* * *
Cruising across Western Europe in the middle of the night was eerie: darkness prevailed, everywhere. What happened to the great cities? Swinging London; Paris, city of lights; eternal Rome; vibrant Athens. Someone, or something, had turned out the lights.
I turned to Jill in the next seat. “That is one of the problems you and I are facing,” she said, scanning my mind. “The hackers have done a thorough job of disrupting the electrical grids in most European cities. You see the results. Only it’s worse than just the lights. Anything electrical is being messed with. And it’s intermittent, so nobody knows when the juice will be turned off. Or back on.”
I shook my head in disbelief. This was the cold reality of Black Swan’s ruthless sabotage of the world’s infrastructure.
“It gets worse. Take a look at this decoded version of the message I just got from Cyprus.” She showed me the screen on her Psi-Fi.
SITUATION URGENT. BLACKMAIL DEMANDS GROW. WANT NASA FACILITIES. NUCLEAR THREAT SOUTH ASIA. HURRY.
Jill quickly deleted the message and closed the device. She put her index finger to her lips, silencing all but my busy mind. Nuclear threat? “Look down,” Jill said. “Dawn is breaking over the Med.”
I looked. It was an awesome sight, the first glimpse of a fiery daybreak over the Mediterranean Sea, reflecting the color palette of red, orange, and deep purple. A miniscule piece of land poked out of the mighty ocean. Is that Cyprus? It looked like a tiny piece of meat about to be devoured by a giant mouth.
“Cyprus is surrounded by all these countries hostile to each other,” Jill said. “Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, Greece. And yet it has survived all the turmoil.”
Not to be outdone, I chipped in with my own tidbit of information. “Okay, how about this: For hundreds of years the Greeks and Turks fought humongous wars over this little island, really Islam versus Christianity, what else is new. Now the Turks occupy the northern part of the island, and the Greeks the southern part, which is most of the land. They are separated by the Green Line, which the United Nations has to enforce. They still don’t speak to each other.”
“Almost right, Marty. But I’ve got an update. While little wars are breaking out all over the planet, people fighting for food and water and territory, the Greeks and Turks on Cyprus are finally getting along. Not only that, they are partying together. And sharing resources. Cyprus used to depend on oil imports for ninety percent of their energy. Now oil is hard to come by, so nearly everything runs on batteries and solar power.
Sgt. Hunter, in her crisp Air Force duds, walked slowly down the aisle as the plane gradually nosed downward. “Please fasten your safety belts,” she purred. “We’ll be landing at Nicosia International Airport in fifteen minutes.”
“Nicosia International?” I asked Jill. “I thought it straddled the neutral zone and was closed down in 1974. And that it was being used by the U.S. military as a playground for military-type toys. You know, boys and their toys.”
“It’s been reopened, Marty, secretly, as a high-tech military superbase. That’s where we’re landing. No customs or check-in for us. We are being met there by some spooks from the CIA, who will whisk us to the Cyprus Hilton, where we check into our rooms, and then we have meetings at the American Embassy in the morning.”
All I could think of was our “rooms” at the Hilton. “Did you say ‘rooms,’ Jill? Why don’t we share a room and save the taxpayers some money?
“Get real, Marty. This is a very serious thing we are about to get into. I need my rest, so do you. In the morning we have a meeting with the Secretary to get briefed and to get our orders.”
“The secretary? Why don’t we just meet with the ambassador and skip his secretary? Aren’t we important enough?”
“The Secretary of State, you idiot. Herself. My boss. Your new boss. She is meeting us at the American Embassy. We have some very important business to discuss with her. And she has a big surprise for you.”
“Oh? A surprise? What kind of surprise?” I tried to close my mind to Jill and visualize the Secretary. She’s probably middle-aged, attractive, big tits, tall, good legs, divorced…Maybe she’s heard about me and wants to….
“Marty, you are impossible. That line of thinking is almost sacrilegious right now. What is your problem? Are you a sex addict or something? I can’t wait until you get your—”
Jill stopped in mid-sentence. Not like her. She usually spoke in well-considered sentences. “Until I get my what, Jill?”
