01-01-00 (16 page)

Before anyone could react, Strokk saw a second flash of light coming from the same boulders. The impact was as powerful as it was unexpected. In the seconds following the explosion, Strokk spotted several guerrillas on the ground, their rifles up in the air in triumph. One of them still had the Stinger launcher mounted on his shoulder.

Smoke filled the cabin, stinging his eyes, searing his throat. He felt the intense heat as the pilots screamed, their bodies in flames. The craft hovered for an instant, before plummeting to the ground, less than a dozen feet below. He braced himself for the impact, rolling across the Hind's floor as it struck the ground, kicking open the side door, rolling once more as he exited the scorching craft. Three of his men did likewise, their faces blackened, but their eyes clear, alert, weapons clutched tightly against their chests. They ran several dozen feet before the flames reached the fuel tanks.

The craft broke apart with a spectacular flash, followed by a thundering blast that shoved Strokk and his men against the wall of the mountain.

He stood, dazed, light-headed, blinking rapidly to clear his clouded vision, seeing shapes dash across his field of view, hearing nothing but a loud ringing—the result of the blast crashing against his eardrums. It would be minutes, if not longer, before his hearing returned.

Another silhouette crossed in front of him, zigzagging past a large rock.

Rebels!

He shouted to his men to seek cover, even though he doubted they could hear him. He could not even hear himself! But his ears did detect the slow rattle of AK-47s, drowning his warnings, ripping across two of his men. The survivors, Strokk and a young private from Serpukhov, dove for the cover of a ravine, landing among dried and tangled brush, the ground exploding above them in clouds of stones and dirt that fell over them.

Caked in white dirt, his heart pounding his rib cage like a piston, Strokk kept his Skorpion in single-shot mode to conserve ammunition. He glanced at his subordinate, whose eyes were wide in fear. They had been warned about the fate of Russians caught alive by the Mujahideen. They both carried a suicide pill in their breast pockets, but a bullet in the head was equally effective.

The ringing in his ears persisted, forcing him to rely on his sight to detect the enemy. He could only hear the distant, clapping sounds of the assault rifles. The smell of cordite assaulted his nostrils. His eyes continued to tear from the smoke.

The AK-47s went silent. Strokk signaled the private to follow him up the ravine to reach a vantage point, to get a chance to fire back at the savages, to avenge their comrades.

They moved in unison for fifty meters, their weapons ready, their determination to remain alive strong. A shape loomed beyond a rocky bend in the ravine. Strokk leveled his weapon at a dark man in gray clothes and a turban swinging an AK-47 in his direction.

The Spetsnaz commando exhaled as he pressed the trigger. The Czech weapon fired once, the 9mm Parabellum round striking the guerrilla in the middle of the chest. He dropped to the ground a corpse.

Two more rebels replaced him. Strokk thumbed the fire selection lever to full automatic fire and released two shorts bursts. A third burst of fire preceded his subordinate clutching his chest, falling on his back in convulsions, blood and foam oozing from his mouth and nose.

Strokk swung the Skorpion up, toward the source of the fire at the top of the ravine, releasing a burst. The Mujahideen warrior arched back. In the same instant, two more rebels appeared. Strokk pressed the trigger but the Skorpion had jammed.

An invisible force lifted him off the ground, flipped him in midair, and shoved him against the side of the dry creek. Bouncing, he collapsed on the bottom of the creek facedown. His back stung, as did his shoulder and left thigh. Pretending to be dead, he ceased all movement, except for his right hand, which reached for his side arm, a Russian Makarov pistol. He held it close against his chest, out of sight from someone inspecting the bottom of the ravine.

The ringing in his ears intensified. He realized that he would not be able to hear them coming to rob him. The Mujahideen stole everything from their Russian victims, from watches and wedding bands to gold crowns. Out of options, Strokk counted to ten and rolled over, his eyes locked on the Makarov's sights, desperately searching for a target, finding one, two. The rebels were caught by surprise, their weapons pointed in the wrong direction. Strokk fired two rounds at each target. One in the heart and one in the face. The rebels dropped unceremoniously.

