Chapter 39

MV Akeso

Kurt and Joe had set up shop in a small, unused compartment on a lower deck near the stern of the Akeso . The temporary operations room was a Spartan chamber with a low ceiling and cluttered floor plan. It sported a single bunk, two chairs, and a pair of small desks that had been shoehorned into the space. The vibration from the ship’s engines and the thrum of the propeller were ever-present.

After banging his knee on the edge of a desk and nearly concussing himself on the pipes that snaked overhead, Kurt came to a simple conclusion: “The sooner we get out of here the safer we’ll be.”

“Not satisfied with the office space?” a voice asked over the small speaker on his computer.

They were in the middle of a strategy session with Rudi, whose face appeared on a grainy image in the top corner of the laptop’s screen. Kurt offered a sly grin. “Let’s just say your office is probably a lot nicer than ours.”

Rudi laughed. “I’ve found working from the deli to be very productive. No interruptions from confused subordinates with rambling questions, no congressmen wasting my time talking about budgetary items and the need for photo ops. Not to mention a constant flow of piping-hot coffee and the aroma of fresh baked bread. I’m strongly considering a permanent relocation.”

“You might have to if Yaeger doesn’t figure out how we’ve been hacked,” Kurt said. “Any progress on that front?”

Rudi shook his head. “Nothing yet. But we have a suspect. His name is Ezra Vaughn. He’s a digital savant who was building AI systems before anyone had the slightest idea whether they would work or not.”

Rudi went on to explain the theory they’d developed, connecting the clones, the surgeries, and Vaughn’s technological prowess. “Yaeger is convinced he’s trying to merge AI with a human mind, but to what end we don’t know. Considering his reputation and what you’ve learned from Five, we have to assume he’s pretty far along and that he’s not interested in the greater good.”

Joe was lying on the bunk, twirling the back scratcher absentmindedly. “To a guy like Vaughn the rest of us are lesser mortals already. Can you imagine if he actually succeeded in combining his brain with a supercomputer? He’d look at us like we were ants.”

Kurt didn’t doubt it. “The ‘greater good’ is a dangerous term. The Nazis were convinced everything they did was for the greater good. The judges at Nuremberg didn’t agree.”

“I think the world would be happy to weigh in on Vaughn once you and Joe have been there and sent us back some hard data,” Rudi said. “Any chance you can get there from the medical ship?”

“Planning on it,” Kurt said. “We have a friend in Captain Livorno. She’s willing to take us in helicopter range of the island. Joe and I have enough fuel left for a one-way trip. We just need to know the best method for approaching the island.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” Rudi said. “Hiram, Max, and I have studied Vaughn and the island in detail. As part of his deal with the Seychelles government, Vaughn was allowed to set up his own private protection force. It’s not large, but it’s more than a police force, and their hardware is all military grade. They have the populated side of the island covered six ways from Sunday. Drones, radar, camera systems. And the possibility of Turkish-made surface-to-air missiles and shorter-range Stinger knockoffs manufactured in China.”

“What does this guy need all that for?” Joe asked.

“The power systems he’s set up are very expensive pieces of infrastructure,” Rudi said. “Running into the billions of dollars for construction costs alone. According to a press release, they have been threatened by terrorists.”

“I’m guessing that the press release was written by Vaughn,” Joe said. “Right before he asked for these missiles.”

“Your guess would be correct,” Rudi said. “At any rate, you’re going to want to avoid the populated side of the island, which leaves the volcanic side.”

A newer, closer image popped up. It showed the split personality of the island in stark relief. On one side, glittering solar panels, sprawling buildings, and bright green lawns. On the other, lava rock and tangled jungle. At the far edge lay a deserted black sand beach.

“Is this section as empty as it appears?” Kurt asked. He couldn’t imagine they’d be that lucky.

“There’s no sign Vaughn has built anything on this side of the island. Partly because the original agreement with the Australian company stipulated that it remain as a nature preserve, but also because the terrain is much steeper, the ground far less stable. It’s mostly brittle, crumbling lava rock. Comparing the photos taken six months apart you can see numerous landslides. And the one geothermal tunnel the Australian company tried to drill collapsed two months in. Since then, there’s been no development.”

“Should make it easy to approach from that side,” Joe suggested.

“‘Easy’ might be overstating it,” Rudi said. “Max was able to identify three Doppler radar stations positioned around the island. They’re arranged to provide overlapping coverage, and while most of that coverage is focused northward, the third station protects the southern approaches. The good news is, Max discovered a gap in the coverage on the back side of the island. It’s a blind spot caused by the presence of a secondary peak that blocks part of the outgoing signal.”

An image popped up on the computer screen in front of Kurt. It showed the island and the primary coverage zones of the three radar stations. The narrow corridor on the back side only arose twenty miles out. He studied it and then handed the laptop to Joe. He was the one who’d have to fly it.

“What are we supposed to do before we get to this blind spot?” Joe asked.

“According to Max, flying at wave-top height will keep you off the scope until you reach the coverage gap. From there you can maneuver more freely the rest of the way.”

Joe looked the map over and nodded. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“You’ll also have to avoid the patrol boat, which cycles past every forty-five minutes or so, and watch out for patrols on the beach,” Rudi said. “Men with dogs usually. They don’t come at regular intervals.”

“I’ll make sure to bring some kibble,” Kurt said. “What about paths to the other side of the island?”

