Cosega Sphere (The Cosega Sequence Book 4) (26 page)

Booker’s BLAXERS had expected a tough fight as they charged into the Foundation’s sprawling research complex. Still, the full force of the resistance was staggering. Lasers, triple reinforced-lock-downs, and teams of heavily armed soldiers, trained and ready. The Foundation had prepared and drilled for years, waiting for what they knew to be inevitable, that one day someone would come for the Sphere. 

The woman leading the BLAXERS, a former Mossad agent, showed no mercy, unleashing a bloody and dangerous barrage of high-tech weapons and smart bombs. Booker’s people were the best trained and equipped special ops soldiers in the world. They were also the highest paid, had an extremely low casualty rate, and were loyal and experienced.

The sound of alarm sirens pierced the air as Savina grabbed the Sphere, and placed it in the foam-padded aluminum case that had been used to originally transport it to the lab. According to long rehearsed procedures, she was to secure it in the “impenetrable” floor safe.

Instead, she gripped the handle tightly, stared at her assistants, and wondered if they were going to try to stop her. Neither moved.

“Shouldn’t we try to get out?” one of them finally shouted above the noise.

Savina’s INU lit up. She saw that it was the Judge and ignored it.

“We’re safer here,” Savina yelled.

“Whoever it is wants the Sphere,” the other assistant shouted louder into the noise. “They’ll kill us and take it.”

“They want us, too,” Savina yelled, strapping her INU to her side case.

“Well, I don’t want them,” the assistant yelled.

“Me either,” the other one agreed.

“If you go out there, you’ll get killed in the cross fire!”

One of them ran for the door. “It’s locked! We can’t get out!”

“It must have locked down when the attack started,” the other said.

It didn’t take long before they heard some type of ram hitting the other side of the thick steel door. “Stand clear!” came a muffled command. The three scientists ran to a far back corner of Savina’s office and huddled together.

The door blew and the BLAXERs came in heavy. Six black-clad soldiers, along with their female leader, all with laser-sighted automatic weapons, began searching the lab.

“We’re not here to hurt you, but if you come out voluntarily, your odds of survival are much higher,” the BLAX-commander shouted as she shot out the speaker emitting the awful siren. It could still be heard from the hall, but at a fraction of the decibels. “We don’t have much time.”

Savina stood up, raised the case containing the Sphere over her head, and marched from the office to the lab. “I am surrendering,” she said, wondering how this had happened and whom the invaders worked for. The assistants tried to stop her, but it was too late.

“Are you Savina?” the BLAX-commander asked.

“Yes,” she answered, not sure if she’d get shot.

“And in the case, that’s the Sphere?”

“Yes.”

“Open it,” the woman ordered.

Savina did as she was told. The BLAX-commander smiled as she confirmed the contents. At the same time, some of her soldiers found the assistants in the office.

“Scientists?” the BLAX-commander asked.

“Yes,” Savina answered for them.

“You all come with us,” the woman demanded, closing the case.

“No,” the assistants both protested.

“Fine,” she nodded toward one of the soldiers, who quickly handcuffed the men to lab fixtures. “Let’s move!” she shouted.

The BLAXERs and Savina ran into the hallway. Savina looked back, worried about her assistants, but she was pushed along. The BLAX-commander led the way, holding tightly to the Sphere case.

Around the next corner of the adjoining hallway, they encountered Foundation soldiers. It cost them eight minutes and two BLAXERs to punch through. Fifty feet later, thick black smoke choked the passage. The BLAXERs donned masks and somebody roughly pulled one over Savina’s face. The chemical smoke burned at Savina’s exposed skin as they ran into the oily air. Blind and confused, Savina held onto to a BLAXER, praying she wouldn’t trip. After an endless few minutes in the poison blackness, they finally burst out into open.

Across a courtyard and one last firefight. Another BLAXER down. Some kind of percussion bomb wiped out at least seven Foundation fighters. Barely forty seconds passed before she was tossed into a helicopter. No one pursued. No one was left.

