by Joe Nobody
His new position as the lead investigator was proving more difficult than he’d ever imagined. It wasn’t the workload, he surmised, but the constant second-guessing of decisions. It truly is lonely at the top, he mused.
As he exited the elevator and began the long walk down the corridor, he finally focused on what was really bothering him – delivering a truckload of bad news to his boss.
Arriving at the private room’s threshold, he took a deep breath and braced for what was sure to be a bad encounter.
Special Agent Monroe was actually sitting up in bed, a paperback book being supported by one of his tube-laced arms. The injured man’s greeting was sincere. “Tom! I’m so glad you stopped by,” Monroe started, “I’ve been wondering what was going on.”
After a quick round of polite small talk covering Monroe’s state of healing and the recent heat wave, Shultz inhaled deeply and got down to business.
“Weathers is still alive, sir,” he began, his tone evident of a drive to just air it out and get it over with. “He not only survived the incident at the ship channel, but also managed to elude us again down in Clear Lake.”
Monroe’s reaction wasn’t at all what the junior agent expected. A look of concern crossed the older man’s face and then, almost in a whisper, he asked, “Any casualties?”
“No, sir. We were lucky. He used the Olympus Device to blast his way past a roadblock, but no one was seriously hurt.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that we didn’t lose any more men. We’ve had enough of that as of late. I had a feeling we hadn’t seen the last of that man yet.”
Shultz looked down at the floor, his tone reflective. “I made a call… a decision that now I’m questioning. Instead of throwing every resource available into capturing him, I ordered a low profile attempt to utilize the element of surprise. It didn’t work, and now we have no idea where he’s gone to ground.”
Monroe actually smiled at his co-worker, his eyes showing genuine understanding and concern. “I wish I had a dime for every order I’ve second-guessed. While a certain level of introspection can lead to a healthy dose of wisdom, you can’t dwell on bad calls. Everybody makes them.”
For a moment, Shultz thought the fiery tempered man beside him was drugged. The calm, fatherly-like reaction the last thing he had expected. But Monroe’s eyes were clear and bright.
“You seem surprised,” the patient added.
Shultz grunted, “Let’s just say I expected more of a passionate response.”
Monroe smirked and shook his head, “Do you really think I made it to the top of one of the bureau’s largest offices by pure hellfire and brimstone? I learned my leadership lessons the hard way, Tom. I have no doubt you did your absolute best given the circumstances, and that’s all anyone can ask. We’ll find him… we always do. What do we have to go on?”
The junior agent actually welcomed the chance to talk it through, surprising himself at how easily his thoughts started pouring out. “We know he purchased pre-paid debit cards and cell phones down at Clear Lake. We know he spent the night with Grace Kennedy at a hotel there. We’ve apprehended her at her property in Fort Davis, but she’s not cooperating… claiming attorney-client privilege and a loss of memory.”
Monroe smiled, “Figures. She’s not stupid.”
“I’m waiting on the Attorney General’s office to make a decision on any charges concerning Miss Kennedy. But other than that, the trail has gone cold.”
The two men continued to discuss details of the incident at Clear Lake, Shultz informing his boss that he thought Weathers was hesitant to kill. “He could have blown that roadblock to kingdom come, but he didn’t. He fired it into the ground. He escaped via a stolen motorcycle, which we later found. He’s also obtained possession of a helmet, which is smart as hell. None of our drones can see his face with it on.”
“You’ll get him, Tom. I’m sure of it. He’ll turn up; they always do.”
“Thank you, sir. I needed to hear that,” Shultz said as he stood to leave.
Juanita saw the FBI man exit the patient’s room, her nerves raw and flayed. She knew her sister was dead if she messed up, a part of her worried that it might be too late regardless of how well she followed her orders.
She reached into her pocket, pulling out what appeared to be a common ink pen. Grasping the device with sweaty fingers, she entered Monroe’s room and found the patient sleeping. “Thank the Lord in Heaven above,” she whispered silently and moved with measured steps toward a small table of flowers and cards in the corner.
There, behind a potted fern, rested an identical device. She made the exchange without Monroe waking, stuffing the voice-activated digital recorder back into her pocket.
It was only after she had exited the room that she took a breath, her heart racing as if she was being chased. Returning to the maintenance closet, she dialed a phone number from the cell phone Victor had provided. Only a slight shadow of guilt soiled her mind as she reported in. She would do anything to save Tessa.
Tio was listening to the recording for the third time. While his English was passable, he scanned a Spanish language manuscript while trying to visualize the meeting between the two FBI dogs. He wanted to detect every nuance of their conversation, dissect every inflection, and ensure his bi-lingual translation hadn’t overlooked the relevance of any details.
When the recording ended, his initial reaction was a deep grunt, and then a sigh.
“So the weapon exists,” he finally commented, looking up at Vega.
The cartel’s financial manager was uncomfortable speaking of things that he hadn’t seen with his own eyes. “It appears so.”
Tio rose and stepped to the balcony, gazing absentmindedly at the beach below. The high-rise condo overlooked Tulum, Mexico, one of the cartel boss’s favorite retreats.
