by Jack Du Brul
There were a couple of people in the room. Mercer guessed that the tall and balding man with a smug look on his face had to be Fortescue. Booker tried the vault handle and shook his head at Mercer.
“Can you communicate with them from here?” Mercer asked the tech.
“Yes.” The man pointed to an updated workstation with a modern headset.
Mercer strode over. The mousy scientist backed off, his eyes darting to Book, who stood with his wicked-looking weapon at the ready. Mercer slipped the headset over his ears and adjusted the tiny microphone. “Fortescue, you need to listen to me.”
Beyond the glass, the professor slipped on his own headset. “I believe I know who you are. Roland warned me a while back about someone interfering with our plans, but poor Niklaas there said you were abandoned on a desert isle just a day ago.”
Mercer recognized the voice from the PA countdown. “Please, you have to stop what you’re doing immediately.”
“Why would I do that?”
Mercer knew there was no time for discussion. “Listen to me. Whatever calculations you made are wrong. You ramp up that reactor, and there’s a good chance you will severely damage the earth’s magnetic field.”
“I do not think so.”
Mercer ground his teeth, thinking momentarily about Abe Jacobs and this long nightmare that had started back in the mine in Minnesota. “Okay, asshole, how about I start killing your team out here one by one if you don’t shut this down now?”
A momentary silence greeted Mercer. The Frenchman gave a shrug and said, “I do not know what it is you think we are doing here, monsieur, but the power output will be negligible. The effect will be tiny, though cumulative over many months. The field will not be harmed—slightly fewer clouds will form in this region, and the earth will get a degree or two warmer.”
Mercer wasn’t sure what the man was talking about. Jason was convinced this was an experiment to somehow use the earth’s magnetic field to reduce the amount of warming, given the amount of carbon dioxide that had been released into the atmosphere.
“You’re trying to make it warmer?”
“Oui.”
Mercer and Book exchanged puzzled glances.
Over the PA system, Fortescue said, “Zero.”
A palpable hum grew in the distance, nothing deafening, nothing really more than a background sound. Mercer had expected a torrent of power from the reactor to funnel through whatever apparatus they’d devised for the crystals, or to make a commanding high-tech tone while blinding light shot to the heavens from the main antenna dish. The vapor from the cooling system didn’t even show the tiniest perturbation.
Monitors hooked to the ship-wide CCTV system showed that nothing at all appeared to be happening.
“You see, monsieur,” Fortescue said condescendingly over the headset. “My machine and my calculations are flawless. Once I demonstrate I can warm the surface of the planet, I will then be able to cool it once again.”
“Mercer…” Book was pointing at another desk-mounted monitor. “Check it out.”
The camera showed the main satellite dish, which looked just as it had a few moments earlier. That’s not what had caught Booker’s attention. Above the ship, the night sky, which had been filled with stars, was now darkening with clouds that pulsed with lightning. As they watched, they realized the clouds were moving—spinning slowly, but accelerating visibly like a cyclonic eye with the Zhukovsky at its center.
Sykes added unnecessarily, “That can’t be good.”
Mercer shouted through the headset at the French scientist. “Look at your own cameras—you’re causing an atmospheric disturbance that looks like it’s building. Shut it down, Fortescue. Shut it all down!”
Mercer singled out the man who’d spoken earlier. “Can you scram the reactor?”
“Not from here. And the reactor room is better sealed than here. You cannot get in unless Dr. Fortescue lets you.”
“Book?”
Sykes swung the Kriss toward the window and moved as close as he dared. He fired as rapidly as the gun would cycle, keeping his shots to such a tight group that each divot in the thick glass overlapped its neighbor. He mechanically switched out the magazine once it was depleted and kept firing until the weapon ran dry again. Glass dust and powder blew back from the impacts, but the heavy .45-caliber bullets gouged only a fraction of the way through the armored window. It would take high explosives to get into the next room, something they didn’t have—or have the time to improvise.
Fortescue had ducked for cover behind a pair of computer blade servers at the first violent blasts, but soon righted himself when he realized the window wasn’t going to shatter. He wasn’t brave enough to move closer to the dinner-plate-size spot where the rounds pummeled the glass, though a contemptuous smirk crossed his lips at the bullets’ impotence.
Mercer checked the monitor again. The storm looked like it was growing exponentially, and a hellish blue-green corona was forming like a halo thousands of feet above the ship. The light was otherworldly. Soon, tendrils of energy were arcing out from it on north-south vectors as they followed the planet’s magnetic lines.
“Look, for Christ’s sake!” he shouted at the Frenchman.
Fortescue seemed less sure of himself but said with some defiance, “That is nothing but a quick rebalance. The storm will blow itself out quickly.”
Mercer didn’t know how much time he had. Jason had been unsure of the effects, but he knew it would be minutes, not hours. The storm raging around the ship continued to grow in ferocity, while at its center the invisible streams of energy were being beamed up from the Admiral Zhukovsky’s main antenna. Mercer wasn’t the type to surrender to panic. He was logical, methodical, and generally found a solution to any problem, but at that moment he was completely blank. He stared in horror as the sky became a dome of tortured clouds and polarized ions.
