The Lucifer Sanction

by Denaro, Jason

  “Those dogs,” Hunter said, “they’re for experimentation?”

  The answer came with an obvious amount of apprehension as the man stepped back into the passageway. “I’m afraid so, better the dogs than transients.”

  Hunter smiled but didn’t like it. His abrupt stop as they moved into the darkened hallway caused Sam to step on his heels. The look of fear that spread on the man’s face came with startling abruptness. He pushed the two into a recessed opening and quickly shut the steel door behind them. A cacophony of noise erupted in the hallway, grew to a crescendo, and after several long seconds moved on by.

  Before the adrenalin reached his extremities, Hunter asked, “What in the name of sweet Jesus was all that about?”

  Their escort didn’t answer. He cracked the door and placed an ear to the opening, allowed a minute to pass and cautiously moved along the hallway.

  “Why the hide and seek stuff?” Sam asked. “What’s going on here?”

  “We must avoid making your presence known to those in the main facility. We are going to the lower level. No one has been there in a long while. It is where they have been working with prototypes. I’ve not been there since . . .” He paused, turned to Sam, and gestured for them to follow.

  Sam looked at Hunter and back to their guide. He picked up his bag, gazed once more at Hunter and said, “Must be that section they told us about - the prototypes.” It was said it in a reassuring manner but the reassuring manner did little to remove the dubious expression from Hunter’s face. Sam added, “Hope this gets a lot better real soon.”

  Hunter whispered, “You think?” and squirmed as he tiptoed along on Sam’s heels.

  The man raised a finger as they reached an elevator. “This is how we traveled to the lower level last year.”

  He heard approaching voices and stopped.

  “What?” Hunter whispered.

  Silence.

  “What’s up?” Hunter reiterated.

  “Quickly, we need to take the stairs. The elevator no longer operates and no one has been to the lower level in a long time.”

  Hunter leaned into Sam and whispered, “Didn’t he tell us that a few times already - what the fuck?”

  The man was now sweating profusely as he led them to a steep stairwell and down wet and treacherous stone steps in near darkness. He took a flashlight from his pocket and shined it down the stairwell. At the end of a fifty foot descent he said, “I must announce your arrival.” He looked to his left and half smiled at Hunter and Sam. “Please, wait here.”

  “Here?” Hunter frowned, beginning to sound a little paranoid. “Where in the fuck is here?”

  The man wiped his mouth on his sleeve and peered into the darkness. “This is where prototypes are installed. Please wait, I will return shortly.”

  “Dammit, Sam! I wasted the last year of my life in fuckin’ therapy gettin’ over the last mission, after this one I might end up as Doc Parson’s numero uno patiento.”

  “We both might,” Sam added.

  Hunter shrugged. “Tell me you won’t do it.”

  Sam snorted, leaned against the wall and slid down until he came to rest on his sagging luggage. Hunter assumed the same position. The wait seemed an eternity. Hunter heard movement. He tipped his head to one side.

  “Ya hear that?”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Listen.”

  “I don’t...”

  “Sam!” Hunter’s voice elevated. “I tell you I hear barkin’ again.”

  “Barking? Calm down. The dogs are gone.”

  “Why couldn’t it be snakes, Sam, or even fuckin’ spiders? Nah – had to be dogs.”

  Sam cleared his throat. Hunter was beginning to sound a little paranoid, leaving Sam wondering if his recovery had been cut short.

  Hunter: “None of this seems right. Sittin’ here in darkness with German Shepherds runnin’ about wasn’t part of my positive reinforcement; you know I’ve got a thing about dogs.”

  “Yeah okay, I hear it. It’s just a dog barking, don’t worry about it.”

  The door opened and the man gestured for them to enter. Sam hit him with a questioning glare, the glare went unnoticed.

  “You must accompany me,” the man said. “This way please.”

  They tucked in behind him as Sam squinted into the darkness, his head filled with a conglomeration of thoughts. Hunter, nearly stepping on Sam’s heels, reached a hand past him and tapped on the man’s shoulder.

