"She is. And she has assembled a fairly impressive list of reasons why He should be incensed. First reason, many of the people who have checked in here, by all rights, ought to be dead. Without Aegis, they would have committed suicide. She believes that their continued existence is upsetting some sort of balance."
"The second reason?"
"The fact that Kreitzmann has set up his main, or perhaps even total, operations inside Aegis, that all of his experiments are an offense against nature or God's plan or something like that."
"Is there a third?"
"There is. She maintains that the continued existence of Aegis is like a lighthouse on a stormy night, beckoning to this ostensibly safe port those who might have lost their way – except that this is not the safe port it was, presumably, intended to be. Instead, all of these lost folks are entering a lion's den. She compares it to a lighthouse that might be maliciously built to lure ships onto the rocks."
"She may have some good points."
"She may, indeed."
Elias stared at Wilson, attempting to determine the depth of his sincerity.
Wilson continued, "There is biblical precedent, in which it is said that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed due to their wickedness. I dare say that what is happening within these walls rivals the nefariousness of those two cities."
"There could be another explanation for the increased winds. Global warming?"
"Global warming? Puh! Besides, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change couldn't stretch their findings enough to explain one simple fact about what is happening here."
"What's that?"
Wilson carefully placed his cup on the table and stared directly into Elias' eyes. "The direction. Rather than coming out of the north, south, east, or west, the wind is blowing straight down from the heavens."
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
Stone was slowing unscrewing the stainless-steel lid on one of the incendiary devices Elias had stowed away.
"Yep. These are standard Incendergel bombs."
Removing the lid, he pointed at the thick, still liquid inside. "About forty-six percent polystyrene, thirty-three percent gasoline with boosted octane, and the other twenty-one percent benzene. Pretty nasty concoction but fairly difficult to ignite. That's why we use white phosphorous as the pyrotechnic initiator, because that stuff is hotter than hell."
"So it is napalm, like they used in Vietnam?"
Stone gave Tillie a crooked grin over the top of the bomb, which he had placed on the end of one of the crates. "You like to read, don't you?"
Tillie nodded, not taking her eyes off the device between his hands.
"Incendergel is a later-generation napalm developed after the Korean War, but quite a bit different from the original, which was naphthenic and palmitic acids. Napalm is really the thickening agent to be mixed with flammable liquids like gasoline. They used it long before Vietnam. It was the juice in the flamethrowers during World War II and the firebombing in Germany. It needs a fuse, or pyrotechnic initiator, to ignite. We also have bombs made with trimethylaluminum. Those don't need a fuse. Exposure to the air is all it takes for one of those babies to go off with a bang."
"So how did you know this wasn't a trimethylaluminum bomb? It could have gone off when you unscrewed the lid and the air hit it."
Stone tapped the side of the bomb with his index finger. "The label. It says right there what kind of device it is."
"And you trust everything on labels?"
He shrugged. "Good point. I am doing this since Elias and I don't trust the guy who sent these. I guess they could've been booby-trapped. One other reason though, a trimethylaluminum device wouldn't have a lid you could just unscrew. The explosive material is sealed in."
Stone dipped the tip of a pencil into the gel, only enough to extract a drop, which he placed onto the top of a piece of sheet metal they had picked up along the way. Setting down the sheet metal, he replaced the lid on the bomb and picked up the metal. After he had put a few feet of distance between himself and the device, he pulled a butane lighter out of his pocket. With one click, the lighter ignited, making a soft whooshing sound. Stone tilted the lighter until the flame licked the droplet on the metal.
There was no instant bright flash; the mixture did not ignite. Instead, the liquid bubbled ferociously until it steamed away, leaving a brownish spot on the hot metal.
"Not the real thing?"
"I don't know what's in these, but it isn't Incendergel or any other form of napalm."
She wrinkled her nose as the smell from the burnt gel reached her nostrils. "Smells like molasses."
"Duds, huh?" Elias stated flatly. "I guess that answers that question."
Stone glanced into the front doorway of the shack, where Tillie and Wilson made a show of busying themselves. He was certain they were having a hushed conference about their two new visitors.
"What I don't understand, Elias, is why even send the bogus bombs to you. If the goal was to get you trapped inside Aegis, then once you were here, there wouldn't be any reason to maintain the ruse."
"I've been thinking about that and might have a theory, but it isn't really far enough along in my mind to share."
"Same old Elias," Stone said, shaking his head. "Sometimes I think that you play your cards so close to the vest that even you can't see them."
Elias chuckled.
"At least tell me your theory as to why Faulk wants to get rid of both of us – or, if I was only the bait, you. Is there anything you were working on before he sent you in here that he might have been worried about?"
"I can't imagine. You know what I've been doing ever since the day…."
"Trying to track down Leah's killer."
"Right."
"That's all? No other projects?"
"No. Nothing else. Not for a single minute."
"Then there is only one possible explanation."
"What's that?"
"You were getting close to an answer. And that answer was one Faulk didn't like."
Elias stared at Stone. "Are you saying that Faulk wasn't responsible for her death solely because of his supreme incompetence?"
