by Jim Wurst
The door opened and a line of soldiers brought in the supplies from Theo’s ship, and placed them neatly before the general’s desk. Savimbi took his time examining them.
“And this? It’s labeled penicillin. What is it really?”
“Penicillin.”
“Does this mean the rumors of a new flu are true?”
“Most likely.”
“Then this penicillin will be worth something to someone.”
“Most likely.”
“You’re traveling very light.”
“It’s only enough for a few people. A US Navy ship and a hospital ship are on their way with adequate medicines.” He winched slightly. “US Navy ship” was not a term to endear someone whose power base is only a few kilometers inland.
“You risked your lives to vaccinate maybe 20 people?”
“I’m not a medical doctor, I don’t know what they planned to do with it.”
“So, what kind of doctor are you?”
“Agronomist. I plant trees.”
“Planting trees. What a lovely hobby. Do you plant tulips as well?”
“No, tulips aren’t indigenous to the Sahel.”
Savimbi wasn’t sure if he was being mocked. “An adventurer, agronomist. Flying over lawless Lagos on a great humanitarian mission to save as many people as died since you landed here. You really think you’re some kind of hero?”
“No. A friend asked me for a favor. No hidden meaning.”
“’No hidden meaning.’ So, you’re a cynic and a hero. And a fool Africa is nothing but hidden meanings.” He finished studying the supplies and motioned for the soldiers to remove everything. “Fortunately for you, your cargo is boring. I have no further interest in holding you. Let’s go.”
They walked out side-by-side with the two guards a few steps behind. Soldiers snapped to attention as Savimbi took his time, slow-walking his prisoner past the armed audience.
By now they had exited the building and crossed to courtyard towards Theo’s ship.
“Don’t make the mistake of assuming I’m an ignorant war lord. Penicillin for the flu? Nonsense on both counts. I know we’re looking at something much worse than the flu. What is really in those vials?”
“Penicillin. We don’t have any vaccines that could be of use for any flu, so I brought along whatever I had. What is truly valuable is the purification equipment, and that should be at the UN by now.”
“No. You’re lying. You’ve insulted me again. There’s something bigger going on here. There are extra layers. No one is fool enough to put themselves in this much danger for so little. You’re the first sign of something bigger, aren’t you? So great a risk for so little medicine. Something worse is coming. Something that will terrify people. Somebody is going to get very desperate soon. Desperate is good for business. You’re not worth the bother now. Here’s your ship.”
The ship looked fine from a distance, but as he got closer, he could see how it had been diminished. He knew what had happened, but he checked even though he knew it would entertain Savimbi. The door was missing, so he leaned in to survey the wreckage. It was stripped of anything that might have value metals, circuits, supplies, computers. It was little more than a shell. A shell he was sure would soon have a new life as a cell, or worse.
“Guess I’m not flying anywhere in this.”
“Probably not.” He was enjoying this. So much more fun that simply slitting his throat.
“Mind telling me which way it is to the UN House?”
Still smiling, he pointed west. “That way. I guess you have about an hour before it gets dark. Not that it will matter much for you.”
By now, Theo’s shrugs were as much to annoy Savimbi as they were his natural reaction. So, with one final shrug, he looked at the gutted ship, didn’t look at Savimbi, and walked out towards the setting sun.
CHAPTER 71
Ike arrived at General Adams’ office at the appointed time. He had gotten to the Pentagon quite early, expecting the same elaborate security checks that he always had to go through on the few occasions when he entered that building. He had hoped that saying his appointment with his former classmate rather than with a general would ease things a bit. So he was surprised when security was eased quite a bit. His appointment had already been approved and the security check was routine. When he entered the outer office, instead of an NCO or civilian sitting at the front desk, it was Peter. After greeting his old friend, Peter did the next surprising thing after locking the door with the standard desktop button, he took out a handheld and pressed another button. Ike could hear the snap of another lock although he saw nothing and the lights in the room dimmed.
“I’ve reduced all the power in the room, including communications,” Peter answered the obvious and unasked question. “Follow me.”
They entered the general’s inner office. Again, Peter pressed a button and again Ike heard an unseen lock snap.
General Adams was sitting behind a grand general’s desk. It was a magnificent cherry masterpiece, not a hint of metal or polymers anywhere. That and an easy chair were the only traditional pieces of furniture in the room. Ike noted the lack of other chairs or meeting table the general probably didn’t have too many visitors. What was left was high tech. A large monitor with a bank of smaller monitors, all blank and multiple panels and speakers, and a few switches that made no sense to him. The pair of locked metal cabinets seemed out-of-place in a general’s office. Too utilitarian, bland, something for an unseen storage basement. The lighting in the room also caught his attention. It was bright but somehow muted. Then he realized the windows were almost opaque. Light could get in, but no distinct shapes could be seen. Ike knew that most windows in the Pentagon has special blast-proof windows, but this was something more.
“Turn off all your phones and give them to me.”
