Diamond Rain: Adventure Science Fiction Mossad Thriller (The Spy Stories and Tales of Intrigue Series Book 2) (19 page)

Chou’s face appeared in
the room on the plasma screen.  Anger showed in his eyes despite being
surrounded by a completely passive expression.

All of Kefira’s
pleasant amenities disappeared at once.  Even the good food left her stomach
coming from both ends and leaving a mess on her thighs and chest.

“Before your
clandestine communication, I couldn’t imagine a superior suit. Now I am sure
you have what I need,” said Chou’s bobbing head in the screen.

The head flickered and
the video system lost control of itself.  Kefira knew intuitively that Thomas
was using Chou’s molecules to pass her new energy.  A bolt of light left Chou’s
head, disintegrating the image before reappearing in front of Kefira.

She blinked.   Somehow,
she suddenly had a suit, a limited clone of Thomas’ improved recombinant
model.  She felt the suit cover her.  Her confidence grew.  For an instant, an
underwater sensation blocked her hearing as the suit enveloped her senses, then
as it adjusted to her physical attributes she found that she could hear again. 
She sat facing the door waiting for either Chou or Thomas to appear in front of
her.   At this point she did not know which it was going to be.

Chou stormed into Lau’s
control room screaming, as usual.   Lau looked shocked.

“Sir, what kind of
security breach?  A prisoner escape, you say?”

“You fool.  Someone’s
inside our computers and that woman now has a superior suit to ours.”

“That’s impossible.  No
one can penetrate my nano security.  Its integrity is assured right down to the
molecular level.”

Chou took a deep
breath. 
Surrounded by incompetence.  Foresight.  Foresight’s saved us. 
He
struggled not to murder Lau with his bare hands. 
I need this moron.

“Bring up the streams
in her room over the last half hour.”

“Here they are, Sir.”

Lau’s eyes popped open
and his head shook as if it would clear his vision.  Kefira had a bright light
in front of her.  Then the amenities in her room disappeared and excrement
poured from her while she vomited.  Lau turned to look at his commander.  Chou’s
crimson face stared back.

“Do something.”

“My hands are tied,
Sir.”

In a portion of his
brain he had shielded from Chou’s interference, the word, ‘Macaulay’ bounced
around in Lau’s head.
 All the hallmarks of that treacherous bastard here,
but there’s something different too,
thought Lau.

“Do you remember the
day we captured the Mossad spy?”

“Answers.  I want answers.” 
Chou wasn’t in the mood to play guessing games.

“Sir, that day she gave
her suit to that cameraman.  A stroke of genius really.  We never anticipated
either her suit or that she might give it to a stranger to keep it safe.”

Chou stamped angrily. 
He took a deep breath and calmed slightly.  He rounded on Lau.

“There is a better
technology out there and she knows about it.  Lau, come with me.  I will need
your superior mastery of the nano to get information out of her now.”

Realizing the gravity
of the situation, Chou directed his frustrations at finding solutions in his
nano stimulated mind.  The pace of his reflection raced ahead of that which any
normal human could manage.  Lau left his assistant to monitor the system after
placing a breached system alert on the dashboard of every technician in his
command.  All of them searched for Macaulay’s and Thomas’ computer worms but to
no avail.  They couldn’t know the diamond molecule’s ‘stealth’ ability.  The
technology surpassed their knowledge and experience.

The two men chose to
walk down to the level holding Kefira.  Each of them had noticed that crisis
management in the suits appeared to operate more smoothly when normal activity
occurred at the same time as hyper mind activity resolved problems.

Kefira felt their suits
approaching in the way a nano house would sense the arrival of its owner and
manifest itself.  She remained in a relaxed position levitated over the cold
cement in her cell.  She smiled to herself; the suit permitted her to ignore
Chou’s removal of all of the amenities in her room.  Even the damp cold didn’t
penetrate.  The door slid into the ceiling and Chou entered with Lau.

Kefira prepared herself for the battle of
wills, the battle of suits.  She felt Lau’s power first.  She turned to him
acknowledging his mastery of his nano environment, infuriating Chou by her
choice to focus on Lau.  She raised her hand palm outward and placed a force
field in front of them.  It shone diamond bright.  Lau was ready.  He gestured
with both his hands in a martial arts combat system opening thrust.  His
upturned palm wrenched backwards, pulling the energy in Kefira’s field into his
hand.  He thrust it back at her. 

