“You’d better hop on, Sam.”
Tom eased the throttle back as far as he dared until Sam had climbed in and then pushed it forwards again. With the fuel line open, the aircraft began to hum as it moved forward. Tom taxied using the awkward tiller bar to steer the cumbersome tail dragger.
Once out from the edge of the ice chasm and onto the flat ice that made up the vast majority of East Antarctica Tom pushed the throttle fully in and the engine roared. Tom held the spritely aircraft on the ground until it couldn’t take it any longer. He gently pulled the stick towards his chest and they were in the air.
He checked the compass and climbed in a northerly direction towards the Maria Helena. It took a few minutes, but he found himself starting to get used to the old controls. He remembered his training pilot in the Corps telling him the Tiger Moth had proved to be an ideal trainer once upon a time. It was simple and cheap to own and maintain. The control movements required a positive and sure hand as there was a slowness to control inputs. His trainer had told him that during Second World War instructors preferred these flight characteristics because of their effect at weeding out the inept student pilot.
Tom flicked the radio on. Immediately, the sound of Gloomy Sunday began playing loudly. He went to switch it off again.
“Wait!” Sam yelled just above the sound of the engine.
“What?”
“Turn the radio back on!”
Tom switched it back on. “We can’t pick up anything or communicate with the Maria Helena – that stupid song is still playing.”
“I know.”
“So why do you want to listen to it?” Tom grinned. “You don’t think our situation is that bad, do you?”
“No. I just saw the old Radio Direction Finder – on the right.”
Tom adjusted the radio’s loop antenna. It was basically a small loop of metal wire mounted so it could be rotated around a vertical axis. At most angles the loop has a fairly flat reception pattern, but when it is aligned perpendicular to the station, the signal received on one side of the loop cancels the signal in the other, producing a sharp drop in reception known as the "null.” He slowly rotated the loop and looked for the angle of the null. He stopped when he found it. “Well I’ll be damned. There was a reason that noise has been playing constantly. Someone’s trying to provide a bearing.”
“I think we just found our way to the Island.”
Chapter Seventy-Five
Tom continued to fly the old de-Havilland Tiger Moth on the bearing for Gloomy Sunday, hoping that it wasn’t a sign for the likelihood of their success. It took them past the ice sheet of East Antarctica and into the Dumont d'Urville Sea. Twenty miles out Tom started to get worried, the biplane was simple and had a good reputation, but it was old and the further it went from land the more worried he became.
When he was close to turning around Tom stopped turning the signal loop. He no longer needed to. All directions moved him further from the source. The Island was below them.
He turned his head to face Sam. “I think we just found the Island.”
“Well done. Can you see anything?”
Tom banked to the left, making a slow and wide circle around the source of the signal. “No, not a thing.”
“Really? Because I can see the Island the USS Texas is hunting.”
Tom examined the water below. He put his polarized sunglasses on and saw it straight away. In a world filled with dark blue water, an area of roughly five square miles appeared unnaturally green. There was either some extremely shallow water below or they had indeed found the Island.
He grinned. “We’ll I’ll be damned. What do you want to do now?”
“Take us back to the Maria Helena.”
Tom straightened the biplane and leveled it for a direct heading towards the Maria Helena. When they reached it he flew low and circled the ship until Matthew came out on to the front deck with Sam’s sniper rifle.
“Shit!” Tom swore, lifting the nose of the Tiger Moth. “What the hell was he going to do, shoot us down?”
“It’s all right, Matthew’s a terrible shot. He was probably just trying to scare us while he got a better view. You’ll be happy to know he’s recognized your ugly mug and is signaling to come around and land.”
“You’re certain?”
“I’d bet my life on it,” Sam replied.
“In that case, that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Tom took the Tiger Moth down in a glided descent. He pulled back lightly on the stick and flared just above the ice flats and landed simultaneously on all three wheels. A perfect landing for a tail dragger, which has the main undercarriage as two front wheels and a very small wheel aft to stop the tail dragging on the ground.
Matthew met them with the zodiac rubber tender and transferred them to the Maria Helena. Tom was the first one up the ladder and on to the deck of the Maria Helena. It felt like it had been beached because the water was so placid. Genevieve embraced him like she hadn’t seen him for a year, wrapping her arms and legs around him in a massive hug.
“Jesus, when I saw the yellow biplane I thought you were dead,” she whispered in his ear.
Tom smiled, wanting nothing more than to kiss her lips. “I’m made of tougher stuff than you give me credit for.” He moved to kiss her lips, but she turned her head and jumped down to give Sam a big hug.
Sam looked like he was relishing the offer and lifted her off the ground in the process. “I missed you, too,” he said in a mocking voice.
Matthew was the last to climb the ladder. “What did you find?”
Sam looked at him. “They have the weapon. We found the Island where it’s going to launch. Its twenty miles north-east from here.”
“Good. You’ll need to get a message to Elise on board the USS Texas. We don’t have anything with anywhere near enough grunt to destroy the Island!”
“Do you know where the Texas currently is?” Sam asked.
“Satellites show her another forty miles east of the coordinates you gave for the Island,” Genevieve said.
