Genocide of One: A Thriller (51 page)

“You’re sure I can help?”

“Yeah. Shine your light on the gauges.”

Meyers unfolded his checklist. “Fuel valves. Auxiliary power switch,” he muttered
to himself, switching each on, one by one. The lights came on in the cockpit, and
the LED displays and gauges were illuminated in a variety of colors.

Meyers went through the same operation twice and got both engines up and running.
The cockpit was filled with the roar of the fired-up jet engines.

“That’s more like it!” Meyers said happily.

But Yeager was still on edge. “I won’t be happy till we take off.”

Pierce watched these proceedings and, with Akili in his arms, sat down at the rear
of the cockpit. “We’re a little ahead of our flight plan, but let’s take off.”

“Fasten your seat belts,” Meyers intoned, sounding very much the captain. He turned
forward again. “Here we go.”

Meyers pushed the thrust lever forward slightly, and the engines roared to life as
the plane slowly began taxiing.

Yeager was startled to see Meyers’s hands leave the control stick. He was apparently
using a different lever to the left of his seat for taxiing. Wandering to the left
and right, the Boeing aircraft made its way unsteadily down the taxiway. The curve
just before the runway was a real challenge for the impromptu captain. He moved the
plane in fits and starts and was finally able to manage the curve.

The final change of direction accomplished, the Boeing came to a stop. Outside the
window their escape route lay straight ahead, illuminated by runway lights.

“Radio frequency, check; flaps set; transponder on…” Meyers ran through his final
check. “When we’re in the air,” he said to Yeager, “pull up this lever. That will
store the landing gear.”

“Anything else?” Yeager asked, searching his minimal knowledge of planes. “Want me
to read out the airspeed just before we take off?”

“That’s important, but I don’t know the exact numbers.”

“What?”

Meyers laughed, but his expression was tense. “It’s okay. Let’s do this. When the
airspeed indicator hits one hundred and ninety knots, call out ‘VR.’”

“You sure we’re okay?”

“Trust me.”

Meyers rested his left hand on the control stick and with his right hand moved the
thrust lever to ninety degrees. The engines revved up, and the low growl turned to
an earsplitting roar.

“All set?” Meyers raised his voice.

“Yep.”

“Auto throttle, brakes off.”

Meyers pushed the thrust lever to full power, and the Boeing lurched forward at full
speed. Yeager was pushed back in his seat. The plane leaned to the left, and fear
rose up in his throat. Before he could take a breath, the plane was barreling down
the runway, reaching the point where it seemed impossible to stop.

Meyers stared at the line down the middle of the runway and used the rudder pedal
at his feet to straighten the plane out. At full thrust, the plane leaned left and
right as it charged down the runway. Yeager kept his eyes on the airspeed indicator.
They hadn’t reached 190 knots yet. He glanced up and saw the end of the runway fast
approaching. At this rate they’d plow right into the trees just beyond the runway.

“Meyers!” Yeager yelled, and just then Meyers pulled the control stick. The nose began
to rise, but the angle was too shallow. The runway vanished beneath them as the fence
surrounding the airfield drew near.

Yeager, sure they were going to die, felt a cold, hollow feeling in the pit of his
stomach. A floating feeling. The plane had risen up. The Boeing aircraft cleared the
fence by inches, grazed the trees, and soared into the night sky.

The two men in the pilots’ seats were silent for a moment. Yeager finally managed
to unwind his tense body and push the lever to raise the landing gear. The forward
wheels and main landing gear groaned as they folded into the undercarriage. The red
light on the instrument panel went out.

His expression frozen, Meyers continued to pull back on the control stick. Finally
he came to himself and kept repeating “Hello?” He was apparently communicating with
the radar operator at air traffic control. Their whole flight over the Atlantic would
be monitored by radar.

After a few words with the controller, Meyers said, “Looks like everything’s okay.
They don’t know we hijacked the plane. In a little while I’ll switch over to autopilot.”

“You did great, Meyers,” Yeager said, praising him. Only a C minus by his book, but
at least they’d taken off in one piece. “How long before we get to our destination?”

“It’ll take about fourteen hours. Half a day from now our mission will be over.”