They instinctively complied. Adams opened one of the steel cabinets and placed all of their phones and then removed four weapons: a military issued taser rifle, and four old-fashioned guns, three standard pistols and a larger machine weapon that Ike recognized from history lessons as an Uzi. Adams handed each of them a pistol, gave the taser to Peter, and he kept the machine pistol. “Sir, why such old weapons?”
“A modern gun issued in the Pentagon has a computer chip that will send out a signal when activated, we can’t risk any unwarranted transmission. In addition, since the C Ring massacre, Pentagon security can override any active weapon and shut it off. These weapons lack those features.” He paused, deciding whether to share. “It took a lot to get these into the Pentagon.”
He looked at the clock on the terminal. “We will have less than 15 minutes, possibly no more than 10 minutes, once the program boots up. Correct, Peter?”
“That’s probably right, sir. I’ve embedded a few decoys, nothing too elaborate, but it should be enough for anyone tracking us to think we are in several locations. It won’t hold long, but it will give us a few minutes.” He placed his thumb on a panel near the keyboard and the monitors sprung to life. At first, the screens showed only test patterns, but then images popped onto the smaller screen: a shot of Adams’ outer office and two shots aimed at both directions of the corridor. The fourth screen showed what looked like a trimmed down version of the SAC radar it showed the daylight side of the northern hemisphere meaning North America and the tracking lines for only a few orbiting vehicles space stations, Ike assumed. Peter pressed another button and a countdown clock showed 15:00:00. The large center screen maintained the test pattern.
“Excellent. Ike, we’ve run a few computer simulations. Best case is that we need eight minutes, but that requires that once activated the program will continue on its own. ‘Dead hand,’ if you will. Realistically, we will need 12 minutes. Gentlemen, it is virtually impossible to complete our mission and remain undetected. Once I turn this computer on, we are in God’s hands. We w
ill leave this room heroes or in shackles. If either of you has the slightest doubts, now is the time to leave. If you leave, leave with God’s blessing.” Neither moved. “Ike, I suppose I should tell you the full nature of this mission.”
“I would appreciate that, sir.”
“You are going to fulfill your father’s mission. God placed him on Earth to fulfill His divine plan. He was stopped but God is patient, and He has sent you in the name of your earthly father and your heavenly father. The Beast is upon us and God’s will must be done. You will place your hands on this computer and smite God’s enemies. The armies of the Devil and of Jesus will rise up this hour, but we will give the Lord the humble advantage of which we are capable. We will strike the Devil’s minions with a bolt from the heavens. Your father was wrong only in the hour. Let us pray.”
They dropped to their knees and bowed their heads.
“Heavenly Father guide the hand of your servant whom you have sent to us to fulfill your will. The righteous shall be uplifted and the corrupt damned. Your Son will return to us and the angels in heaven shall rejoice. We humbly ask that you guide your son to complete your divine plan. Amen.”
“Amen,” the comrades said in unison.
Peter shifted to business. “Ike, everything is programmed. Sit down. At 0:55:00, General Adams will place his hand on this scanner, you will place yours on the other. Once the authorization reading is accepted, this panel will be activated. At precisely 0:00, you press this button. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Now we wait.”
CHAPTER 72
Goa was always a place apart. A small alcove sitting quietly while the world whipped around it. The only piece of the Portuguese empire on the Indian subcontinent, it was the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was modern Indian to be absorbed by the giant state. As a result, it held onto its non-Indian-ness in many obvious ways: the use of Portuguese, the proliferation of Christian churches, eating pork, and drinking beer.
After the war, the prevailing winds carried the fallout and hot debris east across the continent from Delhi and Mumbai. The attack on Bangalore, being inland, didn’t send any fallout Goa’s way. So relatively speaking, Goa had a future. The worst sea level rises were a couple of decades away, but climate change had messed with the Indian Ocean and rain and wind patterns had become unsettling. This meant those lovely beaches were no longer habitable, but the fancy hotels on the cliffs could still function. The workers who could no longer live in villages on the shore moved inland but to land that could no longer be farmed. Goa gained farmland by cutting down tropical hardwoods and selling the lumber cheap. Anywhere they could grow rice, they did. Other land went to soybeans. It still wasn’t known how far the populations of India and Pakistan had fallen, but it was known how much arable land was lost so anywhere that could grow food was used. The consequences of the loss of the trees and their roots systems and canopy would have to be dealt with later.
Many of the hotels had been commandeered for government and corporate use. The hotel owners didn’t mind since there were hardly any tourists anymore and those who did come were foreigners pushing deep into the jungles to experience the lushness before it was gone. It was another example of a perverse eco-tourism. People were rushing to experience and mourn the death throes of nature’s wonders: rain forests, glaciers, coral reefs before they vanished forever. The largest hotels also had the advantage of having self-contained power and water systems the need for preventing water-borne diseases was paramount. The hotels kept recycling the same water. It looked awful, but at least they knew what was in it.
