Crash and Burn Read online

  She shifted over to an opening in the hedgerow and entered the rear grounds, staying low and avoiding the occasional torch burning along the periphery. The small Kawasaki ATV had a trailer attached to it, loaded with trays of potted flowers. It was parked beside an empty garden bed. A man lay facedown in the grass next to the trailer. From the looks of his green overalls, he was part of a landscaping crew.

  She saw his chest rise and fall.

  Unconscious.

  Kowalski leaned down, his finger reaching to check a pulse.

  She pulled him back, picturing Fitzgerald’s snarling countenance. “Don’t.” She motioned to the tall patio doors under the dining terrace. “Let’s get inside, out of the open.”

  She headed straight across, hurrying faster as flashlights bobbled through the forest to her left. She reached the doors and tugged. Locked. She shifted along the back of the building, testing each door until finally one gave way. She tugged it open and pushed into a dark hallway with Kowalski shadowing her.

  “What now?” he whispered.

  “Weapons.”

  She headed down the carpeted hallway, picturing the dining terrace outside. There must be a kitchen nearby. Halfway along the empty hall, she found a door marked Empregados Apenas. Her Portuguese was rusty, but the sign was easily translatable as Employees Only.

  She tested the knob, found the door unlocked, and headed through it. Past the threshold, a narrow staircase led up. She mounted the steps.

  “C’mon.”

  The spaces back here were more utilitarian. The walls were unpainted, further evidence that the hotel was a work in progress. At the next landing, she followed the smell of frying grease and spices to a set of swinging stainless steel doors.

  She peeked one side open and discovered a large commercial kitchen, with stacks of ovens and rows of gas burners. Several pots bubbled and steamed; a few had boiled over. A set of four pans smoked with what might have been fish fillets, now charred into blackened crisps.

  The reason for the mess was clear. A dozen or more bodies in white aprons were sprawled across the floor, limbs tangled, some atop one another. Like the gardener, they looked like they were still breathing.

  “Careful,” Seichan whispered. “Watch where you step.”

  She headed in first and worked her way across the space, placing each foot gingerly so as not to disturb those on the floor. She did not want a repeat of the incident with Fitzgerald.

  Though uncertain of what was going on, she had begun to get an inkling. She remembered the flare of fiery pain aboard the jet. Seated in front, the pilot must have taken the full brunt of that unknown force. Insulated in back, she and Kowalski were less impacted.

  She stepped over the fat belly of a man whose chef’s hat lay deflated next to his head. He snored loudly. Whatever blow was struck here did not appear fatal. Still, from Fitzgerald’s heightened aggression and adrenaline-fueled strength, there was lasting damage, some violent alteration of personality.

  She reached a row of cutting utensils and grabbed a long butcher’s knife and a smaller boning blade. Kowalski picked up a big meat cleaver. He still had his shotgun clutched in one hand, but clearly he wanted something more lethal if it came down to hand-to-hand combat.

  “This is more like it,” he said, stepping back.

  His heel struck a sleeping dishwasher in the nose. A sharp snort of pain alerted them to the misstep. They turned to find a pair of narrowed eyes glaring up at them. The worker jerked his limbs under him, again moving with shocking speed. He leaped up—only to be met with the thick wooden handle of Kowalski’s cleaver coming down. The impact sounded like a hammer hitting a coconut. The dishwasher seemed to hang in the air for a beat, then his body collapsed back to the floor.

  “That’s right,” Kowalski said. “Go back to sleep.”

  Seichan bent down. The man’s eyes had rolled white, but he should be all right, except for the goose egg he’d find behind his left ear later. She straightened and scowled at Kowalski.

  “I know, I know.” He waved her on. “Watch my step.”

  She led the way out of the kitchen but noted a tall cake on a serving trolley near the door. It was frosted with pink flowers and displayed a cartoonish red dog saying Parabéns, Amelia! Feliz aniversário! Clearly someone was celebrating a birthday. Though the presence of only nine candles made her blood run cold.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and hurried out of the kitchen and down a short hall.