He scanned the nearest workstations. Much of the original equipment was still in place, old analog switches and dials labeled with indecipherable Cyrillic letters. The newer stuff was secured onto the workstations rather than embedded into them, and was labeled in French. He ignored all the old stuff. That would do him no good. Mercer thought about finding cover, but no place would afford protection, not during a pole shift.
And that’s when it hit him.
Protection.
The stones had to be protected to prevent them from attracting lightning, and with the monster storm surging overhead, the ship should have been attracting strike after strike. The machines beyond the glass barrier appeared fragile. They were delicate electronics, not industrial shielding. The room, too, didn’t appear to have any kind of system to counter the effect, and suddenly Mercer understood the wires welded to the hull and strung up to the antenna. They had encased the entire ship in a countermagnetic field, almost like they were degaussing the hull to prevent a static buildup. Unlike Abe Jacobs’s copper box or the handful of brass bullets Mercer had cadged together, this was an active Faraday cage–like system protecting an entire ocean-liner-size ship.
He scanned the workstations again and found exactly what he’d expected. One was dedicated to monitoring the ship’s electromagnetic shielding. He moused open the dormant computer monitor, and when it came to life he quickly found an override to shut off the protective layer of shielding.
“What are you doing?” Fortescue asked from behind the glass.
Mercer ignored him by yanking off his headset and tossing it on the console. He said to Booker. “How are we on time?”
Sykes checked his watch. “We’re still a few minutes early for the Jet Ski’s alarm, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Discretion is the better part of valor,” he said to Booker. He then turned to the technicians and scientists and shouted, “Everyone get off this ship as fast as you can. Tell the rest of the crew. They must evacuate now! All your lives are in danger.”
The storm had worsened, now an angry spinning gyre that was filling t
he heavens from horizon to horizon, seething with the unimaginable force of a magnetic field gone awry.
Mercer double-clicked an icon on the computer to depower the shield. When he saw the status bar change to “stand-by,” he raised his pistol and put three rounds through the computer wired under the table that controlled the system.
Fortescue pounded on the glass in rage when he realized what Mercer had deduced and then destroyed. The vessel was now vulnerable to lightning strikes, and the most powerful thunderstorm in the planet’s history was raging overhead.
“Let’s go…now,” Mercer said to Sykes, and started running for the exit.
“No!” Fortescue screamed. The French scientist began working the lock to gain access to the control room in the vain hope of somehow reestablishing the protective shield, but it was a useless gesture. The computer was ruined, and he had no idea how long it would take to jury-rig a backup.
Mercer turned to follow Book, and the headlong rush out of the control room. A hand grabbed his ankle. He’d forgotten about the South African, Niklaas.
“I just want you to understand something…” he gurgled, blood and saliva on his lips. “All those years ago in Africa, we were sent out to look for some kidnapped missionaries. It was a rescue mission. When my men saw your white faces, they believed you were victims, and they shot at the armed blacks they thought were holding you. It was an accident…call it friendly fire.”
“Call it whatever you want,” Mercer said without mercy as a flood of anger poured out of him. “A good man named Paul died that day…and his death is just as much your fault as the death of a saintly man named Abraham Jacobs, who you killed in the Leister Deep Mine two weeks ago. You’ve made choices, and so have I. Don’t think that scar made you the rotten murderer you are. That happened long before I shot you. I’ll tell you this, I’m going to sleep easier tonight knowing that you’re dead, and Abe and Paul and Roni Butler and God knows how many others have been avenged.”
Mercer began to turn away, but he pivoted back toward the South African. “I’ll give you a shot at some redemption you don’t deserve,” he offered.
“What’s that?” the South African choked, his eyes rolling in his head.
“Give me the name of the man who paid for all this.”
The mercenary grinned at Mercer and started coughing. He struggled to get words out, until he finally convulsed and went still.
Mercer stared down at him, then turned and jogged over to join Booker outside the control room doorway. That was the moment the first searing fork of lightning struck the ship. The blast of electricity overwhelmed the power stream that pulsed up through Fortescue’s apparatus, and the relays exploded at the onslaught. Drawn to the heart of the equipment where the dun-colored crystals lay, the lightning bolt shot through the wiring in an instantaneous flash that burned everything in a blinding white flash. When it subsided, Professor Fortescue was just a shadow outline of carbon dust left on the glass.
Side by side, Sykes and Mercer ran through the ship, climbing where they found stairways. The handful of people Mercer had warned were now scattered, trying to get others to listen to them about the danger. It appeared none of the crew were listening. No seaman would dare abandon ship into such a tempest, and the scientists couldn’t convince them the real danger was still to come.
Mercer and Book burst out on deck and saw they were on the opposite side of the ship from where they’d abandoned the Jet Ski. There were no others outside, no one prepping the lifeboats to abandon ship, no one even standing in life jackets. And if Mercer and Book hadn’t had an inkling of what was coming, they would have remained within the protection of the ship’s superstructure, too—because far above the vessel a vortex was forming, a miles-wide toroid of clouds that was whipping up to hurricane strength. Lightning arced from side to side like the ethereal net inside a dreamcatcher. What made the effect even more unearthly was that the clouds were so high that the winds didn’t so much as riffle the ocean’s surface.