“—until you get your Top Secret security clearance,” she said hurriedly. “The Secretary is going to ask you to volunteer for something that you never thought possible. Something that could affect the outcome of our mission.”
My mind went berserk. “What, Jill, what could it possibly be? Do you know? Don’t play with me.”
My hand covered Jill’s as I glared at her anxiously. She pulled her hand away. We were both exhausted from the long flight, but she was also a little pissed off at me. Maybe more than a little. Well, sometimes I just can’t help the way I think and act. Sometimes, truth be told, I get a little tired of myself.
Suddenly the landing wheels extended noisily, our plane hit the bumpy runway, and we slowly cruised to a stop. I opened my eyes. It was dawn at the airport, five a.m., Nicosia time.
What now? I looked at Jill. Her eyes were closed, her mouth a grim line.
Suddenly I felt very, very alone. The world was closing in on me. The roar in my ears was the C-20 engines revving up before shutting down.
Then, silence.
15 Because They Seek the Stars
At eleven a.m. the next day, after a short journey by Mercedes stretch limo from the Hilton, Jill and I were ushered into the spartan offices of the U.S. Secretary of State. Nicosia, population around three hundred thousand, has been the capital of Cyprus since the 12th Century. We didn’t see much of it from the blackened windows of our limo. It appeared to be a pleasant, thriving, Mediterranean-style city, full of life and tall, modern buildings, busy thoroughfares, colorful markets, happy people. But sightseeing was not on our agenda.
Jill and I were silent for most of the ride. The vibe was neutral. I had slept deeply in my own room at the Hilton, and Jill informed me she had slept deeply in her room. It wasn’t enough snooze time, but what the hell. Yesterday was history. I reached out my hand for hers in the limo; her warm hand gave mine a squeeze and held on tightly.
“Madame Secretary, this is Marty Powers and Jill Appleton,” said our guide.
Madame Secretary sat on a plain brown couch, long legs discreetly crossed. She wore a long dark skirt and white blouse, no jewelry. She was about fifty-five and had the look of a long-time civil servant: serious, no-nonsense, emotionally closed. Still, with kind brown eyes and a strong, jutting chin, she was basically attractive, underneath the signs of strain, and looked like she hadn’t slept peacefully for weeks.
“Folks, I’ll be brief,” she began. “We don’t have a lot of time. The situation, as you know, has reached a planetary critical mass. Our world is threatened not only by man-made ecological disasters, but by a type of enemy which we have never faced before. Possibly you already know some of what I’m going to tell you, but please bear with me.”
I took a deep breath. I looked over at Jill, elegantly funky as usual in a floppy black sweater and tight jeans, the picture of composure. I knew her mind was working on several levels.
“We know that the people behind the whole operation—the Internet sabotage, the power outages, the attacks on infrastructure, the disruption of communications systems, the human-caused volcanoes and earthquakes and massive forest fires, the blackmail, the whole thing—is the work of a front organization called Black Swan Galactic. Black Swan is actually a whole web of companies, all connected by a common goal, which I’ll talk about in a minute.
“They also h
ave an enforcement arm called The Bratva, Russian for ‘The Brotherhood.’ Mr. Powers, they are the ones who tried to murder you and your wife in Arizona recently. They are ruthless killers, mainly from Russia and its former satellites.”
I wanted to ask about Leela, was she all right, did anybody know anything more about her, but Jill, scanning my mind, put a strong hand on my arm and quieted my demons.
“What we know so far is that Black Swan has divided up the planet into twenty sectors. And that there are about two hundred district managers who run the company’s various operations, including hiring engineers, scientists and thugs to carry out their missions, which have resulted in the deaths of at least a million people, maybe more. Black Swan has thousands of operatives around the world. Some are ‘temps,’ hired for only one operation. Many of these temps have been ‘disappeared’ after their participation.
