MindWar (Nick Hall Book 3)

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Douglas E. Richards

  Published by Paragon Press, 2016

  E-mail the author at doug@san.rr.com

  Friend him on Facebook at Douglas E. Richards Author

  Visit the author’s website at www.douglaserichards.com

  All rights reserved. With the exception of excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.

  First Edition

  MindWar

  Douglas E. Richards

  PART 1

  Victor

  1

  The Sikorsky S-92 executive helicopter raced low over the South Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Brazil, whipping forward so feverishly close to the waves the man who called himself Victor thought he could almost reach down and touch the sea. Instead, he stroked the inner hull of the chopper lovingly, finding its manmade perfection just as awe-inspiring as the magnificence of the ocean.

  Victor was the most accomplished arms dealer in the world, but had also evolved into a broker of advanced technologies, military and non-military alike. He had modified the S-92 to suit his needs, using technology that the most advanced Black laboratories in America would envy. Its outer surfaces were now faceted and covered with radar-absorbent coatings and infrared-suppressing paint, and sophisticated electronic technologies had been brought to bear to reduce the spacious helicopter’s radar cross section to that of a bird’s.

  He was exceedingly confident that he couldn’t be found and identified, even if he were now inside an ordinary commercial helicopter, but why take any chances? No one was more brilliant—or more cautious—a combination that had long made him a legend to those whose job it was to capture or stop him, and explained why he was still alive and thriving.

  The sole additional passenger, a handsome twenty-three-year-old named Lucas Perez, was seated beside Victor in the aircraft. “I know that flying this low reduces the risk we’ll be spotted,” he said in Spanish into a headset, which both men were wearing. “But I think it’s a mistake.”

  Victor studied his son with great interest. “How so?” he said.

  “I don’t think this risk needs reducing,” the younger man replied. “In this helicopter, we wouldn’t be spotted if we hovered at five thousand feet and taunted the Americans with skywriting. On the other hand,” he added, raising his eyebrows, “we run a real risk of slamming into the waves due to mechanical problems or pilot error.”

  Victor knew the moment he heard his son’s argument that he was right. And if the chopper did hit the ocean at this speed and angle, the water’s surface would be about as forgiving as concrete.

  Victor smiled proudly at his fellow passenger. He had urged all of those around him, especially his son, to challenge him whenever they thought he had erred. To challenge all conventional wisdom, for that matter. To never take any analysis or situation at face value. Victor was so certain of his own genius there was nothing he admired more than when someone was able to point out something he had missed.

  Why take umbrage? Even God was capable of making mistakes, including the very bad hire of an angel named Lucifer, who turned out to be less than a model employee.

  “Thanks for bringing this up, Lucas,” said his father. “You make an excellent point.” He nodded in appreciation and instructed the pilot to move to a higher altitude.

  Thirty minutes later they landed on one of several islands spread throughout the globe that Victor happened to own, although none could be traced to him. There were well over a hundred thousand islands that weren’t important enough to be marked on standard maps. Most of these were small, ugly, largely devoid of vegetation, and of little value, so acquiring several on which structures had been built at some point in their history had cost little of Victor’s vast wealth.

  He exited the helo and took stock of his son, who shared his rugged Spanish features and was so like him in appearance that he could have been a clone. Many of his associates had conjectured that their boss had intimidated the boy’s mother so much that her very genes had been afraid to contribute during the boy’s conception.

  Lucas was Victor’s only child, born when he was several years younger than the boy was now, when he was working his way with unprecedented speed up the treacherous chain of command in the Mexican drug cartels before reinventing himself as an international arms dealer and, finally, an advanced technology specialist. Victor had banished Lucas’s mother shortly after he had been born, but had given her enough money to last a lifetime, his own version of a generous severance package.

  Lucas had been back from school for two weeks now, but this time it was for good, which meant it was time for the young man to become more fully involved in the business—including its darker side.

  Victor had discovered early on that Lucas was as brilliant as he was, perhaps even more so. He could have made a world-class scientist. But Victor had other plans, molding him to take over the family business.

  Why use one’s genius to invent, to advance knowledge and prowess in a single field, when one could use this genius to direct scores of other scientists, working to mix and match and improve upon a vast array of groundbreaking technologies being developed in secret corporate and military labs around the world.

  Victor’s dealings had given him, and would give Lucas, a panoramic perspective on the leading edge of science and technology and how these technologies could be enhanced, exploited, and combined in novel ways for undreamed of applications, giving him far greater insight into the tech landscape than the most informed CEO, general, or politician. These others were inevitably hamstrung by bureaucratic compartmentalization and secrecy. Victor, on the other hand, had more than enough money, power, and influence to get his hand into every high-tech cookie jar in existence, without regard to nationality or borders.