Unaccustomed to her new
suit, Kefira was briefly caught by surprise and she almost let the energy
through, but she dodged showing impressive agility, Capoeira drills responding
before she thought.  The suit had ‘wired’ her for war.  Having parried Lau’s
thrust, she reached out for Chou’s neck, distracting the more powerful of the
two and forcing Lau to defend his commander.

Lau put himself into
the energy stream between Kefira and Chou deflecting and absorbing it easily. 
Odd,
it’s not lethal.  Ah. It’s only a protective suit, a mere shadow of the one it’s
copied from.
 Kefira and he both recognized the standoff.  Chou sat up on
the floor and refused Lau’s outstretched hand.  He got up and looked disgusted
as he had rolled in Kefira’s ejected waste.  She lifted her left eyebrow at him
and his vanity.  Lau and Chou busily negotiated in mind speak.  She could sense
some force field just outside the door that her suit could not penetrate.  Chou
congratulated himself for listening to his paranoia and building a secure force
field into this level without Lau’s knowledge.  He mind pressed an alert in his
system and the wall slid around them containing Kefira and shielding them from
her suit.

“At least this witch’ll
remain here.  We can figure out a way to defeat her suit,” said Chou.

“We may be able to
penetrate her protection.  She doesn’t have lethal power levels, just
defensive,” added Lau.

Lau showed Chou
something bright contained in a nano security ball in his hand.  A diamond
molecule shone in the small prison.  Lau smiled at Chou.

“How’d you manage that?”
asked an astonished Chou.

“There’re many things you
don’t know about your suit, Sir.  We’ve been too busy to spend the time to
train you fully.”

“Can you study the
properties of that molecule and duplicate it?”

“We will analyze it.
Duplication should be possible, Sir. Only time will tell for certain.”

Kefira returned to the floor exhausted.  At
least she could keep her body temperature up and use the environment to provide
water with the suit. 
How’d Lau manage to steal that molecule from my
thrust?  Thomas, please don’t take too long.  They can’t get the secret of the
suit.

****

In Haifa, Ekaterina, Jean Pierre, Macaulay,
Yatsick, Yochana and Thomas watched the struggle taking place underground in
China between Chou, Lau and Kefira by altering one of Thomas’ molecules and
using it as an eye connected through the electronic and electric systems in the
underground cell.

“Why can’t you pass
through that electric firewall with your suit if your suit’s molecules can?”
asked Ekaterina.

“Maybe that’s the
answer.  Maybe I can.  Maybe simple doubt is the problem.  I couldn’t pass
through because I was afraid of losing the suit to Chou and- ”

“You mean your
emotional belief structure can influence your power?” interjected Yochana.

“Looks like.”

“Look at this part of
their struggle,”  Yatsick said.

Thomas shook his head.

“Put it on thermal. Let’s
see the heat signatures,” he said.

“What’s that heat
signature in Lau’s hand?” asked Ekaterina.

Macaulay laughed.

“Everyone’s always underestimated
Lau.”

“Is that what I think
it is, Thomas?” asked Yatsick.

“Lau’s captured a
molecule.  If he’s a smart as Macaulay suggests he is, he may be able to
reverse engineer it.”

“Do they have that kind
of lab there?” asked Ekaterina.

“Go now, Thomas.  Go
now – it’s now or never,” shouted Jean Pierre.

“They have whatever
money can buy,” Yatsick was saying.

As Yatsick spoke,
Thomas’ suit lit up brightly and he disappeared.  The words: ‘Can’t take the
chance’, filled all of their ears.

“Yatsick, stop him,” Ekaterina
said in alarm.

Yatsick reached for a
switch on his table.  Normally it would activate the force field surrounding
this office and contain Thomas’ abilities, but it failed to work.  He pressed
it several times with growing annoyance, then he concluded that someone had
damaged the mechanism.  There was nothing he could do.  Thomas had escaped.

