Kill Switch (14 page)

“No, um, very well,” fumbled the scientist, “but let me say two things. First, using gemstones to regulate this kind of power is pure fantasy. There's no valid science to support it. And frankly it's unreasonable to assume that a few carats of precious stones could in any way act as a regulator for any machine as complex and sophisticated as this. And please let me stress that as designed, those gems are key to the safety features.”

“Point made. What's the other thing?”

“This,” said Gustafson, placing his finger on a list of notes written in the lower left corner of the page. “These are book titles, I think. A few have bylines, so we can assume that much. And they're placed as a footnote to the power sequencer. The indication is twofold. That there is a very precise sequence needed for safe firing of this ‘God Machine' and—”

“‘God Machine'?” interrupted Bell.

Gustafson nodded. “There is a small notation indicating that this is the name, or perhaps code name, of the machine. Shall I continue? Yes? Very well, sir, it appears that the crucial sequence can only be found in one or more of these books. Look here, the designer says as much. I quote, ‘the sequence is hidden in the prayers to the ancient ones,' and ‘the Unlearnable Truths are the key,' and yet he notates that ‘nothing is unlearnable.'”

Bell nodded. “I saw that. Do you have any idea what the ‘Unlearnable Truths' are?”

“If I were to guess, they are the product of a delusional mind.”

Bell stood up. “Thank you, Dr. Gustafson,” he said without warmth, “you can show yourself out.”

The scientist rose and moved awkwardly toward the door. He paused, his fingers touching the doorknob. “Sir, you asked what ‘he was building in there.' Who's ‘he'? Who designed this? And is he actually building it, because again, I need to caution you…”

His words trailed away as Oscar Bell turned his back on him and went to stand by the window, looking out on the roses in the garden. After a long, uncomfortable moment Gustafson sighed, opened the door, and left.

*   *   *

When he was alone, Bell crossed back to his desk, lifted the receiver, and punched in a number. The call was answered on the second ring.

“You were right,” he said. “I want a team over here. I want this machine out of here before my son is home from school. All of it. The papers, Prospero's prototype. All of it. Get moving.”

He made a second call to a gem merchant and a third to his banker to transfer funds. The banker cautioned against so large a transfer and warned that some holdings might have to be liquidated. Bell told him to stop whining and do it.

After those calls he replaced the phone in the cradle and then returned to the window. The early-afternoon sun turned the waters of the Atlantic into a rippling blanket of deep blue. His lips formed three words but the sound of them echoed only in his thoughts.

The Unlearnable Truths.

Oscar Bell turned and reached for the phone again.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

IN FLIGHT

ANTARCTIC OCEAN

AUGUST 20, 3:44
A.M.

We sat in the empty hull of the airplane and did not look at each other. I couldn't bear to see the truth of what had just happened in the eyes of Top or Bunny. They avoided my eyes, too.

We're soldiers and we're a very specific kind of special operator. We've seen things that no one else has seen. Monsters. Genetic freaks. Doomsday weapons. That's our job, that's the kind of thing we face.

But this…?

This was something else.

That gateway was ten kinds of wrong. The shapeless mass with all those tentacles? Wrong.

Swapping bodies with Bunny for a few seconds? Doing some kind of bullshit astral projection and spying on Lydia while she undressed? Really, really wrong.

The clones of Professor Erskine … or whatever they were?

So wrong.

When giant violent albino penguins are the least extraordinary issue of the day, then your day has slipped a gear.

We were all wasted, wired, and sick.

Really sick. And getting sicker.

Bunny suddenly staggered to his feet and ran in a stumbling lope toward the head. Almost made it. Then stomach cramps stopped him as solidly as if he'd been punched in the gut. He bent forward and vomited with terrible force all over the wall. Everything came up. Everything he'd eaten, everything he'd experienced, too. It was worse than when we'd first been hit by whatever had come blowing out of that machine. The force of it dropped Bunny to his knees and then forward onto his hands. Top and I rushed over, but we were losing it, too. Top wrenched open the door to the head and spewed inside. Into the toilet, onto the walls, the sink, the floor.