Stone paused, realizing that planting this thought in Elias' mind was tantamount to lighting the fuse on a guided missile. "Maybe," he answered, hedging.
Many times in the recent past, Stone had seen a certain look cloud the face of his friend, a faraway, unfocused stare…an intense clenching of his jaw…accompanied by an infusion of redness in his complexion. All were telltale signs that Elias was, once again, living through a fantasy which included the meting out of justice against those who were responsible for his wife's death.
"Don't tell me you hadn't considered it in the past."
Elias mentally returned from the movie in his mind and looked at Stone. "I have, but never really had anything I could hang my hat on. All of the clues led me back to colossal stupidity on his part, a conclusion I never had a problem accepting, knowing him as I do."
"Specifically, tell me what new pieces to the puzzle you had found recently. Maybe there's something that will help."
Elias thought for a moment, sifting through the details in his head. "Just one, really. And I'm not even sure if this fits in. I only bring it up due to the timing. You remember Benjamin?"
Stone's eyes widened. "Code name Benjamin? Mossad?"
"One and the same. I heard from him, out of the blue."
"What did he want?"
"I don't know. There was a call from him on my voice mail. He didn't leave any details, but said that it was urgent we speak."
"Did you call him back?"
"I did, but I got his voice mail. We haven't talked yet."
"When did he call?"
Elias stared intently at his old friend and said, "The day before I heard from Faulk."
Stone shook his head. "I don't see the connection, not if Faulk sent me in here two and a half months ago as
bait to trap you."
"True. I only brought it up because it was so close to my hearing from him."
The screen door swung open and Tillie came out of the shack, followed by Wilson.
"Tillie, Wilson tells me that you think we are about to receive the wrath of God here."
She dropped her lanky frame into the chair nearest Elias. "Would you blame Him?"
"What's this about?" Stone asked.
Elias pointed up toward the sky and answered, "This wind. When I got here, I thought it was probably normal for this part of the desert. According to our hosts, it isn't."
Stone glanced to the side, focusing on the mad gyrations of the foliage. "So?"
"I was one of the original group to enter Aegis, a first-dayer," Tillie began. "I still remember that day clearly. It was hotter than hell, and they were keeping us under a tent to give us shelter from the sun. We were all hoping for at least a breeze – but nothing, not even a breath of wind."
"I still don't get it. Isn't this a different time of year right now? Couldn't that first day have a been a freak day? I remember years ago, when I was stationed at Edwards, it was windy all of the time, even the trees grew leaning in the same direction. But every once in a while there would be a still, calm day."
Tillie let a lopsided smile curl the right side of her lips. "I wish that was all it was. When I first came inside this tomb, I couldn't hear the wind. I picked out one of the empty apartments they had built for us and moved in. But I got stir-crazy pretty quickly and went up to the roof. That was within a couple of weeks of my arrival. By then it was already breezy.
"Going up to the roof became a once- or twice-a-day trip for me. Sometimes I'd spend hours up there. Wilson says that I was regretting my choice to come into Aegis, and that my urge to go on the roof was a symptom of my desire for freedom."
"Was he right?" Elias asked.
She shrugged. "I think Wilson can't help but analyze things. At times he gets a little carried away with himself."
A soft snort came from the mathematician as she continued, "I noticed at the time that it was always breezy. Day, night...didn't matter. It was steady. I know you've all heard the lesson about the frog in the pot of water. Like the frog, I didn't notice that the wind was imperceptibly intensifying. It was so gradual I didn't figure it out for the longest time – a year, maybe two. I happened to tune in one day and realized that it was quite a bit stronger than it had been the first few months I was here."
"Weather patterns are changing," Stone offered.
"Wouldn't know. Remember, I haven't had access to cable TV or the Internet since I got here. The news I did get was from newbies. They told me all about global warming, or I guess they call it ‘climate change' now, since it isn't really warming. I don't know. But nobody had any explanation for this wind, especially the way it's been the last year or two."
"What do you mean?"
Tillie looked thoughtfully at Stone. "As fierce as it is right now is the way it is every day. It never lets up. Not for a minute. Not for a second. But that still isn't the real kicker. I'm surprised it took me as long as it did to spot this. One night I was up on the roof and I was hanging out in my usual spot. I usually spent all of my time above the entrance so I could see newbies coming. I would drop messages to them, telling them not to come in. At first the gusts were so strong that the second I let the notes go, they would blow about a mile away, out into the desert. So I put them in bottles for a while. That helped at first. But pretty soon the winds got so powerful that, even if I carefully dropped the bottles close to the perimeter wall, the wind would catch them and toss them far out from the building, shattering them. All that did was scare the newbies. Then I tried wrapping the notes around chunks of concrete block, but the newbies thought I was trying to hit them. I eventually gave up on the whole idea of notes. They never did any good with the few people who read them, anyway.
"It was real late and I thought no one would be coming at that time of night, so I just started walking across the roof, making a beeline across the center of the complex, the wind in my face. You know that big open area in the middle of the complex?"
"Yes," Elias answered, "the center courtyard."