“He’s gone, Ma’am.  I’m
sorry.  He must’ve sabotaged the switch in anticipation of this moment.”

“I’m Kefira’s mother
and I’m controlling myself.  There’s so much more that Kefira at stake here. 
Damn you Thomas,” Ekaterina said with a tremor in her voice and tears streaming
down her face.

Yochana put her arm
around her old friend.

“It’s their time now,
Ekaterina.  We’re the old guard.  They understand this technology more than we
ever will.  Maybe he had no choice.”

I’ve failed them
again,
thought Yatsick. 
They’ll
never trust me after this.  How I wanted to be the one to rescue Kefira.

Sue Ann’s Return

Rising like Lazarus from her bed at the secret
military hospital at Haifa Military Airport, Sue Ann rubbed her temples.  She
felt groggy.
How long've I been asleep? Feels like days.
 Thomas had
left Sue Ann in a timed stasis.  Her experience in Qatar had scarred her
deeply.  Chou’s clumsy mental implant had damaged her mind, but Thomas judged
that an extended period of relaxation would heal her.  He’d left her at the
private military hospital in a deep sleep.

Thomas had been in a
quandary over the best course of action.  He was afraid that either removing
Chou’s implant or waking her up would damage her mind.  Besides, he wanted to
be able to activate Sue Ann at will. His tactics already made her a vital link
in Chou’s demise. 
He
,
no, the world,
thought Thomas,
could
not take the chance that she might have an accident and spoil his plans for
her.
 

Sue Ann was led to the
vehicle by a friendly driver.  Still in the daze that follows a long, drugged
sleep, Sue Ann watched the scenery in Israel passing by the windows of the
military jeep.

“Where’re we going?”

“Yona Street.”

“That means nothing to
me.  What’s there and why won’t anyone tell me how long I’ve been asleep?”

“Sorry, I'm just a
driver.  You can ask at the other end.”

When they stopped, a young
woman took Sue Ann’s elbow and directed her towards the entrance of a hair
dressing salon.

“I don’t need my hair
done.  What’s going on here?”

The grip on her elbow
brooked no changes in plan.  An uncharacteristic reaction – a petulant
expression puckered Sue Ann’s lips – until she saw a familiar shape in a
doorway at the back of the salon.

“Thomas, is that you?”

“I’m so happy you’re
okay.  You gave us all a scare, girl.”

“What’s going on
Thomas?”

“We’ll talk inside.  C’mon.”

The door closed with a
hydraulic swoosh.

“What the fuck is this
place?”

“That sounds more like
the Sue Ann we all know and love.”

“I dunno, Thomas.  I’m
not feeling myself.  I’m really groggy.”

“That’s to be
expected.  I’m going to introduce you to some people, Sue Ann. We’re all going
to be working on a top secret project.  You’re a vital link in our work.”

“Me?  Give it a break,
Thomas.  I’m no vital link.  I just need some coffee, big time.”

“Coming right up,” said
a lanky guy she’d just noticed.  The man wore a big smile.

“Thanks, but who’re
you?”

“I am the ghost of
Christmas Past.  Wasn’t that a great-” said Jean Pierre as he gave Sue Ann a
piping hot espresso.

“I made it strong, but
allongé
as we say in Montreal.”

“I don’t know what that
means, but it’s perfect.”

“Slightly diluted
Espresso, it’s a specialty.”

“They wouldn’t let me
eat at the hospital earlier.  I’m fam-”

“Course you are.  We’ll
get you fixed up for food in a bit.  Right now we have to put our heads
together.”

The three of them stepped into Ekaterina’s
domain.  A bunch of laptops, all facing a glass wall on one side of the room, held
the interest of determined young people mostly wearing beige chinos and black
tops.  None of them looked up from their work as the trio entered.

“In here,” Thomas said.

Ekaterina sat behind an
oak desk.  Her swivel chair rolled out from around it before she stood up to
greet Sue Ann.  Another older woman, dressed in loose silk contrasting the
first one’s military garb, also stood up. 
They’re obviously expecting me,
but who the hell are they?
 Sue Ann wondered to herself.

