Apocalypse Crucible

by Mel Odom

  “Terrence Harte. That would be your son?”

  Delroy knew then that the man had an eye for detail if he read the gravestones while getting him to his feet. “Aye.”

  The deputy hesitated, peering over his glasses with a steely gaze that softened a little. “How long since your boy passed?”

  “Five years.”

  “It’s a hard thing, losing a son,” the deputy said.

  Delroy didn’t say anything.

  “Lost one of my boys nine years ago.” The deputy folded Delroy’s wallet back up and dropped it onto the passenger seat beside him. “Was a drunk driver killed him. Crossed the white line. My boy never had a chance. Laid in a coma for seven months till we finally give up hope, and the hospital pulled the plug.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” The words came automatically, but the emotion behind them was distant. Somewhere inside his dead heart, Delroy felt certain he did feel sympathetic about the man’s pain and loss.

  The deputy nodded. His eyes remained hard, but they were a little less suspicious now. “I gotta ask you something.”

  Delroy looked at him.

  “You take anything out of that grave?” The deputy held up a hand. “Don’t you bother lying to me either, because when I get you to the hospital, I’m gonna search your clothes. You took something, I’m gonna find it.”

  “No,” Delroy said. “I didn’t take anything.”

  “Good.” The deputy let out a sigh. “You didn’t take anything. That’ll make things a little easier.” He turned his attention back to the two-way radio and called in to dispatch, letting that person know he was en route to the hospital.

  Delroy lay back in the rear seat of the cruiser and felt helpless. He hadn’t lain out in the cold to die, as the deputy seemed to think, but he wouldn’t have minded if that had happened either. He just hadn’t figured out what he was supposed to do next.

  A moment later, the deputy put the transmission in drive and headed toward the cemetery’s entrance. Mud slung from the tires thumped against the undercarriage as the cruiser rocked over the uneven ground. Before the vehicle reached the highway, Delroy fell into a yawning black pit and slept.

  OneWorld NewsNet Corporate Offices

  Bucharest, Romania

  Local Time 1124 Hours

  When Danielle Vinchenzo’s call came through, Radu Stolojan stood at the silver tea service in his office preparing a cup. He gazed out over Bucharest with a feeling of contentment. The world was in turmoil, and that was exactly as it should be at the moment. Everything was going according to plan.

  He returned to his desk and punched the speaker function. Few people had his personal number.

  “Stolojan,” he said.

  “It’s Danielle Vinchenzo.”

  Stolojan sat at his immense desk and tried to put a brighter note in his voice. “Yes, Danielle. You are well, I take it?”

  “So far,” the woman answered. “Things here are still hectic.”

  Glancing to his left, Stolojan studied the wall of monitors that ran news feeds from OneWorld as well as from FOX News and CNN. He knew the placement of each as well as he knew the back of his own hand.

  Although he wasn’t the director of OneWorld NewsNet, he was the power behind the throne. As Niccolò Machiavelli had written in his book, The Prince, a smart monarch surrounded himself with people willing to do the heinous things the monarch could not himself afford to do.

  Stolojan was that man. At least he was one of them. He took enormous pride in that, as well as in the lucrative perks he received from his work. Nothing took place in the building, in the city, or in any of the around-the-world operations the news service was involved in that he didn’t know about.

  He studied the monitor that showed the latest footage from Sanliurfa, noting the icon in the lower right of the screen. Although they kept cycling scenes of the early morning attack on the city, Danielle and her crew had added footage of the search-and-rescue and recovery efforts now taking place in the war-torn streets.

  “I see that.” Stolojan took a biscuit from the silver platter on his desk. They were fresh baked and brought to his office precisely at eleven-fifteen every morning. He broke the biscuit open and inhaled the delightful fragrance. “I have reports that there were a number of casualties.”

  “There were.”

  Stolojan smiled. Large numbers of casualties were good for news. So far, the OneWorld NewsNet team was the only one getting live video broadcasts out of the city with any degree of success. That was also as things had been planned.