Then he grabbed his subordinate's side arm and just lay there for several minutes, a pistol in each hand, waiting, determined to take as many of these savages as he could with him. The lack of activity told him that he had survived them all, but not for long if he didn't stop the blood flow and call for help.

He used his subordinate's first-aid kit to apply a dressing to his thigh. He used his own to do the same to his left shoulder, feeling lucky that both rounds had gone through clean, without damaging any bones.

In pain, but elated to have survived, he staggered up the side of the ravine, feeling light-headed from the loss of blood, from the scorching sun, from the high altitude. He made it to the top on pure adrenaline, finding a radio on one of his slain comrades, calling in a rescue helicopter.

Then he waited, trying not to doze off, forcing his eyelids open. But he drifted away, slowly, almost imperceptibly, to be woken up by a blow to the side of his face.

He stared at a group of women and children carrying baskets of supplies. It didn't take but a second for Strokk to realize that these people were related to the men he had killed. They were bringing supplies to the rebels, to their relatives, to their fathers and husbands.

Terror struck him when he realized he no longer held the weapons. A woman in a dark garment cloaking her from head to toe pointed a Skorpion at him, her eyes alive with anger. A kid not older than ten or eleven held his Makarov, burning him with his stare. Another woman clutched the second Makarov. Two older women cried next to fallen rebels. The rest—a dozen of them, and all dressed alike—made a circle around Strokk.

He scrambled to his feet, placing his palms in front of him, pretending that he was willing to reason with them, but looking for an opportunity to snag one of the firearms. A stone the size of a baseball struck him square in the chest. The blow weakened his knees. He collapsed on his side as the women began to make high-pitched shrieks while lifting the stones clutched in their hands. The noise chilled him, sounding like witches from hell, all dressed in black, all scourging him with their evil stares, with their wicked wails.

He assumed a fetal position, covering his head as stones rained on him, numbing his arms, his ribs, his legs, his back. A stone ricocheted off his wrist, striking his temple. He felt dizzy, the circle of dark figures closing in, like vultures, their devilish song rising to an ear-piercing crescendo.

He floated in a sea of pain, the excruciating agony making him wish for a quick death, his throat-scorched sobs hovering over him. He felt hands grabbing his wrists, forcing them over his head, binding them. Others pulled on his feet, securing him to stakes driven into the hard soil with anger. Then he felt hands on his waist, unbuckling his belt, lowering his pants.

Through the inconceivable pain, through the racking torture, he understood what they were about to do and he screamed in terror.

6

Strokk jumped in his seat. The streets of Washington continued to rush by.

“Are you all right?” Celina asked without looking at him.

Strokk didn't reply. He inhaled deeply and forced the nightmare out of his mind, checking his watch, angry at himself for having let the past distract him.

Exhaling, he inspected his surveillance gear once more before returning his attention to the road.

Chapter Eight

001000

1

December 13, 1999
Cerro Tolo, Chile

Ishiguro and Jackie Nakamura sat side by side in front of a Hewlett-Packard workstation staring at a color map on the high-resolution monitor. The cooling fans of the workstations purred inside the large observation room, mixing with their steady breathing, and with the distant chatter of Kuoshi Honichi as he talked on his cellular phone with headquarters in Osaka while making exaggerated hand gestures, and occasionally bowing while listening intently.

Outside, a light breeze swept through the rocky Andes, carrying the cooler temperatures of the high peaks. Tonight's signal had lasted eighteen seconds, and it was in full synchronization with the worldwide daily computer freeze events, which, according to Jackie's most recent Internet excursion, were affecting about seventy percent of the world's computers, with emphasis in the larger cities. In addition, the origin had moved another two million miles down the orbit that Ishiguro and Jackie had projected around HR4390A based on the location of the first two signals, plus the calculated velocity based on the distance traveled in a twenty-four-hour period. This third point, landing right on the estimated orbit, gave more credibility to Ishiguro's theory that it was coming from a planet.

