Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (37 page)

Modeled on prototypes first flown by NASA, Thanatos was an
ultra-light all-wing aircraft constructed of radar-absorbent composite
materials—carbon fiber, graphite epoxy, Kevlar and Nomex wraps, and advanced
plastics. Even with a full payload, it weighed less than two thousand pounds.
But it could reach altitudes of nearly one hundred thousand feet and stay aloft
under its own power for weeks and months at a time, spanning whole continents
and oceans. Five underwing aerodynamic pods carried its flight control
computers, data instrumentation, backup fuel-cell systems for night flying, and
attachment points for the multiple cylinders that would contain its sinister
payload.

NASA had designated its test aircraft Helios, after the ancient Greek
god of the sun. It was an apt name for a vehicle meant to soar through the
upper reaches on solar power. Jinjiro frowned. In the same way, Thanatos, the
Greek personification of Death, was the perfect appellation for the intended
use of this flying wing.

“Beautiful, is it not?” an all-too-familiar voice said quietly in
his ear. “So large. And yet, so
delicate ... so graceful ... so featherlight. Surely you can see that Thanatos
is more a wisp of cloud blown by the breath of the gods than it is a
creation of brutish man.”

Jinjiro nodded gravely. “That is so. In itself, this device is beautiful.”
Grimly he turned to face the man standing close behind him. “But vour evil
purposes pervert it, as they do all things you touch . . . Lazarus.”

“You honor me with that name . . . Father,” Hideo Nomura replied,
smiling tightly. “All that I have done, I have done to achieve our common
goals, our shared dreams.”

The older man shook his head forcefully. “Our goals are not the same.
My fellows and I wanted to restore and redeem the Earth—to save this ravaged
world from the perils posed by uncontrolled science. Under our leadership, the
Movement was dedicated to life, not to death.”

“But you and your comrades made one fundamental error, Father,”
Hideo told him quietly. "You misunderstood the nature of the crisis facing
our world. Science and technology' do not threaten the survival of the

Earth. They are only tools, the means to a
necessary end. Tools for those like me with the courage and
the clarity of vision to make full use of them."

“As weapons of mass slaughter!” Jinjiro
snapped. “For all your noble words, you are nothing more than a
murderer!”

Hideo replied coldly. “I will do what must be done, Father. In its
present state, the human race itself is the enemy—the true threat to the world
we both love.” He shrugged. “In your heart, you know that I am right.
Imagine seven billion greedy, grasping, violent animals roaming this one small,
fragile planet. They are as dangerous to the Earth as any unchecked cancer
would be to the body. The world cannot sustain so heavy a burden. That is why,
like any mutating cancer, the worst of mankind must be eliminated —no matter
how painful and unpleasant the task will be.”

“Using your devil's weapon, these nanophages,” his father said
harshly.

The younger Nomura nodded. “Imagine Thanatos and dozens like it.
Imagine them gliding high above the surface—silent and almost entirely
invisible to radar. From them will fall a gentle rain, drops so small that
they, too, will go unnoticed ... at least until it is far too late.”

“Where?” Jinjiro asked, ashen-faced.

Hideo showed his teeth. “First? Thanatos and its kin will fly to
America,
a country that is soulless, powerful, and corrupt. It must be destroyed to make
room for the new world order to come. Europe,
another source of materialist contagion, will follow. Then my nanophages will
cleanse Africa and the Middle East, those
cesspools of terror, disease, starvation, cruelty, and religious fanaticism. China, too,
bloated and too mindful of its ancient power, must be humbled.”

“And how many people will die before you are finished?” his father
whispered.

Hideo shrugged. “Five billion? Six
billion?” he suggested. "Who can say exactly? But those who are left
alive will soon understand the value of the gift they have been given: A world
whose balance has been restored. A

world whose resources and infrastructure are left
intact, undamaged by the madness of war or all-consuming greed."

For a long moment the older man could only stare at his son, the man who was
now Lazarus, in horror. “You shame me,” he said at last. “And
you shame our ancestors.” He turned to his guards. “Take me back to
my prison cell,” he said softly. “The very presence of this monster
in human form sickens me.”

