by Jim Wurst
“Ten!” Miller was turning redder by the second.
“… some are decoys, some may be echoes. There must be only one genuine transmission point. We just have to pinpoint it.”
“And why wasn’t I informed of this before now?” Miller demanded.
That was a question he was far too junior to answer. He turned pleadingly to his superior. “General?”
Taking a deep breath, Monroe said, “We weren’t sure your security had not been breached, we could not risk transmitting the information to the Pentagon and have it intercepted.”
That popped the last blood vessel. “Breached! You pompous ass! How dare you…”
He seemed to have forgotten the President of the United States was present. Ailes reminded him. “Stand down, General!”
“Yes, sir,” he growled.
“Transmit all the coordinates to the Pentagon.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Miller took to regaining his professional composure. He addressed someone in the center invisible to the Situation Room. “Deploy all SWAT. Red Alert. Dispatch with prejudice. Orders directly from the President.”
Monroe split his attention between the image of 101 and his monitor. “The cannon is being extended and is powering up.”
“Cannon?” The lieutenant apparently had a death wish.
“Shut up!”
Ailes stayed on point. “How much time before it is fully extended and powered?”
“Four minutes, five tops.”
The President addressed the colonel.
“Will the Roosevelt still be over the United States in four minutes?”
“No, sir, it’s over the Rocky Mountains now. In four minutes, it will be over… oh dear God… China.”
For the first time in uncountable years, Ailes was stymied. “No, no, no, no. Alan, we have to stop it. Now.”
Monroe turned to Hightower. “Can you shift the Roosevelt’s orbit?”
“Yes, sir, but that takes time. Even if the cannon is realigned, it will still be aiming somewhere on Earth in four minutes.”
“Mr. President, the Chinese premier is on the hot line. He is demanding you explain the appendage extending from the Roosevelt,” the thoroughly beaten junior officer said.
Ailes’ expression clearly meant “ignore him” while Monroe continued. “We can shut down all but minimum power to the entire station. Sector 101 is integrated into the main matrix. The station can stay on minimum life support, but it would be enough to prevent the cannon from firing.”
“Hightower, can we do that?”
“Yes, sir, but that’s not a simple switch, it takes time to power down.”
“How long?”
“It’s never been done. Maybe ten minutes.”
“You do have a simple switch…” Monroe said, not so much as to contradict the captain but to state the inevitable.
“That protocol is designed for a catastrophic breach. It shuts down the entire station, even life support. If I can’t bring power back in time, I could kill the crew.”
“Mr. President?”
Ailes silently stared at the world.
“The Roosevelt is over the Pacific,” the lieutenant dared to say.
The peace of the righteous reigned in General Adams’ office. They were all looking at the monitors. Peter was the only one sitting.
“They’ve narrowed the search to the Pentagon. I’ve set up nine decoys and echoes, and there’s a false code on the outer door and this door. On the basis of last week’s test, it will take them approximately two minutes to eliminate each decoy. The door locks give us four minutes, therefore we have anywhere between seven and 12 minutes.”
“Twelve minutes is more than enough. But seven?” Adams asked.
“The doors on the Roosevelt are open and the cannon is extending. We could be ready to fire in five minutes. And we’ve timed it right. It will be over the target.”
Ike asked, “What are their counter maneuvers?”
“Realistically, only three: cut all power on the Roosevelt which takes time, a space station is not designed to shut itself down instantaneously; pull the station out of orbit, which still risks firing the ray at something; or stop us.”
“God is with us,” their leader said.
Sector 101’s camera was mounted at the back of the chamber, so it clearly showed the bay doors were fully retracted and the Earth was visible in the distance. The cannon slowly glided into the picture, like a dragon emerging from its cave, studying its next victim.
“The doors are open, the cannon is activated. The cannon’s power is coming online. In two minutes, every monitor on Earth or in space will know what is happening.”
Ike knew Adams was whispering scripture, but he couldn’t figure out which one. Then his attention was drawn to one of the monitors. “They’re in our hallway.” The camera showed a heavily armed commando team hurrying down the hallway. One commando was clearly reading a computer and at his signal the team sped up and headed straight to Adams’ office door. “They’re at the outer door.”
For the first time, there was a trace of doubt in the General’s voice. “If we really have four minutes, that’s enough?”
“Absolutely.” Peter’s confidence helped steady Adams.
The hallway camera went blank. “They’ve killed the corridor cameras,” Ike reported. They all instinctively turned to the final monitory showing the outer office. The camera was placed above the door in their last line of defense before they would have to use their weapons.
“I’ll guard the door,” Adams said, “Ike, this is your moment, your father’s moment. The Judgment of God is at hand.”
As Adams turned to the door, a deafening explosion blew the door off its hinges and threw the general across the room. Recovering quickly from the shock, Ike reached for the button, only to be coldcocked by Peter and his pistol. Ike hadn’t even hit the floor before Peter reached under the console. Suddenly all the power was sapped out of the console. The commandos snatched up the weapons, Peter dropped his on the keyboard. Satisfied that the two officers were incapacitated, the commando leader swung around on Peter.
