by Nic Saint
James Bond hadn’t come to defeat him.
Glenn Roke only had himself to blame.
Chapter 48
Felicity maneuvered the van along Flanders Road. The cargo area had been cleared of bakery products, and now consisted of her extended family instead. Her cousins Bancroft and Busby had opted to take Busby’s car, joined by Aunt Bettina and Uncle Achilles, and Alice’s mom had also managed to secure her own means of transportation and was probably halfway down to New York by now. Only Felicity’s parents had joined them in the van, as had Granny Bell and Marjorie Stokely, who didn’t own a car and whose son was now patrolling the streets.
It was almost as if they were going on a family trip, Felicity thought, if circumstances weren’t so dire.
“How far can we get before this thing blows?” Mom asked for the umpteenth time.
“Not far enough,” Dad grumbled.
Peter Bell was a quiet, dour-faced man, and remarkably thin for a baker, which was why he never came into the store. Mom felt it would be bad for business if Pete showed his face, invariably caked with flour, and looking grim. People like to see a fat, jolly baker, not a skeletal sourpuss. Years of kneading dough and hovering over his oven had soured his mood to such an extent that he was now perpetually grumpy. All he wanted was to flee this place and go to Florida, where warmer climes would hopefully bring the sunshine back into his life.
“I don’t think we can outrun this thing,” Marjorie agreed. She was a natural pessimist, and this impending disaster confirmed her dark outlook on life. “I think we’re all going to die an excruciatingly painful death.”
“Thanks for that vote of confidence,” muttered Felicity, who steered the van around two SUVs, only to hit the tail end of a major traffic jam.
“I told you—you should have taken Sunrise Highway,” said Mom.
“We’ll be fine,” said Alice, who hadn’t stopped smiling since the great reconciliation scene.
“Was that Reece up there?” asked Marjorie. “In that helicopter? I didn’t know he could fly.”
“I didn’t either. He said he picked it up for Crunch Time 2.”
“Loved that movie,” grumbled Dad, as if it were a crime.
“Yeah, me too,” said Rick, who’d been trying his best to bond with his potential future father-in-law but so far had failed to click. “Did you see Crush Hour?”
“Yep.”
“Did you like it?”
“Nope.”
Rick turned back to face the front, a look of dejection on his face. Felicity grinned. It was so endearing to watch him try so hard, even when doom stared them in the face. She knew her dad was a difficult man to get along with, because of his essential misanthropy, but if anyone could crack that hard crust it was Rick.
“I hope Virgil can get away,” said Marjorie, biting her lip. She was sitting ramrod straight as usual, even though she’d had to make do with some blankets spread on the bakery van floor. Next to her, six cats sat staring wide-eyed from their basket. They weren’t too happy either.
“He’ll be fine. The moment the last Happy Baysian is gone, he’ll haul ass.”
Dad frowned. “Do you remember if I turned off the oven, honey?”
Mom threw up her hands. “How should I know?”
Grandma, seated between Rick and Alice, suddenly piped up, “I know what’s wrong!”
They all stared at the tiny woman’s wrinkly raisin-face. She was clutching her purse as if it was her life support, and had been frowning in front of her all the while, without contributing to the conversation.
“What is it, Gran?” asked Felicity.
“It was the cumin that did it!”
Felicity’s brows rose, and she directed a confused look at her grandmother. “Cumin?”
Her pale blue eyes shone excitedly. “Those muffins you made the other day, remember? You told me they tasted funny.”
“Extremely funny,” agreed Rick, whose stomach had been on the receiving end of those muffins.
“I found it in one of my old recipe books,” explained Grandma, suddenly chipper. Her favorite topic was baking, and whatever else happened in the world, as long as her recipes were panning out, she was happy. “But when I wrote it down for you I must have made a mistake. I wanted to write cinnamon but I wrote cumin instead.” She slapped her brow with her hand. “Silly me.” She giggled loudly at this mistake.
