The Phoenix Variant: The Fifth Column 3 Page 2

  Denton suppressed the urge to smile. ‘Mind control?’ he said. ‘Sounds like some crazy Nazi experi—never mind.’

  ‘The alchemist escaped to Tibet, where he continued to study his skystone. The General came for him years later, invading the country to kill him. But he never found the alchemist. Or the skystone.’

  ‘The alchemist died?’ Sievers said. ‘I don’t understand the point of your ramblings—’

  ‘The alchemist survived. He joined an insurgent force rebelling against the Mongol-ruled dynasty. He rose through the ranks rapidly and became a commander, fusing with the Red Turbans and allying with the White Lotus. Soon, he became a General. He drew a staggering amount of followers and specialists who helped him reunite China and overthrow the dynasty.’

  Sievers gave Denton’s father a slow, measured nod. ‘You believe he was the first Phoenix?’

  ‘He declared himself the new Emperor of China. The skystone he was studying—’ Alastair turned to the pieces of rock on the table ‘—I think this is it.’

  Sievers turned on one heel, his gaze falling on Denton.

  ‘Agent Denton.’ His tongue lingered on each word. ‘What do you make of this?’

  ‘Not much, to be honest,’ Denton said.

  He kept his hands behind his back. ‘You are not like these people here. What makes you different?’

  The question caught him off-guard. ‘It’s hard to pinpoint but I’d say it’s my charisma and appreciation of wine.’

  ‘And why did you come here?’

  ‘I was assigned—’

  ‘That is not my question. Why did you accept this assignment?’ Sievers said. ‘What took your interest?’

  ‘Right now, this country is the center of the universe.’ Denton ran a tongue across cracked lips. ‘I wanted part of the action.’

  Sievers almost smiled. ‘I had quite the mess to clean up in Norway after your visit.’

  Denton shrugged. ‘It’s what I know. And I enjoy it.’

  ‘That is what makes you different.’ He turned to the others. ‘The people at our institutes are here for one reason. They go out of their way to avoid military service. Everyone who works for me is an intellectual criminal.’

  Denton watched his father’s face curl with frustration.

  Sievers strode toward Denton. The gray edge around Sievers’s eyes had disappeared. They seemed a lighter brown. Perhaps he’d stopped drinking so heavily.

  ‘You’re different,’ Sievers said. ‘Like I was, once.’

  ‘Well,’ Denton said, ‘at least let me buy you a drink first.’

  ‘What do you think of this meteorite?’ Sievers said.

  ‘I think it’s a waste of time,’ Denton said.

  Sievers picked up the largest chunk of the meteorite, inside its container, and tossed it to Denton. He caught it in both hands.

  ‘Then you decide,’ Sievers said. ‘Do you disrupt the schedule and continue to pry at its secrets? Or do you look for our Phoenix viruses in the next rock, which arrives tomorrow?’

  Denton watched a vein quiver under his father’s neck. He smiled, hurled the container across the hall. It smashed into a wall near an archway. The meteorite cracked into smaller chunks, skittering across the stone floor.

  Alastair exploded with anger. ‘What about the Phoenix viruses?’

  Sievers glared and Denton watched his anger mellow.

  ‘I don’t believe they are in this rock,’ Sievers said. ‘We have an expedition returning from Iceland. They are bringing meteorite samples from several recent impacts. If one of those rocks carries any of the viruses in this book—’ he gestured to the silk text ‘—you will find it.’

  Alastair opened his mouth to speak but decided on nodding instead.

  Sievers turned to Denton. ‘Life is just a dream,’ he said. ‘Only the eternal life is the true life.’

  With that, he left.

  Denton met his father’s glowering stare. ‘Should have left the cellar door open,’ he said.

  Chapter 3

  Denton settled the mostly consumed wine bottle on the table and stacked the trays of prisoner food to his chest. There were only six, fortunately. He started down the observation tower’s stairwell, metal lantern hanging from two fingers. The stairwell took him to the dungeon. Each cell contained two prisoners, limbs whittled and eyes faded.

