The Victoria Stone

by Bob Finley

  "Today that will change. Today, DeVries, who destroyed my family, will be destroyed. What little they have left will be just enough to starve on. As they starved my people. Today, most of the DeVries family as well as those who consort with them, will die...as my family died by their hand. Today is the day of reckoning for my people!"

  As he spoke, all over the undersea fortress people came to the edge of their seats. Because only two people fully understood what was about to happen, but, to a person, guard and guarded, there was a building sense of imminent disaster. Looking away from the television screens even for an instant was unthinkable, so great was the mounting horror so swiftly unfolding. Marcus Justin, oblivious of having stood and crossed to the window, stared intently at the drama being played out in the next room by a monster of Machiavellian proportions. He didn't know what was coming next. But he was sure it was coming. Like an old movie, he could almost hear the nerve-shattering crescendo of music, knowing that if he lived through the next horrifying seconds of suspense, some loathsome creature would burst upon the screen with roaring fury and evil bloodlust on its tiny mind.

  Jambou picked up an ordinary sat’ phone from the arm of his chair. He held it casually toward his audience.

  "Thanks to a global satellite communications network, I can place a telephone call to any place on earth. There happens to be just such a place I wish to call. Inside a wooden crate, inside a railway car, in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa, is a battery-powered transceiver. I have the telephone number to that transceiver," he tapped his forehead, "here. That railway car is less than a half-mile from Anglican DeVries Consolidated, where most of the DeVries family and assorted conspirators are nearing the end of the annual ‘State of the Empire’ meeting." His smile was chilling. "Trust me. The meeting is about to end." His smile widened and his eyes glittered like sun on winter ice.

  "Inside the railway car is what the military calls a 'thermonuclear device'. Let's call it what it is...a bomb. Twenty minutes ago a timing device activated that bomb. All it's waiting for is my call. A television camera previously placed on a mountain ten miles from the bomb will verify the success of this event. It is transmitting by satellite to a receiver here in New Victoria and will shortly appear on your screen."

  The captors and the captives in the commissary were all on their feet in shock. Curses and arguments erupted in a groundswell of disbelief, but died away as the whole disparate group stood rooted in electrified suspense.

  Marc Justin threw himself, beating his fists in vain, against the soundproofed double-wall of the acriliglass window, shouting in horror and frustration.

  On the monitor screen in the commissary, Jambou's image was replaced by a green expanse of countryside, hills rolling down and away from the camera's vantage point ten miles east of Johannesburg.

  But in the quietness of the studio, each digit was clearly audible as Bereel Jambou tapped out his message of death. When he finished dialing there was a moment of silence...a series of tones...the sound of a distant telephone ringing...an instant of static. Then there was silence.

  Jambou had the advantage of sweeping panorama as the faraway mountain sentinel's signal filled the walls of the undersea room. Unfortunately, so did Marcus Justin.

  In living color, spread on a forty-foot curving screen before their eyes, in the supernova of a thousand suns, Johannesburg and a half-million people disappeared from the face of the earth.

  Chapter 52

  Fourteen seconds after the bomb exploded, the camera ten miles away was destroyed. That fourteen seconds of footage, transmitted from Johannesburg to New Victoria and relayed to the few news services that had bothered to monitor the announced broadcast, would become the most recognized telecast since the lunar landing 42 years before.