  Another set of double doors opened into a four-story lobby. To her left was the torch-lit dining terrace. She headed right, wanting to get a view out to the grounds bordering the beach. She pictured the child’s birthday cake and rushed faster. Ahead, a series of tall patio doors had been rolled open. A gentle sea breeze wafted into the marble interior—carrying with it a smattering of bats that swept in diving arcs through the crystal chandeliers.

  Closer by, other bodies dotted the lobby’s tile floor or were slumped in chairs. She headed for a cocktail lounge opposite the reception desk. Its bar abutted the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that overlooked the ocean. They could shelter behind the counter and still spy upon the grounds outside.

  She wound through the tables, avoiding a nicely dressed woman collapsed on the floor next to a shattered martini glass.

  Circling behind the bar, Seichan drew Kowalski alongside her.

  “Stay low,” she warned.

  The space behind the counter was occupied by the crumpled figure of a man in a pressed black suit. He had fallen to his rear, his back leaning against a tall, glass-fronted wine refrigerator. His head lolled to the side, with a rope of drool hanging from his lips.

  She pointed to the bartender, but before she could say a word Kowalski waved her on.

  “Watch my step,” he said. “I know.”

  They crossed over the obstacle and hunkered down at the far end, where a window offered an expansive view across a hedge-lined terrace that surrounded a midnight blue pool.

  Kowalski settled with a sigh. He had nabbed a bottle of whiskey from a shelf and cracked the seal with his teeth. As she frowned at him, he mumbled around the cap. “What? I’m thirsty.” He spat out the lid and cocked his head toward the window. “Besides, it’s a party.”

  She returned her attention to the poolside terrace. Tables had been set up across the space, each bearing centerpieces of pink balloons. As elsewhere, bodies were strewn all around. Torsos were draped across dishes; chairs had toppled over. Servers lay amid platters of broken dishes and glasses. Most of the figures appeared to be adults.

  Except for the table in the center.

  A triple set of balloon bouquets decorated that spread. To the side, a wide bench supported a stack of gaily wrapped presents. All around, small bodies—like a flock of felled sparrows—dotted the tiled pavement. At the head, a tiny figure lay slumped to the table, her face turned to the side, as if too exhausted to hold up her head, burdened by the paper crown she wore.

  Here must be the reason for this celebration.

  Seichan remembered the child’s name, written in pink icing.

  Amelia.

  The girl was clearly loved, likely the child of one of the staff or management. The family was probably taking advantage of the resort’s soft opening to throw the girl this private party.

  Seichan wondered what it would be like to be that girl, to have grown up with such all-encompassing love, to have your life celebrated under the sun. She found it nearly incomprehensible to imagine, having spent her early years in the alleys of Bangkok and Phnom Penh, then later in the stygian folds of the Guild. She stared at that bright paper crown and felt the shadows within her grow darker by contrast.

  “Truck’s coming back,” Kowalski said.

  She shifted her attention to the stretch of beach on the far side of the pool. Unlit and gloomy, washed by black waves, the sands grew brighter as the large truck trundled over from the crash site. Its headlamps speared across the tiny bay, revealing an unpaved gravel ro
ad on its far side, cutting through the forest, likely heading to some small town or village.

  She willed the truck to keep heading that way.

  Instead, the truck braked to a stop, its lights shining across a marble staircase that climbed from the beach to the terrace. The vehicle had a double cab with an open bed. Men with rifles and flashlights hopped out of the back, and doors popped open, but it was what was braced in the bed that drew Seichan’s full attention.

  Before evacuating the vehicle, the crew’s flashlights revealed a refrigerator-sized steel box with thick cables running to a row of car batteries. Topping the device was a meter-wide metal dish, swiveled halfway up, pointing toward the sky.

  That’s gotta be the cause for whatever happened here.

  Kowalski nodded toward the group climbing the steps. “Fitzgerald.”

