Olympus Device 1: The Olympus Device

by Joe Nobody

  I wonder if Paula has found that lawyer’s number yet, she pondered.

  The jail’s matron attached Grace’s handcuffs to a metal loop securely bolted onto the conference room table. The woman assigned to deny the female prisoner’s escape was close to 6 feet tall, no doubt tipping the scales at close to 200 pounds.

  Grace, on the other hand, barely weighed 100 pounds, even with the shackles on her wrists. The routine of securing the smaller woman to the table was purely for intimidation and discomfort, not security.

  Monroe sat watching across the table, nodding his head in acknowledgement at the jailer as she finished securing the feisty attorney.

  “Orange isn’t your color,” the FBI man began, nodding at the ill-fitting jumpsuit issued to all detainees.

  “I thought you might be gay,” replied Grace calmly. “A man that notices fashion and requires a woman half his size to be tied down like a dog while in the same room leaves little doubt.”

  Ignoring the jab, Monroe pointed at the handcuffs, “That is purely procedure, Ms. Kennedy. I’m not scared of you.”

  “You should be, Agent Monroe, but not physically. You should be scared of losing your pension after I’m done with you and the bureau in court,” she countered.

  Monroe sighed, “If I only had a dollar for every time a criminal threatened me with that line, I wouldn’t need my pension. But enough of this tit for tat, I want to talk about Mr. Durham Weathers.”

  The look on Grace’s face actually expressed relief. The FBI wouldn’t want to talk about Durham if they had already captured him. “Having a little trouble corralling that cowboy, eh? I could have told you to save your energy – he’s a far better man than you, Mr. Monroe.”

  “So you do know Weathers quite well?”

  “He is a dear friend and a client, sir. Given attorney-client privilege, that’s all I can say.”

  Monroe sat back in the seat, a pencil at his lips. The look on Grace’s face told him she was firm in her resolve to not provide any information about Mr. Weathers. In fact, he didn’t believe she knew much if anything. Her attitude, however, pissed him off.

  “Were you aware that he was developing a weapon of mass destruction?”

  “My position as an officer of the court demands I not answer that question.”

  Sighing, Monroe bore in. “I disagree, Miss Kennedy. I too have a law degree, and as I recall, this privilege you keep spouting on about requires you to fully disclose any information regarding a pending crime. If you knew Weathers was building such a weapon, you’re just as liable as he is, client privilege or not.”

  If she could have, Grace would have crossed her arms and smirked at his weak attempt to annoy her. As it was, she kept her bound hands flat on the table, her expression neutral.

  “Ms. Kennedy, you’re sitting there thinking that we have little respect for you. I’m sure you believe that we have taken these actions without regard for your capabilities. Let me assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, your involvement in this case had motivated my associate over in the Department of Justice to up the ante as far as Weathers is concerned.”

  Again, Grace didn’t react, her expression showing nothing.

  The FBI agent grunted, “No matter. I do think you’ll be interested to know that the United States government has put a $25 million reward on Durham Weather’s head. My men at the airport have reported a virtual parade of bounty hunters, private investigators, and mercenaries arriving in town already. I wouldn’t want to be in Mr. Weather’s shoes.”

  He watched her eyes dilate at the announcement, unsure if it was fear or anger. Still, she offered no other reaction, verbal or otherwise.

  Folding his notepad and standing, Monroe took one last shot. “I thought 25 million might be of interest to you, Ms. Kennedy. That’s a lot of money. We’ve already picked up discussions by some of Weather’s other friends talking about just that topic. If you know where he is, you should be the first to fill us in. You can save his life, collect the money, and keep additional charges from piling up against him. I would think about it, ma’am. I would think real hard.”

  And with that, Monroe walked out of the room.

  A few minutes later, Grace was returned to her tiny cell, rubbing her wrists where the tight steel had chaffed her skin. She paced back and forth within the confines, trying to reconcile the reward being offered for Durham and what it meant.