  “Unfortunately,” Stolojan said, “many of those casualties are unconfirmed.”

  “I haven’t gotten an interview with Captain Remington yet,” Danielle said a little defensively.

  “By choice?” Stolojan felt irritated. Danielle had a freer agenda than most of the people working for OneWorld, but she wasn’t as independent as she sometimes thought she was.

  “The man is busy.” Danielle’s tone carried frustration.

  Stolojan’s irritation bloomed into full-blown anger. One of these days he would break her. He looked forward to that day, but knew that until then she was still useful. Holding the biscuit open, he took a knife and slathered creamy butter and orange marmalade onto the bread with delight. He had a child’s sweet tooth.

  “Get the interview,” Stolojan ordered.

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Captain Remington is hungry for media exposure.” Stolojan eyed the biscuit appreciatively.

  When he was young, still a boy, he’d run through Bucharest’s streets and been treated with no more regard than a rodent. He’d been homeless, an unwanted child born to a couple who already had the two children allowed by the state. During those years, birth control was banned, as were any more than two children. Those unwanted children fought and died in alleys throughout the city, whether from beatings from police or other children, or from starvation or sickness.

  Stolojan’s employer had taken him from all of that. He’d been given the job at OneWorld, and there was nothing he would not do to make certain he stayed in Nicolae Carpathia’s good graces.

  “Remington loves the camera,” Danielle agreed. “But he’s not the guy most of the world wants to see.”

  Stolojan frowned. “Ah, yes, your sergeant. Goose Gander.”

  “He’s not my sergeant,” Danielle protested. “But he is the guy people want to see and hear when this story is covered.”

  Unfortunately, the media ratings that ran constantly on OneWorld’s news broadcasts reinforced Danielle’s assessment of her pet project. The share of the market the Turkish-Syrian war currently cornered was driven, in a significant part, by the first sergeant’s presence. He was an American hero, and much of the American, as well as the Western, audience had embraced him. OneWorld had received a number of e-mails wanting to know more about Gander.

  “In light of everything else going on in the world at this moment, the story in Sanliurfa is slight.” Stolojan enjoyed the idea of deflating the woman’s ego. He bit into the biscuit and relished the warm, sweet taste.

  “Then why have me here?” Danielle asked. “For a story so … slight?”

  Displeased, Stolojan put his biscuit down. Both of them knew that her presence in Sanliurfa was because she happened to be there when the war broke out. However, her ability to capture the attention of the viewers—especially the American viewers—was significant at this juncture. So was Sergeant Gander, although he wasn’t the primary target they were after.

  Nicolae Carpathia had several interests vested in the Middle Eastern war taking shape between Turkey and Syria.

  “I want the interview confirming the casualties,” Stolojan said, putting a little more force into his voice so they would both understand who was in charge. “I want it with Captain Remington.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  “I know you didn’t call to tell me that,” Stolojan said. “Was there something you needed?”

  Dan
ielle hesitated. “I called for Lizuca. I keep getting her answering machine.”

  “She went home.” Stolojan remembered the picture of the CIA man, Alexander Cody, that Lizuca had searched for.

  “That’s unusual.”

  “Why?”

  “She told me she would help me with some research I was doing. She’s never walked away from an assignment I asked her to take care of for me before.”

  “I told her not to waste her time pursuing the information you wanted.”

  “Waste her time?” Danielle’s voice rose in disbelief and anger. “Mr. Stolojan, there is a CIA team operating in this city that is at odds with the U.S. Rangers for some reason. I’ve seen them, and I want to identify them. Given the present state of affairs here, I’d think that would be of some importance.”

  “Your mission there is to relay the news, Ms. Vinchenzo,” Stolojan replied in an icy voice. “Not make the news.”

