Countdown to Armageddon

by Edward M. Lerner

  Terrence turned sideways in answer, stretching his bound arms out behind him.

  “Jalal, untie our guests.”

  Shorty complied. Terrence rubbed his sore wrists to restore his circulation. “If we’re guests, I could use a bite to eat.”

  The old man smiled fleetingly. “I see you know our traditions. Times change. We have kept ‘guests’ in Beirut and the Bekaa for many months. I’m sure that you know we fed them.”

  Terrence shrugged. “Worth a try.”

  “Indeed. Once you lead us to our plutonium, I will be glad to furnish the finest meal. Anything you wish.”

  “The traditional dinner of the condemned man,” Harry observed bitterly.

  The old man smiled humorlessly with pearly teeth. “In the morning, you will show us the plutonium . . . or you will die. We do not really need you; you have already revealed the general area in which to look.”

  At least, Terrence thought, one of their captors had a sense of humor. He and Harry had been served bread and water for breakfast. Apple croissants and bottled Vichy water.

  They had been rousted at dawn, beckoned wordlessly from the windowless log storage shed where they had spent the night. Silent night. Enough silvery moonlight had filtered between the ill-fitted logs for him to find, and point out to Harry, the tiny hidden microphone.

  Bowen still looked dazed. Terrence imagined the physicist felt transported into a strange, new world. Once, this cruel and violent world had been his. Now Terrence needed all his former skills. They were his and Bowen’s only hope.

  The short terrorist, the one called Jalal, returned them at gunpoint to the main cabin. Three more armed men loitered conspicuously. Through the trees, as they ducked into the cabin, Terrence could just make out the white bulk of the Rothschild Institute.

  “I am told you have eaten,” the old man greeted them. “You should have no complaints then about your treatment. I expect equal cooperation from you in finding the plutonium.”

  “We don’t know . . . ” Harry began before he caught Terrence’s cautionary glance. Too late. The old man cocked an eyebrow at Jalal, who whipped Harry once, twice across the face with his pistol. It tore a deep gouge in Harry’s cheek; the blood trickled down his face and neck.

  “We thank you for our meal.” With an effort, Terrence unclamped his jaws. “My friend is accustomed to a more peaceful environment.” And unaccustomed to terrorist fanatics.

  “You have not, it would seem, been a friend by involving him.”

  Terrence took a deep breath. “My friend does not understand the certainty of your vision. The conviction with which you undertake your current endeavor.”

  “As it is written, ‘My community shall not agree upon an error.’ ”

  Bowen took in this exchange with an air of morbid fascination; maybe it was only the still-dripping gash that suggested the attitude. No matter, the less Harry spoke, the better. Conversing with terrorists was best left to the experts.

  “Jalal.” The short terrorist inclined his head. “Bring our visitors their equipment.”

  Terrence accepted a Geiger counter, as did Harry, wondering precisely when these had been removed from their pension. “You understand, then, that the precise location of the material remains to be determined.”

  “Yes,” the old man said.

  “Respectfully, why did you not watch us and take the material after we recovered it?”

  The old man’s eyes flashed angrily. “We watched from a distance once before. When the institute was destroyed, we even imagined ourselves to have been wise. We thought the bomb assembly had gone awry.

  “Then rebuilding started at the same spot. Clearly, the blast had involved no radioactive materials. We realized that a treacherous son of a filthy pig had stolen our plutonium, having set off the explosion to mislead us.

  “For five long years we sought our plutonium. Now that you have come, our vigilance will not waver. We will not waste a moment. We will not risk someone else developing an interest in your activities.

  “And now, you will quit stalling and find the material. You understand, I am sure, that your fate depends entirely on cooperation.”

  Terrence bent his head and backed from the room; Bowen, still half-stunned, followed. Terrence doubted that the old man was taken in by this show of respect. He could hope that the younger, less experienced Jalal might be. Any possibility of obtaining an edge, however remote, must be pursued.

  Four armed terrorists accompanied Bowen and him westward, in the general direction of the institute. The captors formed a square around their prisoners, staying out of reach. Terrence studied the front pair surreptitiously as they walked. Predictably, since they would be so near the institute, the guns had silencers.