I threw up, too. Right where I stood.

The cramps really hit then. They dropped us and for a while all we could do was curl into balls and scream. The plane's crew tried to help. Tried. But there was nothing they could do.

Not for a long time.

Not until the spasms passed.

Not until we were so spent that we wanted to die. It was like seasickness times ten. I've never experienced anything as sudden, as fierce, as painful. The cramps pulled muscles and tore cries from each of us.

What the hell had we breathed down there?

What the hell had happened down there?

The plane flew on, taking us home, but if it was flying anywhere in the direction of comfort or answers, that part wasn't clear to Top, Bunny, or me.

Jesus H. Christ.

 

INTERLUDE SEVEN

BELL FAMILY ESTATE

MONTAUK ISLAND, NEW YORK

WHEN PROSPERO WAS TWELVE

“Dr. Greene?” said Oscar Bell. He stood at the window, holding his cell phone to his ear and cradling a glass of scotch against his chest.

“Mr. Bell,” said the psychiatrist. “Good to hear from you.”

“I need to cut right to it,” said Bell. “In your sessions with Prospero, has he ever said anything about where these damn books are? These Unlearnable Truths? Where are they?”

“Not directly. He said that some have been destroyed.”

“Christ.”

“But that the essential knowledge—the knowledge he claims that he needs—is repeated in sections in the other books. As long as one possesses certain key texts from that collection, then a critical truth can be learned.”

“His exact words?”

“No … I believe his exact words were that the books contained a message that would allow him to, and I quote, ‘solve the riddle of the stars'.”

“Which books would he need to do that?”

“Sir, this is—”

“Now, Doctor.”

Greene sighed and then there was the sound of rustling papers. “Very well, Mr. Bell. They are as follows:
The Book of Azathoth, The Book of Eibon, The Book of Iod, The Celaeno Fragments, The Cultes des Goules, The Eltdown Shards, On the Sending Out of the Soul
…” The list included fourteen entries and he read them all carefully.

“Is that all of them?” asked Bell.

“Yes. Wait, no, there was one from yesterday's session. Here it is.
De Vermis Mysteriis,
” said Greene. “It translates as—”

“
Mysteries of the Worm,
got it. Anything else?”

“No. But, Mr. Bell, please understand, I researched these titles. They're pure nonsense—”

Bell hung up without saying good-bye.

He finished his drink, poured another, and then called a man who knew a man who knew a man. One of those kinds of calls.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

IN FLIGHT

OVER NEBRASKA AIRSPACE

AUGUST 20, 9:06
A.M.

Sergeant Brick Anderson sat across from Mr. Church. They were the only passengers aboard the Gulfstream G650 as the bird rocketed westward at mach point-nine-two, near the upper range of its fast cruising speed. Church was finishing a call with the president of the United States, and Brick had eavesdropped on some of it. The president was an unhappy man. He yelled. A lot. Captain Ledger's name was taken in vain, and there were threats against his life. A lot of those. The jet had flown a lot of miles while Church tried to calm the commander in chief down and convince him that Captain Ledger had not taken leave of his senses and that the missile strikes against Gateway One were not, in fact, evidence that the man had become a global terrorist or simply a madman. Church had to do a lot of maneuvering to assure the president that the actions taken were well within the scope of the powers granted to the DMS as part of this mission. Church reminded him, section and verse, of the special powers granted through the Department of Military Sciences charter, particularly in cases involving an imminent and dire biological or technological threat.

Church had the call on speaker because, Brick suspected, why should he suffer alone?

Several times Brick had to turn away to hide a grin, even though they were painful grins. No matter how this ultimately played out, Captain Ledger's ass was going to be in a sling. Church caught one of his grins and gave him a sour look, but then he smiled and mimed putting a pistol to his own head and pulling the trigger.

When the call ended Church looked ten years older. Brick poured them both glasses of wine and they sat drinking in silence for a few minutes.