Yeager nodded and relaxed back into the seat. Out the window, beyond the lights of
Cape Town, lay the expanse of ocean. The huge continent he thought they’d never escape
was vanishing behind them.

They were finally leaving Africa. The instant he thought this, Yeager felt an invisible
power pulling him back. It felt as if the continent, the birthplace of new human beings
for millions of years, was reaching out with a massive hand to keep him from escaping.
I have to get away, Yeager thought. Have to shake free from this ominous power. This
evil fate reaching out to stop me.

He glanced at his watch and saw that the deadline for his son’s life had not yet arrived.
Justin was still alive. This father-and-son struggle was still ongoing.

Yeager went over their plans again to make sure they hadn’t overlooked anything, determined
to survive until the final stage, fourteen hours from now.

Kento had completely
lost any sense of time. He glanced at his watch and saw it was 1:00 a.m. At this
time of night the detectives would have to have put their investigation on hold. For
the time being this apartment was safe.

A little past the estimated time, he used thin-layer chromatography to check that
the reaction was over. The synthesis process to create GIFT 1 was finished.

Kento lifted the flask from the magnetic stirrer and stared at the clear liquid inside.
If the experiment were successful, it contained the agonist that would activate mutant
GPR769.

Kento used all the knowledge and technical skill he’d learned to close in on a new
miracle drug no one else had discovered. To extract the desired material from the
reaction solution, he began with great care to do a liquid-liquid extraction. The
extraction procedure isolated the nonpolar organic materials of the reaction mixture
into a nonpolar organic solvent, leaving behind the unwanted polar constituents in
a polar water phase. He then evaporated off the organic solvent, thus concentrating
the organic materials, which could then be purified by column chromatography. Through
column chromatography, the organic target product could be separated from side products
and other unwanted organic materials by eluting off the materials with an appropriate
solvent or solvent mixtures.

While running the column, Kento could see with his naked eye three bands of material
separating into three distinct layers. Each layer was collected as separate portions
into separate flasks.

Soon after dawn the column chromatography was complete. He transferred each fraction
into an eggplant flask and evaporated off the solvent with a rotary evaporator, leaving
behind a solid with traces of solvent. Kento then used a vacuum desiccator to remove
the last traces of solvent.

The solids remaining in each flask had not crystallized but were frothy and amorphous.
He finally had the end product. One of these flasks contained GIFT 1.

Before he could get too emotional, Kento picked up his cell phone. It was not yet
9:00 a.m., but Jeong-hoon answered right away.

“Hello?”

“Were you asleep?”

“No. I got up early and have been waiting,” Jeong-hoon replied. “How’d it go?”

“It’s finished.”

“Okay. Now we just have to do structure determination.”

“There are three materials, and none of them has crystallized. So we can check them
all with NMR. Can I send them to you right now at the university?”

“Sure, go ahead. I’ve reserved the joint equipment room.”

“Along with the samples, I’ll include a memo with GIFT 1’s structure written down.
Can you have the old lady in the joint equipment room check the results?”

By “the old lady in the joint equipment room” he meant a spectrum analysis expert
who supervised and maintained the equipment. Her powers of observation were astounding,
and no matter how difficult the analysis results, one look at the chart was all she
needed to know the chemical structure of the sample. If they asked her to help, she’d
be able to discern in an instant which sample was GIFT 1. “If we do that we can save
time on sending the results back.”

“Exactly. And I’ve already bought the plane tickets.”

Jeong-hoon was set to take off for Lisbon that night.

“We’re almost there,” Kento said.

“We just have to make sure not to let our guard down.”

Kento nodded and told Jeong-hoon the number of his new cell phone. “Use this number
from now on.”

“Did something happen?” Jeong-hoon asked. “Is everything okay?”

“I think so,” was all he could say. “This evening we can talk about the transfer of
the drug.”

“Got it.”

As soon as he hung up Kento got the samples ready to be transported by motorcycle,
double-checking he’d labeled them correctly.

They should be able now to save Justin Yeager. The problem was the other person on
their list. Was Maika Kobayashi still in the hospital? Or had she already lost her
fight with death?

Kento remembered Jeong-hoon’s words and roused himself. It was too soon to give up.

It was 11:00 p.m. on the East Coast. Rubens was leaving the Defense Department and
had just reached the parking lot when he was called back.

