The Khufu Equation (24 page)

The sun's rays splashed forth from the horizon and tumbled over the earth like a wave, pushing the shadows before them. All livings immediately awoke and drew themselves closer to the luminous energy. Each photon carried information from the environment as it penetrated into the cells of extant organisms and triggered the essential action of life.

The sunlight, piercing the darkness like a dagger, made a bull's-eye of the Boeing 747, which sped toward the continent. The melatonin, hormone of epiphysis, in fulfilling its role as the internal clock, erased the spell of sleep. The passengers, having been in a hypnotic trance, began to wake. For the energy vampires, however, it was the first and last signal of danger. Hurriedly evacuating from the bodies they had inhabited, they rushed toward the wormhole and disappeared.

A moment later, when the location was free, Father Sohn stood up and said:

"We have won this fight, but another lies ahead."

The softness of Jeanette's voice enwrapped Jeff's mind with invisible threads and cradled it on the sunlit waves of a vast ocean. Sometimes it carried him up to the clouds and, showering him with snow-white flakes, plunged into the past. The sensation of a motherly presence made him wander along the gallery where he could indulge himself in sensory perceptions that were strangely familiar. At other moments he seemed to see her footsteps on the sand, only to be erased by the tide. Occasionally, the firmness of his father's voice compelled him to turn back, but he would then find nothing except the crystalline echo that slowly faded into space. These perceptions--the reverberations of memory and touch--dissolved in his palms and, flowing down his fingers, carried him into underground springs. A strange metropolis, far removed from the sun, stretched outward from his mind's eye. Faceless essences swam past, and with a finger one beckoned him to the border between the worlds. Breaking its porous membrane, an unknown feeling soaked Jeff to the crossroads. One was pierced by a deep-blue sensation of the past, in which his parents' faces were reflected. Another vibrated with mysterious strength and called:

"Join us. You'll be powerful and forget the past forever." Eschewing the possibility of a choice, Jeff stepped forward. He had chosen as his objective the light from a house far down the road, but then he found it had merged with many lights, and they all flashed in the darkness. However, the boy wouldn't be mistaken; he wouldn't lose the light that burned in his heart. He crawled forth on a splintery floor of recollections, skinning his knees till they bled. The splinters jabbed his consciousness, but he wouldn't turn back. He refused to weep.

The boy was a descendant of great warriors, for whom crying was not done willingly.

An infernal drone from the depths of the room caused Jeff to awaken. A feeling of exhaustion and the warmth of Jeanette's embrace led him to understand that he was still alive. Her voice quivered in reaction to the frightful roar of the Essence, causing discomfort that ran deep into the boy's soul. Jeanette, however, could feel the beating of his heart as she placed her hand on his chest, whereupon she began to sing softly.

Brett and Father Sohn were silent as they headed toward the luggage compartment. It was as if they were intent upon their own inner sensations. When the lift door had opened, the commissioner touched his hurting occiput, and looking at the broken ceiling he asked:

"What is the book you're holding?

"Great power is in this book," answered the pilgrim. "Once it saved my life. That's why neither book nor cross must get into a stranger's hands. Together these two things mean the death of the Beast."

The lift doors closed, and there was darkness. Brett groped for a button and sent the lift to the cargo deck.

"Will you tell me the secret of the stone?" he asked, amid the darkness.

"We shouldn't speak of this secret!" said Father Sohn with obvious urgency. "There are many things that cannot be crystallized in sound. With the help of sound, we reflect in space our thoughts and can do great harm. So, all discoveries, made before recorded time, may bring innumerable disasters. Great catastrophes can occur because of light-minded actions."

The electric light was let in and the doors opened, but before going out the pilgrim added:

"The time will come, and then you'll know everything."

Two silhouetted figures, bending lightly, approached a box bearing the inscription "Property of Icar Aviation Club." The flickering light-duty lamps drew shaky shadows, outlining the book in the outstretched hand of one man and a thin blade in the hand of another.

The air, momentarily filled with the smell of burnt marzipan, was not a signal of danger for Brett, but the pilgrim's tension, like an electric current, told him something was wrong about the place.

Suddenly, an air stream spurted toward them and thickened into a liquid, misty mass. Father Sohn reached for the volume at his chest. The heavy mass drew up, as if to retreat, but it did not. Instead, it became the head of a cobra most sinister, whereupon it hung over the two men. The snake, with its hood in full expansion, hissed:

"One more step, and the boy will follow his father." The scar on the pilgrim's cheek convulsed, reflecting his ideas.

"I'll wait for you at Angkor Wat!"

"And I'll stick this blade straight into your heart," added Brett, as he set his posture for an offensive lunge. Baring its fangs, the snake dipped its hood ominously from side to side:

"You're making a mistake, mortals! Do not come closer."

Rita examined her head with a pocket makeup mirror, trying to find at least one dark hair.

"Is that me? Oh, Lord! I'm like an old woman, and gray-haired too."

Filled with spite, she nearly threw the mirror to the floor, but then she remembered the old superstition and changed her mind.

"Oh, no! I promised myself that I'd get as drunk as a pig!"

Two minutes later a bottle of cognac was on the table in front of her, and next to it was a chocolate bar.

Leaning into an armchair, Rita toasted life with the first glass and downed it.

"How I love it, to have sinned! But if anybody knew what I had paid for my life! My hair, my beautiful hair . . . ."

The second glass of cognac went down as quickly as the first, and Rita began to see diffuse circles before her eyes. She smiled broadly.

"I don't even drink," she said to herself. "If my pals could see me, they wouldn't believe it. Gee, when did I last have a drink?"

Rita became thoughtful.

