The Circle Series 4-in-1

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. THE CIRCLE SERIES By TED DEKKER Thomas Nelson Copyright © 2009 Ted DekkerAll right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-59554-792-7 Contents Black.................................................1Red...................................................419White.................................................805Green (with new alternate ending).....................1181Bonus: original ending of Green.......................1577An Interview with Ted Dekker..........................1591 Chapter One BLACK THE BIRTH OF EVIL Switzerland CARLOS MISSIRIAN was his name. One of his many names. Born in Cyprus. The man who sat at the opposite end of the long dining table, slowlycutting into a thick red steak, was Valborg Svensson. One of his many,many names. Born in hell. They ate in near-perfect silence thirty feet from each other in a darkhall hewn from granite deep in the Swiss Alps. Black iron lamps along thewalls cast a dim amber light through the room. No servants, no other furniture,no music, no one except Carlos Missirian and Valborg Svensson seatedat the exquisite dining table. Carlos sliced the thick slab of beef with a razor-sharp blade andwatched the flesh separate. Like the parting of the Red Sea. He cut again,aware that the only sound in this room was of two serrated knives cuttingthrough meat into china, severing fibers. Strange sounds if you knew whatto listen for. Carlos placed a slice in his mouth and bit firmly. He didn't look up atSvensson, although the man was undoubtedly staring at him, at his face—atthe long scar on his right cheek—with those dead black eyes of his.Carlos breathed deep, taking time to enjoy the coppery taste of the filet. Very few men had ever unnerved Carlos. The Israelis had taken care ofthat early in his life. Hate, not fear, ruled him, a disposition he found usefulas a killer. But Svensson could unnerve a rock with a glance. To say thatthis beast put fear in Carlos would be an overstatement, but he certainlykept Carlos awake. Not because Svensson presented any physical threat tohim; no man really did. In fact, Carlos could, at this very moment, sendthe steak knife in his hands into the man's eye with a quick flip of his wrist.Then what prompted his caution? Carlos wasn't sure. The man wasn't really a beast from hell, of course. He was a Swiss-bornbusinessman who owned half the banks in Switzerland and half the pharmaceuticalcompanies outside the United States. True, he had spent morethan half his life here, below the Swiss Alps, stalking around like a cagedanimal, but he was as human as any other man who walked on two legs.And, at least to Carlos, as vulnerable. Carlos washed the meat down with a sip of dry Chardonnay and let hiseyes rest on Svensson for the first time since sitting to eat. The man ignoredhim, as he almost always did. His face was badly pitted, and his noselooked too large for his head—not fat and bulbous, but sharp and narrow.His hair, like his eyes, was black, dyed. Svensson stopped cutting midslice, but he did not look up. The roomfell silent. Like statues, they both sat still. Carlos watched him, unwillingto break off his stare. The one mitigating factor in this uncommonrelationship was the fact that Svensson also respected Carlos. Svensson suddenly set down his knife and fork, dabbed at his mustacheand lips with a serviette, stood, and walked toward the door. He movedslowly, like a sloth, favoring his right leg. Dragging it. He'd never offeredan explanation for the leg. Svensson left the room without casting a singleglance Carlos's way. Carlos waited a full minute in silence, knowing it would take Svenssonall of that to walk down the hall. Finally he stood and followed, exiting intoa long hall that led to the library, where he assumed Svensson had retired. He'd met the Swiss three years ago while working with undergroundRussian factions determined to equalize the world's military powers throughthe threat of biological weapons. It was an old doctrine: What did it matterif the United States had two hundred thousand nuclear weaponstrained on the rest of the world if their enemies had the right biologicalweapons? A highly infectious airborne virus on the wind was virtuallyindefensible in open cities. One weapon to bring the world to its knees. Carlos paused at the library door, then pushed it open. Svensson stoodby the glass wall overlooking the white laboratory one floor below. He'd lita cigar and was engulfed in a cloud of hazy smoke. Carlos walked past a wall filled with leather-bound books, lifted adecanter of Scotch, poured himself a drink, and sat on a tall stool. Thethreat of biological weapons could easily equal the threat of nuclearweapons. They could be easier to use, could be far more devastating. Could . In traditional contempt of any treaty, the U.S.S.R. had employedthousands of scientists to develop biological weapons, even after signingthe Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in 