“What’s this about?” Dargo demanded of Bayer.
“Consider this your exit interview,” Bayer said with a dry chuckle. “Your services will no longer be required. I don’t appreciate your betrayal.”
A sound that could be described only as a low growl emanated from Dargo. It seemed that even bound and shot in the leg, he was more than a little tempted to attack Bayer. “You have murdered my men!”
“Oh, please. Give it a rest,” Bayer said with some levity. “You would be dead now, too, if your son were here with you. Tell me, where is young Yuri? I want you to see him die before you are put out of my misery.”
Cyrus considered the twist of fate that had spared Dargo’s life. Dargo had benched Yuri, refusing to take the young man on this mission because Yuri was having trouble with the idea of working with Cyrus. Dargo had come to accept that Cyrus had had no fault in the death of his daughter, but Yuri had no such acceptance when it came to the loss of his half-sister. Plus, Cyrus had bested the man on two separate occasions. Since Yuri was a hothead, Dargo considered his son a potential liability and had left him out of the operation as a result. Had Yuri been present, both he and Dargo would surely be dead already. It seemed that, as long as Yuri lived, Dargo might as well.
Bayer had no idea the tactical mistake he had made. There was no doubt that Dargo had come to these same conclusions. Cyrus just needed to keep Bayer talking. He was pretty sure he knew how to do that.
“Two men have been sent to collect Yuri. He will be brought back here,” Bayer continued. “You will watch him die, and then I will watch you die.”
Cyrus wanted to change the subject. He took this opportunity to do it. “I know you,” he said to Bayer.
Bayer’s deep-set eyes focused on Cyrus. “I’m sure you do. But do you know that all of this would’ve been unnecessary, had it not been for you?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crush—kill—destroy—you’re a gangster. Your checkbook has killed more people than second-hand smoke. But that’s not what I meant. I’m saying that I know who you are. Nil Bayer. You’re fantastically wealthy. You made the better part of a billion dollars after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What I don’t understand is why you need more money. Of all the people I expected to come after Meridian, I don’t understand why it’s you. Meridian can make the world a better place. All you want is to make more money?”
The pulsing vein on Bayer’s large forehead told Cyrus that his derisive words had scored the desired effect. For a moment, the man looked as though he might have an aneurism. This told Cyrus that the key to alienating the man was talking down to him.
Cyrus could recall reading a Forbes article about Bayer, years earlier. It was a classic rags-to-riches story. Bayer started out a low level scientist, working at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He’d likely been shown great disrespect by the military chain of command, to which, at the time, every department ultimately reported. Then, later, Bayer had made his mark and become amazingly wealthy. At that point, he would’ve finally gained power and influence. As a result, he was likely no longer accustomed to being challenged.
“Meridian has the power to remake global empires,” Bayer corrected. “Professor Meade’s plan had two fatal flaws. First, it was altruistic. Second, it lacked ambition. Why give Meridian to the world when the world will gladly pay for it? And why roll the technology out slowly? I have the manufacturing facilities standing by. I’ll have the transport platforms in mass production in two months time. Plenty of time to stockpile the hardware for a literal global, overnight rollout.”
Reese sputtered at the sound of Bayer’s plan. “You can’t do that! The technology must be deployed in stages. We’ve done simulations—an aggressive deployment will result in massive economic disaster on a global scale!”
The reptilian gleam in Bayer’s eyes sent a chill down Cyrus’s spine. “You are absolutely correct, Miss Knoland! Certainly not everyone would embrace the new technology overnight, but there would be enough acceptance to gain crucial momentum. That will be followed by a groundswell of support for the technology, which will force even the reluctant to follow suit. It will take two, perhaps three weeks at most, before the Meridian platforms gain critical mass. By that time, automobiles will have become antiquated technology. Airlines and shipping companies will have gone the way of the dinosaur. As a result, automakers, airlines, and dozens of other major industries will go bankrupt overnight. The demand for fossil fuels will plummet, causing massive economic unrest. These factors will snowball into a financial meltdown, as banks collapse and entire financial markets crumble.”