  “Are you familiar with Geiger counters?” Terrence asked. Only Jalal nodded. “Well, they click near a radioactive source, getting faster as we get closer. We have only a general idea where the material was hidden. That’s why we searched separately yesterday. Two instruments used side by side are no better than one.” When no one answered, Terrence shrugged. The gesture said: I no longer care if we find the plutonium.

  Jalal pondered that. “Yusef, Habib. Take the Englishman. Search beyond the institute. Mustafa and I will watch the American on this side. Meet at the rock pile”—he pointed—“at noon.”

  Terrence began pacing a search pattern, guards in tow, predictable as the sunrise. The first time his body blocked their view, he thumbed off the Geiger counter’s power switch. A surprise discovery was the last thing he needed. Slowly, methodically, he worked his way up a shallow slope. He never looked directly at the terrorists, but kept track of them from the corners of his eyes. Gradually his guards’ paths converged; they walked side by side, smoking foul cigars and chattering volubly in Arabic. Harry and his captors were long out of sight.

  His search pattern led gradually through dense underbrush and up a steep hillside. Terrence swore in disgust, plopping down heavily, as a foot “happened” to slip out from under him. His captors laughed, unaware that he had palmed a baseball-sized rock.

  Morning wore on. His search pattern took them deeper into the woods. The undergrowth grew ever more tenacious. The Arabs, bored and complacent, dutifully followed in single file. They held their assault rifles at their sides, pointing down and away for safety.

  Nervous sweat trickled down his back. Soon. Terrence slowed his pace gradually, naturally, as the slope increased. The pattern that he was walking now approached the crest of a ridge. Muttering at the bushes and the bugs, he slowed still further. The chatter indicated that his guards were right behind him.

  Now. Terrence deliberately kicked a tree root. He spun around, his arms windmilling dramatically. “Christ, catch that!” he screamed as the Geiger counter flew from his grasp. The front guard made a one-handed grab. For an instant both terrorists were watching the fragile instrument—and Terrence leapt.

  All three went sprawling. He heard the muffled thud of a silenced round, probably fired by accident.

  The terrorists were flat on their backs, limbs tangled, tipped downhill at a good twenty-degree angle. Terrence smashed the top one in the head with his rock. It hit with a meaty thud, and the man collapsed.

  The bottom man, screaming, struggled loose. Grabbing a handful of shirt, Terrence raised the unaware body as a shield as the second terrorist pointed his AK-47. Shit. With his free hand, Terrence groped for a weapon. The gunman hesitated, looking for a clean shot.

  There! Terrence’s fingers brushed a smooth gunstock. He glanced down; the second assault rifle was half-under the unconscious terrorist. Terrence stretched for it. A round hit near his hand, spraying dirt. He lunged and heaved. The gun pulled free.

  Terrence raised his rifle. “Drop it.”

  The Arab began to lower his rifle—and then squeezed off a shot. The slug hit Terrence’s unwilling shie
ld; silenced, the rifle lacked the power to put a round through the front body.

  Outraged and disgusted, Terrence put a third eye into the terrorist’s forehead.

  The gunshot rang out over the forest, echoing from the hills. Terrence had removed his silencer—hopefully someone would investigate. With his luck, though, it was pheasant season. The two terrorists guarding Harry spun, looking all around, confused by the echoes. “Drop them.”

  Jalal started to raise his rifle toward Harry Bowen. Terrence squeezed off another round. It ricocheted from the ground within inches of the terrorist’s feet.

  Terrence remembered a Clint Eastwood movie. “ ‘Go ahead. Make my day.’ ”

  Jalal froze. He had seen it too. As though in slow motion the gun dropped from Jalal’s hands. Moments later, the other’s rifle followed.

  “Walk slowly away from the guns, and away from my friend. Far enough. Now, lie down. Do it quickly and you might live.”

  As the terrorists complied, Harry hobbled over and retrieved their weapons.

