Season of the Harvest

by Michael R. Hicks

  “There were hundreds of people there,” Tracy rasped as the camera steadily panned over the devastation. A few survivors, some of them athletes who had come for the event, wandered dazedly around the field as the first emergency personnel rushed onto the scene. “Now...now I think most of them are dead. And there must have been heavy loss of life in the surrounding buildings. It looks like the general services and military science buildings were totally destroyed, with a lot of damage at least as far as Centennial Hall. As you can see, emergency crews are just getting here now.”

  “When did the explosion happen, Tracy?” Connie asked, tears in her own eyes.

  “Only a few minutes ago,” the young woman said. “Just a few minutes ago, all those people were alive.”

  “Thank you, Tracy,” Connie told her, and the young woman’s image was reduced to a small digital portrait on the back wall. “We’ll be back to you shortly. But now, let’s take a look at what happened. Ladies and gentlemen, younger viewers and those who don’t wish to see graphic violence may wish to return to us in a few moments.” After a deep breath, she said, “This is the footage of the explosion that Tracy and her cameraman recorded.”

  On the screen, Jack and the others were treated to a view of Tracy, not yet covered in soot and blood, eagerly interviewing a young athlete. In the distant background were the bleachers, crammed with hundreds of spectators. Athletes were spread around the field, engaged in their various events or practicing. Other people, most of them students, were busy walking around the area or standing and watching the events. Beyond the bleachers was the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation building.

  In the blink of an eye and completely without warning, the entire building disappeared in a titanic fireball. The camera caught a view of the flames and debris scything through the spectators in the bleachers before the cameraman, Tracy, and the athlete they were interviewing were knocked to the ground by the shock wave. The cameraman somehow managed to roll with the force of the blast, pointing the camera immediately back at the cataclysm.

  Jack had seen many horrible things in his time, but this had to be the worst. Everyone in the bleachers, he knew, every single one of the hundreds of people there, along with most of the athletes on the field and nearby bystanders, had been killed instantly. Through the smoke and flaming debris, the pitiless camera showed scorched and dismembered bodies flung dozens of yards across the field. In only a few seconds, the aluminum bleachers became so hot that the metal deformed and, in a few places, started to flow like liquid plastic. Above the seed storage facility and the devastated buildings surrounding it, a column of smoke rose in the shape of a miniature mushroom cloud.

  “Fuel-air explosive,” Jack muttered. “Jesus.” No one in the building could possibly have survived, he knew, and the body count in the surrounding buildings, packed with students and visitors here for the championship, would be horrific.

  The camera panned to where Tracy knelt on the ground, screaming. The young athlete stood up and started moving into the smoke that now engulfed the field when he was hit in the head by a falling brick and went down, unconscious or dead. The cameraman grabbed Tracy and hauled her to her feet as more bricks, chunks of concrete, javelins of steel rebar, and other remnants of the building slammed to the ground in a deadly hail around them. Tracy looked up and was hit in the chin by a shard of concrete, and the cameraman grunted and momentarily stumbled as something slammed into him from behind. He got back to his feet and ran on, mercilessly dragging Tracy along. The camera was running all the while, capturing the horror.

  “I can’t believe they’re airing this,” someone muttered into the stunned silence in the command center. “The networks almost never show footage that’s this graphic.”

  “Quiet,” Naomi snapped.

  Connie the anchorwoman reappeared, long streaks of mascara running down her face from the tears she had been unable to hold back. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” she apologized as she dabbed a handkerchief at her face. “We now have confirmed reports from the other countries I mentioned earlier – England, Russia, China, India, and Turkey – that similar attacks were carried out against major seed storage facilities, with major loss of life...”

  “Turn it down,” Naomi said quietly, her face ghostly pale. The audio was suddenly muted, but the horrific images continued, and a list of the targets that had been attacked scrolled along the ticker at the bottom of the screen.