1972. All supposedlyfor defense purposes, of course. Both Svensson and Carlos were intimatelyfamiliar with the successes and failures of former Soviet research. In thefinal analysis, the so-called "superbugs" they had developed weren't superenough, not even close. They were far too messy, too unpredictable, andtoo easy to neutralize. Svensson's objective was simple: to develop a highly virulent and stableairborne virus with a three- to six-week incubation period that respondedimmediately to an antivirus he alone controlled. The point wasn't to kill offwhole populations of people. The point was to infect whole regions of theearth within a few short weeks and then control the only treatment. This was how Svensson planned to wield unthinkable power withoutthe help of a single soldier. This was how Carlos Missirian would rid theworld of Israel without firing a single shot. Assuming, of course, such avirus could be developed and then secured. But then, all scientists knew it was only a matter of time. Svensson stared at the lab below. The Swiss wore his hair parted downthe middle so that black locks flopped either way. In his black jacket helooked like a bat. He was a man married to a dark religious code thatrequired long trips in the deepest of nights. Carlos was certain his goddressed in a black cloak and fed on misery, and at times he questioned hisown allegiance to Svensson. The man was driven by an insatiable thirst forpower, and the men he worked for even more so. This was their food. Theirdrug. Carlos didn't care to understand the depths of their madness; he onlyknew they were the kind of people who would get what they wanted, andin the process he would get what he wanted: the restoration of Islam. He took a sip of the Scotch. You would think that one, just one, of thethousands of scientists working in the defensive biotechnological sector wouldhave stumbled onto something meaningful after all these years . They hadover three hundred paid informants in every major pharmaceutical company.Carlos had interviewed fifty-seven scientists from the former Sovietbioweapons program, quite persuasively. And in the end, nothing. At leastnothing they were looking for. The telephone on a large black sandalwood desk to their right rangshrilly. Neither made a move for the phone. It stopped ringing. "We need you in Bangkok," Svensson said. His voice sounded like therumble of an engine churning against a cylinder full of gravel. "Bangkok." "Yes, Bangkok. Raison Pharmaceutical." "The Raison Vaccine?" Carlos said. They had been following the developmentof the vaccine for over a year with the help of an informant in theRaison labs. He'd always thought it would be ironic if the French companyRaison—pronounced ray-ZONE, meaning "reason"—might one day producea virus that would bring the world to its knees. "I wasn't aware their vaccine held any promise for us," he said. Svensson limped slowly, so slowly, to his desk, picked up a piece ofwhite paper and scanned it. "You do remember a report three monthsago about unsustainable mutations of the vaccine." "Our contact said the mutations were unsustainable and died out inminutes." Carlos wasn't a scientist, but he knew more than the averageman about bioweapons, naturally. "Those were the conclusions of Monique de Raison. Now we haveanother report. Our man at the CDC received a nervous visitor today whoclaimed that the mutations of the Raison Vaccine held together under prolonged,specific heat. The result, the visitor claimed, would be a lethal airbornevirus with an incubation of three weeks. One that could infect theentire world's population in less than three weeks." "And how did this visitor happen to come across this information?" Svensson hesitated. "A dream," he said. "A very unusual dream. A very, very convincingdream of a future world populated by people who think his dreams of thisworld are only dreams. And by large white bats who talk." Now it was Carlos's turn to hesitate. "Bats." "Who know more than is humanly possible, it seems. We have ourreasons for paying attention. I want you to fly to Bangkok and interviewMonique de Raison. If the situation warrants, I will want the RaisonVaccine itself, by whatever means." "Now we're resorting to mystics?" Svensson had covered the CDC well, with four on the payroll, ifCarlos remembered correctly. Even the most innocuous-sounding reportsof infectious diseases quickly made their way to the headquarters inAtlanta. Svensson was understandably interested in any report of any newoutbreak and the plans to deal with it. But a dream? Thoroughly out of character for the stoic, black-heartedSwiss. This alone gave the suggestion its only credence. Svensson glared at him with dark eyes. "As I said, we have other reasonsto believe this man may know things he has no business knowing,regardless of how he attained that information." "Such as?" "It's beyond you. Suffice it to say there is no way Thomas Huntercould have known that the Raison Vaccine