Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment (29 page)

The Klaxon still sounded.

Geneva, Switzerland

T
HE FIFTEEN-MINUTE DRIVE
from the Palace of Nations to Geneva International Airport passed through a manicured scattering of high-end apartments and condominium complexes, separated by vast stretches of forested greenbelts. Victor rolled down his window to enjoy the pleasant view.

They were seven minutes into the trip when the driver suddenly pulled to the shoulder. The privacy screen behind him was halfway down even before the car came to a stop. The driver turned around, his face drained of color. “
Mein Herr
. Something terrible has happened!”

Victor checked his watch. The attack wasn’t supposed to commence for another six minutes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I-it’s happening all over the world, sir,” the driver said in a panic. “I heard it on the radio.”

“
What’s
happening, man?” Victor asked, switching on the television monitor embedded above the liquor cabinet. “What are you talking—”

The scene on the TV stopped him cold. The wide-eyed reporter stared dumbfounded at a video window that was inset on the screen beside her. It revealed a glowing object of some sort rocketing into the sky. The window became smaller in order
to make room for three more insets, showing similar missiles launching from different locations. Captions on each read
TOKYO, NEW YORK, LONDON,
and
BEIJING
. He turned up the volume.

“…the objects appear to have been launched simultaneously from points all over the globe…”

Victor was taken aback by the images. His mind reeled with the implications.

“…burst forth from hidden locations beneath the earth, causing widespread damage.”

Could it be? Victor wondered.

“We’ve just received close-up footage of one of the orbs.” A single video filled the screen. It was a video of the object as it shot upward. It looked like a glowing ball of light with a rotating dark blur at its core. It jiggled and danced on the screen as the camera zoomed tighter. The reporter continued in voice-over.

“This footage was taken with a super-high-speed camera. Here’s what was discovered under freeze-frame.”

The image froze. The darkness within the glow was no longer a blur.

It was a pyramid.

Victor disregarded the reporter’s ongoing ramblings. He stared spellbound at the object. After several moments he began to laugh—softly at first—as the realization hit him. Bronson had done it! His rage had triggered the end more efficiently than all of Victor’s plans put together. Nothing can stop us now, he thought.

“…huge death toll. Widespread panic in the streets…” the reporter announced.

Victor laughed louder.

The driver couldn’t help but relax. Color returned to his face. “What does it mean, sir?”

Victor spoke between chuckles. “It means that traffic is about to get very bad. So we better get going!” He burst out in laughter. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt so good.

“Yes, sir!” the driver said. He turned around, raised the privacy barrier, and accelerated onto the road.

Victor pursed his lips in an attempt to hold back a renewed bout of laughter. But when he glanced at his watch and realized that the attack at the palace was less than three minutes away, he erupted into a full-out, belly-jerking guffaw.

Palais des Nations
Geneva, Switzerland

T
HE EIGHT-INCH-THICK STEEL
door swung closed behind him, and Jake heard a series of hydraulic bolts slide into place. The Klaxon alarm no longer sounded, at least not here in the bunker. The scene before him was pandemonium. The buzz of loud voices and exclamations reminded Jake of an angry hornet’s nest. The main floor was the size of a high-school gymnasium. Men and women worked feverishly at computer stations that fanned out around a central platform. Dignitaries and their military countertypes gathered on the balconies that skirted three sides of the room. Several of them appeared to be in heated arguments. A movie theater–size screen on the far wall streamed videos that Jake knew instantly were an intended message of peace to the pyramids above. Armed security personnel were everywhere.

But Jake’s gaze was fixed on the holographic image that hovered over the center dais. It was a three-dimensional real-time view of Earth. The eight-foot-wide planet—cloud patterns and all—rotated slowly overhead. Hundreds of bright missiles rocketed outward from all points around the planet’s surface, like a slow-motion exploding firework.

A woman’s voice sounded from a loudspeaker. “The final count is one thousand twelve objects, not including the two already in orbit.”

Jake’s stomach tightened.

“Out of my way!” a man shouted in French. He pushed toward the door Jake had just entered through. He was well dressed and flanked by two bodyguards with bulges under their jackets. Three soldiers blocked the door. Two of them raised their assault rifles to port arms. The third held his hand out like a stop sign. “I’m sorry, sir. No one is permitted to leave.”

“That’s preposterous. I’m the president of France!”

“Respectfully, sir, it doesn’t matter who you are. We are on lockdown.”

“But the door was just open!”

“Sorry, sir.”

The man seemed about to explode when he noticed Jake. His eyes narrowed and he pointed a trembling finger at Jake’s chest. “It’s you!” He spoke in English. “You’re the American.” The French president hesitated a moment. His face reddened. His lips twitched as if searching for which words to form next. He reeked of fear.

Finally, as if throwing all of his energy into the act might ease his pain, the president of France lunged forward with outstretched hands. He screamed at the top of his lungs, “This is your fault!”

Jake shrank back, his escort stepped forward, and the president’s bodyguards restrained their furious boss.

A rush of footsteps sounded from a staircase leading to the balcony. A white-haired scientist led the pack, and the crowed parted before him. His blue eyes twinkled behind frameless glasses. He wore a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves—and a Santa Claus smile. “Jake, my boy,” he said, throwing his arms around him. “It’s really you!”

