Mindwar Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR ANDREW KLAVAN

  “. . . the focus is on action, and there’s just enough left unresolved to tempt readers onward.”

  —KIRKUS REVIEWS ON MINDWAR

  “A fantastic read. Fast-paced and wildly imaginative, MINDWAR is a cinematic cyber thriller with more twists than a circuit board.”

  —JOHN DIXON, AUTHOR OF PHOENIX ISLAND (INSPIRATION FOR THE CBS-TV SHOW INTELLIGENCE)

  “This book will appeal to anyone who is looking for a fast-paced adventure story in which teens must do some fast thinking to survive.”

  —SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEW OF IF WE SURVIVE

  “Klavan turns up the heat for YA fiction . . .”

  —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW OF IF WE SURVIVE

  “A thriller that reads like a teenage version of 24 . . . an adrenaline-pumping adventure.”

  —THEDAILYBEAST.COM REVIEW OF THE LAST THING I REMEMBER

  “Action sequences that never let up . . . wrung for every possible drop of nervous sweat.”

  —BOOKLIST REVIEW OF THE LONG WAY HOME

  “. . . the adrenaline-charged action will keep you totally immersed. The original plot is full of twists and turns and unexpected treasures.”

  —ROMANTIC TIMES REVIEW OF CRAZY DANGEROUS

  “[Klavan] is a solid storyteller with a keen eye for detail and vivid descriptive power . . . The Long Way Home is something like ‘The Hardy Boys’ crossed with the ‘My Teacher Is an Alien’ series.”

  —WASHINGTON TIMES

  “I’m buying everything Klavan is selling, from the excellent first-person narrative, to the gut-punching action; to the perfect doses of humor and wit . . . it’s all working for me.”

  —JAKE CHISM, FICTIONADDICT.COM

  “Through it all, Charlie teaches lessons in Christian decency and patriotism, not by talking about those things, or even thinking about them much, but through practicing them . . . Well done, Andrew Klavan.”

  —THE AMERICAN CULTURE

  “This is Young Adult fiction . . . but the unadulterated intelligence of a superb suspense novelist is very much in evidence throughout.”

  —BOOKS & CULTURE

  ALSO BY ANDREW KLAVAN

  Nightmare City

  If We Survive

  Crazy Dangerous

  THE HOMELANDERS SERIES

  The Last Thing I Remember

  The Long Way Home

  The Truth of the Matter

  The Final Hour

  © 2014 by Andrew Klavan

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected].

  Scripture quotations are taken from The KING JAMES VERSION and THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-4016-8893-6 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Klavan, Andrew.

  MindWar : a novel / Andrew Klavan.

  pages cm. -- (The MindWar Trilogy ; 1)

  ISBN 978-1-4016-8892-9 (hardback)

  1. Cyberterrorism--Prevention--Fiction. 2. Undercover operations--Fiction. 3. Video gamers--Fiction. 4. Suspense fiction. I. Klavan, Andrew. II. Title.

  PS3561.L334M56 2014

  813’.54--dc23

  2013050887

  14 15 16 17 18 19 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  LEVEL ONE: TUTORIAL

  1. STAR FIGHTER

  2. A HALF LIFE

  3. CRASH DAY

  4. THE ASSASSIN’S CREED

  5. A JUST CAUSE

  6. THE CALL OF DUTY

  LEVEL TWO: ON THE SCARLET PLAIN

  7. GUN

  8. PORTAL

  9. ANOTHER WORLD

  10. JEOPARDY

  11. THE THING

  12. IRON SWORD

  13. WORDS WITH FRIENDS

  LEVEL THREE: INTRUDERS

  14. A GOD OF WAR

  15. RAGE

  16. FIGHTING FIT

  17. HITMAN

  18. SECRET FILES

  19. PORTAL TWO

  LEVEL FOUR: THE CREATURES OF THE AIR

  20. DARK DESCENT

  21. DRAGON SWORD

  22. DRAGON SKIES

  23. DARK FALL

  LEVEL FIVE: THE MISSING MAN

  24. AUTO ASSAULT

  25. MARS

  26. PAST MEMORIES

  27. THE LOST

  28. RECKONING

  29. ENDGAME

  BOSS LEVEL: REZA

  30. FORTRESS

  CUT SCENE: AFTERMATH

  31. HOME FRONT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MINDWAR

  LEVEL ONE:

  TUTORIAL

  1. STAR FIGHTER

  RICK DIAL STREAKED through the vastness of space, starlight and gunfire blazing all around him. The seat of his battlecraft shook beneath him as he pressed the button to unleash another deadly barrage from his two forward guns. He caught one glimpse of the pilot of the Orgon ship veering in toward him from starboard, then his shot struck home. There was an orange blast of flame and scrap metal. When it was over, both the Orgon ship and its pilot were gone.

  That was the last of the guardians. Rick righted his battlecraft and zoomed in toward the mothership, which now hovered in the endless darkness undefended. He held the Fire button down. His forward guns bucked and spat death in a continual rattle. The black wall of the mothership frayed, chipped, and then burst apart. The landing bay was laid open to the vacuum of space.