“Okay, here, send this to Elise,” Sam handed Genevieve the coordinates.
“Sorry, Sam,” Genevieve replied. “The radios are still blocked by that depressing music.”
“That’s okay. I want you to send it via Morse code.”
Genevieve stared at Sam with a vacant expression, but said nothing.
“Okay, change of plans.” Sam took the piece of paper with the coordinates out of Genevieve’s hand and placed it in Matthew’s hand. “New plan. Matthew, I want you to send these coordinates repeatedly to Elise.”
“Via Morse code?” Matthew asked.
Sam took a bite out of an apple. “Yes.”
“But the radios are still down.”
“What happens every time you try and make a radio transmission?” Sam asked.
“It makes an interruption in the radio waves that sounds like incomprehensible static.” Matthew smiled. "But a series of interruptions makes Morse code – I get it.”
“Exactly,” Sam said.
Tom looked at them both. “What makes you think Elise is listening to the radio at all?”
Sam grinned. “Because Elise’s computer is always listening. It will identify the Morse code immediately. Then Elise will read it and notice it’s a standard set of GPS coordinates, and put it all together. The Texas will head there with its quad fourteen inch guns.”
“Okay, Sam.” Matthew looked at the coordinates. “Are you going to wait for them?”
Sam shook his head and started walking down stairs. “No. It’s too far. They’re at least another two hours away at best. Robert Cassidy may have launched his rocket by then. We might have to take a look at the Island ourselves.”
Matthew followed him. “What do you want us to do?” Matthew’s voice was tense and sharp. “There’s nothing we’re carrying capable of destroying the Island before it launches!”
“Tom and I are going back in the de-Havilland Tige
r Moth.”
“Why?” Matthew looked startled. “The Island is twenty-five miles out to sea and deeply sunk. It’s not like you’re able to land there.”
Sam grabbed a dry diving suit, a military grade rebreather, dive mask, fins and an MP5. “You’re right. Then I guess Tom and I had better be prepared in case we crash into the ocean … intentionally.”
Chapter Seventy-Six
Alexis stared at Robert Cassidy after he told her that he had already replicated her canisters and had almost fifty stable Higgs Bosons stored inside.
“You’ve actually done it?” Alexis’s heart raced with a mixture of excitement and guilt. “Nobody’s ever seen more than one Higgs Boson in the same place before!”
“Do you want to see them?” He asked, more like a doting father, than a maniac who was willing to sacrifice everything to destroy the planet.
“Yes,” she answered immediately.
“Follow me then.”
She followed him through a series of tunnels, hollowed out of the same porous volcanic rock found in her room. Cassidy stopped inside a large laboratory. An individual canister stood on a table and a powerful electron microscope was perched above it. Sitting at the table was Robert Cassidy’s son, her ex-fiancé – Daniel.
Robert was the first to speak. “We’ve been able to insert two Higgs Bosons inside the canister, but the instant we introduce a third the Higgs field loses its strength and the Higgs Bosons degrade.”
“Why would you be trying to introduce three?” she asked.
“Not three, but thirty-six!” Robert laughed. It was warm and kind. “My dear, Alexis – I thought you were following my plan? I’ve engineered a model of Higgs Bosons, which I believe will specifically weaken the Higgs field specifically related to electricity. It will be strong enough to stop major electrical activities such as computers, communications, and robotics, but not damaging enough to destroy the world or the tiniest electrical impulses that drive a person’s heart. How did you think I was going to remove electricity from the world?”
Alexis stared at Cassidy. Her green eyes, hard and piercing. “It can’t be done. What you want is impossible. The Higgs field affects the mass of all electrons on the outskirts of any atomic particle. Don’t you see, even if you could design a field to remove one part of the field, the Higgs Bosons used to build it would already degrade before you reach a stable model.”
“My son seems to think you may have a solution?” Robert said.
Alexis’s eyes darted towards Daniel, who quickly looked away. “It can’t be done, Daniel.”
“You once believed it could,” Daniel said without looking at her. “In fact, you showed me your theory. I tried my best to understand it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t make sense of it.”
“Did you ever think that maybe you couldn’t understand it because it wasn’t possible?” she asked.
“You think you were wrong and I was right?” Daniel shook his head. “You’re just trying to get out of helping us.”
Robert Cassidy stood up. “The Battleship USS Texas is hunting for us with depth charges specifically designed to destroy the Island. The time for squabbling over who can do what is over. If you can build the model that I showed you, Professor Schultz – I suggest you do.”
“I’m not going to help you destroy the science that has taken us thousands of years of evolution to reach. Why do you keep suggesting I will? You may as well kill me now. You have nothing to offer that’s going to be more valuable than the livelihood of the planet’s billions of human beings.”
“Come with me.” Cassidy grabbed her by her arm. “Let me show you what I must do if you can’t make this work!”
Alexis followed him through another two long tunnels. Daniel walked with them and remained silent, but mimed the words, “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what, Daniel? Sorry you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants, or sorry your father’s insane and plans to destroy the world?”
“I’m sorry I hurt you. You must understand we needed you. I never meant to be around long enough to nearly marry you – I really am so sorry.”
