The Genius Dilemma
by Dustin Grinnell
We are delighted to welcome novelist Dustin Grinnell to Omnimystery News today.
Dustin's new technothriller is The Genius Dilemma (December 2013 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we are pleased to introduce you to it with an excerpt, the prologue and first three chapters.
— ♦ —
Prologue
Paris, France
FROM THE OPEN WINDOW OF HIS room at the Hotel Liberté, Colonel David Landry sipped his coffee as he waited for his satellite phone to ring with the general's orders. The calm he always felt before an operation had set in, a certainty that he'd react the way he was trained. At thirty-six years old and just over six feet tall, he probably didn't appear to be anything special to anyone looking up. For the undercover mission, he wore a tight-fitting black shirt and jeans, which covered hard muscles and little body fat. Behind green eyes, his brain excelled as a human calculator, always analyzing and solving problems.
Observing the quiet bustle in downtown Paris, the colonel felt a slight breeze through the screen. From the second floor, Landry watched tourists circle the Eiffel Tower in the distance. A young couple walked across the parking lot holding hands, likely making their way to a café or restaurant nearby. Landry waited as the sun dipped below the horizon. He slid the window shut, snapped the curtain closed, and walked to the corner of the room. There he sat down at a cheap, round table covered with equipment, documents, and photos.
He set his coffee cup down next to a photo of Nahip Nakari, the thirtytwo-year-old Middle Eastern mastermind behind seven terrorist attacks in the past four years. He slid on headphones and eavesdropped on the room next to his, containing Nakari and a group of armed Iraqi terrorists. Through the headphones, Landry heard the men talking and laughing.
Nakari had spent four years studying American history and political science before returning to Iraq after 9/11, inspired to cause similar damage. According to Landry's intelligence, Nakari was only the architect of missions; he had never actually been on site for an operation, which meant that tonight's mission was important. The CIA had an opportunity to remove one the biggest global threats to date. Landry scowled at the photo of Nakari on the table. Next to the picture were newspaper clippings: Sixty-Five Dead in Berlin; Forty-Two Killed in Nice; Bombing Kills Eighty-Three in Luxemburg. All planned by Nakari.
Landry's mind was already hard at work visualizing the night's kill. When approval came in from his commanding officer, General Jonathan Beranger, Landry would storm the room, gripping the fully suppressed AR-10 submachine gun that was assembled on his bed, loaded and ready to go. He would throw a flash bang to the corner of the room, stunning the men. He would then identify and shoot the most skilled man in the room, the long-time companion and sidekick to Nakari. With the most dangerous threat removed, he would fire on Nakari next, aiming for the head. The others would be dead before they got to their weapons.
The phone on the table began vibrating. It was a call from General Beranger, spearheading the mission back at the base in California. Landry lifted the headphones off his head and answered, "Echo Bravo here, over."
"Echo Bravo," Beranger said. "This is Alpha Charlie, code in, over."
"Code number: 439-8754, over."
"Code verified. How are you, Colonel?"
"Good, Sir … eager."
"Stand by for orders, Landry."
Approval from higher-ups was standard operating procedure for all missions. Strikes required careful consideration. While Landry waited, seniorlevel officials, intelligence officers, and counterterrorism experts were packed in a strategy room, trying to arrive at a go-no-go decision for lethal action against Nakari. Landry loathed the discussions and legal debates. He didn't care about the political fallout after an assassination, the cultural implications, or whether action would spark retaliatory violence or ultimately breed anti-American sentiment. The men in the room next to his deserved to die. It was that simple.
Landry crumpled the picture of Nakari in his hand, squeezing the glossy paper into a tight ball. He lobbed the crushed picture into the trashcan a few feet away. Tapping his boot on the floor, he waited eagerly while his military base deliberated.
Landry heard a thud from Nakari's room, followed by chairs scraping across the floor. He put on the headphones and heard the sound of footsteps, zippers zipping, and chatter between Nakari's men. Their carefree exchanges from before had turned into frantic conversation.
"Sir, there's been a development," Landry said, knowing they had gotten their own green light.