  The pilot was on his feet, his hands tied behind his back. He looked dazed, stumbling along the steps, but a giant dressed in black commando gear had Fitzgerald’s elbow clamped in a firm grip and held him up, forcing him to climb the stairs. Still, the pilot seemed to have come to his senses. Though cowed, he searched around, plainly trying to comprehend what was happening.

  Seichan studied the pilot. Was Fitzgerald’s recovery just a matter of time or had they given him some agent to counteract his mania?

  Her gaze returned to Amelia.

  But a sharp voice drew her attention back to the group as they reached the pool deck. The words echoed across the terrace and through the open patio doors.

  “Fear not, gents. Noises won’t wake them.” The silver-haired speaker wore a crisp white suit, his accent distinctly British. He waved an arm over the tables as they drew closer. “From our preliminary studies, they’re deaf in this comatose state. But take care not to otherwise disturb their slumber. They will attack anything that moves.”

  He was accompanied by a younger bearded man in a beige uniform, clearly Persian, likely Iranian. He spoke as the group drew nearer to the hotel. “Dr. Balchor, this alteration in the victims’ mental status, tell me more. If we are to continue financing your research, the army will want full details of your progress.”

  “Of course, Colonel Rouhani. What you’re seeing here is a side effect of Colossus.” He motioned toward the device aboard the truck. “One we had not anticipated. My initial research goals were to build your army a new active denial system, a nonlethal defensive energy weapon. Typical systems used by current police and military forces employ microwave beams that penetrate the top layers of the skin to trigger an excruciatingly painful experience. But today’s systems have limited range and scope.”

  “And Colossus?”

  Balchor smiled proudly. “I wanted to create a system that could do the same, but with a scope capable of taking down entire city blocks, even penetrating buildings.”

  Rouhani looked around. “And you achieved this how?”

  “It’s technical, but basically I discovered that by crossing a high-powered microwave beam with an electromagnetic pulse, I could produce a unique resonance wave. The resulting beam is capable of passing through most solid objects in order to strike its intended targets. Again, I thought the beam would only act as a deterrent, triggering intense, debilitating pain in those caught in its path.”

  Seichan remembered that effect. Her skin still ached from that phantom burn.

  Balchor continued, “But upon modulating that wave, I discovered it could penetrate deeper than just the outer layers of the skin. The electromagnetic component of the beam could reach the brain. Now, normally an electromagnetic pulse—an EMP—has no deleterious effects on living tissue, so you can imagine my shock to see victims collapse and have their behavior altered.”

  Rouhani frowned. “So then what is happening?”

  “To answer that very question, it took further investigation. Eventually I came across research being conducted in China, where scientists had discovered that a certain frequency of an EMP could cause an increase in vascular permeability in the cerebral cortex. In other words, it makes a brain’s blood vessels more leaky. My device was doing something similar, only affecting the permeability of neurons directly.”

  “I don’t understand,” Rouhani said. “Why is that significant?”

  “Because leaky neurons can’t conduct electricity properly. The result is that Colossus shuts down a target’s cerebral cortex, knocking them out. If woken, the subjects react at a primitive level. It’s all that still functions. Pure fight or flight—though mostly fight, as it turns out. Spiked on adrenaline, the subjects have proven to be inordinately strong and aggressive.”

  Rouhani nodded. “That is why you claimed that Colossus was the first biological EMP.”

  “Indeed. A typical EMP knocks out electronic circuits without harming humans or other biological life. But when modulated and crossed with a high-powered microwave—an HPM—the result is the opposite. Colossus targets living subjects, those with an advanced cerebral cortex, while leaving anything electronic untouched.”

  “So such a weapon could incapacitate an enemy, yet leave the infrastructure intact for an invading force to utilize.”

  “Precisely. And as you can see, we’ve made good progress. But I’d still like to understand this effect in more detail. It is one of the reasons for today’s test firing, both as a demonstration for you and to further my own studies.” Balchor turned to the steroid-bulked giant holding Fitzgerald hostage. “Dmitry, have your men pick out seven or eight subjects for further examination at the lab. I’ll want a sampling of all ages for a proper assessment.”

