Apocalypse

by Dean Crawford

  ‘What was the company called?’ Jarvis asked.

  ‘Pacific Ignition,’ Ryker said with a wry smile. ‘Sounds ominous, until you realize that the word Pacific means peaceful.’

  ‘What’s the interesting bit?’

  ‘The person who founded the company,’ Ryker replied, and handed Jarvis a black-and-white photograph of a stern-looking man with a broad mustache. ‘Isaac Abell.’

  ‘Joaquin Abell’s father,’ Jarvis murmured.

  ‘The very same,’ Ryker confirmed. ‘Charles and Joaquin’s fathers were rivals for almost a quarter of a century after the end of the Second World War, each competing for government funding. Montgomery Purcell sought money for weapons research, while Isaac Abell focused on the holy grail of energy generation: controlled nuclear fusion. He’d begun experiments off the coast of South Bimini Island in 1941, experimenting with huge magnetic-field generators, but got sidetracked into the Manhattan Project.’

  ‘The plot thickens,’ Jarvis murmured. ‘What happened after Ivy Mike?’

  ‘The Eisenhower administration remained focused on the defense of America, so weaponry maintained the upper hand when it came to funding from Congress. The other problem for Isaac Abell was that nuclear fusion is so incredibly difficult to produce on earth: the pressures required are tens of thousands of atmospheres, the temperatures in the millions of degrees. It’s only in the last few years that it’s become a potential reality: our National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California has reported that it may achieve ignition soon, and in Cadarache, southern France, they’re building the ITER reactor, which may possibly become the first commercial nuclear-fusion reactor.’

  ‘Sixty years later,’ Jarvis said. ‘So Isaac Abell failed.’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ Ryker explained. ‘The man was a genius and a hero, a real philanthropist, who, like most scientists, was working to benefit all mankind. But he was trying to build a device using 1950s technology that could ignite and entrap a miniature star and keep it burning just like our sun. Isaac spent over a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money on his work, with no positive results, and was rumored to have built some kind of underground test chamber before Congress cut his funding in 1964. Pacific Ignition continued with private funding, but at nowhere near the levels required to make progress.’

  Jarvis nodded, and glanced at a picture of Montgomery Purcell.

  ‘And Charles’s father?’

  ‘Montgomery Purcell continued working for the United States Army and Air Force after Ivy Mike, building ever more dangerous weapons, culminating in the most powerful detonation in American history: the Castle Bravo shot, off Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. He was at the height of his power and reputation when he is reported to have been invited by Isaac Abell into talks about how to combine their work. Abell was at that time struggling for funding, and Pacific Ignition could not continue its research without financing its operation by doing weapons work.’

  Jarvis raised an eyebrow. ‘They went into business together?’

  ‘Monty Purcell attended the talks in the Bahamas, but apparently walked out after a blazing row with Isaac Abell. Purcell got into his plane, took off for Miami and was never seen again, the aircraft lost without trace in the Bermuda Triangle.’

  Jarvis looked down at the photograph of Isaac Abell. ‘What happened to Abell’s company, Pacific Ignition?’

  ‘With Monty Purcell dead, Isaac Abell found himself on the receiving end of new government grants, some for weapons research, some for nuclear-power projects. Looks like the government was forced to compromise in order to get him back on their books, to replace Monty Purcell. Isaac Abell worked for them for several years, but after his failure to achieve nuclear fusion, funding for Pacific Ignition’s research was finally halted in 1968. Isaac Abell committed suicide in 1973. A trust was maintained by Isaac’s wife until she died twelve years later. It seems that Isaac was smart enough to filter a large sum of money from government grants and royalties from patented inventions into a trust fund for their son to inherit on his eighteenth birthday.’ Ryker smiled at Jarvis. ‘Joaquin Abell did exactly that, and then changed the company name.’

  ‘To International Rescue and Infrastructure Support,’ Jarvis guessed. ‘Joaquin inherits a fortune and his father’s life’s work.’

  Ryker tapped the picture of Isaac Abell with his hand.