  “A CIA team—”

  “Is of no interest to the news stories we’re currently covering there,” Stolojan said. “The people want coverage of the war. The Western world wants to see how the United States military is handling things, just as they did in Iraq. Our presence there with the stories they want is improving our market share in those areas. We are going to give them coverage of the war. Not stories about the CIA, who are probably there in an intelligence support capacity.” He paused. “Are we clear on that?”

  “Crystal.” Danielle’s voice was cold, distant.

  “Good.” Stolojan grinned, enjoying his triumph. He loved squashing the plans of others. The sense of power he got when he was doing so gave him a feeling of exhilaration that was unmatched by anything else in his life. “Then I’ll expect that interview about the casualties taken there soon?”

  “Soon.”

  “Very good, Ms. Vinchenzo. Did you need anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Good day.” Stolojan broke the phone connection and returned his attention to the plate of biscuits. He glanced at the wall of monitors, spending more of his time spying on the building’s employees than watching the news. Over the years, he’d learned that controlling the news was a simple matter. Carpathia had become a master of it, and it was that skill that had brought him the presidency of Romania only a few days ago.

  Those same skills now had gotten Carpathia an invitation to New York City to speak to the United Nations. OneWorld NewsNet continued to farm out footage of interviews with Carpathia, of his ascension to the Romanian presidency as well as his news conferences regarding his decision to go to the United States in these confused times. Other national news agencies had access to the interviews Carpathia would grant while in New York City and to his first address to the United Nations.

  But the actions of OneWorld’s employees interested Stolojan most. He exercised his control over them relentlessly. In Romania’s struggling economy, working at OneWorld had quite literally changed their lives and the lives of their families.

  Only Danielle Vinchenzo remained beyond Stolojan’s reach.

  But hopefully not for long. Stolojan grinned in anticipation and reached for another biscuit. She would make a mistake or serve past her usefulness. Then she would be his. Stolojan had already been promised.

  18

  OneWorld NewsNet Mobile Platform

  Sanliurfa, Turkey

  Local Time 1129 Hours

  Weary and worn, Danielle gazed around the RV news center. The past few hours had brought precious little in the way of answers. However, they had gigabytes of brutal and bloody imagery from the attacks. The death toll was going to be high—again—when the final numbers came in.

  If those numbers ever did, Danielle thought with a chill. No one knew for sure how many citizens of Sanliurfa remained within the city’s walls. Many had fled in the first wave during the SCUD attacks, and others had disappeared over the ensuing days. Still more had already formed another mass, ready to flee at daybreak.

  Captain Remington hadn’t returned her message about conducting a live interview. Maybe he was awaiting clearance from the Joint Chiefs, but Danielle believed that the Ranger captain was still caught up in whatever was going on with the CIA team in Sanliurfa.

  She clicked her digital camera to life and brought the CIA man’s picture onto the screen again. She remembered him from the time she had seen him in Bucharest. Who are you?

  The image remained silent.

  Irritable and cranky, Danielle switched off the camera and gazed up at the feeds other news agencies pumped out. Local television stations in the area picked up those feeds, but they weren’t able to hit the at-home audiences in the United States the way they hoped. Their phone communications appeared to remain intact, but they couldn’t get video feeds out on the stories they covered.

  Danielle felt badly for the other reporters. During brief lunches or meetings she’d had with them, the occasional debriefings held by Captain Remington and his Turkish counterpart, Captain Mkchian, all of the reporters had lamented the fact that they didn’t have access to the rest of the world like OneWorld NewsNet did.

  Stolojan’s smarmy voice still echoed in Danielle’s mind, setting off land mines of anger and frustration. When she’d taken the job with OneWorld NewsNet a few days ago, she hadn’t considered that she might get a news producer who was so narrow-minded. After the years she’d put into the business, though, she knew she should have known better.

  Impatient, Danielle stood suddenly, drawing the attention of the people working the computers and breaking down the footage and stories she and her team had turned in last night and so far this morning.

  “I’ve got to stretch my legs,” Danielle said.