"Colonel?"
"Nakari's on the move, Sir."
"Legal's on the phone with Washington now," Beranger said. "Approval's on the way."
Landry heard another thud from Nakari's room.
"Sir, we're out of time. This operation's been in the works for months. We know who we've got in that room. I'm engaging." Landry stood up, the phone still pressed to his ear.
"Not without approval you're not," Beranger said. "Stand fast, Colonel."
Landry knew he couldn't engage Nakari and his men if they left their room. It would be too public at that point. He also knew the implications if they escaped. Nakari would execute another bombing mission. After that, he would choose a different location and it'd happen all over again. Landry wasn't going to sit on his hands while the nerds back at base crossed the t's and dotted the i's. He walked to the edge of the bed and picked up the AR-10.
"Sir, I'm going," Landry said. He walked to the door, ignoring the sound of the general's voice behind him.
Landry heard the sound of a door opening. He pressed his ear against his door and heard footsteps on the deck outside his room. He ran to the window, pushed the curtain aside, and peered out the window only to see two children running down the stairs. Landry exhaled deeply and put his back against the door, listening as the children's voices drifted out of earshot.
"Echo Bravo," Beranger said though the phone on the windowsill. "Echo
Bravo?"
Landry picked up the phone, "Yes, Sir?"
"Stand down, Colonel."
"Sir?" Landry said, astonished.
"I said the mission's a no-go."
"Sir, if I go now, I can–"
Landry stopped short, suddenly aware that the door to Nakari's room had opened. Nakari and his men emptied onto the deck, and he could hear distinct Middle Eastern accents through the wall. Feeling helpless and infuriated, Landry closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as a hot surge of rage bubbled up inside him.
"Sir, it's happening right now."
"You are not to engage, Landry. Analysts don't have enough intelligence to go on."
"You mean a bunch of geeks at computers 4,000 miles away."
"Even if we did have enough intel, legal can't get approval. You will stand down, Colonel. You hear me? Let this one go."
Landry backed away from the window and watched as the men passed by his room one-by-one. And then he saw Nakari following his men. The group walked down the steps and stopped to meet at the edge of the parking lot. Landry watched as Nakari shook hands with his men, then hugged them. He was sending the men off to die, Landry thought. To kill. And Landry could do nothing.
Landry walked to the middle of his room. Dejected, he crashed to the floor and leaned his back against the bed, standing his submachine gun up between his legs. He rested his forehead against the barrel of the gun and contemplated the wasted months of preparation and what the consequences of his inaction would be.
How could the analysts be so wrong? Legal approval? What about moral approval? People were going to die, and he would always remember the night he was a few feet away from preventing it. Landry looked up to the ceiling and growled … they had been too late. Tonight wasn't the problem. They should have seen Nakari coming, long before he had entered college in the US, before he had taken his initiation into terrorism, before he rose to power.
Suddenly the door to his room flew open, kicked in from the outside. In the doorway stood Nakari, his hands outstretched, pointing a handgun at the colonel. Landry hopped to his feet in an instant and lifted his gun to take aim. But the timing was impossible. Nakari steadied himself, his weapon trained on Landry. Nakari pulled the trigger once, sending a bullet through Landry's forehead.
The colonel fell backward, hitting the ground with a loud thud as his world went black.
Part I
"There is no great genius without some touch of madness"
— Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)
Chapter One
3 years later — Friday, May 18 — Stanford University, California
Students flooded into the Stanford University lecture hall to search for seats next to their friends before the start of class. Red-laced curtains hung on the walls, while the seats stretched to the back of the room in tiers, giving the place the appearance of a cinema. Over a hundred students were present, twenty over the department's cap. The class on the human brain, taught by neuroscientist Alan Pierce, was one of the University's most popular every year. The title of the lecture, The Human Brain & Genius, was projected on a white screen on the classroom's front wall.
"Alright, class," Professor Pierce said, strolling in front of the class as he waited for its attention. "Let's settle in."
