Inside the one mile circle, every radioactive element responded to the 840% increase in solar neutrinos by doubling its rate of decay, emitting twice as many gamma rays, neutrons, alpha particles and what not as normal.
2nd Brigade, 1st Division of II Corps arrived after 1st Brigade was fully in place, and like the 1st Brigade, the Scotties of 2nd Brigade formed a large circle as well, their formation centered around the convex lens of 1st Brigade but fifty feet closer to Earth. 2nd Brigade spread themselves out 50 yards apart, their much larger configuration 50 miles in diameter. They too cast a spell, forming a field designed to detect the emission of anti-neutrinos. This field, which had a very narrow beam-width, was aimed at the heart of the one mile circle of 1st Brigade’s target, where the solar neutrinos were focused. All of the Scotties of 2nd Brigade were also linked together by WiFi. It was their job to closely monitor any anti-neutrinos emanating from that one mile circle. Under normal circumstances there would be some few detected, perhaps a couple of hundred such anti-neutrinos per second. For all intents and purposes, this would be nothing more than background radiation.
Unless and until that circle of solar neutrinos encountered a nuclear warhead. The solar neutrino beam would go right through the lead and steel casing of the warhead itself, just as easily as neutrinos passed through the center of the Earth (or 50 light years of lead). But the neutrinos would greatly increase the decay rate of the warhead’s plutonium 239, the uranium 235, and the tritium in the core. Oh, not enough to exceed critical mass. The consequences of that event would be disastrous indeed! But, by Gerty 2’s calculations, due to the two-stage design of all U.S. and Soviet warheads, the radioactive decay of the plutonium 239 could be safely doubled without triggering the device itself.
No, the increased output of the radioactive materials inside the device could not pierce the bomb casing to the point that the Scotties could detect it. It could, of course, be argued that the increase in decay rate could be detected if at least one Scottie could make his way to within a few yards of the warhead’s location. But, in reality, this risk wasn’t necessary. During the radioactive decay process of both the warhead’s plutonium and uranium components, six anti-neutrinos would be released for every fission event. And anti-neutrinos were just as influenced by matter as were neutrinos, which was to say, virtually not at all. The anti-neutrinos would escape the warhead, passing right through the casing as easily as the solar neutrinos did entering it.
The increased level of the anti-neutrinos, of course, would be instantly seen by 2nd Brigade. The anti-neutrino flux level would go up from only a couple hundred per second to tens of thousands per second. The change in that flux level would alert both 1st and 2nd Brigades that they had successfully located a nuclear warhead.
This was their search plan, the one they tested efficaciously on Mars several times. The most consequential advantage it provided was to allow detection of nuclear warheads from Earth orbit, hundreds of miles away and without any of the wizards on Earth knowing that such a search was even being conducted at all.
Unfortunately, the disadvantage to the search plan was time. The solar neutrino search “beam” was only a mile in diameter. The Scottie brigades would, of course, synchronously move above the city, conducting a spiral search pattern outwardly from city center toward the suburbs, moving the search beam at roughly 120 mile/hr. Even at that speed, it would take nearly an hour to conduct a complete search of a medium sized city such as Bakersfield or Colorado Springs. Cities the size of Los Angeles, with all the additional metropolitan sprawl beyond its city limits, would consume a lot more time.
And given the number of cities on Earth to search, even with 50,000 Scotties, the search would take days to conduct. A lot more time than was available.
TWENTY-SIX
The Saint Elias Mountains, Canada
Mount Logan Facility
Situation Room
Friday, 9:16 a.m. PDT
May
“Status update?” Paul asked in a quiet voice.
“I just checked, Dad. We have twelve search teams in operation now,” Daneel 1’s face on the front of his cube replied. “The good news is that Team 6 found what looks to be a 550 kiloton warhead buried in the backyard of an empty residence on West L Avenue in Lancaster, California.”
“Kudos to Team 6,” Paul said, smiling grimly. “And in Los Angeles?”