Down on the ship it was a calm, tranquil night…while overhead the sky looked like a fissure had been opened up to the depths of hades.
They wasted no more than a few seconds in awe of the atmospheric disturbance before taking off running. They had to round the aft section of the superstructure, dashing in a narrow space between the accommodation block and the main antenna pedestal. The air there was supercharged with so much static Mercer’s hair went on end.
They reached the starboard side. They couldn’t see the Jet Ski at first glance, but at this point it didn’t matter. Mercer and Book vaulted the rail, plummeting twenty feet and striking the water. They surfaced at the exact same time and started swimming away from the doomed ship. High above, the maelstrom was intensifying. Lightning was growing stronger, and its booms of exploded air were starting to reverberate across the ocean’s vastness.
Their only consideration was gaining distance, so they swam hard. For being so muscle-bound, Book moved like an otter and was soon outpacing Mercer stroke for stroke. Ahead and about two hundred yards to their left, a light began to flash in a dazzling display of colors, while below the storm’s rumble, “Stars and Stripes Forever” began to play. Their alarm had finally gone off.
Book reached the Jet Ski first and had it started even before Mercer arrived. They positioned themselves as they had before, and this time they opened the throttle to the max. Mercer kept looking back. The magnetic storm clouds were now so saturated with electricity they glowed an eerie green, while forks of lightning kept probing out from the doughnut-shaped anomaly. A few smaller bolts brushed part of the ship, their arcs so blindingly white that even several miles away they were painful to look at. He felt certain the storm was building to an electric potential many times that first strike.
In astonishment, Mercer watched as the toroid suddenly puffed out, as though it were taking a breath, an instant before it unleashed a barrage of lightning many times thicker than anything he’d ever seen. It was as if every lightning strike hitting the earth at that moment had concentrated above the Nikolay Zhukovsky.
The massive discharge struck the ship like a fist from above. For a blinding instant, Mercer could actually see the deluge of power ramming down through the main antenna, and then it came blasting back out of the hull in a searing white ball of plasma that tore plate from frame. The entire ship came apart like an exploding grenade.
Mercer had to look away, his vision marred by the afterglow of such an intense display. Moments later, they were struck by the heat of the blast, a hot ozone-laced wind that filled their lungs and made them cough.
The atomic-bomb-style dome of light finally faded, and when Mercer looked back again there was no evidence that anything extraordinary had happened. The clouds had been blown away, and the night sky shone clear again.
“Jesus,” Book said when he, too, looked behind them. He throttled down the Jet Ski to idle.
“To paraphrase an old TV commercial that was more prophetic than it knew: ‘It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.’ ”
29
Mercer and Booker spent close to three hours on that Jet Ski before being rescued in the middle of the night by a Sea King helicopter flown off the USS America. The explosion had been detected on monitors all over the planet, and it was at first believed to be nuclear in origin. In response, the navy had tasked their closest ship, one that was actually closer than some top brass had expected her to be, to investigate. Captain Tuttle and his crew searched the area for any sign of what had happened. Nuclear detectors aboard ship found no traces of fallout. As far as the world was concerned, the explosion had been a large meteor strike.
It would be several months before another navy ship would be dispatched to the region. They would use ROVs to scour the seafloor for any wreckage. Of special interest was the containment chamber for the Zhukovsky’s reactor core, which was eventually found intact and clandestinely salvaged from eleven thousand feet of water.
Mercer and Book were
taken aboard the USS America that night—where Mercer returned Tuttle’s beloved .45—and eventually flown to Tarawa, for their commercial flights. Sykes was heading home to North Carolina. Mercer had one stop to make before allowing himself the luxury of going home. He flew first to Hong Kong on a connecting flight to his final destination—Charles de Gaulle International, just north of Paris.
In the world of backroom deals that was Washington politics, the real story of what had happened in the Pacific began circulating as soon as the magnetic storm had destroyed itself. Ira Lasko was widely credited with helping to prevent what could have been the greatest catastrophe to strike humanity since our ancestors climbed out of the trees. No one yet knew where to point the finger, but investigations were under way about the ownership of the Zhukovsky and the identity and most recent employer of a South African mercenary, first name Niklaas, last name still unknown.
Mercer let Ira take the lion’s share of the credit and couldn’t have cared less about the legitimate investigations being ramped up in the Hoover Building and at Langley. The only thing that interested him was the name the mercenary had coughed up as he lay dying on the floor of the ship’s control room.
Mercer had called Ira by satellite phone while he was still aboard the America and given him the name. Within hours, Lasko had called back, and they had pieced together the full picture.
“Roland d’Avejan and Eurodyne…I know of him,” Ira responded. “But the guy’s loaded—why would he do something like this?”
“His chief scientist aboard the Zhukovsky alluded to the basics, and it makes perfect sense—in a warped way,” Mercer said. “Until recently, Europe was enamored with green energy schemes. Windmills and solar panels were going up from the coast of Spain to Germany’s eastern borders, and governments were subsidizing it all with taxpayer money—billions of dollars per month.”