  Because it was a ground burst, the force of the blast was transmitted outwardly like the uneven spikes of a giant splatter on the landscape. Open spaces such as avenues and boulevards allowed the concussion to travel farther, faster, unimpeded by structural obstacles such as buildings and rolling hills. The devastation was unique and would be exhaustively compared with the air bursts over Japan 66 years before which had inflicted a more symmetrical imprint on the cities affected, and with catastrophic volcanic explosions such as Mount St. Helens in the United States. All of these trivial facts and more would be examined in the aftermath by teams of scientists specializing in fields of study only they understood, under the guise of discovering the effects of natural disasters and upgrading strategies for coping with them. Truthfully, all disasters are laboratories and scientists are drawn to them as moths to a flame. The upshot of it all would be a thousand theories and a million stories. None of which had any meaning to the 600,000 people who simply disappeared in a wisp of smoke and steam, or the thousands in the mines a mile, two miles beneath the city, where the concussion exploded hearts, eyes and brains and the heat cooked the residue. The ones nearer the surface who died instantly there in the mines were the lucky ones. The firestorm was three miles across and sucked what moisture was left out of every living piece of vegetation for miles around, spawning fires that sprang up spontaneously and then others farther out as burning debris rained down from the angry skies. The pall of smoke towered in an arching plume eight miles high, reaching its radioactive tentacles into the prevailing winds toward Pretoria, thirty miles to the north. As planned.

  Marcus Justin shouted himself hoarse, bruising his fists against the impact-resistant, double-insulated acriliglass window. Jambou ignored him.

  The VIKING's crew expected jubilant cheering from the mercenaries gathered close around the big wall screen. They were surprised, then, at the total silence that followed a flurry of explosive epithets. Without exception, every person in the room was in a state of shock from the totally unexpected obliteration of a whole city before their very eyes. Gradually, in layers, they began to absorb the magnitude of what they'd witnessed.

  "I can't believe he actually..."

  "...blew ‘em away! I mean, nuked em!"

  "...gotta be outta his everlovin' mind!"

  "...think he's gonna get away with..."

  "...crazy! Totally..."

  "I never signed on to..."

  Doctor Layton was on his feet and in their midst before anyone noticed him, or even before he realized himself what he was doing.

  "Do you realize what this means?" he demanded loudly of the grizzled roughnecks around him. His voice cut through the babble and, in twos and threes they turned to face the angry scholar. He looked defiantly around him.

  "Do you? Do you have any idea what this means? I'll tell you what it means! That maniac you work for just declared war on a foreign country and blew up a major city. He's just killed hundreds of thousands of people, maybe more, with no warning! Innocent people. Women and children! Babies! And for what? For revenge? To make a point? To get attention? Well," he said caustically, "he got it! And now, you're going to get it!"

  "Whatchu mean, we're gonna get it?" one of the guards demanded belligerently. "We ain't done nothin'!"

  "Yeah!"

  "Tha's right!" came the rumbling chorus.

  "Really?" Bill Layton bore in. "Really?! Are you stupid enough to believe that? Who do you work for? Who pays you? You're as guilty as he is! Did he promise you a big bonus when this job was finished?" He saw their defenses go up. "I thought so. So, what does that make you? Employees? Soldiers, just following orders? Not hardly! What it makes you is partners. You're not soldiers. You're not citizens defending your country, no matter what he calls this rat's nest! You're mercenaries, in it for profit! And he's already told everybody he's in it for profit, when he said he's going to charge a toll! And that, my friends, makes you partners. So, when he hangs, you hang. It's just that simple. He just signed your death warrants!" He stood his ground and glared at each one in turn. He could almost smell the growing fear as each man began to think of himself and what he stood to lose. "A mercenary, he thought, "can be counted on to look out for Number O
ne." He made his pitch.

  "You've got one chance." He held up his forefinger, focusing their attention on his words. "One chance. You can claim you didn't know what he was doing until it was too late. That might buy you a prison sentence instead of a death sentence. But for anybody to believe you, you'll have to turn him in yourselves. 'Cause if you wait to get caught...and you will...it'll be too late." He was so absorbed in his delivery he didn't hear it coming. One moment he had them in the palm of his hand and the next moment...