Alan Pierce was six feet two inches tall, firmly built, and in excellent shape, a product of morning jogs before teaching and research. Even at thirty-eight years old, his hair was slightly graying, earning him the name "silver fox" among some of the undergraduate girls. Female colleagues, single and married alike, had their share of endearing names for him too. Today, Alan wore brown, circular glasses and had on a gray sports coat with jeans.
Alan walked toward the podium, clasping his hands together. "We've spent an entire semester on the physiology of the brain. The nuts and bolts. We've also spent several lectures on intelligence."
He paused, then raised his voice. "Today, we're going to expand on what we've learned. We're going to dig deeper. Today, we'll talk about superior intelligence. More specifically, genius."
Alan advanced his PowerPoint presentation to the first slide, showing a picture of Thomas Edison, one of his favorite scientists. "Today we'll discuss what makes a genius a genius. Are any brain areas different in the supremely intelligent? Do geniuses have larger brains? More cells, perhaps? Maybe they're blessed with genetic predispositions?
Or maybe it's the 'nurture' side of the coin? Lifestyle and environment?"
He changed to a new slide, a picture of an old man with his head low, sitting cross-legged on the street. The man was wearing a tattered robe and strumming a guitar, representing the melancholic and struggling artist. "As well as trying to understand how the brain of a genius functions, we're going to explore a bigger, more philosophical question." He scanned the silent, captivated class. "Does genius have a cost? Is it possible that supreme intelligence comes with a catch?"
"Might geniuses and creative luminaries, like this man in the picture, be prone to depressed states of melancholy, mood disorders, even psychiatric diseases? As William Shakespeare said in A Mid-Summer Night's Dream, 'The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.'"
"Let's take it a step further," Alan said, raising his eyebrows. "Is it possible that such individuals have a different conception of reality? Are high intelligence and substance abuse linked? What about criminal behavior? Insanity even?"
Dr. Alan Pierce was one of the world's most prominent neuroscientists and experts on intelligence. As the leading authority on the human brain, Alan had written hundreds of academic papers, two neuroscience textbooks, and had lectured at universities and conferences around the world. Early in his career, he had worked in the field of neuroplasticity–the study of how the brain changed in response to input from the environment. For decades, neuroscientists had thought the brain was fixed, incapable of growing new cells or re-healing substantially. Regaining function after a stroke, for example, was long-thought impossible. Neuroscientific research, however, spearheaded largely by Alan and his research team at Stanford, showed that the brain was changeable, or "plastic". He had proved the brain could reorganize in response to aging, as well as heal itself following significant damage. Alan had showed that reorganization occurred within complex networks of cells and, using brain-imaging technologies, mapped cellular pathways to prove the brain's innate capacity for change.
It wasn't just his importance in the field that drew students to his lectures, though. Many professors prepared PowerPoint slides and plodded through them one-byone, but Alan often skipped from one slide to another, sometimes ditching the prepared presentation altogether to embark on some intriguing scientific question. Students loved the spontaneity and found it entertaining to see his mind work as he took a 30,000-foot approach on everything. A student once told Alan attending class was like a night at the movies. No one ever knew where discussion would end up. The topic could be how memories formed one minute, and the next they could be taking a metaphorical stroll through Leonardo Da Vinci's mind.
"What's the difference between average intelligence and genius?" Alan asked his students.
A student from the first row raised her hand eagerly. The neuroscience major was one of his finest students and always contributed to the discussions.
"Nicole," Alan said.
"Is it a difference in brain size? Is the brain of a person with a high IQ just … well, bigger?"
"What do people think?" Alan redirected the question to the class with a lift of his chin.
A male student from the back said, "I don't know, I mean a whale's brain has to be like fifty times bigger than a human's. I don't think we'll see Shamu challenging Deep Blue to a chess match anytime soon."
A few students chuckled.
"Good point," Alan said. "Actually yes, a sperm whale's brain weighs about seventeen pounds and an elephant's a little more than ten, whereas a human's weighs three pounds, about two percent of our body weight. Interestingly enough, analysis of Einstein's brain showed that one part of his brain was actually larger than average."
"Which?" Nicole asked, knowing how to take her cue from him.