  “We were kind of hoping you’d uh, you know – like, turn the lights on.” Sam inhaled in exasperation, held the breath an unusual amount of time, exhaled and leaned into the man. “I’m being far more patient than normal. This whole scenario...”

  Hunter cut in and finished the objection, “...is fuckin’ obscene!”

  Sam lowered his eyes and spoke to Hunter in a muffled tone. “Sorry I dragged you into this, Gard.”

  Hunter considered the apology and allowed a few moments to slip by. “Forget it. Beats that loony bin you shoved me into.”

  The light improved and the idle chitchat stopped as a bald man materialized before them.

  “Forgive me if I startled you, gentlemen. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Frober. I trust you have acquainted yourself with the file for which you paid so dearly. We appreciate your assistance with the dilemma facing us; you will be more than handsomely compensated for your trouble.”

  Sam gave the man a look of disbelief. “Doctor Frober, I’m not accustomed to acting as a middleman for espionage. The Interpol Division is cooperating in an ongoing effort to retrieve our people already involved in this uh . . .” He paused, not knowing exactly how to describe their involvement. “I manage to maintain my position on the food chain quite adequately,” Sam said. “My intent is to get our people home safely.”

  Frober gave an apologetic bow of the head. “We must do what we must do, Mr. Didkin.”

  “That’s Ridkin, with an ‘R.’”

  He made an apologetic nod. “Of course it is.”

  Hunter: “So brief us, Doctor.”

  “Please take a seat.” He pointed at two sofas. A fresh pot of coffee sat on a tray. Coffee mugs, cream and sugar sat neatly by the carafe.

  “We are aware that our directors, those up top in our main laboratory, are preparing to send uh, well he is sometimes referred to as the Anti-Christ, they are about to send him back to eliminate the rogue operative you have been made aware of, the man known as Dominic Moreau.” He nodded at the coffee with a question on his face. “Libra cannot allow Moreau any possibility of returning with three ampoules containing an experimental virus.”

  As Frober spoke, he poured three mugs of coffee. Sam added sugar and crème to his cup, took a slow sip, rubbed his scruffy beard growth refraining from further questioning. He glanced at Hunter who had his arms folded in defensive body language, leaving his coffee untouched.

  “Mr. Ridkin, I must admit I was surprised at how easily your American Interpol Division accepted Danzig’s sell. The few of us who operate as a vigilante fringe actually considered interceding, but the speed at which you involved your people was to say in the least, rather surprising.”

  “So uh, my guys are being used? The whole story about retrieving Moreau and Campion was...”

  “Not really. Your people were definitely sent to retrieve them. Beckman and his physicists up top underestimated Moreau. Dominic outsmarted them. His plan stumbled when Doctor Beckman intentionally provided Campion and Dom with faulty conversion discs preventing either man from returning to the coordinates from which they had departed.”

  Hunter: “You mean to say they ain’t comin’ home?”

  “Correct. They cannot. They are limited to a restricted radius. Disc malfunction is a problem we believed our physicists had solved. In early development we had issues with misalignment of organs and arterial bleeding. In an effort to create the worse possible scenario, we transported test animals, rabbits, and mice. We fitted them with fau
lty return discs. The result indicated that movement within certain coordinates was acceptable.”

  Sam asked, “And if you sent them to coordinates outside of that?”

  They stared at Frober who smiled and shook his head. “We pushed the envelope, as you say. Reentry utilizing a malfunctioning disc results in a most painful death, far preferable to surviving with misaligned tissues and mismatched organs. It is similar to a facsimile with sentences scrambled about the page – it is a most horrible thing to witness.”

  “How sure are you the disc problem has been resolved?” Sam asked, avoiding Hunter’s tight-lipped stare.

  “There are four Libra associates above us,” and Frober pointed at the ceiling. “Three of them . . . Beckman, Danzig and Bosch . . . made quite certain that once Campion and Moreau served their purpose – the spreading of the pandemic – neither man would return to speak of it. Their discs are most certainly faulty.”

  “What about our guys?” Hunter asked impatiently. “Are their discs faulty?”

  “I suspect they are restrictive,” Frober replied avoiding eye contact.