  Banner stood clinically over Layton's inert body, the heavy .45 hanging by the barrel from his hand. When it seemed one blow to the back of the older man's skull had done the job, he casually jammed it back in its holster and turned to the captive group. He impassively appraised them with cold insolence. Turning then to the guards he said, with deliberate precision, "The only ‘turning in’ that's going to be done around here is the person who disobeys my orders, ‘turning into’ a corpse. Does anybody need a demonstration?" To a man, they avoided his gaze and tried very hard to be invisible. "Alright, then. Two of you take this old man to his room and put him on his bed. The rest of you, get back to work." The group instantly dispersed, grateful to escape. Two grabbed Bill Layton's arms and legs, roughly lifted him off the stone floor like a sack of potatoes, and scurried away.

  Banner watched them go. Then he turned back to regard the four of them who were left.

  "The rest of you are confined to your quarters until it's decided what to do with you. The only places you'll be allowed is in your rooms, the toilet, or here, for meals. Got it?" He didn't wait for an answer, but unhurriedly started to walk away. He'd only gone a dozen feet when he stopped and half-turned back toward them. His eyes singled out Kim and the look, delivered in silence, was eloquent. After long seconds, interminable seconds, he very deliberately turned and slowly headed for the exit tunnel.

  ~ ~ ~

  Valance catapulted out of his chair at the same moment that Presnell reflexively shoved his own violently away from the conference table.

  "I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" Valance was wide-eyed and shouting. "Did you see that?! Did you see that?! He just blew up a...he just set off a...a...a nuclear bomb!! He can't do that! He can't...I mean, one man can't just set off...I mean, by himself?! How could he do that?

  Keith Presnell was standing stock still, staring slack-jawed at the screen. His mind was furiously racing, looking for an explanation of what he'd just seen, other than the obvious answer.

  "What was that?! The picture's...what? What happened to the picture?! Check the...here!" Jeff ran around the table and slapped the television screen. All he got for his trouble was snow and static. He turned and desperately began running his hands over the recorders, looking for the trouble.

  "It isn't the equipment," Presnell said, his train of thought beginning to gain speed.

  "What? What?" Valance was starting to fiddle with buttons.

  "I said, it isn't the equipment," Keith reiterated. "At least, not ours."

  His partner turned toward him, frustration oozing from every pore.

  "We lost the camera. The one on the scene. It was probably a remote, set up on a tripod or something. It's gone. Blown away."

  Jeff finally caught on. He turned back to look at the offending screen. "Oh," he said.

  "Hit the rewind," Presnell ordered, striding briskly around the table to a wall phone. "The one on the backup, too," he added. He ran a finger quickly down the internal directory and punched in a number.

  "Mr. Dickson? Keith Presnell...yes, sir, that's why I'm calling. We're down here now. Yes, sir, I think you could say that...we just saw...I think we saw...a nuclear bomb, a big one, take out Johannesburg, South Africa! I mean, gone! Yes, sir...no, sir...let me...we're just checking now, if you'll hold on just a second." He cupped his hand over the receiver and hurriedly turned to Jeff. "Did we get it?" he called in a stage whisper. "What've you got? He wants to..."

  Valance was crouched over one of the recorders, urging it on. He was holding up one hand toward Presnell. "Wait...wait, it's coming, it's...there!"

  There was a click as the meter hit zero return and Jeff stabbed the PLAY button with a vengeance. The frame counter started to advance in real time. They waited, both holding their breath until, finally, a picture appeared.

  "That's it!" Jeff exclaimed in triumph. But they kept watching as the white-hot flare blanked the screen and then gradually subsided until the mushroom cloud appeared and expanded, growing at its base like a black cancer, devouring everything in its path. As the camera was destroyed and the screen flicked back to snow, Jeff turned with a triumphal gleam in his eye to Keith, still holding the telephone.

  "We got it!!" he hissed.

  "Mr. Dickson, we got it! There's not much, but what there is...Mr. Dickson?"

  The door burst open and Cole Dickson stalked in.

  "Show me," he said.

