From the second floor of his newly purchased Cape Cod home, Bern Gold sat in his wheelchair and stared out through a bank of tinted glass windows at the proceedings below. Just ten yards beneath him, a large stairwell led onto a stone porch that encompassed the entire length of the mansion. Beyond it, a manicured lawn sprawled in all directions, the smell of fresh flowers in the air.
On either side of the porch, teams of servants manned their stations. To the right a large buffet was spread out, across from it an extensive selection of wines and champagnes from around the world. Waiters in pressed white uniforms moved throughout the grounds, offering hors d’oeuvres and relieving guests of any unwanted dishes.
Among them was Ling, Gold watching as he slipped amongst them without attracting so much as a second glance.
The crowd was comprised of over fifty people, many of them wives and children of men associated with the project. All were dressed in their outdoor finest, sundresses and sports coats, a festive mood in the air.
Using an automated joystick, Gold rolled to his computer and made one final check of everything. Content that all was in order, he shrugged on his dinner jacket and took his private elevator down a floor to find Jasper waiting for him. Once there, he disengaged his onboard motor and coasted to a stop just as Jasper grabbed the handles and pushed him forward.
Together the duo emerged from the house onto the veranda, the bright afternoon sun washing over them. Several heads turned at the sight of the pair, Gold in his wheelchair and Jasper in his trademark aloha shirt, the garish red and gold a stark contrast from those around him.
Many of the people there, despite being business associates, had never seen Gold in person. Several cast sideways glances as he accepted a glass of wine from a servant, careful not to stare as he passed by.
The first person brave enough to approach Gold was Ling, offering a sampling from his tray. He bent low as Gold pretended to peruse the options and said, “It appears everyone has agreed to your terms. None of the men are carrying weapons and my men report that they have heard nothing suspicious over the lines.”
“How many listening devices are in place?” Gold asked, his hand poised above the tray, pretending to be choosing carefully.
“Over three hundred,” Ling replied. “Hidden in every tray, restroom, and plant on the grounds.”
“Good,” Gold said. “And in the conference room?”
“Same. There isn’t an inch of dead air space in there.”
“Excellent,” Gold said, accepting a crab cake from the tray, the unspoken gesture that it was time for Ling to move away.
Unable to join the guests on the lawn, Gold used the opportunity to remain on the porch and survey everyone present. He recognized many of the men from prior business arrangements and the rest from meticulous study of known photographs.
The wives and children he couldn’t have cared less about.
The reception lasted well over an hour, until the sun began to slide down in the western sky. Once it did, an ice sculptor appeared on the lawn and began to give a demonstration, the predetermined signal that the business of the evening was about to begin.
Recognizing the cue, the wives began to shuffle their children toward the display, their husbands lingering behind before drifting toward the house.
Inside, a series of staff in matching black suits directed them through the mansion to a large conference room in the eastern wing. Sparsely decorated, it featured a resplendent cherry table and matching armchairs with a modest spread of refreshments along the back wall. There were no nametags or assigned seats and as the men entered they took up posts in various places around the table, each angling for the optimal power position.
Gold watched the men enter from the security room down the hall, Ling by his side. Tucked away behind the kitchen, the space was dominated by a half dozen monitors displaying feedback in black and white from cameras hidden around the room. The audio was turned on as well, though the only sounds heard were the occasional scraping of a chair against the polished wood floor.
When the last of the seats was occupied, Gold maneuvered his chair into the hallway where he was joined by Jasper. He allowed himself to be wheeled into the conference room and positioned at the head of the table before Jasper retreated and closed the door behind him.
An oversized smile in place, Gold sat at the head of the table and surveyed everyone before him. Present were a dozen of the most powerful - if unknown - people in the world. They ranged in age from early forties to late seventies and represented more than a handful of countries.
Each met his gaze with equal parts intensity and curiosity, as eager to be in his company as he was theirs.
“Gentlemen, thank you all so much for making the journey here this evening,” Gold began. “I know many of us have been in communication for some time now, but it is nice to finally set aside the veil of technology.”
A few heads nodded around the table, though all remained silent.
“I know you are all busy men, some with very tight travel schedules, so I promise to be as brief as thoroughness will allow. We have been hard at this for quite some time and to short shift ourselves due to petty time constraints would be truly unfortunate.”
On the desk before him was a short control panel, switches and buttons spread in two even lines, the entire thing encased in silver. Beginning on the far left, Gold pressed a single button, the shades on the outer wall immediately beginning a downward descent. Moving his hand just an inch to the right, he pushed a second button, the lights overhead dimming to near darkness.
Jumping to the bottom row on the panel, he flipped a switch, bringing a small projector down from the ceiling. It threw a blue square on the wall behind Gold as he shifted his chair to the side, turning so he could face both the screen and the table.
He sat in silence, the men before him waiting in kind, as an image of Earth turning on its axis appeared on the screen.
“Many of us go back a long ways, while others we are meeting for the first time,” Gold said, forcing his voice to sound warm and welcoming. “For those of us reuniting again, I extend heartfelt gladness at seeing you alive and well. I cannot begin to tell you how overjoyed I am that we are able to see the imminent culmination of a work many decades in the making.
