Shadow Tyrants

TWENTY-EIGHT

The closest airport to the southern coastal city of Limassol that could handle Xavier Carlton’s personal A380 was Larnaca International, nearly an hour’s drive to the east. He had no intention of spending that much time on a crowded highway, so he chartered a helicopter to shuttle him, Lionel Gupta, and Natalie Taylor to Limassol’s port, where the Colossus 5 was having its replacement satellite dish installed. They were now flying along the coastline where farmland met the azure sea.

Carlton had chosen this eastern Mediterranean island because it was one of the closest ports to the Suez Canal. The rest of the Colossus ships were currently in the Indian Ocean, and he wanted the Colossus 5 to join them as soon as it was ready.

His phone buzzed. It was the captain of the transfer vessel he’d sent to pick up the guards from Jhootha Island. Carlton answered it and stuck the phone under the headset he was wearing to muffle the sound of the helicopter’s rotors.

“Is it done?” he asked without preamble.

“No, sir,” the captain said, his voice noticeably nervous.

Carlton glanced at Taylor and Gupta and grimaced.

“What happened?”

“There are two Indian Coast Guard cutters and a cargo ship near the island. I tried to get closer, but I was warned away by the Navy ships.”

“A cargo ship? You mean, the Triton Star?”

“No, sir. It’s a battered old steamship called the Goreno. And sir, the pier has been raised.”

Carlton slammed his hand against the door. “Tell me the facility on the island was destroyed as ordered.”

“I can’t confirm that, sir, but there is smoke rising from the center of the island.”

Carlton breathed a little easier when he heard that news. Yudin must have carried out his orders.

“Any survivors?”

“I don’t know.”

Carlton would have to use his contacts in the region to find out if any of the guards were still alive. But if they had survived, they wouldn’t be able to say much about what went on there since all of the work was done by computer. The guards were there just to make sure the prisoners didn’t leave, and they didn’t know Carlton’s identity any more than the captain he was talking to did. His voice was currently being modified as he spoke on the phone, and the signal was routed through an anonymizer.

“What are my orders?” the captain asked.

“There’s nothing more you can do there,” Carlton said. “Rendezvous with the Colossus flotilla and await further instructions.”

“Yes, sir.”

He hung up as the helicopter was coming in for a landing on the Colossus 5’s stern helipad, avoiding the crane that was hoisting the satellite dish into its place amidships. The three of them got out, and the chopper took off again as soon as they were clear.

As they walked across the deck, Gupta said, “What was that about? You looked like you were about to explode.”

“Jhootha Island has been compromised.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. But it sounds like the Bedtime protocol was completed as planned.”

“But if they find out about Colossus—”

“All the authorities will find is a hole in the ground. The prisoners’ bodies will be buried under thousands of tons of rubble, and so will any evidence of the project.”

“And the guards?” Taylor asked.

“Not sure.”

“They might talk!” Gupta shouted.

“And if they do, they won’t know anything of value except that the plane’s passengers were held captive.”

“Then there’s nothing implicating you in the hijacking?”

“Hardly. My son went missing with the rest of the passengers. Why would I have my own plane hijacked?”

His son dying in the process hadn’t been part of the plan. He was going to be taken off the island and brought back to Dubai, where the story would be that he had gotten off the plane at the last minute. But to the public, it would seem like Carlton had thought his son was on the plane and he was a father relieved to find his child miraculously alive. The story would be played for weeks, removing all suspicion that Carlton was involved.

But they’d found Adam dead on the plane’s cargo deck, his head bashed in and blood soaking the floor. The hijacker pilot was supposed to take his two-million-dollar fee and retire to Brazil, but Carlton had Natalie Taylor execute him for killing his son.

The Colossus Project’s chief scientist, Chen Min, a Chinese national who had been hired because of his groundbreaking work with artificial intelligence systems, burst out of a superstructure door and strode briskly toward them. His face was as unreadable as ever, but the way his thin body stalked across the deck made Carlton think something was wrong.

“Dr. Chen,” he said, “I assume you are still on schedule.”

He shook his head. “We still have integration code to write. I need those programmers on Jhootha Island, but I can’t get in touch with them.” His English was very good, resulting from years of study at MIT and Caltech.

“They’re gone. You’ll have to make do with the people you have.”

“Then it will take us a week to finish the installation of the satellite dish. I can’t test everything without that code.”

Gupta erupted. “Seven days! We need Colossus up and running before then.”

“He’s right,” Carlton said. “Romir Mallik will shut everything down if he gets his next satellite launched, and my mole said his backup satellite would be ready to go in six days. We need Colossus so we can stop that launch. If we have any more delays, we may never finish the project.”

Chen looked up at the sky as he thought. “I may be able to speed things up by a couple of days, but it will be risky. If we leave port and the software isn’t functional, we may have to return to install new hardware.”

“Do it anyway,” Carlton said.

“I need full authorization to make the exceptions. As you know, two members of the Nine are required to give me that authorization.”

“That’s why we’re here.”