“We need you back,” Avery, one of his subordinates in the command center, told him
over his cell phone. “We’ve traced Nous’s movements. Looks like they’re leaving Africa.”

“By ship?”

“No. By plane. A plane owned by Aviation Specialties was hijacked.”

Aviation Specialties was a CIA dummy corporation. Rubens, puzzled, hurried back to
the basement of the Pentagon.

As soon as he cleared the biometrics scan and was back in the command center, Avery
quickly brought him up to date. “A CIA plane smuggling arms and ammunition was taken
over by Jonathan Yeager and his group.”

“At which airport?”

“The airfield inside Zeta Security.”

Rubens was impressed. Private defense contractors’ airfields had been an option they’d
overlooked.

“Four hours ago a security officer noticed the runway lights were still on, checked
the grounds, and found the crew tied up. The hijacked plane is being tracked by radar
as we speak.”

“What route are they taking? Are they headed to Asia?”

“No. They’re heading northwest across the Atlantic.”

Rubens was taken aback. So were they heading to North America?

“This route follows exactly the flight plan submitted by Aviation Specialties. If
they continue as they are they’ll arrive at the airport in Recife.”

“Recife?”

“On the eastern edge of Brazil. The point that juts out into the Atlantic. They must
be trying to illegally enter the country disguised as CIA operatives.”

Their plan can’t be that simple, can it? Rubens thought. But if we come up with a
response based on this assumption, then we might be able to let Nous get away. As
if perfectly timed, a phone call came in from Eldridge. The director of Operation
Nemesis couldn’t hide his frustration at this unexpected development. He must be worried
about his own position, Rubens thought, smiling to himself.

“I’m up to speed,” Eldridge said. “I want you to get all our CIA assets in Brazil
to the Guararapes airport.”

“Should we alert the Brazilian government?”

“No need to. Don’t let anybody from the State Department get involved. That would
be a huge mistake. Have the intelligence community alone handle it.”

“Understood.”

“I’m heading over to the command center,” Eldridge said. “God, what a disaster!” he
added, spitting out the words before he abruptly hung up.

The command center surged to life. Stokes, their military adviser, was already at
his post, but before Rubens could say hello another call came in, this time from Holland.
Getting a call directly from the director of the CIA gave Rubens a faint sense of
hope.

“Rubens, just speak casually. No ‘sir’ or anything,” Holland said straightaway. “Otherwise
they’ll know who you’re talking to.”

“Um, sure,” Rubens said, trying to keep it casual.

“Did you hear details about what happened at Zeta?”

“No.”

“I just spoke with a man named Singleton there. According to him, Warren Garrett is
dead.”

“He is?”

“That’s right. Yeager told him that.”

Rubens had one more thing to feel guilty about. This courageous man, who was going
to expose the crimes committed by the president of the United States, had fallen victim
to Operation Nemesis without achieving his goal. What had incited Garrett to act had
to be the same pangs of conscience Rubens was feeling right now. Anger at being duped
by those in power and allowing others to die.

“There’s a possibility now that the operation will be halted.” The CIA director was
clearly pleased by the death of this traitor. He was no doubt also happy that Nous
had escaped and that the special renditions he’d had a hand in could be buried back
in the shadows.

Rubens was angry at Holland for not admitting his guilty conscience, but at this point
in time it was wise to have him on his side. Even though the hidden agenda behind
Operation Nemesis had reached its objective, he still couldn’t be optimistic. A man
far more shameless and arrogant than Holland—the most powerful man in the world, an
immoral mass murderer—was still hoping to get rid of Nous.

“What do you think?” Holland said. “Will Nous be okay even if agents converge on Guararapes
airport? Will he be able to escape?”

“We’ll have the minimal number of agents go there.” It was best to let the CIA director
believe that Yeager and his group were going to smuggle themselves into Brazil. “If
he can find an opening, I think he should be all right.”

“You’re probably right. Okay, then.”

“Is this the only step we’re taking at present?” Rubens asked.

“Yes. The hijacked plane is over the middle of the Atlantic, so it’s out of range
of our fighter jets. This Boeing was used in monitoring drug smuggling, so it’s equipped
with military radar. If we send out AWACS surveillance aircraft the plane will detect
it right away. Best to leave them alone till they get to Recife.”