Alan continued, "A study at the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University showed that Einstein's parietal lobes were larger than average, 15% larger, actually. The study was conducted in 1999 and showed that Einstein's left angular gyrus and supermarginal gyrus were larger than average. These areas are linked to mathematical skill and visuospatial cognition and are highly active when making unusual associations on tests of creativity. The enlarged areas, the researchers speculated, likely gave Einstein the ability to perform the conceptual gymnastics needed to think about time and space with such imagery and abstraction."
Alan let that sink in for a moment. "The study showed that Einstein's brain, as a whole, was actually smaller than average." "Interesting," Nicole said.
"So, size matters," Alan said, grinning. "But not when it comes to the brain." The students laughed.
"What about brain cells?" a student asked, as Alan walked toward the front row. "We talked a lot about neurons and the networks they form. Maybe the brain's not bigger … maybe a genius's brain has more cells. And maybe they're more tightly packed, denser?"
Alan nodded, pleased with how the discussion had developed. But he knew there was still a long way to go. The difference between average and genius-level intelligence involved not just the neuron but rather a less well-known, often overlooked brain cell. "After Albert Einstein's death in 1955," he said, "scientists across the world scrambled for the opportunity to get a piece of his brain. A pathologist named Thomas Harvey got to it first. After Harvey, a piece of Einstein's brain went to Marian Diamond, a neuro-anatomist at the University of California at Berkeley. Diamond found that
Einstein's brain had a higher percentage of brain cells called glial cells."
He waited for the students for a moment. "In brain science, neurons get all the glory. But the real miracle workers in the brain are the glial cells, Greek for "glue," which protect and preserve neurons. Once thought to only support nerve cells by providing nutrients and removing waste, these cells have also been found to speed communication between neurons. Diamond and her team found that Einstein's brain had more glial cells than average, especially in the left inferior parietal area, a region responsible for combining information from different areas of the brain." "So it's all about glial cells?" a student asked.
Alan shrugged. "Diamond's lab also discovered more connections between glial cells in Einstein's brain, especially in cortical regions such as the prefrontal cortex, temporal lobes, and hippocampus, all associated with memory. Her lab hypothesized that more connectivity conferred more sophisticated communication and higher cognitive capacity.
"Seeking to understand what stimulated such connectivity, Diamond compared rats in an enriched environment with rats in a setting without environmental stimulation. Rats in the stimulating environment were also given learning tasks. Results showed that the rats without any new challenges or learning tasks had fewer connections than rats challenged to learn new information. Einstein showed this same connectivity in multiple brain regions, presumably because of his insatiable curiosity, determination to continually learn, and passion for solving the riddles in the field of physics."
They'd gone through most of the areas Alan wanted them to, but he wasn't done yet.
"What else?" Alan asked, scanning the college students. "There's one more piece to the puzzle."
"Neurotransmitters!" Nicole called out.
"Yes," Alan said. "Chemicals are the last piece of the puzzle. In the brain, neurons 'talk' with each other through chemicals called neurotransmitters. These tiny proteins, released from cells during signaling, are the communicators of the brain. After release, they attach themselves to receptors on nearby cells like a key in a lock, stimulating them to fire and continue the message." Alan looked around at his class.
"Those with high intelligence may actually produce more neurotransmitters."
A student raised his hand, interrupting Alan's train of thought. A few classmates grumbled, recognizing the student. It was Harry Sadler, a pre-med major. He was smart but pompous and generally considered the class's know-it-all.
"Yes, Harry." Alan squinted over at him through his glasses. "Something to add?"
"Professor Pierce," Sadler said. "You worked on intelligence for years, right? Do you know of ways of getting … smarter?"
Alan half-expected the question. His students attended one of the most prestigious and competitive universities in the world. For a student like Sadler, destined for medical school, grades were everything.
