“All right,” Donahue said. “Let’s all get out in the hallway.”
They all went out into the hallway, where Ryan watched them curiously. They sat in jump seats, and logged into VR, using a pointer Stinson pushed to them. Sean, too, as he turned off his personal VR suppressor to participate.
They stood looking at the warhead, with the nosecone and bucket contraption on it, from about twenty feet away.
“We all good?” Donahue asked.
There were nods all around.
“Mr. Stinson, the room is all sealed off?”
“Yes. The HVAC dampers are closed, and I closed both sets of doors on the way out.”
“All right, Mike. When you’re ready.”
The transmitter was in his pocket in the hallway, but Odom set it off from within VR.
“OK, ten seconds,” he said.
The ten seconds seemed to drag, and then there was a tremendous explosion. Glass displays within fifty feet shattered from the concussion. The nosecone burst on the side where most of the plastic explosive was, and it and the upper bucket shot into the air and bounced off the ceiling, clattering around in the displays. The two side buckets shot out to the sides, the cable ties broken, smashing through displays on either side.
The warhead itself remained in place on the heavy stand, but its upper third was deformed and broken. Something in there was on fire, and there were fires among various display items close to the explosion.
“Shit,” Odom said.
“What? It worked, didn’t it.”
“Oh, yeah. That fucker’s busted. No doubt about it. And we’re still here. All good. But the containment’s broken. The whole room is poisoned.”
“We’ve got it sealed off, though, so we’re good, right?” Donahue asked.
“What about the fires?” Odom said. “Hopefully they stay contained, but that one there in the warhead is the packing burning. That’s not good. And these others look like they’re getting bigger, not smaller.”
Several of the displays were burning pretty good now, and threatening to spread.
“Shit. Now what do we do?”
“I can put out the word, now it’s disarmed.”
Dickens composed a message, noting the weapon had been found, and disarmed, and there was a class 1 radiation and chemical release in the Imperial War Museum. He included coordinates, then sent that out emergency priority to Thomas Pitney and the Co-Consul.
“All right. I’ve sent for the cavalry. An N/B/C team should be here within the hour.”
No one noticed Sean Boyle drop out of VR. The next time they saw him he was dragging two heavy fire extinguishers up to the fires. It took Geary a minute to figure it out. You couldn’t move fire extinguishers in a VR projection.
Boyle had dropped out of VR out in the hallway, got two of the fire extinguishers, and dragged them through the airlock doors, one set at a time, to enter the poisoned radioactive room and fight the fires.
Boyle put the fire out in the gaping, twisted cavity in the top of the warhead first, filling the cavity with the heavy foam. Then he started on the display fires. He worked each fire one at a time, aiming at the base of the fire closest to him and letting the propellant carry the foam across the fire.
One extinguisher, a second, finally a third, taken from the wall in the exhibit hall itself, until all the fires were out.
By the time he had finished, Boyle was deteriorating. The cumulative effect of the radiation and the poison gas released from the warhead were taking their toll. Boyle collapsed on the floor near the disabled warhead, leaning up against the side of a display cabinet.
Geary, still in VR, went up to him, knelt by his side. The others stood gathered around the scene.
“That was the bravest thing I have ever seen,” Geary said.
“I had to, Travis. You know? It was my family’s work. My family’s problem. It was mine to fix. I couldn’t let it kill all those people.”
“You saved them all, Sean. You saved all of the people in Imperial City, and trillions beyond. You’ve saved your family, too. From the judgment of history.”
Boyle nodded. He spit up a little blood, coughed on it.
“Travis. Don’t let them cremate me. Please? Have them bag me, and drop me way out in the ocean. The radiation and poison won’t be a big deal there. But don’t let them cremate me. Please?”
“I won’t, Sean.”
One last thing to do. Boyle added a quick note in VR to the letter he had been working on, then transmitted it. He opened his eyes.
“You’ve been a good friend, Travis. You and Nate. Thank you for that. Thank you for showing me the way.”
“You’re very welcome, Sean. It has been our pleasure.”
Boyle coughed up more blood. He looked up at Geary.
“Goodbye, Travis,” he said weakly.
Then he died.
The Nuclear Weapons Team of the Imperial Marines N/B/C Weapons Group were still at the scanning station eighty miles southeast of Imperial City when the emergency message came in.
“All right, you guys. Suit up. We got a hot one.”
The team suited up in hazmat suits before getting on the shuttles. They could do it on the shuttles as well, but it was a lot tougher.
Five minutes later, the shuttles were in the air and heading into Imperial City.
Everyone seemed to show up at once. The arrest team for Sean Boyle, drawn by him shutting off his personal VR suppressor so he could watch the disarming of the bomb, the arrest team for Colonel Daniel Ryan, checking his known haunts, including the Imperial War Museum, and the Nuclear Weapons Team of the Imperial Marines N/B/C Weapons Group all came into the corridor more or less at once.
The major in command of the N/B/C nuclear weapon response team outranked everyone else, and he came up to the group in his hazmat suit with the head covering tossed back.