"Well, Christmas doesn't count. Then, maybe it was at the graduation ball in college. Could it really have been that long ago!?" She filled the glass a third time and, pausing, she remembered another promise she had made:

"Oh, I have a debt to repay. It seems I promised somebody that I'd roll the eggs on the wheel!"

The copilot and navigator was behind the wheel. John Garrett, leaning back in an armchair, mechanically followed his actions and occasionally looked at the controls. It had been the worst day of his life. So many nuisances! He was thinking of Rita's destiny.

"What shall I do with her?" he wondered. Then he gave his nose a light scratch.

"Should I inscribe you in today's adventure? I certainly wouldn't include any nonsense about those 'coffee balls.'"

"Wouldn't you become Rita the terrorist? Hey, that's not a bad idea."

John heard the call sign of his inner voice. Calmly, it said, "John, John. Aren't you going too far? You were not right in that situation.

Garrett tried to rationalize it.

"No, no," he argued to himself. "She's an insubordinate bitch. A dog doesn't bit its master unless it's willing to accept the punishment."

The inner voice, though, hammered at his heart:

"Take it easy, John. Look, the sun is rising! And there are clouds! Be happy, man. You're alive! You could be somewhere on the floor of the Indian Ocean. You could have become food for sharks hours ago!"

The captain, however, was stubborn as a mule. "Don't try to powder-puff my brains with that crap about the sun and clouds. I spit on them! When I arrive safely, I'll kiss the ground, and generally I'll head straight for the . . . ." The inner voice refused to surrender and instead approached Garrett's sensitivity from a different angle:

"Maybe you'll spit on Rita too. She is young and inexperienced. She didn't wake up and realize what was going on."

Garrett scratched the back of the head.

"What? What do you mean?" he wondered.

The inner voice crept into his soul, whereupon it explained patiently:

"Look here: Leave everything as it is. . . . . . . She isn't a bad woman. Imagine, you'll dismiss her and then, if you're again in bad mood, with whom will you quarrel? Look at this . . . ."

John looked at the navigator and imagined himself spitting disdainfully.

The inner voice meanwhile dealt the final blow:

"Am I not right? You aren't fond of such a neighborhood. He has grown accustomed to your scandals. Even if he were being cut, he'd maintain silence."

Garrett shrugged his shoulders.

"Possibly I could grant amnesty, but I don't know. She should have to beg for my forgiveness."

John's meditations were interrupted by the cabin door bell. Having looked into the hole, he let Rita come in and sat in a chair in amazement. She was thoroughly drunk.

"Hi, boys!" she said with a crooked smile. In her hands she grasped a bottle of cognac and a glass pooled with the liquid. "Why are you guys so unhappy?"

John's thick eyebrows drew together as one.

"So, you're drunk! A-ha!" Then he noticed the change in the woman. "What in the hell has happened to your hair!?"

"Oh, this," Rita said with a smile, and with her fingers she fondled a lock of her once-enviable mane. "So, it's the little nothings in life. Anyway, look at you, Mr. Snow White!"

"What!?" said Garrett, betraying apprehension and vanity in equal measure.

Rita bowed over the pilot.

"You'll have time enough to look at yourself, but first I must offer my best regards to your wives." Reaching down, she pressed in upon his crotch with a heavy dose of force. John cried out in pain and pursued her hand with his, trying to loosen it.

"Hey! What're you doing, you bitch!?"

"Sorry," said the attendant in mock apology. She feigned an expression of guilt and then burst into laughter. "I simply wanted to see if you had wet your pants when the plane was falling!"

Alcohol strongly kicked her head and loosed not only hands but her tongue too.

Rita swallowed whisky from the glass, turned to the exit but, upon hearing Garrett's stream of expletives, she stopped. The navigator, as usual, refrained from any involvement in their business. He was wordless.

Rita came in close to John, emptied the bottle onto his head and said without any spite:

"If that's not enough to dismiss me, I can try again." With those words, she poked the bottle between his legs and, with her other hand, poked him in the eye. He fell to the floor beneath the controls and cried outright.

Rita, now at the cabin door, turned and said, "You can hope to keep your precious manhood, but it isn't likely that you'll be able to do anything with it." She turned to the navigator and added, "Bill, you can pull your tongue out of your seatback."

The copilot bashfully dropped his eyes, and Rita left. "It's better to keep silence extra time than to be dismissed."

In fifteen minutes the pain between legs weakened. John fixed upon a little mirror. Under each eye his natural beauty was added with two hand-made bruises a la Rita. He understood he had the punishment coming to him, and it emptied his soul, but his ego was at the boiling point. He wouldn't leave everything as it was.

The captain connected with the command controller and then with the service guard. Applying all the fantasy he could must, he told them that the plane had been captured by terrorists and the leader of the gang--the attendant Rita Amesbury--demanded that the plane land at Phnom Penh Airport in Cambodia.

Phnom Penh International Airport, Cambodia: 7:00 a.m.

The subdivision of eight men under Ven Jhun suffered that early morning not only from the onset of their laborious operation. They lay behind sandbags in a subtle arc, just seventy yards from the strip.

The men were equipped with helmets, armored vests and camouflage, and thus were hidden within the grass. Each of them had an AR-16 rifle of early-'60s vintage NATO issue. The captain held tight to his favored Walther 2000 sniper rifle. A gift from a Tahitian smuggler, it had been "left" for him in exchange for his selective blindness toward highly illegal dealings. The Tahitian, knowing the captain's interest in weapons, hit the mark. This particular toy was worth the rest of his collection. Produced in the 1970s by the German firm Carl Walther Waffenfabrick for police and anti-terroristic subdivisions, the rifle had a distinctive construction and appearance. The superb quality of the piece also meant it was worth a great deal of money in any market.