“You mean measures that preserve your global empire and line the pockets of the Rankcon Intergovernmental Partnership?”
“Extravagant protection comes with an extravagant price tag. Nothing exquisite is free. I’m not the villain here.” Leland lifted his cane and gave it another shake. “The real villains are out there, beyond the Barriers. Nasty, wicked people who belong nowhere near our great cities. It’s men like me who hold the protective walls in place, who assure men like you get to wake up in the morning, travel to a lucrative job and return to your dear family in the evening. Don’t ever take that privilege for granted, Nathan. You’ve never entered a restaurant with your wife and children and left with their blood splattered all over your face and arms.”
“I’ve had my son taken from me.”
“And I told you I could get him back.”
The two-way radio crackled in Nathan’s coat pocket and Micah came on. “Nathan, I can’t see what’s going on up there. The cameras cut out after the explosion. If you’re still alive, the next clearing is our last chance. The forecast is showing solid cloud cover from here on out.”
Leland snapped his fingers at one of his men. “Locate this individual.”
“Yes, sir.” The man scrambled through the roof door and disappeared.
Leland glared at Nathan. “Who else is here?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“It’s in your best interest to talk, Nathan. I want to know who you’re working with and I want a conversation with Elliot Gareth.”
“I’m afraid I can’t supply that information.”
Leland nodded at his remaining man. The man took direct aim at Nathan.
“I tried to have an honest conversation with you, Nathan,” Leland said, sneering. “I made a generous offer and you refused. Apparently, you’d rather perish for your naïve ideals than preserve your son’s life.”
“Go ahead, kill me,” Nathan said. “But after I’m dead, you won’t get the information you want. The last man on my team will swallow a suicide pill before he allows you to take him alive. I’ll be the only person in the world who can lead you to Elliot Gareth.”
Leland clenched his teeth. “Don’t you threaten me, boy.” He nodded at his man.
The man withdrew a device, punched in a code and placed it on the rooftop. A hologram appeared. Nathan gasped. Sarah and his mother were tied to chairs, trembling. Two men in tactical gear stood behind them, each pressing an apparatus against the backs of their heads…molecular separators!
Nathan lunged toward Leland. His man sprang forward and stood between them.
“It didn’t have to come to this, Nathan,” Leland said. “But you’ve left me no other option. Tell me how I can talk to Elliot Gareth and your wife and mother will live. It’s that simple.”
“Let me talk to them first,” Nathan shouted.
Leland tapped on a satellite phone and ordered one of the men at the fallout shelter to press their phone against Sarah’s ear. Leland passed his satellite phone to Nathan.
“Sarah?” Nathan said, breathless. “Have they hurt you or mom?”
“Nathan, thank God. Are you okay?”
“I asked first.”
“We’re okay, but Oscar’s dead,” she said with a shaky voice. “Leland’s men blew up the front hatch of the fallout shelter and shot him.”
Leland grabbed the phone from Nathan. “That’s enough.”
Gunfire rang out in the building below. Leland pulled out a handgun and aimed it at Nathan, then turned to his man. “Find out what’s happening down there.”
“Yes, sir.” The man bolted through the roof door.
“This situation is spiraling out of control, Nathan,” Leland said, shaking his gun. “Who are you working with and how can I reach Elliot Gareth?”
What had he done? Nathan chided himself. How could he have left his wife and mother alone? He should have never come here.
“Talk to me, Nathan, and you’ll walk out of here alive,” Leland demanded. “I’ll clear whatever grievances the press has with you, and I’ll personally see to it that you have a career again and your son back. Sound like a deal?”
Again, Nathan was about to say yes, he’d make the deal. Whatever Leland wanted. Kill him if he wanted to. Just don’t hurt his wife and mother. Let Ian live. He started to open his mouth.
More gunfire from below.
Leland glanced at the roof door nervously, cane quivering under his palm, gun wobbling in the other hand. He moved closer to Nathan. “Tell me now, Nathan. Tell me how I can talk to Elliot Gareth or I’m giving the orders to have your wife and mother executed in the same manner as your father.”
