“Welcome all,” Eighty said. “Due to the unpredicted mutation of the Janus strain, the government’s efforts to develop an effective antibacterial treatment are languishing. We are seeing an acceleration of infections in hospitals caused by the bacteria, which has been labeled by the media as the Doomsday Germ. However, the microbe that our scientist, Seventy-one, initially discovered is no longer the same as the current incarnation of Janus. Correct me if I’m wrong, Nine, but it is clear that as things stand, earlier estimates of the potential for spread are low—actually quite low.”
Bacon made a mental note to cycle back to Nine, the analyst/strategist, who, by protocol, had been given her late predecessor’s number when she was first inducted some years before. Even without her verification, everyone on the board knew that Eighty’s assessment was correct. First though, Bacon wanted a report on how the government was responding to the increasing rate of spread, and whether they had concluded that the treatment guaranteed by the society was no longer effective.
“Forty-four,” he asked, “can you offer information on the government’s efforts to combat Janus?”
The center of the display flickered and filled with Forty-four’s distorted feed. In addition to secretly brokering the backroom deals to end the Janus attacks, Forty-four, a senior senator from Rhode Island, was the point man in dealing with the president and the secretary of Health and Human Services.
“As you know, Washington has formed a global consortium,” Forty-four said, “employing scientists from various disciplines, but nobody is pleased with the progress thus far. The good news is since Dr. Kazimi was brought in to work with us, the government’s efforts are being coordinated through the CDC, making it possible for Seventy-one to intentionally mislead the consortium wherever necessary. We believe we can continue this internal sabotage without risk of exposing Seventy-one’s affiliation with us.”
“I doubt these efforts will be necessary once the entitlements are revoked.” Speaking was Twenty-six, a specialist in mass psychology.
“Explain yourself,” Bacon said, switching the man to the center of the board members’ screens.
“Once Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are revoked, along with all the other related programs, a sea change will take place among the population. My research, in conjunction with supporting evidence from several top economists, has confirmed this theory. There will, of course, be unrest, but the American people will see immediate tax relief, followed soon after by a massive reduction in the deficit. Our economy will be greatly unburdened, resulting in higher levels of employment and a fast-growing GNP. Our country can be made great again, and once the entitlements are gone, it will not take long for all to become convinced of that fact. In other words, we won’t need Janus. People will begin to demand less and less government involvement in the daily lives of its citizens. They will come to see and understand the parasitic nature of Washington taxing us all to care for those who refuse to care for themselves.”
“Yes, it’s true,” Bacon said. “Fear has been keeping us in chains for far too long. We know what is necessary, but like an opiate addict, we cannot rid ourselves of the very thing making us sick. It is, and always has been, the goal of our society to cut off the shackles binding us to this failed system, and to remove the blinders from the eyes of all so that they might finally see the truth.”
“If what Twenty-six says is true,” Eighty interjected, “then we need only delay the government’s efforts for a short while—long enough to put a set of new laws in place. But without an antibacterial treatment of our own, this is all moot. We have no leverage. We have only the specter of a pandemic.”
Bacon was smiling now.
“Our Neighbor at the CDC is one of the brightest minds in all of microbiology,” he said. “I’ve been assured the bacteriophage theory proposed by Humphrey Miller not only will work, but members of this newly formed government consortium are not close to considering the three types of phages needed for his treatment. Thanks to the work of our number Forty-five, nobody else has this information. None of you have actually met the latest arrival in our lab, so I would like to give you all a glimpse of Mr. Humphrey Miller at work. Please do not be distracted by his appearance or lack of academic credentials. I have it on the authority of number Seventy-one as well as our own Dr. Kazimi that this is a brilliant scientist who has been thinking outside the box on this challenge for some time.”
Bacon threw a switch, and the center of each board member’s screen filled with rotating camera views of Ahmed Kazimi and Humphrey Miller, communicating with each other in the impressive incubator room and laboratory, mixing plates of agar growth medium, and tissue culture bottles, and generally seeming congenial toward each other and in good spirits.