A few years ago, Alan had attended a department meeting on the topic of focusenhancing drugs, like Adderall. Administrators were aware that students used such drugs for studying and test taking. One teacher cited a study in the journal Nature that found that a quarter of students had tried "neuro-enhancing" drugs, also called cognitive enhancers or "smart drugs." Comparing them to performance enhancers in athletics, teachers and administrators had raised the question of fairness and whether the recreational use of smart drugs should be considered cheating. They discussed Provigil, one such cognitive enhancer, which students were calling "Viagra for the brain." With wakefulness-promoting effects, Provigil was typically prescribed to narcoleptics as well as patients with neurological disorders such as Multiple Sclerosis. The drug worked by inhibiting areas of the brain that promoted fatigue, stimulating a state of increased alertness. It also stimulated the production of dopamine. The overproduction of this chemical, found in the brain's reward pathways, made even the most mundane tasks seem interesting. During graduate school, many of Alan's colleagues had used this "steroid for the mind" to get an academic edge.
In class, Alan was reluctant to speak about such "enhancement". While he knew colleagues who used "smart drugs," he had always opted for more natural approaches. It wasn't that he didn't want the mental edge, or that he was a purist, he just knew there were natural ways to get similar effects. More importantly, Alan was always skeptical that smart drugs were without side effects, as so many of their users claimed.
Alan looked from Sadler to the rest of the room. "The best ways to increase intelligence are by exercising, eating well, meditating, staying intellectually stimulated, and maintaining a rich social network of friends and family." "But what about … 'smart drugs'?" Sadler asked.
Alan hadn't expected Sadler to be so direct. "Some forms of pharmacological supplementation have been shown to enhance cognition, yes, but gains, if any, are modest."
Nicole chimed in. "And aren't they cheating?"
"Oh come on," Sadler said. "Don't be such a goodie-goodie. What's the difference between this and a cup of coffee?"
"One's legal for starters," Nicole shot back.
"Please," Sadler said. "We have drugs for weight loss, which make us look better. And drugs for depression, which make us feel better. Why not a drug that makes us smarter?"
Alan decided that he needed to scare Sadler a little. "Even if you could increase intelligence with smart drugs, would you want to? What about the strange and compulsive behaviors in the supremely intelligent? From scientists to artists, history has many examples of great minds suffering from obsessive behavior, psychosis, and substance abuse. Did you know that five out of eight American winners of the Nobel
Prize for literature were alcoholics?"
"The 'mad artist' idea." Sadler's skepticism was easy to hear. "This is where we start listing all the musicians who died before they hit thirty, right? Saying their talents and creativity drove them to insanity?"
Alan knew from experience where to take the argument. "Countless geniuses have used their gifts to create great things, masterpieces. But many have fallen victim to the dark sides of their talents."
"Like what?" Sadler asked, clearly not intimidated by the rhetoric.
"Well, on the benign side," Alan said, "there's a quiet withdrawing from society. Michelangelo, one of the greatest sculptors of all-time, found it painfully difficult to talk with people and hated most forms of social interaction. He bathed rarely and wore the same clothes over and over again. Beethoven cared so little about his cleanliness that his friends and family had to undress him and wash his clothes while he slept."
Sadler said, "So Beethoven was a little grubby and Michelangelo was no social butterfly. I'd hardly say they went to the dark side."
"For centuries," Alan said, gathering some steam, "many have associated genius with eccentricity, even insanity. In 1889, an Italian physician named Cesare Lombroso explored the link between high intelligence and unusual behavior. In his analysis of artists, musicians, and writers, he observed there was in fact a link between genius and mental illness."
Sadler's expression changed, perhaps rethinking his afternoon search for smart drugs on the Internet.
Alan let that sink in before continuing. "Many psychologists now believe creative geniuses like Emily Dickinson, Tchaikovsky, Vincent Van Gogh, and T.S. Elliot likely suffered from manic depression. It's possible that William Blake, who claimed that inspirations for his writing came to him through visiting spirits, suffered from a mental disorder. Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating current, suffered from hallucinations and columbiphilia, or pigeon-love, as well as triphilia, an obsession with the number three. What about the countless fictional accounts of genius gone wrong? Think of chilling characters like Hannibal Lector. Why do you think that's such an important image in popular culture?"
