Peter quickly confirmed that he had in fact killed the correct person since he’d had no time for a positive identification beforehand. He arranged the body so that it might appear to be resting to a casual observer, locked all the doors, then slipped out the far side rear door, crouching in the ditch beside the car for another scan of the area. Still no one. He didn’t dare walk back along the shoulder of the road to his car, so crossed the ditch and made his way thirty yards into the park before turning and paralleling the road back toward his car. Peter froze when he glimpsed the owner of the sedan parked in front of the X2 returning along the foot path to the trailhead and then to his car. The man paused and seemed puzzled to see the X2 still there but got into his car and drove off.
Minutes later Peter was in the Ford, which he drove to a suitable location and abandoned, unlocked and with the keys in the ignition. It was too much of a piece of junk to interest any professional car thief, but the local youth gangs could be counted on to look after it. He took a series of buses back to the cycle shop and collected his bike, then headed to the post box to get the payment. By one o’clock in the afternoon, he was southbound on I-5, which he took only as far as Albany before cutting across to pick up U.S. Route 101, the coastal road, at Newport. He drove carefully, not wanting to be placed in Oregon because of a driving infraction, even though he had solid, clean false ID. By seven o’clock that night, he was across the California border. He checked in at a slightly dilapidated motel in Smith River, had a shower and a shave, grabbed some fast food and then collapsed into his first comfortable sleep in several nights.
***
The hit and subsequent departure from Portland had been just the day before. That morning Peter had slept until seven o’clock in the morning at the motel in Smith River before grabbing a quick breakfast and continuing south on U.S. Route 101. Half an hour before, at noon, he had exited onto California State Route 20 and was enjoying the relaxed pace of the Lake County highway. He was fast approaching his destination, the town of Lucerne on the shores of Clear Lake, one of California’s largest bodies of fresh water. Having mulled over his previous day’s work he could find nothing that he wished he had done differently. Perhaps if things had turned out less favorably he would have regretted some of his choices, but as it was he was pleased.
The fact that he had snuffed out a human life meant nothing to Peter. He had no idea who the person was, he had very few details about their life and had no interest in knowing. All he was interested in was the cash in his saddlebags, though that would have to be laundered through the cash receipt systems of several legitimate corporations that the club owned. It wasn’t that Peter enjoyed killing. For him it was simply a means to an end — either a service to others for payment, as with the Portland job, or the removal of an obstacle to something he wanted. He felt no compunction or remorse, but he didn’t enjoy it the way he enjoyed beating a physical challenger into submission, which rarely resulted in death.
Ahead on the shoulder of the road he spotted the half-ton truck he was looking for. He had alerted his crew when he had turned onto Route 20. After exchanging greetings, he followed the truck up a winding side road for twenty minutes, then along a sandy wooded trail for another quarter of a mile. He emerged into a prairie of rolling hills with a pretty little lake nestled in the middle and gentle wooded slopes ranging west back down toward the much larger Clear Lake and up toward the east as far as he could see. There were a few small buildings tucked into one end of the lake. All in all he liked the look of it, with the blue waters of Clear Lake spread out below his vantage point.
For quite some time Peter had been working to disaster-proof the club’s financial position. Their considerable wealth was spread around a number of separate investment accounts and bank accounts registered to various dummy corporations that had been established for that purpose.
The representatives of each corporation who were authorized to make transactions on each account always included Peter and one or two other lieutenants, though not the same ones on every account. He kept three separate independent pools. The signing officers all used false IDs, which were well established with the banks. Statements were all handled electronically, as were investment instructions and monetary transfers. Anyone attempting to trace any of those financial affairs back to the club would find very little to go on, and the law firms who hosted the dummy companies were instructed to immediately alert the club if anyone started snooping around.
Peter was pretty confident that if the club’s base near Twin Falls, Idaho, was ever taken out by law enforcement, despite his efforts at concealment, the club would retain control over ample financial resources to reestablish itself as long as either he or a few other key leaders escaped. They would have the resources required for high-priced lawyers to represent any club members charged with criminal offenses, and to make life easier for anyone actually convicted. However, he had decided some months ago that in addition to the financial safety net, the club needed a physical disaster recovery site at which members could gradually re-congregate and use as a new base from which to mount whatever defense was called for.
In his travels Peter had gained some familiarity with both the coastal region and Lake County of Northern California. Both areas appealed to him, and he felt either one would be far enough from the Idaho base to allow plenty of space for the club to disburse and break contact with any pursuit but close enough to reach in a reasonable period of time. Earlier in the summer he had dispatched the small team that was gathered around him now, including his senior lieutenant, Angelo Calavechia.
