by David Cline
“At least you will have your pick of geographical locations,” Wilkins added. “Whatever land isn’t underwater of course.”
“You probably have Albert Speer’s original design for Germania,” Wood said, staring into her eyes. “You’ll finally be able to build the Avenue of Splendors, the new Chancellery and the Arch of Triumph. With your collection of stolen art and priceless artifacts, you will be able to rewrite history and create the world the Nazi’s have envisioned since the beginning. Your ancestors would be most proud.”
Gisela’s eyes narrowed. “For a few seconds, I was getting scared you were dumber than you appeared.”
“Thank you,” Wood said. “I appreciate that.”
She brushed some hair out of her face and followed the outline of the scar on her forehead with an index finger. “Your assessment is accurate minus a few key details.”
“I would wager you aren’t even aware of those details,” Wood said. “I bet the hierarchy of Odessa keeps even you in the dark.”
Anger flashed across her face again. Wood knew he had guessed right, and it was a sore topic. “I doubt the feminist movement has made great progress among your ranks,” he continued. “How are the leaders appointed anyway? Surely not democratically. If we learned anything about the politics of Nazi Germany, they would not leave something as important as leadership to the riff raff who bloat their ranks. Maybe blood line? You guys are obsessed with lineage. Hitler probably had at least a few children. Is the future leadership of the world going to be like the royal blood lines of the dark ages?”
“Sounds like a step backwards to me,” Wilkins said. “There is a reason they are known as the dark ages. Especially if they are forced to marry relatives to maintain purity.”
Wood looked at Gisela. Her breaths were audible. “I bet the only reason you have ascended so high is because of your beauty and malevolence. You could complete certain missions cleaner than any Nazi hit team.” He looked at her with pity in his eyes. “They are using you like a pawn in their chess game.”
A fiery hatred burned in Gisela’s eyes. She clenched her fist and gave Wood a vicious right cross. He slumped against the forklift, only his wrists keeping him up. His vision blurred, and a primal pain shot up and down his entire body. He groaned and tried to shake it off. He felt like a flash bang grenade had exploded on his chest.
When his vision began to clear, he opened one eye and saw Gisela standing over him like a prize fighter with a finger in his face. “That is for Saudi Arabia. My team is still being detained in some undisclosed location. They are being tried as western spies.” She spat in disgust and turned to leave. “The Arab and Christian Armageddon has arrived, even if they don’t know it yet.”
The sound of her footsteps faded into the distance.
“Say what you want about her, but that was one of the best punches I have ever seen.”
“Most impressive,” Wood mumbled. He tried to massage his jaw against his right shoulder. “What have we learned?”
“First off, don’t smart mouth an unbalanced Nazi woman when you are defenseless. Second, this place is enormous. No wonder they have a train down here.” Wilkins looked up. “Third, she is full of it. There may not be a way to stop what has already begun, but there is definitely a way to mitigate it. Why else would she care so much about knowing who else came with us. If it’s done, it’s done.”
“Because the United States could send the air force down here and drop some bunker busters through the ceiling.”
Wilkins thought about it. “I don’t think so. There are too many things to prevent that. Odessa’s connections in the US government. The red tape impeding any action whatsoever.” He nodded upward. “There are farmers and small towns topside. I doubt we would ever drop bombs in an ally’s country to eradicate a Nazi rat swarm that may or may not dwell inside the mountain like dwarves.”
“Fair enough,” Wood said. “Still, I doubt the Odessa high command would enjoy being doxed in front of the whole world.”
“True,” Wilkins admitted. “Which is exactly what we have to do when we get out of here.”
They looked at each other like brothers who had enjoyed a lifetime together. Without words spoken, they both had Amara on their minds. Wilkins looked up and Wood followed his gaze. Hanging a few feet from the rafters directly between them was a black cable with a cylindrical end. He must have missed spotting it earlier because of how well it blended into the ceiling. Wood shook his head. He should have guessed. It was a microphone like the ones that hang over an orchestra in a concert hall. Everything they said was being recorded. They both knew their best hope rested with Amara and the response time of Danville mustering together some kind of rescue operation.
“We shouldn’t have talked about our least favorite methods of torture,” Wilkins whispered. The color draining from his face. “Guarantee that is what awaits us. The Spanish donkey and the bamboo shoot.”
Above them the lights went out and they were once again plunged into absolute darkness.
Chapter 31
The scratchy voice blared through the speakers mounted in the wall. “Only one question has been on our minds for the last 24 hours, why weren’t we given more notice?” Danville turned down the radio’s volume. “If we had been given more time, we would have at least been given a chance to prepare.”
Beside him, Stalbridge gave him an exasperated glance. “Damn media,” he growled. “Can you believe these people? I must have called their network six times trying to raise the alarm. They are as useful as ejection seats in a helicopter.”
They were in the basement of the S.A.T.R.A. building. Every third light overhead shone at half power to conserve energy. Along with emergency systems, specific items had been restored thanks to the powerful generators located deep underground.
“With the majority of the country’s power grid still offline,” Danville said, “news reporters are being forced to broadcast on the radio. I don’t believe anything similar has happened since WWII.”
