Protocol 7 (53 page)

Why haven’t I gotten there already? he asked himself, an equal mixture of annoyance and dread. He looked at the glassy ice and well-traveled permafrost beneath his feet, unaware he was a scant hundred yards from the point where the Spector had sunk into the ice. “Where’s Sam?” he asked the cold, empty air. “Where’s Ryan?” In his disorientation and anger, he had completely forgotten about the communicator strapped to his wrist. Samantha followed relentlessly two miles behind. She was exhausted and confused as she stopped for a moment and contemplated the unthinkable: going back without him.

Where could he be? she asked herself, nearly breaking. There is nowhere to go! With all the strength she had left in her body, she screamed. “Hayden! Hayden, where are you?” Then she remembered it herself, for the first time. “Damn it,” she said, cursing herself for a fool. She put the watch close to her face, touched the edges as she’d been told to.

“Hayden!”

This time, Hayden heard the voice quite clearly, but he had no idea where it was coming from. He stopped instantly and turned back. “Samantha?” he shouted. The pressure from the sound caused excruciating pain in his head. He realized he had not fully recovered.

Samantha heard him—thin but clear, coming from the wrist communicator. He’s alive, she thought. Alive! With newfound energy, she started running back the way she had come. Just around that bend…

She had taken no more than ten steps when the timer set off the spot of gunpowder and broke the inhaler’s canister. In a fraction of a second, the gas hit the powder in the disguised protein bags, and the encampment exploded with a deafening sound that almost blew out her eardrums.

The force of the explosion that followed pushed through the tunnel like a bullet from the barrel of a shotgun. Between one step and the next, Samantha found herself airborne, her body lifted ten feet into the air and thrown against an ice wall over fifteen feet away.

The shock wave threw Hayden to the ground as well, but he was farther away—safer. He was back on his feet, unsteady as before, in mere moments.

There was nothing left of the encampment. Bodies and equipment, food and clothing, the drones in search of the scientist, even the ice itself had been turned to dust and driven deep into the ancient ice.

The scientists were dead. The camp was destroyed. And Ryan…

Samantha pulled herself to her feet, more bruised than before but still alive, still able to move. She looked back in the direction of the explosion and somehow knew where it had come from—what it meant.

Another friend was dead.

Ryan…she thought. And then she screamed out loud, “Ryan!”

Gunshots and the sound of agony echoed in the dark hallway where Simon stood, but he barely heard it. He held his father’s frail and tortured body, thinking of nothing but this moment. He wanted it to last forever. It felt as if time itself had stopped for him; he was lost in his own world, with no regard for his own life.

The dark interior of the room was lit only by splinters of light reflecting from the dead soldier’s helmet. He felt his father stir feebly in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, struggling to form the words.

“Please, Father,” Simon whispered. “There is nothing you need to be sorry for.” He tightened his grip around Oliver’s narrow, shaking shoulders, filled with longing and remorse.

“No,” his father said. “There is much to be sorry for, my son. There is too much I need to explain.” Oliver’s voice was thin as paper.

“We’ve got to get out of this hell first,” Simon insisted. “I don’t care what it takes, I will take you back home, back to the surface. Then you can explain anything you want to me.”

“I can’t move, Simon.”

“Why?” Simon was confused. His father’s body was thin to the point of emaciation, but nothing was broken. There were no obvious signs of injury, just tremendous weakness.

“I’m paralyzed,” his father rasped. “Too much radioactive exposure.”

Simon’s heart sank. “Radioactivity? From what?”

Oliver paused for a moment, gathering what little breath he could find. “I’m sorry, Simon,” he said again quietly. Then he coughed shallowly and swallowed hard before he continued. “I haven’t been honest with you all my life.”