“What the hell were you playing at? We were supposed to be in three minutes ago. Why wasn’t the outer door unlocked?” He paused his tirade long enough to listen to a voice in his earpiece. “The cannon is disarmed. Do you realize what you could have done!”
“Activating the chamber wasn’t enough. The world had to see the cannon. There had to be no ambiguity.”
“And that was your decision to make? You could have started a war, you idiot.”
“No, God would not permit that. ‘His hand is….’”
First Adams, then Ike stirred. The leader took obvious delight in barking at them through their haze. “General Adams, Captain McClellan, you are under arrest for treason.”
The word “treason” snapped Ike to attention. Seeing Peter was the only one not on the floor, he realized what had happened. “Peter, how could you? We prayed together. We were instruments in the hands of the Lord. How could you? Our prayers…”
“I could because I prayed, Ike. God loves His children. This world is His world, it is our duty to preserve His blessings, not destroy them.”
The leader interrupted the sermon. “On your feet, Captain.”
Ike took hold of the console to steady himself and in a flash, he pushed Peter aside and grabbed his gun. With some hesitation, he pointed the pistol at Peter. The commandos did not hesitate in pointing their weapons at Ike.
Peter, fearing more for his friend’s life than his own, implored, “Don’t, please surrender.”
Ike stared madly at his lost cause, his failure to avenge his father, his unfaithful comrade, his fallen general. The commando team turned into a massive horde of demons with red eyes, their pitchforks stabbing at him.
“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And he turned the gun on himself.
The frenzy in the Situation Room suddenly stopped, as if it rather than the Roosevelt had had its power cut. The lights stopped flashing, and everyone stood, mesmerized by the monitors and the stillness.
Ailes looked at Hightower. “What just happened?”
“The power to the cannon was cut by itself. We didn’t do anything.”
“Is it disarmed?”
“Yes, sir. It’s completely neutralized. But I don’t know how.”
“Mr. President, Senator Cranston is on the phone. He wishes to speak with you about the Roosevelt.”
CHAPTER 75
Sanjeet had called the EuroNet crew to the Galapagos Recovery Station. No explanation. When they arrived in the control room, the monitors were not showing their usual sweeps of the islands. Instead, the main screen was taken up with a space image of the South Pacific. And the dominant image there was a huge storm north of New Caledonia.
“This is not good,” Sanjeet said to no one in particular.
One of his colleagues was more talkative. “On the one hand, it’s still pretty far out. All computer models at this point have a margin of error of up to 23 percent. The Al-Khwarizmi spotted it yesterday. If their readings are correct, it’s gained strength by a factor of 20 since then. Meaning it’s gone from a Category 3 to Category 4 storm in less than one day.”
“I take it that’s fast,” Elsa said.
“Not a record but certainly greater than average,” Sanjeet replied, “It’s currently 500 kilometers northeast of New Caledonia. In and of itself, this is not too unusual. This is the bad season for typhoons. They build quickly, but this is unusually fast. It could easily reach 325 kilometers an hour, meaning Category 5 within 12 hours. At this rate, Category 6 is certainly within the realm of probability.” Once upon a time, there was no Category 6, scientists had to recalibrate the scale decades ago, just as there wasn’t an indigo temperature coding until Australia started baking in the 2010s.
“The advantage is that it’s not near any populated islands?”
“For the moment.”
Their embrace was tight and intimate, but in no way sensual. It was late, the sky was already overcast. The winds were normal but didn’t sound like it.
“What happens tomorrow if we’re in direct line of the typhoon?” Elsa asked.
Typhoons crossing the Equator just didn’t happen. Since weather monitoring by satellites began, no tropical storm had ever crossed the line. What was called the Coriolis Force at the Equator was strong enough to drain storms of their swirling motions, dissipating the force so much that it couldn’t cross the line. Therefore, Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere storms had a limited range. This meant that the Galapagos straddling the Equator was never subjected to powerful typhoons. That changed as the oceans warmed and gave added clout to the storms. The Coriolis Force was still there, but more and more storms built up enough power to continue pressing on, even if the Force challenged them at the Equator. The islands had been hit three times in two decades with Category 3 storms, once by a Category 4. Never a Category 5 but now a monster that might soon reached Category 6 was heading their way.
Sanjeet didn’t tell her any of this.
“It won’t be the first time. The protocol is to evacuate people to the mainland; only the locals if it doesn’t look severe, total evacuation if it’s serious we’ve only done that once before. We also have a protocol for the wildlife. There are nurseries on the mainland for both plants and animals, as well as here. Every week we tag saplings, eggs, hatchlings in our nurseries for priority evacuation those that are unique or are in particular danger. If I decide it’s necessary, we’ll remove some or even all of our specimens and bring them to Ecuador for the duration.”
“Doesn’t it endanger them to move around so much?”
“Yes, but I’ll have to balance the risks of moving with the risks of the typhoon. The animals living in the wild have adapted over the centuries to the storms, so we’re only talking about a small percent of wildlife.”
“Have they adapted to Category 6 hurricanes.”
“Obviously not. But we still don’t know if they will have to.” Knowing that any real sleep was out of reach, he changed the subject, “I hope you’re packed.”
