When Jesse and Amanda are eventually rescued the quartet leaves the United States for Nassau, where Mike and Francis say goodbye to the young couple and fly to Europe. After a short stopover in London to visit the eccentric Maxim, the pair find themselves in Zurich. It is here that they eventually come face to face with Caroline de Villepin, Chairwoman of the elusive Karl Gustav Foundation, and succeed in arousing her suspicions, if not her trust.
Only after Caroline has them sent to Aurora’s safe house at Utska in Poland, where they meet her sister Richelle, do the pieces finally begin to fall into place. Shortly after their arrival, Utska is attacked by men under the command of Viktor Manin, the Russian ex-general and unwitting accomplice of the plan’s mastermind, Aurora’s own chief of security.
The attack is successfully repelled, but Mike is badly injured. As he is rushed to Berlin for treatment, Francis joins the rest of the crew onboard the Callisto, Aurora’s converted submarine and sole lifeline to the outside world. Understanding that the game is now up, Brendan kidnaps Richelle and tries to ferry her off the Isle of Dragons. Francis succeeds in foiling the attempt, in which Brendan himself is killed.
It is here, within the hallowed walls of the secret underground facility, that both Mitch and Francis finally learn the truth about the existence of Origin, a derelict spacecraft over twelve miles long, trapped in orbit around Jupiter’s largest moon.
We close out the story with the arrival of RP One, a reconnaissance platform sent to Earth by Origin, now sitting inside the hull of the Pandora, the ship purpose-built to house it. And it is here that we rejoin our friends.
North Korea
November 1950
Min-jun knelt to pick up her daughter, in spite of her own aching feet, and hurried on. Ahead, the constant sound of exploding artillery shells seemed to grow louder with every step. When she heard the familiar drone of an approaching plane she moved off the road into the dry bed of the adjacent stream and waited, one hand shielding the young girl as if this could possibly protect her, should the pilot spot them and decide to drop his deadly cargo.
For weeks the only word emanating from the American garrison outside the small village near Jangjin had been of a push crossing the Yalu River into China itself. Rumors that it was in fact the
Chinese
who intended to take the initiative on behalf of their defeated comrades had been dismissed as so much communist propaganda by everyone, including the patriarch of the family Min-jun and her daughter were staying with. Thus it had come as no small surprise when the shells began to fall. Within hours the Americans had begun to retreat. Min-jun, never one to suffer fools lightly, had ignored the advice of her patron and joined them, managing to find space on an outbound cargo truck belonging to the US 7
th
Infantry Division. When the convoy was attacked from the air only a few miles down the road they had been forced to disembark and wade across a river to find shelter in the hills.
For two days Min-jun had watched from her perch among the trees as the Chinese advanced, a seemingly endless procession of men and machines jamming the road as far as the eye could see in both directions. In the end, desperation had driven them on. They had followed the river until the road grew quiet again, then crossed it and headed south, surviving on the scraps left behind by the advancing hoard. Shortly before sunset on the third day they had reached the top of a steep hill and spotted a village nestled in the valley below. Her caution tempered by hunger and cold, they had set off again, determined to find shelter among the smoldering ruins.
When the unsteady drone of the plane’s sputtering engine faded, Min-jun picked up her daughter again and returned to the road. By the time they reached the first dwelling on the outskirts of the village, she could no longer feel her own legs. The door of the hut had been kicked off its hinges and lay buried beneath a pile of broken furniture and shattered pots. Min-jun carried her sleeping daughter into the smaller room at the back of the house and was relieved to find the beds at least had been left intact. She lay her daughter on one of these and covered her with the blanket she had been using as a coat, then returned outside to see what she might scavenge among the ruins.