Alan paused. "The human brain gives us the power to create beautiful pieces of literature, architectural wonders, and extraordinary pieces of music. But with each aweinspiring creation, there are examples of horrible nightmares. For every Picasso, it seems, there is a Hitler. This three-pound organ has the capacity to both profoundly reward and deeply harm the human —"
Alan stopped as the back door to the classroom opened. A head with long blonde hair poked through. It was Jenny Rollins, Alan's laboratory manager.
Jenny mouthed a silent "Sorry" from the entryway and then lifted her hand to demonstrate that he had a phone call. "It's the hospital."
Chapter Two
Harvard University — Cambridge, Massachusetts
"On me!" Thomas Amani looked for help as Amherst rugby players protecting their ball carrier pushed forward. Three teammates locked arms with Thomas, the Harvard Rugby Union team's scrumhalf and captain, grunting as their ruck hit the opposition. The pack of athletes pushed against the rapidly forming opposition one, trying to gain ground. As more Harvard players joined Thomas, the Amherst ball carrier began inching backward, and the ruck moved in Harvard's favor. With two minutes left in the game, the score was 6 to 3 in Amherst's favor. It was the championship game, and both teams had fought hard all spring for a chance to claim the Division III title.
Thomas Amani was a twenty-one-year-old Harvard senior and the team's most skilled player. At six feet one inch, the young black man was well built, quick and agile, and a formidable opponent on the rugby field. He tackled as hard as he ran, and when he shouted a command on the field, no player ignored it. But he was a quiet leader and was surprised to have been chosen as the team's captain his senior year. A handful of others were more outspoken than Thomas was, but players looked up to him.
Players away from the action rested their hands on their knees, taking a break where they could. Even the college students, friends, and family in the stands were exhausted from the long match. Whenever Thomas got a break, he would scan the spectators, searching for Emily. He'd been dating his Harvard classmate for two years. Like Thomas, Emily was originally from Kenya. Even though their relationship had ended yesterday, he had still half-expected to see her in the stands.
A try by Harvard would put the team up 8 to 6, 10 if they converted it; Thomas was determined to make it happen. The ruck he'd started rocked back and forth rhythmically as both teams fought for ground. But extra opponents began piling in, stopping progress. With no forward or backward movement, the teams had reached a stalemate.
Thomas stopped pushing and began moving himself to the middle of the pack, ducking underneath interlocked arms, working his way toward the ball carrier. With Thomas loose and no longer pushing, the ruck surged in Amherst's favor. But he quickly reached the ball carrier. He wrapped a hand around the ball and yanked on it. If he could get it free, he could run all the way to the goal line. If he could get free.
Thomas Amani majored in political science with an emphasis on international relations and diplomacy. The young man had a commanding knowledge of foreign and domestic issues, constitutional law, American politics, and the streets smart to go with it.
After his last class next week, summer would officially begin.
While most of Thomas's friends were off to law school or lucrative first jobs, Thomas had applied for a summer internship in Washington, D.C., a public service position at the White House he was hoping would lead him to a life of public service. Over a thousand seniors from the world's most prestigious universities had applied. The program accepted two students. And the candidates were no ordinary men and women. In years past, Rhodes and Truman scholars had applied, as well as social entrepreneurs and innovators–extraordinary young adults committed to idealistic plans to change the world. After the game, Thomas planned to get a good night's rest for the last interview, which was taking place on Harvard's campus tomorrow morning.
From within the ruck, Thomas saw the referee pressing the whistle between his lips. It was a sign that another stoppage would end the game.
"Push!" Thomas shouted to his teammate Jeff. Jeff smashed into the side of the ruck, causing players to grunt as they absorbed the blow. While the impact didn't move the pile significantly, it did rattle the ball carrier, and for a brief moment he loosened his grip. Deep within the pile, Thomas's eyes widened. He seized the opportunity, wrapping his hand around the ball. With a violent tug, he ripped it away. Thomas rotated and backpedaled out of the pack, toward the Amherst goal line.