“To those here for the first time, my sincerest apologies for your loss. The fact that you have decided to pick up their life’s work and join us speaks volume to both your families and to the task we have at hand.”
In the darkness, Gold could see a few heads bobbing, hear a few grunts of agreement. Ignoring them, he moved along to the third button on the top row, the image onscreen rotating to display North America, a blinking red light settling over the city of Boston.
“I apologize for working without full disclosure these recent months but with such an impending launch date, we have been forced to maximize security in every way. Any one of us in this room could be under surveillance and until now, transcontinental communication was too risky.
“I promise, that ends here.”
Without waiting for a response of any kind he pushed forward, the speech one he had committed to memory days before. “The dot you see here is Boston, Massachusetts. Many of you flew over it just hours before, some of you may have even landed there. Its importance to us is that it houses one of the busiest ports on the eastern United States seaboard.”
Gold pressed another button and a myriad of blue lines ran from Boston out to the rest of the world. “These lines represent every course of transit that originates in Boston. In any given week, over one hundred countries on six continents receive goods from these docks.”
A second press of the same button brought scads of red lines, interspersing throughout the blue, covering the United States like veins on a forearm. “Here you have the transportation routes for goods once they enter the United States. Routes that cover all forty-eight lower states and eventually reach Alaska and Hawaii as well.
“In total, they connect every
major city in the country.”
There were few things Bern Gold despised more than wanton displays of unnecessary flash, though he had long ago conceded their necessity in his work. Nothing appealed to business partners better than the illusion of preparedness, and nothing seemed to provide it better than an excessive display of bells and whistles.
His jaw clenched, he moved to the next button in the row, the map on screen shifting from the United States to Western Europe.
“Liverpool, England,” Gold said, speeding up the process, pressing the button twice more in succession. “As Boston is to America, Liverpool is to England.”
As he spoke, the same red and blue lines snaked away from Liverpool, scattering toward every corner of the world.
One by one, Gold outlined the same approach for Marseilles, France; Genoa, Italy; Vladivostok, Russia; and Nagasaki, Japan. By the time he was done, he could barely contain his disdain for the tedium of the process, even more so for the growing anticipation of the men around him.
One last time Gold pulled the screen back to the image of the spinning globe before zeroing in on a particular destination. “And the one we’ve been waiting on. Hamburg, Germany.”
A low murmur went up around the table, followed by rapt silence as every man stared at the routes connecting Germany to the world.
“Until this point, many of you have only known that your task was to secure ports in these particular cities. You all did as was asked of you without question or hesitation and for that, we thank you.
“Tonight, you learn why this task was of such grave importance.”
Moving to the last button in the row, Gold pressed it, the map behind him disintegrating. In its place appeared the image of a large shrub, bell-shaped flowers hanging from its limbs. The entire depiction cast of red and green, it threw a new hue over the room, everything much brighter than just a moment before.
“Brugmansia, more commonly known in its native Chile as Angel Trumpet,” Gold said, reciting the information from memory without turning to look at the screen. “Very rare, the plant is common in the Andes Mountains and nowhere else in the world.”
He paused just briefly, watching as the men listened, their faces held in wonder at what they saw.
“Though beautiful in appearance and found in a wide variety of colors, every part of the plant is toxic. Reported effects of ingestion have been known to cause tachycardia, rapid onset cycloplegia, visual and auditory hallucinations, and death.”
As Gold spoke, he depressed the button repeatedly, each condition he mentioned having a corresponding picture of someone suffering the same effect.
“The locals first discovered Brugmansia centuries ago when villagers would use the flowers as edible garnishes for feasts. Within hours, many would fall prey to horrific hallucinations, ultimately passing from the heart attacks or strokes they brought on.”
The next depiction to appear on screen was of a woven wall hanging, the background material for it a faded white, the entire piece stretching ten feet square. On it was sewn a scene of fire sweeping down a mountainside, a fearful village below.
“For years thereafter, the indigenous peoples of the Andes avoided the plant, fearing the hallucinogenic effects it produced. They stripped away the trees from within their villages and piled them high in the mountains where they would be a threat no longer.”
Another depression of the button zoomed closer on the hanging, the images sewed thereon coming into focus.
“In 1643, Spanish missionaries reported spotting a great fire in the Andes. Started by a rouge lightning strike, the enormous pile of dried Brugmansia was set ablaze, fire sweeping down from the high country and destroying enormous swaths of forest. The flames burned for over a week, but never touched the villages of Cristas or Sanuel.
“When the fire finally ceased, the missionaries went to the mountains to offer aid to those villages but when they arrived they found every last man, woman, child, and animal dead.
“No blood, no signs of struggle.”
Gold changed the image from the wall hanging to a computer generated rendering of the scene, the vibrant colors of it setting the room to glowing, a stark contrast to just a moment before.