“That’s the bad news,” Daneel 1 sighed sadly. “We’ve barely scratched the surface there. And we’ve lost the effective search angle from the solar neutrinos in that time zone. The search teams have moved on to Anchorage, Honolulu, Auckland, Sidney, Tokyo and points west.”
Capie stepped over to Paul and squeezed his arm, lending him moral support.
“We don’t have much time,” Daneel 1 pointed out dolefully. “Just what did you want from 1st Battalion, 4th Brigade, 2nd Division, II Corps, if I might ask?”
Paul sighed and scratched an earlobe. “Before I answer your question, Daneel 1, I need to talk to Rommie 451 first. See if she is available and, if so, put her on a display screen here.”
Daneel 1 only needed a few seconds in order to contact her. Rommie’s image popped up on a standard sized display only a few seconds after that.
“Hi, Dad,” she said, her holographic face smiling. “What can I do for you?”
“Do you have any further updates on Hamadi or Yuan?” Paul asked, scratching his chin with one hand.
“Nothing since yesterday’s report,” she replied casually. “Both ex-wizards have been repeatedly tested. They show no signs of magical powers at all now. And they don’t seem to be suffering any side effects, at least not anymore they aren’t. But we were right about the headaches! When they woke up, they cried in agony for over an hour! Oh, and now they are both in a deep blue funk. But that’s not an effect of the surgery; they’re depressed because they lost their powers.”
“And you still have them on Suicide watches?” Capie asked.
“Yep. Mom, we’ve had to stop Yuan from killing himself twice now. He’s a real basket case, he is. Won’t eat, not even when we cast a hunger spell on him. I’d be surprised if he lasts a week out in the real world.”
Capie grinned maliciously. “My heart bleeds.”
Rommie laughed. “Since good old Yuan participated in the communist purges of the early 1950’s, where millions of Normals were killed, I just can’t seem to find it in my heart to feel sorry for the scumbag.”
Paul crisply nodded, with a deep gratifying sigh. “Based on what you know now, is the conversion process a success?”
“Oh, absolutely!” Rommie 451 crowed.
“And can you start converting the other wizards?”
“Yep. Whenever you want.”
Paul turned to Daneel 1. “Send the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, 1st Corps to Azkaban Prison. I want all of our captured Errabêlu wizards converted to Normals before the Saturday deadline. Convert them but keep them unconscious until I call for them.”
Daneel 1 and Capie both grinned. “I don’t know what you are planning, Dad,” Daneel 1 said, “but I like it already.”
Ω
“I can’t let you do it!” screamed Capie, practically in Paul’s face, hers clouded with anger and despair. “Our child needs a father! And I need you too! You can’t sacrifice yourself this way! You just can’t!”
She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and gripping him tightly, crying uncontrollably.
Paul sighed, brushing her hair with his right hand and waiting for her to get control of herself again. He could see that all the Scotties in the room were more than a bit emotional as well, just a tad more restrained about it.
“No one said anything about a sacrifice,” Paul said calmly and in a reassuring voice. “The Scotties will be closely watching me.”
“Don’t lie to me, Paul Armstead! You will be in his hands, without a talisman! He could kill you any time he chooses to do so and the Scotties couldn’t prevent it!” she spat out
at him. “Don’t do this!”
Paul held her tightly to him. “You know the score, honey. So far the Scottie Search Teams have found eight nuclear warheads. Lancaster, Auckland, Sidney, Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai, Delhi, and Jerusalem. At the rate that they are going, it will take a few more hours to finish searching cities over a million in population. And another two days to search those over a half million.” Paul sighed again, recognizing her anxiety and fear, feeling frustrated himself that he could not take those feelings away from her. “If we only knew how many bombs he has…but we don’t. We have to find a way to stall him, to buy more time for the Scotties to finish their search.”
“Paul?” she asked, the pain in her voice causing him to wince. “Please, Paul! Don’t do this! Don’t surrender to him! He’ll kill you! And what will happen to the war then and the Plan, hey? It’ll be over with then! We need you! All of Earth needs you!”
