Rise of the Beast: A Novel (The Patmos Conspiracy Book 1) Read online

  17

  The Isle of Patmos

  D-DAY, CLAIRE THOUGHT. ARE YOU ready to do this? Are you comfortable forsaking the dreams you had when you joined GlobalHope? Think of all you did, think of what you were trying to accomplish when you worked the field for them. You were going to save the world.

  The problem was the field. She got her hands dirty in the Zimbabwean cholera outbreak in 2008; then the West African meningitis outbreak in Burkina Faso in 2009; another cholera outbreak, this time in Haiti, in 2010; three trips to South Africa in 2011 through 2013 for a first-hand experience of the HIV/AIDS pandemic—the last great global biological catastrophe with a death toll of 30 million— and then to the Guinea Ebola outbreak in 2014. Trips to India were interspersed and too many to count.

  It wasn’t the horrors of disease that eroded her sense of compassion for the plight of the suffering over time. It was the hopelessness of the people themselves. What was an occasional smattering of death in the face of such everyday crushing ignorance, poverty, violence, and every other human dysfunction imaginable? When a society was already self-cannibalistic, what was a little disease or plague? Did it really make things much worse than they already were? It paved a faster way for some people to escape the pain of existence and enter the blessed sleep called death.

  Claire Stevens had gone out to make the world a beautiful place only to discover how brutal and ugly it was. But worse yet, the status quo for most people was simply hopeless.

  GlobalHope? What hope was there? There was simply no way to counteract the enormity of the malaise that trapped humans in organizational systems and patterns of thought that guaranteed every stinking day of their life span would be filled with misery. If nature wasn’t attacking them, then they attacked themselves.

  She had been to Calcutta and visited Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. It was after the iconic saint’s death, but her words and pictures adorned the walls and the sense of her purpose and presence was palpable. She wondered if the saintly woman ever stopped to evaluate the efficacy of her efforts. If not, didn’t that make her a narcissist who acted on her own behalf? It was definitely not PC to speak against Mother Teresa, but really, how could she come to the conclusion that prolonging such a pathetic existence was an act of charity? What good had she and her sisters done? If the well-intentioned sisters weren’t keeping score, Claire was. There were more orphans, sick, and poor than when the legendary nun started the international enterprise.

  Claire was sure Mother Teresa was a great woman and meant well. But everyone meant well. Claire was results based. Show me how life is improved and I will crawl across broken glass to help.

  What she was doing now would help. And nothing would stop her. The Patmos plans were not subject to the fickle whims of imperfect people. The key decisions had been taken out of the hands of the predators who despoiled existence. It was unfortunate that millions upon millions of victims would die as collateral damage, but for many that would be an improvement from their hellish existence.

  Her parents were as proud to be atheists as was she. But she had attended church for exactly one week as a third grader. A neighborhood friend in Aurora, Illinois, birthplace of Ronald Reagan and not much else, invited her to Vacation Bible School at her church. It wasn’t Baptist or Methodist or Catholic or any of the other more common church names and she wished she could remember what the church was called. It was a seminal event in her life. She was shocked— as were the neighbors who invited her—when her parents agreed to let her attend. As an adult, she laughed at how much they would have debated granting her their permission. But they finally determined it would show their openness and be a cultural experience for Claire. How right they were.

  The theme of the week was Noah’s Ark. Most of the activities and songs, crafts, and skits focused on cute cuddly animals. Claire remembered winning a gold fish for reciting a Bible memory verse: “Then God said to Noah, ‘Yes, this rainbow is the sign of the covenant I am confirming with all the creatures on earth.’”

  All these years later she still remembered it.

  Noah sawed and hammered away. Frolicking animals marched to the big boat in pairs. The Flood didn’t get mentioned until the last morning. It was almost an afterthought. Jolly Noah and his cute fuzzy animals were saved and got to see the first rainbow—with a giraffe as lookout, of course—as they landed their happy and adventure-filled boat on a lush green mountainside. Was she the only one that noted everyone else in the story was drowned? The image of crashing waves, bolts of lightning, and people frantically treading water, scrabbling for a handhold on the sides of the wooden boat, and gasping for air scared her as a little girl. What about the people? Though her parents never said it, she was sure what felt to her like trauma made them very happy. Especially since she never asked to attend church again.

  It was in Guinea that the weight ofhuman misery she had witnessed hit its critical mass and altered her outlook forever. But it wasn’t just chronic pathogenic disease. It was the people themselves.

  While treating a twelve-year-old girl, Mariama, for a nasty, weeping genital rash, Claire saw, not for the first time, all the evidence of sexual abuse. She looked up at the mother. The woman lowered her head and refused to meet her eyes. She looked over at the father, standing protectively in front of three more daughters. He had no problem making eye contact with Claire. The smoldering hatred in his eyes dared her to say something, do something. He was in a protective stance all right; he was protecting a psychotic pattern of behavior he saw as his right. And indeed, it was his right since no one lifted a hand to stop him.