  ‘Before their fathers became enemies they worked together and were the best of friends. It’s unlikely that their sons were unaware of their connection. It’s plausible that they might even have met from time to time, as young children. Either way, Joaquin certainly knew exactly who Charles Purcell was, long before he gained access to his father’s fortune.’

  Jarvis saw it all come together in his mind.

  ‘Joaquin didn’t inherit his father’s mathematical mind, so he used Charles Purcell’s skills to continue his father’s work.’ He thought for a moment. ‘But it still doesn’t explain how Joaquin can now see through time.’

  ‘No,’ Ryker agreed, ‘but it gives us a clue. Isaac Abell built a facility using government funding, that much we know. But we don’t know where he built it. There’s mention here of the construction of large tokamaks, torus-shaped devices that are designed to produce magnetic fields to contain plasma in modern nuclear-fusion generators; and the purchase of vast amounts of graphite.’

  ‘What does that tell you?’ Jarvis asked.

  ‘That Isaac Abell was on the right course for building an ignition chamber that could contain a nuclear-fusion reaction,’ Ryker replied. ‘But the only way that such a device could be used in order to twist the fabric of time is if the star created within it were crushed to such densities that the electron repulsion of the atoms within it were overcome. Mankind does not have the ability to do this, but if by some chance reaction it did occur, then a heavily modified tokamak chamber might just be able to contain it.’

  ‘Contain what?’ Jarvis asked. ‘The star?’

  ‘A different kind of star,’ Ryker said. ‘I can’t believe I’m even considering it, but if such a collapse of ordinary matter were to occur, then there are only two possible outcomes: firstly a neutron star, a tiny ball of degenerate material where all of the space between the atoms has been squeezed out. An object of this matter the size of a grape would weigh as much as a mountain.’

  ‘And secondly?’

  Ryker shook his head.

  ‘If the pressure was too great, the neutron star would continue to collapse, and would condense time and space down to a singularity: it would become a black hole.’

  38

  FLORIDA EVERGLADES

  June 28, 15:17

  The powerful V-8 engine propelled the airboat across the silky waters, more like an aircraft than a boat, as the huge eight-foot-diameter propeller roared behind Ethan. The simple, square hull contained two rows of seats, a raised pilot’s chair and the engine at the stern. He reveled in the breeze as they soared between enormous sawgrass marshes and reed islands stranded in the endless expanses of cypress swamps, estuarine mangrove forests and pine rockland.

  The subtropical wetlands of the Everglades comprised the southern half of a large watershed that was born in the Kissimmee River, which discharged into Lake Okeechobee. Essentially a slow-moving river sixty miles wide and more than a hundred miles long, the system represented the perfect hiding place for a lone fugitive: if they could survive

  ‘The Native Americans that used to live here called it Pahayokee, the “grassy waters”,’ Lopez said above the roar of the engine. ‘But it only looks pretty. Living here would have been hard at the best of times.’

  Ethan scanned the broad waters filled with periphyton, a mossy golden-brown substance that floated on bodies of water throughout the Everglades, and the scattered islands of ubiquitous sawgrass, a sedge with serrated blades so sharp they could cut through clothing.

  ‘The satellite’s GPS coordinates fixed Charles Purcell’s position five miles
to the southwest!’ Ethan shouted up to Scott Bryson, who nodded as he glanced down at a GPS screen next to the airboat’s wheel.

  ‘Was he alone?’ Bryson called back.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ethan nodded, ‘or at least he was a couple of hours ago.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  Ethan turned back around in his seat and looked straight at Lopez as she watched Bryson guiding the airboat. She had been able, with her considerable charm, to convince Bryson to continue helping them, with the proviso that no more of his property was exposed to bullets or blades. Considering what they were going up against, it was of considerable interest to Ethan that Bryson had agreed. Then he looked at Lopez again, and guessed that maybe it wasn’t just the captain’s sense of honor that had guided him.

  Lopez’s long black hair streamed behind her in the wind as she reached up and pinned it back. Ethan found himself watching her openly as she flicked her head to one side and tied her hair off into a ponytail. The speed of the airboat across the water and the thrill of the wind had touched her face with a bright smile that lit her features like the sunlight on the racing water beneath them. It was something that he saw less and less in her these days.