was subject to unsustainablemutations." Carlos frowned. "A coincidence." "I'm not willing to take that chance. The fate of the world rests on oneelusive virus and its cure. We may have just found that virus." "I'm not sure Monique de Raison will offer an ... interview." "Then take her by force." "And what about Hunter?" "You will learn by whatever means necessary everything ThomasHunter knows, and then you will kill him." 1 One Day Earlier THE WATER cascaded over Thomas Hunter's head and ran down hisface like a warm glove. It was just that, water, but it washed away all hisconcern and anxiety and set his mind free for a few minuets. He'd beenhere a while, lost in a distant world that hung on the edge of his mindwithout any detail or meaning. Just escape. Pure escape, the closest heever got to heaven these days. A fist pounded the door. "Thomas! I'm outta here. You're going tobe late." A mental image of a much older Kara flashed through his mind. Shewas graying, perhaps in her fifties, and she was asking him to take herwith him. Just that: "Take me with you, Thomas." And then the image was gone. He blinked under streams of water,suddenly disoriented. How long had he been here? For the briefestmoment he was at a loss as to how he'd even gotten here. Then it all came crashing in on him. He was in the shower. It was latemorning. His shift at Java Hut started at noon. Right? Yes, of course. He shook the water from his head. "Okay." Then added, "See youtonight." But Kara was probably already out the door, headed to her shift at thehospital. The thing about his sister: she might only be in her early twentieslike him, but what she lacked in age, she more than made up for inmaturity. Not that he was irresponsible, but he hadn't made the transitionfrom life on the streets in Manila to life in the States quite as smoothlyas Kara. He stepped out of the shower and wiped the steamed mirror with hisforearm. He ran both hands through his wet hair and examined his faceas best he could with streaks of water clinging to the glass. Not bad. Not bad, chicks dug a little stubble, right? He'd lost someof his edge over the last couple years in New York, but Denver would bedifferent. The troubles with loan sharks and shady import partners werebehind him now. Soon as he got back on his feet, he would reenter societyand find a way to excel at something. In the meantime, there was the coffee shop he worked at, and therewas the apartment, gratis, thanks to Kara. He dressed quickly, grabbed a day-old sugar donut on his way outand headed up Ninth, then through the alley to Colfax, where the boutiquecoffee shop better known as Java Hut waited. The Rockies stoodagainst a blue sky, just visible between high-rise apartments as he madehis way up the street. Mother was still in New York, where she'd settledin after the divorce. It had been a tough road, but she was set now. Indeed, the world was set. He just had to put some time in, regroup,and let life come to him as it always had, with fistfuls of dollars and awoman who could appreciate the finer things in life. Like him. Okay, only in his dreams at the moment, but things were looking up.Maybe he'd finally get back to one of those novels he'd written when hisdream of conquering the publishing world was alive and well. Thomas entered the coffee shop two minutes past noon and let thedoor slam shut behind him. "Hey, Thomas." The new dark-haired hire, Edith, smiled and gavehim a wink. Okay ... interesting. Pretty enough. But being a magnet for trouble,Thomas didn't make a habit of flirting with women he knew nothingabout. "Hey." She tossed him a green apron. "Frank would like you to show me theropes." "Okay." He stepped around her and behind the counter. "We close together tonight," she said. Right. Frank had started up these ten-hour shifts a week earlier. "Okay." "Yeah." He refused to look at her, knowing what was on her mind already. Itwas the farthest thing from his mind. The day passed quickly and he managed to close with her withouteither betraying his general disinterest in her or offering any encouragement.But showing her the ropes, as she called it, had taken longer thanusual, and he didn't get out till ten thirty that night. He headed down the street, headed for the apartment. Another day,another dollar. Not fistfuls, but at least it was steady. More than he couldsay for his, uh ... more ambitious gigs. All was good. All was ... But then suddenly all wasn't so good. He was walking down the samedimly lit alley he always took on his way home when a smack! punctuatedthe hum of distant traffic. Red brick dribbled from a one-inch hole twofeet away from his face. He stopped midstride. Smack! This time he saw the bullet plow into the wall. This time he felt asting on his cheek as tiny bits of shattered brick burst from the impact.This time every muscle in his body seized. Continues... Excerpted from THE CIRCLE SERIES by TED DEKKER Copyright © 2009 by Ted Dekker. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.