  As Rick guided his craft in toward the interior landing strip, he could see the insectile Orgon crewmen screaming in terror as they were swept from their battle stations into the infinite emptiness around them. He kept firing. The last parked crafts of his alien enemies exploded, killing whatever crew members were still on board.

  With that, it was over. None of the giant bug-like creatures were left. The landing bay was clear.

  Rick slowed his craft into a sleek glide and headed toward the centerline. He touched down effortlessly. The moment he did, words flashed on the television screen:

  Starlight Warriors

  New High Score! New Record Time!

  Rick nodded with grim satisfaction. He laid the game controller aside on the sofa and reached for his crutches.

  2. A HALF LIFE

  WITH THE RUBBER pads of the aluminum crutches wedged under his arms, Rick swung himself across the dark room to the door. He paused by his workstation there. Reached down to touch the keys of his Mac. The monitor woke and glowed in the shadows. There was a new e-mail—another note from Molly.

  For a moment, he let himself remember her. The light brown hair tumbling down to frame the high cheekbones on her robust, delicately freckled face. The tall, shapely figure. The smart, strong gaze. He remembered the last time he had kissed her—four months ago—the feel of her lips. The last words he had spoken to her, face-to-face:
r />   I never expected this, Molly.

  He meant he had never expected a romance between them. They had always just been friends with a lot in common. She was the child of a local college professor, like he was. She was an athlete, like he was . . .

  Or, that is, like he used to be.

  An acid bitterness went through his heart and Rick forced the memories away. He deleted the e-mail without reading it. Molly had not given up on their relationship—not yet—but she would get the message sooner or later. He’d make sure of it.

  He opened the door and, propped on his crutches, swung out into the hall.

  He squinted as the morning light hit him. He was surprised how bright it was. He hadn’t seen it in his bedroom, not at all. His mother had set up the new bedroom for him on the ground floor so he wouldn’t have to negotiate the stairs anymore with his busted-up legs. He kept the curtains in there pulled shut twenty-four/seven. He didn’t want anyone to look in at him from the sidewalk. He didn’t want anyone to see him sitting there playing his video games hour after hour after hour—sleeping the days away—doing nothing—a useless cripple.

  He swung himself down the hall to the kitchen. He could smell eggs cooking, bacon, too. It suddenly occurred to him he was hungry.

  His mother was at the stove with her back to him when he came in. She didn’t turn around—probably didn’t hear him enter over the crackling of the eggs in the frying pan and the bacon sizzling. But Raider saw him—his kid brother, Wade, eight years old. Raider was sitting at the round kitchen table in the corner. When he saw his big brother come in, he lit up like a Christmas tree. Big, big smile on his round face, blue eyes bright and beaming. That was typical Raider: no matter what happened, he could always find a reason to grin. Kid probably had some kind of weird psychological condition or something.

  “Hey, Rick!” he said. He sounded as glad to see him as if they’d been apart for months instead of a few hours.

  At the sound of Raider’s voice, Rick’s mom turned and looked at Rick over her shoulder. She smiled, too, but she wasn’t as good at it as Raider. No matter how hard she tried, Rick could see the sorrow in her eyes. He could see it in the way the corners of her mouth always turned down. Her face—round like Raider’s—was pale and saggy. No makeup. No energy. Not at all like she used to be, like she was in the old days—the old days being five months ago, before Rick’s father tossed their twenty-year-old marriage in the garbage and ran off, no one knew where, with some old flame of his.

  “Well!” Mom said, trying to put some feeling in her voice. “You came out of your room!”

  Rick only nodded. He hobbled to the refrigerator.

  “Will wonders never cease?” his mother went on. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll even shave.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Rick muttered. “I just got hungry, that’s all.”

  “Mom’s making eggs!” said Raider, as if he were delivering news that World War III was over and the good guys had won.

  “Wow,” said Rick, but his voice was expressionless. Leaning on his crutches, he pulled open the refrigerator door and snagged a bottle of orange juice. Carrying it clumsily by the bottle neck, he thumped his way back to the kitchen table.

  “I’ll get you a glass!” said Raider—and he was off on the mission before Rick could stop him. He practically ran to the cupboard. Grabbed the glass like it was the baton in a relay race. Came barreling back to the table to set it down beside the juice bottle.

  “Thanks,” Rick managed to say. He set his crutches against the wall and dropped into a chair.

  The kid kept hanging over him, though, all hopeful and eager. For what? What did he think Rick was going to do for him? Toss the football around with him in the backyard? Teach him some gridiron moves like he used to? All that was over now. He couldn’t be that kind of big brother anymore—a hero a younger brother could look up to and imitate. Those days were finished. The kid just never learned, that’s all.

  “Hey, I know: maybe you could get some exercise today,” Raider suggested helpfully. “The doctor says if you exercise enough, you’ll get the strength in your legs back, then you won’t have to use the crutches anymore.”

  Rick poured himself some juice and drank. “Aw, what do doctors know?”

  “Uh . . . doctoring?” said Raider.

  Rick smiled in spite of himself. It was impossible not to like the runt.

