Extinction

by Ray Hammond

  Before leaving, Michael had done his best to make his house secure from looters, but he suspected it might have suffered a break-in. While he had been preparing to fly to Europe, the local authorities had kept advising all residents to stay close to their homes, damaged or not, because the scourge of looting had escalated into such a problem that the army was permitted to stun-gun looters on sight. Michael had taken most of his portable valuables round to his elderly neighbours who, horrified by his bereavement, were only too willing to help.

  On his arrival, he decided that his first task must be to find out from the authorities how long it would take before his house could be properly checked for structural damage. Then, if it was worth repairing at all, it would have to be re-roofed. He supposed that he could probably manage to camp out in one of the damaged rooms for a couple of nights.

  He was also planning to contact – if possible visit – both Professor Robert Fivetrees and Dr Emilia Knight, to discuss with them when they could schedule some time to appear in The Hague as just two of his many expert witnesses.

  Michael had now taken possession of a new office in Brussels, although he sometimes worried whether, in the aftermath of the world’s worst-ever recorded seismic catastrophe, others might think he was acting with unseemly haste. But to himself he justified the speed of his actions by the urgent need to bring the potential dangers of climate management to international attention. This flurry of activity had allowed him little time to brood about Ben, Matthew and Lucy, but he was surprised at just how deeply his ex-wife’s death had affected him – he felt it just as keenly as if they had never been through a painful divorce.

  His new European base could not have been more different to the ultra-modern premises occupied by his old firm in the Embarcadero Space Needle. The third-floor corner office in Brussels city centre overlooked the Chaussée de Charleroi and boasted three large curved windows of intricate leaded and stained-glass design. These were considered an important architectural feature of the elaborate Art Nouveau building, which the firm of Beauchamp, Seifert and Co had occupied since it had first opened in 1902.

  Fine antiques filled Michael’s new working environment and he already had a legal assistant, three full-time European litigation lawyers and a dozen paralegals all working on the preparations for the first round of his landmark case. EU Immigration officials had issued their approval for him to work as an ‘alien professional’ within Europe for two years, though he anticipated that he would now have to split his time equally between the two continents.

  The plane landed smoothly and, after what seemed like an interminable time as it waited for a gate, Michael finally reached the arrivals hall, only to find it hopelessly mobbed. He realized that it would be a long time before he cleared Immigration and, perhaps, an even longer time before his baggage arrived on one of the many overcrowded carousels. With a mental groan he tagged onto the end of a long line shuffling towards a row of passport-inspection counters.

  Since the earthquake, Sacramento International Airport had been attempting to operate at six times its normal capacity. Following the loss of both San Francisco and Oakland International airports, it had become the only terminus in Northern California capable of handling international flights, and the only remaining hub for the endless number of military and government planes which flew people and resources in and out of the disaster area.

  Temporary dispensation had been given by the FAA for flights to continue arriving and departing throughout the night hours, and many civilian flights had also been suspended. But these measures proved to be of only marginal assistance. The main problems were lack of apron space for aircraft parking, lack of terminal facilities to handle such large numbers of passengers, a shortage of trained Immigration staff to process international arrivals, and a serious shortfall in baggage-handling facilities.

  ‘Mr Michael Benjamin Fairfax?’

  The lawyer turned from his place in the shuffling queue to see a pale, bespectacled young man in a creased brown suit, beside whom stood an airport cop with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt.

  ‘Yes?’

  The young man flashed a badge. ‘US Immigration. Would you please follow me, sir?’

  ‘My bags,’ protested Michael, pointing towards the distant bank of carousels. People in the line were now staring at him as if he were an illegal immigrant – or a terrorist.

  ‘We’ll have them collected for you, sir,’ said the immigration officer. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’

  Puzzled, Michael followed his guide from the arrivals hall, heading through a security door and into a harshly lit labyrinth of interior corridors. The cop plodded along close behind them.

  Eventually the immigration official halted and punched a combination of numbers into a wall panel. Michael was ushered into a windowless interview room containing a rectangular white table, six chairs, a wall-screen, and a pair of surveillance video cameras suspended from the ceiling.

  Three suited men rose from positions around the table.

  ‘Mr Fairfax,’ said the nearest man. He was very tall, teak-black, completely bald, and dressed in a silver-threaded grey suit. ‘Please take a seat.’ He indicated a vacant chair at one end of the table.

  ‘Is there some problem?’ asked Michael.

  ‘My name is John Defoe,’ said the tall man. He held out a badge. ‘National Security Agency. This is Mr Reynolds, from the Defense Nuclear Agency and this gentleman’ – he pointed to the third man at the other end of the table – ‘is also a government employee. Mr White is attached to the Pentagon.’

  ‘What is this?’ asked the lawyer, his voice growing firm. He had now guessed precisely what this was about, but he didn’t like these men’s tactics nor their body language.

  ‘Please sit down,’ said the NSA agent who had provided the brief introductions.

  As Michael did so, the others resumed their places and waited while the immigration officer and the cop both left the room.

