The Ganymede Project Read online

  THE GANYMEDE PROJECT

  All Rights Reserved © 2000 by John S. Morrison

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  PART ONE: “SOMETHING WAS BORN”

  “There has never been a nation... without a conception of good and evil. Reason has never been able to define good and evil, or even to separate good from evil, not even approximately; on the contrary, it had always mixed them up in a most pitiful and disgraceful fashion; as for science, its solutions have always been based on brute force.”

  —Dostoyevsky,The Devils

  1. BEDLAM

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Katrina Fontanova shouldered into the throng, listening to Barney Wills recite a mantra of mind-numbing lawyer talk. She knew where the meeting was going—that’s why she was late.

  Dull government performances understated the drama. Normally, such a meeting would barely register a public yawn. Today was different. There was tension here, both in the audience and on the row of government speakers—lined up along a podium table, gripping glasses of ice water, thinking the same thing:Groom .

  Barney Wills—Ichobod Crane with gum disease—stood in front of the microphone, sweating despite the air conditioning.

  Just get it over with, Katrina thought.Do what you’re going to do: sanction this legal charade .

  A parallel thought occurred in the head of Mr. Wills, who aimed for a dignified closure to the proceedings. He banged the gavel three times and pronounced, in a way that hehoped sounded sincere, but feared it did not, “The Bureau of Land Management thanks you for your interest in the Nellis Range Complex.”

  This statement catalyzed the crowd. The pro-forma hearing immediately degenerated into a free-for-all that was neitherpro , norforma nor conducive to hearing. Catcalls and sticky wads descended on the hapless BLM representative, who ducked various unidentified-but-moist flying objects, crawled behind the podium and shouted, “Order!” into the microphone, again and again, until the PA system squealed in protest.

  Marvyn Marvin III, who resembled Abraham Lincoln, but claimed to be an ambassador from the Planet Draconis, climbed onto the cloth-covered table on the stage, dropped his tailored black trousers and defecated onto the tidy pile of carefully tabbed papers which Barney Wills said proved the legality of BLM’s land seizure.

  Sitting at the Big Table, Colonel Joe Blazosky, Deputy Commander of the Nellis Range Complex—severely crewcut and outfitted in Air Force dress blues sparkling with chrome—couldn’t stop Marvyn Marvin III, even though he was inches away and even though the Colonel could easily press 150 pounds. This is because he was distracted. Harry, a Shoshone Indian, struck him in the face, yelling, “Give us our land back, you bastard!”

  “This is supposed to be a democracy!” a well-dressed woman shouted from the floor. “I demand to speak.” Around her, as the throng threw elbows and insults, she insisted on her point. “You hear me? Idemand to speak for the State of Nevada.”

  Meanwhile, less vocal members of the crowd exited into the lobby, hoping for a quick getaway. Katrina Fontanova was among them—a good-looking, Russian-Ukrainian woman.

  Two burly, dark-suited men ushered her aside.

  “Leave me alone!” she shouted, indignantly, straining against their hands. “I am a diplomat.”

  The men didn’t speak. They squeezed her arms and forcibly moved her through the hotel lobby, now a Bedlam of politics and paranoid perversity.

  “Rape!” she yelled, braking with her feet. “Gangsters! Rape!” A needle pricked her neck. Within seconds, the lobby shimmered and rotated, as if sucked into some pernicious space-time warp.

  In a brief moment, she saw the reassuring, familiar face—a tall, muscular waiter with a stubble beard—staring at her from across the room. The drug finally seized her brain. The world dissolved to black.

  * * *

  When Katrina opened her eyes, she felt the contours of a padded chair and the edge of a wooden table. These were the boundaries of an otherwise invisible universe.

  Am I blind? She stared into darkness.The heat, she thought.It’s stifling. Is it that warm outside, or are they controlling the temperature? Her dress felt damp with perspiration. A ripening scent blocked all others.How long have I been here ?

  She licked sweat from her upper lip, almost gagging at the sandpaper tug of a parched throat. Still, she craved a cigarette.