In the back, Dad’s scowl deepened, Mom’s lips pursed, and Marjorie rolled her eyes.
“Just start all over, Fee, but this time use cinnamon, not cumin.” Gran nodded enthusiastically. “You’ll see, they’ll come out just fine.”
“The world is going to hell in a handbasket, but those muffins will save the day,” muttered Dad, who’d never taken a liking to Granny Bell.
Chapter 49
The clouds had darkened over Happy Bays, winds had picked up, and Reece was having a hard time keeping the chopper straight. Rain was lashing against the windshield and lightning slashed the air. He looked up when Chief Whitehouse called out over the intercom, “I think that does it. We better skedaddle, before it’s too late.”
They’d been in the air for more than an hour, and had watched the great departure, all of Happy Bays moving away. The chief’s men had done a quick house-to-house and had given the green light. The evacuation was complete. Happy Bays was now officially a ghost town.
Reece banked the helicopter, casting one last look at the power plant in the distance, now shrouded in darkness. It was strange, he felt, that the disaster hadn’t taken place yet. Didn’t this guy Roke threaten to blow the place within the hour?
“I think the guy’s full of crap,” the chief now grumbled, as if reading Reece’s mind. He pointed to the plant. “Do you see anything blowing up?”
“Nope. And a good thing, too.”
The chief heaved a satisfied grunt. “Mark my words, nothing is going to blow. Glenn Roke is probably one of those fantasists.”
“What made him snap? I know there was some kind of accident.”
“It happened on set. Roke was doing a scene with Ted MacDonald.”
“Mayor MacDonald? I didn’t know he was an actor.”
“He was. And a good one, too.” The chief grinned. “Just goes to show, son. One day you might just make something of yourself. Hell, if you play your cards right you might even be our next president!”
For a moment, a dreamy expression inched up the chief’s face. He seemed to feel that being the father-in-law of President Hudson might not be such a bad thing.
Reece coughed, breaking the spell. “So what happened?”
“Well, Ted was supposed to shoot Roke, who’d been sleeping with his wife, who was actually Ted’s stepmother’s secret love child or something—I forget—and the propmaster had accidentally loaded it with real bullets instead of blanks. Ted fired, shot Roke in the head, then got so freaked by all the blood that he shot him again in the foot.”
“Christ, what a story.”
“Yeah. Not Ted’s finest hour. He retired from the acting business after that, and went into politics. Probably felt that if you’re going to kill people, it’s best to do it from a distance, not in the trenches.” He laughed loudly at his little joke, which Reece didn’t think was all that funny.
Just then, a loud bang sounded, audible even over the engine, and immediately both Reece and the chief turned to the nuclear plant.
“Dammit!” cried the chief. “The bastard’s done it! He’s blown it up!”
“So what is really going on here?” demanded Jerry. They’d heard screams and shouts, loud noises, cars moving out of the parking lot, an alarm sounding, even a helicopter hovering in the air. He stared out the cell window but couldn’t detect anything wrong out there. Just a patch of overgrown land and lots of brambles.
“Maybe it’s a fire drill?” suggested Johnny.
He snorted. “If it was a fire drill wouldn’t they let us know?”
“They don’t do fire drills,” said old
Vic. “Don’t believe in ‘em I guess.”
“See, he doesn’t look worried,” said Johnny, pointing to the veteran prisoner. “And if he ain’t worried, neither should we, right?”
Vic was still polishing off his plate. They’d just been fed before all hell broke loose. The mayor himself was apparently in the building, feeding the troops like he did once a year. It was one of the reasons Vic had been so eager to be arrested just then. He simply loved the mayor’s wife’s cuisine and wouldn’t miss it for the world.
“Nothing to worry about, fellas!” he called out, licking his fingers. Then he directed a covetous glance at the entrance. “Though I wouldn’t mind another meatball. They’re to die for.”