A tall, bearded
gentleman in a perfectly cut white linen suit joined then.  He winked at Sue
Ann while taking her all in with a curious look.  Last, Jean Pierre brought
some spicy miso soup with butter sautéed scallops.  Sue Ann inhaled and couldn’t
resist leaning over the aromatic food.

The man in the suit
whistled a triplet conveying exactly her feeling at the moment.

“Well?” asked Jean
Pierre.

“This is surreal.  How’d
you know that I love this soup?”

“I told him.  We’re
buttering you up,” said Thomas.  “Butter scallops, get it?”  He laughed.

“It’s working.  Thanks
for the miso.”

Ekaterina cleared her
throat, establishing herself as the authority in the room.  Even Thomas turned
his head in her direction.

“Let the soup cool
down,” Ekaterina said.  “What I have to say won’t take long, Sue Ann.”

A picture of a Chinese
man with chiseled features and warm eyes popped up on a plasma screen.  The
glass dividers all around them became opaque.  Thomas sent Sue Ann a mental
touch.  A locked portion of her mind eased itself open and Sue Ann’s shoulders
relaxed while her eyes closed.  She breathed in deeply.

“I know him,” said Sue
Ann.

“What about this guy?”

“That’s Chou and the
first one’s Lau, his techie number two.”

“While you were out,
these two've tightened a noose around the world.  You remember Qatar?” asked
Ekaterina.

Thomas continued to
tweak Chou’s mental implant inside Sue Ann’s head.  His skills had improved
immeasurably since he first encountered this mental device used by Chou.  Sue
Ann closed her eyes again and rubbed her temples this time.  Thomas squeezed
Chou’s hold on her and took over himself.  She snapped awake. 
Funny, Lau
reminds me of someone I knew in High School. 
Thomas grinned despite
himself.  Sue Ann’s own thoughts, prodded by him, couldn’t have been more
appropriate to their purposes.

Ekaterina nodded and
Yochana shook her head in the direction of her old friend.  A video of the
nuclear attack on Armageddon Valley came onto the screen and Sue Ann stopped
eating.

“When’d this happen?”

The dust settled on the
valley and the suited ‘walkers’ stood up and started mingling around, then they
formed up into marching order. Sue Ann dropped her chopsticks.

“Happened while you
were out of it.”

“Why’re you people
showing me all of this? And why here in this office?  This place stinks of
Mossad.  Thomas, let’s get out of here.”

“Lau wants you to do
another story,” said Thomas.

“What do these spooks
have to do with it?”

“It’s sort of like a line
of dominoes.  You know that game?” asked Jean Pierre.

Sue Ann turned to look
at the guy who made her coffee and brought her lunch earlier.
He’s all legs
and eyeballs, but somehow I trust him.  Not like the one behind the desk – all
business that one.  I dunno, something weird about Thomas too.  He’s too sure
of himself.

“Ya, ya.  The pieces
that fall in a sequence if you knock one down.”

“That’s it. We need you
to knock the first piece down, Sue Ann.”

“Me, how?”

“Lau’s the key.  You’re
gonna bring him a message from us.  The trick is to make sure his boss General
Chou doesn’t find out about it.”

“You are spooks. I knew
it.  I think I’ll just go back to my reporter’s job thanks.  No dice.”

Thomas opened his hand
and a miniscule but blindingly bright light shone from a tiny dot on his palm. 
He flexed his fingers open and it bounced, never actually touching his hand. 
The light had a unique luminescent quality like a star on earth.

“That’s a neat toy,
Thomas.  Where’d you get it?”

“This is the message
you’re gonna carry to Lau.”

“So let me get this
straight.  You bunch of nut bars elected me to help you save the world by
delivering a little white light to the new rulers of the planet.  Remember
these maniacs are enslaving women everywhere.  Sounds like a plan to me.  My
ass it does.”

Ekaterina shook her
head.

“Tell her, Thomas.  She
needs convincing.”

Thomas stood up and
disappeared, then reappeared.  His hand gestured in Sue Ann’s direction and a
dart of light leapt towards her.  It disappeared into her body without causing
any pain.  Thomas looked normal to Sue Ann again, but he was concentrating his
gaze.  She felt him gently at first nudging his way into her thoughts, then
more forcefully.  She didn’t remember falling asleep.