Chen nodded. “Follow me, then.”

They went inside and wended their way to a room called the Core. It looked like NASA’s Mission Control, with dozens of workstations and a giant screen on one wall displaying all kinds of graphs and data that meant nothing to Carlton.

Chen sat at a keyboard and typed for a few seconds before showing them a screen that would allow him to bypass security protocols. He had Gupta put his hand on a flat panel that read his prints. Then he had Carlton do the same. The system had been put into place to keep any one of the Nine from controlling Colossus alone. Otherwise, Carlton would have left Gupta to rot back in the Library with the other members of the Nine. He wished he could get rid of him now, but he’d keep the Canadian engineering executive alive until he was sure he no longer needed him.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Chen said. “I will make every effort to get us online before Mr. Mallik has his own network operational.”

“For all our sakes, you have to,” Carlton said. “We also can’t wait for the Colossus 5 to get all the way to the Indian Ocean. Figure out the fastest way to get the Colossus ships connected.”

“Yes, sir,” Chen said.

To operate as a unit, the Colossus ships communicated by petabyte bandwidth microwave transmitters and receivers installed on each ship, which meant they had to be within twenty miles of one another. The satellite dishes were only used to tap into the worldwide internet. Once Colossus was fully linked together and functional, it would be able to gain access to Mallik’s systems and shut down his satellite constellation. Then Carlton would hunt him down and finish him.

It wasn’t that he harbored any personal grudge against the man. Mallik considered himself an idealist, but Carlton never bought into the “for the good of man” hype put forth by the rest of the Nine. Colossus was a way toward the most power ever concentrated in the hands of a single group. Or now a single person. With Colossus’s help, he would be able to do anything he wanted. Shape governments. Build a corporate empire the likes of which the world had never imagined. Rule from the shadows, as Wakefield had said. No one would be able to touch him.

“I’m going to my suite,” Carlton said to Gupta. “Let’s meet for dinner to discuss our next steps.” He nodded for Taylor to come with him.

Gupta agreed and was escorted the opposite way to his own cabin when they left the Core.

When he was out of earshot, Taylor said, “Do you want me to eliminate him?”

“Not yet. But we can’t let him leave. Not when we’re so close to finishing. During dinner, I’ll make the case for us both to stay with the project. If he is willing, fine. If not, restrain him by force.”

“Yes, sir.”

They reached Carlton’s multiroom cabin, which was as lavish as any cruise ship’s top-of-the-line suite. Every Colossus ship was equipped with three of them to house members of the Nine who decided to stay on board.

As was his habit, he picked up a remote from the living room table and switched on the massive 4K TV perpetually tuned to the British UNI channel.

The first image was a stock photo of his plane, the one that had been hijacked.

“That was fast,” Taylor said. “I thought it would take longer for the identity of the plane to get out.”

“My newspeople are good,” Carlton replied. He turned up the volume.

The anchorwoman was now speaking over a satellite image of Jhootha Island.

“…are getting reports that survivors of the hijacking were found on this small island, which was supposed to be inhabited by a native tribe hostile to outsiders.”

Taylor turned to Carlton, a confused look on her face. “Survivors?”

“Again, if you’re just joining us,” the newscaster continued, “Xavier Carlton’s private Airbus A380, a missing plane that has mystified the world since its disappearance eighteen months ago, has been found on a tropical island about two hundred miles west of India — intact.”

Carlton felt his stomach sink when she went on.

“And we are now getting word from sources in the Indian government that there might be as many as twenty passengers from that flight who were found still alive on the island. No word yet on their names or condition, but we will bring that information to you as soon as we get it.”

Taylor looked like a ghost, her face drained of color. “They saw me.”

There had been no reason to hide her identity when she had visited the island. None of them were ever supposed to leave.

Carlton knew that they had a bad situation on their hands, but he was adept at sidestepping land mines. He already had a potential solution. In fact, he thought it was perfect.

“You’re going to have to take the fall, my dear,” he said.

She was aghast. “What do you mean?”

“They saw you. Eventually, the investigation will lead back to both of us. You’re going to be seen as the mastermind behind the hijacking. A seemingly loyal employee who duped her boss.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “If I go down, you go down in a ball of flames with me.”

He put up his hands to calm her down.

“I’m not suggesting you go to prison. You’re going to have to disappear. Once Colossus is operational, that will be an easy process.”

“But my face,” Taylor said. “They know who I am.”

Carlton looked his bodyguard up and down, then said, “I know the finest plastic surgeons in the world. With a nip here and a tuck there, and Colossus to cover our tracks, we’ll make you a completely new woman.”

She seemed appeased but still wary. “I suppose that would work.”

Carlton was pleased that she saw the logic of his plan. “In the meantime, it will take a while for the authorities to identify you, so you’ll still have freedom of movement. If we can, we need to eliminate Mallik to keep him from launching his satellite. But, he isn’t our sole concern anymore. Your face isn’t the only thing the prisoners from Jhootha Island know. Although the name of our project has never been shared with them, how much can they reveal about Colossus?”