Even though Jerry had thoroughly enjoyed the surprise feast, and his stomach was purring happily, he still wasn’t too sanguine that this old fool was right. He’d been in prisons before, and in those other places when trouble broke out it usually meant a prison uprising. But since he and Johnny and Vic were the only prisoners in attendance, and they hadn’t risen up, that couldn’t be it.
He decided to give it a rest. If something was wrong they would have gotten them out of this place by now. Even in Happy Bays he figured they didn’t leave a man behind, not even a crazy old codger and a pair of parrotnappers.
“Could be the nuclear plant, of course,” now spoke Vic, frowning as if he’d just thought of something. “I seem to remember that last time there was an emergency, they gave us some weird pills to swallow, and sounded that exact same alarm.”
“What?!” cried Jerry. “You have a nuclear plant around here?”
“Course we do,” assured Vic, settling back like the experienced raconteur he was. “Built the place in the eighties, after a lot of protests. Not much good it did them, of course. When the government wants to build one of those plants, they build them, locals be damned.”
“It’s not too close to town, is it?” asked Jerry, now getting really worked up. It didn’t do, he felt, to come down to Happy Bays to steal a parrot and be caught in a nuclear disaster instead.
“Just on the edge of town. I guess it was the only piece of land they could find that was cheap enough to build. Mind you, it’s safe enough. At least that’s what they keep telling us.”
Jerry clutched at his hair. “We’re doomed!” he cried. “We’re all gonna die!”
“It’s just a nuclear plant, Jer,” said Johnny soothingly. “It’s like a giant microwave oven. And microwave ovens are perfectly safe.”
He eyed his partner malevolently, and for a brief moment the word ‘dumb-ass’ trembled on his lips. But then he overcame this temporary weakness. Even in this, his darkest hour, he wasn’t going to start mimicking a damn parrot.
Felicity had been boiling in her own stew. They simply weren’t making any headway. Driving rain was making it practically impossible to see where they were going, all the roads were blocked, and traffic was moving at a snail’s pace. Wouldn’t you just know it? The biggest calamity ever to hit Happy Bays and they were caught in a traffic jam.
It really was the curse of the modern age.
If this had happened a hundred years ago they could have escaped in their horse and carriage and probably made better time. But then of course a century ago they didn’t have power plants that could blow up and destroy an entire section of the world.
She decided to take a shortcut, and did a U-turn.
“Where are you going?” asked Mom.
“Did you forget something, honey?” asked Gran.
“I know a shortcut,” she grunted.
Dad shook his head. “If you go this way you’ll end up in Red Creek.”
“Better go past Big Duck Park and take the Cross River Drive,” said Marjorie.
“Are you crazy?” huffed Dad. “That’ll take us all the way North!”
“Don’t we want to go North?”
“No! West!”
“Hey!” Felicity cried. “Who’s driving this van?”
“I think we’re turning back,” said Alice.
“No, we’re not. We’re taking a shortcut,” she insisted.
During twenty minutes they drove in silence, then she spotted a sign that said ‘Welcome to Happy Bays’.
Immediately there was an eruption of voices from her fellow passengers. The gist of it was that they were right and she was wrong.
Suddenly before them appeared the power plant, and Felicity’s jaw dropped. Christ. She’d hurried to get away from this beast, and now…
“Felicity!” cried Mom. “What have you done?!”
Just at that moment, they watched as something seemed to erupt on the side of the cooling towers.
“She’s gonna blow!” screamed Grandma. “She’s gonna blow!”
And she was right, of course. The whole plant was gonna blow.
“Ah, well,” sighed Felicity, and parked the car on the shoulder. “We might as well enjoy the view.”
Chapter 50
Inside the helicopter Reece squinted through the haze of rain obscuring his view. Beside him the chief was also trying to pinpoint their exact location. In this soup it was hard to make out exactly where they were. Even the chopper’s instrument panel had gone haywire, what with lightning slicing the skies around them and thunder growling.