Bayer’s master plan left everyone speechless, but it struck Dargo particularly hard. He was appalled to have been a willing participant in such a plan. “You are insane!” he protested. “Untold lives will be lost in the chaos. This sort of thing starts world wars!”
“And you are correct as well, Mister Dargoslav!” Bayer was having far too much fun unveiling his plan. “Every person on Earth will look to their national or spiritual leader to show them a path from the chaos. But their leaders will have no salvation to offer.”
Rolling his eyes, Cyrus could see where this was going. “Let me guess. You’ll be the one with a turn-key solution ready to go. And you’ll be happy to lend a hand, for a price.”
“Precisely! By that point, I should think world powers will be willing to pay just about anything. Not monetarily, of course. By that point, conventional currency will be completely worthless. They will be forced to pay with what little they have left. I will unite a world vaster than even Alexander the Great! Disparate nations will unite under me, or they will see their people starve and freeze.”
The confidence Bayer was displaying was chilling. Given his resources, what he described might even be possible. He sounded like a crazed supervillain from a Saturday morning cartoon, but the nut-job might just be able to pull it off, if he got his hands on the technology.
The shocked, wide-eyed look that Reese gave Bayer demonstrated her speechlessness. Cyrus couldn’t blame her. The man was literally going for total world domination.
“How?” Dargo asked. “It is how the Americans say,” he looked over at Cyrus. “You cannot unring a bell? The damage will be done. Once it is done, there is no going back.”
At that, Cyrus nodded. He finally understood Bayer’s plan. “He plans to profit from the chaos.”
Bayer stood proudly with his arms crossed, and he waited for his captive audience to work things out. He looked like he was posing for the statue he believed would one day be made in his honor.
“It is not possible!” Dargo countered.
Tipping his head back and forth, Cyrus filtered the twisted logic in his mind. “Anyone sufficiently prepared for the chaos stands to profit from it. Given Bayer’s means, I’m thinking that would include the stockpiling of tangible assets, things that will have substantial value following the collapse. In this case, weapons and ammunition. It also means he’ll have fresh water processing plants standing by. Power plants, ready to go online. Massive stockpiles of canned and dried foods. Oh, and his own private army. You gotta have that, just to keep the Army, Navy, and Marines from stomping your ass from the get go. I’m betting that’s where these thugs come in,” his gaze moved from man to man, as he took in the team that had wiped out Dargo’s men and taken them prisoner.
“But first things first, someone with Bayer’s perverted sense of value would start with conventional investments above all else. On an intellectual level, he might understand what will be of value following the collapse. But he won’t be able to deny his nature. I bet he’s already begun stockpiling gold and silver. Once the necessities are covered, that’ll be the currency he’ll use to rebuild the markets.”
“Rebuild them as I see fit,” Bayer stated simply. That one statement confirmed everything Cyrus had put together.
Reese looked nauseated. “This technology has the ability to unite the world in a way never conceived! And you look at it as a tool
for profit? You’ll bring nothing but death and destruction!”
“It’s all about power to him,” Cyrus said sadly.
This made Bayer chuckle. “It’s about more than power! It’s about righting a long-standing wrong!”
By the glint in his eye, Cyrus could tell that Bayer was dying to explain, so he kept quiet and let the man have the floor.
“You refer to it as Halon-Seven,” Bayer said. “If you think it was an American technology, you are sorely mistaken. Meade’s predecessor stole the technology from Mother Russia. Your precious Meridian, at its heart, is Russian technology!”
Reese shook her head. She didn’t understand. “Stole it?”