  He dropped the trays on the floor and pushed them under the cell doors with his boot. The trays contained a bowl of soup, sometimes brown, sometimes green. His father had made an effort to add bread rations, wanting the prisoners in better shape if a Phoenix virus did emerge. Denton hadn’t been hopeful but he kept the bread on the trays because he couldn’t be bothered removing it.

  He placed the last trays before the third cell and noticed one of the prisoners standing. That’s new, he thought. The man was no older than himself. He had greasy, knotted hair and dirt-filled fingernails.

  ‘You are different from the others,’ the man said.

  His words were barely louder than his breath.

  Denton pushed a tray in. ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘Why is an American helping the Nazis?’ the man said.

  ‘Why not?’ Denton kicked the other tray in. ‘The food’s great.’

  ‘You don’t help anyone,’ the man said, louder this time. ‘Unless it helps you.’

  Denton considered knocking the man down but it was too much effort to open the cell door. He hadn’t finished that bottle of wine yet. ‘Is this a new discovery you’ve been working on?’ he said.

  ‘You were betrayed.’ The man frowned. Confusion seemed to pass over him like a shadow. ‘You weren’t meant to come back.’

  Denton was on the edge of walking away, but he found the feeble man curious. ‘By who?’ he said, scooping up the square-shaped lantern from the ground.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The man’s gaze dropped to the trays of soup.

  The conditions in this place must have driven the man to madness.

  ‘It might be the soup,’ Denton said.

  ‘But you are angry,’ the man said. ‘Like smoke in the air. You are restless. There’s an itch—’

  ‘That I can’t scratch. It’s on my left just here—’ Denton pointed to his lower back ‘—do you think you can get to it?’ he said.

  ‘It’s worse than you think,’ the man said.

  ‘Are you some kind of witch? You know, they used to burn witches in this castle. We could rekindle that for you.’

  ‘I’m just a tailor,’ he said. ‘Or I was. I don’t know what I am now.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Denton said. ‘Nothing anymore.’

  The man seemed confused. ‘You talk of yourself?’

  ‘Yes,’ Denton said. ‘But I’m also quite drunk.’

  His hands closed around the bars of the cell. The lantern clanged against the iron. He needed some wine. Well, more wine. But he lingered at the cell for a moment. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Yiri Novotný,’ he said.

  ‘Eat your soup, Yiri.’

  Denton left the deranged Yiri to eat his nutritionless soup and returned to the kitchen. Bottle in hand, he walked through the Hall of the Knights, past the long table and toward the senior officers’ quarters. The meteorite fragments had been cleaned up—no doubt his father, a hoarder if there ever was one, had stowed them somewhere safe. The silk text was still on the long table, untouched since Sievers’s visit that afternoon. The light of Denton’s lantern scattered across its hard plastic cover.

  He opened it, almost ripping the front page from its binding, and flicked through. The primitive drawings of each comet looked more like branches sprouting from seeds in the ground. He knew as they breached Earth’s atmosphere they became meteors. Beneath each circle—or meteor head—an annotation: a thin strip of Chinese characters. On the opposing page, Denton could see the matching words in German.

  Comets are vile stars.

  They wipe out the old and establish the new.

  Maybe it w
as the viruses, sprinkled with comet dust or dispersed from a nearby meteor impact. Maybe the viruses helped the evolution of new species.

  Fish grow sick, crops fail, Emperors and common people die, and men go to war. The people hate life and don’t even want to speak of it.

  ‘Vile stars,’ Denton muttered as he leafed through the pages.

  If this text was to be believed, everything from smallpox to the common cold could have come from space. The silk stories certainly explained his father’s obsession with the Spanish flu and good old Encke.

  He reached the final pages and noticed the word Fenghuang and, next to it, Phönix.

  The last leaf had pictures of three comets under the title Di-Xing, the long-tailed pheasant star. The three comets connected by three drawn lines. A single character labeled each. He checked the German translations.

  The Detector

  The Recognizer

  The Scryer

  The character in the center of the comets was not for any comet but rather the group, or the combination of all three. He peered at the dark ink. It was older than those with which he was familiar, an ancient seal script. It was less rectangular, more decorative in appearance. The character looked like a man with a sharp spike emerging from his head. It translated to The Controller.