“What do we have here? Where’s the breach?”
Odom stepped forward, and the major addressed him.
“Mike, you old dog. What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Red. It’s sort o’ my party. That is, I’m the one caused the problem. I disarmed a W25 in there.”
Odom jerked a thumb toward the doors into the exhibit hall.
“I did it the old-fashioned way. It was booby-trapped all to hell, with a QE link to the detonator. It was the only way to shut the damn thing off before somebody set it off.”
“What did you use?”
“About four pounds o’ plastic.”
“Four pounds?” the major asked.
“We aren’t exactly out in space here. I wanted to be sure.”
“So how bad is it in there?”
“Containment broken, packing fire, secondary fires, the whole nine yards,” Odom said.
“Shit. What’s our containment?”
“Couple things. The HVAC to that room is sealed off. Part o’ the fire control. These doors have seals. Double doors, like an airlock. The gap between is at least a little hot. You’re gonna have to set up your access airlock in this hallway. But the fires are out.”
“You know that for sure?” the major asked. “How do you know that?”
“You got VR projectors in there. I’ll push you the pointer. You can go in and look around, see what you got before you go in. Oh, and there’s a dead guy in there.”
“A dead guy?”
“Yeah,” Odom said. “He went in there with a couple fire extinguishers and put the fires out.”
“Fuck me. He just went waltzing into a spill like that with fire extinguishers and no protective gear?”
“Yeah. He didn’t want the fires to spread. To get out of control. They were getting pretty bad. He knew exactly what he was going into, and he did it anyway.”
“No shit,” the major said.
“Oh, and Red? He asked no cremation. We gotta multi-bag him. Burial out at sea.”
“Mike, you know the protocol.”
“It was his last request,” Odom said.
The major hesitated, and Dickens stepped forward.
“I can make a single VR call, and have that be an Imperial request if you wish, Major.”
The major looked at the thin and ascetic Dickens. That was an extraordinary claim, but the major could recognize a serious player when he saw one. He looked around. They were all serious players. That other guy over there looked all business. He was definitely a player. And that was brigade commander insignia on that cadet. There was only one of those in Imperial City. He turned back to Odom.
“All right. Multi-bag. Got it.”
“Thanks, Red,” Odom said.
The major turned and got his men started setting up an access airlock in the hallway, with a big inflatable setup that included a shower system and air filter/recycler.
“What are you here for, Captain?” Donahue asked the head of one of the arrest details.
“I have an Imperial Warrant for Colonel Daniel Ryan, sir.”
“There he is, Captain. He’s all yours.”
Donahue gestured to Ryan, still trussed to the jump seat in the hallway, but now in the way of the N/B/C team.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
The arrest detail cut Ryan loose and led him down the hallway. He was very subdued, having just lost his great-nephew, in part, at least, to his own actions.
“And you, Lieutenant?” Donahue asked the head of the other arrest detail.
“I have an Imperial Warrant for Marine Academy cadet Sean Boyle, sir.”
“You can close your warrant with the notation that Sean Boyle is dead, Lieutenant.”
“I would need to see the body, sir.”
“VR projector work, or do you want to go into a hot zone?”
The lieutenant had no doubts on that score.
“Projector works fine for me, sir.”
Donahue pushed him the address, and the lieutenant went into VR for a few seconds, dropped back out.
“As you say, sir. Thank you, sir.”
With everything under control now, the team made their way back down to the main floor of the museum. After-action reaction was setting in.
“Thanks for that, Mr. Odom,” Geary said. “It was important to him.”
“Guy got stones like that, Brigade Commander,” Odom said, “I got nothing but respect for him.”
“How did the major know you?” Donahue asked.
“Red? We was in advanced nuclear weapons school together. Joint-service school. They don’t teach that stuff to just anybody. You get to know people.”
Odom shrugged.
“He knows his stuff. I ain’t worried about them handling that little mess I made. Piece o’ cake for him. Speaking of cake, anybody else skip breakfast? We oughta go eat or somethin’.”
“I would welcome you all as my guests at cafeteria this morning,” Geary said. “Just across the street.”
They were a strange sight in the IUC Residence cafeteria that morning for late breakfast – Donahue, Dickens, Odom, Stinson, Geary, and Benton – but no one said anything. They had all stared Death in the face that morning. None of them had been found wanting.
And none of them looked like the sort of people one wanted to mess with.
Reaction
Paul Diener had gotten the second emergency message from his unnamed correspondent that morning, telling him they had found the device and deactivated it, and informing him of the radiation and toxic chemical spill at the Imperial War Museum. He had immediately directed the Imperial Marines to dispatch a clean-up team to the museum, then put in a meeting request to Their Majesties.
Diener was surprised to get an invitation to join Their Majesties at breakfast. He realized with a start he had not had breakfast yet himself, was, in fact, still in his and Claire’s apartment in the Imperial Residence. He accepted in VR, then walked down the hall of his side of the floor, across the elevator lobby, and down the hall of the Imperial Apartments until he got to the dining room.
“Hi, Paul. Come in and have a seat,” Ardmore said.
