The Council of Ten

by Jon Land

  By the time she reached the bottom after curving sharply to the left, the whirling of machinery was much closer. She made out the distant muffle of voices as well, along with footsteps. But sounds could travel a long way down these cold stone corridors. Flashlight tight in her hand, Ellie started on again.

  The floor was made of dirt here and the smells that rose from it were putrid. Worse, she heard soft scuffling around her and aimed her beam down to find a host of rats skirting by, nothing to pass off lightly. If they were hungry enough and in sufficient numbers, rats would attack anything. Ellie picked up her pace.

  The presence of the rats made her think. They were far too smart to make their home along a corridor that lacked any possible food supply. Obviously the ones that had passed her had come from somewhere else within this subterranean labyrinth, somewhere with far more activity and a potential food supply.

  Or, perhaps they were heading for it now.

  Elliana listened for the scuffling up ahead. When it ceased totally around a corner, she knew she was close even before she saw the slight shaft of light coming through what appeared to be a break in the wall at floor level. Sure enough, closer inspection with the help of her flashlight revealed some sort of tunnel running from one side of the labyrinth to the other. It was fronted by an ancient steel grate and was of ample size to permit her to crawl into and through.

  The steel grating had weakened over the long years, and she had no trouble pulling it free and entering the tunnel, which, too, was made of dirt. She began pushing herself on her knees, focusing on the dim light at the other end and the increasing whirl of machinery. This was what she had come for; she could feel it.

  Unfortunately, Ellie could feel something else even more plainly—the sensation of small animals dashing about and around her. She felt her heart lurch forward in fear that perhaps she had invaded the lair of the rats whose scouts had passed her back in the corridor. Immensely territorial, the animals would attack if that were the case.

  She could feel more of them scurrying about her, seeming to mass, and stopped to develop some kind of defense. Retreat was a possibility, but not with the Council of Ten just yards away at long last.

  More of the rats were gathering, scampering. Their enraged squealing intensified. Ellie saw the red eyes of one as it lashed out at her, taking a nibble at her hand. Ellie grimaced against the pain, thinking how easy it would be to grab her Uzi from behind her and finish these creatures quickly.

  No, she realized, there was another weapon she had, far more subtle and equally as effective.

  Ellie reached behind her into her pack and came out with a fistful of granola bars. Rising slightly, she tore off the wrappers and mashed the snacks up in her hand. Next she scattered the contents in piles behind her. This much accomplished, she turned around and lowered herself again.

  The small, scampering creatures rushed over and by her, charging for the small dinner. Ravenous, their squealing hurt her ears as they fought against each other for mouthfuls of the suddenly available food. Ellie began to drag herself on again and eyed the grate just eight feet away now, reaching it at last to peer through into a nightmare.

  What lay beyond the tunnel was a wonder of modern technology. Elliana’s mind worked feverishly to catalogue the sights all at once. Besides the walls constructed of centuries-old rock, there were no traces of ancient times. The lighting was bright and fluorescent. Computer banks linked row after row of the main floor, all manned by technicians checking their stations carefully and wearing white lab coats. A host of computer terminals sat against the far wall, a man before each. Ellie counted over twenty and speculated that one had been reserved for each of the American drop points the Timber Wolf had discovered.

  She noticed the many guards next, at least twenty-five standing at various strategic and possible points of entry, all well armed and dressed in khaki uniforms. They were the Council’s soldiers, the final obstacle between her and those who had killed her husband.

  Ellie strained in the tunnel to see out the grating to her left into the front of the huge room, which had probably once been a dungeon with a pair of twin staircases descending from the underground tunnels that Council personnel probably used to gain access. At last she found an angle that allowed her to view the proceedings at the front of the chamber where most of the activity seemed concentrated.

  Two huge, aerial maps of the United States dominated large areas of the wall farthest away, enclosed in a glassed-off section lined within by machine after machine. At least a dozen technicians were moving about. One of the maps was highlighted with thirty or so blue lights, each indicating a drop point for the deadly powder probably, but only one was flashing now.

  A small spot off the coast of New England. Prudence Island.

  Within a matter of hours, the rest of the blips would be flashing as well and the spread of death would have begun over the rest of the country. Ellie’s resolve strengthened.

  The second map was a mass of sweeping and circling lines and angles, more than likely indicating current airflow and weather patterns across the entire country. Yes, such information would be crucial to the Council in their efforts to determine the timetable to maximize Powderkeg’s effects. She imagined that all such information was fed continuously into the computers manned below by the army of technicians.

  The command center was elevated over the rest of the chamber, and Ellie fixed her gaze on the occupants seated at a table within it, all watching the maps intently while talking among themselves.

  Four of the Council of Ten. Isser had relayed their names, but somehow actually seeing them all gathered here deepened the nightmare even more.

  There was Abu Salam, leader of a radical faction of the PLO and spokesman for all revolutionary Arab groups in general. Salam was generally considered to be the most dangerous man in the Middle East in addition to standing as the staunchest obstacle to peace. He was the one man capable of unifying the Shiite-Moslem forces with others in the Arab world, which made him the most powerful force in the Islamic underground.