She had only made it as far as the adjacent hut when she heard raised voices up ahead. Cautiously, she moved to the back of the hut and made her way along the crumbling stone wall. When she reached the end of the wall she peered over the top, her heart first jumping, then sinking at what she saw. Several Chinese soldiers sat gathered around a small fire in the village square. Suspended above the flames on a crude rotisserie made of branches was the skinned carcass of a small dog. The smell of burning fat made her stomach grumble in protest. Despite the cold, she stayed where she was. When the soldiers finally retreated back inside the house on the corner of the square she made her way to the dying embers of the fire and gathered up what had been left behind.
They ate in silence, picking the bones clean of what little meat remained, most of it only half cooked and foul. The child’s pleas for more eventually turned into sobs and Min-jun admonished her to stay silent, lest they be discovered. When this did not work, she had no choice but to cover her daughter’s mouth with her hand and keep it there until the girl, too exhausted to even cry, fell asleep. This final act of cruelty, necessary but no less vile in consequence, broke what was left of her resolve, and she began to cry herself.
She reached beneath her coat and took out the letter, the only one she had received from her husband in the months he had been gone. Tucked inside the sheet of fading yellow paper was a picture of their infant son, smiling at the world in a way only a child who has yet to understand it is capable. She had begged her husband to let her take the boy with them, but to no avail. And so he had been sent to live with an uncle on the outskirts of Pyongyang. Min-jun read the letter again, and marveled at how quickly the world could change. It had been written shortly after the fall of Seoul, its mood jubilant and full of hope for the future. Her husband, an infantry sergeant, promised a swift victory and triumphant return. How wrong he had been. How wrong they all had been.
Min-jun was stirred from these thoughts by the sound of singing. She moved to the window and listened for a moment, her heart lifted by the cheerful tone of the voices. Perhaps the Chinese had been victorious, she thought. She did not believe it, but felt a flicker of hope nonetheless.
It was soon dashed.
The drunken chorus was suddenly interrupted by shouts. A fight broke out and quickly spilled out into the square, where it was cheered on by a drunken mob clearly intent on seeing its pound of flesh. Min-jun left the house and made her way back along the wall. She peered over just in time to see a group of five men round the corner of the house at the end of the row. A short, stocky man of middle-age led the party. Raising the bottle in his hand to his lips, he pointed at the house in front of them and urged the others on with an impatient wave. Two of the men kicked down the door and disappeared inside. She listened as they turned the place upside down in search of what was almost certainly more alcohol. When the men emerged empty handed, the group set off again, stopping at each house in turn.
Min-jun hurried back and stirred her daughter awake. She gathered up their few possessions and returned to the front room, horrified to hear the men had almost reached the house already. When she turned around, one of them was standing in the entrance.
Neither of them moved. The man, clearly surprised to see her, took a step back. Min-jun offered him a smile. The man smiled back, exposing a mouthful of black, rotting teeth. His eyes wavered, and for a fleeting moment she thought she saw uncertainty in them, perhaps even pity. Then he was gone, barged aside by the man she had seen leading the group, and with him any hope of a reprieve.
Min-jun bent down and picked up the splintered remains of a chair leg. The gesture clearly amused the man, who laughed. She had no idea what he said next, but the words bore an unmistakable tone of satisfaction. When he stepped through the doorway she raised the chair leg and told him to go away, but her own words sounded feeble even to herself. Three of the others stumbled through the door in quick succession, clearly eager to see what was happening. What she saw in their eyes turned her despair to hopeless resignation.
She let the chair leg drop to the floor and stepped forward. Her own fate sealed, she thought now only of her daughter. But when she tried to lead the men outside, one of them pushed her back. She pointed through the doorway at the house across the street, but the suggestion was lost on them. When she moved forward again what stopped her was not a hand, but a fist. It caught her squarely in the jaw and sent her stumbling back onto her knees. Before she could get to her feet again, the mob was on her.
At first it seemed they would only beat her. Even as she teetered on the edge of consciousness under a steady barrage of kicks and punches, the quietly insistent voice of reason suggested death might be all she had to fear, death for herself and perhaps even life for her daughter. But even this was too much to hope for.