“My parents have eaten already,” Burke said. “We couldn’t eat, waiting for news, then decided that was silly. You have news, I take it.”
“Gail, Jimmy,” Diener said, nodding to each in turn then taking a seat. “Great news. Crisis over.”
“Order. Then talk,” Ardmore said.
Diener gave his order to the chef standing by – fruit crepes with sausages on the side, toast, orange juice, and coffee – and then filled them in.
“My mystery correspondent burned through my controls with another emergency message that they had found and disarmed the nuclear device. They created a radiation and toxic chemical spill thereby, and needed a cleanup team. So I asked the Imperial Marines N/B/C unit to respond.”
“Where was the device, Paul?” Burke asked.
“On display in the Imperial War Museum.”
“Hidden in plain sight.”
“Apparently so. There’s been a remodeling of the museum going on, and when they sent the decommissioned nuclear warhead out for refurbishment, they brought back a real one.”
“Why was there a spill, Paul?” Ardmore asked.
“I don’t know all the details yet, but the weapon was booby trapped. They apparently blew up the device with chemical explosives rather than try to disarm it.”
“Makes sense,” Burke said.
“And the fellow running the museum refurbishment was on the arrest list. We only got his alias today when the Medusa message was sent out.”
“That was probably the motivation behind the remodeling in the first place,” Ardmore said.
“Most likely. The important news, though, is the crisis is over. We found the device, and I think that was their big play.”
“I do, too,” Burke said. “No bigger play than blowing up Imperial City.”
“I imagine there will be all sorts of reports and such,” Ardmore said. “How they got it into the city, how the interrogations went, how they found it, how they disarmed it. All that sort of thing.”
“Oh, yes, Jimmy. We’re going to find out what all went on. Close some loopholes. Reward some people. Punish others. All of that.”
“Good. Keep us informed, please.”
“Of course.”
Thomas Pitney got the first of his reports from Dickens and Donahue. It had clearly been a major stroke of luck Donahue had brought Odom along, although, thinking about it, the Imperial Marines N/B/C team would have been as capable.
The Imperial War Museum custodian and Imperial Marine Academy students they had found already on scene had also played a major role. Sealing off the exhibit hall before the explosion played a large role in containing the spill, and the incredible act of selflessness by one cadet to go into the hot zone to put out the fires before they compromised the building had turned a bad situation into a manageable one.
Pitney wrote his own executive summary, then attached his agent reports and sent them to the Co-Consul and Their Majesties.
One more thing to consider now was where to dispatch his teams next. Donleavy and Perkins had worked out really well together, and Odom was clearly an asset worth having. Pitney sent a note to Donahue about Odom, then considered his ‘worry list’ in terms of where to send them next.
Breakfast complete, and Donahue, Dickens, Odom, and Stinson all having departed, Geary and Benton sat around the table in the nearly empty cafeteria nursing a pot of coffee.
“Well, I was right about the right man, in the right place, at the right time,” Geary said. “It just wasn’t me.”
“How do you figure, Travis?” Benton asked.
“It was Sean. He was the one who made the sacrifice, saved the city from a major contamination event there at the end. And he came to us about the conspiracy in the first place.”
“You might just as well say it was Phil Stinson, who noticed the warhead being warm to the touch and brought it to you. Or Odom, who knew what to do about it. Or even Colonel Ryan, who told Donahue what all the
booby-traps were. And don’t forget, it was your talks with Sean that convinced him that his family and their plans were fucked up.”
They hadn’t known Stinson’s first name until breakfast that morning, when he had insisted that, after the events of that morning, they were certainly on a first-name basis, at least in private.
“I suppose,” Geary said. “In the end, it was a team effort. Hard to see who you could have left out of that group and still gotten the same effect.”
“Me, maybe.”
“Other than being the cross-check on Odom’s proposal, knowing the warhead being warm was a warning sign, helping Phil get the nosecone off, helping me in turning Sean. Other than those kinds of things, you mean?”
“OK, I did some stuff. Team effort, like you say.”
They sat in silence for a while. The events of that morning would continue to play out in their heads for a while.
“Poor Sean,” Geary said at last. “What a waste.”
“Not a waste, Travis,” Benton said. “That’s the wrong way to look at it.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling, but I don’t think we’ve heard the end of what that incredible act of bravery will amount to.”
Lina Schneider was reviewing the investigation map. All of the contacts who had been picked up were indicated. She was focusing now on the ones outstanding. As she watched, another two were checked off as having been apprehended.
The focus now would switch to the interrogations of those arrested, and the reconstruction of the conspiracy from those. Who knew what about this, and when? Who were the planners, the organizers, the implementers, all up and down the chain?
This was going to go on a while.
“Hey, I got a note from my boss,” Donahue said.
“He happy with you?” Odom asked.
“You might say that. He wanted to know if you wanted a job.”
“Doin’ what?”
“Working with me. Going around where there’s trouble, figuring out what’s going on. Fixing it, if it comes to that.”
EMPIRE: Resurgence Page 16