  Dmitry nodded and yelled orders in Russian to his other men. From the giant’s razor-cropped hair, he was clearly ex-military, probably acting as a security detachment for the field test of this weapon.

  His men readied long-barreled handguns, loading in feathered darts, plainly intending to tranquilize their targets prior to hauling them away. His seven-man team spread out, calling to one another, searching for the best subjects.

  A pair approached the children’s table. The two eyed Amelia and nodded a confirmation to each other. One man lifted his gun and fired into the child’s neck. The girl jerked, rolled slightly to the side as if about to wake, then slumped back down as the fast-acting sedative kicked in.

  Seichan’s hands balled into tight fists.

  Motherfu—

  The shooter stood guard over the girl as other subjects were picked out. One target—a twenty-something young man—reacted more vigorously to the dart’s impact. He swatted blindly and flew to his feet, stumbling in a circle. A second feathered dart bloomed on his chest, but by then, he had trampled over two others. One lunged up and went for the groggy young man, clawing at his face. The other scrabbled low across the tiles, going for the shooter.

  Before the matter escalated out of hand, another gunman stepped forward with a regular pistol and fired twice—making two clean head shots—and bloodily ended the threat.

  The young troublemaker, now doubly sedated, slumped heavily to the ground.

  As the remainder of the crew worked through the partygoers, making their selections, Balchor led the Iranian colonel toward the patio doors. “Let’s head inside. I’ll buy you a drink while Dmitry’s men finish up here.”

  “Just water.” Rouhani looked shaken up by the violent episode. He cast a worried eye at the remaining thirty or forty bodies still strewn across the terrace.

  “Ah, yes, sorry. I forgot your faith forbids the use of alcohol. Luckily my religion is science, and a glass of champagne is well deserved under the circumstances.”

  Rouhani suddenly ducked and batted at his head. A small black shape fluttered away. “Why are there so many bats?”

  Balchor searched up at the dark clouds winging and spiraling above the terrace. Occasional streams shot lower, dive-bombing and cartwheeling, casting off individual bats that glided through the assembly outside.

  “I believe the wave must have agitated them from their caves, stirring them up. With their k
een sonic senses, they might have been drawn here, zeroing in on the source of the beam.” Balchor shrugged and headed toward the patio door. “It’s interesting—and one of the reasons we run field tests. To see how such a weapon performs in real-world scenarios. That includes bats and all.”

  Seichan lost sight of them as they entered the lobby, but she heard their footsteps approaching across the hard marble. She glanced up at the wall of bottles over the bar, suddenly questioning her choice of hiding place.

  Kowalski must have realized the same and firmed his grip on his shotgun. He shifted to her side of the bar, both their backs now pressed against the counter.

  Dmitry had accompanied the pair, still holding Fitzgerald. “What about the man we find in woods?” he asked, his English stilted and heavily accented.

  The footsteps stopped, and Balchor answered, “The man claims to have been the only one aboard the plane. So we may be fine.”

  Seichan shared a look with Kowalski.

  Good going, Fitzgerald.

  “But, Dmitry, I think a more vigorous interrogation of the pilot is in order before we vacate the island. I’ll leave you and your men to handle that once they finish up here.”

  “Still, what about his plane?” Rouhani asked. “Why did it crash? I thought Colossus didn’t affect electronic systems.”

  “Indeed it doesn’t. I suspect the beam we aimed from the parking lot toward the hotel must have reflected off the building—or off the cliffs behind it—and struck the aircraft by accident.”

  Seichan bit back a groan at their bad luck.

  Definitely wrong place, wrong time.

  Balchor continued, “The backwash must have been painful enough to make the pilot lose control but not strong enough for the full neurological impact.”

  Seichan knew the good doctor was wrong about that last part, which made her wonder again about Fitzgerald’s recovery. Clearly Balchor’s team hadn’t administered any counteragent to help Fitzgerald return to his senses. She glanced over to the weapon in Kowalski’s hand, remembering the doctor’s description of Colossus’s effect, how it could turn off the electrical flow through the cerebral cortex.