“Hi, Doc,” Jake said. He was genuinely pleased to finally see a friendly face. He and Doc went way back to the Area 52 days. He’d saved the man’s life. And Doc had then been instrumental in rescuing Jake and his friends from the jungles in Venezuela—not to mention keeping him alive for the past six years.

Jake said, “I’d shake your hand, but…” He held up his cuffed wrists.

“Get those off of him!” Doc ordered.

One of Jake’s escorts produced a zip-cutter and snipped through the plastic. Jake rubbed his wrists and offered his hand.

“Oh, come here, son!” Doc said as he pulled Jake into another embrace.

After a pat on the back, Jake broke the hold. “We need to stop Victor Brun.”

Doc seemed startled by the statement.

Jake continued, “That son of a bitch—”

“Not here,” Doc interrupted. He motioned at the crowd.

Jake got the point.

“Follow me,” Doc said. He led Jake up the stairs.

As they moved off, Jake noticed a man rush to the French president’s side. He whispered something into the leader’s ear, and the president immediately relaxed. The aide pointed to a door at the far corner of the room. The Frenchman nodded, and he and his bodyguards hurried in that direction.

When Jake reached the mezzanine balcony, Doc motioned toward several of the dignitaries who stood at the rail, watching the hologram. He whispered, “That’s the general secretary of the Communist Party of China, the prime minister of India, the president of the Russian Federation, the prime minister of the United Kingdom…” A few of the men and women glanced at Jake as he walked past. Some seemed to recognize him. One high-ranking Russian military officer appraised him warily. He maintained his stare as he whispered something to his aide. But the bulk of the group wasn’t interested in Jake. They couldn’t
peel their focus from the holographic scene that unfolded in the center of the room.

The missiles had been launched from all corners of the globe. From their speed and trajectories, it was apparent that they’d taken off simultaneously. Jake’s gut went hollow when he realized that must have been when the Klaxons had first sounded. It didn’t take a genius to conclude that he’d been the cause.

“They’re exact duplicates of the pyramid from Area 52,” Doc said. “They were buried everywhere. Something triggered them.”

Make that someone…

The singular stream on the huge video wall suddenly split into eight separate screens. Each contained television broadcast coverage of the event. Footage flowed in from around the globe. The pyramids had bored upward from their underground resting places—many in populated areas—leaving death and destruction in their wake.

Jake felt his knees go weak. Alex and Sarafina were out there somewhere. Alone.

He felt Doc’s hands on his shoulders. His friend must have sensed his despair. “Don’t lose it now, man. We need your help to fix this.” A few of the men and woman around him turned to follow the exchange. He felt the burden of their combined stares.

World leaders were looking to him for answers? What the hell could
he
do?

Doc grew excited. “Don’t you see? You can communicate with them. Reason with them. We’ve built a device precisely with that purpose in mind. You may be our only hope!”

Jake shook his head. They had no clue about what had happened earlier. “Then we’re in deep shit,” he said. The words came out of his mouth before he had the sense to stop them.

He was saved from immediate reproach by a loudspeaker announcement: “The objects are slowing.”

Everyone turned toward the center of the room. The chamber quieted. The rocketing pyramids slowed abruptly. Within a
few seconds they came to a complete stop. Each was at the same altitude as the original two. The symmetry of their spacing was exact. The entire globe was enveloped.

Everyone stared in awe—except the Russian officer, who dared a quick glance at his watch before bracing himself on the rail to see what happened next. It was an odd gesture, Jake thought, to say the least. What appointment could possibly be so important as to distract him at a time like this? Alarm bells went off in Jake’s gut.

He allowed his mind to step away from the immediacy of the scene and to instead take in the room as a whole. Everyone appeared transfixed on the rotating 3-D image. He studied the leaders who stood around him, connecting the faces to the few introductions he’d heard earlier. They were all there except for the British prime minister. He’d disappeared. Many others stood nearby whom Jake hadn’t met yet. They each wore a name tag bearing the emblem of the flag of their home country: Pakistan, South Africa, Colombia, Venezuela, Iran, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, North Korea, Syria, Jordan…

And then it hit him. There wasn’t a NATO ally among them. Or even any non-NATO countries that had been granted MNNA—major non-NATO ally—status. Where was Japan, Canada, Israel, or the good old USA? What about Italy, Germany, Fr—

France!

Movement at the far end of the chamber drew his attention. Jake saw the British prime minister and a small entourage being escorted out the same door that the French president had gone through earlier. Then he remembered Victor’s question.
What would you conclude if a group of NATO-allied countries miraculously survived an attack that killed every one of their enemies?

The Russian officer checked his watch again. His gaze suddenly lost focus—and he and his aide simultaneously placed
fingers just below their left ears. Jake’s heart dropped. He flashed on Victor’s boast.
People are in place…

The Russian officer’s eyes locked on Jake’s. The man seemed to be holding his breath. He pulled a silver pen from his pocket that Jake recognized as a duplicate of those that Strauss and the lab techs had carried. The Russian plunged it into his thigh as if it were a hypodermic.

Jake’s brain went into hyperdrive. Meeting rooms circled the balcony. He pointed to the nearest one.