Zurich, Switzerland – The Summit
The Gulfstream G700 landed almost eight hours to the minute flight time from Kennedy in New York to Zurich Flughafen (ZRH). Heinlein and Leeds slept through most of the journey – they were fatigued after eating and drinking so royally at The Masters‘ “Table” in Paulus Hook, Jersey City before getting on the plane.
They roused in the comfortable cabin to sudden annoying ear pressure during descent and a noticeable bump of landing gear contacting the runway. Simon Magus was on his phone, heatedly arguing with someone in Russian. He slammed the iPhone down on his table with an audible “thud” and commenced rubbing the temples of his forehead.
“You’ll soon be meeting an old friend, Detective” he said. “Get yourselves together so we can deplane in the next ten minutes”.
Heinlein watched the Magus disappear into the rear cabin, presumably to change clothes – or talk privately to other confederates.
“The Master seems rather non-plussed…and who’s this old friend I’m gonna’ meet?”” Heinlein said to Leeds. She just shrugged and whispered back to him.
“There’s something big going down here…high stakes. And the US State Department has eyes everywhere – so mind your manners. Remember, this is Europe – they don’t like American coppers here”.
Finally, the light came on for them to unbuckle their lap belts and disembark. A door somewhere behind them swung open, filling the cabin with frigid Swiss winter air. Within minutes a familiar face poked in and looked at Heinlein – smiling from ear to ear.
“Hello, Detective…” He said.
It was Jancek Urban – his BratvaVarang bodyguard that Ilse had assigned to him way back when he was to marry her in full Viking regalia at the Gamla Uppsala in Sweden.
Heinlein leapt out of his seat and rushed towards the guy, almost bowled-over by the sight of him. He embraced Jancek warmly – a gesture not wasted on Leeds, who wasn’t used to seeing Heinlein get so gushy-emotional about much of anything.
“Jancek – this is Leeds, my colleague”. Heinlein introduced her, visibly winking at him when he said the word colleague.
He bellowed at his girlfriend – “Leeds – this is my Bratva!”
She just smiled at the male moment, shaking her head in approval. It was good seeing Heinlein so delighted.
“How do you do.” Jancek responded, returning her smile. “Can you both follow me? The Master will take the lead vehicle”.
Heinlein and Leeds grabbed their overhead bags and followed Jancek to a large, black Mercedes that was parked right next to the plane. It was in a line of black Mercedes G-Wagons and Land Rovers that were idling. The first vehicle – two ahead of them – was a black Chevrolet Suburban. Obviously armored and tactical. The Master’s coach.
They all left the airport at a good clip, weaving in and out of traffic and back roads. It was a beautiful, sunny Swiss morning, and the wisps of shite snow and verdant green landscape was almost mesmerizing. The mountains in the distance were Sound of Music movie-set quality to a couple of cops who’d just exited New Jersey.
After about twenty minutes, the caravan of vehicles drove through the large, razor-wired gates of a high-security hardened industrial development – straight inside a huge aircraft-hanger-sized enclosed space. The location was an armed camp. Overhead high-energy xenon light stanchions everywhere, military vehicles parked at regular intervals – all bearing official Swiss markings. Drab-uniformed personnel carrying M4 Assault Rifles and sidearms patrolled the perimeters in classic safety sweeps. It wasn’t a prison – but it could’ve been one. It was an impregnable lager. Leeds shot Heinlein her “what’ve we got involved with here? look.
Heinlein and Leeds got out of the Mercedes and followed Jancek and The Master to the rear of the building.
They walked into a series of high-windowed office rooms with armed guards stationed outside every door. The Master was led to a glassed enclosure by the silver-haired gentleman that he’d shared his armored Chevrolet Suburban transport with. Inside the space was a grizzled, disheveled man in a white lab coat, smeared with all manner of stains and grime. His shoes were scuffed and one of his pants cuffs was torn. He wore no tie – and his shirt collar was crumbled like he’d slept crushed into it. He’d obviously been roughed up good.
Simon Magus spoke first. His voice was firm and authoritative. His eyes were laser-focused on his pitiable subject.
“You are Doktor Professor Jacob Dubnyk?“
The man – visibly shaking and his lips trembling – nodded in the affirmative, his terrified eyes wide open with fear of what to expect next.
“My name is Simon. I want you to follow me”.
They all walked through twisting hallways to another area of the large structure – a garage of sorts. There, parked with guards next to it, was a Mercedes straight-job truck.
“Doktor Professor Dubnyk, look inside this truck and consider carefully what you are looking at”.
A guard lifted the back door of the truck while another guard assisted the man up a small ladder onto the tail gate. As the door lifted a rank, coppery and putrescent smell wafted from the interior out into the area where Heinlein, Leeds and Simon Magus were standing.
Inside was hastily stacked computer arrays, contiguous memory frames, computer equipment, boxes of wires, boxes of printed files, cables and hard drives. Everything was smeared with red slime and fatty, greasy muck. Residues of flesh. It was as if somebody threw a hand grenade into a computer room full of workers and blew-up the people and hardware – and then scraped everything together and pushed it into the back of a vehicle.
Doktor Dubnyk was thoroughly terrified – and breathing through his handkerchief to stanch the revolting, filthy smell he was standing in the middle of. He was shaking like he was in the throes of a petit-mal epileptic fit, his eyes riveted on a console that was obviously torn from a computer array – with a severed human hand congealed onto its thumbprint scanner.
Heinlein then spied inside the truck bay a retina scanning device with three eyeballs resting on top of it.
Simon Magus didn’t mince words or react to the gruesome sight. He kept his voice cool and businesslike.