  “My God,” Chidambaram, said, tears glimmering in his eyes. “We not only have lost the world’s largest genebank, in Colorado, but the others, as well.” He read aloud the names of the facilities as they marched across the ticker at the bottom of the screen. “The Millenium Seed Bank Project at Kew in England. The Vavilov Institute in Russia. The National Genebank in China. The genebank in Ankara, Turkey. And the one in Chang La in northern India. All gone, and hundreds if not thousands of people killed...” He fell silent as a video image of the smoking ruin of the Vavilov Institute in Saint Petersburg played across the screen, with dozens of scorched bodies in the foreground.

  “Renee,” Naomi said suddenly, “unmute the video.”

  The scene on the news channel had shifted to the White House press room, and the President had just taken the podium. Beside him stood the directors of Homeland Security and National Intelligence.

  President Benjamin Fowler, who was normally quick to flash a photogenic smile, was uncharacteristically grim, and his skin was pallid under the harsh glare of the lights.

  “My fellow Americans,” he began without preamble, his deep voice rumbling into the microphone, “as you have just witnessed on the news, our nation has again been the victim of a vicious terrorist attack that has taken lives measured in the hundreds. This atrocity has been multiplied several times over in other nations around the globe, including some of our closest allies and largest trading partners. The directors of National Intelligence and of Homeland Security have received direct and damning evidence from the terrorist organization responsible, evidence that we have provided to the nation’s news services to air as they deem fit.”

  “Jesus,” someone whispered. “Why would they do that? They’ve never done that before.”

  “Look who just came in,” Renee muttered. “That should answer your question.”

  Jack saw Vice President Norman Curtis glide into place at the President’s left side. He wondered at the vitriol in Renee’s voice until he remembered that Curtis was one of those “owned” by New Horizons. He was either under the harvesters’ influence, or was one himself.

  “The organization that has claimed responsibility is known as the Earth Defense Society,” the President went on. “We believe this organization is also responsible for the murder of several agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the kidnapping of another FBI agent, and the bombing of the FBI laboratory at Quantico and the resulting casualties there.” He looked squarely at the camera, and there was no mistaking the suppressed rage in his voice. “I want anyone and everyone who has ever been associated with this organization to know that I will use every ounce of my energy, power, and authority to bring you to justice for what you have done. This nation will not stop, ever, until you answer for this wanton slaughter, and for destroying a completely benign treasure of all nations of the world in the form of these genebanks. We will find you.”

  And with that, the President turned and stepped off the podium, followed quickly by the vice president and the others on the stage.

  The president’s press secretary quickly stepped up to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “as you can imagine, the president has a great deal to do. For now, let’s please roll the video that was received by Homeland Security just minutes before the bombs went off.”

  The scene cut to a close-up head shot of a man everyone in the command center instantly recognized.

  “Oh, my God,” Naomi gasped, her eyes wide.

  Jack, disbelieving, felt a trickle of ice run through
his veins.

  It was Dr. Gregg Thornton.

  “To those receiving this,” the image of Thornton said in a calm and measured voice, “know that what we do today is simply the opening salvo in a war to preserve our world from the plans of international government agencies that threaten all humanity.

  “The genebanks that were destroyed today,” he continued, “were not innocent storehouses of pure, native seeds as has been claimed, but were repositories of insidious, monstrous mutations, biological weapons that were intended to wreak devastation on our biosphere, to kill millions, particularly among the poor nations of the world that rely on the largess of the United States and other countries for their food. We of the Earth Defense Society could not allow this to happen.” He looked reflective for a moment, as if pondering his sins. “We tried to warn you, the public, but no one would listen, and so we took action ourselves. We were able to destroy the largest of these so-called genebanks, but there are many more, my friends, that contain the seeds of our world’s undoing. We cannot destroy them all on our own. We need your help.

