Adiposo’s eyes went round. The beast who was with Mr. Taylor. He nodded, his chins quivering with the movement.
“Where is he?” the creature demanded. “Where is Tay-Lor?”
Outside, machine-gun fire pealed and screams sounded as mutants died in the streets. The slaughter had begun.
“An ape that cares for a human?” Adiposo gave a fatalistic smile. “The world is coming to an end, then.” When the gorilla simply glared, the fat man offered little more. “He is most likely dead, you dimwitted beast. If not, he soon will be.”
“Dead is not a place.” The animal balled his fists and Adiposo’s eyes subconsciously darted up the street. Still feeling the effects of his earlier Communion, his thoughts slipped. The ape’s expression showed understanding.
“Grand Central Station?” it demanded, and it pointed. “There?”
Stay back. Adiposo recoiled. Or I will—
“You’ll do what?” He heard the creature’s name now—Mungwortt. As filthy as its owner. The ape threw something toward Adiposo. Light and metallic, it skittered across the floor to rest at his feet. A twisted piece of metal with fragments of splintered glass, wrapped around itself. It took the fat man a moment.
Caspay’s glasses.
“You’ll what?” Mungwortt demanded again. “Hurt me?”
Resigned to his fate, Adiposo closed his eyes and attempted to concentrate, but a sound behind him deterred that. A moment later the clatter filled the room as White Ones came pouring through doors in the back. There had to be dozens of them—covered with injuries. Their earlobes were torn, and control tags gone.
The crimson-vested master tried to put fire in their brains, but the beasts were too primitive—too full of rage. He couldn’t find a consciousness to grasp. The ivory creatures circled him, then turned to Mungwortt for their orders.
The ape said but a single word.
“Eat.”
The ape left before it even started. As the ravenous monsters grabbed for him, Adiposo fumbled with the snuffbox. He scooped up the bed of glowing cilia and smeared it across his tongue. Then, as they shredded his rubber skin and tore into his flesh, a flash of light seared the back of his brain. Behind his eyes he stared into a gamma blast.
The Holy Caress.
Frothing at the mouth, Adiposo was one with God.
* * *
“This isn’t exactly sterile,” Taylor admitted. “We’ll do the best we can.” Under Ongaro’s influence, he had hurt Brent pretty badly. Now, he wrapped the junior officer’s bloody wounds. Winded, Brent took a moment to gather his thoughts, then his military training kicked in.
“Taylor…” he started. They needed to brief each other—they both needed to know what they were up against. “Taylor, they’ve got a bomb—an atomic bomb. It’s operational. They intend to use it.”
The children of the bomb have one of their own.
Taylor was nonplussed. “What type is it?”
“I don’t know,” Brent confessed. “I don’t know what type. I’ve never seen it before.”
Taylor frowned, and Brent felt a wave of guilt. But the colonel didn’t say anything. Instead, he tore a new strip of cloth for the bandage. Finally, he spoke.
“Didn’t you see a series number?”
“No numbers,” Brent reflected. “Just some letters on one of the fins, Greek letters.” Brent caught his breath before continuing. “Alpha…”
Taylor stopped and stared.
“And Omega,” he said.
CHAPTER 30
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
Groom Lake, Nevada
Area 51
1970
The morning after his “interrogation,” Taylor learned the soul-crushing truth.
On their way to Churchdoor, the three men had descended into the bowels of the earth. Taylor had known the bunker was mostly underground, but he'd had no idea it was ten stories deep. In the elevator he, his father, and Otto Hasslein stood abreast, staring at the numbers ticking down above a metal door.
The silence had been deafening.
The admiral took no notice of his son’s bruises, nor did he make mention of the previous night’s interrogation. The colonel himself sought no such acknowledgement. It was as if the only thing that connected the two men was their last name.
Exiting the lift on the bottommost level, they were met with a contingent of guards. Once they cleared security, they began to move through a series of airlocks. As they moved along, Hasslein, of all people, broke the silence with small talk.
“Tell me, Colonel,” he started. “Are you aware of the expression, ‘to salt the earth’?”