As he pressed the gun to Nathan’s chest, the rooftop door flew open. Dustin charged through gripping a pistol. Leland spun around and aimed his gun, but Dustin fired first, low, two shots. Leland fell hard, grasping his right leg.
“You okay?” Dustin said, retrieving Leland’s handgun where it lay a few feet from his body. “I thought it was you up here. I caught a glimpse of your yellow coat in the binoculars.”
“Just in time,” Nathan said, catching his breath. “Guess I owe you more than two hundred dollars now.”
“I’ll add it to your tab.”
“Good thing you smuggled in that gun.”
“Lucky for you, I got it assembled this morning,” Dustin said, looking at Leland. He was in the fetal position, holding his leg, moaning. Blood pooled under his body. “My God, is that who I think it is?”
“Yeah…it’s him…Leland Kronemeyer.” Nathan shot another glance at the sky surrounding the Barrier tower. Still thick with cloud cover.
Dustin walked cautiously toward the flickering hologram. One of the men in the hologram was talking into a satellite phone, pacing in front of the two women. Another had a molecular separator pressed against Sarah’s shoulder.
“What’s going on here?” Dustin said. “I just killed two men who I saw gun down some guards from a helicopter.”
Leland moaned. Nathan removed his jacket and sweater, then went over and wrapped the sweater tight around Leland’s calf. He groaned louder and his head bobbed. More blood trickled from a nasty forehead wound.
“Stay with me, Leland,” Nathan said as he put his jacket back on. With Dustin’s help, they dragged him to the edge of the rooftop and rested his body against the perimeter wall. “You hit your head when you fell, but I need you to remain conscious and call off your men at the fallout shelter. Do you understand me? Call off your men and let my wife and mother go.”
Leland mumbled, his words slurred.
Nathan turned to Dustin, who also looked in shock. “Do you think he’ll make it?”
“Hard to tell,” Dustin said, loading his pistol with a fresh round of ammunition. “He’s old and frail. Try to keep the sweater tight.” He faced Nathan. “Mind sharing your real name?”
Nathan’s two-way radio crackled in his pocket.
Micah came on. “Nathan, if you can hear me, if you’re still alive up there, get ready. The next clearing is minutes away. You hear me, Nathan?”
Nathan fished out the radio. “I’m here. Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine…thanks to your buddy. Get ready. Sirens are going off all over McMurdo. This is all coming to an end soon, one way or another.”
Dustin aimed his pistol at Nathan. “Who is that and what are you doing up here…Nathan? You don’t seem like a criminal, but I guess I could be wrong.”
“No, I’m not a criminal, Dustin. And yes, my real name is Nathan.”
Dustin scratched at his thick beard. “I pegged you as an honest family man, but I’m a little confused.”
“Can you put the gun down?”
Dustin kept it pointed. “You see, after we landed, I checked up on you. I like knowing who I’m sharing McMurdo with. Turns out the University of California has no record of a Justin Fenneberg.”
“I can explain everything later, Dustin. There’s no time now.” Nathan started to move f
or a better view of the sky, but Dustin stopped him with a firm hand.
“Hold it right there, bud,” he said, tapping the tip of the pistol against Nathan’s shoulder.
“Dustin, please, you have to trust me on this.”
His thick eyebrows narrowed. “Trust you? Why should I? I followed you and your team here. I saw the three of you planting devices under the snow, then I saw you enter the Barrier mainframe building after the girl did. I’m the one who alerted the runway guards.”
“Look, Dustin, I owe you my life, but can you please put the gun down?” Nathan pointed at the hologram. “The real criminals are there, holding my wife and mother captive in a fallout shelter. We need to get Leland to call them off before he passes out or dies. Can you help me?”
Dustin studied the hologram, then Leland, then Nathan. Finally, he lowered the pistol. “Okay, let’s get the old tycoon to talk.”
They went to Leland, still hunched against the rooftop wall. “Call your men off, Leland,” Nathan said. “It’s over.”