Savina, fighting fear, caught one last glimpse of the complex as flames shot out of the roof in several sections. She hoped her assistants would be able to escape or survive until the fire department reached them. Then she recalled the sprinklers. They’d be going off by now.

The BLAX-commander radioed Booker. Savina heard the report through her headphones. “We have the love letter and Juliet. Twenty-one Romeos heading home.”

Savina understood the message. Love letter was code for the Sphere, she was Juliet, and obviously twenty-one of Booker’s soldiers had survived. Savina guessed that scores of the Foundation’s forces had been lost, some she’d known for years. She wouldn’t learn until later that one hundred and eighty-two BLAXERs had died getting her and the Sphere.

Savina looked across at the silver case holding the Sphere and wondered if she would soon get to see Rip’s version of the magic orb. One thing she knew for sure was that she was finally going to get that meeting with Booker, but now, would it be worth the cost? Her body trembled.

The cost
, she thought
. This is just the start, a small beginning, but nonetheless, the beginning of the end. Billions live
 . . . 
or billions die.

Reacting to the spectacular loss of the Sphere and Savina, the Judge convened a videoconference of the Phoenix Committee. He explained, in general terms, that due to Booker Lipton’s aggression, the loss of a chance to get Gaines and the other Sphere, and now, with the Foundation Sphere in the hands of their enemy, they faced the possibility of Booker being able to successfully block the Phoenix launch.

The decision was to either put the Phoenix Initiative on hold, or to move the date up as far as possible. The Judge, who controlled one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical conglomerates, and another committee member, a CEO and major shareholder of a multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation, agreed they could be “ready enough,” within thirty days.

“So it’s a matter of deployment and control,” the Judge said, turning to the head of the biggest food distributor and the operator of the hospital system, which ran more than seven hundred healthcare facilities.

Both assured them they could be ready in a month. The final decision on whether to change the Phoenix launch date would be made when the Judge spoke with his government contacts, but as the meeting adjourned, everyone expected that the Phoenix Initiative would begin within four weeks, ushering in the greatest change in human history. It didn’t come without risks, but they had super computers running the latest Eysen technology, which had explored a trillion scenarios. They’d been preparing for years, and the computer simulations showed they could manage it, predicting a ninety-two-point-four percent chance of success.

“Removing more than half the world’s population and uniting the survivors under one government is not an easy task,” the Judge told the CEO of the agrochemical corporation on a private call. “If it were simple to exterminate billions of people, someone would have already done it.”

—O—

Rathmore looked at the note from Barbeau again, then quietly initiated a tsunami against the Foundation. In NSA-terms, a tsunami meant covering a target with a total and sudden surge of agency attention. By this time tomorrow, he would know every time the word “foundation” was spoken anywhere in the world, how many members it had, their blood type, complete medical histories, sexual preferences, what food they ate, and every single one of them would have all of their digital communications reviewed and summarized by real-life NSA analysis. Their movements and patterns would be followed and studied, every aspect of their companies scrutinized and cross-analyzed.

“Someone got Barbeau out,” Rathmore said to Murik. “That took enormous power, so maybe I’ll play his game. Chasing Booker hasn’t been working out too well.”

“Are you sure?” Murik asked. “Seems like you’re falling into Barbeau’s web.”

“Maybe, but what if he’s right?”

Murik nodded. “I guess we have to follow every lead, but at a time when government resources are spread thin, this seems like a dangerous gamble.”

The CIA agent then excused himself. In the hall, he sent a coded message from his INU to Stellard.

—O—

Some time later, security aggressively apprehended Murik while he was trying to leave the building. The note might not have led immediately to his arrest, if Barbeau’s message hadn’t also included information detailing Murik’s connection to the Foundation. Murik knew every second the Foundation had in advance of an NSA tsunami could make the difference between success and failure. He’d had to chance it.

Rathmore, stunned by the betrayal, savored the moment when he found Murik detained in the same holding room where he’d questioned Barbeau.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he said, shaking his head. “I never liked you and your sophomoric attitude, but I’ll admit I never figured you for the leech. The CIA has so many holes. That’s why we at the NSA have taken the lead.”