  ‘Mr Fairfax, it has come to our attention that you have revealed a number of US state secrets on international television, and you have done so knowing them to be the subject of National Secrecy Orders,’ said Agent Defoe.

  The lawyer felt adrenalin rush into his brain, dispelling the weariness of his journey. This encounter was happening far sooner than he had anticipated – but he was ready for it.

  ‘Then I suggest that you prosecute me,’ he said, careful not to smile, nor to show any hint of arrogance or impertinence. He knew the video recording of this interview might become evidence to be used against him. But he also knew that the last thing they would want to do would be to prosecute him, not now that he was an associate partner in the highest-profile human-rights law firm in the world. And not unless they wanted the information he had to be repeated in gory detail during a televised US court hearing.

  ‘Who told you about the nature of the rock samples found on the Samoan volcano?’ asked Reynolds, the man from the Defense Nuclear Agency.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ said Michael, once again carefully keeping his face impassive.

  ‘Why not?’ his questioner asked, equally unemotionally.

  ‘That would be a breach of attorney-client privilege.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the Nuclear Agency man. ‘What further details do you yourself know about these rock samples?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, either,’ said Michael.

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘That too would be a breach of attorney-client privilege.’

  ‘And under what jurisdiction would such privilege be protected?’

  ‘Under both Californian and Federal law. As you must know.’

  ‘But we’re not in the USA at the moment. Legally we’re still in extra-national territory.’

  ‘Nothing is outside the law when it comes to attorney-client privilege – as you must surely well know,’ the lawyer said gently.

  ‘Except when it comes to plutonium, uranium
and materials that can be used to construct nuclear weapons,’ snapped the man from the Pentagon, speaking for the first time. ‘The Patriot Act of 2002 specifically gives authorized agents of the US government the right to detain any individual, whether US citizen or alien, both within the United States and in overseas territories that have reciprocal extradition treaties, if that individual is suspected of being involved with terrorist organizations.’

  He paused, drumming his fingertips on the table top. ‘I can detain you in a US military facility indefinitely, Mr Fairfax, and there is no leave to appeal, no right to a hearing. I don’t even need to prosecute you.’

  Michael struggled not to show his alarm at such extreme threats. ‘But why would you think I am involved with terrorists? You must know my record as a civil-law attorney?’

  ‘Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Planet First Organization?’ continued the man originally introduced as Mr White.

  ‘I am not and never have been,’ said Michael clearly.

  ‘Why, then, did you visit Carole Gonzaga at Lompoc State Penitentiary?’ asked Defoe.

  ‘Because I am a lawyer and she asked me to,’ Michael told him. Then he added, ‘I’m sure you already know that she was a friend from my university days, so I also felt personally obliged to go and see her. Unfortunately I don’t do criminal work so I recommended Mr Mitchell Tonks from my firm – from my previous firm – to handle her case.’

  ‘I presume that the planetary geophysicist you mentioned in your press conference is Robert Fivetrees?’ probed the man from the Defense Nuclear Agency.

  ‘I’m afraid that information too is covered by attorney-client privilege,’ stated Michael, his tone more defiant than he now actually felt.

  ‘Fivetrees is another known PFO terrorist sympathizer,’ said Defoe, a man so shiningly bald that the sutures of his skull could be clearly made out.

  The representative of the Pentagon rose to his feet and walked around the table. He stood with one hand on the back of a vacant chair, staring down at the interviewee. Then he pulled the chair out from the table and sat heavily in it, shoving his face forward until it was no more than a foot from Michael’s own.

  ‘Did Dr Knight keep any of that plutonium back for herself?’ he asked quietly.

  Michael stared back at him, appalled. He now understood what this was about. They’d put two and two together and made five.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I would think that very unlikely.’

  ‘Mr Fairfax, have you yourself passed weapons-grade plutonium on to the PFO?’

  Michael stared at his questioner in shock. ‘Of course not,’ he protested. ‘I wouldn’t–’

  ‘Have you set up a supply route of plutonium for them?’

  ‘Look, I have no connection with either the PFO or plutonium,’ snapped Michael. ‘I’m merely here to prepare my legal case against the energy companies.’

  All three interrogators stared at him for a few seconds.

  ‘If that’s true,’ said Defoe, ‘I warn you strongly to have no more contact with Fivetrees or Gonzaga. We now intend to take the PFO down, one way or the other.’

  The NSA agent allowed his words to hang in the air for a while, to give Michael the time to understand fully the nature of the threat they contained. Then White spoke again.

  ‘Mr Fairfax,’ he began. ‘Many people do have sympathy for your clients on the hulk ships. But don’t allow that particular case to get tangled up with matters of national security. If you ignore this warning, and attempt to produce evidence in the court at The Hague that is the subject of a US National Security Order, you will be immediately stripped of your licence to practise law in the state of California.’

  ‘You know you can’t do that,’ Michael told him, holding his gaze. ‘The State Bar of California would never–’

  ‘Yes, we can,’ insisted the Pentagon man. ‘Your licence will be revoked by Federal order, under the Patriot Act. Then, if you persist in using this evidence, your arrest will be sought no matter where you are in the world and, under that same Act, you will be repatriated to a US facility here or abroad, where you will be detained indefinitely as an enemy of the state. There is no appeal.’

