Pandora's Ark

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Three days after Levine was informed of his future role in the scheme of Sakharov’s discovery, he’d been deciding on the course of action to take, working the steps through his mind. The Quds that shadowed his every move had to go, quick and efficient kills. Then he would have to make his way to the Comm Center on the second tier, forward Sakharov’s findings, the facility’s coordinates for an illegal sortie into Iran, and take out the facility using the fuel cells as triggering mechanisms to implode the lab and turn it into a coffin.

Secondly, he was not about to be so cavalier to do this at the sacrifice of his own life. The Comm Center was also the monitoring station and a means to open and close facility doors. He would open the vault door to the outside, during darkness when the shadows would become his ally, and hope that the machinegun nests wouldn’t cut him down during his flight to freedom.

Feeling his heart palpitate with the reality of the moment, he took in deep breaths and released them as a reaction to settle his nerves. Getting into the proper mindset, he left his residential capsule and entered the hallway.

The trailing Quds soldiers were there wearing their prescribed tan uniforms of the elite force, their berets set to specs at the proper tilt, their eyes filled with disdain and suspicion, staring him down.

Levine gave a nod that went unacknowledged and walked past the soldiers. As expected they followed, trailing ten meters behind, which posed a problem since he needed to get up close and personal and take them out with his particular set of skills.

As he passed the lab he saw the Quds reflections mirrored against the glass, watching and carefully maintaining their distance.

He continued to walk as if in leisure, entering tubes and taking bends, listening to their footfalls as they followed, whereas he wore soft-sole footwear to mask his.

Rounding another bend he finally took to a wall, his body rigid, waiting.

And when they rounded the corner he acted.

Levine came across with the blade of his hand, chopping the first Quds soldier across the throat, the man’s eyes widening in surprise as he fell to his knees clutching his neck. The second soldier went for his firearm, his hand falling on the stock as Levine forced the heel of his hand into the blade of his nose, forcing the bone into his brain and killing the man instantly.

The first soldier got to his feet, wobbled, and tried to recalibrate his stance. But Levine was on him within the second, grabbed the soldier by placing a hand at the point of his jaw, another hand at the base of his neck, and wrenched the man’s head with such incredible force that his neck broke with an audible snap.

And then silence, Levine listening for backup of more Quds. But no one appeared.

Levine then dragged the bodies to a nearby capsule that stocked supplies and piled them into the given space. He then took their weapons, placing one firearm within the waistline of his pants while managing the other with a tight grip.

Now to the Comm Center.

Levine did not hesitate in his approach, but moved quickly.

Running along the landing of the second tier he could see the monitors through the smoke-screened glass, could see the myriad of blinking lights — the nerve center of the facility.

The two techs never saw him enter, but heard the whoosh of the door opening. When the first turned to see who entered, a well-placed bullet struck him in the forward, throwing him against the console, blood and gore exploding from the back of his head and against the wall in a wide fan, the bullet exiting into the background monitor, shattering the glass and causing a cascade of sparks to fly, dance and die out.

The second tech put up his hand as if to ward off the blow of the coming shot, a feeble attempt at self-preservation as the weapon went off, the first bullet taking off two fingers, the second shot finding its mark of the tech’s left eye, the man’s head snapping violently backward, his good eye flaring with the surprise a moment before sliding off his chair and to the floor.

In a fleeting move he took to the chair, keyed up the board with typing commands to accept verbal instructions, put on the headgear, and spoke quickly and articulately. As he spoke, words appeared on the screen as code-red data requiring an immediate incursion into enemy territory with the intent to annihilate the facility with extreme force. Coordinates were given, the intentions of the use of nanotechnology forwarded, as well as the location of the Ark.

Time was limited, he knew, so the data proffered had to be minimal with the confidence that the information given could be deciphered by Mossad. He did not state what the Ark was going to be used for — no time to expound on that fact. He figured that the Ark could not be saved since the technology, the data, and the facility needed to be leveled.

As he spoke, it was always on the back of his mind that time was running short. There was no doubt that the reports of his gunfire galvanized others to react.

And then the sirens went off in a shrill that told him that time had run out.

Al-Sherrod raised his head from his pillow, unsure if what he heard was the report of gunfire, three in total, or if it was some obscure dream for which he could not remember.

With his head slightly raised, he listened.

Silence.

And then the wild keen of internal sirens sounded off.

Al-Sherrod shot up from the bed bleary-eyed, his heart pounding, and quickly threw on a shirt and grabbed his firearm. Stepping into the hallway, bullet-shaped lights mounted above the doors blinked in calibrated flashes as sirens blared loudly.

Quds soldiers stood in the hallway looking disheveled and lost, their shirts buttoned incorrectly as they rushed to get into uniform.

“Where’s it coming from?” yelled al-Sherrod.

“We don’t know,” said a soldier.

“Then find out!”

