by James Flynn
Luke knew he needed to act, he felt the pressure building. An unknown enemy faced him and preparation was coming to a climax. He quietly moved his bag around to his front, placed his hand inside and extracted the knife and chord which had held the climbing ropes together. Quietly he tied a noose in the chord. The armed men had enough firepower to make quick work of him and he would have been a lot more comfortable if he could have held the Glock, but he knew it wasn’t an option. They had firepower, he had stealth and surprise.
Is Chung Su still alive?
Five men: two armed, three unarmed. It didn’t make for great odds. Leather chair and framed picture were the two armed men but they had gone. Luke centred himself; he felt the coldness descend on him, his brain settling the pieces into place. Move, move, move.
Keeping low, he moved along the concrete wall, blue light flashing across his face . He flicked out the blade of the knife and held it so the cold metal pressed against his forearm. He didn’t slow as he reached the Plexiglas room; there was no door, it was an open space. Luke kept his eyes fixed down the concrete tunnel, watching for the return of the armed contingent.
Adrenaline flooded his system; drawing level to the entrance gap he heard the three men interacting; to his surprise they interspersed snippets of English … these guys are not Iranian.
Without hesitation, Luke burst into the room. He didn’t go in screaming, but moved with a lethal efficiency. The room was packed with a range of computer server units, stacked eight lines across by ten high. All three men were bent over at various angles fiddling with components. The closest to Luke was vase; he had thick brown glasses, was no more than forty years old and was built like a rake. Luke reached him before anyone knew he was there; he threw the noose around his neck, pulled back hard to the accompaniment of a muted shriek and then with force threw the man’s head forward, smashing it against the server units, dazing him into silence. The room was compact and the two others turned at the noise. Hollywood films would have everyone believe that when someone is confronted with a violent situation they start screaming uncontrollably; that isn’t the case. Often people are shocked into inaction, confusion and fear tightened into inertia.
Green lamp was close on Luke’s right; he had grey thinning hair and a bulging pot belly. Luke dropped vase and jabbed the knife hilt hard into green lamp’s belly; he let out a guttural noise and doubled up. In one swift motion, Luke brought the knife hilt down hard across the left temple and green lamp crumpled in a heap. Small spots of blood splashed the Plexiglas.
Luke’s attention turned immediately to armchair. He had pressed himself against the servers, flashing a look over at the entrance, judging whether he could make a run for it. Confronted with Luke’s gaze he pressed back further against the servers.
“Please … I do not want …” the man spoke in broken English but did not get the chance to finish his sentence. Luke kicked him hard in the chest then with his left hand he landed an uppercut on armchair’s chin, sending his head smashing against the array of metal. He was still conscious as he slumped down to the floor so Luke landed a brutal kick across his face and armchair was unconscious with a bloodied nose.
It all lasted seconds. Luke went back to vase, grabbed the chord and disappeared back into the corridor, dragging the man behind by his neck.
Luke soon stopped and sat panting against the wall. He forced himself to breathe deeply to balance out the adrenaline. He didn’t fear death; all he was worried about was completing his objectives. Luke gestured at vase to indicate that he wanted silence. Leather chair was now jogging toward their position. Lukee was confident they couldn’t be seen so he stood and rolled the knife in his hand, feeling it, letting the cold steel touch the skin on his forearm.
The armed man kept coming. As he reached the boxed room, he twisted his head in and whispered an Arabic word that Luke assumed was an expletive. He moved past the orange glass and raised his Uzi, trying to peer into the dark. Vase had moved to sit up against the concrete wall.
Leather chair was now fifteen paces away. Luke relaxed his body, bringing his arm down by his side … ten paces away … the only thing that mattered was the gun … five paces away. Luke brought his right arm up just above his waist; he needed to wait for the right moment … three paces away. He could see the glint of the Uzi frame; it was a weapon that had been glorified over the years but was not particularly accurate. Still, at short range it could pump out enough bullets to fell an army, and more importantly would also pump out enough noise to wake the dead. Two paces away … one pace. The man was now into the shadows, level with Luke, his left hand clenched around the Uzi … it was time.
The first the man knew of Luke’s proximity was the whooshing noise of the air displacement as Luke slashed out with the blade. The steel sliced down to the bone and jarred, the man screamed but no shots were fired. Luke had cut through the muscles that control finger movement, which are located in the forearm; he twisted the blade as he freed it clasping his gloved hand over the man’s mouth as another cry emanated. Luke heard the gun crash to the floor. He kept his hand round the man’s mouth and with relative ease made a deep clean cut across his throat, holding him as he bled out.
Luke shifted the now-limp body against the wall, checking it couldn’t be seen. The Uzi was placed in the rear of his waistband. The scientist was sat wide-eyed; he was quiet but there were tears on his cheek and a dark stain around his crotch. Luke drew close and lifted off the noose.
“How many of you are there?” Luke was firm in his tone.
“Please God … I don’t want to die, please …” the man was gibbering in French.
“Relax,” Luke spoke slowly in the man’s native tongue. “If I wanted you dead you would be.” The man was now weeping. Luke slapped him across the face. “Listen, how many of you are there?”
