Legacy of a Mad Scientist

by John Carrick

  “Well at least we have Cause now. No one can say it’s pre-emptive,” the woman answered.

  Ashley couldn’t help thinking she sounded a lot like her mom.

  Geoff suddenly pushed past his sister and walked into the unit. “Mom?” he said, in a loud shocked voice.

  Ashley followed him, pushing open the cracked double doors.

  The woman was facing them, leaning against a credenza. Behind here were windows onto the unit’s patio. The sky cast her in sharp silhouette, but Ashley could still make out the heavy battle armor she wore.

  She looked directly at them. She looked a lot like their mom, but it wasn’t her. Her hair was longer; she was a little taller and much, much stronger. She looked a like her, but Ashley could tell, this was not her mom. Still, they could have been sisters.

  Geoff had frozen in place, as had Ash, for a moment.

  They looked around the room. Ross was sitting in a deep chair, his shirt off, his chest and arms bandaged up.

  The other two men were also wearing some kind of battlefield armor. The glass balcony doors were open. There were three rifles leaning against the patio railing and short-range weapons on the table, with exotic looking helmets.

  Ross sat up. “Ashley, Geoff. These folks here are friends of your parents. This is Jim Croswell, Master Sergeant Steve King and Captain Analynn Snow.”

  “How come you don’t have a rank?” Geoff asked Croswell.

  “I’m retired,” Croswell answered.

  “What does Maj. Gen. stand for then?” he asked, pointing the roughed and fading designation on the shoulder and chest plates.

  “Major General,” Croswell answered, pointing at the three stars above the letters.

  “You were a General?” Geoff asked, astonished.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Croswell answered.

  “And you knew my dad?”

  “He was one of my best friends,” Croswell answered. “I’ve known him since we were your age.”

  “How come I never met you before?” Geoff asked.

  “Cause I was working a lot, and so was your dad,” Croswell answered.

  “Are you working now?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I did say that,” Geoff answered.

  Croswell smiled and tousled Geoff’s hair. “A complete smart-ass. Just like your old man.”

  Geoff smiled.

  “So, they’re dead, our parents?” Ashley asked.

  “Yes,” Croswell answered. “And the people who hurt them could still come back.” Croswell glanced to Captain Snow.

  “Aren’t you going to kill them?” Geoff asked.

  “If they come near you, you bet we are,” Captain Snow answered.

  Ash wondered if she were still lying on the couch and dreaming. The conversation was surreal. This was clearly her mom. In some ways, she was more her mom than her real mom was.

  “We just need to be careful.” Croswell said, looking at Captain Snow. He looked back to Ashley and Geoff. “You two, however, are going to be perfectly fine, don’t you worry.”

  Ross coughed and sat up. “Yes, and we still have some work to do here.”

  “Guess that’s our cue,” Master Sergeant King said, slamming his drink, rising from the couch and stepping toward the balcony.

  Ana took a step to the side, giving King room to exit behind her.

  King nodded to Ashley and Geoff. “Sorry guys. Your dad was the best.” He stepped out onto the patio and picked up his helmet and rifle.

  Croswell finished his drink and stood as well. He addressed Ashley and Geoff. “You’re parents were good people. I’m sorry they were hurt. Stick close to Ross here. He’ll take good care of you.” He stepped out onto the empty balcony.

  Ash and Geoff both did a double take, realizing that Master Sergeant King had vanished while Croswell was speaking them.

  Croswell put his helmet on, picked up his rifle, adjusted something at his waist and disappeared, right before their eyes.

  Geoff blinked several times.

  Captain Snow knelt before the children.

  There were tears in her eyes.

  She pulled them close and hugged them both. Her armor felt cold and bulky, alien. She kissed them on the forehead. “Smile, be polite, try and help people as much as you can. Ashley, take care of your brother.”

  Captain Snow stood, stepped out onto the balcony, slung her rifle and picked up the remaining helmet. She put it on, took a step upward, up into the air, and then vanished from the visible spectrum.

