Omega: A Jack Sigler Thriller, Page 2

  The last evidence of the statue, its plaque, which the buyer had callously left behind, disappeared some time during the invasion. But its inscription was remembered in the words of poets and men of letters:

  To you, o Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue reaching to Olympus, when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of freedom and independence. For to the descendants of Herakles belongs dominion over sea and land.

  ONE

  Somewhere Deep Underground, 2013

  The pain was everything.

  Bound in darkness, the man’s confinement was absolute. If the man’s eyes were open or closed, he couldn’t tell. He perceived no visual difference between the two states. He longed to speak, to use the words, to free himself from the never-ending agony. But his tongue was swollen and dry in his mouth. The dry heat of the room confining him had long ago sucked all moisture from his flesh.

  His body—a modern miracle of his own scientific genius—would keep him alive, struggling against the damage caused by incessant heat and dry air. He was given the most meager amount of water daily. It was really just enough to keep him alive. Without the genetic tinkering to his DNA, he would have died long ago.

  His body was a marvel, but there was only so much it could do. He needed to use his voice to escape his present confinement, but that ability was denied to him. Each day when the small, slow stream of liquid dribbled into his open and waiting mouth, he quickly swished it around his swollen tongue, hoping to moisten his mouth enough that he might speak the words. But while his mouth and tongue could make the movements, the breath needed to vocalize the sounds never came to him. In the end, he would swallow the tiny portion of water, never feeling it hit his stomach, and the days would go on and on.

  His last visit from his abusive captor had been, by his own reckoning, at least seven months ago. It was hard to keep track of the days, but he forced himself to do it anyway. Besides the daily struggle to speak, and his thoughts of the ways he would get revenge, maintaining a mental log of the days was the only thing to keep his mind off the pain.

  His nervous system fired wave after wave of angry buzzing sensations into his brain, and the pain never stopped. He guessed he had not slept in close to a year—the pain was simply too much to endure. His mind could never rest enough to summon the elusive slumber.

  Consciousness was both a blessing and a curse. At first, the agony was so much he thought he would lose his mind completely. But his body’s miraculous healing abilities helped to keep him on the edge of sanity. He wondered whether his captor would know that. He wondered a lot of things about his tormentor.

  Despite the constant pain, the man was sometimes able to focus his thoughts with a tremendous effort of will, blocking out the stimuli, allowing him to think and plan. These sessions were of varying duration, although in the dark and deep underground, he was never quite sure of elapsed time on a minute by minute or hourly basis. The one thing he knew without question was that the duration would be short, and afterward the waves of unending suffering would return. The surge of pain, when his willpower was finally exhausted, would be overwhelming, and he would silently scream for what he imagined was the rest of the day.

  The thing that was more maddening than his imprisonment and torment was the location his captor had chosen for confinement. He knew exactly where in the world he was. He even knew the room. He should after all—it belonged to him. He was trapped in the bowels of a facility he’d designed and paid for, with no way out.

  Yet.

  He knew that sooner or later, someone would come to free him. He had planned for this contingency. He would have been foolish to even contemplate immortality without having a plan for incarceration. How horrible to be confined eternally. As terrible as his anguish was, he knew it would be finite. He had left the entirety of his escape plan with four different individuals, upon whom he could count implicitly. They would secure his release.

  Then, armed with the words, his regenerating DNA and his allies, he would be free to seek out the final prize he sought. The item was so close to his present location. Just minutes away. With that object in his grasp, he would exact his revenge on his tormentor and then on the world. No one and nothing would stop him. He would be immortal. Immune to harm. And with the fabled power the item he sought—invincible.

  The pieces would be falling into place on the surface. The last of his wealth would have been accumulated. Forces would be gathering. Traps would be springing. His opponents would be closing in, and his allies would be ready. He would pit them all against one another, and when they thought they had the upper hand, he would move in for the kill. His secret weapon waited, hiding in plain sight. He had transmitted the necessary information to his general, and no doubt, the different installations around the globe belonging to his key adversary would have been eliminated by now.

  Soon, his adversary and torturer would be alone, his hideous failed experiments destroyed, his resources used up and even the Chess Team would turn against him. With a little luck, Jack Sigler and the adversary would kill each other.

  TWO

  Endgame Headquarters, New Hampshire

  Jack Sigler was on his knees, in the worst pain of his life.

  He had come up against a lot of opponents, and he had even faced unimaginable creatures and otherworldly threats, but the thing he hated the most was waiting. And worst of all was waiting for this. Right now, looking down at him as he held the small red velvet box aloft, Sara Fogg’s face was unreadable. And Sigler’s heart was breaking.

  “I said, ‘Will you marry me?’ It’s generally a yes or no kind of question.” The broad smile that had been on his face the first time he’d uttered the question was slowly sliding off it now, like an indecisive snail. He could feel the smile. It had turned into a half-crazy leer as he forced it to remain on his face, while she looked down at him with no emotion showing on hers.

  “Sara?”

  “Jack, I… I… Stand up for a minute,” she gently took his hand and helped him to stand, but he twisted and sat on the bed instead. She sat down next to him, and gently placed her hand on his face, turning it to look at her. “You know I love you, Jack.”