“About … about …” the man’s voice trembled. “Thirty of us … and … about twenty of them.”
If the man was accurate that left nineteen more armed men. Luke brought the knife up. “No … no, please … not me … not me. They make … they make ...” The man babbled incoherently in confused English. Luke checked his watch. It was 6.35 p.m. There was no time.
“Where is the control centre?” Luke had no idea if he was using the right terminology. The man stared at him blankly, trembling with fear. “Centre, centre, centre,” Luke demanded.
The man raised his hand to point down the tunnel. “Tout droit … deuxième a droit …” Where is framed picture? There was no time to worry. Luke secured the still-unconscious green lamp and armchair with the noosed chord, tying them together. He then pulled out one of his electromagnetic devices, setting it and rolling it in amongst the servers. He moved back out into the tunnel, tucking the Glock into the front of his waistband. The time ticked round to 6.40 p.m.
90.
Chung Su sat on the floor, her head buried in her hands. How can it be? It is not possible.
“Do you see it, Miss Chung?” Vittorio whispered.
Chung Su watched again as a flicker of electricity started in the bottom right-hand corner; in less than a second the screen was filled with a brilliant white light, moments later returning to a pale grey. She had just witnessed this new particle react to a low wattage of electricity … a huge reaction, and that was just a single particle.
Vittorio seemed desperate for Chung Su to react. He paced and replayed the video again. “Look at it … look. It is what will change us all.” The screen again lit up, then faded back to grey. Chung Su shook her head; she had never seen a particle react so ferociously to such a low energy input. Its implications were immeasurable.
“Its energy, what level are we talking?” Her scientific self took over. Vittorio crackled with enthusiasm as she finally engaged. He skipped round and took her by the shoulders. “Let’s keep it practical: just one of these particles can power a home for an entire month.”
Chung Su felt her legs begin to give way; she fought it and pulled herself
clear of Vittorio’s grip. That was a staggering claim, one single particle creating that much energy. “Is it stable?”
“Perfectly so. We capture them in a powerful magnet that feeds them into a sealed chamber. In fact, they are so stable they do not even react against each other.”
Chung Su shot him a look. “They? You have many samples?”
Vittorio nodded. “Of course …”
“Professor, if a single particle can deliver so much energy then …”
Vittorio interrupted, “We can power the planet for eternity.” This time he let out an exclamation of joy as he said the words. “Miss Chung, this is the future. QY66-BH5 is what will take us from the dark ages into the light, Insha’Allah. We can power everything using a source a trillion times more abundant than any fuel source we have ever seen. Amazingly, it is even a fuel source that will outlive the sun, even if we don’t.” He clapped his hands.
“But, Professor, the process … we still need fission for anything to happen.” Chung Su was trying to examine the details.
“We do at the moment, but here under laboratory conditions we produce enough particles to power a city for an entire year.”
It was extraordinary. “What does it emit?” Chung Su asked.
“Absolutely nothing but pure energy, completely clean,” Vittorio replied.
It gets better and better, thought Chung Su. It would revolutionise energy consumption, producing clean fuel from such a small source, made from fusing natural elements – all Chung Su could see were the world’s most needy, how they would have access to power, power to produce clean water, to heat their homes, to run machinery. Her thoughts went to her homeland, the millions of poor and needy. “It’s beautiful.” The words slipped out of her mouth.
Vittorio was excited. “Yes, yes, yes, it is truly beautiful. We understand the process at the moment is not clean or efficient, but we will get it to that stage, you know yourself that exploration in nuclear fission is pushing ahead, and heavy water can be sourced naturally or produced quite easily. We will be able to use fission reactors, ironically for fusing the elements.” He chuckled at the observation. “The possibilities are endless. We will keep refining … but the important thing is that it exists.”
She knew he was right, fission reactors could be powered for short bursts. The amount of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos produced would allow for an endless energy supply. The key was particle QY66-BH5; it didn’t matter at this stage how you produced it, the energy output alone made it a miracle of science. For a brief moment Chung Su was carried away with the pure science of it all, the possibilities, the genius of it … but all too quickly the reality crashed down inside her. She looked at Vittorio, he was looking back.
“The earthquake, Professor?” she asked.
Vittorio caught himself and seemed to redden with embarrassment. “Our calibrations were off on the first bomb we tried, it was too large, we had no idea it would crack the earth as it did. The erratic rock formation under the pressure of the Gran Sasso was something we had not allowed for. It has taken us years to get everything ready again, but we have corrected the calibrations on everything … we are ready.”
Chung Su was exhausted. “But it hurt innocent people!”
“Necessary casualties, and do not expect me to grieve for them, Miss Chung. Did they grieve for my country when NATO missiles drilled into our schools, or when our poor silently slipped into death, or even when the West imposed such strict sanctions on our country that we could barely feed ourselves? Tonight we take our next step toward history.” Vittorio paced the room, his movements charged with energy as he spoke. “Tonight we will be carrying out our final experiment on Italian soil. Tonight we share our discovery with Iran, and then we can continue our experiments back on my country’s soil as heroes.”