Leland coughed, saliva and blood running down his chin. “Nothing’s over yet. You hear me? Nothing.”
Dustin reached into Leland’s jacket and pulled out a satellite phone, then tossed it into the old man’s lap. “You heard him, Leland. Call your men off. We can get you to safety, but you have to do this first.”
“This isn’t about my safety, fool,” Leland spat. “This is about the safety of three billion people in the Barriers and the preservation of humanity as we know it. I need to speak with Elliot Gareth.”
“What’s he talking about?” Dustin said to Nathan.
Nathan looked upward, wind lashing his cheeks. The clearing was directly over the Barrier tower.
“Now, Nathan, now!” Micah yelled from Nathan’s radio.
Nathan spotted the energy burst from the tower and followed it as it shot upward, then rippled outward. He focused his eyes and readied his thumb on the transmitter, reminding himself why he was here, why he was doing this, why he had hijacked a Barrier tower, shot an innocent man with a dart, and was about to do something that might label him a revolutionary for the rest of his life. He was here to finish his father’s mission, for Ian, for every person trapped in the Sanctuaries.
Wasn’t that enough to press the button without hesitation?
He focused harder, resisting the urge to blink. The ripples were receding back into their epicenter.
“Do it now!” Micah screamed. “The clearing is passing.”
Nathan pressed hard on the transmitter’s green button as a geyser erupted high above the Barrier tower, then he quickly typed in the command sequence Bryce had provided.
36
Moments later, the two-way radio crackled in Nathan’s pocket. Micah came on. “Nathan, you did it! You hear me? We’ve got an administrator override. I just sent a transmission to Ellis Three and granted Elliot Gareth control of the entire Barrier system. The security cams are back up too. There’s a crowd gathering around the force field outside, but it looks like they can’t pass through. The fracture Leland’s men made to get inside must have sealed.”
“What’s he talking about?” Dustin asked, waving his pistol. “What just happened?”
Leland laughed deliriously, body slumped against the rooftop wall. “It’s all over now.”
“What’s he mean, Nathan?”
“Nathan has made a series of fatal mistakes and now we have an audience,” Leland muttered.
The hologram on the rooftop continued to flicker, illuminating the worried looks of Sarah and Nathan’s mother.
“Call off your men,” Nathan shouted, shaking the old man’s shoulders. “You hear me, Leland? Leave my family alone. Make your men release them.”
Leland flashed a flippant grin. “Sure, why not? It’s not like anything matters now for any of us.” He picked up the satellite phone and gave orders for the two men to stand down. Nathan exhaled deeply as the men released the molecular separators from his wife and mother’s heads, then unbound them from their chairs.
After Leland’s two men bolted, Sarah stood and shouted, “Nathan, I don’t know if you can hear me, but Leland’s men left Oscar’s satellite phone here. The people you’re working with should know his number. Call me.”
The hologram shut down.
Nathan grabbed the satellite phone out of Leland’s hand, then pulled out his two-way radio. “Micah, I need to speak with my wife. What’s the number for Oscar’s satellite phone?”
Micah gave him the number.
Sarah answered after one ring. “Nathan, is that you? What’s happening?”
“I see that you and mom are safe now.”
“Leland’s men are gone, but the corridors of the fallout shelter are pitch black and we don’t know how to get out.”
“Stay put until this is over with, okay? I’ll come get you.”
“Okay, I love you.”
Nathan dropped the satellite phone in Leland’s lap.
“Mind telling me what’s going on here, Nathan?” Dustin persisted. “What is it that you’ve done and why doesn’t Leland like it?”
“Nathan believes I’m threatened by Elliot Gareth,” Leland said. “But one is not threatened by a man who’s been dead for over three decades.”
“Dead?” Nathan said, shoving the two-way radio back into his jacket pocket. “You said you wanted to speak with him.”