The crystal blue waters and bright sand didn’t seem to influence Tio’s mood. Nor did the two topless girls sunbathing just on the other side of the thick, sliding glass doors. His mind was elsewhere, traveling down corridors that only he could fathom. Finally shoving his hands into the silk bathrobe’s pockets, he turned abruptly and announced, “I must have this device.”
Vega had been dreading such a response. During the drive to the resort and subsequent passage through the rings of security surrounding the condo, he’d been reasonably sure he could predict his boss’s reaction.
It was rare that Tio ever changed his mind. The instructions he’d received at the last meeting with the cartel chief had been clear – he was to avoid any further participation in the matter. But then something had changed.
When the contents of the recorded hospital conversation had become known, the boss had thrown caution to the wind and ordered Vega to take charge of the project. The reversal, and associated risk of exposure, had been a surprise. It was a clear indication of the man’s single minded intent to hold the rail gun in his hands. Such linear thinking was dangerous.
“All assets are to be utilized,” Tio continued. “Pull out all the stops. I don’t care what it costs or what the ramifications are – I want this weapon.”
Vega was no stranger to superiors having impractical agendas. His six years in international finance before being recruited by the cartel had provided an eye-opening education into a lack of reality often shared by powerful men. Still, Tio was usually levelheaded. Brutal and aggressive, he had proven himself capable of ultimate violence while seeming callous, void of emotion.
Generally ruled by logic, he was most often realistic in his expectations. The power represented by the rail gun is tempting, Vega thought. Even I would sacrifice much to hold it in my hands.
“Our intelligence-gathering apparatus isn’t nearly as sophisticated as what the Americans have at their disposal, sir. If they can’t find this Durham Weathers using all of their available assets, I question our chances of success.”
Tio spread his arms wide, “We have some capabilities that the Americans don’t possess. Our network of businesses and people o
n the ground may provide information unavailable to the Yanks. They may have drones and sophisticated electronics, but we have people with eyes and ears. A lot of people. Utilize them, and find this man.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Vega rose to leave, Tio gestured with his head toward the women on the balcony. “Do you require female companionship? I’m bored with those two and plan on dismissing them later today. While they aren’t unskilled, an hombre must vary his tastes or find himself stagnated. I’m sure they could provide you with an excellent experience.”
Before Vega could respond, a sly grin appeared on his master’s face. “It is especially entertaining to observe what they can do with each other,” Tio added in a low voice.
Mitch eased his chair away from the computer keyboard and removed his glasses. Rubbing his eyes, he tried to erase the strain induced by countless hours spent staring at the simulation results. Sighing with frustration at the limits imposed by his frail, biological light receptors, he conceded there was no known treatment that offered instant improvement to his vision, opting instead to stand and stretch his chair-weary back. “My spine isn’t doing much better than my eyes,” he commented to the empty room.
Despite his physical condition, the professor’s mind was still working overtime. He had abandoned trying to reproduce the effects generated by his brother’s invention, instead deciding to focus on how to use the technology for positive, life affirming, non-destructive applications.
Without the physical rail gun to reverse-engineer, his super computers could only speculate on the shape of the magnetic field created by Dusty’s revolving apparatus. Quickly realizing that was the key, he’d tried a few hundred different configurations without success. He could propel matter, but at no greater velocities than any of the common rail gun designs being developed by the military.
Mitch had then changed the point of attack. Instead of his sluggish, overworked human brain attempting to define the winning combination of shape, rotational speed, and configuration, he’d written code that would instruct the computer’s much faster processor to calculate a finite number of possible solutions. After that, a process of elimination could be invoked.
It didn’t work.
When the ultra-fast computer reached one billion different combinations, he’d terminated the program with a frustrated peck on the keyboard. It would take years to eliminate each possible variant.
Back to the drawing board.
But his heart wasn’t in it. The irony of recreating Dusty’s device at the behest of the government wasn’t lost on the scientist. In fact, it flew in the face of all the sacrifice, risk, and suffering his brother was enduring. His frustrating encounters with the Department of Energy had proven, yet again, that Dusty was right. The technology would eventually find its way onto the battlefield, and that would ultimately result in doomsday.
With his vision partially recovered, Mitch rolled his chair back to the console. He paused for the hundredth time, wondering if he had done his brother a disservice by convincing him not to destroy the rail gun. Living on the run, seeing his face plastered all over the newscasts, and being target practice for virtually every law enforcement agency in the local, state and federal government couldn’t possibly offer the quality of life Dusty had in mind for himself.
Mitch frowned, his intellect determined to prove his side of the debate as the correct position. Pushing all of those distracting concerns aside, he returned to the computer screen with a newfound vigor.
A broad smile creased the scientist’s face a few minutes later.
“There you are,” he mumbled to the monitor.
With deft fingers flying across the keyboard, Mitch began absorbing a series of numbers and graphs. Twice he inhaled sharply, the results displayed on the screen so astounding. Once he even whistled.