“Research has determined that when the heat from the fire swept down the mountainside, it vaporized vast quantities of the plant. Once the particles of the toxin entered the atmosphere, they were carried by the wind down the mountainside into the villages below.
“Unaware of any danger, the people went about their lives, breathing in the toxin,” Gold continued, clicking to another slide, “and were dead within hours. By the time the missionaries arrived, the threat had dissipated into the atmosphere, taking the lives of every villager with it.”
Gold clicked ahead to the next slide, aware that he held the complete attention of every person present. That look, that complete command of their attention, was the largest reason why he had called the meeting in the first place. Beyond just drawing the men in the room out, allowing himself to get a feel for them, to read each one in person, he wanted the satisfaction of seeing their awe. This was a plan he had spent years, decades, putting together, and it demanded to be appreciated as such.
The refracted color scheme of the room changed again as behind him the image switched to a complex molecular helix, the entire thing rotating on a three dimensional plane.
“This is the basic formation of Brugmansia in a solid state. Fairly stable, the side effects mentioned still occur, though in a much weaker manner. Most deaths that happen after ingestion are caused by stress-induced heart attack or seizure.”
The next slide showed a slightly skewed depiction of the molecule, replacing the smooth interior portion with a realigned center featuring two irregular pairings. “This is Brugmansia in vapor form. When breathed in, the mutation shown here is very volatile and has a kill rate of 100%.”
He paused as a few men drew in sharp breaths, a few others nodding in approval. Once he was certain every last one had grasped the enormity of what he’d just told them, he flipped the first switch off, the overhead projector receding into the ceiling. At the same time the window blinds rose halfway, late day sun illuminating the room.
“So, what does this mean for us?” Gold asked, positioning himself back at the head of the table. Using the bridge of his knuckles, he rapped three times on the hardwood before him, the sound echoing through the room.
A moment later Jasper appeared, a small silver box in hand.
“Thank you, Jasper,” Gold said, accepting the implement and extending it out in front of himself, his servant disappearing from the room without a sound.
“A team of elite scientists has been hard at work for some time now developing the optimal way to weaponize Brugmansia,” Gold said, moving it in a slow semi-circle, allowing for everyone to take a long look at his shiny new toy. Once the display was over, he extracted a remote detonator from the inside flap of his jacket and depressed the button on it.
In response a red light began flashing atop the box, a low grinding sound beginning to emit from within.
“We call it quite simply The Vaporizer, a reference more to what it does to human life than to its effects on the Brugmansia found within. Remotely accessed, units can be activated from anywhere in the world and can be synchronized with any or all other active Vaporizers,” Gold said, his voice and demeanor belying no small amount of pleasure at the growing discomfort before him.
“The process begins with what you’re hearing right now, the grinding phase. Brugmansia is too unstable to ship in anything but a solid form, so it is packaged as a bundle of dried leaves and flower buds. Right now, we have over a dozen greenhouses producing enough to more than supply our needs.”
Placing the box down on the table, Gold slid it a few feet away, the smooth metal gliding along the wooden tabletop.
“The Vaporizer begins by grinding the bundles into a fine dust,” Gold said as the grinding halted and a low hissing sound was heard.
> “Next, the powder is dissolved in water and superheated.”
Apprehension grew as a few of the men sat up high in their chairs, furtive glances exchanged amongst them.
“Then...” Gold said, letting his words trail off as a thin white vapor burst from a spout along the side of the box, a cone of fine dust spraying across the table, some of it dissolving into the air instantly.
A few men gasped as it did so, others recoiling in terror, the sounds of their fear ringing out as they covered their faces with the lapels of their coats.
At the head of the table Gold sat with an amused expression on his face, making no effort to pull back or cover his face. He waited as the men continued to squirm, nobody wanting to be the first to visibly break, before ending their misery.
“For the purposes of this demonstration, we used dried leaves from a maple tree out back,” Gold said, shutting the machine down with a flippant push of a button, his voice relaying good humor. “We wanted to show an accurate depiction of how The Vaporizer works and it was the safest alternative.”
A small ripple of laughter went up around the table and a few even applauded. Genuine relief flooded the features of all.
“The day we have been waiting for is near,” Gold said, the end of his performance growing close, his body aching to finish it. “It has been a long time in coming and I thank you for being so patient and working so hard to see it through.
“Once we adjourn here, each of you will return home and make sure every detail is ready in your location. You will all receive instructions within the week telling you when to expect your Vaporizers to arrive.”
Out on the veranda, a jazz band began to play, their directions relayed from Ling, watching everything nearby. At the sound of the musical cue Gold put on his best smile, his voice rising to that of an emcee wrapping things up for the evening.
“I invite all of you to stay and enjoy the evening here with us. Dance with your wives, laugh with your children, socialize with your colleagues. Enjoy yourselves, for Liberation Day is near!”
The room in unison rose to its feet and applauded, many cheering. They stayed doing so for several long minutes, smiling between one another, shaking hands and clasping each other on the back.
For the briefest of moments, seated alone at the head of the table, Gold even allowed himself to smile right along with them.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Liberation Day - A Thorn Byrd Novel Page 27
