Keystone (38 page)

But
eventually, and unavoidably, the truth would be apparent to the human eye. The
news reader was a case in point. She was attractive, had girlish combed-back
hair in a cute little ponytail, a nice smile, a couple of freckles here and
there, and even had a cheeky little personality. Take a still photo and you
could make someone believe she was real. But you only needed to watch one
newsfeed to recognise that she wasn’t the product of a fruitful human
relationship, but rather the output of a skilled development team, the illusion
broken by the one thing that cannot be programmed:
Life
.

This to Seth
Mallus, at this very moment, was the crux of the whole matter. The paradox with
which he had battled internally since the Book of Xynutians had first been
presented to him.

How can the
propagation of intelligent life, the success of a species, be met with
annihilation? How can an advanced species such as the Xynutians be wiped clear
from the face of the planet with little or no trace?

The
philosopher inside him told him that this was not a paradox. The logical
culmination of all life is eventual death. But the logic inside him disagreed.
While death was a certainty for some, why should this affect the species as a
whole, and not simply the individuals concerned?

He had
eventually drawn his conclusions based purely on gut feeling. The action plan
he had devised had been put into place almost immediately. There had been no
public debate. His position afforded him such executive luxuries, while the
lavish defence budgets put forward by the United States government over
successive years had been easily diverted to fund the plan. No one had ever
sought to question expenditure on a line-item basis, and many of the
initiatives had cost relatively little, being simple divergence from original,
legitimate projects, the truth of which was divulged to a select, well paid
few.

And after
years of careful planning and research, tonight he had reached a crossroads,
although it vexed him slightly that his hand was being forced. The timing
wasn’t of his choosing, and he would have enjoyed more freedom to study the
Mars findings more.

Of course,
there was still a chance that Dr Patterson would make a discovery, that the
crew on Mars would be recovered safe and sound, and that the elaborate charade
could once again resume. The ‘alien findings’ would gladly be accepted as
impressive hoaxes, the ‘issues’ communicating with the Mars team put down to
computer viruses initiated by the hoaxsters. The whole debacle would be given a
suitably inflammatory ‘cyber-terrorism’ headline in the daily news, and
undoubtedly a government agency previously unknown to the general public would
suddenly receive billions of dollars of funding to combat this terrifying
threat.

But just one
look at Dr Richardson, alone in her little world on Mars, told him differently.

He was at a
crossroads.

To the left,
unfortunately made inaccessible by a big red ‘No Entry’ sign, the Mars team
turn up safe and sound and everything goes back to normal.

Carry straight
on, and DEFCOMM is investigated for its part in the biggest cover-up in
history. He is arrested on suspicion of murdering a member of the
Clarke
’s crew and the head of a museum
in Cairo, and also for abducting a respected British scientist and faking her
death, in doing so making it abundantly clear that he had no intention of ever
letting her go. Not to mention the lesser charge of misappropriating millions
of dollars for personal research, and misusing government-owned equipment and
defence systems, for which treason and piracy would probably be mentioned. He
would be tried in Florida, where there would be no avoiding a certain death
penalty.

Of course, he
had always known this to be the case. All of the risks he had taken had been
well calculated and very deliberate, which is why he still had one more
direction to take.

A
ninety-degree turn to the right. The answer to Aniquilus’ Paradox was not that
life resulted in death, but that death allowed life. Just as modern Man had
benefitted from the demise of the Xynutians before them.

Am I Aniquilus
? he mused.

With the vans
safely on their way to despatching their deadly cargos, he turned his attention
to Dr Patterson’s expedition to Egypt, the final hope for plan A, before plan B
was executed. It was due diligence, he told himself, to give them a fair shot.

He barked a
command and the final quarter of the screen lit up: a satellite view of a
barren, desert scene. Seven hours ahead of his current time-zone, it was
mid-afternoon, and by the dark shadows moving along the rock and sand he could
make out a trio of all-terrain vehicles labouring their way along what could
barely be called a dirt track. Their target lay a few hundred yards away, round
a couple more bends and through a gap in a small ridge: a small plateau, in the
middle of which stood a small building.

It was a
live-satellite feed from above Egypt, one of the perks of distributing hardware
and software for United States defence satellites, and the display was grid
marked for easy referencing.

“Full screen,”
he snapped. As the image filled the window, he caught a glimpse of movement
along the narrow gap in the ridge, through which the small convoy would shortly
be passing.

“Magnify C7,”
followed by “Magnify range D3 to F6.”