  Chapter 53

  "Lindy" Thomas didn't wait well. But wait he did, along with his boss, Secretary of the Navy Neelan Conagher, outside the President's door. Admiral Thomas looked at his watch for the umpteenth time. ll:46 a.m. His eyes strayed unconsciously to where his boss and George Conrad had their heads together in hushed conversation a few feet away. For the hundredth time since he took this job, the awareness that he was the only one in uniform crept up on him. It still bothered him that "civilians" had authority over the military. It bothered him far more that most of those civilians had never served in the military, some even bragging how they'd been protesters or how their money...their family's money...had bought their way out of even the mandatory two-year Service To Others Program that every eighteen year old man or woman had a national duty to fulfill. His eyes slid back over to Conrad. He must be...what...early to mid-forties? He looked older, Lindy thought. Being head of the Central Intelligence Agency had the trappings of glamour, but it carried a price. Dark bags under his eyes. Overweight. Presumption of more authority than he probably had. He'd driven a wedge not long after his controversial appointment between his clique of spooks and the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he'd condescendingly referred to the military as a "plodding mule team". Nevertheless, his nearly impregnable budget commanded grudging respect from admirals and generals who were trying to run their operations on a fraction of the funding that had been at the disposal of their predecessors two generations before. The CNO guessed from his boss's demeanor that the conversation with the CIA chief wasn't going well. But, he thought resentfully, what could you expect from a dynasty-building politician like Conrad?

  The arrival of Foreign Affairs Minister Wiley Staunton and Secretary of State Travis Carlyle raised the stakes considerably in what already promised to be a stressful meeting. Four others, whom Thomas recognized as aides and security personnel...‘gomers and gophers’, as they were irreverently called in military circles....grouped themselves instinctively according to their own social comfort zones. The buzz of conversation rose as each group jockeyed for position.

  Cloaked in her customary aura of dignity, Eleanor Whitfield opened the door and stepped into the foyer. The rumor persisted that "Miss Elly" was a former female Marine drill instructor who'd retired to run a finishing school for militant females. Which, given her grandmotherly demeanor, was funny until you tried...once...to get past her to the President. She smiled.

  "The President will see you all now." She opened the door behind her and stepped aside. Everyone shuffled into the Oval Office and regrouped.

  Lynn Thomas had been in this office on two previous occasions but he was still ill at ease. Hanging back, he let his boss take the lead, finally sitting to Conagher's left with as little commotion as he could manage. He was startled when everyone almost immediately stood again. He eased unobtrusively up out of his chair to see the President crossing the room toward his desk. He noticed that as the President unconsciously gave an upward tug of his trousers, he also touched the index finger of his right hand to his zipper pull. Thomas almost smiled. He had th
e same habit. The President must have made a trip to the head between meetings and was making sure his fly was zipped. It was a revealing insight into the image of the President of the United States as just another man with a job to do. The realization that this man put his pants on in the morning just like he did was somehow comforting and had a calming effect. When they all resumed their seats, he was much more relaxed.

  President Carlton Trevor Hardestey was anything but relaxed. It was evident from the way he immediately pulled his chair up close to the desk and hunched forward, clasping his hands together in front of him. His swept the group with a stern scowl.

  "Gentlemen," he pronounced in tight-lipped acknowledgment. "It seems we have a problem." He looked from one to the other before settling on his first victim.

  "George. Since what we need the most of is information, and ‘intelligence’ is what you do..." There was a barely suppressed "Huh!" from somewhere in the group. "...why don't we start with you telling us what you know." The President leaned back while the CIA director leaned forward, glaring first in the general direction of the scoffer's inference as to his intelligence...or that of his organization's.

  "Well, Sir, there's been precious little time so far, since the...incident...for us to learn much, but, for what it's worth..." There was another, if more subdued, grunt to which the President responded by pursing his lips and glancing once in the direction of the non-comment.

  "...at this point, based on seismology from a half-dozen reporting sites, from satellite feeds, and from two reliable field assets, we do believe that a medium-yield nuclear detonation in the range of ten to fifteen megatons occurred somewhere in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa at approximately nine-twelve this morning, our time."