“There are maybe six people at the top of their organization, including a shadowy figure named Wolfgang, who seems to be the head of the enterprise. We think he’s a naturalized American citizen, born in Hungary. We don’t know his whereabouts. About two thirds of the two hundred managers are men. This is their elite group. They all belong to a cult called ‘Eternal Flame’ which sprang from the notion that it is possible to live forever.”
The Secretary paused, rearranged her long legs, shuffled her notes. I looked around the drab little office. The pale yellow walls were bare, save for two framed photographs. One was a portrait of the Secretary, not too flattering. The other was a photo of the Secretary with the President of the United States—the two most powerful women in the world.
“All of these people, the elite group of two hundred, anyway, have one thing in common,” the Secretary continued, “a drug called EMC-2. They take it daily. It is a synthetic compound that comes from a secret laboratory somewhere in Switzerland. It supposedly rewinds the clock on cellular aging, allowing one to live forever. We have samples back in the States which we are studying; we haven’t yet figured out all of its components. But we do know one dangerous side effect: a testosterone overload. The individuals who take this drug seem to display all of the negative male characteristics, including aggression and belligerence—and that includes the women.”
Again the Secretary paused. She took a sip of coffee and looked for a long time first at me, then at Jill. She knew well of Jill’s psychic abilities, so she must have factored that into her presentation.
“I know you must be wondering,” she said, “why these people are doing all this. Why they have become the most dangerous criminals in human history. Why they have robbed trillions of dollars and euros from bank accounts, why they are holding the world hostage, why they are blackmailing the planet’s great nations, why they have helped bring the world to the very brink.”
“Why?” I blurted, remembering Hacker’s intel about Black Swan’s crazy space travel plans, but still wanting to hear the official explanation. “Why are they doing this?”
“Because they seek the stars. They want more than eternal life. They want to explore the planets. They want to explore the solar system. They want to develop technology that will allow them to time travel, to go beyond the Milky Way, to go where, as that famous sci-fi series says, to go where no man has gone before. And in their testosterone-fueled minds, they think— they know—they can achieve this.
“According to our intelligence reports, many of which came from your wife, Mr. Powers, they feel that the politicians and governments of the world have wasted so much money, manpower, and technology on fighting wars in the last hundred or so years that space exploration has been neglected. In fact, they feel it has been ignored. All of the NATO countries plus other major players on the world scene got an e-mail to that effect from the Black Swan people a few months ago. Now they want to take over our rocket launching facilities or they say they will trigger a nuclear war.
“You see what we are up against. The Eternal Flame-slash-Black Swan members are willing to do anything to achieve their goals. Their first goal is to set up a space station that will be at least ten times bigger than the International Space Station now orbiting the earth. The hardware is being assembled somewhere in Europe. This space station will be a closed-loop eco system, able to feed and support the two hundred Black Swan pioneers who will form the gene pool and eventually carry the group into outer space.
“They want to launch their shuttles and eventually their spaceships from somewhere in the U.S. They need launch facilities already in place, such as our Cape Canaveral in Florida or Edwards Air Force Base in California. That’s what they demanded. But both of those launch sites have been deactivated since this crisis started. So we are offering our White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It’s still up and running. Theoretically, we could launch ICBMs from there, if our national security was threatened by an enemy from the Middle East, for example.”
“Hmmm, White Sands,” I mused out loud. “The site of the first atomic bomb test. Now, there was a black swan event. How ironic.”
“What’s that?” said the Secretary, eyebrows slowly elevating.
“A black swan event. You know, an event that changes history, like Hiroshima or 9/11 or….That’s where Black Swan Galactic got their name.”
The Secretary didn’t respond to this information, only sighed deeply and stood up, walked to her desk, and picked up a folder marked TOP SECRET. My head was spinning. I wondered what I was doing there, why I wasn’t back in Sedona, in my own home, kicking back in my big easy chair, a brewski in hand, a fire in the fireplace, and a good Clint Eastwood action movie on the TV.
“In this folder you will find all the background information you will need to carry out your mission,” said the Secretary, handing me the thick file.
“Mission?” I asked innocently.
