The news just broke to a story in progress, as it looked like the Arabs were getting into it now, saying that this was a Christian ploy to undermine Islam, the one true faith. Sandy thought, looks like they don’t get news feeds there, or they just love to riot because it was the U.S. who was attacked, not them.
Riots were starting in every major Arab city, and the U.S. Embassy in Egypt was just overrun a la Iran in the seventies, the victors hoisting the Black Flag of Islam. Sandy looked at his perimeter cameras, feeling vulnerable. He had picked a perfect place though. His place was backed up into a small canyon with nothing behind him, and no neighbors right in front of his property either.
His two acres were very defensible and he had the means to do so. He had stored food and water for well over a year, with the ability to grow year round in the green houses thanks to his solar panels, windmills, and the fresh water well he drilled and built the green houses over.
Sandy even had a good old ham radio. Thank God no satellites needed for that. As long as he could defend the property, then he would be able to sit back and be witness to the end of humanity in comfort. The boy sure did a lot with a hundred and ten million. I can’t wait to see the finale.
The stock markets were going mad, and there was wide spread looting worldwide in every major city. People all over had signs and posters in support of the New Unknown Force that took on the U.S. There was now a worldwide following of the Jesuit Sheep and the throng was growing by the minute.
Sandy intuitively knew the minute that word of the carrier attack Pablo Manuel spoke of was confirmed then the sheep following was going to grow exponentially. The United States won’t look so invincible. And the sheep will rise in unbelievable numbers.
Sandy lifted the mason jars out of the pans in the basket he boiled them in. He toweled off the jars and placed them on the counter, grateful that he had resources to spare him the anxiety of not knowing where his next meal was coming from.
* * *
“So, what’s the new damage report? What new sunshine do you bring me, Gustavo?”
“Vincente, please, I hate when you get all acidy.”
“And I hate when you use that feminine voice to admonish me.”
“Okay, all this aside, there is a lot of unrest in Quito, Guayaquil, and Ibarra. As usual, people will take advantage of any situation they think they can, so your move to dispense the Army and cut it off before it started worked well. No dark clouds there, but certainly not great either. What I do want to bring you though is the unusual. The people of Otavalo say this Jesuit Sheep is one of theirs and he’s here to make a right of many wrongs. The whole town is shut down—no one will work or play or do anything other than gather downtown and pray.
“No school either. And the news crews are getting it and flocking there. It’s going to be the flash point for a movement that is not going to die out soon, Vincente.”
“How do they know the ‘Jesuit Sheep’ is one of theirs?”
“His voice; he never changed his voice. There apparently was no filter and the people that know him say that it’s him. They also say the strike on Peru was for them, and sadly his family.”
“What about his family?”
“The Shimmering Way killed them all in their sleep.”
“That was them?! That was his family?! What’s his name?”
“Pablo Manuel.”
“Yes, I know that name. That crime was really brutal and it’s spawned more letters to my office than I can ever remember.”
The people of that region have been long oppressed by the traffickers, we know that, Vincente, right?”
It was the way he said the word “right” that set him off. Gustavo just had to use that simpering tone that I hate. Why couldn’t he understand that I didn’t fall in love with a woman? I fell in love with another man and I just hate that maricón voice that he brings out at times.
He reprimanded his over-eager assistant, “How many times have I told you about that?”
“Vincente, please, not now.”
“If not now, when? I mean I have the people of Ecuador probably ready to storm this place and burn it to the ground. I have the Americans trying to talk us into a low yield Bunker Buster Nuclear Tipped Missile, if they can disable the killer satellite. We have no computers, TV, or cell phones. And you want to choose now to accidentally ‘out me’ by being a little woman?”
Vincente was about to go a bit deeper when a thought occurred to him that quelled his anger. “You say he’s from that village, huh? Well maybe the threat of some bad things coming their way will help persuade these nuts to stop all this before it’s too late. Let’s get the word to our American friends that maybe some of the group responsible for this is hiding there and give them permission to ‘check it out.’ That ought to get things moving. We can’t just sit around waiting for them to act, Gustavo, so we need to force an error by changing tactics. I can make everyone in that town an enemy of this country!”
Gustavo turned as he was walking out, and in the most girlish voice possible he said, “You just do that. Apparently you never listen to me nor have heard of martyrdom. That should work out just fine.”
He yelled into Gustavo’s back as he was leaving.
“I have no choice, make it happen!” The door slammed a little harder than usual. He was defiant, but he would do as instructed, Vincente thought. Martyrdom? That’s not a concern. But a civil uprising—now that’s a whole different thing.
He had just ordered his entire Navy to Guayaquil, as they were staying out of whatever was happening out there in the Pacific Ocean. He would stop the uprising and get these fanatics’ attention that he wasn’t fucking around anymore!
He looked out his window, the rain had just cleared and he could see all the way to the mountains. The clouds looked like huge columns and all he could think about were mushroom clouds. He couldn’t believe the U.S. wanted him to allow nuclear weapons into his country? No, they were going to have to try conventional warheads before I authorize any nukes. No one other than me even thought that shooting a warhead into the earth so near a volcano was probably not too smart, either. The U.S. wasn’t really in a position to do much at the moment anyway, but he was told that was about to change. America’s first attempt, like theirs, turned out to be a miserable failure.