“Not really, Doctor,” Taylor admitted. “I’ve heard ‘the salt of the earth,’ but I don’t think that’s what you mean.”
“It’s from the Middle Ages,” the admiral said. “Conquerors in the Near East used to spread salt over the territory of their defeated enemies, to show them they were beaten.”
“The ritual symbolized that nothing would ever grow there again,” Otto added. “Of course, while salt is damaging to crops, there is no evidence that heavy salting will sterilize soil.”
The men grew quiet again.
“Well,” Taylor said, “thanks for the history lesson.” Both Hasslein and his father were behaving strangely. He almost called them out on it. Then, as the final airlock cycled, the admiral made it stranger.
“Other things will.”
“Will what?”
“Sterilize it. The soil.” His father stared at him. “Prolonged radioactive decay from nuclear fallout would do the trick.” The admiral crossed his arms behind his back. “It’s what we call a salted bomb. You can see where it gets its name.”
Taylor didn’t know how to respond, so he remained silent.
“With a salted bomb, one could hypothetically use ordinary cobalt as the poisoning agent,” Hasslein elaborated. “An atomic bomb detonated in cobalt housing could produce enhanced amounts of radioactive fallout.”
“It would sully the terrain—salt the earth and make it useless for any survivors,” the admiral continued. “Of course, depending on the salted bomb’s megatonnage, it could do a lot worse.”
“With a sufficient yield, yes—a global reaction would not be out of the question,” Hasslein concurred. “In theory, it could ignite the atmosphere, render the entire planet uninhabitable. Some projections even anticipate a blast strong enough to penetrate the earth’s crust itself.”
Taylor was horrified.
“Is that what you’ve got locked away down here?”
The last airlock opened, depositing them at a door that held the answer. The admiral explained before they opened it.
“Operation Churchdoor is the conceptualization and development of a doomsday device.”
Oh fuck, Taylor thought. Stewart was right. The heavy metal door in front of them had two Greek symbols on it—the same two that were in the file folder.
A Ω
“We call it the Alpha/Omega Bomb,” Admiral Taylor said.
“Yes.” Dr. Hasslein frowned, looking less sanguine. “The beginning and end of us all.”
As the admiral pressed his thumb to the scanner beside the door, the bulb above it snapped from red to green. With a clank and a hiss, the door pushed forward. They stepped into a cavernous room. Easily the size of one of the airstrip’s hangars, it was cast in deep shadows. Hasslein flipped a switch. Floodlights erupted, illuminating the chamber. There, in the center of the room…
…was nothing.
It was empty.
Confused, Taylor stumbled forward.
“Where is it?” he demanded. After a moment of silence, Hasslein spoke up.
“The Churchdoor is closed, Colonel Taylor.”
Taylor was stunned. “So, now you’re telling me there is no doomsday bomb?”
“There never was,” his father replied, “but we need the world to think there is—and we need them to think it’s a secret.”
“NASA is compromised,” Hasslei
n explained, “and we know that at least one spy has infiltrated ANSA. It seemed… prudent… to use that to our advantage.”
“The bunker accident, a few years ago,” Taylor said. “You staged it. But Dr. Stanton—”
“Stanton’s an idiot,” the senior Taylor said. “He only knows what we tell him.” Hasslein smiled out of the side of his mouth.
“While I would not go so far as to agree with the admiral’s assessment of my colleague—not entirely—I will say that Professor Stanton is a man of ambition that goes beyond his own abilities.”
In other words, Taylor reasoned, he’s dangerous.
“Stanton thinks Churchdoor is real, and above his pay grade.” The admiral was dismissive. “He’s got half of it right.”
“And the deaths?” Taylor said.
“The radiation was real,” the admiral stated.
“It needed to be, in order for it to seem credible.” Hasslein cast his eyes downward. “We had hoped everyone would make it out in time.”
“So those men died for your lie?”
“That goddamn lie could be all that’s keeping the Reds in check, Colonel!” the admiral said, anger in his voice. “As long as they think we’ve got the bomb, they’ll think twice about starting something they can’t finish.”