Now filling
the screen was a man in khaki cargo pants and a short sleeved shirt. Held
across his knees was the unmistakable form of an AK-47. He zoomed the display
back one level, and panned across the gap to the other side of the ridge.
Within seconds he had located two further men with guns. While these were far
better hidden than the first, they clearly hadn’t been expecting to be seen
from above.

Seth Mallus shook
his head slowly before picking up the phone and calling Walker.

George shifted uneasily between
the two rocks he hoped offered him cover from the track below. He was
uncomfortable, primarily because of the unfamiliar AK-47 laid across his knees
and the approaching 4x4s he imagined were full of men with guns, but also
because no matter how hard he tried there always seemed to be a sharp rock
nestled somewhere it shouldn’t be.

To make
matters worse, his nerves were making his stomach churn more than any
fairground ride he had been on.

He raised his
head over the boulder and sneaked a peak across to the other side of the
gulley. Although he knew more or less where Haji and Manu had taken up their
positions, he couldn’t see them at all. Certainly anyone approaching from below
wouldn’t stand a chance.

A few yards to
his left, Tariq was going over his weapon one last time, calmly, methodically,
making sure that it would fire when he needed it. The routine reminded George
of the crazy man in boot camp in
Full
Metal Jacket
, though he daren’t say that out loud to Tariq, no matter how
friendly he seemed.

Somewhere to
his right, and slightly below him, he imagined that Leena would be going
through a similar routine.

Ten minutes
earlier, Zahra had disappeared from her position on the plateau overlooking the
track below. Before she had done so, she had waved twice then held up three
fingers, followed by one finger of the other hand, signalling that there were
three cars in total, and that Ben was in the first one. There were no warning
signals, meaning one of two things: either Gail was also in the first car, or
she simply wasn’t there.

After an hour
spent shifting uncomfortably among the stones and rocks, it suddenly occurred
to him that these men and women, dotted around the gulley and plateau with
their Kalashnikov rifles and deadly bayonets, really were risking their lives
for a man and woman they barely knew.

The ‘date’
that Ben had agreed to with Zahra was small payment indeed for such a massive
gesture, and George suddenly felt overcome with nerves.

His stomach
lurched uncontrollably as he tried to fight back the flow he knew was about to
follow.

He retched,
and his cheeks bulged out as he tried to keep the contents of his stomach
inside. Instead, they filled his sinuses and he impulsively opened his mouth,
spraying the rock in front of him. The acrid smell that followed caused him to retch
again, and this time he didn’t try to stop it.

Within seconds
a pool of vomit had gathered in the dust between his legs. Looking down he
noticed that the AK-47 had taken a battering. He wiped his sick covered hands
against the legs of his khaki shorts and shook the dripping rifle.

George looked
in despair towards Tariq, who urged him to be quiet. He was about to apologise
when the unmistakable noise of diesel engines bounced off the rocks above their
heads.

He kept his
head down, tried to breathe through his mouth, and closed his eyes.

And for the
first time since his childhood, without even knowing where the words came from,
he prayed.

Dr Henry
Patterson leaned forward and tapped the man in the passenger seat on the
shoulder.

“What was that
all about, Walker?” he asked. Walker had just come off the phone, and it didn’t
sound good.

Walker twisted
round and stared directly into Ben’s eyes. “Turns out there might be some
company ahead,” he grunted, putting his phone away. “Little welcome party you’ve
prepared for us?”

Patterson shot
an accusing glance at Ben, before switching his gaze to Gail. “You knew about
this?” he said, sounding hurt.

She didn’t
answer, instead probing Ben’s expressionless face for any sign of what was to
come, her heart swelling in anticipation of the rescue attempt that was about
to unfold.

Walker pulled
a walkie-talkie from his breast pocket, all the while staring fixedly at Ben.
Holding the walkie-talkie to his mouth he ordered the last car in the convoy to
turn round and approach the plateau from below, from where the Toyota van was
still parked. That had been where Mallus had suggested they approach from over
the phone.

He then
ordered the second car to overtake them and wait before the last corner while
the last car’s occupants took up their flanking positions.

Patterson
leaned forward again, as if wanting to have a private word, but Walker pushed
him back. He then replaced the walkie-talkie with a pistol, which he pointed
directly at Ben.

“I don’t want
to have to kill anyone today,” he said matter-of-factly. “But believe me I will
if I have to. You make one move,” he waved the gun across the back seats of the
4x4, taking in Gail, Patterson and Ben. “In fact, if any of you make a move,
you’re all dead.”