I’ve been packed all day.”
Sleep finally took them. Else woke groggy from anxiety and dislocation. The dislocation was enhanced when she realized she was alone in bed. She finally focused on Sanjeet hunched over his computer.
“And?”
Without looking up, he said, “It’s 50 percent stronger and has settled into a North-Northeast path of roughly 45 degrees.”
“I know enough geography to know what that means. Is it inevitable that we are in its path?”
“Ask me in three hours.”
Three hours later, Sanjeet’s team, representatives of the islands’ local leadership and the EuroNet crew were sitting in the station’s conference center. They were looking at three large screens two of them were blank. The third one was a view of the coming storm. One of the blank screens came alive and showed the captain of the Al-Khwarizmi. Then the final screen was filled with the distressed face of an Ecuadorian minister.
Al-Khwarizmi’s captain began. “As you see, the typhoon is now 100 kilometers across. There is no sign of it losing strength, in fact as it gets closer to the Equator, it is gaining force. If it stays on this trajectory, the northern edge of the storm will hit the Galapagos tomorrow morning. It’ll be bad, but not the worst possible outcome. If it veers even three degrees north, it will hit the Galapagos full force, meaning Category 6.”
Elsa broke the silence. “Wasn’t the last typhoon to hit the Galapagos Category 4?”
“Yes,” Sanjeet answered.
“Never a Category 6?”
“No, never. We’re no longer talking about a storm. This is the storm, the one we always knew would come.”
The captain agreed. “Exactly. Under the circumstances, we recommend a general evacuation of the Galapagos chain.”
The government official broke in. “Forget about recommendations. As the representative of the sovereign state of Ecuador, I hereby order a full and immediate evacuation of the Galapagos and the relocation of all Ecuadorian nationals and international personnel to mainland Ecuador. This order is effective immediately.”
CHAPTER 76
That morning, a motion sensor ten clicks east of the family’s nest detected the movement of something large. It could have been a large cat or another orangutan, but the location and the timing of the arrival fit too well. Ruth – now armed and Jamal with his soldiers headed out towards the nest.
Examining her monitor, she stopped the patrol. “All three of them are over there. I’ll go alone. They can’t see you they’ll never understand.”
The soldier had come to the same conclusion for different reasons. Pointing east, he said, “They’re likely to be coming from that direction.” He looked at his men. “Deploy” and they did. In a moment, they were a part of the jungle.
Ruth adjusted the rifle over her back so that it would not be the first thing the apes saw and walked into the clearing. And absurdly, she also whistled. As she approached the nest, Kai was the first one she saw. He started to greet her and then saw the rifle. He walked slowly towards his friend and delicately touched the barrel as if it were a venomous and stiff snake. He didn’t need sign language for Ruth to understand he was suspicious.
She dropped the rifle before hugging Rabu.
“Bad men are coming. We must protect ourselves.”
“Bad men protect.”
Ruth started cutting more branches. This was something the apes did not need to be taught. As the parents ripped up plants and turned their nest into a wall, Ruth took a branch and tried to disgu
ise the apes’ presence by removing scat and bits of food and trying to puff up the flattened grass. She held onto the thin hope that the poachers would think in traditional ways and look for the family in the treetops, not knowing that these apes nested on the ground. Useless, she thought. If the poachers have heat-seeking goggles, there was no way three large bodies could escape attention. Everything really depended on Jamal and his men. Unless she could...
Camouflaged as best they could, Ruth tried to hide the heat signature by trying to line the three of them up single file. That strategy was lost on Kai. Besides, this would work only if the poacher approached from precisely the right direction. So, with Nurul cradling the squirmy Rabu, Kai and Ruth crouched guarding the mother and child. Ruth checked her rifle. Father still viewed it suspiciously. Ruth spoke quietly into her radio.
“Jamal, we’re as secure as we can be. Have you seen anything?”
“No. It’s possible there’s only one of them. A group couldn’t be this invisible. Go to radio silence.”
“Right.” She turned off the radio and suddenly felt very alone. She could hear Nurul’s breathing on her sweaty back. Father seemed to have somehow grown, his shoulders broader, his arms longer. Another special characteristic of the orangutan was that the male was three, four times larger than the female few species had such an imbalance. And now Kai was the largest orangutan Ruth had ever seen, still growing. His breathing was shallow as his fists clenched and unclenched. Waiting was not in his nature.
Somewhere near birds took flight, the only signal a poacher could not counter. Kai and Ruth knew that sign.
The poacher had been following the trail of scat and broken branches from the stream. He had gone up and down the bank and was finally satisfied that this was the most likely route. He entered the clearing, certain now that this was the best place for an orangutan nest. Ruth could see him. She wiped her hands and slightly raised the gun. She was hoping she could warn him off, because a shoot-out could end only one way. Kai hadn’t shifted except that his hands were now firmly clenched. She could see the poacher had two rifles, one was clearly an assault weapon, the other most likely a taser. He paused, looked at the ground for signs, turned his gaze up to the canopy, and then put something over his eyes. Heat-seeking goggles.