  The outline of the door suddenly materialized in cracks of light. Someone fiddled with mechanical locks, turned off the outside illumination, then entered.

  Mind games, she thought.

  A flashlight probed her face. She squinted, but saw only the glare. A deep, gritty voice resonated in the chamber, straining with urgency.

  “Where is he?”

  She drew in her breath, determined to mask her feelings.

  “Where is Sverdlov?”

  She answered with silence.

  Plastic slammed against the wood of the table. The violence startled her. She saw a videocassette. Beside it, a thick-fingered, manicured hand dissolved into shadow.

  “Did you bring me a good American movie?” she asked, with a subdued laugh. “I like movies.” The sound of her own voice surprised her—like a rasp raking across dry wood.

  The man without a face breathed heavily. “This may be hard for you to understand,” he said, in a voice tinged with sarcasm, “but when you join the Company, you take an oath. A very serious oath. Violating that trust has consequences.” Then, in a whisper: “Give me the man who broke the oath. Give me Sverdlov. Do it and go free.”

  “The Company? CIA? I thought he was FBI.”

  “He was Company once. You know that. You never leave the Company.”

  “It’s not the oath, is it?” she croaked. “It’s what he knows. It’s what I know. About Groom. About them. It’s all on the video. Kill us. The organization will release the tape. Got that? Now give me some water, you bastard!” The flashlight seared her brain with the brilliance of a sun. She moved her tongue along a dry lower lip, hoping for a drink.

  A chuckle came from the darkness. “What’ve you got? Huh? A crazy story. We can produce hard evidence that Yuri Sverdlov was working for you. For the SVR—the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Who do you think people will believe?”

  A deep vibration penetrated Katrina’s body—a frequency so low it could not be heard, only felt. It was like a mini-earthquake, or God cracking an eyelid, or a wobble in space-time. Somewhere in the darkness a small animal reacted by scratching at paper.

  She watched the man’s fist tighten and sensed an opportunity. She played on his fears.

  “Kill me, and you’ll wind up like Billy Stanton.”

  The voice in the darkness hesitated. “What do you know about Billy?”

  “Rumors.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  There was a moment of silence, then the shadowy hand pressed a metal cup onto the table. She heard a trickle of water and a splashing sound as the cup filled slowly to the brim. A refreshing spray of drops hit her hand. She hated the man without a face.

  “Maybe you’d like a drink.”

  She moved her tongue against dry teeth.

  The vibrations started again. Water in the cup raised into circular
ripples of a standing wave, reflecting the flashlight beam in crazy wiggles of light that played against the man’s face. She recognized his features.Chisholm .

  Something scampered unseen across the room.

  The man’s hand tightened into a fist. When the vibrations stopped, the fist unclenched, but fingers still trembled.

  “I’m walking out of here,” Katrina said confidently. She pushed back in the chair, stood up, and braced herself against the table, fighting a wave of nausea. Chisholm did not move.

  “We’ll bring you down,” Chisholm said. There was an uncertainty now in his voice. A wavering.

  Katrina picked up the cup of water, drinking greedily. A cool wetness flowed down her throat. Some of her strength returned. She put down the cup.

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Chisholm,” Katrina said, finally, softly, her voice now lubricated. “We have a balance—like in the Cold War. A balance of power. A balance of terror. Just remember what happened to Billy.”

  She stepped to the doorway, opened it, and looked back. “I was with them, you know.” The vibrations started again. She felt for the light switch and flipped it. A fluorescent lamp started erratically, then illuminated the room with green-edged light that jerked to the beat of deep vibrations. She could plainly see Chisholm—a burly, blond-haired man in a cool-looking, seersucker suit. His face was taut. His hands shook—not from the vibrations, but from fear.

  She turned, moved through the door and down an empty, dimly lit corridor. Climbing steps toward the exit, she couldn’t resist. “They’ll come for you, Chisholm,” she yelled. “You know that, don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She unbolted the lock and stepped through the portal onto the Las Vegas street, where she teetered on shaking ground. Deep vibrations pulsed through the sidewalk as heavy earth-moving equipment convoyed toward a nearby construction site on Paradise Road.