“Is POTUS going to want Joe's head on a pike?”

Church considered the deep red depths of his wine. It was a Homer pinot noir from Shea Wine Cellars in Willamette. Not terribly expensive but very good. Rudy Sanchez had sent Church a case some months ago and this was the last bottle.

“It would be in the president's best interest to reread the DMS charter.”

“You're saying he can't order you to fire Joe?”

Church merely shrugged and sipped the wine.

The phone rang and Brick answered it, spoke quietly, grunted in surprise, and held the phone against his chest for a moment.

“Wow,” he said to Church. “It's Harcourt Bolton, Senior. Says it's important.”

Church held out a hand and took the phone, once more put the call on speaker, and said, “Harcourt, it's good to hear from you.”

“Right back at you, Deacon. Listen, I have a couple of things,” said Bolton in his usual boisterous tone. “Heard you're having a challenging day. POTUS said something about your boy Ledger blowing the ass off the world. Words to that effect.”

Church said, “No comment.”

Bolton laughed. “Wasn't asking for one. Just offering sympathy. Ledger's a good kid, but he's still young. Not like us old dinosaurs.”

“I have complete faith in Captain Ledger.”

“Oh, hey, I'm not saying otherwise. He saved my bacon a couple of times. It's nice to know that fogies like us have hotshot kids to send out tiger hunting. Makes me wish I still had the tools for that kind of stuff. Those were good days. Damn, we pissed on walls all over the world. Geez, remember that time in Madrid when I—”

“Harcourt,” said Church, “much as I would love to chat, this isn't the best time for it.”

“Right, right, of course. You have some spin control to do. I know the timing sucks, too, 'cause you and your boys have had a run of bad luck lately. Big win against the Seven Kings but the last six or seven cases have turned on you. Bad luck can go in runs; believe me, I know. Sorry to see it happening for the DMS.”

Brick studied the red depths of his wine, not wanting to meet Church's eyes. Bolton was right about the DMS hitting a rough patch. And it wasn't seven cases that had gone south on them, it was closer to a round dozen. High casualties in firefights, some civilian casualties, too. Failed missions, questionable intel, squandered resources, wrecked vehicles, and hostiles that slipped through the DMS's fingers. So far Joe Ledger's Special Projects Office had managed to hold a near-perfect track record, but given the bizarre verbal field report and the lack of substantiating data—at least so far—the DMS all-stars were likely to lose their shining status. It was all very stressful and so strange. Brick knew a lot of the team commanders and many of the field operators. It was not like them to be clumsy. Church didn't hire second-stringers. So far, though, there were mysteries and questions and nothing even remotely like an answer.

Bolton said, “Hey, Deke, I'm sorry as hell that it was my intel that put Ledger at Gateway. I thought it would be a walk in the park for a gunslinger like him.”

“We'll survive,” said Church. Brick knocked back the rest of his wine and poured more for both of them.

“Sorry, boy. Not trying to kick you when you're down. I know what it feels like when you lose a step getting to first base. That's why I stepped out of the field. Just commiserating,” Bolton said, then cleared his throat. “Listen, the real reason I'm calling is to ask if you've been tracking those power outages? You know the ones I mean, the racetrack mess and the GOP debate?”

“I'm aware of them,” said Church. His voice was as wooden as his face.

“You looking into it?”

“You probably know I wasn't given that case, Harcourt,” said Church. “POTUS assigned a task force. Joint Homeland and NSA.”

Bolton snorted. “Then you know they found exactly nothing. That team's a step down from a clown college. Their report concluded that the two incidents, though remarkable, are probably not connected. They're calling the power losses a coincidence. What do you think of that bullcrap?”

“That report has not yet been forwarded to me,” said Church.

“Really? They filed it this morning. My people got it for me within half an hour. I'll send you a copy.”

Brick winced, but Church merely said, “You have an excellent team, Harcourt. I take it you disagree with the team's findings?”