by Brandt Legg
Inside the two-way mirror, his reflection stared back, but the image of himself was a stranger, a scared and hollow man who looked weak, yet somehow dangerous, only to him. He knew someone else was behind the mirrored glass watching, but it was impossible to focus on that, only the strangeness of it all kept him conscious as, strangely, Einstein’s theories filled his mind.
The longer he sat in that silent room, the louder the sounds inside his head screeched, creating an agonizing chorus of terror. The torment continued to increase, and he was unable to hold a solid thought with any continuity.
It never occurred to him that he had not gotten word to Tess, or Tu, because all he could think about was the horror of being touched and trapped. He wondered when the execution would come and hoped it would be very soon.
Undisclosed Location - April 3rd - 3:55 pm
The Gray-haired man read the report. “The Americans are close to figuring it out, they may be able to stop it . . . Soon they could know it is us.”
“Oh no,” the diplomat said, he had been concerned from the beginning that this would happen, that they would be caught.
The gray-haired man looked at the diplomat. “Do you know what this means?”
“We must stop it,” the diplomat replied.
“No! Don’t be foolish. We must move it up.” He typed a message into a computer tablet.
“What have you done?”
“Washington DC is now going to be removed from the world in exactly forty-nine minutes,” he said. “At 4:44 pm local time.”
“But what if they figure it out?”
“There is no time. Even if they do, all the theories and evidence will be obliterated in forty-nine minutes and forty-seven seconds, forty-six, forty-five, forty-four . . . ”
Seventy-Three
Mechanicsville, Virginia - April 3rd - 4:04 pm
After what seemed to Chase and Wen like an eternity in the air, but was actually closer to forty minutes, the helicopter circled above a massive campus of nearly forty buildings surrounded by dense woods on all sides.
“Perfect place to hide a death ray factory,” Chase said.
The area did look like an industrial park, complete with signage and an assortment of ‘commercial vehicles, including semis all lettered with various phony front companies.
“We’ve got more than twelve hours,” Wen said, having no idea that time had been sped up.
“Should be plenty of time,” Chase said.
“Depending on how many Russian Spetsnaz are waiting for us?” She said referring to Russia’s Military’s elite special forces units.
Chase double checked to see that he had the tablet with the facility’s plans and the ALESSEN to be inserted, which would change the control unit, then he took a deep breath.
“Ready to go into battle?” Chase asked. “This took years to plan, and I assume they’ve thought of everything.”
“I doubt they thought of me.”
The pilot landed the chopper on the roof of what appeared to be the main building, about the size of a super-Walmart, but nine stories high. “This is the one with the underground silo,” Chase said, double checking the plans.
“Stay here,” Wen said to the pilot.
“What if someone starts shooting?”
“Hover at a safe distance, but you’re our ride out of here, so stay close.”
“Roger that.”
Chase and Wen jumped out.
“Cameras,” Wen said, pointing to numerous surveillance arrays, as soon as they hit the roof’s rubberized asphalt surface. “Expect company,” she shouted above the still spinning rotors.
Each armed with MP7s, they ran toward a railed opening that was supposed to lead to the sub levels. Chase had once detested guns, and still preferred not to need them, but he’d grown comfortable with the lightweight and compact Heckler & Koch submachine gun, and efficiently helped Wen mow down the four security personnel that challenged them.
“We’re in trouble!” Wen shouted. “Those men were MSS.”
Chase hadn’t noticed, he’d just been trying to stay alive. “How? Where are the Russians?”
“In Russia,” she said, suddenly realizing the play. “Classic MSS misdirection.”
“What?” Chase said, as they descended narrow metal steps.
Wen was too busy shooting more agents to immediately respond, but Chase felt as if he was droning in the shock of what the Chinese had pulled off—their brazen deployment of a new super weapon was made even more horrible by their ploy to frame the Russians as the aggressors. The MSS has just initiated war between its two biggest rivals, he thought. A war that only China will win.
After the initial skirmish, two MSS agents survived unseen on the roof.
“Should we go after them?” one of them asked the other, as they surveyed the bodies of their fallen comrades.
“Not yet, they have no idea what is waiting for them inside. They will be dead soon.”
“Yeah, but just in case, we must be sure they have no means of escape.” He pointed to the chopper. “The pilot has not seen us yet. He pulled out two electronic containment grenades. The ECGs had been developed by the MSS, and featured programmable blast radius and concussion force.
Quickly initiating the digital firing pins, he tossed two ECGs into the helicopter, then ran back a safe distance. As the chopper exploded and the fuel line caught, propelling a third fiery blast, the agent smiled. “They will not leave here alive.”
“Now, we go kill them?”
“Yes,” he said, photographing the burning wreckage.
“What’s the picture for?”
“For our superiors. We are going to be decorated after this night is done.”
“Where the hell is Tess?” Chase yelled, as they came to an open level, which seemed to be a large indoor firing rage with them as the targets.