  Katrina’s mouth turned up in a smile.He doesn’t know , she thought.

  She walked briskly away from the doorway, away from danger, away from Chisholm.

  * * *

  Yuri Sverdlov observed Katrina’s exit in “night vision green,” then slumped behind the low, roof-top wall of a parking garage, locking the safety catch on the assault rifle.

  Thank God, he thought.She looks okay .

  He had watched the entire abduction sequence in the Chez Suzanne Hotel. There was barely enough time to grab a small suitcase of “necessities” before following Katrina and two thugs in a taxi to this South-side location.

  He had waited patiently, screwing together the components of a weapon. It was an imported piece—A Kalishnikov rifle with starlight scope and silencer.

  After three hours, Chisholm arrived. Five minutes later, the two thugs from Chez Suzanne decided to step out for a cigarette.A fatal error , Yuri thought.Cigarettes will kill you . In this particular case, when they asked what appeared to be a homeless person for a light, the effect was immediate: two slit throats. Yuri stuffed their bodies into a parked car.Now you’re alone, you bastard. Do you know that? What will you do, Chisholm ?

  He thought about the mechanics of the shoot.I can hit him from here. Cleanly. Easily .If I take the shot right after the door opens, he’ll fall backwards down the stairs. They won’t find him until morning. It felt good to be focused again, after so many years. He’d never enjoyed the idea of killing. Now he relished it.

  The roof vibrated as another earth grader rounded the corner, crawled slowly down the road, then disappeared. Yuri snapped the rifle against the building’s ledge and adjusted the scope to view an unmarked metal doorway resembling a fire exit. He spotted movement, flicked off the safety and gently touched the trigger.

  A Yellow Cab abruptly blocked his field of view, screeching to a halt near the door. A young couple got out, exchanging light-hearted banter with the driver. Behind them, the door opened. Chisholm departed.

  Shit! Yuri thought.

  He left the weapon, sprinted to the roof exit and raced down the concrete stairs, his grease-stained “homeless” jacket flapping behind him.

  On the ground level of the parking garage, he was surprised to find Chisholm still near the door, staring upward at the night sky—an orange kinetic of neon light.

  “I know you’re there!” Chisholm yelled, turning around, looking upward. “I know you’re watching.” He reached toward a bulge inside his jacket, drawing a pistol.

  The cab departed. The young couple backed away from the gun-toting man in the seersucker suit who appeared certifiable. “You can’t fool me,” he said.

  Chisholm moved down the sidewalk, whirling around, staring upward, crying out, as if protesting to some unseen, silent deity. Finally, Chisholm turned into the shadows, vanishing into the night.

  Yuri thought of Billy Stanton.

  2. HEAD HUNTERS

  January 1968

  Groom Dry Lake Base, Nevada

  On the edge of a desert helipad pulsing with strobe lights, Dr. Billy Stanton and Fritz Gottlieb stood, arms crossed, gazing into the night, dreaming different dreams, waiting. Gottlieb dreamed darkly about past ‘might-have-beens’, but Stanton had a vision of the future—built stone-by-stone on noble goals. Darkness cloaked the surrounding Nevada mountains and ridges. The air was as cold and transparent as the animosity between the two men.

  The stocky, 48-year-old Gottlieb glanced stiffly and impatiently at his watch, then stuck hands into the pockets of a long tweed overcoat and watched his breath turn to steam. The 30-year-old Stanton, wearing a baseball cap and dark jacket, seemed relaxed, but distracted. He drummed on a clipboard—the rhythm of a tune that played loudly in his head.

  Gottlieb sniffed in annoyance. “Youdid brief everyone on the experimental protocol—right?” he asked in a German-accented voice. “No signs, no nametags, nothing to identify people or places.”

  When Stanton failed to respond, Gottlieb’s face reddened at what he perceived as either stupidity, carelessness or a deliberate snub. “I asked you—”

  “I heard,” Billy said with an easy Texas twang, “and the answer is yes—I took care of it. Relax, Fritz, and remember who pays the bills.”