The capabilities predicted by the simulator were off the scale.
Human engineering had been producing usable mechanical energy from vacuums for over 100 years. Early locomotive engines used the expansion, and eventual contraction, of steam for a variety of applications. Modern day diesel motors still required a vacuum pump to function. There was nothing earthshattering about the concept of pressure differentials producing work.
But there were two unique characteristics about Dusty’s invention. The first, and most important, was the fact that he used energy from the grid to produce a vacuum.
Mitch thought back to the small placard resting on his desk. “Energy can neither be created, nor destroyed,” was the motto of anyone who understood modern thermodynamics. Perpetual motion, free energy and other such outlying concepts were often referred to as “howlers” by the scientific community, as learned men would often howl in laughter at some of the crazy concepts floated by the snake oil salesmen preying on the unaware public.
Accessing energy from the “grid,” had been the latest buzzword used by the not so scrupulous, hawking everything from remarkable electricity generators to car motors that claimed to offer the efficient ability to drive hundreds of miles per gallon.
While grid energy was real, accessing it for usable work had been accomplished by only a handful of inventions since mankind had walked the earth. Gravity was a commonly known example, with mills from colonial times utilizing gravity’s effect on water to turn their grindstones and produce usable work. Modern day hydro-electric dams operated on the same principle.
Sunlight was another example, used to generate electrical power from a star’s radiation via solar panels.
But the list was short. Man’s overwhelming utilization of fossil fuels was proof that large scale implementations were difficult, expensive, and thus rare. Dusty’s invention changed all of that – and so much more.
Mitch was so astounded at the results generated by the simulation that it required several readings to overcome his disbelief. Using a primitive, unrefined design, he’d constructed a virtual power plant that would generate electricity via the rail gun’s opening and closing of a portal.
A facility the size of a current-day bungalow could power the entire eastern seaboard of the United States. Five of the miniature plants would generate enough juice to satisfy North America. It would take less than 30 to bathe the entire planet in virtually free electrical current.
Billions of tons of air pollution would be eliminated. The cost per megawatt would be less than one penny each. Acid rain, ozone deterioration and other environmental concerns would almost disappear overnight.
But that was just the beginning. Drought stricken areas could employ desalination technology without the prohibitive electrical costs associated with current-day methods.
Mitch’s attention wandered off the screen for a moment, speculating how much of the desert could be converted into green, productive farmland.
Affordable energy would be an equalizer like never seen before. Everyday life for much of the planet’s population would improve. Third world countries with ready access to electricity would experience progress at exponential speed. Corporations wouldn’t have to deal with the high cost of energy and could reinvest those savings into research and development, or hiring additional workers. Irrigation pumps could be powered by even the poorest of farmers. Transportation, medical care, manufacturing and agriculture would all benefit from clean, cheap energy.
How would the world’s political landscape change if wars, disputes and distrust over energy were no longer a concern? If food production could be guaranteed and hunger were eliminated?
The professor stopped, realizing he could contemplate the possibilities indefinitely.
“This is how I clear Dusty’s name,” Mitch realized. “This is what people need to see and hear. This is the road to my brother’s redemption.”
Day Seven
The box resting on his desk wasn’t unusual. Being a department head at a major university resulted in a large variety of correspondence - including free samples from vendors, wanna-be graduate candidates sending the results of their exper
iments, and the occasional thank-you gift.
The size and shape of this particular package was unusual. As had been the case since the incident with the rail gun, the box had been opened. He smirked at the concept of the FBI reading and searching all of his parcels and letters. “I should order some really, really kinky stuff off the internet just to mess with their heads,” he whispered. “But on the other hand, they are saving wear and tear on my letter opener.”
He pulled open the cardboard ears and looked inside, pulling out the neatly typed letter. “Why me?” he said as he read Penny’s correspondence. “What would a physics professor have to do with dead chickens?”
Wrinkling his nose at the concept of what was inside the heavy plastic wrap, he almost dismissed the box entirely. Reaching to push it aside, something caught his eye. There was a photograph - a pair of hands holding a dead bird.
Mitch reached inside and snatched out the picture, tilting it toward the light to make sure of the details. His gaze focused on the hands holding the deceased animal, more specifically on the ring prominently displayed on the man’s left hand. It was Dusty!
He couldn’t believe it. This black and gold jewelry was unmistakable, their father’s ring! It was a unique piece, designed by a goldsmith in El Paso and unusual in its design. They all had chipped in, buying the ornate extravagance, complete with a diamond encrusted “W” in the middle, for their father’s 60th birthday.
Dad had pulled it off while lying on his deathbed, making Dusty promise to keep the bauble above ground. “I won’t be needing it anymore,” the dying man had whispered. “Make sure it always sees the light of day.”
Dusty never took it off.
Mitch quickly dug through the box, hoping to find more proof. There wasn’t anything else but the dead chicken and containers of dry ice. He then checked the return address and knew instantly where his brother was. It made sense that he would hole up down by the border. The relief flooding through his veins was enormous, a huge weight lifted from his shoulders.