“But … how can you continue the experiments in your country, Professor?” Chung Su dreaded the answer.
Vittorio stopped pacing and glared at her. “Because we have reconstructed this facility in every detail … unlike you, we know what we are doing.”
Chung Su felt the shame wash over her.
Vittorio continued: “Surely you must appreciate the way we have manipulated the West, how we have sucked dry the resources they so pride themselves on. Their foolish greed blinded them. The only way they can continue their fight against God, against my country, against your country, Miss Chung, is to hoard knowledge, so I agreed to hold onto the data on the speed of the neutrino to play to that ego … I did it so that I had a smokescreen for when we achieved the impossible. I could make the whole Western world look at one hand whilst I pickpocketed them with the other.”
Chung Su was intimidated by the energy with which Vittorio was speaking. His eyes burned and she could see his hatred laid bare. She had so respected this man, and the work he was doing promised so much, but before her very eyes he was transforming, and the most frightening thought repeated inside her mind: how am I any better? She felt the presence of her grandfather, and wilted under the feeling; she was ashamed.
“Professor … the world deserves this.” She spoke calmly.
Vittorio went to speak, and then turned away. “The world does not deserve anything. You speak of the world as if we are in some joined-up harmony. You know as well as I do, Miss Chung, that there is no such concept as a world.”
She moved closer to him. “I understand your feelings, Professor, but you are a great man, this is a giant step forward, something like this can bring the world together.” Chung Su had spent a lifetime being brainwashed into thinking that her country was being persecuted by the world. She had worked away in secret to unlock the secrets of science and for what? She had wanted what Vittorio wanted. But the violence that she had been dropped into had affected her. “Professor, I know the pain you feel, but you cannot take this and keep it from the world.”
“Why not?” Vittorio snapped. “For centuries they have kept everything from us. How can you not see the pattern of history?” Vittorio wore a pained expression. “I thought you would appreciate what we are doing here.”
“I … I …” Chung Su took a deep breath in and closed her eyes. “Science never asks if it should!”
“What?” Vittorio looked blank.
Chung Su felt the life return to her limbs, adrenaline flowed, “You are right, Professor, you are absolutely right, I do understand. I was being used to achieve exactly what it appears you have already achieved.” Vittorio again grabbed Chung Su by the shoulders and gave her a beaming smile. She broke free from his grip and walked to a corner of the room. “I was so far behind you, Professor … and now I stand here in front of you, I have never been so glad to be so far behind.” Before Vittorio could respond Chung Su continued, “I have seen much suffering in my life, _Professor, yet the sheer horror and violence that all of this has caused … it is not right. Whatever you believe, what you are doing is wrong, what I was doing was wrong. All we do is perpetuate the pain and suffering, what are you hoping to achieve?”
“I will bring balance. Whoever controls this technology controls the world. For once we will have the ability to make the world bow to us!” Vittorio clenched his fists tightly.
“Balance, how?” she asked.
“You have seen the evidence, we will create energy that will not be governed by any kind of Western input. We will bring energy and freedom to the masses, and if they try and stop us we will crush them with a source of weaponry so great it will destroy everything in its path.”
Chung Su shook her head. “Why does it all come down to destruction?”
Vittorio smashed his hand down on the screen. “Do not be naive, Miss Chung! That is the world we live in. If we are to bring God’s peace to earth then there must be casualties in the war.”
“Is that what those technicians out there are? Casualties? You were supposed to stand for more than just petty revenge, Professor.” She raised her voice.
Vittorio bounded over to her and grabbed her by the throat. She
gagged at the shock. “Petty revenge? Those technicians out there will die in the same way thousands of my comrades have died, and they should be grateful to die doing something so worthy.” He released his grip.
“I am disappointed in you, Miss Chung, I had high hopes that you would see the brilliance of it all. But you are as short-sighted as they are.” Vittorio produced the cloth that he had wrapped around Chung Su’s eyes. She instinctively flinched. “My brother was right about you, we should have killed you. But I am going to make you watch tonight, I will give you a front row seat. And then when we are done, you and everyone else here will perish into dust.”
“How, Professor?”
Vittorio leant in close. “I am going to burn them in the fires of hell. Every inch of these walls is laced with explosive. Call it a quirk in design.”
Chung Su gagged, so many technicians would lose their lives. She pictured the fireball that would consume her and cause the collapse of the laboratory. The explosion would be blamed on a malfunction in the nuclear detonation. The scientists had been cut off for days, no doubt Vittorio and Beltrano would have moved in the armed guards after everyone was locked safely underground.
“What’s wrong, Miss Chung, you look unwell,” Vittorio cackled. “I am afraid our time is up. I have pressing things to attend to. I won’t be able to escort you back to the control room.” Vittorio walked over to the door and banged hard. The next moment there was a loud beep and two guards swung the door open and the noise from the chamber flooded back in. “But please don’t worry, my brother will keep you company.” Vittorio exited, and the guards didn’t bother with her protective hat or goggles, they grabbed an arm each and lifted her off the floor, walking back along the gantry.