  It wasn’t that event only, but it was in that singular moment that Claire’s heart changed forever. She began thinking of Noah’s Ark again. But not with horror but with … was it possible? Could it be? Hope? Maybe God—at least the concept of God found in an ancient legend— was right to wipe out the evil that man had become. She hadn’t thought of those God drowned as evil. Words like stupid, foolish, incompetent, and chronically violent entered her mind. But looking at Mariama’s father, proud, defiant, violent, she suspected evil might be the exactly right choice of words.

  She had been conditioned in her upbringing and education to attribute colonialism and corporate exploitation as the causes for poverty, sickness, high infant mortality, nutritional deficiencies, unchecked violence, and other signs of a sick society. But her own eyes and heart told her that this was the way it had been, was, and ever would be for some people, whether touched by civilization or not.

  Her mind turned from saving lives to eugenics. Not the kind of eugenics practiced by that crank Dr. Kevorkian, administering a lethal injection to one old cancer or Alzheimer’s patient at a time. But mass eugenics. A good death applied generously. Claire began to dream of a new flood. In her dream she would ask God if she could help bring the waters.

  She was still an atheist but felt her prayer had been answered when she met Dr. Rodger Patton at a conference in Boston later that year. As they swapped war stories about the various pandemic hot spots they visited, they sensed they might have met a kindred spirit in each other. So they verbally probed and danced and sparred around the topic of societies and people that would be better off dead than alive, both for their own sake and that of others on the planet. It was only when they wandered into a discussion of the 19th Century writings of Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus that the dam broke and let loose the roiling waters in their hearts to one another.

  In addition to being a preacher, Malthus was an economist and demographer. He posited that the increase of population is necessarily limited by means of subsistence; that population does invariably increase when subsistence is increased; and that the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice. It was a quaint way of saying when too many people compete for resources all hell breaks loose.

  What Claire and Rodger had set out to do in compassionate service to humankind, they co
ncluded, was make everyone happy and fruitful by relieving them in some measure from their culturally-induced misery. Even if neither totally agreed with Dr. Thomas Malthus and later Malthusians on a set population number of nine, ten, or twelve billion inhabitants that the earth could sustain, both agreed the earth’s population was already well extended beyond a number that would allow more than a small fraction of its inhabitants to flourish.

  But Malthus didn’t see the bigger picture. Even if Planet Earth could sustain another five, ten, fifteen, twenty billion people—what was the point? Did everyone deserve to live? Wasn’t it obvious some cultures had been measured and found lacking? Shouldn’t Mariama’s father and his like be made extinct for the betterment of the world?

  They continued the dance and laughed when they talked about the premise of a popular novel called Dante’s Inferno. Why would someone so smart as the mad scientist villain in the book introduce a population-killing plague indiscriminately? That was so stupid. It was obvious, some cultures knew how to live. Others didn’t. Simple math wasn’t the answer. The Reverend Malthus was wrong on that. Kill half the population but keep the same percentage of dysfunctional people groups, and you were simply kicking the proverbial can down the road for your children or grandchildren.

  A week later Rodger called her when she was driving home from work in her Toyota Prius. He was back in Boston. They needed to talk, he let her know. He invited her to dinner at Menton on Congress Street downtown. Over an eleven course meal, he told her that he had come into contact with an organization committed to doing something to make the world a better place for the living—more specifically those who were able to fashion a reasonably successful living. She asked the organization’s name. He said there was no name. But she was being invited to become both a member and an employee of this cutting edge research organization.

  A day later, she called in sick to GlobalHope, a first, and flew first class to Frankfurt, Germany. From there she bordered a private plane that was luxurious beyond anything she could have imagined. When she asked the pilot what their destination was he put a forefinger to his lips and made the shushing sound. They landed close to water and from there she was ferried in a luxurious speedboat to an undisclosed island. She was welcomed at the dock by Patton and another scientist with a thick Russian accent. She was given a tour of the most remarkable laboratory facilities she had ever laid eyes on. She was then interviewed for twelve straight hours by a woman who was the head of Human Resources for a company with no name. Patton simply advised her to be forthright. There would be no record of this meeting and no personal or professional repercussions if she wasn’t hired or elected not to accept an offer of employment. Sometimes formal, sometimes casual; sometimes hostile, sometimes warm and encouraging; sometimes general and sometimes focused on specifics from her life; she was asked to account for every inch, every nook and cranny of her entire life story—and her feelings about the state of the planet.

  She wasn’t sure how she did when the interview abruptly ended. She suspected she had failed, something new for her, which made her nervous. But when she landed in Boston, Patton was already there, waiting for her with a limo driver. They were driven to a brick home that had been converted to law offices on Boylston Street. It was there she was officially offered a job with Aristotle Research Partners— the company did have a name, even if it was a front and no one actually used it. Her official assignment would be on the company’s only active project: Patmos. When the attorney told her what her salary and living arrangements would be, she was shocked at how little she was being paid by GlobalHope. She immediately accepted and signed reams of paperwork dealing with trade secrets and confidentiality; non-compete issues, patent ownerships, and too many other legal terms to remember. Details of the actual project were vague but she knew where Patmos was going and what it was about. Her talks with Dr. Patton had been specific. At least five billion non-progressive people must be strategically targeted for death.