Hideo Nomura nodded tightly to the two poker-faced men. “Do as the old
fool asks,” he said icily. Then stepped back and
stood in silence, watching his father march away to renewed captivity.

His eyes were hooded. As so often before, Jinjiro had disappointed him —had
even betrayed him—with the shallowness of his thoughts and with his lack of
courage. Even now his father was too blind to admire the achievements of his
only son. Or perhaps, Hideo thought, savoring an old and bitter resentment from
his vanished childhood, his father was simply too jealous or coldhearted to
offer the praise that was his due.

And praise was due; of that he was sure.

For years the younger head of Nomura PharmaTech had worked almost
day-and-night to make his vision of a cleaner, less crowded, and more peaceful
world a reality. First, careful planning had made it possible to build, staff,
and fund this hidden nanotechnology lab without drawing unwelcome attention
from his shareholders or from anyone else. None of his many competitors had
ever suspected that Nomura, apparently lagging behind in the nanotech
applications race, was, in truth, months or years ahead of them.

Next had come the intricate task of subverting the
Lazarus Movement, of bending the loose organization slowly and inexorably to
his unseen will. Movement leaders who opposed him had been pushed aside or
killed, usually by one of the Horatii, the trio of assassins whose
creation and training he had financed. Best of all, every unexplained death had
acted as a spur toward further radicalism by those who were left alive.

Arranging the mysterious disappearance of his own father, the last of

the original Lazarus Nine, had been comparative
child's play. Once that was accomplished, Hideo had been free to secretly
gather all of the frightened Movement's reins into his own hands. Best of all,
though, the CIA-led search for Jinjiro had brought him into contact with Hal
Burke. And with that, the last piece of Hideo's plan had fallen suddenly into
place.

Hideo laughed coldly and quietly, remembering the ease with which he had
gulled the CIA agent and, through him, others in the American and British
intelligence services—playing on their paranoid fears of terrorism. By feeding
them ever more damaging information about the Movement, he had manipulated
Burke and his associates into launching their foolish and illegal war. From
that day forward, all events had been managed according to his will, and his
will alone.

The results spoke for themselves: The world's population was increasingly
terrified and hunting for scapegoats. His competitors like Harcourt Biosciences
were helpless, buried by an avalanche of new government restrictions on their
research. The Lazarus Movement was growing stronger and more violent. And now
the American and British spy services were rendered helpless by scandal and
corrosive suspicion. By the time the first murderous rain of nanophages fell on
Washington, D.C.,
New York, Chicago,
and Los Angeles,
it would be impossible for anyone to uncover the terrible truth.

Hideo Nomura smiled to himself. After all, he thought savagely, how better
to win a game than to play both sides at once?

Lazarus Address

The new digital video of Lazarus released by the Movement repeated the
pattern of his first world broadcast in the wake of the Teller Institute
Massacre. Pieces of untraceable footage arrived simultaneously in TV studios
around the globe, each one with a different digitally
constructed image of Lazarus designed to appeal to a particular audience.

“It is no longer possible to hide from the truth,” Lazarus said
sadly. “The horrors we have witnessed testify that a new weapon is being
unleashed on humanity—a weapon forged by a cruel and unnatural science.
Humankind stands at a crossroads. Down one road, the road charted by our
Movement, lies a world of peace and tranquillity. Down
the other, a path laid down by greedy men obsessed by power and profit, lies a
world wracked by war and genocide—a world of carnage and catastrophe.”

The Lazarus figure stared straight into the camera. “We must choose
which of these two futures we will embrace,” he said. "The ruinous
advances of nanotechnology, genetic meddling, and cloning must be aban-

doned or suppressed before they destroy us all.
Accordingly, the Movement calls on all governments—especially those in the
so-called civilized nations of the West and the United States in particular—to
immediately ban the study, development, and use of these sinister, life-destroying
technologies.“ The face of Lazarus grew stern. ”Should any government
fail to heed this demand, we will take matters into our own hands. We must act.
We must save ourselves, our families, our races, and the Earth we all love.
This is a struggle for the future of humankind and there is no time for further
delay, no more room for neutrality. In this conflict, anyone who will not join
us stands against us. Let those who are wise heed this warning!"