“What’s to stop them from building their own doomsday bomb?” the colonel demanded. “What happens then? A race to see who can blow us all up first?”
“They can try all they want.” His father waved it off. “The project is a dead end.” The admiral didn’t try to hide his disappointment. “None of the big brains have gotten anywhere with it, including the doctor.”
“The actual bomb is unnecessary,” Hasslein asserted. “Fear is the real weapon, gentlemen.”
Is the only way to keep us from killing each other the fear of killing ourselves? Taylor wondered. Are we that selfish? In his heart, he knew the answer. The admiral placed his hand on his shoulder, and he jumped in spite of himself.
“Churchdoor is still classified and stays that way. For command’s eyes only.”
Taylor scoffed. “Who am I going to tell?” But his father’s eyes told him that the old man wasn’t going to take that for an answer.
“No bullshit this time, George.”
Taylor snapped to attention. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“Good.” The admiral looked relieved. “Now that you’ve got your eagles, and this business is behind us, we can move ahead on Project Liberty.” He checked his watch and straightened his jacket. “I have a flight to D.C. in an hour.” He turned to Hasslein. “I assume you’re going to want to give him the tour of the other levels.”
Hasslein nodded.
“Doctor, Colonel.” The admiral nodded to each of them in turn. As his father left, Taylor stared at the empty concrete cathedral. Something still didn’t sit right. He turned to Hasslein.
“A nut that even you couldn’t crack, Doctor?”
Hasslein smiled. “Let’s just say I prefer to leave this particular shell intact.”
“But you could crack it,” Taylor pressed, “if you wanted to.”
“Perhaps.” Hasslein folded his arms. “Perhaps I already opened the shell just wide enough to have a look inside.”
“So the Alpha/Omega Bomb—” Taylor urged.
“—is where it is safe.” Hasslein tapped his temple. “And where it will stay so.” The doctor stepped closer. “Mankind teeters on the brink of self-annihilation, George Taylor,” he said. “Pollution, famine, and war consume us—and yet we expend our resources on finding new ways to kill each other.” Hasslein sighed. “Men like your father would destroy the world to protect it. I will not help us put both feet in the grave.”
“I understand—believe me, I understand.” Taylor was satisfied with Hasslein’s sincerity, but doomsday bomb or no, Project Liberty couldn’t come fast enough for him. A one-way ticket the hell out of here, he thought, sounds fantastic. Hasslein seemed to have read his mind.
“Whatever destiny God has ordained for us,” the doctor suggested, “lies out there amongst the stars, not destroying ourselves at home.”
“I don’t know about God, Doctor,” Taylor replied. “All I know is that mankind’s got some evolving to do.”
His companion frowned. “The reconciliation of God and science is something I struggle with every day, Colonel.” Hasslein motioned toward the door. “In my eyes, the existence of one does not preclude the other.”
“One more thing,” Taylor requested. “Why call it ‘Churchdoor’?”
“Since the creation of the atomic bomb, mankind has been knocking on heaven’s door,” Hasslein explained. “What better than a doomsday device to elicit God’s attention?”
* * *
Churchdoor. That’s what the bust’s memory engrams had tried to imprint on him. The first Mendez, the military train diverted to Grand Central when the bombs fell—it was carrying the Alpha/Omega bomb.
Churchdoor had survived past Taylor’s trip to the stars, and General Mendez had been in charge of transporting it.
The soldiers slammed the church door shut.
“Church door,” the voice said. “Fear the church door.”
Just as mankind had finally blown themselves up, it looked as if Hasslein had given in to the admiral. Taylor frowned.
Damn you, Otto.
“What?” Brent was more worried than ever. Operation Churchdoor was “Eyes Only,” and well above Brent’s pay grade. Taylor was going to tell him, anyway.
What’re they going to do—court-martial me?
“The doomsday bomb,” Taylor revealed.
“My God,” Brent breathed.
“Yeah, another lovely souvenir from the twentieth century,” the senior astronaut growled. “They weren’t satisfied with a bomb that could knock out a city. They finally built one with a cobalt casing, all in the sweet name of peace.”