  Her dilemma was two-fold – a professional rejection of the government’s actions and a personal cloud of emotion generated by her feelings for Dusty. While she knew he was more than capable of handling himself in a crisis, a manhunt on the scale Monroe was hinting at was more than most people had experienced. She feared for his life.

  She recalled an encounter with Durham, an afternoon almost two years ago when he had volunteered to clear a patch of saplings and brush away from her new house. “You should take down those trees,” he’d advised. “They’re pinion pines and grow rapidly. You’ll have moisture and limb problems with them being so close to your roof.”

  The next morning, she had been woken by his work outside, saw, shovel, rake and hoe busy doing the job. She’d tried to help as much as possible, but the heavy lifting was beyond her frame’s design. Still wanting to contribute, she’d gone inside to make lunch.

  Leaving him alone to continue the job while she prepared a meal, she decided a cool drink was in order, gathering a tray of tea and ice-filled glasses while the food finished in the oven. She’d walked around the corner and found a shirtless Durham swinging a heavy axe.

  She’d admired his build before, tall and thin, a swimmer’s physique. With shoulders twice as wide as his hips, he drew the eye of most women. He was, as she’d noted, a fellow worthy of watching as he walked down the street. What she had never witnessed until now was the power and grace of the man as he tested his frame to the extreme.

  His skin undulated and bulged as he swung the axe, knotted cords and rippling waves of power moving across his back. His arms surged with honest muscle, cut and taunt, born of toil and hard work - not countless sessions on a machine in a gym.

  She found herself watching, riveted, his display arousing a part of her that she had forgotten. For a brief period, she was a woman… a woman feeling a need, a physical need ignited by the kind man who was working so hard on her behalf. That craving had been dead in her for so long, unfelt and unrealized for so many years. Its reemergence was a shock, lust-hot and spreading through her core.

  Again and again, he swung the axe, his body a choreographed combination of raw strength and unwavering focus. She couldn’t help but picture him as a lover, his lean body against hers, unrelenting in demand, irresistible in its resolve. She wanted him – the first man she’d felt that way about since the death of her husband so long ago.

  While she stood fantasizing like a schoolgirl, holding the tray of cold tea in a stupor, his mesmerizing swinging of the axe had paused. A loud cracking sounded from the trunk, and then the pine began to topple. She remembered looking up at the thick trunk… recalled how fast it seemed to be moving directly at her, the sight causing her legs to freeze. She was going to be crushed, struck down by impact. She was about to die.

  It was all so cloudy after that. She remembered his shouted, desperate warning, startling her from the dream. Then he was moving… a blur… the tray of drinks flying through the air. She remembered the weightlessness and momentum and then the loud crash and thump of the tree as it slammed into the earth – right where she had been standing.

  Dusty was holding her. Her legs suspended off the ground as he’d lifted her like a small child, swinging her to safety. She’d never felt so helpless, yet so safe. Reality rushed into her head, an awareness that she was whole because of the man who was now screaming her name.

  “Grace! Grace! Are you okay?” his voice rang, cutting through the shock of her near-death terror.

  Nodding her head rapidly, she managed a hushed, “Yes.”
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  Satisfied with her state, Durham had pulled her close in an embrace of relief.

  She wrapped herself around him, the driving emotion to cling to the hero – the savior of her existence. But that changed as she recouped, her renewed need as a woman quickly recovering – stronger now, enhanced by his rescue.

  She clutched the back of his head and pulled his lips to hers as her legs tightened around his waist. He reacted as a man would, his rock hard chest seeking the softness of her breasts… bruising, desperate kisses.

  Her hands moved down, traveling on their own and seeking his belt. Halfway down his back, she felt warm, sticky… wet. She raised her hand and inhaled sharply at the sight of her blood-covered fingers.

  He was bleeding. “Dusty, you’re hurt,” she said, pulling back and meeting his gaze.