  Below the illustrations were streams of Chinese characters. The translations described three Phoenix comets as rare, and made of otherworldly metals.

  Denton turned the final page to discover more German translations.

  The Detector — a shaman with high sensitivity to the aroma of people; a fragrance or smoke that betrays words, mood, health and humanity.

  Denton smirked. ‘That’s loony-town.’

  He swilled the last of his wine and planted the bottle on top of the plastic cover. He checked his watch. It was still early, half ten, so he decided for another visit to the wine cellar, re-opened by his disgusted father. Just half a bottle tonight: he’d save the rest for the morning.

  Lantern in hand, he walked the open grounds of the terrace to the cellar. The stark, primal drawings of the meteors were imprinted in his vision as he looked at the stars. The night’s air was chilled, silent. He stopped walking. The calls of the owls he’d grown used to were absent. He looked over his shoulder at the machine-gun sentry on the parapet walk. The machine gun sat on its tripod, glimmering in the moonlight. The sentry was missing from his post.

  There was always a snugly dressed soldier on the machine gun.

  Denton’s heart kicked.

  He broke into a run. Back for the hall, one hand gripping the lantern, the other reaching for his Polish Vis pistol. An explosion rang from the terrace, the sound rippling and bouncing off the castle walls. The hall windows shattered from the pressure of the explosion. He ducked inside. It took a moment to figure out where the explosion had come from. It was surely the southern wall, which faced the terrace. But there was a precipice below the southern wall, just as there was a precipice on the western wall and a steep drop on the north. How could someone even attempt to access the castle from such a steep angle?

  Gunfire cracked across the terrace.

  ‘OK, so definitely the southern wall,’ he muttered.

  Snuffing the lantern, he crouched and moved for the nearest window. He hoped to catch a glimpse of the attacking force and their strength. He knew his Polish pistol wasn’t quite up to the task. He watched seven soldiers move whisper-silent across the snow-coated terrace grounds. They moved for the senior officers’ quarters—right where he kept his rare MP 41 submachine gun and magazines taped in pairs.

  The soldiers hadn’t spotted him at least. They wore dark wool jackets, small packs over their shoulders. They were carrying belt kits with holstered pistols, but no webbing. The soldiers were traveling light with mixed weapons, mostly M1 carbines.

  Maroon berets.

  Paratroopers, he thought. British.

  They were supposed to be in France. So much for retrieving the submachine gun then. There was only one way out and that was through the gatehouse and over the moat.

  He crawled across the floor, reached the long table and snatched the silk text. The bottle fell from the table. He lunged for it. The bottle landed in his palm. His fingers clamped over it. He breathed for the first time in a minute.

  He could hear distant shouts in German, some faint scuffling and single pops from a pistol. Leaving the bottle on the ground, he clenched the silk text under one arm—the plastic too rigid to roll or fold—and moved for the keep.

  He aimed his Viz pistol at the figure in the dungeon. Yiri’s cell was already unlocked but he was still hunkered inside.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Denton hissed.

  His father turned to face him, his own Colt .45 pistol in his hands. ‘You’ve been drinking. Lower your weapon.’

  ‘Someone blew my cover in Norway,’ Denton said, pistol still aimed. ‘Was it you?’

  ‘You’ve been drinking,’ Alastair said. ‘I needed Victor, why would I endanger that?’

  ‘Then why isn’t Victor here with you?’ Denton said. ‘Not valuable enough to save?’

  ‘Sometimes we make sacrifices.’

  Denton lowered his Viz to his father’s legs, but no lower.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Alastair said.

  ‘Same as you, it seems,’ Denton said. ‘Taking our Phoenix virus with us.’

  His father had a small leather bag slung over one shoulder. Denton knew the meteorite fragments would be inside.

  ‘Looks like you finally got what you asked for,’ Alastair said. ‘A little bit of excitement.’

  *

  Denton ran through the snow, pushing Yiri ahead of him.

  The sharp breaths of his father from behind helped measure how far away he was. Twenty feet.