  For a brief moment Ethan forgot where he was and realized that, despite everything, despite the fact that Joanna might yet still be alive somewhere out in the world, Nicola Lopez meant more to him than he was comfortable admitting to himself. Maybe it was a sign of just how big a stick he had up his ass that it had taken him this long to realize it. This realization in turn raised the ugly and unwelcome question of what he was going to do about it. An image of Joanna flickered like a phantom through the darkened vaults of his mind, her long blonde hair, green eyes and quiet confidence contrasting with Lopez’s dark looks and fearsome temper. Somehow, though, as he pictured Joanna in his imagination, the differences weren’t so great after all.

  ‘You need a photograph?’

  Ethan blinked. Joanna vanished and he found himself staring straight at a bemused Lopez. He stopped breathing.

  ‘Just enjoying the view. You want to get out of the way?’

  Lopez laughed out loud. ‘You’re an ass sometimes, Ethan.’

  Before Ethan could answer, Bryson’s voice bellowed down at them.

  ‘I reckon he’s swallowed a love bug, honey!’

  Lopez’s laughter turned to a curious smile as she stared at Ethan, who avoided her gaze whilst turning to look at Bryson.

  ‘You need a wooden leg to go with that eye, skipper?’

  Bryson let out a belly laugh but said nothing. Ethan turned back in his seat, not looking at Lopez, but he could see out of the corner of his eye that there was still a smile on her lips. He was trying to come up with something useful to say when the engine note changed as Bryson throttled down. Ethan glanced over his shoulder at the captain, who lowered his voice and gestured ahead of them.

  ‘The island’s just up there. We’ll coast in the last hundred meters. Get tooled up.’

  Ethan reached down behind his seat to where a canvas sack lay on the deck. He unzipped it and retrieved a pair of M-16s, both fully loaded and with two spare clips each. Ethan handed one to Lopez before picking up the other weapon.

  ‘Jesus,’ Lopez said as she checked her rifle.

  ‘We’re not getting caught out again. To hell with the goddamn rules.’

  Lopez’s almond eyes watched Ethan for a moment.

  ‘You’re starting to sound like me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to hear that.’

  Ethan looked up at her, one hand on his M-16, and nodded. ‘Just this once,’ he promised. ‘There’s no backup for us out here.’

  ‘Heads up,’ Bryson said, cutting the engine off as the airboat slid silently across the water toward the shore of a small island of rough sawgrass surrounded by dense tangles of mangroves. With the breeze gone, a heavy blanket of heat settled over them, clinging to Ethan’s shirt as beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

  Ethan eased his way toward the bow and crouched down with his M-16 held at port-arms as the boat nudged gently up against the thick, twisted mangrove roots. A heron lifted off further down the shoreline, its wings flapping as it climbed away into the distance, but the Everglades remained silent as Ethan watched the waving sawgrass before him, dense thickets of cypress trees listless in the heat.

  Bryson vaulted down off the wheel seat and crouched alongside Ethan and Lopez.

  ‘The GPS coordinates place him about a hundred-fifty yards ahead,’ he whispered. ‘Plenty of cover in there: he could bed down like an Alabama tick and not be seen for weeks.’

  Ethan shook his head.

  ‘He’s not a soldier. Whatever Charles Purcell is up to, this must be his endgame. He’s not running.’

  Bryson looked at Ethan. ‘So what’s your plan, boy scout?’

  Ethan didn’t take his eyes off the sawgrass.

  ‘Well, Captain Silver, I’m going to head straight in. Lopez, you cover my left flank. The mangroves on our right aren’t passable, so nobody’s going to come at us from in there.’

  Lopez thought for a moment.

  ‘Maybe, but if they already know we’re coming and where from, there’s not much we can do to defend our position.’

  ‘Best hope that we got here first, then.’

  Without another word, Ethan hopped off the airboat’s bow and moved in a low run through the grass and into the trees. He heard Lopez jump off the boat and head out through the undergrowth to his left.