The group’s assignment had been to scout the area around Clear Lake for a suitable property. They were authorized to acquire a half-ton truck and a small car for their scouting activities to avoid appearing to be what they were, part of a motorcycle gang. They were meant to remain as inconspicuous as possible in every way, including dressing in civilian clothing. If they were to establish a base in the area they would not want it to be known as a cycle gang hangout to either nearby homeowners, law enforcement, or especially one of the California-based gangs who would likely act to repel an invasion of their territory. Angelo was no angel, but he could clean up enough to pass for a corporate executive with anyone they needed to deal with.
Angelo’s first words were, “Boss, I know you wanted a property on the big lake, but in three months of looking this is the place that best fits all of your requirements. You can see Clear Lake, it’s a twenty-minute drive away, and this place has its own little private lake, as you can see, which has pretty decent fishing. It’s well away from other homeowners with a full section of land for privacy.
“The whole area is covered in horse trails, or ATV trails, both on this property and on adjacent land, so we can ensure we’ve got multiple escape routes for the bikes. Also, we can access several different roads that lead into the Mendocino National Forest, which is a short hop from here and provides plenty of room to disappear. We just couldn’t find a place right on the lake with enough privacy and that couldn’t be easily surrounded and cut off. We have a conditional offer on this property, subject to the approval of the senior partner, you. It would take a little more money than what you want to spend, but we could layout another few hundred thousand and also buy another small place right on the lake if you want.”
Peter smiled at the team and could see their relief that he wasn’t disappointed or angry. “That’s fine, guys,” he said. “It looks like a great location. The lakeshore was just a personal whim. Privacy, security and emergency egress are much more important. How much is this going to set us back?”
Angelo replied, “The place was up for three and a half million, but it has been on the market for a while and we were able to negotiate them down to two point eight million. I know it’s a lot, plus we would have to build a club house and a bedroom wing. There is a small cabin just over there that was once a hunting cabin. It would do for a few of us, but it’s not anywhere near big enough for all of us. That�
��ll probably run us another half million or so.”
“You’re right,” Peter replied, “That’s more than I thought we’d need to spend, but we’ve got the money and we do need a backup base. What else can you tell me about the suitability of the area?”
“Boss, it seems like it would work well,” Angelo said. “There are the two towns within easy driving distance, Lucerne and Nice, with several grocery stores to spread our business around. We would front this place as a private hunting club and there is lots of hunting here, turkey, wild pigs and deer. So, we would not draw any attention with an occasional large grocery shopping list divided up among the local stores.
“We have also been keeping an eye out for both local law enforcement and other bikers as you asked us to. The Lake County Sheriff’s Department is the primary law enforcement. They are definitely around, but they have a lot of ground to cover so we’d have to go out of our way to attract their attention. Of course, they would call in support from the state police, which they call the California Highway Patrol, for anything serious. We’ve seen very little biker activity, a few solo riders of small groups of six or less, mostly just recreational riders, not hard cases. Again, it seems unlikely we’d attract any action as long as we keep a low profile.”
“All right guys, you’ve done well,” said Peter. “I agree, this seems like a good location even if it is pricey. Let’s go ahead and close. Angelo, you have access to the funds you’ll need. This is now your project, so I am going to have to ask you to stay here and coordinate everything needed to establish a base here for the whole club. Have a proper set of plans drawn up for a clubhouse that can double as a hunting lodge and send them to me. I’d like to move things along as quickly as possible. You never know when we might need it. The rest of you have a choice. If you are tired of being here, then you can ride back home with me tomorrow and we’ll rotate some other guys in to support Angelo. Or, you can stay here. I think you’ll find the winter here a lot easier to take than back in Idaho. Just let me know.
“Now, I could use some lunch and then, if you have any fishing gear, I’d like to try out our private lake.”
Chapter 14
Mid-November, 2027
El Peñón summit (9,000 feet) near Vicuña, Chile
Following Darya’s discovery of a previously unidentified transient object sitting somewhere between a star in the Sagittarius constellation and the Earth, the ensuing investigation was initially a routine matter. Although the location of the object was unusual, the detection and tracking of such objects was an ongoing activity at the LSST, and in fact was one of the primary reasons it had been constructed.
The tracking process was standardized and largely automated. It began by confirming the detection of the object by immediately recording several fresh pictures with the telescope’s viewing field centered on the object, then running these back through the transient object detection program. This had all happened immediately following the initial alert, and it did in fact confirm that a star in Sagittarius, which would normally be completely visible, had disappeared from sight.