Suddenly, he was free. Thomas had running room and was only ten yards away from the goal line. An Amherst player threw himself at Thomas but didn't wrap his arms properly; Thomas stayed upright as the tackler crumpled to the ground. Five yards away. Only two players stood between him and the win. The closest flung himself at Thomas's knees and, unlike the previous tackler, executed his tackle perfectly. Clinging to his legs, the Amherst player began pulling at Thomas's jersey, digging his cleats into the ground as he tried to bring Thomas down. Thomas heard the fabric of his shirt tear and felt the bottom of his jersey rip under the player's weight.
The slowed progress made Thomas an easy target for the last opponent closest to the goal line, who had already begun sprinting toward him. Thomas lowered his shoulder as the player crashed into him. The blow was effective, and Thomas began to fall, the goal line only a yard away.
Thomas clenched his teeth and tightened his grip on the ball. He yanked a leg from an opponent's grip and drove it into ground, propelling himself forward. As he began tipping over, he stretched his arms out as far as he could.
The referee hovered over the goal line and watched as Thomas broke the plane and slammed the ball into the ground for the score. Thomas closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. The Amherst players at his feet untangled themselves, and he pushed his hands into the ground and stood up to greet his screaming teammates, ecstatic that they were Division III champions. He looked into the stands, a sea of colors and screaming fans. "We won!" Jeff yelled, jumping up and down. "You did it, man!" He wrapped his arms around Thomas, hugging him in celebration. But Thomas looked past his friend as they embraced, searching the stands. Emily hadn't come to the game.
Chapter Three
Friday, May 18 — 76 Miles from Nairobi, Kenya
Standing in the airplane bathroom, which rocked occasionally from turbulence, Colonel David Landry read the tattoo on his forearm: the best defense is a good offense. He had always found the words motivating since the incident in Paris, especially before missions like tonight's.
In front of the mirror, Landry twisted open a bottle of aspirin, tapped four blue pills into his hand, and threw them back. He tossed the bottle into the trash, then unzipped his coat pocket and pulled out the picture he carried at all times. Nahip Nakari's features stared back at him, the same as when the terrorist had shot him three years ago.
Landry looked into the mirror, examining the two-inch scar at his hairline.
He brought his attention back to the picture of Nakari. There was a newspaper article beneath it. Paris Subway Bombing Kills over 200, 300 Injured. A second picture behind the article showed Landry in the hospital, using his hands to walk his then-useless legs down two poles a few feet off the ground. He had spent a whole year in that hospital after the accident, learning how to eat again, walk again, talk again. In the picture was his neurologist, Dr. Andrea Peterson, holding his arms as he fumbled his way down the poles. All that because he'd been spotted. Because he hadn't been careful enough. Nakari had employed undercover people during the Paris operation. Two of them, disguised as a couple, had spotted Landry in his window before the mission.
During Landry's recovery, General Jonathan Beranger had visited him often. The military commander had been the one to tell the colonel what happened. To keep him connected to the outside world. But the real reason Beranger visited Landry was to recruit him for a new military unit, on a base they now jointly commanded.
As Landry regained his strength, he and Beranger had discussed what went wrong in Paris again and again. It had seemed so obvious that better prevention was necessary. Criminals like Nakari needed to be dealt with before they became aggressors. With renewed purpose, Landry regained the use of his body and, together with General Beranger, founded Genesis, a special operations section attached to the CIA and based in Southern California.
Their first operation, two years ago, had been to kill Nakari, along with the small terrorist cell he was leading. Landry had led that one personally. Landry looked down at his forearm again, reading his tattoo one more time. The message served as a constant reminder, a tried-and-true military philosophy, a compass for making tactical and sometimes personal decisions.
A lightning bolt tore horizontally across the night sky, brightening Landry's small airplane window. The weather had worsened since he and his team had boarded the President of Kenya's Falcon 50 long-range jet. Rain began to fall, softly at first, then harder. The storm began to rock the plane. It would be hard to jump in this weather.