  Lucas had just graduated from MIT with a PhD in physics and robotics, the youngest PhD the school had minted in over a decade, but Victor had convinced him that his best future was to follow in his father’s footsteps. Why be a single player in the orchestra when you could be the conductor?

  And he had forged a bond with his son that could not have been stronger. He had respected the boy from the youngest age. He had cultivated his talents, had seen to it that Lucas was strong in both body and mind, and trained him in the less violent side of his business.

  But now that he had graduated, it was time for this to change. It was time to take the young man’s virginity, so to speak, at least with respect to the taking of a life.

  The two men walked silently through a door into one of several small buildings on the island and over to a man chained to a chair in a stark, empty room, his mouth taped shut and his eyes wild with fear and hatred. Victor’s people on the island had prepared this man, and this room, exactly as he had specified.

  Victor gestured toward their bound guest. “This is Hector Alonzo,” he said. “Or, as I like to think of him, subject number seven.”

  Hector Alonzo fought against his restraints and shouted incomprehensible, muffled words at Victor through duct-taped lips, but Victor ignored him until he finally ceased struggling.

  Victor watched his son’s expression carefully. He had told him about his goals, and that he had gathered experimental subjects, but nothing more. Until now, his son had almost certainly assumed the subjects were volunteers and would be well pai
d for their troubles, but seeing this man forcibly affixed to a chair, and the look in his eyes, had disabused him of this idea in a hurry.

  For all Lucas knew, this man, and the others, could be random innocents snatched off the street. Good men who might have young children and loving wives at home, who were not deserving of being kidnapped and turned into human guinea pigs.

  “I assume you’re wondering how number seven here came to be part of our experiment,” said Victor, continuing to ignore the man as though he were an inanimate object. “And the others now on the island as well.”

  His son nodded. “I am.”

  “This man is a hardened criminal. Three days ago he was an inmate in a Brazilian prison. But I managed to forge an arrangement with the warden. Apparently, fourteen prisoners escaped two mornings ago and have not been found. In an ironic coincidence, I acquired fourteen human guinea pigs at about the same time.”

  “And the warden’s superior didn’t question how such a mass escape was possible?”

  Victor shook his head. “No. Through subordinates, I had the warden paid handsomely for these men. I also had his superior paid handsomely to accept his jailbreak story without question.”

  Victor reached forward and ripped the tape from the prisoner’s mouth.

  “What the fuck is this all about?” the man demanded in Portuguese, which the sophisticated computerized implants in Victor’s brain translated immediately into Spanish. “Why is your machine punching holes in my head? What kind of sick game are you playing?”

  Brazil was a rare Central American country in which Spanish wasn’t the principal language spoken, but Victor had been assured his prisoner spoke it fluently. Victor calmly unsheathed a combat knife from his belt and held it with an unmistakable air of menace.

  “Don’t speak until I tell you to!” he ordered. “And use Spanish,” he added for the benefit of his son. He raised the knife suggestively. “Do what I ask and we can avoid making this . . . messy,” he added meaningfully. “Understand?”

  The man nodded, his eyes still burning with hatred.

  “Good,” said Victor, making no move to re-sheath his knife. “I’m thinking of a four-digit number,” he continued. “Tell me what it is. Get it right, and I’ll not only let you go, I’ll give you a hundred thousand US dollars.”

  The prisoner shook his head in disbelief, and if he was afraid before, he was even more so now, clearly convinced he was dealing with a raving lunatic. “How would I know that?” he said in disbelief. “You think putting holes in my skull makes my head suddenly magical? Well, it doesn’t.”

  “Try,” said Victor simply. “Try very hard. Because if you get the number right, you get the reward I told you about. But if you get it wrong, you will die, right here in this chair.”

  Victor glanced over at his son, who couldn’t hide his surprise at the nature of this threat. Lucas was more than astute enough to know that his father had killed in the past, no matter how sheltered from this reality he had been, but killing a helpless prisoner was cold-blooded enough to give anyone pause.

  As for Hector Alonzo, his panic had become a living, breathing presence in the room. “But how can I possibly know what number you have in mind?” he pleaded. “This is ridiculous. It would take a miracle.”

  “Then I suggest you pray for one now,” said Victor evenly, “because you’re running out of time.”

  He paused to let this sink in and then added, “I’m going to focus on the number right now. Hard. Try to look inside my mind and find it.”

  Hector Alonzo strained for almost a full minute, desperate enough to try anything to placate the madman who stood over him with a combat knife, but he had no choice but to give up. He finally blurted out a guess, but it wasn’t even close.

  Victor picked up a roll of silver duct tape his men had left on the concrete floor beside the prisoner and taped his mouth shut once again. “This is very disappointing,” he said with a shrug.

  He removed a handgun that had been tucked into the waistband in the small of his back and held it out to his son, who was a crack shot, having practiced on firing ranges since he was ten.

