought every event in life, no matter how tragic, could be turned into a joke, left the meeting together. Murik thought Rathmore looked like he had perpetual indigestion, but imagined Rathmore thought himself determined looking. The CIA officer believed one could tell a lot by personal appearances. He noted Rathmore’s slits for eyes, straight, narrow lips, and a small, but noticeable scar on his cheek. Add to that a close-cropped head of gray and brown hair he might have cut himself, and it all totaled lack of warmth and an uptight personality.

Murik, however, still used mousse in his hair, ensuring that it was always perfect. He was handsome, with twinkling, aware brown eyes and a comical smirk, constantly looking for the next punch line. Rathmore didn’t appreciate Murik’s junk food habit, or his proclivity for using his INU to the point of distraction.

The two polar opposite agents would answer to Tolis King, the head of the NSA’s Veiled Ops. The invisible division, a blind budget entry, enforced what other agencies could not. Although King technically ranked lower than the NSA Director in the government’s hierarchy, his authority actually exceeded that of his public boss.

King could call on the power and authority of every civilian and military asset of the US government. Most agencies had a MONSTER, “Mission of National Security Transfer Every Resource,” point person, a secret post, even within top-secret clearances. The MONSTER could access all the resources of an agency, department, or any military branch instantly, and often invisibly, for the Veiled Ops unit, known to the MONSTERs simply as “the Unit.”

The MONSTER structure was put into place as part of the Patriot Act following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. MONSTER, like so many other provisions, was hidden from public knowledge and withheld from Congress. Even within the government, the few who knew about it believed it to be a resource-sharing plan which could be used to cut through red tape in times of national emergencies and threats to national security. MONSTER was unique because the program had been created by the NSA without input or oversight. Not even the President was aware of its full extent. MONSTER really existed only for a single reason: to make the Unit the most powerful force in the world. With that, it would ensure the NSA agenda was implicitly followed.

Rathmore, a take-no-prisoners patriot who had an odd habit of punctuating orders with rabble-rouser’s clichés, didn’t much like Murik, first because he didn’t think he was serious enough, and second because he was CIA. Rathmore had initially discovered the personality conflict when the pair had worked together once before on a case when a foreign leader needed to be “corrected.” Rathmore’s perpetually angry look and his never-without-a-cup-of-coffee habit were well known in the NSA, and translated to a simple rule of
stay out of his way
.

Murik saw it more as a challenge to find humor in the dark. He teased Rathmore for having two cups of coffee in his hands as they walked. “Both for you?”

To his surprise Rathmore nodded and grunted, “Yes.” Then, upon seeing Murik’s grin added, “What? I believe in always having a backup plan,” one of his mottos that apparently applied to consumption of his favorite beverage. They continued down one of the underground corridors toward a situation room.

Murik shook his head, laughing, then changed the subject back to the assignment. “A real life Scotch and Brandy.” As usual, Murik was staring into his INU. Rathmore assumed the guy had a porn addiction or something.

“Hey, real life here!” he snapped startling the CIA agent, who stopped walking and looked at Rathmore.

“Relax, Claude. INUs are part of life too,” Murik said smugly. “I might even be able to find a date in here for you. I think you could use a little warmth and charm.”

“No thanks,” Rathmore replied. He couldn’t imagine that other people didn’t admire his reputation as a hardliner the way he himself did.

“Relax,” Murik repeated, giving his shoulder a friendly shove.

Rathmore shook off as if ready for a fistfight. “Relax?” he asked. “Tension
is
how I relax.”

Murik laughed and shook his head. “Yikes.”

“Gaines loose with that Sphere is pure tension.”

“It’s difficult to believe, after all this time, that Gaines is really alive,” Murik said, moving again, his eyes back on his INU.

Rathmore, who had been assigned the Gaines and Asher case years earlier as part of an ongoing investigation into Booker Lipton, had, like everyone else, assumed that with the passing of each successive year with no traces or clues surfacing, Gaines and Asher were most likely dead. It was now the biggest case in the world. He wondered how a frat boy like Murik had drawn such a critical assignment for the CIA.

“I didn’t even think Scotch and Brandy cases were real,” Murik said. “Well, it made sense for Snowden, but a dead archeologist and some chick from National Geographi
c
‒
‒
”

“Murik, how did you land this case?”

“I’m dating the Director’s daughter.”

Rathmore stopped walking. “Are you kidding?”

Murik laughed. “Of course, I’m kidding. The Director doesn’t even have a daughter, and anyway, I’m married.”

“Even that doesn’t make sense,” Rathmore said. “SABs are not safe assignments. Plenty of single agents could take the risk. We may have to go into the field.”

“Maybe they figure I’m dispensable,” Murik replied, grinning. “But I doubt we’ll ever get out of the situation room.”

“Yeah,” Rathmore halfheartedly agreed as they reached the entrance to one of the highly secured mission-critical situation rooms at NSA headquarters. Rathmore slid his ID card into the reader, then both took turns placing their hands against a screen which authenticated their palm prints. The steel door slid open to reveal a tiny room, which they entered. Once the door behind them closed, they were subjected to door retina scans. The final barrier glided noiselessly out of the way and revealed a wide, dark room full of large monitors, blinking with maps, images, and data. Three technicians were busily attending to the machines, downloading all the information.