Stalbridge chuckled. “The indignation of being forced to transmit in such a primitive manner is evident in the reporter’s voice.”
Danville smirked. “The fallout from the super flare hasn’t been nearly as devastating as we thought. There have been no reports of chaos or anarchy in the streets. Everyone alive has gone through power outages before. The general attitude if anything has been one of jubilation like a snow day, for adults.”
Stalbridge huffed. The absence of cigars accompanied with the stressful situation had made him irritable. He rose a cautionary finger. “Not yet,” he said, prophetically. “No one fears a little rainstorm.” He stood and yawned. “We have been in constant communication with local and national leaders. Together with the utility companies, we plan on restoring power in the next hour or so.”
“We got lucky,” Danville said. “The flare impacted the earth at an oblique angle. Hitting a target 93 million miles away in 3-dimensional space is a difficult task, even for Odessa.”
“Still packed quite the punch,” Stalbridge retorted. “I have heard up to 10 percent of Europe’s power grid has fried. It will take them months to get things fully restored.” He leaned against the wall and scratched his back. “Not a single satellite survived. Air traffic around the world has been grounded. It’s a miracle no planes went down when it hit us.”
“Only because those planes were flown by human pilots,” Danville said. If they had been fully automated like the airlines planned on doing soon, relying on computers and global positioning satellites to navigate, it would have easily become the biggest aviation disaster in history.”
“Cell phones also stopped working when it hit us,” Stalbridge continued.
“Radio waves are utilized to transfer signal to and from cell phones,” Danville said. “The super flare interrupted those signals from communicating back and forth between the phones and the transceiver stations. The air theoretically should clear as the sun’s particles stop clogging the airway
s.” He rubbed his forehead. “If you’re trying to make a phone call on a satellite phone, that is a whole different story.”
“What if the next one hits us directly?” Stalbridge asked.
Danville shook his head. “Devastation. Complete and utter devastation. Large electrical networks would not be the only casualties. Smaller electrical systems, like the ones in everybody’s vehicles, would fry.”
Stalbridge grimaced. “That’s when this no longer becomes just a rainstorm and an excuse to skip work for a day or two.”
Danville crossed the room and pulled a black laptop out of a backpack. “I meant to show you this earlier, but things have been hectic. Funny how everyone wants our advice now that we were once again proven to be right.”
Stalbridge rolled his eyes. “We went from having zero credibility to becoming the experts on every possible subject. I just got off the phone with the governor asking for counsel about a mandatory curfew for the entire state of California.”
Danville fired up his laptop and entered a long password. “Better to be asking advice from you than some of the folks in Hollywood whose only real expertise is looking great on screen.” The interface appeared, and Danville navigated to a specific folder with a quick series of keystrokes. “This is footage from one of the satellites monitoring the sun at the moment the super flare occurred.”
Stalbridge joined Danville at his side and tilted the screen farther back so he wouldn’t be forced to crouch. “They actually captured the moment it happened?”
Danville double clicked, and a video appeared. “Watch,” he said.
A grainy black and white image appeared. A grey subsection of the surface of the sun filled the screen. “The scale we are looking at here is almost beyond comprehension,” Danville said. “The circumference of the sun is approximately 2.7 million miles.” He pointed at the screen, “The section we are looking at here, as best as I can tell is just shy of a million miles.” He pressed another key and the image began to shake and flicker. After a few seconds, a bright spot appeared and shot outward. A shockwave rippled outward at a dizzying speed.
“Holy Mackerel,” Stalbridge sputtered.
The greys became brighter and the surface began pulsating like water about to boil.
“Count it down,” Danville said. A small digital stop clock tracked the time passed from the explosion. “It takes light 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach earth.” Danville fast-forwarded the video to 8 minutes, and they watched in silence. The timer reached 8:20 and nothing changed. The surface of the sun still throbbed. Neither moved as they watched. At 9:36 the screen jolted and then went black.
Stalbridge cursed under his breath.
Danville looked at him. “Why build a bomb when you can weaponize the sun?”
Chapter 32
Russell tried to hold the phone steady under the umbrella as his wife posed in her black bikini a few feet away at the water’s edge. She flashed a big smile and held both arms seductively behind her head. The rain in her face made it difficult and she fought hard not to laugh. His photo taking strategy was to capture as many pictures as he possibly could, then let his wife filter through them later. If he took one hundred, maybe one would make the cut.
They had flown out of Chicago three days before stopping for layovers in cities they could not pronounce and had arrived in paradise almost 24 hours later. After dating for almost a decade, they had chosen the beautiful island chain of Maldives for their romantic honeymoon destination.
When they had arrived, the sun had been shining, and the emerald water sparkled. Hammocks gently swayed in the breeze and the temperature hovered perfectly in the low 80’s. It was quite different from the cold dreary winter months back in Chicago. The soft surf lapping against the hot sands was a welcome contrast to the phones ringing back in their cramped cubicles.