The Quds grouped together and branched out, the points of their weapons forward, searching. Al-Sherrod took the rear with his head on a swivel, purposely hanging back, the man’s true courage lacking since he was more of a politician than a warrior. The gun in his hand was a simple prop that made him feel secure and nothing more. It was also unlikely that he possessed the skills to hit a target of any kind, even one that was stationary. But the weapon was far better than an empty hand.

“Find the problem! Quickly!”

The Quds fanned out, searching, their weapons poised to kill.

Levine spoke quickly, giving as much information as he could, checked the screen before forwarding the information, deemed it proper, and then hit the SEND button.

With the speed of cyberspace, data was downloading at another point. His mission was done.

Now it was time for self-preservation.

Levine checked the console, the instructions written in Farsi.

No problem.

He noted the monitor giving a specific view to the cavern’s vaulted entrance and tapped the quick instructions labeled on the keyboard beneath the screen. With another tap of the SEND button, the vault-like door leading to the outside began to open with a horrible slowness that was almost too much to comprehend at such a moment.

Grabbing his firearm from the console, Levine left the room and began to make his way out of the facility.

The Quds quickly converged, seeking the source of the warning.

From the second tier Levine peered over the edge, a gun in his hand. Quds were moving with due diligence, searching.

And then they saw Levine with a firearm in his hand, a serious breach of his right to possess one inside the facility. As Levine fell back out of sight, bullets stitched across the wall where he just been standing, decimating it.

He ran down the hallway as the Quds took the steps to the second tier, nearing.

More gunfire, the report of the assault weapons outmatching his firepower at an unimaginable scale, the bullets missing as he took a bend, the floor and the walls of where he had just been taking on additional damage, the air chalked with dust.

Levine could sense that the air was noticeably cooler, the door of the vault opening enough to allow the cold mountain air in, and an aperture of escape.

He ran.

At the end of the corridor he saw a glass partition that overlooked the first tier, a twenty-foot drop. Fifty meters beyond that was the Alborz region.

He lifted his pistol and shot the glass, the tempered chips falling like a cache of diamonds to the floor below. Standing along the edge of the upper tier, the floor below looked more like a hundred-foot drop rather than twenty, he gauged his landing.

More bullets passed around him in waspy zips, prompting him to take the leap.

Although he performed admirably by bending his knees and rolling with the motion of the flow upon landing, twenty feet was too much and the impact too great. Levine struck hard, rolled, the snap of his ankles sounding out like gunshots, the bones shattering to the degree that his feet hung at awkward angles.

Gritting his teeth in agonizing pain, Levine refused to cry out. His weapons skated across the floor beyond his reach.

At least, he thought, I gave a valiant effort. Long live Israel!

As he lay there shadows poured over him. When he looked up he noted multiple barrels of assault weapons directed at him.

Within moments al-Sherrod made his way until he stood over Levine.

For a long moment he looked at Levine with a searching and calculating look. “Who are you?” he asked. “Who are you really?”

Levine remained silent.

“You are not al-Qaeda, are you?”

More silence.

“It appears that al-Ghazi has made a grave misjudgment in your character.”

Levine lowered his head to the floor. His life was over and he knew it.

A Quds officer burst through the line. “Al-Sherrod, the techs in the Comm Center are dead. And it appears that a message was sent.”

“Find the point of contact,” he ordered.

“Yes, al-Sherrod.” The soldier was gone.

Al-Sherrod bent over Levine. “Umar is not your real name, is it?”

Levine wanted to spit in the man’s face.

“Are you Mossad?”

No reply.

“Is that what you did?” he asked. “Did you contact Mossad?”

Levine finally groaned, his nerves becoming a tabernacle of pain. Al-Sherrod smiled and then set a foot upon one of the operative’s broken ankle, causing Levine to bark out in exquisite pain. “I can do this all night,” he told him. He ground his foot and the injury, causing Levine to clench his jaw and tears to course from the corners of his eyes. “What did you send to Mossad?”

Levine’s breathing was becoming erratic, the man slipping into shock.

Al-Sherrod once again ground his foot against Levine’s injury, driving another cry from Levine. “What did you send to Mossad? I will not ask again.”

“Then don’t… ask. You’re just wasting … your time.”

Al-Sherrod sighed, and then looked at the man with contempt. “Your pathetic life is over. You know that, don’t you?” And then to his team: “Close the vault and secure the facility,” he said. And then he looked at the man’s broken ankles with a measure of admiration at the awkward way the feet were turned backwards. “Prepare the vacuum chamber and carry this man inside,” he ordered. “Let’s see firsthand how the good doctor’s discoveries work against the organic matter of a man’s flesh.”

Levine was lifted harshly off the floor, his seemingly boneless ankles flopping horribly against the tile as he was dragged away.

“Keep him alive for another day,” he said. “I may need to mine him for information.” The truth was, however, that he wanted Levine to suffer pain beyond endurance, beyond human comprehension, and then snuff out his life with a simple order.

Al-Sherrod, the Devil’s Companion, did all he could to suppress a smile of satisfaction.