Higher Cause

by John Hunt

  The second guard put his hand on his friend’s gun, inducing him to lower it. Jeff recognized this man. He was one of Heinrich Poll’s men, a German. He had seen him once, on the Elijah Lewis on the day the OTEC was towed in safely. Jeff knew the man recognized him too.

  Fortunately, the man did not remember Baddori’s name, and said only, in an empathetic tone, “Are you alright?”

  “No,” replied Jeff, stepping closer still. “I’m better than alright. I am drunk as can be. Figured it was the thing to do — you know, with this big announcement and all.” He was directly in front of the men now. Jeff tripped over his own foot, spiraling to the ground. Both guards stooped to help him. That was all he needed.

  It was over in a moment as a glint of power and control filled his eyes, where moments before there had been only fogged stupor. His arms came up, grabbed the men by their necks, and smashed their heads together forcefully. The second guard fell unconscious immediately; the first, stunned, shook his head to clear his blurred vision. Jeff jumped to his feet, thrust his foot into the man’s abdomen, and then, drawing back his right arm, heaved a mighty blow at the man’s face. The man dropped to the floor.

  Jeff flung the door to the lab open. A dozen people were working feverishly within. Sophia, the doorway directly in her view, was sitting by the small computer. Jeff had been able to spare the two guards’ lives without arousing Azid’s suspicion, and now he had to spare the lives of everyone within the lab. The only way he could do this would be if Sophia was as smart as he thought she was.

  Baddori called Azid with a whistle. Azid hurried down the hall, and nodded approvingly at Jeff’s handiwork.

  “Why did you not just kill them?” he whispered.

  Baddori shrugged. “They will be dead in a short while anyway.” Then, to deflect Azid from the thought of using a knife, he turned his attention to the gun. “And remember, no silencer!” He dragged one of the unconscious men into a small room across the hall from the lab. Azid dragged the other. “It’s good, though, because I need practice in my hand-to-hand combat skills.”

  Azid smiled. He was going to enjoy his partnership with Baddori.

  With the guards tucked away, the two men, ready to use their heavy automatic assault rifles, stormed into the laboratory.

  Shock filled Sophia’s face when she saw Jeff waving a gun about threateningly. She said nothing, but slowly rose to her feet. To get everyone else’s attention, Azid stated loudly in thickly accented English. “Attention! Attention! Do what we say, and you will not die. Disobey, and you certainly will die. Do I make myself clear?”

  None daring to move at all, the laboratory workers obeyed the two invaders. Baddori went to each one in turn, taped their wrists and ankles, and sealed their mouths with duct tape. He taped each individual to a fixed piece of furniture or piping. None could reach the others.

  Azid saw Sophia immediately, and smiled approvingly. Moving toward her, he said, “Good to see you again, Dr. Bjarnasdottir. I was certain we would meet again.”

  “I was hoping we would not,” Sophia replied, not meeting the man’s eyes. The bruises on her face still ached.

  “My partner said I should have killed you before.” He indicated Baddori. “Perhaps he was right then. But now he sees things my way. He sees that you may have use to us, now that we know how skilled you are at escaping submarines.

  “Your men are unskilled at keeping prisoners aboard,” she replied spitefully.

  “Well, they will have another opportunity to practice. It will be good to have you back on board.”

  Sophia asked intently, “Why are you doing this? Why do you wish to destroy the Project?”

  Azid grinned at her. “I destroy anything that threatens my interests. And any threat to the supremacy of oil is a threat to Iraq, for we have long-range plans which differ from those America desires.”

  Moving away, Azid pulled two canisters of liquid explosive out of his satchel. “Toss me the duct tape,” he commanded Baddori. Working quickly, Azid strapped the canisters together along with a battery and timer, and then moved around the back of the giant laser housing and pulled away a metal access hatch. He placed the bombs inside, then moved away.

  “Is it set for three minutes?” Baddori asked, whispering in a conspiratorial tone. The men had agreed to three minutes. Baddori’s grip on his gun appeared relaxed as it aimed only a few degrees away from Azid’s heart. In fact, his finger was gently squeezing the trigger. He was ready to kill Azid if necessary.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Azid replied, unaware of the threat.