“Those goddamn fools.” Brent was unraveling. “They don’t know what they’ve got. They pray to the damned thing!”
Finally, Taylor had all the pieces. The first Mendez had made the bomb into a symbol to be respected for its awesome power. Fear of it kept his people in line. Over the centuries, that reverence was perverted into a religion.
“If they launch it,” Brent continued, “it could set off a chain reaction in the atmosphere.”
“Burn the planet to a cinder,” Taylor added. “How’s that for your ultimate weapon?”
* * *
Zaius and Duignan pushed through the fortress identified as Grand Central Terminal, forcing out everyone who was hiding inside. Waves of mutants evacuated the building, scattering into the streets. Right on schedule, Dangral’s forces sprang from the tunnel on 48th Street. Releasing a hail of bullets, they cut the running mutants down.
Mungwortt watched it all. Having left the White Ones behind to finish Adiposo, the hybrid saw his opportunity to enter the mutant nest by blending in with the army. In the charred lobby of a nearby vacant office building, he bashed a nervous gorilla scout with a rock. He took the soldier’s uniform, then stopped to check if the now naked gorilla soldier was still breathing.
He was. He had a nasty head wound, but he was still alive.
“Sorry,” Mungwortt told the unconscious ape.
The soldier was a little shorter than him, but then again, so were most gorillas. So the stolen uniform Mungwortt wore was ill-fitting, but in the chaos no one would notice.
If he couldn’t find Tay-Lor, the army was his only ticket out of this underground hell. Nevertheless, this was the most likely place to find his friend. He straightened the leather tunic, slung his purloined machine gun over his shoulder, and readied to jump in line with the passing forces.
Then, he hesitated.
Listening.
Waiting for Zao to tell him he was an idiot.
Nothing.
Mungwortt smiled. Zao approves, he decided. Taking a deep breath, he fell in line with the gorilla commandos.
* * *
/>
The lock was caving in, but not giving way. Taylor stopped bashing it with the mace just long enough for them to give the door a try again.
Nothing.
As Taylor reared back to hit it again, gunfire rang out. The men froze. The mutants had no guns. All guns on the planet belonged to the apes. Brent rushed to the far cage wall and strained to see around the corner. Shadows filled the hall as footsteps grew louder.
Gorilla shadows.
Taylor grabbed Nova, and the three of them squeezed themselves up against the arched wall of their cell, hidden in the alcove. Then, as the gorillas got closer, the three humans hugged themselves tight against the wall.
Brent grunted, and pointed toward Ongaro’s body. The painmaster lay dead in the center of the cell, easily visible from the door.
A dead body raises questions, Brent thought.
Taylor nodded. Together they reached out and grabbed their tormentor’s corpse, swinging it against the wall just in time. A gorilla pressed his face to the opening, curious to see what was inside.
Bullets sprayed the wall of the cell.
* * *
Mungwortt saw the bars and knew this must be where the mutants kept their prisoners. Finding a window, the half-breed peered inside.
Nothing.
Then, he heard movement.
Suspicious, he needed to make a choice. If he called out for Tay-Lor, and there were mutants on the other side, they would attack him. If there were other gorillas in there, he didn’t want to be caught shouting for a human.
It could be a mouse. Or one of those abominations. He didn’t like the idea of either. So, without Zao to turn to, he made up his own mind. Mungwortt unslung his machine gun, put the nozzle through the bars, and fired. Bullets sprayed the far wall of the cell. Then he stopped and listened. There was nothing.
Nobody’s home, Mungwortt decided, and he moved on down the corridor. Things were getting too dangerous. He had to find Tay-Lor, and he had to do it fast. Either that, or he was going to have to leave the human behind.
* * *
Once they were certain the gorilla was gone, Taylor and Brent resumed pounding. Finally, their persistence bore fruit. Metal bent and twisted under the repeated blows from the spiked mace. The lock broke, and the door swung free.
Death of the Planet of the Apes Page 34