Patterson sat
back, his jaw dropped. “Me?” he said indignantly. “What have I done?”

The man
grinned. “Not only have you dragged me and my men out here to this shithole,
surrounded by Arabs,” he gestured with the gun towards Ben, “but it looks like
you’ve dropped us all into a trap, too.” His grin disappeared, replaced with
what could only be described as a snarl. “And if the purpose of that trap is to
catch or save or whatever either of you two, then believe you me one way or another,
it’s going to fail.”

George sneaked
a peak as the 4x4 lumbered slowly through the gulley and came to a stop on the
plateau, next to the entrance to the Library. He couldn’t see any sign of Gail
or Ben getting out, and so switched his attention to the second 4x4 which drove
slowly along the tracks of its predecessor and pulled to a stop slightly beyond
it.

The two cars
were side-on to their position in the gully; the doors on the far side of the
lead car opened and several men got out. They waited outside the entrance to
the Library, without leaving the cover of their vehicles. George felt that they
were eyeing the exact place in which he was hiding, and he shrank back behind
the boulder.

Anticipation
rose inside him as he prepared himself for the third and final 4x4, which was
their target. Zahra would cover the other vehicles while the third was
immobilised, and then they would call for the surrender of the remaining
people.

After a long
pause, it became obvious that the third 4x4 wasn’t coming. George looked at
Tariq nervously, who returned a worried glance. Had they misread Zahra’s
signal? Had there been only two cars? Had they completely messed up their
chance?

Unlikely
, George told himself. Maybe one
person could make a mistake, but all five of them?

“Tariq,” he
whispered. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t
know,” he replied. “Something is wrong.”

He was about
to ask what they were to do when Manu and Haji made the decision for them.
Shots rattled across the bonnet of the second 4x4, eruptions of sand in the
ground evidence of several stray bullets that missed entirely.

George
instinctively ducked his head as low as possible between his shoulders and sank
down between the rocks. In the gully, the echo of the AK-47 fire was deafening.

Moments later,
a reply sounded from near the 4x4s. Not the explosive crackling of the
Kalashnikov, but a muffled whump, like flat stones slicing into a mill-pond.

Like a
conversation, the Kalashnikovs and their opponents exchanged volleys, though
the overwhelming sound of AK-47 fire from all around him made it difficult to
judge exactly how much reply they were receiving.

Suddenly Tariq
was beside him, holding his collar and dragging him along.

“Come!” he
shouted.

George’s legs
somehow managed to comply, and he scrambled for his rifle and followed Tariq
down through the rocks towards the gulley. Moments later, the hiding place they
had been occupying erupted violently as dozens of rounds pounded into the
rocks.

 
Tariq dragged George round the corner of the
gulley, until they were standing on the trail along which the 4x4s had driven
to reach the plateau. A quick glance in all directions confirmed the absence of
the third 4x4.

“Leena?”
George said, gasping for breath after their dash from hiding. She had been on
their side of the gully, shortly before it had been sprayed with bullets.

Tariq shook
his head. “Don’t know.”

“How many of
them are there?” he asked. “How many?”

Tariq held up
two hands full of fingers, his thumbs curled inwards.

“Eight?”
George said, amazed.

Tariq grinned
grimly and shook his head, curling three fingers of his left hand inwards.

Three dead!
George was surprised; the
enemy had clearly known about their intended ambush, and had brought possibly
better weapons and more people.
Against
six of us!
He stood upright and held the AK-47 firmly with both hands,
positioning his index finger very deliberately on the trigger mechanism. He
made to go back towards the gulley, but Tariq stopped him.

Using hand
gestures and broken English, George got the principles of Tariq’s plan. They
had been outmanoeuvred by the Americans, who had climbed the cliff onto the
plateau from the third 4x4. From that position, they could lie low and pick
Zahra’s company off at will, and they had effectively reached a stalemate.

“The best way
to fight fire is with fire,” George agreed as they started running along the
track. “So we out-flank the out-flankers.”

They rounded a
corner and broke into a faster pace, Tariq taking the lead, George trying not
to trip on any large stones as he followed several yards behind.

He felt bad leaving
Zahra, Manu, Leena and Haji behind. He felt even worse thinking what might have
happened to Ben. He couldn’t bear to think where Gail may be and if she was OK.
He just hoped that he could fight through the pain and drag his unfit body
round the mountain in time to do something about it.