  “Why so long?” Baddori, curious, asked, and loosed his finger’s squeeze.

  “We have something else to do — something truly glorious,” Azid grasped Sophia’s elbow and moved toward the door of the lab. “Let us go to the top of the building. I will tell you there.” After locking the door, Azid pulled it closed behind them.

  This is how Jeff had hoped things would proceed. He had not fully expected them to, though, and had been prepared to end the charade in the laboratory. Azid would be dead, the bombs deactivated, the building and people all safe. To do so, however, would have meant that part of his plan would fail. But now it looked like maybe, just maybe, his plan would play out completely. But to do so would be to continue to risk the lives of the people of the island. He had been risking them for the past two days by not killing Azid. He justified it then as now: Life was risk. The island’s purpose was inherently risky. And, besides, his plan would not fail.

  An elevator came promptly when called for. Jeff smiled as he recalled Petur’s pet peeve regarding the stupidity of American architects for so commonly providing too few, and overly slow, elevators. That was never an issue on Paradise. They began a brisk ascent.

  They shot past the main floor, where the people continued to gather. A moment later, the doors opened and the three stepped out into the deserted restaurant at the apex of Science Hall.

  The lights were dim and the stars in the moonless sky, although refracted beautifully by the crystalline ceiling, did little to illuminate the room. The darker the room, though, the safer the situation.

  The restaurant was not completely deserted, however. Light squeezed through the cracks under the kitchen doors, and they heard a man singing happily. Azid motioned to Sophia to keep silent, and threatened her with a glare in his eye. Azid walked around the outskirts of the room. Baddori, hand holding Sophia’s wrists firmly, kept closely in tow.

  “What is your plan?” Baddori asked, in Arabic.

  “Glory! Glory is what I plan.”

  “Nothing suicidal?”

  “Not at all, my friend. Although I could commit suicide, I have more value alive than dead. Regardless, this glory is for Iraq. With one blow, we will trigger the destruction of our two greatest enemies.”

  “And how are we to do this?” But Jeff knew. It was what he had expected.

  Azid found a sliding glass doorway to the circumferential balcony. They stepped quietly through the door and into the open air. Azid kept walking, as though he were looking for something. After a while, he found what he wished for. An air intake for the ventilation system rested near the fenced edge of the balcony. Next to it was a potted tropical plant. Azid looked over the edge, noting that they were on the back side of the building. Azid unscrewed the light metal sheetwork surrounding the air intake.

  “It is time to tell you now, my friend.” Azid reached again into his satchel. He pulled out a small container, the size of a soda can, painted black. Attached to the can was a timer. Several wires connected the timer to the inside of the device. The pride on his face was evident.

  “The new president of Iraq, put into power by the government of the United States, handed this to me himself. I consider it to be one of the greatest possible honors. He said I should employ it at whatever point I saw fit, in any manner that could implicate our enemies. In the current political climate, Iran will be blamed, almost certainly. Actually, I have already made sure Iran w
ill be blamed. The nations of the world adore this Island. Many nations will wish to avenge the Island, and this will serve as the final needed justification for the United States to attack Iran. The US will be mired in another guerilla war and her economy will suffer its final blows. Iran will no longer be able to threaten to provoke a revolution in Iraq. The center of Shiite power will be obliterated. Iraq will rise again, as a mighty power.”

  Baddori surreptitiously reached inside his black satchel for the silenced Makarov pistol within. The muzzle of his assault rifle was aimed, unthreateningly, at the ground. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Anthrax. Enough spores to wipe out the population of a small city. Certainly it will decimate this hellish island.”

  Baddori tightened his finger on the trigger of his pistol. “Glorious, Azid. Anthrax: spread into the air by a small explosive charge, it will kill them all within a week — in a miserable, suffocating death. The world will indeed blame Iran.”