“I told you it was
better to do it without her knowing,” said Thomas.

“I have issues with
using people so blatantly,” said Ekaterina.

“We’ll have to ask
Kefira about that when she comes back, won’t we?” Thomas asked with a glib
smile on his face.

“You can be a bastard,”
said Ekaterina.

“Fairness?  You want
fairness?  In this game it’s winner takes all.  You made me tell her what was
gonna happen, so now I had to wipe her memory clean.  I hated doing it but
there was no alternative.  We can’t chance Chou probing her.”

As Sue Ann slumped
deeper into her chair, Macaulay took his phone out of the phone pouch in his
jacket.  He tapped a long sequence of numbers into a special application that
opened his connection to his clandestine network.  Lau got a pop-up on his work
station.  ‘Paul at Al Jazeera’.

Sue Ann would remember nothing when she woke
up.  She certainly had no idea that she was carrying an encrypted molecule with
information from Chou’s mind map.  Thomas had collected the map when he visited
Chou as an Al Jazeera cameraman with Sue Ann, but it had taken some time to
break down Chou’s carbon-based barriers to allow decoding and reading of his
memory.

Thomas reviewed the map
of Chou's mind.  Most important to Lau would be the way to break into the mental
plant Chou had placed in Lau’s mother.  The dictator could kill her at will
even at a distance.  When Lau got the message from the molecule inside Sue Ann,
he would be able to block both Chou’s blackmail threats about Lau’s previous
illegal behavior under different commanders and save his mother from Chou – an
olive branch in exchange for unspecified future cooperation.

Lau knew Macaulay’s message likely contained
dangerous spyware or even undetectable worms set to invade and compromise his
system.  What he didn’t know – and couldn’t ever appreciate – was the level of
sophistication of Macaulay’s attack.  He had no idea that it didn’t require Lau’s
participation.  He didn’t have to click on the
jpeg
for his workstation
to get the infection.  Its arrival guaranteed penetration. 

Lau threw caution to
the wind and clicked on it anyway. 
What did I tell Macaulay that night all
those years ago?  I get the feeling he isn’t using his knowledge against me. 
What’s that expression?  Honor among thieves, that’s it.  This system I’m working
in is corrupt.  The only way to climb is to subvert and kill.  I won’t let Chou
blackmail me anymore.
  Lau connected through a safe intermediary with Paul,
Sue Ann’s editor at
Al Jazeera.

“Yes, Sir,” said Paul,
deferring to the high position of the intermediary.  “I understand your
request, but I’m afraid I am not able to comply with it.  Sue Ann Lee is under
medical supervision, at least for the near future.”

“Our office has
intelligence suggesting she can be reached at this number.”

“That’s her cell
phone.  I’ll try and get back to you.  Thank you, Sir.”

Paul shook his head. 
He disliked this heavy handedness, but who’d argue with a call from a managing
director.  Paul wrote down the new managing director’s name and slotted it away
for future reference.  He touched Sue Ann’s entry in his contacts and the phone
rang. 

“Hello,” said a
familiar voice on the other end.

“Thomas, is that you? 
Paul here.”

“Paul, it’s good to
hear from you.  Sue Ann’s just stepped out for a few minutes.  Can she get back
to you in five?”

“You’re not gonna like
this much, Thomas.”

“What is it, Paul?”

“I have a request for
Sue Ann to update her story on the ‘walkers’ with another visit to Chou’s
lair.”

“Actually that’s good
news, Paul.  Sue Ann’ll be ecstatic.”

“Hmm.  Well, you can’t
go with her.  The request comes direct from up on high here, I just got off the
phone with a new managing director.”

“That’s not such good
news.  What do they want her alone for?”

“Beats me, but her
contract’s clear.  If the doctor’ll let her go, she’s going.”

Thomas hung up and went
to awaken Sue Ann.  She was still slumped in the armchair in Ekaterina’s
office.  Looking at her lax face, Thomas questioned his strategy for the first
time. 
I’m playing God here.  We have to find a way to spread this power
out.
  He squatted beside Sue Ann and gently nudged her mind awake before
touching her knee, then her shoulder.  She turned and sort of smiled at him
before adopting a puzzled expression.