* * *
Sarah was on his line. “You never cease to amaze, Ray. Never. The Paris Station Chief got to Lebuff not an hour ago. Barnett just got off the phone with me, and he said I can make this call to you.”
“Who is their Station Chief?”
“His name is Gary Knapp.”
“I know Gary, he’s a good man.”
“Well, right you are, Ray, because he cracked Lebuff like a big egg.”
“I always liked Gary.”
Sarah continued with her information, “Well, get this, the boy was rescued by Haberman. Apparently, they met in the online chess room that the kid designed.”
“Don’t tell me, Sarah, Haberman’s user name was Dr. Sparks?”
“Good detective work, Doctor.”
“Well, that’s what I am, Sarah, a detective of the mind. I got into the site as the Administrator by guessing the password and found the boy’s old games.”
“You guessed the password?”
“Correct, it was ‘DIOS’ or God in Spanish.”
“Smart thinking,” was her response.
“The game against Dr. Sparks was some very advanced chess.”
“You know the game, Ray?”
“Actually I do, and pretty well. I looked up their moves—Grand Master Level, Sarah. This kid was special—he won that game.
“According to Lebuff, that’s how they met. Haberman came to him first, not believing the game they played online was real. According to Knapp, Lebuff was forthcoming and very clear that these were good men being pursued by some very bad men. He hoped we never find them, as the horrors that Pablo Manuel suffered were more than anyone could take, according to Lebuff
. We found several ounces of gold in his personal safe, but he has no intention of talking to us about money. He’ll talk about the situation and that is all. So are you ready for the good part?”
Ray got excited, “There’s more?”
“Oh yes, there is. Soon after Haberman and the boy went on the run he claims those that seek the boy were harassing him. At first the Shimmering Way approached him by direct contact under a guise, and Lebuff, under instructions from Haberman, said the right things to stay alive. They wouldn’t believe Pablo wasn’t coming back, though, and for months they were there every time he moved. Then one day they were gone. Never to be seen again.”
Ray processed this information for quite a while. Sarah was used to his ways by now and patiently waited. She knew the next question would cover what she’s about to say to him, “Do we know when that was?”
“We do.”
“So can we match that time frame to any incidents in the region, maybe even neighboring countries?”
“Ray Callahan, why aren’t you the Head of the CIA?”
“Because I need to run the place, Sarah, and I can't do that behind a desk. So what did we find?”
“There was a shooting in Zurich on the steps of the Habib bank. Not the norm for that area. We accessed the video from the bank and report from Interpol. The shooter was a foreign jeweler and the perpetrator was never caught. The film revealed the boy as the true victim; the supposed jeweler was Octavio Mendoza running under an alias.”
“Very interesting, Sarah. Well, we understand the motive for such a stalwart response as the bomb now, don’t we? Just like the broadcast said, it was ‘an eye for an eye,’ just on a broader scale.”
It was time for the shocker even Ray could not have seen. “Ray, James didn’t have a breakdown, he had pancreatic cancer. According to Lebuff, he realized the boy’s potential and he vowed to make his last days count as the boy’s mentor. James Haberman is surely dead now, Ray.”
That caused a serious pause, “Well, Sarah, he taught him well and now we can call the boy a man. Our enemy’s name is Pablo Manuel.”
Sarah’s response was of much incredulity, “A sole person is doing all this?”
“Well, obviously he’s had some help, but we’re dealing with James Haberman’s superior here, Sarah. James saw something that inspired him to create this kid in his image.” Ray hung up, ending the call with Sarah as she was heading to a meeting with the station chief in Panama City. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the curtains he usually had drawn. So much new information had come through and his head swirled as he fell down the Rabbit Hole once again.
* * *
“It won’t be long now Comrade President. Soon we will have to come up with an excuse as to why we had it in the first place.”
“Excuse? We make no excuses! Do they make excuses for the Mk-54? No.”
“Well, regardless, when they figure out it’s our plutonium, then we’ll have to say something.”
We will say it must have been plundered. We can always blame it on the Chechens.”
“Miroslav, I’m just telling you, there will be questions from the International Community.”
“Do we have any leads on the traitor that caused all this, Thion?”
“No, we have every resource available looking for him, but with as much money as he must have received, and his training, it will be pure luck if we catch him.”
“Well, luck is what we need then, as this can’t go unpunished.”
Miroslav Volkov was no stranger to the tactics of the U.S. Military. A former naval officer of the highest rank, he once captained a mighty Typhoon Class Submarine. Yes, he knew his enemy well. The American Captains would get on an intersect heading and they would not back down. They played chicken with enough weapons to wipe out the world many times, all under a sheet of ice while everyone slept or lived their lives oblivious to the impending doom that could come at any time. Just one wrong turn or one inexperienced Captain and the world was all over.