  There was the esteemed Russian, General Sergei Davetsky. In an order bent against the worshipping of heroes, Davetsky had become one. He was vehemently nationalistic and hated America with a passion of the gods. He had come up with at least a half dozen perfectly workable plans to overrun Western Europe and eventually cripple America, but each had been turned down. And with each failure, his own clandestine following grew, just waiting for the opportunity to usurp power from those who denied him. But the Council was behind him now.

  There was Colonel Ismael Rouvella, ruler of a strategic Central American nation and envisioner of the eventual unification of all the countries in that region under a socialist regime, with him in place as the ultimate leader—a goal he saw squashed at every turn by the United States. Until now. Today.

  There was Barton Hinkley Hunt, leader of a rising band of conservative-bordering-on-reactionary right-wingers in South Africa who saw the answer to his nation’s problems not in terms of concession to apartheid, but in virtual extermination of the black race. Passed off as a fanatic for years, Hunt had recently been credited with creating popular support for the latest police actions, which had wounded thousands and incarcerated thousands more. He had become a rallying point for right-wing organizations all over the world. But in his own nation support was denied him out of fear of further American sanctions. He was like a general with an army of soldiers he couldn’t use … as long as America was in the way.

  Ellie still couldn’t believe her eyes. Four men linked together by a common insatiable thirst for power that transcended culture and politics. Add Nazi Heinrich Goltz to this group and it was a nice package indeed. Liberals and conservatives, reactionaries and revolutionaries—those dichotomies had been bridged by the ambition to achieve a destiny and a place in history that only the Council could provide. They would destroy America and turn it into their own private domain where the plots of madmen could be hatched and carried out
without the kind of retribution that had stymied their efforts till now. Men forced into the underlayers of society to do their bidding suddenly carrying that bidding out on the surface. How many millions might be moved to join them? Revolution, anarchy, war—all would be welcomed, such a world being made for men whose philosophies not only accepted violence but depended upon it. A world that would eventually belong all to them as their numbers increased until the foretold number of ten for the Council was achieved.

  But what of the leader?

  Ellie noticed motion in the darkened corner of the glassed-in command center. There was a man in the shadows, his features indistinct, seated on what looked like some sort of throne.

  Suddenly, activity in the command center became frantic. The blue light flashing off the New England coast turned red. An alarm sounded twice. Then a voice echoed through the entire chamber.

  “All personnel report to emergency stations. Prudence Island drop point is under attack! Prudence Island drop point is under attack!”

  The Timber Wolf! she thought happily. Somehow the Timber Wolf had found Corbano and was attacking!

  Tears of joy slid from her eyes. A press of a button on her watch face would reduce the Council headquarters to rubble, and the Timber Wolf was filling his role equally well. Elliana felt elated.

  Then she felt the agony as the rats, more ravenous than ever after gobbling up their snack, attacked her. The first bites sliced through her leather boots and dug into her legs. She could feel the creatures everywhere around her, clawing, scratching, pushing over each other, maddened by the smell of blood. She lunged forward to escape them.

  The aged metal grating was forced outward when she struck it and plunged downward for the chamber floor.

  Ellie saw it all unfold in slow motion, her Uzi already stripped from her shoulder when the echo of steel meeting tile caused all eyes to swing toward her. There was a moment of hesitation, uncertainty, and she seized it, leaping from the tunnel onto the floor with the Uzi blasting. She used her first spray to blow out the fluorescent ceiling lights, which plunged the chamber into near darkness.

  The guards fired at her shape as she ran, but the advantage still belonged to Ellie. She ducked behind a row of computer memory banks and fired the last bursts from this clip into a group of converging guards. Even as they fell, she was reaching for the first of her gas grenades, which would help shield her rush to the glassed-in command center. Destroy it and Powderkeg would be stopped for certain, after which a press of her watch would destroy the Council forever.

  “Intruder alert! Intruder alert!”

  The warning echoed through her head as she ran into the smoke that her first two gas grenades had created, keeping her frame low and jamming another clip into the Uzi. She was a blur of constant motion to take advantage of the confusion caused by her surprise attack, necessitated by the untimely crashing of the grate to the floor.

  Ellie was readying a third gas grenade when a pair of guards jumped out into the aisle before her and fired rapid bursts. Ellie hit the floor hard and returned their fire as she felt one bullet slice her shoulder and a second knife through her boot. The fiery pain flooded her senses, but she didn’t let herself feel it as the men rolled against each other, dead.

  Ellie yanked one of the fragmentary grenades from within her jacket and tossed it into the pooling smoke toward the largest congestion of pounding footsteps. Screams sounded with its explosion. She ran into the chaos where the guards not felled by the grenade tried to scatter, and she hit as many as she could with the Uzi, leaving her with barely half a clip.