And then there were the pigs. Nowhere else in India did pigs abound. Unclean to Hindus and Muslims, appalling to vegetarians of any or no religion, only Christian Goa had swine in any number. After the war, the government thought to feed the starving people pork, food was food, but the revulsion was swift. So, the pig population dwindled. It dwindled further when pressure for land increased. While pigs are low-maintenance animals, they will literally eat anything, including human feces they still needed some land. It was essential and faster to use the land to grow grain to feed people. They ate but didn’t replenish the stock. They tried to export suckling pig to China, but “food from India” was literally poison. So, except for a few hardy adventurers cultivating free-range pigs to sell to the non-Indians working in the hotels, raising pigs dropped from the culture.
Which is why no one could think it odd when the pigs started coughing.
It was a witches’ brew of swine flu, germ transmission through diarrhea, and a hotel water filter past its prime. It started with the people who tended the pigs. Their coughs carried it to other humans, the resulting diarrhea carried it further, and the not so purified water ran the virus through the hotel. Within two weeks, everyone who spent any time in that hotel was wrenchingly sick or dead.
Every pig in Goa was slaughtered and burned.
CHAPTER 73
Ron and Kate were sitting in the mess aboard the Roosevelt, eating something that looked like creamed chicken when the siren went off.
“Red alert, red alert.” It was the First Officer’s voice. “We have detected an unauthorized power surge. Possible generator breech. All emergency personnel report to stations; all pilots report to their vessels; all other personnel report to secure positions. Repeat: red alert, possible generator breech, this is not a drill.”
Confused but calm, everyone left the mess hall.
On the bridge, the First Officer snapped to attention as Captain Hightower entered the room.
“What the hell is going on?”
“There’s been an unauthorized power surge, sir. We thought the generator was breeching but we’ve isolated it to Quadrant 2.”
“The surge is coming from Sector 101!” the helmsman said.
Hightower was knocked off his stride. “Sector…. That’s impossible. I gave no such order.”
“Is there anything in there that can generate that kind of power?”
The helmsman stared at the data in disbelief. “The sector is decompressing, exterior doors opening. Doors? There are doors?”
CHAPTER 74
The Situation Room was barely controlled chaos: lights and alarms going off, people running in and out, talking on phones, writing into computers. The officer in charge was an army general, Alan Monroe. The master screen was split into thirds:
Air Force General Miller with the Pentagon seal behind him took up the center screen; Captain Hightower to the left; and the right screen showed the interior of Sector 101. It was a grainy image that showed a chamber loaded with electronics. In the lower right-hand corner of the screen, a finger of darkness was visible. The sector looked quiet but in fact doors were slowly sliding open to reveal a hint of space and that finger also appeared to be lengthening.
Ailes charged into the room, followed closely by the Chief of Staff.
The Officer of the Day needed all of his strength to shout over the riot. “Attention!”
The President waved them off before they had a chance to stand. “Everyone as you were. General, report.”
“There has been an unauthorized activation of Sector 101 on the Roosevelt. It has powered up and the exterior doors are opening.”
A second lieutenant new to the job made a mistake and asked a question. “What’s Sector 101?”
Monroe spun around furiously. “Who gave you permission to speak! What’s your duty?”
“Sir, monitoring communications from the UN and European space stations, sir.”
“Then do it and speak when addressed!” He resumed his briefing. “The three command centers the Pentagon, Cheyenne Mountain, and this room are secured and in our hands. All are manned, none have given the order.”
Gesturing toward the main screen, the President said, “Explain.”
“Mr. President, General Miller, the Air Force Chief of Staff yo
u know. This is Captain Charles Hightower, the Captain of the Roosevelt. The other screen is Sector 101.”
“Can you hear me, Captain?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Explain yourself.”
For the second time in less than ten minutes, Hightower was blind-sided. “Sir, begging your pardon, there is nothing to explain from the Roosevelt. Protocol clearly states and it cannot be overridden from the station. Sector 101 can only be activated from Earth. The security codes pass to the captain of the Roosevelt only if two of the three command centers in the United States are destroyed. This obviously is not the case. The security breach is clearly coming from Earth.”
“Can you stop it?”
“No, sir. I have no control over Sector 101 in any, way, shape or form. They designed it that way.”
“The president of Russia and the UN Secretary-General are calling inquiring about the power surge,” the lieutenant dared to add.
“What could they know?” Ailes was obviously not speaking to the lieutenant.
Monroe answered, “Only that there is an unusual power surge on the station there are any number of explanations. But if this continues, every decent sized monitor on Earth or in orbit is going to see it.” He stole a glance at the image of Sector 101. The doors were fully retracted, and the dark finger was growing in the chamber. “They’re going to know within three minutes unless we override it.”
Turning to the colonel sitting next to Monroe, Ailes said, “Report.”
“The White House and Cheyenne Mountain are secure. The transmission is coming from the Pentagon.”
General Miller exploded. “Impossible! I’m sitting right here in the command center. I’d stake my life that the signal is not coming from here.”
“He’s right, sir. It’s not coming from the command center it’s coming from some other location. We have narrowed it down to ten locations…”