  Ash and Geoff stared at the empty afternoon sky as Ross poured himself another dram from the almost empty bottle.

  Chapter 47 – Baking Bombs

  Saturday Afternoon, July 25, 2308

  Ross returned with Ashley and Geoff to the kitchen to help unpack the supplies. He seemed fine. He'd changed into a clean set of clothes, and his previous injuries weren't troubling him at all, allowing him to instruct the children in the preliminary steps of their new project.

  Ashley noted large quantities of sterno, compressed propane canisters, motor oil, cooking oil, powered gelatin, petroleum jelly, candles, liquid gas, pounds of cornstarch, soap, and then came the surprises. Bags from a hardware store yielded large quantities of nails, ball bearings, glass stones, as well as real stones and granite shards.

  Ross smiled and stepped over to the electric stove, he set pots on each of the burners and turned them on to their lowest setting. Then he filled the pots with oil. Once warm, he began to add the thickening agents, the cornstarch and soap. He showed the kids how to mix in large amounts of alcohol, diesel fuel and finally the sterno. Ashley and Geoff watched as Ross used a spatula to dig the flammable gel from can after can, all emptied into the oil-filled pots.

  Geoff turned up his nose at the pungent fuel-like smell of the jellied alcohol. "What are we making?" he asked.

  "Munitions," Ross answered.

  Geoff looked confused but didn't ask for an explanation.

  "Ashley, would you unwrap those ice trays?" Ross asked.

  Ash peeled the plastic from the metal ice trays.

  Ross gestured to the various boxes of steel nails, glass beads and small ball bearings, "Get a big bowl and start mixing all those together.”

  Ross smiled at Geoff. "We're making bombs," he said.

  Geoff's eyes grew wide with amazement.

  An hour later the pots still simmered, the flammable gel bubbling around magnesium and aluminum shavings. Once Ross was satisfied that most of the excess water had boiled off, the thick gel was poured and scooped into rectangle cookie sheets covered with waxed paper.

  Ross instructed the kids to pour a layer of nails, glass and sand over the gel. Then another thin layer of gel was poured over the soon-to-become shrapnel pies. They were topped off with a wet layer of sand, small rocks and wrapped in foil. Once filled, the pots and pans were stacked in the otherwise empty refrigerator.

  Ross showed Ash and Geoff how to assemble detonators from a quantity of plastic tubing and a spool of wire. He clipped off six-foot lengths and taped them inside the plastic. He taped up one end of the tube filled it with gel, squeezed through the clipped corner of a plastic bag. Once finished, the tubes were inserted into the pots and cookie sheets of explosives. Before long the supplies were used up. The pots and pans filled the fridge and freezer. They had also used most of the drinking glasses.

  It was dark outside; they had cooked for six hours straight.

  Saturday Evening, July 25, 2308

  Stanwood and Von Kalt arrived in Glasgow in the middle of the night. The United Kingdom checkpoint required they dock their vehicle for inspection. Stanwood flashed his ID and suddenly all obstructions were removed, He even gained an official escort.

  The United Kingdom gave inter national cooperation high priority when it came to partners like the Republic. The swarm of sirens and flashing lights that descended upon MacPhail’s residence was astonishing.

  Unfortunately, Angus was not at hom
e that evening and missed the opportunity to appreciate the spectacle put on in his honor, for the second time that week. Stanwood and the local constable were informed that upon Mr. MacPhail’s release, only a few days earlier, he’d returned home long enough to pack a bag and go on holiday.

  Stanwood had no idea, but was repeatedly informed that Mr. MacPhail was some ninety-two years of age and in ill health. The excitement of the trip to jail had ironically done wonders for his spirits, and he’d decided, quite spontaneously, that he wanted to travel.

  His landlady, herself an esteemed matron north of seventy, wasn’t at all sure of her tenant’s destination. She seemed to recall him mentioning all sorts of exotic locals and freely confessed that some of them may have been her suggestions, she could no longer remember which was which.