  Boot heels clicked behind her and she swung to fire a spray in that direction. Too much of the smoke had dissipated there and she ripped the pin from her final gas grenade with her teeth as she exhausted her second clip. The familiar poof sounded, and again the floor was drenched in thick gray smoke.

  Then she was moving once more for the command center. She knew it held the facilities that would send the go-signal to the powder drop crews waiting across America. Destroy these facilities, then, and the signal could never be sent, even if the explosives above failed for any reason. But no bullets or grenades could penetrate the security glass. That would require at least one of her two remaining plastic explosives packs.

  Ellie yanked the bolt of her Uzi back again and hurled a fragmentary grenade forward. This one impacted a major circuit board of the computer banks. Black smoke spilled outward, merging with the gray mist she had created to form even better camouflage as she charged for the command center, the Uzi spitting bullets forward.

  Ellie felt a hot burst to her back and knew she’d been hit again. A numbness spread down her buttocks into her legs and she knew she was slowed now, fearing that her wound might be mortal but not giving it further thought. The glassed-in command center filled her mind, still ablaze with light and desperate activity, although the occupants surely considered themselves safe from her onslaught.

  Ellie hurled another pair of grenades, one behind her toward another area of enemy fire and one to the front in the direction of the center to create enough distraction to clear a path for her.

  It lasted long enough for her to slam her frame low into the five-foot section of wall running from the floor to the start of the glass wall. Already she had stripped one of her remaining plastic explosives packs from her bag and started to raise it toward the glass.

  A bullet pounded her right side as she wedged it in firmly. The detonator slid from her hand. She fumbled for her final two grenades and hurled them randomly forward to buy herself the last seconds she needed. When they sounded, she had already recovered the miniature detonator and jammed it into the plastic. She grabbed the quick fuse and pulled, triggering a three-second delay. She then dragged her torn and bloodied body into a corner and covered herself as best she could. Her eyes sought out the occupants of the command center, who now realized in terror what was about to happen. The last thing she saw before the blast was the four Council members rushing for the escape door.

  They never made it. The command center erupted in a single blast that flushed incredible heat through the front half of the chamber below. The thick glass had exploded inward mostly, turning those within into pincushions. Through the stench-filled smoke and flickering flames, Ellie could see no trace of anything even remotely alive.

  She strained to rise and made it up far enough to see that all displays on the maps had died and the maps themselves were splintered and broken. Not a single control was left whole. Sparks and flames leaped from the shattered machines. All contact with America had been broken off. Powderkeg could no longer be triggered from this point.

  Ellie’s satisfaction was short. As she struggled to regain her feet, a volley of bullets slammed into her one after another. Numbness filled her legs an instant before she collapsed, tasting the blood thick in her mouth mixing with saliva. A final bullet shook her all the way to the floor as the last of the guards charged forward, guns first.

  The watch! Push the button!

  Ellie found the resolve, but not the strength. The guards in blood-stained khaki hovered around her, gun barrels aimed down as if deciding which of them would finally end her life.

  “Hold your fire,” a voice ordered from the gray-black shadows just beneath the command center.

  Could someone from within it have survived the blast or escaped before it went off? Apparently so. Only the leader had been close enough to the escape exit. Ellie held to her last bit of life to stop her eyes from dimming. She turned them in the direction of the voice and saw first a pair of boots approaching, then a pistol held at waist level.

  “I’ll finish her,” the leader told the guards, who separated to allow his approach.

  He was close now, almost directly over her, and Ellie strained her neck to look at him. The motion forced more blood from between her lips. Ellie felt her breath desert her, and she gasped to get it back. Her eyes locked finally on the leader through the thinning smoke and haze of approachin
g death.

  The sight made the blood left within her run cold.

  She was looking at her husband—David.

  Chapter 34

  THE COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER on the bridge of the Coast Guard cutter turned behind him to Corbano.

  “We’ve lost contact with the castle, sir.”

  “Try again!”

  “I have. The signal’s dead.”

  “Damn!” Corbano screamed, slamming his fist down against the control panel.

  Just minutes ago everything was proceeding as planned without a hitch. Now the fury of the attacking fleet of boats continued to rage, turning the deck of the cutter into an inferno and scattering all but the hardiest of personnel toward the lifeboats. The attacking fleet continued to blast away at the cutter, more target practice than anything else at this point. And now, suddenly, contact had been broken off with Council headquarters across the ocean.

  Elliana Hirsch at the castle, the Timber Wolf here … Somehow they had both managed to survive in Georgia, and now Powderkeg was falling to their efforts. Corbano had little regard for the Council members across the ocean. Their deaths wouldn’t faze him in the least. But if these deaths prevented Powderkeg from being completed, then all he had worked for and envisioned these long years would be lost. The world he was meant to live in would never come to pass.

  Corbano swore again.

  But he wasn’t beaten yet. There was still a chance to fulfill his vision. Fuck the damn Council. He still had his allotment of powder and if he dropped it now, the northern East Coast at the very least would be dead by morning. Washington, New York—America couldn’t function without them. Mass chaos. A world gone mad. Corbano could still make it happen.