“I want to speak with whoever is impersonating Elliot Gareth,” Leland said, his eyes darting, head teetering. “Whoever it is doesn’t have humanity’s best interest in mind.” He barely lifted his cane, pointing beyond the rooftop walls. “As I said, the real villains are out there.” He aimed the cane upward. “And there.”
“He’s losing it,” Dustin said, removing a glove and positioning it behind Leland’s head, buffering his skull from the concrete wall.
Nathan leaned in. “Tell us what you know, Leland.”
Leland looked up, eyes glazed over. “I know how the flares started forty-nine years ago. What happened with the sun is no fluke of nature. A weapon left Ellis Three, went through the Fold and came into our solar system. Bang! Then it flew into our sun. Boom!”
“What?” Dustin said, eyebrows furrowed. “How do you know this?”
Leland flashed another grin, drool and saggy flesh hanging from his cheekbones. “Every high-up in the world knows this information. It’s been a well-kept secret for half a century, along with the satellite imagery. The world was in shambles before the Barriers…constant catastrophic flares and endless violence over food supply. If the public found out the sun’s destabilization was caused by an alien intelligence, the result would have been more global hysteria. The world needed stabilization, disarmament, hope for the future. We made the necessary societal adjustments and the human race carried on. But while the planet’s leaders buried their heads in the sand and acted as if the world was safe again, I was deeply concerned. And so was Elliot Gareth. Shortly after he sold his Barrier technology to Rankcon Corporation, he did some digging of his own and found out about the weapon that left Ellis Three.”
“You kept tabs on Elliot?” Nathan said.
“You bet I did,” Leland said, speaking with sudden vigor. “Elliot has always been a threat. I never trusted him, and neither did my father. He knew more about the Barrier system than Rankcon did, and that gave him the upper hand. He might have sold Rankcon the technology, but he held onto things. Secrets. I tapped all of his communications devices and had a microphonic chip implanted in his neck while he was under anesthesia for hip surgery. In the process of monitoring his conversations, we found out more about the flares. Elliot theorized the coordinates of where the weapon launched from Ellis Three. He wanted to find this alien intelligence and negotiate. If it possessed the technology to cause the sun to destabilize, perhaps it had the technology to restore it.”
“So you were worried that Elliot’s negotiations might bring about an end to your Barrier empire?” Nathan asked.
“Not in the slightest,” Leland said. “Elliot Gareth was naïve, and his foolishness led to his death. I was concerned with what this alien intelligence could do to Barrier infrastructure. If it possessed technology that could cause the sun to destabilize, then it might have the capability of obliterating our entire Barrier system or our planet. I had to locate this intelligence and understand what we were dealing with.”
“How do you know Elliot Gareth is truly dead?” Nathan asked.
Leland wiped his chin with his jacket sleeve. “The bug embedded in Elliot’s neck picked up his final screams as he was brutally murdered on Ellis Three.”
“Murdered? By who?”
“We don’t know, but the bug continued to transmit an hour after his death. It recorded machinelike sounds, then what sounded like sawing into his skull.”
37
A loud boom shook the mainframe building. Still on the rooftop, Nathan looked out at the Barrier tower. The clearing was passing over the tip, but there were no ripples, no waves, no energy fountain. The McMurdo Barrier was down.
More alarms sounded.
“Get down here, Nathan,” Micah bellowed from the two-way radio. “Elliot has administrative control of the entire Barrier system. You’re going to want to see this.”
Nathan glanced at Dustin, who was hovering over Leland with bewilderment. “Stay here with Leland, Dustin. Keep him warm and still.”
Dustin nodded.
Nathan raced down the stairs to the basement level. A thick metal door opened and he entered the dark server room.
“This way.” Micah motioned Nathan to a wall stacked with wide-screen monitors. News anchors were speaking frantically. Emergency scripts moved across the bottom of the screens.
“Barriers all over the world have just gone down,” Micah said, pointing to the monitors. “New York City, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, the Middle East.”
A camera panned the streets of sunny Las Vegas…sirens blaring, people screaming and running, looters and pandemonium. Other monitors displayed similar scenes.
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