Berlin

Thousands of demonstrators poured onto Berlin's grand central boulevard, Unter den
Linden, their numbers swelling fast with every passing minute. Scores of
scarlet and green Lazarus Movement banners fluttered near the front of the
chanting crowd as it moved east from the chariot-topped Brandenburger Tor.
Behind them came a growing array of other flags, placards, and posters. The
Greens and Germany's
other major environmental and antiglobalization groups were joining the
Movement in a major show of force.

Their chants echoed harshly off the stone facades of the enormous public
buildings lining the wide avenue. “NO TO NANOTECH! STOP THE MADNESS! BREAK
THE AMERICAN WAR MACHINE! LET LAZARUS LEAD!”

The CNN crew covering the protest moved back up the steep steps of the
Staatsoper, the state opera house, a still-elegant nineteenth-century building
fronted by massive columns, seeking both a better vantage point and shelter
from the angry crowd. The reporter, a slender, pretty brunette in her early
thirties, had to shout into her microphone to be heard over the tumult
spreading through the streets of the German capital. "This demonstration
seems to have taken the authorities here almost com-

pletely by surprise, John! What began two hours ago
as just a small band of protesters inspired by the most recent Lazarus video
has now become one of the largest political gatherings seen since the Wall came
down! And now we understand that similar mass rallies against nanotechnology
and U.S. policy are
developing in cities around the world —in Rome, Madrid, Tokyo, Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, and many
others.“ She looked out over the sea of flags and signs flowing past the
opera house. ”So far the crowd here in Berlin has stayed relatively peaceful, but
officials fear that anarchists may peel off at any moment to begin smashing
stores and office buildings owned by various American corporations—corporations
the Lazarus Movement calls 'part of the death machine culture.' As the
situation develops, we'll be standing by to bring it to you live!"

Near Cape Town, South Africa

Twenty-five kilometers south of Cape Town,
thick columns of black smoke billowed high above the Capricorn Business and Technology Park, staining the red-hued evening sky.
Nearly a dozen once-gleaming buildings were on fire inside the high-tech
industrial and research facility. Thousands of rioters swarmed along the ring
road circling a central lake, smashing windows, overturning cars, and setting
new blazes wherever they could. At first, the rampaging mob had aimed its
efforts at American-owned biotech labs, but now, gripped by hysteria and rage,
they were lashing out at every science-based business and firm in
sight-destroying property and equipment worth tens of millions of dollars with
total abandon.

The police, heavily outnumbered and unwilling to confront the screaming
crowd with deadly force, had withdrawn from Capricorn and now manned a
perimeter well outside the complex—hoping only to keep the destruction from
spilling over into the surrounding suburbs. More pillars of smoke began rising
from the ruined technology park as the strengthening wind whipped new fires
through the looted buildings.

CBS News —Breaking Story: “America's
Secret War”

America's
daytime TV viewers, tuning in to watch their favorite game shows or soap
operas, instead found themselves watching nonstop news
bulletins as the major networks and cable channels raced to keep up with events
around the world.

As the violence spread through countries on five continents, not even the
veteran CBS anchor could contain his growing excitement. “Hold on to your
hats, folks,” he said, in a Southern drawl that deepened with every
passing minute. “Because this wild ride is getting even
wilder. French television has just dropped a bombshell —charging that
the CIA and the FBI, with help from the British, have been conducting a secret
campaign of murder and sabotage against the Lazarus Movement. Reporters in Paris say they can prove that former U.S. and British commandos and spies are
responsible for the deaths of Lazarus leaders and activists around the world,
including here in the United
States. They also claim these attacks could
only have been authorized at 'the very highest levels of the American and
British governments.'”