“As you can see,” Bacon went on, “these men are well on their way to giving us back the control of the Janus strain that will give us all the leverage we need for complete and total victory. I have been and remain supremely confident in our efforts and I know you share my sentiments. We do not have the antibiotic treatment as of yet, but rest assured the pieces are in place for us.”
“What is the current status of Seventy-one?” Eighty asked.
“A few hours ago, Seventy-one arrived here at Red Cliff, bearing tissue cultures growing the three types of bacteriophage that will be used to reestablish our control over the Janus strain. The viruses have just been delivered to Kazimi and Miller, and as you see, they are working together to get the phages ready for an all-out assault on Janus. It could be as little as a day or two before we have a viable new antibacterial.”
“But until we do, how many deaths will Janus cause?” asked Ninety-seven, a mechanical engineer and mathematical wizard from MIT. Even with the verbal distortion, her concern was apparent.
Nine, as usual, had the data ready.
“We project less than a six-month lag from the time we have a perfected therapy to the date when the entitlement laws are revoked. Given the mutation and rapidity of bacterial spread, we estimate five thousand casualities during that time. But I would caution you all that might be a conservative figure.”
“Five thousand?” Ninety-seven repeated. “That seems quite high. Is there anything we could do to lower that figure?”
Bacon responded vehemently.
“We should do nothing and we will do nothing until these entitlement programs are revoked.” He snapped the tip of his cane down against the stone floor like exclamation points. “Lancaster Hill expressed it best,” he said. “‘Liberty cannot exist without sacrifice, nor can sacrifice exist without suffering. Blood may be shed, but should the suffering of the part in the end save the whole, it is a pain we are obligated to endure.’”
Silence followed. Most, like Bacon, could recite the words from Hill’s hallmark treatise by heart. But hearing them from a man of Bacon’s stature was powerful and compelling. They served as a call to action, and a reaffirmation of the oath each Neighbor once took.
“I understand your discomfort, Ninety-seven, really I do,” Bacon said. “The situation is regrettable, but by no means should it deter our efforts. I never expected this action program to go without a glitch. AP-Janus is a massive undertaking that is going to change the landscape of this country and fulfill the dreams of our founders.”
“May I remind you,” Nine said, “that thirty percent of Medicare payments are spent in the last year of life, and forty percent of those dollars cover care for people in the last month. The last month! Our country is deficit rich and cash poor, and as sure as metastatic cancer, our entitlement programs will kill us.”
At that moment, the door to Bacon’s study opened softly, and the butler, Harris, shuffled in. He was one of several employees who worked at Red Cliff but were not members of the Society of One Hundred Neighbors. One of the reasons why the faces on the video system were blurred was to conceal them from those who were not part of the order.
Harris whispered in Bacon’s ear. The director nodded, then stoo
d awkwardly, wincing from the stiffness in his deformed foot.
“My friends,” he said, “I need to excuse myself for a moment. Nine, if you could provide the group with the update you gave me earlier, we won’t have to waste any time.”
Bacon followed his butler out of his study and into a nearby room, which had been soldiers’ quarters in the original castle, but was used now as a library annex. A rugged man with a thick goatee and shaved head stood in front of one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. His name was Ron Jessup, and he was responsible for security and surveillance at Red Cliff. Bacon had hired the mercenary for his technical abilities, but he was also an experienced sniper and an expert with most weapons.
“Our radar has picked up a boat moving up the coast from the south,” Jessup said in a calm, authoritative voice. “Collins and I looked at it together. Something small, maybe a fishing boat. About a quarter mile from here. You asked to be notified of any possible security threats, so I wanted to inform you right away.”
“You did the right thing, Ronnie,” Bacon said. “Send Collins out to have a look and keep me informed of any developments.”