  The man’s dark stare seemed to bore into Michael’s brain. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

  *

  By the middle of the twenty-first century, successive administrations had excavated beneath the White House grounds to extend the executive offices as far south as the Washington Needle. Unbeknown to the millions of tourists who each year tramped along the grassy Mall, the world’s most powerful nation conducted much of its business directly beneath their feet.

  The most recent facility to be added to this large subterranean complex was the Situation Theater, the President’s enhanced personal command centre, from which he or she could conduct wars, manage crises, organize coups, and ponder how best to lead a bitterly divided world. Capable of holding up to 300 advisers, military staff and executives, the ‘ST’ was reached by a new underground shuttle that ran from a small terminus beneath the Oval Office directly into the Theater itself. The journey took just three minutes.

  ‘So what have you got for me this evening?’ asked President James T. Underwood as he stepped from the shuttle and headed up into the centre of the ST.

  An aide extended a laser panel, touched a holo button, and the Theater’s circular viewing area was filled with a large 3-D image of a sun-swept ocean. The air filled with the smell of ozone, while hidden loudspeakers added an audio simulation of the sea itself.

  ‘This comes live from one of our own satellites, sir,’ said General Thomas P. Crouch, chief of the Pentagon Liaison Staff, as the President eased himself into his command chair. ‘We’re now looking at a point in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and California.’

  The cameras zoomed in to reveal a large convoy of ships, too many to be quickly counted. Then the lenses tightened on a huge white vessel at the centre of the flotilla that dwarfed all of the other ships around her.

  ‘That’s the Global Haven, sir,’ said the general. ‘The hulk people are now heading towards our own territorial waters.’

  ‘Do we know what they want?’ asked the President.

  ‘We received a message at eleven hundred hours Eastern Time. They’re offering to dock and surrender the Global Haven at Long Beach – in exchange for receiving US residency rights for all the people currently on those ships.’

  The President shot a disbelieving glance at the general, and then at the small group of White House aides who were hovering behind him.

  ‘How many people, exactly?’ asked Underwood.

  ‘They claim they only have a rough headcount, sir. But approximately two hundred thousand.’

  ‘Two hundred thousand!’ repeated Underwood, alarmed. ‘How long before they enter our waters?’

  ‘They’re steaming very slowly,’ said the general, ‘because they’re having to tow some of their vessels that have broken down. At their present rate, we estimate about three and a half days.’

  Mirza Fehimovic, the president’s assistant press secretary, stepped forward to speak, quietly directing his remarks only at his boss. ‘Sir, imagine that picture appearing on the front page of the Washington Post, or the New York Times. It looks like an invasion force.’

  James Underwood nodded. It did indeed look like an invasion force. ‘We’d better head them off,’ he decided. ‘What can you send out from San Diego?’

  The general had prepared fully for this meeting. ‘Almost nothing, sir. We’ve got just one carrier group in harbour at present, but they’re on R-and-R. Almost everything else has gone north to San Francisco to assist in the clean-up.’

  ‘Pearl Harbor?’ asked the President.

  ‘The Pacific Fleet is at readiness, sir. Admiral Millington is standing by for your orders.’

  ‘What if we decided to retake the Global Haven?’

  ‘We have two fully equipped SEAL platoons training in H
awaii, sir. They could sail with the fleet.’

  ‘Put them to sea, General,’ said Underwood. ‘This has gone far enough. I want the Global Haven retaken and those ships turned back – before I read about them in the Washington Post.’

  *

  Michael Fairfax arrived home in Sausolito to find that looters had left his damaged house untouched. Neither had they violated any of the other properties in his street, since the residents had organized themselves into a neighbourhood watch and had taken it in turns to stand armed guard at both ends of the road during the worst of the post-earthquake looting.

  Eight weeks after the cataclysm there seemed to be almost an air of normality about the area. Michael found rain damage to his living room and his spare bedroom, but the rest of the house was still relatively intact. Power, gas and water supplies had been restored, and he had now spent two days rigging up canvas sheeting to keep out any further water ingress. He had not yet found the courage to board one of the many extra ferries laid on by the navy to shuttle people to and from the devastated downtown area.

  His interview with the government agents at Sacramento Airport had lasted almost three hours. Then he had been escorted back through Immigration to the baggage hall only to discover that, while he had been detained, US Customs had ripped open and searched through every one of his bags. They had then left his clothes and toilet articles in a heap for him to repack. They had also managed to crack the glass in the silver frame containing a photograph of Lucy, Matthew and Ben.

  During the days he had spent at home with his parents, Michael had pondered the real significance of the warnings he had been given. He had checked the statutes and discovered that the US government did indeed still have laws that gave it rights of detention without trial – extreme and inhuman statutes that dated from the early part of the century, when the American people had suffered their first ever major terrorist atrocity on home soil. Outrage, hurt pride and jingoistic nationalism had been exploited by the neo-conservative administration of the time to slip though laws so draconian that even the Spanish Inquisition would have thought twice before using them.