  Ethan was suddenly overwhelmed by the cloying humidity of the forest as he crept forward, clouds of mosquitoes tumbling on the hot air around him as he moved from cover to cover. He kept one eye open for alligators and pythons coiled in the dense undergrowth as he blinked sweat from his eyes.

  A thought occurred to Ethan. Why would Purcell have come out here into an entirely unpopulated area beyond the reach of civilization? The ’glades were notoriously difficult to access, and dangerous for the uninitiated. Purcell was an academic who was likely most comfortable in a laboratory, not suffering the hardships of survival in the wilderness. Yet he had purposely placed himself in this particular spot, as though it were somehow his destiny, his endgame – in order to fulfill a prophecy of some kind.

  The thought tied in closely with Purcell’s supposed knowledge of the future, but the man himself had said that he would die soon. Why willingly fulfill that particular prophecy? Surely he would serve himself better by getting as far away from the Everglades as he could?

  ‘Don’t move.’

  Ethan froze, and then realized that the whispered voice belonged to Lopez. He turned his head fractionally to his left and saw her crouched with her M-16 tucked into her shoulder and one eye staring like a hawk down the barrel.

  ‘What have you got?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘Purcell,’ she replied. ‘I can see him. Dead ahead, thirty yards.’

  Ethan squinted through the forest and slowly a human shape resolved itself before him, standing on a narrow spit of land jutting out into the water. Ethan eased his rifle up to his shoulder and looked down the scope.

  Charles Purcell stood beside the edge of the shore, the stones with their message beside him on the sand, and then looked at his watch. Slowly he turned to face the forest, and for a moment Ethan was looking straight into his eyes.

  Then Purcell called out.

  ‘Come forward, Mr. Warner. It is time.’

  39

  Ethan looked across at Lopez, who raised an eyebrow at him from over the barrel of her rifle and shrugged.

  ‘Whoever else is looking for Purcell hasn’t got here yet.’

  Ethan got to his feet and, with Lopez following, picked his way through the dense foliage until they broke through onto a narrow beach of sand littered with rotting palm fronds. Before them, standing in dirty beige slacks and a torn white shirt, stood Charles Purcell. Even at first glance Ethan could see that the man was running on empty, his features gaunt and tired, hi
s eyes sunken within darkened rings, and his hair in disarray.

  ‘Charles,’ Ethan greeted him cautiously.

  ‘Mr. Warner,’ Purcell said, his voice hoarse from dehydration and exhaustion, ‘Miss Lopez. Glad you both made it.’

  Ethan sensed that whatever Purcell had in mind he was in no state to threaten anybody physically. He lowered the M-16.

  ‘Why are we here, Charles?’ he asked.

  ‘Because this is where the end begins,’ Purcell replied. ‘Everything that happens from this moment is dependent upon the two of you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lopez asked. ‘How can you know that? How can you see into the future?’

  Purcell smiled, a bleak and heartbreaking smile that no one could ever possibly fake. Ethan realized with an unbearable certainty that he was bearing witness to something unique in history: a man who had crossed the boundary of causality and seen his own future. But Purcell’s haunted eyes and terminal appearance suggested that his gift was also his curse.

  ‘I have seen one possible future,’ Purcell replied, ‘and in doing so have condemned myself to follow its path.’

  Ethan stepped toward Purcell but the physicist raised his hand to forestall him.

  ‘Please don’t come any closer,’ he urged. ‘Just stay precisely where you are and you will learn everything that you need to know.’

  ‘We need to leave,’ Ethan said. ‘You’re being hunted and it’s possible that they know exactly where you are.’

  ‘As did you,’ Purcell replied, and glanced up into the sky above him. ‘Can I ask how you actually discovered that I was here? I knew that you would come, of course, but I assumed you would arrive by aircraft.’

  ‘Military spy satellite,’ Lopez answered. ‘They’ve adapted face-tracking software to search for fugitives and war criminals from space.’

  Purcell smiled faintly. ‘I’m honored.’

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’