  They left the men bound with their own belts, with socks stuffed in their mouths. No one had come to investigate the shooting. Then they headed for the institute, the one possible source of help nearby. “What happened to your leg, Harry?”

  “I got into a tussle with them. I don’t know what got into me, why I was crazy enough to try, but I did. Then I thought of Julia, of the kids. I couldn’t bear to lose them. I froze. Sorry.”

  An unarmed, untrained civilian had no business taking on two armed terrorists. Bowen might be a bloody genius, but sometimes he had more guts than brains.

  Terrence smiled wearily. “If I had a family, I don’t suppose that I could do this either.”

  The gunfire had drawn someone’s attention. The wrong someone.

  Terrence fought a running gun battle as they retreated toward the institute grounds and—hopefully—safety. Bowen was gasping by the time they reached the wrought-iron fence. Harry’s escape attempt had earned him a shin-bashing with a rifle butt, the blow pulled just enough not to break bones. He couldn’t search if he couldn’t walk.

  The familiar truck parked blocking the front gates suggested why no institute security guards had come investigating. The terrorists had gotten here first. They had probably struck here before pursuing the fugitives and risking more noisy gunplay.

  Armed men patrolled in front of the building. A few uniformed security guards sat stoically before their captors, hands folded over their heads, leaning against the fence. Another terrorist stood in the gatehouse, watching the monitors of the perimeter security system.

  Enemies behind them, coming up fast. Enemies in front of them, at the institute. He and Harry were trapped between.

  “Hsst.” Terrence motioned Bowen farther back into the woods. “It doesn’t look good. Any suggestions?”

  “I’m guessing nothing short of turning over the plutonium—which we don’t have—could placate them. I wouldn’t do that if I could.” Bowen grimaced as the rough footing twisted his injured leg. “There are phones inside. We can call the police in town.”

  “The lines will be cut.”

  “Cell phones, then,” Harry persisted.

  It was a long shot—and still better than anything Terrence had.

  They sneaked through the woods, paralleling the fence, until they were as far as possible from both search parties. Terrence gave Bowen a boost over the fence before clambering over himself. The alarm system wailed at their first touch of the fence.

  Terrence shot out the lock of a basement emergency exit, and they ran inside. Bullets sprayed as they rounded a corner. He sent a short burst down the hallway to instill some caution.

  They tiptoed down the hall to an open laboratory, then flung closed its heavy doors. Terrence started dragging a massive workbench in front of them. “Give me a hand with this.”

  Silence. Glancing over his shoulder, Terrence saw the physicist dumbstruck with wonder, staring at some enormous experimental setup. The table scraped into place just in time, as something heavy shook the doors. “Harry! Give me a hand here!” He put a few rounds through the doors at chest height; someone screamed.

  Oblivious, Bowen limped closer to the great metal enclosure.

  It seemed Faisel’s apparatus had been miraculously re-created. No, not miraculously: fortuitously. It wasn’t that surprising someone at the rebuilt institute would undertake to duplicate and study the mysterious contrivance from the first incident. Terrence imagined tantalizing records left behind, and guessed he would never know. He wondered: Did that unknown experimenter even know what the apparatus was for? The giant coils were surrounded with instrumentation and festooned with wires and probes. Aside from the Christmas-tree ornaments, it looked like what Bowen had described that night in Manhattan.

  Could he possibly be seeing a time machine?

  “Duck!” Ambling roared.

  Harry hit the deck. Bullets raked the space he had just vacated. Terrence snapped a short burst over Harry’s head. The shadow at the window well retreated.

  Harry shook off his reverie. Huddled behind a big metal desk, he watched the high window. The shadow returned, and he squeezed off a round. “Custer’s last stand.”

  “ ‘Half a league, half a league, half a league onward. / All in the valley of death rode the six hundred.’ ” It seemed a form of agreement.

  But that device! One eye on the rear window, one on the equipment, Harry laboriously traced the circuits. The hookup to the superconducting storage ring looked logical. It matched his theory of what Faisel had built. Red LED numerals blinked at him from a control panel inside the enclosure. The open door called out to him.

  Another shadow at the window! Harry fired a short burst and was rewarded by a scream. Moments later, the room shook from an explosion just outside.