  “It’s nothing, Grace. One of the tree limbs scratched me a little.”

  She released her grip and pushed away, determined to see how badly he was injured. It wasn’t pretty. The skin on his shoulder had been torn open for several inches, the blood pouring out of the wound. “I need to get you to the emergency clinic – right now!”

  He didn’t want to go. The spark between them had ignited a desire that wasn’t going away over some minor injury. Despite the blood, he moved to hold her again, but she resisted, her voice growing stern. “You’re not going to bleed to death in my yard. I’m going to get you a towel for that cut and then run you into town, and that’s that.”

  She had stood and fretted as she watched the young doctor apply the staples to his shoulder. Again and again the painful device had snapped and clicked, Dusty never complaining once. His only protest came with the order to wear a sling for at least a week until the injury healed.

  Self-doubt and insecurity weren’t hallmarks of Grace Kennedy’s existence. She had been on her own for too long – survived in the cutthroat world of business too many years for such weaknesses to have any room within her. Now, watching someone pay a heavy price for her stupidity, now those emotions began to take hold.

  They had driven home in silence, Grace embarrassed and feeling terrible over the entire affair, Durham stoic, offering no commentary. She had helped him into his home, made sure he was comfortable as the pain medications began to make him drowsy.

  Every day she went to visit him, often twice daily until the sling came off and the staples were removed. Every single morning she checked in, helped around the house and made sure he wanted for nothing. But they never talked about what happened – the events of that day left to fade away and grow cold.

  Now, today, in her tiny cell, Grace was feeling those same emotions of self-doubt and insecurity. Had her actions resulted in a good man being threatened? Had her ego added to Dusty’s troubles? She could have played nice with the DOJ and FBI. She could have negotiated in private with the cocky, young lawyer, let him save face in front of the judge. Had her calls to various elected officials pushed the Feds over the edge as Monroe had insinuated?

  Now, a huge reward was going to endanger the man she cared about, and she couldn’t help but feel part of it was her fault. The cell grew cold, the chill generated by her helplessness.

  Dr. Witherspoon’s cell sounded, the caller ID showing “restricted,” a sure sign of someone important on the other end.

  “This is Henry Witherspoon,” he answered in a neutral tone.

  “Please stand by for the President of the United States,” a female voice responded.

  Finally, the ex-professor thought. I was beginning to think our conversation had been forgotten.

  Time seemed to drag on as he waited, anticipation building during the pause. After what seemed like an hour, he recognized the commander-in-chief’s voice. The boss wasn’t in a good mood.

  “Henry, I assume you’ve heard about the incidents in Houston?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve got the governor, both senators, and a handful of representatives from Texas crawling up my ass. Everyone knows there is a madman down there randomly blowing things to hell. I want you to cease and desist all activities associated with the blue ribbon panel we discussed. This has become a law enforcement matter and is too politically charged for my administration to be involved.”

  The man’s tone shocked the Secretary of Energy, the boss’s statement seeming to blame him personally for the activities in Houston. “Sir, I tried to warn you of the device’s potential. I must beg you to reconsider, Mr. President. We need to develop a strategy to limit the technology, or this will end badly.”

  “Oh, it’s going to end, Henry. It’s going to be over soon. I don’t care about the device or the inventor. I only want that crazed individual off our streets and either in a grave or behind bars.”

  Rubbing his temple, the SecEng sighed, “I understand, sir.”

  Having received agreement, the president’s voice softened. “Look… Henry… we can’t be seen as weak here. My oath demands I enforce the law of the land and protect the citizens of this nation. If word got out that we were even considering negotiating with this Weathers fellow, all the folks with an axe to grind would be licking their chops. We would have every radical zealot in the world trying to extort us. Put your project on hold until things settle down. We’ll restart after the drama has played out.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  The call disconnected. Dr. Witherspoon stared at the silent phone, his eyes deep with concern. “You’re making a big mistake,” he mumbled to himself. “I hope we survive it.”