“I’m sending you what we have terrain-wise,” Rudi replied. “You’ll have to hike through a lot of volcanic terrain, but the bigger problem will be the wall. For reasons unknown, Vaughn has built himself a structure that would make Hadrian or the East Germans of the Cold War period proud. Razor wire, cameras, guard posts.”

“We’ll deal with that once we get there,” Kurt said. “You have anything on the guy we keep running into? Something tells me we might see him again, and I’d like to know his name before things get heated.”

Rudi sighed audibly. “We’re not sure, but we think he might be a former mercenary named Kellen Blakes. We’re basing that off your descriptions and a single photograph taken on Reunion by someone with an old-fashioned, non-internet-connected camera.”

“What’s his story?”

“Late fifties, bounced around Africa and Asia, less a soldier of fortune and more of an enforcer/big-game-hunter type. A number of his employers were mining concerns and collective farms that needed a tough foreman who would keep their people in line. At least three countries have warrants out for his arrest and Interpol would like to talk to him about some arms shipments that were intercepted.”

“How does a guy like that end up working with Vaughn?” Joe asked. “They seem like opposites.”

“Sometimes opposites attract,” Rudi said. “And sometimes they need each other. The last confirmed location we have on Blakes was a prison hospital in Nigeria. He and his men had put down a protest outside an ore-refining facility, but things got out of control, at least forty people were killed, cars burned, parts of the facility smashed. Blakes ended up caught in an explosion. His ribs had been crushed, his internal organs damaged.”

“He looked pretty spry when we saw him,” Kurt noted. “Are you sure this is the same guy?”

“Not totally,” Rudi said, “but Blakes was taken off his prison deathbed and whisked away in a private jet. And guess whose jet registered a landing and takeoff in Lagos on the very day Blakes disappeared?”

“Vaughn’s,” Joe said.

“You win the blue ribbon,” Rudi said. “It’s a little circumstantial, but it fits, and considering he can grow entire humans from scratch, there’s no reason to believe Vaughn couldn’t give Blakes a new liver, kidneys, set of lungs, or anything else he needed.”

“This guy Vaughn should just go into the medical business,” Joe said. “He’d make a fortune…Never mind. I hear what I’m saying.”

Kurt laughed. Men like Vaughn didn’t think about money anymore. It was just a way to keep score. They wanted immortality. In Vaughn’s case it appeared he wanted it literally.

“Wish we could ship you some equipment,” Rudi said. “Jammers and scanners and some weapons of ‘moderate destruction.’ But it would take days and it would tip our hand. We need to move before Vaughn expects anything is up.”

Kurt agreed, but was honestly surprised by Rudi’s haste. He was normally the voice of restraint. “Not like you to push the itinerary,” he said. “What bad news aren’t you telling us?”

“The Isabella has gone missing,” Rudi said grimly. “No distress call, no emergency beacon, no lifeboats in the water. A Royal Navy patrol overflew their last known position this afternoon, but found no signs of wreckage and only a possible oil slick. That kind of disappearance suggests a catastrophic explosion.”

A heavy silence hung over the room. Joe shook his head lightly and exhaled. “Damn,” he whispered.

Kurt clenched his jaw, the heavy responsibility weighing on him. He knew what the clues suggested, and it wasn’t a good outcome. He also knew that wasn’t the only possible answer. “Diesel-powered ships don’t blow up.”

“They do if they’re hit with something designed to take down a much bigger vessel,” Rudi suggested. “An anti-ship missile or a heavy torpedo would obliterate a vessel that size. We know Vaughn and Blakes have access to such items.”

Kurt understood Rudi’s reasoning. “Any idea why he’d attack them?”

“Paul and Gamay just reported their first major find,” Rudi said. “They’d come upon a previously unknown type of organism in the waters north of Madagascar that was consuming everything it encountered and reproducing at a phenomenal pace. Gamay thought it probably caused the whales and other creatures that stranded themselves on Reunion to flee the area, until they went right up on the beach.”

“What kind of organism?”

“We’re not sure,” Rudi said. “Gamay and Chantel were still doing some tests, but their initial suggestion was that it might be a genetically modified jellyfish or a colony animal like the Portuguese man-of-war.”

“Hard to imagine whales and other animals fleeing a trove of jellyfish,” Joe offered.

“Not if they were burrowing into the animals’ skin by the hundreds.”

Kurt focused on another detail. “Genetically modified.”

“Yep.”

The connection was obvious.

“We have no idea what Vaughn is up to,” Rudi added. “But these organisms are across the Indian Ocean in various directions, leaving a path of destruction that can be viewed from space.”

Kurt could see Rudi tapping away on the keyboard. Seconds later a new image appeared on the screen. It was one of the GeneSat photos Gamay had sent. The one with the blue swaths cutting across the greenish sea.

There was no sharp relief showing where the newfound organisms had begun their lives, but the asterisk-like shape of their paths was obvious at a single glance. And lying roughly in the center of that pattern were the Seychelle islands.

The overall reality was clear: somewhere in that area these creatures were beginning their lives. And from there they marched outward, like Sherman crossing the state of Georgia to the sea.

“There are a hundred and fifteen islands in the Seychelles,” Rudi said. “And I’d be lying if I said the blue lines point directly at Vaughn’s, but they don’t point away from it, either.”

A connection between the two things was impossible to make, but one had to exist. “Okay,” Kurt said with grim determination. “We’ll take care of business here. Next time you hear from us, we’ll be calling from Vaughn’s place.”