  “Sit down and eat your breakfast,” said their mother. She set a plate with eggs, bacon, and toast on the table for Raider.

  “Rick can have those,” said Raider. “He’s hungry. I’ll get the next batch.”

  “Sit down and eat, punk, or you’ll get the Crutch of Doom,” said Rick.

  “Not the Crutch of Doom!” cried Raider in mock horror. But he sat down and started eating his eggs.

  Rick and his mother exchanged a look. She lifted her chin at him—a little gesture of thanks for not being cruel to his kid brother. She knew it was hard for Rick to be nice to anyone anymore. And she knew Raider worshipped the ground Rick walked on. Or hobbled on.

  “I’ll make some more for you,” she said and moved back to the stove.

  Rick’s eyes hung on her retreating figure for a moment. Her sad, slumped figure, still in her bathrobe, her graying hair uncombed, all out of place. She never looked like that when Dad was still here . . . but there was no point thinking about that anymore, was there? Those days were over, too. Dad was gone.

  His eyes moved away from her—but it didn’t matter where he looked. There was something in every direction that brought the situation home to him. Over there in the corner of the kitchen counter, for instance, there was a glass bowl full of unpaid bills. Rick could see the red writing on them: Second Warning. Urgent Notice. Final Warning. Soon the debt collectors would be after them, calling at all hours, ringing the doorbell, hounding them. Or the electricity would be turned off or the bank would come to take the house away. Maybe all those things together.

  His gaze moved on—and he could see through the kitchen doorway into the dining room beyond. There on the sideboard were photographs, snapshots in frames. He couldn’t really make them out from where he was sitting, but that didn’t matter. He knew what was in them. They were pictures of his dad and mom with their arms around each other, smiling happily at the camera, their two sons nearby. And pictures of him, Rick, proud and straight and strong in his football uniform, holding a ball, striking a quarterback pose, looking like the local hero he was, ready to head off for Syracuse and a full scholarship and college glory . . .

  Was that only a few short months ago? It was. A few short months—and another lifetime. He’d been the big man at Putnam Hills High School then. Six-foot-two, broad-shouldered, muscular. Captain Hunky, the girls called him, on account of his sandy-blond hair, his even features, and his intense blue eyes, full of feeling. Good grades. More friends than he could name. As many girls as he could handle. And on the football field? A star, pure and simple. The quarterback, Number 12. His teammates, his Lions, would have followed him anywhere. No matter how far down they were in a game, no matter how outmatched, if Number 12 said to them, “Don’t worry. We’re going to win this,” they didn’t worry and they did win it. They knew that nothing could stop the man under center when he was on his game. Even on the rare occasions when Rick got sacked, when some 250-pound lineman barreled into his midsection and laid him out flat on his back, even then, when some lesser quarterback might have lain in the grass for thirty seconds or so watching the twinkling stars and twittering birdies dance around in the air above his dazed head, Rick would leap to his feet while the defender was still doing his sack dance. He would spit in the hash marks defiantly and swagger back into the huddle—and the whole team would swagger with him. Because he was Rick Dial—he was Number 12—and they would follow him anywhere.

  Rick turned his eyes from the snapshots.

  She oughta throw that stuff away, he thought. She ought to throw away every photo taken before Da
d left and before the accident turned him, Rick, into the cripple he was. Why wallow in what they’d had and lost? Why not just forget the past and deal with the facts as they were now?

  He was still gazing in the direction of the pictures, gazing into space, when his mother plunked a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast in front of him. He thanked her and lowered his head to begin to eat, but he could feel her, still standing over him, looking down.

  “Raider’s right, you know,” she said softly after a moment. “It wouldn’t kill you to get some exercise. You ought to go outside at least and get some air.”

  “Don’t start, Ma, okay? I just want to have some breakfast,” Rick said.

  “You can’t spend every day playing video games and nothing else.”

  “Sure I can. It just takes a little effort, that’s all.” Rick concentrated even harder on eating his eggs, but all the same he was aware his mother was still there, still looking down at him.

  “Rick . . . ,” she began.

  A hot gust of anger went through him. He’d had enough. He tossed his fork down on the plate hard enough to make it clatter. He started to look up. He was about to tell his mother to back off and leave him alone, quit nagging him all the time. But before he could speak, he caught a glimpse of Raider. He saw the way the kid was staring at him, the freckles on his round cheeks standing out as he turned pale, the smile draining out of his eyes as he realized that yet another argument was about to start, and that his big brother—his lifelong hero—was about to disappoint him again.

  Rick got control of himself just in time. He didn’t want to torture the kid. Or his mother either, for that matter. He loved them both—more than he could say—it was a warm, pulsing ache inside him. He loved them, but they just didn’t understand. He just wanted to be left alone, that’s all.

  He looked up at his mother, into her damp, sorrowful eyes.

  “Okay,” he said with a sigh finally. “Okay, Mom, sure. I’ll take a walk. Or a limp. Whatever.”

  Mom managed a tight-lipped smile. She nodded at him. “Good,” she said. “You don’t want to be on those crutches your whole life, after all.”