The mission would go forward, regardless. Landry looked at his watch. Seven minutes until the President's plane reached Zone F: their drop zone. The mission, Operation Early Bird, was planned by Colonel Landry and the tacticians at Genesis. It was unsophisticated on the surface: blackout, strike, and then jump to escape. Yet there were dangers. The skydive from 35,000 feet would require great precision. Missing Zone F would land Landry and his team deep in the African savannah–a place he and his team had neither the gear nor the weapons for at night. Worse, if they missed, their man on the ground, Roy Marks, would have no way of locating them.
Landry turned toward the window and pressed a device in his ear. "Six minutes and thirty seconds," he said softly. "Prepare for full black-out."
Major Andy Tillman, Landry's second-in-command, lifted his hand to his ear, pretending to satisfy an itch. "Six-thirty, Sir," he said. "Roger."
Colonel Landry had studied every inch of the plane's interior and knew the exact position of the President's guards, as well as the members of his four-man team located throughout the plane. Major Tillman sat two seats ahead of him, in the middle aisle. Throughout the plane were three more of the colonel's men. First Lieutenant Conrad was waiting in the crawl space just above Tillman. Captain Rattler was in the crawlspace at back of the plane. Second Lieutenant Craft was disguised as a co-pilot in the plane's cockpit, ready for Landry's order to initiate the mission.
In the row between Landry and Tillman sat the target, a well-built African man, dressed in an expensive Armani suit. At five minutes, Landry would get the go or no-go command from General Beranger to either assassinate Kenyan President Nassir Lwazi or abort.
Sitting on both sides of Lwazi were his bodyguards, both the size of pickup trucks and mean looking with it. The files on the bodyguards were frightening. Like their leader, the guards were smart, cold-blooded, and ruthless. But Landry's men were just as elite. Even if Lwazi anticipated an unlikely air attack, the colonel and his men had the element of surprise, one of warfare's most powerful weapons.
The weather outside was worsening and the plane shuddered from turbulence. The lightning provoked some whispers and nervous laughs among the passengers, who included some members of Lwazi's presidential cabinet.
Landry felt a vibration in his pocket. He read his watch: Five minutes. Right on time. He pulled the satellite phone from his pocket, turned it over, and read the message on the screen. "Lethal action approved."
— ♦ —
Photo provided courtesy of
Dustin Grinnell
Dustin Grinnell is a science writer for a biomedical research institute in Cambridge, MA. His travel essays and articles have appeared in such publications as Narratively and The Expeditioner. His feature-length screenplay ("Play") was a finalist in the 2013 Acclaim Scripts Film Contest. He received his bachelor's in psychobiology from Wheaton College and his master's in physiology from Pennsylvania State University. He is currently working on his second novel, Without Limits.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at DustinGrinnell.com.
— ♦ —
The Genius Dilemma
Dustin Grinnell
A Technothriller
A team of scientists has invented a new smart drug named Trillium. A revolutionary medical breakthrough, Trillium enhances cognitive abilities, creating geniuses. But the researchers are horrified to discover that genius comes at a cost …
Leviathan, the CIA's assassination team, has been tasked with eliminating global threats using any means necessary. When their superior General Beranger learns about Trillium, he believes he's uncovered a distinct advantage in the fight against terrorism. After convincing the scientists to share the drug with his team, Beranger learns there's just one problem — the side effects are disturbing.
Trillium creates cold-blooded psychopaths.
The first casualty is CIA operative David Landry who snaps hours after taking the drug. When he goes rogue, it's up to Special Forces, along with renowned neuroscientist Alan Pierce and psychiatrist Michelle Emmett, to stop them.
Armed with a hastily concocted antidote, the team hunts Landry.
His destination? Africa. Nasir Lwazi, the Kenyan president, has recently been murdered. Believing Lwazi's son Thomas is a threat to national security, Landry is on a ruthless mission to destroy him and he doesn't plan to let anyone get in his way.
Alan and the Special Forces team are determined to reach Kenya and stop Landry before he harms Thomas or any other innocent civilians. But can they get there in time? Will the antidote work? Or will Landry suffer the same fate as their other targets?
In the unforgettable climax, an epic battle for power ensues as the Special Forces team attempts to thwart Landry's homicidal tendencies.
Mac