  “Restrictive? How far have the other two guys traveled with their faulty discs?” Sam asked.

  “We estimate they have a few hundred miles radius from Maupertuis. We picked up a brief two-minute transmission from Venice, evidence of their limited movement. The coordinates for Venice are forty-eight degrees fifty-seven feet north. Moreau is a mouse in a maze, he can move to the west coast of Portugal or south to Algeria. Neither of which serve his purpose.”

  “And you perceive his purpose as being what exactly?” Sam asked.

  “Our concern is Neuberg. Our former associates in the main control room have lost touch with reality. They are preparing Günter Neuberg to intercept Moreau and Campion.”

  “And bring all of the guys back, right?” Hunter asked.

  “Bring them back?” Frober pouted his lips and blew out long and hard. “You must be jesting?”

  “You mean jokin’ and no, I’m not fuckin’ jokin’. Why’s this Neuberg character goin’ back if it isn’t to get our guys out?”

  “Günter Neuberg has a sole purpose, to terminate Moreau and Campion.”

  Hunter physically rallied himself and snapped out an objecting hand. “And he’s gonna take out Blake and our guys – take out Bellinger?”

  “I am afraid I have some unfortunate news,” Frober said looking befuddled. “It appears they too are in a most unfavorable situation regarding their ability to return.”

  Frober shook his head and raised both hands in a consolatory gesture, paused for a few seconds, visibly mustered some self-control and flopped into the nearest chair. He let out a Shakespearean like sigh as he mulled over his words.

  “Mr. Ridkin, it is a master plan. Just like all business, a plan that has been years in the making. And as they say, failing to plan is planning to fail.”

  “Clear that up a little,” Sam said. “How far does their plan go?”

  Frober appeared to be lost in thought. He hung his head and patted both knees several times. Sam studied him during his silence, and when he eventually spoke, Frober’s voice took on an ominous tone. “Libra is stealth in their scheming. They set about reducing the population, which of course freed up vast areas of land and cities otherwise overpopulated.”

  “Okay, I’m up on how they did that, and then . . .”

  He tapered off.

  Frober shrugged. “And then Libra will put plan B into effect.” He fell silent for a long few moments after which his eyes lifted to meet Sam’s. “They will destroy the competition.”

  “CERNA?” Hunter asked.

  “CERNA is a mere bauble with whom Libra spars about the ring – entertainment as such. Libra has - how do you say it in your country, oh yes, Libra has their number.”

  Hunter studied Frober carefully. After a protracted silence he shrugged and asked, “So what’s plan B, who’s the competition?”

  Frober groaned at the question as he filled his coffee cup. He switched to a look of contentment that bordered on gloating. Being a man who reveled in control, he savored the anticipation on the faces of the two guests.

  “I know this probably does not make a great deal of sense to you. It is not a matter of who the competition is – it is a matter of what the competition is. Libra will implement plutonium contamination that will render all of the fresh water on the planet undrinkable.”

  Silence.

  Sam and Hunter stared and waited for Frober to continue. He didn’t elaborate. He sat and sipped, then slowly lifted his eyes above the rim of the mug and savored the anxiety.

  “Let me get this straight,” Sam groaned. “Your friends upstairs, they’re gonna kill off the excess people and then kill off the water supply?”

  Frober flicked a glance at Sam and replied with a benign expression. “Primitively put – but a reasonable hypothesis.”

  Sam snapped angrily, “I thought I put it exactly the way it is.”

  “We are against what the physicists above are scheming.” Frober said. “They have lost direction. Libra originally had good intent. We set about safeguarding the planet from dwindling resources, and yes – we were self-appointed sheriffs in our efforts to control over population.”

  Hunter closed his eyes and rubbed his palms into his eye sockets. “What a fuckin’ nightmare, it’s a doomsday epic waitin’ for some Hollywood studio to pick up; not even Crichton would have come up with this creative plan.”

  “Crichton?”

  Hunter looked from Frober to Sam who met his eyes calmly, then flicked his frustrating stare back to Schroeder. “I see you’re too busy fuckin’ with the planet’s destiny to read a good book or two.”