  “Yes, my friend!” Azid said joyously. “The people on this island will be destroyed. In a few weeks, people will come and will find the charred remnants of this device, a device which will have spewed forth such havoc, and it will remind them that they can never be safe again. Anybody can sneak a soda can through airport security.” He cackled loudly, unconcerned that he might be heard within the restaurant. He wedged the canister against the whistling intake vent. “And they will blame fundamentalist Islamists of course — not us!”

  Sophia, though unable to comprehend the language, nonetheless guessed what Azid was planning. She grimaced. Yet, Jeff laughed with Azid, although for a different reason than Azid.

  Baddori asked, “Azid, you said the president handed that weapon to you himself?”

  “From his hands to mine. A true honor,” Azid replied as he replaced the vent cover.

  “Then it probably has his fingerprints upon it, wouldn’t you think? Fingerprints that will confirm his desire and willingness to employ such weapons.”

  Azid stopped laughing. He slowly rose to his feet while looking at Jeff Baddori with intense suspicion. Baddori looked back — the laughter gone and his eyes intent with purpose.

  Baddori said slowly in English, “Many years ago I was given an assignment: to find proof that Iraq had biological weapons. I did not succeed until tonight. You picked the wrong friend, Azid. Before you die, you need to know that the fusion reactor will operate tonight, and the world will know about it and it will indeed threaten oil. And that biological weapon that you would have used to destroy this island’s people will instead be used in the court of world opinion and The Hague to attest to the willingness of certain political leaders to perform unconscionable acts.” Jeff added, with spite, “The truth will come out.”

  Azid struck Jeff in the face with a fist that seemed to come out of nowhere. Azid’s hand moved toward his weapon, lying by his feet. Baddori gave him no opportunity. With his hand still inside his satchel, he squeezed the trigger on his suppressed pistol three times. Each squeeze brought forth no sound other than a loud click, but with that click came a blast of fibers from the leather of the satchel. The first bullet caught Azid mid-chest, and then tumbled around wildly within his thorax destroying his heart. He fell against the balcony fence. The second entered his throat and cut short his anguished cry forever. The last hit Azid between his shocked eyes, causing his head to flip back grotesquely. The shift in Azid’s weight toppled the bloodied corpse over the fence, where it slid down the long angled wall of Science Hall. Fifteen stories down, the body hit the ground with hardly a thud.

  Petur sat in front of the throng of people gathered in the main auditorium of Science Hall. As he suppressed his anxiety about the coming negotiations with Mexico, he allowed himself to lounge in the glory of the Island Project’s accomplishments.

  It had been an incredible few months, with success piled atop success for the projects on which the scientists and engineers had been so diligently working. Since the arrival, sabotage, and repair of the giant OTEC, electrical power had been abundant and finally appeased the experiments’ voracious appetite for it.

  Scientific progress had leapt ahead. Paradise Island, its scientists, its progress, and perhaps most importantly, its ideals, were making more international press than anything since humankind first walked on the moon.

  And another first was about to occur — one that had more significance than the symbolic promenade on the moon. He thought about that for the ten minutes needed to get everyone into their seat, and then stood up at the podium. Gradually, the chatter died.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the Island Project, and guests and visitors,” Petur began, and nodded to the left back corner of the great hall — where the mass of reporters had been relegated. “We have had great fortune rain down upon us of late. Subsequent to the sinking of the first OTEC, things looked grim and uncertain. One of the principal symbols of our noble purpose succumbed to the cowardly firing of a torpedo by an insane man. As if that did not hurt us enough, our second effort at getting the OTEC operational and functioning in our everyday lives was almost hindered in a similar fashion by the same men who sank the first. Through fortune and grace, the second OTEC, as you all know, was resuscitated and now churns the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean to generate our electricity. The OTEC is an unqualified success.”

  A hearty round of applause interrupted his speech. There was a hum of excitement about the place, in anticipation of the announcement.