  “There’s a ‘but’ coming. So this is a ‘no?’” Sigler began.

  “Hush. It’s not a ‘no’, silly,” Fogg smiled. “It’s just that it’s complicated. You know that. You have your life of danger, hunting terrorists and genetically engineered monstrosities, and I have my career with the CDC. We hardly see each other between your missions and my dealing with outbreaks in Africa and the jungles of Borneo. We catch up in hotel rooms around the world, or we spend a few blissful days here in your room in this bunker—with no windows even. And we’re trying to raise a fifteen year old girl somehow in the midst of all this madness.”

  “I know,” Sigler sighed. “I know it’s not perfect. But these were never things I planned for. I had no idea Fiona would come into my life. I never pictured myself as a parent. I never expected I’d fall in love with a woman who thinks I can sing well, because to her she smells roses instead of hearing a dog howl.”

  Fogg laughed and ran a finger through her dark hair. She had kept it short in the past, but she was growing it out now. The subject of her Sensory Processing Disorder had become a playful joke between them, when they had their few intimate moments.

  “It actually smells like regurgitated orange peels, but I still love to see you do it—on those five or six times a year, when we actually get to shower together,” her smile faded. “This is what I’m talking about. How are we supposed to be married to each other with our lives like they are? Our regular jobs aside, you’re searching for your abducted parents, we’re all constantly dealing with security like at the White House—”

  “Actually,” Sigler interrupted, “Endgame has better security than the White House…”

  �
�I know, that’s not the point,” she stood and strode around the small room that served as Sigler’s personal quarters. “I can’t ask you to give up your life. Your work with Chess Team is too important. I get that, and so does Fiona. I could quit working for the CDC and just assist here, but even that isn’t an ideal life. How do we make marriage work, when we’re running for our lives from armed incursions and giant mutated spiders—”

  “To be fair, there was just the one spider,” Sigler pointed out.

  “You know what I mean. I love you. And your foster daughter loves you. We have, despite all odds, built a family in this crazy world of yours. You live in this top-secret base in New Hampshire, with constant danger both here and abroad. You’re hardly ever here. We cherish the days when we see you, but you and your sister are off on this hunt for a man who could be the historical Hercules, for God’s sake.” Fogg sat on the bed next to Sigler. She ran her fingers through his dark shaggy hair. “How exactly do you picture a marriage working?”

  “Look Sara, I know it’s not the normal life. I want it to be different too. Asya and I need to tie up this Hercules thing. You know that. The rest of the team are starting to wonder if I’m ever coming back. But even when this thing is done, there will always be times when we’re apart for long stretches. It’s just the nature of our jobs. We already talked about why I can’t leave mine. I don’t want you to have to leave your work either. You’re good at it and you love it. What I wanted to do, was just cement our commitment to each other. There isn’t anything we can do about the practical stuff, but I wanted you to know how serious I am.”

  Fogg leaned in and kissed him. When they parted, she looked up at him with tears glistening in her eyes, but no drops had yet fallen down her smooth cheeks. “I love you. You are a damn romantic fool, you know that? Yes, I’ll marry you. I have no idea how we’ll make it work, but yes.”

  He smiled. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  THREE

  Mountains North of Sonbong, North Korea

  The view of the valley was a V shape, between two low green hills. The chemical weapons plant, a bland affair with slabs of rectilinear gray concrete and rolls of razor-wire fencing, stood in the middle of the valley. Several undernourished soldiers in bluish-gray uniforms walked glumly around the perimeter, but their patterns were lazy rather than random. Guard towers, like in a prison complex, occupied the four corners of the facility, but the men stationed in the towers were armed with old Soviet era AK-47 assault rifles, just like the men ambling around the perimeter. To the east, a small dirt road led back to the main tarmac and the town of Sonbong to the south.

  From the hills, through the V, the facility looked like a target at the end of a long shooting gallery. The small grassy hillside held four oblong bushes, gray rocks and large tufts of brilliant green grass. When one of the bushes snickered, one of the others spoke.

  “Rook, we’re supposed to be undercover here. What’s your problem?”

  “Sorry, Queen,” Stan Tremblay, callsign: Rook said, shifting in his ghillie suit. Like the other members of Chess Team, he had once been a Delta Operator. That changed when the team became part of a black budget, ultra-secret organization known as Endgame. The ghillie suit, made of netting and artificial foliage, made the wearer appear to be a shrub—provided the wearer stayed still. The effect when Rook moved was as if the bush had taken on a life of its own and rolled over on the ground. “It’s hard to take these douchenozzles seriously. Plus, my ass is starting to ache.”

  The first bush that had spoken, Rook’s teammate and current field leader, Zelda Baker, callsign: Queen, shifted as well. “They do seem pretty lazy, but the state of your ass is not my primary concern here.”

  Another bush spoke. “My ass is so asleep it’s snoring.” The third bush was larger than the others. The man inside, Erik Somers, callsign: Bishop, was a huge mountain of a man, yet generally the most patient and least talkative of the team. “When are these guys gonna do something? We’ve been up here in the hide for a month, and they still have yet to send out or receive a shipment. By the time something happens, my muscles might have atrophied.”