  “I only remember who stands to lose the most,” Gottlieb said, under his breath.

  Billy Stanton responded by whistling his favorite Texas tune, remembering the words.The stars at night, Are big and bright, Thump-thump-thump-thump, Deep in the heart of Texas ...

  He watched the Nevada sky and wished on his own rising star as a Ph.D. government bio-physicist. “Ever notice, when you stare at two motionless, point sources of light—one above the other—how they both seem to move in opposite directions?”

  Gottlieb’s thoughts moved orthogonally to Billy’s. He checked his watch again, looked toward the horizon, and grew even more irritated by Billy’s ramblings and tappings.

  “See the two stars on the left edge of Gemini? Castor and Pollux, I think. Stare at ‘em long enough and they look like they move. Phi-phenomenon, they call it,” Billy said. “Can’t be due to neural processes in the retina. Otherwise, the apparent movement would be in the same direction. The illusion comes from the central nervous system—brain or brain stem.”

  “I think you’re hallucinating.”

  “Naw. See, a hallucination is when—”

  Gottlieb came to attention, his mind now fixed on a moving pinpoint of light. It glided toward them across the desert floor, growing in intensity.

  Billy snapped his head around at the sound—a throbbing dull roar. He could see the unmarked, slate-gray fuselage flicker in time with strobe markers on the ground.

  The CH-53 hovered above the pad, spotlighting Stanton and Gottlieb, flooding the two men in a powerful, oil-scented downwash of thumping blades. Stanton tucked his baseball cap into his jacket to keep it from blowing away, shivering as cold air hit the now-exposed bald spot on the back of his head. Gottlieb huddled against the cold, unfolding a wide tweed collar to cover his mouth and chin. The craft settled slowly to the
ground, boiling up desert dust, forcing both men to look away. Then the engine roar stopped, leaving only the whoosh of decelerating rotors.

  Gottlieb and Stanton ducked down and moved closer. Stanton snapped fingers and pointed into the darkness. A parked ambulance switched on its engine and headlights, turned around, then crept backwards toward the pad. On cue, the helicopter’s door slid open. Two men, dressed in black, wrestled a stretcher out of the craft.

  As they unfolded the wheels, Gottlieb rushed to see the body—a female torso, wrapped in a blanket, head uncovered, strapped in.

  “No!” he cried.

  “Put her in. Take her to G Lab. I’ll be along shortly,” Billy said to the other men. As the ambulance hatch slammed shut, Stanton turned to Gottlieb. “Got a problem, Fritz?”

  Gottlieb watched the vehicle depart, then sneered at Stanton. “She’s black.”

  Billy Stanton slowly removed the cap from the breast of his jacket, slapped it against his hand to remove dust, and placed it on his head. “You got this master race shit down, don’t you?”

  “There could be genetic anomalies—”

  “Cut the crap. You’re pissed because the experiment just might work this time, and the host is black.” He paused, then looked toward the receding ambulance. “Look, the only reason you’re here is because you’ve got a proven strategy for selection and procurement. You’re a good head hunter. I respect that. But we gave you the parameters of fifty candidates, and based on that,you picked that woman.” He flipped through clipboard pages, found the one he needed, and put it on top. Then, he handed the clipboard to Gottlieb. “See for yourself.”

  Fritz Gottlieb had seen the profile before. Medical tests were all in order, proving that the woman had no serious disorders, and that she would probably make an excellent host. Mental tests showed both a normal IQ and evidence of Multiple Personality Disorder—MPD. Documented MPD was important for plausible deniability. After all, she could talk. But with MPD, no one would believe her. MPD also made her susceptible to certain mind control techniques—perfected by the CIA’s MK Ultra program. She seemed like the perfect candidate except... He thumbed down through the profile, looking for one item. Finding it, he stared in disbelief and fumed at his own stupidity. “It’s blank,” he said, hoarsely, handing back the clipboard. “Under race, it’s blank.”