She laughed. “Christ, Daniel. That’s you in a nutshell. You’ve been so timid all your life. We’re about to destroy the planet, and you’re worried about my feelings after I caught you fucking my best friend on the night before our wedding? You’re more insane than your father!”
Robert unlocked the door and all three of them stepped inside a room that reached nearly a hundred feet into the air. There were two massive rockets standing upright. At least thirty people worked around each of them, testing, analyzing and preparing for the imminent launch.
“Professor Schultz,” he said using her title. “This is what the inside of a nuclear missile silo looks like. Those are both based on the Thor W40 Rockets used during the early high altitude nuclear tests taken in 1962. Both have the potential of bringing about my great plan and returning earth to the way God chose it to be. Back to before humans felt they had the right to infinite knowledge and the power to destroy everything. To a time before electricity. The one to your left requires the energy derived from thirty-six Higgs Bosons.”
Alexis stared at him. Her eyes vacant with fear. “You’re crazy!”
Cassidy ignored her words and continued. “The one to the right is the largest nuclear bomb ever constructed. This will cause the Van Allen belt to vibrate in the right frequency using sound waves to destabilize all electricity around the world. Of course, the downside is the fall out of nuclear radiation will most likely kill most living human beings. There will be survivors and I’m willing to take that risk, if you leave me no choice. Like I said, I would let you choose to help me, and I think you’ll make the right choice. So, what would you like to do?”
Alexis swallowed hard. “I’ll build your stupid thirty-six Higgs Bosons model.”
Chapter Seventy-Seven
On the bridge of the USS Texas Elise had been working hard following her program which compared dark rain clouds picked up on satellite imaging with real-time meteorological observations, such as water temperature, wave height, wind speed and direction. The theory was simple. If Robert Cassidy was triggering the satellites to imagine a cloud was there that didn’t exist in order to conceal the Island, it would become obvious when compared with other weather patterns that could be verified. Ergo any anomaly would most likely be the Island. There was just one problem with her program – it had found eleven such weather and satellite anomalies.
Elise blinked hard. She had been analyzing her computer readouts for thirty-six consecutive hours without a break. When she opened her eyes a message was flashing in the bottom right hand corner of her laptop screen. She clicked open and read the contents of the message. She swiped the laptop screen to the left until she reached a radio App. She opened it and listened to the current radio message.
Elise grinned. “Margaret!” Elise was the only person who felt comfortable calling her by her first name and not by her title as Secretary of Defense. Margaret had somehow been involved in her life since she was a baby. “You need to listen to this.”
“What is it?” The Secretary of Defense asked.
Elise pressed play. “Just listen.”
The depressing sound of Gloomy Sunday played. Margaret frowned. “You know why Robert chose that song, don’t you?”
“No. Why?”
“When Rezső Seress wrote it in 1933 some say he was challenging the Great Depression and increasing fascist influence in his native Hungary. The basis of Seress's lyrics is a reproach to the injustices of man, with a prayer to God to have mercy on the modern world and the people who perpetrate evil. Cassidy is telling us our greed has failed and he is going to make us repent.”
“Really?” Elise wasn’t convinced the Secretary of Defense wasn’t reading too much into it.
“Why did you want me to listen to it anyway?”
“Forget the song. Can you hear the static interruptions?”
“Yeah. What
about them?”
“They’re a series of on and offs making the signals found in Morse code.”
“What do they say?”
“They don’t say anything. They simply repeat the coordinates for a certain location.”
“Do you think it’s a trick?” Margaret asked.
“No. I think it’s Sam.” Elise brought up the digital map and marked the coordinates. “And I think we’d better reach this point here as soon as possible if we want any chance of sinking the Island before Robert Cassidy launches his weapon.”
Chapter Seventy-Eight
The yellow de-Havilland Tiger Moth circled the submerged island. Sam placed the military grade rebreather mask over his face. It recycled oxygen and scraped carbon dioxide from his exhaled air. It was the first time he’d ever piloted an aircraft and SCUBA dived simultaneously. Tom tapped him on the shoulder to say he was ready.
Sam gave the all-okay Q symbol with his right hand and then pointed downwards with his thumb. He reduced power and placed the aircraft into a glide. He banked left onto the downwind leg and reduced altitude to 1000 feet, before turning left onto a short base run before banking into the wind for the final approach.
Sam pushed the stick forward and gradually lowered the nose of the aircraft. He increased flaps to full and the sea slowly loomed closer. The stall speed on the Tiger Moth was twenty-five miles an hour, but even at that speed if he landed poorly he or Tom could still end up breaking their necks. He took in a deep breath ten feet off the ground. Then slowly exhaled as he pulled the stick towards his chest, lifting the nose up until it flared and stalled as the front landing wheels struck the sea.
Seawater flew across the windshield and in an instant the aircraft dipped gently below the water as though it had been carefully dropped. Sam’s head jolted forward in the process, striking the instrument panel. He wasn’t injured, but a slight crack formed on his full-faced dive mask. He turned to see Tom grinning and making the okay symbol with his right hand. A moment later the Tiger Moth began its journey to the seabed below.
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2 Page 48