Bayer nodded. “In 1907, a meteor strike outside of Moscow resulted in the discovery of a new element. Russian scientists studied it at a secret laboratory. They discovered that the ore comprising a portion of the meteorite exhibited truly amazing properties. When energy was applied to the ore, the mineral would magnify the introduced energy by an untold factor. It was to be a technology that would change the world. Until, that is, an American agent infiltrated the laboratory in 1908 and stole the only known sample.”
“You’re crazy!” Reese said simply. She clearly wasn’t buying his crazy tale.
“Not at all,” Bayer countered. “All the information is there. It’s a puzzle. You just have to be dogged in searching out the pieces and putting them together. You see, to cover the theft of the meteorite, an American agent detonated some sort of super-weapon and wiped out not only the lab, but hundreds of acres of Russian forest. The ore that was stolen from my homeland is now used to power your teleportation technology. You refer to it as Halon-Seven!”
This brought a spontaneous, heartfelt laugh from Cyrus. Bayer’s twisted recitation of historic events was so flawed that he found it amusing. The laugh had come unexpectedly, but when he saw the glimmer of rage in Bayer’s eyes, he recognized what amounted to an opportunity. He could set the record straight and run down the clock in the process. Bayer had clearly fixated on his messed up revisionist history of Halon-Seven. Cyrus thought that recounting the facts might buy the time he needed.
All the reports he’d read flashed through his eidetic memory. He’d read every note Meade had left behind. This included a number of classified documents secured in a burn safe hidden in the basement vault in Colorado. Cyrus hadn’t even shared that information with Reese yet.
“You know, you get credit for solving a puzzle only if you put the pieces together correctly. All you’ve done is take a bunch of disparate bits of information and build a narrative that incorporates them.”
“I assure you, my version of events is quite accurate!”
“Not even close, comrade!”
Cyrus had everything committed to memory. “A series of meteor showers began pelting the Earth sometime in 1902. The showers came in waves, on and off, over the next several years. In 1907, a meteor impacted 12 kilometers outside of Moscow. The meteorite was collected by the Russian military, at the time still under the command of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. The meteorite was soon found to display unusual properties, one of which seemed to be the ability to amplify energy. A lab was set up in the wilds of Russia, where the Tsar thought the meteorite could be examined far from prying eyes.
“Interestingly, that lab wasn’t built for the study of the meteorite. The facility was originally intended to be a prison camp for political prisoners. A gulag. Near the completion of the facility, it was repurposed for scientific research.
“Around that same time Rumsfeld Pellagrin, a brilliant American scientist, was working on a project in the United States. In a surprising coincidence, his work was based on observations made following a separate meteor impact in the United States. Pellagrin didn’t know it at the time, but his meteorite led him to the discovery of what we now call quantum entanglement. Without a doubt, far ahead of his time, Pellagrin’s study of quantum entanglement led to our principle understanding of quantum teleportation. Pellagrin believed it was possible to teleport anything from one point to another instantaneously, regardless of distance. All of this, gleaned strictly from his study of the ore that comprised his meteorite.”
Bayer finally interrupted. “The American agent, Pellagrin—he stole the Russian sample to prevent Mother Russia from developing its own technology!”
“Not at all,” Cyrus explained. “And, since I know you’re not good with puzzles, try to keep up.” He was needling Bayer. He just hoped that Dargo was taking advantage of the time he was buying.
“The American and Russian meteorites had a completely different composition. They fell to Earth in different meteor showers and exhibited entirely different properties. Pellagrin knew he was on to something groundbreaking. The science of his day was primitive by our standards, but his theories were sound and light years ahead of his contemporaries’. Pellagrin wholeheartedly believed that teleportation was possible. He knew that if he could perfect the technology, it would change the world. But every approach to quantum entanglement met with the same roadblock. The energy required to link more than a few particles was beyond the abilities of the day.
