by Brandt Legg
“I can get you out,” Mars said.
Irwin’s humor vanished. “What are you talking about? Talking about getting an inmate out early is either a crime, or a cruel joke.” His eyes narrowed further as he grew angrier. “And there is a third option. You’re a snitch!”
“No. I may be many things, but a snitch is not one of them. The friend I told you about is a rich and powerful man.”
“He’s got enough juice to get me out of prison? That’s mighty powerful.”
“Yeah.”
Irwin continued to stare at Mars. “This release you’re talking about, it comes with a pardon?”
“No, not that kind of power.”
“So I’d still be wanted.” Irwin laughed, then let out a few expletives. “Why would I want to do something like that?”
“Because you like money.”
“Now you’re trying to get me onto a new charge. You really think anybody’s interested in tacking on another nickel or dime to their sentence?”
“How much money do you need?”
“For what?”
“To disappear and start a new life.”
“Are you serious?”
Mars nodded. “I’ll get you enough money, and a new identity, if you tell me what I need to know.”
“Hell, see? You are a snitch.”
“Not a snitch. I’m also not a charity. I’m a businessman.”
“You got this kind of friend, what are you still doing inside?”
“I’ve got a lot less time than you. I’m just trying to finish.”
Irwin studied Mars. “Uh-huh . . . and just what do you want to know?”
“Everything you know about a certain FBI Special Agent.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
Fifty-Nine
Washington, DC – April 3rd – 1:43 pm
Tu had asked his two favorite technologists from the think tank to join him. They plugged in every scenario of how a city could be destroyed.
“Are we sure the terrorists plan to level the city, or are they just going to wipe out the residents?” one of them asked at the start of their session. “Because if they’re using chemical or biological weapons, they could kill a million people and leave the buildings standing.”
Tu looked at her and blinked, his mind processing the question and all its potential answers and ramifications in an instant. “I think this is about power. They will take it all.”
She nodded, as if his vetting of the possibilities was enough.
With the available information, it didn’t take them long to narrow the applications and origination points. “We are limited by our knowledge of classified military weapon systems,” the other said.
“But we are not limited by our imaginations,” Tu said. “Think like a child. Imagine what they could use to do the worst.”
“I’ll try,” he said.
Tu looked at him and smiled. “Yoda says, ‘Do. Or do not. There is no try.’”
“Yoda is right,” the man said.
The advanced computer systems employed by the think tank projected and illustrated an endless stream of doomsday scenarios. Tu watched, riveted, as the simulations of killer satellites attacked, but none came anywhere close to destroying a building, let alone a city.
“We’re missing something,” the woman said.
“Someone must have developed a laser amplification system, or a photon delivery for nuclear,” the man said. “Or it’s not space-based. Maybe they’re using Amtrak to deliver a train full of nukes to New York.”
Tu continued watching the space simulations. He zoomed in and increased the number of monitors displaying the action until, finally, he paused.
The two technologists stopped what they were working on and looked at the largest screen. “Why did you stop?” the woman asked, staring at an image showing a distant view of the moon. “Do you think they have a lunar base?”
“That’s no moon,” Tu responded absently.
They both recognized the famous Star Wars quote spoken by Obi-Wan Kenobi when the Death Star was spotted for the first time.
“They’re getting the power for the weapon from the sun!” Tu said. “I have to call The Astronaut.”
Undisclosed location
The gray-haired man and the diplomat in the red tie had reconvened in the big room. They sat alone at the large table, framed by an eight-foot wide bronze sculpted hammer and sickle mounted on a slab of wood painted deep red.
“We are now only hours from Five-Fours,” the gray-haired man said, fiddling with a computer tablet that controlled various screens displaying live feeds from Washington and several other points of interest.
Tolstoy’s voice came through a speaker. “Am I connected?”
“Yes,” the diplomat replied.
“Is the US president going to have ashes for breakfast?” the gray-haired man asked.
“It appears he will be in Philadelphia,” Tolstoy said.
“That’s not what I mean,” he snapped back.
“We are on schedule. The Astronaut definitely caused some issues.”
“But he’s dead.”
“Yes. However, he sent warnings before our people removed him. The CIA is leading an investigation, unprecedented in size and scope, to uncover the details of Blackout.”
“Could they find the source before Five-Fours?”
“Highly unlikely.”
The two men exchanged a glance. ‘Highly unlikely’ was not the answer they required.
“Perhaps we should abort,” the diplomat said.
“No,” Tolstoy said, a little too quickly. “We will prevail. I can deliver this.”
“What about the billionaire boy wonder and his spy girlfriend?” The gray-haired man’s bitter tone reflected his loathing of Chase and Wen.
“They will be dead soon. Spinx, and a number of our agents, are closing in on them. There is also a large presence of other operatives in DC tasked with eliminating them for other reasons.”
“The cartel?”
“Yes.”