  “Grenades,” Terrence snarled. “Aw, shit.”

  Lab instruments jiggled and danced from the shock. A coffee mug bounced across the desk to smash at Harry’s feet.

  Gunfire tore at the barricaded doors. The wood was shredding, even the table behind it was coming apart. A leg broke, and the table crashed to the floor. The fusillade went on and on.

  “Good working with you, Harry.”

  Harry stared at the broken crockery. Its bouncing path had meant something. What?

  Oh! He rolled across the room, below the unending stream of automatic weapons fire, and through the open door into the time machine. He flicked on the big power switch. A digital timer began counting down. 20, 19, 18, 17 . . .

  “Terrence! Move it, now!” 14, 13.

  As the firing abruptly stopped, a terrorist dove through the Swiss-cheesed doors. Ambling stitched the body with a short burst. Terrence scrambled to his feet and ran into the enclosure.

  7, 6, 5 . . . Harry yanked at the metal door; it had snagged some trash on the floor and would not budge. If the door weren’t closed to complete the shielding enclosure, the vast energies from the storage ring would vaporize them.

  Terrence grabbed for the door handle; together they gave it a vicious jerk. It crashed shut with an echoing clang.

  2, 1 . . .

  PART II

  What seest thou else

  In the dark backward and abysm of time?

  —William Shakespeare

  NEAR METZ, 730

  The earth rolled in great waves.

  A tremor sent the two men bouncing down the rock-strewn slope. Giant trees toppled; more burst asunder in sprays of daggerlike splinters.

  The ground cracked open. One man, shouting helplessly, tumbled into an abyss. His companion hung over the edge, deep into the pit, arm extended. No good. He leaned farther, shoe tips scratching for purchase in the dirt, teetering. Groping fingers finally touched; hands clasped. As the fallen man scrambled out of the crevasse, it snapped closed with a grinding roar.
<
br />   The heaving of the earth slowly subsided. Stones continued to rain down from the higher slopes, but with decreasing frequency. For a moment, an eerie calm fell over the devastation. Then faint wails of despair made themselves heard in the distance.

  Terrence Ambling climbed shakily to his feet. “Thanks for pulling me out of there.” Harry wondered whether there meant the lab or the crevasse. It hardly mattered. “Don’t mention it. At most, we’re even.”

  The cries came from a settlement in the valley below, dimly visible through the dust. From its location, it must be Metz. Smoke had begun to billow, perhaps set by cooking fires spread by the earthquake.

  “We must go help.” Harry pointed to the village. “We started the quake.”

  They started downhill together. “Do you really know how it works, Harry? Why are we still alive? How did we pay back the energy debt to the present? Or do I mean the future?”

  An aftershock threw them flat. “That’s how.” Harry waved vaguely at the trembling earth. “That’s what I realized, finally, back there at Rothschild. The discharge here and now of energy from the time machine can trigger earthquakes here and now, at least if the terrain and the timing are right. There’s a lot of energy in an earthquake. Enough to boomerang to our time, repaying the energy loan. Enough that Faisel didn’t need his bomb to stay back here.”

  Ambling sat up. “How did you know a quake would release enough energy? Especially now? Faisel’s arrival five years ago must have relieved most of the geological stresses.”

  “I didn’t know,” Harry said. “It just seemed we had used up our luck in our own time.”

  When Harry spotted an ordinary flashlight, badly rusted and half-buried in a mound of quake-born rubble, it seemed an omen of better luck to come in this, their new era.

  Night halted their progress toward the nearby town. Gradually, faint cries of pain and desperation gave way to the purposeful shouts of rescuers getting organized. The wind carried snippets of speech up to them, but never enough to be intelligible.

  Prudence in an unknown environment would have kept them from lighting a fire even if they had had the means. It was cold out, too cold for sleep. They huddled beneath a rocky overhang, stomping their feet and swinging their arms for warmth. Animals growled a few times from the underbrush, but they ran when stones were thrown their way. Their rifles had disappeared amid the chaos of their arrival, lost and buried forever.