The Khufu Equation (25 page)

Ven Jhun tenderly stroked the barrel, which grew warm in the Cambodian sun. Capable of solving myriad problems, it was the embodiment of strength and respect. Touching the rifle even alleviated the pain in his leg stump. As always, it was impossible for him to sleep through the night. The pangs, as they rose, were an insistent reminder of the past. There was a problem to be solved, and he'd take care of it.

Just at the moment the captain saw an approaching point over the horizon, his cell phone rang.

"Dad," said the voice on the line.

"One second . . . ." Ven raised himself out of the grass and limped away from the men so as not to be overheard. Still, he maintained sight of that point above the horizon.

"Now we can talk. Chen, where are you?"

"As you said, they're in Campong Thome. I've tracked them to the hotel."

"Excellent. Now, listen carefully. You will kill them and steal the disc, together with the computer."

Chen heard pressure in father's redoubtable voice and felt discomfort.

"But, Dad . . . ."

"Shut up! Be a man for once!"

"I can't," Chen complained. "I just can't do it. Daddy . . . ."

"If that's so, you can say goodbye to your restaurant and your beloved car. The state will put me against the wall and leave you and your mother without so much as the shirts on your backs. The rice fields will await you then."

The prediction was so final, so fatal, that Chen had to agree.

"All right, Dad. I'll do what you want. When will you come?"

Ven Jhun was already able to discern small details on the plane, now landed, and he said urgently:

"Here we have some terrorists who've captured a plane. So, I'll be at least two hours. Take a chopper."

Ven entrusted the cell phone to his vest pocket, loaded the sniper rifle and gave the order: "Don't fire without my command!"

The information echoed in both directions, but the warbling of the cell phone reminded the captain about the boomerang effect.

A deep accumulation of anger spewed forth into the microphone.

"You! Chen! Do as you were . . . ."

The sound of a woman's voice on the other end halted him in mid-sentence.

"Hello? Who's speaking?"

"The chief of the service guard," answered the captain angrily. His thoughts were far away, in Campong Thome.

"This is Flight Attendant Rita Amesbury," the voice said tearfully. "They made me . . . made . . . . I can't speak long. Terrorists are nearby."

"Who are they? What do they look like?" urged Jhun his lips jammed up against the microphone.

"There are wounded," she said, trembling. "We need an ambulance direct to the plane."

"Clear," said the captain impatiently. "But, who are they?"

"A man in monastic clothes and a Chinese. They'll be together."

A wave of hypnotic force enveloped the captain's mind. In the flurry of random sounds, he heard only two words:

"Kill them."

The words intoned destiny like a doomsday bell. Without realizing the happening, Ven placed his cheek against the rifle stock and peered into the telescopic sight. His forefinger released the safety and moved into position upon the trigger.

The terrorists didn't communicate. They made no demands, so no one felt compelled to reverse the ladder-feed.

The 747 came to rest in a free zone with its engines off, and a ladder vehicle pulled up alongside. Ven monitored the situation through his rifle scope for five minutes, as a string of people descended from the jet.

The trigger mechanism of Walther-2000 had a life of its own. It wasn't ruled by the sniper's psychomotor functions but was instead very much in command. The caps of six 300-millimeter Winchester magnum cartridges, like sitting girls, waited for their time. The titanium firing pin would ignite the smokeless powder, and the 7.62-caliber bullet--rocketing forward at 900 meters per second--would instantly extinguish the victim's life.

"It's me. I'm the one who involved his best friend in this whole thing," though Brett as he followed Father Sohn down the ladder. "I'm the one who didn't call the monk in time, and Slaiker died. It's my fault that Jeff's life is hanging by a thread. It's all because of me."

The commissioner hated himself, but the self-loathing wasn't justified. The confluence of disparate circumstances was to blame. How could it be otherwise if, on the eternal chessboard, each figure has a specific place and role? We make our moves, but we never do so in strict accordance with our own will. We move as instructed by unseen gods, or deities. They are gods of strange, inhuman motivations, who place the "game" above everything else. Thus the scenario of each and every human destiny was written long ago. To alter that destiny, one must realize the truth inherent in the struggle for freedom and break away beyond the framework of the external world; the fraudulent world of untruth.

Brett's thoughts of self-condemnation were interrupted by a gunshot and the spattering of blood on his face. Krepfol Sohn's skull was shattered into pieces, and his body, according to the law of inertia, dropped from the stairs onto the concrete.

The second bullet struck the young woman's back, but in the melee she rushed and covered Brett. Those who were behind him ran screamed and scrambled back up the stairs toward the plane, while the passengers on the ground scattered in all directions.

The semi-automatic mechanism of the Walther 2000 worked perfectly, as if it were attached to an autonomous supply of bio-robotic energy in the guise of a man. Now Captain Jhun fixed his sight on Brett's eyebrow, but the commissioner surmised that he was next. He turned and jumped over the railing as the shot was fired. The bullet, intended for him, instead pierced the coccyx of an elderly man. Brett, on the tarmac beside the stair truck, crouched next to the monk's lifeless body.

Ven lowered the rifle barrel and, turning slightly, found Brett's temple in his scope. The commissioner was in a squatted position, fumbling through the pilgrim's robe.

"The cross . . . the book. Here they are!"

The commissioner, cutting off any mental analysis, rushed toward the cab of the stair truck. On its footboard he felt the impact of a torpedo that kicked his left shoulder. The bullet from the Walther had ripped out a chunk of muscle, but it couldn't rob Brett of his will to survive. He knew that he alone could return the world to its proper axis. In the blink of an eye, Brett yanked the driver from behind the wheel, whereupon he started the engine and rushed toward the fence. The last two bullets left the barrel of the sniper rifle and hit the body of the truck, but they failed to stop it. The vehicle tore through the barrier, turned toward a parking area and disappeared from view.