The gray-haired man pursed his lips. “The cartel is our next problem.” Although at the moment their objectives aligned, the shadow people worried him.
“Even they will be weakened after Five-Fours,” Tolstoy reasoned.
“They may prove more resilient than the young democracy.”
“Either way, everything is different in the morning.”
“It better be,” the gray-haired man said, thinking of death.
Sixty
Georgetown, Washington, DC – April 3rd – 1:45
Chase hit the floor and reached over to check the doctor.
“Sniper!” Wen yelled, crawling toward the window.
“He’s dead,” Chase yelled back.
Wen fired one shot out the window. “Get out! Get out!” she shouted as she dove toward the door. Chase, just behind her, had only crossed the threshold as the entire first floor exploded in a fireball.
By the time they recovered and the smoke cleared, there was no one left to shoot at. “Who was the target?” Chase asked. “Us, or Forbes?”
“All of us,” Wen said as they got into their car.
“Then why didn’t they finish us off?”
“Maybe they thought they did,” she said, pulling out her phone. “They blew up the whole building!”
“Who are we calling?”
“Astronaut. We need to know where to go next, and I want to give him the new information on Russia.”
Before Wen could say anything, Nash started talking. “I just sent a breakdown to your device,” The Astronaut said. “It turns out the strike could be anywhere. At least, when you initially sift the data. Exterminating a million people in the United States via a space weapon, there are almost . . . well, hundreds of possibilities, more than a thousand if you consider overlapping parameters.”
“I’m hoping the news gets better,” Chase said.
�
�‘Gets better’ is a relative term. We are talking about a million deaths and the related obliteration of a major metropolitan area in the United States.”
Chase gave Wen a glance, as if to say, I walked into that one, didn’t I?
“However,” The Astronaut continued, “when one factors in population overlays, sorted in conjunction with nearby power plants, it starts to narrow.”
“Right,” Chase said. “They can’t power it from space. Have you approximated the requirements for this kind of weapon?”
“Approximate is a good word, since we don’t know exactly what the weapon is.”
“Professor Osborne believes it has to be an advanced laser delivery system, siphoning power from nearby utility plants,” Wen said. “Doctor Forbes said power was the key to the location of the strike.”
“The information I obtained on Heaven is part of the DARPA cache, and other classified Defense Department data, but everything is incomplete.”
Wen told him about the attack on Forbes and also about the pyramid model from Osborne.
“That may not be the exact process, but I think we’re in the neighborhood—some sort of reasonable framework for what they would have to use.”
“But that’s the weakness,” Chase added, looking over his shoulder to change into another lane. The car behind honked. It startled Chase as, weirdly, he had not seen the vehicle. “They have to have a certain amount of power close to a target of that size. How many could there be?”
“Again, that isn’t as exacting as you might think,” The Astronaut said. “Assuming my numbers are right, there are sixty-one possible targets. It could even be more.”
“Still, it must give us something.”
“The East Coast is the most likely choice. Obviously, there’s a high concentration of population, as well as a surprising number of power plants that correlates to that population. We can’t rule out the West Coast, however, it is less likely.”
“Where?” Chase tried again. He kept his eyes on the rearview mirror on that honking car. Something about it made him uneasy.
“We’re looking at cities in Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Texas, Virginia, Washington DC, and North Carolina as the most likely areas.
“That’s eleven places,” Wen said. “We can never cover that much ground.” She looked at Chase and silently asked, What?
“That’s the same as not knowing anything,” Chase added, shaking his head at Wen, meaning it’s nothing, yet he continued to check the car behind them, especially after a cop pulled out from a side street just then and fell in line behind the suspicious car. Chase gripped the steering wheel tighter. Wen, of course, noticed all this and took the back seat, ready.
“I know. And we got there by factoring in nearby nuclear power plants. There are around one hundred active nuclear power reactors operating in the US right now. Most of them are located near cities with populations of one million or more.”
“Can’t you narrow that with other factors?” Chase asked.
“Yes. I’ve been working the data. We come up with a list of twelve cities within those ten states: Indianapolis, Atlanta, Miami, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Columbus, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Houston, New York City, and Norfolk. But as I went further, it narrows again: Jacksonville Florida, Baltimore Maryland, Philadelphia, and the Tidewater Virginia region, which includes Norfolk.”
“So we’re narrowed down to four, potentially?” Wen asked. “Forbes said it had to be one of two places.”
“Too bad he didn’t finish that statement,” Chase said.
“With each narrowing, I am less confident with those conclusions,” The Astronaut continued. “However, Jacksonville is perhaps the least interesting of those four cities. Baltimore, being a port city, I’d rate at number three. Philadelphia, as the birthplace of American democracy, would be two. Virginia’s Tidewater region, which is home to one of the largest concentrations of military bases in the world, has to be number one. A strike in that region would cripple the United States military and limit any response.”