  When Von Kalt informed him of MacPhail’s reservation in Douglas on the Isle of Man, Mrs. MacTavish perked right up.

  “Angus was born in Peel. He has two sisters living in Douglas and a brother up near Saint John’s,” she said.

  Ross fixed a light dinner on what few plates were left, and spent the evening showing the children the best ways to wire the rooms and hallways. Together they laid out a fairly complex defense grid. They chose the downstairs storage area as the command post, running all the surveillance cables and detonation wires through a hole they drilled in the floor of a closet.

  The foil wrapped pots were set in front of doors, behind doors, and to the sides of doors. They were also set well away from the doors, in the middle of rooms. Trays and cups were set against the few items of furniture, or under the liberal pieces of newspaper or magazines.

  Corresponding surveillance cameras were set up for each position, along with trip wires for the places that the cameras didn't cover. Ross showed the children how to mount an armed cookie sheet on the wall of the shower and attach the trip wire to the shower curtain. Or to rig an armed cup above a door, so once opened, the cup falls, detonating between the door and intruder.

  In one of the entry rooms, they placed several charges in a large copper tub and set it on its side. In front of it, they stacked a few books and added some crumpled paper bags. From the back, you could see the insulated wires, secured to the floor by duct tape, but from the front, you could see nothing.

  By the time Ross and the kids secured the last of the wires, it was well past midnight. They'd eaten light meals of fruit and energy bars throughout the night, pausing for a break every couple of hours, but they were exhausted and still not finished yet.

  Sunday, July 26, 2308

  UK Officers escorted Stanwood and Von Kalt from Glasgow to Douglas. Halfway across, new officers replaced the first group and accompanied them the rest of the way in.

  Von Kalt wired ahead and booked appropriate lodgings.

  Angus had a seven am tee time scheduled at the Mount Murray golf course and Stanwood suggested they make use of the intervening time to get some shuteye.

  In his adjoining room, Von Kalt used the Metachron to organize and execute a thorough search of MacPhail’s office and residence. He’d given the executing officers some idea of what to look for, anything concerning the USS Midway or anything resembling a Micronix prototype. Just before dawn the searches were called off with zero success.

  Ross chose a partitioned basement room as their command center. He carried over clean plastic wrapped mattresses from the far end of the crowded storeroom to set under the sleeping bags.

  The couch had been pushed back against a wall to make room for the mattresses and conference table. The table came with corresponding chairs and all held boxes of electrical equipment.

  Ross sorted the dozens of cables, running in from the various wings of the facility. There were three suites, four singles and one group of rooms for the administration. The small patio sported sun bleached chairs, a plate-glass table with no plate-glass and a shallow pool that had long ago evolved into a shallow weed-infested garden.

  Once they finished setting the individual charges, Ross asked Geoff and Ash to help him connect the monitors to the surveillance camera feeds. The monitors blinked to life and soon displayed the various cameras spread throughout the seven grouped sleeping environments and their adjoining showers, closets and toilets.

  Ross showed the children how to create and label the wiring grid, from scratch. He laid out the rough diagram of the facility on a large wooden board and tacked a nail at the top left, where he tied the motley crew of labeled and taped-off detonation cables.

  There were at least four cables for each of the rooms, the suites having six and the caretakers’ quarters sporting eight. The hallway was a maze of nearly invisible tripwires, their charges covered by debris. Several cameras covered a dozen wired explosives, camouflaged among the tripwires. There were half a dozen cameras and an equal number detonation cables running from the garage.

  Ross wrote numbers on the board, flawlessly remembering where they'd set the munitions. He drew dotted lines denoting the concealed tripwires and doubled the drawing below, sketching the garage.

  Once he'd finished numbering the diagram, he handed Ashley the hammer and a remaining box of nails. "To the right and up from the numbers, please," he said.