The disappearance of the star could mean that it had been engulfed by a massive black hole, but there would typically be evidence of that for some time both before and after. Since there was no evidence of the massive energy flux from the destruction of a star, it was much more likely that the star had simply been temporarily occluded by another object, a dark one, passing between it and the point of view from the observatory. It was important to verify the occlusion fairly quickly. Depending on the velocity of the object, how nearly perpendicular its path of movement lay to the line of sight from the observatory, and how far out along that line of sight the object was situated, it could soon complete its traverse in front of the star and then once again be undetectable against the dark interstellar background.
At this point almost nothing could be known about the object other than that it existed and was moving. No estimate could be made of its diameter, mass, or velocity, or even whether it was traveling to the left or right, upward or downward relative to the star, or toward it or away from it. All of this would require further observation of successive positions of the object. However, such observations could only occur if and when the object occluded additional stars.
Estimating the object’s orbit would require at least three observations spaced out over a long enough period for the object to have covered a good distance along its path. However, initially, repeated observations were taken over fairly short intervals of time, starting at minutes and gradually lengthening out to an hour. This was required because, until the next sighting of an occluded star, there was no way to know in which direction the object was moving and therefore it was important to determine that direction before the object moved outside the telescope’s viewing field. Once the second observation could be obtained it would be possible to track its direction from there. In the meanwhile, the telescope remained centered on the initial observation. Fortunately the LSST had an extremely wide viewing field and so it was very likely that it would spot the next star occlusion no matter which direction that lay from the initial observation, or how far away.
Two nights later, at the initial hourly scan of the occluded star’s location, it was seen to have reappeared, signifying that the transient object had moved on in whatever direction it was moving. Nothing further of note occurred for two weeks, and the observatory settled back into its regular schedule of astronomical research projects. The hourly scans lasted about a minute and were barely noticeable at the end of each scheduled project’s allotted hour. Darya had been able to resume her research almost immediately and was quickly approaching the end of the data gathering phase of her thesis. Although she would have no direct role in charting the path of the new object, she still found herself pulling up the pictures from the hourly scans to gaze at and ponder the nature of her discovery.
A couple of weeks later the Big Eye’s transient object detection program once again caught sight of the object, or rather it lost sight of another star that the object had passed in front of. One of the advantages of searching in this part of the sky was the huge number of known stars surrounding the background behind the object, leaving it with little scope to disappear for long once first spotted. In this case the second star to be occluded was located in close proximity to the initial observation, slightly to the right and above the initial observation in the telescope’s field of view.
Based on the apparent arc in which the object had travelled in the span of two weeks, the observatory’s sophisticated software had developed an array of projected potential paths and a search pattern to be initiated the following night at two-hour intervals. The computer’s search pattern took into consideration the location of the background stars most likely to be occluded by the transient object on each of its various possible paths.
That morning the senior scientist on site approved the computer-generated search plan after a quick review, knowing that he could never match the computer’s effectiveness on such a task. He also e-mailed a heads-up to his counterpart at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, letting him know that they were tracking a fresh transient object and would be forwarding data over in the next few weeks. As a technical matter, the LSST observatory had the ability to map out at least an approximate orbit for the object and extrapolate the risk of it intersecting Earth’s orbit at some future date, at a time when the Earth was at the intersection point itself. However, the quants at the JPL were the true experts in orbital mechanics and were mandated by NASA to carry out this analysis.
Nevertheless, with two sightings now in hand as well as the approximate time required for the object to clear away from in front of the initial star, the first clues to the object’s path were beginning to emerge. Based on this data, it appeared that the object was either moving relatively slowly or it was quite far out in the distant reaches of the solar system, or a combination of the two. The other possibility was that its orbital path was a c
lose parallel to the line of sight from the observatory to the initial observation point. In that case, its apparent displacement from one observation to the next would still appear to be small from the viewing point of the observatory, but in fact the object could be relatively close to the core of the solar system and moving fairly quickly. Only time would tell.
Chapter 15
December 2, 2027
Boston, Massachusetts/Desert Wadi, near Sirte, Libya
Larry Johnstone was in seventh heaven. After years of scrimping to buy equipment for his research out of his limited grants and often out of his own shallow pockets, he now had a virtually unlimited budget. Better still, his dream of supplying fresh water to an increasingly thirsty world was taking a giant step forward. He looked on as four separate teams of technicians put the finishing touches on four large membrane capacitive deionization cells constructed using the membrane and electrode materials and scaled-up cell geometry from his basic design. This brought the total of completed cells to sixteen.
Each cell was exactly a hundred times the size of his laboratory scale model. Once eight more cells were ready to go, the plant they were designed for would have a target capacity of two million gallons per day, enough to supply the household needs of a 150,000-person city if usage was carefully managed. It would require another two additional such plants to irrigate the agricultural production required to feed such a city, assuming low water intensive crops such as beets, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes, and strawberries, and chicken as the primary protein source.
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