He looked at the aerial photographs shot from the MiG-25. The USS George H.W. Bush Carrier Group was smoldering and standing dead in the water. He never would have believed it if these weren’t their own recon photos he was looking at.
He had ordered all their subs out of the area, as he didn’t imagine whatever was capable of doing that to a ship was any friendlier to a sub. This was crazy. Prime Minister Thion Simonich also served, but in a different capacity. One less obvious and not one that ends with a chest full of medals and such, but one as important or more important than the role he filled himself. Thion surely caught some rides with the Navy though and was no stranger to naval military tactics.
“Well, Thion, what’s the word on this? How does someone strike with such precision?”
“Well, given what we know about their first attacks and these attacks, one thing is for certain, there are no troops. This is an automated army and soon they will have control of the Night-Sky, Miro. That’s the big problem here, and it’s coming to the Americans first, in thirty minutes to be exact. They have a cluster of military birds in its immediate path. I believe they will respond.”
“How? Nuclear? Surely they’re not stupid enough to go that far, Thion.”
“We’ll see in less than thirty minutes.”
Miro looked at the crimson “Hot Line.” It really was red and it really was the last link before nuclear war in the “worst-case scenarios.” This soon might qualify.
The Russian President asked, “If we let it continue its current path, how much risk do we expose ourselves to?”
Thion responded, “We are next in its path.” That made Miro think hard and he responded to his waiting Chief of Staff.
“Contact the Mountain and let them know they have the green light unless instructed otherwise. Just like the good old days of the Cold War. What worries me, Thion, is how our American friends are going to react?”
“Their options are limited, Miro, and getting smaller by the minute.”
* * *
Kim stepped into the heaviest meeting of her young life. She was acknowledged non-verbally. The topic was how to deliver the nuke. Admiral Anders was being denied at the moment because any plane using a missile has to get in range to shoot it, which meant their laser was also in range.
It was General Steve Hatten of the Air Force who took over now, “. . . plus, somehow it has radar jamming equipment like we’ve never seen. When our Tomcat fired, its radar was almost immediately jammed. But more than that, upon inspection we found some of our circuits had been fried. Fortunately the components were not critical to flight, but nonetheless they were destroyed. We believe they have perfected an energy ray; not powerful enough to disintegrate a solid object, but powerful enough to seriously disrupt electronic equipment.” He looked at the CIA head and finished his thoughts, “That is one sophisticated satellite you guys have there, Eric, too bad it’s not on our side like it was designed to be.”
President Caulfield’s tone was stoic, dark, “So we must use a low yield ICBM to stop this thing, unless someone has a better idea.”
“We’re going to lose all the birds in that hemisphere,” shot back Anders. We still have time to arm a Hornet with the type of yield I have on the Bush; it may minimize the overall damage.”
“Mark, we can’t risk that plane being shot down making its approach.” The President’s tone was final.
It was the President’s turn to be the expert, “Look, if you or General Hatten fail, by the time we recover, it will be too late; the guidance satellite we could use to help us would be gone by the hands of their killer satellite. Once it blasts its next wave, we won’t be able use those satellites anymore anyway. No, the time is now as one of them is linked to the targeting of our missile. In essence, it will help guide the bomb that will destroy it.”
Before President Caulfield laid the hammer down, he took the time to listen, “Kim, what have you got?”
“Well, we know who our enemy is now.”
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“What? That’s huge! Since when?”
Kim surmised, “Since Ray and Sarah pieced it together using the Paris Station Chief as our liaison. It’s an individual doing this.” The next ten minutes brought them all up to speed. As soon as she finished, she was informed that the meeting started with the President of Ecuador providing Intel. Whoever was doing this came out of Otavalo, and now the people there are starting a movement of peace by sitting and praying until all this resolves. Kim confirmed the boy who was now a man came from Otavalo.
President Caulfield asked, “What’s his name, Kim?”
“Pablo Manuel, twenty-one years old.”
“Whoa, no one could have ever seen that coming,” blurted the ruler of the free world.
“No one but Hurst, Sir,” chided Eric.
“Touché on that, Eric,” replied the President without the slightest bit of acid. A mark of a good man to be so humble, thought Eric, after realizing that he just took a shot at the boss.
The President continued, “Okay, so we finally know our enemy and we know at least the beginnings of his motivation. We also know that he was either given or stole James’ access to the safe and apparently he has been trained as a weapons specialist.”
“We also know his weakness now,” said General Hatten.
“Yes, Steve, but we have to be real careful here. Unless you’re blind, there are a lot of sheep in the world that just woke up. I told the Ecuadorian President and I’m telling y’all, this has the markings of martyrdom on a level to which we have never seen.
“By killing Manuel, we will only make their movement stronger. We’ve seen this play out in the Middle East countless times. By killing any of them, we could sprout the new face of revolution, a revolution that apparently does not have borders. The news reports around the world and the stock markets are indicating that this is very real.”
“Why can’t we try to talk to him directly now?” asked Osborne.
And the Meek Shall Inherit (Harbinger of Change Book 2) Page 11