“Doktor Professor Dubnyk. You are the director of special projects research at NordPharma. Personally selected by Dr. Isle Sonnerlund for that office. Her whereabouts remain unknown. You are the sole scientist in this company who knows the entire genesis of Project ASTRA. You know that your Serbian Recombinant DNA Facility and CRISPR Laboratories have been destroyed and all scientists and technical personnel there have been massacred. These are their computers, hard drives, experiment notes – their cell culture data, genome editing and validation protocols, cytometry and phenotype analysis. All their microscopy imaging and high-resolution screening digital memory of edited cells. All their genomic sequencing histories, target analysis and throughput gRNA tests and retests material. All of the Serbian CRISPR Lab core tissue specimens and blood cytoplasm cultures have already been transported here and are safely being preserved in liquid nitrogen should their DNA be required.
In this truck is absolutely everything you will need to back-engineer the CRISPR-spliced genomic sequencing of ASTRA. Of course, you’ll have to first clean the human detritus off of what you find.
And once you succeed in that task – you will find a way to neutralize it. You will synthesize an antidote.
You will be kept at this facility night and day. You will be assisted by twenty-five specialists in CRISPR genomic sequencing – and following the template and breadcrumbs your Serbian scientists have left behind in this stinking, blood-smeared and human carrion-encrusted hardware and software, you will succeed in recreating – and then defeating – ASTRA.
You need not contemplate what awaits you if you refuse this task. You will take your place exsanguinated and dismembered beside the remains of your compatriots inside this truck. Yes – exsanguinated. Do you know why? Because a cadre of Vampyres interrogated these NordPharma scientists – and they drank deep of their blood whilst they went about their questioning. When eyes were required for retina scans – they plucked them out of your friend’s skulls. When thumb prints were required for computer hard drive access – they chopped off your friend’s hands. Our world-class computer experts will now reassemble and access these hard drives and make them give up their secrets to you and your team.
You have here every advanced machine and scientific device available to complete your task. Each one of your assisting scientists has been similarly “convinced” to undertake this quest. Each one has seen the inside of this truck. If any of you – or all of you – fail…Vampyres will return and resume their feast. Hell looms over you from this day forward. We will not hunt you or any of your staff who manage to escape – Vampyres will. Your identities have been shared with them already. All of you are on their radar.
Your only hope of survival is to defeat ASTRA.
A state-of-the art CRISPR laboratory has been created for you here, Doktor Professor Dubnyk. You have the best equipment and help that money can buy. You have food and lodging – and 24/7 security and surveillance. I suggest you settle in and get cracking.
Do we understand each other?
Goodbye, Doktor. The next time we meet you will personally hand me a vial containing a perfectly functioning ASTRA Antidote.“
Heinlein and Leeds joined The Master in his hardened Chevrolet Suburban for a jaunt into Zurich. They were both relieved to depart the militarized compound where the scientists were being “detained”. Heinlein warily hazarded a question while they drove through yet more amazing Swiss countryside. They had a Mercedes G-Wagons ahead and behind them chock full of armed security personnel. None of the ops even bothered to hide their weapons – apparently Switzerland was their oyster.
“Do you think these scientists are going to succeed in crafting a vaccine for ASTRA? High stress environments are hardly conducive to scientific progress…”
Simon Magus adjusted his gaze outside the vehicle to lose himself in the endless rolling hills and tree lines that unfolded majestically before them. After a few minutes, he spoke.
“Dubnyk was hand-selected by Sonnerlund to create ASTRA. For good reason – he’s a Nobel Laureate in Microbiology and a leader in the CRISPR genomic splicing community. He’s written countless scientific articles – all peer reviewed – on nRNA and COVID. He’s got the brains and everything he needs to back-engineer the ASTRA synthesis has been provided to him in the back of that gruesome truck. Everybody at that high-security facility we’ve just left worked on the ASTRA project. They all have blood on their hands. It’s time for them to be held to account and rehabilitate themselves. Atone for their sins, as it were. We’re giving them an opportunity to cleanse their blackened souls – or die for unleashing a scourge on mankind…. the punishment fits the crime. You’re witnessing Justice here.
We’re heading to my favorite restaurant in Zurich to attend a major summit meeting of allies. The entire bistro has been reserved. Formal attire for you both will be provided before we are seated. Longinus will meet us there. But first we take a bit of a diversion. Be patient.”
The formidable Suburban once again entered the City of Zurich proper. Gleaming office buildings and high-rises took center stage and captivated their view – until their caravan of vehicles stopped.
“Look about you, Detective” The Master said. “This is the Seefeld District – right across from the Rieterpark. Note the building across the street – #34 Seefeldstrasse….or what is left of it.
That is the residence of Dr. Ilse Sonnerlund. It was torn to pieces and cleansed of all documentary and physical evidence involving Project ASTRA, then burned.”
He tapped his driver on the shoulder.
“Let’s go…..Bistro Bentrice across town, please Andrjy.”
Heinlein watched the remains of the charred building fade into the distance behind them. He pondered their situation.
Simon Magus was leaving no stone unturned in his efforts to solve the diffuse the ASTRA threat. And he seemed quite comfortable playing hardball. Ruthless, in fact. He was obviously a man who’d learned his lessons from History up close and personal.
Leeds gently squeezed his hand. Intuitive as ever – and glimpsing his furrowed brow – she leaned over and whispered near his ear.
“Hard times make hard men – and The Master has seen his share of hard times”.
Copyright, 2026 Jon Croft
www.bogironslav.com
Email: vlchek1@gmail.com