  “Let me also say that I deeply regret the loss of every innocent life that was taken today,” he said, “and will not offer any platitudes that it was a necessary sacrifice. It was simply unavoidable, just as it was tragic, and I will carry to the grave the stains of their innocent blood.

  “But now it is up to you, my friends. We have done our part. The governments of the world will try to convince you that we are your enemies, but we are not. Those who make and keep secrets are the true enemies in this war, and it is those you must rise up and fight before the ‘haves’ of our world leave nothing but a barren wasteland for the ‘have-nots.’ Godspeed.”

  The video then went back to the White House press room, which had erupted in a near-hysterical outburst of questions from the press.

  “Screw this,” Renee hissed before shutting off the news feed altogether.

  “The best lies have a kernel of truth,” Chidambaram murmured. “They blame everything on us, and in the same breath plant the idea in people’s heads that it’s a government cover-up.”

  “Just tell me that wasn’t really Gregg,” Jack said.

  “The harvesters must have him,” Vlad, who had slipped in during the broadcast, said in his thick Russian accent. “The replication was too detailed for anything but direct genetic sampling.”

  “I take that as a ‘no,’” Jack said, turning to Vlad, “but what do you mean?”

  “Harvesters can mimic any biologic form of similar mass from visual input, like photo or video, or direct observation” the young biologist explained. “But to replicate details accurately, from surface of skin to hair and color of eyes, it must have direct contact, be able to...take biopsy of human tissue, extrapolate map of DNA to be replicated.” He nodded at the video screen. “Details on video extremely good, completely life-like. It was harvester.”

  “So, is Gregg dead?” Jack asked.

  “Almost certainly,” Naomi answered bitterly. “The harvesters don’t have to kill us to replicate us, just make physical contact. But Gregg wouldn’t have let himself be taken alive.”

  “I hate to say this,” Jack told her, “but he might not have had a choice. Remember how you guys took down Sansone in my house. They could’ve surprised him and then interrogated him before they put on their little puppet show. They could be on their way here now.”

  Naomi shook her head. “Gregg had a suicide pill,” she explained. “He had a false molar on the right side of his jaw.” Renee and the others looked shocked. “I’m sorry. He made me promise not to tell anyone.”

  “You’d better promise me right now,” Jack said, staring at her, “that you don’t have one of those things.”

  “I don’t,” she whispered. “But I probably should.”

  Jack was about to tell her exactly what he thought of that idea when Chidambaram suddenly whispered, “Svalbard...”

  Naomi’s head snapped around to look at him. “What?”

  “Svalbard!” he shouted. “They haven’t gotten the seed vault at Svalbard, or they would have reported it!”

  “Damn,” Renee said, “he’s right!” She started tapping frantically at her keyboard, searching through international video feeds.

  “What the hell is Svalbard?” Jack asked, confused.

  “It’s what some call the ‘doomsday seed vault,’” Naomi explained excitedly. “The other facilities the harvesters destroyed were genebanks, which are what you might consider regular conservatories for seeds. The facility at Svalbard is sort of like what we have here in the converted missile silos: it’s a backup for the genebanks in case they somehow fail or are destroyed, or if there was a catastrophe that wiped out vital species in the biosphere that couldn’t be restored from what was in the genebanks. The Norwegian government built it on the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago, in the Arctic Ocean about five hundred miles north of Norway. Even if the power there failed, most of the seeds would remain viable in the cold vaults for dozens, if not hundreds of years, and even longer for some species.”

  “But why wouldn’t the harvesters have hit that, too?” Jack asked. “That would have been an obvious target along with the others, maybe even the most important one. Surely they didn’t miss it?”

  “There’s why,” Renee told him, and everyone crowded around her workstation. “Look at that monster.”

  On the screen was a weather map that showed an angry swirling storm that extended from the eastern shores of Greenland to Novaya Zemlya in Russia.