“Hopefully they aren’t going to send a Reaper predator drone to unload its payload of hellfire missiles into this place.”
Chase shuddered. “That’s what they’re going to do!” He looked around as if wanting to find an easy way out, but he knew they couldn’t leave until the laser weapon was disarmed.
Wen stripped three agents of their ECGs and quickly cleared the floor. “Where are we going?” she asked Chase.
“Four more floors down.”
She shook her head. “Call Tess.”
He took out his phone as they continued down the metal steps. “Can’t get a signal.”
She checked hers. “Damn, I should have thought of that, it’s a secure facility. All signals blocked.”
“Maybe we can find a land line.”
“They’ll likely have biosensors.”
“Don’t worry, The Astronaut has already alerted Tess.” Then he thought of the hellfire missiles and wondered if the predator drone was already overhead.
Washington DC - April 3rd - 4:09 pm
Tess and Gatewood, along with the new DARPA head, Coco, sat in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, under the White House, with other top officials. As a precaution, the president was in the doomsday plane, ready to launch nuclear strikes on Russia. The three of them reviewed the DARPA simulations and other reports on the pyramid laser attack.
“Where did this come from,” Tess asked. “Even we don’t have this kind of technology, yet.”
“Yes we do.” Coco said.
Tess looked at Gatewood.
He nodded.
“A pyramid from space,” she said.
“Quite elaborate,” Coco said. “But without the target city, we can’t stop it, and even then, we don’t know where the other legs of the pyramid are, or which of the thousands of satellites up there is the one acting as the key sight.”
“So now another arms race, this one secret, silent, and science based, has brought us to the brink,” Tess said.
“The Russians brought us here,” Coco said. “Proving we are right to be developing these weapons. They got there first, barely, and this time,
apparently they don’t want to be in second place for fifty years.”
Seventy-Four
Mechanicsville, Virginia - April 3rd - 4:11 pm
Chase and Wen burst into a large control room filled with machines and equipment and thousands of pipes and conduits.
Thirty-two Chinese scientists and engineers turned toward them startled.
“It looks like a space aged boiler room, the underbelly of some steam powered rocket ship,” Chase said under his breath to Wen. “Where are the lasers?”
“Who’s in charge?” she yelled in Mandarin, raising her gun.
One older man stepped forward. “Is it just you?” he asked in perfect English.
“What do you mean?” Wen replied.
“The MSS will kill you in a minute,” he said. “Aren’t there more Americans?”
“Where is the ALESSEN?” Chase asked, ignoring his question.
“What is that timer?” Wen asked, looking in horror at a red digital countdown clock, it’s two-foot high numerals showing thirty-two minutes and twenty-one seconds remaining.”
“That’s how long until detonation.”
“No,” Chase said, checking his watch. “We have nine and a half hours left.”
“They moved it up,” the man said sadly. “Washington will be destroyed in thirty-two minutes.”
Chase and Wen looked at each other, desperate and sad, hoping Tu, Zu Mu, and The Astronaut were already out of the city.
“How can we stop it?”
He looked at them confused. “It can’t be stopped.”
“There must be a way,” Chase said, looking around the room.
The man quickly explained that most of the scientists and engineers were essentially held prisoner. “They said they would kill our families,” he said looking at Wen. “I have a big family. At first we didn’t know what they were going to do. We can’t stop it, but we may be able to send it to another location.”
“Like the ocean?” Chase asked. “If we insert another ALESSEN?”
“You have one?” He asked impressed.
“Yes.”
“We can try, maybe conclude with a self-destruct sequence.”
Wen looked at the ticking clock. “Where do we go?”
“To the silo,” the man said.
“What about them?” Chase said, motioning to the thirty-one other scientists. “Can they be trusted? I mean should we just leave them here?”
“They will not stop us,” the man said.
Chase looked at Wen and shrugged.
“Is there anywhere we can lock them?”
“It’s not necessary,” he said.
“I’d feel better,” Wen said. “We can’t have them running around talking to the MSS.”
The scientist was going to argue, but decided against it. “In there.” He showed them a second room that contained computer servers. “It has a secure lock.”
They quickly marched the thirty-one scientists in and locked the door.
“We’ve got to get this done and then back to the chopper,” Chase said. “This isn’t done until we find Tolstoy,” Wen said firmly.
As they walked, the older Chinese man explained, the basics of Fusion. “It’s a nuclear reaction. Understand that multiple atomic nuclei combine to form different atomic nuclei, or often subatomic particles. That’s how they do this. The light elements release energy, and the two opposing forces dance, you see.”
Wen wasn’t listening as she was in full assault mode.
“Yeah,” Chase said, also looking for more MSS.
“So the nuclear force holding protons and neutrons together in the nucleus,” the scientist continued, sounding as if he were a baker describing the perfect cake. “It’s the Coulomb force that creates the magic. It causes positively charged protons to repel each other.”
“How much further?” Wen asked, starting to jog.