  “Leave it be, Gard,” Sam whispered beneath his breath.

  He considered his next words for several drawn out seconds. “So that’s plan A and plan B. Tell me what in God’s name is plan C?”

  “Allow me to explain the workings a little more. We have four hundred and thirty-seven commercial nuclear power plants throughout the world. One hundred and five are in your United States. The quantity of nuclear that is created is gargantuan.” Frober shook his head as if to make a point of the size of the supplies. “Nations cannot just flush this material away. They cannot bury it and hope it dissipates into the soil. All they can do is store it. Your country is responsible for creating in excess of seventy thousand nuclear weapons in preparation for war with the Soviet Union, North Korea, Beijing, and the Middle East

  – with whomever. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability has reported the United States has created nuclear residues sufficient enough in number to cover a football arena to a depth of four miles beneath the surface of the playing field.”

  “So how’d that go unnoticed?”

  “Simple – the cloak and dagger antics of the United States and Soviet Union swept it under the carpet.” He made a sweeping motion and nodded with a grin. “They hid it in the secrecy of their Cold War. The dangers we are now aware of were of little interest back then, there were few who paid them any credence. The mess now faced by nations worldwide is monumental to say the least.”

  The room became silent, and Hunter’s face scowled as he fought off terrifying thoughts. He made a questioning gesture. “Isn’t there a landfill region where the stuff’s buried, someplace in the States?”

  “The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is the most prominent in your nation, but it does not solve America’s problem. The United States established an underground facility in a salt bed, half-mile beneath the ground near Carlsbad in New Mexico. Your Environmental Protection Agency approved the site for permanent disposal of radioactive material back in 1998. They dumped the first loads ten years back, a further forty thousand truckloads of radioactive cargo will be shipped there over the next thirty years,”

  “I thought Libra was into parallel universes, all of that faxin’ people shit?”

  Frober grinned. “Agent Hunter, do not assume the work of Libra is
limited to particle transference and population imbalance. Our mandate has a wide parameter. Solving the nuclear waste issue has been on Libra’s agenda for some time. Particle transference is in embryo stage. Population figures involve simple adjustments of past incidents. How our planet disposes of accumulated nuclear waste in a safe manner is part and parcel of our particle transference work. It is different in so much as it shapes the future rather than erases the past. We are looking into the largest trash disposer conceivable. Not only has nuclear waste been created by nuclear weapon detonation but also from commercial nuclear power. If we could find a way to relocate waste back to a time that would make the plutonium’s affective life insignificant, say one hundred thousand years before man’s arrival, well then, we would make the problem of storage a non-issue.

  “Nuclear waste contamination has similar effects as radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion: the waste causes increases in the occurrence of cancers as well as infertility and birth defects. Storing of radioactive material as was done in the 50s when the accumulated waste was disposed of in lakes and unlined pits, well, that is no more than another form of fallout. How to handle our nuclear substances safely challenges the best scientists in the world. The Russian’s have exacerbated the dangers of nuclear waste storage. There are no means by which to permanently and safely dispose of such matter. They directly injected enormous quantities of high level waste into the ground.”

  They listened to Frober in amazement. He paused, studied their expressions as his stare cut into them like a razor.

  “They started from point A and went in the wrong direction. What we are doing at Libra is going back to A and heading in the right direction – in the manner we sent Moreau and Campion back – so that we are able to manipulate alternatives.”

  “And that would be?” Sam inquired.

  Frober exhaled loudly. “That would be a population explosion.”

  Frober set about delivering the message in a more simplified fashion, having felt he’d adequately presented his point – he was forced into maintaining a level of tolerance. He spoke to Sam in a condescending tone. “Plutonium has a half-life of twenty-four thousand years, but the world’s physicists have no idea what medium will best contain it, what soil or rock will best stop its dissipation. We have rock, clay, sand, soil, even salt. We just do not know. There is in excess of two hundred million cubic yards of nuclear residues of which only two hundred and fifty thousand cubic yards are destined for the underground disposal site in New Mexico. The remainder of over one hundred and fifty million cubic yards will remain at sites in twenty-eight states in the U.S.A.”