  “Please, hold your applause.” Petur pleaded with the crowd. “This speech is not intended to generate political support for an agenda. I think applause will be due at the end of this part of my statement, but the applause won’t be for me.” He briefly turned his gaze to the small staircase on his left that led down through the stage to the lower levels of the building. Sophia should have been at the bottom there, thumbs upward indicating that all was ready. The stairwell was empty.

  He continued, somewhat nervously. He might have to delay. So he reiterated what he had said perhaps a thousand times before. It would serve as a reminder for the international press, at a time when the Island Project would need all the media support they could muster. “As you know, the men and women on this island are pursuing multiple projects. We are working in cooperation with academic establishments and businesses throughout the world, so it is not as if we are working alone here. But we function as the catalyst, the think tank, and the seed for the research and development of the technology that will some day take us to the stars. We of the Island Project, living in Paradise, have been graced with the opportunity to perform our research, follow our dreams, and create wealth and value for ourselves and for mankind, unhindered by bureaucratic interferences of narcissistic and self-serving governments. It is simple because we are all together and can discuss things in person. It is simple because we have no bureaucracy against which we need to struggle. Decisions are made by those who spend their money and by those whose expertise or labor they need. There is a culture of efficiency here, fostered by the investors. But the ease of obtaining funding and approval for research, the beauty of this place on which we live, and the conglomeration of great minds with whom we can discuss whatever enters our imagination, combine to establish the Island Project as a singularly effective and productive organization.”

  Petur looked around the room. Near the front were several dozen children, mostly of grade-school age. Several were watching him in earnest, though most were fidgeting in their seats or talking with their neighbors. It had become a tradition to have the children gather at the front of the hall for big announcements, major votes, and visiting performers. The children were central to the Island Project’s purpose, after all. Petur was pleased that this tradition had developed spontaneously. No catalyst was needed for that. He looked again down the stairwell. At the bottom, hidden to the audience, stood Sophia, with her hair uncharacteristically rumpled, but with a smile on her face and both her thumbs held high — finally. Petur grinned in relief.

>   “You have come tonight expecting to hear a major announcement. The rumors are in abundance. However, the truth is that there will be two major announcements. The good news and the bad news.”

  A gentle rustling of querying voices raised the background noise, prompting others to lean forward in their seats, for Petur continued speaking despite the noise.

  “I spent several moments trying to determine which news to give you first, or perhaps to even ask you which you preferred first, the good or the bad.” There was nervous chuckling throughout the room. “Well, I decided on the good news first, for that is what we are all about.”

  Petur pressed a sequence of buttons on the podium, dimming the lights in the hall to a gentle glow. A spotlight directed its light at an ordinary-looking table to his side — a table unnoticed by most until this moment.

  “For this little trick, I will need complete silence,” he said, waving his hand as a magician might. “Including from you children in the front.” A moment later he stated, “There is nothing magical here.” There was nothing on the table but a rather ordinary-looking small bedside lamp. Petur stepped over and indicated the lamp. “This is just a run-of-the-mill lamp. It was taken out of my sister’s house just a short time ago.”

  He moved back to the podium, pressed another switch, and the lights went out in the hall altogether. Not even the emergency lighting was on. A hushed gasp emerged from hundreds of mouths. It was pitch black.

  Petur spoke. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a little more light in here?” He maneuvered his way back to the lamp on the table, and then while reaching up under the lampshade, he toggled the switch and the lamp lit with a warm yellow glow.

  “There now,” Petur said. “Now we can see a little. Hardly fills this huge room, I admit.” His face was the only one visible in the room. Even the little children, who had started to make noise in the darkness, now stared intently at Petur.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this simple lamp upon which you now gaze is an historic light. You see, this light bulb is receiving its electricity from neither solar panels, nor the OTEC, nor the diesel backup generators. It is not running off battery power or any energy-releasing chemical process. This power was not generated by splitting atoms. No, the electricity running through the tungsten filament here is being created right in this building, just below us. You are looking at the first time mankind has harnessed the power that drives the sun. This is fusion energy, ladies and gentlemen. Mankind has finally, after decades of effort, created a system of sustainable energy generation from the merging of particles of matter.”