  She moved from confusion to certainty that this was the right course for a viable future humanity. She would have signed for less than she made at GlobalHope. Money was never her motivation.

  A week later she called her parents to let them know she would be off the grid for a while and would call when she could, but that she was more determined than ever to save the world.

  Listening to them babble with childlike wonder and joy at what a wonderful daughter she was created a memory she cherished, but ridiculed at the same time. She had talked to them once a month for two years and missed them terribly. But it was a small price to pay for changing the course of world history.

  The director of GlobalHope let her know how sad he and the rest of the small team of scientists would be to see her go after she marched in his office and turned in her resignation. But he knew with her intelligence, talent, and drive, she would make a huge difference in the world. She did her best to look sad and grateful.

  He was right.

  Yes I will make a huge difference in the world. I will dedicate my work to Mariama.

  18

  Devil’s Den Hiking Trail,

  Ozark National Forest

  JULES RETRACED HIS STEPS ANGRILY. His socks were in shreds and his feet were bruised and bleeding. He felt no physical pain, only the psychological pain of failing Jonathan Alexander.

  He chased Pauline for at least five miles—unless she had broken from the path and he missed her. It was nearly impossible to track someone while running as fast as you can. He managed two more shots in her general direction after she bolted. Even as he pulled the trigger each time he knew the bullet would not find its mark due to the dense foliage protecting her as she wound in and out of turns on the wooded path.

  She had stolen from the man and she had escaped him. How could that have happened? His approach shot hit her in the shoulder. Alexander wanted him to take her alive if possible. He heard her cry of pain. He saw the flash of fresh bright blood set against a bright green sports top as he pounded up the path toward her. He saw her fall to her side. He was sure she would be waiting for him, maybe in shock, to secure her capture when he got to the spot. Instead, all he found was her fanny pack, Mr. Alexander’s journal, and her smartphone.

  He immediately sprinted in pursuit. Not wearing shoes didn’t help his speed, but Jules did not think he would have caught her anyway. Not unless she was hurt badly enough to collapse. No way of knowing.

  When he had her dead to sights, she had shifted her body weight down on all fours and bent her head forward. Instead of placing a cartridge into the flesh of her hip and immobilizing her, he came much closer to a kill shot than he planned. If she had dropped any lower to do her treacherous work, he would have spun a bullet in one ear and out the other. That wouldn’t have been good. Mr. Alexander wanted her alive for questioning.

  What to do now was the only question. The small team that accompanied Mr. Alexander wasn’t prepared to launch a hunt through the woods. In Alexander’s estate outside Geneva, the security team kept a small fleet of modified Trimble Gatewing X100 drones in the air as part of their security protocol. He was not sure whether Erich had packed one of the unmanned aerial machines in the hold of the Gulfstream. He should know. But how was he to anticipate needing it for a manhunt? The model was illegal for private use in the US, which probably meant it hadn’t been stowed. Even if Erich did bring it, it would take an hour for him and his copilot, Michael, to arrive at ground zero. That was assuming they could immediately find an available car. The drone had a maximum of forty-five minutes of flight time. At eighty kilometers per hour, it could travel about fifty-three kilometers in the search for Pauline.

  But what if Mr. Alexander’s small team hadn’t traveled with the drone? By calling Erich he would be broadcasting the full extent of his failure, the one thing Mr. Alexander didn’t handle well.

  Jules thought of covering up what had happened. He could just tell Mr. Alexander he had no choice but to kill her. But that would only prolong the ine
vitable revelation that she had escaped. She wasn’t dead after all. Ultimately he knew only one thing: obedience. Jules sighed, pulled his satellite phone from a hip holster, and called Erich.

  “Yes Jules?”

  “Do we have the Gatewing with us?”

  “We do not. Is there a problem?”

  “Yes there is.”

  He explained the situation to Erich, ended the call, and hit the speed dial for Mr. Alexander. The conversation was short but painful.

  “Bring in help and find her,” were Alexander’s final instructions.

  He would put on shoes, get some equipment from his pack he had hidden near the trailhead, and would start back up the winding path with a high beam flashlight to look for signs of Pauline’s movements.

  Implacable, stoic, and confident, the only time Jules felt the sense of failure he did now was when he got the letter from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Basel, informing him he had not been selected for the Swiss Guard in charge of protecting the Holy Father and the Vatican. He was certain he would be selected. He met all the qualifications: he was Catholic, handsome, physically fit, a Swiss citizen, had military training and combat skills, and was between the ages of nineteen and thirty-one.

  Some claimed the Swiss Guard was the finest fighting force in the world. What an honor that would be. He passed the physical tests with flying colors. But then the rejection letter arrived. When he pressed for an answer on why he was passed over, a nervous bishop who found Jules waiting for him in his office unannounced, let it slip out that Jules had not passed the psychological testing.

  The Holy See’s loss was Alexander’s gain.

  So how could he have let down the man who gave his life purpose and meaning?

  I will find her. When Mr. Alexander has what he needs, I will cut out her eyes for my collection.