One of the technicians stood and briefed the two senior agents. “Here’s where we are,” the technicians began. “It appears as if Gaines might not have been in Fiji at the time of the accident.”

“Where was he?” Murik asked, surprised.

“Possibly, Hawaii. We’re running that down now.”

“Wait,” Rathmore said. “He travels? To the United States?”

“Apparently, although we still don’t know how often, or even for sure,” the tech cautioned. “We don’t even know for sure if he’s actually alive.”

“Well, he sure as hell survived the helicopter crash in Arizona seven years ago. It’s his DNA in that six-year-old girl in the Fiji hospital. Think people, think!” Rathmore snapped. “Let’s have someone pick up that FBI agent who was on the scene. What was his name?”

“Barbeau. Dixon Barbeau. He’s no longer with the Bureau, but he’s around,” Murik said, punching the commands into his Eysen-INU.

“Word just in that Gaines’ daughter was discharged,” the tech said.

“What? I thought we gave orders—” Rathmore began.

“It seems the Fijians don’t know we run the world,” Murik offered with a slight laugh.

“Damn it, Murik, this is serious,” Rathmore barked. “The girl is how we found them. She’s the only lead. Where did she go? We gotta do this!”

“We’re just getting that data in now,” the tech said. “Look.” He pointed to another monitor, which showed images of Gale, Kruse, and Cira leaving the hospital.

“Thankfully they took a chopper,” Murik said. “Cars are much harder to track from space.”

The tech nodded their agreement. “You can see this is from about two hours ago, but now that we’re onto them, we’re catching up and moving closer to real time.”

“They went to that?” Rathmore asked, indicating an area on the giant monitor which appeared to be a field. “Is that a developed airstrip?”

“Yes,” the tech answered. “We had the airport closed by then.”

As the system continued tracing Gale’s race via chopper, then plane, the agents sped through time until they caught up with the synch.

“There they are in-flight,” the tech said.

“Can you pro
ject
their tra
ject
ory?” Murik asked, emphasizing the words dramatically. When a few of the techs laughed, he was temporarily content.

“Obviously they didn’t file a flight plan,” Rathmore said. “Or at least not a legitimate one. What’s the range of that plane?”

“The simulations are kicking in,” the tech said. “There seem to be three possibilities. The Philippines, Indonesia, or possibly Malaysia.”

“Cross-check those destinations with Booker Lipton holdings,” Rathmore said. “Come on, people, crank it up!”

“As if that will help,” Murik said. “Booker has more things hidden than—”

“What the hell!” Rathmore yelled as they all watched the plane crash into the sea.

“Are you kidding me?” Murik said.

“I don’t believe it’s real,” Rathmore snapped. “I’ve seen this movie before.”

“What?” Murik protested. “Do you think they
staged
that?”

“It’s Booker Lipton. Of course they staged it.”

“It looks mighty convincing,” the tech added.

“Very,” Murik agreed.

“I’m not buying it,” Rathmore said. “This is the Canyon de Chelly copter explosion all over again. How quickly can we get someone to that crash site?”

“Let me see,” the tech replied, checking various monitors. “If you can get a MONSTER to move the Navy, I’d say ETA seventy-five or eighty minutes.”

“Seventy-five minutes?” Rathmore barked, slamming his fist on the table. “Unacceptable!”

“If we had anyone closer, we would’ve been able to stop them at the hospital,” Murik said as Rathmore started a conversation with the Navy MONSTER.

“Okay, we think we can be there in sixty-four minutes,” Rathmore said, shooting a look to the tech as if his estimate had been way off. “Meantime, keep everything we’ve got all over that site. Any boats or planes come within a mile of it, I want to know. Let’s do this!”

“What about Gaines?” Murik asked. “He wasn’t even on that plane.”

“Right,” Rathmore agreed. “What do we have on Gaines?”

“An address,” the tech said, looking at a screen.

“Seriously?” Murik asked.

“Not where he is now, but where he was yesterday,” the tech replied.

“That’s a hell of a lot more than we had five minutes ago,” Rathmore said. “Rock and roll!”

“A hell of a lot more than we’ve had for the past seven years,” Murik added.

“I want someone there fifteen minutes ago,” Rathmore ordered one of the other technicians. “Talk to everyone who might have even had coffee with him, arrest them if you have to. Anyone who recognizes his face should be in custody. Clear?

“Yes, sir.”

“Asher and their daughter don’t even matter if we can find Gaines first.” Rathmore downed another gulp of hot caffeine.

“I’m already tracing everything that moved out from that address,” the first tech said. “But, as you know, it can be a slow process.”

“Not if you have additional inputs,” Rathmore said. “Cross everything with Booker Lipton, his companies, known associates, properties, any assets, everything. Burn down the town!”

“Are you sure Booker is still helping them?” Murik asked.

“How else have they stayed under the radar for seven years?” Rathmore shot back.

“The artifact,” Murik offered. “If it’s everything they say it is, Gaines and Asher might not need Booker Lipton, and we may need a lot more than a MONSTER to bring them in.”