“I have nothing to say.”

“Really? Don’t be silly, Murik, or should I call you by your code name, Wattington?” He walked over and slapped his former partner in the face. “We’re finally making some progress and you’re not going to slow things down now.”

Murik appeared to have recovered from the slap, as if it hadn’t happened, but his hands, chained to a bar under the table, were clenched. “Mind getting me a bottle of whiskey?”

“Still a comedian,” Rathmore replied with a fake smile. “You’re not going to get rescued like Barbeau, so we’ll see how loud you laugh on your way to the gas chamber.”

“You don’t scare me, Rathmore,” Murik said with a chuckle. “You slapped me. Where’d you learn your interrogation methods? Are you going to pull my hair next?”

Rathmore yanked Murik’s head backwards by his hair and punched him in the eye. “Good idea, pulling hair. What else does the CIA teach you?” Rathmore asked as he slammed Murik’s head back to the table.

Murik managed a smile. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Rathmore echoed, as if astonished. “Oh, I’ve found a lot out in the past couple of hours. You might want to talk while there’s still some value to your cooperation.”

Murik nodded. “Prove it. Tell me what you’ve got, and maybe I’ll fill in the blanks.”

“Okay,” Rathmore sneered. “I’ve got nothing to lose. You’re not going anywhere. I’ve discovered enough that I believe our government, in fact, no government anywhere in the world, is actually operating in the best interest of their citizens. They’re really working for the Foundation.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh yeah? Then tell me what it’s like.”

“Tell me how you caught me.”

“It turns out that the US Attorney General, who you’ll recall was the FBI Director during Barbeau’s pursuit of Gaines seven years ago, was the one with all the juice. He got Barbeau out, and he also told me that you were a Foundation spy. I didn’t believe it, but just in case, I had your INU mirrored. Miner, the man I believe they call the Judge, whom you tried to send a message to, never received your warning.”

“And you think you can beat the Foundation?” Murik scoffed. “They own this government.”

“Not all of it.”

“Most of it,” Murik said. “If you want, you can partake in the gold.”

“Partake in the gold?” Rathmore scowled. “What are we, pirates?”

“They’ll pay you ten million just as a signing bonus.”

“Do you think it’s really wise to throw money around like that? Because your corrupt friends might need all their funds for legal fees.”

“Rathmore, you don’t have a clue what’s really going on,” Murik said. “This isn’t about corruption. It’s not about who’s
actually
running ours, or any other government. It’s about the
future
.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Do you like the state of the world?” Murik asked. “Because I don’t. Wars, hatred, divisiveness, terrorism . . . and it’s going to change. Powerful people are making sure of that. And you have to pick sides.”

“I already have. I side with the United States of America.”

“Naïve talk from a senior NSA official. The United States hasn’t really existed for decades. Corporations run the world now. The future is either going to be decided by Booker Lipton, or the Foundation, and if you know anything at all about Booker, you’ll choose the Foundation.”

“Why don’t you tell me all about the Foundation?” Rathmore said, smiling. “Explain their great plans for the future. Convince me.”

“No. I’m not saying anything more. You think Barbeau got out of here fast? Watch how long it takes until someone shows up with a red card for me.”

“Want to bet?” Rathmore asked. “You won’t even be here if a red card shows up.”

“You think the Foundation can’t find me? You think the NSA hasn’t been infiltrated?”

“I guess we’re going to find out.”

“Don’t you see? By going after the Foundation, you’re giving the entire world, actually, giving the
future
, to Booker Lipton. Is that what you want?”

“Unlike you, Murik, I don’t pretend that I can control the future.”

“Here’s my last bit of advice for you,” Murik said, staring hard at his former colleague. “Think about it and join with the Foundation before it’s too late.”

“Anything else?” Rathmore asked dryly.

Murik smiled. “Yeah. I’d
really
like that whiskey.”