“All of that changed when a report reached the US Signals Intelligence Service in 1908. The report stated that the Russians had made a breakthrough. They had some sort of device with the ability to produce unheard of levels of electricity. If there was ever a chance of powering Pellagrin’s teleportation platform, the Russian technology was the key. But in that lay the problem. The Americans couldn’t just request access to secret Russian technology. Even admitting we knew of it would alert the Russians to a spy working in the Tsar’s palace.
“So Pellagrin came up with a plan that would keep the spy safe and still provide access to the Russian power source. Stealing it was out of the question. The intelligence he had indicated the power source was delicate and experimental. It was also hardwired into the power grid of the military installation where it was being studied. Since Pellagrin couldn’t bring the power source to his platform, he took his platform to the power source.”
Taking a few seconds to gather his thoughts, Cyrus considered whether he should continue his narrative. If it bought him the time he needed, it would be worth exposing sensitive information. But if his gamble didn’t payoff, he’d be helping Bayer, and that was unacceptable.
Ultimately he had no choice. If they failed, Bayer would cause untold destruction regardless of what he said or did. If he leveled with Bayer now and explained that there wasn’t enough Halon-Seven to complete his plan, the man would likely kill them all right there. Then he would take the Halon-Seven he had and use it as a weapon. If the accident at the Fire Star lab had demonstrated anything, it was how the element could be weaponized. Cyrus opted to continue the story. He had to stop Bayer here and now, and that required buying a little more time.
“Pellagrin’s transport platform was a large and complicated piece of technology,” Cyrus continued. “There was no way he could sneak it into Russia, let alone into the secure Russian facility. So he had the Russians do the heavy lifting. He leaked information about a powerful new super-weapon that was being transported from New Mexico for a demonstration in Washington, D.C. Pellagrin made sure the cross-country trip included an overnight stay at a warehouse mid-trip, providing the Russians adequate opportunity to make their move. Sure enough, they took the bait.
“You should be proud,” he said with a glance to Bayer and then to Dargo, since they were both Russian. “You guys pulled it off! The Russians stole several hundred pounds of gear that was to comprise a state-of-the-art super-weapon when fully assembled. After that, they secretly transported it back to Russia. And, wouldn’t you know it? Just as Pellagrin predicted, the Tsar had the stolen hardware sent to the same secret military installation as Fire Star.”
“Fire Star? What is Fire Star?” Dargo asked.
Cyrus had seen Bayer’s expression change at the mention of the Russian code name.
“Fire Star is what
the Russians called their power source, their meteorite. Anyway, the stolen hardware was to be examined by the finest scientific minds in Russia. So naturally, it was taken to the same base as Fire Star. But by the time the stolen hardware arrived, Pellagrin had already infiltrated the installation. After that, it was a simple matter of modifying paperwork. When the stolen American hardware arrived, it was promptly deposited in the Fire Star lab, where it was to be examined the next day.”
The pulsing vein had retuned to Bayer’s forehead. “You expect me to believe that a lone American scientist infiltrated a top-secret, Russian military base by himself?”
Chapter 44
Phoenix, Arizona
Sunday, 7:54 pm (8:54 pm Colorado Time)
Cyrus nodded. “Rumsfeld Pellagrin was something of a renaissance man. He was a scholar before he joined the Marine Corps. After his tour of duty, he returned to academia. The man wore many hats in his lifetime. He must’ve been truly extraordinary.”
“Continue your story,” Bayer ordered impatiently.
“Finding that these pieces fit together?” Cyrus pressed.
He didn’t try to hide his satisfied smirk as he continued. “In the dead of night, Pellagrin snuck into the Fire Star lab and found the crates comprising the American super-weapon. They were stowed just as his forged work order instructed. He spent the rest of the night reassembling the device. But when he was done, there was no weapon. Pellagrin had tricked the Russians into delivering his teleportation platform to the very room that housed Fire Star!”
“And this is when your Rumsfeld Pellagrin stole the Fire Star meteorite and destroyed the facility, killing over a hundred Russian patriots,” Bayer stated in a flat, cold tone.
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