  “Nobody’s going to be flying in that mess,” she said, quickly pulling up the international weather advisories from the Federal Aviation Administration. “Svalbard airport is socked in with winds gusting up to eighty knots and heavy snow. According to this, storms like this are fairly unusual this time of year, and this thing apparently blew in awfully quick.”

  “Thank God for climate change,” someone muttered.

  “So, if we rule out an attack by air, what about by sea?” Naomi asked.

  “I’m not seeing anything that’ll help answer that question,” Renee told her as she continued to poke around on the web, looking for more information.

  “I was on a fishing boat out in the Atlantic for a summer when I was in school,” Jack told them. “We got caught in a storm that was probably a lot less powerful than this one, and if the sea right now around Spitsbergen is anything close to what I remember, any ship or boat that tries to put in to shore is going to be smashed to pieces, and there’s no way they could get small boats in.” He shook his head as he looked at the zoomed-in image of Svalbard on Renee’s display. “If I was planning an op, I’d use aircraft. See, the seed vault is only about a kilometer from the Svalbard airport runway, up this slope that overlooks the airport and the bay. Land, secure the airfield, then take a little stroll up to the seed vault and blow the hell out of it. If you tried an assault from the water, you’d have to try and scale the side of the plateau that’s at the top of that slope. That looks pretty damn steep, and even in good weather would probably be a bitch. The only real alternatives would be to either land somewhere along the coast near the airport, or farther into the bay at the town of Longyearbyen. That would probably draw a bit of unwanted attention, and it’s four klicks away.”

  “Renee,” Naomi asked, “how long do they think it’ll be until the storm clears off of Svalbard?”

  “If I’m reading this right,” Renee said, “it looks like maybe ten to twelve hours before they expect the airport to open again.”

  “How far is Spitsbergen from here?”

  “Mmmm...” Renee did some calculations on her maps, “about thirty-five hundred nautical miles.”

  “So about a seven hour flight in the Falcon,” Naomi murmured as she stared at the screen, her eyes narrowed slightly.

  “Wait a minute,” Jack said. “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?”

  Naomi shot him a puzzled expression and
Renee snorted.

  “Listen,” Jack cautioned, “that’s a damn long flight, even in a military aircraft. And in case nobody noticed, there’s nothing around Spitsbergen for a good five hundred miles but the Arctic Ocean. There aren’t any alternate airfields if we run into trouble or run low on fuel.”

  “I know, Jack,” Naomi said. “We have a Dassault Falcon 7X that has the range and speed to get a team of us there. We can’t just sit here and do nothing. You know we can’t warn anyone: no one listened to us before the harvesters’ trick mimicking Gregg, and they certainly won’t listen to us now. If the harvesters don’t have an attack force on the way to Svalbard now, they will as soon as they think they can get in to land.” Her expression hardened. “They’ll be able to walk right into the vault and blow it up if we don’t get there first and stop them!”

  Jack opened his mouth to argue with her, then shut it. She’s right, he thought. Set your personal feelings aside for a minute and look at it from a military perspective. The harvesters have the initiative, and we’ve got to take it from them. We can’t win just by playing defense. He was objective and honest enough with himself to realize that while there were certainly valid tactical concerns about mounting a quasi-military operation a few thousand miles away in the arctic, his real fear was that Naomi could be hurt or killed. That could happen here just as easily, he told himself, and almost has a few times now. Her best chance of survival – and yours – is to wipe these fuckers out, and you can’t do that by sitting down here in this hole while the harvesters can act at will.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “What’s the plan?”

  “That would have been Tan’s job,” Naomi told him. “Now it’s yours.” Jack nodded. He’d been expecting that. “We’ve got a plane that can take a strike team of a dozen people to Spitsbergen with plenty of fuel to spare for a long loiter time if we have to wait out the storm, or fly round-trip without refueling.” Turning to Renee, she said, “Alert Ferris and tell him to get the Falcon to Oroville Municipal airport. Tell him we’ll have a full team aboard, and to get strike package A with the cold weather options loaded, along with max fuel.”