Simon pulled back, locking eyes with his father. “But—”

“You don’t have much time. You need to listen to me carefully.” His hand stirred, but he couldn’t lift it to communicate the true importance of every whispered word. “Simon,” he grated, “first you need to get to the surface; if you have gotten that far you will be rescued.” He cleared his throat and struggled for the strength, just to express himself with a few more words. “Once you are rescued you need to hurry—you need to find—”

The sound of gunshots was just outside—far too close—and it startled both men. Simon slipped into the doorway just in time to see soldiers running toward them; the sound of their footsteps echoed through the hallway, growing louder and louder.

I have no weapons, Simon thought. Then he remembered the soldier lying on the ground. He turned the man over with a quick snap and found the holster strapped to the dead man’s side.

Simon started to feel the vibration of the men running toward him. They were just outside the room. Several men, he told himself.

He gripped the gun in the soldier’s holster and pulled it free with all his strength. He had no time to detach the buckle; the strap on the holster ripped from the force and suddenly Simon was holding the gun in his shaking hand.

Three men, he realized. They were only seconds from Oliver’s cell. Have to think fast.

He slammed the door shut, barely missing the soldier’s head where it lay twisted on the floor. That’s only going to delay them by a few seconds. Where the hell is Max?

Oliver stirred, struggling to move, to regain the feeling in his limbs. He wanted to help—Simon could see that—but the effort was futile. Simon bent to push the soldier’s lifeless body closer to the cell door, leaning it like a doorstop against the aluminum in a vain attempt to delay the soldiers, if only for an instant longer.

The soldiers were right outside the door. He was trapped, trapped like a—

The ceiling, he thought in a sudden, jarring inspiration. Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped up, high as he could, and grabbed the metal bars over his head, trying to push his body through.

The soldiers were pounding on the door, and the sound of it sent a chill through Simon. The thin walls of the cell’s modular structure trembled and bowed under their blows.

Oliver watched his son pull himself into hiding with a deep sense of desperation. I have so little time, he thought, too weak to speak. I won’t live long enough to tell him…tell him everything…

The power outage had provided the precious few seconds that Simon needed. Once shut, and with the electric motors disconnected, the door could not be opened from the outside, and as the guards shouted and cursed, he used every ounce of his strength to pull himself high up into to the lattice work, holding himself tight against the ceiling itself. He spotted pinpoints of light reflected from the soldiers’ helmets into the darkness of the grid work, over their heads and directly on the other side of the wall. He only had to move slowly, silently to the right and over the wall.

Eight more inches and he was above them. He looked straight down and watched the three soldiers as they pounded relentlessly at the door to the cell.

He heard the chatter of automatic gunfire off in the distance, too many shots to count. Fifty, a hundred—he simply couldn’t tell. Something is happening to Max, he thought, and suddenly he was overcome by an unfamiliar strength, outraged by the torture of his father, driven by the will to survive.

He held the gun in front of him as tightly as he could, both arms extended, pointing straight down. He gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger, and the sound almost shattered his eardrum.

One of the soldiers flew away from the others and slammed against the wall opposite the door. The shot entered through the man’s collarbone and exited through his stomach; blood splattered on all three of them from the force of the exploding bullet.

For a few brief seconds, panic rose inside him, filled his mind. It was almost a state of delirium. Too fast, he thought. There was no time to ponder what he had done. And it had been so easy, so—

No, he told himself. It’s too horrible to think about. But something had changed in him—changed who he was. He didn’t feel like a calm and comfortable scientist from Oxford. He didn’t feel angry or afraid.

He felt no remorse.

The two other soldiers had no clue what had struck their companion. Simon didn’t waste time; he didn’t hesitate. He fired again, and the second bullet hit the next soldier the instant Simon pulled the trigger. The helmeted man fell instantly to his knees as the third soldier, panicking, started firing frantically in all directions. The automatic rifle exploded in a barrage of bullets that lit up the hallway and filled it with a deafening sound. Wild shots hit all four walls, pounded into the floor—and pierced the ceiling.

Simon pulled back desperately, as fast as he could. He felt an ice-cold shock in his right shoulder as one of the bullets cut through his deltoid, and pain turned from ice to fire in a heartbeat. He bit off a groan, pushed himself back to the right, away from the gunfire. In mere seconds his arm failed him, and he lost his grip, falling heavily, slamming to the floor of the cell hard enough to knock the last of the air out of him.