  “You too, Bishop? This is supposed to be deep cover. Quit breaking radio-silence, and stop moving.” The bush that was Queen, shook briefly toward the top, and Rook could tell Queen was shaking her head back and forth in disgust, the way she frequently did at his antics.

  They each wore small tactical radios, so they could communicate remotely. They had earpieces and thin microphones that stuck to their throats with a gooey glue-like substance. But instead of relying on the radios, they were speaking out loud. If any North Korean soldiers had been in the vicinity, their position would have been given away. A softer voice spoke up now, from the receivers in their ears.

  “At least you two still have asses. Mine fell off last week, and I’ve been looking for it ever since.” Shin-dae Jung, callsign: Knight, the team’s sniper, was in a different location, far closer to the weapons plant.

  The bush that was Queen rolled over. “Sweet Jesus, is there no such thing as military bearing?”

  Rook laughed, and his ghillie suit shook. Soon Bishop was snickering too. “Blue, seriously. What the hell? Why are we sitting here in the boonies? Either this place is or isn’t concocting chemical weapons. Either way, let’s blow it up and go home. Anything so I don’t have to listen to these clowns anymore.”

  A softer, but more serious voice sounded through their earpieces.

  “Sorry team. Gaining intel on this facility has been sketchy at best. Everything points to chemical weapons, but I’ve been reluctant to just send you in. Who knows what conditions are like in there. You might attack the place and wind up sucking in lungfuls of airborne weaponized anthrax. Or it could be a prison, and if you blow it up, you’d be killing hundreds of innocent civilians and protestors. Until we get some better intelligence, you’re gonna have to stay put. I can’t even offer you any satellite coverage on this one. North Koreans would go ballistic if they detected a satellite or a spy plane overhead. Best I can do is this remote communication. Their systems are not sophisticated enough to pick up our tactical radios, and even if they were, they’d never break the encryption.” Tom Duncan, callsign: Deep Blue, the team’s founder and handler, was back at their headquarters in New Hampshire. His voice was sympathetic, and none of the team would argue with the man. He was, after all, a former President of the United States.

  “Maybe it’s time we shook things up then,” Queen said.

  “What are you thinking, Queen?” Deep Blue’s voice sounded concerned on the radio.

  “Knight, how close are you to the building?” Queen asked.

  “Did you see that guard on the southeast tower spit just now?” came the reply in their earpieces.

  “Seriously?” Queen asked.

  “It landed on my leg.”

  “Damn, Knight,” Rook chuckled, then sat up and pulled his ghillie suit mask off his head. He turned to Bishop’s location, only to find that Bishop had already removed his mask too. Over the last week, Knight had gotten more and more brazen with how close he crept to the building. He was now inside the lazy route the guards walked around the building, inching around as a bush that any of the guards should have noticed wasn’t there the previous week.

  “See if you can make your way toward the windows on the eastern side and we’ll let you know when it’s clear so you can stand up and peek in,” Queen said, then she sat up and pulled her own mask off. “These damn things are stifling.”

  “Risky, but understandable. Good call, Queen. I’ll check back with you in an hour. Deep Blue out.”

  With masks off, the three team members in the hills were still camouflaged. Their faces were painted with forest swirls of green and black, and both Queen and Rook wore black and green polyester buffs on their heads to hide their blonde hair. Bishop, with his chestnut Iranian-American skin, left his shaved bald head exposed, although it was painted with the same camo as his fa
ce. Rook procured an energy bar and tore the packet open. He began to munch on it, small pieces of the bar lodging in his month of heavy beard growth, which had begun as a carefully sculpted goatee, but was now a mess of hair thick enough for small creatures to nest in it. Bishop began stretching his shoulders, moving in small movements. Although he was over six thousand feet from the occasionally watchful eyes of the plant’s guard towers, he knew that sudden or large movements might attract the human eye. He was camouflaged enough for the distance, even without the ghillie mask, but he wouldn’t tempt things with a big arm sweep. Queen lay down on the ground on her back, then flexed her neck sideways, procuring a loud pop as her cervical vertebrae realigned.

  The three knew it would take Knight at least two hours to creep the thirty feet he needed to cover to get to the window on the east side of the building undetected. He was, after all, a shrub, to the eyes of the occasionally passing North Korean soldiers. He had to move in such tiny increments, that they would not even notice the movement, allowing the men time to adjust to the bush’s location in their subconscious, so they wouldn’t suddenly realize there shouldn’t be a shrub under the window, when suddenly there was.

  Knight was always amused at how the human mind worked. He loved the small subtle visual tricks you could play on the mind. He recalled a TV show he had seen where a person would be stopped on the street for directions, and while the person was answering, two men would carry a large piece of furniture between the asker and the askee, obscuring the asker from view. During the brief moment, where the workers moved the furniture, the asker would step away and another person would step in to receive the directions once the sofa or whatever was past the scene. It was amazing that most people never noticed they were replying to a completely new person. As a sniper, Knight found many of these small lapses in human attention to his advantage. But even still, he knew it would take him some time to get to the window.