“I better put this bird down,” he said, “before we’re struck down.”
“Where the hell are we?” demanded the chief, annoyed. He knew these parts like the back of his hand, but since their vision had been practically reduced to zero, and they couldn’t even see the ground, it was hard to know where they’d ended up.
“Let me just see if I can land somewhere.”
He lowered the contraption, and saw a nice strip of concrete appear below them. Focusing all his attention on the landing procedure, he set the chopper down with expert hand, and the chief blew out a breath of relief. “You’re a great pilot, Hudson. If you ever find yourself out of work you can always fly a police chopper.”
“Thanks, chief,” said Reece, well pleased. He’d been trying to get in good with his future father-in-law, and this praise seemed to indicate his plan was working.
“You damn fool!” suddenly cried the chief.
Oh, no…
Aghast, the two men stared out through the windshield at the power plant, directly in front of them. Reece had put the chopper down on the plant parking lot.
“Um…” he commented, for once in his life lost for words.
Before their eyes, one by one the charges continued to go off.
“This is the end,” sighed the chief, and gave Reece the foulest look any man had ever given him, and he’d been on the receiving end of many foul looks from many directors, especially in his early days.
Reece swallowed. Alice, he thought, I hope you’re all right…
Roke woke up, his head hurting like hell. It was almost as if fireworks were going off inside it. But then he sat up and realized that those fireworks weren’t going off inside his head, but out there in the real world. His eyes widened as he saw the towers erupting in flame, explosion after explosion tearing through the concrete. The noise was deafening, and he covered his ears with his hands, scrabbling until his back hit the car. He was soaking wet, the rain having turned his clothes into soggy strips of ice, and he wished he was anywhere but here.
The radiation alone would kill him, he knew, and he watched as a small team of men—the skeleton crew—ran from the building and stood watching the explosions. And as he shivered, realizing what he’d done, he broke down in feeble whimpers, his tears mixing with the rain.
“Is that Reece?” asked Alice, pointing to a spot in the distance.
The others strained to look. It was hard to make out anything at this distance, but she had the distinct impression that silhouette was a chopper, and since she knew of only one man flying a chopper…
She was up and running before anyone could stop her.
Explosions rent the air, vying with the booming thunder as pandemo
nium reached its zenith. They were in the eye of the storm, with a power plant about to blow, and all she could think of was Reece.
“Reece!” she cried as she raced on, wind slapping at her face, rain pelting her and making her blink. “Reece!”
He couldn’t hear her, of course, her voice but a whimper against the raging elements.
But then she saw him. He and Dad had crawled from the chopper and were staring up at the nuclear plant. And then he heard her. He whipped around, and his face twisted into a look of the utmost surprise.
“Alice!” he cried, catching her neatly in his arms and holding her tight. “I thought you would be in New York by now,” he spoke against her ear.
“Felicity took a wrong turn.”
Another explosion tore through the building, and they looked up. “If this is the end,” Alice declared fiercely, “I’m glad it’s with you.”
“Same here,” he said, and before Chief Whitehouse’s frowning face, they kissed.
The others now came running up: Felicity and her parents, Granny Bell, Rick and Marjorie, and all stood gazing up at the plant, as plumes of smoke momentarily obscured the concrete mastodon from view.
“Will it hurt?” asked Mom, shivering while her husband held her tight.
“Like hemorrhoids,” croaked Granny Bell, striking the poetic note.
And with those words of wisdom in mind they watched as the world came crashing down around them.
Or was it? Suddenly the smoke cleared, ripped apart by the pounding rain, and Alice was surprised to find that the plant was still standing. Before their surprised eyes words started to appear on the towers, chiseled into the concrete as if by a master sculptor.
“Nuclear Power Kills!” the message on tower one read, and on tower two a rainbow flag suddenly popped out, with the words Greenpeace imprinted upon them.
They all stood gaping at the sight.