Jessup left with Harris while Bacon gazed out the window at the darkening skies. Gray clouds were moving in from the west, pushed by a steady wind, strong enough to bend the tops of trees. Bacon guessed the seas would be six to seven feet high, with whitecaps. It was not the sort of ocean for pleasure cruising, and professional fishermen seldom hugged the coastline around here. Still, it could be a crabber or a lobster boat.
Chances were it was nothing else.
But Bacon was not a man who left anything to chance.
CHAPTER 49
Where’s the money coming from?
—LANCASTER HILL, PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE TO AYN RAND, 1939
Swirling fog shrouded most of the imposing cliff face.
From the rocky shoals, Lou could see about five feet in any direction, including up. Ankle-deep in frigid seawater, sneakers in his hand, Lou reached out to feel the rocks. They were slick with ocean spray and were going to be a bear to climb, but he found a boulder near the base of the cliff to sit on and put his sneakers back on. Moments later, Vaill settled in next to him, and did the same with his boots.
Following frantic preparation, Lou had caught only a few hours of sleep during the fifteen-hour journey from Atlanta to this remote stretch of Maine coastline, and he worried fatigue might hinder his ascent. Vaill, on the other hand, seemed energized. There was no doubt why. Almost certainly, Alexander Burke was close. The two of them had taken a plane from Atlanta to Portland and from there, caught a flight on a small jet to a regional airport near the Canadian border, some fifty miles from the coast.
A cab brought them to the quaint port village of Mount William, once a bustling community featuring granite quarries, tide mills, and canning businesses. As those companies vanished with the times, fishing became one of the few ways to earn a living. With dwindling catches and mounting government regulations, Vaill and Lou had an easy time renting a lobster boat and seasoned captain to ferry them to this remote section of beach, a quarter mile from the castle. For most of the hour-and-a-half trip, the seas were blanketed in fog and extremely rough. The spray was ice-cube cold, but the tide was receding, and the fisherman managed to get just a few feet from the rocky shoreline.
“It appeared a lot easier on Google Earth,” Vaill said as they peered up, searching for an ascent that looked possible.
“Should we have gotten off the boat closer to Red Cliff?”
“The cliffs along this stretch of shoreline are at a more forgiving slope than the ones closer to the castle. We’d need real climbing gear to make that ascent. Besides, there are woods south of the castle we can use to our advantage.”
On the plane ride from Atlanta, they not only studied maps of the coastal terrain, they also, thanks to the Slugger, had found building plans to go along with a complete history of Red Cliff. They had learned about the eccentric inventor, who had painstakingly overseen the stone-by-stone reconstruction of the castle he had shipped over from Germany.
Following a careful study of the plans, Vaill suggested they would be best climbing from the south and circling to the north end, where there appeared to be no windows. If the plans were right—what the Slugger had found were faded and not that easy to read—the package of C-4 Vaill had taken from the FBI’s weapons stock was capable of creating a door where none existed. Also in Vaill’s tactical backpack was a rope, a Swiss Army knife, an extra pistol, some power bars, a flashlight, a bottle of Gatorade, and a couple of radios in case they needed to separate.
“Make sure your gun is snapped into the holster and the holster is on tight.”
After some debate with Vaill, Lou had agreed to carry a weapon. He removed his backpack and Windbreaker to double-check the nylon straps of his harness, which allowed for a horizontal carry of the Glock G27 pistol Vaill had supplied.
“If I get in trouble, I’m going to count on you to get me out,” Vaill had said. “Just point and shoot.”
As Lou tightened the straps, he flashed on Cap, as he often did, running alongside him in the Chattahoochee forest. Then, out of his control as usual, his mind began reliving the fall, and in particular, Cap’s eyes.
Please hold on … please!
I’ve got your back, Tim Vaill, Lou was thinking as he double-checked the snaps locking the Glock into its holster. I’ve got your back.
They stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the foot of the cliff, trying to see through the fog. If the skies opened up, the climb would become next to impossible. Lou’s suggestion on the flight that they get backup had been brusquely dismissed. Not only was a mole in the agency still a possibility, but anyone who could own a place like Red Cliff could own the town nearby as well. There was only one thing left to do.
Climb.
“Maria and I actually used to climb together from time to time,” Vaill said. “God, but she was good at it. Just follow my line and keep your body as close to the wall as possible. If you get tired, reach up and tap me on the leg if you can, and rest. Otherwise, just rest. Got it?”
At that moment, a wicked gust of wind kicked up, followed by a spray of seawater that soaked the rockface and stung Lou’s eyes.
“Got it,” he said with little enthusiasm.
With his hands stretched high above his head, Vaill felt around the loose stones and jagged rocks until he found a suitable purchase. A moment later he hoisted himself two feet off the ground, and soon after his feet were well above Lou’s head. Moments later, he vanished inside the fog.
Now it was Lou’s turn. Keeping his body tight to the cliff, he found a crevice with his fingers, lodged his foot into a V-shaped formation in the slick rock, and lifted himself as Vaill had done.
One push at a time … one pull …
As he hauled himself up another few inches, a final spray spattered up from below, soaking the rocks and his clothing. His hands almost immediately became wet and raw, and he began to shiver.
One more push … one more pull …
Above him, he could just make out Vaill’s shoes. Ignoring the salt sting in his eyes, Lou made several pulls in succession and then risked a glance down. The ocean was gone. Above him was only heavy mist. It was like being in an airliner, taking off through dense clouds. Fortunately, as Vaill had predicted from the photos, the angle of the rock face was not as bad as it might have been. More and more as they spent time together, Lou was coming to admire the man and his abilities. He forced himself to maintain at least some eye contact with his boots, and pushed on, following his line.
Soon though, the tips of Lou’s fingers began to throb and burning needles shot up into his arms. From above, stones were kicked free and pelted against his face. Even well above the ocean, every hold was slick and potentially disastrous. There was no reliable footing here, and no trustworthy holds. But there was also no way to stop.
Keep climbing … just keep climbing.
Ten feet
more were negotiated—maybe twenty. There was no way to tell where he was or how far he had traveled, nor was there any way to know if Vaill was looking back for him.
One hand … then the other … steady … steady … It had to end.… All bleeding eventually stops. The infallible ER maxim. All bleeding eventually stops.…
Another surprise gust of wind nearly loosened Lou’s handhold, but he clawed at the rock until his fingers sunk into a micro-thin crevice. He was about to make what seemed like it might be his final push when he saw the bottom of Vaill’s boot emerge from the fog just a few inches from him.
Why had he stopped climbing?
Vaill bent at the waist so Lou could see his face through the murk. He held his finger to his lips and then pointed upward. From somewhere above them, Lou heard a sudden burst of radio static. Next came a gravelly voice.
“Collins, here. I’m around the spot now.”
“You see the boat?” The voice on the other end of the radio came through quite clear.
“Forget seeing a boat, I can’t even see the ocean. The fog is really thick up here.”
“Well, climb down and go check it out. I’ve lost it on the screen here.”
“What am I, a fucking mountain goat? There’s no way I’m getting down there.”
Lou held his breath, ignoring the ripping pain in his fingers. His arms began to tremble as he struggled to maintain his hold.
Don’t speak … don’t breathe …
Another minute and the throbbing in his arms became unbearable. As he adjusted his hold, his footing slipped. A stone came free and clattered down the cliff face.
“Hang on a second,” the man above him said. “I just heard something. I’m going to take a closer look.”
The radio crackled again. “If you see anyone,” the voice on the other end said, “find out what he’s doing there, and then if his answer makes sense, kill the fucker. If it doesn’t, put a bullet in his leg and I’ll come out and help you bring him back here. Understood?”
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