  “Kill him,” said Victor firmly, as Hector Alonzo once again began to fight against his unyielding restraints. “Shove the gun against his throat and pull the trigger.”

  2

  Lucas’s eyes widened as he stared at the gun his father held out to him and then glanced back at the helpless prisoner. Finally, he turned back to his father, just to be sure this wasn’t a tasteless experiment designed to see how he might react to such a request.

  But the grim expression he saw on his father’s face was too deadly serious to be a bluff. He meant exactly what he said. Lucas reached out and took the offered gun. “Shouldn’t we keep him alive for additional experimentation?” he asked, trying to pretend his father’s request hadn’t thrown him.

  “We should,” said Victor, “but we won’t in this particular case. The good news is that we’ve recorded the data very carefully for the precise movements of the implants through his brain. So, even though the results were negative, he will add to our growing database. As Edison might say, we haven’t failed, we’ve just found dozens of pathways through the brain that do not result in ESP.”

  “This man is subject seven. Were the first six also killed?”

  “Four were failures, but are in good enough condition for one more try, which will take place over the next few days. Two others were turned into vegetables in the process. They were both killed.”

  “I thought the damage to the brain is being minimized as much as possible,” said Lucas.

  “It is. We’re using an implantation machine—a robot surgeon if you will—that is very advanced. But we’re making many attempts on each subject, gathering as much data as we can. Eventually, even minimal damage begins to add up.”

  “How precise is this robot?”

  “Extremely,” replied Victor. “But even though the implants are needle shaped and very small, there are four of them, and we’re trying multiple different pathways to get them where they need to end up. Cut enough grooves through a brain, even shallow ones, and you’ll eventually get a vegetable out of the other end.”

  “I assume you’ve made sure none of the prisoners can receive wireless signals so they can’t mentally access the Web?”

  Victor nodded. “That’s correct.”

  Lucas stroked his chin with his left hand, deep in thought, still holding the gun in his right. Like his father, he completely ignored the presence of the immobilized prisoner five feet away.

  “I still must be missing something,” he said. “If the other four are being held for further experimentation, why isn’t he? And couldn’t you just release these men? They don’t know where they are. And they have no idea who you are.”

  Victor’s eyes locked onto those of his son. “Anything else?”

  Lucas paused for several more seconds. “Yes. Even if you were going to kill these men, why make such a mess? The injection of a lethal drug seems more . . . tidy.”

  “Before I answer your questions,” said Victor, “let me ask one of my own. Are you still committed to taking over my business someday and working with Uncle Eduardo?”

  Eduardo Alvarez wasn’t actually Lucas’s uncle, but he had been Victor’s trusted right-hand man for so long, he was as close to Lucas as any uncle could possibly be.

  “Of course,” said Lucas.

  “No matter what is required of you?” added Victor.

  Given what his father had just asked of him, the requirements in question were not much of a mystery. Lucas blew out a long breath and nodded. “Absolutely,” he replied.

  “You’re sure?” said Victor. “Killing a man is like losing your virginity. Once it’s gone, there is no getting it back.”

  Lucas swallowed hard. “I’m sure.”

  “Very well,” said his father. “This will mark the beginning of a more comprehensive education. From now on, I won’t shy away from the
more violent and unpleasant side of the business.”

  “Yeah,” said his son with a heavy sigh. “I think I’ve already figured that out.”

  Victor allowed himself a brief smile. “So back to your questions,” he said. “Your thinking is sound. For the most part. But you are dangerously wrong about not needing to kill these men. Even if they really were innocents, instead of violent criminals, how many times have I told you about the need for caution, the need for paranoia? The people trying to stop us are brilliant and sophisticated in their own right. Never underestimate them. You have to learn to clean up after yourself. As completely as is reasonably possible.”

  He paused. “What have I taught you about loyalty and reputation?”

  Lucas sighed, annoyed to have to recite lessons he had learned a hundred times. “Lavishly reward those who are loyal to you,” he replied by rote. “And treat them with absolute respect. Building a flawless reputation for fairness and honesty, for trustworthiness, is your most important asset. Be absolutely true to your word, every time, no matter what the cost.”

  “Exactly. But I’ve taught you this with respect to keeping promises only. But the same applies to keeping threats. Following these principles, I have instilled massive loyalty in those who work for me. And customers prefer to deal with me over my competitors, because they know I will always honor my word.”

  Victor raised his eyebrows. “Not that those on the other side of a transaction have always given me the same courtesy. But those who have tried to double-cross me have paid the price. Because I’m so paranoid, because I work hard to think ten moves ahead, I’ve come out on top each time. And the only thing that matches my reputation for honest dealings is my reputation for punishing those who cross me. My retribution is fierce. Ruthless. Absolute. All parties know that their dealings with me will be scrupulously straightforward and fair, but also know the consequences if they attempt any surprises. Because of this, I have been able to build a multibillion-dollar business, completely in the shadows.”