The magazine in the sniper rifle was empty then, and at that moment there was a twinkling in Ven Jhun's eye. He felt quite heroic as he surveyed the carnage, but he did not realize that, under any other circumstance, he would pity the horrible loss of life. His consciousness, absconded by the will of the Beast, quietly reveled in the little victory. The state of shock, if any, would have to wait. He turned and looked at the soldiers, and he could see the emotions on their faces. None of them had decided to open fire without command. Such was the instruction they were given.

Ven called up the sergeant and pronounced without embarrassment:

"All terrorists except one have been eliminated. The order is to kill him. Now the subdivision is under your leadership, and you are free to use the helicopter. To support you, I'll inform the police, who will cordon off the roads."

A borrowed Toyota became the next stage in Brett's mission. Having driven out to USSR Boulevard, he gave the car some gas and joined the street traffic. Ordinary country opened on both sides of the dike, and a mirror of water reflected the clouds. Brett was filled with pain, and he seethed in anger. The oozing blood, having soaked his shirt, ran down past his ribcage onto the seat.. Having torn out a significant portion of muscle, the bullet damaged small blood vessels and tore the main knots responsible for motor functions.

"Now is not the time to be feeble, soldier, Li told himself as he squeezed the steering wheel. "The pain means nothing, and it won't stop you. Ahead! That's an order!"

The commissioner rummaged through the glove compartment with his free hand as he drove, whereupon a pair of sunglasses drew his attention. He put them on and found they were somewhat effective against the wash of light. He then ripped a shred of cloth from the battered upholstery and pressed it against the wound under his shirt. It was polyester and was therefore unlikely to absorb much, but he had nothing better to use.

Suddenly, the sound of whirring blades drew his attention to the rear-view mirror. There, just above the horizon, he saw a khaki-green helicopter.

"You sons of bitches haven't tasted my stuff yet!" said Brett aloud. He briefly considered an end-run around the line of cars ahead, but that was stifled by a particular circumstance. The traffic slowed to a crawl, and then he knew: The cars were being checked.

Fifty meters up the road, Commissioner Li could see four men. They were dressed in police uniforms and equipped with short-barreled guns.

The distance shortened to three car lengths, and Brett jumped out of the Toyota. He held four cards: one for each of them. The first officer stood at the driver's door, the second was busy at the trunk, and the other two were on the shoulder of the roadway.

The distance to an object, wind velocity, humidity, kicking capability, and the structure and density of the receiving point: all this was data with which Brett was familiar by the age of twelve.

Standard notions about the world were destroyed at once by the card master, who declared that distance meant nothing. It's implicit, he had said, with each newborn that nurses at his mother's breast. Time, too, is a piece of milk chocolate held on the tongue: One can either swallow it or prolong the pleasure. Only one's intention has meaning, because only it is able to change the essence of things; your position in space and energetic mass. Only intention can do that. Everything else is just an artificially created obstacle. At the moment of need, everything else is the manifestation of untruth.

Brett's movements were quick and exact. The plastic cards, gleaming in the sun, short forth from his hands like lightning bolts and pierced the cartilaginous tissue at the bridge of the nose. Thus each of the policemen received a hot shock to the brain. Death was mercifully immediate.

Brett, however, felt no remorse. It was as if he couldn't sense the pain of sudden death. He was nearly at the point of being oblivious to his own pain, as the hunger for vengeance had overridden every other consideration. Could anyone call it revenge? It was a strange sensation to him: a mixture of offensive drive, malice and hatred, all directed toward one purpose, beyond which humanity had no future. In the absence of memory, there wouldn't be a past, either.

"Ahead, soldier!" Brett gave the command, urging himself forward.

He approached one of the bodies, seized the gun and directed it to toward the helicopter, which had moved into a circling pattern of surveillance and support. He aimed for the fuel tank and squeezed the trigger. A ball of fire enveloped the cabin. The energy stored in the fuel was released into the atmosphere, creating a voracious storm of molten metal and acrylic. The helicopter was tossed out of its orbit like an unwanted toy, breaking into pieces as it fell. The pressure wave from the explosion struck Lee's face like the fist of a giant. Choking for air, he bent into a crouch and somersaulted off the roadway for the cover of green. For the moment, he'd hide for safety.

The force from the explosion scattered flaming debris over the ground below, igniting cars in an epidemic of near-spontaneous combustion. People ran down the dam and lay right in the water. The area was filled with shouts from the crowd and the groans of the unfortunate wounded.

The commissioner had surely overdone it, but having hidden all sympathy from his soul, he simply returned to the Toyota.

"Ahead, soldier, to Phnom Penh! Snap to it!"

The ambulance rushed down USSR Boulevard. A girl, her life hanging by a thread, was accompanied by two young women.

The attending physician in back--a man too old for such stress--leaned over her blue-tinged face of this child strapped to the gurney, wiped up drops of blood with a cotton ball. The thick, shiny locks over the girl's hot forehead seemed entirely unnatural. Obeying a strange impulse, he stroked the hair gently, but he didn't suppose that such a gesture of sympathy could be his last. The short, fat fingers froze for a moment and, as if they had encountered a barrier, pulled back with a lock hooked around them.

Clearly it was a wig. It slid to the side, baring a boyish chestnut "hedgehog" cut.