“Mr. Powers, you and Ms. Appleton are about to launch Operation Algorithm. It may be one of the most dangerous covert missions ever attempted by Americans. Should I continue?”
“Yes, yes,” I blurted, feeling my armpits suddenly emitting a pungent liquid. This was it—the Big One.
“You and Ms. Appleton will infiltrate the headquarters of the Black Swan Beta operation—their software branch—in Davos, Switzerland. We have located your wife there, Mr. Powers, via her GPS transmitter. This was accomplished on a hunch by our agent Richard Anderson, who crisscrossed a huge area of Switzerland for days in a helicopter and finally caught her signal. This was an extremely high-risk operation on his part, considering the security around all Black Swan facilities.
“So: Your first priority is to rescue Leela Powers and return her to safety. It could be extremely difficult, but our government is confident that you will figure out a way to accomplish this. Mrs. Powers is an extremely valuable asset. We have also been informed, by Ms. Appleton, I believe, that the Black Swan people planned to turn her into a double agent and use her skill set for their evil purposes. This simply cannot be allowed to happen.”
“Uh, c-certainly n-not,” I stammered.
“We have someone on the inside, a mole, if you will, a spy who works for us, who—
“Wait a minute!” I interrupted. “Your Mr. Anderson just discovered that she was in the Black Swan building. If you have a spy inside their building, why didn’t she tell you days ago, weeks ago, that Leela was a prisoner there? What kind of—”
“Take it easy, Marty,” said Jill, sensing that I was losing it. She covered my hand with her soft hand, which instantly neutralized my growing anger.
“Our spy, Mr. Powers, was unaware of your wife’s presence in the building. That information was withheld from her and other employees in the company’s headquarters. Now our mole has located exactly where in the building your wife is being held prisoner.”
“Oh,” I said, gradually calming down. “That’s good news.”
“Our mole has already set up an appointment for you and Ms. Appleton with the head of Black Swan
Beta. In other words, the leader of the software firm that has corrupted the Internet worldwide is anxiously awaiting your arrival.”
“And do we simply have afternoon tea and crumpets?” I asked sarcastically. “Why would this dude—ah, this gentleman—even want to see us?” I felt a new wave of anger tightening my skull. Suddenly, this whole business seemed like a futile exercise.
“Marty,” whispered Jill. “Let her explain. The best is yet to come.”
“Our inside connection at the computer firm has assured their leaders that Ms. Appleton possesses an algorithm that they need. Something that will tighten their grip on the Internet, and the glue that holds it together, the World Wide Web. And that she can help Black Swan create an impenetrable firewall so that no one will be able to fix the Internet. This would give Black Swan tremendous power and leverage.
“This, then, will be your second priority: to cripple their hold on the Internet and try to destroy whatever they are doing to accomplish their ‘hack’, or whatever it’s called. Your first priority, of course, is to rescue Mrs. Powers. So you see, it is a good thing, a lucky coincidence, that Black Swan agents decided to hold Leela in the computer building.
“Now we can kill two birds…uh, I mean we can accomplish two important things with one ingenious plan. Our mole will be of tremendous help on your mission. And Jill’s algorithm is a major piece of our plan.”
“Now wait a minute,” I said, anger level rising again, dangerously. “This is all about a mathematical formula? Then I’m just tagging along to carry Jill’s laptop?”
“Mr. Powers,” said the Secretary, in a condescending tone, “you have a key role to play in this drama. You will pass yourself off not only as an expert on computer software and Internet function, but also as a shaman with supernatural powers. The head of Black Swan Beta, Mr. Klaus Lieberman, is very interested in such phenomena and also in various hallucinogens. You will demonstrate your psychic abilities, such as telepathy and ESP, and you will move objects with your mind, and—”
“Wh-whaaa—” I interrupted. “Hold it right there. Telepathy? ESP? I can’t do any of those things. How can I fake—”
The Secretary held up her hand and stopped me in my tracks. “Jill,” she said softly, gently, “is he ready?”
I looked at Jill. She was nodding vigorously. I thought I saw a mischievous gleam in her eye.