“One man? Worth more than who knows how many cities of innocent people?” Paul asked, the anguish in his voice plain for everyone in the room to hear. “Is that what you are saying?”
“It’s true and you know it!” she snarled.
“He won’t kill me!” Paul countered, his voice quaking with suppressed emotion. “He will demand a lot of information first. The secret of isotopes, the secret of how to turn Normals to wizards and wizards back to Normals. And how to move through solid matter. Those secrets will take time for me to explain. And while I am explaining how it all works, he won’t be detonating any bombs. After all, he wants to take back control of all the Earth. It really isn’t in his interests to set off any of those bombs, not if I don’t force him to do so.”
“I can’t believe you would so willingly surrender this way!” she cried in frustration, more tears running down her cheeks.
“If he detonated a single warhead, then I would have millions of deaths on my head,” Paul explained quietly, though his heart was breaking. “I couldn’t live with that on my conscience. Not when I can do this. I know I can do this! All we need to do is buy another 24 to 36 hours.”
“No!” she sobbed quietly, her head on his chest, her tears soaking through his shirt.
“I will make you a promise,” Paul assured her with the most confident voice that he was able to generate. “The moment it appears that my life is truly in danger, I will signal the Scotties to move in and rescue me. You know how fast they can move. You’ve seen them. Trust me, darling, please! I want to live too! There is so much to live for! I promise I won’t let them kill me. This is just another ruse on my part, a rather clever one if I do say so myself.”
“Paul Thomas Armstead, if you get yourself killed, I will never forgive you, you dolt!” she cried, again losing her emotional control.
Paul held to her tightly. Inside, the tiny voice in his head was screaming at him that she was right and that he was doomed to die a horrible, painful death.
Ω
The deadline of the ultimatum was nearly upon them.
“Any further word from the Search Teams?” Paul asked again, rubbing his sweaty hands together.
“No change in the last three minutes, not since you last asked,” Daneel 1 replied. “Twelve warheads located, the last four in Minsk, Naples, Dublin, and New York City. We expect to find more in the United States,” he predicted. “And it seems strange that we haven’t found any in South America or Africa yet. I think we will.”
Capie reached out to hug him tightly again. “Check your transceiver once more, please?”
In Paul’s right ear, in the targus under the skin, was implanted a miniature digital RF transceiver. Its power source was a small battery also implanted beneath the skin, but below the right ear and behind the jaw, near a lymph node. The battery should have enough power to transmit for a few hours, which, hopefully, would be more than enough time. The transceiver also used a tiny tantalum wire as an antenna, threaded under the skin down the outside of his spinal cord to his right foot. The technology had been borrowed from cochlear ear implants but improved upon by the Scotties.
Paul grimaced but clinched his jaw hard, activating the transceiver. “Testing, one, two, three, four,” he said, in a monotone.
“Loud and clear,” Daneel’s tinny voice sounded in his ear. At least, it sounded to Paul like it was in his ear.
“Working fine,” he reported to Capie, gently smiling at her, doing his best to keep up his façade of confidence.
A portal opened up and the unconscious bodies of Yuan Wu and Akbar Hamadi floated through, closely followed by Rommie 451.
“They’re all ready to go,” she reported. “Doped up enough to keep them asleep for about a day, more or less. Can’t do better than that without endangering their lives.”
“And the rest of the wizards?” Capie asked, still trying to hold back her tears.
“We have over a hundred converted so far. We’ll have the rest in another twelve hours or so,” Rommie 451 reported cheerfully.
A folded sheet of paper floated through the air and dropped into Paul’s outstretched hand.
Daneel 1 nodded at the paper. “That’s the first clue set for Yuan Wu’s and Hamadi’s bodies. We’ll have them in place shortly.”
“Thanks, that will be sufficient, I believe,” Paul replied, anxiety gnawing away at his thin disguise of courage. He tucked the paper in his shirt pocket, turned again to Capie, hugging her tightly again, perhaps for the very last time.
“I promise everything will be fine,” he said, as cheerfully as he could manage.
“Liar,” she snapped angrily. “You just come back to me in one piece, Paul! I need you more than words can say.”