  “You should get some sleep,” Costin Bogasieru advised, barely taking the time to glance away from the two monitors he scanned. His fingers never hesitated on the keyboard as he changed lighting, color, and film speed. Pieces of camera shots filled the monitor as he worked them into news bites for the hourly updates. He was in his early thirties but already had the practical mind-set of a much older man, though he remained on the cutting edge of computer systems.

  “I can’t sleep,” Danielle said. Her mind was too busy, or maybe she was just too tired. She couldn’t remember how long she had been up.

  “Warm milk,” Bogasieru suggested.

  “No.” Danielle glanced at the other end of the room.

  Cezar slept in a fetal position on a Murphy bed. Three empty beer bottles sat next to the bed. His camera was in his arms and his belt of batteries was connected to the charger. Despite his drinking, he never seemed to get drunk, and any buzz he got disappeared the minute he went to work.

  “I’ll be back soon,” Danielle said.

  “Be careful. Don’t forget your helmet.”

  Danielle scooped the Kevlar helmet from the folding chair by the wall, shrugged into her bulletproof vest, grabbed her camera case, and let herself out. She heard the RV’s electronic locks snick into place behind her.

  She walked through the rubble that filled the courtyard where the driver had parked the Adventurer. A building fronted the courtyard on the south side, with a solid mass of trees to the north and more trees that flanked the entrance and exit to the parking area. Four other vehicles, all of them wrecked and burned to the point of being only metal husks, occupied the courtyard. Thankfully, there were no bodies.

  She lifted her camera from its case and took photos. The effort was a habit, a shorthand form of note taking. A picture was worth a thousand words, but a TV reporter had far fewer than that in a sound bite, so she wanted reference material to work from.

  As Danielle walked, she gazed around. UH-1H Huey helicopters made the rounds with litters hanging over their sides. From the radio communications she’d monitored while in the RV, she knew the search-and-rescue teams were still finding and removing wounded soldiers and civilians. The Hueys ferried wounded to the military hospitals, or took emergency triage personnel to treat wounded on-site if those casualties
needed to be stabilized before being moved.

  Streamers of black smoke spiraled through the air and clouds of harsh smoke drifted through the city, bringing biting pain to throats and nasal passages. Several fires still raged, adding to the casualty lists and to the property damage.

  In the full light of day, Sanliurfa lay scattered and broken. If she hadn’t already been numbed by everything she’d seen over the past few days, Danielle felt certain she would have broken down and wept despite the professional distance she tried to maintain.

  Sanliurfa was a historical city, one of the oldest around. Danielle knew from the background piece she’d done on the city soon after the retreating military forces had settled in Sanliurfa, that evidence of human habitation existed more than two thousand years B.C. Christianity had its roots there, and was followed by the Moslem beliefs and rulers that had constructed the architecture that still stood in so many places.

  The city had worn many names throughout its life span: Edessa, Urfa, and finally in 1923—after the Ottoman Empire succumbed to the annals of history—Sanliurfa. Wars had torn the land all its life. Border disputes and issues over water rights regarding the Euphrates River—known as the Firat locally—remained high on the list of reasons armies fought or stayed prepared for war. Christian crusaders had traveled thousands of miles to sack the city in 1098, and it took fifty years for the Turks to take it back.

  Medieval architecture stood shoulder to shoulder with modern buildings, hotels, and apartments. But the bazaars, the eight great marketplaces that still thrived on the agricultural business where people of several cities came to buy, sell, and trade vegetables, fruits, and meats as well as barter for handcrafts that included clothing, furniture, and dishes, had existed during all of that time.

  Trade had been Sanliurfa’s lifeblood, no matter what name the city wore. But that was all gone now. Danielle had seen two of the great marketplaces in tatters. The Syrian pilots had deliberately targeted those, taking the chance that many of the populace would gather there as normal to swap news and bargain for the things they needed while selling the things they didn’t. The tactic had worked. Dozens of dead and hundreds more injured had resulted from the attacks.