Then yesterday, out of nowhere, the entire sky had clouded, and it had not stopped raining since. Russell had monitored the weather reports for Maldives religiously a full month leading up to the trip. According to those reports, the sun should have still been shining. He shook his head and blamed bad luck. Humans could engineer seedless watermelon and land a rocket on a comet in space but still couldn’t accurately predict the weather. Go figure.
They were scheduled to stay for two full weeks. He looked up. Not a single break in the clouds in any direction. Just a dark ominous sky hanging high above them. He glanced back toward his beautiful bride and heard her laugh as she dove into the water. She was refusing to allow the abrupt change in the weather to ruin their trip. He placed the phone under a towel, safe below a straw tiki umbrella, and ran to the water. At least the temperature had not changed. The rain felt warm against his bare chest.
Russell dove into the water and floated facedown using his arms to leisurely propel himself forward. He came up for air and saw his wife emerge with a giant white seashell in her hands. They floated together until they reached a comfortable depth where they could sit with just their heads out of the water. They faced the beautiful wooden boardwalk that stretched from the shore into the sea. Every few meters, a square hut supported by thick wooden stilts jutted out of the water. The straw roof’s conical shape dripped rainwater. Not another person was visible anywhere. It looked like everyone else had decided to wait out the rain indoors.
Russell leaned back on his arms and closed his eyes. He let the warm rain run down his face. It felt soft and cleansing. He plugged his nose and submerged his head. The sound of the rain hitting the surface of the water all around him was magical. He peeked his eyes open and looked up. Every time a droplet hit the ocean surface it created a circular ripple. Like a stone dropped into a pond. There were millions of them.
Russell surfaced again and rubbed the salt out of his eyes. He looked at his wife who was staring up toward the sky. Her expression caught him off guard. He could not tell if it was wonder or fear. Maybe both. He looked up.
The clouds were rapidly thickening. He thought it looked like a time-lapse video of a storm. But this was happening in real time. He had never seen anything like it. The sky almost seemed to be falling toward them. They were suddenly inundated by clouds as though a thick fog had rolled over them in just a few seconds. He looked back toward the boardwalk and could barely distinguish the villas. Then the rain began to roar. Instead of pleasant droplets splashing all around them, they were caught in a deluge unlike anything he had ever experienced.
“This is crazy,” his wife exclaimed.
“Let’s find some cover,” Russell yelled. The sound of the rain impacting the ocean surface sounded like river rapids. The volume of heavy droplets made it feel like they were under a waterfall as they fought their way back toward shore. They ran up the beach and found temporary refuge under the tiki umbrella.
Small streams of water zig zagged under their legs over the sand and found their way down toward the ocean. Above them, a leak in the straw began to drip on their heads. They adjusted the beach chair and sat side by side.
“This is the most powerful thunderstorm I have ever seen,” Russell yelled. “It can’t keep this up for long.”
His wife gave him a nervous grin. “I hope not! If it does, we better find a boat. The highest point on the island is only a few feet high.”
Russell glanced at the ocean again. The water did seem to be rising. Was the tide coming in? He squinted into the mist toward their hut on the boardwalk. He thought he heard shouts from that direction but could not tell for sure. Maybe some of their fellow vacationers were getting wet as well.
He thought back to what he had read about the islands and knew his wife was right. The highest point in the entire nation was only eight feet above sea level. The average elevation was four feet. He remembered learning somewhere that irregular quantities of rain can fall in short amounts of time when a cyclone or hurricane rolls through, but he was 100 percent sure no storms had been forecasted or even mentioned. The forecasters couldn’t have been that mistaken about the weather. The
y could track large storms from thousands of miles away.
A shape in the mist ran in and out of their view.
“What should we do?” his wife asked.
“What can we do?”
Chapter 33
Wood craned his neck and listened. The noise reverberating through the vast underground cavern was hard to interpret, but it sounded like distant cheering. He lowered his head and his heart sank. They were still immersed in complete darkness. His knees throbbed, and he let out a long sigh of despair. His body ached all over. Being strapped to the cold unyielding metal frame in such an unnatural position was its own form of torture. Sleep was impossible. The idea of time did not exist in the dark. How long they had been stuck down there, he didn’t have the energy to speculate.
Their Nazi captors appeared to have forgotten about them entirely. Wilkins had been so certain some nefarious form of torture awaited them, Wood almost wished it would just happen so they no longer had to suffer, slumped and immobile. He had hoped the pain would eventually begin to numb, like when hypothermia sets in. No such luck just yet. His nerve endings were firing like fireworks on Chinese New Year.
“We better find a cathedral to dwell in,” Wilkins said, in a feeble voice. “Between my hideous appearance and hunchback, it will be the only fitting place to reside if we ever get out of here.”
“I just want it to end,” Wood said. A sudden agony in his lower spine caused him to lurch sideways. “Either kill us or let us go.”
“I would be content if they just allowed me to lay down flat,” Wilkins said. “Right here over this uneven rock.” He let out a wishful sigh. “I’m starting to hallucinate here in the darkness.” He paused. “If I didn’t have you to at least ground me in reality every so often, I would already be talking to apparitions in my mind. Solitary confinement really is sadistic.”