“One more thing, just for reference. What’s the cruising range of the hijacked plane?”

“A little over eleven thousand kilometers. A rough estimate would take it almost to
Miami.”

The mention of an American city had Rubens uneasy. “What kind of defensive measures
does this plane have?”

“None. Other than the radar it’s the same as a business jet. If fighters scramble
it’d be helpless. Best not to let the Brazilian government know anything.”

Where could Nous be heading? Rubens again found it all puzzling. If they deviated
from their flight plan as they neared Recife, the Brazilian air force would scramble
jets to intercept them. It would be the same no matter where they tried to escape.
The air forces of nearby countries would all mobilize, and if they attempted to escape
over the open ocean they’d run out of fuel. The one thing Rubens knew for sure was
that they weren’t heading toward the US mainland. If they breached US airspace they’d
be shot down in a heartbeat.

“How’s the radar looking?” Meyers asked from the pilot’s seat.

“It’s clear.” Yeager, in the rear of the cockpit, where he was monitoring the radar,
looked up from the screen. “No sign of anything.”

Six hours had passed since they took off from Cape Town. It was still dark out, and
from their altitude of eleven thousand meters the countless stars sparkling in the
night sky looked close enough to touch. Pierce was in the copilot’s seat, Akili on
his lap, and the boy was tracing each star with his finger, as if making astronomical
observations.

“We’ll get real busy soon,” Pierce said, glancing at his watch. “How’s our fuel?”

“It’s almost weird how little we’ve used,” Meyers said.

“It’s because we’re using the westerly currents. We’re in the fastest part of the
jet stream.”

The Boeing didn’t deviate enough from its flight plan to arouse suspicion. The figures
entered in the autopilot were updated when necessary by their Japanese ally. They’d
started to call this unknown Japanese person by the code name Ema. Pierce had come
up with the name, which in Kimbuti means “mother.”

“Is Ema a meteorologist?”

“She knows everything,” Pierce said with a laugh, and turned to Yeager. “How’s it
going? Everything set?”

“Yep. Could you all come over here?”

They all stood up. The plane, on autopilot, continued on course.

They went into the passenger cabin and began inspecting their parachute gear. The
three adults strapped on insulated jackets to protect them from the cold, and Yeager
and Meyers helped each other as they put on their parachute containers. They put on
their oxygen supply systems and tried out the improvised tandem jump harnesses. Meyers
used the V ring and carabiners mounted on the front to link himself to the harness
Pierce wore. Now their two bodies were tightly connected.

Akili’s head was big enough to fit snugly into an adult-size helmet. The goggles and
oxygen mask fit neatly over his face. But because his body was so small they didn’t
use harnesses for him but instead put him in a backpack, which would hang between
Yeager’s legs.

“Looks good,” Pierce said, satisfied. “In a little while we’re going to deviate from
our set flight path. If we get any closer to Brazil they’ll scramble fighters to intercept
us.”

They took off their gear and headed back to the flight deck.

Meyers, in the captain’s seat, rested his hand on the control stick. “A question.”

“What is it?”

“After we veer from the flight plan, are you seriously planning to head north? If
we enter the US Air Defense Identification Zone, they’ll send interceptor fighters
to come after us.”

“This is the only flight route that will satisfy all the conditions.”

“But if we get shot down, it’s all over.”

“Ema assures me we’ll be okay.”

“But just because we’re in international waters doesn’t mean we can relax. The intercept
options for the United States include shooting planes down over the high seas.”

“I thought it was strange, too,” Pierce agreed. “But Ema’s message was clear: there’s
no worry about your being shot down. Just focus on flying. What we need to concentrate
on is arriving at the precise point at the exact time. If we take care of our end,
things will work out okay.”

Meyers turned to look at Yeager.

“We’ve come this far, so we don’t have any other choice,” Yeager said. “We have to
trust Ema.”

“I don’t see how we can drive away attack jets,” Meyers said, hand grasping the control
stick. “But okay, here we go.”

Pierce took Akili and sat down in the rear seat. “All set!” he said.

Meyers pushed the control stick forward. The nose of the Boeing jet, flying at eleven
thousand meters, tilted downward toward the ocean, and the plane began a rapid descent.