  ‘Keep Yiri back!’ his father hissed.

  Denton ignored him. If any paratroopers were ahead of them, he hoped they’d see the prisoner and hold their fire. If they saw a German soldier they were unlikely to take prisoners even if he surrendered.

  A jeep roared to life, headlights splashing them.

  ‘Halt!’ a British voice yelled.

  Denton held Yiri in front of him, turned back and fired from his hip. The rounds caught his father somewhere across his midsection—he couldn’t be sure in the dark. But his father slowed, then stumbled. The snow was dotted scarlet.

  Denton held his Viz to the moon. ‘American!’ he shouted, ‘American!’

  He tore at his collar with his free hand. ‘OSS agent!’ he yelled again.

  Silhouetted in the moonlight, two pairs of British soldiers moved around him. He dropped his Viz in the snow so they could see it. One pair stayed on him, carbines aimed at his face. The other pair disarmed his father, who now lay in the snow.

  Denton gestured to Yiri. ‘This man is very important to the Allies,’ he said. ‘He must be kept alive.’

  The pair of paratroopers helped Yiri up and into the jeep.

  Before Denton could follow, someone kneeled before him, a scarf wrapped across his neck. The barrel of his carbine glinted in the moonlight. ‘Identify yourself.’

  ‘Lieutenant Sidney Denton, Office of Strategic Services,’ Denton said. ‘Special Operations.’

  The barrel lowered. ‘Trained by the best.’

  Denton recognized his own British Security Coordination instructor.

  The BSC was a covert organization set up in New York by the British Secret Intelligence Service. A couple of years earlier, the OSS had sent Denton to Camp X in Ontario, Canada. At the camp Denton had learned assassination, sabotage, managing partisan support, recruitment methods and demolition. Sir William Stephenson was his chief instructor.

  Denton pulled himself to his feet. ‘Sir.’

  Stephenson escorted Denton to the jeep. ‘Captain will do. I’m attached to the Special Raiding Squadron, 1st SAS.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Denton said.

  ‘We moved heaven and earth to find this pla
ce,’ Stephenson said.

  ‘Why?’ Denton said.

  An SAS soldier called out from his father’s body. ‘The rocks aren’t here, Captain. They’re not in his bag.’

  Stephenson’s gaze fixed on the body. ‘Move to the castle, have everyone sweep the grounds.’

  Denton watched a rivulet of blood melt the snow before him.

  Chapter 4

  Last message received: 07-Jun-1987.

  HUGH: Guys this is bad

  OWEN: What’s the problem?

  HUGH: What isn’t the problem?

  HUGH: This is getting crazy. I SWEAR they’re following me.

  OWEN: It doesn’t matter. I need you to keep it together. Are you secure?

  NAVEEM: DIE UNSTERBLICHEN

  HUGH: As secure as possible, yeah. You got the lowdown?

  OWEN: Everyone’s on the line. Guys, report in …

  MAY: Just call it online, Freeman, not on the line. I’m on point in Denver. Valentina’s in the nest. Ready to blaze.

  [TERI CONNECTED]

  TERI: hiya guys

  NAVEEM: DIE UNSTERBLICHEN

  HUGH: What the fuck, Naveem?

  OWEN: Naveem is gatekeeper at Desecheo. He’s off the line though, must be a glitch.

  MAY: Offline.

  HUGH: Off the hook more like.

  OWEN: Teri, ready to download?

  TERI: on the line in Brooklyn, born ready

  HUGH: You mean Crooklyn.

  OWEN: For the record May it’s two against one. On the line.

  MAY: Whatever, my heart’s racing. Can we just do this?

  OWEN: Just waiting on Nav.

  MAY: Okay. Might pee my pants. Just a warning.

  TERI: WOW thanks may, keep a diary for us!

  HUGH: There was a van out the front of my place today.

  TERI: and?

  HUGH: Pretty sure it was there yesterday. They know about the Akhana, man.

  TERI: that what we’re calling it now?

  HUGH: That’s what Owen is calling it, yeah.

  TERI: what the hell does it mean?

  OWEN: Akhana is the female aeon of Gnosticism. It stands for truth.