"After I got there, I circled halfway around it to the opposite side and kept walking. That's when I noticed that the wind was now at my back even though I was still going in the same direction."
Stone started to say something. Tillie held up her hand to silence him. "I know that winds shift all the time. I'm not basing all of this on my one experience. Since that night, I have made weekly checks. I've cut across the complex, as I did that night. I've walked the perimeter. You name it, I've walked it. The wind is blowing outward from Aegis toward every point on the compass, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. There aren't any anemometers in the supply drops we get here, so I started rigging up crude wind-measuring devices, using ropes and weights. It is getting stronger every day."
"That's impossible," Stone blurted. "The wind can't just blow out in all directions without having come from somewhere."
"Oh, it's coming from somewhere, all right. It's coming from...." She stopped and pointed her finger straight up.
Stone stared at her with open derision. "That's crazy!"
Tillie lifted her shoulders, conveying with the uncomplicated gesture that she did not care if he believed her or not.
The door to the shack swung open and Zack slowly walked out, rubbing his eyes.
"Zack! You're awake," Tillie exclaimed loudly.
The young man muttered something incomprehensible and walked unsteadily to the table.
"You need a place to sit," Wilson noticed, and quickly stood, going inside and returning a moment later with a straight-back chair.
Zack dropped heavily into it the moment Wilson placed it in the circle around the small table.
"How are you feeling?" Tillie asked.
"Would you like a sandwich?" Wilson offered at the same time.
Still vigorously rubbing his eyes and spreading his fingers to encompass his entire face, Zack's answer was nearly muted. "Fine. Yes, please."
Wilson re-entered the shack.
The others waited, giving Zack a chance to orient himself to consciousness and his surroundings. After a moment, his eyes fixed upon Stone. "Who're you?"
"Eric Stone. I'm…."
"He's a friend of mine," Elias finished.
The exact moment that Zack remembered the events prior to his rescue became obvious to the three others around the table, as his face transformed from the normal fogginess of having recently awakened, to a taut, anxious manifestation of fear and apprehension. His eyes instantly began to dart around the perimeter, resting upon one location for only a moment before quickly moving to another.
Seeing the incipient panic, Tillie reached forward and placed her hand on his. "Zack…."
The former Zook jerked his hand back, startled by the contact.
He jumped up, the back of his knees ramming the chair backward; it slammed into the wall of the shack with a crash.
"I gotta go!"
"Where? Why are you leaving? You're safe here," Tillie sputtered, wanting to calm him down.
Zack took several side steps toward the front of the porch, his head now swiveling wildly as he tried to see into the dense curtain created by Wilson's plantings. "My mother. She's in W…Walden. I gotta go find her."
Tillie and Elias both stood and moved toward him. This caused him to bolt, almost jumping down the steps.
"Zack, you shouldn't leave yet," Elias cautioned in a steady voice. "They're out there, and we don't know where they are. You're better off here."
With a violent shake of his head, Zack nearly shouted, "No! My mother is out there. I gotta go."
Before either Tillie or Elias could move closer to him, the young man bolted again, running down the path with his arms flailing, batting the encroaching branches away from himself.
"Zack!" Tillie yelled, and started to follow h
im.
Elias grabbed her shoulder and stopped her. "We can't keep him here if he doesn't want to stay."
She whirled to face him. "But he doesn't understand. The Zippers are going to kill him, too!"
"He understands."
They both heard the clanging of the cowbell as Zack found his way to the end of the path and exited from the atrium.
Wilson emerged from the shack, carrying a plate with two sandwiches. Seeing the knocked-over chair, he sighed and placed the plate in the center of the table, picked up the chair, set it upright, and sat down.
"I take it that our guest did not want my sandwiches."
As Elias and Tillie walked back slowly, Stone explained, "His mother lives in Walden. He wanted to get to her."
"I see."
Tillie, still obviously upset, rejoined them at the table, followed by Elias. "He doesn't stand a chance."
"And we do?" Elias asked.
"We have a better chance than he does."
"I'm glad you think so."
"Dammit, Elias…."
"Please," Wilson interrupted the two of them before they could escalate. "Don't you think we should stop squabbling and come up with some sort of a plan of action?"
"I agree," Elias said, turning in his chair so that his back was to the angry Tillie.
Balling up her fists on the table in front of her, she forced herself to calm down. Through clenched teeth she asked, "What kind of plan? What's the goal?"
"We need to figure a way out of here," Elias responded.
"What would that accomplish?" Tillie grabbed one of the sandwiches made for Zack and took a bite.
Stone spoke firmly. "What do you mean? Both Elias and I have been tricked into coming inside Aegis. Obviously, this is supposed to be our prison. Of course we need to get out of here."
They all waited while Tillie chewed the large wad of sandwich and swallowed enough to be able to talk. "Wilson, what the heck is in this sandwich?"
"Hummus."
"Hummus! No wonder Zack left. Where am I? Suddenly in Walden? Whoever heard of a hummus sandwich?"
She peeled back the bread and looked inside. "And cucumbers! A hummus and cucumber sandwich! Next thing I know you'll be wearing tie-dyed T-shirts."
The Aegis Solution Page 23