“Not much, the process—”
“I meant until we get to the lower control room.”
“Oh, two more floors.” He looked around as if missing more students. “The nuclear binding forces are much more persuasive, shall we say, than the forces holding electrons in orbit around a nucleus. That’s the reason fusion fuels offer infinitely higher energy density, fusion is a million times denser than fossil fuels.”
“But they’re making lasers hotter than the sun,” Chase said, trying to sound interested.
“Yes, well. Proton-proton fusion powers stars like our sun. However, that process would take nearly one billion years.”
“Not very practical.”
Wen opened fire. Chase pulled the old scientist down. “How many?” Chase yelled.
“Too many!”
The firefight lasted six long minutes. In the end, Wen had a stab wound above her hip and the scientist had been shot in the leg.
Chase helped him limp along, while Wen refused any attempt to assist her or check the injury.
“You were saying,” Chase prompted the old man, hoping to take his mind off his bleeding leg. “Powering the sun?”
Yes, well,” he began, his voice now somewhat hoarse and a little shaky. “Deuterium-tritium reaction is best for fusion energy because it overcomes Coulomb repulsion better. It also produces an extraordinarily energetic neutron. That in turn, produces more tritium.”
Chase tried his phone again. Nothing.
“That won’t work here,” the scientist said. “Full lockdown. Can’t even get on the internet without credentials.”
Do you have credentials?”
“No. Only MSS commanders.”
“Speaking of . . . ” Wen began as another dozen MSS stormed in from two adjoining corridors. “Get down!” She lobbed an ECG at one group and fired countless rounds into the other, charging through the smoke and debris like an immortal warrior fighting mythical monsters.
Then she went down, disappearing with a scream into some hidden cavity in the floor.
Seventy-Five
Mechanicsville, Virginia - April 3rd - 4:13 pm
Chase charged ahead, knowing Wen had been so reckless because she was trying to save Tu.
Now he took up the cause, firing into the blind, until his magazine was empty. Like a seasoned soldier, he replaced it in a seamless motion, and continued his rampage. Convinced everyone was dead, he called for Wen. It took a couple of frantic minutes to discover she had dropped down into another level and could not get back up.
“Are you okay?” he yelled down to her.
“Yes, get the scientist and come down. We’re at the silo.”
Chase went back for the scientist and found him on the floor, dead. Several MSS bullets had hit him during the barrage.
Chase realized he had also sustained a wound on his shoulder. There wasn’t much blood and he didn’t think it was serious. He was more concerned with the ALESSEN. He checked it before he dropped down to join Wen. It’s fine.
After some fast wandering, Chase and Wen located the control room and quickly went to work. Chase strained to reach behind the inverted column. His fingers barely reached, but it still wasn’t enough. He could not hold on to the ALESSEN and insert it at the same time.
Looking into the narrow silo, he guessed it had to be fifty feet down, all concrete, and heated coils, it would be certain death. Chase would’ve been willing to sacrifice his life to save the city, and especially Tu, but there was no guarantee he could make the insertion before he fell, and even then, he had the best chance to understand the command panels and to navigate the coded sequence. There must be another way.
“The time,” Wen yelled.
“I know, I can’t get it in.” The heat from the silo was making him sweat. His hand slipping. Chase knew he had to go back.
“Why did they design it this way?” she asked.
“It’s an override, not meant to be done on a regular basis . . . if ever.” That’s when it hit him. They were in a multi-billion-dollar facility, engineers would have designed a way. He looked up the silo. Twenty f
eet above he saw it. “There’s a maintenance vehicle.”
“Where?”
“Two floors up.”
Wen thought of the security force they had just come through. “That’s not going to be easy.”
Chase nodded, although she could not see him. He looked down and back up the silo again, tried one more time to reach the insertion point, but whatever acrobatics he employed, he was still inches short of the proper angle. “It’s the only chance.”
“Then let’s go, the clock is ticking.”
With the sequence underway in the count down, relentlessly evaporating their remaining time, Wen took one last glance around the control room painfully reluctant to open the vault door. She looked out the thick glass window between the impact circles from where the MSS agents had tried to shoot their way through. The view was limited, but she did see one shadow. “Unfortunately, this is not a silent opening door.” She motioned to Chase. He cranked the dial handle all the way counterclockwise until they heard the click. As he pushed it out, she used the massive door as a shield.
The shadow turned out to be three men from the security force. Wen killed them all. They would have to kill everyone they saw, to prevent anyone else from going into the control room. She knew from the schematics and digital blueprints of the facility, that the stairwell which wrapped around the silo was going to be the second door from theirs.
They jogged along the corridor, its walls and ceilings completely covered in pipes and large conduits holding fiberoptic, laser tracers, other cables, and cooling lines. They had not covered this end of the facility before. She had no idea what to expect, and the danger of the unknown kept her on high alert. Wen looked down through the metal grid floor, and recalled the earlier attack where an MSS agent lurking in the dark underbelly came within a centimeter of killing her.