Chase looked at Wen. “Then those are the top three? Norfolk, Philadelphia, Baltimore. We should tell Tess.”
“You think they will evacuate those three areas?” Wen asked.
“In whatever hours we have left, that cannot even begin to do anything except make it worse by causing panic,” Chase said. “Of course, that’s ultimately the decision of the president.”
“Based on what we have,” Nash began, “they should be evacuating at least twelve cities right now.”
“That alone would do great damage.”
“Perhaps that is what the Russians want,” Wen said.
“There is another option,” Nash said. “We could suggest taking all US power plants off-line.”
“Imagine that catastrophe,” Chase muttered.
“But it would be in the middle of the night,” The Astronaut said.
“Thus the name,” Wen said. “Operation Blackout.”
“I can make that suggestion,” Chase said, relieved as the suspicious car finally took a right into a mini-mart, “but I don’t think they’ll go for it. How long do you keep it shut down?” Unfortunately, the cop car was behind them now. Chase and Wen eyed each other.
“It is possible,” Nash began. “We could do an unauthorized shutdown . . . without their permission.”
“We have that capability?” Chase asked. Wen motioned for him to get off the road and pull into an upcoming gas station.
“I don’t know for sure, but we can try.”
Sixty-One
Petersburg, Virginia – April 3rd – 1:52 pm
Irwin looked off into the distance for a minute. “It’s a long story, man.”
“Not much time?” Mars laughed. “We’ve got nothing but time.”
“Yeah? Well, time is a funny thing.”
“True.”
“I got that line from a book. The Last Librarian. Ever read it?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Read the whole series. The Lost TreeRunner had quite an influence on me.”
“The List Keepers blew my mind,” Irwin said. “I read a lot in here.”
“Reading transports you to another world.”
“‘In the meanwhile I obtained the horror of the dungeons, after the discovery of the plot to break prison. And never, during those eternal hours of waiting, was it absent from my consciousness that I should follow these other convicts out, endure the hell of inquisition they endured, and be brought back, a wreck and flung on the stone floor of my stone-walled, iron-doored dungeon.’”
“The Star Rover, by Jack London.”
A genuine smile appeared on Irwin’s face. “You know it?”
“It’s helped me through prison more than any other book.”
“Me, too, but so few have read it. One of London’s most obscure works.”
“Yeah. Quite a journey though.”
“I don’t want to come back. If I do this, and I get out . . . I can’t come back. You know what I mean?”
Mars nodded. Irwin’s eyes revealed the desperation and loss that had infiltrated him. Mars recognized it as one does their own fear and weakness in the mirror, at least when they look with an honest gaze. “Give me a number. My friend needs this information. I’ll have the money and the identity sent in the care of your attorney, Stuart Hampton, within the hour.”
Irwin’s eyes widened at the mention of his attorney’s name. “You may not be a snitch, but you’re good. How do you know who my attorney is?”
“Talk to my friends,” Mars said, ignoring his question.
“What if I said I want two hundred million dollars?”
“My friend is rich, but not that rich.”
“Then save me the trouble, what’s the upper limit?”
“You want me to give you a number?”
“I’m not buying a used car here.”
“Fair enough.” Mars didn’t like to spend Chase’s money, but had a feeli
ng most of it was going to be reimbursed from a CISS slush fund. “Ten million. A new iron clad identity and the best part of all . . . ” Mars met Irwin’s eyes, “you’ll be out of prison.”
“It’s a big risk. I spill on something like this, I may not wake up one day, know what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure you can’t do better than ten?”
“What good is the information to you in prison? This FBI guy has done you no favors. I’m talking to you. You know they’ve already got him. How long do you think until your valuable information becomes useless, and your FBI buddy joins you in here? It’s just a matter of time.”
“Yeah . . . and time’s a funny thing, right?”
“It’s working in your favor for another sixty minutes or so. After that, you’re looking at twenty-some-odd years back on the inside. Take the deal, man. Go live out your days on a beach. Don’t be a Star Rover, breathe it.”
“I need to think about it.”
Mars nodded. “Then go back and check with your attorney. The ten million good faith money and the identity will be there. But you don’t get out until you give me all the information.”
“Yeah, well, no offense, but I don’t really know you. And you’re in prison, so that makes you only somewhat honest.” He paused and smiled.
“I’m not really guilty,” Mars said, holding his hands up beside his chest in a gesture of innocence. “It was all a big misunderstanding.”
“I’ve heard that before. But I’m serious, ten million under my mattress doesn’t do any good if someone offs me.”
“You’ll be gone. New identity.”
“What if I tell your friends everything I know and then I don’t get out?”
“With ten million in your control, I think you can find someone to kill me. Maybe not today, maybe not next week, but you have time, and I’m easy to find.”
“Yeah.”
“Ask around about me. I will not screw you. We need this information.”
They stared at each other silently for at least fifteen seconds.
“I’ll get back to you,” Irwin said at last.