At some point she was lifted to her feet and dragged across the room to the table in the corner. A blow to the back of the head sent her arching forward. Two of the men held her arms as a third tore off her dress. But before the ordeal could begin a fight erupted over who would be first. One ear pressed against the table and the other now bleeding, Min-jun heard only muffled shouts and the sound of a breaking bottle. When she opened her remaining good eye what she saw broke her tentative hold on sanity.
Her daughter was standing in the doorway at the back of the room, her rag doll clutched in one tiny fist. The look on her face was noncommittal. Not fear or grief, but a species of apathetic resignation, as if she had known all along that life was simply too cruel to rule out what was now happening in front of her.
Min-jun tried to scream then, but all that escaped her mouth was a hoarse croak. Then something heavy came down on the back of her neck, and for a mercy, she saw no more.
Madison, Wisconsin
Wednesday 6 June 2007
1000 CDT
Francis Moore had been many things. As a boy he’d been what they called a
troublemaker
before the term
juvenile delinquent
came into vogue, stealing anything that wasn’t bolted down and terrorizing anyone unfortunate enough to hail from the right side of the tracks. Then puberty had come along, and with it an unexplained passion for martial arts and the pursuit of inner peace through meditation. Poverty and restlessness had later driven him into the Marine Corps, where his talents eventually brought him to the attention of an army colonel by the name of Reginald Styles. Although Francis had no way of knowing it at the time, this fateful encounter would set in motion a chain of events that began with the death of an innocent woman and ended on an island in the Baltic Sea whose inhabitants were devoted to no less a task than unearthing the secrets of an alien civilization.
And here he was, a year older if not wiser, back in the country where it had all started, and not as a fugitive, but a would-be corporate insurance broker from Idaho Falls named Mathew Landen.
True to his philosophy of “less is more”, Francis had dyed his hair black and let it grow out a little longer than usual. This was complemented by a trimmed mustache and golf-club casual attire. As if to vindicate his choice, the woman who had checked his passport lost interest in his well-scripted reason for going abroad before it had been fully articulated, and sent him away with a smile that couldn’t have been less genuine if Francis had reached over the counter and drawn it on her face himself.
Titov Kargin, Richelle’s right hand man, would be arriving on the next flight from Berlin although, unlike Francis, Titov travelled under his own name as a naturalized German resident. They were in town to oversee the transfer of Aurora’s latest acquisition, an employee of the Madison-based Telford Research Center by the name of Jasper Klein. Telford was one of the many institutions supported in part by the Karl Gustav Foundation. Jasper, considered by many of his peers to be one of the country’s most gifted geological engineers, was being brought into the fold to solve the growing need for space within the natural cave system that was home to Aurora. For his part, Francis was only here to listen and learn.
“Mr. Landen, I’m glad to see you made it.”
“You know you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” Francis said.
Titov sat down and called the waitress over. He ordered a cup of coffee and sent her away with a wink.
“Don’t you just love these American women?” Titov asked. “Always smiling, always asking if there’s anything else you need? In Europe the whole idea of service is seen as demeaning, only to be endured at a price.”
“It’s an act,” Francis said. “She’s probably telling the manager what a pig you were as we speak.”
“And this from the lips of the greatest actor of them all, no less,” Titov said. “I know you miss all this. I can see it on your face.”
“And if I do?” Francis said.
Titov shrugged. “It’s only natural. We’re creatures of habit, after all.”
“Some of us more evolved than others,” Francis said.
“Indeed.”
“So what’s the drill?” Francis said. “We pick this guy up and drive him to Virginia. Then what?”
“Then we spend a couple of days babysitting to make sure no one is looking for him and set sail for Scandinavia. The Karl Gustav will be there when we arrive.”
“Sounds a little too easy,” Francis said.
“It hasn’t failed yet.”
“What if he flips out? Starts telling anyone who’ll listen that he’s being held against his will?”
Titov smiled and said, “You know, you remind me of myself not so long ago. I used to say the same things to Peter whenever he questioned the need to regard everyone with suspicion.”