  Day 18

  The six large delivery vans were painted with the logos and color schemes of a nationally recognized parcel delivery company. Piggybacked on trailers and pulled by over the road semis, the fleet was rushed to Houston after the Department of Justice was granted a FISA court warrant.

  The truck’s exteriors were identical in every detail to the thousands of such vehicles that delivered packages all over America. It was the perfect camouflage to hide in plain sight. The only noteworthy features on the outside of the units were an extra array of antennas mounted along the top, and the heavy-duty locking systems installed on both the rear and side doors. Even the drivers’ uniforms were a perfect counterfeit of their civilian counterparts.

  The interior of the cargo area was a different story. Rows of sophisticated equipment lined one side of the space, the electronics mounted in shiny aluminum racks complete with shock absorbing rubber feet and extra cooling fans. Flat panel computer monitors, fixed keyboards, tracker balls, and a host of switches, LED indicators, and meters adorned the consoles. The mobile mounting system had been copied from a Trident nuclear submarine.

  Along the center aisle, two comfortable-looking executive chairs were affixed to the floor via stout-looking pedestals. The plush seating, designed for controllers to spend long shifts at the consoles, wouldn’t have been out of place in any well-appointed corporate office.

  The opposite wall contained a large battery bank used to supply power to the array of microprocessor-controlled systems, as well as climate control for the operators and equipment.

  Next to the batteries was a purpose built storage rack that contained over 500 glass tubes. Similar in diameter to common laboratory test tubes, each container was almost two feet long and sealed with special rubber caps on the ends. Inside of these clear rods were the drones.

  Slightly larger than a healthy Texas mosquito, each glass tube held a stack of the miniature surveillance drones, the insect-like devices stacked one atop the other like bullets in a belt of ammunition. Each container held 20 units, allowing the six trucks to launch a swarm of over 60,000 of the plastic winged camera platforms.

  The torso of each tiny robot consisted primarily of a power cell, a battery slightly smaller than the lithium-ion units used in wristwatches. Small plastic wings, slightly larger than those that propelled nature’s blood-sucking pests, extruded from each side of the body. These aerodynamic wonders served both to obtain flight and as to recharge the unit’s battery
with the miniscule solar panels embedded in them.

  Instead of a skin-piercing, blood-extracting beak, a camera was mounted to the “head.” A marvel of miniature optical electronics, each drone could snap low-resolution photographs in both normal and infrared spectrums of light.

  The robo-insect’s head was the control center. A small amount of computer memory, basic processor, GPS system, and transmitter were all contained within an area one quarter the size of a pencil eraser.

  Each of the six legs was an antenna, two of the carbon fiber appendages used to communicate with the nest, or home van. The remaining four were utilized as a GPS receiver, proximity and inter-hive communicator, radio frequency identification (RFI), and parabolic microphone.

  Each micro-drone could be controlled individually or programed to cooperate with a group. The standard operating procedure involved one of the vans slowly traveling the city streets, circling an area where observation was desired. At preprogrammed stops, normally intersections or traffic lights, a small sunroof slid open, and a tube of 20 “bugs” was released to fly away and begin their coordinated search patterns.

  The range of the tiny flyers was restrictive, especially if the wind were anything but calm. Limited to 400 meters of travel distance without stopping and recharging their batteries, the delivery van had to be relatively close to the target. Deployment in rain or winds higher than 10 mph was forbidden.

  The latest iteration of the micro-drone software allowed for multiple vans to work together in order to provide coverage for larger, more complex environments. The six units heading for the Medical Center area were an unprecedented test of this new scalability.

  The electronic brain inside of each van was designed purely to control the swarm. Facial recognition, photographic reconnaissance, and sound interpretation were performed hundreds of miles away in Bluffdale, Utah, home of the National Security Agency’s ultra-modern data center.