“It looks like the beam is focused on southern Mexico,” Ishiguro observed while Jackie drove the workstation.

“More like northern Guatemala.”

A map comprising the Yucatán Peninsula and the northern portion of Central America filled the screen. She used a magnifying feature of the software to zoom in around the area of interest.

She frowned. “Nothing but jungle.”

“Let's add text.”

Jackie superimposed the text for cities, lakes, rivers, and other significant sites.

“You're right. That's in the middle of nowhere. Are you sure of the coordinates?”

“See for yourself.” She opened up a window and retrieved a file downloaded from one of their satellites after completing the triangulation following tonight's event. She keyed in the latitude and longitude and the software rewarded her with a red X on the same spot in northern Guatemala.

“I don't get it,” he said. “There's nothing down there, at least according to this map.”

“The closest thing is this.” She used her mouse to direct the cursor to a site marked
TIKAL.
“Looks like the location is about fifty miles west of it.”

Ishiguro nodded. “So we have a repetitive event, three times now, that's synchronized with the daily computer freezes, and that appears to be counting down.” The two scientists had already made the connection between the duration of the events and the days left before the end of the millennium. “And this beam, which we can't decipher unless we're at the intended target, is right in the middle of the jungle?”

As Jackie was about to reply, Kuoshi returned. His angular face was tight with apprehension.

“Something wrong?” asked Ishiguro, not certain that he wanted to hear the answer. By now, some elements of the Japanese government had gotten involved in the discussion of how to proceed with this finding, including the secretive Japan Defense Agency, which considered the coincidence between the extraterrestrial signals and the global computer virus a matter of national security as nations struggled to get Year 2000 compliant. It was no secret that many nations had mounted efforts to break this global computer virus, and that no one really knew if anyone had made significant progress. Ishiguro feared that the JDA would try to take advantage of the extraterrestrial contact detected at Cerro Tolo to get an edge over the other nations.

“We have big problems,” the corporate liaison said, shifting his weight from leg to leg as he spoke. “There is great fear in our country about what this global virus will do at the turn of the millennium, when our systems will be at their most vulnerable state. Knowledge of how to break this virus is vital for our nation as it positions itself to become a major economic power in the next century. Our government believes that the message encoded in this signal may possess clues about the virus. We must capture this signal at its intended target and convey it to our scientists in Osaka and Tokyo in time to stop the virus.”

This was exactly what Ishiguro feared, that Japan was going to be Japan and not share this with other nations for some time. “What about the rest of the world, Kuoshi-san? What will the other nations do if they are attacked by this virus and their systems are disabled?”

“I was told that we will do everything we can to assist them.”

He frowned at the typical Japanese answer, indefinite, noncommittal. “How exactly?”

“Our government is working out those details.”

Jackie stood. “Let me ask a more specific question, since you appear to have gone vague on us. Are we intending to share the results of this research, including the extraterrestrial contact and the cure for the virus—if there is one—with the rest of the world before December thirty-first, while they can do something about it?”

“Our government is working out those details.”

Ishiguro turned to Jackie. “That means NO, dear.”

Jackie crossed her arms and looked away. “Incredible!”

“Kuoshi-san. You must understand that the protocol established by the International Astronomical Union is very clear regarding possible extraterrestrial contacts. We accomplished the first step by getting Nobemaya to confirm the contact this evening.” He grabbed a faxed sheet of paper, which had arrived shortly after the event. “The next step is to inform the IAU. Then we present our data, our evidence, to a panel of scientists from the IAU, followed by a press conference.”

“There is
nothing
I can do,” Kuoshi said, looking away. “This project is the property of Sagata Enterprises, a government-subsidized corporation. They decide what we do with the information.”

“That's it,” said Jackie. “I'm posting the finding on the Web.”