The sound of gunfire outside the room intensified as the frenzied soldier shot aimlessly, fearing for his life. Several of the bullets penetrated the door and the wall around it, cutting through the room, barely missing Oliver and Simon.

And then it stopped. Suddenly. Completely. Silence assaulted them, somehow more solid and more terrifying than the gunfire had been.

Simon, still on the ground, gripped his throbbing shoulder and felt the blood well up between his fingers. He looked up at his father and saw the horror on the old man’s face.

His son was right in front of him, lying on the floor, obviously in pain, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Simon,” he whispered, deathly afraid that whoever was outside could hear him.

“I’m all right,” Simon said under his breath, struggling to fight the pain. He forced himself to stand, still half-blinded by pain, and tried to make a casual, comforting gesture to Oliver, using only his left hand. I’m fine, he wanted to tell him. Don’t worry. But he knew it was useless.

He stood there for a moment feeling his arm shake, trying to control the adrenaline that surged through his body. Neither man spoke. There was a moment of silence that stretched on endlessly, though he knew it could have been no more than a few seconds.

“Simon,” Oliver said, weak but clear. “You need to get out of here. You are in grave danger and there is no time. Leave me. Esca—”

Simon cut him off with an angry, awkward, one-armed gesture. “What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t risk my life, I didn’t come halfway around the world just to leave you in this hell.”

“You must,” Oliver said.

“What? Why?”

“I’m in no condition to leave. I will not make it.”

“I don’t care! You’re coming with me.”

Amazingly, Oliver’s tone grew stronger, more certain. “Listen to me, Simon,” he said. Simon had heard that tone many times before as a child, but it didn’t have the same effect on him now. He was a man—a desperate, weary man, a man in pain—and the power of his father’s commanding voice did not sway him. He watched Oliver’s shadowy form, a shadow against a shadow, visible only from the meek light that reflected through the ceiling.

“There are many, many things I never shared with you, Simon,” he said, his voice trembling and weak. “They did not kidnap me from the surface. I decided to come here.”

Simon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You knew all along?” Simon’s stomach tightened as he locked eyes with his father, and in the silence that grew between them he felt a new and awful separation. A great void opened, black and full of secrets, and it did not dissipate even when his father finally began to speak again.

“There is too much to tell you and not enough time, Simon. The fate of mankind now rests on your shoulders. You must escape this continent immediately and do as I say.”

Simon opened his eyes instantly. He could not believe what his father was telling him. This is not real.

“The fate of mankind?” he repeated. “What the hell are you talking about father? Your medication—”

“Stop,” Oliver cut him off. “I am perfectly coherent, Simon. I must be. They have made sure of that.”

“‘They?’”

“Vector5.”

Simon shook his head stubbornly. “Father, none of this can be happening.”

The old man almost smiled. “Believe me, Simon, it’s more real than you can imagine. This continent is being robbed of its resources.”

Quickly, grimly, Oliver outlined the massive, multi-billion-dollar theft that Vector5 had been committing for years—the same staggering story that Lucas had relayed to him earlier. Simon stood stock still, listening to every word that his father spoke almost against his will.

“But all of that—all that conspiracy, all that money and power—that is not why I am here.”

“I don’t understand,” Simon told him, shaking his head wearily. “I don’t.”

“There is something far greater that is down here. I did not have the will or the strength to tell you before, even when you were old enough.”

Simon listened without a word, as if the world had stopped to give them this moment—a moment they had never shared before. Oliver’s head dropped. His tears—the last tears his body had the strength to produce—slid down his face.

“The children…history…mankind’s love and struggle to live…our effort to make sense of our place in the universe…all of this was in our hands, Simon.”

“Whose hands? Father what are you saying?” He does not sound like my father, Simon thought. I have never met this man.

“Simon, all I want you to know is that I am sorry. I regret every moment. I should have done something…or at least tried.” Oliver said.