“Mr. Powers, I suggest you take a deep breath. That’s right, relax. Let your shoulders drop. Now then. We would like to implant a microchip in your brain. It will be a relatively painless outpatient procedure. The chip will activate the pineal gland, which will give you greatly enhanced psychic abilities. For a period of about two hundred hours. After that the chip will dissolve and you will return to your normal state.
“We need you to possess these special abilities so that your mission can be carried out successfully. Also, we will give you a Top Secret clearance. A temporary one. You will be an employee of the U.S. State Department. Quite an honor, sir.”
There was a gap of perhaps five to ten seconds where I was unable to speak. Suddenly, something snapped in me. I felt very reckless, almost intoxicated. As if from a distance, I could see my personality splitting into millions of pieces. I rode with the energy; it had a life of its own.
“Why, shore, Madame Secretary,” I drawled, adopting a fake Texas accent. “Y’all jes go raht ahead an drill a hole in mah haid. Ah shore don’t mind a teeny weeny bit. Y’all jes drop a little ol’ chip down in there. Shore thing.”
Jill reached over and pinched my right triceps, hard. “I think he means yes,” Jill said, turning to the Secretary of State. “He’s probably in a state of shock. Mr. Powers is just a little bit, ah, delicate right now, sensitive, due to the dangerous and unknown status of his wife.”
“Ah, yes,” said the Secretary, standing up, signaling that the meeting was over. “Very good. My assistant will explain the details of your mission, then escort you and Mr. Powers to our laboratory in the basement, where Doctor LeBoeuf will carry out the chip implantation procedure. Thank you both very much. Your plane departs today at nineteen hundred hours and will deliver you to the Switzerland drop-off point. Good day.”
I managed to get to my feet, stagger the short distance to the Secretary of State to shake her hand—I didn’t feel a hug was appropriate—and lurch to the door with Jill holding me up. My stomach gurgled. I was hungry, but I had an appointment with a brain surgeon. Lunch would have to wait.
16 The Light in the Head
The doctor’s basement lab was very white, antiseptic, and claustrophobic. The doc sat me in a big leather chair that reminded me of an electric chair, or perhaps the kind of chair they use for ECT, you know, Electroconvulsive Therapy. There were wrist and ankle restraints—a precaution, I was told, against the patient moving even a millimeter during this delicate procedure. Jill stood close by, holding my hand and murmuring soft reassurances to quell my fears and misgivings.
“This will make you psychic, Marty, so we can work together and get this mission accomplished. It will increase your brain processing power by a factor of at least one million. You’ll be a super-genius! And it will be a blast to mind-link with you, even if it’s just for a short time. You’ll also be able to mind-link with Leela, once we get her out of her little pickle.”
The good doctor, a stocky American with a red face framed by a bushy gray beard, hovered over me with a hypodermic needle in his hand, a serious-faced nurse by his side. “Ready, Mr. Powers? Good. We’re going to put you to sleep for just about thirty minutes so we can get the job done swiftly and efficiently. This hypodermic contains a general anesthetic and a new type of amnesia agent. You won’t remember a thing. And you won’t feel any pain. We’ve added just a touch of morphine to insure that. Okay?”
“Okay,” I managed. “And where is the drill?”
I was referring to the instrument that would drill a tiny hole in my skull so that a tiny wire could be inserted into the opening—a wire which carried an entire nano-sized tool kit, including a video cam, a searchlight, a gripper, and the payload: a nano-chip which would turn an ordinary schmoe into a super brain capable of…what?
“The so-called drill, Mr. Powers, is actually a high-intensity laser beam which will cut through flesh and bone without even drawing a drop of blood. It is the most efficient surgical tool ever invented by human science. The microscopic wound it creates will heal in minutes thanks to a solution called adhesivan. You have nothing to worry about. Right, Ms. Appleton?”
“That’s right, doctor,” said Jill reassuringly. I closed my eyes and surrendered to the whole idea. And to Jill, who was my guide for this strange trip. Om om om, nothing to worry about, surrender to the…and that’s all I remember.