  Ross moved to the outside edge of the board, and for each of Ashley's nails, he hammered a nail along the edge. Ross attached extensions to the incoming wires and after peeling back the insulation, tied the bare wire around the nails. It was clear he'd set up the rooms anticipating a rooftop entry, or through the balcony. The central hallway was the most defended position, as it led to the basement stairs.

  Ross explained how to manipulate the matrix based on which screens showed intruders. "If they show up in room two, entering from the balcony, to the living room, hit switch 2LR, detonating the living room. Those pots we set behind the thin closet doors and the flat pan, mounted to the back of that old framed poster," Ross said.

  He went on until the children understood which cameras represented which rooms on the board. There were almost sixty separate devices, not counting the ones with old-fashioned tripwires. Ashley calculated almost one hundred in all.

  Ashley and Geoff bunked down behind the surveillance screens. They could easily access the triggers, and the armor plate set against the legs of the table concealed them from anyone who actually made it down the stairs and through the soon-to-be rigged basement hallway.

  The couch sat to the side of a small square hatch that opened to an empty sedan. The old car was garaged in a break away housing, designed to be dropped from the building at the touch of a button.

  Should all the above defenses fail, Ashley and Geoff would retreat to the sedan and trigger a massive final explosion, dropping them and the car away from the facility, as if just another piece of debris.

  By the end of the night, it had become clear to Ashley that Ross had given the same speech a dozen times. She could tell by the leading questions he asked that he was aware of the knowledge that would be imparted to the student. She suspected he'd taught dozens of agents or officers the fundamentals of wiring a safe house.

  Ross tucked the children in, explaining that there were a couple of errands he had to run and that he'd return in a few hours.

  "Wait. There's something I want to ask you," Ashley said.

  "What's that?" Ross asked.

  "Before we leave, for Canada or wherever you want to go, before we leave, there must be some evidence at home. My dad had a great security system. There must be some recording of what happened. We have to try.”

  "That's pretty risky; way too risky for all of us to go. We've got a few days. I'll check it out before we go, but I'm not promising anything. And just so we're clear, once our paper comes through, we are leaving, and that is non-negotiable.”

  "Aren't we breaking rule number two by staying here?” Ashley asked.

  "Have you ever been here before?" Ross asked.

  "Of course not, but you have, haven't you? It looks as if it's been through a war.”

 
; "Yeah, but not any war you or I were ever a part of. This is a safe house all right, but not for the cops or the feds. This is mob house," Ross said with a grin. "We got a hold of it in a judgment against one of the families. I made some of these bullet holes myself.”

  "Nice," Ashley smiled.

  "Now, lock the door and set the shotgun in the brace, like I showed you, and I'll see you in the morning," Ross said.

  Ashley set the Mossberg in the metal brace, as he'd shown her, and positioned it in a chair, in front of the door. She ran the trigger line from the spool through the brace, past the trigger guard and out to the door. Where the line passed the trigger, she attached the lanyard and clipped it to the line. It was done, armed.

  If the locks were picked and the door was opened in the night, the line would retract, spinning back on the spool, pulling the clip and lanyard fitted over the trigger, firing the gun. Ashley had been careful to position the chair so the weapon wouldn't go off until the door cleared the Mossberg's barrel.

  Chapter 48 – Battle of the Midway

  Sunday, July 26, 2308

  As Stanwood and Von Kalt approached the first tee at Mount Murray Golf Course, a sharp and active old fellow rose from the bench. “I was expecting more of you,” he said, smiling.

  “Sorry to disappoint,” Stanwood replied, extending his hand.

  MacPhail took Stanwood’s hand in both of his and gave it a firm shake. MacPhail was tall and thin, but he seemed strong and healthy.

  Von Kalt nodded to the bodyguard slash caddy standing nearby.

  MacPhail glanced at his watch. “Right on time,” he said.

  “You were expecting me?” Stanwood asked.

  “I’ve been expecting you for almost twenty years, son. Of course, I had no idea it would be you, whoever you are, but I knew this day was coming, without a doubt.”

  “Then you’ll understand my desire to cut to the chase.”