“I will,” Paul said, letting go of her. He pulled his talisman from his arm and handed it to her. “Keep this for me, until I get back.”
Somehow, he found the mettle to nod to Daneel 1. “It’s time.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Theodore Roosevelt Island
Potomac River
Saturday, 11:59 a.m. EDT
July
Theodore Roosevelt Island, previously known as Mason’s Island, was a 88.5 acre island in the middle of the Potomac River, less than two miles to the northwest of the Lincoln Memorial. The island was currently administered by the National Park Service and contained a 5 meter tall statue of the 26th President of the United States along with miles of trails and small creeks, in honor of Roosevelt’s conservation ideals. There was a large white concrete plaza in front of the statue with wide sweeping walkways leading into the interior of the island. The park was renowned for its birdlife and wide variety of plant-life that could be seen from the nature trails.
The island could only be reached by a foot bridge from the west bank of the Potomac River. Due to its relative isolation and the fact that it could only be reached on foot, the Roosevelt Memorial was one of the least visited memorials in the Washington D.C. area.
Paul was reasonably certain that was why Clarke had picked it as the meeting site.
Daneel 1’s portal dropped him into the center of the plaza at exactly 11:59:55 a.m. EDT. Paul stood patiently waiting. A couple of middle aged women visitors noticed him, but they turned and walked away.
A portal opened in front of Paul, sweeping him up and away.
He saw a brief glimpse of a city sidewalk, then an empty warehouse, followed by a large wooden dock extending out into a mirror-smooth bay of a bright blue lake, then an empty grass clearing in a forest, a hot rocky parched desert and finally a large cinder block room with a dirt floor and two bare electric lights dangling from beams in an open framed attic space.
In front of him stood a dozen Oni and two wizards. Paul recognized the first one from photos he’d seen as Mahdi Hassan Shirazi, a wizard from the Middle East. The other one was a dignified man in casual American clothing and wearing a gold Rolex watch. Paul assumed that this person was none other than Oliver Jacob Clarke himself. Behind the two Errabêlu wizards, Paul saw a large black object, the size of a storage trunk, but it glowed with
an eerie iridescence. Ah, a very large talisman! So this was how they created a talisman as potent as Paul’s own! They super-sized them! His Great Aunt Dana’s whiskers, the thing must weigh several tons!
The wizard Shirazi took three quick steps toward Paul and back-handed him solidly in the face. Paul collapsed to the ground.
“I should kill you right now!” the evil wizard hissed angrily.
“Patience, my friend,” Clarke said, in a noble and calm manner. “All in good time.” He nodded at two of the Oni. “Search him carefully. Give me his talisman.”
Paul propped himself up on one elbow. “I don’t have a talisman with me.”
The Oni searched him anyway, checking his shirt and pants pockets, patting down his legs, waist, back and chest. And they weren’t very gentle about it either.
Finished, they yanked him roughly to his feet. One of them reached out and snapped a solid silver-colored band of metal around Paul’s right wrist. Paul held the item closer for a visual inspection. The band was engraved with a highly elaborate set of scrollwork.
Clarke casually studied his prisoner from where he stood. “The devil incarnate, so it would seem.”
“What is this?” Paul asked, holding out his wrist.
Clarke waved an indifferent hand. “Oh, that? It’s a disrupter. As long as you wear that manacle, it will disrupt your ability to cast any spells, even internal ones. But you are here to answer my…our questions, Mr. Armstead. Your presence here is only one of our demands. Where are the wizards you have captured?”
“I released them,” Paul calmly answered. “As you demanded.”
Shirazi grabbed Paul by his shirt, jerking him closer and back-handing him. “Liar! If you had released them, we would be hearing from at least some of them by now!”
The blow from Shirazi was enough to daze Paul and it took a few seconds for him to clear his head enough to speak.
“We drugged all of them with anesthetics,” Paul replied, watching two images of Shirazi spinning crazily. “Enough to keep them asleep for 12 to 24 hours.”
The Genie and the Engineer 3: Ravages of War Page 29